In White Oleander (Bookshop|Amazon), novelist Janet Fitch touts the value of memorizing poetry with these memorable lines: Always learn poems by heart. They have to become the marrow in your bones. Like fluoride in the water, they’ll make your soul...
Some of the music you hear on this show is the work of Sure Fire Soul Ensemble, a San Diego-based Afro-funk and soul-jazz band. Their keyboard player is Tim Felten, who, as it happens, is also the editor and engineer for A Way with Words. He selects...
soul boarding n.— «Riding the steep aspects and deep powder of the backcountry are what many snowboarders call “soul boarding,” and it is by far the most popular form of the sport.» —“Two snowboarders with Fairbanks ties try to conquer The North...
wash-ashore n.— «The latest demand—made this month in a legal notice by San Francisco homeowners looking to sell their waterfront land for a tidy $10.75 million—has sparked what longtime Chatham resident Ned Webster calls “the big dinghy flap.” It...
interiorscaping n.— «She knows, from experience, that office landscaping—”interiorscaping” in industry parlance—can be liberating for the soul and, as a growing body of research suggests, healthier for mind and body.» —“Grow yourself a more...
damselling n.— «In his essay on Robert Walser, Coetzee refers to the pleasure the writer got from “damselling,” which he defines as “experiencing a feminine life imaginatively from the inside.” We are probably safe in saying that Coetzee is not...
