I don't doubt-

At the age of 18 all young poets are sure they will be dead at 21 - of old age. ~Marguerite Young

Space Sculpture

The Play-dough of space

swooped together in outstretched arms

and pulled from the deep black,

the whole of holes

to become

the sum of something.

 
 
 
*photo credit- Hubble Telescope  
 
About the Object Object Name: NGC 346
Object Description: Cluster and Nebulosity in the Small Magellanic Cloud
Position (J2000): R.A. 00h 59m 18s.0
Dec. -72° 10' 48"
Constellation: Tucana
Distance: 210,000 light-years away (64,000 parsecs)
Dimensions: This image is 4.7 arcminutes (280 light-years or 87 parsecs).

Here's a Surprise

I guess the inaugural poetry gig didn’t hurt too much, Elizabeth Alexander’s Praise Song For The Day: A Poem For Barack Obama's Presidential Inauguration – special chapbook edition, tops the 2009 list of poetry book sales. The entire top ten list can be found here.  

It's interesting that John Updike's Endpoint and Other Poems - Updikes last book of poetry finished just months before his death, also made the list.

Unconscious Mutterings - Week 359

I haven't done subliminal word associations for a while, so here goes.

You say... I think:

1.Up :: stairs
2.Scram! :: scat!
3.Smell :: odor
4.Belong :: join
5.Doug :: cartoon
6.Collar :: dog
7.Squirrel :: nut
8.Chinese :: checkers
9.Tracker :: SUV
10.Apartment :: rental

get your own list at Unconscious Mutterings

Poems By Heart

 

This evening I stumbled onto a relatively new poetry site that is predicated on a novel idea. Ok, I guess it’s really a poetic idea.   Poet Frank Giampietro has created a web site with recordings of poems that are recited by heart. While Giampietro would like to have more celebrity poets recorded on the site, he encourages any writers to submit mp3 file of  a favorite poem and a little bit about what it is about the poem that is special to them.

Memorizing poems has become almost a lost art and Giampietro’s site is a wonderful way to promote memorization and at the same time expose this poems to a wider audience.  Check out the site for yourself.  I recall Claudia Emerson and Robert Pinsky  as being among those already on the site.  Enough babble about it – go check out POEMS BY HEART for yourself!

Technorati Tags: poems by heart,recorded poems

Local: In Marin : Marin Focus: poetry and metal inspires jeweler Kate Ellen

 

"The trained hand does not forget its skill, nor can we lay the precision and speed aside: strength we have, and courage in the acetylene will."

The diminutive, dark-haired Marin jeweler Kate Ellen recites the line from poet Edna St. Vincent Millay, from memory.

"Metal itself is inspiring, adds the twenty seven-year-old jewelry designer, "It is a really weird property--it is really strong and it's also malleable. If worst comes to worst, and I blow something, I can melt it down and then it becomes a raw material again."

The dichotomy of fine poetry and hard-edged metal, is the inspiration for this artisan's totally hand-crafted and completely unique jewelry designs.  FULL STORY

Technorati Tags: jewelry,poetry,Kate Ellen

da ja vue all over again

As Friday morning arrives, I sigh. A good portion of this week would seem like I was running laps around the block. The scenery changes but it doesn’t. Oh look, there is the blue house with gray shutters again; and Tiger again with some woman, oh, there he is again with another one, again, and the Sakahi’s, again, again, again ad nauseam. I’d like a weekend free of Tiger, et al. I don’t want to hear about party crashers.




Lines seem blurred this week. We learn that Blackwater is like CIA lite. But this concept is not totally new. Wasn’t AT&T like NSA lite? Don’t you feel when we purposely blur the lines it’s usually because we are up to no good?