Reading and Writing

Claire and I have one of my favorite discussions about a very under-read book. We talk about the relationship between America and money, love and money, obsession, greed, expectations vs. reality, imagination vs. fantasy, nature, beauty, truth, hoarse-voiced entertainers on sub-par cruises, and lots more.

Claire and I talk about the strange wonderful pleasure of this book, focusing on the first 250 pages. More Cervantes discussions to come!

Some students and I walk through Hopkins' poem, celebrating its particular pleasures and insights, as well as talking in general about how easy it is to access the strange mysterious power of a poem.

I yammer on for a while about how inadequate any theory of poetry is, and then I think I end up outlining a tentative theory of poetry. Oops.

In this episode, I talk for an entire hour as if I know something. I make many statements that have the cadence of "understanding," but mostly I'm just rambling about a very beautiful and fascinating book, The Book of Chuang Tzu. And the worse thing of all is that Claire--the only reason these recordings are worth listening to--isn't even here to stop me from rambling!

Claire and I celebrate this under-read hidden gem, the first novel in Durrell's "Alexandria Quartet." We wander through topics like love, sex, memory, time, prose style, modernism, and much more.

Claire and I climb the mountain of purgatory with Dante and Virgil and talk about pride, love, morality, freedom, pleasure, Christ, grief, trials, suffering, and lots lots more.

Check out my new book of poems here. Claire and I fall under the spell of Shakespeare's Macbeth, and walk through some of our favorite moments in this play. Among other things, we talk about the dangers of the imagination, the nature of paradox and truth, the cyclical nature of tragedy, the milk of human kindness, the motif of blood, and the way Macbeth (and all of us) are torn between this life and the idea of the next. Along the way we ask if there are any glimmers of hope to be found in this, Shakespeare's darkest ode to humanity.

Claire and I chat about our love for another ancient religious text, the Tao Te Ching. We talk about doing noble things simply, and simple things nobly. We also discuss ideas like emptiness, peace, humility, immateriality, fate, balance, how this text could be relevant for artists, writers, and parents, and what it could look like to live "the Way." Loosey-goosey, loosey-goosey... Check out my new book of poems here.

Claire and I savor our favorite bits of the Meditations, and talk about the unity of all things, living in the moment, bearing our trials nobly, accepting pain as a part of life, how to think about change, what the duty of humans is, and much more. Also, Nietzsche somehow sneaks in to help us push back on some of Marcus Aurelius' claims, and to ask if Marcus Aurelius loves life enough, when forgetting is important and when it isn't, and how to find a balance between acceptance and hope. Check out my new book of poems here.

Check out Claire's art, music, and writing here: https://www.claireakebrandart.com/ Claire and I celebrate the Hindu epic scripture the Bhagavad Gita. We talk about the indescribability of the divine, what it means to perform worship and feel awe, the unity of all things, the divinity inside each of us, the doctrine of karma, and many practical injunctions on how to live, including detaching ourselves from the fruits of our actions, meditation, selfless service, praise, and whether or not there might be something good about the extremes of desire and passion and pain.

A few final thoughts.