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A Sensible Emptiness
Below is the late Richard Wilbur’s metaphorical exploration of one sentence of Thomas Traherne’s: “"Life without objects is a sensible emptiness, and that is a greater misery than death or nothing." (Second Century, Meditation 65) The little we know of Traherne’s life...
Caring for Words, XIII: Words Cannot Contain…
Epiphany, Theophany, Three Kings Day. Gifts, carried by the wise, in oddly-fashioned coffers. After twelve days spent pondering the health of words in a sickened language, we end where we began: marveling at the power and fragility of these vessels of meaning. I hope...
Caring for Words, XII: Risk Your Heart
Write and read with your whole heart. Embrace mystery. Shun mystification, which is to mystery what sentimentality is to honest feeling. Treasure words that prove difficult to pin down but impossible to live without. Go out on limbs. Be willing to fall. Get up again....
Caring for Words, XI: The Right Word
Abstraction and imprecision are enemies of good writing. Not at all coincidentally, they are among the preferred weapons of politicians, hucksters, and other con artists. The concrete, specific, and particular prove harder to come by, but almost always repay the...
Caring for Words, X: Tell the Truth
I once was in a group discussion on social justice (is there a justice that’s not social?) at which one the discussants, whom I’ll call Kevin, chose to lecture the rest of us on the nonexistence of truth. “When someone talks about ‘truth,’” he said, “what they mean is...
Caring for Words, IX: Reading is Not Optional
If we want a healthier language, we must read and read well. If we want to resist the clever lies of advertisers and politicians, we must read and read well. If we want to know that others have felt as we have, that we’re connected to people who lived before and...
Caring for Words, VIII: Witnesses to Hope
On New Year’s Day, with the Twelve Days of Christmas more than half-spent, it’s time to remember that a diseased language may be restored to health. However long it may take to persuade politicians, parties, and other political organizations to change their ways,...
Caring for Words, VII: Free Speech?
Among the actions the First Amendment to the US Constitution prevents Congress from doing is the making of any law “abridging the freedom of speech.” Nevertheless, the US Supreme Court recognizes constitutionally acceptable limits to this freedom, including incitement...
Caring for Words, VI: The Internet
I’m hardly the first to write an internet post to warn about the downside of the internet. For the record, the irony is duly noted. The internet is not intrinsically bad. Developers of any newly available technology understandably emphasize its benefits. “This,” we...
Caring for Words, V: Orwell or Huxley?
The term “Orwellian” is used often enough, usually with some sense of dictatorial or centralized social control maintained through propaganda, misinformation, and language restriction, augmented by ubiquitous surveillance and brutal punishment of nonconformers....
