Poetry In the News 8-10-08

• Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish died Saturday in Houston - NPR AFP
• ‘Sort of Gone’ should be hit with poetry and baseball fans -daily gazette
• Whether sweeping or concise, narrative poetry always powerful -Norwich Bulletin
• 'Mad Men' using Frank O'Hara's 'Meditations in an Emergency' boosts sales -LA Times
• Poetry at the 2012 Olympic Games? - The Times Online

Jon Voight Acting Up

Actor Jon Voight has apparently had an epiphany of sorts. It seems he now considers his opposition to the war in Vietnam as somewhat of an "indiscretion of his youth" and he has seen the light in the current presidential race.

Voight calls Obama, "...a God-like figure in a man who falls short in every way." Well of course he will Jon, but we aren't electing a God we already have someone in the White House who believes he's one. We are electing a president. Something we haven't really had in a while.

But Voight goes on, "There's not a cell in my body that can accept the idea that Mr. Obama can keep us safe from the terrorists around the world, and from Iran, which is making great strides toward getting the atomic bomb." Voight concludes, " If, God forbid, we live to see Mr. Obama president, we will live through a socialist era that America has not seen before, and our country will be weakened in every way."

Pretty caustic stuff. I'm however, most baffled by his opposition the the Vietnam war as being a youthful indiscretion. I mean we know more today then we did back then about the real story behind the Gulf of Tonkin incident and how Johnson manipulated our full scale entry into the conflict. There is far less reason to justify the Vietnam war today then there was back then. Besides, Remember the old domino theory? That happened Right?

I'm thinking he's confusing youthful indiscretion of yesterday with early onset senility today?

Unconscious Mutteerings Week 288

Unconscious Mutterings ~ link
Word & Thought Associations

here's mine:

• Crankiness :: old man
• Backpack :: books
• Clone :: sheep
• High ground :: ethics
• Dreams :: fantasy
• Lovingly :: kind
• Mistake :: accidental
• Carson :: Kit
• Errand :: Boy
• Dozen :: Dirty

A Summer of Discontent?

As the Beijing Olympics opens to all it's anticipated fanfare, what will be the storyline that emerges around the world?
Will it be one of a China that is developing into a more modern society with tremendous economic growth, or will it be one of a nation that in spite of a globalizing influence, remains backwards and determined to suppress civil dissent?

I will be anxious to see how free reporters and bloggers are to bring us the story of these Olympic games. Historically coverage has been as much about the culture of the host people as it has about the athletic competition. There is a strong national pride that is evident among the Chinese people connected with these games. I'm sure China wants use to these games the enhance their world image, but will the world see a picture of China that is real or one that is filtered through the only lens that the government allows us to view?

gotBREAST?

gotBREAST? is a feature-length documentary exploring how women feel about their breasts.

The documentary includes a diverse cross section of women...single, married and divorced, straight, gay and bisexual women. Ages 2 to 62 with broad ethnic, religious, and cultural backgrounds.



The film addresses a variety of aspects:

• breast implants and body image
• to sexuality and relationships
• breastfeeding
• breast cancer.

The purpose is to inspire open and honest dialog among men, women, and teens.

The documentary helps debunk myths and challenges audiences to examine societal and personal definitions of female sexuality, beauty, motherhood, and breasts’ relation to physiological and emotional health.

The filmmakers, Stacey Tolbert and Annie Walsh will take questions following the screening. Friday 8-8-08 @ 8:00 p.m.

Saturday 8-9-08 @ 2:00 p.m.

hosted by the YWCA's girls and health program directors. Mothers and daughter are encouraged to attend this screening together, as well as Youth organizations. Large groups are encouraged to reserve seats.
Donations accepted at the door.For more information, contact Patrick Alexander at palexander@ywca-kck.org.

YWCA of Greater Kansas City 1017 North 6th Street Kansas City, KS 66101

* Note: I met Stacey at a local poetry workshop over a year ago. She is a talented poet and writer. I also heard her on a local radio program discussing this production when they were working on it.

Where do Stick Poet Readers Come From?

I haven't done this is an while and it's always kind of fun to see where the readers are coming from. so, here is a breakdown of the geographical areas the last 62 site visitors came from.

