#prose – @nickkahler on Tumblr

There is a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance, 1841 (via mbelt)

#ralph waldo emerson #quote #time #education #conviction #envy #ignorance #suicide #wide #universe #good #corn #ground #work #poetry #prose #lit #literature

nickkahler

Sonia Delaunay, La prose du Transsibérien et de la Petite Jehanne de France, 1913

#sonia delaunay #prose #transiberian #small #france #painting #art #collage #newspaper #text #typography #watercolor #color

nickkahler reblogged

mythologyofblue

At moments like these prose is a brick through the poet’s window. The fate of the poet is to ignore the broken window and make good use of the brick, and of the draft.

Rowan Ricardo Phillips, "On Being a Poet," c. 2010 (via parisreview)

#rowan ricardo phillips #poetry #window #brick #material #moment #prose #fate #ignore #broken #draft

nickkahler

A critic’s methods, sense of ethics, and commitment will be assessed as much as their insight, choice of artist, or quality of published prose.

Gilda Williams, "On Art Writing," 2014

#gilda williams #quote #criticism #critic #art #sense #ethics #ethic #commitment #assessment #quality #artist #prose #publish #writing

nickkahler

The word Michel de Montaigne chose to describe his prose ruminations published in 1580 was “Essais,” which, at the time, meant merely “Attempts,” as no such genre had yet been codified. This etymology is significant, as it points toward the experimental nature of essayistic writing: it involves the nuanced process of trying something out. Later on, at the end of the 16th century, Francis Bacon imported the French term into English as a title for his more boxy and solemn prose.

Christy Wompole, "The Essayification of Everything," 2013

#christy wompole #language #essay #essayification #essayism #francis bacon #michel de montaigne #box #solemn #prose #writing #attempt #time #rumination #thought #philosophy #lit #literature

nickkahler

Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.

Oscar Wilde, c. 1890 (via umich)

#quote #mask #truth #identity #sociology #prose #philosophy #oscar wilde #literature

nickkahler reblogged

What is insomnia? The question is rhetorical. I know the answer only too well. It is to count off and dread in the small hours the fateful harsh strokes of the chime. It is attempting with ineffectual magic to breathe smoothly. It is the burden of a body that abpruptly shifts sides. It is shutting the eyelids down tight. It is a state like fever and assuredly not watchfulness. It is saying over bits of paragraphs read years and years ago. It is knowing how guilty you are to be lying awake while others are asleep. It is trying to sink into slumber and being unable to sink into slumber. It is the horror of being and going on being. It is the dubious daybreak. What is longevity? It is the horror of existing in a human body whose faculties are in decline. It is insomnia measured by decades and not by metal hands. It is carrying the weight of seas and pyramids, of ancient libraries and dynasties, of the dawns that Adam saw. It is being well aware that I am bound to my flesh, to a voice I detest, to my name, to routinely remembering, to Castilian, over which I have no control, to feeling nostalgic for the Latin I do not know. It is trying to sink into death and being unable to sink into death. It is being and continuing to be.

Jorge Luis Borges, ” Two Forms of Insomnia” from La cifra, 1981 (via meta-mash)

#jorge luis borges #quote #insomnia #longevity #life #ontology #philosophy #prose #name #latin #spanish #time #adam #death

nickkahler

Please let him come, and give me the resilience & guts to make him respect me, be interested, and not to throw myself at him with loudness or hysterical yelling; calmly, gently, easy baby easy. He is probably strutting the backs among crocuses now with seven Scandinavian mistresses. And I sit, spiderlike, waiting, here, home; Penelope weaving webs of Webster, turning spindles of Tourneur. Oh, he is here; my black marauder; oh hungry hungry. I am so hungry for a big smashing creative burgeoning burdened love: I am here; I wait; and he plays on the banks of the river Cam like a casual faun.

Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath, c. 1956

#love #marauder #poetry #prose #quote #sylvia plath #literature

nickkahler

The city, however, does not tell its past, but contains it like the lines of a hand, written in the corners of the streets, the gratings of the windows, the banisters of the steps, the antennae of the lightning rods, the poles of the flags, every segment marked in turn with scratches, indentations, scrolls.

Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities, 1972

#quote #italo calvino #city #fiction #prose