Earnie Graham's Surveillance Project Cut Short

InCom Corp, the Sutter, California based technology company that co-oped with Earnie Graham and the Brittan Elementary School in Sutter has pulled out of it's experimental "student tracking" project with the school.

The project widely reported in the media and here at Stick Poet has come under heavy criticism from parents and civil libertarians who felt the use of electronic equipment to monitor students movements was a bad precedence to start in a public school.

InCom cited the intense media attention its experiment generated attracted as a reason for the termination of the program in Brittan. According to an AP wire story, Paul Nicholas Boylan, lawyer for the school district said, "They can go someplace where they wouldn't have any risk of vandalism. Here, they have to worry about a community where at least a few are dead-set against anybody being able to benefit from this." I'm not sure what school district that would be, I think he as much are Earnie Graham has greatly misjudged public sentiment on this issue.
As for InCom, I think they have the wrong approach to their market for surveillance.

I'm Thinking I Need A Want List

I see Denise Duhamel has a new book out. I am anxious to read it. Problem is I have an ever growing list of poetry books to read and presumably acquire since the libraries limit greatly the poetry books they acquire. I mean there is Eileen's brick I still have to get. Sharon Olds has a book out I want. You get the picture.

Backing Up To Sunday

Sunday was a mixed bag of goods.

A number of us gathered at a private launch party for Under the TellingTree: An Anthology of Voice and Verse. Well attended party and book signing. I'll post some pictures in a day or so.

The downside of the day was an e-mail rejection letter of three poems I had sent off. Not like that has never happened before.

Herald.com | 02/13/2005 | 'How do I love thee?' With lovely poems, of course

Herald.com 02/13/2005 'How do I love thee?' With lovely poems, of course

I was trying to think what I could blog about that fit the Valentines theme when as luck would have it, I came upon this piece in the Miami Herald.

There are a few notable examples of poetic couples and since poetry so often goes to the core of emotional feeling, it seems Valentines Day is an appropriate time to mentions some of these noteworthy couples.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning & Robert Browning.

Jane Kenyon & Donald Hall

Tess Gallagher & Raymond Carver

Brenda Hillman & Robert Hass

Sylvia Plath & Ted Hughes


MARGARIA FICHTNER in this Miami Herald piece takes a look at a contemporary couple, Denise Duhamel and Nick Carbo. I've been a fan of Duhamel's and only more recently discovered Carbo and realized their husband wife connection. Fichtner is able to do the subject of a poetic married love far more justice then I could in today's blog, so I will simply recommend you fallow the link and enjoy the read.

And on that I close wishing all you poets and non-poets a happy Valentines Day.

Including The love of my life - who is not a poet of words but one of beaded artistry.
Happy Valentines Day Sweetie!

Bingo

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

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. ;)

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.