This Week: Wislawa Szymborska & Kenko Chomei
Poets and Philosophers 2023 Winter Continues
Wednesday, November 1, 2023
Aho’Rajanaka,
I hope this finds you well. First snow yesterday. It will warm every once in a while but from now until late May it’s going to snow here anytime. Other stuff wil happen. Someone local yesterday took note, not to complain but to say here we go, winter. Funny how life changes. For many years out on the road, I wished and dreamt and even fantasized about living somewheres warm(er). I still think about the culture that I really do miss because we live in the woods and I really do miss seeing you out there in the world. But as for the weather, the wilder winter gets now, the better: rain, socked in fog, snow, winds blowin’sideways, snow, did I mention snow? Bring it on. I’m all in.
This week our Saturday Philosopher is Kenko Chomei, a Japanese Buddhist writer known as a tonseisha, an ascetic recluse. In short, this guy retreated in the last decade or so of his life to a 10 foot square hut called a hojoki and wrote about what he knew and saw in his world. He occasionally came out to the world but, for the most part, he wanted something else and what he has to say about the world and why he “left” is fascinating and compelling. If you’ve never heard of Chomei you’re in for a treat. He’s a self-confessed “bad Buddhist” but in a good way. Links are below.
Tomorrow, Thursday at 7pm Eastern, our poet is Wislawa Szymborska, Polish poet extraordinaire, Nobel Laureate, brilliant soul. I asked students yesterday if any of them regularly read poetry---these were, mind you, students who had already decided to take my class, which is no longer a very popular thing in my STEM University. I don’t take this personally, btw. Anyways, of course they said they didn’t really ever read poetry. I asked why, “I don’t like it…” “How much have you read? Have you had a teacher to show you any of the good stuff?” After we got through all of this, they all simply confessed every time they tried to read “serious” poetryit’s just too hard. I agreed wholeheartedly. It is hard, it can be baffling, annoying, and there are other things to do, like scroll your Tik-Tok videos, right? But I told them I’m here to try to help them discover that difficult things like poetry can be worth your time. It doesn’t really get easier but it is more fun when you do it together. I will do my best to come prepared for a good conversation for them and for us. Szymborska is really amazing. Let’s do this. I feel you here: it’s challenging to dive deep into poets but the best ones make all the difference.
The Dropbox Archives for BOTH Poets and Philosophers from last week (Miosz and Heraclitus) are available. All you need is in the links here.
ALL Poetry Thursdays, 7pm Eastern on Zoom. Sessions are $16 each or $75 for all in advance, use PayPal or Venmo (svcourses@gmail.com). The usual Thursday link works:
https://rochester.zoom.us/j/98183733328
October 26 Czeslaw Milosz
November 2 Wislawa Szymborska
November 9 Samuel Coleridge
November 16 Louise Glück
November 30 Tu Fu & Li Po
POETS DROPBOX ARCHIVE IS HERE:
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/he1kuvs22ior4n2k8ly5f/h?rlkey=r32skq8duqhe9auej0gwjdf4o&dl=0
ALL Philosopher Saturdays, 5pm Eastern on Zoom. Sessions are $16 each or $75 for all in advance, use PayPal or Venmo (svcourses@gmail.com). The usual Saturday link works:
https://rochester.zoom.us/j/95057662268
October 28 Heraclitus, Greek
November 4 Kenko Chomei, Japanese
November 11 Meister Eckart, Christian
November 18 W.V.O. Quine, American
December 2 Ludwig Wittgenstein, somewhere at his desk
PHILOSOPHER DROPBOX ARCHIVE IS HERE:
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/1nhcs4nji7yxfae35eyis/h?rlkey=7jiuzn3ec1ydhw5alajxi7m1s&dl=0
I hope to see you on Zoom this week. I’ll do my best to make this a good conversation.
Saprema, with affection, Douglas
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ALL PAST NEWSLETTERS on the Kalliyam Blogspot here:
https://kalliyam.blogspot.com/2023/01/rajanaka-newsletter-january-10-2023.html
I’m hoping to put all future Newsletters also on Substack. Our mailing list server is fine but it’d be better to have things all in one place.
PLEASE SUBSCRIBE TO SUBSTACK! More notes, chats, threads, podcasts are coming. Community is so difficult to sustain in this fragmented and shivering world that burns. Come find the fire within, as Heraclitus teaches. Renew and warm yourself in good company.
