1. 2 upcoming events in Los Angeles: A Short Talk on Purgatory at Poetic Research Bureau on 1/21 at 6pm and a reading at Stories Books and Cafe on 1/22 at 7pm as part of the NDA reading series.
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“Love for our neighbor, being made of creative attention, is analogous to genius.” (Simone Weil)
Though the image is carved of marble, we’re told that it looks so real it seems to be singing. Everything’s heavy. Bodies all gravity along the bend and the ancient poet’s now a climbing guide: “Here it behoves us to use a little art…to adapt ourselves now here, now there, to the receding side.”
“In front of us appeared so truthfully / There sculptured in a gracious attitude / He did not seem an image that is silent.” (Purgatorio, Canto X, tr. Longfellow) On the terrace of pride, a sculpture depicting humility. Here, art works on you…