Why does poetry continue to exist? It does not deliver information to solve problems or assist in helping with problems. Facts have no usefulness for rhyming couplets. We live our lives in comfort when we solve tangible problems effectively. Facts usually have some built into it reward system. That is, until we seek a closer communion with ourselves living in a world made to be separate from us. It is a world where not seeking of competitive advantages, that emotional world within, leads to being struck by some indefinable satisfaction to be trusted. It brings approval for the arts in their many forms. For me, the most beautiful of them is poetry, making words, when read, into sounds equal to the power of singing by using much the same rhythmic repeats but to be accomplished without need of voice or ears and to be more easily remembered ever after throughout a lifetime with the same emotional impact, and, sometimes more so as deeper understanding evolves with time.

What is a word? I mean to that brain of ours, a sound distinctly different from tree branches in motion or those of leaves hanging down uncertain what to do next. We get simple instructions from tree noises except for getting out of the way should one of them collapse. Not much information was gathered after a life of staring up at trees in awe, not even a smile. The reason is obvious. We have to be told what a word is when struck on the ears for the first time, generally intended to identify some object that can bring danger or caring or usefulness. After that identification, its clear sailing. The word grows like the tree does, with additional information tacked on to get you to laugh or cry or shrug or wonder or turn away unconcerned. Unless the word is attached to other words, words lurking about that can be hooked up with ease. Something new will happen. The mind can become busy directing the body to cause something to come about. Something to come about comes in two sizes. The one size we know the best is an action to change what is around our body, directed by needs and wants. It is the second one coming about that has no outward change of body direction but does something special to the mind as to be carried around by that mind for a lifetime, if not longer. It is an amazing sense of ones feelings without motion to the body, rising out of words clustered together in certain ways that words can come together. This miracle of the human animal creates the feelings of a satisfaction never to be known to any other of the animals also fighting for survival. This sensation strikes deeply within oneself and is called by names we all recognize. There is poetry, prose, and plays to mention the few that bring me to a sense of emotion that otherwise would lie forever dormant in the rush through lifes practical requiring needs to keep oneself available for more gathering up of practical needs. My break with that cycle, as life permitted, is what is expressed, as best as I could, in this book as I wandered in and out of one act, plays, poems, and essays, all discoveries I had a chance to taste while the tasting was good.

Anything Goes is a compilation of my feelings and observations of the world around me by the use of poems, plays, and essays. It expresses my personal views of what is, what should be, and what is wished for to come about.

We all live in a world to be seen from the eyes of a layman searching out the wonders that surround each of us. In the end, we are all a layman to what has been compiled and collected and discovered and analyzed for the opportunity to grasp whatever possible between a confused birth arrival and the awaiting departure. “The Layman Speaks” is composed of the three art forms intended for the creation, predominately, of feelings through poems, essays and plays.

** A New York Times Bestseller ** NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY: Time • The New Yorker • NPR • GQ • Elle • Vulture • Fortune • Boing Boing • The Irish Times • The New York Public Library • The Brooklyn Public Library "A complex, smart and ambitious book that at first reads like a self-help manual, then blossoms into a wide-ranging political manifesto."—Jonah Engel Bromwich, The New York Times Book Review One of President Barack Obama's "Favorite Books of 2019" Porchlight's Personal Development & Human Behavior Book of the Year In a world where addictive technology is designed to buy and sell our attention, and our value is determined by our 24/7 data productivity, it can seem impossible to escape. But in this inspiring field guide to dropping out of the attention economy, artist and critic Jenny Odell shows us how we can still win back our lives. Odell sees our attention as the most precious—and overdrawn—resource we have. And we must actively and continuously choose how we use it. We might not spend it on things that capitalism has deemed important … but once we can start paying a new kind of attention, she writes, we can undertake bolder forms of political action, reimagine humankind’s role in the environment, and arrive at more meaningful understandings of happiness and progress. Far from the simple anti-technology screed, or the back-to-nature meditation we read so often, How to do Nothing is an action plan for thinking outside of capitalist narratives of efficiency and techno-determinism. Provocative, timely, and utterly persuasive, this book will change how you see your place in our world.

First used to describe the weariness the public felt toward media portrayals of societal crises, the term compassion fatigue has been taken up by health professionals to name—along with burnout, vicarious traumatization, compassion stress, and secondary traumatic stress—the condition of caregivers who become “too tired to care.” Compassion, long seen as the foundation of ethical caring, is increasingly understood as a threat to the well-being of those who offer it. Through the lens of hermeneutic phenomenology, the authors present an insider’s perspective on compassion fatigue, its effects on the body, on the experience of time and space, and on personal and professional relationships. Accounts of health professionals, alongside examinations of poetry, images, movies, and literature, are used to explore the notions of compassion, hope, and hopelessness as they inform the meaning of caring work. The authors frame their exposé of compassion fatigue with the very Canadian metaphor of “lying down in the snow.” If suffering is imagined as ever-falling snow, then the need for training and resources for safe journeying in “winter country” becomes apparent. Recognizing the phenomenon of compassion fatigue reveals the role that health services education and the moral habitability of our healthcare environments play in supporting professionals’ ability to act compassionately and to endure.

"Cligès" become written through the French poet Chretien de Troyes. The tale turns into a tale of love, honor, and courtly intrigue. The story is commonly about Cligès, the primary person, who's the Byzantine Emperor's nephew. Cligès falls strongly in love with Fenice, who's married to his uncle, and the two have an affair that is towards the policies. The book talks about courtly love, loyalty, and how complex relationships are within the upper elegance. Chretien de Troyes places together a complex internet of stories with elements of tour and political maneuvering. The tale is shaped with the aid of the tropes of medieval romance, such as quests, battles, and the code of chivalry. As Cligès offers with the issues that arise due to his forbidden love, the story goes into the ethical and moral problems that the characters ought to deal with. People realize Chretien de Troyes for his paintings on Arthurian fiction, and "Cligès" is no one of a kind. The poem suggests how good the poet changed into at writing a tale that appears into the subtleties of human feelings, societal expectations, and the thoughts of courtly love that are not unusual in medieval literature. For many years, "Cligès" has been a critical part of Arthurian literature, showing how famous memories of affection and bravery had been inside the Middle Ages.