Among My Favorites: Philip Larkin

British poet and librarian Philip Larkin's work is among my favorite.  He possessed a distinctive lyric gift, a sometimes droll, sometimes bleak view of modern life, the city, urban isolation, and a considerable sense of humor.  Probably his most famous poem is "This Be The Verse," which can probably be found online (I haven't looked).  As with Dickinson, it's difficult to pick favorites, but "High Windows" and "Home Is So Sad" certainly stand out.  The best thing to do is to rummage through is collected poems, though.  A link to that book:


Collected Poems, by Philip Larkin

And a link to the Philip Larkin Society::

http://www.philiplarkin.com/

Among My Favorites: Alan Dugan

Alan Dugan (1923-2003) remains one of my favorite poets.  His work earned him a Yale Younger Poet award and a Pulitzer Prize.  His poems tend to be quick and terse--bursts of direct first-person utterance; they're very smart but also accessible.  One of my favorites by him is "Love Song: I and Thou," which in part concerns trying to build a new house.  There is also a poem about an new bridge that is actually an old bridge.

Dugan titled his books simply Poems, Poems 2, Poems 3, and so on--up to 7, which is a collected poems edition.

A link to more information about Dugan.

Among My Favorites: James Cervantes

. . . And in another National Poetry Month episode of "Among My Favorites," I'll note  that James Cervantes, professor and poet, is among my favorites.  Here is a link to his site, which includes some terrific poems:

James Cervantes

And here is a link to a book:

Temporary Meaning: Poems, by James Cerantes

Among My Favorites: Jim Daniels

Among my favorite poets is Jim Daniels, an especially gifted narrative poet, and one whose work often focuses on the lives of working-class people and folks on the street.  He teaches at Carnegie Mellon University. His books include the following (and one may find a handful of poems online):

Revolt of the Crash-Test Dummies: Poems

In Line for the Exterminator: Poems (Great Lakes Books Series)

Night With Drive-By Shooting Stars (New Issues Poetry & Prose)

STREET: Poems by Jim Daniels, Photographs by Charlee Brodsky (Working Lives)

Visual Poetry

A link to an essay by Geof Huth about visual poetry (on the Poetry Foundation site):

Visual Poetry

And a link to a book:

Modern Visual Poetry

Poets and Disability

Broadening my search for poets and poetry during National Poetry Month, I found some interesting links concerning the subject of disability and poets.

Here's is a link to an essay by Jillian Weise concerning disabled poets; the essay acknowledges legitimate questions about such terms, concepts, and identities as "disabled poet," "poet with a disability," "'crip' poetry," and so on, and it spends time on the work of Josephine Miles and Louise Gluck.(I saw/heard Josephine Miles read at U.C. Davis once.)

Here is a link to a site for disabled poets, although the site seems not to have been updated since 2005.

Here is a link to a site called nonsite collective and a discussion of "poetics and disablement."

And finally here's a link to a poem by Wilfred Owen I had not seen before; it's titled simply "Disabled" and concerns a former soldier (in World War I, of course).

Among My Favorites: Randall Jarrell

During National Poetry Month, I though I'd mention some of my favorite poets from time to time--in no particular order.  Randall Jarrell remains one of my favorites.  He wrote chiefly in free verse, and he often wrote dramatic monologues.  No doubt his most famous poem is "The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner," a brief, uncanny, seemingly perfect poem.  I also like "Next Day," "The Woman at the Washington Zoo," and "90 North," among others.  Jarrell was also a well known--and somewhat feared--critic of poetry.  After he had reviewed one of Karl Shapiro's books, Shapiro wrote that he felt "run over but not injured" (my paraphrase) by the review.


Here's a link to more information about Jarrell.

And some links to books by and about him:

The Complete Poems

Poetry and the Age

The Bat-Poet

Remembering Randall: A Memoir of Poet, Critic, and Teacher Randall Jarrell

A Sad Heart at the Supermarket: Essays and Fables

National Poetry Month

It's National Poetry Month once more, at least in the U.S. Here's a link to what Poets.org is offering in connection with NPM:

Poets.org

Gold

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Gold

Gold is many things because we've made it so.
Heavy's the main thing it is, though.
If you'd find it by the river then,
the main imperative is to get low.

Find bedrock, which is the top
of something semi-permanent
that the river hasn't yet moved.
Find holes and crevices. Stop.

Get to the bottom of them. If
there's gold, there's where the gold
will be, along with lead, black sand,
and such. You won't hold it in your hand

'til after you've rinsed away what's
lighter in your pan, and even then
you may get only flecks. This has
never gone without saying: there

will never be enough of gold to
satisfy or even feed you because
whatever forces made gold,
made it rare. Gold's not fair.

It is of another scheme, a geologic
farce in which stars spit planets
like sunflower seeds and infinity
isn't amused. Lord knows gold glows--

but dully. It rarely shines. It hates
to move, wants to be left alone. It's
soft, hard to get, harder to hold. Sometimes
it's welded in a vein to quartz. We call that ore.


Copyright 2010 Hans Ostrom

George Herbert's "Easter"

One of the most famous poems by George Herbert (1593-1633) is "Easter."  I admire the vocabulary and rhyming in the poem, among other things.

