Sunday, August 23, 2026
Saturday, August 22, 2026
EL CORNO EMPLUMADO RIDES AGAIN ~
Letters That Breathe Fire: El Corno Emplumado / The Plumed Horn by Margaret Randall
BUY NOW...
New Village Press. 2026. 384 pages.
Despite my immersion first in the poetry of the San Francisco renaissance and later of the avant-garde scene in New York, I was woefully ignorant as a young poet of writers outside the confines of the United States and Europe. I was far from alone in having no conception of the rich cultural and political tradition of those countries closest to me in Latin America and the Caribbean. That is, until I opened the pages of El Corno Emplumado.
In Letters That Breathe Fire, Margaret Randall’s selection of correspondence from El Corno Emplumado mirrors the dynamism and passion of young writers and activists around the world creating and struggling in the midst of the turbulent 1960s. El Corno Emplumado, partly printed bilingually in Spanish and English, was originally created by co-founders and editors Margaret Randall and Sergio Mondragón to act as a conduit through which information could flow freely between writers and artists hitherto separated by the boundaries of countries and language. Starting with its second issue, El Corno created a special section that in its almost eight years of publication from 1962 to its final issue in 1969 would publish over two hundred letters culled from the thousands they received.
Selections from every letter published in the thirty-one issues that comprised the run of El Corno are included in this collection. Browsing its pages, one encounters Ernesto Cardenal’s excitement that poets are creating a “real Pan American Union . . . Poets of various languages but all writing in a common language like Pentecost.”
Denise Levertov, in a lengthy letter, challenges her dear friend poet Ted Enslin’s declaration that politics “has absolutely no place in poetry or art of any kind, no didactic cant has.” Levertov champions the validity of art as protest, emphasizing that “the poet has no exclusive area of concern, and that poets or nonpoets, we are ‘members, one of another’; and that there is no danger, no shame, and no hope in which we are not all involved.” Then there is Thomas Merton celebrating that for the poet “there is only life in all its unpredictability and all its freedom. . . . Come, Dervishes: here is the water of life. Dance in it.”
There are also letters by Julio Cortázar, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Robert Bly, Cecilia Vicuña, John Sinclair, Raquel Jodorowsky, and even by an anonymous political prisoner and an angry British subject. Documents of length and substance, these are an example of the diversity and heft of the hundreds of letters in the collection.
El Corno issues are presented in chronological order. At the beginning of each section, Randall contextualizes the historical aspect of that particular issue by locating it in a political and cultural context and by adding extensive informational footnotes about the letter writers where needed. There is also an ample index at the end of the book.
The correspondence in El Corno is the best kind of history, written from the pens of the individuals who lived and witnessed it, as relevant today as it was more than five decades ago. Letters That Breathe Fire is not only an invaluable resource, it is compelling reading. This is a book to be kept close at hand, to find inspiration from, to actively engage with, because it comes directly from the lived experiences of individuals who, communicating with one another across borders and boundaries, strove to make sense out of the world they inhabited, of the art they were in the process of creating.
Susan Sherman
New York City
Friday, August 21, 2026
IAN FRAZIER ~
always fine writing by this author —
the plus is the time he gave to
Montana's Kim Williams
Thursday, August 20, 2026
Wednesday, August 19, 2026
BIG BROTHER AND THE HOLDING COMPANY TONIGHT ~
This is not from Monterey Pop Festival — it is pre-Monterey.
Instead we have an eternal clip from
KTVU News, San Francisco,
early 1967.
NEW! ANDREW SCHELLING at LONGHOUSE ~
NEW!
ANDREW SCHELLING at LONGHOUSE ~
ANDREW SCHELLING
Wielding the Sanskrit Ice Axe
~
L O N G H O U S E
2026
$12
postpaid
U.S. orders
We accept Paypal
or check
Please use our email address :
longhousepoetry@gmail.com
Longhouse
PO Box 2454
West Brattleboro
Vermont
05303
Tuesday, August 18, 2026
MITSKI TONIGHT ~
All songs and vocals are by Mitski. The album was produced and engineered by Patrick Hyland and mastered by Bob Weston, with assistance on drums and logistics from Kris Bulakowski.
