World View

“We look at the world once, in childhood. The rest is memory." — Louise Gluck

Giants Have Life As September Starts…

I was so excited yesterday – the Giants had a really tough 10 games with injuries-  they finished up 4-6 and found themselves 3 games behind the Rockies for the NL Wild Card. Then they hosted  the Rockies at home three games – sweeping them. With a day off today they are now tied for the Wild Card with the Rockies. Tomorrow the Giants will go up against the Phillies.

Well, I need to write for a while yet and then it’s off the bed.

 

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Charles Bukowski - “The Man With The Beautiful Eyes”

 

 

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"In the future everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes." Andy Warhol

Yes, even you can be immortalized in Warhol pop art!

Come Tuesday, this blog will turn 6 years old. There are times, even recent, in which I have considered putting this blog to rest. I know some bloggers will write for a while and finish a blog then take up another as though to start a new chapter in life.  I have considered what would perhaps be the advantages and disadvantages of this and I won’t bore you with the lists as I see them on both sides, but only say that in the end I have elected to carry on, not because there were more reasons for it than against it, or because there are better reasons to continue then not, but because for better or worse, that is not my style to quit.

Anyone who has blogged for any length of time has likely had posts that were perhaps not of any significant value to others, but none the less needed to be spoken by the blogger if only for their own benefit.  This is probably most especially true when the blogger is a writer in general. Not someone blogging because of an interest in a sport or hobby, but those who come to blogging as writers in general. Those who write because it is as fundamental to their survival as breathing.

I hope to go back over these past six years, and reflect on some of what I believe are a few of the more significant blog posts. I will do this throughout the next week. I hope that you find something of interest.

Technorati Tags: Stickpoet Super Hero,Andy Warhol pop art,blog anniversary

Some Days I’m Lucky if I Use Three Gears

 

Life is like a ten-speed bicycle.  Most of us have gears we never use.  ~Charles Schulz

 

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This Week

This week is my third week of taking on a different poet and focusing on his/her work. Actually thus far they have all been female. Week one was Kim Addonizio.  While not new to me, I did read her very first published book which is out of print, but for the life of me I can’t figure out why it hasn't been re-released.  It was exceptional.

Last week I read some material of Anne Sexton’s. Again, Sexton is far from new to me but I think I found a new way of looking at her. And on that note, I’m making Sexton my dead poet mentor. (more about this in a later post)

This week I’m reading Carolyn Forche. Actually I only started reading it yesterday as It took a little longer in transit then I had hoped. Forche is really new to me. At least her poetry. I read some interesting journal bits of hers during this last year so I was prepared to look at her poetry with a very curious mind. The book I’m reading is The Country Between us. (I plan to talk about this in a future post as well)

One of the things I’ve been thinking a lot about the past few days is how I view musicality in poetry. Beside that I toyed with a sonnet last week. I rarely attempt sonnets so this was me stepping out a bit. Taking risks I suppose. Writing without the comfort of a safety net.

Technorati Tags: Kim Addonizio,Anne Sexton,Carolyn Forche,dead poet mentor

Thought for the Day

"He who has gone, so we but cherish his memory, abides with us, more potent, nay, more present than the living man." ~Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Turn Your Refrigerator Upside Down

 

I try to look at things differently.  It’s something I’ve been doing for a while now and it isn’t always easy because I think people ten to see what they want to see.

I believe particularly successful artists of all stripes have been thinking outside the box long before Taco Bell popularized enlarging our way of thinking with it’s slogan, “Think outside the bun.” 

I’m particularly fond of poets who are able to stretch our imaginations. I want to be especially adept at this and I think to get there it’s good to exercise one’s imagination even in the most common of things.

Technorati Tags: creativity,stretching imagination

One Night Stands – Kim Addonizio

 

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Quote for week ahead

As Sunday approaches midnight I’m headed to bed with the latest edition of Poets and Writers magazine. 

