Month: juli 2018

Evolutionary consolation
[Mommy puts son to bed] Mommy, I'm so afraid. - Why, darling? Do you think I have bad genes? - Why do you think that? Girls don't want to talk with me. - But you got your genes from mommy and daddy. So? - Mommy and daddy talked to each other. Did you? - Yes. ...
Polshoogte
Over ruim een week begeef ik me met mijn dochter van vijf op glad ijs. Ze is hier in Zuid-Korea beschermd opgegroeid in een van de meest homogene samenlevingen ter wereld. Volgens de nu door het stof kruipende minister Stef Blok is hier bijna geen criminaliteit en gaan de mensen alom begripvol met elkaar om. ...
Reading: Stone by Nick Makoha
Nick Makoha (b. 1974) is a Ugandan poet who fled the terror regime of Idi Amin. He studied biochemistry and worked in a bank, but poetry was his calling. His most important publication is Kingdom of Gravity, "a searing, mysterious contemplation of exile, fatherhood and violence". I read a poem about corruption. Stone The best thing I ...
I want my words to live in a redeeming, magnificent song to worship the hole in freedom
To be a bad poet
who is not invited to exotic poetry festivals in cultural capitals, not celebrated for his otherness, not for the soothing justice that emanates from his professionally __translated words, not for the clapping of the audience when he reads and they see the scaffolding of a pristine soul To be that poet who loves the colors ...
Advice for people having a conversation -Speak as if you are laughing and thinking at the same time
Poem , in which we are not immortal but our identities dissolve in- to one another and we are only a little bit afraid to call it love
The task of philosophy
The task of philosophy, often a difficult and painful one, is to extricate and bring to light the hidden categories and models in terms of which human beings think, to reveal what is obscure or contradictory in them, to discern the conflicts between them that prevent the construction of more adequate ways of organising and describing and explaining experience (for all description as well as explanation involves some model in terms of which the describing and explaining ...
Reading: The Sign in My Father’s Hands by Martín Espada
Martín Espada (b. ) is an American poet, critic and attorney with Puerto Rican roots. His most important influence was his father, a community organizer and social justice activist. Poetry for him is giving a voice to the voiceless. I read a hommage to his father. The Sign in My Father’s Hands —for Frank Espada ...