is really such an old school word, isn't it?

How does it signify: I don't agree with you, therefore you are insane; a crack undermines your worth and will get you exiled to the outlet store; (in a Juliette Binoche-y accent) damaged people are dangerous.

Emily Dickinson was said to be "half-crack'd."

Anne Sexton's stars were cracked.

That whip-like whallop of a word, crackpot!, with its blistering sting of dismissive contempt. Only a true pot-cracker could crack out the word crackpot as if it were an answer in itself.

Crackpoet.

Everyone knows pots crack. Hence styrofoam peanuts. Hence bubble wrap. Hence newspaper for the traditionalists and the environmentally conscious.

The question isn't that the pots are cracked, but who cracked them? Who was careless? Who let them? Who did it on purpose?

And is it wrong to thirst for water one can never hold?

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I loved this post. You rock!

In my world we take cracked pots and bust them on to ground to make mosaics. Sometimes they are foundations, birdbaths or sculptures. If they are lucky they will grow up to hold more than water. Oh and I will teach you how to make a mosaic after I teach you how to throw a pot;)

I loved this post.

Paula Gunn Allen has a poem called Womanwork in which she talks about how native women took the cracked pots and used them to make new ones ....