This is a post about the nature of poetry and language—particularly the sensory immediacy of poetic language, which can bridge the gap between symbolic structures and experience. ~ Each day, I practice Spanish. I translate words, phrases, and sentences from Spanish to English, and vice versa. I match Spanish words with their rough English equivalents, compiling mental flashcards. This is effective for increasing vocabulary but clumsy for verbal communication in the real worl

I saw the film Poor Things at my local theater one evening this winter. I was delighted, mystified, disturbed. I went home afterward,...

The novel The Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead comments on ways in which we tell stories and prompts the reader to question: How do we...

Everything, Everywhere, All at Once is one of my favorite films. Mrs. Dalloway is one of my favorite novels. I couldn’t help but see...

Seating Arrangements by Maggie Shipstead is a novel in the same vein as Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections—both expose the ugly emotional...