Think About It 010: ROLLO MAY

We in our age are faced with a strange paradox.  Never before have we had so much information in bits and pieces flooded upon us by radio and television and satellite, yet never before have we had so little inner certainty about our own being.  The more objective truth increases, the more our inner certitude decreases.  Our fantastically increased technical power has conferred upon us no means of controlling that power, and each forward step in technology is experienced by many as a new push towards our possible annihilation.

 

The Discovery of Being (1983)


 

 

 

Use the links below to read a short introduction to the theory and practice of Existential Psychotherapy and watch a 10 minute video that explains the work of North American Existential Psychotherapist ROLLO MAY:

 

 

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/evil-deeds/201101/what-is-existential-psychotherapy

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wms_RXEta5c

 

 

 

 

 

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Think About It 001: ROLLO MAY

 

 
Think About It 008: YASUNARI KAWABATA

 

 
Think About It 030: ROLLO MAY

Poet of the Month 034: ZAID SHLAH

 

ZAID SHLAH
2015

 

 

 

THIRTY-THREE BEADS ON A STRING

   
   

 
   1

I awoke from the nightmare
of a gutted maqam.

 

  
   2

Not because I have 
not yet bled my life

in yellow, but because
minarets sky downwards,
looking for purple births.

 

   
   3

One burly buffalo
Shrouded in hooves
and hot breath.

 


   4

Because the skin
is not yet numb,
and the lights
are not flickering,

 

I will continue to sip
at my hot tea, and stare
at the dust coloured noon.

 


   5

One white dishdadha screams
with the brilliance of red

 


   6

Can you hear them––
the melodious intent, the
glimmering oud in their eyes?

 


   7

Faith, stitch by seam,
a garment I have sewn
to my skin.

 


   8

Whatever remains of Al-Gubbenchi's
1932 Cairo studio recording, lives
between the old cobbled stone quarter,
and my still-warm mahogany ear.

 


   9

I should've gotten
up to shake his hand,

 

this uncomfortable tension
between me and God.

 

 

 

maqam = place, location, position

 

dishdadha = a type of long garment or tunic 

 

 

 

 

from the compilation

  

Inclined To Speak 

 

(2005)

 

 

 

The following biographical statement appears on the excellent Wordpress blog Arabic Literature In English founded and maintained by M LYNX QUALEY.  [It is re-posted here for information purposes only and, like the poem re-posted above, remains its author's exclusive copyright-protected intellectual property.]

 

Iraqi-Canadian poet Zaid Shlah has a new collection of poems and essays just out from Frontenac House Press, ClockWork.

 

Shlah was 2005 winner of an American Academy of Poets Award. His first book of poetry, Taqsim, came out in 2006, and he currently teaches composition and English literature at Modesto Junior College.

 

In Fady Joudah’s words: 'Only a real poet would engage the labyrinthine domains of language, their factories and control systems, to achieve a genuine critical consciousness that insists on resistance as well as kindness. Zaid Shlah is such a poet, and his hybrid, achingly searching ClockWork captures this on the dot.'

 

 

 

Use the link below to read another poem by Iraqi-Canadian poet and educator ZAID SHLAH:

 

 

http://arablit.org/2015/09/19/a-poem-from-zaid-shlah-an-ant-climbs-a-wall/

 

 

 

 

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Poet of the Month 031: MALCOLM LOWRY

 

 

 
Poet of the Month 017: CAASHA LUL MOHAMUD YUSUF

 

 

  
Poet of the Month 008: MOHAMMED BENNIS

 

 

The Write Advice 077: ELIZABETH JANE HOWARD

I have a power, a little beyond me, to design a certain type of communication for people who have not got this power.  I can show them a certain sense of proportion –– give them some balance –– which is all that a design is for –– to put something in its right place in relation to whatever lies on either side of it.  Proportion is always beautiful: beauty is always significant; therefore design is always necessary, and I am one of the thousands of designers… He was warm and smiling from the centre of his heart and he kept his head very still until the glow had spread to it, as he had learned long ago not to fly to a piece of paper with the first little vestige of an idea, which merely blunts the memory and renders it indiscriminate.  He remembered an argument with Jimmy about this, because not immediately recording them meant that one forgot some of the idea, and Jimmy had thought this lazy and wasteful.  He couldn’t make Jimmy understand that it wasn’t:  that it was wasteful and lazy not to make one’s memory work for one; it had to select what was worth remembering and then wait for it –– instead of premature explosions of paper.

The Sea Change (1959)



 

Use the link below to read a 2013 interview with British novelist ELIZABETH JANE HOWARD (1923–2014):

 

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/apr/07/elizabeth-jane-howard-novelist-cazalet

 

 

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The Write Advice 015: MARGARET DRABBLE

 
The Write Advice 052: SARAH WATERS

 
The Write Advice 048: HILARY MANTEL

 

Rockers & Mods 001: GENE VINCENT & HIS BLUE CAPS

GENE VINCENT & HIS BLUE CAPS, c 1957

BE-BOP-A-LULA

GENE VINCENT & HIS BLUE CAPS

Capitol Single, 1956

 

Note the stunning guitar work of Cliff Gallup –– one of the most underrated and, along with Elvis' first guitarist Scotty Moore, most influential rock 'n roll guitarists of all time.  Like Moore, Cliff Gallup would become a profound influence on later generations of rock musicians including Keith Richards, Jimmy Page and Brian Setzer (of The Stray Cats) to name just a few. 


 

Use the links below to discover more about the life, work and legacy of the great GENE VINCENT and view his performance of Be-Bop-A-Lula in the classic 1956 rock 'n roll film The Girl Can't Help It:

 

 

 

http://www.rockabillyhall.com/gvbio.html

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=gene+vincent

 

 

 

 

Special thanks to everyone who takes the time to upload music to YouTube.  Your efforts are appreciated by music lovers everywhere.

 

 

 

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J is for Jazz 011: WES MONTGOMERY

 

 

 

La Chanson est la vie 001: CLAUDE NOUGARO

 

 

 

Some Books About... MODS!

 

 

 

 

 

Last updated 5 April 2021