ROCK FLIGHT ~

 

R E A D   M E

      Giramondo Poetry

      New Directions Publishing

STEINBERG, ALL IN LINE ~

R E A D   M E 

    New York Review of Books

    2024

WHEN I GO AWAY (MAVIS STAPLES/LEVON HELM) ~

 

Recorded at Levon Helm Studios June 3rd, 2011

BARBARA DANE ~

 

HOW BIRDS FLY ~

 

R E A D   M E

    Firefly Books

    2024

RON PADGETT ~

from  Pink Dust

          ________________

I shovel a path

from the porch to the truck

and another around the house

to the back door, stopping

to see if I'm one

of those geezers

who have heart attacks

while shoveling snow,

and when I'm finished

I'm not. Look

at all that snow out there

going down the hill

as far as the eye can see.

=

In my sleep I caressed you

and when I woke up

I caressed the memory

of the dream.

I never caressed you

in "real life."

I never even wanted to

though I was close

to liking the idea of caressing you.

If I had caressed you

I would remember it,

which is what I did last night.

=

I almost feel sorry

for the human thumb,

off to the side, alone,

and not looking much like

its four nrothers and sisters—

the real fingers.

They invite the thumb

to help them when they need it,

but otherwise keep their distance.

Just across the way, though,

there's another thumb.

In the old days

the two used to twiddle.

Now they're happy enough

just knowing they're both there.

=

It's satisfying to eat

exactly the right amount

of, say, French toast

and then stop,

for you have just

achieved a moral victory

in the middle

of the flow of time,

and though it slows away,

this victory,

you have its aftertaste,

along with butter

and genuine Vermont maple syrup

from a tree not far down the road.

=

A haiku went up into a tree

and sat there on a limb

it had just made up.

__________________________

Ron Padgett

Pink Dust

New York Review of Books, 2025

AGOTA KRISTOF ~

R E A D   M E 

     New Directions, 2023

NGUGI WA THIONG'O

 

NGUGI WA THIONG'O

Richard Perry

CZESLAW MILOSZ ~

Notebook: Bons By Lake Leman

Red beeches, shining poplars

And steep spruce behind October fog.

In the valley the lake steams. There is snow

Already on the hillsides of the other shore.

Of life, what remains? Only this light

So that the eyes blink in the sunny noon

Of such a season. People say: this is,

And no capacity, no artfulness

Can reach beyond what is.

And memory, useless, loses its power.

Kegs smell of cider. The vicar mixes lime

With a spade in front of the school.

My son runs there on the path. Boys carry

Sacks of chestnuts gathered on the slope.

If I forget thee, Jerusalem,

Says the prophet, let my right hand wither.

Underground tremors shake what is.

Mountains crack and forests break.

Touched by what was and what will be,

All that is crumbles into dust.

Violent, clean, the world is again in ferment

And neither ambition nor memory ceases.

Autumnal skies, the same in childhood,

In adulthood and old age. I won't

Stare at you. And you, landscapes,

Nourishing our hearts with mild warmth,

What poison dwells in you that you seal our lips,

Makes us sit with folded arms and the look

Of sleepy animals? Whoever finds order,

Peace, and an eternal moment in what is

Will vanish without a trace. Do you agree then

To abolish what is, and pluck from movement

The eternal moment as a gleam

On the current of the black river? I do.

— Bons, 1953

____________________________

Czeslaw Milosz

Poet in the New World

Poems, 1946-1953

TRANSLATED BY ROBERT HASS AND DAVID FRICK

Ecco, 2025

I DREAM OF JONI (MITCHELL) ~

 

R E A D   M E

     Gallery Books

      2025

FARID MATUK ~

 

Redolent

I'm alone, I'm told,

And decorated in English script

With eyes available, with no claim to the words

But with flowers on flowers shipped

From Bogota's savanna

Helping me talk as one of a people

With occasions to mark, viscously rolling

About each other, having forgotten

The mannered European flower code,

The local eucalyptus,

Or bright dogs that range at night,

The ground floor of my position

Holds no dictionary or science

That can really name the flowers

I'm not pointing

Because they're so obviously opening

Even then, trying to stop

Being these people

I'm not along saying

Back something like "dark

of flowers" or "stones to swallow"

We're not inside the words

No interviews

____________________

Farid Matuk

Moon Mirrored Indivisible

University of Chicago Press, 2025

MARCEL OPHULS ~

M A R C E L   O P H U L S

1927 ~ 2025

JOHN MONTAGUE ~

  

Windharp

                for Patrick Collins

The sounds of Ireland,

that restless whispering

you never get away

from, seeping out of

low bushes and grass,

heatherbells and fern,

wrinkling bog pools,

scraping tree branches,

light hunting cloud,

sound hounding sight,

a hand ceaselessly and stroking

the landscape, till

the valley gleams

like the pile upon

a mountain pony's coat.

_________________

John Montague

Collected Poems

Wake Forest, 1982

SLIM WILLET TONIGHT ~

 

  1952

KYUNG ME: COPY KITTY ~

 

K Y U N G    M E

    Graphic Novel

MICHAEL ROEMER ~

 

M I C H A E L   R O E M E R

Berlin, 1928 ~ Townshend, Vermont 2025

        Eric Robert/Sygma, via Getty Images

SUSAN BROWNMILLER ~

 

Ms. Brownmiller, center, with Gloria Steinem, left, and Bella Abzug in 1979 speaking about the organization Women Against Pornography. She believed pornography was a major contributor to sexual violence.Credit...Sara Krulwich/The New York Times

S U S A N    B R O W N M I L L E R

Brooklyn on Feb. 15, 1935 ~ NYC May 24, 2025

WANTED MAN ~

 

     Bob Dylan's

     May 24, 1941

     Duluth, MN

THE DOUBLE LIFE OF BOB DYLAN, VOLUME 2 ~

R E A D   M E 

Not "the last word", Bob Dylan will have that —

but after 836 pages of shadowing Dylan for over a

half-century, I read every page, and it was

worth it to almost go blind.

LYN HEJINIAN ~

 

R E A D   M E

     Wesleyan, 2023