Shock waves - Times Online: "July 30, 2007
Shock waves -Frieda Hughes: poetry
The Diameter of the Bomb
(by Yehuda Amichai (1924-2000),
translated by Yehuda Amichai and Ted Hughes,
Selected Poems edited by Ted Hughes and Daniel Weissbort, Faber) "
Read the Poem and Commentary by Frieda Hughes
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Monday, July 30, 2007
Wordplay
Di-vis-i-ble
Chopped up.
Grade school math.
One divided four times into four parts.
Broken into four pieces.
Able to be divided.
Three Musketeer bar in four pieces.
Four separate and visible parts.
Four syllables.
Four flavors in one scoop.
Chopped up.
Grade school math.
One divided four times into four parts.
Broken into four pieces.
Able to be divided.
Three Musketeer bar in four pieces.
Four separate and visible parts.
Four syllables.
Four flavors in one scoop.
This is my brain on sludge
My brain is in a haze this morning. I didn’t sleep well at all last night and it feels like my thoughts are slowly processing to the surface after exerting unreal amounts of energy making their way through sludge in order to arrive at their destination. Even the caffeine drip IV from my Diet Coke is not enough to significantly alter this process.
Perhaps it is the fact that I had a most abysmal excuse for sleep last night. But this feels more than tired. This feels fatigued.
I will face phone calls today at the office and a large number of tasks. Fortunately I have no appointments scheduled. It is inevitable there will be someone who walks in and needs something done right away. Inevitables should be outlawed and someone remind me to undertake a campaign for such a law as soon as I regain my functionality.
Of all my writing this week, I think I have only one piece that shows any real promise. I still need take an anvil and hammer to it and whack some shape into it.
There were a number of “bright ideas” that popped into my head the past few days. Actually, there was a period where it seemed like Orville Redenbacher popcorn was ricocheting off my cranium. I hate it when they become so fervent it is difficult to harness them onto paper for future consideration. Instead, the hazy memory of their existence only adds to the mental anguish that ratchets up the tension inside your head.
I’ve been reading some on John Keats theory of negative capability and exploring the relevance to my poetry. I can assure you, it is too weighty a topic for this post in my present condition.
Perhaps it is the fact that I had a most abysmal excuse for sleep last night. But this feels more than tired. This feels fatigued.
I will face phone calls today at the office and a large number of tasks. Fortunately I have no appointments scheduled. It is inevitable there will be someone who walks in and needs something done right away. Inevitables should be outlawed and someone remind me to undertake a campaign for such a law as soon as I regain my functionality.
Of all my writing this week, I think I have only one piece that shows any real promise. I still need take an anvil and hammer to it and whack some shape into it.
There were a number of “bright ideas” that popped into my head the past few days. Actually, there was a period where it seemed like Orville Redenbacher popcorn was ricocheting off my cranium. I hate it when they become so fervent it is difficult to harness them onto paper for future consideration. Instead, the hazy memory of their existence only adds to the mental anguish that ratchets up the tension inside your head.
I’ve been reading some on John Keats theory of negative capability and exploring the relevance to my poetry. I can assure you, it is too weighty a topic for this post in my present condition.
Sunday, July 29, 2007
Obsessions- Have you any?
The poet Robert Bly on obsessions...
"It is surely a great calamity for a human being to have no obsessions."
"It is surely a great calamity for a human being to have no obsessions."
Sunday... I believe it is too early
Sunday morning and my mind is largely in sleep mode. I did notice something worth checking out over at Jilly's: The Reanimation of Ted Williams' Frozen Head.
Then I noted that Kelli responded to the NPR series "This I Believe" and her response can be read here. Thinking about this reminds me, I did one many moons ago, and decided to see if in fact that mine made it past the circular file. To my surprise, it did, and can be found here.
I've had breakfast and need to find what I did with my medicine but thinking about where I last had it is like doing mental calisthenics and it is too early for that. Ouch!
Then I noted that Kelli responded to the NPR series "This I Believe" and her response can be read here. Thinking about this reminds me, I did one many moons ago, and decided to see if in fact that mine made it past the circular file. To my surprise, it did, and can be found here.
I've had breakfast and need to find what I did with my medicine but thinking about where I last had it is like doing mental calisthenics and it is too early for that. Ouch!
Saturday, July 28, 2007
Guantanamo Poetry - five commentaries
This past week I received an e-mail from Jeff Charis-Carlson, Opinion Editor for the Iowa City Press-Citizen. He noted an earlier post in which I referenced the book, Poems from Guantanamo: The Detainees Speak that UI Press has published and brought to my attention a series of op-ed pieces on the subject that have appeared in the Iowa City Press-Citizen. I promised him I would take a look at them and I did. There were some interesting point offered in these editorials.
