RIP, Carolyn Kizer. I associate her with two things more personal than poems: hearing Peggy Shumaker read a now-forgotten poem in a class years ago (which may have confused things, Peggy could make any poem sound good) and her funny-because-it’s-true (at least for me) observation that “poets are primarily concerned with death and commas.”

WORK

I guess it was inevitable that I would settle for poetry. My joke always was that when I was at Sarah Lawrence, my music teacher told me that if I wanted to keep at the same level of skill at playing the piano I’d have to practice four or five hours a day just to stay where I was. And that did not appeal. And also I thought it would be easier to go through life with a pencil rather than a Steinway. It is very good for a peripatetic person like me, who writes poetry wherever I am. I guess the thing that really clinched it for me was the notion that I wanted to stay as far away from capitalism—buying and selling, the material world—as I possibly could, and poetry was clearly the solution to that!

I’ve been enormously fortunate. People say, How do you feel about your reputation? My real belief is that I have exactly the reputation I deserve. It’s not fame, so fortunately I will probably be able to avoid the kind of biographies that have been written about my friends, which are exploitative and unnecessarily detailed about aspects of their life, which I don’t think are anybody’s business. And as far as honors are concerned, I didn’t really receive any until I was sixty and I was over the age of having to worry about being spoiled. So on the whole I feel comfortable with myself. You know I’ve always always loved that line from Chaucer’s Criseyde, “I am meyne own woman wel at ease.” That’s the way I feel. Of course, there are always disasters looming, both cosmic and domestic. But even if it should all end tomorrow I would just hope I’ve burned enough bad drafts and old love letters!

—Carolyn Kizer
—from Paris Review

WORD(S)

ignis fatuus. noun. A phosphorescent light sometimes seen hovering over dark marshes. Because it appears to disappear and reappear elsewhere as one approaches, it was thought of as a mischievous, misleading supernatural, intentionally leading travelers astray and so, figuratively refers to deceptive, illusory (or delusional) beliefs, goals and hopes. AKA will o’ the wisp or jack-a-lantern. Literally, Latin: “foolish fire.”

“This impression seen on the lande, is called in latin, Ignis fatuus, foolish fyre, that hurteth not, but only feareth foules.” (William Fulke)

“Like a gleam of sunshine hope flashed into my loveless life, lighting up my path to fortune. But it was only the glimmer of an ignis fatuus, which led me into a quicksand and snuffed itself out in a fog.” (Kirby Hare)

“Or was this novelty—the ability to take up these tattered enigmas again and play with them until something like a solution emerged from them, only to grow dim at once and fade like an ignis fatuus, a specter mocking the very reality it had so convincingly assumed?” (John Ashbery)

“Which is the dream, which is the ignus fatuus—the past? or the present?” (Alexander Solzhenitsyn)

WEB

1. Discovery of 40,000 year old cave paintings on the Indonesian Island of Sulawesi “transforms ideas about how humans first developed the ability to produce art.”

2. “Avoid the flourish. Do not be afraid to be weak. Do not be ashamed to be tired. You look good when you’re tired. You look like you could go on forever.” → Leonard Cohen reads most of “How to Speak Poetry”. You canread the full text on our Tumblr. Thanks, Reader C.!

3. A review of Shelf Life: The Secret History of Invisible Ink. I’d write more if I had time. Or did I?

4. “It all began with two porcelain parakeets on the windowsill of the house next door…” → Daniel Zakharov’s photo series on the things people display in their windows.

5. Today is (maybe) International Skeptics Day, in which you are encouraged to “respect and listen to your inner skeptic, and all of the skeptical people that you know. Not everything can be as good as it sounds, some things are bound to be disappointing, and things can only get worse; right?” The SciShow has a video playlist of “the most interesting science-y, skeptic-y videos from all around YouTube”. If your skepticism runs to sarcasm, you might find some laughs on the Pinterest Skeptics Board. And everyone knows about Snopes and Mythbusters, but have you perused Skeptic.com?

REPRISES/RESPONSES/REJOINDERS/RIPOSTES

• Reader T. pointed at the flower: “Hey, I just got the ‘9 primes in time’ subject line [used for the 100th issue]!” — Well, I thought it was clever…

I welcome comments, suggestions, thoughts, feedback and all manner of what-have-you. Just press ‘Reply’ or email to: clippings@katexic.com.

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