Robert Flach · Poetry, prose & fiction
Writing, and the
life around it.
Welcome to All Authors, the home of my writing. Explore poetry, essays, fiction, and thoughts about the work of putting words on the page.
Enter Unadulterated Text →Featured from the archive · Poetry
Brother Thoughts
An early poem about expectations, difference, and brotherhood.
“This is a very old piece of mine that was modeled on and was a reaction to a poem by a reasonably well-known author.”
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Idea Files
Novels for discipleship
I’ve always been interested in the affect that fiction can have on a person. For myself, I’ve noticed that even within the realm of so-called Christian fiction, there are novels…
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Is your spouse your best friend?
A reflection on friendship, marriage, and the words we use for love.
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All Hallows Eve? I think not
There is a great write-up about Halloween by a former occultist/pagan at Pennie Renewed which my friend Terry Ghiselli shared on facebook the other day. I agree with many of her…
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01Alba/Aubade
An aubade on light, love, and what distance lets us see.
Alexandrines Revisited
Vine tendril seeking the light Dissatisfied with the Alexandrine couplets I had written and making use of some suggestions from Tim Morris , I started over, and came up with the…
If you can’t let go of your things, how will you let go of your life?
Peter Brown writes in his book, The Body and Society, that the early Christians were deeply concerned that the frail, mortal body should become a reliable container for the Spirit…
Answered Prayer
Praise God. He works in amazing and mysterious ways. Our car, which should have been worth less than one thousand dollars due to its emissions failures and body damage, received…
When the Lord sends you a message, you may not like the envelope
I’ve been feeling for some time now that we needed to find/purchase/trade for a minivan with enough seats to allow us to do things like cart neighbor kids to VBS, transport…
Noticeably Different
The Bible commands us to be different from the world around us: Scriptural Principle: John 17:14 “And be not fashioned according to this world: but be ye transformed by the…
Spreading the word
One of the ways that I reach out to my neighbors is by providing free copies of God’s word. I have a stack of Bibles in our front window (visible from the parking lot), with a…
Evangelizing Family
Nothing strikes more fear into the heart of many Christians than the thought of discussing the things of God with family members who are unsaved. Nowhere, it seems, do we let our…
Being Friendly
It seems in American culture today that simple friendliness and neighborliness have just about disappeared. I noticed in myself a tendency to walk through life minimizing my…
Why Blog
I haven’t blogged in quite some time. Part of the reason for that is that my internet connection at this place is (to put it mildly) quirky, which makes using web applications…
Winnie
Meet Winnie. Winnie knocked on my door the other night, and when I opened the door she breathlessly asked “I’m sorry to bother you sir, but is there any chance I could come in…
UnHalloween–Why “Trunk-o-Treat” = Apostasy
My wife and I always have a hard time when All Saint’s Eve rolls around. We have a real problem with even the ‘alternative’ celebrations provided by most churches. Until now I’d…
First Contact
For someone who has committed himself to evangelism–to fulfilling the great commission, I feel an awful lot like Moses, “I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue” ( Exodus 4:10b…
Why Extended Stay Evangelist
What is an extended stay evangelist you ask (or perhaps you don’t and you stumbled onto this site for some other reason)? This site will hopefully answer this question and allow…
The Urge to Revise
On the temptation to polish the beginning before reaching the end.
Why the chicken crossed the road
Recently, I was reading on Slashdot about how Professor John Brookfield has told the UK Press Association that the “pecking order is clear” with regard to the age-old chicken and…
Moved
Moved to new server new.allauthors.com. www.allauthors.com will be back online soon.
More Thoughts on Cyberspace
In “A Rape In Cyberspace” ( Village Voice , 1993), Julian Dibbell discusses a virtual world in which a virtual person (representing of course an actual person) used the tools of…
A Virtual Commonplace: You Bet
Hypertext, commonplace books, and the changing spaces in which we write.
