LITERATURE: Poems, Prose, Novels, etc.

[JTM3]

This will be a thread which will be used for recommending and discussing various writings and writers.

I will start it by recommending (probably) my favorite poet, and second favorite novelist, Roberto Bolaño. He was (died in 2003) a Chilean-born Mexican writer. He was also a Trotskyist. I know some might be turned off of him by this but, I believe most here will be able to stand firm in their principles through reading, as it is not a primary part of his writings.

He wrote in Spanish but, many of his works have been translated to English. I would recommend the books...

-The Savage Detectives (Novel)

-The Romantic Dogs (Poems - Bilingual)

Also, I really enjoy John Steinbeck. I have read "Of Mice and Men" and it is nothing special but, these two books are among my favorite Novels...

-East of Eden

-Cannery Row


Is this the source of my recent rise in smites? :oo-->

GSUS!

[Libertarian_Guard]

T.S. Eliot
THE HOLLOW MEN (1927)

I
We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rat's feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar
Shape without form, shade without color,
Paralyzed force, gesture without motion;
Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death's other kingdom
Remember us - if at all - not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.

II
Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death's dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind's singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.
Let me be no nearer
In death's dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer -
Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom

III
This is the dead land
This is the cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they recieve
The supplication of a dead man's hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.
Is it like this
In death's other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.

IV
The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms
In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river
Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death's twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.

V
Here we go 'round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go 'round the prickly pear
At five o'clock in the morning.
Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the shadow
Life is very long
Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existance
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper

[Gaillo]

A Dream Within A Dream

Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow-
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand-
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep- while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?

- Edgar Allan Poe

[Libertarian_Guard]

Percy Bysshe Shelly
OZYMANDIAS (1817)

I met a traveller from an antique land

Who said: `Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptorwell those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.

And on the pedestal these words appear --

"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.'

[JTM3]

One of my favorites by Edgar Allan Poe...

Fairy-Land
by Edgar Allan Poe

Dim vales - and shadowy floods -
And cloudy-looking woods,
Whose forms we can't discover
For the tears that drip all over
Huge moons there wax and wane -
Again - again - again -
Every moment of the night -
Forever changing places -
And they put out the star-light
With the breath from their pale faces.
About twelve by the moon-dial
One, more filmy than the rest
(A kind which, upon trial,
They have found to be the best)
Comes down - still down - and down
With its centre on the crown
Of a mountain's eminence,
While its wide circumference
In easy drapery falls
Over hamlets, over halls,
Wherever they may be -
O'er the strange woods - o'er the sea -
Over spirits on the wing -
Over every drowsy thing -
And buries them up quite
In a labyrinth of light -
And then, how deep! - O, deep!
Is the passion of their sleep.
In the morning they arise,
And their moony covering
Is soaring in the skies,
With the tempests as they toss,
Like -- almost any thing -
Or a yellow Albatross.
They use that moon no more
For the same end as before -
Videlicet a tent -
Which I think extravagant:
Its atomies, however,
Into a shower dissever,
Of which those butterflies,
Of Earth, who seek the skies,
And so come down again
(Never-contented things!)
Have brought a specimen
Upon their quivering wings.

[Saul Mine]

First date

The first date in literature appears in the 5,000-year-old Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh. In order to tame Enkidu, a Tarzan-like wild man who is terrorising his people, the king Gilgamesh sends Shamhat, a beautiful prostitute. There was no question of first date nerves. They meet at a waterhole where "Shamhat loosened her undergarments, and he took in her attractions". He goes on to drink seven jars of beer, eats bread for the first time and the couple spend a week in bed. As a result, Enkidu decides to shave, clean himself up and get dressed in clothes for the first time. Rejected by his former animal friends, he accompanies Shamhat to the city, "having acquired wisdom".

Quite interesting facts about dating (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/qi/7472043/QI-Quite-interesting-facts-about-dating.html)

There are many other topics at the link.

[TPTB]

First date

The first date in literature appears in the 5,000-year-old Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh. In order to tame Enkidu, a Tarzan-like wild man who is terrorising his people, the king Gilgamesh sends Shamhat, a beautiful prostitute. There was no question of first date nerves. They meet at a waterhole where "Shamhat loosened her undergarments, and he took in her attractions". He goes on to drink seven jars of beer, eats bread for the first time and the couple spend a week in bed. As a result, Enkidu decides to shave, clean himself up and get dressed in clothes for the first time. Rejected by his former animal friends, he accompanies Shamhat to the city, "having acquired wisdom".

