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Creative Reading
I’m deep into Azar Nafisi’s The Republic of Imagination, in which she mentions “Creative Reading.” Google explains: “CREATIVE READING IS DEFINED AS READING FOR IMPLIED AND INFERRED MEANINGS, APPRECIATIVE REACTIONS, AND CRITICAL EVALUATION. THE ACT OF CRITICAL READING GOES BEYOND LITERAL COMPREHENSION TO DEMAND THAT THE READER PRODUCE FRESH, ORIGINAL IDEAS NOT EXPLICITLY STATED IN THE READING MATERIAL.” https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED020090 The concept challenges me…
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Talk, Talk, Talk
Lately, it seems I talk a lot. Possibly, more than is helpful. On Sunday I talked to a group of people about poetry. They were all adults (Kids and poetry startle me, like giving them too much sugar, so they get squirrely). We talked about the essential concerns I see in writing poems. Like getting…
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Read As If Your Life Depended On It
In 1996 Carl Sagan in The Demon-Haunted World listed climate issues as one of the concerns facing the world. Two-plus decades later we have begun see in the news a heightened awareness of the danger of ignoring this most vital issue. Despite the deniers, more and more often, clear evidence rattles me and I must…
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At the Mercy of Books
The New Yorker cover for June 10 & 17, 2019 features a cartoon by Bruce Eric Kaplan, “Bedtime Stories.” A couple in their bed, horrified, on each side of the bed a stack of books on the nightstand. The books reach high over their heads, daunting, frightening, ominous. I can relate. When I moved from…
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Poems Behave Like Feral Cats
Karen Douglass, Author 