EMILY DICKINSON ~ WRITING IN TIME ~

 

W R I T I N G    I N     T I M E

Adeline of the Appalachian Mountains ~

 

GEORGE KALAMARAS ~

 

Below Buffalo Willows

Give us a kiss.  Goodbye, dear.  The buffalo

willows were full of hurt, and then the fire died.

Kiss the neck,  the nape, the cheek.  Somehow we survive

all the depths of deaths living gifts us.  I have cried.

I am not a we, but you are me,

and we are here.  Whenever we die.  Wherever

we had lived before,  with the sheep,  the cattle,

all the long grass long as a ribbed rib of sleep.

Yes, there was dust.  We slept the animal.

We slipped back and forth many times until

we got it right.  The woman the man hoped

to be was scarred.  The man she bled, hurt.

Say some touch or other.  The way we hold

a hand grieves us tough gusts that beat us

back.  A kiss.  Give it.  Grieve it.  Give us a way.

This mouth or that,  we are all tick-tonguing

our way around the tree bark of the heart.  Say something.

This time.  Anything.  Nothing would be enough.

_________________________

GEORGE KALAMARAS

We Slept the Animal

(Letters from the American West)

Dos Madres Books

2021

LEONARD CROW DOG ~

 

L E O N A R D     C R O W     D O G

Aug. 18, 1942,  Rosebud Sioux reservation in South Dakota ~

June 5, 2021, Rapid City, S.D.

JAMES LAUGHLIN ~

 

A Letter to Hitler

Last winter we were

short of firewood and

it was good and cold

so we used a lot of

old books that were

in the attic just old

novels nobody would

ever want to read but

we found they made

plenty of heat and

twice they set the

chimney afire when

a burning page went

up with the draft and

we found they would

smoulder a long time

after you thought the

fire was all out and

then suddenly burst

into flame & another

thing they made ashes

that wouldn't stay in

the grate but floated

out all over the room!

______________________

JAMES LAUGHLIN

Some Natural Things

New Directions

1945

BETTYE LAVETTE ~

 

WHO'S THE BOSS HERE?

 

CECIL SHAW ~

 

BONNIE LOU ~

 

NOTHING STOPS FREDDIE KING ~

 

THE FLATLANDERS ~

 

RAVEN'S WITNESS ~

 

Nothing like an authorized biography

which should come in good time

and more gleanings selected by a

Lentfer, a close friend with Nelson,

from the anthropologist and explorer's

private journals, well trail-

blazed and revealing.

Go read Richard K. Nelson's

 The Island Within.

Mountaineers Books

2020

BUKKA WHITE ~

 

ROLF JACOBSEN ~

 

Guardian Angel

I am the bird that flutters against your window in the morning,

and your closest friend, whom you can never know,

blossoms that light up for the blind.

I am the glacier shining over the woods, so pale,

and heavy voices from the cathedral tower.

The thought that suddenly hits you in the middle of the day

and makes you feel so fantastically happy.

I am the one you have loved for many years.

I walk beside you all day and look intently at you

and put my mouth against your heart

though you're not aware of it.

I am your third arm, and your second

shadow, the white one

whom you cannot accept,

and who can never forget you.

Moon and Apple

When the apple tree blooms

the moon comes often like a blossom,

paler than any of them

shining over the tree.

It is the ghost of the summer,

the white sister of the blossoms who returns to drop in on us,

and radiate peace with her hands

so that you shouldn't feel too bad when the hard times come.

For the Earth itself is a blossom, she says,

on the star tree,

pale and with luminous

ocean leaves.

Sssh

Sssh the sea says

sssh the small waves at the shore say, sssh

not so violent, not

so haughty, not

so remarkable.

Sssh

say the tips of the waves

crowding around the headland's

surf. Sssh

they say to people

this is our earth

our eternity.

__________________________

Twenty Poems

Rolf Jacobsen

Translated by Robert Bly

Seventies Press 1977

RICHARD K. NELSON w/ TERRY GROSS (1990) ~

 

L I S T E N    T O

R I C H A R D    K.   N E L S O N

FRIEDERIKE MAYROCKER ~

 

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

Dec. 20, 1924, Vienna ~ June 4, 2021, Vienna

READING BY JOHN CAGE (DAVID TUDOR ON HAND) ~

•  

HENRY (JOHN BERRYMAN) ~

 

BENTLY BOYS ~

ANNE BRIGMAN ~

 

A N N E     B R I G M A N

Yale, 2020

GLENN HUGHES, "PREPARING TO WAKE UP" ~

NEW FROM LONGHOUSE

Three color booklet of new poems

by Glenn Hughes

 in fold-out splendor

____________________________

 $12, postpaid

$15.95 signed, postpaid

________________________

      (International orders please inquire)

order through Paypal with free shipping 

(use our email address of longhousepoetry@gmail.com)

or a check to:

Longhouse, PO Box 2454, West Brattleboro, VT 05303

Longhouse

Publishers & Booksellers

Green River, Vermont

2021

JULIA OLDER ~

 

Julia came from the wonderful old school of intimacy —

her letters to me were forever immediate and drawn from her

rural surroundings of New Hampshire, even as she was sharing translations

by Vian and Quasimodo which we published. I had known her long ago from

her books of poems with Unicorn Press — Alan Brilliant, the proprietor and legendary

printer and publisher already had the fix on one more poet we all should be reading.

