News Article Tape: |
Blog Entry Tape: |
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
October 30th forum announcement
Dear Poetry Aficionados,
Poetry & Poets in Rags
It's Halloween tomorrow, and for the occasion we headline with a link to a book about bat poetry--as in the flying creature. But also occasional is our Back Page link, brought to us by Major League Baseball, about Jack Kerouac and his love of the game.
Could this be a coincidence? Could it be that on the 50th anniversary of the publication of On the Road, Kerouac's Red Sox played Neal Cassady's Colorado Rockies in the World Series at the baseball diamond in Denver? If you think not, then is it a coincidence that a batsman named Mike Lowell, whose last name happens to be the name of Kerouac's hometown, was named the MVP? Or that the Red Sox won on the road? Or that this was the 103rd World Series, and on page 103 of my copy of On the Road, Kerouac writes, "I was going home in October. Everybody goes home in October"--what Lowell did in Denver. Coincidence? Further on that same page:
"The bus roared through Indiana cornfields that night; the moon illuminated the ghostly gathered husks; it was almost Halloween. . . . I cut right along. I wanted to get home.
"It was the night of the Ghost of the Susquehanna."
Is it a coincidence, then, that the Susquehanna rises as the outlet of Otsego Lake in Cooperstown, the home of Baseball's Hall of Fame, where Lowell, now, will become immortalize?
Or a coincidence that Boston Red Sox fans sing Neil Diamond's "Sweet Caroline" as a victory song, diamond as in baseball diamond, Caroline being a variance of Carolyn, as in Carolyn Cassady, Neal's wife with whom Kerouac had an affair, and Neil being a variance of Neal Cassady? Is Kerouac saying that the "I" of Sal Paradise was at those games?
Yours,
Rus
Our links:
IBPC: Poetry & Poets in Rags
Poetry & Poets in Rags blog
IBPC Home
IBPC Newswire
~~~~~~~~~~~
Poetry & Poets in Rags
It's Halloween tomorrow, and for the occasion we headline with a link to a book about bat poetry--as in the flying creature. But also occasional is our Back Page link, brought to us by Major League Baseball, about Jack Kerouac and his love of the game.

"The bus roared through Indiana cornfields that night; the moon illuminated the ghostly gathered husks; it was almost Halloween. . . . I cut right along. I wanted to get home.
"It was the night of the Ghost of the Susquehanna."
Is it a coincidence, then, that the Susquehanna rises as the outlet of Otsego Lake in Cooperstown, the home of Baseball's Hall of Fame, where Lowell, now, will become immortalize?
Or a coincidence that Boston Red Sox fans sing Neil Diamond's "Sweet Caroline" as a victory song, diamond as in baseball diamond, Caroline being a variance of Carolyn, as in Carolyn Cassady, Neal's wife with whom Kerouac had an affair, and Neil being a variance of Neal Cassady? Is Kerouac saying that the "I" of Sal Paradise was at those games?
Yours,
Rus
Our links:
IBPC: Poetry & Poets in Rags
Poetry & Poets in Rags blog
IBPC Home
IBPC Newswire
~~~~~~~~~~~
News at Eleven: It is astonishing how many poets

from The Times: On a Bat's Wing, edited by Michael Baron
also The Times: Extract from On a Bat's Wing, edited by Michael Baron
~~~~~~~~~~~
News at Eleven: [Walt Whitman] called the first phrenology lecture

from Los Angeles Times: Book Excerpt: From Chapter 1 of 'Proust Was a Neuroscientist' by Jonah Lehrer
~~~~~~~~~~~
News at Eleven: If [Ted] Hughes's question was how
from The Guardian: Masters of all they survey
~~~~~~~~~~~
News at Eleven: Apple plum, carpet steak,

from The Guardian: The odd couple
~~~~~~~~~~~
News at Eleven: "I am generally thought of

Cue the irony, the sarcasm, the acerbic humor that underpins the stark, clear, sometimes opposing images in his poetry--work that today will earn him the prestigious $50,000 Whiting Prize, awarded to 10 American writers of exceptional promise.
from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Award-winning poet links art form to influences of daily life
also The Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Notes for My Body Double
~~~~~~~~~~~
News at Eleven: "In one sense, I feel justified
"But I have a little boy walk up to me and say to me in English, 'Let go of my father! My father no bad man. Let free my father!' And when he looked at me, I guarantee he'll remember my face for the rest of his life.
from Times Argus: In poetry, war's grim words
~~~~~~~~~~~
News at Eleven: "An Ordinary Day", a poem

from Kurdish Aspect: Kurdish Poet nominated for UK Forward Poetry Prize
~~~~~~~~~~~
News at Eleven: But the 87-year-old poet [Marcos Ana] remembers

from The New York Times: Bill in Spanish Parliament Aims to End 'Amnesia' About Civil War Victims
~~~~~~~~~~~
News at Eleven: Such a conversation might not take place

from The Wall Street Journal: The Immigrant 'Outsider' Is Now Poetry's Insider
~~~~~~~~~~~
News at Eleven: As well as this, [Ciaran] Carson can

Cú Chulainn is a fascinating monster.
from The Guardian: Courage's brutal core
~~~~~~~~~~~
News at Eleven (Back Page): "Like a bolt out of the blue,

