Patti Smith Sends Taylor Swift a Direct Message After Pop Star Name-Dropped Her in New Song
https://parade.com/news/patti-smith-sends-taylor-swift-direct-message-name-drop-tortured-poets
#poets
Tribute to everyday life
I like everyday life
Most of all, I like everyday life
The slow awakening to the familiar view
which is not quite so well known anyway
The family's at once familiar and, after the remoteness of sleep, alien faces
The morning kisses
The post's bang in the entrance
The smell of coffee
The ritual walk to the grocery store around the corner for milk, cigarettes, newspapers -
I like everyday life
Even through all its annoyances
The bus rattling outside on the street
The phone that incessantly disturbs the most beautiful, shiny still nothingness in my aquarium
The birds chirping from their cages
The old neighbor who looks by
The child that needs to be picked up from the kindergarten just as you have started
The constant shopping list in the jacket pocket
with its fixed demands for meat, potatoes, coffee and biscuits
The little fast on the local
when will everyone meet with shopping bags and wipe sweat from their foreheads -
I like everyday life
The agenda
Also the biological one
The inevitable procedures in the bath and on the toilet
The obligatory razor
The letters to be written
The rent collection
The reconciliation of the checkbook
The dishes
The realization of being out of diapers or tape -
I like everyday life
Not unlike party and colors, tent and balfaldera
It has to
with all its leftover dross
So much unsaid and approximate
weaving and hanging in the air afterwards
Like a kind of mental hangover
Only everyday morning coffee can cure -
Nice enough with parties! All room for the euphoria!
Let the thousand pearls bubble!
But what happiness afterwards to lie down
in the bed of rest and everyday life
to the familiar and yet not so familiar same view
I like everyday life
I love it
Have a full holiday where I enjoy everyday life
I really like everyday life.
Dan Turell (Danish poet)
#Danish #poets https://youtu.be/77jiPMXR3Aw
AGAINST THE SOLAR ECLIPSE
by Alejandro Escudé
It’s a black swath that cuts across
A part of the country that’s a myth.
Does Ohio even exist? Not here,
Where the post office blends
With the sky and the cops drive
Black and white cars off freeway
Overpasses. In one photo, a man
Peers down at a brass contraption
Like some 21st century Galileo,
A pinprick on the sun shadowed
By that communist rock in the sky.
Or was it the other way around?
I can’t recall. It’s all mathematical
Gibberish, if you ask me. A train
Stopped the traffic the other day
And that was more real than the
Eclipse. The sun is like an orange
At the grocery store at age fifty.
Who still buys the citrusy orbs?
If fact, the supermarket aisles
Are too bright these days. I should
Wear those ISO glasses they all
Wore to observe the eclipse.
See what? Nature? Apocalypse?
Down on this planet, it’s light
Pandemonium. Hysteria denied.
I’ve had enough of branded news.
Music mimicking music. It’s called
The cosmos. That death-trap
Beyond the atmosphere. Boneless
Graveyard, aqueduct to nothingness.
Honestly, I’ll take God. He’s not
In fashion right now. But I prefer
The ambiguity of faith to ignorance,
Which is what you see in crowds,
Lawn chairs and binoculars, tents,
Motorhomes, a sheet afloat, the sun
Figured there, reflected, swallowed
By time’s stupid, arcing mouth.
—from Poets Respond
April 14, 2024
Alejandro Escudé: “Human beings, in my point of view, are absolute masters of denial and distraction. The eclipse was just another event that reminded me of how well society can turn its gaze up and away from real societal issues, personal problems, true miracles, thought, insight, love, in order to participate in one more pointless venture.”
https://www.rattle.com/against-the-solar-eclipse-by-alejandro-escude/
Alice Notley, The Art of Poetry No. 116
(I sure wish the Paris Review had a digital subscription version)
https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/8263/the-art-of-poetry-no-116-alice-notley
What do you see as the role of art in public life at this moment in time?
I think that art has many different roles in public life. But if there is one thing I keep coming back to, I believe that art, and poetry in particular, can make you feel something, anything. It’s not always a soothing feeling, most times it’s actually more of a disruption, a piercing of the thick armor we must wear to move through life. But we need that disruption, that reminder of our humanity, of our desires, rage, and our tenderness.