Monday, August 17, 2026
DONOVAN TONIGHT ~
The Mountain · Donovan Slow Down World ℗ Donovan Discs LTD Released on: 1976-05-01 Producer: Donovan P. Leitch Composer: Derroll Adams Lyricist: Donovan
LINDA GREGG ~
We Manage Most When We Manage Small
What things are steadfast? Not the birds,
Not the bride and groom who hurry
in their brevity to reach one another.
The stars do not blow away as we do.
The heavenly things ignite and freeze.
But not as my hair falls before you.
Fragile and momentary, we continue.
Fearing madness in all things huge
and their requiring. Managing as thin light
on water. Managing only greetings
and farewells. We love a little, as the mice
huddle, as the goat leans against the hand.
As the lovers quickening, riding time.
Making safely in the moment. This touching
home goes far. This fishing in the air.
Marriage and Midsummer's Night
It has been a long time now
since I stood in our dark room looking
across the court at my husband in her apartment.
Watched them make love.
She was perhaps more beautiful
from where I stood than to him.
I can say it now: she was like a vase
lit the way milky glass is lighted.
He looked more beautiful there
than I remember him the times
he entered my bed with the light behind.
It has been ten years since I sat
at the open window, my legs over the edge
and the knife close like a discarded idea.
Looked up at the Danish night,
that pale, pale sky where the birds that fly
at dawn flew on those days all night long,
black with the light behind. They were caught
by their instincts, unable to end their flight.
Staying After
I grew up with horses and poems
when that was the time for that.
Then Ginsberg and Orlovsky
in the Fillmore West when
everybody was dancing. I sat
in the balcony with my legs
pushed through the railing,
watching Janis Joplin sing.
Women have houses now, and children.
I live alone in a kind of luxury.
I wake when I feel like it,
read what Rilke wrote to Tsvetaeva.
At night I watch the apartments
whose windows are still lit
after midnight. I fell in love.
I believed people. And even now
I love the yellow light shining
down on the dirty brick wall.
Grinding the Lens
I am pulling myself together.
Don't want to go on a trip.
I have painted the living room white
and taken out most of my things.
The room has never been so empty.
Just now a banging thunder
and suddenly falling rain.
I leave the typewriter and run
outside in my nightgown and take
the cotton blanket off the line.
It is summer and I am in the middle
of my life. Alone and happy.
______________________________
Linda Gregg
Poetry, April 2026
photo: 1981
Sunday, August 16, 2026
Saturday, August 15, 2026
L' Afrique Danse No. 1 TONIGHT ~
The First Of The African Labels "L' Afrique Danse" Compilations. Made Up Of 6 Previously Released 7" Singles By OK Jazz And Conga Succes With Various People Taking A Leading Role With Them.
