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Thought isn't words, not for everybody, but I love work of Ruth Stone. Here's one of her poems:
Always on the Train
Well, okay, and, Thomas Lux:
Render, Render
Always on the Train
Well, okay, and, Thomas Lux:
Render, Render
Poem towards work
Dec. 27th, 2007 09:59 amLiminal Devotional
for omnia secula saeculorum...
Whereupon in service
go you or I, refrained against the light,
the show-through of texts upon the page,
geographies of stanza shape: these hymns
we broadcast in times less bright,
work as ozone, as
ultra-violet
John Kinsella
Ah, and happy birthday, amarama!
for omnia secula saeculorum...
Whereupon in service
go you or I, refrained against the light,
the show-through of texts upon the page,
geographies of stanza shape: these hymns
we broadcast in times less bright,
work as ozone, as
ultra-violet
John Kinsella
Ah, and happy birthday, amarama!
More Lowell
Jun. 2nd, 2007 09:48 amHere are two more Jonathan Edwards poems by Robert Lowell (here writing letters to Elizabeth Bishop).
"Mr. Edwards and the Spider" and "Jonathan Edwards in Western Massachusetts" (scroll down.)
"Mr. Edwards and the Spider" and "Jonathan Edwards in Western Massachusetts" (scroll down.)
I was reminded in Budapest that Robert Lowell had written poems about Jonathan Edwards.
Here's one of them.
Here's one of them.
Ed Dorn. And all.
Apr. 24th, 2007 04:37 pmThank you for your sympathies about Black Kitty's death. It's been meditative and helpful to read them. I do, I miss him.
Here's a link to an article in the New York Times about the late Ed Dorn with a picture I kind of love. I guess that there's a new collection of his work out. The older sister of my best friend in high school was a poet, and raved about her teacher Ed Dorn with such over the top admiration that he became one of the reasons that I decided to go to college at the University of Colorado. We all lived in a suburb of Denver, and one of her big selling points for Ed Dorn was that he knew The Ramones. Wikipedia says he was an early supporter of Devo, but The Ramones were the rock connection I heard about.
I took a bunch of classes from him, and found him to be kind of a mess, but also serious and oddly generous in his frequently absent way. His class on the Literature of the West changed the way I thought of that subject forever, and I almost fainted with pleasure when he read my paper on Carry A. Nation (the saloon smasher who later had a cameo in my novel Martha Moody) aloud to the class as an example of how such things should be written.
I agree with the reviewer -- my favorite of his poems are short, elegant love poems -- some of them are in my life for good, entwined with everything that happened for me in Boulder in the early eighties, but I don't see any online. Here's an excerpt from his long poem, From Gloucester Out. ("Man" as universal is all over it. Ed Dorn was like that.)
And, with that, I'm in a work crunch before heading out to Budapest, so may not be posting much for a while. Or I might, because I sometimes find lj hard to resist. And there are things to say about Budapest, and the beautiful support I've gotten around that trip, but, for now, it's just a clear, heartfelt thank you to those who have been so generous. And to everyone who reads here with an interest in my work.
Here's a link to an article in the New York Times about the late Ed Dorn with a picture I kind of love. I guess that there's a new collection of his work out. The older sister of my best friend in high school was a poet, and raved about her teacher Ed Dorn with such over the top admiration that he became one of the reasons that I decided to go to college at the University of Colorado. We all lived in a suburb of Denver, and one of her big selling points for Ed Dorn was that he knew The Ramones. Wikipedia says he was an early supporter of Devo, but The Ramones were the rock connection I heard about.
I took a bunch of classes from him, and found him to be kind of a mess, but also serious and oddly generous in his frequently absent way. His class on the Literature of the West changed the way I thought of that subject forever, and I almost fainted with pleasure when he read my paper on Carry A. Nation (the saloon smasher who later had a cameo in my novel Martha Moody) aloud to the class as an example of how such things should be written.
