Poet's obsessions

"If a poet is anybody, he is somebody to whom things made matter very little - somebody who is obsessed by Making." ~ e. e. cummings

Worthwhile Workshop

I met an extremely brilliant and engrossing artist of varied talents at a writers workshop yesterday.

So, here I am setting in this room with a hand full of other writers and Debra Di Blasi, the instructor, begins her spiel, except that it's not just that, I am quickly realizing that this person thinks like a poet. Writing conferences that are not geared towards poetry can often be a mixed bag of goods and I always prepare myself by trying my hardest to keep an open mind about the usefulness and application of knowledge shared.

Di Blasi is in fact versed in so many areas that she would be a superb resource for any art discipline. Indeed, Debra interestingly asserts that where the literary arts are concerned the boundaries are collapsing.

I came away with some refreshing ideas and energy.

Making Room

"I'm alive today, therefore I'm just as much a part of our time as everybody else. The times will just have to enlarge themselves to make room for me, won't they, and for everybody else." ~ Stevie Smith

I Am

Back from a Writers Workshop
What did I buy – you ask
In a random sort of way
As if maybe you care and maybe not

I bought myself back from linoleum
And I am now vertical
The food was –
Well it was

But the sun hid for while
And time was what it always is
Approximation of something taught to us
But what if it isn’t at all

What if the war were to eclipse time
Would it matter if one fell face down dead in the dirt
Or if 32 hundred and change came home boxed in memory
To families that could not reset their watches and make it go away

Words coagulate to prove
The math backwards
And if I write – I am

Rogue Poetry Review

The Winter Issue of Rogue Poetry Review

is belatedly complete now and posted.

Enjoy!

Begin Every Line With Capital Letter

"A prose writer gets tired of writing prose, and wants to be a poet. So he begins every line with a capital letter, and keeps on writing prose." ~ Samuel McChord Crothers

It's Friday, thank God! I have a headache this morning - a recurrence of one from last night in fact. I suspect is is sinus related and it's bad. It is not an attempt at sympathy but an affirmation to myself that today I need to not let things drag me down.

I have a Writers Conference tonight and tomorrow to look forward to. It appears that most of it is directed towards prose and not poetry though there is one session that is on poetry. That said, I chuckle at today's quote above.

Now some odds and ends...

• A big thumbs up for the House and Senate making a firm statement on the War in Iraq in spite of Bush's threat to veto the bill.
• Rudy Giuliani flip-flops on civil union laws. Geeze, is he running for President or something?
• Former CIA Director George J. Tenet accuses the White House of making him a scapegoat and of ignoring early CIA warnings that Iraq was sinking into chaos. Tenet also leveled criticism at Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, saying that the two had destroyed his reputation by repeatedly using the "slam-dunk" line to pin blame on him for the decision to go to war.
• Franz Wright is a poet whose work I have admired. Here is an interesting interview of the son of poet James Wright. Both by the way are Pulitzer Prize winners. I love the story of the note from his father, I had heard it prior to reading this piece.
• So who is author Anne Lamott reading?
• Tombstone case may bury free speech.

Nothing ~ X.J. Kennedy

Toe after toe, a snowing flesh,
a gold of lemon, root and rind,
she sifts in sunlight down the stairs
with nothing on. Nor on her mind.
~ X. J. Kennedy from Nude Descending a Staircase