Bicycle

Donaucity-Kirche, Vienna International Center, architect Heinz Tesar. 

 

Photo: R. Badalamente, June 26, 2010

All the Birds, Singing, by Evie Wyld

WYLD: Oh, yeah. It could be any number of sick pranks. There's a lot of sort of mystery around whether or not it's a person taking some kind of revenge trying to scare her off or whether it's actually a large mythical cat or something else or even herself.

This is a revealing response from the author, Evie Wyld, to a question from NPR interviewer, Scott Simon. Read the complete interview here.

I like this review of the novel by Jeff VanderMeer.

I liked the novel quite a lot, but it isn't for the faint of heart. Especially if you're living alone on a gloomy, wind-swept island someonewhere in the middle of nowhere.

Living in Greater Harmony with Nature

Throughout human history man has battled nature to survive and thrive on this earth. Modern man ultimately learned to harness the forces of nature and put them to work in the service of mankind. But all along, man’s ability to gain dominion over nature exceeded his understanding of his place in the natural world. Unless mankind learns to live in greater harmony with nature there will inevitably come a time when the world can no longer meet man’s physical needs, let alone those essential spiritual needs met by the natural beauty – the shear majesty -- of our remarkable planet.

The Mists

There were

In the forest

In the twilight

Mists

Curling like snakes

Along the damp ground

And up and through the gnarled limbs

Of ancient Oaks

The mist

Wraps around my neck

As I gaze up through the leaves

Through the mists

Curling up into the starless sky

I try to scream

But the mists fill my open mouth
Choking me

And so I lie here silently screaming

While ghosts in white

Curl like snakes

Around me

Whispering

About white matter

And centimeters

And incisions

The sky above me is bright with stars

Blindingly painfully bright

Painfully

I squeeze my eyes shut

But the pain comes still

Just behind the eyes

Here

In the twilight

In the mists

Curling like snakes

Along the damp ground

And up and through the gnarled limbs

Of ancient Oaks

Under which I lie

Shrouded in mist

This Rose

I kissed this rose

Drawn to it

As if it were your mouth

Overcome

I withdrew bleeding

 

Partitions, by Amit Majmudar

This first-time novelist has helped us to travel that brief but crucial distance, from words on the page to dreams in our minds and hearts, and made this bitter, brutal time somehow reachable.

Growing up in both India and the U.S., Amit Majmudar wasn't entirely sure where he belonged — until he found the library. "I became a citizen of the library," he tells NPR's Renee Montagne. "And to this day, I feel at ease only in a crowd of books. In some ways, I feel like I am a book, to be honest with you." Majmudar straddles professional worlds as well — in addition to being Ohio's first ever Poet Laureate, he's also a radiologist. [From NPR's Morning Edition]

Joshua Ledet's New Song -- Here to Die