Notebook in the Rain
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Herbert Plummer is a writer, poet, photographer, and runner based in NYC. He has worked in the publishing industry for several years.
Notebook in the Rain
2y ago
In reading Conrad Aiken’s essay, “William Faulkner: The Novel as Form,” a new idea occurred to me about Faulkner’s style which I have not seen written about anywhere else. Aiken complains about the difficulty of Faulkner’s writing, calling it “annoying,” “distracting,” and even “downright bad.” At the same time, Aiken praises Faulkner’s genius, calls himself a huge fan, and goes to great lengths to distill what Faulkner is after with his particularly challenging form. There is an exuberance in Aiken’s essay that betrays a deep respect and admiration for the power of Faulkner’s writing. He is a ..read more
Notebook in the Rain
2y ago
Memories, Dreams, Reflections by Carl Jung
Cloud-Hidden, Whereabouts Unknown: A Mountain Journal by Alan Watts
Arousal: The Secret Logic of Sexual Fantasies by Dr. Michael J. Bader
Living at the Movies: Poems by Jim Carroll
Praying Naked: Poems by Katie Condon
The Fall by Albert Camus
The Photoplay: A Psychological Study by Hugo Munsterberg
The Surrender Experiment: My Journey into Life’s Perfection by Michael Singer
Living at the Movies: Poems by Jim Carroll
Memory Coach: Train and Sustain a Mega-Memory in 40 Days by Dr. Gareth Moore
Stag’s Leap: Poems by Sharon Olds
Start Where You Are: A ..read more
Notebook in the Rain
2y ago
The Twenty-Ninth Year: Poems by Hala Alyan
The Poetics of the Everyday: Creative Repetition in Modern American Verse by Siobhan Phillips
The No Contact Rule: A guide to surviving your breakup with your self-respect… by Natalie Lue
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself: How to Lose Your Mind… by Dr. Joe Dispenza
Leaving the Enchanted Forest: The Path from Relationship… by Stephanie S. Covinton
The Philosophy Book: Big Ideas Simply Explained
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
Henderson the Rain King by Saul Bellow
Yes, And: Daily Meditations by ..read more
Notebook in the Rain
4y ago
While reading Bessel van der Kolk’s remarkable book about trauma, The Body Keeps the Score, I was struck by how the word “frozen” reappeared throughout the book, and it reminded me of one of my favorite quotes from one of my favorite writers, Franz Kafka, where he states that “A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us.” If we apply what van der Kolk has discovered about the nature of trauma, which is detailed exquisitely in Body, we can understand on a deeply personal level what Kafka’s quote may have meant for him, and in turn what it can mean for us.
This is an excerpt from Kafka ..read more
Notebook in the Rain
4y ago
The radiator holds
its boiling water
like an accordion
holding its breath
in a ditch. The room
itself is simple,
the sort rented out
night by night
to the poor to make
more poor or to die in
but it is not night
nor is she poor. She
could have afforded
a nicer room and it is
day. Closing the blinds
the way someone
takes out a contact
that’s been bothering
her, she lies down,
the only sounds
wrenches clunking
in the radiator
and a boy playing
piano in the lobby
like someone falling
down stairs. Clearly
he is unsupervised.
Clearly soon someone ..read more
Notebook in the Rain
5y ago
Don’t call this world adorable, or useful, that’s not it.
It’s frisky, and a theater for more than fair winds.
The eyelash of lightning is neither good nor evil.
The struck tree burns like a pillar of gold.
But the blue rain sinks, straight to the white
feet of the trees
whose mouths open.
Doesn’t the wind, turning in circles, invent the dance?
Haven’t the flowers moved, slowly, across Asia, then Europe,
until at last, now, they shine
in your own yard?
Don’t call this world an explanation, or even an education.
When the Sufi poet whirled, was he looking
outward, to the mountains so ..read more
Notebook in the Rain
5y ago
The first cup moistens my throat.
The second breaks my loneliness.
The third goes deep into my soul,
To search for the literati of the five thousand scrolls.
The fourth makes me sweat,
All the injustice in life vaporizes through my pores.
The fifth lessens the weight of my flesh and bone.
The sixth lifts me to encounter the immortals.
Ah, I better not take the seventh cup, as I feel a wind blowing through my wings.
–circa 820
Qian Xuan. Early Autumn. 13th C.
Lu Tong was a Chinese poet of the Tang dynasty in the 8th century. He was known for his lifelong study of tea. H ..read more
Notebook in the Rain
5y ago
Joyce offers a clear look at things with his story “Araby” from his collection Dubliners. Although the lesson is a painful one, the boy narrator of the story has achieved a small yet decisive epiphany about life. His eyes have been opened. Apparently Joyce suffered from eye problems almost all his life (glaucoma, iritis) and his image is only made complete with the iconic rounded eyeglasses he wore. Thus it is quite appropriate that seeing be a major theme in this story. It begins by saying that the street the narrator lived on was “blind” yet “the other houses of the street . . . gazed at one ..read more
Notebook in the Rain
5y ago
Helicopters are cutlassing the wild bananas.
Between a nicotine thumb and forefinger
brittle faces crumble like tobacco leaves.
Children waddle in vests, their legs bowed,
little shrimps curled under their navels.
The old men’s teeth are stumps in a charred forest.
Their skins grate like the iguana’s.
Their gaze like slate stones.
Women squat by the river’s consolations
where children wade up to their knees,
and a stick stirs up a twinkling of butterflies.
Up there, in the blue acres
of forest, flies circle their fathers.
In spring, in the upper provinces
of the Empire, yellow tanagers
float u ..read more
Notebook in the Rain
5y ago
No one spoke
The host, the guest,
The white chrysanthemums
–circa 1750
John Singer Sargent. Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose. 1885.
Oshima Ryota was born in 1718 and was a haiku master working primarily in Edo, known for his wit and urbanity. He was a disciple of the Basho school and a contemporary of Buson. He became on of the most influential haiku masters of the 18th century, and reportedly had some 3,000 students all over Japan. In 1759 he published a book of criticism on the haiku of Basho. He died in 1787.
Food for Thought: What is the drama happening in this poem? Why do ..read more