POETS Day! Jorge Luis Borges as Translated by Richard Wilbur

[This entry is cross posted at ordinary-times.com]

“On the day before the burning of the Pyramid, the men who got down from their high horses scourged me with burning irons, to compel me to reveal the site of a buried treasure. Before my eyes they toppled the idol to the god, yet the god did not abandon me, and I held my silence through their tortures. They tore my flesh, they crushed me, they mutilated me, and then I awoke in this prison, which I will never leave alive.
– Jorge Luis Borges, “The Writing of the God”

That’s a terrible attitude. I should note that he didn’t despair and by the end of the story achieves an enlightenment which renders his physical circumstances moot, but POETS Day esteems escapism. Constricting circumstances shouldn’t be tolerated. Piss Off Early, Tomorrow’s Saturday. There’s an afternoon waiting to be played with.

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Unprovoked Rant

I’m reading A Survey of Modernist Poetry by Laura Riding and Robert Graves. This struck me:

“Yet the sonnet theory can be provoked in Shakespeare’s sonnets as all pre-Shakespearian dramatic theories can be provoked in his plays.”

The sentence is in service of the authors view that it’s not enough to present as evidence of experimentation an excellent poem as excellent poems may have in them borrowings as well as innovations. I very much liked the use of “provoked.”

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Commenting Right Up

I just wrote a 426 word comment on someone’s opinion post. It took me all of a few minutes and that’s while watching Bologna disappoint me again, this time against Monza which is new for me as I haven’t seen them play each other before. There was some deleting and rewriting because I’m an absurd on-the-fly editor when I get to typing but it went relatively quickly. Why the hell does it take me so damn long to write when I’m expected to?

I remember a bon voyage and thanks for all you’ve done article years ago by Jonah Goldberg on the occasion of Florence King’s retirement from regular contributor and whatever editorial duties she had. He was jovial and kind and obviously in awe of her but he did tease about the four or so hours she always took to complete a one thousand word piece. (Dammit. Monza won… Sorry. I mean “Dammit. [SPOILER] Monza won.])

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This Isn’t a Post About Anything. I Was Just in the Mood to Type.

Seriously. The title isn’t a clever trap to trick an unsuspecting reader into complacency and then reveal some grand truth at the end. No knowing rhetorical questions will be posed and no semi-nude pictures will be shown below the “— Read More —” break. I’m just whiling so feel free to make the most of your reading time and go read The Spare by The No Longer Tabloid Cover Corner Dweller Formerly Known as Prince Harry and then summarize it for me.

I read someone on Twitter comment that people who say they don’t like the royal family sure do know a lot about them. I didn’t think he meant Cromwell. I don’t really care about the royal family but I’m not going to back away from paying attention to what is turning out to be an extraordinarily well publicized train wreck just because I’m worried people might think I’m a fan. It’s not like a Venn diagram of people who’ve seem The Kardashians and people who’ve seen Kim Kardashian naked would be a circle. People can tell when something trashy on their peripheral is trashy enough to note. I just want to know what’s up with Harry and Megan without having to read anything longer than an eight inch blurb about what’s up with Harry and Megan and I’m certainly not going to interrupt my busy current Italian soccer/Monk/Impractical Joker’s highbrow T.V. (television) viewing with something so base as their Netflix series. A Reader’s Digest gossip post is out there and I’m going to find it and get someone to summarize it for me.

I was just sitting in front of a keyboard and typing. Should that be “I am just sitting in front of a keyboard and typing.”? Usually, I would say yes but the previous plus one paragraph demonstrates foreknowledge about what is not at the end of this post so it seems awkward to write about now when I know about later. I’m making an executive decision and announcing that I am in the here and now no matter how prescient I may seem, and boy am I going to seem prescient seven paragraphs from now.

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