#American Literature

[bsd-bibliophile]

All men live enveloped in whale-lines. All are born with halters round their necks; but it is only when caught in the swift, sudden turn of death, that mortals realize the silent, subtle, ever-present perils of life. And if you be a philosopher, though seated in the whale-boat, you would not at heart feel one whit more of terror, than though seated before your evening fire with a poker, and not a harpoon, by your side.

Herman Melville, Moby-Dick

[thelastrenaissance]

Harper Lee (April 28, 1926) was an American novelist whose 1960 novel To Kill a Mockingbird won the 1961 Pulitzer Prize and became a classic of modern American literature.

“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view... Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.”

Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

[sevnsevn]

Song of the Open Road

Leaves of Grass (1891-92)

—Walt Whitman

[feral-ballad]

Kate Baer, from And Yet: Poems; “Idea”

[Text ID: “I will enjoy this life. I will open it like a peach in season, suck the juice from every finger, run my tongue over my chin. I will not worry about clichés or uninvited guests peering in my windows. I will love and be loved. Save and be saved a thousand times. I will let the want into my body, bless the heat under my skin. My life, I will not waste it. I will enjoy this life.”]

[flowerytale]

Janet Fitch, from White Oleander

[newvision]

— Bob Dylan from When the Deal Goes Down on Modern Times (2006)

[theoptia]

Marie Howe, from Magdalene: Poems; "The Teacher"

Text ID: So, I thought I had to become more than / I was, more than I'd been. / but that wasn't it. It seemed rather that / something had to go. Something had to / be let go of.

[daweyt]

Louise Glück, from “Poems: 1962-2012; Persephone The Wanderer", published c. 2012.

[megairea]

I think houses live their own lives along a time-stream that’s different from the ones upon which their owners float, one that’s slower. In a house, especially an old one, the past is closer.

Stephen King, Bag of Bones, 1998

[illustration-alcove]

Angie Hoffmeister’s illustration for Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House.

[cheesy-bagels]

this image haunted me until i made it real

[feral-ballad]

Kate Baer, from And Yet: Poems; “40”

[Text ID: “because sometimes it is easier to / write yourself out of the play / than to face another breakfast.”]

[flowerytale]

James Baldwin, from Giovanni’s Room

[juneacademia]

“Most of us … are slaves of longing.”

— Bell Hooks, Communion

[edwardian-girl-next-door]

"Some long-forgot, enchanted, strange, Sweet garden of a thousand years ago,"

~ Edna St. Vincent Millay, from "Interim"

via southerncrossreview.org

[theoptia]

Marie Howe, from Magdalene: Poems; "The Teacher"

Text ID: Can we love without greed? Without wanting to be first?