The wild boys are calling on their way back from the fire
in august moon's surrender to a dust cloud on the rise
wild boys fallen far from glory
reckless and so hungered on the razors edge you trail
because there's murder by the roadside in a sore afraid new world
they tried to break us, looks like they'll try again
wild boys never lose it
wild boys never chose this way
wild boys never close your eyes
wild boys always shine
you got sirens for a welcome there's bloodstain for your pain
and your telephone been ringing wile you're dancing in the rain
wild boys wonder where is glory
where is all you angels now the figureheads have fell
and lovers war with arrows over secrets they could tell
they tried to tame you looks like they'll try again
wild boys never lose it
wild boys never chose this way
wild boys never close your eyes
wild boys always shine
--Duran Duran
Saturday, September 29, 2007
Jean Valentine poem in The New Yorker
On a Passenger Ferry
by Jean Valentine
(For Grace Paley)
The deck is big, and crowded. In one corner,
an old woman, sick, on chemo, not in pain, is
writing in an elementary-school notebook.
Nobody else saw her, but I saw her.
I had seen her before. Her round, kind face,
smiling and still as a photograph
outside a window—
The New Yorker
September 24, 2007
by Jean Valentine
(For Grace Paley)
The deck is big, and crowded. In one corner,
an old woman, sick, on chemo, not in pain, is
writing in an elementary-school notebook.
Nobody else saw her, but I saw her.
I had seen her before. Her round, kind face,
smiling and still as a photograph
outside a window—
The New Yorker
September 24, 2007
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Poem
Mango
Delicious slivers of mango
cut like long tongues--so it's as if we eat
our passion, this longing
sticky like the afterglow of our sex,
with skin the reddish mottle of mango skin.
How often had I eaten these alone
bought at some Upper West Side bodega
and cut open with a pocket knife,
sitting at Riverside park, sunset
orange in the Hudson below:
sunset orange with a knife in it,
bleeding orange in my hands.
Delicious slivers of mango
cut like long tongues--so it's as if we eat
our passion, this longing
sticky like the afterglow of our sex,
with skin the reddish mottle of mango skin.
How often had I eaten these alone
bought at some Upper West Side bodega
and cut open with a pocket knife,
sitting at Riverside park, sunset
orange in the Hudson below:
sunset orange with a knife in it,
bleeding orange in my hands.
--Gerry LaFemina
Originally published in the Winter 2004-2005 issue of The Southeast Review.
Originally published in the Winter 2004-2005 issue of The Southeast Review.
Friday, September 21, 2007
Spinner
Some recent records of note:
Liars - Liars - [Mute]
I'm not entirely convinced that Liars, one of my favorite bands, have written a cohesive, fully-realized record with this, their fourth release, but that particular truth may not matter, given that the new songs are more about mood and tone, as opposed to ideas. Having said that, it is best that would-be listeners not overlook Liars for what it is: a document of a daring, risk-taking music prepared by a band interested not in pleasing its audience, but in circumventing tired norms.
The tracks to which my ear is especially drawn include: "Leather Prowler"; "Sailing to Byzantium"; "Clear Island"; and "Protection," a song that can best be described as haunting (a falsetto has never sounded so right), and which is probably the best album-closer that I've heard in the last five years.
I will take your Polaroid / You will show me how to drink...
M.I.A. - Kala - [XL]
It has a good beat and you can dance to it.
The tracks to which my ear is especially drawn include: "Leather Prowler"; "Sailing to Byzantium"; "Clear Island"; and "Protection," a song that can best be described as haunting (a falsetto has never sounded so right), and which is probably the best album-closer that I've heard in the last five years.
I will take your Polaroid / You will show me how to drink...
M.I.A. - Kala - [XL]
It has a good beat and you can dance to it.
Monday, September 17, 2007
from "Stars" by McGrath
We are human and our form is a corruption of starlight
poured like heavy syrup into soft-skinned molds,
like decorative soaps, or candles.
Like the stars we burn fiercely, reluctantly,
as a dragon consumes its golden hoard.
Of my eyes, of my skin, the stars shall know nothing.
--Campbell McGrath, a selection from his forthcoming Seven Notebooks, published in mipoesias.com
poured like heavy syrup into soft-skinned molds,
like decorative soaps, or candles.
Like the stars we burn fiercely, reluctantly,
as a dragon consumes its golden hoard.
Of my eyes, of my skin, the stars shall know nothing.