• 8 Dallas TexasUnited States
• 7 New York New York United States
• 3 Philadelphia Pennsylvania United States
• 3 Tampa Florida United States
• 3 Charlotte North Carolina United States
• 2 Los Angeles California United States
• 2 Rancho Cucamonga California United States
• 2 San Antonio Texas United States
• 2 Washington District Of Columbia United States
• 2 Kansas City Missouri United States
• 1 Grand Rapids Michigan United States
• 1 Norfolk Nebraska United States
• 1 Bronx New York United States
• 1 Clovis California United States
• 1 Nice Provence-alpes-cote D'azur France
• 1 Gardena California United States
• 1 London England United Kingdom
• 1 Overland Park Kansas United States
• 1 Garnett Kansas United States
• 1 Lynnwood Washington United States
• 1 Koeln Nordrhein-westfalen Germany
• 1 Wenatchee Washington United States
• 1 Toronto Ontario Canada
• 1 San Mateo California United States
• 1 Raleigh North Carolina United States
• 1 Providence Rhode Island United States
• 1 Short Hills New Jersey United States
• 1 Antioch California United States
• 1 Reston Virginia United States
• 1 Chicago Illinois United States
• 1 Mt. Laurel New Jersey United States
• 1 Tallahassee Florida United States
• 1 Baltimore Maryland United States
• 1 Denver Colorado United States
• 1 New Hyde Park New York United States
• 1 Cambridge Massachusetts United States
• 1 San Francisco California United States
• 1 West Chester Pennsylvania United States

Who's the Bimbo Now John McCain?

Paris Hilton Responds to John McCain

She's been to the Mountain Top

Wisdom seems to be tied to experience or at least exposure. We often say it comes with age, but there are plenty of aging people that just don't get it. And too, people who ought to have the experience sufficient to acquire the wisdom but don't.

Reading a recent post on THE BLIND CHATELAINE'S KEYS by Eileen Tabios (AKA Moi), I am taken by how clearly she seems to see the poetry publishing model as it has evolved, as well as her vision of what could be the optimum working model. Let me reiterate I'm speaking about how she sees the way it has evolved. We all know that from both perspective of the poet and the consumer, it's broken.

I don't know if it is the air Tabios is breathing atop the mountain but perhaps more publishers should get out of their offices and trek up that mountain to get a different view of the landscape.

Poetry in The News 8-5-08

A few Poetry news items...

• Robert Bly: The best poetry is always religious [story]
• Using poetry to laugh at the President’s playlist [story]
• Phoebe Snow Is On the Comeback Trail [story]

Today's Thought...

All My Life and it has not come to any more than this: beauty and terror.

~Mary Oliver

Tax Free Weekend

This post is coming to you via my new Toshiba laptop.

The 17 inch screen is especially nice. It's audio and video capacities will come in handy for some future podcasting I'd like to do.

Getting used to Vista- I am normally on Windows XP at the office, so this is a bit new to me. Missouri has a Tax free weekend each year before school starts which makes it nice making a purchase of this size. I was looking at a Dell on line but that would have been my second pick.

Now I need to get busy organizing my files on here and working on a number of drafts that I've accumulated. I am hoping that I can be more systematic about my writing. I do like writing in my journal, but once I have something roughed out, I think taking it to a page where I can see the layout and toy with it more like it would be on a printed page allows for an aspect of development of the piece that is otherwise cumbersome in handwriting.

Travelers' Laptops May Be Detained At Border - washingtonpost.com

Travelers' Laptops May Be Detained At Border - washingtonpost.com

Planning to travel abroad? When you re-enter the U.S. the Department of Homeland Security has disclosed that Federal agents may take your laptop computer or other electronic device to an off-site location for an unspecified period of time without any suspicion of wrongdoing. These officials may share copies of the lap top's contents with other agencies and private entities for language translation, data decryption or other reasons.

The policies cover any device capable of storing information in digital or analog form:

• including hard drives
• flash drives
• cellphones
• pagers
• ipods
• video and audio tapes
  

They also cover:

• all papers and other written documentation
• including books
• pamphlets
• pocket trash
• pocket litter

Yes that would miscellaneous paper scraps in your pocket.

