(Part 2) Reddit mentions: The best poetry books

> Perception and reality are not, and cannot be separated.

From a subjective level this is absolutely true, however consensus reality relies on the subjective perceptions which people agree are objective. If I say I'm a tomato because I'm perceiving being a tomato its subjectively real but its only objectively real once people agree with me.

> I have been doing more and more research into all of this. And I think I more or less have it figured out, and it does fit within the given range of what I would have been willing to accept before the event.

I can understand this, I accept many things now which I never would have accepted a decade ago. I would have thought you are a loony. lol now I'm probably more loony than you are.

> Graham Hancock

Some of his stuff is ok. He is a good writer but take a lot of it with a grain of salt, too many of his readers take it as gospel when its intended to be speculation. If you read his book Supernatural I recommend you read Shamanic Voices by the antropoligist Joan Halifax which he used as a source for much of his writing in that book.

> I am now completely convinced that I understand the nature of reality, and that this is only one plain of existence,

It's not so much that its only one "plain" of existence, in my experience, but rather that its only one "timeline set". Even if you experience these things as 100% real, not everyone will. You are experiencing multiple timelines simultaneously and they overlap partially with other people you communicate with. For some people the things you are describing are as real as the computer in front of you. For some they are not real at all. Both are right.

> and that I met a Reptilian that inadvertantly enlightened me while attempting to destroy me.

I can dig it.

> I met (I am looking for a word here that means EVERYTHING. The alpha, the omega, god, satan, yahweh, whaterver).

Sure. I call it "Existence Itself", "The System" or sometimes "Zooey" (long story on those names there). One night I had a 3-some with it and Non-Existence Itself. It was pretty hot. (I'm serious lol)

> I am that person, and that person is me. I am my own god of my own universe because this universe is only a matter of my own perception and therefore my own reality.

That's partly true but only as true as you are able to control your own experience. If you can't imagine that your walls are a different color and have them instantly be and stay that color than you are not only experiencing your universe but you are also experiencing the universe of one or more other people. Also you should check out the book Conference of the Birds in which the birds seek out what is basically God and discover that they themselves are God but that understanding this at a deep level is a very hazerdous journey.

> To summarize, I met a reptilian shape-shifter. They convinced me they were god using clever tricks of manipulation and mind-control. They have a better grasp on the energy and vibrations that allow this plain of existence to be manipulated, and they use that for their own gain.

Why would they use it for their own gain? What is there to gain? If they are shape-shifters are they reptilian or is that just one shape?

> On a side note, what do you think about things like psychedelics, monatomic gold, B17, pineal gland calcification, and things of this nature?

Psychedelic drugs can be useful for some people at some points in time to get them to learn to think outside of their native reality but one should be careful about extensive use. I believe mild stimulants to be more useful in getting one's brain into a state of controllable cross-reality experience but whatever works for you. I have no reality on the other things you are talking about there. If they make sense to you go for it, but they mean nothing to me.

> What do you think of "The Illuminati"?

Such groups exist in some timeline sets but not the ones that the majority of redditers experience, and not the one I'm experiencing right now. In the ones where they do exist they are typically not as 'evil' as people assume. Most of the ideas regarding groups like this come from past-life pre-earth memories and the groups now defunct.

> Do you think there is any chance that the entire world earth is being manipulated by Reptilians posing as the human super elite (ie Rothschilds) so that humans can be used as cattle/slaves by calcifying our pineal glands and brainwashing us?

Maybe in some realities but not any I've ever encountered, and I get around. Still it may be true in your reality, I'm certainly not going to tell you its not true for you but I will say its not true for me.

Our individual environments are manipulated by ourselves in ways we don't understand. Time is a lot more complicated than our memories suggest and much of what you do and think in your environment reinforces your future and past thoughts and beliefs. In a sense, we enslave ourselves by believing we are enslaved.

There's the Giant Book of Poetry which is over 700 pages and basically spans all of written history (from years BC to poets born in the 1980's). There's bound to be something you like in there.

There's also The Vintage Book of Contemporary World Poetry (vintage here refers to the publisher, in case you were thinking "vintage" and "contemporary" were contradictory lol). This book has a wide variety of poets that might be lesser known since they aren't American, but still includes some well loved poets including Pablo Neruda and Seamus Heaney. This is a great one too.

I've recommended this a few times on here but there is also the Best American Poetry Series. It comes out every year. Basically, a prominent poet is chosen as the editor each year and they choose the best (totally subjective, but still) poems that were published in literary magazines that year. While it's limited to American poets, it provides a huge variety of poets both established and emerging. Also, it comes out every year, so that's pretty awesome too. The most recent one is Best American Poetry 2013 whish was edited by one of my favorite poets, Denise Duhamel. Totally recommend it. Good luck, hope this was helpful!

Cool, not too odd if you read way too much though lol. How about Greek or Roman stuff?

Euripedes and Sophocles are fantastic.

Antigone, Medea, Bacchae, Oedipus Rex and all that jazz are really fun and enlightening reads.

