Partly Moody

The poet may be used as a barometer, but let us not forget that he is also part of the weather. ~Lionel Trilling

Technorati Tags: poets as a barometer,Lionel Trilling

Beatings continue on streets in Iran

 

Crackdown by Iranian government continues in the streets- Police remain vigilant and brutal. This footage is dated today.

Technorati Tags: Iranian Police and milita,brutality in Iran streets

Sunday afternoon

The latest issue of Poets and Writers is out. I was slightly disappointed as I was expecting this to be the issue in which they feature the breakout poets for the year. I always enjoy seeing it and often am familiar with at least one of them. Instead it's a first fiction annual.

I did enjoy the article FLARF POETS, they can't be serious. Can They? I about to read How the NEA is spending that $50 MILLION.

Just for grins I'm thinking I'll put up a poll on flarf for a couple of weeks.

Technorati Tags: Flarf,poetry,Poets and Writers magazine,NEA spending

Holy Cow -A Pastor Celebrates Handguns

The Saturday Night Special is defined by Wikipedia as pejorative slang used in the United States and Canada for any inexpensive handgun.  Tonight pastor is Ken Pagano of the New Bethel Church in Louisville, Kentucky is having “Saturday night special” service for gun owners.

According to CSMonitor.com article, 'About 200 people took him up on the invitation. It wasn’t mandatory to have a gun to get in. In fact, according to the church website, you didn’t even have to believe in God. The only requirement was to be a supporter of the First and Second Amendments.'

Actually the Saturday Night Specials were the target of most of the early gun control legislation.  They are not hunting sport weapons and really have only one purpose, a cheap weapon to use against another person.

I find the mixture of Church and cheap handguns to be a most interesting marriage. We do love our guns in this country. In fact the gun culture in America has within it a a cult base that harbors a fanatical fixation on guns. Some to almost a level of "gun worship." Perhaps Pastor Pagano is one such worshiper. I don't know him personally but what I do know is his works and I am suspect of any pastor who feels compelled to use church resources to advance and celebrate the cause of "Saturday Night Specials." These cheap handguns have victimized so many families, from accidental shootings (many of which are children) to suicides to passionate arguments that end in one or more shootings and last but not least armed criminal acts.

Technorati Tags: Saturday Night Specials,Firearms,New Bethel Church in Louisville Kentucky,Pastor Ken Pagano,gun culture

BBC Poetry Series Boosts Poetry Sales in U.K.

 

A recent spate of poetry-related material has driven poetry sales in the U.K., selling copies of books that had languished on national shelves.

The BBC's Poetry Season project appears to have motivated people to go to the buy poetry. Imagine that!

A multimedia series with interviews and other related poetry items is credited with generating a 92 % bump in the sales of Sylvia Plath's poetry works and a whooping 300 % increase in the sales of John Donne.

Technorati Tags: Increasing poetry sales,Sylvia Plath,John Donne

Local Poetry Events

 

 

Friday - June 26 / 7:30pm

MUSIC, ART, AND POETRY @ THE NEON GALLERY 1921 Truman Road

Thomas Cobian’s art, River Cow Orchestra’s music, and local poets reading.

Friday - July 10 - 8:00 pm

Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg, Poet Laureate of Kansas - Landed is her new collection of poetry, and The Sky Begins at Your Feet, the title of her forthcoming memoir. Her books include My Tree Called Life: Writing and Living Through Serious Illness and Lot’s Wife.

Anastacia (Stacey) Tolbert is a writer, playwright, and fifth grade teacher at Seattle Girls School, in Seattle, Washington.  Her poetry, fiction, and nonfiction have been published nationally, and she is writer, co-director, and co-producer of GOTBREAST (2007), a documentary on women’s views about breast and body image.

Technorati Tags: Kansas City poetry Events

In Case You Didn't Know Department

"I quote Irish poets all the time because they're the best poets."

- Vice President Joe Biden

English-Only Group Can't Spell the Word 'Conference' -- Politics Daily

This item caught my attention today and I had a good laugh. I hope this makes Morning Joe on MSNBC. Would be a great story for Willie Geist who has the New You Can't Use segment that is generally humorous material. Click the link below to see a photo of the banner.

Filed Under:Republicans, Barack Obama, Gaffes, Humor, Immigration

Should English be the official language of the United States? That assertion was made over the weekend at a conference hosted by talk-show personality and former presidential candidate Pat Buchanan. Oddly, as the featured speakers delivered their remarks ridiculing Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor for her supposed lack of English proficiency while at Princeton University, and warning that the Obama administration is "going to gradually institute institutional bilingualism in the country," they did so beneath a large banner that contained a doozy of a typo

English-Only Group Can't Spell the Word 'Conference' -- Politics Daily

Technorati Tags: English-Only Group can't spell,Pat Buchanan.

Nice Bright Colors

Kodak created Kodachrome in 1935 and by the mid-1970's it was so culturally ingrained into society no one gave it a second thought when Paul Simon  immortalized the film in song.   These digital times have reduced the film, known for its vivid colors to a business loser. So much so that Kodak announced today that it will stop making it.

Like the typewriter (you remember that don't you?) the 35 mm film will soon be lost from the vocabulary of a generation who know nothing but digital photography.  Momma won't even have have a chance to take your Kodachrome away.

