Poetry wants to come out at a party in flashing attire. Poetry wants to shout with lungs of an opera singer from a mountaintop. It wants to say things unimaginable- cause you to think, to laugh, and to cry. Mostly it wants you to feel because the world has become so numb.
You don’t have to understand all of it- just let it be what it is. Poetry is the antidote.
Friday, September 30, 2005
Rx
Thursday, September 29, 2005
These Last Days
Air like iceberg lettuce
Morning sun shyly holds back
Lower in the sky
Windshields are Post-it notes
For tiny fingers
Listen-
You can hear ballparks deflating
And birds packing for long trips
Wednesday, September 28, 2005
Mid-Week Madness
Christine has done it again....
OMG - the New Yorker - every issue since time eternal on DVD for $100 bucks!
Actually - there is as deal on this page that gets it down to sixty some bucks - see the side bar click for Amazon click button.
From Katrina comes poetic expression.
OMG - the New Yorker - every issue since time eternal on DVD for $100 bucks!
Actually - there is as deal on this page that gets it down to sixty some bucks - see the side bar click for Amazon click button.
From Katrina comes poetic expression.
Three Weeks Of Mania in KC Poetry
The coming three weeks are ripe with poetry events in the Kansas City Area.
October 1 - Saturday 1 p.m. POETRY SLAM The Kansas City Public Library will host a poetry slam at the Central Library 14 W. 10th Street - Kansas City, Missouri. The event will be in the Nutter Family Cafe locate within the library. A $100 prize will be awarded.
October 5 - Wednesday 6 p.m. - 8 p.m. Branching Out Poetry Workshop
The Kansas City Library in cooperation with Branching Out - Poetry for the 21st Century will conduct a poetry workshop that is open to the public. Event in the Helzberg Auditorium. Central Library 14 W. 10th Street - Kansas City, Missouri.
October 7 - Friday 7 p.m. - Mary Joe Slater will present "More and the Writing Life" (Marianne Craig Moore 1887 - 1972) at Unity Temple on the Plaza - 707 W. 47th St - Kansas City, Missouri.
October 15 - Saturday 2 p.m. Branching Out Poetry Workshop This is a repeat of the October 5th workshop above with different presenters.
Everything else (location, etc. the same)
October 1 - Saturday 1 p.m. POETRY SLAM The Kansas City Public Library will host a poetry slam at the Central Library 14 W. 10th Street - Kansas City, Missouri. The event will be in the Nutter Family Cafe locate within the library. A $100 prize will be awarded.
October 5 - Wednesday 6 p.m. - 8 p.m. Branching Out Poetry Workshop
The Kansas City Library in cooperation with Branching Out - Poetry for the 21st Century will conduct a poetry workshop that is open to the public. Event in the Helzberg Auditorium. Central Library 14 W. 10th Street - Kansas City, Missouri.
October 7 - Friday 7 p.m. - Mary Joe Slater will present "More and the Writing Life" (Marianne Craig Moore 1887 - 1972) at Unity Temple on the Plaza - 707 W. 47th St - Kansas City, Missouri.
October 15 - Saturday 2 p.m. Branching Out Poetry Workshop This is a repeat of the October 5th workshop above with different presenters.
Everything else (location, etc. the same)
Tuesday, September 27, 2005
Get this!
Someone used the google search: Michael Brown super hero to arrive at this site. Talk about an oxymoron.
Think about this....
"Yes, we love peace, but we are not willing to take wounds for it, as we are for war." ~John Andrew Holmes, Wisdom in Small Doses
Sunday, September 25, 2005
Poets Do This Nation Proud
As many of you are likely aware, First Lady Laura Bush invited a number of Poets from around the country to participate in a celebration of "Poetry and the American Voice" in 2003. As timing would have it, the President's plan for a unilateral attack on Iraq got in the way.
One by one, poets from around the country expressed their concern about the course the President was setting the nation on. So many, that the White House was faced with two unpleasant facts. One, that many very well recognized poets in this country had, as a matter of conscience, declined the invitations. In addition, one such poet, Sam Hamill both declined his invitation and asked about fifty fellow poets to reconstitute a Poets Against the War like one that had been such a powerful voice of reason during the war in Vietnam. Over 1500 poets not fifty responded. This led to a second fact that created discomfort for the White House. In a matter of days, poets all over this nation were using the power of word to take issue with the military attack by this nation on the people of Iraq. As such, the First Lady feared that the planned symposium, if carried out, could well become the catalyst for public airing of powerful words of opposition to war. She could not allow that. The event was cancelled altogether.
