Michael Poage's Blog, page 2
October 1, 2017
STRANGE, OR MAYBE IT’S JUST FICTION!
STRANGE, OR MAYBE IT’S JUST FICTION! #1
01/10/2017
Welcome to the first installment of my blog (where did that word come from??) from Bosnia and Herzegovina. My name is Garth Strange. I came here with two friends of mine, a husband (the poet) and wife (the academic and Fulbright teaching fellow, her third!). I was able to afford to make the trip on my own and I have been here several times since 2000 and I wanted to return – for various reasons, none of them involving the would-be interesting secret lover scenario! I too am a writer, mostly poetry, so this “blog thing” is very new to me. I have been appointed Poet-in-Residence at Dzemal Bijedic University here in Mostar. I am very excited and happy to be back in BiH (Bosnia and Herzegovina) since my last visit was in 2010 and much has changed (and much has stayed the same, I am told) so I am anxious to find out on my own and report back to you (who are you?) if you are interested.
Perhaps I should explain my name as there might be a couple of questions about it. My first name was given to me by a much older sister since, again as I am told, my parents whom I never knew, more on that later, could not decide – the word is their alcoholism got in the way, for some reason (!). This older sister loved the name Garth – long before the singer, Garth Brooks, was on the scene. The family story tells me that my sister, obviously I don’t remember her name or I would tell you (maybe something like Thyra), had a boyfriend who had a brother who had a cousin named Garth somewhere near Beaumont, Texas. She had a crush on him and even though the crush developed into nothing, she remembered “Garth” for life. My last name was already set, Strange, as it was my parent’s name. By the way, I may be related to Luther Strange, the Alabama politician who just lost the Alabama Republican primary to replace Jeff Sessions’ Senate seat and was Trump’s man! Too bad…sad. However, I did not vote for Trump, have worked actively to resist his presidency and have been in Alabama only a few times, once in 1965 while driving my black VW 1959 bug with California plates (the summer of Watts) and being followed across the state by some ol’ Bama KKK’ers protecting their confederate rights. They didn’t seem interested in just talking over a beer and working things out!! (Attention: As you can see, I am often given to verbal wandering when writing, but it is just the way my mind works perhaps with the help of Klonopin and Cymbalta. I also claim the right to be inconsistent with my “facts” although regarding my life, the people I meet and events taking place in BiH, I will be as focused and clear as possible).
Speaking of BiH…after flying from Wichita (yes, that’s right, the largest city in Kansas, about the population of Sarajevo), through Chicago and Munich we landed about noon in Sarajevo on September 14. It was timed to be a birthday gift from the wife I am traveling with to her husband. A very perfect gift for him and, and as it turns out, for me as well. Yes, I have the same birthday as the other poet. Coincidence? We spent four days in Sarajevo, a beautiful city with incredible – in all senses of that word – new glass front buildings housing shopping malls and car dealerships like “Sarajevo Porsche.” We were sitting in a taxi and driving the street from the airport in Butmir, a neighborhood/suburb of this capital city, into downtown. What was known as “sniper alley” during the tragically brutal wars of the early 1990’s, was now a boulevard shared with the familiar tram, with new carriages, some donated by the international community and others built in BiH and thousands of cars and buses. The taxi driver turned right off of Obala Kulina bana, crossed the Skenderija most (bridge) and took us to our hotel in the Skenderija neighborhood across the Miljacka River from the city center.
Ok, my attention span has reached its end so I am going to stop writing for now. Next time I will spend a little time on our four days in Sarajevo, my good friend D. whom I met on my first trip to BiH in 2000 and the beautiful and funny young woman working at the café where I went several times for kafa Bosanski…#1 Bascarsija…if you want to know the address. I welcome feedback and creative (or non-creative, whose to judge?) responses to Garth Strange’s blog. Hvala (thank you). There’s a story there, too! www.michaelpoage.com
August 16, 2017
#notmypresident
September 12, 2016
Something has tried to kill me.....