Ovid's Metamorphosis is excellent, I really like this translation (though haven't tried them all). Funny, weird, witty, intimate yet still epic.

https://www.amazon.com/Metamorphoses-Oxford-Worlds-Classics-Ovid/dp/0199537372

The Stoics are great, Meditation by Marcus Aurelius is the standard

Then you have the Odyssey, Illiad, Aenead is cool too.

Plato's republic is fun, going in a slightly different way

Freud's interpretation of dreams has all sorts of stuff to help self-reflection/growth thinking.

Joseph Campbell's Hero with a thousand faces is really fun as well.

Happy reading, kind person.

Robert Graves' 2 volume The Greek Myths is comprehensive, but there's a catch: Graves has arranged and chosen his version of the myths in order to facilitate a kind of narrative continuity that's not particularly true to the way that the Greeks understood their myths. Karl Kerenyi and Carl Kerenyi's The Greek Gods and The Greek Heroes are closer to the source material, and will give you a better sense of the variety and disagreements involved. Ultimately, though, it's a matter of preference: Do you want narrative sweep, or fidelity to tradition?

Alternately, you could go back to the sources themselves. Ovid's Metamorphoses is basically a treasury of Greco-Roman myth. Again, there's a catch: Ovid's theme is that of things transforming into something else (hence the title), so there's a definite bias in favor of myths that suit that motif. That said, Ovid is also as close as you're going to get to the original form of a lot of Greco-Roman myths, so it's hard to go wrong there.

If you really want to do some heavy lifting on the Greco-Roman myths, get a copy of Pausanius' Guide to Greece, Vol. I and Vol. II. This is basically a travelogue of Greece, written for the Roman Emperor, and it lists in detail most of the locations associated with Greek myths and legends, and gives some detail on most of the lesser known ones. There's a lot to sift through here, and you'll probably want to have an Atlas of the Ancient World on hand to get a sense of where he's talking about at any given time, so I definitely don't recommend starting out here, but if you're looking for really in-depth source material, this is the place to go.

For the Norse myths, there's the Poetic Edda and the Prose Edda, as well as a slew of sagas that are worth looking into. On of the most famous is certainly The Nibelungenlied, on which Wagner based his [Ring Cycle]() (you know, "Ride of the Valkyries," and all that), which was the basis for much of Lord of the Rings. Personally, my favorite of the sagas I've read so far is the Volsungs.

For the Sumerians, the obvious starting point is Gilgamesh. Our sources are pretty fragmented, and there are editions that reflect that fragmentation, but for pure readability, I suggest the Herbert Mason retelling. Or, if you're really into it, get both and compare. The go-to author for Sumerian myth and religion in general is Samuel Noah Kramer; his book Sumerian Mythology is as good a general survey as you're likely to find, particularly if you're interested in the archeological method behind our knowledge of the Sumerians.

What else? For the Egyptians, E. A. Budge is your man. Dover Books in general has a good series of older, public domain works on mythology, including books on Japanese and Chinese mythology. I wish I had some sources to give you on meso-American or African myth, but those are areas of inquiry I'm just delving into myself. But then, you're probably overwhelmed as it is.

Good luck.

Great stuff! It's always hard to tackle subjects with so much material to choose from, it feels so overwhelming. I also really like Kay Ryan's "Say Uncle" for its pithy rhyme-play and drastic revelations in such tiny, tight packages; Denise Duhamel is tremendous as well, all of her collections, though the one that caught me and still holds a special place in my heart is her "Star Spangled Banner" for its witty Americana and unapologetic persona; Kim Addonizio's "Tell Me" is also great, raw and unapologetic; and while slim, I very much am taken by the smart voice of Jynne Dilling Martin's collection "We Mammals in Hospitable Times"; Patty Seyburn's newest book Hilarity is great, but I really really like her collection "Diasporadic" with a clever voice and vivid descriptions; and one more I guess, haha, Brigit Pegeen Kelly's collection of dense and strange prose poems "The Orchard" is definitely well worth wading through a few times.

I guess I just like clever/smart/witty poetry haha.

JADE

The color of spring that lifts high my heart

the winter now passed, in due its part

I have no hold to keep you in tow

and like my favorite season, you'll come as you go


Jade is a collection of poems written during the year 2018. I began writing them in the middle of Spring, at a time in which I was quickly falling in love. As time passes, so do many of the joys we experience and so it is with love. As quickly as well fell together, we fell apart, and that theme is introduced and reintroduced throughout.

The work also contains a number of nature themes inspired by imagery on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. A fair amount is also expressed concerning the conflict of having an analytical mind, or as described therein, a wandering mind. One that chooses willingly to divest nearly too much effort into wherefore and why.

All in all, the book will take readers through many experiences I had during the year and decided to express in writing. Some of them are very personal searches and attempts at gaining understanding of my own thoughts while many others are a quick jaunt through word play and rhyme.

Please enjoy these pages as much as I have, thank you.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1093961775/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

You can begin reading to understand the history of the Kashmir conflict.


So here are some suggestions, based on where I began my own reading, and drawing on easily available publications by Kashmiris.

