KAREN DALTON ~

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2007/mar/23/folk

NEW! FRANCO BELTRAMETTI BOOK ~

edited by Stefan Hyner


http://www.spdbooks.org/Search/Default.aspx?PublisherName=Blackberry%20Books

"Franco Beltrametti's smooth-barked Muse leads him across the grids of latitude and longitude to the source of good medicine poems. A suavity masks these elemental songs - or rather, gives these elder faces a modern "human" mask. Civilized, in the best sense."

Gary Snyder

Franco in action ~
https://vimeo.com/48647354

THOMAS BERNHARD ~

T H O M A S    B E R N H A R D

MY FATHER

My father suffered from the aridity of the earth,

likewise from the moldered face of summer,

he climbed the mountain and rested above the tarns.

At that time the ships used to sail westwards,

never shall I forget how my father's hand

reached out for the human soul —

He climbed the mountain to see the countryside that they

trampled to bits in seven weeks.

"I tell you," he said, "Love is indestructible —."

Then the tanks rolled over the wheat field and buried

hope for the coming year.

They all suffered from the aridity of the earth, some

fell back into the night, saying: we

cannot find any verses at all in this monstrous poem.

My father believed this earth belonged to him, since he

had bought a hundred acres and a hut with

trees; in which he slept,

but found no dream.

For hundreds of millions of years he gazed into the animals' eyes

as they flickered on Christmas Eve.

He said: "We don't need candles!"

My father brought a branch from the olive tree and carried snow

to the lips of his sisters.

In Siberia he embarked upon a voyage, yet

needed an eternity, because they were all suffering

from the aridity of the earth,

and a voice within him said: "I shall dip my light

in the human snow."

___________________________

 

T H O M A S    B E R N H A R D

translated from the German by

Peter Waugh

 
















 Three Rooms Press (2015)

 http://www.thomasbernhard.org/

STEEL & GLASS ~

SLEEPER'S AWAKE ~

H O T E L    S P L E N D I D

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/01/travel/latest-hotel-amenity-books.html?hpw&rref=travel&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well

https://soundcloud.com/nybooks/president-obama-marilynne-robinson

CORINA, CORINA ~

PERCHANCE TO DREAM ~

http://weirdfictionreview.com/2012/10/weirdfictionreview-coms-101-weird-writers-14-charles-beaumont/

Spooky Halloween! 

SO LONG, IT'S BEEN GOOD TO KNOW YA ~

 

M A R K   M U R P H Y

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/26/arts/music/mark-murphy-an-unconventional-jazz-vocalist-dies-at-83.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fobituaries&action=click&contentCollection=obituaries&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=10&pgtype=sectionfront

 

 L E O N    B I B B

 http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/27/arts/music/leon-bibb-actor-folk-singer-and-civil-rights-activist-dies-at-93.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fobituaries&action=click&contentCollection=obituaries&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=5&pgtype=sectionfront

A N I T A    S A R K O

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/27/arts/music/reflecting-on-anita-sarko-influential-dj-of-the-new-york-club-scene.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fobituaries&action=click&contentCollection=obituaries&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=8&pgtype=sectionfront





