Weekly Edition #43
Art by Rockwell Kent
Shell by Adam Zagajewski
Translated by Clare Cavanagh
At night the monks sang softly
and a gusting wind lifted
spruce branches like wings.
I’ve never visited the ancient cities,
I’ve never been to Thebes
or Delphi, and I don’t know
what the oracles once told travellers.
Snow filled the streets and canyons,
and crows in dark robes silently
trailed the fox’s footprints.
I believed in elusive signs,
in shadowed ruins, water snakes,
mountain springs, prophetic birds.
Linden trees bloomed like brides
but their fruit was small and bitter.
Wisdom can’t be found
in music or fine paintings,
in great deeds, courage,
even love,
but only in all these things,
in earth and air, in pain and silence.
A poem may hold the thunder’s echo,
like a shell touched by Orpheus
as he fled. Time takes life away
and gives us memory, gold with flame,
black with embers.
Other poems I read this week: (read the full poem in the individual links)
"Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday." -On Children by Kahlil Gibran
"It is time to sit and watch. Don’t
call that one again, he’s pitiless in his self-certainty.
You used to be so.
You laid your black dress on the bed.
You stepped in your heels over sidewalk cracks.
You licked mint and sugar from the cocktail mixer,
singing nonsense songs,
and the strangers, they sang along." -Apartment Living by Meghan O'Rourke
"What happened is, we grew lonely
living among the things,
so we gave the clock a face,
the chair a back,
the table four stout legs
which will never suffer fatigue.
We fitted our shoes with tongues
as smooth as our own
and hung tongues inside bells
so we could listen
to their emotional language"
"Van Gogh would have taken 20 selfies a day.
Sylvia Plath would have texted her lovers
nothing but heart eyed emojis when she ran out of words.
Andy Warhol would have had the world’s weirdest Vine account,
and we all would have checked it every morning while we
Snap Chat our coffee orders to the people
we wish were pressed against our lips instead of lattes.
This life is spilling over with 85 year olds
rewatching JFK’s assassination and
7 year olds teaching themselves guitar over YouTube videos.
Never again do I have to be afraid of forgetting
what my father’s voice sounds like." -Art Is a Facebook Status About Your Winter Break by B.E. Fitzgerald
"Between what I see and what I say,
Between what I say and what I keep silent,
Between what I keep silent and what I dream,
Between what I dream and what I forget:
poetry."
-Octavio Paz
Recommended Listening:
Where The Money Flows - Peter Cat Recording Co.
Toro y Moi: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert Lover - Luke Sital-Singh Fuck All The Perfect People - Chip Taylor & The New Ukrainians Anda - Billie Marten We Move Lightly - Dustin O'Halloran
Links of the Week: Letterheady (an online homage to offline correspondence; specifically letters) Who Killed The Weekend? (a must-read) How Tuca & Bertie is changing the adult animation series
Discover Frida Kahlo’s Wildly-Illustrated Diary
Quiz: What Creative Type Are You?
Interview of the Month: Aqib Anwar aka Gibsterg
I had the immense pleasure of interviewing a dear friend and source of constant inspiration - Dubai-based photographer and filmmaker Aqib Anwar, who goes by gibsterg on Instagram. I've seen Aqib get more and more talented with time, and it's always delightful to see his explorations and projects around the world via Instagram.
"I love photographing strangers. There is this very obvious vulnerability to it - they know nothing about me, and me nothing about them. And yet, the stranger allows me to take a photograph of their face, something that will remain forever. I think it's a very intimate level of human connection."
-Aqib Anwar
Read the full interview about his creative process, interest in portraiture, video work and the vision going forward on The Alipore Post.