My friend Sam just sent me this article, which I must pass on to you. While I enjoy some (key word: “some”) of the vast amount of word salad that lies between “text and context,” “sense and nonsense” and “mean and meaning,” to throw a bunch of words onto the ‘puter as if this […]
I discovered the Cuban poet Dulce María Loynaz while reading Marjorie Agosín’s wonderful These Are Not Sweet Girls: Latin American women poets (Fredonia, NY: White Pine Press, 1994) a few weeks ago. Anyone who wants a introduction to the shakers and movers of modern poets making a name for themselves should not only buy […]
Back on 18th of December I translated Neruda’s Deber del poeta. What a wonderful poem! It makes me very happy and I think I want to share a bit of the first stanza here with you:
A quien no escucha el mar en este Viernes
por la mañana …
a éste yo acudo y sin hablar […]
So what did I do wrong? How can I improve? Where can I go from here? In a slightly different world than this one I would have workshopped all my translations with other poets, all of us best friends and fluent in Spanish, to get their points of view on my poor […]
I think it is time to learn from my mistakes. How can one develop if they do not learn? For example, I am still in love with Neruda’s poem La United Fruit Co., regardless of who is translating it. I am not concerned that someone called me on my errors, I am […]
Over the weekend I entered into a fascinating conversation with Laura and Shelby over the nature of translations. It all started when Laura posted a comment saying she felt I was doing Neruda a grave injustice by not translating more directly the word choices the Chilean poet had put down in Spanish.1This sparked a […]
I have an hour or so left of 2005, which wasn’t so bad as years go, I suppose. Rue, Sam, Bob and I published a book. Shelby and I were able to celebrate my grandparent’s anniversary one last time in California. We saw a smashing version of the opera The Marriage of […]
Anxiety, dejection, depression, indifference, melancholia, twitching, withdrawal; call it what you may, I suffer from it. For far too many countless days I have sent my body out under this cursed ashen sky only on autopilot. In these plaguing moods I spend all my waking energies just trying to stay level and balanced. […]
It probably happens to everyone at some point. I’ve seen responses to it that were down right vile and knee jerkily reactionary. I admit I am on doddering grounds here, went in with apprehension about my own skills and talents and last night finally got a response that said, in effect, “Yes, you […]
Are there any poets in Belize? My research to date has turned up very little. There are Garifuna/ Garinagu musicians galore, but Garifunas poets?
Someone, somewhere, might be sitting in Jake’s Purple Space Monkey Internet Cafe, in the village of Placencia, composing a sonnet about tubing down the river in Cockscomb Basin […]
It is indeed the case that the high literary level of a given statement can afford it protection. Often, however, it also arouses suspicion. In such case it may be necessary to lower it deliberately … Propaganda that stimulates thinking, in no matter what field, is useful to the cause of the oppressed. — Bertolt […]
We must tell the truth about evil conditions to those for whom the conditions are worst, and we must also learn the truth from them. We must address not only people who hold certain views, but people who, because of their situation, should hold these views. — Bertolt Brecht.
I do not think it was a […]
I am not sure who Lawrence Cosentino, of City Pulse fame, was in the audience last Wednesday night at our reading, but I am glad he liked the show. I rarely read reviews of poetry readings in mainstream press, let alone a review that takes you from A to Z through the thesaurus with […]
Oda a la sal
Pablo Neruda
Ode to Salt
translated by ZJC
Esta sal
del salero
yo la vi en los salares,
sé que
no van a creerme,
pero canta,
canta la sal, la piel
de los salares,
canta
con una boca ahogada
por la tierra.
Me estremecí en aquellas
soledades
cuando escuché
la voz
de la sal
en el desierto.
Cerca de Antofagasta
toda
la pampa salitrosa
suena:
es una
voz
quebrada,
un lastimero
canto.