Easter

by George Herbert

    RISE heart ;  thy Lord is risen.  Sing his praise
                                        Without delayes,
    Who takes thee by the hand, that thou likewise
                                        With him mayst rise :
    That, as his death calcined thee to dust,
    His life may make thee gold, and much more just.

    Awake, my lute, and struggle for thy part
                                        With all thy art.
    The crosse taught all wood to resound his name
                                        Who bore the same.
    His stretched sinews taught all strings, what key
    Is best to celebrate this most high day.

    Consort both heart and lute, and twist a song
                                        Pleasant and long :
    Or since all music is but three parts vied,
                                        And multiplied ;
    O let thy blessed Spirit bear a part,
    And make up our defects with his sweet art.

I got me flowers to straw thy way ;
 I got me boughs off many a tree :
 But thou wast up by break of day,
 And brought’st thy sweets along with thee.

The Sunne arising in the East,

 Though he give light, and th’ East perfume ;

 If they should offer to contest

 With thy arising   they presume.

  Can there be any day but this,
  Though many sunnes to shine endeavour ?
  We count three hundred, but we misse :
  There is but one, and that one ever.

The Complete English Poems (Penguin Classics), George Herbert

Tom Meschery's Poem About Charlie Rose

From the Oregon Lit. Review site, here is a poem by Tom Meschery, former National Basketball Association player and current published poet, about PBS talk-show host Charlie Rose--and other topics:

The Charlie Rose Show

The way he says “young men” sounds dangerous,

so I stop channel surfing and listen:  Charlie

leaning forward, hand on his chin, asking

some old guy, what his book’s about

and the old dude answering:  among humans

and in the animal kingdom as well,

young males cause trouble.  Nature intends it,

and we’re just now starting the long path

of remembrance, how they make us feel—

meaning mostly older males—threatened

and anxious.  A generational battle,

so to speak, which, from the point of view

of young men, makes all the sense

in the world according to Charlie’s guest,

author of The Decline of Males;

as in the case of some species in the world

and even in captivity, one or two

knock down, drag-outs with dad,

and the winner takes the prize:  females

and family felicity.  Which can’t, Charlie argues,

be analogous to today’s young men,

meaning the sons of his generation,

the baby boomers, to their random violence

Woodstock ‘99 being a case in point.

And I’m thinking Charlie Rose seems

a little ruptured, evoking images

from Clockwork Orange and Lord of the Flies—

boys prancing naked around fires,

pig’s head on a stick, Paleolithic shadows.

So I ask my friend watching the show

with me “How does Charlie get off

being that fucking self righteous?”

But my friend points to the full moon

outside the window, smiles, and points

to the one rising over my belly button

just below the three green eagles flying

across my chest.  “Is that it, dude?” I ask

as Charlie Rose praises his guest for shedding

some light on such a difficult subject.

“Is that it?” and suddenly I feel better

knowing I’ve been given a license

to get back to the natural order of things;

say, if my old man gives me trouble,

which I’m telling my friend he did, last night

and in spades, I can simply arm wrestle

him into submission.  At least, that’s how

I’m seeing it, my eyes opening onto wide screens:

retreating glaciers, savannahs, jungles of primates,

tribes of hunters and gatherers, competing

for each bone of meat and feeling fine about it,

feeling just fine because God made us

this way, in his image—fathers and sons.

 Copyright Tom Meschery

A  link to one of Meschery's books:

Nothing We Lose Can Be Replaced

Fashion Models

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Fashion Models


The vacancy in eyes is neither feline
nor fishy. It's royal. Crowned by current
fashion with approved beauty, models
walk or stand ritually while gazes and lenses
pledge fealty. This slenderness

is a cousin of gaunt. Is the frame bones
haunted by flesh or vice versa? A fashion
model's an illusion, an unreal estate, an
expensive trick played on eyes, desire,
and retail markets. One need only focus

on an ear or an elbow, though,
and the game is up. The model is
human, the fashion is woven fibers
or tanned hide, and the pageant
is but a bright pretty bore.


Copyright 2010  Hans Ostrom

An Interview About Ogden Nash

Here's a link to a 2005 interview between Ben Wattenberg (Public Broadcasting Service, USA) and Douglas Parker concerning Parker's biography of Ogden Nash, master of humorous light verse, and writer of fiction.

Ogden Nash: The Life and Work of America's Laureate of Light Verse by Douglas M. Parker

The Best of Ogden Nash

Ogden Nash's Zoo

Illinois' Poet Laureate

Kevin Stein is Illinois' Poet Laureate, and he teaches at Bradley University.  Here is a link to his site.

One of his books: Sufficiency of the Actual (Illinois Poetry Series).

a cummings poem

It seems like a good day to post a poem by e.e. cummings, one that appears elsewhere online:

i carry your heart with me

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in my heart)i am never without it(anywhere i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done by only me is your doing,my darling) i fear no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true) and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant and whatever a sun will always sing is you here is the deepest secret nobody knows (here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide) and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

Peter Viereck

On another blog, I just posted something about Peter Viereck (1916-2006), poet and historian.

Viereck's books include  New and Selected Poems, 1932-1967   and  Door.

Arkansas' Poet Laureate

Peggy Vining is Arkansas' Poet Laureate.

