Dan Snow is a New England builder of stone walls and stone structures, also well known in the British Isles where he has practiced his trade. This is the second of his two books on the trade, lush with landscape photographs from job sites, and both books are mandatory reading for the stone crazed one, builder of anything, seeker of the improved spot on earth.
It wasn't going anywhere until Cat Stevens showed up and sounded like he had never left. The sincerity he spoke of his mother, and then his father, was quite moving in the supposed hotbed of sex drugs and youknowwhat. Then there was too much Springsteen, but a deserving nod to his spirited E Street Band. Finally, we got to a beat-up and perfect tribute to Nirvana, with its rainshadowy songs sung by a crew of women musicians from Joan Jett (right on the money) to a stage flopping Kim Gordon in a great dress & shiny boots, oz-haired Annie Clark, and closing with pink suited New Zealander, Lorde.
Go out any where now, I dare you — cityscape, small town, village, pathway, dirt road byway, alley, bike path, motorboat, jet ski, swimming wharf, canoe, park bench, work field, train car, train rail, train yard, foyer, hallway, elevator, stairway, windowsill, schoolyard, parking lot, driveway, grass levee, and you're likely to see, now or one day soon, the people and presence of everything said and sung in this song.
I can't imagine anyone singing this song as well as Jim Ringer.
Born 29 February 1936, Yell County, Arkansas, USA, d. 17
March 1992, California, USA. In the mid-40s Ringer’s family fled the
poverty-wracked Ozarks in hope of a better life elsewhere. After a brief
stay in Oklahoma, the family settled in Clovis, California. From his
parents, Ringer learned folk songs and traditional music. By this time
he could play guitar and he also sang. In his teenage years Ringer
drifted, got into trouble with the law, and later married, had two
children and then separated from his wife. He played and sang folk and
bluegrass, working in bars around Berkeley and Fresno and he also toured
for a period with an ad hoc folk band. He then settled into a job at
Sweet’s Mill, a folk music camp near Fresno, California, where he was
with Kenny Hall And The Sweet’s Mill String Band. This was in the early
70s, which is when he also made his recording debut with both Hall’s
band and under his own name. Also at this time, he signed with Philo
Records and met singer-guitarist-songwriter Mary McCaslin. From the
mid-70s, Ringer and McCaslin worked together, she was also a Philo
recording artist, and they married in 1978.
Among
songs Ringer composed are ‘Waitin’ For The Hard Times To Go’, which has
been recorded by the Nashville Bluegrass Band, ‘Open Door At Home’,
‘Good To Get Home’, ‘Rachel’, ‘Tramps And Hawkers’, the latter recorded
by Tom Russell, ‘The Band Of Jesse James’, ‘Dusty Desert Wind’, ‘Tulsa’,
‘Linda’s On Her Own’, ‘Still Got That Look’, ‘Any Old Wind’ and ‘Rank
Stranger’. In the early 80s, Ringer switched labels but although his
first release for Flying Fish Records gained cult status his career was
undergoing a difficult time. So too was his marriage and by the end of
the decade he and McCaslin had separated. Ringer’s health was poor and
he had a serious problem with alcohol. After the divorce, he returned to
Fresno, apparently making no more appearances during the last few years
of his life, although he did compose at least one song during this
period, ‘If I Don’t Miss You’, which McCaslin would later record.
EDITOR On page 84 of Bobby Byrd's new book of poems Otherwise, My Life Is Ordinary I notice while reading a poem about George Bush that Bobby spells the name of Katharine Hepburn as "Kathyrn Hepburn" — he does it not once, but twice I say to myself, "Now what's going on here?" I'm sure but I google anyway because I can and sure enough I'm right and Bobby is wrong but I don't plan to say a word to him or else he'll think I think his book is wrong and all this book is is right [ BA ]
The great storms are behind you now. Back then you never asked why you were or where you came from, where you were going, you were simply a part of the storm, the fire. But it's possible to live in the everyday as well, the quiet gray day, to plant potatoes, rake leaves, or haul brush. There's so much to think about here in this world, one life's not enough. After work you can roast pork and read Chinese poetry. Old Laertes cleared brambles and hoed around his fig trees, and let the heroes battle it out at Troy.
