RON PADGETT REMEMBERS JOE BRAINARD ~

 

          "His watchword was to be open"

JOHN KOETHE ~

 

Fear of the Future

In the end one simply withdraws

From others and time, one's own time,

Becoming an imaginary Everyman

Inhabiting a few rooms, personifying

The urge to tend one's garden,

A character of no strong attachments

Who made nothing happen, and to whom

Nothing ever actually happened — a fictitious

Man whose life was over from the start,

Like a diary or a daybook whose poems

And stories told the same story over

And over again, or no story. The pictures

And paintings hang crooked on the walls,

The limbs beneath the sheets are frail and cold

And morning is an exercise in memory

Of a long failure, and of the years

Mirrored in the face of the immaculate

Child who can't believe he's old.

___________________

John Koethe

Walking Backwards

        poems 1966-2016

Farrar, Straus and Giroux

ALBERT KING ~

 

Stax 8546

RE-READ: BEI DAO, MIDNIGHT'S GATE ~

 

R E A D    M E

New Directions, 2005

SAX MALLARD ~

 

(ARCHIVE) ALLEN GINSBERG READS TO WILLIAM F. BUCKLEY ~

 

A long time ago but still present

Allen Ginsberg read his poem of Wales to William F. Buckley

and opposing but charmed host

ALICE NOTLEY ~

 

R E A D    M E

      The Song Cave, 2023

THE MAN WHO SKIED DOWN EVEREST ~

 

    Yuichiro Miura

CAT POWER, "WOMAN" ~

 

featuring Lana Del Ray

JOE NAPORA ~

 

The Stone Garden Poems expand upon an earlier book called, simply, Stone Garden. Both are poems based upon photographs of The Temple of Tolerance assembled by Jim Bowsher in Wapakoneta, Ohio, an art work that rivals the Simon Rodia Towers of Los Angeles.

BullHead Books

 2023

CHILDREN'S BOOK ART ~

 

P I C T U R E D     W O R L D S

Abrams 2023

CHARLES V. HAMILTON ~

 

C H A R L E S  V.  H A M I L T O N

In their 1967 book, “Black Power,” Dr. Hamilton and Stokely Carmichael concluded that racism was embedded in the nation’s institutions.Credit...Vintage

SISTER ROSETTA THARPE, FRANCE 1966 ~

 

ALEKSEI NAVALNY ~

 

ALEKSEI  NAVALNY

W i t n e s s

Alexei Anatolyevich Navalny (Russian: Алексей Анатольевич Навальный, IPA: [ɐlʲɪkˈsʲej ɐnɐˈtolʲjɪvʲɪtɕnɐˈvalʲnɨj]; 4 June 1976 – 16 February 2024) 

photo: New York Times

READ HIROKO OYAMADA ~

 

N E W   D I R E C T I O N S

MORE FRIEDERIKE MAYROCKER ~

 

F R I E D E R I K E    M A Y R O C K E R

STEPH CURRY, SHOOTER ~

 

     Steph Curry

GREAT WOMEN PAINTERS ~

 

R E A D    M E

Phaidon, 2022

ALL THE LEONARD COHEN (You'll Ever Need) ~

 

         3 volumes, 1500 pages, Interviews, Family, Friends, Musicians, Poets, Photographs, Amen

L E O N A R D    C O H E N

Simon & Schuster

LISTEN ~

 

     Bernie Sanders

     Vermont

CALVIN C. HERNTON ~

 

Fall Down

                   In memory of Eric Dolphy

All men are locked in their cells.

Though we quake

In fist of body

Keys rattle, set us free.

I remember and wonder why?

In fall, in summer; times

Will be no more. Journeys

End.

I remember and wonder why?

In the sacred labor of lung

Spine and groin,

You cease, fly away

To what? To Autumn, to

Winter, to brown leaves, to

Wind where no lark sings; yet

Through dominion of air, jaw and fire

I remember!

Eric Dolphy, you swung

A beautiful axe. You lived a clean

Life.

You were young —

You died.

D Blues

D blues

What you woke up wit

Dhis mourning

What you toss and turn

All night in your bed wit

Nothing, no

One in your arms

No

Body.

Dats

What D blues

Is.

___________________

Calvin C. Hernton

Selected Poems of Calvin C. Hernton

Wesleyan, 2023

BHANU KAPIL ~

 

from  How To Wash A Heart

I was born feet-first beneath a Lebanon cedar

At 10:23 a.m.

On a November morning

So long ago

That many people who were alive that day,

Flinching from a sudden rain,

No longer walk upon this earth.

I am going to take you by surprise.

I am going to make you

So proud of me.

When you watch my plays, your heart

Will make a circuit with the dense shadow

In the upper part of the atmosphere.

The clouds

Will rain green frogs

The size of fingernails

And we will scoop them up

With our hands.

Sometimes I lie on the earth face down

To connect

With its copper plate.

You won't have to love me

For very long.

_____________________

Bhanu Kapil

How To Wash A Heart

Liverpool University Press, 2023

JODY GLADDING ~

hill wife

beside the grave

the ties gave

was she there

everywhere

in the fern

or return

when he called her

of black alder

on her lips

the fresh chips

or felled tree

she was free

and no child

and too wild

_______________

Jody Gladding

Translations from Bark Beetle

Milkweed Editions, 2014

PETER STAMPFEL SINGS TO HARRY SMITH ~

 

C O S M I C    S C H O L A R

SCARDANELLI (MAYROCKER) ~

 

T H E    S O N G     C A V E

ROBERT STONE'S EYE ~

 

R E A D    M E

Houghton Mifflin, 2020

TIME'S ECHO ~

 

R E A D   M E

   Knopf, 2023

BLASE CENDRARS ~

 

R E A D    M E

    Reaktion Books, 2022

ARCHIVE: CLARICE LISPECTOR ~

 

C L A R I C E     L I S P E C T O R

The Apple in the Dark

New Directions

2023