The novella ends with the rookie second baseman turning a triple play, knocking himself out in the process of winning the pennant.
"I think that was going a little too far," Kerouac later wrote of his romantic tale. "But in all seriousness, heroism is still my goal, and I don't care how childish that may be, it's it."
from Colorado Rockies News: Kerouac, baseball and Denver
~~~~~~~~~~~
Great Regulars: No nation has produced better essayists

from Bryan Appleyard: The Liberal: Poetry and the English Imagination
~~~~~~~~~~~
And it is while on Dido's Lament that [Oliver] Sacks makes his greatest point (it underpins all he says), which is that music saves us. "And there is, finally, a deep and mysterious paradox here, for while such music makes one experience pain and grief more intensely, it brings solace and consolation at the same time."
from Bryan Appleyard: The Sunday Times: Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain by Oliver Sacks
~~~~~~~~~~~
Great Regulars: One weaver, according to the Met catalogue,

from James Fenton: The Guardian: Life's rich tapestries
~~~~~~~~~~~
Great Regulars: As cultural literacy declined

from John Freeman: The Guardian: theblogbooks: Great review for a great reviewer
~~~~~~~~~~~
Great Regulars: Apparently, the mother and the man

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Frost's 'The Witch of Coös'
~~~~~~~~~~~
Of course, most people believe those consequences are positive and worth the effort, but according to this wise man, losing one's heart to another merely causes pain and sorrow: "'Tis paid with sighs a plenty/And sold for endless rue."
from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Housman's Sage Advice
~~~~~~~~~~~
In the first stanza, the speaker describes the melancholy that the human mind encounters in times of stress that causes one to act against one's better interests.
from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Kipling's 'Helen All Alone'
~~~~~~~~~~~
Sonnet 33 is highly metaphorical; it is, in fact, an extended metaphor. The sun is a metaphor for the artist's talent or muse, and the clouds represent the intermittent lulls in inspiration to create. Therefore the artist can realize that despite the lulls, the talent, like the sun, is always present, always the motivation that keeps the artist's love alive.
from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Shakespeare Sonnet 33
~~~~~~~~~~~
But he is not so quick to forgive the bright star, because although the sun is drying his face, the speaker is still counting himself as being injured by the drenching: the "salve" is healing the "wound" but "cures not the disgrace."
from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Shakespeare Sonnet 34
~~~~~~~~~~~
One problem here is that the speaker has set up the vast difference between his friend and his foe, yet in the end we wants readers to believe that if he had discussed his anger with the foe, the outcome would have been different, but how can that necessarily be? Because the foe is a foe, it is quite possible that if the speaker had expressed his anger, the foe's reaction might still have triggered his wrath to grow.
from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: William Blake's 'A Poison Tree'
~~~~~~~~~~~
[William] Wordsworth's obvious purpose is to support his notion that a pastoral life is pure, moral, and happy. He believed that living close to nature, living an uncomplicated, spiritual life devoted to honest labor was the ideal. His narrative suggests that if Luke had remained in the natural valley with his parents and continued to live the pastoral life, he would have retained his moral character and saved his parents' later years from grief.
from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Wordsworth's 'Michael'
~~~~~~~~~~~
Great Regulars: Even the edition itself is pretty,

from Katie Haegele: The Philadelphia Inquirer: Young Adult Reader: 8-year-old learns about the world, through a cat's words
~~~~~~~~~~~
Great Regulars: This is perhaps the last complete poem

from Frieda Hughes: The Times: The sound of silence
~~~~~~~~~~~
Great Regulars: Poem: "Jet Lag"

