As an alternative for those who find daily(ish) email to be too much, I’m gauging interest in a “weekly digest” edition of clippings that would go out on Sundays. If this interests you, press ‘reply’ and let me know.

WORK

“Anthem for Doomed Youth”

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
    — Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
    Only the stuttering rifles’ rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells;
    Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,—
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
    And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

What candles may be held to speed them all?
    Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.
    The pallor of girls’ brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

—Wilfred Owen
—from The Poems of Wilfred Owen

WORD(S)

unthewed. adjective. Unruly; wanton; ill-mannered; coarse. From Old English þéaw and old Saxon thau (custom, habit) and Old High German thau (discipline).

“So that the Pride of veine gloire
Evere afterward out of memoire
He let it passe. And thus is schewed
What is to ben of Pride unthewed” (John Gower)

“[unthewed meant] that the churls or peasants of servile status had become undisciplined, lawless…” (Editors, The History of Normandy and England)

WEB

1. “People were always dying around Grandma—her children, her husbands, her boyfriend…” → My Grandma the Poisoner.

2. “Interviews with book artist Richard Minsky” comprises 22 short interviews with the famed book artist about specific items in the Yale University Library archives of his work.

3. Snail Mail My Email is a worldwide collaborative art project where volunteers handwrite strangers’ emails and send physical letters to the intended recipients. Of course there’s a book.

4. In Roy Kafri’s “Mayokero” music video, classic album covers come alive and sing.

5. Today in 1918, Wilfred Owen—age 25 and the best poet of World War I—is killed during the crossing of the Sambre–Oise Canal almost exactly one week prior to the Armistice. His mother received the telegram notification of his death as bells were ringing across the country celebrating the new peace. Owen published only a handful of poems in his short lifetime, composed most of his poems during the 13 months prior to his death, after meeting poet Siegfried Sassoon (himself a fascinating poet and figure) while being hospitalized for “shell shock” and then voluntarily returning to the front. Many of Wilfred’s handwritten poems and correspondence are available from the WW I Digital Archive.

REPRISES/RESPONSES/REJOINDERS/RIPOSTES

• Reader S. asks: “…of all those kinds of readers you’ve shared, which one are you?” — I guess I’m a book-busting, promiscuous, omnivorous reader.

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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