1. The good old Tracts For The Times booklet by Bajraj Puri - http://www.amazon.in/Kashmir-Towards-Insurgenc…/…/0863113842
   
   
   
2. AG Noorani's volumes on Kashmir (you can also find many articles by him, from Frontline, online) http://www.amazon.in/Kashmir-Dispute-1947-2012…/…/9382381155
   
   
   
3. Curfewed Night by Basharat Peer - http://www.amazon.in/Curfewed-Night-Kashmiri-J…/…/1439109109
   
   
   
4. A Long Dream of Home - The Persecution, exile and exodus of Kashmiri Pandits by Siddhartha Gigoo and Varad Sharma http://www.amazon.in/Long-Dream-Home-persecuti…/…/9385436201
   
   
   
5. Until My Freedom Has Come - a collection of short fiction, reportage, essays, news reports, interviews and a rapper’s song by Kashmiris, edited by Sanjay Kak http://www.penguinbooksindia.com/…/until-my-freedom-has-com…
   
   
   
6. BURIED EVIDENCE: Unknown, Unmarked, and Mass Graves in Indian-Administered Kashmir - a report by International People's Tribunal on Human Rights and Justice in Kashmir (IPTK) http://www.kashmirprocess.org/reports/graves/toc.html
   
   
   
7. Do You Remember Kunan Poshpora? http://www.amazon.in/Remember-Kunan-Poshpora-Z…/…/9384757667
   
   
   
8. You can read updates from the Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP) http://apdpkashmir.com/ and JKCCS http://www.jkccs.net/ - these groups post Facebook updates also, regularly
   
   
   
9. Kashmir: Roots of Conflict, Paths of Peace by Sumantra Bose - https://kashmirebooks.files.wordpress.com/…/sumantra-bose-k…
   
   
   
10. Some other good readings are included in this list compiled by HT http://www.hindustantimes.com/…/story-PKmPCQ5WtigTwp85vvSpR…
    
    
    
11. An interesting article by Yoginder Sikand in EPW traced the shifts in the Kashmiri movement in the 1980s http://www.epw.in/…/…/changing-course-kashmiri-struggle.html
    
    
    
12. Agha Shahid Ali - The Country Without A Post Office (poetry) http://www.amazon.in/Country-Without-Post-Offi…/…/0393317617
    
    
    
13. Jashn-e-Azaadi - How We Celebrate Freedom - a documentary by Sanjay Kak https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJnwGEk1fzQ
    
    
    
    
    Start where you like, these are not in any particular order. It is most encouraging that so many, ignoring the ugly trolling and hate-filled propaganda, are asking to know more on Kashmir. Yesterday's silent march also saw many come forward to ask to know more. Silence can break the media-scripted cacophony, a space of quiet can allow voices of good sense, especially Kashmiri voices, to be heard, and make for a path to empathy and solidarity.

So many! I guess it depends on the day, but I love poetry by Stephen Dunn, he had a book of poetry called "Different hours" that i loved. As for artwork, it really depends on the day. But i love Turner, I love Sergeant, I love Moore...

Here are my favourites:

Philip Larkin -- one of the greatest English poets, who uses the English language in its most elegant, plain and beautiful way. Often deals with death and love. A sample poem about the fear of death

Derek Walcott -- A poet of the Caribbean, known for epic poems. A sample poem about love

ee cummings -- a popular American poet who played with form. A sample poem

Emily Dickinson - maybe one of the most famous American poets, you can read a lot of her poetry online

Also online are the other big famous poets: Robert Frost, Langston Hughes, Maya Angelou, W.B. Yeats, Walt Whitman, Keats, William Blake, Anne Sexton, Sylvia Plath, John Ashbery. For each of these I'd just suggest googling and seeing what you like.

But I'm going to suggest to you some poetry by some new, rising poets, who are still alive and writing.

Sam Sax -- a young queer American poet who was the winner of the National Poetry Series. His work is incredible. Here is a video of him performing one of his earlier poems

Meg Freitag -- another young American poet who writes intimately about the self, heartache, etc, with gorgeous imagery. A sample poem

Kaveh Akbar -- an Iranian-American poet who has won a ton of awards.

Claudia Rankine is not young or up-and-coming given that she won a MacArthur and a Pulitzer prize but she is one of the most important poets writing today, and her work often revolves around blackness in America. She also writes prose poetry.

Maggie Nelson is also already famous -- Bluets is the most beautiful book, a meditation of grief and the colour blue.

I would honestly just go browse through https://www.poetryfoundation.org. It's so fun, and you can read poets by theme. That's a very good way to get into both classical and contemporary English language poetry.