Out of the blue, like an owl's call, came news that Julia had passed away. She was

with us but a moment ago.

                                                                       [ BA ]

Julia Older 

Peterborough, NH — Writer Julia Older died at age 79 on April 17, 2021, in Peterborough, NH. Born May 25, 1941, in Chicago, IL., she and writer Steve Sherman settled in Hancock, NH, in 1972, where she lived until the end of her life. She is survived by Steve Sherman, sisters Priscilla Older and Deborah Hall, nieces and nephews, and many dear friends. 

You can get some sense of Julia's life from lists of books she published, and fellowships, awards, and honors she received for her writing over many years. Julia was pleased by formal recognition and grateful for assistance (she loved her residencies at Yaddo and MacDowell for the peace and freedom they offered), but she always went her own way, pursued only subjects that engaged her imagination, and developed talents in many areas besides writing. From childhood she adored dance, and in her 70s she seriously took up ballet again. A fine flutist, for years she soloed and played in various ensembles, for pleasure and for income. As a young single woman she roamed other countries—hitchhiking through France, writing in a seaside town in Italy, studying and teaching in Mexico, playing the flute in Brazil. After moving to New Hampshire, she came to know and love her own region — Grand Monadnock; the Isles of Shoals; the woods, lakes, coast, and byways of New Hampshire. She made friends with the birds outside her window and knew native plants. Many of her writings reflect her devotion to the place where she lived. Still, by nature and education she was a cosmopolitan, and in her imagination she continued to roam widely, producing a poem and radio drama about a mysterious ancient artifact, a sequence of poems about an early Persian feminist, two well-regarded translations of avant-garde French writer Boris Vian's stories, and translations of Italian Salvatore Quasimodo's poems. The last she was working on when she died. You can find Julia's publications in local libraries and at Toadstool Bookshops. 

From the time they met at MacDowell Colony and through-hiked the Appalachian Trail for their honeymoon, Steve Sherman was at Julia's side, collaborating with her, cheering her on, caring for her when she was ill, and responding to her work. Friends and family will always remember what fun it was to be with them—enjoying their fabulous meals, laughing and talking, lifted by Julia's gaiety, capacity for life, generosity, and perhaps by seeing her launch into a pirouette or two just for the joy of it.

To Plant Memorial Trees in memory, please visit our Sympathy Store.

Published in Monadnock Ledger-Transcript on May 27, 2021.

SHIRLEY CLARKE'S ~ ROBERT FROST ~

 

THE LOST ART OF READING ~

 

_________________________________

Another title taken off the shelf

of my separate library of 

only small books built into

 the door casing of our bedroom door —

books on one side, beauty on the other side —

I returned to read this book after a few years

and it doesn't disappoint the true reader,

the fabulous reader (one with always a book going, always)

journeying with us into the world of

 forgotten authors like Alexander Trocchi

which is handled masterfully, this heroin

soaked master storyteller and also into

the young mind of Frank Conroy's Stop-Time

and somehow, even after reading 

forever portraits of Malcolm Lowry

and Jack Kerouac, Ulin has us on the road

with him and to poignant locations for

both authors, particularly Lowry, who

Ulin portrays vividly in one or two pages —

Then Ulin, darn it, ruins all the

care and culture of reading,

the passion that is essential

by bothering himself and thus us

with the stupid subject of the Internet.

As if it really means anything to the

passion of reading.

Book reading.

The art form

that many have died for, 

stolen, hoarded, hugged.

The Internet is a mere pest

compared to reading

Cain's Book.

[ BA ]

Sasquatch Books

2010

 

BOB DYLAN WELCOMES ~

 

BACK ROAD CHALKIE

Spring 2021

BLIND WILLIE MCTELL ~

 

BOB DYLAN'S BIRTHDAY ~

 

BOB DYLAN

&

THE BAND

IN THE

BASEMENT

GEESHIE WILEY ~

 

LEE GODIE (STREET ARTIST) ~

 

L E E      G O D I E

M O R E

MOVE (A CRIME) ~

 

M O V E

MALCOLM X ARISING ~

 

R E A D      M E

The Dead Are Arising

The Life of Malcom X

Les Payne, Tamara Payne

Norton 2020

Malcolm X guards his family in an iconic Ebony photo

ELIZABETH COTTON ~

 

sweetest

SEBASTIAN MATTHEWS ~

 New from Longhouse, Spring 2021 !

Sebastian Matthews ~ Best of the Classic Years

Three color booklet of new poems

by Sebastian in fold-out splendor.

 $8.95

(International orders please inquire)

order through Paypal with free shipping (use our email address of poetry@sover.net)

or a check to

Longhouse, PO Box 2454, West Brattleboro, VT 05303

Longhouse

Publishers & Booksellers

Green River, Vermont

2021