Poetry for the Inner Ear

Inspirational Quotes for Today We can create heaven on earth if we peruse the following inspirational quotes from the Bible. They will help us as the storms of sin and trouble nowadays afflict our inner peace. This is evident from terrorist attacks, and unfortunate happenings in Afghanistan, Egypt and Gaddafi's wayward regime: You have heard that it was said to those of old, "You shall not murder, and whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment". But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment. And whoever says to his brother, "Raca!' shall be in danger of the council. But whoever says, "You fool!' shall be in danger of hell fire. Therefore if you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar, and go your way. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. Agree with y...

The reputation of the  short story as a serious and formidable genre was firmly established after Allan Poe published review of Hawthorne’s Twice-Told Tales in Graham’s Magazine (1842), but it should be added that the tradition of short story  dates from ancient times.          The popularity of the short story can be judged by the fact that a great number of renowned authors from several countries like Chekhov, E. M. Forster, D. H. Lawrence, Joseph Conrad, W. Somerset Maugham, H. E. Bates, James Joyce, Katherine Mansfield , L. P. Hartley, Sherwood Anderson, Kafka, Dorothy Parker , Hemingway and several others chose this genre of literature to express the truth and reality with extraordinary success. Who can forget “the Ann Beatie and Raymond Carver-led short story renaissance of the 1980s” (Dennis Loy Johnson)?             The importance of the short story was very well understood even in ...

Where is the Short Story? Why did E.M. Forster Stop Writing Fiction? The triumph of Matter over Spirit , two world wars, the postmodern machine society-all these seem to have shut “the door which leads to soul”. Hannah Arendt in The Human Condition aptly criticizes the modern age : “ It is quite inconceivable that the modern age-which began with such an unprecedented and promising outburst of human activity-may end in the deadliest, most sterile passivity history has ever known.” The problem for the short-story writer in this milieu is how to write stories which have genuine emotional depth, and directness in the presentation of situations.  E. M. Forster  had experienced this difficulty:       I think one of the reasons why I stopped writing novels is that the social aspect of the world changed so much. I had been accustomed to write about the old-fashioned world with its honor and its family life and its comparative peace. All that went, and...