Poetry

shameless self-promotion

Dead Mule‘s Summer Sabbatical Issue is up, with three of my poems (“The Language of Waiting,” “Fuel,” and “Sonic Crochet Hook”). Don’t miss the Southern Legitimacy Statements of the various contributors.

June Cotner has reprinted my “Prayer for Perspective” in her anthology Serenity Prayers: Prayers, Poems, and Prose to Soothe Your Soul. Haven’t seen the book yet, but the check arrived last week, and it will pay for lunch with friends tomorrow and Friday. 🙂

Not Lorca’s Green

Perhaps this has already been done, perhaps it is tasteless, but it is what I needed to write, and I only half believe those detractions may be true. Modified triolets are the only way I can parse the news.

Do you recall when Michael Jackson died?
The crowds, their rhythmic fists, the scenes
of Tehran bleeding in a sea of green?
That Neda Agha-Soltan died
for a democracy the whole world had denied?
We listen but that bridges no divide.
Do you recall when Michael Jackson died?
Tehran, bleeding, in a sea of green.

What Feeds Us

I went to hear Diane Lockward read at the Dire Literary series in Cambridge.

There was an hour of open mic readings (which I arrived moments too late to sign up for), a break, and then the 3 featured readers. I enjoyed all the featured readers, although I thought Kim Adrian’s piece was a little too long to listen to.

I had never heard Diane read before and it was a treat. She’s so expressive, both in her tone and her phrasing. I’ve never heard anyone read the way she does and it is enchanting.

Because they are mostly free verse poems, I think it is impossible to capture how she does read on the page. Even metrical poetry wouldn’t notate the pitches she uses. So I encourage you to hear her, if she’s ever in your neck of the woods.

Read “Pyromania” (scroll down to the bottom of the page), which opens:

The heart wants what the heart wants,
and what it wants is fire.

Thank you, Diane!

big rubber clown gloves

dobry vecer (good evening)

Greetings from the Czech Republic. I’m here with a chorus that will be performing Verdi’s Requiem at Terezin tomorrow. (For a history of Rafael Schaechter’s stubborn insistence on teaching and performing the Requiem in the ghetto, see Murry Sidlin’s webpage. The gist is that until he was finally murdered at Auchswitz, Schaecter taught several hundred other Jews the Requiem from a single score.)

Our hotel is located in the Smichov district, which is in southeast Prague. A few blocks away, there is an edifice that my bus’s guide pointed out as “the poetry building”:

From Europe 2009 – set 4

According to various online references, the architect was Jean Nouvel and the words are by Rilke.

And finally, for the finale…

Running on very little sleep, so I went into epigraph mode when I saw that today’s prompt was farewell:

Nay, I Have Done, You Get No More Of Me

[pace Drayton]

Why yes, I have been spanked by the doors of rooms
I tried to depart from in a queenly huff:
it happens if you live long enough,
just as ancient dust outstays the newest brooms.

– pld

My thanks to all of you who’ve read my posts this month, and especially to those of you who have taken the time to comment and encourage! It’s back to a more sedate (~ twice-monthly) posting rate for me, but do please stop by from time to time — I’ve some poems-by-other-people to quote and other tidbits to be shared…

sprinting on an empty stomach

Today’s PAD Challenge: make “Never ____” the title of a poem and then write it.

Never Tell a Witch You Haven’t Had Breakfast

For she will not believe you
when you later try to insist
you aren’t hungry at all
while your eyes keep straying
toward the bowl of hot broth
and the glass of sweet tea
and the plate of perfect morsels
all waiting for you to surrender
to the invitation you stumbled into.

– pld