Poetry in The News 8-5-08

A few Poetry news items...

• Robert Bly: The best poetry is always religious [story]
• Using poetry to laugh at the President’s playlist [story]
• Phoebe Snow Is On the Comeback Trail [story]

Today's Thought...

All My Life and it has not come to any more than this: beauty and terror.

~Mary Oliver

Tax Free Weekend

This post is coming to you via my new Toshiba laptop.

The 17 inch screen is especially nice. It's audio and video capacities will come in handy for some future podcasting I'd like to do.

Getting used to Vista- I am normally on Windows XP at the office, so this is a bit new to me. Missouri has a Tax free weekend each year before school starts which makes it nice making a purchase of this size. I was looking at a Dell on line but that would have been my second pick.

Now I need to get busy organizing my files on here and working on a number of drafts that I've accumulated. I am hoping that I can be more systematic about my writing. I do like writing in my journal, but once I have something roughed out, I think taking it to a page where I can see the layout and toy with it more like it would be on a printed page allows for an aspect of development of the piece that is otherwise cumbersome in handwriting.

Travelers' Laptops May Be Detained At Border - washingtonpost.com

Travelers' Laptops May Be Detained At Border - washingtonpost.com

Planning to travel abroad? When you re-enter the U.S. the Department of Homeland Security has disclosed that Federal agents may take your laptop computer or other electronic device to an off-site location for an unspecified period of time without any suspicion of wrongdoing. These officials may share copies of the lap top's contents with other agencies and private entities for language translation, data decryption or other reasons.

The policies cover any device capable of storing information in digital or analog form:

• including hard drives
• flash drives
• cellphones
• pagers
• ipods
• video and audio tapes
  

They also cover:

• all papers and other written documentation
• including books
• pamphlets
• pocket trash
• pocket litter

Yes that would miscellaneous paper scraps in your pocket.

With all the talk about abuses in the civil liberties of people by the Chinese government, I'd say that under the Bush administration we are well down that slippery slide. More information on protecting privacy issues can be found here

You May Be A Closet Poet If...

Be careful those of you besmirching poets... some of you may be closet poets yourself.

You could be a closet poet:

• If you use a circle to dot your i
• If when sitting erect your head lobs slightly to it's right
• If you suddenly stop your sentences before the end of a line and continue on the line below
• If you personify your ball glove or other objects you hold near and dear to you
• If things that befuddle others makes perfect sense to you
• If the absence of punctuation can be found at times in what you write
• If you write words or sentences in disjointed cursive letters
• If you've ever found yourself sitting in a dark closet alone and enjoyed it
• If you secretly wish to be called by the name Wadsworth, Emily, ee, Sylvia or Pablo

Michael A. Wells © 2008

Journal Bits This Week

• a quotation from the poet Stanley Kunitz - "I dream of an art so transparent that you can look through and see the world."
• ...monster winds rebuke her for safety disregarded.
• -still, fashion statements speak up/unpretentiously. These are long firm legs and sleek/institutional distractions.
• I want rain to be plain/I want rain that stays the same/No horizontal riding of wind/No golf ball sized hail on or off/the green.
• "Your whole age sits between what you hear/and what you write." - W.S. Merwin from "Sibyl"
• A lavish history locked away in a graying point of view.

Obama HQ Opens in KC

On my lunch hour today I stopped by the new Obama HQ in Kansas City for their open house. As you can see the crowd was very respectable for a week day lunch time event. In the first photo above, Jackson County Executive Michael Sanders is addressing the crowd.

The headquarters is on the NW corner of Gillham Rd and 31st Street - there is good parking available for volunteer workers. It should be a great location. There are other officers open and yet to open in Missouri including more in the K.C. metro area