Friday, August 14, 2026
Thursday, August 13, 2026
Wednesday, August 12, 2026
New! Jonathan Greene at Longhouse ~
New! Jonathan Greene at Longhouse
Jonathan Greene
Thoughts to Survive Hard Times
~
L O N G H O U S E
2026
$12
postpaid
U.S. orders
We accept Paypal
or check
Please use our email address :
longhousepoetry@gmail.com
Longhouse
PO Box 2454
West Brattleboro
Vermont
05303
Tuesday, August 11, 2026
DERROLL ADAMS ALL DAY ~
01 Columbus Stockade Blues 0:00
02 Portland Town 2:52
03 The Cuckoo 4:58
04 Freight Train Blues 7:46
05 The Mountain 11:28
06 The Sky 14:58
07 The Valley 19:18
08 Curtains Of Night 23:45
09 Dixie Darling 28:33
10 Muleskinner Blues 31:04
11 24 Hours A Day 35:48
12 Epistle To Derroll 42:09
13 A Feather Fell 47:44
14 Banjo Man 52:06
15 The Rock 56:51
16 Memories 58:51
17 Lovesong 1:03:22
18 Willie Moore 1:06:25
19 The Rock 1:11:35
20 Goodbye Derrol, Goodbye Friend 1:13:10
21 A Profound Beautiful Sadness 1:15:54
Credits:
#1 Arlo Guthrie (vocal, guitar), Donovan (vocal, guitar), Hans Theessink (vocal, guitar, mandolin), David Ferguson (upright bass)
#2 Arlo Guthrie (vocal, guitar), Hans Theessink (guitar)
#3 Ramblin' Jack Elliott (vocal, guitar), Arlo Guthrie (guitar)
#4 Hans Theessink (vocal, guitar, banjo), Arlo Guthrie (guitar, backing vocal), Donovan (harmonica)
#5 Donovan (vocal, guitar)
#6 Allan Taylor (vocal, guitar, psalter)
#7 Donovan (vocal), Hans Theessink (vocal, guitar, mandola), Arlo Guthrie (guitar + intro)
#8 Youra Marcus (vocal, banjo), Yves Rouchaville (guitar, backing vocal)
#9 Arlo Guthrie (vocal), Dolly Parton (vocal), Barney McKenna (banjo, backing vocal), David Ferguson (upright bass), John Sheahan (fiddle, backing vocal), Hans Theessink (guitar, backing vocal), Jack Clement (ukulele),
#10 Arlo Guthrie (vocal, guitar), Ramblin' Jack Elliott (vocal, guitar)
#11 Hans Theessink (vocal, guitar), Arlo Guthrie (guitar, foottap)
#12 Donovan (vocal, guitar), Danny Thompson (double bass), Hans Theessink (dulcimer, banjo)
#13 Ralph McTell (vocal, guitar)
#14 Hans Theessink (slide guitar, backing vocal, banjo), Donovan (backing vocal), Allan Taylor (vocal, guitar)
#15 Billy Connolly (vocal, banjo), Hans Theessink (guitar)
#16 Happy Traum (vocal, guitar, banjo)
#17 Donovan (vocal, acoustic guitar, lead guitar & Arp string ensemble), Leland Sklar (bass), Dave Hungate (bass), Jim Keltner (drums), Bobbye Hall (percussion)
#18 Wizz Jones (vocal, guitar), Ralph McTell (banjo, backing vocal)
#19 Ramblin' Jack Elliott (vocal, guitar)
#20 Tucker Zimmerman (vocal, 12-string Guitar), Didier Bourguignon (banjo)
#21 Derroll Adams (voice), Tucker Zimmerman (12-string guitar)
Monday, August 10, 2026
Sunday, August 9, 2026
Saturday, August 8, 2026
Friday, August 7, 2026
AFTER ANSEL ADAMS ~
Ansel Adams, Drama Rehearsal, Misty Morning, University of California, Irvine, 1966
Sweeney/Rubin Ansel Adams Fiat Lux Collection, California Museum of Photography, University of California, Riverside
Damiani, 2021
Thursday, August 6, 2026
RICARDO REIS (FERNANDO PESSOA) ~
O D E S (1914-1917)
107 [6 August 1923]
All I want of life is not to know it.
Anyone whom Fate has set down in life must accept
The various successive forms
Taken by substanceless life.
There is little point in believing to be eternal
The nothings with which, in our soul, we love
Other poor nothings
That [ . . . ]
Grateful to the gods, rather than for the uncertain
Possession of a certain Fantasy, let us take comfort
In the fleeting energy
Of instants that do not last.
_______________________
The Complete Works of Ricardo Reis
translated by Margaret Jull Costa & Patricio Ferrari
New Directions 2026
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