Erratic Boulder
What an extraordinary place to settle on, on a ledge, poised on the brink. Don't you value your own success?
Let Me Be Like the Dung Beetle
Sorrow has settled over me and weighs me down in a warm straw bed. Let me at least move, test my strength, lift this slab of sod — let me be like the dung beetle in spring when it digs itself out from the dung heap.
Poem
If you can make a poem a farmer finds useful, you should be happy. A blacksmith you can never figure out. The worst to please is a carpenter.
This Is the Dream
This is the dream we carry through the world that something fantastic will happen that it has to happen that time will open by itself that doors shall open by themselves that the heart will find itself open that mountain springs will jump up that the dream will open by itself that we one early morning will slip into a harbor that we have never known. [RB]
Not By Car, Not By Plane
Not by car, not by plane — by neither haysled nor rickety cart — or even by Elijah's chariot! You'll never get farther than Basho. He got there by foot.
Animal Grave
Just a hollow in the ground now, sunk down, stones have covered it over, earth and leaves have filled it in. You pause a moment, it's hardly worth noticing, a deer hoof would barely trip over it — not now.
Mountains Don't Attract Me Anymore
The mountains don't attract me anymore. I've lived long enough between cold snowfields. I will find my way in the woods, listen to fall wind, and stop at the frozen ponds, engage with streams. Even late in the year you can find good berries there. You have to cross mountains if that's not enough. Peaks stand there, so you know where you are.
[RB]
How Long Did You Sleep?
Dare you do this — open your eyes and look around? Yes, you're here here in this world, you're not dreaming, it's just as you see it, things here are like this. Like this? Yes, just like this, not otherwise. How long did you sleep?
I Pass the Arctic Circle
A man on the train points out the cairn on the mountain. We're passing the Arctic Circle, he says. At first we don't see any difference, to the north the land looks the same, but we know where we're headed. I wouldn't have noticed this little event if I hadn't, one of these days, passed seventy.
______________________________
OLAV H. HAUGE (Norway 1904~1994)
The Dream We Carry
selected and Last Poems translated by Robert Bly and Robert Hedin Copper Canyon Press 2008
All translations above by Robert Hedin except where noted "RB" [Robert Bly]
But where are the snows of yester-year?— François Villon
Let's talk a moment about this last long winter. There are a few things to be said. I was recently in attendance at an early morning book sale in a small Vermont town. Geraniums nodding out in the front of the building with the sun, not selling and maybe too expensive, but it was a plant sale nonetheless and the mainly elderly women who were working well at it had modest hopes everything would go well. If I wanted to contribute to that thought, I was welcome. But how long was the winter we had all just passed through? I heard it spelled out by three old women talking as they rustled books for the sale onto a table with one already lamenting, "I have so little time to read. When do you both have the time?" One woman stayed silent while the other jumped on her high horse. "My goodness, after this past winter and how looonngg it was, it was the perfect time to read books. And I did. Plenty!" That pretty much buttoned up and nailed down the thought, constant on the country dweller's mind, of 'where is the time?' The New York Times, and our governor, tell us that there is so much time and so much boredom and so much unemployment in the back hills of Vermont that the only remedy amongst the constituents is to get yourself addicted to heroin. Forget books. Trees. Cows. Fields. Mountains and rivers without end. Become a junkie. Our old ladies weren't part of this. That was another Vermont. But it could easily be their neighbors. By the way, where are the young women, never mind the young men and the young people in general at these plant and book sales? Are there no longer mothers and grandmothers nabbing their grandchildren by the ear lobes and dragging them at the crack of dawn to work over these grand socialist community events? Books for a dollar or so, plants all bright and rain revived, packed into the school where they went to school. It all seems part and parcel to how one should grow up. Assist where you have been. Assist what once assisted you. For a short piece of our long winter we did watch, like clockwork, each Sunday, our fill of cherry pie "Downton Abbey". We enjoyed it while watching, and even talked it up after each episode with two neighbors we would meet on our daily hikes in the woods along the river, but overall this past