Yesterday I was able to pick up a number of poetry books at a discount store going out of business. They were dirt cheap! I think I got like 12 books. The were $1 each.
Robert Pinsky's The Want Bone
Nikki Giovanni's The Women and the Men
Ted Hughes' Wolf Watching
Diane Ackerman's Origami Bridges
Louise Gluck's The Seven Ages
A really interesting hard back book Anne Sexton - The Last Summer
(This is a photo shoot book by photographer Arthur Furst with some copies of letters and manuscripts. It also has an introduction by Linda Gray Sexton - a daughter)
There were some other items... non poetry and an interesting book A Company of Readers - uncollected writings of W.H. Auden, Jacques Barzun and Lionel Trilling.
It feels a wee bit like Christmas. :)
Poetry
Sunday, February 13, 2005
Friday, February 11, 2005
Submissions
Sent out a packet of six submissions last night. It always feels good when I have just sent work out. Suppose it is like completing a circle or something. It's like letting them go and moving on. To be honest, they are not all new poems. Of the six only half have never been submitted anyplace before.
I'm very glad that it's Friday. I really need for the weekend to be here. Like yesterday.
It is starting to sink in that baseball is nearing. Most pitchers and catchers will report to camps the first of the week. Opening days is always such an exhilarating experience. I love the resurgent rush of adrenalin that comes with the beginning of each season. It's a high that is perfectly legal and won't harm you. Unless of course you are a Cubs fan, and then the quick downward spiral could be lethal. ;)
I'm very glad that it's Friday. I really need for the weekend to be here. Like yesterday.
It is starting to sink in that baseball is nearing. Most pitchers and catchers will report to camps the first of the week. Opening days is always such an exhilarating experience. I love the resurgent rush of adrenalin that comes with the beginning of each season. It's a high that is perfectly legal and won't harm you. Unless of course you are a Cubs fan, and then the quick downward spiral could be lethal. ;)
Thursday, February 10, 2005
Update On Brittan School Story
This information from Boston Harold. com
The InCom Corp. is a company co-founded by the parent of a former Brittan School student and some parents are suspicious about the financial relationship between the school and the company. InCom plans to promote it at a national convention of school administrators next month.
InCom has apparently paid the school several thousand dollars for agreeing to the experimental use of it's product and has promised a royalty from each sale if the system takes off, said the company's co-founder, Michael Dobson, who works as a technology specialist in the town's high school. Brittan's technology aide also works part-time for InCom.
The InCom Corp. is a company co-founded by the parent of a former Brittan School student and some parents are suspicious about the financial relationship between the school and the company. InCom plans to promote it at a national convention of school administrators next month.
InCom has apparently paid the school several thousand dollars for agreeing to the experimental use of it's product and has promised a royalty from each sale if the system takes off, said the company's co-founder, Michael Dobson, who works as a technology specialist in the town's high school. Brittan's technology aide also works part-time for InCom.
ABC News: Parents Protest Student Computer ID Tags
ABC News: Parents Protest Student Computer ID Tags
Gee, this is wrong on so many levels I don't know where to start.
Jan. 18th, Brittan Elementary School (Sutter, California) superintendent Earnie Graham introduced a student identification tag complete with a radio frequency and scanner. The devise uses the same technology that companies use to track livestock and product inventory.
The associated press reports that the system was imposed, without parental input, by the school as a way to simplify attendance-taking and potentially reduce vandalism and improve student safety.
Each student is issued an identification card that they are required to wear around their necks. The cards have their name, picture and grade on them. A wireless transmitter on the badges beams their ID number to a teacher's handheld computer when they pass under an antenna posted above a door.
Not surprisingly, this little devise is not setting well with everyone. A Seattle Post-Intellegencer story dated today's date indicated that Grahan has acknowledged getting angry calls and notes from parents. His reply, "Sometimes when you are on the cutting edge, you get caught."
Cutting edge? The technology may be cutting edge, the concept of using the devise to monitor students is intrusive and reminiscent of McCarthyism.
Mr. Grahan was quoted as saying that it is within his power to set rules that promote a positive school environment and he thinks these badges will improve things.
