I don’t remember when I first learned about semicolons, nor do I have a mental list of remarkable semicolons in literature. I don’t want to have to treasure them, though the typical advice for writers of all levels is to use them sparingly, as if there’s a limited supply. This only breeds fear, which in turn breeds stigma: Semicolons are ugly, pretentious and unnecessary; they immaturely try to have it both ways. There are so many things to fear in life, but punctuation is not one of them. That semicolons, unlike most other punctuation marks, are fully optional and relatively unusual lends them power; when you use one, you are doing something purposefully, by choice, at a time when motivations are vague and intentions often denied. And there are very few opportunities in life to have it both ways; semicolons are the rare instance in which you can; there is absolutely no downside.
The way to change people’s minds is to become friends with them, to integrate them into your tribe, to bring them into your circle. Now, they can change their beliefs without the risk of being abandoned socially.
We put so much on Whitney’s anthem, but the performance can hold it. It’s too much to ask of a person, an artist, maybe even a nation. But the performance, the performance is something from another world, another way of existing. When I listen to it now, when I read about it, when I write about it, this performance doesn’t have the same nostalgic tinge that so many other cultural touchtones have. It is still immediate. It is still up there, out there, all around us wrestling with the ideas it espouses, the context of which it was born, the concept of freedom.
It is the only villanelle Bishop ever wrote. She surprised even herself. A spare and careful poet who published very few and very meticulous poems, she composed it with astonishing rapidity, feeling that it was “like writing a letter,” redrafting and retitling it over and over.
“How to Lose Things.”
“The Gift of Losing Things.”
“The Art of Losing Things.”
And finally, fifteen drafts later, “One Art.”
“One Art” is one of my favorite poems. One of the few poems I know by heart.
And it is the poem I am most likely to mention at work. I mention it all the time. I even have a set of slides ready, for easy insertion into a deck.
I talk about productions at work. And I mean “productions” as the things we publish. I mean these as a form of art. And I believe these productions happen at the place where creativity is bound by constraints then polished by craft and put into a form that allows someone who did not participate in the making to engage.
“One Art” read aloud in a work context – the drafts and changed lines on the slides – is such a lovely example of what we can aspire to with productions.
P.S. I tried to work in another Bishop poem I love. I couldn't quite and so add it here: “Arrival at Santos”
He explained that, in the late 1980s, he had founded a guidebook series for countries behind the Iron Curtain. Instead of the standard descriptions of sights and hotel listings, the format was like an address book, including the contact details for hundreds of in-country hosts. The idea was that if people could not easily see the Western world themselves, he would bring it to them via travellers. It was “couchsurfing”, but offline.
The hand-sized copy he pressed into my palm centred on Poland. I loved it and decided to travel there to see if the participants were still up for receiving random visitors, even though so much had changed.
Was Plath on the side of death? I don’t think so, and not only because of the way she structured her final book of poems. She made them, worked them, intended them to have the best life she could possibly give them.
Plath always felt like a secret to me, despite encountering her work in class. Like Ann Bannon’s books, a portal into ferocious identity. That could be shaped into a way of understand int myself in the world.
This review is not about that. Not really. I will read the biography – I have read most of them and often with Ted Hughes' last volume of poetry.
This is the best a literature and cricism, I think.
Biden argued that foreign policy is an integral part of domestic policy. It requires that the government address the needs of ordinary Americans. “We will compete from a position of strength by building back better at home,” he said. “That’s why my administration has already taken the important step to live our domestic values at home — our democratic values at home.”
This idea—that the U.S. must reform its own society in order to extend the principles of democracy overseas– was precisely the argument Theodore Roosevelt and other reformers made in the late 1890s when they launched the Progressive Era. When Roosevelt became president in 1901, he used this rationale to take the government out of the hands of business interests and use it to protect ordinary Americans.
Showing up is something almost every creative leader has in common. In business, in the arts, in society. Consistently shipping the work, despite the world’s reaction, despite the nascent nature of our skill, despite the doubts.
The ability to show up is also a privilege we don’t all have. I think about this with my work from home set-up. It’s not an expansive home office. It’s a space in our family room. My daughter has a desk in the kitchen and also uses a corner of the table when the projects sprawl. My wife has what she calls her teaching nook in the front room. It’s my grandparents' card table, bought with S&H Green Stamps in the 50s or maybe early 60s.
And we all show up because we have a space of our own. Where we can call our attention to the work in front of us. The internet works, even if I complain about it. We aren’t hungry and if we are, our grocery delivery and cooking skills solve that. There is no one here, sick or so old or so young that they pull us away to provide care.
I listened to Dare to Lead by Brené Brown on audiobook, the way I usually do at 1.5x and while walking the dog.
And maybe that's not the place to start books I know I'm going to want to annotate. I'm a brené Brown fan. Her page on research is part of the welcome packet for all incoming interns. All of which is to say: I'm going to need to by a physical or digital copy so I can start marking it up.
What has stuck with me, from this first listen, is more tools and ways to have hard workplace conversations, including with yourself. I have a hard time imagining using term like “rumble” at work. But maybe that's part of the problem.
Being explicit — including more explicit markers for conversations and expectations of and guidelines for behavior — are a part of creating a more inclusive workplace. It doesn't depend on coded norms and biases to function.
These folks are just Conservative Media Stars now, people who were throwing red meat online when suddenly it all got real and they were elected to Congress because that's all that Republican primary voters want anyway. Cawthorn's mandate is to engage in a theatrical battle with the various Enemies—Democrats and the Radical Left, the Fake News Media, Republicans who are deemed traitors to the cause—for the satisfaction of those people who have been told for 30 years that these groups are out to destroy The America You Know and Love.