Technorati Tags: Kodachrome,Paul Simon,Kodak

Thirty-five / for Cathy

Thirty-five


Two numbers open
to possibilities-
the three and five
each with open cupped hand

Coral and Jade
are its traditional and modern
representations

It's a long time for people
to be together these days
but not to long for love
its symmetry
which defies math
or any defining number
rebuking any summation
or equal sign

Thirty-five is not a destination
but a mile marker
a momentary pause
on an odometer
to be be eclipsed

It is green with passion
green with hope
and ivory tough
to carry on
for the years
to come

Journal Bits

• June 7 - "Books on the shelf lean / helter-skelter / left asunder / by random reading"
• June 7 - "Parking is an exercise / of temporary occupation / of territory"
• June 8 - "The day they closed / the car plant / eyes burned of acid bewilderment"
• June 9 - poets to add to my reading list for June: Farrah Field, Joe Wilkins, Adam Clay, Karen Rigby, Emma Bolden
• June 10 - "The miles between us are narrow ruled / I can count the times we've tripped  / over one syllable words
• June 12 - " holding on is an art / so too is letting go"

Technorati Tags: Journal Bits,Michael Wells

Up Sores

My wine of choice is Chardonnay.  Yesterday, I had a glass of "Hob Nob" while eating out. I tried it based upon the two choices available to me. Big mistake. I imagine it's what wood alcohol would taste like.

On a positive note, I saw the movie UP which was charming and very well suited for 3-D which is how we saw it.  Don't let the animation fool you. It's a great movie for adults, especially couples.

Technorati Tags: mistake in a glass,Up sores!

Resistance

Saturday mid-day. Hot, humid and overcast outside, the dogs are sacked out - everyone else gone for now.

Listening to Phil Collins - Take Me Home from No Jacket Required.

The week has been somewhat surreal. Very intense at work. The world beyond too has been intense. There is a very strange seriousness the permeates the air and it seems distant and yet not.

At my age, I've seen my share of graphic pictures and certainly at least since the Vietnam War era graphic media has encroached everyone's life to some degree. Even if it is only regular TV, the news and even much of the programing has perhaps softened us to some degree to the shock of visual brutality, pain, suffering.

I like to think of our nation as one in which dissent is highly regarded.  It was largely the basis for the very formation of this nation, but dissent here has been remolded from those early days. We sometimes develop a hardened resistance to any public display of protest that runs counter to our own individual views. While people in this country on occasion are held in the personal contempt of others for expressing themselves on various topics, we don't often find ourselves in the same position those in 1989 were in who met with tanks in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square or  as people have this week in the streets of Tehran.

Each day this week I've seen disturbing Tweets out of Tehran as well as video feeds of protesters meeting with not just resistance but the real likely prospect of physical harm and even death. How deep the opposition is to the government in Iran and the ruling Clerics is difficult to judge but it is clearly a significant voice if not a majority.  The hope of a better life for the average person in Iran to many seems tied to the nation immerging from the isolation that it has been locked into as a result of the path that it has been on at the hands of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the Clerics who have continued to support him against real concerns  for credibility in the outcome of the recent Presidential election.

These past few days, what information has seeped through the information wall that the Iranian government has sought to impose shows a very real struggle that is being waged between a massive resistance and the government. A resistance so brutal that some dissenters are paying the price of their lives for the change they believe must come to their homeland. Such change would not come without a tremendous price. How much these people are willing to endure and how long they will continue to expose themselves to the high cost of their dissent will no doubt be a factor in if and when real change comes to Iran.  No one, not even the Iranian government  or the opposition can predict with any certainty the outcome. What is clear is that each of us is a witness to history in the making as each day passes. I am reminded of the calling of poets to be aware of the world around them. To be witnesses to that world.

 

Warning: Graphic Video  

The Lede - Updating news of the disputed election in Iran

Technorati Tags: Poets,witness to the dissent in Iran

To Write of Sleep...

That is the question.   Out late tonight and came home and worked on something for work tomorrow.  Midnight and I haven't written - "sigh" and I guess I won't at this point. Closing down laptop... I think I'll read a couple poems and call it a night.  Tomorrow comes early.

Face of Iran’s Opposition - An Insider Turned Agitator - NYTimes.com

 

By ROBERT F. WORTH

Published: June 17, 2009

TEHRAN — His followers have begun calling him “the Gandhi of Iran.” His image is carried aloft in the vast opposition demonstrations that have shaken Iran in recent days, his name chanted in rhyming verses that invoke Islam’s most sacred martyrs.

Skip to next paragraph

 

Slide Show

Protests Build As Iran Continues Media Crackdown

Enlarge This Image

Newsha Tavakolian/Polaris, for The New York Times

Mir Hussein Moussavi, a former political insider, is leading a postelection protest movement. More Photos »

Mir Hussein Moussavi has become the public face of the movement, the man the protesters consider the true winner of the disputed presidential election.

Face of Iran’s Opposition - An Insider Turned Agitator - NYTimes.com

Technorati Tags: Iranian election,Protests,Media crackdown in Iran

Great Link - Donald Hall Explains

Brian Brodeur continues to provide insight to how a poet arrives at his/her finished product. His most recent guest is Donald Hall and you can find his explanation here at How A Poem Happens.

