B H Fairchild

I am attending a reading of B. H. Fairchild tonight here in Kansas City. Looking forward to hearing his work. He grew up in a small town in Kansas and some of his poetry reflects midwest ties, though he has I believe in more recent years lived in California.

Thursday, I'll have an opportunity to set in a class he is giving as well. He was brought in by UMKC College of Arts and Sciences.

My Poetry Quote of the day:

"A poet looks at the world the way a man looks at a woman." ~Wallace Stevens, Opus Posthumous, 1957

By nature...

"A true poet does not bother to be poetical. Nor does a nursery gardener scent his roses." ~Jean Cocteau

I have this overwhelming desire to paraphrase this as, "Shit happens" ~ but I won't.

Hit with The STICK

James at Love During Wartime passed me the STICK. Immediately I was overcome by a combination of trepidation and honor. Sort of a schizophrenic emotional burst.

1. You're stuck inside Fahrenheit 451, which book do you want to be? Ariel by Sylvia Plath
2. Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character? Gee, not that I can recall. Which seems almost as lame as if I had one.
3. The last book you read: Transformations by Anne Sexton
4. What are you currently reading? The Poetry Home Repair Manuel - Ted Kooser & Wintering - Kate Moses ( I'm multi-tasking ) ;)
5. Five books you would take to a deserted island: Men at Work: The Craft of Baseball - George Will [there is no culture without baseball] , The Journals of Sylvia Plath, Sylvia Plath's Collected Poems, Why Time Begins on Opening Day - Thomas Boswell, And Poetry Speaks and a CD player....(is this cheating?)
6. Who are you going to pass this stick to (3 persons) and why? Eileen at The Chatelaine's Poetics: Because she's upon there on the mountain where the air is thin and Just never know what she is going to say. Jilly at The Poetry Hut: Who is not on a mountain ( that I know of) but is among the culturally elite who love baseball & poetry at the same time ; ) and Michaela at Mikarrhea: who, hell is just likely to say anything - mountain or no mountain.

The pleasure of it....

"Even when poetry has a meaning, as it usually has, it may

be inadvisable to draw it out.... Perfect understanding

will sometimes almost extinguish pleasure."

*

~ A.E. Housman

My Skin Curls

Jilly has a new site address.... here.

I'd like to call your attention to this site: Voices In Wartime

Christine Hamm is just too damn good... and I think I've said that before, or at least something like it-- but damn, she is! Writing a Poem - check it out! When I read her stuff, I swear my skin curls.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

"The poetry of the earth is never dead." -John Keats

Happy St. Patrick's Day

~

And then there is a flash....

You can tear a poem apart to see what makes it tick.... You're back with the mystery of having been moved by words. The best craftsmanship always leaves holes and gaps... so that something that is not in the poem can creep, crawl, flash or thunder in. ~Dylan Thomas, Poetic Manifesto, 1961

Come on Eileen, when you have THAT many peeps, you are going to be recognized when you come down out of the mountain!

Some day I may understand life. I don't really think today is going to be it though. Still, I am trying to be open to that possibility.