David Anthony Sam's Blog, page 175
July 29, 2017
Afterland by Mai Der Vang – An eloquent Surrealism.
Afterland by Mai Der Vang
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Mai Der Vang’s “Afterland” manages to make surrealistic and visionary poetry accessible. She writes from biography and family history but speaks the universal. Images collide and morph into each other and language and syntax warp away and back into common tongue. I particularly liked:
– Another Heaven
– Original Bones
– After All Have Gone
– Gray Vestige
– This Heft upon Your Leaving
– Three
Sometimes a poem stretches too far and fails from the surrealism and the warped syntax. But the collection as a whole is a fine one.
Can poetry save reading?
"You can[image error]t zoom through poetry; it forces you to slow down, think, concentrate, relish words and phrases," writes Phillip Yancey in the Washington Post. "Nevertheless, neuroscience proves what each of these busy people have found: it actually takes less energy to focus intently than to zip from task to task. After an hour of contemplation, or deep reading, a person ends up less tired and less neurochemically depleted, thus more able to tackle mental challenges."
July 26, 2017
Alternative Facts have a long history
Soviet Prosecutor Andrei Vyshinsky: "We have our own reality."
Soviet censor: "You can't say that because it is true."
Writers must always be a threat to the powerful.
July 24, 2017
The Write Place at the Write Time has accepted another of my poems
The Write Place at the Write Time has accepted another of my poems
July 23, 2017
Smoky Blue Literary and Arts Magazine will publish 2 of my poems
Smoky Blue Literary and Arts Magazine will publish 2 of my poems in their Fall/Winter issue this September.
A Cafe worth sitting in and experiencing for a good while
At the Existentialist Café: Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails with Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Albert Camus, Martin Heidegger, Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Others by Sarah Bakewell
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Excellent
Whether you already think you know Existentialism and Phenomenology or think you do not care, this is an excellent and readable work. Part philosophical history, part multiple biographies, part personal and ideational autobiography, part history, part sociology, this is a Cafe worth sitting in and experiencing for a good while.
July 15, 2017
Two of my poems are now published at The Write Place at the Write Time.
Two of my poems are now publshed at The Write Place at the Write Time.
July 4, 2017
Two Cities Review has accepted one of my poems
Two Cities Review has accepted one of my poems for future publication.
July 2, 2017
Two of my poems are included in Issue 2 of Hungry Chimera.
Two of my poems are included in Issue 2 of Hungry Chimera.
June 23, 2017
Chantwood Magazine has accepted 2 of my poems for publication.
Chantwood Magazine has accepted 2 of my poems for publication.
