Poem of the Week
Swifter, Sharper, Simpler
“I am so rich that I must give myself away”
Egon Schiele
According to local philosophy
Everything that I want to call divine
They call obscene.
I want to burn myself up
And shine like a light:
You allege mean things,
Grease and oil on the water:
All disguises go for naught
In the dark eternities of the night.
What I recognize in decay
Breathes forth stronger and stronger;
Perceived existence transposed --
The distant ones, the farthest away,
As far as love,
Lead me to this:
A great recognition of the world.
John Twomey
Note:
Egon Schiele (a great artist of the Austrian school, known for his landscapes, portraits, and for his sensual drawings) was a master of line. Schiele died at the age of 28, shortly after his wife, in the tragic Bird-Flu pandemic of 1918. He was once imprisoned for a short time because of the erotic nature of his drawings.
Posted at 08:57 PM | The Arts | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
The Snow Man
Poem of the Week
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The Snow Man
One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;
And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter
Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,
Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place
For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.
-
Wallace Stevens
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One of the great modernist poets, Wallace Stevens spent his entire working life as an insurance executive in Hartford, Connecticut. As much a competitor as a colleague to his renowned contemporaries Robert Frost and William Carlos Williams, rumor has it that he once broke his hand on Ernest Hemingway’s jaw in a fight down in Key West.
Some of his best known poems include Sunday Morning, The Idea of Order in Key West, The Emperor of Ice Cream, Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird, and Not Ideas About the Thing but the Thing Itself, but my favorite remains Snowman.
This seemingly simple poem in five, three line stanzas can leave a reader shaking his head after the last stanza;
“nothing himself”, “nothing that is not there”, “the nothing that is”?
But the poem encompasses an entire, accurate philosophy.
Although the poem consists of five stanzas, it also consists of only one sentence. Written in prose it would read thus:
One must have a mind of winter to regard the frost and the boughs of the pine-trees crusted with snow; and have been cold a long time to behold the junipers shagged with ice, the spruces rough in the distant glitter of the January sun; and not to think of any misery in the sound of the wind, in the sound of a few leaves, which is the sound of the land full of the same wind that is blowing in the same bare place for the listener, who listens in the snow, and, nothing himself, beholds nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.
Anyone who is familiar with existential thought or Buddhist concepts will grasp what Stevens conveys in his poem; but you don’t need to know any of that—simply by reading and contemplating the words of the poem you will inevitably arrive at the same conclusion.
Posted at 05:50 PM | The Arts | Comments (0)
Weekly Poetry Feature
Going for the over/under
When I love a thing
I really love with gusto-–
G’bye, guy.
I pour out of a ladle:
the full, rich measure of my large devotion
kills me, ladyfinger.
My dewlap waggles
and tickles your downy hairs.
I entertain you with desperation―-
enter you with a destination in mind.
An hunger for an exit wound.
To fill up the helm with gasoline.
Who resides within our residence
―a home out of all determination―
destroyer of melt, anchor of flame,
expose of sultry ridicule.
You guessed the ultimate frivolity:
jeremiad and querulous for the occasion.
Friends don’t let laughs die without enemies.
A song in a paper bag next to a bottle―-reaching
out with quash to catch rain in your mouth,
you lent out the luck you could no longer afford.
A boiler takes kerosene to the ultimate.
G’bye, guy―
I really love with gusto
when I love a thing.
Sparse and Redeye blink washes
of ambulance
giving off disdain to interns
riddled with guilt,
the guilt of defeated nations,
who furtively chew their cheeks and spit blood.
I’ve already moved on to histrionics―paginate my immense soul.
Too much of these good things leave us asking for more.
But I’ve revealed too much already, I’m afraid.
Posted at 10:01 PM | The Arts | Comments (0)
Winter Wonderland!
The Beauty of Winter
Snow on Branches with Colors
JT
Posted at 08:16 PM | The Arts | Comments (0)
Art Exhibit (Digitally Altered Photo)
What's on your TV?
Immigrant Studies
Posted at 12:15 AM | The Arts | Comments (0)
Poem of the Week
How I made my Fortune
Just a simple walk down the street,
if anything simple can be authorized,
but no, too easy, the crashing down
around noise leaving nothing to be desired.
Green and blue the breezes waft through
your lover’s hair, and she turns to you and says:
“My father left me a fortune but told me
to absentmindedly invest it in circus stock.”
Tears are not for the terrified of loss management:
a philosophy born of the sovereignty of a soon to
be extinct class of paramours, righteous ones all,
masturbating under the banner of a corrupt non-profit.
An automobile hums a lonely tune out of key and
maneuvers you into a corner where an attorney
stuffs his card into your pocket in case you ever need
representation, but you feel outré, a bit cramped by style.
At the zoo you bet on the animals, especially the snakes,
the stripped ones, the ones hanging from branches.
Afterwards, you kiss and make up with your stranger,
who pushes you into the path of a rogue city bus.
Back at home you wonder where you are and drink poison
because it tastes so good, so godly. You genuflect to your
ancestors then swing from a chandelier, but your weight
is too much for it, and it rips from its anchor bolts in the ceiling.
How much of all this is authorized is classified, as if you care.
Fortune’s good, made to crash through complex desires; nothing’s
too easy: you understand how to out-maneuver your own philosophy
during a simple walk down the street, the kiss still on your lips.
Posted at 12:12 AM | The Arts | Comments (0)
The Good News
Set in Granite
Jennifer & Jovani
Posted at 12:02 AM | The Arts | Comments (0)
Two Poems -- Living Poets
To Live by
Work from the original toward
the beautiful,
unless the latter comes first
in which case
reverse your efforts to find
a model worthy of such
inane desire.
Even the mouth’s being
divided into lips is
not enough to make words
equal themselves.
Eavesdroppers fear
the hermit’s soliloquy.
Wake up, wound, the knife said.
