Tag: Sagittarius
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jim harrison remembered
David – Jim Harrison He is young. The father is dead. Outside, a cold November night, the mourner’s cars are parked upon the lawn; beneath the porch light three brothers talk to three sons and shiver without knowing it. His mind’s all black thickets and blood; he knows flesh slips quietly off the bone, he…
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* tejiendo roosters: a translation tale
Once upon a time, I was a young poet reading through an anthology of Latin American poetry when I came across a poem by João Cabral de Melo Neto that just blew me away. I wrote the poem down in a notebook – it was in Spanish, translated from the original Portuguese – to translate into…
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* hollering with cisneros
Human beings pass me on the street, and I want to reach out and strum them as if they were guitars. Sometimes all humanity strikes me as lovely. I just want to reach out and stroke someone, and say There, there, it’s all right, honey. There, there, there. Sandra Cisneros, from ” Never Marry a…
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* weathering with sandra cisneros & sleater-kinney
Sometimes the books find you. I remember Sandra Cisneros’ Loose Woman as one of the first books of poems I carried around with me, young and possessed of that particular hubris termed a calling to poetry (Even the phrasing of that reeks of hubris, no?). I remember being in high school and even then struggling with how…
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* charting the world with rafael campo
In searching for images to accompany this week’s poem, I came across the photo below. The photo is from 1933 and is of the Metropolitan nurses home at Roosevelt Island, part of the Renwick Smallpox Hospital complex. The image below stayed with me for the way it captured what might have been part of someone’s daily…
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* taking flight with tranströmer
During my grad studies in NYC, I had the opportunity to go to a reading by Tomas Tranströmer. Sharon Olds and Robert Bly were chosen to present Tranströmer’s work, each reading a selection. Olds delivered his work in a fervent and direct manner, while Bly strode through the poems, pausing at times to exclaim over a line…
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* digital chapbook released!
I am happy to announce that my digital chapbook “Naos: an introduction” is officially out on the Right Hand Pointing site! Here’s the “Introduction to an Introduction”: Once again, Anne Rice is at fault. The VHS copy I had of Interview with the Vampire came with an introduction by the author in which she spoke of…
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* hare-brained with yeats
Memory – W. B. Yeats One had a lovely face, And two or three had charm, But charm and face were in vain Because the mountain grass Cannot but keep the form Where the mountain hare has lain. *** I’ve spent the past week reading through the Collected Poems of Yeats. He’s been a go-to…
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* all’s misalliance with robert lowell
The more time you spend around words, the more they keep moving around. When I first read this week’s poem, “Epilogue” by Robert Lowell, I focused on the line: Yet why not say what happened? This line gave me permission and nerve at a time when I needed it. Reading the poem again years later, a…
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* bangin’ on the kitchen table with Jay-Z & Linda Pastan
The above example of scansion is a good example of where my mind’s been at past few days. I’ve been and will be writing with an eye (and ear and heart) towards meter, mainly for a class, but more than the class, there is an inner drive to grow stronger in this regard. Throughout the…
The Friday Influence 