Ethics?

How much of ethics is aesthetics?

Pirene's Fountain

Pirene's Fountain has published my poem "'Scoundrels.'" Jane Yolen also has poems in this issue!

Seriously

The reason we pretend that we're not just making everything up is so others will take us seriously.

The incidental shadows

Perhaps we are the incidental shadows of something important.

Three cheers for the Doctor

Happy 50th birthday, Doctor Who!

Participation

Participation promotes delusions of belonging.

Predisposed

Can there be any doubt why we are so predisposed to love a protagonist?

Poblano Fettuccine Alfredo

Sorry, Descartes

What does "I think, therefore I am" really tell us if we don't know what we are or what thinking is?

On belief

Belief is not a decision, it's an acknowledgement of inadequacy.

The right-now fool (Kingsolver)

It was hard to feel the remotest sympathy for any of the different fools she had been. As opposed to the fool she was probably being now. People hang on for dear life to that one, she thought: the fool they are right now.

Barbara Kingsolver, Flight Behavior

Joy

Take your joy where you can. If you no longer can here, then find it again there.

Irrationality

What seems to one man irrational behavior in another is more often than not merely different values or different goals, rationally pursued.

On writing

All writing, like all speech, is an effort to make people notice things.

New poems

+5

The tyranny of the old

The only way to contain the tyranny of the old is to constantly create new and confront it with it.

Purpose

The purpose of society is to mix everything together.

The purpose of individuals is to pull from the mix a suitable selection.

On poets

Poets are, above all—and perhaps above all others—players of games.

Midpoint

As much since now
as there was before.

Wow.

On culture

Culture is accident. How much effort should we put into preserving or protecting accident?

Fiction & poetry

Fiction is concerned with telling stories; poetry, with dreams.

Why should we?

The world is neither excessively constrained nor deliberately incoherent—why should a poem be? Why should we?

On identity politics

"Identity politics" is for those who confuse their identity with politics.

Chicken pasta & chicken rice dishes

Expediency

Expediency is beauty's predator.

New poems

+6