A friend of mine, painter Svetlana, sent me this photo from her home garden. This sun-brimming ‘portrait’ of a lily marks the beginning of summer and brought to mind this Shakespearean son...
Pedro Saenz, The Poet’s Tomb Pain of the Matador (photo by Greg Wesson) The painting by Pedro Saenz La Tumba del Poeta reminds me of two things. One, is Pain of the Matador monument in Madrid; a...
Michelle Puelo, Shakespeare In His Study Back in 1976 and 1977, a celebrated British poet Gavin Ewart composed two sonnets in free verse, mentioning and contemplating William Shakespeare. In case you ...
I was reading Nabokov this morning, a translation of his celebrated Dar. It opens with a beautiful passage describing the appearance of a rainbow after the rain, particularly noting the puprle hues. I...
Representation of Venus Anadyomene in painting and in Arthus Rimbaud's sonnet reveal two strikingly different viewpoints....
Boris Pasternak - It Is Not Seemly to Be Famous reads as an artist's manifesto of the importance of inner growth over the public fame...
Jack, the first Black Boy in Wales The poem below is part of Blake’s cycle of poems, Songs of Innocence and of Experience, shewing the two contrary states of the human soul. To judge by an artic...
Edna St Vincent Millay I shall forget you presently, my dear, So make the most of this, your little day, Your little month, your little half a year, Ere I forget, or die, or move away,...
R. Burns, A Sonnet upon Sonnets (courtesy of NBC). Today is a wonderful day in my life, all about translations. I have received a permission to publish my translation of a 20th c. poet’s work fr...
Storm-clouds hurtle, storm-clouds hover; Flying snow is set alight By the moon whose form they cover; Blurred the heavens, blurred the night. On and on our coach advances, Little bell goes din-din-din...