Every Writer’s Resource has put out a list of the top 50 Literary Magazines. I’m sure it will likely have some additions or omissions from any list that you or I would compile. I’m not posting it for the sake of debate, but rather because it’s generally not a bad list and may be worthwhile to look at and see what publications you’ve perhaps missed and might find worthy of looking into further.
The passing yesterday of Walter Cronkite is a monumental loss. I grew up on Walter Cronkite. He was a staple for many Americans in a time when the nightly news was designed to inform not entertain. Cronkite was the consummate journalist. He set a standard which for several decades that epitomized news reporting. When I think of Cronkite there are a series of historic benchmarks that he is indelibly connected to.
For some time now I have lamented the passing of the high standards of reporting which Walter Cronkite championed. The last decade has seen a an alarming shift in the delivery of news. Cable news has created an ala cart variety of reporting, complete with attempting to not only report facts, but filter the facts and present them in such a way as to do our thinking for us. This has taken place over the years since Cronkite’s retirement. His peers too have moved on and the advent of cable news networks has given us greater speed in news delivery but we’ve sacrificed something significant in the process.
Cronkite’s passing only serves to remind us that while he is gone physically, his work ethic has been missing for some time.
I suppose it is worth mentioning that his death only reminds those of my age how real mortality is when someone who was an American icon for much of one’s adult life is gone.
I was listening to an NPR story this morning (big surprise) about a visual artist and I was struck with an idea for a new poetry project.
It struck me that everyone's handwriting could be seen as an artistic expression. While we have a generally recognized alphabet that makes up our language, each of us has a personalized rendition of each letter. While our handwriting may follow a generally recognized formula we, like any artist have our own flair that distinguishes our writing.
In this age when letter writing is almost a lost art, and we see written communications mostly in printed text format, I thought it would be interesting to collect a number of samples of handwriting from different individuals and treat them as though they were each individual pieces of artwork. I would then select four or five of these and write a poetic expression of what the artwork speaks to me. I don't mean the words but rather the lines on the page. This would not be really any different then writing a poem inspired by a painting or a picture.
Anyway, if anyone is interested it contributing a few paragraphs of handwriting sample for the cause, e-mail me at poet@michaelawells.com
This NPR Story highlights the problem that the exchange of information represents in a country under a totalitarian government. Information is a threat to established power in Iran. Information in and information out. But as you can see from this story, instead of shutting down that pipeline altogether, they are using it to identify those in their country that they feel represent the biggest threat to their power.
There are stories that are making the rounds of arrests and even executions in Iran by the government of those who are considered in opposition the those in power. If even a portion of these stories that are getting out on Iran are correct, this is a terrifying time and an affront of humanity in Iran. I believe history will judge this government harshly.
Updating Tour de France Fantasy Cycling team results between my daughter and I. Drum Roll Please......
Being a San Francisco Giants fan, I was skipping around here after learning that on Friday night Jonathan Sanchez threw the Giants' first no-hitter since 1976, blanking the Padres, 8-0. Highlight here
Writing this weekend has been touch-and-go. Not nearly go as well as I'd like. Perhaps I set my bar a little high as I really was expecting a lot out of myself this weekend. I'm thinking perhaps I had too many distractions.
Speaking of distractions, I read an interesting piece in the NY Times - Habitats for a Writer - a Home with a Hideout. Audio Slide Show
Oh, and I read a poem of Kelli Russell Agodon's that was outstanding in so many ways. It can be read at DMQ Review - "Death & Birth in a Chinese Restaurant"
Hemingway a KGB spy? According to a new book out, Hemingway was recruited as a Spy in 1941. The book, Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America (Yale University Press also indicated that his KGB file indicates he failed to provide any "political information" and was never "verified in practical work." This has given rise to the thought that Hemingway was only a pseudo-spook, possibly seeing his clandestine dealings as potential literary material. Source
The You Aren't going to believe this Department
American International Group is preparing to pay millions of dollars more in bonuses to several dozen top corporate executives. This is not old news, this comes after an earlier round of payments four months the sent the "shit" flying against the fan.
The company is reportedly pressing the federal government to bless the payments in hopes of shielding itself from renewed public outrage. I'm officially outraged! Source
I love NPR for a number of reasons, but one that particularly feeds my curiosity is the attention they give the arts. They've had a series about artists and how they earn a living. For poetry they focused there story on Elizabeth Haukaas. Earlier this year her book Leap which won the Walt McDonald poetry book award was published. You can check out the NPR Story including an audio about her & a couple of her poems here.
Some interesting things coming forth on the page today. I'm happy actually with last two days of writing.
My youngest daughter us a cyclist. She loves the Tour de France. Once again she has engaged me in a fantasy racing team battle. I'm not in good graces with her as of today. I've beat her in points so far for three out of three stages. Her text messages are growing terse.
Love ya honey! :)
Poetry is the journal of the sea animal living on land, wanting to fly in the air. Poetry is a search for syllables to shoot at the barriers of the unknown and the unknowable. Poetry is a phantom script telling how rainbows are made and why they go away - Carl Sandburg
Battered by wind and rain / by tides and Lunar laughter / choked on unforgivingly / the night is pressed into servitude
Listening to: Fairy Tales / Anita Bakers Mood: slightly melancholy
This week I've thought a lot about language as a social dynamic. I was writing in my journal the other day and I concluded the days post with a personal observation that language was the most social thing people do. The next day I picked up from that point the night before because it seemed like a heavy way to leave the day's entry. I thought to myself that I needed to defend that pronouncement.
Picking up on this point I continued the conversation with myself yet another day. I felt that I needed to define social for the sake of this argument and I did, assigning it this definition: actions or things people do in groups (group consisting of at least 2 or more). My quick list of social activities then looked like this:
In all these activities talking/communicating aka language is or can be a factor. Yes, I suppose you can have silent sex, but it is certainly possible, even likely that language will play a role. While two people don't have to be together for reading, it remains an interaction at minimum between an author and at least one other reader. And so I concluded my second day journal entry feeling I had justified my original elevation of the significance of language in society today. It most often can and will be the center point of any other social undertaking.
With the decline of language skill among many American students it is easy to envision trouble ahead in their lives when a core part of their social interactions are hindered by marginalized language capabilities. I'd like to believe that this trend is not permanent, but then I'd like to believe that poetry would also enjoy a renaissance. As the John Lennon song Imagine says, "you may say that I'm a dreamer."
The poet may be used as a barometer, but let us not forget that he is also part of the weather. ~Lionel Trilling
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.
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.
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.
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.
