Gladwin Emmanuel

Do you get enough rest? Are you eating good and sensible food? Franz Kafka, 1913.

God is an artisan. We're woven like moonlight on a dark night. We're a work of art — We're created to last the dark spells.

“The enslaved were not bricks in your road, and their lives were not chapters in your redemptive history. They were people turned to fuel for the American machine.” —Ta-Nehisi Coates

"I am a bird: all flights are within me." Humberto Ak'abal

Something really lovely happens when a poet like Prynne (or Pound before him) drops all the learned allusions and difficult prosody and speaks with directness and simplicity:

"The Internet gives space to hordes of idiots to express their opinion, which previously they could only do in a bar, after a glass of wine, without harming society. Now they have the same space for a story as a Nobel laureate. This is an invasion of idiots." Umberto Eco

— Warsan Shire, Home

Now I will give you a piece of advice. I will tell you something that I absolutely believe you should do, and if you do not do it you will never be a writer... When your pencil is dull, sharpen it. And when your pencil is sharp, use it until it is dull again. —Mary Ruefle

"Ma revendication en tant que femme c'est que ma différence soit prise en compte, que je ne sois pas contrainte de m'adapter au modèle masculin." Simone Veil

~ Day 44~ "Substantial Planes" by A.R. Ammons #PoemADay2026_AM

—¿Qué es? —me dijo. —¿Qué es qué?— le pregunté. —Eso, el ruido ese. —Es el silencio. Juan Rulfo (México, 1918-1986) Luvina (El Llano en llamas, 1953)

Tolstoy

"L'homme naît avec deux yeux, mais il a besoin d'une longue période d'éducation pour apprendre à voir." Walter Gropius

Thank you, Garous Abdolmalekian, for this favorite poem.

Juan Rulfo (México, 1918-1986), fotógrafo.

“Music has the power to make me feel good like nothing else does. It gives me some peace for a while. Takes me back to who I really am.” — Gil Scott-Heron

"–¿Ya murió? ¿Y de qué? –No supe de qué. Tal vez de tristeza. Suspiraba mucho. –Eso es malo. Cada suspiro es como un sorbo de vida del que uno se deshace." Juan Rulfo Pedro Páramo (1955)

“Keep awake, alive, new. Perform the paradox of being hard and yet soft. Survive without calcification of the tender membranes. Be a poet. Be alive.” ― Tennessee Williams

What did I know, what did I know of love’s austere and lonely offices? —Robert Hayden