Annie Finch

Muse-Goddess

For my last post as a Harriet blogger, I wanted to give a shout-out to what makes it work for me. I could say the earth, spirit, guidance, love, chi, or justice—

06.30.09 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (37)

Martin Earl

The Fish, II (following a recent post by Camille Dungy)

Gabriel Metsu – “Maid Broiling Fish”, mid 17th century, Flemish

Gary Winogrand, one of America’s greatest street photographers, working in the tradition (or rather reworking the tradition) of Henri Cartier-Bresson, said that he was not interested in reality, per se, but what it looked like in a photograph. Camille’s passionate reading of a Bishop poem recently allowed me to make a connection I would have otherwise never made. Or at least that is what I assume, or I probably would have already made it. But, it was Camille’s picture of the poem, her version, what she highlighted and chose to include in the frame, how Bishop’s poem looked in her post that put me in mind of Padre António Vieira.

06.30.09 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (122)

Annie Finch

A Post of Posts

I have only one day left on Harriet (though they have asked we who are leaving to keep posting occasionally, and I will look forward to that). I’ve been rationing posts, but I’ve nearly run out. There were a lot gestating. One about food poetry. One about finishing

06.30.09 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (21)

Eileen Myles

End of the Road

Just sent my last email blast. Why do we call it blast when unless everyone else has a great program that goes gush I am cutting and pasting little pods of names into rectangles and going blam blam blam more like pushing a lot of letters into a slot. When I peek at my incoming mail I see all those dead ones. Server no long has this address or delivery status notification delivery has failed. So it’s better not to look at your incoming mail till it’s over. Today the opera singer, Julie, got sick. So I was scrambling through old mails looking for singers from the opera I worked on several years ago. And I realized that someone amazing whose show just ended was probably planning to come and maybe he would rather be in it and he would. John Kelly said yes so rather than a soprano I have a mezzo and a man rather than a woman but a very special man rather than a very special woman so it’s all okay. I’m not even going to say that much about the kids today except that I very much want them both to come. Leslie Heredia and Arturo Campos. They are the kids. Every now and then I get a message from a poet and I think oh no will a poet call in sick now. But no it’s a poet who sent out a very handsome version of my first email blast and he’s checking in to see if it’s okay that he sent out one. I thank him. Everything I hear from everybody is okay, the poets are on and are walking boldly into the silence of tomorrow night with no difficulty. No one is afraid of the sound not sounding at all. Everyone is planning to come. I think we are a simple and unusual people. That’s a fact about who the tribe of the poets are. Though I’m assuming there will be much disagreement about that. What this simplicity is, or what the unusualness is all about. But it’s a kind of show business and I’m endlessly grateful though it hasn’t happened yet that the poets just show up.

06.29.09 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (1)

Eileen Myles

The Kids and a request

My posts will pretty much be about the collection of silence till Tuesday. We started off with a hope for forty kids from PS 4 & The Poetry Club but it was maybe thirty or high twenties originally. I’m not used to being around that many kids but the energy was totally infectious in the Burroughs sense. It was their language, but ALL of it. The sounds, the

06.28.09 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (3)

Annie Finch

Four Ears: the Curse of the Metrical Code

Last year I happened to be sitting next to the young poet Jericho Brown at a reading in Los Angeles. Jericho noticed me counting on my fingers and scribbling down some marks on a piece of paper. He nearly leaped out of his seat

06.27.09 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (20)

Eileen Myles

GENDER HIKE

Actually I did drag the Yang Fudong concept mixed in with Gary Snyder’s Mountains and Rivers without End and some Judith Butler (not a lot – maybe just the concept) into my workshop this week at Naropa. I invited poets who wanted to hike in the Rockies and write poetry and think about gender to take part in this weeklong event. We went up on a smashing climb to Chautauqua, which is in Boulder, and there we

06.26.09 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (26)