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Bill Knott
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Winter Daydreams
On the boulevard I passed a giant squid.
It manifested but a puny interest in me
or its surroundings, though one suction cup
thoughtfully grazed a ring of spikes around a boulevard tree
like a monocle one puts down absentmindedly
on the page of a newspaper and words like
worker ants quickly spring into action:
“it was not the FIRST TIME THE accused has been so solicited.
By his OWN ADMISsion four other rumpuses were given rise to
After that first YEar . . .”
I was almost home then, by subterfuge or sheer pluck.
In the underbrush a walrus crows,
all decency shed, or shredded.
Little wonder that home is a bright place to be
If living’s your thing.
-
-
John Ashbery
Two living poets, Knott, born 1940, and Ashbery, born 1927, both considered “difficult” poets. Difficult, I guess, in the sense, that their poems don’t make sense to some people, I guess, in the same sense that, for instance, Jackson Pollack’s, or Robert Motherwell's, or Larry River's paintings don’t make sense to some people. Difficult? I don’t think so. Except in a nonsensical sense. Like beauty, difficulty is in the eye of the beholder.
When Bill Knott, who first published in the 60's, could not find a publisher for his poems in the 80's, he stapled together sheaths of poems and mailed them to everyone he knew: they are highly collected now and worth much money, though not to Bill Knott. To Live By is from his 2004, book The Unsubscriber.
John Ashbery, noted art critic for Art News, published Winter Daydreams in his book Chinese Whispers in 2001, when he was 74, and has published several books of poems and of poetic theory since. Ashbery's books first appeared in the 1950's.
Posted at 12:08 AM | The Arts | Comments (0)
Free Art
FYI
Anyone wishing to view fine art in Providence needn't worry about paying a hefty price for admission to museums and galleries: opportunities abound to look at fine art for free.
Detail from Pillar of Salt JMT
The RISD Museum features free admission every Friday between 12 pm and 1:30 pm and every Sunday between 10 am and 1:30 pm. Their current exhibit features textiles in contemporary art and their recent acquisitions of contemporary art, as well as an Edgar Degas exhibit, and an exhibit of Japanese ink prints and books. The RISD permanent collection remains always a pleasure to explore.
Also free are two Galleries at Brown, the David Winton Bell Gallery, List Art Center, 64 College Street, 11 to 4 Monday to Friday, 1 - 4 Saturday and Sunday and the Sarah Doyle Gallery, 26 Benevolant Street, 9 - 5 Monday to Friday.
So there is no monetary reason not to get out and enjoy a litttle cultcha!
Posted at 12:43 AM | The Arts | Comments (0)
THE NAKED AND THE NUDE
Poem of the Week Feature
Two poems: Graves and Carver
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THE NAKED AND THE NUDE
For me, the naked and the nude
(By lexicographers construed
As synonyms that should express
The same deficiency of dress
Or shelter) stand as wide apart
As love from lies, or truth from art.
Lovers without reproach will gaze
On bodies naked and ablaze;
The Hippocratic eye will see
In nakedness anatomy;
And naked shines the goddess when
She mounts her lion among men.
The nude are bold, the nude are sly
To hold each treasonable eye.
While draping by a showmans’s trick
Their dishabille in rhetoric,
They grin a mock-religious grin
Of scorn at those of naked skin.
The naked, therefore, who compete
Against the nude may know defeat;
Yet when they both together tread
The briary pastures of the dead,
By Gorgons with long whips pursued,
How naked go the sometimes nude!
Robert Graves
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Bonnard’s Nudes
His wife. Forty years he painted her.
Again and again. The nude in the last painting
the same young nude as the first. His wife
As he remembered her young. As she was young.
His wife in her bath. At her dressing table
in front of the mirror. Undressed.
His wife with her hands under her breasts
looking out on the garden.
The sun bestowing warmth and color.
Every living thing in bloom there.
She young and tremulous and most desirable.
When she died, he painted a while longer.
A few landscapes. Then he died.
And was put down next to her.
His young wife.
Raymond Carver
Posted at 12:04 AM | The Arts | Comments (0)
Dirty Dozen Brass Band
I believe in patronizing a lot of live music, and one of my favorite venues is The Narrows in Fall River. A non-profit, they feature local art & crafts, theatre and American roots music.
Two upcoming shows of note are the legendary Dirty Dozen Brass Band, from down the Big Easy and for blues afficiandos, from the younger generation of African American bluesmen (he's in his 30's), Alvin Youngblood Hart.
From the Narrows press release: www.ncfta
This Friday we are proud/pleased to welcome back the Dirty Dozen Brass Band. Direct from New Orleans, Louisiana, these boys will be bringing the party to the Narrows. These guys have been through a lot this year, let's give them a warm welcome from a capacity crowd.
Friday, November 18
Dirty Dozen Brass Band
What band has played on recordings by Dave Matthews, Modest Mouse, David Bowie (!), Elvis Costello, Dr. John and the Black Crowes? The Dirty Dozen Brass Band! They're based in New Orleans, but have been bringing their mix of brass, funk, r & b, rock etc. around the world for many years. Learn about 'em at www.dirtydozenbrass.com
Doors 7:00 Show 8:00. Admission: $20 advance, $23 day of show
Thursday, December 1
Alvin Youngblood Hart's Muscle Theory
Guitar fans, especially Blues guitar fans, TAKE NOTE!! Alvin Youngblood Hart is coming to the Narrows and he's bringing his hot guitar and band. He received the 1997 W.C. Handy award for Best New Artist and he's strummed with the likes of the Allman Brothers, Los Lobos, Neil Young, Gatemouth Brown and Buddy Guy! Learn more at www.mojomusic.com/alvin/
Doors 7:00 Show 8:00. Admission: $15 advance, $17 day of show
Narrows Center for the Arts
16 Anawan St.
Fall River, MA. 02722
(508) 324-1926/www.ncfta
Posted at 10:53 PM | The Arts | Comments (0)
Po Chu-I - 772 -- 846 C.E.
