Poetry Foundation
Poetry Magazine
May 2008
New poems by Spencer Reece, Jane Hirshfield, Seth Abramson, Liz Waldner, Sandra M. Gilbert, Cathy Park Hong, and others; notebook by Eavan Boland; exchange between Cate Marvin and Joshua Mehigan, and more! More
Harriet

Elizabeth Stigler
Robert Redford Hearts Wendell Berry

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Executive producers Terrence Malick and Robert Redford turn to poetry in their collaborative venture, Laura Dunn’s documentary, The Unforeseen. The film, which debuted at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival, covers Austin, Texas environmental politics via interviews with environmentalists, real estate developers, a vocal local community, and everyone’s favorite ex-governor of Texas, while peppering excerpts of Wendell Berry reading his poem “Santa Clara Valley” throughout. The poem provides a reflective continuity to the film, making sense, at times, of what is a bitter and emotional battle for the area of Barton Springs in Austin, a battle begun in the '70s and continuing through the '90s.

An excerpt from Berry’s poem captures the main arc of the film:

05.09.08 | Continue reading this entry » | Comments (0)


D.A. Powell
MEMPHIS AND NASHVILLE

In Robert Altman's seminal film, Nashville, a third-party candidate named Hal Philip Walker is running for president on a ticket known as The Replacement Party. "I'm for doing some replacing," he says of the bureaucracy in Washington.

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05.08.08 | Continue reading this entry » | Comments (4)


Ada Limón
Feliz Cinco de Mayo & Louder ARTS

Feliz Cinco de Mayo

First let me start with a brief description of this day. Being of Mexican heritage, I’ve had to explain it on a regular basis. So, I thought I’d just give a quick rambling, if only to say: This day is not just about margaritas and tortilla chips (although I find nothing wrong with either of those things and hope to partake in both shortly).

The first thing that I find myself reminding people of is this: Cinco de Mayo is NOT Mexico's Independence Day (which is actually September 16th or midnight of the 15th depending one what you’re reading). Instead, it is in celebration of the day, May 5th, 1862, when 4,000 members of the Mexican Militia defeated 8,000 members of the French army in the town of Puebla. (Napoleon wanted to take over and install Maximilian as ruler of Mexico).

05.05.08 | Continue reading this entry » | Comments (7)


Daisy Fried
Mother Goose is a Goth: A Found Poem

Concerned that there’s too much violence in children’s movies, TV, video games and online? Maybe the problem is there’s not enough.

From The Annotated Mother Goose, eds. William S. Baring-Gould & Ceil Baring-Gould, Bramhall House, 1962:

“…in 1952 Geoffrey Handley-Taylor of Manchester, England, published a brief biography of the literature of nursery rhyme reform in which he wrote that:

“The average collection of 200 traditional nursery rhymes contains approximately 100 rhymes which personify all that is glorious and ideal for the child. Unfortunately, the remaining 100 rhymes harbour unsavoury elements. The incidents listed below occur in the average collection and may be accepted as a reasonably conservative estimate based on a general survey of this type of literature.

"8 allusions to murder (unclassified),
2 cases of choking to death,
1 case of death by devouring,
1 case of cutting a human being in half,
1 case of decapitation,
1 case of death by squeezing,
1 case of death by shrivelling,
1 case of death by starvation,
1 case of boiling to death,
1 case of death by hanging,
1 case of death by drowning,
4 cases of killing domestic animals,
1 case of body snatching,
21 cases of death (unclassified),
7 cases relating to the severing of limbs,
1 case of the desire to have a limb severed,
2 cases of self-inflicted injury,
4 cases relating to the breaking of limbs,
1 allusion to a bleeding heart,
1 case of devouring human flesh,
5 threats of death,
1 case of kidnapping,
12 cases of torment and cruelty to human beings and animals,
8 cases of whipping and lashing,
3 allusions to blood,
14 cases of stealing and general dishonesty,
15 allusions to maimed human beings and animals
1 allusion to undertakers,
2 allusions to graves,
23 cases of physical violence (unclassified),
1 case of lunacy,
16 allusions to misery and sorrow,
1 case of drunkenness,
4 cases of cursing,
1 allusion to marriage as a form of death,
1 case of scorning the blind,
1 case of scorning prayer,
9 cases of children being lost or abandoned,
2 cases of house burning,
9 allusions to poverty and want,
5 allusions to quarrelling,
2 cases of unlawful imprisonment,
2 cases of racial discrimination.

