It was wonderful to see all the snow come down in Brooklyn on Tuesday and into Wednesday. The back got its workout with shoveling and the legs with walking in the snow (Jesse took video and photos, go to band of the land.com to see some of these). Then the week wore on and I wore out and collapsed Thursday night. No fun as I'd hoped to have a nice long weekend for relaxing, reading, and writing. There is a difference between sleeping when sick and sleeping when healthy. The biggest one is that you can read but in the former the words never stay on the page or in your head.
But it meant lots of radio on as well, and going back and forth between NPR news, discussion and music and sports talk on baseball. Pitchers and catchers report this week. Always that pleasure, harbinger of spring.
I think I have managed to do a little reading that counts: some Ezra Pound (for teaching and for pleasure), Huidobro, Stroud, Vargas Llosa and E.B. White. Read Nick Thran's book of poems, Every Inadequate Noise which came out a few years ago, very good. He has a new one coming out next year. Stephen Kessler's The Mental Traveler arrived in the mail and I look forward to reading that. Also now reading Colum McCann's Let the Great World Spin which is good if not a little too happy with itself (can one really observe all that much in a single instant?)
Tourist at a Miracle news: A west coast/Bay Area reading trip for the end of September seems to be coming together (more later on this). At least two confirmed and two very likely dates/places.
I'm being interviewed on the Moe Greene Poetry Hour out in California on February 26, 6:30 EST and 3:30 PST. More info later on this for life listening and podcast downloads.
It is Valentine's Day. Save your money and just remind your loved ones just how much you love them. Words mean most.
abrazos,
Mark
Showing posts with label Pound. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pound. Show all posts
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Friday, February 5, 2010
week gone by
A long week gone by and a good one but long which is sometimes how the good ones are.
Teaching is serious now, the introductions done and the work at hand at hand. Reading Whitman and Lorca with Pound on the horizon (and Lorca a constant). With Whitman some interesting conversations that go from his influence into the present as well as his work over his own time. We've been reading Leaves of Grass 1855 and Leaves of Grass in the deathbed 1891/92 editions and thinking about how much the small changes mean and the larger ones as well, the sense of the earlier work in some ways as the poems in process and the last work as the poems as done (which they obviously by that point more than are). A serious joy here is reading Whitman again and again and recognizing just how much pleasure there is in doing just that.
The same is true of Lorca, although until now more time has been spent setting the stage for the rest of the semester, a lot of background, Spanish history, Lorca's life, Lorca's New York. Reading the first Poems of Solitude at Columbia University makes me realize how much a part of me the poems have become. I read the lines and remember how much time I spent working with them, the conversations Pablo and I had in the intense three years we spent on the book. Interesting how much presence it has, the intersection of that with memory.
I'm pushing myself now to finish the Hinojosa selected. I've been feeling good about it, sure and certain of the voice. The final translation draft should be done by the end of February, early March. The introduction should be done as well. Funny to be conscious of, if not exactly able to see, the light at the end of that tunnel.
And working hard on new poems. A good feeling to do that. Going through the most recent moleskine typing even as a newer one is being slowly filled.
Snow coming. The storm is supposed to center more to the south, with DC and Philadelphia taking larger hits. But the coming 2-6 inches could be romp in the snow fun.
abrazos,
Mark
Teaching is serious now, the introductions done and the work at hand at hand. Reading Whitman and Lorca with Pound on the horizon (and Lorca a constant). With Whitman some interesting conversations that go from his influence into the present as well as his work over his own time. We've been reading Leaves of Grass 1855 and Leaves of Grass in the deathbed 1891/92 editions and thinking about how much the small changes mean and the larger ones as well, the sense of the earlier work in some ways as the poems in process and the last work as the poems as done (which they obviously by that point more than are). A serious joy here is reading Whitman again and again and recognizing just how much pleasure there is in doing just that.
The same is true of Lorca, although until now more time has been spent setting the stage for the rest of the semester, a lot of background, Spanish history, Lorca's life, Lorca's New York. Reading the first Poems of Solitude at Columbia University makes me realize how much a part of me the poems have become. I read the lines and remember how much time I spent working with them, the conversations Pablo and I had in the intense three years we spent on the book. Interesting how much presence it has, the intersection of that with memory.
I'm pushing myself now to finish the Hinojosa selected. I've been feeling good about it, sure and certain of the voice. The final translation draft should be done by the end of February, early March. The introduction should be done as well. Funny to be conscious of, if not exactly able to see, the light at the end of that tunnel.
