I’m actually reading some books and articles on literary theory at the moment, but I don’t want to get into that. 🙂 I want to talk about this book — The Fault in Our Stars by John Green. Seventeen-year-old Hazel is a cancer patient. She falls in love with a survivor, Augustus Waters. It’s a… Continue reading Friday Reading: The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
The following is something like my official summer poem. It evokes to me those  images of sea waves and lovers, in a background of the sunset or of moonlight reflected on water. But unlike in the typical summer romance, the lovers in this poem seem to have already had their life behind them. For are… Continue reading Poetry Wednesdays: Pablo Neruda, “Sonnet IX”
I think I’m a Margaret Atwood fan. I never get tired of her Variations poems, and her novels The Blind Assassin and Alias Grace are contemporary favorites of mine. I started reading The Handmaid’s Tale ages ago until I lost the book in the middle of reading it — so here I am, starting again.… Continue reading Friday Reading: The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
I can still barely believe that just yesterday, I was in Vietnam, staring and getting goosebumps at the pictures exhibited in the War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City. The most powerful people might consider war a necessary tactic or even precaution, whereas the rest of us would just want a peaceful existence. I… Continue reading Poetry Wednesdays: Phan Nhiên Hạo, “Meeting a Cab Driver in New York”
I am currently at the airport — the terminal recently famous in the news for its defective CCTV cameras — as I’m waiting for a flight that will whisk me off to Vietnam. 🙂 I had a dream this morning about wielding a wand and casting a Shield Charm to unknown opponents, and when I… Continue reading Friday Reading: Revisiting Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows for the nth time
There are poems that you encounter at that right moment, saying in a few words what you can’t articulate yourself. For me, this was one of those. Love Song Rainer Maria Rilke Trans. Stephen Mitchell How can I keep my soul in me, so that it doesn’t touch your soul? How can I raise it… Continue reading Poetry Wednesdays: Rainer Maria Rilke, “Love Song”
Every Friday, I will post a pseudo-review of a book I’m reading, or have read, that week. I know it’s not a Friday, but I read this last Friday and I was at the beach. So there! In hindsight, it should have been very embarrassing and pathetic when I asked two bookstores in my usual… Continue reading Friday Reading: The ten most distracting words/phrases in Fifty Shades of Grey
Every Wednesday, I shall post a poem and give a short commentary on it. I do not intend my Poetry Wednesdays post to be actual term-paper-length poetry analyses. I have also never had the illusion that my readings are the only correct ones. I think I might approach each poem as I would if I… Continue reading Poetry Wednesdays: Louise Glück, “Celestial Music”
Ang Lakwatserang Guro 