Technorati Tags: How A Poem Happens,Donald Hall

Hundreds of thousands in Iran protest vote result - Los Angeles Times

           Ben Curtis  Associated Press

The supreme leader orders the hard-line Guardian Council to examine challenger Mir-Hossein Mousavi's claims of fraud in the vote reelecting President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

By Borzou Daragahi and Ramin Mostaghim
8:12 PM PDT, June 15, 2009

Reporting from Tehran -- Hundreds of thousands of Iranian protesters defied authorities Monday and marched to Tehran's Freedom Square, as the Islamic Republic's supreme leader ordered an investigation into allegations of voter fraud that the opposition described as little more than an attempt to dampen anger over the reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Hundreds of thousands in Iran protest vote result - Los Angeles Times

Technorati Tags: Iranian protesters,Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

Election battle moves to streets

One has to wonder about the integrity of the Iranian election this week. In the days leading up to the vote the size of rallies in support of opposition candidate Mir Houssein Mousavi were amazing given the risks many were taking to be out front in opposition to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.  Many of the nations young people and the intellectuals have come to see Ahmadinejad as a liability to the nation and feel further isolation from the west.

The last 48 hours since the election results were announced has seen unprecedented protests in the streets.  Mobile phones, text messaging, the Internet and  social networking sights like Facebook and Twitter were suffering outages or running slow cross the region and it is likely safe to assume that the government has had a hand in trying to block to swift exchange of such information.

I have to wonder how long such protests will continue?  How much dissent and how long the government will allow it to grow? Already there are indications that there have been a number of arrests and swift action in the streets to try to curb the crowds.

Technorati Tags: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad,Mir Houssein Mousavi,Iranian elections,protests,integrety of Iranian election

This is an interactive post - please feel free to participate!

There is an old Chinese adage, “He who reads 100 poems writes like 100 poets. He who reads 1000 pomes writes like himself.” It's with this in mind that I am seeking to broaden my poet horizon. I'm looking for some recommendations as I build a new list of poets to check out.  I'm not looking so much for the likes of Wallace Stevens, W.S. Merwin, or Ashbery, Plath, Sexton, Olds, etc.  I'm looking more for contemporaries or perhaps some lesser known deceased poets.  So if you have some poets you are particularly fond of that you;d like to recommend, the comments section is open for business.

Technorati Tags: contemporary poets you recommend

Dodge Foundation CEO to step down in 2010 - NJ.com

Dodge Foundation CEO to step down in 2010 - NJ.com

Dodge Foundation CEO to step down in 2010
Tuesday, June 09, 2009
BY PEGGY McGLONE
Star-Ledger Staff


After 12 years of leading one of the state's major philanthropic organizations, David Grant, the chief executive of the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, is resigning from his position. He will stay on the job through next June to ensure a smooth transition of leadership.

The last words of John Updike, poet | Philadelphia Inquirer | 06/07/2009

 

The last words of John Updike, poet

Endpoint
and Other Poems
By John Updike

Alfred A. Knopf. 112 pp. $25

---

Reviewed by Frank Fitzpatrick

---

On Dec. 13, 2008, just 45 days before his death, fearful that his recently diagnosed lung cancer had metastasized, John Updike bid a poetic farewell to the tiny Pennsylvania town that had nurtured him and provided a lifetime of literary substance.

The last words of John Updike, poet | Philadelphia Inquirer | 06/07/2009

 

Technorati Tags: Endpoint and other poems,John Updike

Aspiring Author

To Twitter or Not Twitter - that is the question...


Aspiring Author

Shared via AddThis

When is The Tipping Point for an author to go digital? | The Creative Penn

 

When is The Tipping Point for an author to go digital?

An article last week examined whether The Tipping Point has come for the publishing industry.

When is The Tipping Point for an author to go digital? | The Creative Penn

This subject keeps coming up....  the point at which e-books and print-on-demand become viable in the market place.  The Creative Penn link was an interesting find on Twitter. [yes, I bit the dust and started using Twitter]

I already see print-on-demand as having a viable impact.  I really think we are still a couple years away from universal acceptance of e-books.

Technorati Tags: digital publishing

In the News

A few poetry items from around the Internet:

• Poetry of Rumi Spans Across Centuries, Cultures.
• Arabic poetry now embraces the humanist sentiment
• Poetry, like sex, is better felt than understood
• Them’s Fighting Verses
• Is there a corner for poetry?

Technorati Tags: poetry in the news

Bing Search: 20th anniversary of Tienanmen Square protests - 20th Anniversary of Tiananmen Square Protests

Bing Search: 20th anniversary of Tienanmen Square protests - 20th Anniversary of Tienanmen Square Protests


More on Tienanmen Square Anniversary including more iconic pictures of "Tank Man"

Snippets

"I don't look on poetry as closed works. I feel they're going on all the time in my head and I occasionally snip off a length."- John Ashbery

Technorati Tags: John AShbery,snippets,poetry

Chinese Government Blocks Twitter - Advertising Age - Global News

Chinese Government Blocks Twitter - Advertising Age - Global News: "Chinese Government Blocks Twitter
Run-up to 20th Anniversary of Tiananmen Square Blamed

Posted by Normandy Madden on 06.02.09 @ 02:55 PM



HONG KONG (AdAge.com) -- China's government has pulled the plug on yet another Western website, making Twitter unavailable to most users in mainland China since about 5 p.m. local time (5 a.m. in New York) and infuriating the local Twitterverse, which is already finding ways around the block.
The government has not publicly stated why it is blocking the site and doesn't usually comment on the actions of China's so-called net nanny, but it is widely assumed the government wanted to limit Twitter use before an important and controversial event -- the 20th anniversary of the government crackdown on student protests in Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989.