Poem of the Week
5 Poems
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HARD TIMES
Watch morning rise into heaven
And evening suns sinking into earth
And you don’t notice it in the bright
mirror: but here I am, suddenly 34.
Don’t say this body of mine isn’t old.
It’s getting there slowly, bit by bit,
and if white hair hasn’t grown in yet,
that young face has begun giving way.
However long this life may endure,
I’ll never be more than a visitor here:
though we’re promised seventy years,
not one or two in ten lives them out,
so why always on my way somewhere
and always finding myself nowhere
near awakened? This inch-wide heart
is a treasure-hoard of boundless ch-i.
It’s true poverty is a wretched thing,
but mastering Tao you abide in Tao,
and it’s true wealth is a joyous thing,
but if it comes it comes when it will.
Whatever brings deep wisdom to mind,
it’s here in these things nowhere else:
just sip a nice wine, and by day’s end,
a little drunk, you’re perfectly happy.
These words bear better than gold or jade.
Try them on and you’ll never lose them.
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ON MY DAUGHTER’S FIRST BIRTHDAY
Finally, after almost forty years of life,
I have a girl. We named her Golden-Bells,
and it’s been a year since she was born.
Saying nothing, she studies sitting now,
but it seems I’m no sage-master at heart.
I can’t get free of this trifling affection:
I know it’s only a tangle of appearance,
but however empty, it’s bliss to see her.
I’ll worry about her dying. Spared that,
I’ll worry about finding a good husband.
All those plans to find a mountain home:
I guess they’ll wait another 15 years.
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IN SICKNESS MISSING GOLDEN BELLS
What can I do? So sick, and your life
cut so short pitching me into such grief:
it startles me from sleep. I get up and try
lamplight for comfort against these tears,
but a daughter’s an absolute tangle of love,
and without a son the sorrow’s inescapable.
After three full years of nurture and care,
a sickness barely lasting ten quick days:
such things tear at the heart long after
tears follow the last cries of grief away.
Little robes still hung on dressing racks,
the useless medicines there at your pillow,
we send you off in this deep village lane,
then watch earth fill your tiny grave over.
Don’t say you’re hardly a mile away here:
this is farewell to the very ends of heaven.
-
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THE GRAIN TAX
An officer came pounding on their gate
In the night, shouting, demanding taxes.
They didn’t wait for morning. Hurrying
out to their granary, candles and lamps
alight, they winnowed grain till it shone
pure as pearls: one cart, thirty bushels.
Still they worried it wasn’t fine enough,
that they’d be whipped like sorry slaves.
I once took office, a fool devoting myself
utterly, regretting my meager talents.
Paid for sitting ten years like a corpse,
I served in four different departments
and often heard old hands proclaiming
gain and loss─it all comes round again.
If your sage hearts are so sweet and true,
why not send back a little imperial grain?
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FORTY FIVE
I’ve lived through forty-five years now.
My temples half way into grizzled gray.
I’m all skin and bone and song-seized,
wine-wild and each year more abandoned
still to the inevitable unfolding of things.
Anywhere tranquil is my old home now,
and I think my thatch hut may be ready
next spring up there beside Lu Mountain.
Po Chu-I
Translation: David Hinton -- New Directions
Posted at 06:26 PM | The Arts | Comments (0)
Desolation Row
They're selling postcards of the hanging
They're painting the passports brown
The beauty parlor is filled with sailors
The circus is in town
Here comes the blind commissioner
They've got him in a trance
One hand is tied to the tight-rope walker
The other is in his pants
And the riot squad they're restless
They need somewhere to go
As Lady and I look out tonight
From Desolation Row
Cinderella, she seems so easy
"It takes one to know one," she smiles
And puts her hands in her back pockets
Bette Davis style
And in comes Romeo, he's moaning
"You Belong to Me I Believe"
And someone says," You're in the wrong place, my friend
You better leave"
And the only sound that's left
After the ambulances go
Is Cinderella sweeping up
On Desolation Row
Now the moon is almost hidden
The stars are beginning to hide
The fortunetelling lady
Has even taken all her things inside
All except for Cain and Abel
And the hunchback of Notre Dame
Everybody is making love
Or else expecting rain
And the Good Samaritan, he's dressing
He's getting ready for the show
He's going to the carnival tonight
On Desolation Row
Now Ophelia, she's 'neath the window
For her I feel so afraid
On her twenty-second birthday
She already is an old maid
To her, death is quite romantic
She wears an iron vest
Her profession's her religion
Her sin is her lifelessness
And though her eyes are fixed upon
Noah's great rainbow
She spends her time peeking
Into Desolation Row
Einstein, disguised as Robin Hood
With his memories in a trunk
Passed this way an hour ago
With his friend, a jealous monk
He looked so immaculately frightful
As he bummed a cigarette
Then he went off sniffing drainpipes
And reciting the alphabet
Now you would not think to look at him
But he was famous long ago
For playing the electric violin
On Desolation Row
Dr. Filth, he keeps his world
Inside of a leather cup
But all his sexless patients
They're trying to blow it up
Now his nurse, some local loser
She's in charge of the cyanide hose
And she also keeps the cards that read
"Have Mercy on His Soul"
They all play on penny whistles
You can hear them blow
If you lean your head out far enough
From Desolation Row
Across the street they've nailed the curtains
They're getting ready for the feast
The Phantom of the Opera
A perfect image of a priest
They're spoonfeeding Casanova
To get him to feel more assured
Then they'll kill him with self-confidence
After poisoning him with words
And the Phantom's shouting to skinny girls
"Get Outa Here If You Don't Know
Casanova is just being punished for going
To Desolation Row"
Now at midnight all the agents
And the superhuman crew
Come out and round up everyone
That knows more than they do
Then they bring them to the factory
Where the heart-attack machine
Is strapped across their shoulders
And then the kerosene
Is brought down from the castles
By insurance men who go
Check to see that nobody is escaping
To Desolation Row
Praise be to Nero's Neptune
The Titanic sails at dawn
And everybody's shouting
"Which Side Are You On?"
And Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot
Fighting in the captain's tower
While calypso singers laugh at them
And fishermen hold flowers
Between the windows of the sea
Where lovely mermaids flow
And nobody has to think too much
About Desolation Row
Yes, I received your letter yesterday
About the time the door knob broke
When you asked how I was doing
Was that some kind of joke?
All these people that you mention
Yes, I know them, they're quite lame
I had to rearrange their faces
And give them all another name
Right now I can't read too good
Don't send me no more letters no
Not unless you mail them
From Desolation Row
Poem of the week: Robert Zimmerman (Bob Dylan) (for James)
Posted at 09:52 PM | The Arts | Comments (0)
A Passage to Lisbon . . .
For a long time now, my daughter and I had planned to visit Europe together. When we finally decided to do it this summer, we set our eyes on Italy or Spain. My travel agent gently suggested that a trip to any of those countries in July would be “crazy!” and would we consider Portugal? I had never been to Portugal and said “why not”? It turned out to be one of the best trips we have ever taken. I not only recommended it to everyone, but I also plan to return to Portugal soon. These are some of what Lisbon has to offer:
A Lisbon Cityscape
Set across a series of hills overlooking the broad Rio Tejo (River Tagus), the city is rich in history, architecture, and offers a warm, welcoming atmosphere. The population is around 2 million but with the laid back energy that makes you forget you are in a large city. Comfortably warm from April to October, cool Atlantic breezes make it more enjoyable than other cities with the same altitude. Lisbon once controlled a maritime empire that stretched from Brazil to Macau. The Great Earthquake of 1755 destroyed much of the city, and today’s buildings date to the late 18th and 19th century.
Lisbon Street
Another Street Scene
The outdoor cafés along cobblestone streets, and a buoyant nightlife offering a range of music from traditional fado to jazz to African and Brazilian beats make this one of the most fun cities I have visited. The people are friendly, and besides Portuguese, most of them speak English as well as French.
Peasant Dance
As for the food, you can never get enough of the rich tasting coffee, the fabulous pastries, or the delicious fish and steaks.
Lisbon is divided into several districts, each with its own rich history. Baixa is filled with cafes and shops, and it is the hub of daytime activity. Alfama is the oldest, traditional district rich in art and pottery, with the St. George castles overlooking its winding streets. Chiado and Cais do Sodre offer elegant shopping. Bairro Alto has some of the best restaurants and night clubs, as well as the cities’ funicular railways, called elevadores. Belem, a historic district along the river, is where the old maritime explorers set sail, and holds the Torre de Belem, Lisbon’s most recognizable landmark. You can get around easily in Lisbon through public transit which includes buses, trains, and the subway.
Castle
chapel
When you take in enough of the city life, you can take the train out to the beautiful coast. Make sure you stop in Estoril, where the largest casino in Europe resides, and in Cascais, with its beautiful beaches and many restaurants. And last but not least, the town of Sintra, home of the historic castles and mansions of the once rich and famous.
Shrine
This was all we could accomplish in a week’s time, but it is a place I highly recommend to anyone planning to get away to a beautiful, friendly and relatively inexpensive city in Europe.
Shabnam Hashemi
Posted at 08:21 PM | The Arts | Comments (5)
1937, Leningrad, . . .
1937, Leningrad, Before the Snow
She looks like Rita Hayworth,
Eyes wide open, the colour of Swiss lakes.
Caught, with a wrinkled collar, her blond hair escaping its bun,
She inclines toward her calm yet dispossessed husband,
Half of her arriving, half of her fleeing,
She feels what is days away.
Her face frozen in the moment,
This is the one image that survives.
“Lenochka, let us make a photograph.” He knows too.
He pulls her into the studio and assumes
The stylized pose of redundant gentry.
He leans protectively toward his wife.
1937, Leningrad, before the snows come, this day an outing,
Fur coats, felt boots: “Let me buy you silk under-things, stockings,
Perhaps a little something for Nanny.”
“You old fool,” she says. “We have no money.”
They stare at the black draped box and
The instant approaches that will haunt forever.
The Rita Hayworth eyes flinch as the light and the lens point.
So close. So precise. On target. Her lips are parted.
“We have to go. We have to leave now.” She smells gunpowder.
There is a reflection in those open grey eyes, not of flashbulb,
But of men and big black cars in the dark of night,
The calm of her husband, the stillness of death.
He lies on a dirt floor, one of millions who no longer look ahead.
But she will never hear of this, even though she feels something.
She must look into the camera and not him. If they look into each other,
They will recognize terror, and it will thwart their last outing.
Hands held tight and silk stockings purchased,
He smooths the unruliness of her collar. She straightens his tie.
For Yevgenia Fredrichovna Kaminowa
Nadezhda Petrovic
Posted at 12:30 PM | The Arts | Comments (6)
A Red Sox Story
DATELINE: RedSox Nation, September 28, 2005
by Jen Bakios
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
A Night in the Life of the Littlest Red Sox Fan: A Heartwarming Tale of Childhood Generosity
Big Papi at bat
One morning several weeks ago, my six year old daughter and I were listening to the radio while driving. A Boston radio station was soliciting donations for the American Red Cross for the Hurricane Katrina victims in return for song requests and my daughter asked if she could call so that they would play her favorite song. I explained what they were trying to do, that you needed to donate money, and she asked if she could give her $2 weekly allowance. I dialed the cell phone for her and handed it over, thinking she wouldn't get through and that was the going to be the end of it. When I heard her trying to spell her name and address, I knew this was going to be trouble.
