Wednesday, February 25, 2026

Tuesday, February 24, 2026

SONYA COHEN CRAMER TONIGHT ~

 


Townes Van Zandt's song from one of

the loveliest folk albums in a 

long while; the daughter

of New Lost City Rambler John Cohen

Sonya was a newborn and at Newport

with her parents when Bob Dylan

went electric. She headed

for the hills.




BOB ARNOLD ~ MORNING LETTER. . .~

 



Morning Letter to Friends


They are calling it a “bomb cyclone.” The word Blizzard doesn’t seem to be enough. Is it the weather that is out-of-control, or the weather forecasters. All the forecasters. I step out onto the long sideways porch living room of the “Ojai" and see all the snow blown across eight feet, and over the old rug, and right up to the side of the house. I sweep off the rug and call it clean. Snow is a cleanser. Often we have taken our rugs, wool included, out into the fresh snow and given them all a thorough cleaning. It works. They almost stand up and applaud when brought back indoors and set back down. Brighter. Even startled.

The red squirrel (one), black squirrel (one), gray squirrel (one) all at the feeder with juncos, chickadees etc and this time, in the cyclone, the juncos don’t wait to scavenge seed sent down from the feeders by the robust chickadees but are right up into the two feeders with everyone. Everyone sharing. Mankind remains at a loss. Not enough watching the animals, the birds, the weather. Our town plow ventures down the road and into the cyclone gingerly, opens about a one lane road. Tomorrow the sun may shine, the cyclone off over the Atlantic, I’ll have drifts to contend with breaking open the long snowshoe tract building to building. All 9 buildings in the brunt of blizzard. I built each building. They can take it.

Reading Di Prima's journals of when her friend Freddie leapt out a 5th floor window. Junkie. As Lenore Kandel once sayeth, “too many of my friends are junkies.” The Italian Di Prima, always down to earth, friend of both Pound and Olson, shares the history the junkies (including Janine) couldn’t or wouldn’t want to quite remember. Di Prima, lover of LeRoi Jones ("Roi") and printing the first issues of Floating Bear, my very own inspiration. 

Susan tablet weaving on the sofa in the living room all of it on her lap.

The best firewood saved for today: rock maple. I remember this tree I made the firewood from. There is more, blown down over the winter, up in the woodlot, waiting for me and Spring. I’ve many times snowshoed past the fell'd trees. Half of my work is already done.

The woods take this blizzard like nothing to it. They know one another.

I work on my forthcoming selected short poems, 50 years worth, 250 pages, and move a space, add a space, there are 400 short poems not in there. One day I’ll get to the longer poems. Cover all designed, poems all chosen. I just wait now months to see what is going to appear. Or what will tire and to be removed. We’re all about lasting. Me, we, and the poems.


___________________________
Bob Arnold
Green River
Vermont
23 Feb 2026



Monday, February 23, 2026

THE ROLLING STONES NOW! TONIGHT ~



 

The Rolling Stones, Now! ℗ 1965 ABKCO Music & Records Inc. Released on: 1965-02-12 Composer Lyricist: Bert Berns Composer Lyricist: Burke Composer Lyricist: Gerald Wexler

EDWARD HOAGLAND ~

 




E D W A R D   H O A G L A N D


        Burlington Free Press



SUSAN SHEEHAN ~

 



S U S A N   S H E E H A N





DUO DUO ~

 




Map



Midnight, there are people beyond the window enticing you

Cigarette butts, like silkworms start clambering

On the table, a glass of water also starts to churn

You pull open a drawer, inside are forty years of snow


A voice, someone's voice, asks: Is it true the sky's a map?

You recognize the pitch-black lips of the one who cries out

You recognize him

In fact it's you, it's that old you

You recognize your head

Just as it's coughed out into the distance from a hospital window


On the far horizon, blacksmith and saboteur move together

Those fighting fires squeeze onto a postage stamp

As they madly splash out the ocean

Swimmers in the water are splashing one another

Their swimming trunks are flour sacks

Printed with the words: Saboteurs far from the motherland


A whiff of a pungent odor

You sniff out the earliest news of the storm

Like a cloud, following the butcher's hooks you float out the

butcher's back window

Behind you, there's a leg still sitting on the butcher's block

You recognize it as your very own leg

Since you passed over that step


1990


___________________________

Duo Duo

The Boy Who Catches Wasps

translated by Gregory B. Lee




Zephyr Press, 2002

Saturday, February 21, 2026

MARGARET ATWOOD RUMPLED & WISE ~

 


L I S T E N



00:53 Intro 03:58 Margaret Atwood’s new memoir 12:21 How Margaret Atwood became a poet and novelist 19:37 Career themes 28:07 How Atwood’s personal life has influenced her writing 33:54 Can Margaret Atwood predict the future? 39:28 The state of politics today 48:32 Attacks from the right and left 52:21 Swedish Death Cleaning 58:38 Why Margaret Atwood loves birding



PRISON WORKSONGS ALL DAY ~

 


℗ 1997 Smithsonian Folkways Recordings. Originally released on Arhoolie Records.

Thursday, February 19, 2026

BLIND WILLIE MCTELL ALL DAY ~

 



℗ Originally Released 1934 SONY BMG MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT