Friday, May 21, 2010

EARTH ~






NEW BOOKS ARE ALL THE TIME ARRIVING


I just stood a small bunch up on the porch stairs, and since we are outdoors and working in the weather, do squint close to see with me:





STARLINGS

The starlings are singing!
You could call it singing.
At any rate, they are starlings.



SHORT POEMS

My muse plays tennis
and has a body like a Greek god.
My muse wears glasses
and looks swell in them.
I could go on like this forever.



James Schuyler, Other Flowers (Farrar)







Verses from a HYAKUIN RENGA




A whole year's passed —

he fetches down the elk skull,

aspen leaves shaking



Andrew Schelling,
One Phase of the Hunt
1 or 100
countryvalley@mac.com http://web.mac.com / countryvalley












Julie Johnstone's ever quiet and elegant publications from Essence Press.

David Miller's
"Untitled (Visual Sonnet)"
Ink on paper
1 or 250.

www.essencepress.co.uk.












IN A DOORWAY

How far a page stretches in autumn-
Treetops, hills, sky.

I hold what unfolds: leaves'
Cascading violins, some implications

Of arrival that contaminate the day.
Wind proposes another dance:

Siestas, melancholic afternoons,
Patterns contained within the steps

My feet make pausing as the evening
Star bares her breast and sky diminishes.



Robin Magowan, Internal Weather, photographs by Juliet Mattila
Pasdeloup Press, Ontario Canada




LATER ON OUR WEDDING NIGHT, TWO SILENCES IN THE HOUSE


Like a Shaker bowl
the house contains the silence
of belief, and
like a Navajo basket
containing none of our business
it is keeping quiet,
deathly still, in fact,
about God's plans.



Mark Jackley,
Lank, Beak & Bumpy
Iota Press www.iotapress.com










Here is a sure, durable unsentimental chorus of poems to love & landscape — or as Steve Lewandowski likes to describe his hills around the Finger Lakes district of western New York State there are / hills upon hills walking / the day away in the woods — and he may as well be describing himself. Take this book by the hand.




Stephen Lewandowski,
O Lucky One
FootHills Publishing
www.foothillspublishing.com













EARTH ~









ROBERT CREELEY



I was very moved when Whit Griffin sent this to me a few weeks ago from his iPhone. He's done this in the past while traveling through the south, or while up in New England. The shots are forever immediate and fresh. No fanfare. He puts me where he is.
And we wish RC a very Happy Birthday today.






photos: courtesy of Whit Griffin