BOB ARNOLD "DOE" (ARCHIVE) ~

Donald Hall was the Poetry Editor at Country Journal.

He accepted poems of mine over some years and over the

next few weeks I'll show the magazine and the poems.

My book Yokel will be shown in its entirety starting in

September.

OKLAHOMA HILLS ~

ARLO & JACK ~

EAST TEXAS RED ~

OUR LAND ~

Here is one of the finest paragraphs in the book:
“Berlin and Guthrie shared a midcentury balance of confidence without machismo, a stoicism born of deprivation, a toughness born of struggle, a steadiness that neither sought nor feared difficulty, tempered with a hope and optimism born of having survived hard times. Our patriotic songwriters who have followed them haven’t had that mix.”



R E A D      M E

Public Affairs

2013

LITTLE LABORS ~

L I T T L E     L A B O R S

PYOTR PAVLENSKY ~

“Lighting,” 2017, Paris.

CreditCapucine Henry/Associated Press

PYOTR   PAVLENSKY

“The government’s aim is to suppress or neutralize art, to reduce me to a vandal, a madman, a provocateur,” he told me earlier, “but the criminal case becomes one of the layers of the artwork, the portal through which you enter and see the mechanisms of power exposed.”

 — PAVLENSKY

TELEX ~

GREATEST HITS ~

THE CIVIL WAR (MATMOS) ~

READ ME ~

In Patriarchy No One Can Hear You Scream: Rebecca Solnit on Jeffrey Epstein and the Silencing Machine

DUY DOAN ~

Rickshaw Boy






The man I pulled tonight

carried a load of books.



When I felt him watching

me uphill, I grimaced.



He gave me lunar

cakes the size



of two camel humps.

When I answered him,



I smiled to his face.

He wore the moonlight



in his specs. Pant

seams clean as the embroidery



work of his book covers.

One cannot grow rich



without a bit of cleverness.

Should I have shown



him the secret of my deft

touch? The Circling Moon,



the Graceful Swan? How East

Wind beats West Wind



if other two winds say so?

Snow falls on cedars.






____________________


Duy Doan
We Play A Game
Yale, 2018

EARTHLY SIGNS ~

[ On a second reading

and finding the cloth edition from Yale

I find this an even more powerful reading from Tsvetaeva

as well as a lively translation and revealing

portrait of the Russian poet by Jamey Gambrell ]

BOB ARNOLD (ARCHIVE) ~

MARIE PONSOT ~

MARIE PONSOT

1921-2019

Old Mama Saturday

BY MARIE PONSOT

“Saturday’s child must work for a living.”

“I’m moving from Grief  Street.

Taxes are high here

though the mortgage’s cheap.

The house is well built.

With stuff to protect, that

mattered to me,

the security.

These things that I mind,

you know, aren’t mine.

I mind minding them.

They weigh on my mind.

I don’t mind them well.

I haven’t got the knack

of  kindly minding.

I say Take them back

but you never do.

When I throw them out

it may frighten you

and maybe me too.

                 Maybe

it will empty me

too emptily

and keep me here

asleep, at sea

under the guilt quilt,

under the you tree.”

From Springing: New and Selected Poems by Marie Ponsot, copyright © 2002 by Marie Ponsot. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc. Any third party use of this material, outside of this publication, is prohibited. Interested parties must apply directly to Random House, Inc. for permission.

See more at The Poetry Foundation

MY FAVORITE PICTURE OF YOU ~

LOWRIDER SOUL ~

JOÅO GILBERTO ~

João Gilberto
1931~2019






M O R E !

PAULINE OLIVEROS ~

THE YOUNG HOUSEWIFE ~

The Young Housewife
WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS

At ten A.M. the young housewife

moves about in negligee behind

the wooden walls of her husband's house.

I pass solitary in my car.

Then again she comes to the curb

to call the ice-man, fish-man, and stands

shy, uncorseted, tucking in

stray ends of hair, and I compare her

to a fallen leaf.

The noiseless wheels of my car

rush with a crackling sound over

dried leaves as I bow and pass smiling.

____________________

Long ago

in some school

— all girls

and let's not

get fussy —

I'd say all boys

if it wasn't

all girls

and winter

time

on my

way

to

class

I managed

to find a

leaf

often an oak

and brouht it

into the

classroom

and this went

on for 20

years the same

way asking

one of the

students to stand

on a chair

and hold the leaf

aloft as if her

arm was a

branch and when

I came to the WCW

line comparing

the housewife to

a fallen leaf

I would nod

and the student

would let the

leaf drop from

her hand and

every single

girl saw

what the poet

saw and I

loved that room

those girls

that moment

that leaf

that poet

that poem

and each

year a

different

leaf

[ BA ]