Words for Thought
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December 19, 2016 |
The game Life Is Strange from Dontnod Entertainment features a vast choice system and great writing. Narrative form has come a long way from its antiquated beginnings. From verbal storytelli... -
May 19, 2015 |
Painting from the General Yue Fei Memorial Temple, Hangzhou | Photo by Chrisjtse It is puzzling that the closer China relates to the West, the more the West looks at everything Chinese as “other.” Of... -
January 21, 2015 |
Certain cherished books are like old loves. We didn’t part on bad terms; but it’s complicated, and would require too much effo... -
January 8, 2015 |
Self-portrait w/ iPhone. Courtesy of the author. @ war you cannot say yeah I participate in the war but I isolate myself I separate myself I sing & I celebrate #I I I it is not... -
August 6, 2014 |
Photo (left to right): Dorothy Stafford, Kit Stafford, Hideo Hashimoto, and William Stafford. Courtesy: Aubrey Watzek Library Special Collections and Archives, Lewis & Clar... -
August 4, 2014 |
Photo by M./Flickr Today on the phone,first time in thirty years,my friend didn’t know me.Who? Where do you live?Where did we meet?She’s been slipping for a while.I wonder if that’s how God feelsab... -
July 29, 2014 |
Gaza Once in a tiny stripdark holes swallowed heartsand one child told anotherwithdraw your breathwhenever the night wind... -
July 28, 2014 |
While staring at the paper on his writing desk, the author wonders whether he’s building a new Tower of Babel. There is a poem I know, by a poet who shall remain unnamed, in which the poet en... -
June 10, 2014 |
Photo by Giuliano Maiolini/Flickr Nobel laureate Tomas Tranströmer is a poet of great spirituality and depth, but his language is deceptively simple. The following essay examine... -
May 21, 2014 |
Book transformation, letters, envelopes, and bookmarks by Marilyse Figueroa. Photos by Jen Rickard Blair. Drawn to a book by its cover, a reader decides to give it to a friend. But on her... -
April 24, 2014 |
Photo: Spanish Ministry of Culture The 2013 recipient of the Miguel de Cervantes Prize, Elena Poniatowska Amor, delivered her acceptance speech yesterday (April 23, 2014) on the annivers... -
April 23, 2014 |
Photo by andifansnet/Flickr. Adaption by Jen Rickard Blair. Poem in your Pocket Day is tomorrow (April 24th), and you can celebrate by carrying your favorite poem with you and sharing it with others... -
September 30, 2013 |
Photo zeze57/Flickr To celebrate International Translation Day, we’ve invited translations of the following quote—about translation—by Andrés Neuman, the 2009 Alfaguara Prize-winning author and 2014... -
April 2, 2013 |
An aphorism is a distilled, laconic reflection about the author’s intimate experiences of reality, expressed through paradox, provocation, or shocking self-disclosure. Aphorisms cannot be conceived th... -
February 21, 2013 |
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. played himself in the movie Back to School, where he comically helps the wealthy Thornton Melon (played by Rodney Dangerfield) in a homework scheme that backfires. “Dear M... -
January 14, 2013 |
Photo Baijg/Flickr Leo Tolstoy, George Bernard Shaw, Isaac Bashevis Singer, and Franz Kafka walk into a bar (unlikely perhaps, but a good hypothetical start to any joke). The bartender offers them ea... -
January 7, 2013 |
The Tigris River in Baghdad. Photo NewsHour/Flickr For nearly two years, I worked on poems about my father’s early years in Baghdad. Every now and again, I slipped an occasional question to my dad, h... -
November 28, 2012 |
Photo Flickr/CasualCapture It’s painful to hear people talk about my generation. The “millennials,” according to the critics, are a generation of addicts, our thumbs permanently scrolling through the... -
November 21, 2012 |
Photo Flickr/NedraI “Thanks-giving,” said Mr. K., my seventh-grade English teacher. “Repeat after me: Thanksgiving.” “Ssshthanks give in,” I said, but the word tumbled and hissed, turning my mouth in... -
September 6, 2012 |Twitter is perhaps the most dynamic social media platform available on the web. The Twitterverse is daily flooded with estimates of over 340 million bite-sized messages from its users, which total to...
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August 29, 2012 |
In this new series of blog posts we open a window into the creative spaces of our writers all around the world, getting a brief glimpse into how and where they each uniqely work through the creative p... -
July 25, 2012 |
Aphorisms were the form that gave me the most relief, that offered the deepest bloodletting. In the aphorism, I didn’t have to say “I,” I could just let the thing speak itself, so I didn’t feel compr...
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Photo credit: Elsa Noblet / Unsplash
After 140 days at home, one person wants more space; the other, more plants.
I wanted a room of...
If Serbian poet and novelist Zvonko Karanović were a painter, he would be a surrealist. In the forty-one dark prose poems of Sleepwalkers on a...
Barbara Epler started working at New Directions after graduating from college in 1984, and she has been its president and...
Photo by Matt Artz / Unsplash
I write with words that have shadow but don’t shelter
no sooner do I start this page insomnia burns it
not...
Photo by George Kourounis / Unsplash
[I ask everybody]
I ask everybody
have you noticed today
when the time passed
with...
