maid public

This blogger has some poems roaming the North Carolina mountains of Free Verse.

barbara guest

Barbara Guest dei wed
1920-2006

"...Recognize me in sunshine."
from Nostalgia of the Infinite,
by Barbara Guest.

To listen to the whole poem, click here.

For more poems and for interviews, go to Jacket.

all codes lead to roam

Hey bloggerissimo, thought you might like to know about the Jazz Daily Download -a jazz musicivalent to Poetry Daily/Verse Daily.

Herb Scott

Herb Scott dei led, 2/12/06

Thank you Herb Scott for your love of, "la" of, law of awe all and call of poetry. Poet, teacher, editor, your otherlambent legacy includes my unbroken life as a poet, and I will afire wakes breathe grateful. I hope you anew what you gave to sow many. You will be missed.


Sleeping Woman
by Herb Scott

after the painting by Richard Diebenkorn


I’m walking east down Lovell in Kalamazoo
in the middle of the afternoon, and it’s hot, July
something, and there’s a man sleeping on the sidewalk —
the way you would in your bed — his body a kind of Z
in a fancy serif font, the curlicue of hands
beneath his head at the top, and the toes of each foot
curved to comfort the other, at the bottom. At first
I don’t know if he’s alive or dead, his skin
the color of burnt iron, a darkness alcohol finally brings.
I remember him from months before, a couple of blocks
west of here. He leaned against my car and wanted
to borrow money, a loan. He wanted a ride to South Haven
where he could get the money to pay me back.
His voice had that desperate familiarity that says:
You know me. You must want to care for me.
I think I gave him something, not much, and drove away.
I couldn’t forget his face, murky with solitude,
like the hard red clay in Oklahoma where I grew up
that won’t grow anything — everything lost to erosion
that brings such desolation you can’t survive.
I thought he wouldn’t survive more than a week or so,
but here he is, and when the cops arrive they know him,
call him Billy, and he’s still alive, maybe
for the last time, and they pick him up.
I head east again, turn left into the cool museum
where I lose myself, sometimes, where I find you
sleeping where I’ve seen you before, paint streaming
around you like water, gathering in the shallows
of your dress. I am always surprised to see you.
I don’t know. Are you flesh, or water? If I move
you will disappear in a startle of color.
The gallery is almost dark — those new-fangled spots
that keep the viewer anonymous — but your face turns
toward me from the crook of your doubled arms,
all about you an unencumbered sway, an intelligence
of light explicit as a summer evening. Deer quietly chewing.
I balance, in the shadows, between.

medbh mcguckian

HLS: What’s your writing process like? I'm wondering how often you write; under what circumstances; starting with a word, image or idea; with or without coffee, that sort of thing.   

MM : My process. I don't see it as process. Sounds too recipe or technical. I want it or need it. Life gets disordered and choked with not saying to anyone as here only confusion words inadequate as tools of exploration. So, I clinically collect images, thoughts, ideas, series of words -- not single. Over a period. Then when I feel I have enough for a page of poetry. I sort them. I sift and shape. There is a dynamic...................


To read allure of this in her view of Medbh McGuckian, go to The Argotist!




A HELL BIRD
by Medbh McGuckian

She of the corner burned parting 
Of haunted hair, she burns herself
With the fire of her yoga,
Having taken the sun's permission.

The flames erect a kind of hedge
Of red marriage veil, her soul falls
Naturally into it, to leave the world
Of acts by its silver doorframe

Her skin, that was fair the bright
Fortnight of the month and dark and dark,
Is a mapping of the seasons and odours
And splinters of foot nectar.

Her gravelly voice that is the sign
Of possesson divides from her sacred finger.
One third of her sin is the child-pebble
Worshipped in her heart of hearts,

Her left eye being a careful almond.

ledger, by susan wheeler

In her third book of poetry, Ledger, Susan Wheeler records “synesthesia . . . and sound, / the junco’s chirp and then the jay’s torn caw, arc / of trucks on the distant interstate, your what the fuck.” Collage, disjunctive syntax, parataxis, and fragmentation invite the reader to take into account the relationship between parts, chart gaps and compute new meaning, and add her own voice in the tally, so that the “bright expanse yields up to You.” Numerous voices of multiple registers and vernaculars gather on the lines and make “the ironic caw of . . . crows flapping.” Old pieces of language have been scavenged and made new from a heap of source texts including..............to read the rest of this blogger's review, click here and then scroll down!

well howdy

O hello my bloggerissimo. Indeed, this blogger has been remiss and of a nonbloggingness. Please forgive my absconds. Things have just been nuts around here!