Margaret Atwood - Excerpt From "The Door"

STRING TAIL


I used to have helpfulness tacked onto me
like a fake string tail on a mangled dog.
Wag, wag, wag went my nerveless appendage:
If I give you something, will you like me?

Watch me make you happy!
Here's a dry stick for you!
I fetched it off the ash heap.
Here's a dead bird.
There! Aren't I good?

Here's a gnawed bone,
it's my own,
I took it out of my arm.
Here's my heart, in a little pile of vomit.

Was it my fault you were angered
by the world news? That you bad-mouthed God
and banking, and in addition the weather?
That you sulked all day and were vicious
to your mirror, and also
to the girls at checkout counters?
That you thought sex was a mess?

I did my best. Wag, wag
went my tail of string.
Have some drool and mud!
Admire my goodwill! It clings
to the soles of your boots
like soft pink melting jelly.
Here, take it with you!
Take everything, and then I'm free;
I can run away. I'm blameless.
You can have the string tail, too.



DUTIFUL


How did I get so dutiful? Was I always that way?
Going around as a child with a small broom and dustpan,
sweeping up dirt I didn't make,
or out into the yard with a stunted rake,
weeding the gardens of others
– the dirt blew back, the weeds flourished, despite my efforts –
and all the while with a frown of disapproval
for other people's fecklessness, and my own slavery.
I didn't perform these duties willingly.
I wanted to be on the river, or dancing,
but something had me by the back of the neck.
That's me too, years later, a purple-eyed wreck,
because whatever had to be finished wasn't, and I stayed late,
grumpy as a snake, on too much coffee,
and further on still, those groups composed of mutterings
and scoldings, and the set-piece exhortation:
Somebody ought to do something!
That was my hand shooting up.

But I've resigned. I've ditched the grip of my echo.
I've decided to wear sunglasses, and a necklace
adorned with the gold word no,
and eat flowers I didn't grow.
Still, why do I feel so responsible
for the wailing from shattered houses,
for birth defects and unjust wars,
and the soft, unbearable sadness
filtering down from distant stars?


--------------------------------------------------
The Door by Margaret Atwood - 2007. McClelland & Stewart.

This Forgotten Spot

I have no right to complain. Up until now I have had a good run with this venue. It has afforded me more than I had expected. I have made good online friends: people who I would probably befriend in real time. But I have lost the knack to have the fair reader speak their mind. And yet the followers keep following and the swallows keep swallowing.

That is to say that the readership is still there. It is just that I hear my own thoughts reverberating. This home has gotten perceptibly colder. Can someone help me find the way back? I need to want to read the words. I need to want to see them in print. I need to want them to matter. Help me find this forgotten spot where all seems in sync.

NōD is back!

NōD, the University of Calgary's undergraduate-run magazine comes back to campus this fall for its third year of publication.

A venue for emerging artists and established ones alike, NōD is a professional journal that showcases creative work of beginning writers and undergraduates alongside that of practicing artists. NōD magazine intersects creative communities in the literary and visual arts, inviting innovative creative endeavors.

NōD magazine is currently accepting submissions for our seventh issue.

Spread the word!


OPEN CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

Deadline: October 31st 2007

Submission Guidelines: Prose, poetry and visual art of all sorts, we want it all.

All submissions must either be in or easily transferable to digital format.

Ideally, submissions are 4-8 pages in length (1500 word max for prose pieces)

We look forward to hearing from you!


Ian Kinney,
Editor, NōD



Address:

NōD Magazine
c/o Dep't of English, University of Calgary
2500 University Drive N.W.
Calgary, AB
T2T 1N4

Email: nodmagazine@gmail.com

Website: www.myspace.com/nodmagazine

Quick Someone Light a Match

"... there are a lot of bad poets in thrall to Bukowski - after all, his great skill lay in making the writing of great poetry seem easy. Poets who affect his lifestyle without learning the craft of writing do so at their peril. And don't look to the man himself for clues on where the poems come from: he once said that writing a poem is ""like taking a shit, you smell it and then flush it away ... writing is all about leaving behind as much a stink as possible". "

From: Don't blame Bukowski for bad poetry - by Tony O'Neill

Doors to...

Piazza With a View

Why Reginald Shepherd's Post Made Me Laugh & Cry at the Same Time

While reading Reginald Shepherd's post entitled: " Working Class Hero" I came across this passage.

"...as intellectuals and artists from poor backgrounds, people who as kids knew lots of words we couldn’t pronounce correctly, because we’d only read them in books."

It describes a socialization process that (although different) closely mirrors my own. The love affair that I had (and still have) with the English language drew me to the etiology of words and ultimately to the doorstep of poetics. Words became my sole weapon against an Italian culture that I tried so compulsively to distance myself from. There have been numerous sociological studies relating to the second generation immigrant, the denial of their mother culture & the process of assimilation within the host culture. Acquisition of language is perhaps one of the first, if not most important step in the process of acculturation. After all language & culture are so closely linked - that the mastery of a language along with the all important knowledge of its semantics & idiomatic expressions often renders an immigrant - homogeneous and in essence almost indiscernible from the host culture. This is the worst case scenario for a 2nd generation immigrant. The third generation: once it has received a modicum of social acceptability, often seeks out the original culture's nurturing teat.