year's series was uneventful. Forgettable. Dry toast. No pie. Which then got us hooked into the legend of "Game of Thrones." One should have an opposite of the Downton cycle just for measuring the imagination and the mind, keep the juices flowing, enjoy some spunk. Not quite resorting to pornography, however "Game of Thrones" almost is. I like the dwarf Tyrion (the most expressive face) and I like the Hound (another face) and I didn't like at all Ned Stark losing his head since he remains the only champion in all the lot, but then there's Jamie, who is cute (until he cut off all his hair) and it doesn't seem to matter that he had his good sword hand chopped off — remember, he's cute. And how in the world I returned to even having any care for the guy after he pushed the little kid out of the tower window — yes, yes, I realize Jamie was in the throes of sexual orgasm with his sister when the little kid stuck his face into the room, but still, a little kid? pushing him to his death? Except the kid didn't die since we're in a fantasy, and in a fantasy you can get away with any damn thing you please. It isn't a book sale where 50% of the books are junk and heading to the dump. The real life dump. I also like the very tall and noble and hair cropped blond knight in shining armor who I've never paid attention to get the name of. For me she's the-tall-tall-woman-good-with-a-sword. Who bonded with Jamie, and she's the next best thing to Ned Stark when it comes to honor and grace. She better not lose her head.
Today honor loses its head. We fail to realize and understand that we are, often against our best intentions, becoming the very worst of our abilities because of the company we keep. The company that has been given to us. The company we have accepted. The company we've even rejected. The company we have become. Be careful when watching any t.v. And the very best portion of a book is you can talk back to the book, close it up and put it down and take a walk, there's a reflective depth and quiet between you both as you make your rounds. You know the book is set on the table waiting for you to return. You can see it. There is a still life resonance. A book on a screen is just another t.v. Try to make your encounters reciprocal. Nice try creators of the fine film "Her" — but a girl in the hand isn't better than one in the bush. As Sweetheart says about "Game of Thrones" television creators — not to be confused with the old fart in New Mexico stirring up in his cauldron the big, fat books the television show pulls its magic from — "It's 20 and 30 year olds writing this stuff, any thing goes." Yes, while another Spring has come.
The longer he is gone and the longer we have to endure film critics who have none of the independence and verve of a Manny Farber, the longer we miss his good eye and writing and the longer we return to his books. I like to find mine as I go along, adding them to my short shelf Manny Farber library.
Negative Space Manny Farber on the Movies
expanded edition
Da Capo Press 1998
These long cool days at the end of spring begin with a soundless blaze at sunrise above the distant rim of the valley all day clouds gather and clear again as I remember other cold springtimes here through the coming and going of years the losses the changes the long love come to at last with the river down there flowing through it all under the clear moment that never changed in all that time not asking for anything still the wren sings and the oriole remembers and every evening now a black kite glides low overhead coming from the upland alone not climbing the thermals not hunting not calling not busy about anything wings and tail scarcely moving as he slips out above the open valley filled with the long gold light before sunset sailing into it only to be there
________________________
W.S. Merwin The Moon Before Morning Copper Canyon Press, 2014
Speck
Single the sky, pulled taut above earth single the sky, above water. Bound to bark and leaves. You are solo. Blended into paint and forced into color the song of a man in his bed at dusk the sparrows lighting outside his window. ________________ Peter Gizzi In Defense of Nothing Selected Poems 1987-2011 Wesleyan, 2014
A poem (or more) will be offered by the hour or with the day and at the very least once a week. So stay on your webbed toes. The aim is to share good hearty-to-eat poetry. This is a birdhouse size file from the larger Longhouse which has been publishing from backwoods Vermont since 1971 books, hundreds of foldout booklets, postcards, sheafs, CD, landscape art, street readings, web publication, and notes left for the milkman. Established by Bob & Susan Arnold for your pleasure. The poems, essays, films & photographs on this site are copyrighted and may not be reproduced without the author's go-ahead.
