Ongoing Moments: A series in which teaching staff and students from the English Department respond to a photograph of their choice. [Read all entries.] [Revisit the “Interrogative” series.] This photograph, taken by Tammy Ho in Venice in 2013, is titled “Caption”. I recently visited my childhood home, shown here, looking far better than I fondly remember…
Category: Douglas Robinson
The Interrogative Mood: Questions with Douglas Robinson
The following questions are taken from Padgett Powell’s The Interrogative Mood. What are the top three things in your life you wish you had not done, or done differently from the way you did them? I wish I hadn’t had so many regrets. … let us say then on an island all by your own self…
“Indicium” by Paavo Haavikko, translated by Douglas Robinson
Image source: British Library (via.) 1 Now Ehrensvard starts building a great fortress on the Wolf Islands, every year a barrel of gold is shipped all the way from France for it, also a lilac bush, which he didn’t order. It takes root tenaciously in the barren soil, ten years from now you’ll have to…
“Dangling Modifiers” by Douglas Robinson
Source: Museum of NZ (via.) Having little to his name when he died, the reading of Henry Fromm’s will went quickly. Droning over the inaudible flutter of the white noise machine, it was read by one of the linen-suited lawyers. The small group of heirs, promising them by phone (sitting on the blind receptionist’s desk) some…
Department of English, Hong Kong Baptist University 