As a second generation immigrant I self-consciously tried to gain the approval & approbation of this host culture. I saw my neighborhood friends & acquaintances (who I perceived had a flawed knowledge of the host language) as the enemies. Their stilted efforts at mimicking this language grated on my perception of what constituted an acceptable auditory pattern of this purloined language - that was English. I spent many hours listening to recordings of my voice trying to rectify stilted language. In my blind efforts & haste to be accepted I thought that I had received the ultimate compliment when during my undergraduate years at McGill University in Montreal - I was asked to play Macbeth in a staging of the play by a Shakespearean class (I had taken as an elective) and was told that I sounded like a young Ronald Colman (Prisoner of Zenda). Little did I know!

Despite my love & devotion to its nuances and the grammar of its expression - my love of poetics has gone by and large unrequited. It has not welcomed me open-armed within the ranks of its favored proponents. I still await the caress of an accepted manuscript - for example. I have not as yet been granted audience to read the borrowed words which best imitate my thought processes via poetic rhetoric. Despite my bending to a purloined culture I have nothing tangible to show for it. I still maintain a silent vigil.

Quotes & Quotables

"As the John Lennon song ["Working Class Hero"] my title alludes to points out, they hate you if you’re clever, and they despise a fool. But I will be heard from. I’m determined not to leave the field to those born with spoons of various precious metals in their mouths. .... The culture I’ve acquired with so much work may be their birthright, but I appreciate it in a way that those who take it for granted rarely do. It means something to me—it means everything to me. Sometimes I stand in the poetry section of Barnes and Noble and wonder how many authors there come from backgrounds like mine. They can be counted on the fingers of one hand."

------------------------------------------------------------------------Reginald Shepherd


This just blew me away - that someone else had my exact same thoughts.

Labyrinthian Alleys

Poetry in Vitro: Vol. 2 , No. 12

Under Statement



This one's been out in the sun too long.

Don't Let the Sun go Down on me!

Coming Home to Some Good News - One of my Poems is Slated to Appear in "fourW eighteen"

Sandra Treble of FourW Press: a Charles Sturt University publication from New South Wales will be publishing one of my poems in their yearly print anthology. One of the launch dates of fourW eighteen (the title of the anthology) will be in Sydney (Australia) at Gleebooks on Saturday 17th - November 2007 at 2.30 pm. Wish I could make it.

I'm Back....You Don't Have to Look so Disappointed!

Arrivederci Baby! - A Ben Presto.

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----------------

"Oh, the streets of Rome are filled with rubble,

Ancient footprints are everywhere.

You can almost think that you're seeing double

On a cold, dark night on the Spanish stairs."

-------------------------------------------------------------Bob Dylan

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

We'll be taking off for Rome tomorrow. (Later on we'll be heading down to Calabria.) We've been looking forward to this trip to Italy. I'm leaving a couple of "literary pots" on the back burner. Hope that they simmer just right. Be good to each other while I'm gone. I'll try to check in time permitting. Might just post something too if I get the gumption. Otherwise I'll see you in a while. Ciao.

So - You Think You Can Tell?

How Cool is This?

Valparaiso Poetry Review's editor Edward Byrne announced his nominees for “Best of the Net” anthology and I'm on the list along with: Anne Haines, Michelle Bitting, Diane Lockward, Jared Carter & Frannie Lindsay. Congrats to these nominees. My thanks to Edward Byrne for including me among these fine poets.

When Rome Awaits

WHAT HE THOUGHT
by Heather McHugh


We were supposed to do a job in Italy
and, full of our feeling for
ourselves (our sense of being
Poets from America) we went
from Rome to Fano, met
the Mayor, mulled a couple
matters over. "What does mean this 'flat drink?' someone asked.
What is "cheap date?" (Nothing we said lessened
this one's mystery). Among Italian writers we


could recognize our counterparts: the academic,
the apologist, the arrogant, the amorous,
the brazen and the glib. And there was one
administrator (The Conservative), in suit
of regulation gray, who like a good tour guide
with measured pace and uninflected tone
narrated sights and histories
the hired van hauled us past.
Of all he was most politic--
and least poetic-- so
it seemed. Our last
few days in Rome
I found a book of poems this
unprepossessing one had written: it was there
in the pensione room (a room he'd recommended)
where it must have been abandoned by
the German visitor (was there a bus of them?) to whom
he had inscribed and dated it a month before. I couldn't
read Italian either, so I put the book
back in the wardrobe's dark. We last Americans


were due to leave
tomorrow. For our parting evening then
our host chose something in a family restaurant,
and there we sat and chatted, sat and chewed, till,
sensible it was our last big chance to be Poetic, make
our mark, one of us asked


