The isms go, the ist dies, art remains - Vladimir Nabokov

Why our poet chose to give his 1958 hurricane a little-used Spanish name sometimes given to parrots) instead of Linda or Lois, is not clear.

The thought, when written down, becomes less oppressive, but some thoughts are like a cancerous tumor: you express is, you excise it, and it grows back worse than before.

"She was an extravagantly slender girl. Her ribs showed. The conspicuous knobs of her hipbones framed a hollowed abdomen, so flat as to belie the notion of "belly." Her exquisite bone structure immediately slipped into a novel - became in fact the secret structure of that novel, besides supporting a number of poems."