--Campbell McGrath, a selection from his forthcoming Seven Notebooks, published in mipoesias.com
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Writing Tips
1. Parenthetical Remarks (however relevant) are (usually) unnecessary.
2. Don't use no double negatives.
3. Proofread carefully to see if any words out or mispeld something.
4. Eschew obfuscation.
5. Verbs HAS to agree with their subjects.
6. And don't start a sentence with a conjunction.
7. It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.
8. Avoid cliches like the plague (they're old hat).
9. Be more or less specific.
2. Don't use no double negatives.
3. Proofread carefully to see if any words out or mispeld something.
4. Eschew obfuscation.
5. Verbs HAS to agree with their subjects.
6. And don't start a sentence with a conjunction.
7. It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.
8. Avoid cliches like the plague (they're old hat).
9. Be more or less specific.
Saturday, September 15, 2007
Close, But No Fine, Hand-Rolled, Imported Cuban Cigar
Dear Danny _________:
Thank you for sending us "The Cartographer." We really enjoyed this piece, but it didn't work for (esteemed literary journal) right now. We hope that you will continue to send us your work.
Sincerely,
The Editors of (esteemed literary journal)
I love Google translate this page
Linee di Florinda Fusco, from www.editricezona.it/linee.htm:
“Like clearly enunciated sin from the frontispiece, those collections from the Fusco are `lines here', not “backs”, or “poetries” (even if the proposed tiration wants obviously to be offered like vicaria regarding such alternatives). `A line' is something of other (not “less”, even if is fuor of doubt the tone `in minor') regarding a back. But in what consists this difference? Or, said otherwise, and perhaps little better: what characterizes `a line' of the Fusco and of it it determines its same leggibilità? They said, a lot in order to express to me with a formula, the coincidence and nearly the superimposition, between `the capacity' of its development on the page (just in the sense of the amount of oral materials, of images etc that every `line' transports to the just inner) and its ritmica necessity. The prosodia, insomma, it is a category of analysis that with `the lines' works little: you notice yourself, in so far as, the nearly absolute lack of the enjambement, that is the ritmica figure that than more every other denunciation the collision between prosodiche requests and syntactic requests. For against, those turn out amplify all to you mark them (lines white women, inner spaziature to the back, paginations to step: and then also parenthesis, italics etc) that they stretch to isolate every single `line' or fragment of it like unit in sure measure self-sufficient person.” (from the famous one of Mark Berisso).
to have a north wind to two ropes (I could perhaps be raised)
I dredge in the water the shapes of I dredge in the water
the body that wheel (a grooved pleasure)
to prepare itself in the bottom of the sand/to imitate the shapes of the water
misurala as you can you remove the coat and misurala with the body
sordamente
the minimum sinks to articulate
glacial states of waking and generations
to go up or to wait for to touch the field
to have the just words to mistake with the words
to try the force points
to float like the north wind
(not there is certainty in repairing
in the repair broken one is something much
of untied frozen cut I confirm
broken one is something much
I want to say that the center is various from the side
the repair is maceration)
to soil the face of black
to be based to a small table in station
“Like clearly enunciated sin from the frontispiece, those collections from the Fusco are `lines here', not “backs”, or “poetries” (even if the proposed tiration wants obviously to be offered like vicaria regarding such alternatives). `A line' is something of other (not “less”, even if is fuor of doubt the tone `in minor') regarding a back. But in what consists this difference? Or, said otherwise, and perhaps little better: what characterizes `a line' of the Fusco and of it it determines its same leggibilità? They said, a lot in order to express to me with a formula, the coincidence and nearly the superimposition, between `the capacity' of its development on the page (just in the sense of the amount of oral materials, of images etc that every `line' transports to the just inner) and its ritmica necessity. The prosodia, insomma, it is a category of analysis that with `the lines' works little: you notice yourself, in so far as, the nearly absolute lack of the enjambement, that is the ritmica figure that than more every other denunciation the collision between prosodiche requests and syntactic requests. For against, those turn out amplify all to you mark them (lines white women, inner spaziature to the back, paginations to step: and then also parenthesis, italics etc) that they stretch to isolate every single `line' or fragment of it like unit in sure measure self-sufficient person.” (from the famous one of Mark Berisso).