Luego en sus cavidades
la sal gema, montaña
de una luz […]
Shelby (who seems to have much more poetry information at her fingertips than I do, odd) just sent me this NPR link, concerning a story, in short, about The Poetry Archive, a hothouse for poetry recordings. Lynn Neary’s article looks a little like this:
The newest addition to poetry sites on the Web has the […]
My friend, yesterday I asked: Where can we take our poetry? Who can we sing for? Where can we go? Who can we be? By that, I suppose, I meant: who is your community? Who do you write for and why?
I also asked us to think beyond socialism. That is, while I […]
Perhaps I am too placid and young. Perhaps I am too simple and naive but I feel I must be cautious here. Perhaps I need to slow down a little in my approach to Brecht’s essay, Writing the Truth: the 5 Difficulties. You see, I am not a socialist and in this […]
Apparently I scowl when I think. I have been told this by numerous people. When at rest, when thinking on far away topics, when walking the corridors of my rest home between call lights, I wear a scowl. What a terrible way to present oneself! My aunt Lisa once told me […]
“It takes little courage to mutter a general complaint, in a part of the world where complaining is still permitted, about the wickedness of the world and the triumph of barbarism …”
– Bertolt Brecht (1934)
There is a tired, bone weary humor here. I am chuckling, the way you might too when you are […]
El hombre invisible
Pablo Neruda
The Invisible Man
translated by ZJC
Yo me río,
me sonrío
de los viejos poetas,
yo adoro toda
la poesía escrita,
todo el rocío,
luna, diamante, gota
de plata sumergida,
que fue mi antiguo hermano,
agregando a la rosa, pero
me sonrío,
siempre dicen “yo,”
a cada paso
les sucede algo,
es siempre “yo,”
por las calles
sólo ellos andan
o la dulce que aman,
nadie más,
no pasan pescadores,
ni libreros,
no pasan albañiles,
nadie […]
It’s not everyday I come home with a shark, a whale shark no less, the largest fish in the ocean. It looks a little like this:
** Knit Hat by Shelby; Whale Shark
from Tree House Toys & Books,
Eastwood Mall, Lansing, MI
517-367-7703 **
Now, a lot of you might be saying: “gee, Zachary, yesterday you were […]
Today’s curious word is: saltygutterslush. My friend and fellow poetry collective member, Sam Mills, defines it as:
in Michigan, saltygutterslush is made of snow; in various ports frequented by the Merchant Marine, however, it is a drunken 1st mate with an ill temper, a florid lexicon and loose morals…
A useful, wet, slushy word for […]
tea is on the table, honey in the pot
bread and butter
even the radio wants
to be my friend …
– Ruelaine Stokes
There was a lot going on that could have made our book signing/ release party a disaster — snow, snow, snow were the top three on the list. December in Michigan is, at best, dicey. […]
In these dark times, will there also be singing?
Yes, there will be singing.
About these dark times. — Bertolt Brecht
I have been thinking about Harold Pinter’s comment yesterday about this poem: “nowhere in contemporary poetry have I read such a powerful visceral description of the bombing of civilians.” Is this true? Carolyn Forché’s Against […]
The nice thing about self-promotion is that it is just that : the self in motion. Tonight I join two other members of this poetry collective, Ruelaine Stokes and Robert “Bibbit” Rentschler, and read flog our book. It should be giddy fun, if not for you then at least for us. Sadly, […]
Perhaps you failed to catch Harold Pinter’s acceptance for the Nobel Prize last Thursday night? As both poets and citizens of this country, for good, ill or somehwere in-between, we must be active. However, I must pause and ask: “what does active for poets mean?” I am not a fan of political […]
Mark it on your calendar, take time off work, put your snow boots on and stomp across town to: Book Signing and Release Party for 4 Against the Wall at Creole Gallery, 1218 Turner St. in Lansing’s Old Town. The flyer reads:
On Wednesday, December 14, the Old Town Poetry Series is host to a […]
The windflower, Garcia Lorca’s anemonas, takes us into a land of sleep and dream. The notes from Collected poems tell us: “[the windflower] is the flower of Morpheus” (page 946).1 According to Encyclopedia Mythica, Morpheus is the Greek god of dreams:
[He] lies on a ebony bed in a dim-lit cave, surrounded by […]
“Kreyòl pale kreyòl knoprann.”