New from Bob Arnold ~ "Faraway Like The Deer's Eye" ~ Bob Arnold Faraway Like the Deer’s Eye — A Saga — FOUR BOOKS IN ONE VOLUME ~ A Poet’s Memoir // 50 Years of Longhouse & Poets // A Builder’s Life, with photo assembly // The Selected Poems of Bob Arnold // An afterword by Andrew Schelling
Longhouse Bibliography Quick Link —
Link to the Birdhouse Bibliography
Read about Longhouse (a press edited by Bob Arnold) ~
"Poets Who Sleep" by Bob Arnold, Longhouse 2019. Please link on image for ordering information.
Link to a Preview of Poets Who Sleep
Shared at "Dispatches from the Poetry Wars"
Heaven Lake by Bob Arnold
Available from Longhouse. Please link on the image for ordering information.
The Woodcutter Talks by Bob Arnold
Available from Longhouse. Please link on the image for ordering information. Drawing from years of poetry and also new poems, The Woodcutter Talks is Bob Arnold at his finest branching love poems with back country work poems and settlement with community, family and individual portraits. The extensive collection also showcases vintage photographs from woodcutters and woodchoppers and big-saw-pullers of old. Sweat runs down the cheeks of the mere literary and they adore one another.
Stone Hut by Bob Arnold
"Once again, my friends, this is your best book! Exquisite in design, fat enough to be a feast, pretty enough to just wade around in, but deep enough to dive into and stay with, all I can say is WOW, you guys really did it – it’s the first of its kind, a scrapbook novel that is also a how-to and a mystery -- how did he do it, and how does he make rocks balance like Thor? — Gerald Hausman" ~
Museum, An Unlikely Meditation, written by the poet Bob Arnold, is as much an unlikely novel. Visit this page for details.
Cid Corman's Of, Volumes 4 & 5 from Longhouse.
ANNOUNCING. The final volumes to Corman's opus in one book ~ of, volumes 4 & by Cid Corman. 1500 poems, 850 pages edited by Bob Arnold, now available in a limited edition from Longhouse, 2015. Please link on the cover image for details & Paypal payment information ~
'Fully a book ~
An interview with Bob Arnold on Cid Corman’s ‘of’
Janina by Janine Pommy Vega
New and available now from Longhouse ~ Janine Pommy Vega Janina Visions, Tales & Lovesongs 288 pages perfect bound packed with poems and photographs. Janine's full course album of photographs, travel journals, poems, facsimile notebooks of poems, childhood photographs, and family, Beat family, plus her unfinished memoir of Jerusalem.
Walking Woman with the Tambourine is the final book of poems by Janine Pommy Vega.
"Walking Woman with the Tambourine is the final book of poems by Janine Pommy Vega. The author completed the manuscript and left it as she wished with her executor Bob Arnold … New and available now from Longhouse ~ Poetry. 144 pages. Perfect bound softcover. Please link on the image for ordering information
New! James Koller : Selected Poems 2003-2004-2005
James Koller — Selected Poems 2003-2004-2005 Longhouse 2016, 72 pages, perfect bound. Please link on the cover image for details & Paypal payment information PLUS more from Longhouse
OPENINGS by JAMES KOLLER
Selected poems 1959 ~ 1985 edited by Bob Arnold. New and available now from Longhouse ~ 72 pages . Perfect bound softcover. Please link on the cover image for details & Paypal payment information PLUS more from Longhouse
Lorine Niedecker's A Cooking Book
A Cooking Book Lorine Niedecker Longhouse 2015 72 pages, perfect bound. Please link on the image to purchase this new title from Longhouse.