to have a north wind to two ropes (I could perhaps be raised)
I dredge in the water the shapes of I dredge in the water
the body that wheel (a grooved pleasure)
to prepare itself in the bottom of the sand/to imitate the shapes of the water
misurala as you can you remove the coat and misurala with the body
sordamente
the minimum sinks to articulate
glacial states of waking and generations
to go up or to wait for to touch the field
to have the just words to mistake with the words
to try the force points
to float like the north wind
(not there is certainty in repairing
in the repair broken one is something much
of untied frozen cut I confirm
broken one is something much
I want to say that the center is various from the side
the repair is maceration)
to soil the face of black
to be based to a small table in station
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Brooklyn Book Festival
The second annual Brooklyn Book Festival will take place this Sunday, September 16 in various venues throughout the borough, and is due to feature a number of interesting poets/writers, including: Jonathan Lethem, Colson Whitehead, Jonathan Safran Foer, Kimiko Hahn, A.M. Homes, and many others. Of the gathering, Marty Marokowitz, Brooklyn borough president, writes:
Greetings,
The second annual Brooklyn Book Festival on September 16, 2007 is a book lover’s dream come true! The festival presents exciting and innovative fiction and non-fiction programs with author discussions and readings—come early to get a seat! Nearly 100 booksellers and thousands of books will fill beautiful Borough Hall Plaza and Columbus Park. You can hear a poetry slam, participate in a define-a-thon, and have your favorite book signed by the author. Children can hear their best-loved books read at the Target Children’s Pavilion; teenagers will find sports, fantasy, graphic novels and more at the Independence Community Foundation Youth Pavilion. The Brooklyn Book Festival is a best seller! See you there!
Tuesday, September 04, 2007
Wow Poem by Anne Carson
Poem: ‘Triple Sonnet of the Plush Pony’
Anne Carson
I
Do you think of your saliva as a personal possession or as something you can sell?
What about tears? What about semen? Linguists tell
us to use the terms alienable and inalienable
to make this distinction intelligible.
E.g. English speakers call both blood and faeces alienable on a normal day
but saliva, sweat, tears and bowels they do not give away.
Bananas and buttocks, in Papua New Guinea, belong to the inalienable class
while genitalia and skin of banana are not held onto nearly so fast.
Such thinking will affect how a word like rape is defined
or how sorcerers aim their spells or how you feel in your mind
when you address animals. Of course cows and cats,
sheep, pigs, donkeys, dogs and rats
depend on their owner to keep or dispose.
But your pony you cannot sensibly classify with those.
II
Another thee.
A summer’s day.
Double vantage me.
Never to repay.
And Will in overplus.
Making addition thus –
your pony is all these to you – and more:
he can detect the smell of danger
and will not take you through a door
if there is doom or pain there.
So at the end of his life if you want to sell him for meat
you’ll have to change the pronoun with which you greet
at dawn his shaggy head,
at dawn his shaggy head.
III
A body in the dawn.
A body in the cold.
A body its breath.
Its breath a plume.
A dance a plume.
A dance not thou.
A thou, a thee.
Thou, breath.
There stands.
Breath, plume.
How cold is.
A dawn is.
How still stands.
Thy breath.
Anne Carson
I
Do you think of your saliva as a personal possession or as something you can sell?
What about tears? What about semen? Linguists tell
us to use the terms alienable and inalienable
to make this distinction intelligible.
E.g. English speakers call both blood and faeces alienable on a normal day
but saliva, sweat, tears and bowels they do not give away.
Bananas and buttocks, in Papua New Guinea, belong to the inalienable class
while genitalia and skin of banana are not held onto nearly so fast.
Such thinking will affect how a word like rape is defined
or how sorcerers aim their spells or how you feel in your mind
when you address animals. Of course cows and cats,
sheep, pigs, donkeys, dogs and rats
depend on their owner to keep or dispose.
But your pony you cannot sensibly classify with those.
II
Another thee.
A summer’s day.
Double vantage me.
Never to repay.
And Will in overplus.
Making addition thus –
your pony is all these to you – and more:
he can detect the smell of danger
and will not take you through a door
if there is doom or pain there.
So at the end of his life if you want to sell him for meat
you’ll have to change the pronoun with which you greet
at dawn his shaggy head,
at dawn his shaggy head.
III
A body in the dawn.
A body in the cold.
A body its breath.
Its breath a plume.
A dance a plume.
A dance not thou.
A thou, a thee.
Thou, breath.
There stands.
Breath, plume.
How cold is.
A dawn is.
How still stands.
Thy breath.
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