Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Borrowed Words
    Borrowed Words
    Borrowed Words
    Ebook60 pages7 minutes

    Borrowed Words

    By Peter Wortsman

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Like a farmer rotating his crops, Peter Wortsman periodically ploughs words back into the mulch of meaning. Romanian émigré DADA poet Tristran Tzara (aka Samuel Rosenstock, 1896-1963) gave it a name: cut-up (or "découpé" in French). Wortsman reverts to cutups when he's too distracted, depressed, dumbfounded or deranged to write in the regular manner. As the isolation of virtual lockdown during the seemingly interminable Covid-19 pandemic stretches into its third year, Wortsman, a modern-day monk, languishes in the solitude of his cell, longing for meaningful communion. Absent belief in a transcendent being, cutups take the place of prayer.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBamboo Dart Press
    Release dateOct 5, 2022
    ISBN9781947240582
    Borrowed Words

    Read more from Peter Wortsman

    Related to Borrowed Words

    Related ebooks

    Poetry For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      The Trouble Gene

      Jul 1, 2020

      One clear thing about trouble—it can set you back to zero, a personal cone of silence. And reading, writing, listening allow entry into that troubled solitude; you disappear into it regardless t of the time or place you really are in, be it bed, kitc

      12 min read

    • Article

      The Joy Of The Illegible

      Sep 1, 2023

      Books I Do Everything I’m Told by Megan Fernandes Tin House Books, 2023 paperback, 104 pages, $16.95 Megan Fernandes’ latest collection of poems, I Do Everything I’m Told, begins with an epigraph from Gwendolyn Brooks: “Sit where the light corrupts y

      6 min read

    • Article

      The Bird That Sang I Am

      Sep 1, 2021

      The Bird That Sang I Am
      19 min read

    • Article

      Must-Read Poetry: July 2018

      Jul 5, 2018

      Here are six notable books of poetry publishing in July. A Memory of the Future by Elizabeth Spires A book worthy of pondering—“how to find myself / when a self is so small”—Spires offers so many questions and considerations, yet they all return to o

      5 min read

    • Article

      “None Of It! None Of It Will Last!”

      Jan 1, 2023

      A screamer. A gasper. A startler. A dog’s cock.1 “An index finger raised in warning.”2 A bang. A pling. A slammer. A shriek. “A squiggle manufactured in Renaissance Italy in order to revive the ideals of classical oration.”3 “A squirt of lighter flui

      23 min read

    • Article

      Dear Poetry

      Dec 14, 2022

      Dear Poetry
      9 min read

    • Article

      Emily Dickinson And The Presence Of Poetry

      Nov 1, 2020

      Because the moment of our reading inflects what we notice, to read Emily Dickinson today is to read her differently than in the past. Not long ago, with global warming in the headlines, I noticed (as if for the first time, though I had seen it before

      9 min read

    • Article

      A Symposium on Charm

      Sep 1, 2018

      A Symposium on Charm
      16 min read

    • Article

      Must-Read Poetry: January 2018

      Jan 9, 2018

      Here are six notable books of poetry publishing in January. Wild Is the Wind by Carl Phillips Listen to Nina Simone’s stirring classic that inspired Phillips’s title, and then settle into this masterful collection. Phillips has found the sweet union

      5 min read

    • Article

      A Bone-tough Throat

      Nov 1, 2021

      Books God of Nothingness by Mark Wunderlich Graywolf, 96 pages, 2021 Paperback, $16.00 My father fell from the boat.His balance had been poor for some time.He had gone out in the boat with his doghunting ducks in a marsh near Trempealeau, Wisconsin.N

      11 min read

    • Article

      Must-Read Poetry: October 2019

      Oct 1, 2019

      One of the year's best debuts, the view inside a Queensbridge bodega owned by Korean immigrants, and an arresting collection by Abraham Lincoln, sort of. The post Must-Read Poetry: October 2019 appeared first on The Millions.

      4 min read

    • Article

      Must-Read Poetry: August 2018

      Aug 2, 2018

      Here are seven notable books of poetry publishing in August. The Carrying by Ada Limón For a book metered by grief, there’s a lot of love here—that shouldn’t come as a surprise, considering Limón’s stylistic control and skill. Poems like “Almost Fort

      7 min read

    • Article

      REMAINING SILENT The facts

      Mar 1, 2020

      Sometime in 1985, I sit at a table in a college library among tall metal shelves, gray or green, that squeak if you lean against them or slide a heavy book across the horizontal rims, a rinse of dust always in the air. I’ve pulled out a large art boo

      14 min read

    • Article

      Poet Of The Incommensurate

      Mar 1, 2018

      Poet Of The Incommensurate
      7 min read

    • Article

      On Writing Poems Facing Into The Broken World

      Mar 1, 2020

      Kaveh Akbar and Jane Hirshfield have been in a running e-mail conversation since January 2016, when Akbar first contacted Hirshfield about doing an interview in his Divedapper series, before his first, widely acclaimed book, Calling a Wolf a Wolf (Al

      16 min read

    • Article

      Some Notes On Poetry

      Feb 28, 2023

      Some Notes On Poetry
      12 min read

    • Article

      Must-Read Poetry: June 2018

      Jun 5, 2018

      Here are six notable books of poetry publishing in June. American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin by Terrance Hayes “I wanted to have my form and explode it too,” said Wanda Coleman of sonnets. Hayes names her with gratitude in this book. Ath

      5 min read

    • Article

      Two Poems

      Jan 1, 2021

      The sun is a disaster waiting to happen,The gypsy trombone player starts to blareLa Vie en Rose again, and Hello, Dolly.I turn Fairouz up not to have to listen. The gypsy trombone player starts to blare,today, and yesterday, at noon, at seven.I turn

      3 min read

    • Article

      Commonplace Book

      Mar 4, 2024

      To Err Is Human; to Forgive, Supine —S. J. Perelman, Baby, It’s Cold Inside, 1970 You must know the bees have come early this year too: I see them visit aster, sweet Williams, bleeding hearts, and azalea blossoms hardy enough to not have crisped with

      3 min read

    • Article

      It’s Not You, It’s Me

      Sep 1, 2021

      Like many of you reading this, I mispronounced words growing up that I first encountered in books. These words gained a life of their own in the quiet hallways of my mind. This internal sense of sound and language had a tendency to trump the world’s,

      6 min read

    • Article

      Must-Read Poetry: September 2019

      Sep 5, 2019

      Eight new and notable collections you want on your nightstand this month, including work by a lost Catalan master and the latest from our new poet laureate. The post Must-Read Poetry: September 2019 appeared first on The Millions.

      7 min read

    • Article

      Oh, Corona

      Jan 1, 2024

      Books The Lights by Ben Lerner Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2023 128 pp., $26.00 (hardcover) According to the latest Times article on the qualitative merits of bot art, Ben Lerner has lent excerpts from his new poetry collection to a group of venture c

      7 min read

    • Article

      Me for the Woods

      Jun 30, 2017

      Me for the Woods
      6 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Borrowed Words

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Borrowed Words - Peter Wortsman

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1