Nurses on Break

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Nurses on Break

They've come from an open heart
or a long birth, from drip of life
or failure of flesh. In green gowns
or blue, white gauzy caps, they enter
the park, stretch out like cats.

Sky is victorious, breezes querulous.
The park is arranged around
these reckoned women. Back
at the gray glum castle, pain
waits for them. It isn't going anywhere.


Copyright 2009 Hans Ostrom

Sonia Sanchez

Here is a link to information about Sonia Sanchez's new book of poems, Morning Haiku:

Link to Sanchez book

Sanchez has been doing highly original things with the haiku form for a long time. I think I first encountered her use of the form in her book homegirls and hand-grenades--great title for a book, too. She writes in a variety of other forms as well.

Claude McKay

Black History Month is just around the corner, and Tacoma is fortunate to be hosting the Fisk Jubilee Singers and, in a separate program, the Harlem Dance Studio.

One of my favorite Harlem Renaissance writers is Claude McKay, a native of Jamaica. He wrote poetry, fiction, and nonfiction (in the latter category, A Long Way From Home, his autobiography). He is perhaps still most famous for the protest-poem in sonnet-form, "If We Must Die," written in response to the terrible events of the Red Summer of 1919, when an epidemic of anti-Black violence occurred in the U.S.

Later, during World War II, Winston Churchill "adopted" the poem, not knowing its author was Black and not knowing the original context. As McKay notes in a recording I have, he (McKay) was just fine with, if bemused by, that. I also have a recording of Ice-T reading the poem. He does a nice job.

Here is a link to more information about McKay.

Poetry Slam in Mainz

Many moons ago I taught at Johannes Gutenberg University in the great city of Mainz, Germany--then West Germany. Yes, indeed, that's where Johannes started all this printing business, which is now virtual. Mainz is across the Rhine (or Rhein) from Weisbaden, in Germany's wine country, which is probably still less well known than it should be.

Back then I couldn't have imagined that there would be such a thing as a Poetry Slam in Mainz, chiefly because "poetry slam" wasn't part of the parlance then. I was not aware of a poetry-reading culture in Mainz then, but no doubt one existed. I was just too busy teaching too many classes, improving my German, and making cultural adjustments.

Indeed there is such a thing as . . .

Poetry Slam Mainz

. . .--as well there should be.

Winter's Dull Knife

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Winter's Dull Knife


The dull gray blade of Winter's fallen. It
cuts with cold, leaves bloodless wounds:
fatigue, despair, and ague. Winter doesn't
mean well. It doesn't mean anything, although
Lord knows we've tried to dress it in
significance. Some people like to ski.
There are holidays and sweaters.

There's the other hemisphere, which
Summer shacks up with now that it's
left us high and wet. Mostly we walk,
work, and ride in Winter, stay inside
in Winter, sniffling over bowls of soup,
napping with heavy Russian novels,
always hardback, on our chests, mentally
collecting many types of gray, hoping
Winter never finds a sharpening stone.

Copyright 2010 Hans Ostrom

Cubist Village

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Cubist Village


A blue horse pulls its fractured,
functional vegetable cart parallel
and perpendicular to our window,
which looks out on an alley and
our living room, where we scratch
noses at the back of our heads,
which host warped angles and excite
the sky beneath our feet. The silent
music of this vortex soothes. Wake up
to the lullaby of thunder's lightning.


Copyright 2010 Hans Ostrom

Haitian Poetry

Ezra Pound famously asserted that poetry is "news that stays news," but in the face of a catastrophe like the one in Haiti, poetry seems inadequate, far removed from desperate, immediate needs and overwhelming loss. As we contribute what we can and wait for information about else we might do over the longer haul, however, we can take a moment to consider the poetry from the land afflicted. Here is a link to an anthology of Haitian poetry edited by Chris Waters:

Haitian Poetry

Some Writers Born In January

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Writers born in January include Lewis Carroll, A.A. Milne, Anton Chekhov, W. Somerset Maugham, Patricia Highsmith, Isaac Asimov, and Zora Neale Hurston (in the photo). Langston Hughes missed January by that much (as Maxwell Smart used to say), having been born on February 1, 1902--in Joplin, Missouri.

Since 1804

An item I found in Quintard Taylor's nice reference work, Black Facts: The Timelines of African American History, 1601-2008 (p. 64):

"1804: On January 1, Haiti becomes an independent nation. It is the second independent nation in the Western Hemisphere (after the United States)."

Fund for Haitian Relief

Below is a link to one of many funds to support relief in Haiti. This fund is well established and supported by musician Wyclef Jean:


Haiti Relief

Monosyllabic Life

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Monosyllabic Life

born, breathe, cry, eat, smile,
crap, want, hurt, pee, sleep,
dance, want, hurt, like, fear,
love, learn, heal, lose, "win,"
call, bleed, wish, sweat, write,
tire, sing, talk, read, drink,
sleep, play, work, sex, know,
find, grow, raise, hope, ache,
grieve, weep, groan, buy, lust,
wear, wash, rest, sell, wish,
lick, frown, cheat, help, find,
shame, ask, take, will, give.


Copyright 2010 Hans Ostrom

Patrick McGoohan on THE PRISONER

Here is a video clip from an interview with the late Patrick McGoohan concerning his TV series, The Prisoner, which I believe was and remains perfectly suited to poets who like to watch TV:


McGoohan on The Prisoner

The Chore

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The Chore


Life never seemed simple. Once,
though, it appeared to have fewer
components. That was an ego ago.

Mirrors showed compassion. Amazement
was not yet rare. Programmers
had not yet inherited the Earth.

Nostalgia, I'm told, is a yearning,
a warm emotion. What I feel is cold.
It accompanies basic, necessary work:

contrasting yesterday's illusions with today's.


Copyright Hans Ostrom 2010