Bodies in Motion, Body at Rest

“Many philosophers have existed only in their own minds, but I think I may well be the first to exist only in other people’s.”
—Kathleen Stock [May 19, 2023]

I have lately been thinking about things well over my head, even more than usual. Perhaps it has something to do with reading Ronald Blythe’s The Age of Illusion, about England in the 1920s and 1930s. It’s hard to choose a favorite quote, but here are a few:

This is how, in rain, life continues

The sky today is brighter than for days,
but even so, the rain continues.
I pluck open a taxi’s waiting door
and join the others, streaming forward.
The hanging mist, worthy of Velazquez,
paints a somber absence on the air.

The place between the petal’s/edge and the

Toward the end of William Carlos Williams’ poem “the rose is obsolete,” he writes

It Is Spring

In that progress of life which seems stillness itself in the mass of its movements—at last SPRING is approaching.

—William Carlos Williams, Chapter XIX, Spring and All (1923)

Mark Kerstetter, a fine poet himself and an incisive reader of the poetry of others, has embarked upon a series of posts offering thoughts and commentary on William Carlos Williams’ Spring and All. I’m only a little way in, but already entranced.

The Seed Collector’s Daughter and Other Delights from the Nowruz Journal

Photo by Persis Karim

The Nowruz Journal, a periodical of Persian arts and letters that is a mere two years old, has been named a finalist for the Community of Literary Magazines and Presses (CLMP) Firecracker Award for Best Debut: Magazine.