from Garrison Keillor: The Writer's Almanac: For the week of October 29, 2007
~~~~~~~~~~~
Great Regulars: What motivates us to keep moving

The Crossing
from Ted Kooser: American Life in Poetry: Column 135
~~~~~~~~~~~
Great Regulars: [Harley Elliott] suggests all words
Butterfly Master
from Denise Low: Ad Astra Poetry Project: Harley Elliott (1940 - )
~~~~~~~~~~~
In "Blessing," [Jo] McDougall creates a story with selected details. The Kansas setting is alluded to with the presence of wind, storm and sun. The small-town intimacy with neighbors is suggested by the narrator’s nosiness. How long was the narrator watching in order to see all these details, including hidden panties? The last line opens the scene to larger questions.
Blessing
from Denise Low: Economy of state’s landscape has influence on Kansas poet
~~~~~~~~~~~
Great regulars: In the beginning, at least, Ray [Raymond Carver]
from Charles McGrath: The New York Times: I,
~~~~~~~~~~~
Great Regulars: Deploying those images, Robert Bridges

Low Barometer
from Robert Pinsky: The Washington Post: Poet's Choice
~~~~~~~~~~~
Great Regulars: I am neither Christian, nor Jew,

Rumi, a poet and mystic of Persian culture, was born in what is today Afghanistan and died in what is now Turkey.
from René Wadlow's The Flutes of Dionysus: Newropeans Magazine: Jalal al-Din Rumi (1207-1273)
~~~~~~~~~~~
On the morning of October 27th, [John] Calvin went to see [Michael] Severtus in his cell and told Servetus that he bore him no ill-will and reminded him of how in their early days in Paris, he had worked to convert Servetus from his errors. Servetus did not make a deathbed revision. Servetus was burned on a small hill about a mile outside the city walls of Geneva.
Servetus was the only case of a man put to death for his religious opinions in Calvin's Geneva.
from René Wadlow: Toward Freedom: Michael Servetus: To Kill a Man Does Not Defend an Idea
~~~~~~~~~~~
Great Regulars: The author’s position is an odd one.

from Daily Times: Purple Patch: Art, truth and politics --Harold Pinter
~~~~~~~~~~~
Great Regulars: By Mark Scheel

from The Kansas City Star: Between the Lines: 'Samhain,' a poem by Mark Scheel
~~~~~~~~~~~
Great Regulars: Insult
.jpg)
from The New Yorker: Poetry: Insult
~~~~~~~~~~~

by Rosanna Warren
from The New Yorker: Poetry: A Kosmos
~~~~~~~~~~~

by Robert Bly
from The New Yorker: Poetry: Wanting Sumptuous Heavens
~~~~~~~~~~~
Great Regulars: Karen Zaborowski Duffy: When I wrote

World Series, Game 5
from PBS: Newshour: Poet Reflects on Family and a Trip to the World Series
~~~~~~~~~~~
Great Regulars: By Kaitlin Kortonick

The Key to Changing the World
from The Philadelphia Inquirer: Your Poem: [by Kaitlin Kortonick]
~~~~~~~~~~~

A Family Bond
from The Philadelphia Inquirer: Your Poem: [by Kelsey Little and Megan Hennelly]
~~~~~~~~~~~
By Davey Meyers
Battle Wounds
from The Philadelphia Inquirer: Your Poem: [by Davey Meyers]
~~~~~~~~~~~
Great Regulars: Raman Mundair's second collection,

from The Scotsman: Poem of the Week: Sheep Hill, Fair Isle
~~~~~~~~~~~
Poetic Obituaries: [Qeisar Aminpour's] poetry is composed

Aminpour is noted for his easy-to-understand poems as well as his remarkable skill in giving vivid expression to children's wishes and dreams.
from Press TV: Contemporary Iranian poet dies at 48
~~~~~~~~~~~
Poetic Obituaries: I'd like, please, to leave on your sill

Would leave you inconsolable all day.
The secret of poetry is cruelty.
Jon [Anderson] was a renowned teacher of poetry, especially in his early years. He told great stories about poets and poetry.
from The University of Arizona Poetry Center: Jon Anderson
~~~~~~~~~~~
Poetic Obituaries: In his own words he wrote furiously