"What's poetry?
Is it the fruits and vegetables
and marketplace at Campo dei Fiori


or the statue there?" Because I was
the glib one, I identified the answer
instantly, I didn't have to think-- "The truth
is both, it's both!" I blurted out. But that
was easy. That was easiest
to say. What followed taught me something
about difficulty,


for our underestimated host spoke out
all of a sudden, with a rising passion, and he said:


The statue represents
Giordano Bruno, brought
to be burned in the public square
because of his offence against authority, which was to say
the Church. His crime was his belief
the universe does not revolve around
the human being: God is no
fixed point or central government
but rather is poured in waves, through
all things: all things
move. "If God is not the soul itself,
he is the soul OF THE SOUL of the world." Such was
his heresy. The day they brought him forth to die


they feared he might incite the crowd (the man
was famous for his eloquence). And so his captors
placed upon his face
an iron mask
in which he could not speak.


That is how they burned him.
That is how he died,
without a word,
in front of everyone. And poetry--


(we'd all put down our forks by now, to listen to
the man in gray; he went on softly)-- poetry


is what he thought, but did not say.


--------------------------------------------------------------
"What He Thought" is the first poem in Heather McHugh's collection of new and selected poems Hinge & Sign: Poems 1968 - 1993, published by Wesleyan/UPNE, 1994.

More Simic

Errata

Where it says snow
read teeth-marks of a virgin
Where it says knife read
you passed through my bones
like a police-whistle
Where it says table read horse
Where it says horse read my migrant's bundle
Apples are to remain apples
Each time a hat appears
think of Isaac Newton
reading the Old Testament
Remove all periods
They are scars made by words
I couldn't bring myself to say
Put a finger over each sunrise
it will blind you otherwise
That damn ant is still stirring
Will there be time left to list
all errors to replace
all hands guns owls plates
all cigars ponds woods and reach
that beer-bottle my greatest mistake
the word I allowed to be written
when I should have shouted
her name



Hotel Insomnia

I liked my little hole,
Its window facing a brick wall.
Next door there was a piano.
A few evenings a month
a crippled old man came to play
"My Blue Heaven."

Mostly, though, it was quiet.
Each room with its spider in heavy overcoat
Catching his fly with a web
Of cigarette smoke and revery.
So dark,
I could not see my face in the shaving mirror.

At 5 A.M. the sound of bare feet upstairs.
The "Gypsy" fortuneteller,
Whose storefront is on the corner,
Going to pee after a night of love.
Once, too, the sound of a child sobbing.
So near it was, I thought
For a moment, I was sobbing myself.


--------------------------------------------------

Charles Simic: to be Named the US's 15th Poet Laureate

I'm ecstatic to hear this propitious news. Simic has been and continues to be a poetic staple in these parts. His work continues to inspire and his poetic voice still resonates with this would-be poet.

Congrats, Mr. Simic.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The White Room

The obvious is difficult
To prove. Many prefer
The hidden. I did, too.
I listened to the trees.

They had a secret
Which they were about to
Make known to me--
And then didn't.

Summer came. Each tree
On my street had its own
Scheherazade. My nights
Were a part of their wild

Storytelling. We were
Entering dark houses,
Always more dark houses,
Hushed and abandoned.

There was someone with eyes closed
On the upper floors.
The fear of it, and the wonder,
Kept me sleepless.

The truth is bald and cold,
Said the woman
Who always wore white.
She didn't leave her room.

The sun pointed to one or two
Things that had survived
The long night intact.
The simplest things,

Difficult in their obviousness.
They made no noise.
It was the kind of day
People described as "perfect."

Gods disguising themselves
As black hairpins, a hand-mirror,
A comb with a tooth missing?
No! That wasn't it.

Just things as they are,
Unblinking, lying mute
In that bright light--
And the trees waiting for the night.

----------------------------------------

*source - Reuters

Poetry in Vitro: Vol. 2 , No. 11

This space is for hire.

--------------------------------------------

Two For Tuesday

The incomparable Joni Mitchell

Since You asked

Who the Hell is Zelig?

"Zelig is a 1983 mockumentary movie written and directed by Woody Allen. ... The film is set in the United States in the 1920s and 1930s. The title character, Leonard Zelig (played by Woody Allen), is a man who has the ability to change his appearance to that of the people he is surrounded by. For example, if he is among doctors, he transforms into a doctor, if around overweight people, he quickly becomes heavy himself. Zelig is called the "human chameleon". He is first noticed at a party by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Dr. Eudora Fletcher (Mia Farrow) is a psychiatrist who wants to help this man with this strange disorder, when he is admitted to her hospital. With the use of hypnotic techniques, she discovers that Zelig aims for approval, so he changes to fit in. Dr. Fletcher's determination allows her to eventually cure Zelig, but not without complications; on the road to recovery, Zelig temporarily develops a personality which is intolerant of other people's opinions.

