Apr 17, 2018 | Current Ned Note, Past Notes, Poetry
by Alberto Ríos The library is dangerous— Don’t go in. If you do You know what will happen. It’s like a pet store or a bakery— Every single time you’ll come out of there Holding something in your arms. Those novels with their big eyes. And those no-nonsense, all...
Apr 11, 2018 | Current Ned Note, On Writing, Past Notes, Poetry
(posted on Mark Strand’s birthday – April 11, 1934) What of the neighborhood homes awash In a silver light, of children hunched in the bushes, Watching the grown-ups for signs of surrender, Signs that the irregular pleasures of moving From day to day, of...
Apr 2, 2018 | Current Ned Note, On Books, On Writing
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time by Mark Haddon is the first novel I know of that told the story entirely from the point of view of a person with Autism. There have been other books that dabbled in these waters, but Curious Incident is the first novel...
Mar 19, 2018 | Current Ned Note, On Writing, Past Notes
What does it mean to tell a story? When I think of “telling a story,” I am thinking specifically of the act of verbal storytelling – perhaps around a fire with an audience of people who can leave at any moment. In this situation of verbal storytelling, it’s important...
Mar 17, 2018 | Current Ned Note, Past Notes, Poetry
by Larry Levis Whenever I listen to Billie Holiday, I am reminded That I, too, was once banished from New York City. Not because of drugs or because I was interesting enough For any wan, overworked patrolman to worry about— His expression usually a great, gauzy...
Mar 12, 2018 | Current Ned Note, On Writing
re-published on Arts Advocacy Day – March 12-13, 2018 I read on Brainpickings recently that Mark Rothko, the marvelous abstract expressionist painter, said that when people “weep” when seeing his paintings they are having the same transcendent experience he had...
