POETS WHO SLEEP #33 ~

P O E T S     W H O     S L E E P

______________________

                                           drawn & scribed by Bob Arnold

The complete series to date ~ please link here

RE-READING SOL TIDE ~

 

I loved this mimeograph journal when it was released in the mid70s

or so and I still love coming across a copy today.

 It doesn't fit into the new and tall and narrow bookshop

 for tiny books I built, but other books by John Brandi would. 

Once upon a time we exchanged everything with one another. 

I have kept care and even coveted a few of John's books, 

mostso the tiniest ones, often hand-painted and out 

of his back hills mountain days of New Mexico. 

Back when a book would come from John and his "Nail Press." 

My own copy of Sol Tide is tucked away somewhere 

and here this morning I am looking at Janine Pommy Vega's copy. 

Like me, Janine kept her own copy in good shape and she was part of

the issue as I was. Just look at the roster of names! 

Editor and poem-hunter John Brandi was so good at this 

sort of thing, packed away with his little

family at the time in the outback and rolling out on hand crank

mimeo (as I was) issue after issue and booklet and folder and broadside and

poem from his Tooth of Time Press. What really captured my eye of John's,

beside his own writing and press work, were his delightful drawings of either solo

adventurer or some wanderer on the trail, ever in good mood and humor. At

least by the expression on their faces. In this issue of Sol Tide, Sweetheart noticed 

a short poem of mine never republished in a book. Yes, a pretty good poem.

I think I'll print up a bookmark of the poem and share it around.

[ BA ]

CIVIL RIGHTS ~ (archive)

 

"Summer 1964. Hundreds of civil rights volunteers were in Mississippi for a voter registration drive, and three (two white men and a black) were in Neshoba County to investigate the burning of a black church that was to have been used as a base for registering blacks to vote. After briefly detained for speeding one night, the trio drove into the night and simply vanished.

Their bodies were later discovered, and their murder became a defining event of the civil rights era and the plot of the 1988 film ”Mississippi Burning.” The main suspect were the local sheriff, Lawrence A. Rainey (above right), his deputy Cecil Price (above left) and 16 other men, all of whom were allegedly members of the Ku Klux Klan. They were charged with violating the civil rights of the victims.

Sheriff Rainey and seven other men were acquitted. Deputy Price and six other defendants were convicted. The jury could not decide on the remaining defendants. A Klan leader and one other defendant got the stiffest sentences, 10 years in prison. Mr. Price, whom investigators suspected of delivering the victims to their killers, got a six-year term and served four and a half years.

During the trial, LIFE magazine devoted two pages to the above photo made by Paul Reed, which showed defendants hollering and mocking the court. Rainey was seen flamboyantly chewing his tobacco in the picture. Public outcry followed, and when his term as sheriff ended in 1967, Rainey was unable to find further work in law enforcement. He ended his life working as a security guard at supermarkets and malls, and blaming the FBI for preventing him from finding and keeping jobs."

__________________________________

I was gifted this poster, now rare in its

original format, almost 60 years ago by

my older sister when it was re-produced

from Life Magazine into the sway of the

counterculture, and today the same photograph

is haunting its way back in the wake of 

assault and deaths

in the Black Lives Matter movement,

and the resurgence of white supremacist

mobs. 

White supremacist or black supremacist

does not spell life on this earth together,

except we are together. One planet.

I'm hardly against cops — I have warm and

responsible relatives who have been cops and

others who are still cops, but there are bad

cops, and bad cops quickly stand out.

A good cop, with the power, would have

already arrested a criminal president and any

 of his associates. No matter who they are.

I've seen bad cops, bad carpenters, bad teachers,

bad hipsters, bad anti-war protesters, bad

family members, bad lawyers, bad friendships.

You face them and call it out, with care.

My-corners-tattered-poster has survived

barn boards, sheds, rentals, corner walls

and silverfish so that on New Year's Day

2021 I finally planted the poster onto a

wide pine board and built a frame around

some famed Americans.

Infamy.

[ BA ]

OUT OF OUR MINDS (Whitey, Armed, Vandalizes the U.S. Capitol, 1/6/21) ~

 

A tree only dies from the top

— Simone Weil

Police with guns drawn watch as protesters try to break into the House chamber at the US Capitol. Photograph: J Scott Applewhite/AP
Credit...J. Scott Applewhite/Associated Press

Richard Bigo Barnett, 60, from Gravette, Ark.

