November 2010
48 posts
“All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling.”
– Oscar Wilde (via libraryland)
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The poetics of rap: it's true, Jay-Z is a poet →
Animals
fuckyeahpoetry:
Have you forgotten what we were like then when we were still first rate and the day came fat with an apple in its mouth it’s no use worrying about Time but we did have a few tricks up our sleeves and turned some sharp corners the whole pasture looked like our meal we didn’t need speedometers we could manage cocktails out of ice and water I wouldn’t want to be faster or...
Poetry in motion →
trainwrite:
Globe columnist Brian McGrory celebrates the life and career of retiring engineer, Alan MacMillan, who spent the better part of 20 years reading poems while driving the 6:44 a.m. train from Rockport to Boston.
It was human. It was humane. It was a bit of civility at an uncivil hour, familiarity amid the reserve of the morning commute.
“It was no good doing it in secret; it had to be done in front of everybody else....”
– Ted Hughes, The Paris Review, The Art of Poetry No. 71 (via youveescaped)
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“[My favorite poet is] Luciano Erba — the first time I opened a book of his poetry, it seemed familiar, like something that was already inside of me.”
-Sal Robinson, editor, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
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The masters of information have forgotten about...
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THE POOL PLAYERS. SEVEN AT THE GOLDEN SHOVEL. We real cool. We Left school. We Lurk late. We Strike straight. We Sing sin. We Thin gin. We Jazz June. We Die soon. --Gwendolyn Brooks
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Hide-and-Seek 1933
Once when we were playing
hide-and-seek and it was time
to go home, the rest gave up
on the game before it was done
and forgot I was still hiding.
I remained hidden as a matter
of honor until the moon rose.
— from Strong is Your Hold by Galway Kinnell
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Shannen Doherty writes poetry...
…in her new book, Badass. This poem is, indeed, badass:
Becoming a badass has given Me the ability to break free Of my insecurities.
Becoming a badass has given Me the confidence to live my Life in full authenticity.
Becoming a badass allows Me to be completely and Always true to myself, Which is the key to being Artistically, emotionally, and Intellectually free.
Becoming a...
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“The night is dark, the waters deep,
Yet soft the billows roll;
Alas! at...”
– Helen Maria Williams, from “A Song” (via aubade)
Old Soldier
By the time I was five,
I had fought in hundreds of battles,
Had killed thousands
And suffered many wounds
Only to rise and fight again.
After the bombing raid, the sky was full
Of flying cinders and birds.
My mother took me by the hand
And led me unto the garden
Where the cherry trees were in flower.
There was a cat grooming herself
Whose tail I wanted to pull,
But I let her be for a...
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“The old South Boston Aquarium stands
in a Sahara of snow now. Its broken...”
– Robert Lowell, “For The Union Dead” (The Atlantic, 1960). The poem turns 50 today.
Today is Veteran’s Day. If you know someone who has served the country, be sure to thank them today.
(via theatlantic)
Fuck Yeah, Poetry!: Human Life →
fuckyeahpoetry:
If dead, we cease to be; if total gloom Swallow up life’s brief flash for aye, we fare As summer-gusts, of sudden birth and doom, Whose sound and motion not alone declare, But are their whole of being! If the breath Be Life itself, and not its task and tent, If even a soul like Milton’s can…
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“A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees.”
– I love William Blake. “If you have formed a circle to go into,/ Go into it yourself and see how you would do. ” Ahh, word William Blake, word.
William Blake (via nathanielstuart)
Can Google translate poetry? I'm not sold. →
therattlingwall:
Old fashioned spaceman
fuckyeahpoetry:
Rocket ships Are exciting But so are roses On a birthday
Computers are exciting But so is a sunset
And logic Will never replace Love.
Sometimes I wonder Where I belong In the future Or In the past
I guess I’m just An old-fashioned Spaceman.
