Memory

A country without a memory is a country of madmen.

~ George Santayana ~

Graphic courtesy Open Clip Art Library.

Poetry Friday

I think there’s been a great denial of the kinds of poets and poetries that could speak to a lot more people. Poetry has been kind of hoarded inside the schools, inside the universities. The activity of writing about poems and poetry--the activity of making it available and accessible--became the property of scholars and academics and became dependent on a certain kind of academic training, education, class background.

~ Adrienne Rich ~

If Rick Santorum Has His Way...

Women’s studies and feminism have always been attacked. I think it was in 1970 that I remember seeing an article in Harper’s called "Requiem for the Women’s Movement," when the women’s movement was just beginning to show its face. Its death is being constantly announced. But it’s an unquenchable and unkillable movement that has come and gone or come and submerged throughout the world in many different places in many different times. At this point, I think we live in an era of such global communications that that cannot happen again.

~ Adrienne Rich ~

Bullying

You know, you don't have to be the loser kid in high school to be bullied. Bullying and being picked on comes in so many different forms.

~ Lady Gaga ~

Good Advice for Writers

I tell writers to keep reading, reading, reading. Read widely and deeply. And I tell them not to give up even after getting rejection letters. And only write what you love.

~ Anita Diamant ~

Say What?

If you had to point to one thing that made it less likely that the Red Sox would win the World Series, I would say it was those people that go to Fenway Park to watch the games. And then the media around it.

~ Michael Lewis ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

~ J. G. Francis from A Book of Cheerful Cats and Other Animated Animals ~

Health Disaster in the Making

We have deferred to food companies the responsibility for ensuring that a good nutritional balance emerges. Voluntary guidelines and piecemeal nutrition initiatives have failed to create a system with the right signals, and the odds remain stacked against the achievement of a healthy, balanced diet.

~ Olivier de Schutter ~

Poetry Friday

It doesn't seem right to weigh poems like cabbage or fish, but that is precisely what the final grueling work of an anthologist becomes. And worse: Each poetrymonger applies his own rate, so the crucial question of "Who matters?" is skewed by fees that range from modest to outrageous and don't necessarily correlate to literary significance and artistic influence.

~ Rita Dove from "Introduction" to The Penguin Anthology of 20th Century American Poetry ~

Probably the Reason Most Little Girls Want to Take Ballet

I wanted so badly to study ballet, but it was really all about wearing the tutu.

~ Elle Macpherson ~



Image courtesy Open Clip Art Library

Priceless Gift

Everyone should consider his body as a priceless gift from one whom he loves above all, a marvelous work of art, of indescribable beauty, and mystery beyond human conception, and so delicate that a word, a breath, a look, nay, a thought may injure it.

~ Nikola Tesla ~

A Drawing

A drawing is simply a line going for a walk.

~ Paul Klee ~

Klee drawing courtesy Museum of Fine Arts.

I Agree Whole-Heartedly

I think that being perceptive and having interests is nothing but an asset.

~ Ashley Judd ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

There is a crock of gold in the tomb of every chieftain, but they are all guarded by cats and fairies.

~ Irish proverb ~

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Even when they have nothing, the Irish emit a kind of happiness, a joy.

~ Fiona Shaw ~

Poetry Friday

No moment is too brief, no object or happening too insignificant, for a poet to notice it.

~ Charles Sullivan ~

Graphic courtesy Open Clip Art Library.

Who Knew?

34.7 million

Number of U.S. residents who claimed Irish ancestry in 2010. This number was more than seven times the population of Ireland itself (4.58 million).

~ U. S. Census Bureau ~

Just Make Sure You Get On the Right Road

What keeps you going isn't some fine destination, but just the road you're on, and the fact that you know how to drive.

~ Barbara Kingsolver ~

Image courtesy Open Clip Art Library.

So True!

In memory everything seems to happen to music.

~ Tennessee Williams ~



Image courtesy Open Clip Art Library.

Anatomy (A Two-fer)

Anatomy is destiny.

~ Sigmund Freud ~

So, if anatomy is destiny then testosterone is doom.

~ Al Goldstein ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

Fine words don't feed cats.

~ Italian proverb ~

It's Time We Started Linking

I can promise you that women working together--linked, informed and educated--can bring peace and prosperity to this forsaken planet.

~ Isabel Allende ~

Image courtesy Open Clip Art Library.

Poetry Friday

No one expects a man to make a chair without first learning how, but there is a popular impression that the poet is born, not made, and that his verses burst from his overflowing heart of themselves. As a matter of fact, the poet must learn his trade in the same manner, and with the same painstaking care, as the cabinet-maker. His heart may overflow with high thoughts and sparkling fancies, but if he cannot convey them to his reader by means of the written word he has no claim to be considered a poet.

~ Amy Lowell ~

Especially True for Americans

We adore chaos because we love to produce order.

~ M. C. Escher ~

Science

Science is the great antidote to the poison of enthusiasm and superstition.

~ Adam Smith ~






Engraving courtesy Library of Congress.

It All Depends on the View

We think too small, like the frog at the bottom of the well. He thinks the sky is only as big as the top of the well. If he surfaced, he would have an entirely different view.

~ Mao Zedong ~

Maybe Not Blind Faith...

Faith in oneself is the best and safest course.

~ Michelangelo ~


Photo by profzucker.

Sunday's Kat Kwote

The pup was let out, and he ran all about
So happy was he to be free.
Then Punky said: "Meow!" the dog said: "Bow-wow!"
And Punky said: "Look out for me!"

~ from Punky Dunk and the Spotted Pup by Anonymous ~

Existence

The animals of the world exist for their own reasons. They were not made for humans any more than black people were made for whites or women for men.

~ Alice Walker ~

Poetry Friday

You decide, says the poet.
You do some of this work,
but think carefully.

~ Lawrence Raab from "The Questions Poems Ask" ~

Creativity

Creativity is not the finding of a thing, but the making something out of it after it is found.

~ James Russell Lowell ~