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Post by Ava on Apr 12, 2020 13:49:10 GMT
Not a favorite quote but an amazon review that I want to keep hold of, because it reminds me of life in lockdown. Not to diminish the extremely hard lives of destitute people...but this relates to feeling I'm at a loss for words in this new environment.
"I'm an American and I've lived and worked in West Africa for over 5 years (3 of them as a Peace Corps volunteer). I've found that it's incredibly challenging to peal away the cultural onion, especially in writing. It took me three years before I felt that I had a grasp on the rhythm and flow of the community I was living in, including the styles of communication (nonverbal communication, decoding indirectness), the practice of saving face, concepts of time, concepts of power, attitudes towards uncertainty, family life, the boundaries of friendship, decision-making when living in extreme poverty, etc. There is so much difference. You have to marinate in the difference to become aware of it, and then adopt the difference to understand it."
Review for "Behind the Beautiful Forevers" by Katherine Boo.
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Post by Ava on May 21, 2020 13:55:32 GMT
Holy Pythagoras made his charts To humanize the heavenly arts. His highest hope, to charm our ears With echoes of the chanting spheres Which chime in every heart from birth In chorus with the breath of earth. But no ear hears, no eye can see The whole ethereal harmony.
- John Michell in "Euphonics: A Poet's Dictionary of Enchantments"
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Post by Ava on Aug 6, 2020 20:04:18 GMT
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Post by Ava on Apr 19, 2021 13:45:29 GMT
In Dream
Black and enduring separation I share equally with you. Why weep? Give me your hand, Promise me you will come again. You and I are like high Mountains and we can't move closer. Just send me word At midnight sometime through the stars.
- Anna Akhmatova
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Post by Ava on May 23, 2021 14:09:47 GMT
This has long been a favorite but I just found it online.
When a Friend (for Ellis Settle, 1924-93) - Stephen Dobyns
When a friend dies, part of oneself splits off and spins into the outer dark. No use calling it back. No use saying I miss you. Part of one's body has been riven. One recollects gestures, mostly trivial. The way he pinched a cigarette, the way he crouched on a chair. Now he is less than a living flea. Where has he gone, this person whom I loved? He is vapor now; he is nothing. I remember talking to him about the world. What a rich place it became within our vocabulary. I did not love it half so much until he spoke of it, until it was sifted through the adjectives of our discussion. And now my friend is dead. His warm hand has been reversed. His movements across a room have been erased. How I wish he was someplace specific. He is nowhere. He is absence. When he spoke of the things he loved - books, music, pictures, the articulation of idea - his body shook as if a wire within him suddenly surged. In passion, he filled the room. Where has he gone, this friend whom I loved? The way he shaved, the way he cut his hair, even the way he squinted when he talked, when he embraced idea, held it - all vanished. He has been reduced to memory. The books he loved, I see them on my shelves. The words he spoke still group around me. But this is chaff. This is the container now that heart has been scraped out. He is defunct now. His body is less than cinders; less than a sentence after being whispered. He is the zero from which a man has vanished. He was the smartest, most vibrant, like a match suddenly struck, flaring; now he is sweepings in a roadway. Where is he gone? He is nowhere. My friends, I knew a wonderful man, these words approximate him, as chips of stone approximate a tower, as wind approximates a song.
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