Transformation

"Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought

and the thought has found words."

~Robert Frost

I could not have said it better....

B H Fairchild

I am attending a reading of B. H. Fairchild tonight here in Kansas City. Looking forward to hearing his work. He grew up in a small town in Kansas and some of his poetry reflects midwest ties, though he has I believe in more recent years lived in California.

Thursday, I'll have an opportunity to set in a class he is giving as well. He was brought in by UMKC College of Arts and Sciences.

My Poetry Quote of the day:

"A poet looks at the world the way a man looks at a woman." ~Wallace Stevens, Opus Posthumous, 1957

By nature...

"A true poet does not bother to be poetical. Nor does a nursery gardener scent his roses." ~Jean Cocteau

I have this overwhelming desire to paraphrase this as, "Shit happens" ~ but I won't.

Hit with The STICK

James at Love During Wartime passed me the STICK. Immediately I was overcome by a combination of trepidation and honor. Sort of a schizophrenic emotional burst.

1. You're stuck inside Fahrenheit 451, which book do you want to be? Ariel by Sylvia Plath
2. Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character? Gee, not that I can recall. Which seems almost as lame as if I had one.
3. The last book you read: Transformations by Anne Sexton
4. What are you currently reading? The Poetry Home Repair Manuel - Ted Kooser & Wintering - Kate Moses ( I'm multi-tasking ) ;)
5. Five books you would take to a deserted island: Men at Work: The Craft of Baseball - George Will [there is no culture without baseball] , The Journals of Sylvia Plath, Sylvia Plath's Collected Poems, Why Time Begins on Opening Day - Thomas Boswell, And Poetry Speaks and a CD player....(is this cheating?)
6. Who are you going to pass this stick to (3 persons) and why? Eileen at The Chatelaine's Poetics: Because she's upon there on the mountain where the air is thin and Just never know what she is going to say. Jilly at The Poetry Hut: Who is not on a mountain ( that I know of) but is among the culturally elite who love baseball & poetry at the same time ; ) and Michaela at Mikarrhea: who, hell is just likely to say anything - mountain or no mountain.

The pleasure of it....

"Even when poetry has a meaning, as it usually has, it may

be inadvisable to draw it out.... Perfect understanding

will sometimes almost extinguish pleasure."

*

~ A.E. Housman

My Skin Curls

Jilly has a new site address.... here.

I'd like to call your attention to this site: Voices In Wartime

Christine Hamm is just too damn good... and I think I've said that before, or at least something like it-- but damn, she is! Writing a Poem - check it out! When I read her stuff, I swear my skin curls.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

"The poetry of the earth is never dead." -John Keats

Happy St. Patrick's Day

~