© 2018 Don Yorty. All rights reserved.
… “Who ever loved, that loved not at first sight?” Christopher Marlowe asked us in iambic pentameter a few years back, and I thought of that as I began to read If This Is Paradise Why Are We Still Driving? … Continue reading
© 2018 Don Yorty. All rights reserved.
… I heard about an art opening last May through a Facebook friend, Philip Nikolayev, and from the painting he included with the invitation, I was very interested. And I almost went, but at the last minute I was asked … Continue reading
© 2018 Don Yorty. All rights reserved.
… Poet, provocateur, musician, among so many other things, Barbara Barg died of cancer in Chicago on May 22, 2018 at the age of 71. Even though I was expecting the news, the earth trembled under my feet when I … Continue reading
© 2018 Don Yorty. All rights reserved.
… I met up with Anne Waldman on a Friday last April at her house in the West Village to record her reading from First Baby Poems, a favorite book of mine. Anne had just come from Penguin Books where … Continue reading
© 2018 Don Yorty. All rights reserved.
… The unflattering sketch of Marie Antoinette above on the way to her execution was done by Jacques-Louis David, a Jacobin who had voted for her death. Though some in the crowd jeered and spit, Marie Antoinette, we can see, … Continue reading
© 2018 Don Yorty. All rights reserved.
… … When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state, And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries, And look upon myself, and curse my fate, Wishing me like to one more rich … Continue reading
© 2018 Don Yorty. All rights reserved.
… I am always amazed at the pace Robert Rhodes works. Every day he does something new. It almost seems impossible, sometimes even a little terrifying, but always beautiful. Here are some green summer studies he did yesterday, July 9, … Continue reading
© 2018 Don Yorty. All rights reserved.
… Walking back from Grand Street between Allen and the Bowery; some of the best shopping—my niece is coming. Bought some beautiful cut sunflowers. Stopped by First Avenue and maybe 3rd Street—east side of the avenue anyway—to take these pictures. … Continue reading
© 2018 Don Yorty. All rights reserved.
… Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate: Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer’s lease hath all too short a date: Sometime too hot the eye of … Continue reading
© 2018 Don Yorty. All rights reserved.
… June 11 I was visiting Basil and Martha King today and Basil invited me upstairs to see his studio. On entering, I promptly knocked over an empty canvas. “Don’t worry,” Basil said, “I do it all the time.” I … Continue reading
© 2018 Don Yorty. All rights reserved.
… Birches When I see birches bend to left and right Across the lines of straighter darker trees, I like to think some boy’s been swinging them. But swinging doesn’t bend them down to stay As ice-storms do. Often you … Continue reading
© 2018 Don Yorty. All rights reserved.
… … The only surviving letter of Willa Cather to Edith Lewis: … Sunday 4:30 P.M. [October 5, 1936] Shattuck Inn, Jaffrey, New Hampshire My Darling Edith; I am sitting in your room, looking out on the woods you know … Continue reading