all credit: nytimes
 

W.G. SEBALD ~

JOHN BRADLEY'S HERMIT ~

http://home.jps.net/~nada/johnson.htm

NORMAN MAILER TO MICHAEL MCCLURE~

N O R M A N    M A I L E R

195. TO MICHAEL MCCLURE


December 19, 1959


Dear Michael McClure,

    I had a hard time reading your letter because like most poets you
write a prose which is an assault on the nervous system of a stylist. I think
it probably has something to do with the mother-love most boy poets get
when they are young and while I'm certain the inner workings of your
mind are a thing of surrealist beauty the expression in prose is so
damned self indulgent that I recoil because you see, baby, everyone I
knew who has any talent is certain that their own mind is the most beautiful
work yet created by God (Paul Carroll said a couple of weeks ago,
"The Devil is the most beautiful creation of God"). But one's style is the
hero of one's art and a hero with bad manners never makes no history
so you would do well to consider all your competitors, large and small,
older and younger than you as being equally greedy and self absorbed
and so never look to them for praise, for love, for attention and certainly
never offer them the spoils of your brain in a casual and styleless
letter since they will only put you down.
     [Don] Carpenter is right. I said that you were beat and not hip and
people who are beat do not really interest me because they are in need
and I do not care to run a free restaurant. I liked you well enough, I
thought you were a saucy little cat but then I began to dig that New York
was not your town and I like it because it is hard and true as negative
truth is true. I had the feeling I might be able to enjoy your company in
a few years when you are harder and less in love with yourself but until
then you were in my book just another royal mountain climber who was
hoping you don't have to get killed or even lose a little on the way up.
     Best to you and cheers,
            Norman 

Random House 2014

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/norman-mailer-a-brief-history-of-norman-mailer/653/

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/michael-mcclure

BILL FAY ~

JACK GILBERT ~

 J  A  C  K      G  I  L  B  E  R  T

 Alone



I never thought Michiko would come back

after she died. But if she did, I knew

it would be as a lady in a long white dress.

It is strange that she has returned

as somebody's dalmatian. I meet

the man walking her on a leash

almost every week. He says good morning

and I stoop down to calm her. He said

once that she was never like that with

other people. Sometimes she is tethered

on their lawn when I go by. If nobody

is around, I sit on the grass. When she

finally quiets, she puts her head in my lap

and we watch each other's eyes as I whisper

in her soft ears. She cares nothing about

our mystery. She likes it best when

I touch her head and tell her small

things about my days and our friends.

That makes her happy the way it always did.


 _________________________



J  A  C  K      G  I  L  B  E  R  T


Collected Poems
Knopf

I started to type out a poem by Jack Gilbert today — in fact, two poems,

and I was going to tell you how the first poem, no need to say which poem,

after typing five lines and more to go, vanished before my eyes. I touched no buttons

but anyone who knows computer mechanics knows full well a button or something had to

have been touched for the poem to vanish. No, the poem simply vanished, probably because

someone wanted this to be so. I let it be so. I started on a second poem and the same disappearance occurred. I then made my way through a third poem, the one here for us.

DASHIELL HAMMETT ~

B L O O M S B U R Y   2015

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/separating-fact-from-fiction-in-dashiell-hammetts-life-and-work/2015/09/09/f69f30a2-477c-11e5-8ab4-c73967a143d3_story.html

 

STAYING ALIVE ~

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/oct/24/obfuscation-users-guide-for-privacy-and-protest-online-surveillance

MAUREEN O'HARA ~

M A U R E E N   O ' H A R A

b. Aug. 17, 1920, in Ranelagh, Ireland 

~

Boise, Idaho, 2015

JOHN BERGER ~

STORIES OF ROBERT SHECKLEY ~

N E W   Y O R K   R E V I E W   O F   B O O K S

https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/robert-sheckleys-store-of-the-worlds-reviewed-by-michael-dirda/2012/05/16/gIQAVzmpUU_story.html

 

FLANN O' BRIEN ~

Dalkey Archive, 2013

read an excerpt ~

http://www.brooklynrail.org/2013/07/fiction/drink-and-time-in-dublin

MICHAEL KRUGER ~

 

What Times Are These




Yesterday, in the wood,

a serious talk

with the trees:

if we had our way,

ran their rustling discourse,

there would be no such thing as nature.

What about us, I asked,

alarmed at the prospect of loss,

what on earth would we do without it?

You'd have to make,

out of second, first nature,

answered the trees,

and deal with it

just as you deal with us.

And in the meantime,

the leaves whispered fervently,

we would run wild, wilder than wild,

so that you, as strangers,

could, later, discover us once again.

When they had said this

they vanished for ever.


 ______________ 

 Diderot's Cat
M I C H A E L    K R U G E R
translated by Richard Dove
selected poems
Carcanet Press 1993