Late February notebook

Aesthetics of Creating Something

This doesn’t just happen:
It happens to you.

Kenneth Koch, from One Train, p.64

‘Even now, one rarely hears of people achieving anything unless first they stumble in some respect.’ Meister Eckhart, from One Minute Meditation, Simon Parke, p.82

One Day We’ll All Be Dead And None Of This Will Matter -Scaachi Koul (Essays)

‘He refused to excise the polotical from the aesthetic. They have to be written together.’ Adam Haslett on James Baldwin, Radio 4

The Love for Now soundtrack idea?

A writer talking on the radio
about how he needs
ambient noise around him
to get anything done
he plays YouTube clips of
rain
‘I’ve listened to it so often
I’ve started to learn where
the pauses are,’ he said.

Incredible free jazz solo
from this morning’s
favourite robin

light in the kitchen
before seven
when I go down
to make coffee
and eggs

‘Not only was I not born to be a slave: I was not born to hope to become the equal of the slave master.’ James Baldwin, Introduction, The Price of the Ticket, p.xi

Love Comes Quietly

Love comes quietly,
finally, drops
about me, on me
in the old ways.

What did I know
thinking myself
able to go
alone all the way.

Robert Creeley, from Selected Poems: 1950-1965

‘We’re paying a lot to come here, but if you guys don’t even get a pension, then what are we paying for?’ from a student speech at the UCU rally in Exeter #UCUStrikes #USSstrike

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