Photo by Sourabh Panari / Unsplash
Today is publication day for a new translation of Tiruvalluvar’s Tirukkural, a Tamil masterwork of poetry and practical philosophy. Th…
Words for Thought
January 11, 2022
December 19, 2016The game Life Is Strange from Dontnod Entertainment features a vast choice system and great writing.Narrative form has come a long way from its antiquated beginnings. From verbal st…
May 19, 2015Painting from the General Yue Fei Memorial Temple, Hangzhou | Photo by ChrisjtseIt is puzzling that the closer China relates to the West, the more the West looks at everything Chinese as “other.” Of c…
January 21, 2015Certain cherished books are like old loves. We didn’t part on bad terms; but it’s complicated, and would require too much effor…
January 8, 2015Self-portrait w/ iPhone. Courtesy of the author.@ waryou cannot say yeah I participate in the warbut I isolate myself I separate myselfI sing & I celebrate #I I Iit is not us but…
August 6, 2014Photo (left to right): Dorothy Stafford, Kit Stafford, Hideo Hashimoto, and William Stafford. Courtesy: Aubrey Watzek Library Special Collections and Archives, Lewis & Clark…
August 4, 2014Photo by M./Flickr Today on the phone,first time in thirty years,my friend didn’t know me.Who? Where do you live?Where did we meet?She’s been slipping for a while.I wonder if that’s how God feels…
July 29, 2014GazaOnce in a tiny stripdark holes swallowed heartsand one child told anotherwithdraw your breathwhenever the night wind…
July 28, 2014While staring at the paper on his writing desk, the author wonders whether he’s building a new Tower of Babel.There is a poem I know, by a poet who shall remain unnamed, in which the poet eng…
June 10, 2014Photo by Giuliano Maiolini/FlickrNobel laureate Tomas Tranströmer is a poet of great spirituality and depth, but his language is deceptively simple. The following essay examines…
May 21, 2014Book transformation, letters, envelopes, and bookmarks by Marilyse Figueroa. Photos by Jen Rickard Blair.Drawn to a book by its cover, a reader decides to give it to a friend. But on her…
April 24, 2014Photo: Spanish Ministry of CultureThe 2013 recipient of the Miguel de Cervantes Prize, Elena Poniatowska Amor, delivered her acceptance speech yesterday (April 23, 2014) on the anniv…
April 23, 2014Photo by andifansnet/Flickr. Adaption by Jen Rickard Blair. Poem in your Pocket Day is tomorrow (April 24th), and you can celebrate by carrying your favorite poem with you and sharing it with…
September 30, 2013Photo zeze57/FlickrTo celebrate International Translation Day, we’ve invited translations of the following quote—about translation—by Andrés Neuman, the 2009 Alfaguara Prize-winning author and 2014 Pu…
April 2, 2013An aphorism is a distilled, laconic reflection about the author’s intimate experiences of reality, expressed through paradox, provocation, or shocking self-disclosure. Aphorisms cannot be conceived th…- February 21, 2013Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. played himself in the movie Back to School, where he comically helps the wealthy Thornton Melon (played by Rodney Dangerfield) in a homework scheme that backfires.“Dea…
January 14, 2013Photo Baijg/FlickrLeo Tolstoy, George Bernard Shaw, Isaac Bashevis Singer, and Franz Kafka walk into a bar (unlikely perhaps, but a good hypothetical start to any joke). The bartender offers them each…
January 7, 2013The Tigris River in Baghdad. Photo NewsHour/FlickrFor nearly two years, I worked on poems about my father’s early years in Baghdad. Every now and again, I slipped an occasional question to my dad, hop…
November 28, 2012Photo Flickr/CasualCaptureIt’s painful to hear people talk about my generation. The “millennials,” according to the critics, are a generation of addicts, our thumbs permanently scrolling through the f…
November 21, 2012Photo Flickr/NedraI“Thanks-giving,” said Mr. K., my seventh-grade English teacher. “Repeat after me: Thanksgiving.”“Ssshthanks give in,” I said, but the word tumbled and hissed, turning my mouth into…- September 6, 2012Twitter is perhaps the most dynamic social media platform available on the web. The Twitterverse is daily flooded with estimates of over 340 million bite-sized messages from its users, which total to…
August 29, 2012In this new series of blog posts we open a window into the creative spaces of our writers all around the world, getting a brief glimpse into how and where they each uniqely work through the creative p…
July 25, 2012Aphorisms were the form that gave me the most relief, that offered the deepest bloodletting. In the aphorism, I didn’t have to say “I,” I could just let the thing speak itself, so I didn’t feel compro…
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Since the moment we became readers, we have always thought that to interpret the most profound ideas of a literary work—from the multiple creations…