I agree with the reviewer -- my favorite of his poems are short, elegant love poems -- some of them are in my life for good, entwined with everything that happened for me in Boulder in the early eighties, but I don't see any online. Here's an excerpt from his long poem, From Gloucester Out. ("Man" as universal is all over it. Ed Dorn was like that.)
And, with that, I'm in a work crunch before heading out to Budapest, so may not be posting much for a while. Or I might, because I sometimes find lj hard to resist. And there are things to say about Budapest, and the beautiful support I've gotten around that trip, but, for now, it's just a clear, heartfelt thank you to those who have been so generous. And to everyone who reads here with an interest in my work.
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Peaches in July
Jul. 26th, 2006 09:10 amPraise for the fat old ladies.
Praise our bristles.
Praise our groaning in the morning
as we negotiate our nightgowns,
appliances and pills.
Praise the unquenchable carnality
of our coughs, full of moist depths,
and the way our mouths hang open
and our faces converge in gatherings
of ineffectual concentration
as we give another round of dominoes
our (impure? because, after all,
competititive and human) best thoughts.
We lose, of course, but play again.
The nightgown tears on the seam above the breast,
but we wear it, still, unmended,
while young women make big curls
in their hair with juice cans,
the results glossy and time-consuming,
as if the war were never over and
victory gardens were all lucky girls might sow.
Lake Buchanan, TX 2006
Praise our bristles.
Praise our groaning in the morning
as we negotiate our nightgowns,
appliances and pills.
Praise the unquenchable carnality
of our coughs, full of moist depths,
and the way our mouths hang open
and our faces converge in gatherings
of ineffectual concentration
as we give another round of dominoes
our (impure? because, after all,
competititive and human) best thoughts.
We lose, of course, but play again.
The nightgown tears on the seam above the breast,
but we wear it, still, unmended,
while young women make big curls
in their hair with juice cans,
the results glossy and time-consuming,
as if the war were never over and
victory gardens were all lucky girls might sow.
Lake Buchanan, TX 2006
I went last night to a reading at Smith to honor Adrienne Rich, a poet whose work has pushed and thrilled and changed me more than I can say, and, I think, through my failings, not enough. Sometime I might try to write something about what her poems mean to me, but right now, I just want to say that some of her friends were there, too, other poets -- they were referring to themselves as three sisters who grew up in the women's movement, and their younger brother. Adrienne talked a little about relationships between poets (which I always hear as artists of all kinds), what that's been like for her, why it matters. Made my heart thump. Each of the other poets read one of Adrienne's poems that had mattered a lot to them, and one of their own.
Joy Harjo read "Diving into the Wreck," from the book by that name, and sang -- so hauntingly -- her own very beautiful poem, Grace.
Ed Pavlic read "Trying to Talk to a Man," also from Diving Into the Wreck and I didn't get the name of his poem, but there's some beautiful work of his at the link to his name.
Cheryl Clarke read that unbelievably painful and necessary poem, "The School Among the Ruins" , which is about children at a school during a time of bombing, from her most recent book, The School Among the Ruins, and also a poem of her own (not this one) inspired by picture in the New York Times of a woman holding up a photograph of her sister, killed as a soldier in the U.S. military action in Afghanistan.
As a lot of you already know, there is such urgent, beautiful work to be found through these links.
Joy Harjo read "Diving into the Wreck," from the book by that name, and sang -- so hauntingly -- her own very beautiful poem, Grace.
Ed Pavlic read "Trying to Talk to a Man," also from Diving Into the Wreck and I didn't get the name of his poem, but there's some beautiful work of his at the link to his name.
Cheryl Clarke read that unbelievably painful and necessary poem, "The School Among the Ruins" , which is about children at a school during a time of bombing, from her most recent book, The School Among the Ruins, and also a poem of her own (not this one) inspired by picture in the New York Times of a woman holding up a photograph of her sister, killed as a soldier in the U.S. military action in Afghanistan.
As a lot of you already know, there is such urgent, beautiful work to be found through these links.