Formatted version:

1. The good old Tracts For The Times booklet by Bajraj Puri - http://www.amazon.in/Kashmir-Towards-Insurgency-Tracts-Times/dp/0863113842
   
2. AG Noorani's volumes on Kashmir (you can also find many articles by him, from Frontline, online) http://www.amazon.in/Kashmir-Dispute-1947-2012-1-2/dp/9382381155
   
3. Curfewed Night by Basharat Peer - http://www.amazon.in/Curfewed-Night-Kashmiri-Journalists-Frontline/dp/1439109109
   
4. A Long Dream of Home - The Persecution, exile and exodus of Kashmiri Pandits by Siddhartha Gigoo and Varad Sharma http://www.amazon.in/Long-Dream-Home-persecution-Kashmiri/dp/9385436201
   
5. Until My Freedom Has Come - a collection of short fiction, reportage, essays, news reports, interviews and a rapper’s song by Kashmiris, edited by Sanjay Kak http://www.penguinbooksindia.com/en/content/until-my-freedom-has-come%3Frate=1Jem0gUhLZKCLEzVRSto4bwhTDJWqJHs63AmYuUPQyo.html
   
6. BURIED EVIDENCE: Unknown, Unmarked, and Mass Graves in Indian-Administered Kashmir - a report by International People's Tribunal on Human Rights and Justice in Kashmir (IPTK) http://www.kashmirprocess.org/reports/graves/toc.html
   
7. Do You Remember Kunan Poshpora? http://www.amazon.in/Remember-Kunan-Poshpora-Zubaan-Violence-Impunity/dp/9384757667
   
8. You can read updates from the Association of Parents of Displaced persons (APDP) http://apdpkashmir.com/ and JKCCS http://www.jkccs.net/ - these groups post Facebook updates also, regularly
   
9. Kashmir: Roots of Conflict, Paths of Peace by Sumantra Bose - https://kashmirebooks.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/sumantra-bose-kashmir_-roots-of-conflict-paths-to-peace-harvard-university.pdf
   
10. Some other good readings are included in this list compiled by HT http://www.hindustantimes.com/books/the-kashmir-reading-list-11-books-to-understand-the-conflict/story-PKmPCQ5WtigTwp85vvSpRM.html
    
11. An interesting article by Yoginder Sikand in EPW traced the shifts in the Kashmiri movement in the 1980s http://www.epw.in/journal/2001/03/special-articles/changing-course-kashmiri-struggle.html
    
12. Agha Shahid Ali - The Country Without A Post Office (poetry) http://www.amazon.in/Country-Without-Post-Office-Shahid/dp/0393317617
    
13. Jashn-e-Azaadi - How We Celebrate Freedom - a documentary by Sanjay Kak https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJnwGEk1fzQ
    
    >Start where you like, these are not in any particular order. It is most encouraging that so many, ignoring the ugly trolling and hate-filled propaganda, are asking to know more on Kashmir. Yesterday's silent march also saw many come forward to ask to know more. Silence can break the media-scripted cacophony, a space of quiet can allow voices of good sense, especially Kashmiri voices, to be heard, and make for a path to empathy and solidarity.

I'm so happy to hear that you enjoyed studying Latin so much. Where I live (Canada), classical studies are not valued at all; people honestly don't understand why it would be important to retain some cultural continuity with all of Europe's past, where until just two or three hundred years ago, going to university in Europe meant doing scholarship in Latin. It therefore warms my heart to hear you speaking so fondly of it, and to know that there's a place in the world where even engineers have heard of Vergil.

I do hope you're able to keep reading Latin in your free time. If you like poetry digestible in small chunks, you might enjoy the very user-friendly Catullus. There are other excellent small-scale poets like Propertius, but I find his language rather more difficult. If you can find a book with bite-size excerpts of Ovid, that would be a wonderful way to go as well; Ovid is just stellar.

If you're up for a larger-scale work at any point, there's a fabulous student edition of the first six books of the Aeneid in English where there's an index of the very most common words at the back, then all the other vocabulary is given, with grammatical notes as well, on the same page as the Latin; it saves very, very much time with a dictionary. The book was prepared by an early 20th-century schoolteacher named Clyde Pharr and is available both in paperback and hardback editions.

Invaluable web sites:

• Dickinson College Commentaries — Select classical texts with vocabulary and very helpful commentary.
  
• Perseus Digital Library — If you have trouble locating a word in the dictionary, enter it into the Word Study Tool to identify it.
  
  Some helpful Latin schoolbooks on Google Books and the Internet Archive (with many more to be found, especially if you read the publishers' advertisements):
  
  
• Gildersleeve's Latin Grammar — If you can't find the information you need in Allen & Greenough, look in this book.
  
• Fabulae Faciles by Frank Ritchie — Four very easy retellings of Greek myths.
  
• Eutropius, edited by J. C. Hazzard — Eutropius' history of Rome is easier to read than any Classical author, and his style is remarkably close to the Golden Age.
  
• Cornelius Nepos, edited by Thomas Bond Lindsay — The easiest Classical author. His surviving works are a book of Lives of the Outstanding Generals of Foreign Nations, and portions of Kings of Foreign Nations and Roman Historians.
  
• Caesar's Gallic War, edited by Arthur Tappan Walker — Traditionally the first book of real Latin read by students because of its combination of simplicity of style, purity of style, and intrinsic literary interest. The received text of the Gallic War is in eight books, but this edition lacks the eighth because it was not written by Caesar.
  
