THE FORMAL IMAGINATION OF POETRY ~

R E A D      M E

A fine poet, interesting thinker,

acknowledgeable in the ways

of poetry, but not one to draw from

any poet other than compatible to the usual syllabus;

the most Hass let's his hair down is drawing an example of

Ted Berrigan and Jackson MacLow —

no Bob Kaufman here, Thomas McGrath or Janine Pommy Vega.

Where Hass has intrigued me the most are his informal

and off-the cuff introductions he presents from his post at the

University of California Berkeley reading series.

CHARLES SIMIC ~

READ     ME


This book was gifted to me knowing, as the presenter
does, that I read everything by Simic. Simic actually
advises this for poets, young ones, so I must still be young: read
everything and pretty much do your own thing as a writer.
He left off: and accept the consequences.
We are throttled by poetry schools, foundations, houses,
frat-party poetics, mean and lean criticizing threshers,
swords with blood on them, so you take your chances writing
as you wish. But please do so. I want to read you. I am reading
this new Simic slender book of poems in early June and
because I am always reading, and writing, and doing as I wish,
this won't appear until sometime in July.
The Birdhouse is nicely bottled up and singing.
If we're still here.
There's a Menace in the White House
also doing as he wishes.

The Week

Monday comes around with a new tattoo

It won't show us and here's Tuesday

Walking its latest nightmare on a leash

And Wednesday blind as the rain tapping

On a windowpane and Thursday sipping

Bad coffee served by a pretty waitress

And Friday lost in a confusion of sad

And happy faces and Saturday flashing

Like a pinball machine in the morgue

And Sunday with a head of crucified Christ

Hanging sideways in a bathroom mirror

———————————

CHARLES SIMIC

DONALD JUDD ~

A     S E L E C T I O N

O F     W R I T I N G S

BEST KEPT SECRET ~

OLD BACK ROAD STORY ~

Old Back Road Story

Saw Cliff the day before in his backhoe

moving a good size rock in the jaws

of his bucket, he stopped a moment

and flipped open his cab door to talk

said they’d be tearing out the small

back woods road bridge the next day

we looked at the sign maybe Cliff

or some other worker had scribbled

a notice for all travelers to note:

———————————

bridge closed

june 22 from

7 am to 7 pm

if any Q

please call ...

————————————

Cliff then asked us :

its June 22

tomorrow,

right?

we also got

a feeling

Cliff or some-

one ran out of room

to write “Questions”

and that’s why on the sign

they used a “Q”

the writing looks like

it was written by god

if god was a bear

I ask Cliff what they

are going to do with

all the old hemlock

timbers from the deck

of the bridge?

gee, I don’t know, Bob

do you want’em?

I nod yes

he nods okay

consultation over

the next day, in driving rain,

all the way up the back road

a good mile comes Cliff in

his front end loader, every old

hemlock long plank and timber

he’s got balanced like a pro and

he raises his wide bucket high

and swings right through our stone-

wall barway and meets me with a grin to

his grin as I point to an edge of the

woodlot where he sets the whole load

down soft as an egg

————————————— 

Bob Arnold

BEAUTIFUL   DAYS

Longhouse

BUCKETS ~

HEIDEGGER'S HUT ~

R E V I E W

M. I. T.

W R I T I N G     H U T S