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.

Follow Chekhov On Twitter

I suspected that, eventually, Anton Chekhov would get on Twitter. Lo and behold, he is:

Chekhov on Twitter

This particular twitterer tweets quotations from Chekhov's work and observations about Russia and Russians.

Chekhov would have appreciated the imposed frugality of word-choice Twitter imposes.

The River of January

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The River of January


How wonderful it must have been
to find a river in January, when
they were hot, and they
were experiencing explorer’s
despair at the start of the 16th
century, and people who
lived there and had
already found the river looked
at them as if they too, had
been discovered already.

Probably I won’t find a river.
Are there any left to find?
I could find one already found
and rename it, except I might
be tempted to name it the
River of January, and that
wouldn’t do. So I’ll put on
a carnival hat in the Northern
Hemisphere, turn a faucet
on and off, and think of Rio
De Janeiro, flowing there
below its continent’s leading
edge, which tips toward
ocean and Africa. Promises
to oneself are easy to make,

especially when one’s wearing
a carnival hat. I promise myself
that one day I’ll fly to the River
of January, and look at it. And just
look at it and say, Rio De Janeiro.


Copyright 2009 Hans Ostrom

Kevin Clark's New Book

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(Kevin Clark)
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My old friend Kevin Clark's new book of poetry is out: Self Portrait With Expletives. What a great title. It was the winner of the 2009 Lena-Miles Todd Poetry Series contest and selected by Martha Collins. It is published by Pleiades Press at the University of Central Missouri but distributed by Louisiana State University Press. The ISBN is 978-0-8071-3645-4.

Kevin teaches at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and is also the author of the poetry-writing textbook, The Mind's Eye (Longman).

The Last System Standing

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The Last System Standing

The Chief Executive Oligarch of Paranational,
Inc., rides in a private jet over neighborhoods
he helped ruin, oops, accidentally—you know,
a bad good-decision here and there. Hey,
it happens—naturally, like a bonus
gliding down from the heavens. If you’re
not taking chances, you’re not trying. He falls
asleep listening to opera. Assuming capitalism
once had to pretend to be better than its
worst traits, well, no more. It behaves like the last
system standing. As with the old burlesque
stripper, its excesses are its virtues. Time
is money, people are things, profit is lord,
and not to worry: the system will solve
all problems. Poverty’s temporary, and pain’s
an illusion. The system has everybody’s
best interests in mind, so take some advice
and don’t get in the way of the system--
unless you want to be like a bug on a
railroad track, a vine in the path
of a bulldozer, or a bird flying in front
of a jet-engine’s scream. These are
vivid examples—you know, like
advertising: images that educate. The system
doesn’t want anyone to get hurt. You
understand. You know how it works.
How it works is you work, or not; either
way, the product will get made, get sold,
and this is the best system there is. So,
unless you have any questions,. . . .


Copyright 2010

Writers Born on January 29

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Oprah Winfrey
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At least according to sites I have perused, the writers listed below were born on January 29, although I haven't done my double-checking, due-diligence best.

H.L. Mencken
Emanuel Swedenborg
Thomas Paine
Anton Chekhov
Robert Frost
Edward Abbey
Leadbelly (Huddie Ledbetter)
Oprah Winfrey
W.B. Yeats
and
Edward Lear, from whom the following limerick is borrowed:

"There was an Old Man with a beard,
Who said, 'It is just as I feared! -
Two Owls and a Hen,
Four Larks and a Wren,
Have all built their nests in my beard!'"

Stadium Dream

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Her Stadium Dream

In her stadium dream, she
doesn't know where she's supposed
to go, what she's supposed to
watch on the field, where
she's supposed to sit, with
whom, and why. She wanders

around trying to decode obscure
or nonexistent numbers for
section, aisle, row, or seat.
No one pays her attention. Their
attention is focused on something
she can't see or on each other.

As she continues, the stadium
becomes a tangle of tunnels. It
has gone underground. People
become erratic. They're confused
like her and not like he. She
observes her own desolate, panicked
feeling as the dream refuses to cease.
She is begging it to cease as she wakes.

Copyright 2010 Hans Ostrom

The Wise One

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The Wise One

"I'm the Wise One you've
been looking for," said the one
claiming to be the Wise One.

"I don't believe you," said
the one to whom the one claiming
to be the Wise One had spoken.

"See," said the Wise one, "already
you're acting wisely. That's
the effect I have on people."


Copyright 2010

Sterling Brown

In a class on the Harlem Renaissance today, we read and discussed "The Odyssey of Big Boy," one of the best known poems by Sterling Brown (1901-1989). The poem is spoken by "Big Boy" himself, a working-class African American who's had many adventures (of the heart and otherwise) as he's traveled around working different jobs, from mule-skinner to stevedore. The choice to write the poem in a Black vernacular idiom was a interesting one for Brown, who grew up in Washington D.C., went to the famous Dunbar high school, then earned a degree at Williams College as well as an M.A. at Harvard. He became a professor at Howard University and got interested in African American folklore.

Brown's books of poems include Southern Road (1932), The Collected Poems of Sterling Brown (1980), The Last Ride of Wild Bill and Eleven Narrative Poems (1975).

Here is a link to more information about Sterling Brown.