“Creole speaks Creole understands.”1
Is there a Creole sonnet? I ask this in all seriousness. Are there poets in Haiti and the Haitian diaspora writing sonnets in Creole? The little I know of the language I find fascinating; this mixture of French and West African Wolof relocated into the New […]
Every time I have had the opportunity to correspond with him, Dr. Samuel H. Gruber has always appeared to be a thoughtful and courteous man of science. He heads the the Bimini Biological Field Station in the Bahamas and knows more about sharks than anyone else I can think of. One of the […]
An e-mail just arrived. It look a little like this:
“Since 2003, there has been rhythmic undercurrent slowing evolving on the Lansing underground art scene. Sing, Speak or Spit, a Nu poet Collective production, was born out of a necessity to let Poetry’s voice speak without interruption. This eclectic movement provides an open platform […]
“I engage in the work/ of undressing myself./ And I love …” warns Ana Istarú in the 4th poem from her La estación de fiebre. It is an interesting poem, concerning a type of love that was once present in everyday life, “the forgotten fashion of our/ grandmothers,” but now is horrible, a love […]
I discovered Ana Istarú’s work in an anthology edited by Fernández Olmos & Paravisini-Gebert some two years ago, but like lots of projects I dreamed about I was hesitate to try my hand at translating what was a series of highly compelling poems. Luckily, my library also had Istarú’s award winning book of poems, […]
Eduardo, has your book reached you yet? I can not believe UPS is so slow!
*
Poetry and political action go hand in hand more often than not. I had a dream years ago that the large shark populations of the world would be devastated within my lifetime, that we stand on the brink of […]
I dug out my boxes of 45s and have spent a wonderful evening listening to the jumble of random songs I seem to have amassed over the last 20 years while working on this month’s Contests, Submissions, Awards & Deadlines.
One call for submissions that highly interests me is being run by Paula Sergi, a Wisconsin […]
Today I am laboring over my sonnets and who should ask to be present but Funadama! Negative ecstasy being what it is, I am continually dumbstruck, overwhelmed, fascinated at who turns up. Micha F. Lindemans writes at Encyclopedia Mythica about the Shinto goddess:
Boat-spirit. A female divinity who protects and helps mariners and fishermen. […]
Being a Lansing boy I am always curious to see how other people view my city, especially in print. Usually they peppered their words with colorful images like: “sty,” “furuncle,” “gritty,” and “this once floundering industrial town now fallen on harder times.” Indeed.
My generation of poets cannot rhyme very well it […]
amantes
Alejandra Pizarnik
lovers
translated by ZJC
una flor
no lejos
de la noche
mi cuerpo mudo
se abre
a la delicada
urgencia del rocío
a flower
not so far
from nighttime
my silent body
relaxes
to the delicate
urgency of the dew
Yesterday Eduardo’s FREE POETRY BOOK came in the mail. Oh, happy days! I hope he got the one I sent him (did you, my friend?) However, I still have a two foot stack of orphan poetry books sitting by the stairs looking mournful and lost, waiting to be sent out to someone like […]
To keep this in retrospect, in 1971, a year after I was born, Carole King’s “It’s Too Late” was on the Pop Charts, as well George Harrison’s “My Sweet Lord” and Three Dog Night’s “Joy To The World.” Movies, such as Brian’s Song, A Clockwork Orange, Dirty Harry and The French Connection, were in […]
Here is the completed translation of Pizarnik’s Árbol de Diana in all its 38-stanza glory. I removed the Spanish original that I had been trying to follow in earlier postings simply because of formating reasons. Due to different line breaks on the computer screen each poem varied in length as I posted them. […]
(ATTENTION FRIENDS: ALWAYS CALL FIRST TO VERIFY VENUE)
There are always poetic things to do in Columbus, OH and Chicago, IL but what about here in the middle part of this mitten-like state? It is a good question so if you have any events that need a shout, drop me a line. Until then, […]
If you happen to be driving in Northern Michigan and need a good book shop, try some of these locales. They might not all still be in buisness, so if you know any gossip or know a book store I left out, please drop me a line. Thank you.