Sonnet to a Cat, with Intra-linear Dispersions
Smoke curls up from empty words. I burn a page for you and incense like, it wafts up through the air, particulate and …
The Wife’s Lament
So, as you can imagine, with Josely Baptista fresh in my mind, my thoughts are focused on translation. Add to that a class in Old English language and literature, and you’ve got…
Reading: On the Shining Screen…
On the Shining Screen of the Eyelids by Josely Vianna Baptista, with translations by Chris Daniels is a volume of facing translations divided into two parts. The first part, “from…
Poetry Reading
I can’t do better than to recommend the review that Chris Murray has written of the reading by Dale Smith and Hoa Nguyen. It was excellent. My only disappointment was that David…
The Game
Though I got it initially from Lime Tree , it originates in its current form from a Live Journal Entry by Elkins who apparently modified it (a much needed modification) from Amy’s…
Poetic Aesthetic
The problem with discussions of poetics today is that no one is willing to accept any linguistic boundaries. In other words, poetry must be allowed to be anything anyone chooses…
Thinking VIM and the End Times
Lime Tree has a fun little discourse on the discourse of thought. Ruminate has an old but very philohumorous post on the End Times , as well as a discussion of VIM vs. EMACS (a…
Typo’s
Chris pointed me to Eileen , who posts the very interesting work of Catherine Daly . I found the typo , can you? HINT: Everything’s sweetness and light.
YAPP
I’ve always felt that there was an intrinsic connection between poetry and code. The more I engage the blogging community, the more I find it to be true. I therefore am proud to…
Reading (A little shameless self-promoting)
The University of Texas at Arlington and The Writing Center Are proud to present: A Poetry_Heat 2004 POETRY READING By Wendy Taylor Carlisle Award winning poet and Author of…
Discussion Galore
I know I’m no blogger (My god! you only read a couple of blogs once or twice a month, how can you possibly keep up), so it’s no suprise that it’s taken me this long to stumble…
At The Club – A Farce
At the request of a friend I am posting the following humorous verse. At the Club A Farce “The act of esteeming worthless; pointless” – floccinaucinihilipilification: I’ve a…
Poetry: ‘Flesh-back’
“Flesh-back,” by Guy Goffette, translated by Marilyn Hacker (published in Poetry London, No. 46), transmogrifies beer into gold and urchins into avenging angels. It speaks in the…
Alexandrine couplet
If George Bush wants to win the race he’ll have to free his campaign from the taint of missing WMDs. If Edwards wants the liberal nomination then He’ll have to show the delegates…
Sestina
Writing a Sestina I only write one line. That’s all I have to write. I keep the meter tight. No need to run across the line-ends. Each is clear, and each one stands alone. So each…
Ae Freislighe revisited
I wasn’t really happy with yesterday’s poem. It failed to keep rigorously to the requirements of the rhyme. The one below is slightly more satisfactory. Continuum Look in the…
Poetry: ‘The Final Stroke’
“The Final Stroke,” by Peter G. Epps (published in the Penwood Review , November 2003), is interesting in that, more than any poem I have seen recently it keeps strictly to the…
Ae Freislighe
Grief Beaches call; stony clamor of silence rings through dead air. Dead air receives the stammer and sinks without a sound. Where are the calls of the sea birds? This silent…
Compound Acrostic with Reverse Mesostich
Progression W ildlife, e ndless. Her e i s the bison, l ost to us whe n l ongbows departed. I see it rifle d d ead, b uried. Achile a e ventually is grown, o r killed; éla n r…
Forms
I’m going to start working my way through Lewis Turco’s Book of Forms, writing one form a day, in alphabetical order. The intention is both to keep me focused on my craft, to…
Argument
I think all heartfelt love poetry, composed in the moment and to a real lover, is probably pretty cheesy. I know for certain that mine is. All the technique and craft I normally…
Expirimental Poem
Gloss on a Passage From Marcel Proust’s Swann’s Way Text 1 Commentary Image When a man is asleep, he has in a circle round him the chain of the hours, the sequence of the years,…
Poetry: ‘A Sonnet For CNN
“A Sonnet For CNN,” by George Bradley (published in The Fire Fetched Down, 1996), was written during the first gulf war, in 1991. It is not a typical war poem, which is…
You asked for it
Well, maybe you didn’t. You didn’t really ask for unadulterated text. I decided to give it to you. Lost? Me too? Can I get us both out of it? The blind leading the blind? The…
Poetry: “Little Blessing for My Floater”
“Little Blessing for My Floater” by Jeanne Murray Walker, was published in the November issue of Poetry. I wish I knew whether the epigram meant George Herbert the 17th century…
Contrasting Thoughts on Rilke’s ‘Der Panther’
I. Impotence “It seems to him there are A thousand bars; and behind the bars, no world.” You try to break out of your cage In a feat of fearsome strength. You pace Behind the…
Poetry: “Instant Coffee”
“Instant Coffee” by Patrick Donnelly, published in the October 2003 issue of The Yale Review, makes a beautiful and tightly woven connection between the coffee and the sunset.…
Old Norse
My hope is to study Old English and Old Norse mythology and its diachronic influences on literature and mythopoeia when I enter grad school. As such, I would like to try my hand…
Make or Be? Celestial or Simple?