Louisiana's Poet Laureate

Louisiana's current Poet Laureate is Darrell Bourque. His books include  Plainsongs, The Blue Boat, Burnt Water Suite (nice title), and Call and Response.

West Virginia's Poet Laureate

West Virginia's Poet Laureate is Irene McKinney. 

Her books include Unthinkable: Selected Poems 1976-2004 and Six O'Clock Mine Report.  She also edited a collection of West Virginian writing, Back Country.

Colorado's Poet Laureate

Mary Crow is Colorado's Poet Laureate, and here is a link to her site.

And here is a link to one of her books:

I Have Tasted the Apple (American Poets Continuum)

Derbyshire's Poet Laureate

Here is a link to the site of Ann Atkinson, Poet Laureate of Derbyshire.

Good Weather Inside

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Good Weather Inside

I'm fond of interior fogs, thick mists
in which to disappear when the world
gets especially giddy, unambiguous,
and annoying.  Invisible geese mutter
to themselves. A creek is to be heard
but not seen. The sun ceases to be
a celebrity.  As Auden wrote, "Thank
you, fog."  At other times, the good
weather inside invites.  When muck
and slush of human interaction dispirits,
a walk in the mind's bright meadow beckons.


Copyright 2010 Hans Ostrom

Thank You, Fog: Last Poems.

Venues

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Venues


My residences are three--
the present, past, and me.
The past is vast, illusory.
Present's cramped, a tiny pill,
so its contents spill
into past. Still
there's Me, which is a what
that's a where and a who,
not so different from a You.



Copyright 2010 Hans Ostrom

Hey, Baby

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Hiram and His Hey-Baby Poem


"Hey, Baby, here's another Hey-Baby poem,
full of neon bats and radioactive butterflies,
false promises and outlandish proposals,
a Magical Realist's dream-yacht,
Dylan Thomas's unpaid bar bill, too
much cheese and not enough wine. In this
Hey-Baby poem, you get compared.

Yeah, Baby, you get compared to such
extravagant particulars that the poem
claims you'll sweat liquid marble and gargle
with nectar. Undeterred by the overpopulation
of Hey-Baby poems, this one wants to be known
as an elder adolescent and a crusty old
lust-addict both at once. Asleep on a stained

couch, this poem dreams it's Casanova on a Harley,
Byron on a skateboard, Christina Rossetti's
market-analyst, and an Arabian nighthawk riding
a golden pogo-stick. Hey, Baby, my heart's not in
this Hey-Baby poem. It's because I always thought
the genre was horse-shit and the women who fell
for it more to be pitied than played. Hey, Baby,

as you well know, you can do better than this
Hey-Baby poem or any other, so take this anti-
Hey-Baby poem, use it as a coupon, and redeem
it for the platinum version of your crap-detector,
just in case something or someone subtle
slides your way with a Hey-Baby poem in disguise."
Thus spake Hiram to his laptop in a glad cafe.


Copyright 2010 Hans Ostrom

Bergman, The Knight, and Death

Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal (1957) is one of my favorite films--partly, I think, because of the imagery, but also because Bergman handles the grim allegory in an amusing way. I do acknowledge the film isn't for everyone, however. Here's a link to the scene in which Death first introduces himself, formally, to the Knight (in Swedish, no subtitles).

Moyers' Favorite Poem Project

The site of the television program, Bill Moyers Journal, has a favorite-poem project going. Lots of interesting choices.

Timeline of Insurance

Only 610 years, approximately, after the concept of insurance arose (at least in a European context), the U.S. Congress seems poised--if that's the word--to get more people health insurance, or at least that's the claim, as it were. Here is a link to a time-line of insurance. Exciting reading.

South Dakota's Poet Laureate

As noted earlier, Larry Woiwode is North Dakota's Poet Laureate. Who is South Dakota's? I'm glad you asked. David Allen Evans, whose books include Bull Rider's Advice: New And Selected Poems (2003).

Anne Spencer

Here is a link to a page about a not-so-well known Harlem Renaissance poet, Anne Spencer.

"Photography Is Poetry"

Here's a cool site: Photography Is Poetry.

Films About Poets

One problem with trying to make a dramatic feature film about poets is that most of the drama in a poet's life occurs in his or her head. A second problem, flowing out of the first, is that the film-makers then try to compensate by focusing on sordid details or on cliche aspects of the alleged "poet's life," such as drinking alcohol, being wild, yadda yadda. A third problem is that, probably, no one should try to "dramatize" the writing process. All of that said, here is a list of movies about poets, pretty much in the order they occurred to me, although I do begin with my favorite:

1. Stevie (1978) It presents her life and doesn't try too hard to dramatize poetry and poets.
2. Priest of Love (1981) About D.H. Lawrence. Not bad. Ava Gardner has a role.
3. The Edge of Love (2008) About Dylan Thomas. Falls into some of the traps mentioned above.
4. Dead Poets Society (1989). A favorite of many. More about poetry and teaching than poets. I liked it all right.
5. Panaemondium (2000)About Wordsworth and other British Romantic poets. The scenes that try to portray Wordsworth composing are painful to watch. The stuff about literary politics and Wordsworth's ego is good.
6. Beat (2000). Focuses mainly on Burroughs. It's pretty good.
7. Looking for Langston (1988) Quasi-documentary stressing Hughes's sexuality. A fine film--but it really is only about one aspect of Hughes's life, alas.
8. Total Eclipse (1995) Concerning Rimbaud and Verlaine. Very good. With Dicaprio.
9. Dr. Zhivago (1965). Of course, this movie about a lot besides poetry, but the main character is a poet, after all.
10. Beautiful Dreamers (1990). This is the one among the 10 I haven't seen, but it looks intriguing. It's about Walt Whitman. Not great reviews on IMDB, alas.

