Language

Terms, Truth, Sun Sparrows: A Very Important Lesson from My Father

by Joe Weil Academia

Terms, Truth, Sun Sparrows: A Very Important Lesson from My Father

By Joe Weil

I tell my students that education can do the work of evil: it can make a bunch of aleatory systems with PHDs think they have a right to be superior to the Rocky Weils of this world. They can make a son misunderstand the wisdom of his own father. They stink of torture and snobbery, they are rank with the odor of exclusion and bias, and we call this “truth” or “Dogma” or “terminology.”

Mar
21
2011
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I tell my students that education can do the work of evil: it can make a bunch of aleatory systems with PHDs think they have a right to be superior to the Rocky Weils of this world. They can make a son misunderstand the wisdom of his own father. They stink of torture and snobbery, they are rank with the odor of exclusion and bias, and we call this “truth” or “Dogma” or “terminology.”

The other thing grammar is good for

by Daniel Silliman Language

The other thing grammar is good for

By Daniel Silliman

Grammar can be a brutal, brutal thing.

Jan
24
2011
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Grammar can be a brutal, brutal thing.

A Language Poet You’ll Enjoy Reading

by Brooks Lampe Language

A Language Poet You’ll Enjoy Reading

By Brooks Lampe

Add Clark Coolidge to the list of great American poets that nobody is talking about.

Jan
07
2011
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Add Clark Coolidge to the list of great American poets that nobody is talking about.

Aesthete and Propagandist: An Interview with Gene Tanta

by Brooks Lampe Aesthetics

Aesthete and Propagandist: An Interview with Gene Tanta

By Brooks Lampe

It’s getting later than it’s ever been and the sonnet is nearly over: do you know where your closure is?

Dec
10
2010
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It’s getting later than it’s ever been and the sonnet is nearly over: do you know where your closure is?

Gatekeepers of Literary Greatness

by Joe Weil Academia

Gatekeepers of Literary Greatness

By Joe Weil

The more things same, the more they same the change.
Things change by staying the same.
Things stay the same by changing.

Dec
08
2010
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The more things same, the more they same the change.
Things change by staying the same.
Things stay the same by changing.

‘Those are not the words’: Walt Whitman’s collapsing taxonomy of poetry

by Daniel Silliman Language

‘Those are not the words’: Walt Whitman’s collapsing taxonomy of poetry

By Daniel Silliman

Whitman seeks to establish a taxonomy of poetry, a system classifying what is good poetry, what bad, but the structure he establishes keeps collapsing.

Dec
07
2010
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Whitman seeks to establish a taxonomy of poetry, a system classifying what is good poetry, what bad, but the structure he establishes keeps collapsing.

“Fractured at a Touch:” More on Abstract and Concrete

by Joe Weil Language

“Fractured at a Touch:” More on Abstract and Concrete

By Joe Weil

We are always towards an abstraction, one way or the other, but the use of detail, how we emphasize or mute, or play with an image is at the heart of contemporary poetics.

Nov
29
2010
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We are always towards an abstraction, one way or the other, but the use of detail, how we emphasize or mute, or play with an image is at the heart of contemporary poetics.

Translation is Treason

by Stewart K. Lundy Language

Translation is Treason

By Stewart K. Lundy

Forgiveness is therefore the very life of conversation and the heart of discourse. Without a constant flow of forgiveness even disagreement is impossible.

Nov
17
2010
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Forgiveness is therefore the very life of conversation and the heart of discourse. Without a constant flow of forgiveness even disagreement is impossible.

Derangement: Breton and Metaphor

by Joe Weil Language

Derangement: Breton and Metaphor

By Joe Weil

All metaphors are, eventually, false, inaccurate, distortians of reality. Reality itself is a distortion. Frost–the conservative–said as much.

Nov
16
2010
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All metaphors are, eventually, false, inaccurate, distortians of reality. Reality itself is a distortion. Frost–the conservative–said as much.

