“Had I Not Been Awake” Had I not been awake I would have missed it, A wind that rise and whirled until the roof Pattered with quick leaves off the sycamore And got me up, the whole of me a-patter, Alive and ticking like an electric fence: Had I not been awake I would have […]
Poetry
Mistaken Identity
Pastorelle 15 The Chinese in the drought of 1876-1879 reportedly confused rustling of dry leaves for rain when the ear’s not yet adulterated/unadulterated in the morning late at night or very early in the morning it sounds like rain. –John Taggart More about John Taggart (from PBS News Hour): Taggart has received a number of […]
Daily Muses
From the wry mind of Andrei Codrescu in The Poetry Lesson: The Ten Muses of Poetry 1. Mishearing 2. Misunderstanding 3. Mistranslating 4. Mismanaging 5. Mislaying 6. Misreading 7. Misappropriating cliches 8. Misplacing objects belonging to roommates or lovers 9. Misguided thoughts at inappropriate times, funerals, etc. 10. Mississippi (the river) I have found that […]
Where Words Gathered
Words The simple contact with a wooden spoon and the word recovered itself, began to spread as grass, forced as it lay sprawling to consider the monument where patience looked at grief, where warfare ceased eyes curled outside themes to search the paper now gleaming and potent, wise and resilient, word entered its continent eager […]
Counter-Spirits
In search of the “flashes of identity between subject and object”……the world that exists outside language The following provocation closely aligns with my own views. This passage is by a forceful voice, Barbara Guest, from a book of her writings, Forces of Imagination: There is no substitute for imagination. Words deprived of their stability—that is […]
Mining Dickinsonian Gold
Emily Dickinson: “The best mind to appear among Western poets in nearly four centuries” Book alert: The coming together of two greats—Emily Dickinson and Helen Vendler. Vendler has just released a new book, Dickinson: Selected Poems and Commentaries. And although there are many collections of Dickinson’s work currently available, I can’t think of anyone I […]
The Tilting Within
Annunciation Even if I don’t see it again — nor ever feel it I know it is — and that if once it hailed me it ever does — And so it is myself I want to turn in that direction not as towards a place, but it was a tilting within myself, as one […]
The Island is Also That Towards Which One Drifts
Islands O for God’s sake they are connected underneath They look at each other across the glittering sea some keep a low profile Some are cliffs The Bathers think islands are separate like them –Muriel Rukeyser I found this fresh and invigorating poem on Intercapillary/Space where I also found the following succinct commentary by Edmund […]
In Awe of “Awe”
Whatever you Paid for That Sweater, It was Worth It Be scared of yourself The real self Is very scary. It is a man But more importantly The man is tall And is everything in you that is an absolute reverse of all your actions. In you he will do things and in you no […]
Cherrying the Mind
Anne Carson’s poem overlooks Boston Harbor alongside the ICA First Chaldic Oracle There is something you should know. And the right way to know it is by a cherrying of your mind. Because if you press your mind towards it and try to know that thing as you know a thing, you will not know […]