Marly Youmans's Blog, page 162

It's Epiphany and the end of Readings for the 12 Days of Christmas. I entirely missed posting yesterday because it was a child-ferrying day, and I had a round trip to make to Annandale-on-Hudson. This trip is always curious and full of missed-road risks because it is a patchwork: West Kurley Corners and Lowe Road at Seward (which I missed this time) and River and all sorts of tinies out in the

Once upon a time there was a brilliant and lovely young woman named Marsha Parker who wrote a novel called Ghosts. You might recall a movie by the same name with many things in common with the book, but if you thought she got rich off that movie, you thought wrong: nobody in the movie business ever admitted that the two things might possibly be related. Marsha Parker did not particularly like the

These early poems changed the course of English poetry.Excerpt from Dana Gioia, Introduction to Sacred & Profane Love. The Poetry of John Donne. The Trinity Form Reading (McLean, Virginia: The Trinity Forum, 2010).Donne is conventionally categorized as the central figure of Metaphysical Poetry, a seventeenth-century literary movement that also includes Andrew Marvell, Richard Crashaw, George

Well, I am falling behind--I planned to read some novels-0f-friends that I haven't read yet and talk about them. But I have galleys due tomorrow, and I'm only on page 82 of The Throne of Psyche. And that means 24 pages to go with lots of little spacing issues to note. So I shall recommend a 'zine: qarrtsiluni. I also recommend its managing editors, Dave Bonta and Elizabeth Adams--if you look to

Photograph: Frost Patterns 3 courtesy of sxc.hu and Vladimir Fofanov of Moscow.A HAPPY & PEACEFUL NEW YEAR TO ALL!Forthcoming books of poetry and fiction:1. First up: THE THRONE OF PSYCHE (Mercer University Press, March 2011) poetry collection. I'm getting the galleys in on Wednesday, and I can tell you that they look pretty! The leaves on the jacket detail by Clive Hicks-Jenkins keep falling

I had a great love first for George MacDonald (as a child and young woman) and then for the Inklings; some of them I have reread, some not. But I have retained an affection for their books and concerns. One of the people involved (via J. K. Rowling) in a resurgence of interest in the Inklings is John Granger. I must have discovered him some time ago while delving about in search of some piece of

WARNINGThis is the reading for the sixth day of Christmas. However, do not expect It's a Wonderful Life because The Babylonian Trilogy is not located in your literary and movie atlas anywhere near It's a Wonderful Life.UNDERWAYI'm current reading French author Sébastien Doubinsky's first book in English, The Babylonian Trilogy (P. S. Publishing.) I don't know whether to say that it has been

How about an old book for today, though new to me--a reading from the only book shelved in the "self-help" area that has ever drawn me. It is also the only book I read this year that made me weep.Flap copy: Man's Search for Meaning has riveted generations of readers with its description of life in Nazi death camps and its lessons for spiritual survival. Between 1942 and 1945 psychiatrist Viktor

I stayed up till 3:00 working on a promised Anglo-Saxon translation and talking with my daughter, and now must finish cleaning the remains of the flood--in-laws are due tomorrow. So for today's 12 Days of Christmas reading I shall quickly pilfer some poems from that lovely online venue, Mezzo Cammin, edited by Kim Bridgford and featuring formal poems by women.Enjoy!Maryann CorbettFistIt looks

On the third day of Christmas, I'm recommending an online 'zine, The Flea, edited by that cunning man, Paul Stevens.In the Flea's own words: THE FLEA Broadsheets are a Seventeenth Century brainchild of Mr. Paul Stevens, upon whom the conviction periodically seizes that he dwelt in that era in a former life, and indeed was an associate of Jack Donne (one of whose metaphysical meditations has