The authorities are also nervous about the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China coming up on Oct. 1, 2009."

CORRECTION

I received the following e-mail in relation to an earlier post.

Dear Mr. Wells-

I won't presume to post my comment on your Stickpoet site, but I was surprised to see you refer to Dr. Goddard as a German.  He was a Massachusetts boy, born and raised.
Your point about the correspondence between failures in poetry and rocketry, though, is well taken.

With my best regards-

Guy

Well Guy, you are quite correct. As a child I was quite interested in rocketry and read a good deal about the pioneering of the early space program.  Even as I was posting this the other night there was a nagging part of me that was thinking Goddard did not seem especially German in origin, but after more years than I care to admit, that was my recollection.  It was in fact Dr. Wernher von Braun a rocket pioneer as well that I was thinking of. Von Braun was German but later became an American citizen and brought with him a wealth of knowledge that benefited America's early entry into space exploration.  The problem is, that while I can straighten this much out I'm afraid I can no longer be certain to which of these two men this quote belongs. I tend to lean towards Goddard as originally designated, but I will attempt to clarify this in a subsequent post but for now, the matter of Goddard's birth and nationally is settled. As Guy acknowledged he is Massachusetts born and raised. Thus, quite American.

Guy seems content to let my connection to poetry and rocketry stand.

Technorati Tags: Dr. Wernher von Braun,Robert Goddard,rocketry and poetry

 

Do you believe in Muses?

Kind of a silly question on one hand. I mean do any of us put stock in mythology? I have been known to feel of times a muse has visited me and have cursed the times when they have left me high and dry. But the poet Ann Lauterbach rejects the idea of the muse and insists that she's not as much interested in inspiration as she is "in the riddle of making something."

In a P & W article in the May/June 09 issue Lauderbach talks about a process where once she gets words on a page she has to have a conversation. The poem is a form she argues and she says to the words, "How can I help you become a poem?" As a poet, she believes she has to become a most generous and critical reader. She likens it to being a really good parent. " I might say to the poems "you can't go there," but they respond "yes, I can." All this sounds a bit like standing on your head and stacking BBs.

I have to consider if I ask as much of words on the page as I should? Is there too much emphasis on trying to get it right the first time?

Writing is so very different from the general work ethic that stresses doing it right the first time so you don't waste time redoing it. We write to rewrite to rewrite and that runs against the normal work ethic.

I'm reminded of Dr. Robert Goddard, the German known as the father of modern rocketry. He maintained that there was no such thing as failure in rocketry. You are always learning- always striving to improve. Perhaps that should be the mantra for poets as well. "No such thing as failure in poetry."

Technorati Tags: Ann Lauderbach,Poets and Writers,Muse,creating poetry

Criticism of Sotomayor Ironic

Technorati Tags: Samuel Alito,Sonia Sotomayor,Senator Sessions,Rush Limbaugh,Newt Gingrich,Supreme Court nominee

Senator Jeff Sessions, Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich and others who have expressed such tremendous concern about the "life experiences" of Supreme Court nominee Sotomayor and how she might apply those experience, including her own heritage  to her judicial work might want to listen to the words of Justice Samuel Alito on January 11, 2006.

I love it when I find a poem that goes zing and there I see myself!

Thanks to a tweet from Poem_twet I've found a Stanley Kunitz poem that may be become among my favorites. The opening stanza of The Layers I so identify with.

"I have walked through many lives, / some of them my own. / and I am not who I was, / through some principle of bring / abides, from which I struggle / not to stray." //

The whole poem can be read here.

Technorati Tags: Stanley Kunitz,The Layers

The Reality of Contrasts -Rejects and Published

Upon arriving home today I found rejection in my mail box. No biggie, it's like this is the third rejection in two weeks. Besides, I long ago got over rejection letters. The only real negative is this means I have very little remaining out there for consideration. So, (this is where the big sigh goes) I need to get busy over the next week and get work sent out again. The sort of administrative end of a poet's job is not my favorite part. But once they go out in search of new homes I always feel better afterwards. It's kind of like the tread mill. You are glad you did it when you are finished, but that 45 minutes you were on it really sucks.

Issue 26 of Right Hand Pointing is out. This is an  online journal that I'm generally very impressed with. Eons ago they published two of my poems, but I'm not biased.  Seriously. a few of the poems in the current issue I really like are:

• Josh Thompson's The Other Kind of Dream Girl
• Francis Masat's Visiting
• M.K. Meder's The Art Part 
• Sally Molini's Not the Romantic Type

Check out the whole issue when you get some time...

Technorati Tags: Rejections,Issue 26 of Right Hand Pointing,Sally Milini,M.K. Meder,Francis Mast,Josh Thompson

Holiday Potpourri

I can't believe the three day weekend is evaporating so quickly.

Yesterday's Indy race was one of the best I've seen in years.

Rain is hanging in the air awaiting the right moment to let loose. We've had some minor showers but it definitely looks like something is being held back for later.

