January 2024 – Princeton Writes

A poem for you: The Lost Breath of Trees by Colleen J. McElroy

admin2024-01-24T10:05:04-05:00

The Lost Breath of Trees Colleen J. McElroy an oratorio for vanishing voices, collapsing universes, and a falling tree. —Lena Herzog, Last Whispers 1. in the days before urban sprawl this town remained no more than cow pastures logs skidding down to the harbor gulls riding them like surfboards a green belt embraced the one road north a hundred years they say until the lease expired in those days trees lining each side threw shade over hippies and geese bound to the same direction this was the rainforest and we took for granted the trees that sheltered the sun in shimmering [...]

A poem for you: The Lost Breath of Trees by Colleen J. McElroyadmin2024-01-24T10:05:04-05:00

Word of the Week: bricoleur (brē-kō-LÛR)

Stephanie Whetstone2023-11-13T09:17:58-05:00

bricoleur (brē-kō-LÛR) Definition (Noun) A person (especially an artist, writer, etc.) who constructs or creates something from a diverse range of materials or sources; the creator of a bricolage. In Context "French structuralist Claude Lévi-Strauss (1966) once referred to the human mind as like a bricoleur or tinkerer, the sort of handyman who could fix or make things out of whatever bits and scraps of material happened to be around." Wendy Griswold, Cultures and Societies in a Changing World, Third Edition, 2008.

Word of the Week: bricoleur (brē-kō-LÛR)Stephanie Whetstone2023-11-13T09:17:58-05:00

A Poem for You: Interview by Jordan Kapono Nakamura

admin2024-01-24T10:05:53-05:00

Interview Jordan Kapono Nakamura I want this job because it sounds like something I could do and I’m hungry, physically. I have extensive experience in studying what water says as it plummets. Yes, I can carry more than 35lbs, but what does that have to do with anything? I’ve wrestled angelic beings and the nine lives of pathological compulsion. I have sworn an oath against the roman calendar and its derivative mutations. I can be firm as cold turkey. My two letters of recommendation are f and u. They can be used in surf, which is one way to step on [...]

A Poem for You: Interview by Jordan Kapono Nakamuraadmin2024-01-24T10:05:53-05:00

Word of the Week: victuals (VĬT-ls)

Stephanie Whetstone2023-11-13T09:17:14-05:00

victuals (VĬT-ls) Definition (Noun) Articles of food; supplies, or various kinds, of provisions; in later use especially articles of ordinary diet prepared for use. In Context "Perhaps, he thought, he would venture outside to scour the war-ravaged countryside for some victuals, but he quickly thought better of it." William Pencak, Editor, Pennsylvania's Revolution, 2010.

Word of the Week: victuals (VĬT-ls)Stephanie Whetstone2023-11-13T09:17:14-05:00

Word of the Week: weltschmerz (VELT-shmairts)

Stephanie Whetstone2023-11-13T09:16:04-05:00

Word of the Week: weltschmerz (VELT-shmairts) Definition (Noun) 1. often capitalized Weltschmerz : mental depression or apathy caused by comparison of the actual state of the world with an ideal state. 2. often capitalized Weltschmerz : a mood of sentimental sadness In Context "The mad narrator or central figure is in a world that may be experienced as confusing, grotesque or volatile; above all, it is private, closed in on itself, unavailable to outsiders.… The notion of insanity as a kind of extreme loneliness is good for a wallow in adolescent-romantic weltschmerz, if not much else." Scott McLemee, Inside Higher Ed, [...]

Word of the Week: weltschmerz (VELT-shmairts)Stephanie Whetstone2023-11-13T09:16:04-05:00

Word of the Week: inchoate (ĭn-KŌ-ĭt)

admin2023-11-13T09:14:45-05:00

Word of the Week: inchoate (ĭn-KŌ-ĭt) Definition (Adjective) Just begun, incipient; in an initial or early stage; hence elementary, imperfect, undeveloped, immature. In Context “In black America, cultural conservatism takes the form of a inchoate xenophobia (e.g., against whites, Jews, and Asians), systemic sexism, and homophobia.” Cornel West, Race Matters, 1993.

Word of the Week: inchoate (ĭn-KŌ-ĭt)admin2023-11-13T09:14:45-05:00

A Poem for You: Remember by Joy Harjo

admin2023-11-27T15:32:16-05:00

Remember Joy Harjo Remember the sky that you were born under, know each of the star’s stories. Remember the moon, know who she is. Remember the sun’s birth at dawn, that is the strongest point of time. Remember sundown and the giving away to night. Remember your birth, how your mother struggled to give you form and breath. You are evidence of her life, and her mother’s, and hers. Remember your father. He is your life, also. Remember the earth whose skin you are: red earth, black earth, yellow earth, white earth brown earth, we are earth. Remember the plants, trees, [...]

A Poem for You: Remember by Joy Harjoadmin2023-11-27T15:32:16-05:00

Unintended Wordplay

John Weeren2024-01-15T15:46:04-05:00

Unintended Wordplay By John Weeren To paraphrase Jane Austen, it is a truth universally acknowledged that even the most experienced wordsmith must be in want of an editor. For how else are we to explain the errors that creep into documents and publications of every kind? Many of these mistakes are pedestrian—a missing comma here; an incorrect spelling there—but some are more consequential. As The New York Times noted in a correction published last fall, "an article on Thursday about a growing number of working Americans who earn too little to afford rent and have turned their cars into a form [...]

Unintended WordplayJohn Weeren2024-01-15T15:46:04-05:00

Word of the Week: gallivant (GĂL-ə-vănt)

Stephanie Whetstone2023-11-13T09:13:24-05:00

Word of the Week: gallivant (GĂL-ə-vănt) Definition (Verb) To gad about in a showy fashion, especially with persons of the other sex. In Context "I thought it a bit weird that people wanted to gallivant around hunting a fox, but having read my Trollope I understood it is a part of our history." Tony Blair, A Journey: My Political Life, 2010.

Word of the Week: gallivant (GĂL-ə-vănt)Stephanie Whetstone2023-11-13T09:13:24-05:00

A Poem for You: The Mountains, by D’Arcy McNickle

admin2023-11-27T11:15:28-05:00

The Mountains D’Arcy McNickle There is snow, now— A thing of silent creeping— And day is strange half-night . . . And the mountains have gone, softly murmuring something . . . And I remember pale days, Pale as the half-night . . . and as strange and sad. I remember times in this room When but to glance thru an opened window Was to be filled with an ageless crying wonder: The grand slope of the meadows, The green rising of the hills, And then far-away slumbering mountains— Dark, fearful, old— Older than old, rusted, crumbling rock, Those mountains . . . But sometimes came a strange thing And [...]

A Poem for You: The Mountains, by D’Arcy McNickleadmin2023-11-27T11:15:28-05:00

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