Working Theater Collective, Portland

I recently met a member of the Working Theater Collective in Portland, Oregon. Their current production is Peaking, and here is a link to the WTC's blog. I wish I'd had time to attend a performance; maybe this summer....If you live in or near Portland and haven't check them out, please do so.

Simon Armitage

Here is a link to the site of Simon Armitage, a contemporary British poet whom the BBC sent to Afghanistan. His "poem of the day" today is "Ten Pence Story," a rhyming narrative poem spoken, as it were, by a coin.

Theatre of the Absurd

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Theatrics


There’s no theatre that’s not
theatre of the absurd because
in every case humans sit
observing humans acting
like humans.... Everybody
in the whole building
has a task, which both is
and is not what brought each
task’s respective human
to the building. The building
is a product of earlier innumerable
tasks. So is the play. All tasks
are ultimately meaningless maybe.
So is the play. The theatre-
building is filled with pretending
humans watching other humans
pretending, and this is reality,
and this is play, and if God
doesn’t exist, then none of it
means anything ultimately,
and if God does exist, then
does the play mean what it purports
to mean? Oh, and one additional absurd
thing is how ordered, dutiful,
polite, and amused we are as
we perform our tasks. We play
the game of As If as if it
weren’t a game, and that is
acting, and that’s absurd,
and that’s another good reason
to go see a play played live.


Copyright 2010 Hans Ostrom

Stevie Smith

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Stevie Smith is one of my favorite 20th century poets. Her work is whimsical but tough, quirky but accessible. She also wrote prose and drew. Glenda Jackson portrayed her memorably in the film, "Stevie," which also featured Trevor Howard, if memory serves. Perhaps Smith's most famous poem is "Not Waving But Drowning." Here is a link to more information about Smith and her work.

Eventual, Uncertain Results: The Teacher's Circumstance

Builders, meat-cutters, plumbers, electricians, surgeons, and so on, usually get to see the results of their labor and expertise relatively quickly.

Teachers are among those who may not see the fruits of their work right away and who, indeed, can never be certain about what effect they have had.

I'm thinking about this because I traveled to Portland to read some poems to some alumni from the college where I have taught for quite a while, and simply to chat with the alums. (I insisted on titling the evening "Just Enough Poems," conscious that poetry in general and my poetry in particular may be an acquired taste.) I'd not had some of them in class; others had taken one or more classes from me.

--An impressive group, and to back up "impressive," one is tempted to name occupations: doctor, wine-maker, pub-owner, drama-teacher, parent, businessperson, etc. But more impressive is the sense one has that these are good and complicated people--thoughtful, well read, responsible, intellectually adventurous.

Many of them still write--as they are fulfilling other responsibilities and pursuing other professions. That is impressive. Also, these sorts of writers--the ones who are not famous (yet), the ones for whom writing is just one piece of the puzzle--may be more crucial to a culture than the writers on whom all the light is shed.

--But back to the original thread: a teacher a) often has to wait decades, not just years, to have some sense of what effect he or she may have had on students and b) still cannot and indeed should not be tempted to take credit. There is rarely any way to prove that one's teaching led to any student's impressiveness. That is as it should be, not just because this circumstance reins in a teacher's pride, but also because the circumstance reminds a teacher that teach8ing is an art and an act of faith.

Nonetheless, the alumni I talked with and read poems to are impressive in the right ways. They are decent, smart, accomplished people. They are nobody's fools. To be nobody's fool is one great potential result of education, in my opinion--and a result the teacher should be reticent to claim credit for.

Powell's Books

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A journey to Portland (Oregon) is in my near future, so I will try to make the obligatory pilgrimage to Powell's Books, which famously takes up a city block. Bibliophiles can get figuratively lost in bookstores of any size, but in Powell's one may literally get lost in one of the book-alleys on one of the floors.

Apparently Powell's was founded in 1971: relatively, not that old.

For amusement and edification, I used "poetry" as the keyword in an online Powell's search, and the number of titles that came up was 71,448.

Sundance Apple Tree

It's one thing to say you believe in God; that is a statement of faith. It's another to plant a fruit tree; that, too, is a statement of faith (as well as an allusion to Eden), if of a different sort.

My father liked to plant fruit trees--in a disorderly fashion. He just picked spots on his acre of land and planted. Some of the trees were grouped together, but that seemed to be by accident. He had very good luck with apple trees. One became enormous, and then one late autumn a bear broke down many limbs going for the last apples. My father liked bears even more than apple trees, however, so he was cool with it.

He seemed extremely partial to a variety of apple called "the Arkansas black," which was really a deep red (apple). Smallish, but kept well. Nice for pies.

He had less success with the apricot and hazelnut trees. No wonder: his acre lay at 4,000 feet-plus in the Sierra Nevada.