-Leonard Nimoy
(submitted by jessecaps)
ridiculousness: Praying Drunk →
delladilly:
Our Father who art in heaven, I am drunk. Again. Red wine. For which I offer thanks. I ought to start with praise, but praise comes hard to me. I stutter. Did I tell you about the woman, whom I taught, in bed, this prayer? It starts with praise; the simple form keeps things in order. I hear from…
aprettywar:
The Cure
William Carlos Williams
Sometimes I envy others, fear them a little too, if they write well. For when I cannot write I’m a sick man and want to die. The cause is plain.
But they have no access to my sources. Let them write then as they may and perfect it as they can they will never come to the secret of that form
interknit with the unfathomable ground where we walk daily...
Libraryland: Account by Czeslaw Milosz, translated... →
libraryland:
The history of my stupidity would fill many volumes.
Some would be devoted to acting against consciousness, Like the flight of a moth which, had it known, Would have tended nevertheless toward the candle’s flame. Others would deal with ways to silence anxiety, The little whisper which, though…
TrainWrite: Miscalculation →
trainwrite:
by Andrea Blythe Miscalculation rendered this: Me collapsing into yearning as your train rattled by, an exit in perfect symmetry with the initial entrance, another distant miscalculation that aligned two opposing forces. You and me, we allowed an accidental junction to tether us into dual…
Fuck Yeah, Poetry!: Unlearning to not speak →
Blizzards of paper in slow motion sift through her. In nightmares she suddenly recalls a class she signed up for but forgot to attend. Now it is too late. Now it is time for finals: losers will be shot. Phrases of men who lectured her drift and rustle in piles: Why don’t you speak up? Why are…
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All that undone
trainwrite:
By Rishi Dastidar
I never leave the house without wallet, keys, daydreams of you, and her and a volume of Prufrock in a jacket pocket, so that if I am ever stuck on the tracks or in a tunnel I won’t be all that undone.
Submit to TrainWrite, and follow @train_write on Twitter.
“A word is dead
When it is said,
Some say.
I say it just begins
to live that...”
– Emily Dickinson (via deadwriters)
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Flarf: Poetry Meme-Surfs With Kanye West and the... →
Flarf. Hehe.
theatlantic:
Adam Robert explores flarf poetry:
What is flarf? Well, as a movement that defines itself, in the dadaist tradition, as “something it’s not,” I’d be smart to approach this obliquely. Read here and here if you want some background. In the meantime, I’ll try to ease into a provisional definition through one of the things flarf does: meme-surfing. WTF? Exactly.
Libraryland: She Told Me Money Does Not Buy... →
libraryland:
Money does not buy happiness. But it does buy a house, lights, heat, a warm belly. It buys a full night of sleep on a Posturepedic mattress. It buys freedom to write about suburban angst and anger. A shelf full of books. Poetry conferences. Art on your walls. A night at the opera. A bra not held together
William Gibson Disappears! →
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It's riddle time!
Head over to our FB page to see today’s riddle (translated from Symphosius’ original Latin by Richard Wilbur, in his new collection, ANTEROOMS.
Be the first to answer correctly and win a copy of the book!
Do it! Now! Go here: http://tinyurl.com/3al8db3. And see if you can figure it out!
A Writer's Ruminations: In an Artist's Studio by... →
circusfolk:
One face looks out from all his canvases, One selfsame figure sits or walks or leans: We found her hidden just behind those screens, That mirror gave back all her loveliness. A queen in opal or in ruby dress, A nameless girl in freshest summer-greens, A saint, an angel — every canvas means The same one meaning, neither more nor less. He feeds upon her face by day and night, And she...
“The mark of a true writer is their ability to mystify the familiar and...”
– Walt Whitman (via oceanofmind)
hmhlit:
Somehow - don’t ask how - I stumbled across this band with an album of songs inspired by the poetry of Wislawa Szymborska. Take a listen. Or just read some poems.
Fuck Yeah, Poetry!: Wild Geese →
fuckyeahpoetry:
You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world goes on. Meanwhile the sun…
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