Quite interesting facts about dating (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/qi/7472043/QI-Quite-interesting-facts-about-dating.html)

There are many other topics at the link.


Lol... great story there. The moral I take away from it is, "Never eat bread with beer." :)

[Buddha]

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

by Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of the easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

[Libertarian_Guard]

The Green Fields of France

Eric Bogle

Well how do you do Private William McBride,
Do you mind if I sit here down by your graveside?
And rest for awhile beneath the warm summer sun,
I've been walking all day and now I'm nearly done
I see by your gravestone you were only nineteen
When you joined the glorious fallen in 1916;
Well I hope you died quick and I hope you died clean,
Or, young Willie McBride, was it slow and obscene?

(Chorus)
Did they beat the drum slowly,
Did they play the fife lowly?
Did they sound the Death March
As they lowered you down?
Did the band play "The Last Post And Chorus"?
Did the pipes play "The Flowers of The Forest"?

Did you leave a young wife or sweetheart behind,
In some faithful heart is your memory enshrined.
Although you died back in 1915,
In that faithful heart are you forever nineteen.
Or are you a stranger without even a name,
Enclosed and forever behind the glass frame,
Of an old photograph torn, battered and stained,
And faded to yellow in a brown leather frame.

Ah the sun now it shines on these green fields of France,
The warm summer breeze makes the red poppies dance,
And look how the sun shines from under the clouds;
There's no gas, no barbed wire, there're no guns firing now.
But here in this graveyard is still No Man's Land,
The countless white crosses in mute witness stand
To man's blind indifference to his fellow man,
To a whole generation that was butchered and damned

Ah, young Willie McBride, I can't help wonder why,
Did all those who lay here really know why they died?
And did they believe when they answered the call,
Did they really believe that this war would end war?
For the sorrow, the suffering, the glory, the pain,
The killing and dying were all done in vain,
For, young Willie McBride, it all happened again,
And again and again and again and again.

http://i46.tinypic.com/1z4vp5s.jpg

[jedemdasseine]

On a Favourite Cat, Drowned in a Tub of Gold Fishes

by Thomas Gray. 1716–1771

TWAS on a lofty vase's side,
Where China's gayest art had dyed
The azure flowers that blow;
Demurest of the tabby kind,
The pensive Selima reclined,
Gazed on the lake below.

Her conscious tail her joy declared;
The fair round face, the snowy beard,
The velvet of her paws,
Her coat, that with the tortoise vies,
Her ears of jet, and emerald eyes,
She saw; and purr'd applause.

Still had she gazed; but 'midst the tide
Two angel forms were seen to glide,
The Genii of the stream:
Their scaly armour's Tyrian hue
Thro' richest purple to the view
Betray'd a golden gleam.

The hapless Nymph with wonder saw:
A whisker first and then a claw,
With many an ardent wish,
She stretch'd in vain to reach the prize.
What female heart can gold despise?
What Cat 's averse to fish?

Presumptuous Maid! with looks intent
Again she stretch'd, again she bent,
Nor knew the gulf between.
(Malignant Fate sat by, and smiled.)
The slipp'ry verge her feet beguiled,
She tumbled headlong in.

Eight times emerging from the flood
She mew'd to ev'ry wat'ry god,
Some speedy aid to send.
No Dolphin came, no Nereid stirr'd:
Nor cruel Tom, nor Susan heard.
A Fav'rite has no friend!

From hence, ye Beauties, undeceived,
Know, one false step is ne'er retrieved,
And be with caution bold.
Not all that tempts your wand'ring eyes
And heedless hearts, is lawful prize;
Nor all that glisters, gold.

[sirgonzo420]

To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time by Robert Herrick - 1648

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying:
And this same flower that smiles to-day
To-morrow will be dying.

The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,
The higher he's a-getting,
The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he's to setting.

That age is best which is the first,
When youth and blood are warmer;
But being spent, the worse, and worst
Times still succeed the former.

Then be not coy, but use your time,
And while ye may, go marry:
For having lost but once your prime,
You may for ever tarry.