All of this is by way of saying that I planted my second Sundance Apple tree today. I planted one last year. And I planted my first one about five years ago--at a different place; it should be producing heavily now. So it goes. Planters of trees often plant for others. The Sundance is a disease-resistant hybrid, and I get the dwarf variety. It's crisp, a bit tart, and certainly not too sweet.

Fruit trees: statement of faith, labor of love--almost like poetry.

Mr. Otis

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Mr. Otis




Mr. Otis feels distant
from his culture,
though he can hear the noise
it manufactures--
loud, louder, loudest.

Mr. Otis prefers truth
to lies, sighs
sometimes but not so as
to draw attention,
which he prefers to pay.

Mr. Otis is a loyal
friend, is clean, is
never low or mean.
Earns a salary, shares
some of it with charity.

Mr. Otis is of a
threatened species. That is,
he is old-fashioned,
patient, reserved,
staid. Dismayed.


Copyright 2010

Interview With Peter Redgrove

Here is a link to an interview with British poet Peter Redgrove (1932-2003) by Lidia Vianu.

Redgrove was a prolific poet whose work Ted Hughes, among others, celebrated. The interview's terrific--enlightening, amusing, terse.

Visual Journals

Here is a link to a fine blog that features a visual journal; the art is terrific.

Snow In March

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Snow in March

Snow in March falls in sunshine that's leaked
through cracked clouds. Flakes fall at odd
angles as if they're unprepared or lost. We
look out windows, consider resigning from
high-level positions in the climate. Meanwhile,
we return to our desks, ineffectually angry.
Old storms of resentment saturate our moods.

Still, statistics say some people out there
are falling in love and therefore agreeing
to be charmed by snow late in Spring. We
begrudge them their innocence. Winter
has made us pettier, meaner. This snow
in March is untimely and inept.


Copyright 2010 Hans Ostrom

U.S. Poet Laureate Timeline

Here's a link to a timeline of U.S Poets Laureate, who used to be called Consultants to the Library of Congress. The first one was Joseph Auslander, appointed in 1937. I hadn't expected to see that my former teacher, Karl Shapiro, had preceded Robert Frost in the post.

Leaves

This one's out of season.
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Leaves

1
The fallen leaf has been further
harmed, one point torn off.

2
A leaf went to a hair-salon
and changed its color. To blond.

3
Each leaf comes with
an antenna with which
to broadcast deciduous
messages to evergreens.

4
The curve of a leaf's
edge is an improvement
over art.

5
A leaf left on the linoleum
of a classroom is like
a love-note never received.

6
The Vs of a leaf's
skeleton diminish
in size. The last V
belongs to the breeze.

7
Leaves don't change.
Weather changes, leaving
leaves no choice.

Virginia's Poet Laureate

Claudia Emerson is Virginia's Poet Laureate. Her books of poetry include Pharaoh, Pharaoh, Figure Studies, and Late Wife. Here is a link to more information about Emerson and her work.

Poet Laureate of Kansas

Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg is the Poet Laureate of Kansas now, and here is a link to more information about her and projects on which she's working. I haven't been to Kansas in over 20 years. I think I need to get back there. The last time I was there, I caught some catfish.

Allergic Haiku

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Allergic Haiku

mold, pollen, weeds, dust--
sealed buildings full of bad air--
he wheezes; sneezes



Copyright 2010 Hans Ostrom

First Academy Awards

The first motion-picture Academy Awards were handed out in 1929. Emil Jennings won the award for best actor; he was a German. Janet Gaynor won for best actress. A link to more information.

Site For Blues Lyrics

Here is a link to a site that contains blues lyrics:

Blues Lyrics

Swedish Band Panda

Here is a link to a youtube video featuring the music of a Swedish band, Panda:

Swedish band

Self-Portrait With Assistance From Creatures

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Self-Portrait With Assistance From Creatures

as guileless as a worm
as alarmist as a rooster
as blank as an owl
as relentless as a wolverine
as listless as a toad
as worried as a squirrel
as distracted as a cat
as languorous as a bear
as focused as a fox
as garrulous as a hound
as ordinary as a beetle
as deluded as a moth
as determined as a badger
as morose as a sloth
as patient as an ox
as hurried as a hummingbird
as constant as a swallow
as feckless as a frog
as lost as a mole
as devious as a raccoon
as direct as a bee
as sad as a salamander
as overwhelmed as a trout
as philosophical as mule
as gluttonous as a snake
as wary as a coyote
as common as a fly
as confused as a human


Copyright 2010 Hans Ostrom

Auden on American Work

An observation by poet W.H. Auden concerning Americans and work:

A tremendous number of people in America work very hard at something that bores them. Even a rich man thinks he has to go down to the office everyday. Not because he likes it but because he can't think of anything else to do.

Best-Selling Books of Poetry, 2009

Here is a link to a list of the top 10 best-selling books of poetry in the U.S. in 2009. It's an interesting mix of books. I have no idea how many copies these books sold.

Nevada's Poet Laureate?

When I bought groceries today, the cashier said to a person ahead of me, "One of our customers keeps winning scratch [lottery] games. He said he's not a compulsive gambler. I told him, 'Neither am I. Do you want to bet on it?'" --Waggish humor as one purchases victuals: a good thing.

