culture

the archivist November 14, 2024

To Autumn John Keats (1795–1821) Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,   Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun; Conspiring with him how to load and bless   With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run; To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,   And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;     To swell the gourd, and […]

the archivist November 13, 2024

Under the Harvest Moon Carl Sandburg (1878–1967) Under the harvest moon, When the soft silver Drips shimmering Over the garden nights, Death, the gray mocker, Comes and whispers to you As a beautiful friend Who remembers. Under the summer roses When the flagrant crimson Lurks in the dusk Of the wild red leaves, Love, with […]

the archivist November 12, 2024

Nothing Gold Can Stay Robert Frost (1874–1963) Nature’s first green is gold, Her hardest hue to hold. Her early leaf’s a flower; But only so an hour. Then leaf subsides to leaf. So Eden sank to grief, So dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay.    

the archivist November 10, 2024

My November Guest Robert Frost (1874–1963) My sorrow, when she’s here with me, Thinks these dark days of autumn rain Are beautiful as days can be; She loves the bare, the withered tree; She walks the sodden pasture lane. Her pleasure will not let me stay. She talks and I am fain to list: She’s […]

the archivist November 10, 2024

On Pain Khalil Gibran (1883–1931) And a woman spoke, saying, Tell us of Pain. And he said: Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding. Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain. And could you keep […]

the archivist November 2, 2024

The Hilarious World of Depression John Moe St. Martin’s Press Description One of Today’s Ten Best Inspirational Books, 2020 By the creator and host of the acclaimed mental health podcast Depresh Mode with John Moe “[A] path to deeper understanding and openness, by way of laughter in the dark” ―The New York Times Book Review […]

the archivist November 1, 2024

A November Night Sara Teasdale There! See the line of lights, A chain of stars down either side the street — Why can’t you lift the chain and give it to me, A necklace for my throat? I’d twist it round And you could play with it. You smile at me As though I were […]

the archivist October 30, 2024

October Edward Thomas (1878–1917) The green elm with the one great bough of gold Lets leaves into the grass slip, one by one, — The short hill grass, the mushrooms small milk-white, Harebell and scabious and tormentil, That blackberry and gorse, in dew and sun, Bow down to; and the wind travels too light To […]

the archivist October 27, 2024

An October Garden Christina Rossetti (1830–1894) In my Autumn garden I was fain To mourn among my scattered roses; Alas for that last rosebud which uncloses To Autumn’s languid sun and rain When all the world is on the wane! Which has not felt the sweet constraint of June, Nor heard the nightingale in tune. […]

the archivist October 25, 2024

Poem in October Dylan Thomas It was my thirtieth year to heaven Woke to my hearing from harbour and neighbour wood And the mussel pooled and the heron Priested shore The morning beckon With water praying and call of seagull and rook And the knock of sailing boats on the net webbed wall Myself to […]

the archivist October 24, 2024

Poppies in October Sylvia Plath Even the sun-clouds this morning cannot manage such skirts. Nor the woman in the ambulance Whose red heart blooms through her coat so astoundingly — A gift, a love gift Utterly unasked for By a sky Palely and flamily Igniting its carbon monoxides, by eyes Dulled to a halt under […]

the archivist October 11, 2024

October Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872 –1906) October is the treasurer of the year, And all the months pay bounty to her store; The fields and orchards still their tribute bear, And fill her brimming coffers more and more But she, with youthful lavishness, Spends all her wealth in gaudy dress, And decks herself in garments […]

the archivist October 9, 2024

Love Unknown: The Life and Worlds of Elizabeth Bishop Thomas Travisano From the Publisher: Description An illuminating new biography of one of the greatest American poets of the twentieth century, Elizabeth Bishop “Love Unknown points movingly to the many relationships that moored Bishop, keeping her together even as life—and her own self-destructive tendencies—threatened to split her […]

the archivist October 4, 2024

Links of the Week, vol. 13: Link Cadillac, Crushed Velvet Seats Jonas Fredwall Karlsson’s Portraits of Rock Climbers and Adventurer Click through to see Karlsson’s portraits of the extreme climbers, bikers, hikers, adventurers, and explorers, from the pages of Vanity Fair. https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/photos/2015/03/jonas-fredwall-karlsson-extreme-sports-photography —– The Enduring Mystery of the Amber Room, Coveted by Tsars, Nazis, and […]