I haven't read enough this weekend. I did crack open the book Honey & Junk by Dana Goodyear on Friday.  It's not a new read for me, but I was finding it even more provoking as I was reading it it this time.

A few journal bits of mine from recent days...

• the pewter face - going elsewhere / in the evening of prime / of expendable time / when fireflies play
• Wednesday is like being in the middle of nowhere
• stars buried from sight / co-dependent choruses of owls / sing to the night / sing to the measure of conformity

Technorati Tags: Honey & Junk by Dana Goodyear,Journal bits

Race Day

Race day at Indy. I'm a big Indy Car fan. Waiting to connect with my daughter on Skype to watch the race. I grew up loving Indy Cars but I've never had any interest whatsoever in NASCAR. It's ONLY open wheel racing for me!

Power of Play

There was an interesting article in the Arts and Entertainment section of the Sunday Kansas City Star. The piece was actually a review of a book titled Play: How it Shapes the Brain and Invigorates the Soul by Stuart Brown and Christopher Vaughn - Avery publisher $24.95

It opens talking about how if you work at Cal Tech's prestigious Jet Propulsion Lab, you better be the best, the brightest an be ready to talk about how you played as a kid.

Vaughn and Brown believe that play is the "stick that stirs the drink."  The message I gleaned from the review is that Vaughn and Brown as well as others have come to the realization that schools have become assembly lines for high test scores but real learning is grounded in creativity and creativity is born of play.

While seeing this article is not particularly revolutionary information to me, It marks the second time in oh, something less then six months I've seen discussions suggesting that some of the top flight organizations and employers in the U.S. are reaching the conclusion that they are better served by employees that are well grounded in creativity. This seems to change the whole right brain left brain concept of intelligence vs  creativity. I guess being creative is after all a marketable commodity.

 

Technorati Tags: Play: How it shapes the Brain,right brain vs left brain,creativity

“is that it’s a place of many places.”

KEVIN COYNE writing in The New York Times, attempts to explain why the state of New Jersey is so rich with successful poets of late. He points out that W.S. Merwin's Pulitzer Prize for poetry makes the fourth such poet to win the prize in the past 10 years and he says this is a streak that is unmatched by any other state.

Coyne reports that another of New Jersey's Pulitzer Poetry winners, Stephen Dunn thinks he knows what what it is about the state that has given their poets this edge. “New Jersey’s gift to its poets, is that it's a place of many places."

It seems there are 566 municipalities compressed together in the state with a total population about equivalent to that of New York City.  There are in fact more municipalities in the state per square mile than in any other state in the nation. Lots of places provide a treasure trove of places to write about. Each with their own history, their own landscape and so on.

As I read Coyne piece and thought about Stephen Dunn's remarks, I am once again reminded how much emphasis place can have on poetry.  Poems are like a snapshot. A story stopped in time. The have a place in time and a geography all their own. I do believe Stephen Dunn is onto something here.

Technorati Tags: W.S. Merwin,Stephen Dunn,Pulitzer Prize for Poetry,poetics of time and space

Jesse says....

 

"Give me a waterboard, Dick Cheney and one hour, and I'll have him confess to the Sharon Tate murders." ~Jesse Ventura  5-11-09

Technorati Tags: waterboarding,Dick Cheney confess,Sharon Tate morders,Jesse Ventura

And We Thought Wall Street was the Bad Guys

Wall Street creative financial instruments that went bad are not the only sign of corporate greed. While Congress debates consumer protection regulations for the credit card industry, many of the companies it seeks to regulate are rushing to sock-it to customers before it's too late to milk them any further.

The credit card industry has enjoyed precious little regulation over the years and they have in recent times piled on  the fees and in many instances raised intrust rates even for well paying customers arguing they must do so to cover losses.

President Obama has urged a series of protections for customers. They include:

• statements that are easily understandable
• ban on unfair rate increases
• prevention of unfair fee and interest charges
• straightforward contract terms
• protections for students and young people

Yet a proposal to cap rates at 15 percent failed on Wednesday. A sign that the industry still has power in the halls of Congress.

While some changes are likely to reach the President's desk this secession there will be an interim period of time before they take effect. Meantime, companies are busy tacking on amendments to customer's contracts and hiking fees.

Another ironic aspect of all this is at least one major company who swallowed up several other companies and received taxpayer funded assistance has sent notices to customers current and with good credit scores advising them it is necessary to increase their rates due to industry losses.

Sources: NPR Washington Times Credit FYI

Technorati Tags: President Obama,credit card industry,consumer credit protections,Congress,Chase Credit

Double Darn

Darn!  Had I realized it earlier, I would have joined the President, Michelle and Darth Vader for a poetry reading at the White House.

Another discouraging  bit of news...  Republican Senator Tom Coburn  of Oklahoma tacked an amendment on to a credit card reform bill that would allow visitors to National Parks to carry guns. It is so lame to slip shit like this into law by attaching it to legislation that is not remotely connected to the topic. And of course, the measure passed 67 to 29 vote.  A lot of Democrats folding to the gun lobby. No backbones!   27 Democrats joined 39 Republicans voted for it and another 27 were joined by one Republican and voted to against it. Of course it may or may not survive a House Senate conference, but the fact remains there were a lot of Senators running with their tail between their legs.

