another BAD sign

in our Swedish Signs For Fridays Series...

down on your hands and knees with language

Last Spring I had the privilege of hearing Billy Collins read from his work and ever since I've been a huge fan. In a radio interview, the former U.S. Poet Laureate talked about his art, and described the fun of writing: "The real thrill is composition," Collins said. "To be kind of down on your hands and knees with the language at really close range in the midst of a poem that is carrying you in some direction that you can't foresee... It's that sense of ongoing discovery that makes composition really thrilling and that's the pleasure and that's why I write." Here's a clip to give you a taste of his poetic brilliance and how funny he is and his totally dead pan delivery... (incase you weren't already familiar with him):

Donald Miller: Million Miles Tour

My brilliant funny hysterical friend is opening for Don, her name is Susan Isaacs and she wrote ANGRY CONVERSATIONS WITH GOD and she is fabulous and you must not miss her!

Royal French Horn

in our Swedish Signs for Fridays Series

Live the questions now

In Letters to a Young Poet, Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926) wrote, "You are so young, so before all beginning, and I want to beg you, as much as I can, dear sir, to be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now." And he said, "The purpose of life is to be defeated by greater and greater things."

avoiding temptation...

"Don't worry about avoiding temptation. As you grow older, it will avoid you." -- Sir Winston Churchill

coffee?

in our Swedish Signs for Fridays Series. Sorry I need to go and make some coffee immediately...

writing for children or grown-ups?

"You have to write whichever book it is that wants to be written. And then, if it's going to be too difficult for grown-ups, you write it for children." - Madeleine L'Engle (1918-2007) Thank Heaven for Madeleine L'Engle and her high view of children.