And working hard on new poems. A good feeling to do that. Going through the most recent moleskine typing even as a newer one is being slowly filled.
Snow coming. The storm is supposed to center more to the south, with DC and Philadelphia taking larger hits. But the coming 2-6 inches could be romp in the snow fun.
abrazos,
Mark
Monday, January 25, 2010
A poetry of place
Had a good talk with Pablo this evening about the ways in which certain poets transcend time and place and become poets of that place. The most obvious one is Whitman, it is the project of his life to write an American poetry (one that easily goes beyond nation borders). Pound is a poet who does this with the Cantos, and Williams does it through the whole of his career. Neruda does it (we had some uncertainty here on how effectively--there is the problem of how Neruda does have a tendency to change a lot, but if one takes the early poems, takes Residencia and Macchu Picchu, etc). Stevens does not--more of a philosophical poet writing of a place that resembles a place. Nor does Eliot because his place is more about the absence of culture or cutural decline than it is about making it or representing it. Mistral gets it in her last book, but too thinly. Snyder wants to, so does MacGrath in Letter to an Imaginary Friend, but there's too much history there. The whole point in the transcendence is that it almost needs to be ahistorical.
This of course led to a digression on poets of love and here it was interesting to come back and see Whitman as a great poet of love as well (Neruda fits in here well, as do so many others). But it's an interesting reminder of how much Whitman means in the whole conversation about poetry from the late 19th century to present. It's hard to imagine, too, the idea of a poet writing today who would be willing to take on a life's project of a single idea (place in time, outside of time, place defined and expanded) the way Whitman does (and to an extent, Williams, Pound and Neruda do).
Nice conversation. Which started with a question I had about Enrique Lihn, who I am reading now and who is a good read but there's something not quite there. He's not as compelling as Paz, but it's a quality I find in Paz too, a need to see beneath the surfaces (here Paz is more rewarding than Lihn). This moved us to Vicente Huidobro whose Altazar I have not read but will soon enough (waiting only for delivery).
A good night to talk about poetry. The semester starts tomorrow and I am getting in the mood.
This of course led to a digression on poets of love and here it was interesting to come back and see Whitman as a great poet of love as well (Neruda fits in here well, as do so many others). But it's an interesting reminder of how much Whitman means in the whole conversation about poetry from the late 19th century to present. It's hard to imagine, too, the idea of a poet writing today who would be willing to take on a life's project of a single idea (place in time, outside of time, place defined and expanded) the way Whitman does (and to an extent, Williams, Pound and Neruda do).
Nice conversation. Which started with a question I had about Enrique Lihn, who I am reading now and who is a good read but there's something not quite there. He's not as compelling as Paz, but it's a quality I find in Paz too, a need to see beneath the surfaces (here Paz is more rewarding than Lihn). This moved us to Vicente Huidobro whose Altazar I have not read but will soon enough (waiting only for delivery).
A good night to talk about poetry. The semester starts tomorrow and I am getting in the mood.
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
a work day
Worked on new poems, short, long, felt pretty good. These are ones I first wrote in November so there is a lot of snow and cold imagery/atmosphere, very interesting. But that's the way I like to work--first draft gets written, then sits for months and then I come back and see if it's worth continuing.
Also worked some on the Hinojosa poems. The guy is good and he's also tough--words like redil (sheep-fold), fosfenos (phosphenes), barlovento (windward). He also is a cross between a surrealist (and the world of the unconscious) and a modernist (a kind of Pound-like precision).
Another poem from Celia Cruz:
good luck prayer
horn wind
siren wind
bleating bleating
beauty wind
this night silence
broken by darkness
then pieced together
threaded woven
you are charmed by the thought
this will bring us closer
this will take on
what a kiss takes on
what a whisper
almost on our knees
eyes closed
almost
in time to pray and worry
to the left
one tree
to its left
where winter ends
a field
Also worked some on the Hinojosa poems. The guy is good and he's also tough--words like redil (sheep-fold), fosfenos (phosphenes), barlovento (windward). He also is a cross between a surrealist (and the world of the unconscious) and a modernist (a kind of Pound-like precision).
Another poem from Celia Cruz:
good luck prayer
horn wind
siren wind
bleating bleating
beauty wind
this night silence
broken by darkness
then pieced together
threaded woven
you are charmed by the thought
this will bring us closer
this will take on
what a kiss takes on
what a whisper
almost on our knees
eyes closed
almost
in time to pray and worry
to the left
one tree
to its left
where winter ends
a field
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