Wednesday, May 21, 2014
W.S. MERWIN, PETER GIZZI ~
A Black Kite
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
Tuesday, May 20, 2014
POSTCARD 39 ~
Photograph: Anonyme
According to the liner notes of his first (self-titled) album, musician Bob Dylan dedicated the first song he ever wrote to Bardot.
HEY NEIGHBOR ~
Here we have 250 letters between two poet friends
~ 1973 to 2013 ~
spanning from the Sierra Foothills to a Kentucky hillside farm
Distant Neighbors
The selected letters of
Wendell Berry & Gary Snyder
edited by Chad Wriglesworth
Counterpoint 2014
Monday, May 19, 2014
THE BLOUSE ~
The Blouse
The sound of waves came in at the open door; the smell of the sea
and of the sun-warmed earth came in too. It was expected that very
soon death would enter. A row of women sat outside the hut--they
were waiting to mourn and howl when death came.
The huddle of bones and withered skin on the mattress inside the
hut knew death was coming. Although the woman was childless and
had no husband, she knew that the women of her tribe would make
sorrow-noise for her when death came.
The eyes of the dying woman were glassy and half closed. I knelt
beside her and put my hand over her cold bony one. My blouse touched
her and she opened her eyes wide. Turning her hand, she feebly
clutched the silk of my sleeve.
"Is there something you want, Mary?"
"Good," she whispered, still clutching the sleeve.
I thought that she was dead, holding my sleeve in a death grip.
One of the women came in and tried to free me. Mary's eyes opened
and she spoke in Indian.
"Mary wants your blouse," said the stooping woman to me.
"Wants my blouse?"
"Uh huh--wants for grave."
"To be buried in?"
"No, for grave-house."
I understood. Mary had not many things now but she had been important
once. They would build a little wooden room with a show window in
it over her grave. Here they would display her few poor possessions,
the few hoarded trifles of her strong days. My blouse would be an
addition.
The dying woman's eyes were on my face.
I scrambled out of the blouse and into my jacket. I laid the blouse
across Mary. She died with her hands upon it.
____________
Emily Carr
Klee Wyck
the artist and author's first book, published in 1941
Douglas & McIntyre, 2003
Sunday, May 18, 2014
Saturday, May 17, 2014
DISCREET ~
"I was trying to make a piece that could be listened to and yet could be ignored."
BRIAN ENO
"In January this year (1975) I had an accident. I was not seriously hurt, but I was confined to bed in a stiff and static position. My friend Judy Nylon visited me and brought me a record of 18th century harp music. After she had gone, and with some considerable difficulty, I put on the record. Having laid down, I realized that the amplifier was set at an extremely low level, and that one channel of the stereo had failed completely. Since I hadn't the energy to get up and improve matters, the record played on almost inaudibly. This presented what was for me a new way of hearing music — as part of the ambience of the environment just as the colour of the light and the sound of the rain were parts of the ambience. It is for this reason that I suggested listening to the piece at comparatively low levels, even to the extent that it frequently falls below the threshold of audibility."
BRIAN ENO
Discreet Music ~ Brian Eno
Obscure Records 1975
Obscure Records 1975
Friday, May 16, 2014
Thursday, May 15, 2014
TUCKED IN ~
Here's a little treasure we are tucking into mail and book order shipments from time to time —
no charge, on the whim, by the day, no requests, you already deserve it
no charge, on the whim, by the day, no requests, you already deserve it
john martone
"nest"
dogwood & honeysuckle
illinois, 2000
STONER ~
This excellent essay by Steve Almond:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/11/magazine/you-should-seriously-read-stoner-right-now.html?ref=books
and
http://libinfo.uark.edu/specialcollections/findingaids/williamsje.html
Stoner
John Williams
New York Review of Books Classics, 2003
Viking Press, 1965
and
http://libinfo.uark.edu/specialcollections/findingaids/williamsje.html
Stoner
John Williams
New York Review of Books Classics, 2003
Viking Press, 1965
THE DYLANOLOGISTS ~
FAN
"You don't know who I am, but I know who you are."
BOB DYLAN
"Let's keep it that way."
A curiously thin volume under 250 pages that balances between a well wrought biography of the
musician — and the freaks, crazies and devoted who make him their own.
David Kinney
The Dylanologists
Adventures in the Land of Bob
Adventures in the Land of Bob
Simon & Schuster 2014
Wednesday, May 14, 2014
YUSEF KOMUNYAKAA ~
No-Good Blues
1
I try to hide in Proust,
Mallarme, & Camus,
but the no-good blues
come looking for me. Yeah,
come sliding in like good love
on a tongue of grease & sham,
built up from the ground.
I used to think a super-8 gearbox
did the job, that a five-hundred-dollar suit
would keep me out of Robert Johnson's
shoes. I rhyme Baudelaire
with Apollinaire, hurting
to get beyond crossroads & goofer
dust, outrunning a twelve-bar
pulsebeat. But I pick up
a hitchhiker outside Jackson.
Tasseled boots & skin-tight
jeans. You know the rest.
2
I spend winter days
with Monet, seduced
by his light. But the no-good
blues come looking for me.
It takes at least a year
to erase a scar
on a man's heart. I come home nights
drunk, the couple next door
to keep me company, their voices
undulating through my bedroom wall.
One evening I turn a corner
& step inside Bearden's Uptown Sunday Night Session. Faces
Armstrong blew from his horn
still hang around the Royal Gardens—all
in a few strokes, & she suddenly leans out of
a candy-apple green door & says,
Are you from Tougaloo?
3
At the Napoleon House
Beethoven's Fifth draws shadows
from the walls, & the no-good blues
come looking for me. She's here,
her left hand on my knee.
I notice a big sign
across the street that says
The Slave Exchange.
She scoots her chair closer.
I can't see betrayal
& arsenic in Napoleon's hair—
they wanted their dying emperor
under the Crescent City's
Double Scorpio. But nothing
can subdue these African voices
between the building's false floors,
this secret song from the soil
left hidden under my skin.
4
Working swing shift at McGraw-
Edison, I shoot screws
into cooler cabinets as if I were born
to do it. But the no-good blues come
looking for me. She's from Veracruz,
& never wears dead colors of the factory,
still in Frida Kahlo's world of monkeys.
She's a bird in the caged air.
The machines are bolted down
to the concrete floor,
everything moves with the same big
rhythm Mingus could get out of
a group. Humming the syncopation
of punch presses & conveyor belts,
work grows into our dance
when the foreman
hits the speed-up button
for a one-dollar bonus.
5
My hands are white
with chalk at The Emporium
in Colorado Springs, but the no-good
blues come looking for me. I miscue
when I look up & see sunlight
slanting through her dress
at the back door. That shot
costs me fifty bucks.
I let the stick glide along the V
of two fingers, knowing men who
wager their first born to conquer
snowy roller coasters & myths.
I look up, just when
the faith drains out of
my right hand. It isn't
a loose rack. But more like—
well, I know I'm in trouble
when she sinks her first ball.
6
I'm cornered at Birdland
like a two-headed man hexing
himself. But the no-good blues
coming looking for me. A prayer
holds me in place,
balancing this sequined
constellation. I've hopped boxcars
& thirteen state lines to where
she stands like Ma Rainey.
Gold tooth & satin. Rotgut
& God Almighty. Moonlight
wrestling a Texas-jack.
A meteor of desire burns
my last plea to ash. Blues
don't care how many tribulations
you lay at my feet, I'll go
with you if you promise
to bring me home to Mercy.
___________________
Yusef Komunyakaa
Testimony
a tribute to Charlie Parker
with new and selected jazz poems
(Wesleyan 2013)
Tuesday, May 13, 2014
SUGARING ~
Short poems by Bob Arnold that hike around the sugar bush
with accompanied drawings by Jason Clark
$12.00
plus $2.50 shipping & handling
Buy now through easy-to-use Paypal
also:
http://vtartists.com/JWClark/
Monday, May 12, 2014
Sunday, May 11, 2014
HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY ~
A leopard cub plays with its mother in the Masai Mara, Kenya. The cub
was spotted calling for its mother after getting stuck at the top of a
tree. British photographer Margot Raggett took the picture while on
safari there.
A swallow feeds its babies in their nest under the ceiling of a
residential house in Dongfeng township of Guiyang, Guizhou province,
China.
Photograph: Stringer/Reuters
Crocus flowers bloom on the slopes of Alp Zavragia in the Swiss canton of Grisons, Switzerland.
Photograph: Arno Balzarini/EPA
from The Guardian UK
Photograph: Arno Balzarini/EPA
from The Guardian UK
Saturday, May 10, 2014
Friday, May 9, 2014
ONCE MORE, THE LOWDOWN ~
The Lowdown
edited by Robert M. Zoschke
Street Corner Press
PO Box 38
Ellison Bay, WI. 54210
One more year is greeted come spring by Robert Zoschke's cornucopia eye and arms surrounding poets and artists and a life he must embrace by making one more anthology. The poets and writers involved are too many to list. There is a center showpiece all sweet home Chicago. Colorful swinging heart paintings, touches of other art, retrospectives and tributes, all for the sake of the song. Here's the cover, here's the back cover. The rest is up to you.
TOOLS ~
Popular Woodworking Books
www.popuarwoodworking.com
Lost Art Press, 2013
lostartpress.com
Here are two attractive books of functioning elegance — how to dream and how to put those dreams through grit, mud, sharpness, and shavings — making it smooth.
Understanding the weight of the hand, the weight of a tool.
Thursday, May 8, 2014
RUSSELL EDSON ~
Russell Edson
1935 ~ 2014
The poetry reading by Russell Edson, almost 10 years ago, might have been the finest poetry reading I ever turned up at. This formal affair for poetry is for the birds, so showing up and catching an act like Mr. Edson, who looked like he was just showing up, was two-for-one outstanding.
A slight man, a stooped man, a great sort of kidder on the stage, taking nothing about his reading seriously and having for himself a grand old time since the audience was glad to join along with him in taking nothing seriously, so if you know his poems, and prose poems, you can just imagine what sort of delicious madcap cookie was made at this reading.
A slight man, a stooped man, a great sort of kidder on the stage, taking nothing about his reading seriously and having for himself a grand old time since the audience was glad to join along with him in taking nothing seriously, so if you know his poems, and prose poems, you can just imagine what sort of delicious madcap cookie was made at this reading.
First he was nervous and resistant, then he was welcomed by the audience and he welcomed back the audience, then we couldn't get him off the stage.
It helped the reader tremendously that the audience was mainly young men, maybe one or two with a girlfriend, but for the most part it was a male thing and none seemed familiar with Russell Edson's poetry and that fit right into his hands to bring them into his chaos and adventure. It was like watching a child holding a loaded shotgun.
We weren't in a basement, but it looked an awful lot like where The Beatles when they first started out in Liverpool at The Cavern. Dungeon lighting. It could have even been stone escarpment walls, low ceiling, everybody snorting and hooting and naturally enough Edson is rolling out one of his poems about an ape.
You had to be there. We won't be any more.
[ BA ]
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