My quote of the week ahead….  “Life's unfairness is not irrevocable; we can help balance the scales for others, if not always for ourselves.” Hubert H. Humphrey

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On Poetry: Ordinary objects can become beautiful through words - Norwich, CT - Norwich Bulletin

Enjoyed this column by A.S. Maulucci - poems don't always have to be about something profound. Sometimes the very ordinary can make for extraordinary writing.


On Poetry: Ordinary objects can become beautiful through words - Norwich, CT - Norwich Bulletin

By A.S. Maulucci

For The Norwich Bulletin

Posted Aug 21, 2009 @ 09:19 PM

Most of us form attachments to simple, everyday objects such as a coffee mug, a pen, a Swiss army knife or a pair of scissors. Ordinary things we love to use on a daily basis can be very beautiful and give us a great deal of pleasure. I have a thick Lucite ruler with drawings by Matisse that is not very practical for measuring things, but which I love to hold and use as a weight to keep a book open when I’m taking notes. This ruler has been in my possession for 40 years and has accompanied me through several major relocations. It sits on my desk as I write this.

Another treasured object is a small piece of driftwood picked up on a beach in the Hamptons. It flows like the cresting of a wave and is lovely to look at. It serves no practical purpose, but I have become very attached to it, and it too is well traveled.
Many poets have written poems in celebration of the beauty of simple objects such as these. One of my favorites is a poem by Pablo Neruda called “Ode to My Socks.” FULL COLUMN




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The Value in Darkness

There are as many nights as days, and the one is just as long as the other in the year's course. Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word 'happy' would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness.  - Carl Jung

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Thoughts about Modern Confessional

I’ve always been almost as interested in biographical information and interviews of poets as their work itself. My own twitter bio says, “The Poem Is My Bio.”  This evening I read an interesting interview with Rachel Zucker by Publisher’s Weekly.

Zucker speaks of an awkward situation concerning her book The Bad Wife Handbook when her oldest son said to her sheepishly, “I couldn’t sleep last night and I went into the living room and I read your book.” Then he asked, “What does it mean to be a bad wife?”  It had never occurred to her that her audience for the book would include her son.

Zucker makes an interesting point concerning writing so frankly about her family.  “I have the choice about whether to publish these poems, but I don’t think I had the choice about whether to write them.” 

Technorati Tags: Rachel Zucker,Publisher's Weekly Interview,The Bad Wife Handbook,Confessional poetry

I’ve been diversified

Our office participated in diversity training this morning. So I thought I’d share this thought on the subject of diversity….

“For those who have seen the Earth from space, and for the hundreds and perhaps thousands more who will, the experience most certainly changes your perspective. The things that we share in our world are far more valuable than those which divide us.” ~ Donald Williams

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San Francisco Broke

Yes, sadly my San Francisco Snow Globe on my office desk crashed to the floor one day last week. I moved my monarch planner and it pushed a stack of files forward toppling the the city in a bubble to the floor where it exploded with a loud pop; water and sparkles rained all over my carpet. 

The globe as a gift a from my son number of years ago.  He knows besides being an avid San Francisco Giants fan, I love the city itself. I realized how naked that corner of my desk appeared this afternoon.

The day had a number of other disasters – all survivable but still, it ranks low on my list of great days.

On a brighter note, I have completed a rough draft of a Mission Statement. I just need to refine it a tad bit, but I am close to finished. I’m mostly trying to reduce it (the language) to tighten it up a bit.

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Poetry is the art of creating imaginary gardens with real toads. ~ Marianne Moore

 

I’ve been working in my imaginary gardens tonight, pulling some weeds, planting new words. Watching as it struggles to grow into a place the real toads would inhabit. 

 

Technorati Tags: Creativity,writing poems,Marianne Moore

Write with a little help from my friend…

If I can take a page from the the Beatles song book and modify it a bit, today was the kick-off of 6 weeks of poetry reading and writing focus for me.  As you can see, I wrote with a little help from my friend.