• Select Orations of Cicero, edited by J. B. Greenough and G. L. Kittredge — "The Citizenship of Archias" is not too difficult.
  
  A few helpful books you can buy:
  
  
• Vergil's Aeneid, edited by Clyde Pharr — With vocabulary and notes on the same page as the text in a similar format to Walker's Gallic War. This book only contains the first half of the Aeneid, and nobody has done a complete corresponding edition of the second half, but by the time you're through with this, you shouldn't need quite that depth of annotation.
  
• Scribblers, Sculptors, and Scribes by Richard A. LaFleur — A collection of easy unaltered sentences drawn from ancient Roman graffiti, inscriptions, and various literary sources.

In terms of anthologies, my best luck so far has been with "The Best American Poetry [year]" I also love the "Best New Poets of [year]" series.

They are absolutely amazing.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Best-American-Poetry-2013/dp/1476708134


http://www.amazon.com/Best-New-Poets-2011-Emerging/dp/0976629666

I LOVE POETRY. And I sort of taught my girlfriend how to read it. Honestly, it's kind of like wine. There are things that are true and not true for sure, but your emotional interpretation of poetry is most accurate when unfiltered. Try not to judge your interpretation of the poetry (I know, easier said).

This is my favorite poetry book. The poems are grouped by theme, but cover a very broad range of time periods and are from all over the world. I just think it's so cool to see what about the human experience hasn't really changed in hundreds of years.

I taught my girlfriend to love poetry with Kay Ryan's poems. They're short, so you can read one in bed together and then sit and think about it and discuss what it could mean or how you're interpreting it. :)

Hard to pick favorites, so I'll give out some of the standard issue ones from my times.

Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily" is one that students tend to love, especially if you're doing a good bit about Gothicism. Any Poe short story or poem. On the longer side, "Winter Dreams" by Fitzgerald, that's a very American story though, at least as I've always taught it. For straight poetry, most of Langston Hughes work has great imagery and does well explaining the mechanics of poetry. A book I picked up in college, which this seems to be the current version of has served me very well. Pretty much every poem in there can be given a one day or full week treatment. And, if it isn't in there, Ozymandius by Percy Bysshe Shelley.

Rambly list complete!

I've published a collection of my poetry that includes 62 poems and my original artwork. It covers my struggle with anxiety, depression, and insomnia. I began writing it after seeking out help for my issues. My one hope is that my words can let others with similar issues, hopes, and dreams know that they aren't alone in this world.

These poems were very relieving to write. Some are based on dreams I had and one, Her Ghost, is based on a real hypnagogic hallucination. This is my first time writing and I was particularly surprised at the positive feedback that I've received from others that weren't friends or family. Hopefully, others out there can get something out of my writing. I appreciate any feedback or comments.

​



Genuine: A Poetry Collection - Vol. 1 : $2.99 eBook and available on Kindle Unlimited and $10 paperback available!

​

Vol. 2 currently in the works!


Also, check out my friend Tom's poetry book: JADE

It's available as a paperback for $7.99!

I got into poetry because I took a class. It forced me to pause over poems that I otherwise probably would have read once, skipping them because I didn't understand them. But like a lot of things in life, we must linger long over things we don't understand, forcing ourselves to admit we don't get it, working though tough problems. Poetry, for me, has been an excellent way to develop the skill of lingering.

That being said, the next step is finding the poets you like. Sure, there are poets who are more accessible because of their use of conversational rhythms and minimal high-brow references and diction. Charles Bukowski is a great one for an earthy, Dionysian feel. If you want a different style, you may like Stephen Dunn, who seems more wise and contemplative in his poems (which contain less references to his anatomy than Bukowski).

But in general, you will need to read widely and drink deep. Maybe get a general anthology that would allow you to read short poems by multiple different authors, so that you can find what you like. Better still, a textbook would help explain technical aspects of a poem. Learning the technical aspects opened up worlds for me. Not knowing the technical aspects of an art is like listening to radio music and not knowing what or where the chorus is. It would hardly make sense.

Another strategy, like a class, would be to grab somebody who is interested in poetry and read poems together. That way, you can offer interpretations on poems to each other. No two people ever see a poem the same way, and learning what other people see in a poem not only enhances your own experience of the poem, but it helps build a connection between you and other people.

One last thought: it helped me to remember in the beginning that poets are just people. They are struggling with the same questions as us all. Who am I? How should I act toward my fellow humans? Where am I going when I die? Is there a God? Will I be remembered? Reading poetry is a way to discover how others have dealt with those questions.

Have fun! That's important, too. :)

Not exactly what you asked for, but you did ask what you had to read and, well, that makes things easy. Philip Larkin and W.H Auden are often thought of as the finest poets of the 20;th century. The following two books have brought me tremendous pleasure. Auden was also one of the most skilled and versatile formal poets who has ever lived.

http://www.amazon.com/Collected-Poems-Philip-Larkin/dp/0374529205

http://www.amazon.com/Collected-Poems-Auden-W-H/dp/0679731970/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1404601714&sr=8-3&keywords=w.h.auden

Hope you enjoy.
/J

Everything you describe are the modern political movements of Wahhabism and Salfism, funded almost entirely by Saudi Arabia in an attempt to spread their influence throughout the Islamic world. The ideology they espouse is fascistic and repulsive, but it has very little connection to the actual history of Islam. In fact, they were founded on the premise of sweeping away Islam's history and starting over. One of the first things the Wahhabis did when they took Mecca: destroy the actual tomb of the Prophet.


