Poetry

Reading: Lost Worlds by Giorgos Seferis
Giorgos Seferis (1900 - 1971) was one of the most famous Greek poets of the twentieth century, born near Smyrna (Izmir). He died sadly before the end of the military dictatorship in his country. His work was greatly inspired by Yeats, Kavafis, T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound. He won the 1963 Nobel Prize. I read 'Lost ...
Poetry is not only dream and vision; it is the skeleton architecture of our lives. It lays the foundations for a future of change, a bridge across our fears of what has never been before. - Audre Lorde
Will you cup your hand…
Will you cup your hand around my warm balls? I suffered from mild nihilism, and the common flu So I waltz to the edge of music, where the falls endure. I have so many more unsayables for you.
Reading: Archibald by John Betjeman
Legendary poet laureate of the UK John Betjeman (1906-1984) was a nostalgic poet. According to Jocelyn Brooke, he is "a writer who uses the medium of light verse for a serious purpose: not merely as a vehicle for satire or social commentary, but as a means of expressing a peculiar and specialized form of aesthetic ...
Reading: Project for a fainting by Brenda Shaughnessy
Brenda Shaughnessy (b.) is an American poet. She wrote Interior with Sudden Joy (1999), Human Dark with Sugar (2008). She is currently an associate professor of English at Rutgers University-Newark. I have discovered some of her poems and I'm really impressed. Here I read 'Project for a Fainting' but make sure you also read 'Dear ...
Going to Church
An old man is smelting the icon of exalted freedom. I watch him. He is well-natured, a force old enough to command. He swaddles the icon in a soft cloth and lines it up with the others. The light falls down from heavy window sills, I again write poems that die in mirrors or teacups.
Reading: Sci-Fi by Tracy K. Smith
Tracy K. Smith (b.  1972) rose to poetic fame with her book Life on Mars. She is a well-known contemporary American poet and winner of the Pulitzer Prize for poetry. Her new book Wade in Water appears in April 2018. In June 2017, Smith was named U.S. poet laureate. She teaches creative writing at Princeton University. This poem is ...
Anarchism
I speed read a book on anarchism A typographical error by one anarchist is quoted by another. Sic! My coffee is hot I think of anarchy in Guatemala. Are they still selling their coffee to a god who comes in a steel vessel? A god who brings them smartphones? I think about Seattle and Kropotkin, ...
Commercial poetry
I can take some green paper out of my pocket and make them kill a fish for me or drive me to the end of the light I could buy a woman for the night, or a rose, a rose for a woman for a night I could make you say things like thank you ...