Louise Glück, Nobel-winning poet of terse and candid lyricism, dies at 80
I love her work! Will definitely be missed. :( RIP!
https://apnews.com/article/louise-gluck-dies-38648b2dc19644e11f42319145692943
Here's my favorite James Tate Poem
Success Comes to Cow Creek
by James Tate
I sit on the tracks,
a hundred feet from
earth, fifty from the
water. Gerald is
inching toward me
as grim, slow, and
determined as a
season, because he
has no trade and wants
none. It's been nine months
since I last listened
to his fate, but I
know what he will say:
he's the fire hydrant
of the underdog.
When he reaches my
point above the creek,
he sits down without
salutation, and
spits profoundly out
past the edge, and peeks
for meaning in the
ripple it brings. He
scowls. He speaks: when you
walk down any street
you see nothing but
coagulations
of shit and vomit,
and I'm sick of it.
I suggest suicide;
he prefers murder,
and spits again for
the sake of all the
great devout losers.
A conductor's horn
concerto breaks the
air, and we, two doomed
pennies on the track,
shove off and somersault
like anesthetized
fleas, ruffling the
ideal locomotive
poised on the water
with our light, dry bodies.
Gerald shouts
terrifically as
he sails downstream like
a young man with a
destination. I
swim toward shore as
fast as my boots will
allow; as always,
neglecting to drown.
Colorado’s new Poet Laureate
https://www.axios.com/local/denver/2023/10/01/andrea-gibson-colorado-poet-laureate
and their favorite poem:
The Uses of Sorrow
by Mary Oliver
Someone I loved once gave me
a box full of darkness.
It took me years to understand
that this, too, was a gift.
Nothing truly exciting for me but who knows...
Here’s the longlist for the 2023 National Book Award for Poetry.
https://lithub.com/heres-the-longlist-for-the-2023-national-book-award-for-poetry/
#ireland #music #literature #poets
The Milesians
Isle Of Destiny
By Thomas Moore
Innisfail is one of the ancient names for Ireland.
Thomas Moore (28 May 1779 – 25 February 1852) was an Irish writer, poet, and lyricist celebrated for his Irish Melodies.
They came from beyond the sea,
And now, o'er the Western main
Set sail, in their good ships, gallantly,
From the sunny land of Spain.
“Oh, where's the isle we've seen in dreams.
Our destined home or grave?
Thus sung they, as by the morning's beams,
They swept the Atlantic wave.
“And, lo, where afar o'er ocean shines
A sparkle of radiant green,
As though in that deep lay emerald mines,
Whose light through the wave was seen.
“Tis Innisfail-'tis Innisfail”
Rings o'er the echoing sea;
While, bending to heaven, the warriors hail
That home of the brave and free.
“Then turn'd thy unto the Eastern Wave,
Where now their Day-God's eye
A look of such sunny omen gave
As lighted up sea and sky.
Nor frown was seen through sky or sea,
Nor tear o'ver leaf or sod,
When first on their Isle of Destiny
Our great forefathers trod.”
TODAY: In 1967, three-time Pulitzer Prize winner Carl Sandburg dies at 89.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Sandburg
Manifold Clock Tower, Camperdown, Victoria between 1897-1905ish. Image from here.
The original construction of the 31.4 metre high Gothic Revival style tower was funded by the pioneering Camperdown family, the Manifolds, in memory of Thomas Peter Manifold who died in a hunting accident in 1895 at the age of 32.
As you do.
the elms that line the street went in around the same time.
A man who knows the tower well
and the Robbie Burns Festival bc Camperdown is, as we all know, also home to the oldest statue of the poet himself. It was once perfectly fine amongst the Gardens until it was vandalised (what could they have against the Scots?!) so now it's in the Council Offices. i hope they're happy.
It's said that as settlement went west,the Irish went as far as Koroit and the Scots folk went on. this isnt entirely true, of course, but a nice enough yarn.
