I’ve spent the past few weeks immersed in silent dialogue with a few modernist and post-modernist poems. I tell myself it’s for fun (which it is, for the most part) but this is so I remain calm and collected in the few weeks before finals. The fun arises from stumbling on ordinary things with unexpected […]
Where are all the end stops? It is all enjambment and I am transitive all verbs with an object just within reach. Until it moves again. So I stop and stop some more. Poetry by Scribblerbean© All rights reserved.
Being in transit over the holidays meant we had no tree in our flat. I wrapped a total of three presents (small ones). It’s quiet work, waiting for the holiday spirit to visit. But I came back after Christmas to find that fellow wanderer becomingmadame.wordpress.com had nominated Scribblerbean for two awards: the Beautiful Blogger Award […]
I’ve overturned a log in the forest and out scurried colorful little creatures that were hiding in the crevices. Not really, no. But it’s been a little like this, over the past 48 hours. Just the other day a friend of mine posted this infographic, about living with introverts. Putting it on my own wall, […]
1. Open the newspaper and find the Classifieds. Feel overwhelmed, as you usually are when faced with too many choices. Temper passions with an eye on practical considerations, such as food preferences and limitations based upon budget. Once you find the Classifieds, pore over the many categories. Be distracted by ads selling antique typewriters, Labrador […]
Having run out of coffee today I had to get my caffeine fix from another source. I rummaged and found a handful of essential spices (cinnamon, clove, cardamom) and brewed me some chai instead. The anise didn’t go into the pot; it’s just here because it’s pretty.
My course work in non-fiction is coming to a close so hopefully I can channel more energy back into this blog. It was a summer course, swift and rigorous, and stretched as I am, I am ever so grateful for the privilege of having taken it.
Thanks all for your patience! I do hope to be back to scribbling very soon.
On afternoons when the air crawls and my words get lost in a cloud in my head, I bake. As cupboards slam, the rattling of cake tins begins to dislodge ideas, shaking them loose like flour through a sifter. For all its demands of focus and precise amounts, baking draws me into a state of […]
I feel like I’m a better person than I was two weeks ago. I’ve finished reading Great Expectations and to my surprise, I really enjoyed it. Understand: I have never had to read Charles Dickens. This unfortunate reality is likely due to skipping two years of high school (long story) and all the reading that […]
Open up a can of chickpeas. See in your head a bowl of creamy hummus. Remember E’s picture from Jordan? It was taken around a campfire at dusk. A Bedouin man brewed a pot of tea and E had tea like that, in the desert, amidst sand dunes. E ate a lot of hummus while […]
My friend Hiromi made me a list of cafes to visit on my first trip to Tokyo in 2010. Two doors past the Calico Cafe (a cat cafe, I was to find out) is Ejinbara Coffee. The menu was in Japanese, so I just pointed to the first item. I wasn’t disappointed. Every cup that isn’t an […]
Between 2004-2008 I escaped from writing to study and practice photography. I traveled with my camera to Vietnam, Cambodia, Singapore, and Hong Kong; and around the US, in Texas, Washington, California, and my home state of Illinois. Over the next few weeks I plan to gather up my photos (scattered on various hard drives around […]
It is hot here, and full of expats. For the second breakfast of the day, The Cargo Club offers a balcony to hide in. The paint is left to peel on purpose. To sweeten the coffee a girl leaves a saucer of condensed milk. The croissant is crab-shaped. At noon I visit a seamstress named Trinh, […]
Jack Kerouac once said that things we feel find their own form. In my very early years as a writer-for-hire, I worked with clients and form was decided for me. There was no room for feeling. But writing thirty-second ad copy demanded economy of expression, bang for buck delivered in three different versions designed to […]
Growing as an artist and creative thinker in a highly industrialized city can be a real challenge. Where I live, there is a tendency for art to be packaged; and thinking follows set patterns. So it helps that I work in solitude. My life is an experiment that is slightly Darwin-esque, and I wonder how […]
There’s a conversation that took place one winter in Rome between the poet Ezra Pound and interviewer Donald Hall. Published in the Summer/Fall 1962 issue of The Paris Review, the interview revealed Pound’s ideas about where literature was headed: And now one has got with the camera an enormous correlation of particulars. That capacity for […]
My summer reading kicked off with Leonora Carrington’s The Hearing Trumpet. Carrington was a surrealist painter, so her novel is a wonderfully surrealistic narrative. I won’t go into any analysis here, but since finishing the novel, I’ve thought much about this quote from the book: If I remember correctly writers usually find some excuse for […]
Marcus Young, St. Paul, Minnesota’s artist in residence, is turning the city into a book. For the past five years, he’s organized the Everyday Poems for City Sidewalk Project , challenging poets while creating moments of reading and reflection. It’s similar to New York City’s Library Way, photos of which I found here. The most […]
April is National Poetry Month. The challenge is to write a poem a day. Although I’m coming onto this rather late in the game, I welcome the opportunity to practice the craft on a daily basis over the next two weeks. I found some absolutely scrumptious prompts here that I can scarcely wait to try, […]
Day 110: A flat white in Taipei. Eslite is more museum than bookshop, with categories filling halls of cavernous proportions. One gallery was devoted entirely - entirely - to cultural studies and literary theory, many titles translated into Mandarin. It’s surprising what one city’s bookshop can reveal about its people and their aspirations.
“No, I’m no artist,” said Francois, in answer to my question. He directed us towards the bathroom, or to the cafe, whichever he felt we needed more urgently. “See, there is art everywhere. See here,” he said, pointing at Garuda carved into the cabana. I was sitting in it now, waving away mosquitoes. The sun […]