Technorati Tags: White House Poetry Reading,Sen. Tom Coburn,No backbones,Guns in National Parks

Roxana Saberi Free

 

In the event you've not already heard, the Iranian - American Roxana Saberi was released from jail in Iran and has been told she is free to leave the country.  Last week, Amnesty supporters immediately responded by sending over 26,000 letters to the Iranian government in less than 24 hours urging her trial be revisited openly and that she be released. The details of Ms. Saberi's ordeal were reported here earlier.

Some of my Journal Bits from the past week....

• The sky has no cheer to offer
• The stars wink back / we are mutually exclusive
• old notions of predisposition / fell upon a perilous path /and were trampled
• there is commotion  / in the world order / what to do with the castors

Technorati Tags: Roxana Saberi,Amnisty International,Journal Bits

It's Clicking Again

Sadly the weekend is slipping away.  On the positive side, I was able to get some positive vibes back into my writing.  Yeah!!!

I'm working on both new stuff and rewrites for a particular submission that I've been planning and while the deadline is fast approaching, I don't as of yet feel particularly stressed about it. Surprising as that seems.

Parting thought for the weekend - "I shut my eyes in order to see." ~ Paul Gaucuin

 

Technorati Tags: life as a poet

A Few Contemporary Poets I Especially Appreciate

 

There are a good number of contemporary poets that are not  Merwins or Ashberys that nevertheless are exceptional practitioners of the craft and don't get near the attention they deserve. Here are my list of ten who's work I especially appreciate. (they are in no special order)

1. Dana Goodyear
2. Cecilia Woloch
3. Kelli Russell Agodon
4. Victoria Chang
5. Aleah Sato
6. Eileen Tabios
7. Katrina Vandenberg
8. Ivy Alvarez
9. Aimee Nezhukumatathil
10. Laura Kasischke

Technorati Tags: Contemporary living poets I appreciate

The Weekend Surprise

 If you're like me this April, your e-mail swelled beyond the capacity to read on a daily basis. Much of it is due to the influx of poems and poem related material during National Poetry Month. One such e-mail was from PBS Online News Hour with Jim Leher. They do a periodic feature piece on a poet and they are always top notch video feeds with bibliographical information and usually a poem or two. The email was to promote their latest, a visit poet Bob Hicok. I'm familiar with Hicok and I will get around to listening to their piece, but in taking the link to the PBS site, I saw a previous piece I had missed on another poet who I stopped to check out. The poet, pictured above, was  Nathalie Handal. 

I've missed anything about Ms.Handal up to this point on my poetry radar (which may need servicing) and this was an astonishing discovery.  She is well traveled, having I've lived in Latin America and the Caribbean, Europe, the United States, and the Arab world. And while her roots are Palestinian, she is clearly a poet of the world.

I have found some of her poems and posted a few of their links here:

• The Hanging Hours 
• Strangers Inside Me
• Wall Against Our Breath
• Made in Palestine

And here us the PBS Video: 

Click here

Another Video of Nathalie Handal  reading - you might need to turn the volume up a bit. This poem captures a portion of the beauty that she compresses within the language of her work. A soft but mighty voice.

In many respects she reminds me of the late Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish.

 

Technorati Tags: Nathalie Handal,PBS Online News Hour with Jim Leher

Sunday May 3rd is World Press Freedom Day

In 1991 the United Nations General Assembly established May 3rd as World Press Freedom Day. This year there have been a number if international incidents that underscore the fact that there are governments around the world that continue to suppress news journalists from doing their job.

Just since January there are a significant number of members of the press who have been assassinated and a larger number imprisoned throughout the world. Take a look at this list of news journalists who have paid the ultimate price for their work:

Assassinated journalists and media workers

Raja Assad Hameed (Pakistan)

Reporter for the daily Nation and Waqt TV Channel

Killed on 26 March 2009 in Pakistan

[UNESCO Statement]

Jawed Ahmad (Afghanistan)

Reporter for the Canadian media, including CTV News.

Killed on 10 March 2009 in Afghanistan

[UNESCO Statement]

Haider Hashim (Iraq)

Correspondent for the private TV broadcaster Al-Baghdadia

Killed on 10 March 2009 in Iraq

[UNESCO Statement]

Suhaib Adnan (Iraq)

Cameraman for the private TV broadcaster Al-Baghdadia

Killed on 10 March 2009 in Iraq

[UNESCO Statement]

Ernesto Rollin (Philippines)

Journalist for local radio DxSY-AM

Killed on 23 February 2009 in Philippines

[UNESCO Statement]

Jean Paul Ibarra Ramírez (Mexico)

Photographer for El Correo newspaper

Killed on 13 February 2009 in Mexico

[UNESCO Statement]

Ando Ratovonirina (Madagascar)

Reporter for the privately-owned Radio et Télévision Analamanga (RTA).

