Thomas Liam

INSTEAD OF A LETTER by Diana Athill

#NYRBWomen26 page guide for INSTEAD OF A LETTER by Diana Athill

“To the poet, to the painter, to the writer of serious prose as distinct from the entertainer (much though I owe to the latter), I am so much in debt that if artists did not exist, I cannot imagine that I would.” (p185) — Diana Athill, INSTEAD OF A LETTER #NYRBWomen26

Not the first, or second, or third time this has happened with us. 😂

#NYRBWomen26 #DianaAthill

Instead of a Letter - Chapter 14

"To the poet, to the painter, to the writer of serious prose as distinct from the entertainer (much though I owe to the latter), I am so much in debt that if artists did not exist, I cannot imagine that I would."

May Sarton painted by Albert Duvall "Quig" Quigley

Albert Duvall "Quig" Quigley

#SundaySarton

"I am, I think, more of a poet than I was before I knew him (Albert "Quig" Quigley), if to be a poet means allowing life to flow through one rather than forcing it to a mold the will has shaped; if it means learning to let the day shape the work, not the work, the day..."

#SundaySarton

Plant Dreaming Deep - Chapter 11

"I have come to believe that the way people die expresses the central person as clearly as the way they have lived or the way they have loved."

1/2

#SundaySarton

I gobbled up the rest of Plant Dreaming Deep today like it was a plate of warm cookies set in front of me (to which I would have gobbled them up like a May Sarton memoir).

As I said last weekend, so much of what she writes brings me to the edge of weeping for its precision of beauty and melancholy.

#Troilus_2026

I watched ahead through to the end. The short scenes seemed to demand it. It feels unique from any S. play I've watched/read so far. Jagged, frenetic....I'll wait until we all reach the end to comment more specifically.

#Troilus_2026

Thersites:
...not proved worthy a blackberry
🤭
(V.4.10)

Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban

I had to dig deep in my bookshelves, but I'm ready @christina500.bsky.social

#Troilus_2026

Troilus:
For the love of all the gods,
Let's leave the hermit pity with our mothers,
And when we have our armours buckled on,
The venom'd vengeance ride upon our swords,
Spur them to ruthful work, rein them from ruth.
(V.3.52-56)

#Troilus_2026

Troilus:
O Cressid! O false Cressid! false, false, false!
Let all untruths stand by thy stained name,
And they'll seem glorious.
(V.2.193-195)

It was so great to see and hear you after all the online discussions and reading we've shared.

Little World or Ridley? Or both? Yes either way! Let me know when you can fit it in, and I'll make it work

Oh gosh, wouldn't that be wonderful?
I'm down for any Zoom chats we can fit into our busy lives.

I just reserved Little World from the library, and I have a copy of Ridley Walker. A friend highly recommended it years ago, but I just never got to it.

This was such a great group chat and visit. Thanks, Kim!

#SundaySarton

Plant Dreaming Deep

"Problems to do with climate, with snow or drought or high wind, problems to do with growing things, bring one right down to the marrow. They quickly become metaphor in the mind; they are the stuff of poetry."

#Troilus_2026

Thersites: (to Petroclus)
Why art thou then exasperate, thou idle
immaterial skein of sleave-silk, thou green sarcenet
flap for a sore eye, thou tassel of a prodigal's
purse, thou? Ah, how the poor world is pestered
with such waterflies, diminutives of nature!
(V.1.31-35)

#AContinuation

Lili is Crying
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

I finished this morning and have so many confused thoughts to untangle.

"I think Bessette wants her readers to feel confused."
- Kate Briggs

#SundaySarton

"Experience is the fuel; I would live my life burning it up as I go along, so that at the end nothing is left unused, so that every piece of it has been consumed in the work."

#Troilus_2026

Agamemnon:
What's past and what's to come is strew'd with husks
And formless ruin of oblivion;
But in this extant moment, faith and troth,
Strain'd purely from all hollow bias-drawing,
Bids thee, with most divine integrity,
From heart of very heart, great Hector, welcome.

Royal Shakespeare Company (2017). It's kind of a Mad Max vibe. Cool thing is cast is 50/50 men and women. Ulysses, Agamemnon, Aeneas, are all played by women.

#AContinuation

Lili is Crying - Hélène Bessette

- You were wrong, says Lili, I left him there. With only his
eyes, which are the colour of fear.
This season's colour! It suits everyone.
A new shade. It just gets better and better.
(102)

#AContinuation

Lili is Crying - Hélène Bessette

So Lili is wrong to torture her heart over the verb 'to choose'.
Life takes care of the choosing. It's life that decides.
(99)
...

The choice takes care of itself.
The choice doesn't need us.
(101)

#SundaySarton

"Poetry, like chamber music, thrives best on a few listeners, but those one or two are essential. The poem does not live until it has been heard."

Amanda Harris as Aeneas in the 2018 RSC production of Troilus and Cressida.

#Troilus_2026

Aeneas:
In the extremity of great and little,
Valour and pride excel themselves in Hector;
The one almost as infinite as all,
The other blank as nothing. Weigh him well,
And that which looks like pride is courtesy.
(IV.5.94-98)

#NYRBWomen26

Instead of a Letter

"...the difference between anticipation and reality could only be to the advantage of reality, simply because it was reality."

#SundaySarton

Plant Dreaming Deep

For alone here, I must first give up the world and all its dear, tantalizing human questions, first close myself away, and then, and only then, open to that other tide, the inner life, the life of solitude, which rises very slowly until, like the anemone, I am open to receive whatever it may bring.