“The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion draws all things else to support and agree with it. And though there be a greater number and weight of instances to be found on the other side, yet these it either neglects and despises in order that by this great and pernicious predetermination the authority of its former conclusions may remain inviolate.”
– Francis Bacon, Novum Organum, 1620
Lot’s Wife
Anna Akhmatova
Translated by Stanley Kunitz and Max Hayward
And the just man trailed God’s shining agent,
over a black mountain, in his giant track,
while a restless voice kept harrying his woman:
“It’s not too late, you can still look back
at the red towers of your native Sodom,
the square where once you sang, the spinning-shed,
at the empty windows set in the tall house
where sons and daughters blessed your marriage-bed.”
A single glance: a sudden dart of pain
stitching her eyes before she made a sound . . .
Her body flaked into transparent salt,
and her swift legs rooted to the ground.
Who will grieve for this woman? Does she not seem
too insignificant for our concern?
Yet in my heart I never will deny her,
who suffered death because she chose to turn.
Tour de Force performances in 1980s cinema:
1. Harry Dean Stanton in Paris, Texas
2. John Hurt in The Elephant Man
3. Bob Hoskins in Mona Lisa
4. Bruno Ganz in Wings of Desire
5. Christopher Walken in The Dead Zone
Unbelievable But Real Film Title of the Week:
Deep Bruise (1994)
Invaluable Fact of the Week:
The Poison Arrow frog contains enough poison to kill 2,200 people.
This week’s town you really have to visit:
Ass Hill (Newfoundland, Canada)
An E-Verse sends this in:
“Now with over 700 comic strips, John Lee’s near-daily webcomic has two print comic books available, with a third and a trade paperback forthcoming by year’s end. This satiric look at life in advertising and single life can still be found at:“
E-Verse collective noun of the week:
A stripe of zebras
E-Versers the world over respond with kind and encouraging words:
“Glad you’re back!”
“You RULE! Thank you!”
“Welcome home. I’m so happy to hear from you. I wish you and E–Verse all the best and a wonderful long run. I’m just delighted the series is starting up again. (With a bang, I should add–love that terza rima contest!) The timing of your reentry is especially good for me, since only yesterday I arrived in Rome as one of the literature fellows at the American Academy. It’s a whole year of hopefully undistracted writing, but lest that sound a little lonely, I now have e-verse to ponder on a regular basis. Let the games begin!”
“So glad to discover that the rumours truly were greatly exaggerated. Welcome back!”
“Wonderful news!!! I’ve missed you!!!!”
Hilbert’s back with his E-Verse —
All’s right again with the U-verse.
We can click back on in ernest —
Though Pluto’s gone it’s still best.
Nothing much rhymes with “filbert”
But we can still rely on Hilbert!
“Thank goodness for E-Verse, after all these months, I did think I would never see your work again. I can’t begin to tell you how much I missed not seeing your work in my inbox each morning. Please, please do not just disappear like that again and never for as long as you have been away. Though, I am sure after all that time of working as hard as you do, there must have been some joy to be found not getting the poetry word out to us every day. Thanks for choosing to return.”
“Hi Ernie! Welcome back!”
“Yayyyyyy!!! Welcome back! Really pleased to see good old E-Verse again.”
“Hooray!”
“Much happiness at the return of E-Verse. Many thanks!”
“Hey, welcome back. Just today I was thinking: ‘What the gol dang ever happened ter that poetical email thingy that was so good?’”
“Yeah!”
“Yay!”
“So glad you’re back!”
“Glad to see you’re back . . . heck would be glad to see your front too.”
“Wonderful. Glad you are back.”
“Whooooheeeeee!”
“Nice. Welcome back.”
“About goddamned time! Welcome back.”
“Wicked!”
“Yay!”
“E-Verse freakin’ rules!”
“Thank you for re-starting E-Verse. I really appreciate the work you put into E-Verse.”
“Keep up the good work.”
“Impeccably timed at the arrival of the hurricane bearing your name. Coincidence? Welcome back!”
“Great! We missed it.”
“Welcome back, you were missed.”
“Yippee!”
“So glad you’re back! Life hasn’t been the same without you (that is, without E-Verse; do you separate the two in your mind?)!”
“So glad to have my E-Verse back. Many many many thanks.”
“HOORAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thank you Ernie, for bringing this back. I followed you a little on CPR, but it’s not the same thing. As much as I love the daily E-Verse, I encourage you to think seriously about the weekly rather than daily format, just for your own sanity. We’ll all love E-Verse (and you) just as much.”
Oh fraptious day! Caloo, Calay!
At last.
At long last!
May the force be with you.
Top Five Concerns I Had About the Absence of E-Verse:
5. Is my email working?
4. Is Ernie OK?
3. Will I be subpoenaed?
2. Where will I get daily poetry from?
1. Will I wake up next to Suzanne Plesshette and find out it was all just a dream?
“Thank God! A day without E-Verse is like a horrible summer mourning dead relatives in a massive spate of Global Warming-induced inferno-level heat. So welcome back.”
“Bravo!”
“Great to have you and E-Verse back!”
“Nice to see E-Verse is up and running again!”
“You’re growing! Glad you’re back, and very best wishes on the ‘new regime.’”
“So excited that E-Verse is back!”
“Now get back to work! We need our poems out here in the real world!”
[Many, many thanks. Glad to be back. Thank you very much. – E]
E-Verse Radio declares: “Veni, vidi, vici”! It is a regular weekly column of literary, publishing, and arts information and opinion that has gone out since 1999. It is brought to you by ERNEST HILBERT and currently enjoys over 1,300 readers. If you wish to submit lists or other comments, please use the same capitalization, punctuation, and grammar you would for anything else intended for publication. Please send top five lists, bad movie titles, limericks, facts, comments, and new readers along whenever you like; simply click reply and I’ll get back to you.
The Webmaster and general guru for E-Verse Radio is Jason Christopher Hartley, author of the best-selling Iraq War memoir Just Another Soldier.
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