The people burning people alive count for less than 1 percent of the 1.5 billion Muslims in the world. You cannot use the present to make assumptions about history, that's absurd. If you focus on the current state of Baghdad, and make the assumption that it's always been like that, you never learn about the fact that, for a few centuries, it was the richest city in the world and home to a flourishing intellectual culture that hosted people from as far away as China. You never learn about the Islamic golden age, or the libraries of Muslim Spain which collectively held millions of books while the royal library of Paris contained a grand total of 92.

You never learn a damn thing.

And as far as what it does that makes people's lives better? Including producing some of the best poetry ever, written, by humans, Islam has a long tradition of feeding and caring for the poor by paying out Zakat. The real world examples of this far outweigh any violence done in the name of religion.

People misquote Marx on this all the time when they say "religion is the opium of the masses." The full quote is: "Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people"

https://www.amazon.com/Wrestling-God-Men-Homosexuality-Tradition/dp/0299190943

Here's the description of the book. It's a reflection on the jewish faith and same-sex love. I'm not jewish, but my best friend is, and she thought the passage was sweet so she sent me that image. Idk wether she has read the entire thing or if she found this bit online, though, so I can't really give you context for now

> (there never will be new canon in that universe again)

Think again!

Just throwing this out there because I'm super excited for it.

Its canonical status might be somewhat debatable, so take it how you will, but Christopher's compiled, novel version of Children of Húrin is pretty great!

Hyperion and Fall of Hyperion (collectively known as Hyperion Cantos) by Dan Simmons. easily my absolute favorite books, ever - not only are they well written, they mingle theoretical physics and science fiction in a way that makes my nerd girl toes tingle with anticipation.

*edit: words everywhere! also, don't want the pizza (I'm sure someone else can put it to much better use than me). just want to share good books :)

No problem! If you're interested in learning more about Hinduism, I'd point you to Bhagavad Gita: The Beloved Lord's Secret Love Song by Dr. Graham Schweig. It's a translation of the Bhagavad Gita, a section of the Mahabharata, one of the main holy texts in Hinduism. There are also the Vedas, but those aren't nearly as widely read.

The Bhagavad Gita is the third most read holy text in the world behind the Bible and the Qur'an. It's only ~360 pages long, and this edition has an amazing amount of footnotes that explain the context and meanings of every verse. I firmly believe that it's the best translation out there.

There's húsabœr or staðr. Both can mean "farmstead" or "farm" but húsabœr gives the connotation of the buildings that make up the farm or the dwellings for people/animals while staðr is closer to the English "-stead", meaning more of the land/location. Its also used widely to mean "place" or "spot."

There's also bú which means "farming" (like the action or business of farming) or "household" but is used for a lot of other things as well.

If you wanted to be a bit dramatic with the river bluff feature, you could use nes, which is "headland". So, for example, in Landnámabók, there's a "Herjólfsnes", which is the land taken by a man named Herjolf. I've seen a lot of personal names incorporated into geographical terms to make place names. So if your name was Aaron, say, you could then have "Aaronsnes" or "Aaron's Headland."

Edit: You could also do the same with staðr, so: "Aaronsstaðr".

You can look at Zoëga's dictionary to see more details on the terms.

In modern Icelandic, I found býli or kot (for a small cottage farm). See here and here.

Good luck and congrats on getting a farm!

I just happened to end up at a university that had a professor of Old Norse. Modern Icelandic and Faroese are pretty close and there is an Old Norse dictionary (Zoega's concise dictionary - it's concise because he was going to make a larger one but died before he could). My old norse professor has two textbooks you can get on amazon (textbook 1 and textbook 2) but I don't know how good those are because he was writing them while I was taking his courses. There's also this textbook which I've never used but has good reviews.

You can also learn modern Icelandic and then study Old Norse because they very similar. It may be easier to do it that way. We also read the sagas in the original Old Norse which was very interesting.

In the Ancient India section, you have the Bhagavad Gita, which is indeed very important and influential, but I'd replace that with the Mahabharata, of which the Bhagavad Gita is but a (very small) part.

I just read the entirety of the Penguin classics edition of it earlier this year and I was floored at how beautiful and moving it is. Totally worth it to have the whole epic there.

I love reading up on the lore of LotR! Iirc, the new Beren and Luthien book just came out this week and I plan on getting it soon! Oh happy cakeday too!!

I've used Hippocrene's Beginner's Icelandic as well as Complete Icelandic. I fell off the wagon and haven't devoted any time recently to learning, but both books were helpful when I was trying to learn. If I had to choose only one of them, I'd probably choose Complete Icelandic, but they were useful to me in tandem because each covered little things that the other didn't.

