Poet Kofi Anyidoho Reading

Here is a link to a Youtube video of poet Kofi Anyidoho:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VaxJLivRT4&feature=channel_page

Anyidoho is a Ghanaian poet and also a professor of literature at the University of Ghana. His books include Ancestral Logic and Caribbean Blues (1992).

Blacking Out In Florida

Blacking Out In Florida

"Utility to Pay $25 Million For Blackout in Florida"
--New York Times, October 9, 2009, p. A-15


I read of "a record penalty
for violating the rules of the electricity
grid" and think of the vast distance
between me and my society because
I don't know what the rules
of the electricity grid are,
what they stand for, who made them,
who the Grid-Enforcers are, and what
the phrase "substantial, wide-ranging
and specific reliability enhancement
measures" means, for the phrase is
insubstantial, diffuse, general,
un-enhanced, unreliable, and
unmeasurable. Also, I think $25
million dollars are too much to pay
just to black out in Florida, and what
is the utility, I must ask, of blacking
out in that particular state?


Copyright 2009 Hans Ostrom

Poets Born In Ohio

There certainly are a lot of poets who were born in Ohio, among them . . .

Rita Dove
Hart Crane
Richard Howard (his book of criticism, Alone With America, is a favorite of mine)
Kenneth Koch (inventive, funny poet; his send-up of W.C. Williams' "This Is Just To Say" is hilarious)
Mary Oliver (American Primitive is my favorite book of hers)
David Wagoner (prolific poet, former editor of Poetry Northwest)
Jill Bialosky

For a longer list, please follow the link:

http://www.poets.org/state.php/varState/OH

Labor Breaks You

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Labor Breaks



Labor breaks you. When you're young,
you roll through it, your muscles
and bones handling any kind of shit
labor throws your way. Labor stays
young forever while you age, though.

It laughs with you when you're young,
sure. It hits the bars and runs around
town watching you go after what you think
you want. It gets you up in the morning after
nearly no sleep--no problem, you're young.

Then one day you're not young and labor
hasn't aged a day, and it grins and shrugs
as if to say, "Nothing personal," and it
starts to hit you with the tools of your trade,
and you know then the work you do will break you.

Copyright 2009

Ten Recommended Canadian Poets

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), on which I watch news from Vancouver and CFL football, bravely and/or blithely provided its list of top ten (living) Canadian poets a while ago. One can only imagine the cacophony of questions and exclamations such a list engendered. Actually, one cannot only imagine because there are 27 comments on the story, to be found at . . .

http://www.cbc.ca/arts/books/story/2009/05/19/f-best-poets-canada.html

What are the criteria? Whose list? How can you leave off [ ]? And so forth.

With the cacophony and caveats in mind, then, here's the list (one point being . . . read some poems by these writers if you haven't already):

Don McKay
Ken Babstock
Mary Dalton
Dionne Brand
Don Domanski
David McGimsey
Skydancer Louise Bernice Halfe
Jeremy Dodds
Erin Moure [accent on the last e]
Sheri-D Wilson

Thanks for the list, CBC.

Poets Born in Pennsylvania

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What poets were born in Pennsylvania? I'm glad you asked. My answer will be most incomplete, but it's a start. In no particular order . . . :

Gerald Stern
Robin Becker
J.D. McClatchy
Karen J. Weyant, also known
in the blogo-sphere as The Scrapper Poet
(see link at right)
W.D. Snodgrass
H.D. [Hilda Doolittle]
W.S. Di Piero
Wallace Stevens
Julia Kasdorf
Ron Silliman

Here is a link to more information about Pennsylvania, poetry, and poets:

http://www.poets.org/state.php/varState/PA

Nelson Mandela's Favorite Folktales

We are entering a variety of annual gift-bestowing days ahead, and I ran across a book written for children ages 9-12 (and thus for adults of any age) that might serve well as a literary gift. It is . . .

Nelson Mandela's Favorite African Folktales (New York: W.W. Norton, 2007), illustrated.

Unamused By Autumn

Unamused by Autumn

I don't like Fall, which poets
call "Autumn," anymore. Enough
with the leaves already. Fall's
a short road from Summer to Winter.

In the U.S., the autumnal holidays
have seen better ways: Children
trick-or-treating need body-guards
to protect them from real monsters,
and at Thanksgiving, highways
and airports congeal like cold gravy.

People called hunters shoot
lots of animals in Fall. I'm not
sure how sporting it is anymore,
what with the laser-sights, the
scopes more refined than Galileo's.
Concussions occur in football games

while spectators text-message
people on other continents. Like
a leaf, the letter n would fall
off autumn if it weren't for
the florid adjective, autumnal,
which never made me laugh.

Copyright 2009 Hans Ostrom

James Brown, Luciano Pavarotti, and Globalization

"Globalization" sounds nice, but I'm not confident about defining it, except to allude to the fact that everything human is even more connected than it used to be, but that's pretty weak.

I did, however, find a blessed, campy, surreal, and wonderful product of globalization: James Brown and Luciano Pavarotti singing together on stage. Of course, there is the customary problem of any "popular" performer singing with Pavarotti. The latter's voice hits the former's like a tsunami hitting a pond. Nonetheless, Brown hangs in there with a great deal of funk, soul, and charm, and the violinists even get down with their bad selves. Here is a link to a Youtube video of the event:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Febr_t_qa9U

One Thing Is Certain

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One Thing Is Certain

One thing is certain--or is it two? Here
comes a snow-plow pushing letters into words
into phrases into sentences and snow on
and ice forth. Soon a large drift
of meaning looms beside the road.