Bridge Street Book Shop. 407 […]
Now, all of you who actually have a copy of a 1st edition, 1st printing of a Faber and Faber (1965) Ariel by Sylvia Plath or an autographed Ted Hughes edition of his Janos Csokits translations (reading: “To Janos / from Ted / April 1967” … at a mere $12,995) raise your hand.
I thought so.
The […]
Some people say they have bits of verse or TV jingles that have stayed with them all their adult lives.
When I was a small child I spent two summers in Italy on archaeological digs with my parents at the Tuscan fortified farmhouse of Spinocchia, in the foothills between Sienna and Florence. Yes, I was […]
The Mexican poet, essayist and translator Octavio Paz wrote in Alejandra Pizarnik’s introduction to Árbol de Diana, “[the book] does not conatin a single false detail.”1 These were, Paz demanded, Pizarnik’s finest poems. That might be true.
What I find interesting about Árbol de Diana is that even though the sections are […]
Which famous, dead, white poet are you? brought to you by Quizilla
Here is something laboring under the burden of potential; Quizilla’s Which Famous, Dead, White Poet Are You? allows you to pick from nine poets, all very Anglo, and very beloved by the Canon. You take a “test,” tally your score and […]
To my best knowledge, there have been only two full translations of Alejandra Pizarnik’s Árbol de Diana; that is, Graziano (1987) and Bassnett (2002). Now I shall add my version of The Tree of Diana to the mix.
I am so much more comfortable with the ancient religions than I am with the modern ones. […]
My brother Eli, his wife Mary and Baby Ivan have just left for the Detroit Airport. It is raining. I have left Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juilet Overture-Fantasy on endless CD playback. I love that music right now. It is dramatic, brassy, cocky, alive while so much of our 21st Century art […]
I recently joined the information/ conversation board, SHARK-L, which does indeed cover almost everything having to do with sharks. I put out a request for anyone who might be familar with shark-themed poems. Maris Kazmers, who also lives in Lansing, responded with several suggestions, one of which is Alan Dugan’s Plague of Dead […]
Poema para Emily Dickinson
Alejandra Pizarnik
Poem for Emily Dickinson
translated by ZJC
Del otro lado de la noche
la espera su nombre,
su subrepticio anhelo de vivir,
¡del otro lado de la noche!
Algo llora en el aire,
los sonidos diseñan el alba.
Ella piensa en la eternidad.
Across the night
this delay; its name,
its surreptitious yearning to live,
across the night!
Something cries in the very air,
a […]
Algo
Alejandra Pizarnik
Something
translated by ZJC
noche que te vas
dame la mano
obra de ángel bullente
los días se suicidan
¿por qué?
noche que te vas
buenas noches
the night that you went away
the woman’s hand
the work of a frolicsome angel
the days that commit suicide
but why?
the night that you went away
good night
My brother, Eli, and myself at my folk’s house, November 26.
This poem is part of the miscellaneous verse collected in the “1971-72″ section of Pizarnik’s Obras Completas (page 243); though La Muerte y la Muchacha (Schubert) is dated November 1970, a couple of months after I was born. It is interesting that she was working with the concept of music and death as a […]
How can three lines cause me so much stress, dither, pang? I have been struggling with this poem since Monday when I first discovered it. At first I thought the problem was me. My Spanish is, of course, muy malo. There was nothing I could do, it seemed, to render it […]
Hey, you Lansing people, on Wednesday, December 14, we shall be having a book signing and release party for Four Against the Wall at Creole Gallery:
The Creole Gallery is host to a unique event: a book release reading and signing for “Four Against the Wall,” a collection of poems from four Lansing poets, published […]
The title poem from La última inocencia/ “The Last Innocence” (1956). Bassnett (2002) translates it as “Final Innocence.” However, perhaps because I have been listening to the Last Exile, vol.2 soundtrack (2003) all day there is dread, tension, conflict in the word “Last.” Last Exit to Brooklyn. Last Temptation of the Christ. […]
This week I have been ill. Ill. So very, very ill.1 The end result is that doing things like so-called “blogging” and so-called “thinking” have been a bit of a challenge.
And where were you with the home-made soup and extra tissues? Leaving me here with a crusty nose and blood shot eyes […]
Cenizas
Alejandra Pizarnik
Ashes
translated by ZJC
La noche se astilló de estrellas
mirándome alucinada
el aire arroja odio
embellecido su rostro
con música.
Pronto nos iremos
Arcano sueño
antepasado de mi sonrisa
el mundo está demacrado
y hay candado pero no llaves
y hay pavor pero no lágrimas.
¿Qué haré conmigo?
Porque a Ti te debo lo que soy
Pero no tengo mañana
Porque a Ti te…
La noche sufre.
The night shattered into […]
The poem Canto from La última inocencia/ “The Last Innocence” (1956) would be considered a ditty if ditties were this dark, this wrapped up in death, catastrophe, torture. Martínez, writing in Salgado’s anthology, analyzes Pizarnik’s obsession concerning death:
As attested by her poetry, death haunted her in the image of a female in many guises […]
A few hours sleep and then more translations. Z. Nelly Martínez, writing in Salgado’s anthology of Spanish American poets, notes that before Pizarnik committed suicide, she left behind, “a few words scribbled on a slate that same month, reiterating her desire to go nowhere ‘but the bottom,’ [which] sum up her lifelong aspiration as […]
I have finished translating Garcia Lorca for now. He is always a joy, but there are over a dozen collected works of his poetry in English and even as I labored with my beloved English-Spanish Dictionary, I wondered: does the world really need yet another translation of Federico? So I wandered out yesterday […]
The last poem of the Gypsy Ballads, is a retelling of the biblical rape of Thamar by her half-brother, Amnón. This is a highly problematic poem, for what Garcia Lorca does here, I argue, is to present us with a sympathetic view of Amnón, that it was his overpowering sexual desire that caused him […]
The last of the three poems based on a saint, San Gabriel (Sevilla), appears whimsical at first glance, but there is a sinister quality to the whimsy. Two figures parade their way through the poem, Gabriel, saint and archangel, who pays a visit to Annunciatión de los Reyes, a gypsy woman, to tell her […]
Even though Garcia Lorca’s San Miguel (Granada) left me feeling a tad unsatisfied, San Rafael (Córdoba) makes up for it in dollops. First, there is Federico’s admiration for the lustrous Moorish architecture found in the city of Córdoba, along with the erotic imagery and a discreet exchange of Niños de cara impasible/ en la […]
This is the first poem by Garcia Lorca I have come across an expression or reference I have not been able to translate. He writes: efebo de tres mil noches,/ fragante de agua colonia/ y lejano de las flores, which I translated as: “An efebo, 3 thousand nights old,/ fragrant with cologne,/ yet […]
It’s only a speculation, but the images I have in my head of the hot-tempered Spanish might have a little to do, in part, with this poem.
Garcia Lorca wrote of Reyerta, “[the poem] expresses the mute struggle latent throughout Andalusia and Spain among groups that attack each other without knowing why, for mysterious […]
Perhaps, next to Romance sonámbulo, La casada infiel is the most famous poem from the Gypsy Ballads. I recall one of the first Dead Poet readings Ruelaine put on (this is 1992 or 93, I believe), Joyce Benvenuto came as the Gypsy of this poem, dressed with two cartridge belts and a sombrero, looking […]
What do we want out of poetry? Wrong question? Right; too voluminous in desire, too “we.” It is always easier to deconstruct than construct what we want.
What do I want out of neo-triad, quasi-shamanistic verse? A sense of other wildness? Order of a theophany type? More “cavort,” […]
Shelby sent this to me this morning. It was my assumption that most of my friends voted for the liberal ticket last election. It was my assumption most my friends voted. Assumptions are terrible things.
While I find overt political poetry a tad bit boring (have you ever tried to slog […]
I was sent a copy of Enrique Morente’s Lorca, his take on a dozen different poems by Federico, set to his powerful and deep cante, flamenco singing. A poem like Romance de la guardia civil española requires a Deep Song to carry it through. Even if the events of the poem are of […]
Today’s new word is: “Malignant,” as in “Showing great malevolence; disposed to do evil,” as in “I want to post a comment to a friend but blogger.com won’t let me unless I log-in” … and I don’t want to log-in/ join/ be one of the chosen few at blogger.com. Call me happy with WordPress. […]
This photo was taken by my mother of the three of us; my father, myself and my brother (on the uke), singing in a little cabin up on the western shores of Beaver Island, Lake Michigan, June, 1996. I’d like to say we were singing gypsy ballads, but it was probably songs from the […]
As we all know, the absolute worst poetry in the Universe was written by Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings. The third worst poetry is written by the Vogons; frequently used as a form of torture. Yesterday Shelby suggested we invite poets to send in poems inspired by the subject line of spam e-mail but […]
First, click over to Spamusement! (motto: Poorly-drawn cartoons inspired by actual spam subject lines!) just because we all need a laugh before we start lamenting, repining, bewailing our vexations, woes and bitter pills (mmmm, acrid yet lemony) over no one writing in about the passing of Shonen Knife’s drummer. This is too bad […]
Like the poem Ballad of the moon, moon the motif of kidnapping of a child by supernatural forces continues; however Garcia Lorca has introduced a now explicit erotic subversion. The poem takes place in another nocturnal setting, down by an un anfibio sendero, an “amphibious tidewater,” the seashore, where Preciosa is playing with […]
It’s official: it’s one of the last sunny days of 2005.
What a strange world I have found myself in! Last week the leaves all turned brilliant colors then died. The kittens in the garage have eaten their full of the kibble and bits I’ve left outside for them then run […]
“Ballad of moon, moon”1 is a simple poem, though there is Garcia Lorca’s preoccupation with the end of his childhood innocence, martyrdom, the world of myth and dream; in other words, it is a poem of the subconscious. Loughran (1994) notes:
1. Forge The trade of the farrier and metalworking in general are tradionally associated […]
Of all the translations of the title of this poem, Romance de la pena negra, Loughran’s (1994) “Ballad of The Black Anguish,” is the closest to getting the same nuance as “Black Dread.” However, to understand why the more common “Ballad of Black Pain,” while an accepted, literal, traditional translation, doesn’t seem to work […]
Lorca’s La Monja Gitana, The Gypsy Nun has been examined as a Freudian metaphor for repressed sexuality; which, considering Federico’s closeted self and the nature of repression in the Catholic Church, really isn’t that much of a stretch for the imagination.
The idea of the nun, sewing bizarre and sensual designs into her lemon-colored cloth […]
I have spent the morning trying to find an Armenian translation of Rimbaud’s The Drunken Boat other than what I am working on. My tutor, Lucine, told me that she was familiar with the poem, having read a translation of it in high school. She could not recall who the translator was, or […]
“A dead man in Spain is more alive as a dead man than any place else in the world.”
– FGL
Here is the second part of Garcia Lorca’s ballad concerning the gypsy, Antoñito el Camborio. It is an interesting device the poet uses, having a character within the poem talk to the poet as if […]
One down side to having to flee off to work at 3 in the afternoon each day is when you’re on a roll, say with one’s blog, it hurts having to stop in mid-sentence. Having said that, I went back to the translations I was working on when I abruptly broke off yesterday and […]
I started this morning off writing to friends asking if they went anywhere over the weekend? I am highly interested in other people’s expeditions and journeys. Even if it is a mundane trip, say going to work, if it involves traveling into the realm of the unknown, going across a body of water […]
(ATTENTION FRIENDS: ALWAYS CALL FIRST TO VERIFY VENUE)
I have yet to find a lot of poets from Detroit, Columbus, OH, Chicago, IL … even Toledo, who can keep me focused on the poetry events in their areas. I tend to drift easily. At first I was going to simply title this entry “In Memory: […]
Wednesday, November 2, 7:00 PM — I spent an entire day gathering Mid-Michigan poetry information and fifteen minutes after it starts I discover this (the long howl of irony is just me in the background):
Alice Notley & Ken Mikolowski reading from The Collected Poems of Ted Berrigan.
Please join us at Shaman Drum Bookshop for […]
I am probably the wrong person to be picked as a TV Reviewer, since I have not owned a TV set since 2001 and the urge to actually watch television is, at best, rare. However, once in blue moon I hear about a show or program and think: “gosh, wouldn’t that be interesting […]
Disclaimer: Ekaterina Evseyeva is a friend of mine, a Yakuts scholar and poet from Siberia. I had written to her during my research for various forms of international sonnets. She translated an article written in Russian by T.N. Vasilyeva and sent it to me. Translation, discourse and copyrighting being what they […]
In Poetry News: Mark Irwin’s Bright Hunger has been awarded the 2005 Colorado Book Award in Poetry; Eduardo C. Corral be a Winter/Spring 2006 Fellow at The MacDowell Colony; C. Dale Young has a poem in this issue of Poetry; and I finally posted the November Up-Dates on my Contests, Submissions, Awards & Deadlines […]
Really, if it weren’t for Shelby, none of this would have happened …
Beethoven’s “9th,” Dvorak’s “New Word,” and Freddie Redd’s soundtrack, “The Connection,” have been on the stereo all night, endless looped playback. Shelby and I stayed up into the wee hours of the morning, formatting the last touches my poetry so we could […]
I love the word “dim.” As in: “Faintly outlined; indistinct: a dim figure in the distance.” Or: “Obscure to the mind or the senses: a dim recollection of the accident.” My dim, dim past. Do you ever re-read notes you leave for yourself, notes you lose and months later re-discover?1 […]
All this translating gives me a heady feeling; as if I am gobbling on ballad mongering; omnivorous with Modernism and chewing up rhapsodism. There are several Armenian artists I would like to find on the Internet, not because I like to gab and blab over e-mail but that I am always curious if my […]
Rooting around my collection of CDs I never listen to I discovered some Schubert Super Saver I must have picked up for 99 cents a few weeks ago at our local Flat, Black and Circular. You know, considering I thought Mr. Schubert was a stuck-up, sticky bit, I really like his version of Ave […]
“… I think the world is so complicated that I can’t be so presumptuous as to justify pessimism or optimism, so I’ll stay agnostic. But I like waking up every day and I think breakfast is a fantastic thing.”
Moby, as quoted in Time magazine, 10/24/05
Thinking about the comments I made in yesterday’s post, I might […]
Many interesting things are happening with the folks over at The Mississippi Review. They have extended their $1000 Poetry Prize until November 1; with the only restrictions being: “Fee is $15 per entry … poetry entries should be three poems totaling 10 pages or less.” That is easy. I think I […]
I want to hollow myself out, empty myself; I want the ocean. You might live next to one or in one or under one, you might write to me and invite me to visit, pole about on your punt, paddle about with flippers and snorkel, you might; yet that is probably not the ocean […]
I had three pieces of limestone on my desk, but I was terrified to find that they required to be dusted daily, when the furniture of my mind was all undusted still, and threw them out the window in disgust.
- Henry David Thoreau, “Walden”
(probably braining in some poor S.O.B. passing by Henry’s window … you […]
“I know you’re in there - I can smell your brain …” Return of the Living Dead (1985)
I suppose if I were forced by powers beyond my control to come back as a zombie, a flesh eating one might be of some interest. Yet it seems so stereotyped, commonplace, platitudinous. And why […]
I found this morning a bit cold when I rose from bed; autumn, they say dismissively. It seemed logical then that I should add a new page to this blog-thingie of mine: “Contests, Awards and Deadlines” — under the idea that we all need awards and if other people are as bad as I […]
Okay folks, Mouseketeer blog-roll call; this week’s review is all about poetry and music …
“Poetry as music?” you ask. Not really; why do certain poetry blogs favor name-dropping various CDs and musical artists for no apparent reason? Is it because they are listening to that very track on that very CD as they […]