In spite of this, today, Poets Against the War have a web site with more than 20,000 poems that speak to the insanity of war. It is the largest poetry anthology ever published.
Such action by poets to confront American foreign policy issues is not new. The Letters of Robert Lowell - published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux 2005 contains an interesting correspondence by Robert Lowell of May 30, 1965 to President Lyndon B Johnson. In it Mr. Lowell recants an invitation he earlier accepted to read at the White House Festival of the Arts the following month. Lowell writes, "When I was telephoned last week and asked to read... I am afraid I accepted somewhat rapidly and greedily. I thought of such an occasions a purely artistic flourish, even though every serious artist knows that he cannot enjoy public celebration without making subtle public commitments. After a week's wondering, I have decided that I am conscience-bound to refuse your courteous invitation." Lowell goes on to explain that he is very enthusiastic about most of [Johnson's] domestic legislation he could only follow the nation's present foreign policy with "the greatest dismay and distrust."
I'm sure that Robert Lowell was by no means the first example of a poet of conscience that felt a higher calling of responsibility with respect to a bankrupt national policy. I am even more confident in saying those who have stood up and spoken out from the depths of their core beliefs about the present American actions in Iraq will not be the last.
I take comfort in knowing that American poets of all walks of life have a history of taking a strong stand in defense of reason and justice when it comes to matters of how this nation behaves in the larger context of the world community.
Visit the web site of Poets Against the War [here]
I also recommend reading the letter by poet Sharon Olds to Laura Bush [here]
Poets Against The War Iraq War Bush Administration
One by one, poets from around the country expressed their concern about the course the President was setting the nation on. So many, that the White House was faced with two unpleasant facts. One, that many very well recognized poets in this country had, as a matter of conscience, declined the invitations. In addition, one such poet, Sam Hamill both declined his invitation and asked about fifty fellow poets to reconstitute a Poets Against the War like one that had been such a powerful voice of reason during the war in Vietnam. Over 1500 poets not fifty responded. This led to a second fact that created discomfort for the White House. In a matter of days, poets all over this nation were using the power of word to take issue with the military attack by this nation on the people of Iraq. As such, the First Lady feared that the planned symposium, if carried out, could well become the catalyst for public airing of powerful words of opposition to war. She could not allow that. The event was cancelled altogether.
In spite of this, today, Poets Against the War have a web site with more than 20,000 poems that speak to the insanity of war. It is the largest poetry anthology ever published.
Such action by poets to confront American foreign policy issues is not new. The Letters of Robert Lowell - published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux 2005 contains an interesting correspondence by Robert Lowell of May 30, 1965 to President Lyndon B Johnson. In it Mr. Lowell recants an invitation he earlier accepted to read at the White House Festival of the Arts the following month. Lowell writes, "When I was telephoned last week and asked to read... I am afraid I accepted somewhat rapidly and greedily. I thought of such an occasions a purely artistic flourish, even though every serious artist knows that he cannot enjoy public celebration without making subtle public commitments. After a week's wondering, I have decided that I am conscience-bound to refuse your courteous invitation." Lowell goes on to explain that he is very enthusiastic about most of [Johnson's] domestic legislation he could only follow the nation's present foreign policy with "the greatest dismay and distrust."
I'm sure that Robert Lowell was by no means the first example of a poet of conscience that felt a higher calling of responsibility with respect to a bankrupt national policy. I am even more confident in saying those who have stood up and spoken out from the depths of their core beliefs about the present American actions in Iraq will not be the last.
I take comfort in knowing that American poets of all walks of life have a history of taking a strong stand in defense of reason and justice when it comes to matters of how this nation behaves in the larger context of the world community.
Visit the web site of Poets Against the War [here]
I also recommend reading the letter by poet Sharon Olds to Laura Bush [here]
Poets Against The War Iraq War Bush Administration
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