[sirgonzo420]

O Fortuna
velut luna
statu variabilis,
semper crescis
aut decrescis;
vita detestabilis
nunc obdurat
et tunc curat
ludo mentis aciem,
egestatem,
potestatem
dissolvit ut glaciem.

Sors immanis
et inanis,
rota tu volubilis,
status malus,
vana salus
semper dissolubilis,
obumbrata
et velata
michi quoque niteris;
nunc per ludum
dorsum nudum
fero tui sceleris.

Sors salutis
et virtutis
michi nunc contraria,
est affectus
et defectus
semper in angaria.
Hac in hora
sine mora
corde pulsum tangite;
quod per sortem
sternit fortem,
mecum omnes plangite!

[jedemdasseine]

To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time by Robert Herrick - 1648

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying:
And this same flower that smiles to-day
To-morrow will be dying.

The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,
The higher he's a-getting,
The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he's to setting.

That age is best which is the first,
When youth and blood are warmer;
But being spent, the worse, and worst
Times still succeed the former.

Then be not coy, but use your time,
And while ye may, go marry:
For having lost but once your prime,
You may for ever tarry.

I just finished reading a volume of Robert Herrick's poetry. He's awfully mawkish sometimes, but he has a way with words that's magical. What an ear for language!

[jedemdasseine]

Jenny kiss'd Me
by Leigh Hunt

JENNY kiss'd me when we met,
Jumping from the chair she sat in;
Time, you thief, who love to get
Sweets into your list, put that in!
Say I'm weary, say I'm sad,
Say that health and wealth have miss'd me,
Say I'm growing old, but add,
Jenny kiss'd me.

[sirgonzo420]

I just finished reading a volume of Robert Herrick's poetry. He's awfully mawkish sometimes, but he has a way with words that's magical. What an ear for language!


Mawkish? Aren't most poets? :P

Truthfully, I cannot say I am overly familiar with Herrick - or poetry in general - but there are some works that I cannot help but like.

[TheNocturnalEgyptian]

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

-William Butler Yeats

[Quantum]

I prefer "novels" that read more like non-fiction.

Animal Farm, 1984.

George Orwell was the greatest political observer of the last century.

[sirgonzo420]

If- by Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream--and not make dreams your master;
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run--
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!

[JTM3]

Rudyard Kipling is definitly one of my favorites. Here is my favorite by him.

THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN


Our England is a garden that is full of stately views,
Of borders, beds and shrubberies and lawns and avenues,
With statues on the terraces and peacocks strutting by;
But the Glory of the Garden lies in more than meets the eye.

For where the old thick laurels grow, along the thin red wall,
You will find the tool- and potting-sheds which are the heart of all;
The cold-frames and the hot-houses, the dungpits and the tanks:
The rollers, carts and drain-pipes, with the barrows and the planks.

And there you'll see the gardeners, the men and 'prentice boys
Told off to do as they are bid and do it without noise;
For, except when seeds are planted and we shout to scare the birds,
The Glory of the Garden it abideth not in words.

And some can pot begonias and some can bud a rose,
And some are hardly fit to trust with anything that grows;
But they can roll and trim the lawns and sift the sand and loam,
For the Glory of the Garden occupieth all who come.

Our England is a garden, and such gardens are not made
By singing:--"Oh, how beautiful!" and sitting in the shade,
While better men than we go out and start their working lives
At grubbing weeds from gravel-paths with broken dinner-knives.

There's not a pair of legs so thin, there's not a head so thick,
There's not a hand so weak and white, nor yet a heart so sick.
But it can find some needful job that's crying to be done,
For the Glory of the Garden glorifieth every one.

Then seek your job with thankfulness and work till further orders,
If it's only netting strawberries or killing slugs on borders;
And when your back stops aching and your hands begin to harden,
You will find yourself a partner in the Glory of the Garden.

Oh, Adam was a gardener, and God who made him sees
That half a proper gardener's work is done upon his knees,
So when your work is finished, you can wash your hands and pray
For the Glory of the Garden, that it may not pass away!
And the Glory of the Garden it shall never pass away!

[GoldenPoet]

The Last Election

Suppose there are no returns,
and the candidates, one
by one, drop off in the polls,
as the voters turn away,
each to his inner persuasion.

The frontrunners, the dark horses,
begin to look elsewhere,
and even the President admits
he has nothing new to say;
it is best to be silent now.