Translation, Film, and the ESL Student

by Micah Towery Film and TV

Translation, Film, and the ESL Student

By Micah Towery

A new language is a bully. Learning a new language is not really learning a new way to communicate, but a new way to think.

Nov
11
2010
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A new language is a bully. Learning a new language is not really learning a new way to communicate, but a new way to think.

Metaphor as Foundation of Consciousness

by Joe Weil Language

Metaphor as Foundation of Consciousness

By Joe Weil

Metaphors are committed to falsehood and inexactness for the sake of a possibility more vital than precision.

Nov
09
2010
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Metaphors are committed to falsehood and inexactness for the sake of a possibility more vital than precision.

A Ghost (Sonnet) in Gene Tanta’s “Unusual Woods”

by Brooks Lampe Language

A Ghost (Sonnet) in Gene Tanta’s “Unusual Woods”

By Brooks Lampe

Seemingly disconnected things envisioned as unified: this is the surreal experience of the “marvelous” or the Deep Image experience of the deep image.

Nov
08
2010
Thumbnail image for A Ghost (Sonnet) in Gene Tanta’s “Unusual Woods”

Seemingly disconnected things envisioned as unified: this is the surreal experience of the “marvelous” or the Deep Image experience of the deep image.

A Beautifully Scrambled Egg

by Brooks Lampe Aesthetics

A Beautifully Scrambled Egg

By Brooks Lampe

Mathews is just talking about how to cook eggs. He’s paying really close attention to both the delicate things eggs are the delicate process of cooking them. What for? Because it’s frickin’ awesome. Shut up and enjoy the eggs.

Oct
19
2010
Thumbnail image for A Beautifully Scrambled Egg

Mathews is just talking about how to cook eggs. He’s paying really close attention to both the delicate things eggs are the delicate process of cooking them. What for? Because it’s frickin’ awesome. Shut up and enjoy the eggs.

Surrealism Re-Imagined

by Brooks Lampe Language

Surrealism Re-Imagined

By Brooks Lampe

At its heart, surrealism wages a political and ideological battle through language. By creating impossible images through placing disparate objects side-by-side, poetry dismantles and re-formulates our perceptions and conceptions of reality.

Oct
11
2010

At its heart, surrealism wages a political and ideological battle through language. By creating impossible images through placing disparate objects side-by-side, poetry dismantles and re-formulates our perceptions and conceptions of reality.

Anxious yawp

by Daniel Silliman Language

Anxious yawp

By Daniel Silliman

Whitman wanted the sign and the signified to be the same thing, to come together and, at the moment of poet’s invocation, be one. He wanted to cross the gap between sign and signified by poetic force …. He wanted the sign to be more than a sign, more than arbitrary, to really be alive, to be the thing, be filled with the spirit of the thing signified and the spirit of the people using the sign, but he consistently found that he was trapped in the realm of the sign, unable to bridge over to the reality of things, and that poems are made out of words – the vibrant life he wants to yawp is, on the page, only arbitrary symbols.

Oct
11
2010
Thumbnail image for Anxious yawp

Whitman wanted the sign and the signified to be the same thing, to come together and, at the moment of poet’s invocation, be one. He wanted to cross the gap between sign and signified by poetic force …. He wanted the sign to be more than a sign, more than arbitrary, to really be alive, to be the thing, be filled with the spirit of the thing signified and the spirit of the people using the sign, but he consistently found that he was trapped in the realm of the sign, unable to bridge over to the reality of things, and that poems are made out of words – the vibrant life he wants to yawp is, on the page, only arbitrary symbols.

What’s Your Style Book of Choice?

by Micah Towery Academia

What’s Your Style Book of Choice?

By Micah Towery

I followed Strunk religiously until I read Geoffrey Pullum’s extensive bitchfest in the Chronicle of Higher Education about Strunk & White, and in recent years I have reconsidered my devotion.

Oct
08
2010
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I followed Strunk religiously until I read Geoffrey Pullum’s extensive bitchfest in the Chronicle of Higher Education about Strunk & White, and in recent years I have reconsidered my devotion.

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