I just found out about the launch of the World Digital Library, a free online library that has crap-tons of books, photographs, drawings, manuscripts, &c. It's not any sort of scam. They haven't even asked for my email address yet. It's just that sort of utopian free-information-for-everyone-for-the-betterment-of-humanity gig. Which is great. I've been poking around it for a while this morning and found The Book of Urizen, one of William Blake's gorgeous engraved books. This isn't just a bunch of jpegs. You get really high quality images that you can zoom in/out with, which is a real treat with the hand-colored plates that make up Urizen. The quality is good enough to read. This might be crazy nerdy, but i am insanely excited about this library. I also found a book of 100 Japanese poems by 100 poets dating from the late 17th century. For anyone who can read it, i'm sure it's fascinating. Anyway, it just launched today, so keep an eye out for expanding holdings. I'm sure they'll be putting stuff up constantly.
Finally, the last things about the WDL i want to mention is the interface. There are a lot of different ways to browse the collection, which lets you stumble upon things in a much more interesting way than having to guess what might be interesting based on title or abstract. It looks like this is going to be a really kickass resource.
AND: reading tomorrow night! Longfellow Books! be there! Betsy Scholl! Should be great! 7PM!
4.22.2009
4.20.2009
4.17.2009
Reading in Portland! 4/23!
Today was a truly gorgeous day in Portland. Total bikeride weather. I was out on my sweet yellow bike today when i stopped in to Longfellow Books (recently re-named best bookstore in Portland!) to buy Consider the Lobster by David Foster Wallace. So far, it's incredible. That's a story for another post, probably. Suffice it to say i'm amazed i've been around as long as i have without picking up any of his work.
What I'd like to relate to all Portlanders, however, is that Longfellow Books will be hosting a great poetry reading in 5 days! Betsy Scholl, Maine's Poet Laureate and esteemed faculty of the very English Department i've been learning from for the past four years, will be reading Thursday the 23rd at 7pm. I've got class right up until 7 and that won't stop me from going! So i don't want excuses. April is National Poetry month and Portland is lucky to have some good poets around. Seeing readings is good for you. like doctors and vegetables. You don't hate things that are good for you, do you? see you there, then.
What I'd like to relate to all Portlanders, however, is that Longfellow Books will be hosting a great poetry reading in 5 days! Betsy Scholl, Maine's Poet Laureate and esteemed faculty of the very English Department i've been learning from for the past four years, will be reading Thursday the 23rd at 7pm. I've got class right up until 7 and that won't stop me from going! So i don't want excuses. April is National Poetry month and Portland is lucky to have some good poets around. Seeing readings is good for you. like doctors and vegetables. You don't hate things that are good for you, do you? see you there, then.
4.15.2009
Reading Aloud
Teachers have always assigned me poems for homework and asked a couple of things that i, of course, never ever did. First there was the task of re-reading. I'm still getting past that. You never read a poem only once, the idea goes, but a whole bunch of times. My attitude has generally been that once is plenty, even though i really totally know that isn't even a little bit true. What i think is really important is putting a poem down and then rereading it. Rereading it immediately always just feels silly.
Then there was the occasional direction to read poems out loud. Depending on the genre and the era of the work, its written form might not have even been the way its audience experienced it. Again, this just feels like a total pain in the ass. Not too long ago, though, i gave it a little try while making dinner. I just stood around and read some of my favorites to the pot of rice on the stove (this is what you get when you're bored & your bookcase is closer to the kitchen than the TV). & honestly, it's not like everyone should read every poem aloud all the time, but i suggest going to your favorite, considering if you've ever bothered to literally hear it & give it a try. And if you don't know where to start, use one of the GMH monday poems. Hopkins is one of the most exceptional aural experiences in all of poetry.
Then there was the occasional direction to read poems out loud. Depending on the genre and the era of the work, its written form might not have even been the way its audience experienced it. Again, this just feels like a total pain in the ass. Not too long ago, though, i gave it a little try while making dinner. I just stood around and read some of my favorites to the pot of rice on the stove (this is what you get when you're bored & your bookcase is closer to the kitchen than the TV). & honestly, it's not like everyone should read every poem aloud all the time, but i suggest going to your favorite, considering if you've ever bothered to literally hear it & give it a try. And if you don't know where to start, use one of the GMH monday poems. Hopkins is one of the most exceptional aural experiences in all of poetry.