No more conventions, no donors,
no more hats in the ring;
no ghost-written speeches,
no promises we always knew
were never meant to be kept.

And something like the truth,
or what we knew by that name-
that for which no corporate
sponsor was ever offered-
takes hold in the public mind.

Each subdued and thoughtful
citizen closes his door, turns
off the news. He opens a book,
speaks quietly to his children,
begins to live once more.


John Haines

[GoldenPoet]

Feeling Sorry for Myself


I start with a groan, swelling to a moan,
rising to a keen, ascending
to a shriek that tapers off in a thin wail.
I hug myself and, whimpering,
rock back and forth on my heels.
No one has ever known such sadness.
No one can grasp how I feel.

I smash an egg over each eye.
I smear my face with coal and pepper.
I wear a paper bag soaked through
with spoiled watermelon and pork grease.
I shred my happy past - my books,
pictures, and poems, published or not.
Ill never fly fish again.

Ill never make love again.
Ill never sit outside and watch night
stretch its starry tent over the sky.
There will be no more metaphors.
I am more sorrowful than a sorrowing man.
Life has no more meaning to me
than a life without meaning.

My heart slows. My blood congeals
to brown, vein-clogging mush.
My stomach goes on strike; my colon
bars its door. People assume
Im terminal. They imagine what
would make them feel the way I look,
and project their paltry problems onto me.

As if they could fathom my misery
by waterwinging over its abyss!
My pain is too heavy to lift,
too vast to measure, too ineffable to name,
and incalculably too precious to share.
I dig my grave in a landfill, and topple in.
I rub dirt and dog droppings in my hair.

Ive sunk so low its funny; so I start to giggle.
Then to chortle. Then to roar. Mothers
clutch their bleating kids, and rush away.
Gangbangers dash to the far side of the street.
I crawl out of my grave, strip, and shower
with a gunk-filled water hose.
I shake and shiver, grinning, in the filty air.

- Charles Harper Webb

[Libertarian_Guard]

My Perfect Friend

ordinary.girl .....


My perfect friend holds me tight
My perfect friend kisses me goodnight
My perfect friend loves me for me
My perfect friend wont let me be
My perfect friend wears dark clothes
My perfect friend loves me loads
My perfect friend knows when in sad
My perfect friend isnt scared when im mad
My perfect friend makes me smile
My perfect friend would run a mile
My perfect friend is sweet at heart
My perfect friend is also smart
My perfect friend is really tall
My perfect friend will catch me when i fall
My perfect friend doesnt just look skin deep
My perfect friend is not cheap
My perfect friend is one of a kind
My perfect friend has one wild mind
My perfect friend is in my heart to stay
My perfect friend might be moving away
My perfect friend made me cry
My perfect friend can make me fly
My perfect friend left a tear in my eye
My perfect friend just said his last goodbye
My perfect friend saved my life
My perfect friend helped me battle the knife
My perfect friend is honest and true
My perfect friend just doenst get the clue
My perfect friend doesnt count my wrongs
My perfect friend writes me songs
My perfect friend will skip school
My perfect friend is deffinetly not cruel
My perfect friend is a guy
My perfect friend does not lie
My perfect friend i wished for in the past
My perfect friend is here at last
My perfect friend gives good advice
My perfect friend is so awesome and nice
My perfect friend doesnt get high
My perfect friend i have never seen cry
My perfect friend is so strong
My perfect friend is almost never wrong
My perfect friend is to perfect to say
My perfect friend told me he was moving away
My perfect friend asked if i cried
My perfect friend knows that i lied
My perfect friend is moving away
my perfect friend is in my heart to stay...

[Libertarian_Guard]

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

by Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of the easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.



I think the woods are temptation, just generally. The house and the man whom it belongs to is an example of temptation of love. The dark haunting quality seems to be a fascination with death and wonder of what it would be like. It seems to really haunt him but he is curious. He thinks it is beautiful, which again brings back to the love temptation. His horse is reason, his rationality. The horse wondering why he had stopped without being near a barn is routine. He would normally think of rational things and I find when I am consulted with temptation I have my rational side wondering why on earth I am even considering it. He ignores his horse as I ignore my rational side(sorry but it's true.) He considers it and is fascinated by it, the beauty of what tempts us. He remembers promises which bind us to ring true. He realizes that there is plenty of time before he dies but he meets that thought with a glazed state of mind, perhaps still entranced with the beauty that of which tempts him.