It is hard to see how using a personal monitoring devise is supposed to promote a positive environment. It certainly is not going to send a message of trust and respect for the individual student.
This is such an outrageous attack on personal rights that I think an Earnie Graham award should be in order. An Award named for him for such creative efforts at Infringement of Personal Liberties.
Stick Poet will keep it's readers posted on any further developments in this story.
Gee, this is wrong on so many levels I don't know where to start.
Jan. 18th, Brittan Elementary School (Sutter, California) superintendent Earnie Graham introduced a student identification tag complete with a radio frequency and scanner. The devise uses the same technology that companies use to track livestock and product inventory.
The associated press reports that the system was imposed, without parental input, by the school as a way to simplify attendance-taking and potentially reduce vandalism and improve student safety.
Each student is issued an identification card that they are required to wear around their necks. The cards have their name, picture and grade on them. A wireless transmitter on the badges beams their ID number to a teacher's handheld computer when they pass under an antenna posted above a door.
Not surprisingly, this little devise is not setting well with everyone. A Seattle Post-Intellegencer story dated today's date indicated that Grahan has acknowledged getting angry calls and notes from parents. His reply, "Sometimes when you are on the cutting edge, you get caught."
Cutting edge? The technology may be cutting edge, the concept of using the devise to monitor students is intrusive and reminiscent of McCarthyism.
Mr. Grahan was quoted as saying that it is within his power to set rules that promote a positive school environment and he thinks these badges will improve things.
It is hard to see how using a personal monitoring devise is supposed to promote a positive environment. It certainly is not going to send a message of trust and respect for the individual student.
This is such an outrageous attack on personal rights that I think an Earnie Graham award should be in order. An Award named for him for such creative efforts at Infringement of Personal Liberties.
Stick Poet will keep it's readers posted on any further developments in this story.
Wednesday, February 09, 2005
Hump Day Notes
Wednesday is here.... Just finished working on Tiananmen Mother during my lunch hour. I have a new draft that I will try out tonight at a reading at Boarders Books. This is a fine tuning and I think I am happy with it now. Perhaps not totally finished. I'll see how I feel after the reading tonight.
This will be a whole new venue for me so I can bring out some older stuff too. Yeah!
I have decided that for longhand writing it is hard to beat a uni-ball Vision Elite. The words just seem to slide out of it like they are greased. *
*evidently the brain must also be engaged.
This will be a whole new venue for me so I can bring out some older stuff too. Yeah!
I have decided that for longhand writing it is hard to beat a uni-ball Vision Elite. The words just seem to slide out of it like they are greased. *
*evidently the brain must also be engaged.
Monday, February 07, 2005
A breakthrough
I was back at it yesterday. Hammering away at this poem that has been in the making now for over a week. Almost to my amazement, I seemed to have a breakthrough. I worked on it in the morning and stopped just after noon. I had a 3 pm writers group ~ and shortly after lunch I decided to try to retool it a bit more and take it with me. I was glad I did.
Really good feedback from the group has given me both the feeling that I am near where I want to be on this and at the same time exactly where I need to work on it. I decided to do nothing more on it last night, rather to let it rest. I'll likely take it up again tonight with my notes from yesterday. I'd like to get this to a final draft by Wednesday night's reading at Boarders Books.
Really good feedback from the group has given me both the feeling that I am near where I want to be on this and at the same time exactly where I need to work on it. I decided to do nothing more on it last night, rather to let it rest. I'll likely take it up again tonight with my notes from yesterday. I'd like to get this to a final draft by Wednesday night's reading at Boarders Books.
An excerpt of the poem Tiananmen Mother follows:
The Beijing breeze whispers/ mournful strophes./ Tears like the mountain rains/
follow slopes// to tributaries until they become one /with the rippling waters of the Yangtze.//
Saturday, February 05, 2005
Frustration Abounds
I have spent hours today on a poem that I started a week ago and it is just past 9pm and I'm calling it quits on this one for tonight. I'm shutting down the computer- going upstairs and I will read some poetry for a while. I have to get away from this piece.... It simply is not happening tonight.
Frustration sucks!
Frustration sucks!
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