Feet up in Speaker Pelosi's office

"I like a look of agony

Because I know it's true"

~Emily Dickinson

Republican Vermont Gov. Phil Scott called on President Donald Trump to "resign or be removed from office" for inciting Wednesday's riot at the U.S. Capitol.  In a statement released Wednesday evening, Scott accused the president of blatantly  trying to spark an "insurrection." 

Saying Donald Trump has "betrayed our national security" and will do so again, Rep. Adam Schiff used his closing arguments in the president's impeachment trial on Monday to urge the Senate to take a stand against "a man without character."

"We must say enough — enough! He has betrayed our national security, and he will do so again," Schiff, D-Calif., told the Senate. "He has compromised our elections, and he will do so again. You will not change him. You cannot constrain him. He is who he is. Truth matters little to him. What's right matters even less, and decency matters not at all."

February 3, 2020

Trump Is to Blame for Capitol Attack

The president incited his followers to violence. There must be consequences.

By The Editorial Board

The editorial board is a group of opinion journalists whose views are informed by expertise, research, debate and certain longstanding values. It is separate from the newsroom.

• Jan. 6, 2021, 8:01 p.m. ET

The New York Times January 6, 2021

"The president needs to be held accountable — through impeachment proceedings or criminal prosecution — and the same goes for his supporters who carried out the violence. In time, there should be an investigation of the failure of the Capitol Police to prepare for an attack that was announced and planned in public."

The New York Times January 6, 2021

Woman shot in the Capitol has died.

"No one other than President Donald Trump himself is more responsible for Wednesday’s coup attempt at the U.S. Capitol than one Joshua David Hawley, the 41-year-old junior senator from Missouri, who put out a fundraising appeal while the siege was underway."

- Kansas City Star 1/6/21

an inside job. . .

NIEDECKER / EDWARD DORN ~

    

 Niedecker / EDWARD DORN

The strict eye

of  sparrowhawk evenly

in her survey of reality

The firm bone of the woman

at the well

The line of a simply exquisite rope

________________________

Epitaphs for Lorine

Jargon 74

Thirty-two poets celebrate

Lorine Niedecker (1903-1970)

The Jargon Society, 1973

I took this book out of the new, tall and very narrow

built-in bookcase I built in our bedroom and saw it was

ideal for the tiniest books in my library, and this little gem

I often return to from Jargon fit the bill. I built the bookcase

a week before Christmas 2020 the same time I was finishing

an equally tall and narrow jewelry cabinet for Sweeheart. Both

situated left and right of the doorjamb of our bedroom. As a 

builder, I like that little forgotten space where the likes of jewelry, 

tiny books (and I have many) and even CDs where long ago I built

two cabinets for all my Blues CDs left and right of the doorjamb

in the living room. It's wasted space until you discover it. The above

Dorn poem knows all about space — sparrowhawk, woman, rope.

[ BA ]

[ Ian Hamilton Finlay ]

KUSANO SHIMPEI ~

 

a while

gee. like trachoma.

what a lovely moon.

somewhere hereabouts fox is munching something eh.

zebra grass grows wild there. Qayloqay was little he got lost there you know.

no. whatever happened.

somehow he's still alive.

but.

but? every day at the brink alive somehow. nothing serious..

my but what a lovely moon huh.

oh.

that mountain what's behind it.

marshes mountains and ricefields. all the same.

beyond them?

more ricefields. fields. pear fields.

and beyond them?

way way beyond?

yes that's what i mean.

there's the sea. who was it. yuh. Qanimm.

they were boasting. the sea's a sky turned into a river.

then it must be also somehow blue huh.

even by day they say it's black. big & black alive.

good heavens!

the sand looks dazzling.

______________________________

frogs &.

others.

poems by Kusano Shimpei

translated from the Japanese by Cid Coman

& Kamaike Susumu

(Mushinsha / Grossman, 1969

When I was young, if I came upon a book published by

Mushinsha / Grossman – I had to own it. I bought each and

every one. That's how I came to read Frank Samperi, Cid Corman,

Will Petersen, Kusano Shimpei, Rene Char, Eric Sackheim et al.,

what could go wrong? Nothing did. The books were exquisite, an

extra minute or so was taken to enhance the design of the books, 

the feel of the books, the looks of the books, and the quality overall was

life changing. You know the little girl you once saw walking on a cloud

in the park with a book under her arm — a Mushinsha book, that was me. 

In 1969 when the Shimpei book was published, issued in a hefty 

stapled together slipcase, poet and translator Cid Corman performed 

a masterstroke, and was at the  height of his best years when he wasn’t peering 

around for fame and notoriety but sharpening his skills as a poet and a mover. 

His introductory prose here and translating prowess reads sword sharp. 

[ BA ]