Official Correspondence

Don't Look Now, But--

Don't look now but
Kevin Spacey is a bad actor and
Tom Hanks' accent in Forrest Gump
embarrassed. Clint Eastwood
is a cracker, and Jack
Nicholson is just another
Hollywood pig, the opposite
of counter-culture. Don't look now
but all the celebrity authors
are full of shit, completely
full of shit. Don't look now
but the U.S. Senate is a porch
on a Southern plantation
200 years ago. Don't look now but Obama
is to the right of Eisenhower and
it's too fucking late to counter-act
global warming. Don't look now but
the ACLU is impotent but correct.
Don't look now but the U.S.A.
would rather be white-supremacist
and wrong than fair and right.
Don't look now but most
of the Founding Fathers
owned slaves. Hear that:
owned slaves, who were
humans. Don't look now
but white supremacy guides
most American policies.
Don't look now but while
the gun-fetishists suck
their barrels until the barrels
shoot bullets, oh, oh,
the gub-ment
takes away the real shit,
such as money, such as rights.
Don't look now but "we"
add 10 million people per
year--which is like a Los
Angeles, which is too much
for the planet to bear.
Consider how much water
10 million people drink
and how much shit 10 million people
shit. Don't look now but
the U.S.A bombs whomever
the fuck they want--thanks
to your tax dollerz.
Don't look now but cynical realism
looks like idealism,
and your pessimism
can't keep up.
Don't look now. Don't look.



hans ostrom 2013

"Piazza Piece," by John Crowe Ransom

Book Trailer: HONORING JUANITA

"Shiloh," by Herman Melville

For St. Patrick's Day--"Irish Wake," by Langston Hughes

"Armageddon," by Georgia Douglas Johnson

"Eight O'Clock," by A.E. Housman

I'm Guessing All

I'm guessing all
we can know for sure
is that when the
time comes, all
will be different
from what we had
expected, predicted.
Yes, it will be
different from
what we had imagined
when we get there,
when we get to the time,
when time comes
to get us.



Hans Ostrom 2013

"Afterglow," by Georgia Douglas Johnson

A Fabulous Free Source for Learning Linear Algebra

College textbooks have become notoriously, outrageously expensive, and publishers often play a game of bringing out new editions that have relatively little new material but just enough new material that a student can't really get by with an older, much less expensive, used copy.

Well, if you're taking or teaching linear algebra or are otherwise interested in the subject, there are some great free sources for you, thanks to my colleague at the University of Puget Sound, Rob Beezer, Professor Mathematics. Rob and I share an interest in the possibilities of online publishing, print-on-demand, and so on--he from the math world, I from the poetry and fiction and teaching creative writing worlds.

So check out Rob's site: http://linear.ups.edu/

The first paragraph you'll see there is . . .

A First Course in Linear Algebra is an introductory textbook designed for university sophomores and juniors. Typically such a student will have taken calculus, but this is not a prerequisite. The book begins with systems of linear equations, then covers matrix algebra, before taking up finite-dimensional vector spaces in full generality. The final chapter covers matrix representations of linear transformations, through diagonalization, change of basis and Jordan canonical form. Along the way, determinants and eigenvalues get fair time. There is a comprehensive online edition and PDF versions are available to download for printing or on-screen viewing. Physical copies may be purchased from the print-on-demand service at Lulu.com.

So, if you want a "hard" copy you MAY buy one, but you don't have to. You may download a pdf or read the book online. And here the address for the online version:

http://linear.ups.edu/html/fcla.html

And here is a link to "Knowls," which enhances your browsing experience for such math-related things.

Sadly, although Rob and I share an interest in the Creative Commons, free or near-free textbooks, print-on-demand, and so on, linear algebra to me looks mainly like some mighty pretty hieroglyphics. I did well in Algebra I in high school. Like Wordsworth, I also really dug geometry. Then things started to fuzzy with Algebra II, and I finally got lost in the wilderness of trigonometry.

But if you've forged on ahead and are exploring linear algebra, check out Rob's fabulous free and excellent textbook material, which includes not just answers to the problems but examples of how one gets to the right answer.

"Critic," by Hans Ostrom

Fever

The old woman who slid the pan
of cookies into my brain's oven
never came back. The cookies
turned into black dots that float
across my vision. I reek of burnt
dough. I lie on my side like a

buffalo who's reading Hegel
on a parched Kansas plain.
Invisible merchants empty
microscopic vats of hot slime
on my neck, my forehead.
A thin woman with cold fingers
practices scales on my spine.

A chorus of angelic rats
prevents me from nodding off.
I raise one hand as if
to conduct their performance,
and I pass out.



hans ostrom 2013