Jeff Charis-Carlson himself writes of his reactions to reading these poems and relates it to the haunting feelings that surface from reading Psalm 137, a song of exile in which the psalmist denounces those who captured him.
Shams Ghoneim, in another op-ed writes about the contrasting values on which America was founded and the code we are operating on with respect to the detainees at Guantanamo. She writes of Moazzam Begg's poem, "Homeward Bound," in which she can sense his hopelessness and sorrow. Begg received a letter from his 7-year-old daughter in which the only line that avoided the censor's pen was, "I love you, Daddy."
Joseph Parsons noted the poet Adrienne Rich has expressed that poetry can remind us of what we are forbidden to see. Parsons believes"Poems from Guantánamo: The Detainees Speak," is not about these accusations of maltreatment... "Its only ambition is to provide a glimpse into the lives, hearts and minds of the men held by the U.S. military at Guantanamo -- something we have been forbidden to see....as they pine for their families, their homes and all they hold dear."
Spring Ulmer writes, that words are dangerous things and "Poems from Guantánamo," had to be liberated from the Pentagon's "secure facilities," where most detainee writing remains in confinement, as it is considered "a security risk." I was struck by Ulmer's story where a year ago, after reading detainee Jumah Al Dossari's descriptions of torture (smuggled out and published online), she began writing letters to Dossari, only to have them returned by the military, marked and brutally ripped open as if to frighten her.
Tung Yin is a law professor at the University of Iowa, specializes in constitutional law and national security law. He writes of the poems giving human voice to the problems caused by applying the war model to non-state actors. He distinguishes the differences between traditional wars between nations, and that between the United States and al Qaida/Taliban. In traditional war, the enemy easily is identified, whereas in this conflict, the enemy hides among civilians. Because al Qaida members deliberately conceal themselves and because even the Taliban fighters did not wear traditional uniforms, there's higher likelihood that the United States would have incorrectly identified a person as the enemy. And in traditional war, it may be unknown what date the war will end, but it is known that the war can end when there is an armistice. In this conflict, it is unlikely the United States would negotiate with al Qaida, and we never may know if we have succeeded in destroying it as a threat to this country extending indefinitely the detention of these individuals without any due process.
I applaud the Iowa City Press-Citizen for dialogue it has contributed to the discussion of the Guantanamo poems.
Jeff Charis-Carlson himself writes of his reactions to reading these poems and relates it to the haunting feelings that surface from reading Psalm 137, a song of exile in which the psalmist denounces those who captured him.
Shams Ghoneim, in another op-ed writes about the contrasting values on which America was founded and the code we are operating on with respect to the detainees at Guantanamo. She writes of Moazzam Begg's poem, "Homeward Bound," in which she can sense his hopelessness and sorrow. Begg received a letter from his 7-year-old daughter in which the only line that avoided the censor's pen was, "I love you, Daddy."
Joseph Parsons noted the poet Adrienne Rich has expressed that poetry can remind us of what we are forbidden to see. Parsons believes"Poems from Guantánamo: The Detainees Speak," is not about these accusations of maltreatment... "Its only ambition is to provide a glimpse into the lives, hearts and minds of the men held by the U.S. military at Guantanamo -- something we have been forbidden to see....as they pine for their families, their homes and all they hold dear."
Spring Ulmer writes, that words are dangerous things and "Poems from Guantánamo," had to be liberated from the Pentagon's "secure facilities," where most detainee writing remains in confinement, as it is considered "a security risk." I was struck by Ulmer's story where a year ago, after reading detainee Jumah Al Dossari's descriptions of torture (smuggled out and published online), she began writing letters to Dossari, only to have them returned by the military, marked and brutally ripped open as if to frighten her.
Tung Yin is a law professor at the University of Iowa, specializes in constitutional law and national security law. He writes of the poems giving human voice to the problems caused by applying the war model to non-state actors. He distinguishes the differences between traditional wars between nations, and that between the United States and al Qaida/Taliban. In traditional war, the enemy easily is identified, whereas in this conflict, the enemy hides among civilians. Because al Qaida members deliberately conceal themselves and because even the Taliban fighters did not wear traditional uniforms, there's higher likelihood that the United States would have incorrectly identified a person as the enemy. And in traditional war, it may be unknown what date the war will end, but it is known that the war can end when there is an armistice. In this conflict, it is unlikely the United States would negotiate with al Qaida, and we never may know if we have succeeded in destroying it as a threat to this country extending indefinitely the detention of these individuals without any due process.
I applaud the Iowa City Press-Citizen for dialogue it has contributed to the discussion of the Guantanamo poems.
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