Just A Fun Draft

But Have You Considered?

Principal among the theatrics
Vivian postulated a retro design,
After all it was her kitchen--

She alone should have the say
For which I had no discomfort,
Only what I felt

Were innocuous questions
About how the laser cooker,
Robotic sweeper and hydrogenated

Gadgets were going to clash
With black and white checked décor
Accessorized with pink Flamingos.

Apologies...

My apologies to readers who checked in yesterday expecting to see the Wednesday Poet Series. I simply was too busy this week to put it together. I am however working on some interviews that will be part of future WPS posts.

I added two new poetry books to my library last night -

• The Painted Bed by Donald Hall
• Forty-five by Frieda Hughes

The Republic of Poetry

What sort of place is "The Republic of Poetry"? As portrayed in the title poem of Martín Espada's dynamic eighth collection, it's a place where poets eat for free in restaurants, where "poets rent a helicopter/ to bombard the national palace/ with poems on bookmarks," and where "the guard at the airport/ will not allow you to leave the country/ until you declaim a poem for her/ and she says Ah! Beautiful." Review by Megan Harlan here

I met Martin Espada this past year at an event in Kansas City. Espada is an authority on Pablo Neruda as well as a widely published translator of Neruda's work. This looks to be another work inspired by Neruda's flair for language that has become such a strong influence on Espada. Should make for good reading.


Tags: Martin Espada Pablo Neruda

The Chase

The Chase


Those meringue urges—
They lead you on like no other.
I’ve seen your eyes swell and shine
Moonbeams to light the night sky
As you rise in your helium trance
On the hope you have whipped up for yourself.

Soar—

The award for originality in lies...

The woman told a writer that the manuscript had been aboard one of the planes hijacked in the September Eleventh attacks. That was just one of the excuses offered by a fifty-seven year old woman who bilked would-be authors with false promises to publish their books.

She'll have some time to read manuscripts now as she'll be doing five years in prison. She has also been ordered to pay 231 people more than $728,000 in restitution. [story here]

~0~

It now appears there will be two films rushing to bring the tempestuous relationship between Welch poet Dylan and his Irish wife Caitlin to the screen. Both promising to focus on the mythology of the poet and exposing his unorthodox love life and that of his wife Caitlin. [story]

A Thought from Albert Camus - Geezzz, He had so many good ones

"We all carry within us our places of exile, our crimes, and our ravages. But our task is not to unleash them on the world; it is to fight them in ourselves and in others." -- Albert Camus

Plath daughter puts her pain in poetry - Sunday Times - Times Online

Plath daaughter

Richard Brooks, Arts Editor

FRIEDA Hughes, the daughter of Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath, has written a frank autobiographical book of poetry about the tragedies in her life. The terse and painful style of her work is remarkably like that of her mother.
Published last week in America before it appears in Britain in the spring, Forty-Five has 45 poems about each of the years of her life. The most poignant cover the suicide in 1963 of her mother, her discovery in her teens that her mother had taken her own life, and her father’s death from cancer in 1998. ughter puts her pain in poetry - Sunday Times - Times Online

Tag: Frieda Hughes