“Expressions of fear, weeping, moans of anguish, biting, pain and evidence of supreme selfishness may be found in almost every other page.”

05.04.08 | Comments (6)


Ada Limón
A Little Levis on Derby Day

I grew up going to the track. Well, that’s a slight exaggeration. My stepfather—a writer and a wonderful human—likes to bet on the horses. Every time I go back to Sonoma, my hometown, he and I take at least one day to drive up to OTB and lose a little money. I lose. He wins. So, it’s only fitting that I’m thinking about him today as the Kentucky Derby gets underway and I still need to get my bets in before post. Mostly, on the drive to the races we end up talking about language and poetry in one way, shape, or form. These long drives up Warm Springs Road to Bennett Valley and back has done very serious things to my brain. For starters, it has linked horses and poetry forever.

05.03.08 | Continue reading this entry » | Comments (1)


Linh Dinh
Dear Harriet,

I will come out and say it. I’ve been thinking about you constantly. Please don’t tell anyone about this. This is just between me and you, OK? I’ve been meaning to say this for a very long time, for an eternity, actually. I want you. I mean, I want you to want me. Please don’t laugh at my insolence and desperation. I can see you giggling already. Even across time zones, I can hear you howling. Is my nudity so ridiculous? I cannot keep this terse and cute, sweetie. I must go on babbling because “Orders are always short and brief, and every master is monosyllabic to his slaves, whereas supplications and lamentations are lengthy,” so wrote Demetrius.

As haughty slaves, poets are no strangers to supplications and lamentations, since they must bow, defer, accede and give in constantly, they must 1) Refer for judgment or consideration 2) Put before 3) Yield to the control of another 4) Hand over formally 5) Refer to another person for decision or judgment 6) Yield to another's wish or opinion 7) Accept or undergo, often unwillingly 8) Make an application as for a job or funding 9) Make over as a return 10) Accept as inevitable. It sucks to submit, I know, and I've been on both ends of these undignified transactions. More than a decade ago, I received a letter from one miffed submitter [click on image to enlarge]:

05.03.08 | Continue reading this entry » | Comments (0)


Ada Limón
Thursday Shout Out: Jimmy Santiago Baca (okay, it's Friday)

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For many Latino (and non-Latino) poets, Jimmy Santiago Baca is a hero of sorts. With a long sordid history of pulling himself out and up from the mire, Baca has traversed the poetic world as both a rogue and a wayward leader. Still, I am often surprised that he is not as well known as he should be. With his first poems published in Mother Jones and lauded by Denise Levertov while Baca was still in prison in the 70s (he spent 6 years in prison on drug possession, read his book, A Place to Stand), he has since made a life and a living out of writing. Based in New Mexico and spending the majority of his time writing and running workshops in prisons, in schools, and in the community, Baca has become an epic figure in Mexican American poetry. His book, Spring Poems Along the Rio Grande (New Directions, 2007) is a quieter Baca, an older, less angry Baca. Full of ruminations and reflections on his life along the bosque, this is a book meant to be read in the sage bushes without the noises of the city tuning out the birds. Two days ago, I pulled it off my shelf since first reading it when it came out last year, and thought I’d give it a shout out. I suppose I needed its quietude and whisper.

05.02.08 | Continue reading this entry » | Comments (2)


Don Share
Raking up gold dust off the floor

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"I have never done any teaching. I don't think I know enough about anything to do any teaching. I've done all sorts of odd jobs. My weirdest was raking up gold dust off the floor when I was messenger in a gold place on 47th Street. We had to do it with a broom like in Grimm's fairy tales, and sort the gold dust out of the ordinary dirt. I only lasted there about three weeks. Then I did things like being a waitress, and odd jobs all the time."

