Saturday, August 31, 2013

Thursday, August 22, 2013

A poem in Der Vorleser and the Venus cycle of Octavio Paz


Der Vorleser by Bernhard Schlink has a poem with a striking echo of Octavio Paz Piedra de sol.

What makes it ring so clear is a verse not far above the parallel verse in the Paz with el rostro and el rostro ( and that the story of Hanna begins through a doorway.

But then I would not have noticed this without the Vogelgsang translation of the Paz and his choice of Antlitz and Gesicht.



Wednesday, August 21, 2013

John Brown : historiography and poetry


I have placed a Curl e-book of Steven Vincent Benét's "John Brown's Body" at poets.aule-browser.com/svb-jbb-006.curl 

It seems to me that the varied historiography of Brown is relevant as we approach climactic crises both environmental and climatic with Harriet Tubman figures and Frederick Douglass figures and very likely a corps of instigators not unlike Brown. 

I will try to find a moment to add a facility to tag and link notes into the text and to add the relevant Whitman links and/or texts.

The Curl browser plugin is available at www.curl.com