Snippets

"I don't look on poetry as closed works. I feel they're going on all the time in my head and I occasionally snip off a length."- John Ashbery

Technorati Tags: John AShbery,snippets,poetry

Chinese Government Blocks Twitter - Advertising Age - Global News

Chinese Government Blocks Twitter - Advertising Age - Global News: "Chinese Government Blocks Twitter
Run-up to 20th Anniversary of Tiananmen Square Blamed

Posted by Normandy Madden on 06.02.09 @ 02:55 PM



HONG KONG (AdAge.com) -- China's government has pulled the plug on yet another Western website, making Twitter unavailable to most users in mainland China since about 5 p.m. local time (5 a.m. in New York) and infuriating the local Twitterverse, which is already finding ways around the block.
The government has not publicly stated why it is blocking the site and doesn't usually comment on the actions of China's so-called net nanny, but it is widely assumed the government wanted to limit Twitter use before an important and controversial event -- the 20th anniversary of the government crackdown on student protests in Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989.

The authorities are also nervous about the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China coming up on Oct. 1, 2009."

CORRECTION

I received the following e-mail in relation to an earlier post.

Dear Mr. Wells-

I won't presume to post my comment on your Stickpoet site, but I was surprised to see you refer to Dr. Goddard as a German.  He was a Massachusetts boy, born and raised.
Your point about the correspondence between failures in poetry and rocketry, though, is well taken.

With my best regards-

Guy

Well Guy, you are quite correct. As a child I was quite interested in rocketry and read a good deal about the pioneering of the early space program.  Even as I was posting this the other night there was a nagging part of me that was thinking Goddard did not seem especially German in origin, but after more years than I care to admit, that was my recollection.  It was in fact Dr. Wernher von Braun a rocket pioneer as well that I was thinking of. Von Braun was German but later became an American citizen and brought with him a wealth of knowledge that benefited America's early entry into space exploration.  The problem is, that while I can straighten this much out I'm afraid I can no longer be certain to which of these two men this quote belongs. I tend to lean towards Goddard as originally designated, but I will attempt to clarify this in a subsequent post but for now, the matter of Goddard's birth and nationally is settled. As Guy acknowledged he is Massachusetts born and raised. Thus, quite American.

Guy seems content to let my connection to poetry and rocketry stand.

Technorati Tags: Dr. Wernher von Braun,Robert Goddard,rocketry and poetry

 

Do you believe in Muses?

Kind of a silly question on one hand. I mean do any of us put stock in mythology? I have been known to feel of times a muse has visited me and have cursed the times when they have left me high and dry. But the poet Ann Lauterbach rejects the idea of the muse and insists that she's not as much interested in inspiration as she is "in the riddle of making something."

In a P & W article in the May/June 09 issue Lauderbach talks about a process where once she gets words on a page she has to have a conversation. The poem is a form she argues and she says to the words, "How can I help you become a poem?" As a poet, she believes she has to become a most generous and critical reader. She likens it to being a really good parent. " I might say to the poems "you can't go there," but they respond "yes, I can." All this sounds a bit like standing on your head and stacking BBs.

I have to consider if I ask as much of words on the page as I should? Is there too much emphasis on trying to get it right the first time?

Writing is so very different from the general work ethic that stresses doing it right the first time so you don't waste time redoing it. We write to rewrite to rewrite and that runs against the normal work ethic.

I'm reminded of Dr. Robert Goddard, the German known as the father of modern rocketry. He maintained that there was no such thing as failure in rocketry. You are always learning- always striving to improve. Perhaps that should be the mantra for poets as well. "No such thing as failure in poetry."

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Criticism of Sotomayor Ironic

Technorati Tags: Samuel Alito,Sonia Sotomayor,Senator Sessions,Rush Limbaugh,Newt Gingrich,Supreme Court nominee

Senator Jeff Sessions, Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich and others who have expressed such tremendous concern about the "life experiences" of Supreme Court nominee Sotomayor and how she might apply those experience, including her own heritage  to her judicial work might want to listen to the words of Justice Samuel Alito on January 11, 2006.

I love it when I find a poem that goes zing and there I see myself!

Thanks to a tweet from Poem_twet I've found a Stanley Kunitz poem that may be become among my favorites. The opening stanza of The Layers I so identify with.

"I have walked through many lives, / some of them my own. / and I am not who I was, / through some principle of bring / abides, from which I struggle / not to stray." //

The whole poem can be read here.

Technorati Tags: Stanley Kunitz,The Layers

The Reality of Contrasts -Rejects and Published

Upon arriving home today I found rejection in my mail box. No biggie, it's like this is the third rejection in two weeks. Besides, I long ago got over rejection letters. The only real negative is this means I have very little remaining out there for consideration. So, (this is where the big sigh goes) I need to get busy over the next week and get work sent out again. The sort of administrative end of a poet's job is not my favorite part. But once they go out in search of new homes I always feel better afterwards. It's kind of like the tread mill. You are glad you did it when you are finished, but that 45 minutes you were on it really sucks.

Issue 26 of Right Hand Pointing is out. This is an  online journal that I'm generally very impressed with. Eons ago they published two of my poems, but I'm not biased.  Seriously. a few of the poems in the current issue I really like are:

• Josh Thompson's The Other Kind of Dream Girl
• Francis Masat's Visiting
• M.K. Meder's The Art Part 
• Sally Molini's Not the Romantic Type

Check out the whole issue when you get some time...

Technorati Tags: Rejections,Issue 26 of Right Hand Pointing,Sally Milini,M.K. Meder,Francis Mast,Josh Thompson