Poetry

Reading: In The Summer by Nizar Qabbani
Nizar Qabbani (1923-1998) was a Syrian diplomat, poet and publisher. His poetic style combines simplicity and elegance in exploring themes of love, eroticism, feminism, religion, and Arab nationalism (Wikipedia). I read a simple love poem, translated by B. Frangieh And C. Brown, that sounds unmistakenly Arabic: In the summer In the summer I stretch out on the ...
Absolution
Zeus, I tithe: your might, delivers me, timely, to the light.
Reading: Tarantella by Hillaire Belloc
Hillaire Belloc (1870-1953) was a prolific Anglo-French poet and historian who was considered one of the four great British writers of the Edwardian age, along with Chesterton, Shaw and H.G. Wells. "Among his best-remembered poems are Jim, who ran away from his nurse, and was eaten by a lion and Matilda, who told lies and was ...
listen to Bach (and die)
there is no landscape but a row of black I totem poles absolution dogs us in complex fugues played on a mole's sleeping belly mad frogs wearing unreliable diapers augur a couple more dimensions in which we thrive like ferns in giant forests (we eat the lumens) and keep patenting that impossible is nothing
Reading: The Day I Got My Finger Stuck Up My Nose by Brian Patten
From Liverpool poet Brian Patten (b. 1946) I have read several poems about lost or budding love and lost friendship, that I could enjoy for their direct and precise language. Patten has written many poetry books for adults and children during his long career, and is associated with poems like Philip Larkin and Alan Ginsburg. I ...
On my way home
I walk rather straight to the subway station an old hooker says fuck fuck fuck let's go fuck it is the umpteenth century there are those days that I just want to lie in the grass there are those that I want to answer my call unambiguous days, blushing in abundant sunlight days I talk ...
Reading: A Spring Song by Donald Davie
Donald Davie (1922-1995) was a rather philosophical poet and scholar. His decisively English style is strong and confident and has been likened to Larkin and Hughes. I read 'A spring song': “stooped to truth and moralized his song” Spring pricks a little. I get out the maps. Time to demoralize my song, high time. Vernal ...
Reading: Conscientious Objector by Edna St. Vincent Millay
Today I read Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950). She was an important American poet was an eccentric, humorous and politically outspoken figure. She was called the 'Herald of the New Woman' by her biographer. She was a skillful writer of sonnets, and, like her contemporary Robert Frost, combined modernist attitude with traditional forms. We read ...
Reading: Young Poets by Nicanor Parra
Chilean poet Nicanor Parra (1914 - 2018) was also a mathematician, physicist and cosmologist and an important figure in Latin American poetry who won the Cervantes prize. His Poemas y Antipoemas is a classic of Latin American literature. I read 'Young poets' in a translation by Miller Williams: Young Poets Write as you will In whatever style you ...