05.01.08 | Continue reading this entry » | Comments (0)


Linh Dinh
$$$

In-the-Cool.jpg

[Raymond Pettibon, Untitled, 1989]

A day before the Federal Reserves cut interest rates yet again, astute and straight-talking social commentator, Mike Whitney, wrote: "The stakes couldn't be higher for Ben Bernanke. If the Fed chief decides to lower rates at the end of April, he could be condemning millions of people to a death by starvation [...] Bernanke, with one swipe of the pen, now has an opportunity to send more people to their eternal reward than Bush." When Bernanke first came on, the Seattle Post Intelligencer commented that "he will have to get into the habit of parsing his words extremely carefully as he moves into a job where the wrong head tilt or inflection can make or lose millions." What kind of a job is it where a tilted head or an inflection can cause fortunes to evaporate? Where one swipe of the pen will kill millions? The New York Times' Richard W. Stevenson wrote about Alan Greenspan, Bernanke's predecessor: "his every phrase will be transmitted instantaneously to stock and bond traders worldwide and [...] his merest inflection can send markets stampeding." As poets, we spend our lives massaging inflections and tilting heads in front of empty chairs, but no one shudders, no money appears and no family goes hungry.

04.30.08 | Continue reading this entry » | Comments (5)


Daisy Fried
Smokers of Paper/Workers of the World

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Cesare Pavese

Who knew Harriet was crawling with Cesare Pavese fans? But the Cesare Pavese poem-podcast Linh Dinh posted below, with Bertolucci’s pretty video, is not typical of what I think of as the great Pavese—the early poems. Don Share’s links in the comments section give a better idea. What I love about early Pavese is that unlike many 20th Century European poets, he generally didn’t use words like “existences,” “soul,” “escape,” “supreme light,” “torment” and “the poor.” Or he did so in the context of poem-stories about people (many of them poor), mysterious and matter-of-fact stories, very specific and very strange. He wrote, by the way, wonderfully about women—although I’m not going to talk about any of those poems in this post.

When I read Pavese, I try to read the Italian, at which I’m generally only semi-successful, alongside a pair of translations. So the Pavese I read isn’t Pavese but some negotiation between the two versions and the original: A fourth thing altogether.

04.30.08 | Continue reading this entry » | Comments (4)


Daisy Fried
Is Jeremiah Wright Working for John McCain?: A Non-Poetry Post

I'm on a poetry listserve where some members object to posts having to do with politics. Many of us think that trying to separate poetry from politics is like trying to separate the yolk from the egg white with a fork without breaking the yolk. But eventually we reached a truce where those who wanted to post political messages would put the letters POL in the subject line so others could delete those messages unread.

POL

Certain members of my household (not Maisie) were jokily contemplating a Jeremiah Wright write-in vote, until this weekend. Now I just think Wright's a jerk.

I'm not mad at him for what he says. What's not pretty good politics is mere dumbass conspiracy stuff, who cares? Wright gets criticized as an extremist and for crazy paranoid theories, but nobody criticizes the Bush administration for being riddled with people who believe in the Rapture.

And I'm not mad at him for how he says it. Style's insignificant. Actions are significant.

Wright's a jerk for his very public airing of his opinions, including his opinions of Obama, right at this time. He seems to me like a father trying to undermine his son. I don't care whether the father is ideologically right or wrong; if your son is trying to do something he believes in, even if you don't believe in it, you don't ruin it for him. You don't intentionally cast your shadow into his spotlight.

Wright has a lot to answer for if McCain wins the election.

04.30.08 | Comments (5)


Linh Dinh
More YouTube Pleasures

Tao Lin at the KGB Bar in NYC, 2007:



04.29.08 | Continue reading this entry » | Comments (0)


Linh Dinh
Gee, Gosh

speaking of G, here's a poem by Ish Klein:

G.

