Boria Sax's Blog: Told Me by a Butterfly

Interview in Forward Reviews

Enchanted Forests: The Poetic Construction of a World before Time
This is an interview with me from Forward Reviews. I am especially pleased that they have linked it with the mission of protecting nature.
It is a great blessing to be listened to, especially for somebody like me, who always had the feeling of not quite finding a place in the world.
https://mailchi.mp/forewordreviews/r4...

Enchanted Forests: The Poetic Construction of a World before Time

Crow

A delightful radio program about crows from Red Hair Media in Dublin, Ireland, in which John Marzluff and I are guests: https://soundcloud.com/colettekinsell...

Cuervo. Naturaleza, historia y simbolismoCrow
Crow까마귀乌鸦CrowCorbeauxغرابVrana/CrowToplumun Aynasında KargaCrowالغراب : التاريخ الطبيعي والثقافي

Crow

A delightful radio program about crows from Red Hair Media in Dublin, Ireland, in which John Marzluff and I are guests: https://soundcloud.com/colettekinsell...

Cuervo. Naturaleza, historia y simbolismo

“The Magic of Constant Change” – Alchemists in the Early Modern Age”

All are invited to listen to my talk entitled "The Magic of Constant Change: Alchemists in the Early Modern World," as part of the podcast series "Woking Over Time."
https://working-over-time.simplecast....

SING SING PRISON BY NIGHT

Barbed wire gleaming in the light
Of stars and searchlights
Elegant as any palace gate
Of ornamental iron.

It might entice a prisoner
To ascend until he fell,
Leaving a sphere
of blood suspended from a metal point. . .

On a holly branch, a Christmas berry.






Boria Sax (c) 2020
The Raven and the Sun: Poems and Stories

Writing and Being Vulnerable

An author is constantly called upon to talk about his own writing, but that is not an easy thing to do. Unless a writer has thought of a book from the beginning as a commodity (something that I could not do even if I wanted to), it will mean something very different to him than to others. An honest author knows that he cannot objectively evaluate his own work, and everyone else knows that as well. A way out is to quote generic words of praise, which somebody else has written. But even praise seems to detract from what is unique and special about a book. A really “good” book is not better than others, nor is it worse. It is unique. Selling a book can seem a bit like trying to sell your soul. No price, however high or low, can ever be right.
Sophisticated authors often learn to work around, or at least conceal, this dilemma by cultivating a very delicate sense of tact. A writer can intuitively pick up some of the taboos concerning the marketing of literature, even though these are unspoken, situational and in constant flux. And the reading public is surprisingly indulgent about occasional, and inevitable, lapses. Readers may know, far better than we writers sometimes imagine, how much of ourselves we have invested in writing. They also know that even authors need to make a living.
I have always written in response to a sense of alienation, a feeling that I cannot hope to meet the expectations of society in any other way. By showing how I view the world, I try to create a place for myself, something that often seems otherwise denied me. My writing is not often overtly “personal,” let alone confessional, but that does not mean that I am any less present in it. I open myself to a great vulnerability. I then protect myself by a combination of perspective, detachment and distraction. But presenting my work to the world, like writing itself, is a perpetual emotional negotiation.
Negative comments can hurt a lot, especially when, as is usually the case, they seem based on a deep misunderstanding of a book. Praise can be more gratifying than I want to admit, but it can also leave me feeling a bit embarrassed. But neither of these are what matters most in the end. It is discussion that a book inspires. Ideas are my avatars in what is often an alien world, but they can come to life and have their own adventures.

Dinomania: Why We Love, Fear and Are Utterly Enchanted by Dinosaurs
Imaginary Animals: The Monstrous, the Wondrous and the Human
The Raven and the Sun: Poems and Stories

Why We Love Dinosaurs

The journal Nautilus, devoted to the intersection between science and the humanities, has published excerpts from my book Dinomania under the title "Why We Love Dinosaurs." http://nautil.us/issue/67/reboot/why-...

Dinomania: Why We Love, Fear and Are Utterly Enchanted by Dinosaurs

TRANSIENCE

This is for all things broken ̶
Cups, promises, clocks, petals, hearts…. 

This is for all things lost –
Rings, opportunities, mittens, love, keys….

This is for all things forgotten ̶
Afternoons, dreams, faces, sunsets, names….

Here is the waiting room,. 
Where we will see you in a while, 
Our bodies broken, lives lost, 
And deeds mostly forgotten. 
 

Boria Sax
copyright©2018
The Raven and the Sun: Poems and Stories

Why are dinosaurs so human?

Boria Sax
19 mins ·
From Dinomania: Why We Love, Fear and Are Utterly Enchanted by Dinosaurs, chapter six: “We persistently think of dinosaurs as, in some sense, contemporaneous. . . According to a Gallup poll taken in 1990, 41 percent of Americans believe that human beings and dinosaurs lived at the same time. Human beings and dinosaurs interact with one another in comic books such as ‘Alley Oop’ and cartoons such as ‘The Flintstones’, as well as in movies like ‘Jurassic Park’. In 2008, the history channel ran a series called Jurassic Fight Club, in which two computer generated dinosaurs such as deinonychus and tenontosaurus would engage in combat, while human announcers would discuss their strategy and tactics, following the format of a boxing match. There is an entire genre of books known as ‘dinosaur erotica’, with titles like Taken by T. rex and Ravished by Triceratops. Many Christian fundamentalists believe that most dinosaurs died out about 6,000 years ago because Noah did not take them into his Ark, but he did save a few and those may still be alive today. A huge model of the Ark may be seen at the Creation Museum in Williamstown, Kentucky, complete with stalls that house model dinosaurs.” So, why are dinosaurs so human? Why are humans so dinosaur?
I would like some discussion of such topics. Do you have questions or comments? If so, you are invited to ask (or say) on Goodreads at
https://www.goodreads.com/author/2483...
Dinomania: Why We Love, Fear and Are Utterly Enchanted by Dinosaurs

Dinomania

Early next year, I will be 70 years old. Does that make me a "dinosaur"? I like to think so. At any rate, I hope, and expect, to wrote many more books. I feel energetic as ever, but I am more poingnantly aware that my time, however long or short, is not endless.

All of my books are about for more than their titles suggest. This transience is a theme of new book Dinomania: Why We Love, Fear and are Utterly Enchanted by Dinosaurs. We are drawn to dinosaurs because they, in their time, seemed at once enormously powerful and yet helpless. And that is how human beings we human beings so often feel now.

Just possibly, this might be my best book so far, though I cannot judge that very well.

For an excerpt from the book, please go to:
http://www.reaktionbooks.co.uk/pdfs/d...

For a blog post summarizing some of the themes, please go to:
http://www.reaktionbooks.co.uk/browse...

And if you like the book, I will be unabashedly pleased.

Boria Sax

Dinomania: Why We Love, Fear and Are Utterly Enchanted by Dinosaurs

Boria Sax