Hannah makes some interesting and insightful comments on my last post (scroll down for the comments). The following are my responses to some of her thoughts. I see, at least…
Poetry: “Repulsive Theory”
“Repulsive Theory” by Kay Ryan, published in the November 2003 issue of Poetry , captured my attention immediately with its opening phrase, “little has been made.” Much has been…
Crossed tenses through interjection
The Sunday poem on Poetry Daily was “I Pass the Arctic Circle” by Olav H. Hauge. I was very enamored of this little gem almost on first reading. In it, Hauge makes a very nice…
Oil on the Water
I have always been fascinated by the almost magical display of oil on the surface of still water. Chris Murray used this image to great effect in her recent poem River Six . I…
The Searcher
The following vignette was published in the Spring 1993 issue of Knight of the Plume . His appearance had been much altered by the coldness of his soul. The wrinkles in his face,…
Technology in Education?
A Balanced Examination of the Controversy Over Technology in Education From 1981 to 1991, the percentage of schools with computers increased by over 400%. In that same time…
Orson S. Card & James F. Cooper
An Examination of the Development of the Frontier Novel From Cooper to Card The similarities and connections between James Fennimore Cooper’s Leatherstocking Tales , especially as…
Caryatid with Stone
Sculptor Auguste Rodin , most famous, perhaps, for his The Thinker , has a piece which has fascinated me since I first discovered it within the pages of Robert Heinlein ‘s…
Links
Check out my updated links! Lots of good lit mags. Got a lit mag you think I should list. Send me the link and tell me why. Also, the University of British Columbia has listed me…
Expletive
The ‘sh’ slid out– shameless, thoughtless, after I, careless, kicked the couch, an ‘i’ piled up– a perfect scream issued as pitch increased, increased. The ‘t’ breaks, trembling–…
Titivation
I like to titivate a lot; I titivate with all I’ve got. My titivation knows no bounds. Although my titivation’s sounds Sometimes annoy my patient spouse, I titivate the whole…
Fishing for Techniques
Fishing, by A. E. Stalling (Poetry July 1998) employs a technique that I have seen on occasion and loved for the simple fun of it, though I have never done it myself, and it…
Wallpapering Over Gilman’s Text
Tim Morris reviews Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s recently reprinted 1911 novel The Crux . I’ll let you read his review and form your own opinions, because that’s not what I want to…
Overpass
I was going through the Dallas mix-master the other day, and I was thinking about the homeless who shelter under overpasses, and how there seems to be an entire subculture among…
Great Minds…
Kasey Mohammad wrote a response to Mike Snider ‘s post on meter that was strikingly similar to mine . Mike also posted a new entry which addresses, for the most part, the concerns…
River Six–Awesome
River Six by Chris Murray was just published in xStream . Congrats, Chris! I was enamored of this poem when she first read it in our poetry group, and it has only improved since…
Critiquing Poetry
Meter, free verse, and the question of what makes a poem work.