Zelig used a very innovative and distinctive method to create the mockumentary feeling of this movie. For the film, Allen took real newsreel footage from the 1920s and 30s and inserted himself and other actors into the footage via bluescreen technology. To provide an authentic look to his scenes, Allen and his cinematographer used numerous techniques, including the arduous task of locating some of the actual antique film cameras and lenses used during the eras depicted in the film, and even went so far as to simulate damage, such as crinkles and scratches, on the negatives to make the finished product look more like vintage footage. The virtually seamless blending of old and new footage is highly notable in the fact that this was achieved almost a decade before digital filmmaking technology..."

---------------------------------------------------------

*source Wikipedia

THE POET - written by Jo Overfield, illustrated by Liam Brazier

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From - Sundown Multimedia

A Pensive Poet on a Midsummer Night in a Garden: Kashmir, 1630

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Is there any other kind?

From Cover to Cover

Jeannine Hall Gailey Asks:

Which ten books are the books that have inspired the most writing from you? The books you read that you couldn't wait to put down so you could write afterwards? These aren't neccessarily your "favorite" books, but the books that have helped you generate the most new work. If you are a poet, they do not have to all be poetry, they can be fiction, non-fiction, etc.

-------------------------------------------------------------from Jeannine Hall Gailey's Blog


Cows, Pigs, Wars & Witches - Marvin Harris

1984 -George Orwell

Faust - Goethe

Selected Poems - T.S. Eliot

The Social Construction of Reality - Berger & Luckmann

The Island of Dr. Moreau - H.G. Wells

Almost Anything by Aldous Huxley (especially The Devils of Loudon & Brave New World)

The Time of Indifference - Alberto Moravia

The Temple of the Golden Pavilion - Yukio Mishima

The Moon & Sixpence - W. Somerset Maugham




------------------------------------------------------------
I had to leave so many books off the list for lack of space -

Why Not Get Rejected by the Best?

Copper Canyon is the leading U.S. independent publisher of poetry. From its home in Fort Worden State Park in Port Townsend, Wash., it publishes poetry by numerous Nobel and Pulitzer Prize-winners, including Pablo Neruda, Ted Kooser, Maxine Kumin and W.S. Merwin and such leading American poets as Jim Harrison, Olga Broumas and Ruth Stone. Its books look attractive to the eye, feel solid in the hand and engage the mind.

---------------------------------------------------------Jeff Baker ( The Oregonian )

Thanks to Jilly for pointing me to this article.

I Have my Poetry to Protect me

Zelig's Other Complaint

Yesterday I received another manuscript rejection. (Publisher's justification: "I'm all booked up and am not taking any unsolicited manuscripts".) Now don't get me wrong I haven't really sent it out to too many places (maybe half a dozen) but each rejection hits closer to the heart. Perhaps it's because I see these rejection notices as a rebuff of my work in its entirety and by extension my poetic voice and vision. (Which may not be 20/20 like some poets - but is also not as myopic as others.) Each one of these notices takes me one step closer to throwing in the proverbial towel. Have I been deluding myself for the past five years in thinking that I had something pertinent to add to the already corpulent body of modern poetry?

The problem is that I have never walked away from anything in my life. A couple of years ago I had the same feeling (as today) when most of the poets that I knew had published in print. Some of those told me to pack it in and that I just didn't have the poetic acumen to get into a "real poetry journal". Still a poem that was much derided by them as vacuous was printed in a reputable magazine. (Of course this event, in and of itself, did not repudiate their claim. But I took it as a sign from the poetry gods.)... Yet, by and large, poetry keeps pointing me towards the emergency exit. And I keep thinking about Bukowski's poem, "so you want to be a writer? :

....don't be like so many writers,
don't be like so many thousands of
people who call themselves writers,
don't be dull and boring and
pretentious, don't be consumed with self-
love.
the libraries of the world have
yawned themselves to
sleep
over your kind.
don't add to that.
don't do it.
unless it comes out of
your soul like a rocket,
unless being still would
drive you to madness or
suicide or murder,
don't do it.
unless the sun inside you is
burning your gut,
don't do it.

when it is truly time,
and if you have been chosen,
it will do it by
itself and it will keep on doing it
until you die or it dies in you. ...

Now I'm thinking is this just indigestion or is "the sun inside me burning my gut"?

This is Where I'll be in August

Sandra Beasley will be recreating the NaPoWriMo experience in August. She asks other like-minded poets to join her. If you have the itch to write next month -- visit her blog and let her know. Unfortunately, in August I'll be here:



















More specifically here:


















--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
You can stop clapping now - April is just around the corner!

JANE HIRSHFIELD

The Opening



Every meeting is fateful.

A bot fly lays her yellow eggs on the leg of a horse.

A door latch slips into place
and the story once told behind it is over:

A sentence turns in mid-stride and
becomes a question.

No one knows why.

But mostly we keep on asking.
A sound like many small birds in a tree.
A sound like rain.

Once, in the long midsummer drought
of coastal California, I heard a sound that puzzled.
I went outside to stars,
my outstretched hand unwetted.

But from every tree around me, water came hard,
the downpour still at full in its falling.

