It’s impossible to read today’s poem without thinking of one of James Wright’s most famous poems. But it’s also impossible for me not to think of the raven I encountered a few days ago in the grocery store parking lot, his beak anointed with the grease of the discarded burger he pecked at as shamelessly as he’d pick at my flesh given the chance.

WORK

“From a Swaying Hammock”

With a raw squawk the raven breaks
his glide and alights on a pine’s

spring-like branch. What peaks gleam
in his onyx eye? What fat anoints his beak?

When I doze, it seems I hear my name
picked apart by his artful caws,

feel the combs of his claws
prowling among my graying hairs.

How can I sleep with him perched there?

—Joseph Hutchison
—from Chautauqua Literary Journal

WORD(S)

el de la vergüenza /ber-GWEN-sah/. In Spanish, vergüenza is literally shame, embarrassment, disgrace. Google Translate renders the phrase as “the shame,” but idiomatically, the phrase is used to refer to the last bit of food on a communal plate that everyone is embarrassed to take, “the piece of shame.” I’m unaware of an English equivalent. Spanish speakers: feel free to correct or supplement my explanation!

WEB

1. “So do people pass from the genre to the literary up our neo-Platonic ladder? Do they discover Stieg Larsson and move on to Pamuk?” Tim Parks on the possibly wishful thinking of “reading up”, or genre reading as a gateway drug to “better” books.

2. Original Sin, a photo series by Catherin Colaw. The body in landscape.

3. A powerful pair of stories: You’re 16. You’re a Pedophile. You Don’t Want to Hurt Anyone. What Do You Do Now? + Behind the Story: Pedophiles Against Hurting Children

4. From the Smithsonian: The History of the Electric Guitar in one song.

5. Today in 1720, the Spanish Villasur Expedition is overwhelmed near what is now Columbus, Nebraska. Their leader, Don Pedro Villasur and 34 other Spaniards, an African-Hopi captain, and 10 Hopi scouts are killed by Pawnee and Oto tribesmen. This was the beginning of the end of Spanish domination and occupation of the The battle was documented by an unknown artist on one of the Segesser Hides, which you can explore thanks to the New Mexico History Museum.

REPRISES/RESPONSES/REJOINDERS/RIPOSTES

• Following up on riff-raff, used in a reader’s note yesterday: terms that consist of words repeating with a variation in the vowel sound (such as criss-cross, chit-chat and teeter-totter) are called ablaut reduplicates. This is one of three common kinds of reduplicates, the others being exact (e.g. chop-chop, bling-bling and choo-choo) and rhyming (e.g. mumbo-jumbo, ragtag and hurley-burley). I wonder if there are any reduplications involving three or more words? Other than the found poetry of grammar recitals: ring-rang-rung, sing-sang-sung, etc.

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