I've also heard that Icelandic Learning is very useful. IIRC, you have to pass the entire course before you can apply for citizenship/visas. I could be wrong on that, it's been a few years.

first replying to the topic of clarity & purple

didnt know they had a phrase for this:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_prose
  
  
• https://medium.com/@lucillemoncrief/what-is-purple-prose-beige-prose-and-blue-language-9cae7fd44ba9
  
  
• https://thewritepractice.com/purple-prose/
  
  
• https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=purple%20prose
  
  tho i understand it harms clarity tho:
  
  
• the context requires it
  
  
• & it's not meant for other minds so it wont be relevant to this context
  
  ---
  
  it seems overall that many dont like thes kinds of things,
  
  
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aniara#Reception
  
  
• https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1138948.Aniara
  
  
• https://www.amazon.com/Aniara-Epic-Science-Fiction-Poem/dp/1885266634
  
  & overall culturally this has been the trend
  
  ---
  
  i also dont like these kinds of things tho i can understand some of the main reasons why others would think that this is the only and best that certain things could said
  
  tho i should add that i dont consider the scene/piece that poetic/purple cos it could be 1000x more so
  
  tho that's the thing with relative words like 'purple' and such, they're all just relative, and in that way, they do lose 1) clarity & 2) meaning
  
  ---
  
  

Why would you ask a question about taxes without asking what those taxes pay for? They pay for the shit everyone needs.

As for learning the language, there are two decent books I can recommend: Colloquial Icelandic and Beginner's Icelandic. But nothing is going to save you from the fuckton of grammar you have to learn within the first 40 pages or so. Spend the extra on the companion CDs.

Here are all the local Amazon links I could find:


amazon.co.uk

amazon.ca

amazon.com.au

amazon.in

amazon.com.mx

amazon.de

amazon.it

amazon.es

amazon.com.br

amazon.nl

amazon.co.jp

amazon.fr

Beep bloop. I'm a bot to convert Amazon ebook links to local Amazon sites.
I currently look here: amazon.com, amazon.co.uk, amazon.ca, amazon.com.au, amazon.in, amazon.com.mx, amazon.de, amazon.it, amazon.es, amazon.com.br, amazon.nl, amazon.co.jp, amazon.fr, if you would like your local version of Amazon adding please contact my creator.

I'm not sure if it has 100+, but my favorite collected anthology, by far, is The Rag and Bone Shop of the Heart. The subtitle can go fuck itself, but the collection itself is unbeatable. So, so good. Really, this book showed me so much of what poetry can be. I really enjoy that it doesn't focus on one era so much over others, contemporary poetry is well-represented, and this all shows in the organization of poems. Pound right next to Olds right next to Li Po. Brilliant.

If I can get over the subtitle, I feel like anyone should be able to. Check it out!

The Rag and Bone Shop of the Heart: A Poetry Anthology
This is my favorite poetry anthology.

It isn't quite true to say that Hebrew and Greek had words for homosexuality, but they did have extensive vocabularies for discussing sexual relationships between men.

In the New Testament, the Greek vocabulary for sex between men is not used. There are a couple of resources that go into this.

• Arsenokoités and Malakos: Meanings and Consequences by Dale B Martin
  
• Same-sex relationships: 1 Corinthians and 1 Timothy by me.
  
  I'm not as well-versed in the Hebrew side of things, but the book Wrestling with God and Men is a good place to start.

Here are some links for the product in the above comment for different countries:

Link text: The Rag and Bone Shop of the Heart: A Poetry Anthology

• UK: amazon.co.uk
  
• Spain: amazon.es
  
• France: amazon.fr
  
• Germany: amazon.de
  
• Japan: amazon.co.jp
  
• Canada: amazon.ca
  
• Italy: amazon.it
  
• China: amazon.cn
  
  
  This bot is currently in testing so let me know what you think by voting (or commenting).

This reminds me to pre-order a copy. Looking on Amazon, I found these two options: option 1 and option 2

The seemed to have different ISBN numbers and different publishers, but the same page count and cover. Any idea which is the better option?

The item on my wishlist I want is this. It is the album that introduced me to punk when I was a little guy. It is just such an important album for me and the genre as a whole. It was and is revolutionary. Plus Johnny Rotten is probably your cousin or something!

The coolest thing on my wishlist is this. A little known sci-fi epic poem full of hoplessness and despair, what is cooler than that! Also, the only sci-fi book to win a nobel prize. Just all around cool-ness.

Probably look for anthologies, such as 101 Great American Poems, or the Giant Book of Poetry.

Read this.

The first book, Hyperion, is good for background.

tl;dr Commercial culture would spread throughout the universe, fucking up entire planets and creating permanent underclasses.

Pretty recent stuff:

John Brown's Body

The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel

Aniara

Pharr's Aeneid is an excellent example of such a book.

The rarer vocab words are on the bottom of each page, and the more common ones rolled out on a fold from the back of the book.

