Photo: Erik Rittenberry“The poetry of the earth is never dead.” — John KeatsSubscribe nowText within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedThere is a pleasure in the pathless woods, There is a rapture on the lonely shore, There is society, where none intrudes, By the deep sea,
By: John W. GardnerHenri Gervex, Café Scene in Paris, 1877The capacity to germinate is in the individual seed. And the source of creativity for the society is in the person. Renewal springs from the freshness and vitality of individual men and women… A society decays when its institutions and indivi
By: Erik RittenberryText within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedAll of us, thrown into the slaughterhouse of history, thrown into a world of assassinated Caesars and crucified Christs, into a woeful world of useless wars and mayhem, a world one madman away from nuclear
BY: CATHERINE DE LEONBy the time Jack Kerouac died at 47 (on this day) in 1969, he’d exiled himself from the 1960s youth culture he’d partly inspired with the likes of On the Road and The Dharma Bums. Bloated by booze and reactionary politics, he bore little resemblance to that matinee-idol handsome
By: Erik RittenberryPhoto: Erik Rittenberry"The wandering man becomes a primitive man in so many ways, in the same way that the nomad is more primitive than the farmer. ... I am a nomad, not a farmer. I am an adorer of the unfaithful, the changing, the fantastic. I don't care to secure my love to on
By: Charles BukowskiArt: Gabriel AndreiText within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedThe nights you fight best are when all the weapons are pointed at you, when all the voices hurl their insults while the dream is being strangled. The nights you fight best are when reason
“Whatever satisfies the soul is truth.”― Walt WhitmanText within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedThis is what you shall do; Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income
“We must have the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless furnace of this world.”― Jack GilbertFor me, Jack Gilbert was one of the greatest poets of the 20th century. He was born in Pittsburgh in 1925, a city built on grit and hard work. He came from a working-class family with the massi
By: Hermann HesseArt: Henri PrestesText within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedI feel it again and again, no mattcr Whether I am old or young: A mountain range in the night, On the balcony a silent woman, A white street in the moonliglht curving gently away That tears my
“We are hung up on the illusion of success, and so we aim constantly higher: more production, more knowledge, more power, more, more, more.”—Dr. Alexander LowenThe modern individual is committed to being successful, not to being a person. He belongs rightly to the “action generation,” whose motto is
By: Erik RittenberryPhoto: Erik Rittenberry“There are no unsacred places; there are only sacred places and desecrated places.”― Wendell BerryText within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedThe desecration of the sacred in our modern age is merely a symptom of our spiritual s
By: James SchuylerPhoto: Erik RittenberryText within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedBooks litter the bed, leaves the lawn. It lightly rains. Fall has come: unpatterned, in the shedding leaves. The maples ripen. Apples come home crisp in bags. This pear tastes good. It r
By: Erik Rittenberry“The man who is a pessimist before 48 knows too much; if he is an optimist after it he knows too little.”― Mark TwainLast week, I wrote an article titled The Vitality of Pessimism (I removed the paywall, by the way). In that article, I attempted to argue that:”If read correctly,
By: Jack MichelineJack Micheline at the Jack Kerouac Conference in Boulder, Colorado, 1980’s | Photo by Mark ChristalI am fifty two, live alone, considered some mad freak geniusIn reality I am a fucked up poet who will never come to terms with the world… — Jack MichelineWhen I began to write in the
By: Henry MillerI am done with civilization and its spawn of cultured souls. I gave myself up when I entered the tomb. From now on I am a nomad, a spiritual nobody.— Henry MillerTo keep the mind empty is a feat, a very healthful feat too. To be silent the whole day long, see no newspaper, hear no ra
By: Erik RittenberryAn optimist and a pessimist, Vladimir Makovsky“Pessimism is only the name that men of weak nerves give to wisdom.” —Bernard DeVoto“A pessimist is an optimist in full possession of the facts.” — SchopenhauerUnlike other animals, we humans possess a heightened sense of self-awarene
By: Jim HarrisonPhoto by Erik PetersenI am uniquely privileged to be aliveor so they say. I have asked otherswho are unsure, especially the man with threekids who’s being foreclosed next month.One daughter says she isn’t leaving the farm,they can pry her out with tractorand chain. Mother needs heart
By: Lev Shestov“Once an idea is there, the gates must be opened to it.”― Lev ShestovThe business of philosophy is to teach man to live in uncertainty—man who is supremely afraid of uncertainty, and who is forever hiding himself behind this or the other dogma. More briefly, the business of philosophy
“A little too abstract, a little too wise,It is time for us to kiss the earth again,It is time to let the leaves rain from the skies,Let the rich life run to the roots again.”― Robinson JeffersSubscribe nowWhy read the poems of Robinson Jeffers? What sets Robinson Jeffers as a poet apart for me, esp
By: Charles BukowskiText within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedoften it is the only thing between you and impossibility. no drink, no woman’s love, no wealth can match it. nothing can save you except writing. it keeps the walls from failing. the hordes from closing in
