April 2025 – Princeton Writes

A Poem for You: Magnitude and Bond by Cortney Lamar Charleston

admin2025-04-03T16:47:45-04:00

Magnitude and Bond Cortney Lamar Charleston after Gwendolyn Brooks that which is betwixt us of the lampooned lips and noses indissoluble as blood impassioned by a serene swatch of sky— envy of the blessing of birds and the divine shadow cast to provide protective canvas for our bones of calcified light the chains that wore us in the fashion of diamond-studded pendants and the names that the ocean omitted from history with a wave envy of the privilege of birds and the low-hung cumulus carried in baskets through the blistering heat by blistered hands the wade into waters as stoic as windows during sudden [...]

A Poem for You: Magnitude and Bond by Cortney Lamar Charlestonadmin2025-04-03T16:47:45-04:00

Word of the Week: nebulous (NĔB-yə-ləs)

Stephanie Whetstone2025-06-18T11:53:23-04:00

Word of the Week: nebulous (NĔB-yə-ləs) Definition (Adjective) Vague, indistinct, formless, ill-defined. In Context "Creativity is a rather nebulous concept encapsulating all these human characteristics and skills – seen by some as innate and by others as learned – that involve the ability to see things in a new way; to invent new ideas, concepts, and objets; and to provide new associations between existing entities." Sarah Kember and Joanna Zylinska, Life after New Media: Mediation as a Vital Process, 2012.

Word of the Week: nebulous (NĔB-yə-ləs)Stephanie Whetstone2025-06-18T11:53:23-04:00

A Poem for You: Author’s Prayer, by Ilya Kaminsky

admin2025-04-16T14:55:23-04:00

Author’s Prayer ILYA KAMINSKY If I speak for the dead, I must leave this animal of my body, I must write the same poem over and over, for an empty page is the white flag of their surrender. If I speak for them, I must walk on the edge of myself, I must live as a blind man who runs through rooms without touching the furniture. Yes, I live. I can cross the streets asking “What year is it?” I can dance in my sleep and laugh in front of the mirror. Even sleep is [...]

A Poem for You: Author’s Prayer, by Ilya Kaminskyadmin2025-04-16T14:55:23-04:00

Word of the Week: soupçon (sōōp-SÔN)

Stephanie Whetstone2025-04-03T16:37:22-04:00

Word of the Week: soupçon (sōōp-SÔN) Definition (Noun) A suspicion, a suggestion, a very small quantity or slight trace, of something. In Context "And to this he must add more than a soupçon of luck, plus a heavy seasoning of pure nerve." Ernest K. Gann, Fate Is the Hunter, 1961.

Word of the Week: soupçon (sōōp-SÔN)Stephanie Whetstone2025-04-03T16:37:22-04:00

A Poem for You: The Peace of Wild Things, by Wendell Berry

admin2025-04-16T14:52:38-04:00

The Peace of Wild Things Wendell Berry When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be, I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. I come into the presence of still water. And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light. For a time I rest [...]

A Poem for You: The Peace of Wild Things, by Wendell Berryadmin2025-04-16T14:52:38-04:00

Word of the Week: liminal (LĬM-ə-nəl)

Stephanie Whetstone2025-04-03T16:35:22-04:00

Word of the Week: liminal (LĬM-ə-nəl) Definition (Adjective) Characterized by being on a boundary or threshold, especially by being transitional or intermediate between two states, situations, etc. In Context "Biologically and culturally, for the child-apprentice it was a liminal moment as he encountered the challenges of puberty at the same time that he abandoned (and was abandoned by) his natural family in order to enter an adoptive one." Steven Laurence Kaplan, The Bakers of Paris and the Bread Question: 1700-1775, 1996.

Word of the Week: liminal (LĬM-ə-nəl)Stephanie Whetstone2025-04-03T16:35:22-04:00

A Poem for You: The Owl by Gia Anansi-Shakur

admin2025-04-03T16:42:12-04:00

The Owl Gia Anansi-Shakur after Louise Glück’s “October” Violence has changed me something beautiful worldly, not comfortable living in a mouth I’ve long made habit of pulling off my skin by the forearm at night joining the arteries of lapping tongues and hardened wounds. I’ve found joy meditating on the quality of my self served stigmatas fracturing the columns of holy books An owl opens its mouth a church bell climbs out akimbo She has learned to tightrope in the dark Copyright © 2025 by Gia Anansi-Shakur. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on April 3, 2025, by the Academy of American [...]

A Poem for You: The Owl by Gia Anansi-Shakuradmin2025-04-03T16:42:12-04:00

Word of the Week: imprimatur (ĭm-prə-MÄ-tōōr)

admin2025-04-03T16:22:37-04:00

imprimatur (ĭm-prə-MÄ-tōōr) Definition (Noun) Commendatory license, sanction. In Context "The committees wanted to address these complex issues, but, given the political and economic ramifications of market reform, they needed the SEC's imprimatur on the legislation." Anne M. Khademian, The SEC and Capital Market Regulation: The Politics of Expertise, 1992.

Word of the Week: imprimatur (ĭm-prə-MÄ-tōōr)admin2025-04-03T16:22:37-04:00

The Friend by Sigrid Nunez (2018)

admin2025-04-07T13:54:08-04:00

Book of the Month:The Friend by Sigrid Nunez (2018) Critical Evaluation "And yet despite her acid critique of writers and their discontents, or perhaps because of her dead-on depiction, Nunez has won over the literary world with 'The Friend.' The novel, an acerbic but often poignant exploration of love, friendship, death, grief, art and literature, received this year’s National Book Award for fiction and drew euphoric reviews from critics, who hailed it as a subtle, unassuming masterpiece. (Writing in The Times, Dwight Garner called Nunez 'a crisply philosophical and undervalued novelist.') "The rapturous reception has stunned Nunez, 67, who has been quietly writing [...]

The Friend by Sigrid Nunez (2018)admin2025-04-07T13:54:08-04:00

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