I think you would really like this book:


http://www.amazon.com/American-Hybrid-Norton-Anthology-Poetry/dp/0393333752/ref=sr_1_fkmr2_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1301495281&sr=8-2-fkmr2


It traces the movement of what they call "Hybrid Poetry," (essentially, experimental poetry with formal characteristics) in the 20th Century. Good introductory essays by the authors as well. I'm less swayed by your type of poetry than more conventional forms... but that's something I'm working on.

Free ebook of gaming-themed poetry.

Lullabies for Dungeon Crawlers

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0781811910/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1397625371&sr=8-1&pi=SY200_QL40

Beginner's Icelandic by Helga Hilmisdóttir Is a good resource. It comes with discs with examples of pronunciation. The pronunciation guide is written for Brits which it's only evident in one example. It gives a simple overview of the language.

Other than that I would say that pretty much everyone you will meet will speak English. Almost to the point of frustration if you are trying to learn icelandic.

The Fall of Hyperion - The first one was too good not to continue.

Item.

Thin crust pizza.

Thank you.

Hi,
I have been trying to learn a bit Icelandic myself, as a Norwegian, I do see some similiarities between the two languages, but belive me when I say that Icelandic is crazy difficult. It's not to put you off, but you have to be prepeared.

I bought a nice little book to get me started, I haven't read so many "learn-languages-yourself books" so I can't really comparere, but I found this to be helpful (looks like it's sold out :( )

Icelandic have, as you pointed out, grammatical genders, wich means that you will have to learn what "gender" a noun have. Icelandic have 3 genders, masculin, feminin and neuter. You will have to learn the genders with the nouns. The difficult thing with grammatical genders is that it does not seem to follow any rules. (In Norwegian for instance, "Pike", wich means "little girl" is a masculin noun)

Some nice websites

• English - Icelandic dictionary
  
• Verb-conjugator
  
• Free online course (highly recomended)
  
• Newspaper, also video clips

That was the first and only thing that came to mind when I tried to think of one. I was thinking only of Geir T. Zoëga, the apparently quite well-known guy who compiled my Concise Dictionary of Old Icelandic. (Spoiler alert: it's not very concise.)

Steven Greenberg, who wrote Wrestling with God and Men, perhaps?

It seems a little weird to want to buy books to try and discredit some random person online who will forget all about this conversation in a couple of days, but sure, whatever.

Nag Hammadi Scriptures

Dhammapada

Upanishads

Baghavad Gita

Mahabharata

And this volume of the Vedas, though as I said I haven't read through it yet.

I also have this copy of the Tibetan Book of the Dead, which I haven't gotten around to yet.

Now, once again, please tell me where in the Nag Hammadi scriptures it says that you spend 1000 years in a Devachan before reincarnating.

Also available in Canada for free!

And yet, ironically, he's the one with a new book scheduled to come out this year.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mahabharata-Penguin-Classics-J-Smith/dp/0140446818/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1473701783&sr=8-1&keywords=mahabharata

Book 6 of 10 in the Amber Chronicles.

And then I'll jump back to the Hyperion Cantos with The Fall of Hyperion

https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Icelandic-Two-Audio-CDs/dp/144410537X

https://www.amazon.com/Beginners-Icelandic-Audio-CDs-Hippocrene/dp/0781811910

https://www.amazon.com/Colloquial-Icelandic-Complete-Course-Beginners/dp/1138949736

https://www.amazon.com/Little-Book-Icelandic-idiosyncrasies-delights/dp/993592985X/

https://www.amazon.com/Beren-L%C3%BAthien-J-R-R-Tolkien/dp/1328791823

Read these books:


http://www.amazon.com/The-Mahabharata-Penguin-Classics-Anonymous/dp/0140446818

and

http://www.amazon.com/Ramayana-Shortened-Version-Penguin-Classics/dp/0143039679/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1382550210&sr=1-1&keywords=ramayana+r.k.+narayan

germanum *, sorry. However, in book 1, line 341 of Vergil's Aeneid, this word appears, and my AP Vergil textbook (what we commonly refer to as Pharr)and nodictionaries.com suggest that it is translated as "own brother" or "full brother". This, of course, is in context talking about Sychaeus' brother Pygmalion.

edit: changed a bracket to a close parentheses

> there's an empty space on the shelf.

Space for the upcoming Beren and Luthien!

Ah, yes. The perpetual tragedy of Men's social awareness movements.

​

Late 80's a group of psychologists and writers attempted to address the issues affecting men's psychology and identity in a changing world and society and called it the "Men's Movement." [Suggested Reading](https://smile.amazon.com/Rag-Bone-Shop-Heart-Anthology/dp/0060924209/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1550604390&sr=8-1&keywords=rag+and+bone+shop+of+the+heart) When it makes overtures to try and ally itself with feminist groups they are largely rebuked under suspicion and lose just enough interest by it's founders that it gets taken over by a group of horrible misogynists before slowly sputtering out of steam.

​

Late 90's a group of well meaning men looking to address heavy handed policies in the justice system start the men's rights movement so they can spend more time with their kids, before being rebuked by feminist groups and losing all of the reasonable voices inside of itself by the loud bellow of horrible misogynists. This one just sure is taking it's fucking time dying.