November 2023 – Princeton Writes

Word of the Week: pergola (PÛR-gə-lə)

Stephanie Whetstone2023-11-08T16:44:48-05:00

Word of the Week: pergola (PÛR-gə-lə) Definition (Noun) An arbour; a covered walk or shelter (usually in a garden), especially one formed of growing plants trained over a (usually wooden or metal) framework; this framework itself. Also: a small open-sided shelter or sunshade usually consisting of a roof supported on columns. In Context "At the end of the garden there was a place – a pergola dense with briar rose, and behind it a fir where there would be shade from the hot yellow light." Paul Scott, The Day of the Scorpion, 1968.

Word of the Week: pergola (PÛR-gə-lə)Stephanie Whetstone2023-11-08T16:44:48-05:00

A Poem for You: The Summer Day, by Mary Oliver

admin2023-11-27T11:12:52-05:00

The Summer Day Mary Oliver Who made the world? Who made the swan, and the black bear? Who made the grasshopper? This grasshopper, I mean — the one who has flung herself out of the grass, the one who is eating sugar out of my hand, who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down — who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes. Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face. Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away. I don't know exactly what a prayer is. I do know [...]

A Poem for You: The Summer Day, by Mary Oliver admin2023-11-27T11:12:52-05:00

A Poem for You: A Man in His Life by Yehuda Amichai

admin2023-11-09T17:03:28-05:00

A Man in His Life Yehuda Amichai A man in his life has no time to have Time for everything. He has no room to have room For every desire. Ecclesiastes was wrong to claim that. A man has to hate and love all at once, With the same eyes to cry and to laugh With the same hands to throw stones And to gather them, Make love in war and war in love. And hate and forgive and remember and forget And order and confuse and eat and digest What long history does In so many years. [...]

A Poem for You: A Man in His Life by Yehuda Amichaiadmin2023-11-09T17:03:28-05:00

Word of the Week: innuendo (ĭn-yōō-ĔN-dō)

Stephanie Whetstone2023-11-08T16:42:39-05:00

Word of the Week: innuendo (ĭn-yōō-ĔN-dō) Definition (Noun) An oblique hint, indirect suggestion; an allusive remark concerning a person or thing, especially one of a depreciatory kind. In Context "The Grimms' transformation of a tale replete with sexual innuendo into a prim and proper nursery story with a dutiful daughter is almost as striking as the folkloric metamorphosis of frog into prince." Maria Tatar, The Hard Facts of the Grimms' Fairy Tales, Second Edition, 2003.

Word of the Week: innuendo (ĭn-yōō-ĔN-dō)Stephanie Whetstone2023-11-08T16:42:39-05:00

A Poem for You: Grow, by Ruth Ellen Kocher

admin2023-11-09T16:58:18-05:00

Grow Ruth Ellen Kocher I have a red onion in a green bowl on my kitchen counter sprouting a green stalk that began as a little green haystack bump, a knobby cyst, really, that broke surface, felt like what I imagine I’m feeling for when I rub my breasts in the shower, my eyes closed as if water is a blindfold allowing me to feel within that dark any small homicide growing within me. I can’t bring myself to use the onion, to gnash its skin, to whack off its hard-on-gooseneck like I’m suddenly death’s scythe, death’s brindled pet, death’s dappled [...]

A Poem for You: Grow, by Ruth Ellen Kocheradmin2023-11-09T16:58:18-05:00

Word of the Week: trundle (TRŬN-dl)

Stephanie Whetstone2023-10-31T15:21:31-04:00

Word of the Week: trundle (TRŬN-dl) Definition (Verb) To draw or push along on a wheel or wheels, as a wheelbarrow, vehicle, etc. In Context “On more than one such hopeless night we had to load him into a wheelbarrow and trundle him down the hill to his bed, dumping him onto it like a load of bricks, him all the while snarling and snoring and muttering about bad things sure to happen.” Kim Stanley Robinson, Galileo’s Dream, 2009.

Word of the Week: trundle (TRŬN-dl)Stephanie Whetstone2023-10-31T15:21:31-04:00

A Poem for You: Chansons Innocentes II, by E.E. Cummings

admin2023-11-09T16:49:32-05:00

Chansons Innocentes II E. E. Cummings hist whist little ghostthings tip-toe twinkle-toe little twitchy witches and tingling goblins hob-a-nob hob-a-nob little hoppy happy toad in tweeds tweeds little itchy mousies with scuttling eyes rustle and run and hidehidehide whisk whisk look out for the old woman with the wart on her nose what she’ll do to yer nobody knows for she knows the devil ooch the devil ouch the devil ach the great green dancing devil devil devil devil wheeEEE

A Poem for You: Chansons Innocentes II, by E.E. Cummingsadmin2023-11-09T16:49:32-05:00

Book of the Month: Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese

admin2023-11-01T10:46:15-04:00

Cutting for Stone (2009) by Abraham Verghese Critical Evaluation “But all the rich detail in the world is as nothing if you don't have command of emotion and narrative. One could argue, given everything from ER to House, that medicine cannot help but be dramatic, but that isn't necessarily true: Verghese's achievement is to make the reader feel there really is something at stake - birth, love, death, war, loyalty. There's no smug postmodern self-undermining (otherwise known as irony) here: the mythic arises seamlessly from the quotidian; telepathy or saintly intercessions are simply accepted - as they often are in Ethiopian [...]

Book of the Month: Cutting for Stone by Abraham Vergheseadmin2023-11-01T10:46:15-04:00

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