Kent Johnson's "I Once Met"
Available once again now in 2022! $25 plus shippingVisit the Birdhouse for Kent's book information :
JD Whitney's Selected Poems
J.D. Whitney ~Sweeping the Broom Shorter Selected Poems 1964-2014 from ~ Longhouse 2014. 192 pages. Please link on the cover image for details & Paypal payment information PLUS more from Longhouse
New! from Longhouse ~ Island Dreams by Gerald Hausman Please link for details & Paypal payment
ISLAND DREAMS by GERALD HAUSMAN Selected Poems 1968 ~ 2015 chosen & edited by Bob Arnold New and available now from Longhouse ~ 160 pages Perfect bound softcover. Please link on the cover image for details & Paypal payment information PLUS more from Longhouse
John Bradley's "And Thereby Everything"
L O N G H O U S E is very proud to announce a new book by John Bradley in their on going series of S C O U T book publications — other titles from the series have been by Kent Johnson, Janine Pommy Vega, James Koller, Bob Arnold and Lorine Niedecker with more in the works. An opening salvo at the front of the book by Patrick Lawler should provide ample cover for what the reader should come to expect. And Thereby Everything John Bradley Longhouse 2015 First edition only issued in softcover 208 pages, perfect bound illustrated throughout by Bob Arnold with 150 photographs
Dudley Laufman : Bull & More Bull
Visit this page for information on this new Longhouse by Dudley Kaufman (2016)
Dudley Laufman's Islandian Poems
The Islandian Poems & Fables Dudley Laufman Longhouse 2015. 72 pages, perfect bound. Please link on the image to purchase this new title from Longhouse.
MIRZA ABD AL-QADER BIDEL / ROBIN MAGOWAN ~
New from Longhouse. Please click on the image
New from Longouse ~ Robin Magowan
New from Longhouse. Robin Magowan. The Garden of Amazement, Scattered Gems After Sâeb. large softcover glossy bound with an introduction by the translator, 112 pages
Duo by Bob Arnold — New from Longhouse Please link to A Longhouse Birdhouse for more information
DUO Bird Poems by BOB ARNOLD. New and available now from Longhouse ~ 92 pages. Perfect bound softcover. Please link on the cover image for details & Paypal payment information PLUS more from Longhouse
Start With The Tree by Bob Arnold
New in 2015. Building a marriage, building a family, building a small barn out in the woodlands together as a family, as a marriage, and seeing the roof go on. Over 150 color photographs
Beautiful Days by Bob Arnold
Beautiful Days ~ new poems of living and working in the Vermont woodlands and to Hurricane Irene
Yokel by Bob Arnold
[from "Yokel, A Long Green Mountain Poem" by Bob Arnold] ~ that and more at Bob Arnold webpage of books & poems: Please link on this image for more
Go West by Bob Arnold
Filled with poems and travel photography — shares one cross-country trip the couple took in the mid-1980s to California from Vermont.
"I'm In Love With You Who Is In Love With Me" by Bob Arnold
from Bob Arnold's new book "I'm In Love With You Who Is In Love With Me" ~~~~~~~40 years of love poems
"Rain Bear" by Bob Arnold
Bob Arnold's first children's book "Rain Bear" New and available now from Longhouse ~ 50 pages. Perfect bound softcover with photographs ~ & drawings by Jason Clark
"Heretic" by John Phillips from Longhouse
New from Longhouse ~ John Phillips "Heretic". Poems with collages by the author. Click on the image for more ~
Kim Dorman — "Owner"
"Owner" by Kim Dorman. Including photographs by Kim Dorman. Selected and edited by Bob Arnold. New and available now from Longhouse 2016 ~ 80 pages. Perfect bound softcover