I'm reading from The Philosopher's Club by Kim Addonizio this week and while I've read Kim's poetry before as well as attended a reading by her, this book gives me a  different perspective on her voice. It's her very first book and notably a bit different in tone from  What is This Thing Called Love?, a newer title that I have of hers.

Evie pictured above, was not as intrusive into my space as it might appear. Actually for much of the time she perched herself on the arm of the couch next to me and I found the gentle purr and occasional nudging with her head against my arm to be comforting.

 

Technorati Tags: a poet's life,Kim Addonizio,The Philosopher's Club,What is this Thing Called Love?

The distance between Myth and Truth

As for the men in power, they are so anxious to establish the myth of infallibility that they do their utmost to ignore truth. ~ Boris Pasternak

 

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We have a winner!

Mika proudly sports her first place ribbon (left) following her 1st place win in her first dock diving competition.

Mika is my daughter Shannon’s Malinios.  Dock diving is not her only talent, as she has been trained to sniff out drugs.

Congrats to both Shannon and Mika!

 

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In suit, ex-workers accuse Blackwater founder of murder | HamptonRoads.com | PilotOnline.com

 

In suit, ex-workers accuse Blackwater founder of murder

Posted to: Blackwater Military News

© August 4, 2009

Two men who worked for Blackwater allege in a federal lawsuit that Blackwater founder Erik Prince or his agents murdered one or more people who were planning to provide information to federal authorities about criminal conduct by the company and its operatives in Iraq.

The two are identified in court papers only as “John Doe #1” and “John Doe #2” because, they say, they fear violent retaliation themselves for making the allegations.

“John Doe #1” identifies himself as an honorably discharged U.S. Marine who joined Blackwater, the Moyock, N.C.-based private military company now known as Xe, and deployed to Iraq to guard State Department and other American government personnel.

In his sworn statement, he says he observed “multiple incidents of Blackwater personnel intentionally using unnecessary, excessive and unjustified deadly force.”

“John Doe #2” identifies himself as an American citizen who worked for Blackwater and affiliated companies for four years.

“On several occasions after my departure from Mr. Prince’s employ,” he says, “Mr. Prince’s management has personally threatened me with death and violence.

“In addition, based on information provided to me by former colleagues, it appears that Mr. Prince and his employees murdered, or had murdered, one or more persons who have provided information, or who were planning to provide information, to the federal authorities about the ongoing criminal conduct.”

In his statement, he says Prince “views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe.  (click on link for entire article)

[these allegations are troubling but certainly I’ve not had a good feeling about Blackwater for a number of reasons.  If this is true, it even dwarfs my already poor view of Blackwarter]

In suit, ex-workers accuse Blackwater founder of murder | HamptonRoads.com | PilotOnline.com

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Thought for the day….

“Art is not a handicraft, it is the transmission of feeling the artist has experienced.”  ~ Leo Tolstoy

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This and That

Sometimes I think constraint writing must be when my mind is drawing a big goose egg when I’m trying to write. Of course this isn’t what is generally considered as constraint writing.  Janet Holmes has an interesting comparison between the twitter of today and the telegraph messaging of the 19th century. Check it out on Humanophone 2.0

Copy of The Philosopher’s Club came in from an Intra-library loan program.  This is an out of print book that I need for later this month. It’s out of print & only was published in hardback used copies are running between $37 - $120 so I was fortunate to be able to come up with it in time. It’s the first book of Kim Addonizio who is an awesome poet.

I must confess that as I’m writing this I’m watching Kathy Griffin’s My Life on the D List. She is so outrageously riotous. Ok, I really should be writing.

Technorati Tags: Humanophone 2.0,Janet Holmes,Kim Addonizio,Kathy Griffin

Disordering as a positive attribute…

“The poet makes himself a seer by a long, prodigious, and rational disordering of all the senses. Every form of love, of suffering, of madness; he searches himself, he consumes all the poisons in him, and keeps only their quintessences.”  ~ Arthur Rimbaud

 

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