REMEMERING PEASANTS ~

 

R E A D   M E

Scribner 2024

PESSOA ~

 

The Keeper of Sheep

[  23 July 1930 ]

56

Now that I feel love

I'm interested in things that have a scent.

I never used to be interested in the fact that a flower had scent.

Now I experience the scent of flowers as if life were utterly new.

I know perfectly well that they always had a scent, just as I knew that I existed.

These are things one knows out of habit.

But now I know this from the deep in-breath that comes from way back in my head.

Today the flowers taste good to me on a palate that can also smell.

Sometimes when I wake now, smell comes before sight.

Every day I wake full of joy and sorrow.

I used to wake feeling nothing at all; I simply woke.

I feel joy and sorrow because I lose what I dream

But can still inhabit the reality where my dreams live.

I don't know what to do with my sensations,

I don't know what to do on my own.

I want her to say something, anything, so that I can wake again.

_________________

Fernando Pessoa

The Complete Works of Alberto Caeiro

translated from the Portuquese by

Margaret Jull Costa & Patricio Ferrari 

New Directions, 2020

THE CUES ~

 

TOM BROWN ~

 

T O M   B R O W N

B. Jan. 29, 1950, in Toms River, N.J., ~ 2024

WISDOM~

Pepe Mujica, Uruguay’s sp

A decade ago, the world had a brief fascination with José Mujica. He was the folksy president of Uruguay who had shunned his nation’s presidential palace to live in a tiny tin-roof home with his wife and three-legged dog.

R E A D   M E

IRANIAN WOMEN PHOTOGRAPHERS ~

 

B R E A T H I N G   S P A C E 

Thames & Hudson, 2023

ANDY IRVINE / PAUL BRADY ~

 

FRANCINE PROSE ~ ( 1974 ) ~

 

R E A D   M E

There are three books I've read, and then re-read over the last year — each about the same size (under 300 pages), each with less than attractive book design to its merit — in fact the Prose book, perhaps by accident or intent, appears to have been published in 1974: the book's size, Milton Glasserish design, cheap paper stock, an old Doubleday-feel etc., and all three books are straight-up originals. There is something about being relaxed, even confident, and telling it like it is. With a buoyant style.

If the authors aren't personal friends, they should be.

The Prose is shown above, the other two, not to miss, are below.

      Francine Prose, Harper, 2024

TIA BLAKE ~

 

Paris, France

1972

PHIL DONAHUE ~

 

1935 ~ 2024

MICHAEL ONDAATJE ~

 

November

Where is my dear sixteen-year-old-cat

I wish to carry upstairs in my arms

looking up at me and thinking

be careful, dear human

Sixteen years. How many days since

I found you as if an urchin in a snowstorm

and you moved in assured

learned the territories of the house

and what became your garden

Only now do we see the horizon

where you pushed two or three times

then slipped into

Was it too soon or too late

that last summer of your life

when we watched your walk

down to a river to take a sip

from its ongoing flow

Oh Jack I miss your presence everywhere

in the corners of rooms, in every chair,

or nesting in a cardboard box

Take me back where the past can again enter

those early remembered rooms, our snowbound street,

lift me upside down in your arms, I cannot stand it

I need a journey too. Have I slept my life away,

do I understand anything? Will I wear a bell

like yours into the afterlife where language

no longer exists and we gather only linked sounds

like oars from a passing boat,

                                                 those few syllables

to recall tenderness

You no longer wait for us

All day long, Basho wrote,

A lark sings in the air

Yet he seems to have had

Not quite his fill

_________________________

Michael Ondaatje

A Year of Last Things

Knopf, 2024

For all the kitten cat videos you watched

Now read the best one

STICK McGHEE ~

 

HACKBERRY RAMBLERS ~

 

Arhoolie Records

CHRONICLES OF A VILLAGE ~

 

R E A D    M E

Yale 2024

LIKE LOVE ~

 

R E A D   M E

    Graywolf  2024 

GENA ROWLANDS ~

 

G E N A    R O W L A N D S

June 19, 1930, in Madison, Wis., ~ 2024

NEW! JOHN BRANDI ~

A sheaf of 3 in wrap band

enclosing 40 new haiku poems

& plenty of art work

by the southwest sojourner

______________________________

__________________________________

$ 20 postpaid in the USA

Overseas please add $5

We accept Paypal or we can invoice you

Please use our email address of 

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More ways to order ~ through ABE Books, Alibris and Biblio

Payable by check ~

Longhouse 

PO Box 2454

West Brattleboro, Vermont 05303

KING OF THE DUCKTAIL CATS ~

 

LAWRENCE BUELL ~ HENRY DAVID THOREAU ~

 

Oxford University Press

2024

THE STEVE MILLER BAND ~

 

  Capitol, 1968

  Glyn Johns