Stopping to think....

"A verbal art like poetry is reflective; it stops to think. Music is immediate, it goes on to become." ~ W. H. Auden

And a few thoughts today:

• The Amnesia General had over 70 forgetful spells at his Senate Hearing Thursday and yet Dana Perin, White House spokesperson, said Bush called Gonzales after returning from a trip to Ohio on Thursday in a fresh show of support for his longtime Texas friend.
  Wow, the President really had no shame.
• Gov. Christine Gregoire this week marked National Poetry Month by signing legislation that creates the new post of poet laureate for the state of Washington. Forty other states currently have poet laureates. Yeah Washington!
• Poetry doubles as therapy for N.M. teenager. [story]
• War on Terror Reaches the Poet ~ A poetry professor in a small college in the Northeast decides to recycle old manuscripts and becomes an object of suspicion. [story]

"What is required is sight and insight -- then you might add one more: excite."

~ Robert Frost

A childs view of broken

"I have woven a parachute out of everything broken." ~ William Stafford

Broken is such an useful word. As a child, I most recall broken as something that was most often very final but I hoped otherwise. It mostly related to toys. There was at first the expectation that an parent (being a duly qualified grown-up) could fix or reverse this condition and restore it to something close to original form.

As we grow older, we discover that many more things can be broken. Bones, promises, relationships. We break laws and sometimes laws themselves are broken and need to be fixed. Language, spirits and even society as a whole can be broken.

Stafford in this quote, appears to have maintained a bit of the child's view; that even the broken can be made into something useful. Perhaps in our naivety, we have only hope and the cynic in us has not yet developed. A process that is more likely to come with the passage of time through experiences.

Keeping such hope, especially in light of inexplicable tragedy like we have experienced in the recent events at Virginia Tech, is a good thing. Believing we can still achieve something meaningful out of such loss is important to us all.

The poet William Stafford speaks of weaving a parachute out of everything broke. We need a parachute right now. Something to break our fall. Giving hope of something other than a broken spirit. We need Stafford's view of life.

Special Day

Happy Birthday to My Lovely Wife Cathy Today!

Universality of poetry

“Poetry is finer and more philosophical than history; for poetry expresses the universal, and history only the particular.” ~ Aristotle

Today's bits and pieces:

• Poet Nikki Giovanni reciting poem at Virginia Tech Vigil
• In an interesting shift - the British have backed off the use of the phrase 'war on terror' citing the phrase strengthens terrorists by making them feel part of a bigger struggle. A member of Tony Blair's Cabinet brought into the open a quiet shift away from the U.S. view on combating extremist groups saying, "In the U.K., we do not use the phrase 'war on terror' because we can't win by military means alone, and because this isn't us against one organized enemy with a clear identity and a coherent set of objectives." What an interesting shift from on of President Bush's favorite phrases.
• A roundup of 5 poetry bestsellers.

Poets & Writers Exchange Contest for poetry

Congratulation to Andres Rodriguez who was the Missouri winner of the Poets & Writers Exchange Contest for poetry. Rodriguez was chosen from a pool of 112 entries. He lives in Kansas City and is the author of Book of the Heart -The Poetics, Letters and Life of John Keats

Patience

"Children and lunatics cut the Gordian knot which the poet spends his life patiently trying to untie." ~ Jean Cocteau

Patience and poetry always keep appearing together.

IN THE NEWS:

• Natasha Tretheway won the Pulitzer Prize on Monday for "Native Guard," a collection about black Civil War soldiers who helped protect a fort on Ship Island, a few miles off the Mississippi coast. [story]
• Charlie Savage of the Boston Globe won a Pulitzer for his reporting how President Bush quietly claimed the authority to disobey more than 750 laws enacted since he took office. This is a compelling piece of journalistic reporting that should get more attention then it has. (click here)