The gutters made the sound they throat while working.
My hand was dry.

I stood inside the mystery,
no question in my heart's fast beating.


----------------------------------------
first appeared in Margie -Volume 2, 2003

Two For Tuesday

Five Man Electrical Band – “Signs” & “Absolutely Right”

This One Still Blows my Mind

"Dante": Jean-Leon Gerome (1824-1904)

"I wept not, so to stone

within I grew."

--------------------------------------Dante Alighieri

Poetry by Design versus Poetry by Revelation

As you probably know, if you’ve visited this blog on more than one occasion I’m not a prolific poet, even at the best of creative times. In most instances - within the scope of the creative process – the poem strikes me like lightning – a flash of a phrase appears and then once the blinding effect fades (and my poetic eyes adjust to the light) the rest of the poem emerges as bits of a receding ship refusing to remain submerged.

Oddly enough, this is usually the rule rather than the exception. Of course there is always the editing (the lesser god of poetry) that must take its perfunctory course. But by and large poems coalesce almost immediately - emerging in full-bodied form from the outset.

So when I took on the NaPoWriMo challenge, I really was slitting my poetic wrists. To be perfectly honest with you I didn’t think that I was going to make it. But a month and about 30 terrible poems later I was still alive… poetically speaking. In retrospect it’s interesting to note that some decent tropes did surface. But it is difficult for me to write “poetry by design”. However, I know that most poets routinely planify the creative poetic process (i.e. for poetry collections, a series of poems etc...) .

In your experience does the poem that you create by design stack up favorably to the poem that comes to you via inspiration? Or is this, in effect, a moot question?

Two For Tuesday

Zelig's Complaint

Deborah Ager of 32 Poems asks: “ I “know” poet-bloggers in an odd way. I know a lot about them, yet we’ve not spent time directly communicating in most instances. We have not spent much time together in person.... Do people think they know me because they read my blog? Do they?“


To which I responded:

You ask an interesting question. No, I would not presume to think that I know you or anybody else for that matter that I have met on-line. Whereas meeting someone on-line facilitates discourse of a certain kind. Written symbolic interaction is not a sufficient condition to arrive at the conclusion that we know someone. Instinctively we need to engage in other forms of symbolic interaction to supplement the verbal. IMHO it is somewhat like attempting to watch a movie with only the audio & a blank screen. Perhaps adequate enough to get a gist of what the movie is about but not consummate enough to make any presumptions.

Every day I religiously go through my blog roll and click. I read about someone’s publishing news, personal crisis, and vacation or just about anything else they want - me - the reader to be privy to. How much of this is social exhibitionism? I’m not sure. This is the kind of information that you might share with a friend and/or close confidante. Certainly, these bloggers appear to have busy social lives and do not seem to lack camaraderie. I am perplexed as to why these bloggers of which I am - I suppose - part & parcel of and who are for the most part successful at what they do, feel the need to share (at times), some of their lives’ most intimate details with an audience - that they don’t really know.

They would appear to be seeking affirmation from like-minded individuals and yet many of the bloggers I read are part of a literary milieu. Would it not be more satisfying to receive recognition for their work from a more immediate source?

I, for example, am not part of the literary world per se. None of my (real-time) friends are poets, writers or editors for that matter. My sole window onto the literary vista that is poetry - is via the internet and the books I read of course. Would I like to be more a part of it? Yes, but with certain reservations. I have read from various sources and on various blogs about the numerous venues that serve as platforms for just this purpose. I would very much like to meet and socialize at these functions. It might certainly prove interesting to meet some of the poets that I have become acquainted with on-line. (Would they in “real life” match up to my conceptualizations of them?)

But by the same token I would not like to lose the objectivity (on the part of both parties) that my marginality affords me. If an editor who knows of me from my blog chooses to publish my work it is safe to assume they are doing so strictly on that basis alone. However, I'm not so naïve as to think that networking has not proven beneficial to the career of many an author. And so it goes...

If I may redirect the gist of this post, I’d like to ask the reader which blogger(s) they would like to meet in real-time and why?

Poetic Relativity

I cannot even bear to look at the smattering of poems that I wrote as an adolescent. The poetry that I wrote as a graduate student (in Sociology) contains, perhaps at best, a few choice lines, forms of comparison and transfers of meaning that I have haphazardly tried to incorporate in some of my present poetic work. ….Heck, even some of the stuff I wrote a few months ago (during NaPoWriMo) - I read and go …Huh???

I was over at Greg Rappleye’s blog only to read a preface to the posting of a poem as follows:

It's from my first collection, Holding Down the Earth (Skybooks, 1995). I wrote this book before getting my MFA. I think it's obvious that I had a lot to learn, but I still like the poem.

This may not be a seminal question, but do we as poets (and I loosely define myself as a poet here -- although certainly not with the poetic acumen of Greg Rappleye) ever look at our previous work and go: “I wouldn’t change a thing.” -- or are we forever possessed by a sense of misgiving vis a vis our efforts twice (or even once) removed?