But it made me wonder if the State of Nevada has a Poet Laureate. Answer: no. The position is vacant. In case anyone from Nevada happens to be reading this, I'm available. My qualifications are that I'm a poet and that I grew up not far (as the crow flies) from Nevada. One of my favorite towns is Reno. I'd be glad to write poems about Nevada, which put the "Nevada" in Sierra Nevada, or something like that.

Apparently the last Poet Laureate from Nevada served for over a decade but left office in 1976 (?). His name is Norman Kaye. What I found on amazon.com by Mr. Kaye is The Nevada Songbook, published by Vic Vegas Publishing. How great is that publisher's name?

Goodnight, Vic Vegas, wherever you are.

Narrative Poems

In 2004, Story Line Press published Story Hour: Contemporary American Narrative Poems, edited by Sonny Williams. The anthology includes poems by Robert Penn Warren, Elizabeth Bishop, Gwendolyn Brooks, Richard Wilbur, Etheridge Knight, George Keithley, Yusef Komunyakaa, R.S. Gwynn, Rachel Hadas, Kate Daniels, Robert McDowell, Gjertrud Schnackenberg, David Wojahn, Kim Addonizio, David Mason, Mary Jo Salter, Mary Swander, Russell Edson, Beth Joselow, Lawson Inada, George Hitchcock, Philip Levine, Garrett Hongo, and many other poets (325 pages).

Here is a link to more information about the book:

Narrative Poems

What The Trees Mean

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What The Trees Mean

The redwood trees mean I can stop
worrying about how important my work
is. When my toil's results are compost,
redwoods will still be. A manzanita
bush means tenacity. Fire propagates
this species, no kidding. The beech
tree says something about peace. Listen.
Old scraggly scrub-pines report that
not every conifer can be a celebrity.
I just might patrol a leafy avenue
in this city or that, or wander into
a copse, maybe drop into an old forest.
Maybe I'll read more trees, see
what stories they suggest.


Copyright 2010 Hans Ostrom

Short, Ornery Month

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Short, Ornery Month

Skies got blue-black all
of a sudden: one of February's
traits. Wind behave like a cold
saw. A robin perched on the roof
of something gray, looked chilled
and bewildered: migrating too soon?

Change is difficult or too easy,
slow or too fast. Consider the planet,
hunks o its huge hide constantly
contending. Ask the powerless. They
know about less-than-optimal. Or

interview February in your hometown
and deal with its difficult answers.
Maybe that's why they cut this month
short a few days back then. Maybe indeed
the moon preferred March's attitude.


Copyright February 2010 Hans Ostrom

What Is Happening

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What Is Happening

The universe passes through you, so there's
that to ponder as you wait to get your teeth
drilled or to be told you're not right for
the job for which you're right. Light
form stars they claim are dead settles
on your retinae, goes somewhere, has to.
Then there's the oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon
we process. My friends, we're sieves and filters.
We're right for the job. Life passes through
us and we through it. Atoms maniacally rearrange.
Wind in aspens, wind in hair. Galaxies
spiral as you sit in a chair.


Copyright 2010 Hans Ostrom

Different Isn't Stupid

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Different Isn't Stupid

Different from you isn't necessarily
stupid and may well be a kind of smart
you'd do well to study, as you study, if
you will study, yourself. Will you?

Hey, your judge-o-meter's really
wound up--too many rpm's, reactions
per moment. Do you smell smoke? Hey,
consider your own patch of ground:

not perfect, yes? Maybe it is even
stupid in someone's eyes. Have you
noticed the wise? They judge--well,
judiciously. Reticently. Come now,

let us speak of what we know,
and of how little we know.
That's better. That's not stupid.
That is better.


Copyright 2010 Hans Ostrom

Clear A Place For Good

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Clear a Place For Good

Make room for something good to happen. Clear
a place--there, perhaps, on a purple divan; or
here, on a warm, flat rock. Yes, of course,
nothing good may arrive, in which case you

may occupy the place yourself and call it good.
You may watch as something good happens in that
space you just vacated. It doesn't always work
this way. Still, make some room. Some room for good.



Copyright 2010 Hans Ostrom

Latino/Hispanic Writers

Here is a link to a useful site about Latino/Latina/Hispanic writers:


Latino/Hispanic

Johnny Cash's Birthday

Johnny Cash would have been 78 today--an amusing number to me because I first heard his recordings via 78 rpm records my father brought home from a saloon in the High Sierra. A carpenter and stone mason by day, my father took a second job tending bar, and when it was time to replace records in the jukebox, he brought the discards home--including the 78's of "Folsom Prison Blues" and "Ballad of a Teenage Queen." Young as I was, I sensed immediately the uniqueness of Cash's voice, style, and persona. I still can't think of another artist who occupies a niche between African American delta music, Appalachian folk music, electrified country music of the 1950s, and Memphis rockabilly so originally and so forcefully; there was also more than a hint of reggae and ska in what he produced sometimes (he owned a house in Jamaica). I also think he had a great ear and eye for the poetry of popular lyrics, and he seemed unamused by lyrics from the ultra-commercial pop and Nashville machines. He did, however, like to sell records himself; no doubt about that. A link to "his" site:

Johnny Cash

Stellar Nucleosynthesis

Below is a link to an obituary of Geoffrey Burbidge, who helped to define stellar nucleosynthesis. Apparently, Burbidge did not favor the Big Bang Theory but instead speculated that the universe has always existed.

