CASCADIAN ZEN ~

 

R E A D    M E

Watershed Press

Seattle

2023

PIERRE DRIEU LA ROCHELLE ~

R E A D    M E 

New York Review of Books

2023

N. SCOTT MOMADAY ~

 

N. SCOTT MOMADAY 

1934 ~ 2024

Adolphe Pierre-Louis/Albuquerque Journal, via ZUMA Wire, via Alamy Live News

FREAK KINGDOM (HUNTER S. THOMPSON) ~

 

R E A D     M E

Public Affairs

2018

THE ULTIMATE ELMORE JAMES ~

 

WILD SEED ~

 

1965

SERHIY ZHADAN ~

 

From CATALOGUE OF SHIPS (2020)

This is how you stand for a family photo,

look into the eyes of the photographer

the way you'd look into the eyes of a bird

perching outside your window:

remember me, wrathful bird's eye,

when we meet next time,

on the other side of this piercing — like a scream — life,

on the other side of anxious—like a stream— solitude.

Remember my hands,

still without poisonous ink under the fingernails,

remember my voice

which still doesn't have the nails of a man's rage,

remember the gratitude of children

who take sweets on Easter day from the gravestones

of their parents.

In forty years I won't talk in my dreams

with dead characters from novels I've read.

There won't be this magnetic moon

above the open fracture of the road.

In forty years no one will hold me

when I jump into May lakes.

Projection booths will be locked,

the tombs of school library stacks looted.

Remember me, history, looking like a bird

forced into the fog of borderlands every year.

Reflections of bright faces on my palms.

Women and men from the 70s like dead planets

illuminate the summer air.

In their dreams children talk with dead captains.

Children emerge from darkness guided by the photographer's voice.

They run across childhood

like lizards running across a road in July.

They stand in the backyard,

staring suspiciously  into the eyes of history.

Sing, dead poets

who've ended up in schoolbooks

like starlings in cages.

In songs they celebrate the motherland

of a sky scorched throughout the summer.

The surgical suture of a poem cleanly re-written darkness.

The black flower of rain slowly grows between rivers.

__________________________

Serhiy Zhadan

A New Orthography

poems translated from the Ukrainian

by John Hennessy & Ostap Kin

Lost Horse Press, 2020

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS ~

 

R E A D    M E

Read it all, and every letter for & against —

he could take it.

Right now, time is running out, every American

should read his essay

"11 September 1973"

— This is how it comes —

       Hachette Book Group, 2024

NANCY CUNARD ~

 

R E A D     M E

St. Martin's, 2023

BOB DYLAN IN THE ATTIC ~

 

I have many of the books on Dylan 

and by Bob Dylan and 

his records and when I

stack the books and all

the recordings on top

of one another the stack

gets to be over six feet tall.

Bob Dylan in the Attic

is easily one of the best

of the latest books.

It's a slim book, a smidge 

over 100 pages, and I 

couldn't put it down.

I won't tell you why.

An explorer finds the why.

[ BA ]

University of Massachusetts

2023

TOMAS TRANSTROMER ~

Solitude  

I

Right here, I was nearly killed one February evening.

The car skidded sideways on the glare ice

to the wrong side of the road. The oncoming cars —

their headlights—getting closer.

My name, my girls, my job

were quietly let go and left behind,

farther and farther away. I was as anonymous

as a boy surrounded by enemies in a schoolyard.

The oncoming traffic had enormous lights.

They shone on me as I steered and steered

in a transparent fear that floated like egg whites.

The seconds expanded—there was room in there—

they were as large as hospitals.

You could almost pause for a bit

and breathe easily

before being crushed.

Then something grabbed hold: a helpful grain of sand

or wonderful gust of wind. The car pulled free

and quickly lurched across the road.

A post shot up and snapped—a sharp clang—then

flew off into the darkness.

Until all was still. I stayed buckled in

and watched as someone came through the snow squall

to see what had become of me.

II

I've been walking around for a long time

in the frozen fields of Ostergotland.

Not a single person in sight.

In other parts of the world

there are those  who are born, live, and die

in a continuous crowd.

To always be visible—to live

in  swarm of eyes—

must lead to a certain facial expression.

A face coated with clay.

The murmuring rises and falls

while between them all, they divide up

the sky, the shadows, the sand grains.

I must be alone

ten minutes in the morning

and ten minutes at night.

—Without a program.

Everyone stands in line for everyone.

Many.

One.

_______________

Tomas Transtromer

The Blue House

Collected Works

Translated by Patty Cline

Copper Canyon Press, 2023

MACHADO DE ASSIS ~

 

R E A D    M E

"The greatest writer ever produced in Latin America"

SUSAN  SONTAG

     DON'T  MISS  THIS  ONE

   Liveright, 2023

LEV RUBINSTEIN, POET ~

 

L E V    R U B I N S T E I N

MASHA GESSEN

DEEP INSIDE THE BLUES ~

 

FOREWORD BY WILLIAM R. FERRIS            PHOTOGRAPHS & INTERVIWS BY MARGO COOPER

R E A D    M E

University of Mississippi, 2023

CAMILO JOSE CELA ~

 

R E A D    M E

ARHOOLIE RECORDS / DOWN HOME MUSIC ~

 

R E A D  &  L I S T E N

YU XUANJI ~

 

Notes of Late Spring

Living in a dark alley behind shambled gates,

I have few companions or friends —

my perfect lover boy only stays on in my dreams.

