BRUSHED ASIDE ~

 

R E A D    M E

Rowman & Littlefield

2023

YAEL DAYAN ~

 

YAEL  DAYAN

    1939 ~ 2024

BOOKS THAT LIVE (NORTON) `

 

N O R T O N

    Norton 2023

THE BLACK BOX ~

 

R E A D     M E

     Penguin Books

     2024

NEW YORKER DRAWINGS POEMS ~

 

_______________________________

Before I started writing and living poetry, which was about the same time I was studying judo, there was that time I picked up my father's pen, who was drawing out blueprints for construction jobs he was planning at the dining room table where we were both stationed, and in his dawdle away from the serious work, he would show me one more cartoon sketch he'd come up with, and I'd try to copy the flair and humor he had caught. I'm still drawing (see my book Poets Who Sleep), the judo outfit was worn into tatters, but the poetry is here every day. . .even if I see that most American poetry has expanded into a business, polemics and babbling, we still have those drawing cartoons, or what my weekly New Yorker subscription terms "Drawings." When I was a judo-boy at my local Boys' Club, which naturally took me to Japan, funny how it works — it also landed me more into the soft hidden nest of poetry and haiku, which is where I see the very best of the New Yorker drawings, these blessed cartoonists. I've been reading the magazine for now 50 years. Slipping past most of what is called poetry, never mind the short stories (I like to read books and wait to read Thomas McGuane and Alice Munro there) and gloriously catch myself in the flytrap of the cartoons. The best anywhere. I'm not sure if I have all the artists names right since I can barely read their haiku modest signatures, but I believe the three drawings I am showing here are by Andy Friedman, Harry Bliss, and Roland High. Poets if there ever were three.

[ BA ]

Harry Bliss

Roland High

Andy Friedman

The New Yorker

May 27, 2024

THE OTHER SIDE ~

 

R E A D    M E

     Pegasus Books

     2024

THE LIFE OF TU FU ~

 

R E A D   M E

    New Directions, 2024

SEDUCED BY STORY ~

 R E A D     M E

New York Review of Books

AMERICAN BEAUTY ~

 

B I L L   W A L T O N

1952 ~ 2024

SPIDER JOHN KOERNER ~

 

SPIDER  JOHN  KOERNER

Aug. 31, 1938 ~ May 25, 2024

JEWELL GOSPEL TRIO ~

 

SWAN SILVERTONES ~

 

NOTES FROM THE HENHOUSE ~

 

E L S P E T H    B A R K E R

R E A D   M E

  Scribner 2024

HURRICANE ~

 

   May 24, 1941

GEORGE CARLIN / LANGUAGE ~

 

George Carlin speech at the National Press Club (May 13, 1999)

THE INTERNET CON ~

 

R E A D    M E

   Verso, 2023

TOMASZ ROZYCKI ~

 

75. The Warmest Place

If spring falls short, then be the spring yourself —

you hold abundant light inside, enough to give warmth

to whatever's within reach and even what's in view:

chair midriff, door slab, icicle knob, room.

Who cares if the Baltic is frozen — a Swedish arctic fox

has found a way across the page of ice to write

a runic greeting on the snow in yellow ink

below the lamppost. The coldest place at home

is the radiator's hip, the thermal plant having closed

long ago, and it's pointless to pin your hopes

on spring. Besides you hold within yourself,

enough fire to make the covers melt right off

and thaw the district to a mile radius,

plus a fair depth, and four more dimension besides.

Just for good measure. For starters. Be springtime,

the grass' green flame, its blood, be April, be sun.

92. Never

Never have I found you more beautiful than now.

Look — we're being hunted, yet still we walk around.

In front of us a road in the dust, a lively sea.

A life that turned out as I dreamed it would be.

_____________________

To the Letter

Tomasz Rozycki

translated from the Polish by Mira Rosenthal

Archipelago Books, 2023

PULL MY DAISY (1959) ~

 

P U L L    M Y    D A I S Y

Jack Kerouac provided improvised narration. It features poets Allen Ginsberg, Peter Orlovsky and Gregory Corso, artists Larry Rivers and Alice Neel, musician David Amram, art dealer Richard Bellamy, Delphine Seyrig, dancer^[3] Sally Gross, and Pablo Frank, Robert Frank's son.

World Library of Folk and Primitive Music, Vol.17 - Romania (Alan Lomax) ~

 

MURAL ~

Wait til I pack my bag Death

my toothbrush soap after-shave and some clothes

Is the climate warm over there?

Do the seasons change in the eternal whiteness?

Or does the weather stay fixed in autumn or winter?

Will one book be enough to read in non-time?

Or should I take a library?

And what do they talk over there?

vernacular or classical?

__________________________

from MURAL

translated by John Berger & Rema Hammami

Verso, 2024

Mahmoud Darwish was the unofficial laureate of Palestine.

Darwish's poetry is an epic effort to transform the lyrics

of loss into the indefinitely postponed drama of return

EDWARD SAID