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Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Two Words and a Laugh

Last night, my youngest daughter who has been home for the summer, dug out her ball glove and talked me into playing catch. It didn't take a lot of talking- I've wanted to play catch for a while now. Couple of years back I had a rotator-cuff injury and couldn't pitch a wad of gum underhanded.

For maybe 20 to 25 minuted we went back and forth. My arm felt good but was substantially lacking in power and distance.

Meg seemed to be enjoying it as much as I was then all at once when reaching low to make a catch, she pulled something in her back. We were finished for the evening.

This morning while my wife and I were driving into the city for work, Meg sent my wife a text message and said she could not understand why she ended up with and bad back and Mr. Brittle was unscathed. She cracks me up!

All right... time for some new words to drag out into the public view. Just two this time, but they are great words.

  • microphagous - adj. feeding upon small objects
  • philodox - n. dogmatic person; a person fond of opinions, especially their own.

OMG,,,, the second one sounds like me.

Notables

Eileen Tabois posted her POETRY SURVEY: AND ANALYSIS and if you have not been over to take a gander, you might do do.

I found Mary Biddinger's blog Word Cage the other day and she offers some insightful blogging on poetry. What do you need, and why? is a fascinating look at what she has to do to write a poem. At last count there were like 9 replies in the comments and it's fun to see what everyone else has to say on the subject.

Sunday, August 17, 2008

Sunday Afternoon Breather

I've been cleaning and I'm in need of a break. So this is my break. Nothing earth shattering- this blog post is likely to be more therapeutic in value than informative.

I was excited by the Women's softball team at the Olympics being 20-0! In Baseball, The U.S. was down four runs midway through their game with Canada and scoured 5 unanswered runs to win and stay in the hunt for the medal rounds. Sure I could mention Phelps, but I'm sure someone else has been talking about him.

We are coming up on the Democratic National Convention in about a week. I'm going to step out here and make a prediction on Obama's running mate. At one point I thought he might select Hillary Clinton in spite of a good number of reasons he would likely overlook her. I don't believe it will be Hillary and unfortunately I don't think it will be any woman. You have to give Hillary credit for enhancing the possibility of a woman President. I'm not suggesting anyone make bets on the basis of my prediction, but right now I'd have to say I believe Joe Biden followed by Evan Bayh are my predictions.

I would be remiss if I ended this post without a hint of a mention of poetry, so I'll point you to this amusing story... Olympics postcard: Chinese translations pure poetry. Enjoy!

Friday, August 15, 2008

More on Truth and Poetics

The other night, I noted a quote by Laurie Sheck and then headed off to bed to contemplate her words. I'll repeat them here now.

"The poet unmasks the language of power. The language of power is the language of the lie."

As I thought that evening about her words, as well as the following day I kept coming back to the thought that if poetry unmasks the language of power, and the language of power is the language of the lie, then poetry must be about truth. But that was an easy step for me because I've come to accept poetry as in essence a truth.

Now I know there are plenty of individuals who fail to understand the concept of poetry as "a truth" but for those who might be reading this and shaking their head, let me explain.

Where you often here people argue the concept of poetry equals truth is they will often ask about a specific poem and the details therein. When they find that the poem is not specifically about an incident that really occurred to the poet, they will jump on that as fiction.

For some, truth is an absolute. It is indisputable. Within that context, if you hold something to be true but I hold something different to be true, one of us has to be wrong. It is an all or nothing proposition. In the realm of poetics today I think we must accept that there are truths that are less than absolute. We can see something and explain it for example in a metaphorical context. In fact you and I may explain it using different metaphors. You may be able to agree that you can see what I am saying but you might have chosen a totally different metaphor then I. In this way, language allows for truths that are not absolutes. It is in the language of poetry that we can see the same thing in different ways sometime looking squarely at that which is disingenuous and calling it out.

If language has power (and I believe it does) it has it to the extent that we allow it to. Poetry frees us to use language rather than allow language to control us. Through poetry, that lie is looking a little less secure to me.

Thursday, August 14, 2008

Celebration!

Sorry, I can't help it. Sometime overnight the 40,000th unique visitor was registered in our stats at Stickpoet Super Hero!

Kudos too for U.S.women’s gymnasts Nastia Liukin and Shawn Johnson who won Gold and Silver respectively last night in Beijing.


*photo credit - FreeFoto.com

A parting thought....

A thought to take to bed with me tonight from the poet Lauie Sheck-

"The poet unmasks the language of power. The language of power is the language of the lie."

On that note, I'm off to bed to contemplate what this means to the poet and his or her audience.

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