Refrain
Modern poets and teachers often emphasize the importance of changing the meaning or sense of a refrain with each repetition. I have generally tried to follow this rule. However, I…
Experimental: Dot Com Telegram
DEAREST <STOP> LOVING ME IS LIKE YOUR PROGRAMMING <STOP> HOPELESS- NESS DOUBLES AS HOPE WHEN YOU HOPE I’LL LEAVE <STOP>WORKING HE SAID AND I’VE BROKEN<STOP> WE’VE GOT BUGGY CODE…
Migraine
I had a migraine headache this weekend. Its effects were minimized by the use of Imitrex, but it nevertheless deeply impacted my ability to keep up with work, family and social…
Texan
My linguistically formative years were probably more sheltered than the average Texan’s. My mother came from the American heartland (Utah/Colorado), that area whose regional…
Double Dactyls
A few Double Dactyls for your reading pleasure. They’re hiding… Can you find them? Come out, come out, wherever you are … Please note, the following verse is childish, silly, and…
100
I now have over 100 entries on every category under the sun, and I am coming up on the occasional search at both google and Yahoo (though at yahoo only under the directory…
Didactic or Hedonistic?
Once again, Mike Snider’s comments have perked my interest and spurred me to write. He says: “Of course we can choose whom we entertain, and the more ambitious of us try to mix…
Argh
I have lately been particularly attracted to poetry as a visual art, especially as evidenced in such pieces as “Three-Piece” by Seamus Heaney. In this piece, at least, the…
Lost work
Well, I had almost 2000 words written last night intended for this blog, and then I closed the wrong word document and lost it all irretrievably. I’m sure you are all heartbroken……
Poetry: ‘Sonnet 130’
Well, I’m going to do something that will probably be frowned at, and go classic for this final poem of this series. Yep, that’s right, I’m going to look at Shakespeare,…
Poetry: ‘Player Piano’
“Player Piano” by Kevin Young (published in the Winter 2002 issuse of The Georgia Review ) is one of only a few free verse poems that I am going to look at in this 15 poem series.…
Thanks–And IP vs. IT
Thanks to Michael Snider for his interesting and informative comments on my analysis of “To A Critic” (The poem can be found here ). He suggests that because of their more readily…
Poetry: ‘To A Critic’
“To A Critic” by Timothy Murphy (published in Volume IV Issue 1 of The New Formalist ) is very interesting because it is a response poem. It was obviously written (am I assuming…
Poetry: ‘Sonnet For A Nurse’
“Sonnet For A Nurse” by Elizabeth Tibbetts (published in Volume 53 Issue 4 of The Beloit Poetry Journal ) manages to somehow deal with the issue of death, of the final decay of…
Poetry: ‘Bird’s Eye View’
“Bird’s Eye View” by David Anthony (published in Volume IV Issue 1 of The New Formalist ) seemed to me to be just a little contrived. I am sometimes willing to give more of a…
Poetry: ‘On Stars’
“On Stars” by Nancy Callahan (published in Volume IV Issue 1 of The New Formalist ) is a very minimalist piece of formal poetry, written in iambic trimeter with rhyme scheme of…
Poetry: ‘The Bat’
“The Bat” by Kasey Jueds (published in Volume 54 Issue 1 of The Beloit Poetry Journal ) has a lot going on in it. There are three primary images, the bat, Blake’s angels, and the…
Poetry: ‘Fault Lines’
“Fault Lines” by T. M. Moore (published in Volume 14 Issue 1 (2003) of The Formalist ) draws a parallel between the fault lines between tectonic plates, and the lines of a poem, a…
Poetry: ‘Yaddo’
“Yaddo” by David Galef (published in Volume 14 Issue 1 (2003) of The Formalist ) seems to suggest that feeling just before one writes of somehow having to do everything else…
Poetry: ‘Lunar Study’
“Lunar Study” by Ann K. Schwader was published in Volume 14 Issue 1 (2003) of The Formalist . It seems to have a somewhat gothic, ethereal, witchy tone that is produced both by…
Slant Rhyme
Marion Shore, in her poem “Parallel Universe” (published in Volume 13 Issue 2 (2003) of The Formalist ), uses slant rhyme mixed with perfect rhymes in a way that coincides…
Poetry: ‘Silent Reading’
“Silent Reading” by Deborah Warren was published in Volume 13 Issue 2 (2002) of The Formalist . The first thing one notices about “Silent Reading” is that it references a fairly…