Burbidge

Roger Bobo on the Tuba; or, Apropros of Bobo

It's a glum, soggy day in the Pacific Northwest--after some days of glorious sunshine. One student said, "I don't even want to discuss the weather."

Another student--not apropos of the weather--recommended the music of Roger Bobbo, who plays the tuba.

I found a video of Bobo playing on the Tonight Show, with Carson. Carson was interesting that way; he'd have unexpected acts on.

Anyway, Bobo's rendition of "Carnival In Venice" is a sunny one:

Carnival of Venice--Bobo

Poetry Is Alive and Well

Here is a link to a nice essay by Donald Hall, "Death to the Death of Poetry"

Hall on poetry

I don't know the extent to which other nations/cultures engage in hand-wringing about the death of poetry, but I suspect American hand-wringing on this issue is more prevalent.

Poetry From Captain Beefheart

I have to (well, I don't really have to) admit I'm partial to eccentric entertainers like Captain Beefheart, chiefly because of the off-beat wit, but also because they seem to resist the slots and categories of "culture." Another name Captain Beefheart has used is Don Van Vliet, is that right?

Here is a link to some poems by Captain Beefheart:

Beefheart poems

America's War Criminals

A friend sent a link to an article in Salon about America's war criminals:

War Criminals

Community Colleges and Poetry

. . . And here is a link to U.S. Poet Laureate Kay Ryan's poetry project, which includes work with community colleges:

Kay Ryan/Community Colleges

I must now hail Sierra College, the community college I attended way back when. Thanks especially to several fine English teachers there and one fine philosophy teacher, from whom I took a two-semester history of philosophy course.

Library of Congress Site: Black History Month

Here is a link to a "page" on the U.S. Library of Congress site that describes a variety of projects, exhibits, and archives connected to Black History Month:

Library of Congress

Southeastern Kansas

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Southeastern Kansas


Grains of agrarian
patience sway, shimmer,

shall become bread
of memory. Clouds

have purchased sky.
Prairie is lightning-

lacerated. Grassy
hills take as long

to curve as they will.
Expanse fascinates.



Copyright 2010 Hans Ostrom

A Musical Evening With Langston Hughes

A Musical Evening With Langston Hughes, featuring Awilda Verdejo.

Great Site for International Poetry

Here's a link to a fine site for contemporary poetry around the world:


International Poetry Web

Once there, you may simply select a country from the drop-down menu, go to that page, and find dozens of poets.

Great stuff.

Say There's A Ship

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Say There's A Ship

Say there's a ship we can take out
on the sea of our lives. Say we can
cast nets and lines and thus retrieve
sources of regret, despair, haul them
on board, apologize, repair--make things
right. Tell it so we can find

unrecoverable people out there. They stand
or sit in boats, close enough to see,
to hail. Make it so that ocean's not just
time or loss, memory or change, failure or
death. We know that sort of ocean well.

Talk about the joy we'll feel. Describe
the laughter, redemptive weeping, songs
and delight. Now a harder part: tell us
how to get there. Please tell us how
to go down to that ship, get on.


Copyright 2010 Hans Ostrom

Hughes and Hurston on Haiti

Haiti's being in the news, to understate things awfully much, has reminded me that two Harlem Renaissance authors, Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston, developed a great interest in that nation.

An anthropologist as well as a fiction-writer, Hurston wrote the study: Tell My Horse: Voodoo and Life in Haiti and Jamaica. It was reissued in 2008.

Hughes wrote a play, Troubled Island, which concerns the Haitian rebel leader, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, who helped defeat the army Napoleon had sent to Haiti and who later became emperor of Haiti. His dates are 1758-1806. Later, the composer William Grant Still and Hughes (as librettist) collaborated on the opera, Troubled Island.

Evening Hatch

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Evening Hatch

An evening hatch of gnats rose from the river
in a cloud. One gnat flew to a blue bluff,
landed there, pushed against infinite,
immovable stone mass. The gnat

fell away and down toward a pool,
out of which erupted a rainbow trout,
which snatched and swallowed the gnat.

I will have had less effect on things than
this gnat. It's good to meditate on that.


Copyright 2010 Hans Ostrom

Lucille Clifton Passes

It is sad that poet Lucille Clifton passed on a few days ago. She was a poet of great wit and insight.

Here are two links to more information about her, one a recent article following her death, the other from poets. org:

Clifton article

Clifton on Poets.org

This is a good day to re-read some of her poems.

Black History Quiz and Africlassical.com

Should you have a hankering to take a quiz on Black history, then here's a link you might like to follow:


Black History Quiz

The quiz appears on the site, Africlassical.com, which explores the African and African American presence in classical music.

The site has a companion blog, which (finally, the self-serving part) kindly mentioned an upcoming musical program I helped to put together. Actually, the site borrowed a notice from another blog (thanks, Professor O'Neil)--ah, the complications of the web.

Langston Hughes/Awilda Verdejo

President Clinton Reads "The Concord Hymn"

Here is a link to a video of President Clinton reading Ralph Waldo Emerson's "The Concord Hymn," as part of the "Favorite Poem" project:

Clinton reads Concord Hymn

It was good to hear that the former President is doing well after a visit to the hospital.

