Literally Blogging

Any writers out there, whether you publish tomes annually, or scribble over breakfast! If you are writing and would like to be connected to other writers then you should take a look at WBA (Writers Blog Alliance).
This is a site one may join for free, and it helps to plug writers into the greater community of writers out there that you would probably love to meet, if only there was a way.
I am not a member yet, but that is my next order of business today.
But since we are discussing community, and the writer’s need for it, I am led …read more

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Came across this interesting poem by a Canadian Author from Southern Ontario. Interestingly, be does all of his book pressing in my home town in Nova Scotia. Well here it it. For more, follow this link
The Loo
John Terpstra
The Loo
I read somewhere that this
part of the country was first
settled because of one.
That Father Louis Hennepin came
upon the building by accident
during his travels along Lake Huron.
This was already in 1679, at a time
when flush toilets were considered too
indiscreet for most Europeans.
The cause of sanitation has come
a long way since those first
squatting moments in the bush.
It has been shown that we
are …read more

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In my earlier years I read Saul Bellow’s Henderson, The Rain King, and I loved the book. A tall, thick, wealthy pig farmer becomes disillusioned with himself, his surroundings, and essetially life in general, so he gets up one day and goes to Africa to live among tribal people.
Saul Bellow writes beautifully here, using a clash of cultures as a literary device rather than as subject matter. In Rain King the reader encounters animistic culture, lions, ignorance and understanding, and an obstinate white man who becomes “the Rain King”.
After reading this work, I found a new desire to travel, …read more

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I’ve mentioned in a previous post that there is an impressive list of authors, playwrights and even speakers, who have won the Nobel Prize in Literature. One that caught my eye was Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I knew very little about this Columbian author. So I picked up One Hundred Years of Solitude from my local library and gave it a read.
I was very impressed with the scope of this book, the language, style, everything. It was gripping. I couldn’t believe how into it I was. But I realize now, I don’t really know at all what I was supposed to …read more

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Now, only recently, being on the point of giving my last squawk, I thought of looking for the key to the ancient feast where I might find my appetite again.
Charity is that key. — This inspiration proves that I have dreamed!
“You will always be a hyena…” etc., protests the devil who crowned me with such pleasant poppies. “Attain death with all your appetites, your selfishness and all the capital sins!”
Ah! I’m fed up: — But, dear Satan, a less fiery eye I beg you! And while awaiting a few small infamies in arrears, you who love the absence of …read more

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In an earlier post I referred to Hermann Hesse, and in dialogue with some of the readers I mentioned that he won the Nobel prize for Literature.
Well he’s not alone. There is a complete list of all the Laureates here, and I think it is very interesting. They have honoured everything from plays by Samuel Beckett, to novels by Rudyard Kipling, to speeches by Winston Churchill.
Of this list the I am currently reading a work called Soul Mountain by Gao Xingjian. After about 100 pages it is pretty engrossing.
Has any one out there got something to say about this …read more

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When TS Eliot wrote “The Wasteland” in 1922, he wrote for an exceptionally elite readership. The lengthy poem is interspersed with German, Latin and French, with numerous references to other poetic works with which his contemporaries would be familiar. He made no apologies for the notion that his work was written for a small, elite audience. He would have denied anyone who challenged him on this matter, saying that it is not he, Eliot the poet, who is represented by the work. It is simply a combination of “impressions and experiences combine[d] in peculiar and unexpected ways” and his own …read more

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Literally-Blogging has already undergone a bit of a change. When we launched it seems that editors Erin Harvey and (myself) Jacob Murphy, had different ideals concerning the direction of a Literature blog. We discussed it, hashed things out a bit, and in the end came to a place where we really couldn’t decide on common ground.
As a result we have parted ways on this blog, and I will continue on as the editor. We still work together as co-editors of b5media’s Movie-Weblog.com, and I enjoy Erin’s style and interests there very much. You can also catch her thoughts …read more

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The Red Wheelbarrow
William Carlos Williams
—————————–
so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens.
——————————
This one is speaking to me right now. What depends upon a red wheelbarrow? Well in this case, the Poem does. And that is something.

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Greetings fellow readers. thinkers and dreamers. My name is Jacob, and along with Erin Harvey I am very pleased to welcome you to Literally-Blogging.com. Erin and I are both enthusiastic about this blog, seeing in it a great deal of potential for discussion, debate, and conversation about the written word. I hope that you are challenged by some of what you find here, and are able to challenge us as well.
I thought I would take a moment to explain when and how I first came to love the world of Literature. It happened at age 15, and it came to …read more

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