Esteemed reader Copithorne, entering the New Year in a nitpicky mood, was moved by our end of year poetry, “Be Drunk,” to investigate its author, Charles Baudelaire, and offer this Caveat Lector Evidently the man died at age 46 a syphilitic laudanum addict having spent fortunes of inherited money on prostitutes and wine as if […]
Eating Poetry* (VII): for the New Year
Be Drunk Charles Baudelaire Translated by Louis Simpson You have to be always drunk. That’s all there is to it—it’s the only way. So as not to feel the horrible burden of time that breaks your back and bends you to the earth, you have to be continually drunk. But on what? Wine, poetry or […]
How We Lived on It (8)
Eating Poetry* (VI)
William Carlos Williams This Is Just To Say I have eaten the plums that were in the icebox and which you were probably saving for breakfast Forgive me they were delicious so sweet and so cold *Ink runs from the corners of my mouth There is no happiness like mine. I have been eating poetry. […]
Guest Post at Normblog
Today I have a guest post at Normblog: a contribution to the long-running Writer’s Choice series for which the contributor discusses a book that has been important to him. My post is on Albert Camus’ The Myth of Sisyphus. The semi-eponymous Normblog is the blog of Norman Geras, Professor Emeritus of Government at the University […]