Uncensored Footage of the Cyborg at the U.S. Embassy
by Abu Bakr Sadiq
when he’s stopped by security guards for a strip search,
i move my eyes away from the screen. i face the magazine
sitting on my table. i turn the radio on. i hear a woman
ask for donations to pay off the ransom for her kidnapped
husband. i pour myself a glass of cow milk. i sweep pieces
off a chessboard with my palm. i turn the tv on. a presenter
interrupts a program to break the news of migrants
found dead on the shores of river niger. i look down
the streets through my window. i take my gaze away
when i see a man being chased by police officers. i make
excuses for my disinterest in the country’s ache. i pretend
not to notice when the cyborg kneels in front of a bomb
detector. i scroll through my twitter feed. outside my room,
i hear women returning from a wake keep telling an officer
on duty, they’re out to fulfill their promise of escorting
the dead with prayers. in the footage, i see the cyborg walk
into a room. his hands, flying imaginary planes in the air.
he stops in front of a painting of the white house
hanging on a wall. an american woman asks what he
came looking for at the embassy. what he knows of
the american history. how long he plans to stay on
the american soil. why he’s decided to leave the country
at a time it needs people to stay alive. does he understand
what it means to move out of a country that gave him
a home. the cyborg walks out of the room, fogged as a
blind butterfly, flying headfirst into a whirlwind of terror.
Abu Bakr Sadiq is a Nigerian poet. He is the winner of the 2022 IGNYTE award for Best Speculative Poetry. His work is nominated for the Rhysling Award and is published in The Fiddlehead, Mizna, Palette Poetry, FIYAH, Uncanny Magazine, Augur Magazine, Fantasy Magazine, and elsewhere. He writes from Minna. Find him on twitter @bakronline
from Boston Review - https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/uncensored-footage-of-the-cyborg-at-the-u-s-embassy/
How Two Young Black Poets Are Making Sense of the World
https://blog.pshares.org/how-two-young-black-poets-are-making-sense-of-the-world/
Dorianne Laux: “All Poetry is Preparation for Death”
https://combustus.com/dorianne-laux-all-poetry-is-preparation-for-death/
Death Comes to Me Again, a Girl
Death comes to me again, a girl
in a cotton slip, barefoot, giggling.
It’s not so terrible she tells me,
not like you think, all darkness
and silence. There are windchimes
and the smell of lemons, some days
it rains, but more often the air is dry
and sweet. I sit beneath the staircase
built from hair and bone and listen
to the voices of the living. I like it,
she says, shaking the dust from her hair,
especially when they fight, and when they sing.
TODAY: In 1865, William Butler Yeats is born.
The Second Coming
BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43290/the-second-coming
In the House With No Doors
by Sarah Kay
we have given up on knocking.
Incoming! we say, with our eyes lowered for modesty,
or, Hello! or sometimes, Sorry, sorry!
You have to pass through everyone’s bedroom
to get to the kitchen. We only have two bathrooms.
As a courtesy, nobody will poop while you are showering,
but they might have to do their makeup or shave
if they are in a rush, if we have somewhere to be,
so you can recognize every person by their whistle
through a wet shower curtain, you haven’t seen your own face
on an unfogged mirror in weeks. It doesn’t matter,
self-consciousness has no currency here.
If you were nosy, I suppose the little bathroom trashcans
would spill their secrets to you, but why bother,
privacy is a language we don’t speak.
Someone is always awake before you,
the smell of coffee easing you into a today
they have already entered,
a bridge you will never need to cross first,
and no matter how latenight your owl,
there is always someone still awake
to eat popcorn with, to whisper your daily report to,
to compare notes on what good news you each caught in your nets.
In bed, you say, Goodnight! in one direction
and someone says it back, then turns and passes it,
so you fall asleep to the echo of goodnights down the long hallway
’til it donuts its way back around to your pillow.
Someone is doing a load of laundry,
if anyone wants to add some extra socks?
Someone is clearing the dishes,
someone has started singing Gershwin in the backyard
and you can’t help but harmonize,
and for a moment what you always hoped was true
finally is: loneliness has forgotten your address,
french toast browning on the stovetop,
the sound of everyone you love
clear as the sun giggling through the window,
not even a doorknob between you.
“I have an annual tradition which involves a large group of friends gathering together in a small house for a weekend. We are too old and there are too many of us to justify the way we cram into this tiny house—filling every corner, sleeping on couches and floors, and staying up too late, but it is a giddy, joyful weekend that refills my heart’s fuel tank for the whole year. This poem came out of imagining a world in which this was not a rare brief treat, but a state of togetherness I could inhabit.”
—Sarah Kay
https://mailchi.mp/poets/may-02-2023-poemaday-12137187?e=2706955217