The first book of poems I ever actually bought was the Modern Library edition of the Collected Poems of Edgar Allan Poe. During the same wild spending spree I also bought, The Interpretation of Dreams, by Freud. Within the same general time frame I went to the local (Oceanside, California) library and checked out a book entitled something like, The Gospel of Matthew, more or less. Poe won!!! I read and re-read those poems. I was somewhere along the high school journey but the lyric was something I could take into my introverted (and shy) self, enjoy, and not tell anyone else. I couldn’t tell anyone else!! I was a male, in high school, a shy distance runner, and the mystery and POWER of the lyric (song) Poe presented was a wonder. I loved running (it was technically an obsession, I suppose), can’t do it anymore because I did too much of it in my life – you can take that as a metaphor if you wish – but still love to watch runners…the flow, the magic of human movement, the legs, the arms, like bits and pieces of the lyric poem. I read Poe and found bits and pieces of my body embracing and feeling empowered. I have nothing against the epic, narrative poems, but I am thankful to Poe and the other writers over the years who have empowered my imagination and grabbed my throat with lines like: “…come celebrate/with me that everyday/something has tried to kill me/and has failed.” -- Lucille Clifton
January 2, 2016
New Book Soon
May 1, 2015
NEW BOOK
March 22, 2015
NEW BOOK
P.M. Netanyahu
to Shimon Peres: "One million Arabs are not worth a Jewish fingernail."
Last week the present Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin
Netanyahu, spoke, perhaps illegally, to the U.S. Congress. His speech
was a flagrant, derisive and insulting interference in United States
foreign policy. This past Sunday, the Israeli Foreign Minister, Mr. Avigdor
Lieberman, said: "Anyone's who's against us (Israel), there's nothing to do --
we should raise an axe and cut off his head." The comparisons to ISIL terrorism
are obvious and too easy to claim. Some of us who often oppose Israeli
policies like the occupation of the West Bank and the siege of Gaza
could also shudder in fear and righteous anger over what we could see as
a personal threat. But I am much more concerned with the violent words
of a Foreign Minister from the so-called "democracy" of Israel, supported
with billions of U.S. tax dollars, aimed at the Palestinian citizens
of the occupied territories and, especially, the 1.5 million
Palestinians who are nominal citizens of Israel, citizens with a vote, all of whom
face a frightening escalation of legal and social discrimination. It is a continuation
of the ethnic cleansing, the Nakba ("catastrophe" in Arabic) of 1948 with the
goal of starving the Palestinians in Gaza to death and annexing all of Palestine, from
the Jordan River, west to the Mediterranean Sea. And the words we hear from
the Israeli leadership are not mere rhetoric, just ask the survivors of the seven
week slaughter last summer of the Palestinians of Gaza. It is hard to negotiate
for peace with an axe coming down on your neck.
October 11, 2014
REMEMBER GAZA?
state. It is a humane and politically courageous step and I hope other European
and non-European nations follow. Palestine has been given non-member observer
status at the United Nations with the support of 130 member states. Israel and the
United States oppose recognizing Palestine's statehood in this way. Their position is not
surprising given the so-called "special ally" relationship between these two countries.
However, that relationship is finally being questioned as the U.S. calls for closer scrutiny of
how the $3 billion annual aid from the U.S. to Israel is being used. Let us not forget the
recent fifty-day long assault by Israel on Gaza killing 503 Palestinian children and hundreds of other
Gazan civilians. Unexploded 2,000 pound, U.S. made bombs, have been found in the
rubble of Gazan neighborhoods. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has strongly criticized
U.S. questioning of expanded Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem. He said on "Face
the Nation" that such U.S. response to the settlements goes against "American values."
I don't need Mr. Netanyahu telling me what my "American values" should be. However, I
do want my government, for reasons of human rights and humane values, to push for an
active investigation of possible Israeli war crimes, genocide, and infanticide. Let's not
forget Gaza.
October 1, 2014
AND SO IT GOES
Please, if you are interested, go to my site: www.michaelpoage.com and buy the book(s) through PayPal. Support poetry. Buy other books of poems by other writers. Thanks.
August 4, 2014
GAZA WAS “TREASURE,” NOW INFANTICIDE
According to the United Nations, one-third of the Gazans killed are children.
Some in the international community are beginning to admit that the Israeli
military is committing genocide and infanticide. Every day, and sometimes
hourly, Israel commits horrific violations of international and moral law. I can’t
help but believe that the heart of Israel is weeping, even breaking, as this nation,
holding itself up as a model of democracy, commits violent atrocities against the
innocent. Rabbi Henry Siegman, former Executive Director of the American
Jewish Congress, said recently, responding to a question about what Israel
could have done to avoid the carnage: ”Sure, they could have ended the
occupation.” I say, now, end the occupation of Palestinian lands, remove the
settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, end the siege of Gaza,
re-establish the 1967 borders, establish a just peace for all and hold Israel
accountable at the International Criminal Court. Just as no nation would stand
to have rockets fired at it from another nation, neither do the people of Gaza
chose to live as they are forced to live, in a prison, with every movement restricted
and every life oppressed by brutal power.