4.14.2009
Cat in a sink
Blogger play. Oh boy. Can't ever stop loving that stuff. I saw a cat in a sink recently. and uh, well:
yeah. So half of my reason for posting these is that they're just adorable. and then i'm like: wtf. not just cat in a sink but cat looking fairly happy being brushed in a sink. hunh. Pics come from this blog so if you feel like investigating, feel free. I'm just glad i found something exciting on blogger play instead of more pictures of lame children looking for easter eggs.
yeah. So half of my reason for posting these is that they're just adorable. and then i'm like: wtf. not just cat in a sink but cat looking fairly happy being brushed in a sink. hunh. Pics come from this blog so if you feel like investigating, feel free. I'm just glad i found something exciting on blogger play instead of more pictures of lame children looking for easter eggs.
4.13.2009
It's a Grace (only bodies can impart)
Yes! Youtube video is up from Saturday's Tea and Oranges Daydream Extravaganza. And I'm not just posting it because I played bass on this song. Watch it. Listen to the words. Watch Cutler rock his ass off over next to Krissy & Milo. Even if i was particularly concerned with keeping this blog in any way on the topic of poetry, i'd still post this because Jakob Battick's lyrics achieve such powerful aesthetic transcendence. In brief, if you weren't there Saturday, you kind of suck but at least there are a couple of videos so that you can see a little of what you missed.
Howdy
I'm getting a little sparse with the posts here. But these seem to be keeping me going. Another Monday, another poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins. Today we've got an untitled poem known by its first line, "my own heart let me more have pity on; let"
MY own heart let me more have pity on; let
Me live to my sad self hereafter kind,
Charitable; not live this tormented mind
With this tormented mind tormenting yet.
I cast for comfort I can no more get
By groping round my comfortless, than blind
Eyes in their dark can day or thirst can find
Thirst’s all-in-all in all a world of wet.
Soul, self; come, poor Jackself, I do advise
You, jaded, let be; call off thoughts awhile
Elsewhere; leave comfort root-room; let joy size
At God knows when to God knows what; whose smile
’s not wrung, see you; unforeseen times rather—as skies
Betweenpie mountains—lights a lovely mile.
There is a very important thing to know about my relationship with GMH: half the time i have very foggy grasp of what the hell it is he's on about. But that doesn't bother me because it's at least as much about the way it sounds as it is about the imagery & the existence or lack of any sort of narrative elements. One thing i love about this poem in particular is the enjambment. I don't think i've seen any other poem where the possessive s falls on the other side of the line break from where the word it's attached to is.
And, okay, even with it being so elusive and difficult to grasp, there's something really poignant about the whole second stanza. I love how the speaker goes from this despairing language to a sort of sad hopefulness. And there's something about the idea that you can get pretty low but you just need to try to lay off the nasty thoughts and give yourself a little space, a little root-room, so that some sort of joy can come around. & it's not really up to you when that joy's going to come anyway.
also, how can you not love the phrase "betweenpie mountains" ?? Not because it's so perfect but because the words sound so good and yet don't really semantically mesh. at all. (hoo boy, that was a long one. sorry, folks.)
MY own heart let me more have pity on; let
Me live to my sad self hereafter kind,
Charitable; not live this tormented mind
With this tormented mind tormenting yet.
I cast for comfort I can no more get
By groping round my comfortless, than blind
Eyes in their dark can day or thirst can find
Thirst’s all-in-all in all a world of wet.
Soul, self; come, poor Jackself, I do advise
You, jaded, let be; call off thoughts awhile
Elsewhere; leave comfort root-room; let joy size
At God knows when to God knows what; whose smile
’s not wrung, see you; unforeseen times rather—as skies
Betweenpie mountains—lights a lovely mile.