After many repeated, loud attempts to tell the poor woman her address, my daughter finally asked her if she thought her mom could help and handed the phone over to me. Laughing, I explained what she had wanted to do, gave her our information and, when I found out a credit card was required decided to contribute a bit more than the $2. We reached our destination and, although she never heard her song, she felt good about donating her allowance to charity.
That evening, as we were driving home, my cell phone rang. It was the DJ from the radio station, telling me that he had heard my daughter wanted to donate her allowance. I went through the whole story on-air for him and he thanked us and played her song. She was absolutely thrilled and called everyone we knew to tell them she was famous. We thought it ended there...
My cell phone rang at 7:00 am the next morning. It was the DJ from the radio station again, telling me that we were finalists for Red Sox tickets. Red Sox tickets??? I figured it must have been a mistake. Apparently, and somehow we missed this, they chose people who had participated in the radio-a-thon at random to receive Red Sox tickets. The phone rang fifteen minutes later, confirming that we did, indeed, win the tickets. I hadn't told my daughter about the possibility, but when the delay caught up to the radio in the kitchen and she, who was eating breakfast before her first day of school, heard what had happened she became hysterical until all you could hear on the air was high-pitched, girly squeals, my laughing, a dog barking, and the beeping of the bark collar. Have I told you that she is a bigger Red Sox fan than I?
Fast forward to September 27: My daughter's first game at Fenway. Before even entering the park, she could barely contain her excitement. When we entered the gate and showed the ushers our tickets, we kept repeatedly being told "Go down", "Go down." When we finally entered our section, just above the Red Sox dugout, we were in absolute awe to find out our seats were two rows behind the team.
The team applauds as Johnny Pesky is introduced on his 84th
birthday
Although the Sox lost, in a painful disintegration of their pitching, the game was fantastic. She cheered her little heart out until she lost her voice and was rewarded by a wave from Trot Nixon, David Ortiz, Terry Francona, and Theo Epstein. Kevin Millar threw her a ball
Kevin Millar and Edgar Renteria warm up
and Manny, being Manny, aimed a trademark double-fingered point in her direction. Even her hero, Johnny Damon, known for not paying attention to the fans during games couldn't help but smile at her as she cheered for his every move (including standing in the outfield!). As I tucked her in bed late, late last night,clutching a laminated photo of Johnny Damon and a game ball, cracker jack crumbs stuck to her cheek, waiting for the tooth fairy, she said, "This is the best day of my life." That's pretty hard to disagree with.
Posted at 04:11 PM | The Arts | Comments (2)
Poems Before Rita
Fire and Ice
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
Robert Frost
- -
- -
The Book of Wisdom
I met a seer.
He held a book in his hands,
The book of wisdom.
“Sir,” I asked him,
“Let me read.”
“Child--” he began.
“Sir,” I said,
“Think not of me as a child,
For already I know much
Of that which you hold;
Aye, much.”
He smiled.
Then he opened the book
And held it before me.
Strange that I should have grown
So suddenly blind.
Stephan Crane
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--
An Elegy Is Preparing Itself
There are pines that are tall enough
Already in the distance,
The whining of saws; and needles,
Silently slipping through the chosen cloth.
The stone, then as now, unfelt,
Perfectly weightless. And certain words,
That will come together to mourn,
Waiting, in their dark clothes, apart.
Donald Justice
Posted at 12:01 AM | The Arts | Comments (0)
Bullets Fly on Pleasant
Police to Add Uniforms to Street!
For the second time in two days a shooter fired gun shots on Pleasant Street. A window in an apartment in the Mt. Hope Court Apartments was shattered. A woman with 4 children, aged 15, 12, 4, & 2, who lives in the government subsidized apartment, said it was the second time a bullet had been fired into her apartment window.
No witnesses were reported. Does this mean that someone in Mt. Hope has a gun and is shooting it at people’s homes? Could it be that this person lives on or around Pleasant Street?
While speaking in person to a policeman on Sunday, in the early afternoon, Irene told me that she and the officer were interrupted by the officer receiving a call about shots fired on Pleasant Street. He responded urgently.
PPD’s Major Campbell was quoted as saying that additional police officers would be added to Pleasant Street . . .to deter any further violence.
Read complete ProJo article below.
Second bullet hits apartment; officers added to neighborhood
01:00 AM EDT on Wednesday, September 21, 2005
BY GREGORY SMITH and KAREN A. DAVIS
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- A bullet flew through a window in a Mount Hope apartment complex Monday night, and a mother says she is afraid for herself and her children.
Lisa Goddard, of the Mount Hope Court Apartments, 79 Pleasant St., said it was the second time that a bullet shattered a window in her apartment.
Both bullets probably were strays fired by troublemakers, she said yesterday.
Maj. Stephen Campbell, chief of the Police Department Investigative Division, said detectives are investigating the second incident, which occurred about 9:30 p.m. Monday. They will try to determine why the shot was fired and whether it was aimed at the building, he said.
"We are going to be placing additional officers on Pleasant Street, uniformed officers, an increased presence . . . to deter any further violence," he said.
Goddard said the bullet fired Monday broke a window, passed through a room where her two toddlers were sleeping, penetrated a wall and entered a second room. The bullet from the first shooting remains lodged in the wall where it struck.
The company that manages the complex covered the broken window with a plexiglass-like material, according to Goddard, but the company said it could not make a permanent repair for three weeks.
It is the only window in her children's bedroom, and the temporary cover will prevent air circulation, she complained.
Goddard, the mother of four children -- ages 15, 12, 4 and 2 -- has lived in the government-subsidized apartment for about 12 years. She said she would like to move but cannot afford to.
Posted at 12:00 PM | The Arts | Comments (0)
From The Cure at Troy
Human beings suffer,
They torture one another,
They get hurt and get hard.
