Posted on: May 15, 2012

- Carlos Fuentes, 1987
Carlos Fuentes passed away on May 15th, 2012, at the age of 83. He will be remembered by this avid reader for his novels The Old Gringo and The Death of Artemio Cruz, along with his wonderful short stories, especially those in Burnt Water. His non-fiction is also very strong (This I Believe & Myself With Others), and pairing it with Milan Kundera’s heightened the effect of both for me. Both men being advocates of the democratic voice in literature, with many of the same literary “precursors.”
Fuentes was one of the chief contributors and promoters of the Latin American “Boom,” along with José Donoso, Jorge Luis Borges, Gabriel García Márquez and Juan Rulfo, his fellow Mexican novelist.…
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Posted on: May 8, 2012
The Sleeping Gypsy, by Henri Rousseau. 1897
Gypsy
The sadness of the dance
Between two opposites
The sadness of the work
Involved
No metaphors needed
Male and Female
Strong and weak
Yin and Yang
No metaphors needed
Because this is all
Delusion
And comfort food
Combined
Though the combination
Is a hopeful thing
A blessed thing
A dove sent
A plant thrusting upward
To the sun
From within desert sand
From within
Once barren minds
The act of combination
An act of liberation
Or may be
If we cross over
…
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Posted on: May 1, 2012
The Eiffel Tower. Photo by Douglas Pinson. 2007
Spinozablue has new poetry, fiction and phởtography on tap for May. Valentina Cano, Emily Ramser, Christina Murphy and Ben Nardolilli grace this site with their poetry; Penelope Mermall with her fiction; and Eleanor Bennett with phởtography. Emily and Eleanor have something in common. They are both in their teens. Their work, however, along with those already mentioned on this fine May Day, combines future promise and present achievement.
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So, I’m reading The Three Pillars of Zen, by Philip Kapleau, and it’s kick-started all kinds of thought-trails. The book is quite good, though it lags at times when it shifts to interviews with adepts. Lags for me, because too many of the stories are similar.…
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