Spent some time in a clinic today, the waiting turning into an interesting duration (every time I encounter the word duration I think of Kenneth Koch staring off into space during an interview saying, “everything lasts a certain period of time….that’s very odd”)
Write what you know. But I don’t know! The floor creaks when I walk up the steps, even when I’m not there. I am facing a national personality triage. The nation is not america but poesie, the personality is not body but name.
One thing that happened the other day was the memorial, at which one found the issue in which one’s article on the other one recently passed was printed. Agh! I was blogging around trying to nosedive into ashes
The crowd arrives in a burst of flashlights and tango. The ears primed for tin can cantatas. The white-dressed flamenceros waltzing with the cubists.
Last week we held our annual Literary Festival at school. We had an amazing line-up (including Harold Ramis; 2-time Newberry winner, Gary Schmidt; the rock band, The Handsome Family; and sports writer, Melissa Isaacson). But we always make sure to invite at least one performance poet and, without fail, this performer is the overwhelming fan favorite with our students. This year that performance poet was Regie Gibson and it came as no surprise that Regie’s performance swept everyone off their feet.
I’ve started several times to write something about the Tulsa School Conference since I came home to New York Sunday night. Exhaustion prevented anything coherent from happening initially. Sticking my head up my ass for a moment inside a comment box

During a site migration (I love technical jargon, don’t you?), a number of Harriet’s journals were lost. But I’m pleased – and extremely grateful to the crack web team here for their help – to be able to re-present this one! It’s Lisa Robertson’s dispatch from Jouhet, France. Here you go… enjoy! Discuss!!
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Like many people, my interest in poetry grew out of my interest in music. As a listener, I love the thoughtful lyrics of songwriters like Joe Henry, Rennie Sparks from The Handsome Family, Chuck D, Gershwin. Regardless of the song-genre, great lyrics hit me first. My interest in reading poetry came about in a much sneakier way. I took voice classes in college and unwittingly sang art songs derived from poems. (One teacher marveled — in what I’m still not sure was a compliment — at my “gift” at turning any art song into a country tune). I had no idea that the German songs I loved were actually poems by Schiller and Goethe, nor that one of my favorite folk songs was a Yeats poem set to music by Benjamin Britten. Here’s my audio version of this last song, Down By the Salley Gardens.
I’ll be heading to Tulsa, Oklahoma tomorrow to take part in The Tulsa School Conference & Literary Festival that Grant Jenkins has organized through The University of Tulsa. Never been there, but my father, Ted Berrigan, was stationed in Tulsa after the Korean War and wound up enrolling in TU via the G.I. Bill.
Anselm Berrigan
Abigail Deutsch
Tonya Foster
Melissa Friedling
John S. O'Connor
Barbara Jane Reyes
Amber Tamblyn
Edwin Torres
Cathy Halley
Michael Marcinkowski
Travis Nichols
Fred Sasaki
Don Share
Señor Smith to you. (1)
Vladimir, Ron, and Gregori (4)
dubious poetry: the palin comparison (3)
To Vaya in the Viva of Time (2)
Indie Publishing: Two Questions, Many More... (5)
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