Two For Tuesday

Cat Stevens

What to do?

What do you do when enjambments cease to tease?/ When diction & syntax cease to suggest style & voice? What to do when line & half-meaning no longer give you pause?/ When trope & thought no longer edify?/ When rhetoric & speech will not persuade? What to do when the turn of the phrase has lost its rhythm for you?

As of late I cannot seem to enjoy poetry with the same intensity that I come to expect of myself. The poetry I read seems to lack the lustre that it needs to engage this reader. I start a poem only to have my mind wander off after the first line - as though it sees something more appealing in another queue.

What author('s)/ poetry or perhaps single poem is the constant source of your renewed love affair with ars poetica? What poem(s)/poet(s) do you go back to time and again to rekindle your vow(s) to poetry?

Two For Tuesday

Vintage Linda Ronstadt

What's in a Name

20 of the Best Album Titles I Know:

1. Cat Stevens - Mona Bone Jakon
2. Elton John - Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
3. The Beatles - Rubber Soul
4. Alice Cooper - Welcome to my Nightmare
5. The Sex Pistols - Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols
6. Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention -We're Only in it for the Money
7. Joe Walsh - You Bought It, You Name It
8. Van Halen - For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge
9. Traveling Wilburys - Missing, Presumed Having a Good Time
10. Van Halen - 0u812
11. The Who - Who's Next?
12. Lep Zepplin - In Through The Outdoor
13. Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here
14. Alanis Morissette - Jagged Little Pill
15. AC/DC - Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap
16. Jimi Hendrix Experience -Are You Experienced?
17. Lynyrd Skynyrd - Pronounced Lehnerd Skenered
18. The Jefferson Airplane -Surrealistic Pillow
19. Rolling Stones - Sticky Fingers
20. Ian Hunter - You're Never Alone With a Schizophrenic

The Poem Adrift: Peter Ciccariello

Peter Ciccariello is an interdisciplinary artist, poet, and photographer, whose current interests are in experimenting with the fusion of text and images in 3-D computer graphics environments, and exploring the possibilities of poetry as landscape.

Dana Gioia: On American Culture Becoming one Vast Infomercial

"I have a reccurring nightmare. I am in Rome visiting the Sistine Chapel. I look up at Michelangelo's incomparable fresco of the "Creation of Man." I see God stretching out his arm to touch the reclining Adam's finger. And then I notice in the other hand Adam is holding a Diet Pepsi. "


------------------------------------------------------
*excerpt from: Stanford News

When I Paint My Masterpiece

"Someday, everything is gonna be smooth like a rhapsody

When I paint my masterpiece."

When Dorothy Said, “There’s no place like home!” She Lied

I’ve been away trying to recapture a bit of something that I’ve left behind. I tried to go back to a place I once called a home of sorts. I found it to be full of people, but no one was there. That is no one that understood what this place had meant to me once. How it had kept me in a safe place when I had the most need of a haven. There had been some hard lessons learnt there, but in the end they put me on the right road.

I had been someone there once. A reader of sorts that did not pass judgment but relayed what little he knew on what little he understood of the written word. Some listened. Others ignored. But my presence was acknowledged. I was a recognized part of a whole.

Now my words fell – brittle leaves – to the floor. Trod on by callous feet that had heard about this sanctuary for the poet and wanted to see for themselves why it had achieved a certain reputation. They say, “Pshaw!” – Who are you & what have you done lately? There is no response I can give. I offer my poetry in sacrifice and it does not bleed for them. I offer them my counsel on poetics it will not slake their thirsts. I offer them my back and they take it willingly.


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Home is the place where, when you have to go there,
They have to take you in.

--------------------------------------------------------------------Robert Frost

No One I Think is in my Tree -

Erik Almas

official site

"TIME" Bomb?

Excerpts From : "Poems for the People"
By LEV GROSSMAN (Time Magazine)


On Poetry's Popularity

Chances are, you don't read much poetry, at least not the new stuff. Don't feel bad, hardly anybody does. To hit the best-seller list for verse, a book has to sell only around 30 copies. Poetry is the spinach in America's media diet: good for you, occasionally baked into other, tastier dishes (like the cameo that W.H. Auden's Funeral Blues made in Four Weddings and a Funeral) but rarely consumed on its own. In the hierarchy of cultural pursuits it sits somewhere just below classical music and just above clogging.


On Poetry's Slow Demise

But the 20th century saw the rise of Modernism and brilliant but difficult and allusive writers like T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound. ... Poems became less like high-end pop songs and more like math problems to be solved. They turned into the property of snobs and professors.


On "Poetry Magazine's" John Barr

A small, sun-baked man, Barr is unusually smiley and energetic for a poet, and he set about his job with a distinctly unpoetic efficiency.

Barr also ruffled some feathers. A zealous and unembarrassed populist, he declared his determination to make poetry less morose and more entertaining.

Barr also published several essays criticizing the state of American poetry. He accused it of "intellectual and spiritual stagnation." He called out poets for being addicted to lyric poetry (as opposed to, say, epic or satirical poetry) and for being obsessed with formal experimentation.