Minds drive by on their way to
the ski-resort. One thing is certain--
or is it zero? At least something
exists--substance, not the greatest
name to attach to a thing that seems
to have preceded perception and
naming, but as Old Spinoza knows,

a semi-infinite number of pieces fly
off Substance and just beg to be numbered
and named--stars and socks, allergies
and anthems. Certain things are one.


Copyright 2009 Hans Ostrom

Irving Layton Reads

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Here is a link to an interesting video, the voice-over of which features Irving Layton reading some poems, and the images and "story" of which concern bringing wine to Irving Layton:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpDVs29OX3Q

Layton, of course, was a renowned, enormously successful Canadian poet who possessed a robust personality. He was a friend of Leonard Cohen's. Layton died in 2006 at the age of 93.

Amy Tan on "Saving Fish From Drowning"

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Here is a link to a brief video of Amy Tan reading from and discussing her novel, Saving Fish From Drowning:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPfx5axv0Ok&feature=fvw

Article on Danzy Senna

Here is a link to an article by Carolyn Strobel about writer Danzy Senna, whose fine novel Caucasia I am reading now:

http://media.www.themhnews.com/media/storage/paper999/news/2009/02/12/News/Common.Read.Author.Danzy.Senna.Reads.Aloud.From.Book.And.Memoir-3627546.shtml

Michael Ondaatje Interviewed

Here is a link to part of an interview with the affable Michael Ondaatje--on Youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bF717oAYvWo

Natasha Tretheway Reads from NATIVE GUARD

Here is a link to a nice Youtube video of Natasha Tretheway reading from her prize-winning collection of poetry, Native Guard:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lB6d-FSewwg

The Weary Blues

One of the most enduring poems from the Harlem Renaissance is Langston Hughes's "The Weary Blues," which is not in blues form (as some of Hughes's poems are), but is rather a meditation on the blues--especially in a Harlem context, and more specifically Lenox Avenue.

I found a most appealing visual and aural "rendition" of the poem on Youtube. It is from Four Seasons Productions. I looked for but did not find the name of the reader, who does a terrific job. Many thanks to him.

I hope you enjoy it. It includes images of music's and culture's dear friend, Cab Calloway.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyqwvC5s4n8

Radio Station K-E-G-O

Broadcasting From K-E-G-O


It’s just her, broadcasting
to herself with one watt
of power, pretending
to interview an Other,
playing requests
she called in to herself,
breaking for news about her life,
weather she enjoys, sports
that delight her, honors
due to her. This
is solipsism radio,
from a studio of Self,
on the narcissistic network.
For your own sake, tune out.


Copyright 2009 Hans Ostrom

Ideas for Poems--In Threes

The poetry-class generated some great ideas for poems today, so I thought I'd pass them along. The basic framework was to think of three topics about which you haven't written that are in a broad category, such as "nature". So the first question to answer is, therefore, "What are three 'things' [topics, places, creatures, phenomena] 'in' nature about which you haven't yet written a poem but would like to write a poem about?"

(My answers were potato-bugs, gooseberries, and mold).

Next: Three people (you haven't written a poem about but might like to). Answers ranged from "my brother" to "my step-grandmother" to a celebrity, etc.

Next: Three things you take advantage of. This idea from a student turned out to be especially good because some people interpreted it in a somewhat negative way ("I take advantage of audiences"--this from an actor) while others took it as more neutral or positive ("I take advantage of how close I live to X, Y, and Z.")

Next: Three tasks, chores, or activities you especially did NOT like as a child/adolescent. (One of my answers was "killing chickens.")

Next: Three mysterious things that have happened to you (and about which you haven't yet written a poem).

Next: If you were to write an homage-poem about a well known dead actor, artist, musician, writer, athlete, et al., who would be three of the candidates, so to speak?
Answers ranged from Greta Garbo and Cary Grant to Heath Ledger and Beethoven--and Siegfried Sassoon.

So: 6 X 3 = 18, if memory serves. Eighteen starting-places for potential poems. Nice.

And thanks to the students.

Small Door-Poem

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Here is a small door-poem, as opposed to a small-door poem.


Door Poem

Some doors are made of wood,
and some of fear.
Inside, you hear
the knocking, wonder: Should

I open up to what I cannot see?
Outside, you knock,
don't try the lock,
think: What, who, might greet me?


Copyright 2009 Hans Ostrom

Robert W. Service and the Oakland Raiders

Canadian vagabond and poet Robert W. Service wrote popular narrative verse, the most famous of which may be "The Cremation of Sam McGhee." His work is not terribly welcome in academic circles, but I don't imagine the spirit of Service, wherever it is, cares much. His collected poems from G.P. Putnam still sell well; in fact, I just bought a copy. Service's is a special talent, involving a genius for rousing rhythm, song-like rhyme, and narrative drive. Service was an entertainer and a teller of tales: nothing to sneeze at.

If you happen to be an Oakland Raider [American football]fan, you will likely be suffering from depression (the team has been on the skids), but you will likely also be aware of a Service-like poem written by Steve Sabol, a producer of films and video concerning football, and narrated by the deep-voiced announcer John Facenda.

I'm a life-long Raiders fan--but by accident. Because I grew up in a canyon of the High Sierra in pre-cable-TV days, our household's TV received the signal of only one channel well. The channel happened to be an NBC affiliate, and NBC broadcast games of the fledgling American Football League, of which the Raiders were a member. So I started watching the Raiders and getting intrigued by how quirky they were, and how obsessively single-minded their owner, Al Davis, was.

At any rate, the style of Robert W. Service meets the substance, such as it is, of Steve Sabol's poem in this video from Youtube (oh, and incidentally, the Raiders somehow found a way to win today)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKbYjyKOoR4