Sunday... He actually bloggs

I've managed some really rough drafts the past few days- but I haven't spent any time refining any of this or previous material. Picked up a new book yesterday. My wife has this radar for books that would interest me. We were walking through a bookstore in Topeka, Kansas - she in the mark downs and I looking at the poetry section. When I caught up with her she has Ariel's Gift by Erica Wagner. "Do you have this one?" [I have enough Plath and Hughes material she would have to ask] Of course she had come through once again. I could not pass it up and just under $2. Cathy (wife) bought a new crossword puzzle book this weekend and I have to agree with her - a lot of the clue and word associations are pretty lame. Example "brisk" - their answer was crisp. No way do I stretch my imagination far enough to consider crisp and brisk synonyms. "Gee, the lettuce in this salad is really brisk." I DON'T THINK SO.

Bits from my Journal:

Peeling onion skin off layer at a time,
wrinkles and worry lines sparked by tiny
two feet responsibilities, fell to the floor-
shavings of curled tongues
that will not soon lash out again.

Bookoholics

Check out Librarything.com [here] if you are into books. You can see what others are reading and you can easily catalogue your own library easily. It is easy to join and unless you are serious enough to add more than 200 of your own books, it is free. Beyond that, the costs are nominal.

You can catch up with Sam Hamill this Saturday in Seattle - Tanabata Star Festival
SAT Celebration of poetry and romance features music, haiku, reading by poet Sam Hamill, 2 p.m.; docent-guided garden tours, 12:30 and 2:30 p.m.; and tea and floral demonstrations, 11 a.m.-3 p.m. (garden is open 10 a.m.-8 p.m.), Seattle Japanese Garden, Washington Park Arboretum, 1075 Lake Washington Blvd. E., Seattle; entertainment free with admission, $3-$5 (206-684-4725).

Tags: Sam Hamill Book Lists books Reading List

0704

Mosaic glitter pounded the sky
Stealing breath-
Sulfur coating my mouth,
As frosting drizzled
Across the night

So it is...

Pictured to the left is a piece of artwork in downtown St. Louis. What I like about it is the urgency and the starkness of a black medium. Sort of reminds me of a windup for a pitch frozen in mid sequence.

Here is a crumb from my journal today:

So it is, standing here I've become a part
of the timberline, mired in translucent absurdity.

In another life...

I chuckled at Mark Strand's poem Two Horses in the July 3, 2006 edition of The New Yorker. The horses must have sensed I was holding back. / They moved slightly away. Then I thought they might have known me / in another life - the one in which I was a poet. /

Yes, back in the day. Strand's words take me back to six or seven years ago. No, last month, hell maybe it was yesterday. He captures in the next few lines that feeling we all have in the beginning of eagerness. Then the style changes. Trying to find ourselves.

They might have even read my poems back then, / in that shadowy time when our energies new no bounds, / we changes styles almost as often as there were days of the year. //

This poem was a fun read and it did something interesting. It took me back to the beginning and plugged me into where I was with all that excitement. Then the experimentation with forms and subject matter. With looking everywhere, including under the kitchen sink for a voice. My Voice! The funny thing is the more I think about it, I find myself returning to that mode again and again. Reliving the past I guess.

Pencil Sales Soar to New Hai(ku)

A book of poems caused sales of traditional wooden pencils to soar by nearly a third in the past few months. [story]

If you are in the Fan Francisco or East Bay areas, PLEASANTON POET LAUREATE Cynthia Bryant will hold an all-day poetry workshop:

The City of Pleasanton Civic Arts-sponsored poetry workshop will be held from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. July 8 at the Pleasanton Senior Center, 5353 Sunol Blvd. The workshop fee is $50 and includes continental breakfast and a box lunch. Call Michelle Russo at 925-931-5350 to make a reservation or e-mail her at mrusso@ci.pleasanton.ca.us.

Sometimes the poetry is in the pauses - "A Little White Shadow" is Mary Ruefle's experiment in "found poetry" in which she recreates the ravages of time formally. [story]

Bits from my journal:

• "...clutch the remote in a whiteknuckled figment of a controlling imagination grip."
• "...upon my windshield, each lull a momentary reload of Orval's finest."
• Name and origin uncertain, but you know nothing good ever comes of it."

I sent an entry of three poems off yesterday to a contest that this past year I was a runner up in. Now the wait. :::sigh:::

Intent

"I have experienced healing through other writers' poetry, but there's no way I can sit down to write in the hope a poem will have healing potential. If I do, I'll write a bad poem." - Marilyn Hacker

I can indeed identify with two aspects of this statement. First, I have read other poetry that spoke to me in such a way as to provide therapeutic benefit. I really don't think that is going to come as an earth shaking revelation because I think most of us have had such experiences. The second is about writing poetry with the same intent. Or, any specific intent for that matter. While I have set out writing with a specific intent in mind, I don't do it often and usually don't do it well. It is all a part of that "forced" and very unnatural flow that seems to inflict poems which such intent. Fact is, I can't tell you right off the last time I wrote a poem with a specific "intended message" before my hand started dragging the pen across the blank page.

Marilyn Hacker bio (here)

Tags: Marilyn Hacker Writing and poetry Poetry