“What is the difference between a self and a soul?”

howe croppedWhy read poetry?  If you read novels because you like to find out what happens, and if you read non-fiction because you like to learn something, why read poetry? I read it because I like to think about questions that no one has “the” answer to.  I like unsolvable problems. I like things that I can absorb, even if I can’t quite say that I understand them, such as this lovely line: “Inevitable as daylight, exhaustive as pain, his climb and his footfall sound like another world ending,  another world ending.” (50)  Marie Howe knows how to raise elegant  questions.

Marie Howe, The Kingdom of Ordinary Time (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2008). p. 23



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2 Responses to “What is the difference between a self and a soul?”

  1. gcronk@ec.rr.com says:

    I think it means that its crystal clear that as sure as the sun rises, as we are cursed with pain, his climb has become never ending and his feet are so heavy, that with every step it becomes so hard to lift the foot but easily slammed back to earth with an explosion of dirt and dust. Like to the same as the earth exploding…

  2. gcronk@ec.rr.com says:

    What is the difference between self and soul? We are spiritual beings who are human.

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