Want to dig a bit deeper, stretch a bit wider, discover unique insights in your reading? So do I! That's why we literary nomads explore beyond the comfortable beach read. Subscribe for podcasts and video, fiction and poetry, essays and online courses, unexpected freebies, and ways to lever your literacy into activism! For students of all ages, educators of all kinds, and just plain out litterateurs!
On Forge Fire, Free Gifts, and Cruel Forests
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16 Nov 2025 From Heat to HiltReader, Despite having so many irons in my production fire, it is, after all, a single fire, and since I both kindled it and kept it hot, is it any wonder that they all begin to fit a singular temper? that they seem to work toward a broader vision? And while I am always suspicious of singular (too-focused) purpose, something which too closely resembles a Jules Verne villain (perhaps Robur), still, defining (and redefining and revisiting and revisioning) is important to our sense of agency: it builds an agenda for action. We must have a stance from which to propel ourselves. I called the studio Waywords and subtitled it "Wanderings on Literature and Language" with some intention, of course. I mean in part that there are few places which involve language and its creative utterance where we won't set up camps of inquiry. "Wanderings" foregoes overt direction or traditional pathways. And as Bobby Frost tells us, "way leads on to way." I prefer Bilbo's "The road goes ever on and on," but that's me. The podcast title, Literary Nomads, doubles-down on this idea and makes it a lifestyle or literary culture choice. So what is all this talk about singular vision, Steve? Let's switch our metaphors back, then. Not a vision or direction but a methodology, a manner, a posture, for meeting what's ahead. We can see the problem with metaphors, can't we? The title of this little reflection uses "hilt," but this is for a bladed weapon; dang, don't want that. A "haft" or "helve" just changes the weapon to an axe. "Shaft" is too suggestive; "grip" too vague. And as our parents have likely all told us at some point, "Use the right tool for the right job." Because the moment we subscribe to a definition, the instant we build a model or framework, the "jiff" we find a suitable metaphor, we also discover its exceptions and limits, its exclusions. Our language cannot contain our understanding; and so we seek or invent another (or fall victim to that limitation). And so we create, build; then tear down or abandon in order to build again. Maybe it's alchemical, but then again, we're not searching for some panacea of immortality or Philosopher's Stone. And it's not Sisyphus we're looking at, because that's a punishment of futility (no matter what Camus says). This is more iterative, not necessarily progressive, but adaptable. Golems, flood myths, Frankenstein's creation--all are cautionary. Perhaps I need to look to Hinduism to find a tale of thoughtful revision and re-creation. Interesting that what we ask of our writing in revision and re-thinking doesn't seem to find a model or avatar in literature. . . . Even the Jewish folk tale of the tailor who re-uses and re-uses a blanket (then coat, then vest, then kerchief) is reductive rather than responsive. But we know it well, nonetheless. Readers witness their understanding of the world shifting with each text, tearing apart older ideologies. Young people set aside their earlier playthings for the new. Teachers recognize that so much of what worked the previous year seems now impotent to fit the new class before them. And now, at last, I begin to realize that the literary posture I'm imagining---what those irons in the fire are forming--- has still no tale for it. Literary Nomads: Down Into the Cruel ForestThe most recent episode takes us into Poe's notion of the Aesthetic as an avenue for understanding the paradoxes his narrators offer us. It's not that they're "just crazy," but their self-destructive confessions are in their way redemptive. More, this emotional truth-telling (and the sanity defenses) guarantees their execution. For Poe, though, death is a path back to the Unity of ultimate Beauty before the act of Creation itself (which split it apart). So yeah. I may not be convinced of Poe's conception (I'm not), but it opens two doors for us. The first is an inquiry into that dark space where we perform cruelty upon the defenseless (or merely allow it and become voyeurs of it), a question I'll pursue in the next two episodes. The second line of thought is where interpretation of literature comes from: Do I really have to use Poe's bizarre theory (which he writes extensively about) in order to understand and talk about his stories? Well, this depends largely on our conception of what literature interpretation is, on what it is based. Dare we, for instance, talk about his biography as if it's important and ignore this element of it? How much "outside of the text" should we consider? This is a question I'll get into in the episode on The Great Societies! And forgive the missed drop dates recently. A few personal issues have challenged my production calendar. Hope to be back on track soon! Episodes ahead:
Have a question or comment about what we're talking about? Use that mailbag and let me know!
FINISHING UP ARENDT . . . AND A GIFT FOR NEWSLETTER SUBSCRIBERS! Ch. 14 - Reflections on the Hungarian Revolution This Tuesday will be the last video in the series on Arendt, a reflection of the entire reading. I recently posted my thoughts on the two omitted chapters she wrote, one on the 1956 Hungarian Revolution and the original "Concluding Remarks" which is now the chapter on "Ideology and Terror." Why does every YouTube auto-screen cover make me look like a mad scientist? And with that, I've also completed the larger Readers Guide for the book, 124 pages of section summaries, key quotations cited by page and section, and the video transcripts. I think it's a handy tool for study or review of Arendt, but also suitable for AI tools (which often rely on easily-accessible source material). It's available now on the website, but the full PDF of the Readers Guide is available to all of you at no cost, a small "thank you" for subscribing!
Calendar: Thoughtful Thanks in Earnest Make it a point to read more indigenous literature!
Early Recommendation from My Reading:Bad Indians Book Club by Patty Krawec (2025) Science, history, gender, fiction, all written by "bad Indians," those who don't play as nice with the white literary establishment. This book sets up a reading list of writers from marginal spaces who openly push back against "settler colonialist" narratives. Along the way, Krawec created a podcast around this list, a year of reading indigenous writers. I expect to be properly humbled!
Other New Reading Out ThereLooking for some powerful reads that you probably haven't considered? How about the Warwick shortlist for women's fiction in translation? They're announcing the winner on Nov. 27, but here is the list of six contenders, only one who I've read previously:
Find out more about the list! I'll be on- and off-line over the next couple of weeks as I address some other matters, so if I do not respond to your messages or emails immediately, please be patient! Thank you! Steve What's Still Ahead?
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Waywords Studio
Want to dig a bit deeper, stretch a bit wider, discover unique insights in your reading? So do I! That's why we literary nomads explore beyond the comfortable beach read. Subscribe for podcasts and video, fiction and poetry, essays and online courses, unexpected freebies, and ways to lever your literacy into activism! For students of all ages, educators of all kinds, and just plain out litterateurs!