PolyArchive

Links of the Week, vol. 19 The following are links to interesting content we’ve read recently. If you would like to recommend a piece to share with our readers (no paywalled content, please), please use the contact form on our About page. ────────────── ● ────────────── The Longest Solar Eclipse for 100 Years Is Coming. Don’t […]

The Grammar Daily: 365 Quick Tips for Successful Writing from Grammar Girl Mignon Fogarty Pub Date Nov 14 2023 St. Martin’s Press | St. Martin’s Griffin Description An updated edition of the classic tip-a-day grammar guide from New York Times bestselling author and creator of the Grammar Girl podcast, Mignon Fogarty. One hundred million podcast […]

Links of the Week, vol. 17 The following are links to interesting content we’ve read recently. If you would like to recommend a piece to share with our readers (no paywalled content, please), please use the contact form on our About page. ────────────── ● ────────────── Ivan Bunin hated everyone… well, almost everyone. A very interesting […]

Review: A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life George Saunders Random House ISBN 9781984856029 PRICE $28.00 (USD) PAGES 432 George Saunders, the celebrated author of Lincoln in the Bardo and Tenth of December, invites readers on an intellectual journey with his […]

Links of the Week, vol. 7 The following are links to interesting content we’ve read recently. If you would like to recommend a piece to share with our readers (no paywalled content, please), please use the contact form on our About page. ────────────── ● ────────────── The Spectacular Life of Octavia Butler The girl who grew […]

The Joy of Writing Wisława Szymborska Why does this written doe bound through these written woods? For a drink of written water from a spring whose surface will xerox her soft muzzle? Why does she lift her head; does she hear something? Perched on four slim legs borrowed from the truth, she pricks up her […]

Why did I write it down? In order to remember, of course, but exactly what was it I wanted to remember? How much of it actually happened? Did any of it? Why do I keep a notebook at all? It is easy to deceive oneself on all those scores. The impulse to write things down […]

Links of the Week, vol. 1 The following are links to interesting content we’ve read recently. If you would like to recommend a piece to share with our readers (no paywalled content, please), please use the contact form on our About page. ────────────── ● ────────────── Six Verbs That Make You Sound Weak (No Matter Your […]

“All this time I was writing, writing no matter what else I was doing; no matter what I thought I was doing, in fact. I was living almost as instinctively as a little animal, but I realize now that all that time a part of me was getting ready to be an artist. That my […]

I am not a novelist, really not even a writer; I am a storyteller. One of my friends said about me that I think all sorrows can be borne if you put them into a story or tell a story about them, and perhaps this is not entirely untrue. To me, the explanation of life […]

You Want a Social Life, with Friends Kenneth Koch You want a social life, with friends. A passionate love life and as well To work hard every day. What’s true Is of these three you may have two And two can pay you dividends But never may have three. There isn’t time enough, my friends– […]

I wish our clever young poets would remember my homely definitions of prose and poetry; that is, prose,—words in their best order; poetry,—the best words in their best order. –Samuel Taylor Coleridge So many people, many of whom enjoy other forms of the arts, are quick to declare, “I hate poetry.” I suspect that what […]

Przedmowa Ty, którego nie mogłem ocalić, Wysłuchaj mnie. Zrozum tę mowę prostą, bo wstydzę się innej. Przysięgam, nie ma we mnie czarodziejstwa słów. Mówię do ciebie milcząc, jak obłok czy drzewo. To, co wzmacniało mnie, dla ciebie było śmiertelne. Żegnanie epoki brałeś za początek nowej, Natchnienie nienawiści za piękno liryczne, Siłę ślepą za dokonany kształt. […]

Lines Lost Among Trees Billy Collins These are not the lines that came to me while walking in the woods with no pen and nothing to write on anyway. They are gone forever, a handful of coins dropped through the grate of memory, along with the ingenious mnemonic I devised to hold them in place- […]

Night Mail W.H. Auden This is the Night Mail crossing the border, Bringing the cheque and the postal order, Letters for the rich, letters for the poor, The shop at the corner and the girl next door. Pulling up Beattock, a steady climb: The gradient’s against her, but she’s on time. Past cotton-grass and moorland […]