TOMASZ ROZYCKI ~

 

75. The Warmest Place

If spring falls short, then be the spring yourself —

you hold abundant light inside, enough to give warmth

to whatever's within reach and even what's in view:

chair midriff, door slab, icicle knob, room.

Who cares if the Baltic is frozen — a Swedish arctic fox

has found a way across the page of ice to write

a runic greeting on the snow in yellow ink

below the lamppost. The coldest place at home

is the radiator's hip, the thermal plant having closed

long ago, and it's pointless to pin your hopes

on spring. Besides you hold within yourself,

enough fire to make the covers melt right off

and thaw the district to a mile radius,

plus a fair depth, and four more dimension besides.

Just for good measure. For starters. Be springtime,

the grass' green flame, its blood, be April, be sun.

92. Never

Never have I found you more beautiful than now.

Look — we're being hunted, yet still we walk around.

In front of us a road in the dust, a lively sea.

A life that turned out as I dreamed it would be.

_____________________

To the Letter

Tomasz Rozycki

translated from the Polish by Mira Rosenthal

Archipelago Books, 2023

PULL MY DAISY (1959) ~

 

P U L L    M Y    D A I S Y

Jack Kerouac provided improvised narration. It features poets Allen Ginsberg, Peter Orlovsky and Gregory Corso, artists Larry Rivers and Alice Neel, musician David Amram, art dealer Richard Bellamy, Delphine Seyrig, dancer^[3] Sally Gross, and Pablo Frank, Robert Frank's son.

World Library of Folk and Primitive Music, Vol.17 - Romania (Alan Lomax) ~

 

MURAL ~

Wait til I pack my bag Death

my toothbrush soap after-shave and some clothes

Is the climate warm over there?

Do the seasons change in the eternal whiteness?

Or does the weather stay fixed in autumn or winter?

Will one book be enough to read in non-time?

Or should I take a library?

And what do they talk over there?

vernacular or classical?

__________________________

from MURAL

translated by John Berger & Rema Hammami

Verso, 2024

Mahmoud Darwish was the unofficial laureate of Palestine.

Darwish's poetry is an epic effort to transform the lyrics

of loss into the indefinitely postponed drama of return

EDWARD SAID

World Library of Folk and Primitive Music, Vol. IV - Spain

 

THE ESSENTIAL HARLEM DETECTIVES ~

 

H A R L E M    D E T E C T I V E S

Everyman's Library, 2024

(beautifully designed books —

paper, typeface, cloth feel, color)

DELMORE SCHWARTZ ~

 

Praise Is Traditional and Appropriate

I loved the wood because I found in it

Mushrooms, berries, beetles, birds and other words,

Hedgehogs, squirrels, memories, quarrels,

        and the damp smell

Of dead leaves, and former lives.

            I reached the first barn

— where wheat was stored—halfway up the slope

            of the ravine

And saw her dancing, glancing twinkly eyes

Full of the hope and love which all thought mean,

And slate-green, slate-blue, blue or black like the sunrise

Skies, and in their variety and in their sheen

I thought that she was looking down at me

As if she understood past, present, and futurity.

______________________________________

The Collected Poems of Delmore Schwartz

edited by Ben Mazer

Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2024

one of the posthumously published poems

DANIEL KRAMER WAS THERE FIRST ~

 

                                                                                         Daniel Kramer, via Staley-Wise Gallery, New York

D A N I E L    K R A M E R

  May 19, 1932 ~ 2024

ALICE MUNRO ~

 

                                                                                                         Ian Willms for The New York Times

A L I C E    M U N R O

   July 10,1931 ~ 2024

JEM COHEN ~

 

   M O R E

PIRATES ~

 

R E A D     M E

ROGER CORMAN ~

 

R O G E R   C O R M A N

   1926 ~ 2024

MERCY DEE WALTON ~

 

TOMMY RIDGLEY ~

 

BLACK WALDEN ~

 

R E A D    M E

    University of Pennsylvania Press

MAX PORTER ~

 

R E A D    M E

Graywolf 2023

STEVE ALBINI ~

 

Steve Albini, Influential Producer of ’90s Rock and Beyond, Dies at 61

A musician and audio engineer, he helped define the sound of alternative rock while becoming an outspoken critic of the music industry.

T H E   B E S T   T H I N G   Y O U ' L L   R E A D   T O D A Y 

FAREWELL, DAVID SHAPIRO ~

 

D A V I D    S H A P I R O

A friend of Longhouse ~ 

goodbye David

I'll forever remember

the phone call

from New York City

where you spoke

lovingly — poetry

art, the countryside —

nonstop

for an hour

THE CHOREOGRAPHY OF EVERYDAY LIFE ~

 

D A N C E     M E

Verso, 2022

SEA CRUISE (REMASTERED) ~

 

NATALIA GINZBURG ~

 

R E A D    M E

New Directions, 2023

JOHN LEE HOOKER ~

 

JOHN  LEE  HOOKER

GIVE ME MORE HANNAH ARENDT ~

 

R E A D    M E

GERRY LOOSE ~

 

G E R R Y    L O O S E

S c o t l a n d

1948 ~ 2024

   our long time Longhouse friend

THE OCCUPATION OF ALCATRAZ ISLAND 1969 (Archive) ~

 

THE REDISCOVERY OF AMERICA ~

 

R E A D    M E

Kent Monkman, “Les Castors Du Roi,” 2011. Collection of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. Image via the artist. Here, Monkman, a Cree artist in Dish With One Spoon Territory (Toronto), depicts a fanciful hunting scene in New France, as it might have been painted in the time of Louis XV, who was known for his love of hunting. “The violence perpetrated against the beaver,” Monkman writes of this painting, “can be interpreted in various ways, considering the violence present in New France between French, English and the First Peoples. More than a beaver hunt, this scene alludes to the complex political, social and cultural histories of Turtle Island.”