From “Birdwatching With Your Eyes Closed: An Introduction to Birdsong” Simon Barnes
Silence is rarely pure. You can hear real silence sometimes deep in a cave – when, if you stop talking, the sound of nothing comes as a physical shock. But…
Category: commonplace book
From “The Mighty Dead: Why Homer Matters” by Adam Nicolson
So uncatchable is Odysseus that when the poem describes his state of mind, you can never be certain where to find him. When he is lying in bed, anxious and…
Heraclitus on sleep: from “The Poetry of Thought”, George Steiner
Grammatical construction can make of an apparent riddle or paradox a font of expanding intuition: “Death is all things we see awake; all we see asleep is sleep.” Ring-structures spiral…
From “The Poetry of Thought”, George Steiner
We do speak about music. The verbal analysis of a musical score can, to a certain extent, elucidate its formal structure, its technical components and instrumentation. But where it is…
Flies Like Thoughts – Innokenty Annensky (1855-1909)
Flies Like Thoughts Flies, like black thoughts, have not quit me all day … – A N Apukhtin I’ve grown weary of sleeplessness, dreams. Locks of hair hang over…
LINES COMPOSED A FEW MILES ABOVE TINTERN ABBEY, ON REVISITING THE BANKS OF THE WYE DURING A TOUR. JULY 13, 1798
Five years have past; five summers, with the length Of five long winters! and again I hear These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs With a soft inland murmur.–Once again Do…
From “Correction”, Thomas Bernhard (trans. Sarah Wilkins)
What a terrible situation I’ve let myself in for by accepting Hoeller’s invitation and moving into Hoeller’s garret, I thought. I looked down at Hoeller’s workshop windows and I thought,…
Séamus Sweeney 