I have been told to talk to You with my head down
if I did not avert my eyes , you would not hear. Weird,
I thought, for the maker of heaven and earth to be so insecure

or to be living here, amidst the stink. Let me start again,
I come in peace, in a way, being on the side of Life; I am a fan
of your handiwork: flowers, flytraps, burrowing frogs...

But this is not about that, it is about the demons:
Does everyone have them all the time? Like viri or viruses
which flare when the hope is low?

Or is their manner of attack more bacterial?
Incapable of mere occupation. I guess it digests us.
Laying waste attractions and attachments

with their propaganda campaigns.
A moment while I mourn my blown bridges.
(sigh) all right I’m done.

What do the demons see in me? Me, a notoriously poor host;
in my house we sleep on the floor and eat on the floor
but we do not step on the floor; as this is a sore spot .

Maybe they think I want company.
I do not want any company
not that kind.

After I dreamed the demon was taken out of me, tornadoes hit Tennessee; which is where the
man who helps with demons lives
He said they wanted to get me

But why? Am I so weak?
Or am I bad? What if I can’t love because of them?
What if they are the only thing designed to love me?

You are responsible, G., I am applying again for assistance.
I believe my ground down teeth and busted guts are acceptable indicators of my plight as they
are listed in column A

of this application. Which is the fourth I have filled out,
by the way and why is that?
Have I been redistricted to Hell?

Yes? So, that is the point? But you are still at the Helm.
This application is still valid, yes?
I have a right to know what is holding me up!

G., I am tired of living in ignorance with voices and meaningful dreams after days where
everything happened already. This is the expose that may put better minds than mine to these
questions.

This is not a joke. Sure I may say it loud; indecorously before
a room of strangers; but that is part of my plan. After all,
they may know something as to this; hitherto unconsidered by me.

Thugs of the spirit world they are!
And you may be the biggest crime boss of all.
Taking care of the people in heaven with their better things
to do; who will sacrifice blood for you; and think nothing of it.

Of course you own the system; you were the one who forced us into particular bodies initially.
To play with. To infiltrate.
To pay you back. It’s called manipulation, by the way,
those who do it are Creeps.

You see, I am on the wheel beneath your world
the demons are inside me.
The other people do not believe it; this is not their district.

You made it this way; G., you big bully.
I tell you, you will never, NEVER get away with it!

[first published in Philadelphia Independent]


04.28.08 | Comments (0)


Don Share
Who rained on that parade?

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The poet-critic gets no sympathy, and considering the charge-sheet against him — adversarial, addicted to dicta, motivated by an axe-grindingly acute sense of right and wrong — why would he? He is, in most eyes, a hyphenated hothead. Until recently, however, that hyphen was still a badge of special authority, so that practitioners writing critically about their craft were regarded as poetry’s ideal readers. Not everyone agreed (Northrop Frye thought poets made bad critics because they were too obsessed by their own processes), but Alfred Kazin summed up the standard view in 1967 when, with considerable professional envy, he described the poet-critic as always “right in the middle of the parade (and if he is good enough, he will be leading it).”

04.28.08 | Continue reading this entry » | Comments (43)

Other Recent Posts

Daisy Fried: On the Floor With Kitschy Rumi
Linh Dinh: Into the Night
Linh Dinh: The Art of Misnarration
Linh Dinh: On Translation
Ada Limón: Thursday Shout Out: Dawn Lundy Martin
Daisy Fried: Nasty Habits
Kenneth Goldsmith: UbuWeb :: New Addtions, Spring 2008
Ada Limón: A Little Writing on the Wall
Linh Dinh: Tongued
Ed Park: You know you love me
Daisy Fried: American Classics
Linh Dinh: Border Poetry
Ada Limón: Praise for Spring & NaPoWriMo
Linh Dinh: YouTube Pleasures
Linh Dinh: Trickster Johnson
Daisy Fried: Parable
Daisy Fried: Malicious Feelgood
Daisy Fried: Ooga-Booga
Linh Dinh: Impressionable Flesh Speaking
Reginald Shepherd: Who Can I Be Now?


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