#bomblog

[lucybiederman]

What is my mother tongue? American history has complicated any opportunity for me to find out what my mother tongue would be. There are so many tongues that have their place here. Some still exist. Some are extinct. So which one? ... I believe, like these histories, it is a mixture of tongues, a mash-up of rule and conquer, assimilation and adaptation. And in the States, my tongue is kind of an orphaned one. I’m trying to locate the cousins and aunties to my tongue, if that makes sense. So, yes, my “native” tongue is me, but it’s not all of me.

LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs (BOMB, Artists in Conversation)

[emiliemcdermott-blog]

Books and dying languages

Pablo Helguera on his love of used books, dying languages and his conceptual approach to captioning an image

[curatedreads-blog]

EXISTENTIAL ARTISTISMS

Fingers to lips, it’s a wonder we make anything.

[curatedreads-blog]

HELP YR SELF HELP SELF

"the book must have a certain number of chapters and each chapter must be composed of X number of pages made up of paragraphs of no more (or less) than, for example, five sentences, each with a maximum of three clauses,"

[newdirectionspublishing]

I first met the artist and designer Elaine Lustig Cohen through the website dedicated to her former husband, the legendary designer Alvin Lustig. Back in 2006, I had been asked to get in touch with the estate regarding his jacket designs for New Directions: we were hoping to replace intermediate designs on some of our books with the original Lustigs. I was an editorial assistant at the time; New Directions was still going through a generational change. Emails were considered unofficial. One senior editor told me to type a letter, “preferably with a typewriter.” Another told me to call. But I had neither an address nor an number. So I emailed the webmaster of the Alvin Lustig site and hoped for the best. Elaine herself answered my inquiry—it was the first contact she had had with New Directions since its founder James Laughlin passed away in 1997.

BOMBLOG: Elaine Lustig Cohen by Michael Barron

[bostonpoetryslam]

I often think of my poems as people I’m hanging around with. I want some of them to be mopey and depressing because I like mopey and depressive people, but I also want some of them to be funny.

Eduardo C. Corral, interviewed by Yezmin Villarreal Rivera for BOMBblog

[bostonpoetryslam]

We are absorbing all the language around us. All the language we’ve read. All the language we’ve spoken and the language that’s been spoken to us throughout our lives. When we actually sit down and are attentive to words, to language, all of it comes. All the language comes out.

Eduardo C. Corral, interviewed by Yezmin Villarreal Rivera for BOMBlog

[curatedreads-blog]

BEING ALONENESS

"I’ve gotten used to the loneliness of the universe."