He dissed M.F.A. programs for churning out careerist, cookie-cutter poets who were "sustained by a system of fellowships, grants, and other subsidies that absolve recipients of the responsibility to write books that a reader who is not a specialist might enjoy, might even buy."


Barr & Controversy

Barr plays down the controversy. "We're definitely not trying to dumb down poetry," he says. "We're not trying to introduce the notion that we would judge quality by book sales or even accessibility. But if poetry has somehow lost touch with a broader readership, there's an opportunity to reverse that. People are going to love poetry when they get back to it."


Even if you don't agree with Barr's solutions, he has at least admitted a fundamental and painful cultural fact: that something has changed, that the great voices of our time no longer speak in verse.


Solution

What poetry really needs is a writer who can do for it what Andy Warhol did for avant-garde visual art: make it sexy and cool and accessible without making it stupid or patronizing.


------------------------------------------------------------
* via Reb Livingston's Post

Lev Grossman (born 1969-06-26) is an American writer, notably the author of the novels Codex [1] and Warp. He also contributes regularly to Time, primarily as a book reviewer. He has written for The New York Times, Salon, Lingua Franca, Entertainment Weekly, Time Out New York, and The Village Voice.


I'm not sure as to whether one, as a poet, should be more chagrined by the now ludicrously redundant description that has been accredited to the state of poetry as a socio-literary entity that is languishing in its death throes or by Mr. Grossman's (reverse-stereotypical) description of John Barr as "unusually smiley and energetic" for a poet & "distinctly unpoetic efficiency" - which of course implies that poets are usually morose, sluggish & inefficient.

The Thinking Blogger Award - Who Me?

My thanks go out to Clifford Garstang who has awarded The Thinking Blogger Award to yours truly. It was either me or "The Poetry of Making Fishing Tackle" Blog. Let me tell you it was a close race. Anyway who would have thunk it?

Apparently in order to fulfill my obligation I must notify the recipients to whom I bestow this honor to, of the following conditions:

1. Acknowledge the origin of the meme/award




2. If you are tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think




3. Optional: Display the “Thinking Blogger Award” with a link to the post that you wrote using either the gold or silver versions of the award.)

This was a hard choice and I might have chosen 5 different blogs at some other point in time. But without further ado I nominate:

sonnets at 4 a.m. - Greg Rappleye's blog that is a treasure trove of insights and information on ars poetica.

this is all your fault - Christine Hamm - who consistently posts her poetry - which can kick ass any day of the week.

Robert Peake: Code Poet - Whose namesake writes some of the most refreshing posts on the craft that I have had the pleasure to read.

Chicks Dig Poetry - Sandra Beasley who wrote through NaPoWriMo like there was no tomorrow - each and every poem a well-crafted piece.

One Poet's Notes - Edward Byrne's blog that presents ongoing personal commentary about notable recent books of poetry.

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Guess Who's Coming to the Montreal Jazz Festival

BOB DYLAN AND HIS BAND

Wednesday, July 04, 2007 at 7:30 PM

Opening act: Jimmie Vaughan

Legend… icon… voice of his generation – and beyond. He is one of those rare artists for whom conventional accolades will not suffice. Almost 50 years into a career, with a higher profile than he’s had in decades, the man, the writing and the voice are timeless… and timely. Bob Dylan’s latest, Modern Times, went to #1. A habitual Nobel Prize nominee for literature, he is studied in university curricula and from the orchestra seats at his concerts. Here is an unforeseen opportunity to share an evening with the man whose vision changed the face and voice of American music!

Van Morrison

Tuesday, July 03, 2007 at 7:30 PM

Brown-Eyed Girl, T.B. Sheets, And It Stoned Me, Moondance, Into the Mystic, Domino, Tupelo Honey, Have I Told You Lately… is there a pop fan who hasn't soared along to the elemental songs and singular voice of the Belfast Cowboy? Van Morrison stands among the true giants of pop music, a visionary, fiercely independent singer-songwriter who has blazed his own path through no fewer than 35 albums — some of the recent ones on the Verve or Blue Note labels. A true innovator, a prolific song-poet who journeys through soul, R&B, blues, rock and folk, Morrison has indelibly marked the generations of artists who've followed. A rare appearance from a legend who isn't done surprising us with his talent and vision.

Bad news is that they are all sold out.

It Was 40 Years Ago Friday

It was twenty years ago today,

Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play

They've been going in and out of style

But they're guaranteed to raise a smile

So may I introduce to you

The act you've known for all these years

For more info on album: Internet Beatles Album

The Greatest Hard Rock Songs?