No poem or play or song
Can fully right a wrong
Inflicted and endured.
The innocent in gaols
Beat on their bars together.
A hunger-striker's father
Stands in the graveyard dumb.
The police widow in veils
Faints at the funeral home.
History says, don't hope
On this side of the grave.
But then, once in a lifetime
The longed-for tidal wave
Of justice can rise up,
And hope and history rhyme.
So hope for a great sea-change
On the far side of revenge.
Believe that further shore
Is reachable from here.
Believe in miracle
And cures and healing wells.
Call miracle self-healing:
The utter, self-revealing
Double-take of feeling.
If there's fire on the mountain
Or lightning and storm
And a god speaks from the sky
That means someone is hearing
The outcry and the birth-cry
Of new life at its term.
Seamus Heaney
From, The Cure at Troy
Posted at 12:01 AM | The Arts | Comments (0)
A Refusal to Mourn . . .
A Refusal to Mourn the Death, by Fire, of a Child in London
Never until the mankind making
Bird beast and flower
Fathering and all humbling darkness
Tells with silence the last light breaking
And the still hour
Is come of the sea tumbling in harness
And I must enter again the round
Zion of the water bead
And the synagogue of the ear of corn
Shall I let pray the shadow of a sound
Or sow my salt seed
In the least valley of sackcloth to mourn
The majesty and burning of the child's death.
I shall not murder
The mankind of her going with a grave truth
Nor blaspheme down the stations of the breath
With any further
Elegy of innocence and youth.
Deep with the first dead lies London's daughter,
Robed in the long friends,
The grains beyond age, the dark veins of her mother,
Secret by the unmourning water
Of the riding Thames.
After the first death, there is no other.
Dylan Thomas
Posted at 11:39 PM | The Arts | Comments (0)
The last Week in August's Poems
Happiness
So early it's still almost dark out.
I'm near the window with coffee,
and the usual early morning stuff
that passes for thought.
When I see the boy and his friend
walking up the road
to deliver the newspaper.
They wear caps and sweaters,
and one boy has a bag over his shoulder.
They are so happy
they aren't saying anything, these boys.
I think if they could, they would take
each other's arm.
It's early in the morning,
and they are doing this thing together.
They come on, slowly.
The sky is taking on light,
though the moon still hangs pale over the water.
Such beauty that for a minute
death and ambition, even love,
doesn't enter into this.
Happiness. It comes on
unexpectedly. And goes beyond, really,
any early morning talk about it.
Raymond Carver
- -
- -
I Stop Writing the Poem
to fold the clothes. No matter who lives
or who dies, I'm still a woman.
I'll always have plenty to do.
I bring the arms of his shirt
together. Nothing can stop
our tenderness. I'll get back
to the poem. I'll get back to being
a woman. But for now
there's a shirt, a giant shirt
in my hands, and somewhere a small girl
standing next to her mother
watching to see how it's done.
Tess Gallagher
- -
- -
Raymond Carver and Tess Gallagher married, after living and working together for ten years, in June, 1988, just months before Raymond Carver died of cancer, that August, at the age of fifty. Theirs was a great love story.
Considered one of the greatest short story writers of all time, some refer to Raymond Carver as the American Chekhov. Anton Chekhov, a Russian doctor and writer, originated the modern short story in the 1880s. Raymond Carver mastered the form and after a hard drinking, hard scrabble existence, won wide recognition late in his writing life. Not widely known as a poet during his lifetime, his poems seem to have a long half-life and are beginning to be considered equal to the great, evocative fiction he wrote.
Tess Gallagher, who studied under renowned poet Theodore Roethke, earned critical acclaim for her poetry before meeting Raymond Carver, and she continues to write poetry and now, fiction. She designed and built a famous house in Washington state, where she lives and works, known as "Sky House".
Posted at 12:01 AM | The Arts | Comments (0)
Art Exhibit
Not for the literally minded
For those Drinking Bitter Brew
Original Digitally Altered Photographs
A Bitter Second Draught
Posted at 12:02 AM | The Arts | Comments (0)
Poems for this Week
Hook
I was only a young man
In those days. On that evening
The cold was so God damned
Bitter there was nothing.
Nothing. I was in trouble
With a woman, and there was nothing
There but me and dead snow.
I stood on the street corner
In Minneapolis, lashed
This way and that.
Wind rose from some pit,
Hunting me.
Another bus to Saint Paul
Would arrive in three hours,
If I was lucky.
Then the young Sioux
Loomed beside me, his scars
Were just my age.
Ain't got no bus here
A long time, he said.
You got enough money
To get home on?
What did they do
To your hand? I answered.
He raised up his hook into the terrible starlight
And slashed the wind.
Oh, that? he said.
I had a bad time with a woman. Here,
You take this.
Did you ever feel a man hold
Sixty-five cents
In a hook,
And place it
Gently
In your freezing hand?
I took it.
It wasn't the money I needed.
But I took it.
James Wright
-
-
III
In the desert
I saw a creature, naked, bestial,
Who, squatting upon the ground,
Held his heart in his hands,
And ate of it.
I said, "Is it good, friend?"
"It is bitter - bitter," he answered;
"But I like it
Because it is bitter,
And because it is my heart."
Stephan Crane
Posted at 12:01 AM | The Arts | Comments (0)
Poem of the Week
Tears of Rage
We carried you in our arms
On independence day,
And now you throw us all aside
And put us on our way.
Oh, what dear daughter, beneath the sun,
Could treat a father so,
To wait upon him hand and foot,
And always tell him no.
Tears of rage,
Tears of grief,
Why am I always the one
Who must
Be the thief?
Come to me now,
You know
We're so alone:
And life is brief.
It was all so very painless
When you went out to receive
All that false instruction,
Which we never could believe.
And now the heart is filled with gold,
As if it were a purse,
But, oh, what kind of love is this,
That goes from bad to worse.