As to his other poetic tastes, the CBS site includes The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats on his list of favorite books.

African American Crime Fiction

Probably like most of you, I've been reading detective fiction since I was in my early teens. I think I received the Doubleday collected Holmes stories as a gift from my parents when I was about 16.

Later, I wrote and published one mystery novel, featuring a rural sheriff as the detective.

And I've taught a class on detective fiction a few times. One interesting aspect of such a class is that you get some students who take simply because they have been reading in the genre independent of "school" work. In a sense they are connoisseurs.

Now I'm considering developing a course on African American detective fiction, or at least I'm taking steps toward the consideration. In the process, I discovered a few recent anthologies, including

African American Crime and Mystery Stories, edited by Eleanor Taylor Bland. I'm enjoying it a lot. Here's a link:

anthology

Sierra City Website

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(Sierra City, California, population 225)
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My hometown has a website now: Sierra City

Who knew?

Links To African American Poets

Here is site that provides a wealth of online links to information about African American poets:


Black poets

Black Past

I just ran across this great site:

http://www.blackpast.org/

Duke Takes The "A" Train

A nice video--for Black History Month or any month--of Duke Ellington playing "Take the A Train":

Duke Ellington

William Blake and Soccer

Below is a link to a great short film on youtube that combines football (of the soccer variety) and the poetry of William Blake. I think you'll like this:


Blake Press Conference

"Awful Library Books": A Most Amusing Blog

A link on the The Scrapper Poet's blog alerted me to the amusing blog, "Awful Library Books," which I hope you'll enjoy, too:

ALB

Eugene Lipscomb

As I was getting ready to have a couple friends over for the Super Bowl (more chat than Super Bowl, truth to tell), I thought, for some reason, of Randall Jarrell's elegy for the professional football player Eugene "Big Daddy" Lipscomb, who played professionally for Baltimore, L.A., and Pittsburgh teams but who died of a heroin overdose in 1963. I don't think that in '63 I was really much aware of professional football, but I distinctly remember the name "Big Daddy Lipscomb," which I found enchanting, partly for the sound of it.

Anyway, below is a link to Jarrell's poem, "Say Goodbye to Big Daddy." The page starts with a sports poems by William Carlos Williams, so you just have to scroll down a bit once you're there.

Big Daddy Lipscomb Poem

Errant

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Errant

A wayward knight came into our
time zone. He was diminutive,
in need of a bath, and not
that great a horseman. We recycled
his armor, found a good home
for his nag, got him some job-
training: financial sector. Last
we heard, he'd been hired by
an Internet start-up called
errant.netcomorg.


Copyright 2010 Hans Ostrom

Sequioadendron Giganteum

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Sequoiadendron Giganteum

From a classroom in the building on a knoll,
I look across, see the Sequoiadendron giganteum,
a shaggy green profile foregrounding faint gray
distant Cascades and clouds rippled like a tide.

The tree's A-shape's improvised upon by growth--
something like shoulders protrude there thirty
feet from the top. And near the top, there's a gap
in boughs, where the trunk looks like a thread.

Then, askew, a few wee branches appear, a tiny
comic feathery cap, a frivolous dash, a perfect
flaw. Of course, Sequoiadendron giganteum has
nothing to tell us we haven't told ourselves.

It has nothing to do with us, but has this nothing
at such a grand and unrushed pace, we're tempted
to be quiet, simply to stare at this other thing,
this individuality of tree that encompasses its

species and thinks nothing, thinks nothing of ours.


Link to info

Copyright 2010 Hans Ostrom

Countee Cullen

Countee Cullen was one of the first literary stars of what's known now as the Harlem Renaissance (circa 1919-1934), and although his reputation dwindled after that, it recovered, and he is arguably one of the best lyric poets the U.S. has produced. His sonnet, "Yet Do I Marvel," is perfect, blending a formal but contemporary idiom with the form and crafting a superb "argument" about race, color, theology, and existentialism--without ever getting heavy, and with a light ironic touch. It's just one of those poems you can admire forever.

There's a nice anthology of Cullen's poetry--and one novel--edited by Gerald Early: My Soul's High Song.

Eventually, Cullen pursued middle-school teaching as a career--in Harlem, where James Baldwin was one of his students.

Here is a link to more information about Cullen:

Countee

Recycling Message

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Recycling Message


Without reading it
carefully, I just
recycled in the black
tub a postcard sent
to me and others
reminding us to live
more greenly.



Copyright 2010

Fine Poem By Joe Salerno

At "Rinabeana's" site, I found a fine poem by Joe Salerno, "Poetry Is the Art of Not Succeeding":

Poem

Black History Month Begins

...And a happy Black History Month to you. What a good idea historian and professor Carter G. Woodson had way back when.

I thought I'd mention two worthy anthologies of African American poetry: African American Poetry: An Anthology 1773-1927, edited by Joan R. Sherman and James M. Bell--from Dover Books, for two dollars (new). And Every Shut Eye Ain't Asleep: An Anthology of African American Poetry Since 1945, edited by Michael Harper and Anthony Walton, from Back Bay Books. --Oops, this apparently leaves a gap between 1927 and 1945, so you might look at Oxford's anthology of African American poetry.