Definition (Noun) A mischievous, tricksy imp or sprite; another name for Puck or Robin Goodfellow; hence, a terrifying apparition, a bogy. In Context "In the graveyard in 1815, someone reportedly saw a hobgoblin, an ugly, frightening little goblin or elf that harasses the living." Cheri Revai, Haunted New York: Ghosts and Strange Phenomena of the Empire State, 2005.
Word of the Week: adumbrate (ˈa-dəm-ˌbrāt ) Definition (verb) 1. to foreshadow vaguely : intimate 2. to suggest, disclose, or outline partially 3. overshadow, obscure In Context “His temper and tendency to violence, adumbrated in the first part of the book, lead not only to his decline as a journalist but also his inability to maintain relationships with the various women he encounters.” Gerald Early, The Washington Post, 2015
First Memory Long ago, I was wounded. I lived to revenge myself against my father, not for what he was-- for what I was: from the beginning of time, in childhood, I thought that pain meant I was not loved. It meant I loved. Louise Gluck
Word of the Week: cerulean (sə-RŌŌ-lē-ən) Definition (Adjective) Of the colour of the cloudless sky, pure deep blue, azure. Chiefly poetic. In Context "It was July, and rolling waves of heat shimmered beneath a cerulean sky." Justin Marozzi, Baghdad, City of Peace, City Of Blood: A History in Thirteen Centuries, 2014.
Love After Love by Derek Wolcott The time will come when, with elation you will greet yourself arriving at your own door, in your own mirror and each will smile at the other's welcome,and say, sit here. Eat. You will love again the stranger who was your self. Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart to itself, to the stranger who has loved you all your life, whom you ignored for another, who knows you by heart. Take down the love letters from the bookshelf, the photographs, the desperate notes, peel your own image from the mirror. Sit. Feast on [...]
Wherever My Dead Go When I'm Not Remembering Them By Alan Shapiro Not gone, not here, a fern trace in the stone of living tissue it can quicken from; or the dried–upchannel and the absent current; or maybe it's like a subway passenger on a platform in a dim lit station late at night between trains, after the trains have stopped— ahead only the faintest rumbling of the last one disappearing, and behind the dark you're looking down for any hint of light—where is it? why won't it come? You wandering now along the yellow line, restless, not knowing who you are, [...]
Word of the Week: satori (sə-TOR-ē) Definition (Noun) Sudden enlightenment or intuitive understanding. In Context “Twenty years later, Michael Okun’s enthusiasm is fresh as he describes his neurological satori. ‘A lot of people were saying all these pathways and everything are really complicated, and they just wanted to get through the class and get a grade. But to me it made perfect sense.’” David Noonan, Mind Craft; Smithsonian, May 2014.
Book of the Month: The Midnight Library (2020) by Matt Haig Critical Evaluation "The narrative throughout has a slightly old-fashioned feel, like a bedtime story. It’s an absorbing but comfortable read, imaginative in the details if familiar in its outline. The invention of the library as the machinery through which different lives can be accessed is sure to please readers and has the advantage of being both magical and factual. Every library is a liminal space; the Midnight Library is different in scale, but not kind. A vision of limitless possibility, of new roads taken, of new lives lived, of a [...]