Tears of rage,
Tears of grief,
Why am I always the one
Who must
Be the thief?
Come to me now,
You know
We're so alone:
And life is brief.
We pointed out the way to go
And scratched your name in sand,
Though you just thought that it was nothing more
Than a place for you to stand.
And I want you to know that while we waited
For you to discover that no one could be true,
That I, myself, was among the ones
Who thought it was just a childish thing to do.
Tears of rage,
Tears of grief,
Why am I always the one
Who must
Be the thief?
Come to me now,
You know
We're so alone:
And life is brief.
Bob Dylan & Richard Manuel
Posted at 11:45 PM | The Arts | Comments (0)
In Memoriam -- Two Classics
Because it was this week in 1945, that we committed two of the most horrific acts of war in history, this weeks poetry selections deal with war and with loss.
We feature the poems, Naming of Parts, by Henry Reed and One Art, by Elizabeth Bishop.
NAMING OF PARTS
To-day we have naming of parts. Yesterday,
We had daily cleaning. And to-morrow morning,
We shall have what to do after firing. But to-day,
To-day we have naming of parts. Japonica
Glistens like coral in all of the neighboring gardens,
And to-day we have naming of parts.
This is the lower sling swivel. And this
Is the upper sling swivel, whose use you will see,
When you are given your slings. And this is the piling swivel,
Which in your case you have not got. The branches
Hold in the gardens their silent, eloquent gestures,
Which in our case we have not got.
This is the safety-catch, which is always released
With an easy flick of the thumb. And please do not let me
See anyone using his finger. You can do it quite easy
If you have any strength in your thumb. The blossoms
Are fragile and motionless, never letting anyone see
Any of them using their finger.
And this you can see is the bolt. The purpose of this
Is to open the breech, as you see. We can slide it
Rapidly backwards and forwards: we call this
Easing the spring. And rapidly backwards and forwards
The early bees are assaulting and fumbling the flowers
They call it easing the Spring.
They call it easing the Spring: it is perfectly easy
If you have any strength in your thumb: like the bolt,
And the breech, and the cocking-piece, and the point of balance,
Which in our case we have not got; and the almond-blossom
Silent in all of the gardens and the bees going backwards and forwards,
For to-day we have naming of parts.
Henry Reed
Henry Reed’s poem, Naming of Parts, is the most anthologized poem of WWII. Henry, of Birmingham, England, was born in 1914, son of a master bricklayer, who was a renowned drinker and womanizer and whose other son, an illegitimate son, died in the war. Family legend had it that the Reeds were descended from the bastard son of an 18th century Earl of Dudley.
Henry Reed attended many schools as a young man and was once anointed as a mathematical genius, but he also had his first sexual, homosexual, experience when he was nineteen, and later had a tortuous affair with a boy who developed paranoia. He was asked to leave home. Henry was drafted into the army in 1941 and served in an ordinance company.
In his poem, Naming of Parts, he juxtaposes a garden landscape with the military training he is receiving, altering language and rhythm, and using irony and satire and double meanings to convey the point of the poem.
Read it again and again.
- -
- -
One Art
The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.
Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.
Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.
I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.
I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.
--Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.
Elizabeth Bishop
Born in 1911, a native of Worcester, Massachusetts, her father died when she was eight months old, and her mother ended up institutionalized. She was raised by grandparents in Nova Scotia for a time then back in Worcester by her father’s wealthy parents, then with her aunt, her fourth home by age eight, which provided her with a measure of love and stability.
She attended Vasser College and took the poet Marianne Moore as her mentor. She had dalliances with men but had not yet realized that she was a lesbian.
Ms. Bishop traveled widely and lived for a time in Brazil with the love of her life, Lota Soares. She continued to write late into her life with no decline in the quality of her work. She wrote One Art in 1976, at the age of 75.
Ms. Bishop wrote One Art as a villanelle, a French form from the 15th century. Five of the six stanzas consist of three lines and the last, four lines. The end words of the first and third lines rhyme throughout the first five stanzas and the end words of the second lines of each stanza rhyme throughout the first five stanzas. However, the first line and last line of the first stanza take turns repeating as the final line of the next four stanzas, and then they are joined as the last two lines of the poem.
Ms. Bishop’s poem needs no explication: it speaks for itself.
John Twomey
Posted at 09:41 PM | The Arts | Comments (0)
Two Poems of Louise
Weekly Poetry Feature
Today we begin a new feature called the weekly Poetry Feature. If you wish to suggest poems for the new weekly poetry feature, type them up and send them in to John .
This week we feature two poems by Louise Gluck, who served as the country’s Poet Laureate for the year 2004. Louise won the Pulitzer prize in 1992, for her book Wild Irises. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
The New Life
I slept the sleep of the just
later the sleep of the unborn
who come into the world
guilty of many crimes.
And what these crimes are
nobody knows at the beginning.
Only after many years does one know.
Only after long life is one prepared
to read the equation.
I begin now to perceive
the nature of my soul, the soul
I inhabit as punishment.
Inflexible, even in hunger.
I have been in my other lives
too hasty, too eager,
my haste a source of pain in the world.
Swaggering as a tyrant swaggers;
for all my amorousness,
cold at heart, in the manner of the superficial.
I slept the sleep of the just;
I lived the life of a criminal
slowly repaying an impossible debt.
And I died having answered for
one species of ruthlessness.
- -
- -
Fromaggio
The world
was whole because
it shattered. When it shattered
then we knew what it was.
It never healed itself.
But in the deep fissures, smaller worlds appeared:
it was a good thing that human beings made them;
human beings know what they need,
better than any god.
On Huron Avenue they became
a block of stores; they became
Fishmonger, Formaggio. Whatever
they were or sold, they were
alike in their function: they were
visions of safety. Like
a resting place. The sales people
were like parents; they appeared
to live there. On the whole,
kinder than parents.