Petrarchan
UPDATE: I went ahead and finished the sonnets for each of the standard forms Gave a presentation on Sonnets for a class. Wrote this while working on the 8.5×11 tri-fold brochure…
Poetry: ‘Parallel Universe’
“Parallel Universe” by Marion Shore (published in Volume 13 Issue 2 (2002) of The Formalist ) evokes the feelings of unrequited love in a unique and poignant way. It has a highly…
Poetry: ‘Love Recidivus’
“Love Recidivus” by Lisa Barnett (Also published in the September 2003 issue of Poetry ) seems to suggest images of adultery, of passion pushed beyond reason, of the failure of…
Poetry: ’18th Century’
The September 2003 issue of Poetry has William Walden’s “A Posy of Love” which contains a section entitled “18th Century.” Since each section stands on its own as a whole poem, I…
Bubble Gum
I was just remembering back to when I was 10 or 12, and bubble-blowing was an important indicator of social status. Someone who could blow a bubble that required a haircut was the…
What about time?
Lately, I seem to be constantly facing issues of time: time management, timing, time for family, time for schoolwork, time for writing. That last is one of the biggest; I think…
Poetry: ‘Clabberbabble’
I am writing a series of poetic commentaries on various poems that strike my fancy for my Advanced Creative Writing: Poetry class. Hopefully, a deep exploration of the poetry of…
Unadulterated Text can now be Googled!
The Villanelle
I was reading the poetry of Sondra Ball on The Web Projects of Sondra Ball and Mario Cavallini , and came across The Villanelle , which is a delightful little metatextual…
The Flu
It seems like everybody is writing about love, joy, death, and pain. This, of course, makes it difficult to come up with a new paradigm, though it increases the reward if one can.…
Site Update
Well, we have working category pages and comments. I’ve done what I said I wouldn’t and played a little bit with the layout of the site, plus I’ve written some javascript to make…
Shakespeare
I just finished rereading The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare. This is, in my opinion, one of the most enjoyable of his plays, and it is a pity that the anti-semitism…
Bywydol
Come, faerie, dance with me Where shaggy sea meets rugged crag. In mist by shores where fisher folk Set out to see what fortune brings; You slip through curtains of the mist To…
Word Play
I was just browsing through some poetry the other day, and I noticed that a surprisingly large number of the poems that I really enjoyed made significant use of wordplay. In fact,…
Hands
The other day, as I was sitting in a Linguistics class, I was, of course, thinking of something entirely different, namely, my hands. Hands are really marvellous when you think…
Negative Sex
I want to write a poem that describes sex in terms of negation. For instance, I might say that I don’t want to have intercourse because it sounds too much like something that gets…
True Conversational Tone
“ Investment ,” by Scott Topper, begins in the middle of an apparently one-sided conversation, possibly a photographer speaking to a model. What really interested me about it was…
The Big One
She was living in California with her husband Mike and her daughter Ylison when the big one hit. It was an auspicious night for an earthquake, being all hallows eve, though in the…
Passivity and Rebellion In Anne Sexton’s
In her poem “Her Kind” originally published in To Bedlam and Part Way Back (1960), Anne Sexton paints a picture of woman as an outcast in youth, marriage, and death. First, she…
Dragon Child
Rings of Elven gold forged by magic and fire The hammer and the anvil of the dwarven lords The crystal amulet of wizards bound in wire The book of the draken torn, their only…
John Tomich
John Tomich was an Elf, as broad as he was merry. He loved to stuff himself on fruit and nut and berry. He loved to tell a joke; he loved to laugh, and loudly. The other elves…
2 Triolets
Note: This is what happens when you pull words only from context, and learn from books without teachers… you write a pair of poems in which triolet rhymes with bet, rather than…
Welcome
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