Killed on 7 February 2009 in Madagascar

[UNESCO Statement]

Said Tahlil Ahmed (Somalia)

Director of Horn Afrik Radio/TV

Killed on 4 February 2009 in Somalia

[UNESCO Statement]

Bruno Ossébi (Republic of Congo)

Columnist for the online newspaper Mwinda

Killed on 2 February 2009 in Republic of Congo

[UNESCO Statement]

Francis Nyaruri (Kenya)

Journalist for the independent Weekly Citizen

Killed on 29 January 2009 in Kenya

[UNESCO Statement]

Shafiq Amrakhov (Russian Federation)

Owner and editor of the online regional news agency RIA 51

Killed on 19 January 2009 in Russian Federation

[UNESCO Statement]

Anastasia Baburova (Russian Federation)

Journalist for Novaya Gazeta

Killed on 19 January 2009 in Russian Federation

[UNESCO Statement]

Orel Sambrano (Venezuela)

Editor of a weekly magazine ABC

Killed on 16 January 2009 in Venezuela

[UNESCO Statement]

Uma Singh (Nepal)

Journalist for daily newspaper Janakpur Today and Radio Today FM

Killed on 11 January 2009 in Nepal

[UNESCO Statement]

Lasantha Wickrematunga (Sri Lanka)

Editor of the Sri Lankan newspaper Sunday Leader

Killed on 8 January 2009 in Sri Lanka

[UNESCO Statement]

Basel Faraj (Palestine)

Cameraman for the Algerian TV network ENTV and for the Palestine Broadcast Production Company

Killed on 6 January 2009 in Palestine

The Roxana Saberi Matter

Roxana Saberi is a 31 year old journalist with joint U.S. and Iranian citizenship. She has been residing in Iran for six years where she's been studying for a masters degree in Iranian studies, and reporting for NPR, the BBC, ABC News and other international news organizations. Her plans were to return to the U.S. this year when she completed a book about Iranian culture she was writing.

Saberi was arrested at the end of January initially for purchasing wine (alcohol is banned in Iran) then officials alleged she continued to work as a journalist after her credentials were revoked. This finally converted to charges of unspecified "espionage."

On April 18th she was convicted and sentenced to 8 years of jail in a trial that was short of any international standards.

If you do nothing else to mark this this Word Press Freedom Day, click on these two sites and add your voice to the call for Roxana Saberi to be freed.

1. Amnesty International Site - send a letter to His Excellency -Ayatollah Sayed Ali Khamenei asking for a fair and public review of the allegations against her and without any verifiable evidence otherwise, she be released.
   
2. Go to the site set up by Roxana's parents for her. Leave a note of support on the guest book.
   

Technorati Tags: Roxana Saberi,United Nations,World Press Freedom Day,Amnisty International

A Poet Gets No Respect

I can feel the lazy days of summer ahead, but they aren't quite here yet.

Any of you seen the movie Prairie Home Companion? It was a movie I had been wanting to see. My wife was not real interested and we never saw it when it came out. Cathy did however record it on our DVR knowing both my daughter and I wanted to see it. We've had it for a week or two now, and Cathy decided to make a night of it.  We got pizza and settled in and watched it.  I enjoyed it thoroughly. Both Cathy and my daughter Shannon by the end were fighting to stay awake. Neither were impressed.   My wife's explanation as to why I might have enjoyed it was that it reminded her of my poetry... inaccessible.

On a related note, I subjected my immediate family to only one poem this Poetry Month. They seem to believe they are subjected to way more then any sane person should have to endure through their connection to me. So I sent them on the last day of April one poem. They all received one poem from me. I chose the Billy Collins poem, Introduction to Poetry. The poem concludes with the following two stanzas....

But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.

Now Cathy liked the Collins poem, but she responded in an email, "It's the poet that needs to be tied to the chair and beaten with a rubber hose for writing an inaccessible poem...and I'm sure we all know what poet I am talking about. :)

Technorati Tags: Prairie Home Companion,Billy Collins

May Day - May Day

May 1st and I've taken a break from writing today aside from my daily journal entry.

The break from writing a poem is suiting me well so far.  There's almost a hour left of the day, I suppose I could get the itch, but I'm thinking not.  Who knows, perhaps overnight I might wake up with some brainstorm. Hey, it has happened.

I realized one of my poems that had previously been publish was added to the Johnson County Kansas Public Library's poem a day feature on their Internet site. It can be seen here.

Technorati Tags: Johnson County Public Library Poem Month poem a day feature

Day 30 - Poem-A-Day

April Adieu

So long National Poetry Month-
You were just thirty days out of a year.
You brought heaps of poems
to my email, so many that reading them all
will stretch well into May, when many others
have returned poetry to the back burner.

Gone too will be my open opportunity
to preach the virtues and love of poetry
to the poetically deprived.

Even during your own month, we risk
retribution from many who will not
allow us to share what joy we find
woven into the soul of your many stanzas.

But not all is melancholy today-
No, today too ends the Poem-A-Day
challenge I undertook at the onset.
To take a predetermined prompt
for which I have not control
and mold it into a single, artful, cohesive
poetic unit each day.

Even the love of poetry-
yes, even a driving passion for writing
cannot prevent such an undertaking
from taxing the mind and sometimes
in the late hours of the night,
the body as well.

So, goodbye poetry month. So long
for now. I shall not stop reading
what many great poetic minds created.
I will turn to you over and over
throughout the year. And probably
after a momentary pause,
I'll return to the page with ink
and write from that place deep
within the human spirit
where poetry is born.

Maybe, just maybe-
come next April, in a weak moment,
I may forget how difficult
the daily birthing process
of creating these poems was
and again accept the challenge
of a poem-a-day.

Poetry & Silence

"Poetry is an orphan of silence. The words never quite equal the experience behind them." ~ Charles Simic

Technorati Tags: Charles Simic,Poetry and silence

They're here!

