Père et fils
Quel père: Quelle loi. L’infini lui. Et moi: Le petit lui. Trop petit.
Reading: Sudden Movements by Bob Hicok
Bob Hicok (1960) is a poet from Michigan who writes accessible and meditative poetry. He currently teaches creative writing at Purdue University. My father's head has become a mystery to him. We finally have something in common. When he moves his head his eyes get big as roses filled with the commotion of spring. Not ...
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 ...
Reading: Eating Together by Li-Young Lee
Li-Young Lee (b. 1957) is a American poet born to Chinese exiles. His father, who plays an important role in his poetry, was the personal physician to Mao Zedong. His poetry has been compared to John Keats, Rilke and Roethke and he was influenced by old Chinese poems like Tu Fu, which shows in his economic use ...
Reading: First Memory by Louise Gluck
Louise Glück (b. 1943) is an American poet born in New York. Numerous awards, appointed Poet Laureate in 2003. Her poetry is neither confessional nor intellectual and considered among the purest writing in English poetry today. Her subject matter is often desolate and depressing, yet poetically brilliant. I read a short little piece of wisdom ...
Reading: Turns by Tony Harrison
Britain's leading theater and television poet is Tony Harrison (b. 1937), who is celebrated of the twentieth century's true working class poet. He is a translator, director, playwright who says that all is implied in the job description: poet. I read 'Turn' about his passed father, where the class consciousness becomes visible: Turn I thought ...
Two types of religion
A father can call the deepest motivation of his child the tentative and most fragile design of his heart morally reprehensible. So he summons the energy that will self-destroy his child. There are two types of religion In one, there is a Father and He shall forgive you In the other, you shall forgive the ...
Learning by improv theatre
Dear Miru, You are four years old now. We have real conversations. When I pick you up from kindergarten and I ask you what have you done today (in Dutch) you tell me brief but wonderful stories about making a snowman, observing insects and hedgehogs, dancing or taking the bus together with all the other ...