The poet Sargon Boulus, who championed free verse, honored the depth and breadth of the Arabic language and translated the likes of Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams, Allen Ginsberg, John Ashbery, Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton and Ho Chin Minh, was just 63 years old.
from The Daily Star: Iraqi poet Sargon Boulus dies at age 63
~~~~~~~~~~~
Poetic Obituaries: Shail Chaturvedi, eminent Hindi poet,

from The Earth Times: Eminent Hindi poet Shail Chaturvedi dead
~~~~~~~~~~~
Poetic Obituaries: [Roy Lowell "Ted" Davee] was a freelance writer
of prose and poetry with poems published in more than 80 books. He wrote hundreds of poems, many of which have been published in the Reporter-Times. His favorite subjects were nature, religion and pets. He was especially fond of his poem titled "What I Found on My 75th Birthday."
from Reporter-Times: Ted Davee remembered as a Hoosier poet
~~~~~~~~~~~
from Reporter-Times: Ted Davee remembered as a Hoosier poet
~~~~~~~~~~~
Poetic Obituaries: Despite her emphasis on good grammar,
[Melba] Davis wasn't a curmudgeon about her nouns and verbs.
"She was a gentle teacher," Summerfield said. "It was the joy of learning and the joy of words, as opposed to cracking somebody's knuckles."
Her persnicketiness for pronouns made Davis a supreme proofreader.
from Jackson Hole Star-Tribune: Wordsmith left her mark in Big Horn Basin
~~~~~~~~~~~
"She was a gentle teacher," Summerfield said. "It was the joy of learning and the joy of words, as opposed to cracking somebody's knuckles."
Her persnicketiness for pronouns made Davis a supreme proofreader.
from Jackson Hole Star-Tribune: Wordsmith left her mark in Big Horn Basin
~~~~~~~~~~~
Poetic Obituaries: [John J.] Donnelly took glider lessons,

from The Philadelphia Inquirer: J.J. Donnelly, 84, builder and activist
~~~~~~~~~~~
Poetic Obituaries: [Stephen P. Ellison] enjoyed reading,

from Newzjunky: Stephen P. Ellison
~~~~~~~~~~~
Poetic Obituaries: [Paul Quinn's] crime was to have won

In a separate incident he had also humiliated the son of another local senior Provisional who had picked a fight with him. Mr Quinn ignored the order to leave, but his concerns were evident in a poem that he wrote and posted on Bebo, the internet networking site.
from The Times: Writing's on the wall for IRA after murder
~~~~~~~~~~~
Poetic Obituaries: [Robert Shields] paid bills by teaching,

from The New York Times: Robert Shields, Wordy Diarist, Dies at 89
~~~~~~~~~~~
Poetic Obituaries: Madhumita [Shukla] was spared brutality

"I am not at all satisfied. Why should Amarmani not get the death penalty for what he has done?" said Nidhi Shukla, Madhumita's sister.
from NDTV: Madhumita murder: Amarmani gets life
~~~~~~~~~~~
Poetic Obituaries: [Julius E.] Thompson, 61, wrote several

from Columbia Missourian: Director of MU's black studies department dies
~~~~~~~~~~~
Poetic Obituaries: [Art Tobergte] lived his motto:

from The News-Herald: Rev. Arthur L. "Art" Tobergte
~~~~~~~~~~~
Poetic Obituaries: Some of her [Ursula Vaughan Williams'] finest

from Telegraph: Ursula Vaughan Williams
~~~~~~~~~~~
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
October 23rd forum announcement
Dear Poetry Aficionados,
Poetry & Poets in Rags

Around the world there is bigotry, bombs are going off, shots are being fired, arrests are being made, and our poets are in the middle of this fray, making the news, including Poetic Obituaries.
News at Eleven begins and ends with attempts at harmony. But, you'll also find the turmoil, and what poets want for the world. As ever, we also look at what poets want for poetry.
We get multiple columns from Great Regulars: Linda Sue Grimes, Luisetta Mudie, Christopher Nield (who's back), and Robert Pinsky. And among the poems from Great Regulars, The New Yorker gives us three by Charles Wright.
Thanks for clicking in.
Yours,
Rus
Our links:
IBPC: Poetry & Poets in Rags
Poetry & Poets in Rags blog
IBPC Home
IBPC Newswire
~~~~~~~~~~~
Poetry & Poets in Rags

Around the world there is bigotry, bombs are going off, shots are being fired, arrests are being made, and our poets are in the middle of this fray, making the news, including Poetic Obituaries.

We get multiple columns from Great Regulars: Linda Sue Grimes, Luisetta Mudie, Christopher Nield (who's back), and Robert Pinsky. And among the poems from Great Regulars, The New Yorker gives us three by Charles Wright.
Thanks for clicking in.
Yours,
Rus
Our links:
IBPC: Poetry & Poets in Rags
Poetry & Poets in Rags blog
IBPC Home
IBPC Newswire
~~~~~~~~~~~
News at Eleven: "Ah yes," exclaims [Gen Yakuba] Gowon.
+to+Gen+Gowon.jpg)
[Wole] Soyinka tells him of the solitary confinement, the hardship, and Gowon seems genuinely surprised. "I had no idea," he says.
Soyinka breaks the sombre mood with a flash of humour: "Let me tell you publicly, if the boot had been on the other foot, I would have slung your arse in jail much earlier."
from BBC News: Watching Wole's return to Biafra
~~~~~~~~~~~
Subscribe to:
Posts
(
Atom
)