Parrot & Olivier in America by Peter Carey

Whenever I read a Peter Carey novel, I search for Oscar. I consider his Oscar and Lucinda a masterpiece, the pinnacle of his writing and comb his other books for associations with that one. In Illywhacker and …Tristan Smith, I found precursors. In later books, echoes, such as a puppy in Theft, that drowns in the [...]

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Coming Up on Vulpes Libris

While it’s not a theme week as such, a glance at the titles for this upcoming week looks as if the Foxes are thinking of places; books on where people live, or where they are traveling and the changes taking place, real or imagined.It’s a fitting subject for the beginning of summer, when vacationing goes [...]

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A hodgepodge of kids poetry

I am a little bit of a poetry junkie.  In fact I have been known to trap people in the kids section reading them one after the other after the other after the other… until they either cry or threaten physical violence.  It’s honestly not my fault.  My mother did exactly the same to me.  [...]

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Shakespeare – a Sonnet a Day

Part of Poetry Week Well, almost. On impulse, a little while ago I signed up to a website that emails me a Shakespeare sonnet. It has been a fascinating experience – three times a week, always on a working day, so not often when I have the leisure to stop and read it with attention, [...]

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Thursday Soapbox: Poetry Still Matters

When many people think of poetry, they probably imagine a guy in a puffy-sleeved shirt haughtily intoning incomprehensible sentences. Even folks who read other sorts of books will shy away from poetry. Is it because they view poetry as too dense, too frou frou, too irrelevant? If so, when does that attitude set in? After [...]

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Ulysses by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

And this gray spirit yearning in desire To follow knowledge like a sinking star, Beyond the utmost bound of human thought. ~o~O~o~ Much of Tennyson’s finest poetry is informed by grief. Devastated by the sudden death of his close friend Arthur Henry Hallam, he tried to come to terms with his loss in the only [...]

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Beginning with Guantanamera: learning about José Martí

Translator’s note:  One of the great things about Martí is his ability to invest one word with a multitude of meanings.  This is a tricky thing for the translator.  I have made the choices that seem natural to me, and hoped for the best. Yo soy un hombre sincero De donde crece la palma, Y [...]

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Dreams by Langston Hughes

Hold fast to dreams For if dreams die Life is a broken-winged bird That cannot fly. Hold fast to dreams For if dreams go Life is a barren field Frozen with snow. Encountering this poem for the first time when I was 12, it immediately became my favorite poem and has remained so. The intent [...]

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Poetry Week on Vulpes Libris

It’s the 2nd Annual Poetry Week on VL and this time we take a more intimate angle. Not only do we discuss the poems, some of them classics, but we also reveal some very personal reactions to them. We have Shakespeare, Marti, Hughes and a mystery.There’s also childrens’ poetry and an essay on the role [...]

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Brideshead Revisited: Did they or didn’t they?

Part of GLBT week on Vulpes Libris I first saw the iconic Granada TV series of Brideshead Revisited as a child. I can’t quite remember how old I was, but I don’t think I had hit puberty.  I remember the fluster of hormonal older girls excitedly discussing which of Jeremy Irons and Anthony Andrews was [...]

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