There is a very important thing to know about my relationship with GMH: half the time i have very foggy grasp of what the hell it is he's on about. But that doesn't bother me because it's at least as much about the way it sounds as it is about the imagery & the existence or lack of any sort of narrative elements. One thing i love about this poem in particular is the enjambment. I don't think i've seen any other poem where the possessive s falls on the other side of the line break from where the word it's attached to is.
And, okay, even with it being so elusive and difficult to grasp, there's something really poignant about the whole second stanza. I love how the speaker goes from this despairing language to a sort of sad hopefulness. And there's something about the idea that you can get pretty low but you just need to try to lay off the nasty thoughts and give yourself a little space, a little root-room, so that some sort of joy can come around. & it's not really up to you when that joy's going to come anyway.
also, how can you not love the phrase "betweenpie mountains" ?? Not because it's so perfect but because the words sound so good and yet don't really semantically mesh. at all. (hoo boy, that was a long one. sorry, folks.)
4.08.2009
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Bringing some Maine flavor to the blog today, I would like to force everyone to read this itsy bitsy little poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay. It won't take more than a minute, so why not ponder the truly pretty way she puts words together. I'm a big fan of single-image poems. I like how this poem, Ebb, prefigures the imagists that would come by so soon after Millay rose to prominence. That... and it's just pretty.
Ebb
I know what my heart is like
Since your love died:
It is like a hollow ledge
Holding a little pool
Left there by the tide,
A little tepid pool,
Drying inward from the edge.
(i know i lost the formatting. i don't know how to do anything about it. ugh.)
Ebb
I know what my heart is like
Since your love died:
It is like a hollow ledge
Holding a little pool
Left there by the tide,
A little tepid pool,
Drying inward from the edge.
(i know i lost the formatting. i don't know how to do anything about it. ugh.)
4.06.2009
GMH Monday
This GMH Monday finds me listening to yakobli's "girlfriend in a coma" cover and thinking about a Hopkins poem that i memorized this fall, called Spring & Fall. Memorizing is one of those things that's actually a really interesting way to get deep into a poem; i strongly suggest giving it a whirl with a favorite poem or few of yours. It's like, in some tiny way, you appropriate a little bit of the poem's magic and it becomes yours a little bit. in that mode of mind, then, i share a poem that's a little tiny bit mine.
Spring and Fall
to a young child
Margaret, are you grieving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leaves, like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Ah! as the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you will weep and know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sorrow's springs are the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What héart héard of, ghóst guéssed:
It is the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.
Spring and Fall
to a young child
Margaret, are you grieving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leaves, like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Ah! as the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you will weep and know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sorrow's springs are the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What héart héard of, ghóst guéssed:
It is the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.
4.03.2009
Tea & Oranges Daydream Extravaganza!
April 11th, Saturday. Hastings Formal Lounge on the Gorham campus of USM. The Tea & Oranges Daydream Extravaganza. DIY madness, art for sale, beautiful music by wonderful, wonderful people. It's going to be killer. Absolutely everyone should go because it's totally free, anyone of any age, and it promises to be a night of pretty things. Jakob Battick will be selling cds. Stefan Henegar will play, along with Ryan Cutler is a Tree and all sorts of other Tea & Oranges friends. Even if i warn't in Maine, I'd make the trek for this shindig. I hope to see lots of my wonderful readers & friends there.
For more info, click the link above, you turkey.
For more info, click the link above, you turkey.
4.01.2009
HOLY WOW! OOPS!
Some poetry-blog proprietor i am... April is national poetry month and i had no idea! at least i found out at the end of the first day and not like on the 28th. To celebrate...honestly it's just going to be more of the same: cool events, my poems & much better poems by incredible people. One such is Federico García Lorca. His images are absolutely mad at times (in an essay he describes the concept of duende as a giant arsenic lobster about to fall from the sky. let that one sink in a bit) and just incredibly beautiful. So today we've got Song of the Barren Orange Tree, translated by the brilliant W.S. Merwin. He will certainly come up another day. Suffice it to say that he's an untouchable poet in his own right and one of my favorite translators.
And what would an April be without the opening lines to The Waste Land?
APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
And what would an April be without the opening lines to The Waste Land?
APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
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