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/stopping-by-woods-on-a-snowy-evening-2/

[wildcard]

Simple and cliche I guess, but I like Hemingway.

A couple of snippets from (A Farewell to Arms and Islands in the Stream) :


If people bring so much courage to this world the world has to kill them to break them, so of course it kills them. The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry.


That was what you did. You died. You did not know what it was about. You never had time to learn. They threw you in and told you the rules and the first time they caught you off base they killed you. ~… But they killed you in the end. You could count on that. Stay around and they would kill you.



Happiness is often presented as being very dull but, he thought, lying awake that is because dull people are sometimes very happy and intelligent people can and do go around making themselves and everyone else miserable. He had never found happiness dull.



He thought that on the ship he could come to some terms with his sorrow, not knowing, yet, that there are no terms to be made with sorrow. It can be cured by death and it can be blunted or anesthetized by various things. Time is supposed to cure it, too. But if it is cured by anything less than death, the chances are that it was not true sorrow.
One of the things that blunts it temporarily through blunting everything else is drinking and another thing that can keep the mind away from its work.


Then she began to cry hard and he had to put his arm around her and try to comfort her with all of the people there at the bar. She was not crying beautifully now. She was crying straight and destructively.

[JTM3]

I suppose I should also mention that Roberto Bolano can be just a tad vulgar from time to time. Just reading the overview or whatever on his book of poems, "The Romantic Dogs"... Errr... Wow. :o

[TPTB]

Every man with a bellyful of the classics is an enemy to the human race.

(Henry Miller

[PatColo]

Also, I really enjoy John Steinbeck. I have read "Of Mice and Men" and it is nothing special but, these two books are among my favorite Novels...

-East of Eden

-Cannery Row


Is this the source of my recent rise in smites? :oo-->

GSUS!

New Red Ice Radio, 1st hour free (download link), haven't listened yet, it's in my queue :)


Brian Kannard - Hour 1 - Steinbeck: Citizen Spy (http://www.redicecreations.com/radio/2013/11/RIR-131111.php)
November 11, 2013

In 2009, Brian left his career to finish his first book, Skullduggery: 45 True Tales of Disturbing the Dead, and in early 2010, opened the independent publishing house Grave Distractions Publications. In the last three years, Grave Distractions has published over fifty books for nineteen different authors. He joins us to discuss his new book Steinbeck: Citizen Spy. Brian obtained two documents from the CIA via the Freedom of Information Act that blows away everything we thought about Steinbeck. The first piece is a letter, in Steinbeck's own handwriting, offering to work for the agency. The second is a reply from Walter Bedell Smith accepting Steinbeck's offer. In his investigations he's also uncovered that the FBI has destroyed portions of Steinbeck's FBI file. Utilizing information from Steinbeck's FBI file, John's own correspondence, and interviews with John's son Thomas Steinbeck, playwright Edward Albee, a former CIA intelligence officer, and others, Steinbeck: Citizen Spy uncovers the secret life of American cultural icon and Nobel Prize–winner, John Steinbeck. Did Steinbeck actively gather information for the intelligence community during his 1947 and 1963 trips to the Soviet Union? Why was the controversial author of The Grapes of Wrath never called before the House Select Committee on Un-American Activities, despite alleged ties to Communist organizations? Did the CIA influence Steinbeck to produce Cold War propaganda as part of Operation MOCKINGBIRD? Why did the CIA admit to the Church Committee in 1975 that Steinbeck was a subject of their illegal mail-opening program known as HTLINGUAL? We'll discuss all this and more.
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[Twisted Titan]

Sonnet CXXX: My Mistress' Eyes are Nothing like the Sun

BY*WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red
;If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun,
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
tThan in the breath that from my mistress reeks
.I love to hear her speak,
yet well I knowThat music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;My mistress,
when she walks, treads on the ground

.***And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare*
**As any she belied with false compare.

[Twisted Titan]

Tell all the truth but tell it slant,

Success in circuit lies,
Too bright for our infirm delight
The truth's superb surprise
;As lightning to the children eased
With explanation kind,
The truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind.


Emily Dickinson