HAPPY ENDING ~

 R E A D     M E

THIS LAND IS YOUR LAND ~

There are many books about Woody Guthrie,

 including the masterpiece Guthrie wrote himself

Bound For Glory

and this book by noted music historian Santelli

is as good as it gets regarding Woody Guthrie,

his associates, travels, time period, including

Guthrie's celebrated song

"This Land Is Your Land."

Somehow Santelli takes the reader

right up to the song's door.

[BA]

KARL OVE KNAUSGAARD ~

'In Sweden, where I live, war has not been waged since the seventeenth century, that is since the time of 

Montaigne, Cervantes, Shakespeare."

KARL OVE KNAUSGAARD

Americans can swish that sentence around in their heads for a moment.

THE WORLD ON A PERFECT DAY ~

Family

Try to get three berries

Off one stem at rest stop

As three of us

July In The Sun

We pick blueberries this way —

I wear jeans and t-shirt

you wear a pretty dress

the rest is easy

We

I wanted the

Longest kiss —

So we began

The World On A Perfect Day

All day it rains a steady rain

We can’t work in the gardens and fields

We hear the birds while we wait for the rain to end

The rain never ends

We watch the rain in the trees

We are surrounded by woods

We make love at lunch

————————————

BOB ARNOLD

I'm In Love With You

Who Is In Love With Me

Longhouse 2012

AFTERLIFE ~

R E A D     M E





Every one 
of the book blurbs
on this book
are 
dead-on
and to be
believed

THOMAS JAMES ~

T H O M A S     J A M E S

by

Lucie Brock-Broido

TOGETHER STILL ~

R E A D      M E

Seagull Books 2017

DO YOU HAVE A BAND? ~

M O R E !

JAMES WRIGHT ~

Farrar, Straus Giroux 2017

JAMES WRIGHT      HORSE      ROBERT BLY

ANGELA EASTERLING ~

THE FORCE ~

Unfortunately Don Winslow, while still a crime writing force,

seems to be writing more for the big screen rather than

a great book read. Read his The Cartel, where the first

100 pages of an engrossing tale will hold your

feet to the fire, whereas in The Force you

may slog for the first 100 pages

enduring a main character

that seems cut right

out of one played

by Josh Brolin

in the

film

American Gangster.

Fine in the film.

Tedious here.

But it picks up by about page 200

in a book that goes over 400 pages.

If you're a crime writer fan, you'll hang in there.

Expect a movie.

[BA]

Morrow 2017

UP THE TRAIL ~

Up The Trail

I could see the hawk fly off

Through the trees but you didn’t —

So I felt like I didn’t

The Way

I can’t tell

If it’s fighting

Or love the way

The two songbirds

Shoot upward

Wings threshing

Flying way high

Into the snow

Falling as tail-

Feathers unfold

Into one fan

Baker

Kitchen spotless —

But flour

On her lips

While Deep Snow

Falls In The

North Woods

clear

clean

tea

cups

in

the

kit

chen

Sure

The cat hides away all

Day asleep and thinks nothing

Of coming out and wanting a kiss

————————————

BOB ARNOLD

I'm In Love With You

Who Is In Love With Me

Longhouse 2012

FAY CHIANG ~

F A Y      C H I A N G

~

L I S T E N !

BALLAD OF A CARPENTER ~

THOMAS BERNHARD ~

My Great-Grandfather Was A Lard Merchant




My great-grandfather was a lard merchant,

and today

some still recall him

between Henndorf and Thalgan,

Seekirchen and Kostendorf,

and they hear his voice

and draw

together at his table,

which was also the table of gentlemen.

1881, in the spring,

he made up his mind for life: he planted

grape vines along a wall outside the house

and called the beggars together;

his wife, Maria, the one with the black ribbon,

gave him a further thousand years.

He invented the music of pigs

and the fire of bitterness,

he spoke of the wind

and of the wedding of the dead.

He would give me not one slice of speck

for my despair.




——————————————

Thomas Bernhard
translated by James Reidel
COLLECTED POEMS
Seagull Books 2017

NEVER GONE ~

ERNEST HEMINGWAY ~

There are now a number of fine biographies now circulating

all written by women

and each one a powerful contribution

to the world of letters —

Bannos on Vivian Maier, Herrera on Noguchi,

and now Mary Dearborn on Hemingway

possibly the finest single volume biography

of Ernest Hemingway to date.

It may be because it takes a woman to see straight through a man.

And for the first time, we may finally have a balanced eye and report

as to the lives and struggle of "Papa's"

four wives.

[BA]

T-MODEL FORD ~

MIRIAM ~

ISRAFEL ~