poetry | ZETEO

Imagination, Rowling, Happiness, Carnival

April 10, 2016 by Ed Mooney

Memorable lines from William Blake: Twofold, twofold always May God us keep From single vision And Newton’s sleep Imagination lets us see the world as other than a Newtonian assembly of spinning atoms (updated to Quarks), or as a Darwinian stage for Fitter-gene transmissions, or as a Brainy locus for neurological pathways. Blake was worried about a physics take-over of claims to reality. The situation is more complex today, with a variety of sciences vieing for top […]

Categories: Ed Mooney, ZiR • Tags: death, literature, poetry, reading

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Starry Nights, Science, Atheists

March 20, 2016 by Ed Mooney

Richard Dawkins’ head is fizzing with mad thoughts.. . . Outside a shimmering band of turquoise near the horizon brings a soft sparkle to the beads of dew hanging from trees in early bud; the heavy clouds in the distance look peach-pink and insubstantial; so do the old pale brick houses that line his street. The birds are singing in riotous chorus. “Accept my genetic information, females of my species!” they sing. “Observe my superior fitness for survival, as […]

Categories: Ed Mooney, ZiR • Tags: art, philosophy, poetry, politics, science

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Dickinson — Sex, Spanish, Stew

February 11, 2016 by William Eaton

Emily, in not so foreign tongues The first law of American literature: Somewhere, somehow, in God only knows what language, you are always going to come across one more, intriguing—if not indeed great—Emily Dickinson poem. A poem that you have previously overlooked, or not even heard of. And yet, there it is, ready to reward your attention. A rider: The poem might be about sex. Not sex like Henry Miller with his beloved Germaine du Café de l’Éléphant, soaping […]

Categories: William Eaton, ZiR • Tags: Barcelona, dogs, Emily Dickinson, fairy tales, Henry Miller, poetry, sex, Spanish

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Listening, Stillness, Inaction

January 17, 2016 by Ed Mooney

I have a friend who has published an award-winning book of poems titled “Having Listened.” He writes in the shadow of Boston, near the Arnold Arboretum, designed by Fredrick Law Olmsted. We walked there recently, a patrician park overseen by Harvard University. It has no end of whispering trees and rolling paths. It’s quiet; it’s easy to listen. My friend listens there as we walk, taking a break from non-stop Christmas festivities. But his listening didn’t begin in […]

Categories: Ed Mooney, ZiLL • Tags: love, philosophy, poetry, writing

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Thucydides, Herbert, History, Kerry

January 5, 2016 by William Eaton

Here Is Why the Classics Zbigniew Herbert’s poem “Dlaczego klasycy” (Why the Classics) has called out to me for a long while, as did W.B. Yeats’s “Sailing to Byzantium” until I wrote about it. And so I am writing about Herbert’s poem. It gives its history lesson by pulling the reader into the here and now. Yeats instructs by displaying for the reader Yeats’s golden perch outside history. Herbert plants his and the reader’s feet in history, concluding (in […]

Categories: ZiR • Tags: Edward Snowden, History, humility, John Kerry, poetry, Thucydides, Zbigniew Herbert

Dancing with Woolf, Treading with Eliot

December 27, 2015 by Ed Mooney

♦ What would happen if God leaned down and gave you a full, wet kiss? — Daniel Ladinsky Some words, like people, move us before we’re really aware of what’s happening. We return the glance from across the room instantaneously, spontaneously. Sometimes words are like that, a contagious spark. We dance in the space of words and things worded. A quickness of phrase or movement will quicken an alert return. The glance and spark not just of looks […]

Categories: Ed Mooney • Tags: death, philosophy, poetry, women, writing

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Porn, then Poetry

December 11, 2015 by Ana Maria Caballero

Of course, [pornography and poetry] probably benefit [from the Internet] for different reasons: pornography because people really want it a lot but are embarrassed to go get it in person; poetry because people don’t want it that much, so it helps if they can get it for free without ever even leaving their desk chairs. This excerpt was taken from an article that appeared in the AGNI blog titled “Wherever, However: Poetry Pornography and the Internet,” written by David Ebenbach. Ebenbach has […]

Categories: Ana Maria Caballero, ZiR • Tags: poetry, pornography, reading, writing

Connecting the Dots

October 25, 2015 by Ed Mooney

What triggers a Zeteo rumination? Sometimes — usually — it’s an item from the media or from a book I’m browsing. Sometimes it’s the flash in memory of a line of poetry or philosophy. Things beg for connection. I try to assist. Sometimes it’s something close to anger, and I work to connect the dots. What is it that triggers a polemical response like the one I aimed at that New Yorker article titled “Pond Scum”? Of course I thought […]

Categories: Ed Mooney, ZiR • Tags: beauty, kier, poetry, reading, Rilke

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Hennen’s Groundhog Day: Poetry, Pop Culture

October 19, 2015 by William Eaton

Discussion of a poem by Tom Hennen, from his collection “Darkness Sticks to Everything” (Copper Canyon Press). Does this become a way of reclaiming poetry for the non-poet? A way of making a connection with popular culture via poetry?

Categories: ZiR • Tags: Darkness Sticks To Everything, depression, Las Vegas, movies, poetry, Steven Seagal, Thomas Hennen

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ZETEO

Zeteo (ζητέω): to challenge, question, dispute, explore the forgotten and ignored

Tag: poetry

Imagination, Rowling, Happiness, Carnival

Starry Nights, Science, Atheists

Dickinson — Sex, Spanish, Stew

Listening, Stillness, Inaction

Thucydides, Herbert, History, Kerry

Dancing with Woolf, Treading with Eliot

Porn, then Poetry

Connecting the Dots

Hennen’s Groundhog Day: Poetry, Pop Culture