So whose banquet with fine silks

floats out this fragrant incense,

and what pavilion releases such singing to the wind?

Living just beside the street, the noise of martial drums

shocked me out of my morning sleep.

The screech of magpies in my unused yard

churns up the youthful restlessness I feel.

How can I keep chasing such worldly things

when I know this body

is the same as an untied boat?

______________________

Yu Xuanji

Yin Mountain

The immortal poetry of three Daoist women

translated by Peter Levitt & Rebecca Nie

Shambhala, 2022

HE, LEO (LEW WELCH) ~

 

R E A D    M E

Oregon State University Press

2023

TADEUSZ ROZEWICZ~

A Normal Poet

sometimes I get anxious over the fact

that I am so ordinary

sometime somewhere I've written about it

I'm not worried but I am starting

to think that perhaps it is not

normal when a "poet" is not

a "phenomenon"

it's high time I craft my image as

someone wild, poetic, colorful

part schizophrenic part lover

but the pronlem is I love missionary style

I like taking walks

I am the husband of one wife

in accord with the dictates of the Apostle Paul

I get up at six in the morning

go to the bathroom

and so forth

I don't have a beard

or even a goatee

or curls

falling to my shoulders

for a moment I think about death

revise a poem

then dive into

life

in the evening I tear off

another page from the calendar

September 24, 2007

267th day of the year

sunrise 6:24 a.m.

sunset 6:31 p.m.

on the back of the page

is a recipe for cutlets

fry cutlets in

hot skillet (. . .)

brown on both sides

breading it first (. . .)

before falling asleep I read

a variety of art culture literary

monthlies bimonthlies

and quarterlies

and see (to my surprise)

that the poems of my fellow

poets male and female

slowly come to resemble

my poems

and my old poems

resemble

their new poems

_______________________________

TADEUSZ ROZEWICZ

Sobbing Superpower

translated by Joanna Trzeciak

Norton, 2011

MINA LOY ~

 

M I N A    L O Y

Dalkey Archive,  2011

OLD CROW MEDICINE SHOW PLAYS : BLONDE ON BLONDE ~

 

James Taylor and Monte Hellman Discuss Two-Lane Blacktop ~

 

Raúl Gómez Jattin ~

 

Urban Poet

That poet from Bogotá 

As a boy he never knew

the scent of wet earth

or the revealing touch of animals

or saw the river wash life away . . .

To make up for so many losses

he sets a bird free in every poem

Clouds come and clouds go

At each sunrise the sea

swells tides toward his forgetfulness

That poet

grows quiet when I write to him

about how man's most pressing tragedy

is his war against nature

He writes long poems

to a papier-mâché lover

You're no match for the flowers

Yours are tinplate stars

Your scenographic sea

doesn't reveal or give rise to memories

Poet

You must go to nature

To gaze upon it

To defend it

_______________

Raúl Gómez Jattin

Almost Obscene

translated by Katherine M. Hedeen

& Olivia Lott

CSU,  2022

GARY PANTER'S PICTURE BOX ~

 

An intimate look at the work and life of a legendary artist. Gary Panter has been one of the most influential figures in visual culture since the mid-1970s. From his era-defining punk graphics to his cartoon icon Jimbo to his visionary design for Pee-wee's Playhouse, he has left his mark on every medium he's touched. Working in close collaboration with the artist, PictureBox has assembled the definitive volume on Panter's work from the early 1970s to the present. This monumental, slipcased set is split into two 350-page volumes. The first is a comprehensive monograph featuring over 700 images of paintings, drawings, sculptures, posters and comics, alongside essays by Robert Storr, Mike Kelley, Richard Klein, Richard Gehr, Karrie Jacobs and Byron Coley, as well a substantial commentary by the artist himself. The second volume features a selection from Panter's sketchbooks--the site of some of his most audacious work--most of which has never been published in any form.
A three-time Emmy Award-winner for his production design on Pee-wee's Playhouse and the recipient of the 2000 Chrysler Award for Design Excellence, graphic artist Gary Panter has drawn inspiration from diverse vernacular and traditional art arenas over the course of the past four decades. Closely associated with the underground comics and music scenes on both coasts, he is responsible for designing the Screamers iconic 1970s poster, many record covers for Frank Zappa, the Red Hot Chili Peppers and The Residents and the ongoing comic character Jimbo. Most recently Panter has performed psychedelic light shows at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C. and at New York's Anthology Film Archives. He was a featured artist in the major 2006-2007 touring exhibition, Masters of American Comics.

PictureBox, 2008

ANN LAUTERBACH~

 

Door

I don't know who lives in those houses

with pastel doors, mint green

and pale salmon.  Whoever heard of a lavender

door in the middle of winter, as if

snow could dilute

alizarin crimson, saturated lapis,

deepest cobalt blue.  Perhaps

they imagine a kinder welcome.

Girls not able to reach the knobs,

their pink shoes and tired crayons;

boys with missing teeth; the dog barking.

Or an elder in slippers and gown

recalling the pale sprigs of April, the scent of lilac.

______________

Ann Lauterbach

Door

Penguin, 2023

THE CHILD AND THE RIVER ~

 

R E A D   M E

NYRB, 2023