Tributaries
feeding into a large river: I had
many lives. In the provisional world,
I stood where the fruit was,
flats of cherries, clementines,
under Hallie’s flowers.
I had many lives. Feeding
Into a river, the river
feeding into a great ocean. If the self
becomes invisible has it disappeared?
I thrived. I lived
not completely alone, alone
but not completely, strangers
surging around me.
That’s what the sea is:
We exist in secret.
I had lives before this, stems
of a spray of flowers: they became
one thing, held by a ribbon at the center, a ribbon
visible under the hand. Above the hand,
the branching future, stems
ending in flowers. And the gripped fist―
that would be the self in the present.
From Vita Nova, Louise Gluck: The Ecco Press
Posted at 11:25 AM | The Arts | Comments (0)
Book Review.....by Shabnam Hashemi
"Secret Life of Bees" by Sue Monk Kidd
This is a book about a girl named Sara, in search of the legacy of her mother who was killed in a tragic accident when Sara was four. She lives with an emotionally detached father, and feels totally unloved. She finds her way to a place, where she was sure her mother had been, and it is there where she finds love and connection. The place where she ends up is owned by three sisters who are beekeepers. The book masterfully makes inferences to the lives of people from the way the bees live. The beehive operates on an extremely disciplined and organized system, with every bee having a purpose, and yet contributing to a greater scheme.
As I was reading the book, it occurred to me that we can follow their leads in our own communities, and oh what a bliss that would be. In a way, I think we are on the right path in our little community with our neighborhood organization, and we just need to persevere!! I, for one, am glad to be a part of it.
Shabnam Hashemi
Posted at 11:37 AM | The Arts | Comments (2)
Irene's Lilies Bloom!
The Mt. Hope Good News Feature of the Week
Lily #1
The lilies bloomed this morning. Name that color.
Lily # 2
You can't argue with good news of that nature!
Posted at 04:03 PM | The Arts | Comments (0)
Miami, Florida to Lewiston, Maine, with Muhammad Ali
Forty years ago, May 25th, Muhammad Ali knocked out Sonny Liston for the second time, in of all places, Lewiston, Maine, to cement his self-proclaimed status as "The Greatest".
Today's Boston Globe featured a piece written by Bud Collins, one of my favorite journalists. Throughout his exceptional, long, and illustrious career, Bud has been primarily a sports writer, finally becomming the pre-emminent sports writer on tennis in the English language. But Bud is a writer's writer and is also widely known as a travel writer and a memorist: his celebrity eclipses some of the stars of whom he has written.
In the Globe piece, Busload of memories from Ali-Liston II, By Bud Collins, Globe Correspondent, May 29, 2005, Collins recounts the trip he took from Miami, where Ali lived in a cinder block house, to Chicopee, Ma. for fight training, and on to the unlikely town of Lewiston, Maine for the big, championship fight. Ali, always an eccentric, even at 23, wouldn't fly and insisted he drive the bus to Maine, but not on the highways, only along the back roads, stopping in all the little towns along the way to sign autoraphs for his fans. Of course his whole crew proved to be as eccentric as Ali. It was some trip, and it is a good read, full of the history of the times, from one hell of a virtuosic raconteur.
The Liston - Ali fight in Lewiston produced one of the most famous boxing photos of all time. Ali standing over and taunting, a knocked out flat, Liston, to get up and fight.
Get up and fight you Big Ugly Bear!
Posted at 06:45 PM | The Arts | Comments (1)
Traveling Art Show
Graffiti on Sidetracked Boxcars & Railcars along Route 95
Did you ever notice the railcars parked on the sidetracks, lit by the morning sun, as you drive along Rt. 95 between Branch Avenue and Mineral Springs Avenue?
Graffiti Train
I did. And I finally found a free hour this long Memorial Day weekend to find a way over there with my camera and document some of this traveling art show.
BGA # 29
Since the very first graffiti artist pulled a burnt stick out of a stone-age fire and drew the charcoaled end across a cave wall graffiti has been part of our artistic culture. It was there during the high culture of the Greeks and the Romans, and it is of course still with us today.
BGA # 64
BGA # 51
I like to look at and examine the details of the graffiti as much as I like to consider the entire composition.
BGA # 27
I find many fascinating elements in the details that remind me of certain characteristics of modern art since 1900 as developed by artists from Braque and Picasso, through Pollack and Rothko, and on through Rauschenberg, Johns, and DeKooning.
BGA # 49
BGA # 19
But regardless of any art historical connotations, the pictures are simply fun to look at. Enjoy the Traveling Art Show.
BGA # 9
BGA # 17
BGA # 23
BGA # 56
BGA # 58
BGA # 99
BGA # 16
BGA # 50
John Twomey
Posted at 08:46 PM | The Arts | Comments (0)
COMMUNITY ARTS
We’re not just about Problems & Politics.
Politics and Problems -- We’re not just that!
We want this website to present the entire range of activities taking place in our wonderful Mt. Hope community, from our children, our gardening, loving our pets, renovating our homes, our work, our play, our hobbies, our artistic expressions.
Someone has to be first, so I guess I’ll be the first brave soul to post a work of art to the Community Arts page. It is a slight piece, my contribution to the post-modernist ethos. I call it, Firemen Working on Knowles Street: Altered Image with Poem.
You may view it at Community Arts.
You can provide me with criticism and comments below.
The Mt. Hope Community Website wants your contributions. Don’t be shy.
We want to know about your home, your kids, your pets, and about what's important to you, and what you may have to share with the Mt. Hope community. You may share all that on these web pages. Let us know what you want; this is your website.
I think we can have a great resource here in this website, but in the long run, we must use it or lose it. I'm all for using it to the full extent of it's capabilities.
Posted by John Towmey
Posted at 01:47 PM | The Arts | Comments (0)
