U.S. for first time sends official representatives to Hiroshima Memorial Service in Japan

Yesterday was the 65th anniversary of the atomic bomb drop on Hiroshima. In all these years since the event tragically killing some 145,000 civilians, the U.S. has for the first time this year sent a high level American official to the memorial held annually in Japan.  In cities in countries around the wold others too have paused to remember the horrific event. It is only fitting that we join others in recognizing this day, that we may acknowledge risks posed by nuclear proliferation and work to create world consensus to reduce these ricks.

Shuji Kajiyama / AP - photo credit

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I wonder too...

Writing is a form of therapy; sometimes I wonder how all those who do not write, compose or paint can manage to escape the madness, melancholia, the panic and fear which is inherent in a human situation. ~Graham Greene




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Night with Poets

Last night I ventured north of the river to a poetry meeting at the Boardwalk Library. There were quite a few of my friends from the Kansas City Metro Verse group that went to check out a somewhat newer Northland Poetry group and to my surprise the convener, Polly McCann, is the daughter of a couple my wife and I know but have not seen in goodness-  more than a decade!

We shared some poetry from other poets. I chose a Susan Rich poem to read which was kind of fun because it was an opportunity to introduce to the group a poet new to them. Then those of us who had material of our own in draft or finished read these as well.

We wrapped up the evening with a writing prompt.

Polly has apparently been writing a poem a day since January. Her blog can be found here.  I was especially impressed with the photographs of some of her own artwork which graces the blog too!

Good to see Ralph, Pat, Brenda, Becky, and Linda as well.


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Confession Tuesday - Who am I edition

I get a journaling prompt e-mailed to me each week and it just to happened that the one for today struck me as perfect to incorporate into my Tuesday Confession, so if you’ll follow me to the box, I’ll get started.

Identity - my true identity reveals itself when_________.   Finishing this statement reveals some attributes that are probably quite revealing.

I think my identity is quite driven by those gut feelings that are so strongly associated with my concept of fairness and justice. I confess this all seems to be driven by a passion for order. I don’t mean a clean desk. I confess I am not well ordered in that respect. What I mean is a societal order. Civility, if you will. I confess I am a bit of an Arthurian personality. I would have done well sitting at the “round table” as fairness and justice were the order of diplomacy. I suppose this is the basis for a good deal of my very strong political views. I confess that I’m driven by the notion that fairness and order in society doesn’t just happen on its own. It also, I confess doesn’t always happen when left to the devise of others. I have become more cynical of “others” making good decisions and that is problematic for two reasons. One being cynical leads to frustration and pessimism. Neither of which are good for the soul. The other is that it can create tension when strong passionate core principals seem counter to those of others you come in contact with. I’m not a person who can hide my identity well.


You know how some people don’t like others to know how they vote? People who believe what they do behind the curtain (yes at one time they existed) of the voting booth is a private matter. I’m not quite like that. Yard signs, bumper stickers political buttons have been a fixture of my life since before I could vote. My identity is in much of what I do is an open book. For example, my screen names or nick names online have always been identity extensions of my interests. Highnside came from my love of the game of baseball. Stickpoet, my love for writing poetry. I confess I would not make a good Chameleon. I don’t suppress my identity well. I tend to stand out.



I confess I don’t see what my identity reveals about me as being all good or all bad. It’s just who I am and at this stage of my life I don’t know what it would take to change it if I wanted to.



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Finding the breath in your words

Anais Nim's words I quoted in my last blog post have stuck with me overnight and upon waking this morning it followed me off to work where it nagged at me all day long. I decided her words are worth recall when I sit down to write.


Sometimes picking up a pen to write and committing the ink to the page can become rather automatic and there are times it seems I start without any appreciation for what I may be putting on the page. Getting to that starting point as a force of habit seems to be a good thing, but really having that deep pressing need to breathe through what you are saying or a song to sing or voice crying out is what gives meaning to what one puts on the page.  I truly believe Nim's words speak a truth.


It's my goal this week to do one of these three things in all I write. If I can at the end of the week I can say honestly that I've done this... alleluia!



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If...

If you do not breathe through writing, if you do not cry out in writing, or sing in writing, then don't write, because our culture has no use for it. ~ Anais Nin




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Concrete Poetry in rural France

Concrete Poetry in rural France

The international movement of Concrete Poetry is described as ‘works where the typographical arrangement of words is as important in conveying the intended effect as the conventional elements of the poem, i.e. the words, the rhythm, the rhyme and so on’ – the words themselves form a picture. The 1950’s pioneers were the De Campo brothers Haroldo and Augusto (who published Teoria da poesia concreta in 1965), and the CDLA exhibition also carries works of Ian Hamilton Finlay (founder of Wild Hawthorn Press, publisher of the Poor. Old. Tired. Horse. periodicals), the French poet Pierre Garnier, Robert Lax, Liliane Lijn, Paul de Vree, Bob Cobbing and Dom Sylvester Houédard to name a few. In an epoch where the world’s publishing industries look to how literature might be played out on new digital platforms, it’s fascinating to see how these poets, typographers and designers from the 1950s onwards were creating these visual feasts using letters, words and poetry – the very page acting as platform

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