Jimi Hendrix, Purple Haze 1967: Hendrix showcased some of the most serious rock guitar chops of all time, etching his place as one of the greatest in rock history and Purple Haze is his most recognizable piece of work, carried by a dissonance heretofore unheard of, coupled with ambiguous lyrical content that may or may not refer to a hallucinogenic experience. Hendrix said it was about love and inspired by a dream but he was probably on drugs when he said that. (credit: CP)






The Beatles, Helter Skelter 1968: Inspired by a desire to out heavy The Who's "I Can See For Miles", at the time of its release Helter Skelter was a stunning experiment in heaviosity. You can practically hear the blisters growing on Ringo's fingers as he smashes the skins. Totally raucous. Many believe this was the absolute beginning of metal. (credit: CP)












Black Sabbath, Paranoid 1970: The bassline is practically hypnotic and Ozzy's quintessential metallic vocal timbre set the standard for a slew of singers to come but they never really get it quite right do they? Plus, it's about being insane and hard rock is as much about craziness as it is about darkness, sex and mystic lands. (credit: CP)










Led Zeppelin, Black Dog 1971: Where would the rock world be without the Black Dog riff?? This is a complex piece of work, the start and stop a capella verses, the crazy time changes – just try dancing to it. Definitive and, unlike a fair chunk of Zeppelin's work, not overrated and overplayed. (credit: CP)










Heart, Barracuda 1977: There is virtually no better example of the metal gallop than Barracuda. This is a satisfyingly crunchy number and Ann Wilson's vocals positively soar. The Wilson sisters had the chops to rival any man in the rock world and were pretty much the only women doing it, which makes them extra awesome. (credit: SonyBMG)










AC/DC, Highway to Hell 1979: It's almost impossible to choose the definitive AC/DC track but Highway makes this list due to the references to Hell and the road leading to it, the exact one Bon Scott travelled just six months after the album of the same name became AC/DC's first million seller. Scott was found dead of acute alcohol poisoning in the back of a friend's car. Without Hell there would be no metal. (credit: CP)







Guns N' Roses, Sweet Child O' Mine 1987: Unarguably one of the most memorable guitar riffs of all time, sung by one of the most charismatic front men of the era. This ode to the eyes of Erin Everly combined the poetry of the power ballad with the genius of Slash and a driving, singalong bridge to become an instant classic. Just add a kilt and some of Axl's signature dance moves. (credit: CP)








Metallica, Enter Sandman 1991: Hardcore speed metal fans, who believe this is exactly where Metallica went wrong, will disagree and think we are totally insane for including this but Sandman is one catchy tune man. A simplification of the Metallica sound, this is headbangin' hard, ominous AND infectious, which is basically the trifecta right there. (credit: CP)









Nirvana, Smells Like Teen Spirit 1991: The song that changed the face of hard rock forever. Lo-fi verses alternated with crashing hard choruses. It was fuzzy, distorted, spacey, hauntingly melodic and totally punk rock. You couldn’t understand most of what Kurt was saying but you knew he was mad about something and that was good enough. Here we are NOW! ENTERTAIN US! YESSSSS! (credit: CP)







White Stripes, Seven Nation Army 2003: Another one of those memorable guitar lines, though this one is cleverly disguised as a bass. Those tricky White Stripes, always fooling us with kinship claims and acoustic guitars. Following in the lo-fi footsteps of the original grunge artists, this new breed of rock manages to be minimalist and hard as rock at the same time. No small feat. (credit: CP)









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Q:

1. What order would you put them in? (As is they are in chronological order.)
2. Which choices (if any) do you disagree with?
3. What would you substitute those with?

Charles Simic

A Life of Fragments




Like a box of old photographs

Some of them already ripped in pieces

You found on the dump

And helped yourself to a few

While the wind swept the rest.



It was a cold blue autumn evening

As you laid them out on the table

In the kitchen and found a face

That reminded you of a girl

You once followed from school.



She never turned to look at you

Until now, that is, all smiles

With her eyes tightly closed

Because the sun was in them,

Or she was about to make a wish.





-----------------------------------

Cna yuo raed tihs?

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

Or rather...

According to a researcher (sic) at Cambridge University, it doesn't matter in what order the letters in a word are, the only important thing is that the first and last letter be at the right place. The rest can be a total mess and you can still read it without problem. This is because the human mind does not read every letter by itself but the word as a whole.


Actually according to Matt Davis at The Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit at Cambridge:

"This text circulated on the internet in September 2003. I first became aware of it when a journalist contacted a my colleague Sian Miller on 16th September, trying to track down the original source. It's been passed on many times, and in the way of most internet memes has mutated along the way. It struck me as interesting - especially when I received a version that mentioned Cambridge University! I work at Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, in Cambridge, UK, a Medical Research Council unit that includes a large group investigating how the brain processes language. If there's a new piece of research on reading that's been conducted in Cambridge, I thought I should have heard of it before...

I've written this page, to try to explain the science behind this meme. There are elements of truth in this, but also some things which scientists studying the psychology of language (psycholinguists) know to be incorrect. I'm going to break down the meme, one line at a time to illustrate these points, pointing out what I think is the relevant research on the role of letter order on reading. Again, this is only my view of the current state of reading research, as it relates to this meme. If you think I've missed something important, let me know."

Mark Citret: Morning, Harding Park - 2002