Today’s WORK and WORD come courtesy of Reader B, whose own work and words I admire very much.

WORK

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“Mother of a New Diagnosis”

How alluring is the pine, its needled limbs bent heavy with cones. When all was well

This newsletter receives no financial compensation from the Chipotle restaurant chain, though I am now hungry for a burrito.

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Being unable to get a newsletter out yesterday meant being unable to observe the anniversary of the death of poet Miklós Radnóti. If you’re unfamiliar with Radnóti, I hope you’ll take a few minutes to learn about him and his tragic and amazing story.

Today, the poem that inspired the poppy as the symbol of The Great War (and thus Armistice/Veterans Day).

The real world prevented me from putting out a newsletter yesterday, but I want to note the passing of World Fountain Pen Day. Surely you noticed the inky craziness all around you and wondered, “what’s going on here?”

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“I have read so many books. And yet, like most Autodidacts, I am never quite sure of what I have gained from them. There are days when I feel I have been able to grasp all there is know in one single gaze, as if invisible branches suddenly spring out of no where, weaving together all the disparate strands of my reading. And then suddenly the meaning escapes, the essence evaporates and no matter how often I reread the same lines they seem to flee ever further with each subsequent reading and I see myself as some mad old fool who thinks her stomach is full because she’s been reading the menu.”

To answer a few questions about the prospective weekly digest edition of clippings—

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.

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Follow the source link to read the full descriptions which I’ve excerpted for today’s WORK.

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. Oh, you. You pretend to be curmudgeonly, you do, but you really just devour the reading you do in a different way. You’re loving it nearly as much as you’re hating it…

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“We are what we eat,” we are told. But we are also what we do, what we think, what we read…

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Readers may be divided into four classes:

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"He had no settled plan of life, nor looked forward at all, but merely lived from day to day. Yet he read a great deal in a desultory manner, without any scheme of study, as chance threw books in his way, and inclination directed him through them.

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“Amphitheatre”

Being alone, the water seemed calmer, his marble ledge more secure than it was. There was one boat coming in, and music from the taverna might have drawn him down. Nothing but a few moments of rest, some accounting of things tethered to him. Beyond that only the mind, gone quiet. Even the gulls forgot he was alive.

A note for the many new readers who subscribed over the weekend—if you’re a Gmail user and this message is in your promotions folder, the fix is simple: drag one of the clippings emails to the “Primary” tab (or right-click on the email and move it) and then answer “Yes” when asked about applying this to future mail. Here’s a nice visual tutorial on how to do that.

A themed issue today. I don’t do these often, but despite his death when I was just two, John Berryman has become a central figure in my life. He worked ceaselessly, it’s true, but he also had a gift—clearly evident in his diaries and correspondence—for the unexpected word, the surprising twist of thought and phrase, that could transform the journey of a line, poem or letter. We can miss someone we’ve never known.

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Attention Gmail users— many users have mentioned that clippings is now showing up in their “promotions” tab or otherwise being filtered. If this is happening to you, the fix is easy: drag one of the clippings emails to the “Primary” tab (or right-click on the email and move it) and then answer “Yes” when asked about applying this to future mail. Here’s a nice visual tutorial on how to do that.

Now on to some self-indulgent, focused-on-my-enthusiasms, hey-it’s-my-birthday-so-deal-with-it, stuff…

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“Snow Storm”

Tumult, weeping, many new ghosts.
Heartbroken, aging, alone, I sing
To myself. Ragged mist settles
In the spreading dusk. Snow skurries
In the coiling wind. The wineglass
Is spilled. The bottle is empty.
The fire has gone out in the stove.
Everywhere men speak in whispers.
I brood on the uselessness of letters.

—Tu Fu (translated by Kenneth Rexroth)
—from One Hundred Poems from the Chinese

WORD(S)

WEB

1. The Book Arts Web (aka Philobiblon) is the hub for bookbinders and book artists with great stuff for everyone from novices to amazing master craftspeople. You don’t have to make books to appreciate some of the amazing work connected here. At least check out the (lamentably discontinued) online magazine, The Bone Folder.

2. The Origami community has exploded with video tutorials on the web, but a few artists are head-and-shoulders above the rest: Sara Adams (who pioneered many new presentation techniques), Leyla Torres, Tadashi Mori, Jo Nakashima and Evan Zodl. The best discussions to be had are on The Origami Forum and the Origami-L Mailing List.

3. I love lists. You should too. Some links for listophiles: Umberto Eco’s heavily illustrated book Infinity of Lists, the Lists of Note blog, the Book(s) of Lists, the Listography books and site, Christopher Smart “on his cat Joeffrey”, Gregory Orr on accidentally shooting his brother, and Todoist list management software.

4. Today in 1970, Chris Lott is born. Read some epitaphs he is considering. Hear him butcher two of his favorite poems. See the most popular image he’s shared (500,000+ views, what?), his most popular origami fold and the (inexplicably) most popular original flickr photo. See the first image result for “Chris Lott” (definitely not him). Read the last poems (or poem like things) he’ll ever write. He burned the rest of his web stuff down a year ago. He may or may not rise again. Until then, move along, there’s nothing to see there.

5. Also on this day in history: Brutus commits suicide, Johnny Carson & Robert Bridges & Weird Al are born, Richard Lovelace (who wrote the poem I named my daughter after) and Zane Grey died, Bork was Borked, Clarence Thomas was sworn in, a suicide bomber killed 243 Marines in Beirut, the first iPod was introduced, according to the calculations of Archbishop James Ussher the creation of the world began (in 4004 BC) and Dumbo is released (the film, not my birth).

REPRISES/RESPONSES/REJOINDERS/RIPOSTES

• Thanks for the birthday wishes, Reader A., Reader C., Reader K., Reader V., and others.

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

And please feel free to share anything here as far and wide as you want! If you want to give a shout-out, please link to: http://katexic.com/clippings/.

Calling WORDs like today’s example “untranslatable” is an obvious misnomer, but there are many words in other languages that don’t have single-word or sometimes even single phrase equivalents. German, of course, has many…too many of which apply to me.

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“Masks”

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What is an Epigram? A dwarfish whole,
Its body brevity, and wit its soul.

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you fit into me
like a hook into an eye

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“A Dream”

Last night I dreamed that I died. I wasn’t old, sick or wounded in the dream, but my wife and I both knew I would die soon.