With all the talk about abuses in the civil liberties of people by the Chinese government, I'd say that under the Bush administration we are well down that slippery slide. More information on protecting privacy issues can be found here

You May Be A Closet Poet If...

Be careful those of you besmirching poets... some of you may be closet poets yourself.

You could be a closet poet:

• If you use a circle to dot your i
• If when sitting erect your head lobs slightly to it's right
• If you suddenly stop your sentences before the end of a line and continue on the line below
• If you personify your ball glove or other objects you hold near and dear to you
• If things that befuddle others makes perfect sense to you
• If the absence of punctuation can be found at times in what you write
• If you write words or sentences in disjointed cursive letters
• If you've ever found yourself sitting in a dark closet alone and enjoyed it
• If you secretly wish to be called by the name Wadsworth, Emily, ee, Sylvia or Pablo

Michael A. Wells © 2008

Journal Bits This Week

• a quotation from the poet Stanley Kunitz - "I dream of an art so transparent that you can look through and see the world."
• ...monster winds rebuke her for safety disregarded.
• -still, fashion statements speak up/unpretentiously. These are long firm legs and sleek/institutional distractions.
• I want rain to be plain/I want rain that stays the same/No horizontal riding of wind/No golf ball sized hail on or off/the green.
• "Your whole age sits between what you hear/and what you write." - W.S. Merwin from "Sibyl"
• A lavish history locked away in a graying point of view.

Obama HQ Opens in KC

On my lunch hour today I stopped by the new Obama HQ in Kansas City for their open house. As you can see the crowd was very respectable for a week day lunch time event. In the first photo above, Jackson County Executive Michael Sanders is addressing the crowd.

The headquarters is on the NW corner of Gillham Rd and 31st Street - there is good parking available for volunteer workers. It should be a great location. There are other officers open and yet to open in Missouri including more in the K.C. metro area

Poetry In the News 7-29-08

• Robert Redford Fights Global Warming With Poetry [NPR]
• He dismisses university writing programs as "multimillion-dollar Ponzi schemes" in which Volvo-driving poet-professors are too fearful of risking prizes or promotions to make waves. [story]

Weak 287 Unconscious Mutterings

Unconscious Mutterings ~ link
Word & Thought Associations

here's mine:

1. Memory :: card
2. Original :: Kentucky Fried
3. Exclusively :: yours
4. Listings :: Real Estate
5. Bucket :: seats
6. Knight :: Sir Lancelot
7. Dusty :: Baker
8. Choice :: Pro
9. Sunglight :: *I'm going to take a wild assed guess that they mean "sunlight" and say:: bright
10. Change of plans :: life

Words of Interest

This weekend I came across a couple of words I'm intrigued with...

1. biduous - (pronounced bid-u-us) N. lasting two days.

2. dilogy - (pronounced dil-eji) N. intentional ambiguity; emphatic repetition of words, etc.

Poetry in the News

• Semic - pleased to be back at his writing desk - "Washington is very much in my mind and will undoubtedly be the subject of many poems." [Story]
• Before the Mississippi Department of Education pats itself on the back for raising educational standards, it needs to take a long look at what those standards are. [Editorial]
• Is poetry's future as bright as its past? [Editorial]
• 1,000,000,000,000 Web pages! Somebody who doesn't have at least one Web page in cyberspace should feel totally insignificant. [Op-Ed]

Around the Bend of Time

Something pulls me
around the stretch
of unseen time
layed out-

before I ever got here
someone saw this
continuum

they put down
a dream they had-
someplace they were going
but I can't see

the end they had in mind
is not mine-

for a while I'll share their thought-
at least till I arrive at my own conclusion.




photo credit: FreeFoto.com

Roan

Roan is an anagram for Nora who came into their life three years ago. Brad Buchanan and wife Kate Washington not only conceived a child, but an idea for a small literary publishing house in Sacramento, California.

Brad is college professor teaching British lit, creative writing and an introduction to poetry. Kate is a free-lance writer and restaurant critic for a local paper in Sacramento. Their first book was "Swimming the Mirror: Poems for My Daughter," poems written by Brad himself. They plan to turn out one or two books a year, with an emphasis on poetry, memoirs, essays and fiction. Their next project, due out in 2009 has already been selected and they are looking to the future. They have an Internet presence established at www.roanpress.com.


source: sacbee.com