SHE'S A BADASS ~

 

R E A D   M E

Backbeat Books

2023

LILIANA PONCE ~

 

I will wait in the real sand, 

the tangible form of rock,

in the conversion of fate by breath.

With words I feed the creation of time

— someone else can speak, someone else can write.

Liquid movements cycled by the marrow

of a false body.

The glass absorbs the sky.

I will wait in the sane, in the dust of the rock

—in the shadow of dryness I erase them.

Soothe me with passive thoughts.

Soothe me because I don't exist.

________________________

Liliana Ponce

Theory of the Voice and Dream

translated from the Spanish by Michael Martin Shea

World Poetry 2025

SHERPA ~

 

K A N C H H A   S H E R P A

        Jason Gulley for The New York Times

OTIS SPANN TONIGHT ~

 

 

AGOTA KRISTOF, AGAIN ~

 

Agota Kristof

R E A D   M E

FRANK O'HARA ~

 

Homosexuality

So we are taking off our masks, are we, and keeping

our mouths shut? as if we'd been pierced by a glance!

The song of an old cow is not more full of judgment

than the vapors which escape one's soul when one is sick;

so I pull the shadows around me like a puff

and crinkle my eyes as if at the most exquisite moment

of a very long opera, and then we are off!

without reproach and without hope that our delicate feet

will touch the earth again, let alone "very soon"

It is the law of my own voice I shall investigate.

I start like ice, my finger to my ear, my ear

to my heart, that proud cur at the garbage can

in the rain. It's wonderful to admire oneself

with complete candor, tallying up the merits of each

of the latrines. 14th Street is drunken and credulous,

53rd tries to tremble but is too at rest. The good

love a park and the inept a railway station,

and there are the divine ones who drag themselves up

and down the lengthening shadow of an Abyssinian head

in the dust, trailing their long elegant heels of hot air

crying to confuse the brave "It's a summer day,

and I want to be wanted more than anything else in the world."

1954, First published, Poetry, Chicago 1970

_____________________

Frank O' Hara

from Super Gay Poems

edited by Stephanie Burt

Belknap Press of Harvard University

2025

GURNEY NORMAN ~

 

G U R N E Y   N O R M A N

July 22, 1937 – October 12, 2025

“When he writes, the page just falls away.”

WENDELL BERRY

ERIN MOURE ~

 

Evocation

As beautiful as the idea of a shoulder,

the skin of a cup that mirrors the spine,

the spartan stone confesses

stubbornly in the dead limb.

It was not milled oats, it breathed.

It rubbed and pleaded with the sea's tears

it was serrated and sandy

glad levity inviting the barbarian stranger.

It was beautiful as the shoulder of cattle,

between the grass and flies,

between the light of August as dreamed in April

and, and, it was only the palm of her hand.

__________________________

Erin Moure

from Super Gay Poems

edited by Stephanie Burt

Harvard University (Belknap Press)

2025

NAT KING COLE TONIGHT ~

 

CINEMA 2 ~

 

Mehdi Hasan sits down with Palestinian filmmaker Annemarie Jacir and Palestinian actress Hiam Abbas to discuss their latest film ‘Palestine 36,’ which explores the ‘Great Revolt’ against British rule in Palestine from 1936-39, before the Nakba in 1948. The film is Palestine’s official submission to the Oscars for 2026 and received one of the longest ovations from an audience at the Toronto International Film Festival. They also discuss censorship in Hollywood and what it was like filming in the middle of an ongoing genocide.

CINEMA ~

 

T O B Y   T A L B O T

JOAN DIDION'S NOTES ~

 

R E A D   M E

     Knopf 2025

JIMMIE RODGERS TONIGHT ~

 

THE QUILTS OF AMISH WOMEN ~

 

R E A D   M E

       Smithsonian American Art Museum, 2024

CLARENCE GATEMOUTH BROWN TONIGHT ~

 

     Austin, Texas

PHILIP LARKIN ~

 

Days

What are days for?

Days are where we live. 

They come, they wake us

Time and time over.

They are to be happy in:

Where can we live but days?

Ah, solving that question

Brings the priest and the doctor

In their long coats

Running over the fields.

_____________________

Philip Larkin

I LOVE HOW YOU LOVE ME ~

 

      L.A. Nuggets 1965-1968

CINEMA KEN JACOBS ~

 

K E N   J A C O B S

1933 ~ 2025

FORUGH FARROKHZAD ~

 

The Wind Will Blow Us Away

Inside my little night, alas,

the wind has a rendezvous with the leaves;

inside my little night, there is fear

and dread of desolation.

Listen.

Hear the darkness  blow like wind?

I watch this prosperity through alien eyes.

I am addicted to my despair.

Listen.

Hear the darkness blow?

This minute, inside this night,

something's coming to pass. The moon

is troubled and red; clouds

are a procession of mourners waiting

to release tears upon this rooftop,

this rooftop about to crumble, to give way.

A moment,

then, nothing.

Beyond this window, the night quivers,

and the earth once again halts its spin.

From beyond this window, the eyes

of the unknown are on you and me.

May you be green, head to toe —

put your hands like a fevered memory in mine . . .

                                                        these hands that love you.

And cede your lips

                        like a life-warmed feeling

to the caress of my lovesick lips.

The wind will one day blow us all away.

The wind will blow us away.

____________________________

Forugh Farrokhzad

Sin, selected poems

The University of Arkansas Press 2007

THE TRAMP PRINTERS ~

 

The tramp printer was a typesetting troubadour with a story in lieu of a song, a scholarly hobo, and a master of the type case. Carrying little more than a union journeyman’s card and a few basic tools, these “itinerant” typographers criss-crossed the continent for more than a century, train-hopping from newspaper to newspaper.

To the tramp printer, personal autonomy and adventure were far more valuable than material possessions. Many of them were brilliant, literate individuals who were nevertheless compelled by a predilection for bacchanalian debauchery. The tramps helped each other over the hard places and spread the craft of printing, and always standing in solidarity with their fellow workers.

 Eberhardt Press

636 SE 11th Avenue

Portland, Oregon

97214