For the third year in a row I've produced a Poetry Month broadside featuring one of my poems that has been previously published elsewhere. They have finally arrived from the printers. I have 100 of them and they are available at your request as long as they last. If you would like one of these please drop me a note with your snail mail address at stickpoet@aol.com. It's just a little something I started doing to celebrate poetry.

Technorati Tags: poetry month broadsides

Poem-A-Day Challenge - six poem left

 Counting the poem for today (which I'm still working on) there are 6 remaining  in the April challenge.

I must say that a very badly want to do a free write, without a prompt, without a pre-determined

topic and the pressures that have come with this challenge. Yes, April is the cruelest month!

On another note, I was reading the comments on a post by Kelli and checked out Ouroboros Review  that received a thumbs up by Maya. It has a very professional on line presence. I was truly impressed. I also noticed Deb Scott has a couple of poems in the most recent issue.

Two other reviews I like have releases up...Right Hand Pointing  - issue 25 and  Autumn Sky Poetry - issue 13

Meanwhile, back to the poem I was working on.

Technorati Tags: Autumn Sky Poetry,Ouroboros Review,Right Hand Pointing

What if..

 I suppose one could argue that poetry has become a habitual aspect in my life. Without considering this in a negative connotation  that is often associated with the word habitual, I have up till now viewed this in the context of what I have considered a lifestyle. For several years, I have convinced myself that a poet (or any artist) would only enhance their level of creativity by developing a lifestyle that had a vigilant awareness to their surroundings that allowed them to constantly be open the the poetry in things.

What would follow or at least one would hope-  transforming theory to reality, is that by achieving this poetic point of view, it could only result in good things in connection with their work. If you hand not fully achieved a poetic lifestyle, to the extent you were striving to get there, again would be a positive thing, no?

Perhaps achieving such a state of mental awareness and focus has noting to do with improving the poet's work.  What if it is simply symptomatic of a neurosis?

Technorati Tags: the poetic lifestyle

Almost Forgot!

Ugh!  I almost forgot to mention that I'm reading tomorrow at the Westport Branch of the K.C Public Library.

118 Westport Road, Kansas City, MO 64111I

4:30 to 6:30 p.m.

Technorati Tags: Michael A. Wells,Kansas City Public Library,Poetry Reading

Still Writing

Yes, I've been silent a couple of days, but don't think that I'm not still going on the poem-a-day challenge!  I was sifting through some of them this evening and I can say there are four or five that could have some potential. Yes, there are some really bad ones, but truth is you've got to be willing to put a lot of bad ink on a page to get there.

In poetry news elsewhere, I was delighted to see W S Merwin win a Pulitzer for his book The Shadow of Sirius. I cannot say that I believe the book warrants the prize as I have not read it. But I am very fond of Merwin's work and have nothing but praise for Migration for which he won a National Book Award. I am anxious to read his new one.  You can find an interview for NPR by Terry Gross of Merwin here. Also, Ruth Stone was a runner up this year. I must remember to read some of her work, I haven't read her for a while.

Oh, and three cheers for Sandra Beasley  - 2009 BARNARD WOMEN POETS PRIZE AWARDED TO SANDRA BEASLEY

 

Technorati Tags: W S Merwin,The Shadow Of Sirius,Ruth Stone,Sandra Beasley,Poem-a-day Challenge

 

Food for thought

If poetry should address itself to the same needs and aspirations, the same hopes and fears, to which the Bible addresses itself, it might rival it in distribution.  ~Wallace Stevens

Technorati Tags: distribution of poetry,Wallace Stevens quote

The Poetics of Space Opens at Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art

 

KANSAS CITY, MO.- The exhibition The Poetics of Space is on view April 10, 2009–March 14, 2010, at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art. Through photographs by William Christenberry, Lynn Davis, Walker Evans, Todd Hido, Anthony Lepore, and Mike Sinclair, among others, the exhibition reveals the mysterious and poetic worlds dwelling within domestic, urban, and natural spaces. The exhibition includes more than 20 photographs by 17 artists from the Kemper Museum’s permanent collection.

Artdaily.org - The First Art Newspaper on the Net

Technorati Tags: Kansas City Events,Art. Poetrics,Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art,Poetics of space

Poam-A-Day Challange day 17

All I want is a little Peace of Mind

I don't ask for much.
A late morning rainfall heard from my bed.
The mail man passing my house,
not a single bill delivered.
The sun setting gently, unshaken
and lifting a glass high in my honor.

No grimy hands pulling at my trouser leg,
no cold empty bottle of 2004 Sea Smoke Cellars
Chardonnay- languishing in the refrigerator.

A pristine moment alone
in my head, the visions of sugar plums silenced
by time out in the corner and the constant drumbeat
of a drummer, different from all others,
whose sticks mark time with untold stories and
misplaced swallows who for the first time
have not returned.



[yesterdays prompt was "all I want is (blank)"]

Poam-A-Day Challenge (day16)

Black

Black wants nothing more
than to challenge transparency-
to turn the lights out,
have dominion over the day.

Black lives for that hour when the curtain
draws back across the world stage
and will not weep for the fallen sun.

It's the onyx of stones,
the dark loam beneath
our feet, the grounds
in the bottom of our coffee

cup- and the hollow
gut wrench emptiness
that overcomes us
when all alone.