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
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.
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.
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.
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
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!
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
“Art is not a handicraft, it is the transmission of feeling the artist has experienced.” ~ Leo Tolstoy
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.
“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
Oh what a week! I won’t go into the long and the short of my week, but I will say that it seemed more of the former.
Outside of my own immediate personal space the week has truly been something else.
Looking for a weekend of productive writing and less insanity.
Those four words underscore the advice offered by Tara Jepson writing on writing for Examiner.com. This was an accidental discovery but one I wanted to share with readers because it certainly demonstrates an opportunity for all of us who write.
If I could reduce this article to simplest terms it would be realizing that “art begets art.” Perhaps not a novel idea but sometimes when we are struggling with where to go in our work we often overlook some of the best opportunities for prompts and sources of inspiration… the art of others. Article Here
If you haven’t seen this, check it out. William Shatner cracks me up here.
Reading today from Gary Snyder's Danger on Peaks and Naomi Shihab Nye's Fuel. Two very different writing styles. Both poets however lean heavily on personal experiences.
There’s a thunderstorm moving into the area tonight. I must confess that at times I enjoy just crawling into bed and listening to them unfold from the distant rumbling and slowly move closer until I can feel we are in the eye of the storm. Of course I say that with some light heartedness as being in the mid-west we can have quite violent storms. Still, it’s just one of many fascinating aspects of nature that one sometimes gets sucked into. As a poet you have love the various languages in which nature speaks to us.
Well, I’m off to bed… with book in hand. Let it rain.
Trip to library today, picked up some poetry books to read, and a novel. I don’t often read fiction these days, but I thought I’d get something light to do recreational reading. Poetry really doesn't quite fit that bill for me though I do often really enjoy reading poetry, but I generally consider it more a act of academic endeavor.
After the library I made a stop at a nearby track in the heart of the city where a natural prairie environment has been recreated. I got a good exercise walk in then went back around a captured some pictures.
Funny, this make me think of Emily Dickinson writing on the topic of prairie: “To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee, / One clover, and a bee. / And revery. / The revery alone will do, / If bees are few.”
As the Tour de France is coming to a close – One more day till it’s history…. The latest fantasy team challenge between my daughter and I:
*Note to daughter – this is purely informational and not bragging.
The Forward Prizes were founded in 1992 to raise the profile of contemporary poetry – and annual award that carries a £10,000 prize. The shortlist is out and a final announcement of the winner will come in October. The list follows:
I was reading an essay yesterday by Joyce Carol Oats in which Oats offers that confessional poetry has been replaced with what might be called the memoir of crisis. I find interesting her supposition that current literary culture is obsessed with memoirs. Getting into the meat of the essay I was taken by surprise at her mention of Lucy Grealy, author of Autobiography of a Face. I read this book a number of years back as well and her second book, As Seen on Television and found her to be a an exceedingly talented writer. What really took me by surprise was the mention of her death. For some reason this was totally off my radar. I had not knowledge whatsoever.
Grealy’s first book was a memoir of the sad and tragic life – a victim at an early age of a rare form of cancer of the Jaw, she was greatly disfigured through the illness and subsequent multiple surgical procedures. But for all that the young girl endured, her candor and ability to express herself was a gift to all who read her words.
Lucy Grealy was also a poet, and after reading her second book I went looking for any poetry I could find published. My efforts at the time fell short. I could find nothing. Today I was able to locate two lines attributed to her. They are profound. Somewhere there must be other gems.
“When I dream of fire / you’re still the one I’d save / though I’ve come to think of myself / as the flames, the splintering rafters.” - Lucy Grealy
