thecurioustable

Turkish coffee and Pamuk's Snow, read side by side. Both ask you to slow down, sit with ambiguity, and let the residue settle. New at The Curious Table. thecurioustable.com #bookstagram #thecurioustable

A macchiato and Mitch Albom's The Little Liar, sipped together: bitterness and sweetness, truth and deception, in the cup and on the page. New at The Curious Table. thecurioustable.com #bookstagram #thecurioustable

A wild morning glory took over a boxwood that isn't supposed to bloom, and turned into a poem about looking, letting go, and where we're headed. New at The Curious Table. thecurioustable.com  #poetry #thecurioustable

Willy Loman and Odysseus, both undone by the myths they tell about themselves. New at The Curious Table: Death of a Salesman and Echoes of Homer. thecurioustable.com  #DeathOfASalesman #TheOdyssey #thecurioustable

A poem that arrived on a Greenway walk one Spring morning — about looking forward and back, up and down, in and out. Sometimes perspective is the whole thing. New at The Curious Table. thecurioustable.com  #poetry #thecurioustable

Swift wrote in 1726: “Poor nations are hungry, and rich nations are proud, and pride and hunger will ever be at variance.” I had to set the book down. New post: Maybe We Should Read the Classics More Often thecurioustable.com  #JonathanSwift #GulliversTravels #thecurioustable

L. Frank Baum didn't plan to write 31 Oz books. His readers demanded it — and a scholar named Jack Zipes thinks that's actually how fairy tales are supposed to work. New post Friday: I Read a Fairy Tale thecurioustable.com    #OzBooks #FairyTales #thecurioustable

A new poem at The Curious Table — a haiku written from a gray shoreline, and a few thoughts on why constraint might be the best creative invitation there is. Grab a coffee and give it a try. thecurioustable.com    #poetry #haiku #thecurioustable

"I kept waiting for truth and right to win and then somebody new would knock truth and right right on its ass." Hemingway, Islands in the Stream. New post: What Are We Waiting For? thecurioustable.com   #Hemingway  #IslandsInTheStream  #thecurioustable

After Homer's burning heroes, Aeneas is something different — a man who carries everything and still keeps walking. New post: From Troy to Rome: What Virgil Is Doing to Me thecurioustable.com   #Virgil  #Aeneid  #classicsliterature  #thecurioustable

A life lived quietly, woven into every room she walked through. New poem: Silhouette of a Life Well Woven thecurioustable.com   #poetry  #originalpoetry  #thecurioustable

I walked into the Metropolitan Opera not speaking a word of Italian. Somewhere in the second act, I stopped reading the subtitles. New post: La Traviata: When the Voices Became the Orchestra thecurioustable.com   #latraviata #opera #artsandculture #thecurioustable

I stopped in the middle of Central Park and stood in front of a flower I first met in Colorado decades ago. It asked me something I couldn't answer until I walked into the Frick. New post at The Curious Table. thecurioustable.com

Daniel Radcliffe was in the crowd before the show began. Standing two rows in front of me. What followed was the most quietly devastating piece of theater I've seen in years. New post at The Curious Table. thecurioustable.com

Atwood doesn't let Penelope off the hook. That's what makes Part 2 of this series the harder read — and the more honest one. New post today at The Curious Table. thecurioustable.com

I spent weeks inside The Odyssey watching Penelope wait. Then I read Atwood — and realized I hadn't understood what she was doing at all. New post today at The Curious Table. thecurioustable.com

A wood-fired bakery in Mykonos. An open door. My wife at a table in the back. I've been sitting with this photograph for a week and here is the poem it asked me to write. thecurioustable.com

I walked into a café in Greenwich Village and found a 16th-century painting, Lorenzo de' Medici's bench, and a 1902 espresso machine. I also had two cappuccinos. New post today at The Curious Table. thecurioustable.com

I've just closed The Odyssey. Homer is behind me. Virgil is ahead. And I find myself wanting to pause at the threshold for just a moment. New post today at The Curious Table. thecurioustable.com

Rilke didn't tell the young poet whether to write. He told him to go inward and live the question. New post today at The Curious Table. thecurioustable.com