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@bcoyd

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I want to talk about the loss of Wendell Berry but I do not know how, and so instead I want to offer you the piece of my soul that is occupied by Thomas Merton, the other great, vital, spiritual force from the hills of Kentucky. He spent the second half of his life in a monastery, writing books and letters and poems about war and God and birds and other important things. He was always trying to say, I think, that the only things that matter are the ones that none of us will ever be able to explain or communicate or understand. He was always trying to say about our lives in this world -- just like Wendell Berry was, which is my point here -- that "there is, in fact, a choice." 🍂 by @bcoyd

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a month ago

What I want to say is that someone asked me who the voices are in my head who tell me if I am living well or not, and I answered "Robert Hass" without hesitation, and I meant it. And today I read these newer poems by him from February of this year, where he is, as always, staring into the endless nightmare of human evil and offering that possibly poetics and music and joy and the green color of leaves are meaningful even in the face of it. I did mean it, there are sentences of his that are always ticking across the bottom of the screen of my brain. In one poem he asks, "isn't language responsible to all of being?" and in another he says, "I begin making resolutions: to take risks, not to stay in the south, to somehow do honor to Randall Jarrell, never to kill myself." Make me a better list, I dare you! by @bcoyd

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5 months ago

I'm reading Walt Whitman's "Democratic Vistas," which insists that democracy means nothing unless it a representation of a spiritually rich, unified, cared-for "People."

What I admire about Walt Whitman is how fierce he was in his love for everyone, universally. His belief that the corruption and evil at every level of democracy (in 1870!) could only exist because people didn't see the value of everyone around them and act accordingly, in solidarity. And his incredibly concise understanding that "a great moral civilization" is "the only justification of a great material one."

And two of Edward Weston's dazzling views of New York from1941, illustrations to accompany a publication of "Leaves of Grass," a pilgrimage he made around the country in the footsteps of Whitman, trying to capture the America that inspired such "singular awe." 🌃❤️ by @bcoyd

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7 months ago

This is Wendell Berry's poem "The Mad Farmer Liberation Front." It is significant to my understanding of the world, and it is timely: when they want you to die for profit they will let you know.

These photos are of a "line of wool" by Andy Goldsworthy, taken nine days apart. "Say that the leaves are harvested when they have rotted into the mold" reminded me of them.

I love the end of this poem, the idea of losing your mind and leaving it as a sign to mark the way you didn't go. I think more and more every day that we are creating a world where only the teachings of Wendell Berry can help anything in any way: "Love the world. Work for nothing." 🍃💛 by @bcoyd

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8 months ago

It has been a while since I've been here but I have something to say:

In 1946, George Orwell wrote an essay about how we are losing clarity and concreteness in our language, and what this means for our politics, our communication, and our world. He said that we are all in danger of relying on vague, pre-fabricated phrases because they are easy and spare us from thinking, but doing so risks turning us into machines, unconscious of what we're saying or what it means.

He also said that political language is vague, euphemistic, relies on words that obscure facts rather than revealing them, because the language of politics is used "in defense of the indefensible." If you can avoid saying what is really happening, only then can you talk about it.

He says that curing this requires "letting the meaning choose the word." He says that you should "choose" rather than "simply accept" the words that you use. He says (in 1946!) that "the present political chaos is connected with the decay of language... political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind."

Tenuously connected to that are these images of Rachel Whiteread's "Room 101," which is a concrete cast of the interior of the BBC's Room 101, famous for lending its name to Orwell's torture chamber in 1984. They are important to this conversation because they are exactly what he was talking about: concrete, precise tracings of what they represent, not metaphorical at all.

So, as Orwell insisted, let us all remember to "consider... language as an instrument for expressing and not for concealing or preventing thought." by @bcoyd

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8 months ago

New York City is an experience of being bombarded with memorized or half-memorized or barely-memorized poems that mention the names of every street and neighborhood and place and person, and the New York museums are no exception; I saw these Cézannes at the Met and thought of Rilke first and then of W. C. Williams, who both wrote about Cézanne's use of the color blue, which as Frank O'Hara said, "is not going to be lost on me which is why I am telling you about it." 💙 taken in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York by @bcoyd

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2 years ago

All week I've been listening to this recording of Robert Hass reading his poem "Vintage" —

Bashō said, avoid adjectives of scale, you will love the world more and desire it less. by @bcoyd

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2 years ago

Holidays and markers of time and expectations of change have always been hard for me, but here are my 2025 resolutions: Jane Freilicher's forsythia in the window, having a good life of it while it lasts like the sheep in a James Wright poem, and most important — Thoreau's "living by faith" and Leonard Cohen's "state of grace." Happy new year, I love you. by @bcoyd

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2 years ago

Howard Finster keeps coming back to my mind this week, which comes with a lot of feelings, but mostly joy -- that someone lived and made art and believed in something with so much earnestness and care and creativity and complete and total abandon. 💛

Here's a painting of his, and three of his delightful suncatchers, and a ceramic sculpture, all from the High Museum of Art collection. by @bcoyd

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2 years ago

Coping with the long hours of darkness and with a lot of different kinds of tiredness and with a general sense of despair by thinking a lot about T. S. Eliot's Four Quartets, which is to say not coping well. There is a lot to learn from the Quartets but most of all this line: " For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business." There's some comfort in being reminded that despair is a timeless and inherent quality of being here, alive, as passed down from St. John of the Cross to T.S. Eliot to me. 🪟😌 by @bcoyd

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2 years ago

Reminders for today and for every day. Always be smaller than the things you love. Be idle. Be hesitant. Force defeats itself.

From "Nine Postcards I Didn't Write to my Sister" by Jeb Loy Nichols. by @bcoyd

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2 years ago

For unrelated reasons, I pulled Louise Glück's first book off the shelf tonight and was reminded that the first poem in it is called "All Hallows." The audio in this post is a recording of her reading the poem. But first there is a section of her poem "October" which is also timely, of course. I don't really love Halloween but I am not immune to how it feels when it's dark and quiet outside and the wind picks up and the leaves blowing around outside the kitchen window make a certain kind of sound. These are poems about that, you know. by @bcoyd

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2 years ago