Daniel A. Rabuzzi's Blog, page 21

"The Very Narrowest Alphabets"

Canary has been ruminating over this line, from Liesel Tarquini's translation of Silke Scheuermann's poem "The Sadomasochistic Grammar of Dreams":

"Lost to language we conjugate the very narrowest alphabets."

(Published in Lit, the journal of the New School MFA in Creative Writing Program, numbers 15 & 16, winter/spring 2009, pg. 93).

An alphabet of brute sensation, thus no alphabet at all...a (non)language of rage, hurt, and hunger...a separation of ourselves from thought...

Scheuermann's origin...

Sunday Morning Coffee: "Cosmic Strut," Poetry, Translation

[Mahavishnu Orchestra, "Cosmic Strut," from Visions of the Emerald Beyond, 1975:].

Canary sips thoughtfully at a cafe con leche...while lobster wishes grumpily for aquatic doughnuts...

"Cheer up, lobster! It's still National Poetry Month!"

As Dryden wrote in the introduction to Absalom and Achitophel:

"Yet if a poem have a genius, it will force its own reception in the world; for there's a sweetness in good verse, which tickles even while it hurts..."

How about this, "Cadmus Reminisces" by Sandra...

Raden Saleh, Milton, and a Tiger Couchant

[Raden Sarief Bustaman Saleh, "Javanese Landscape, with Tigers Listening to the Sound of a Traveling Group," 1849; being auctioned at Christie's in Hong Kong next month, after being in private hands since it was painted:].

Keeping in mind that it is National Poetry Month here in the U.S.A., the lugubrious lobster selects a passage from Milton (from Book IV of Paradise Lost):

"So spake the Fiend, and with necessitie,
The Tyrants plea, excus'd his devilish deeds.
Then from his loftie stand on that h...

Sunday Morning Coffee: "Tightrope," and a Flood of Poetry

[Janelle Monae, "Tightrope," featuring Big Boi, 2009: "The Palace of the Dogs Asylum-- Dancing has long been forbidden for its subversive effects on the residents and its tendency to lead to illegal magical practices."]

Fogged in this morning...a lone Robin singing down below, calling out perhaps for a mate who cannot find him in the greyness...

Listening to the stylish, interstitial Janelle Morae. (Thanks to N.K. Jemisin's Facebook reference!) Her musical mini-dramas feel like Calvino or Cort...

National Poetry Month

[John Keats, played by Ben Wishaw, and Fanny Brawne, played by Abbie Cornish, in Jane Campion's 2009 film, Bright Star:]



[Natasha Trethewey on history, place, reading and making, interview at the University of Oklahoma, 2009:].



[W.S. Merwin on country life and meeting his wife:]



[Louise Gluck, on the importance of a single line, interviewed at Smith College, 2004:]



[Rita Dove on the importance of music to her work; at the inaugural Poets Forum, convened by the Academy of American Poets, and held at M...

Fiction and Evolutionary Psychology

"It's not that evolution gives us insight into fiction," [Professor of English at Brandeis University, William:] Flesch said, "but that fiction gives us insight into evolution."

--In "Next Big Thing in English: Knowing They Know That You Know," by Patricia Cohen, in The New York Times, March 31, 2010.

The second-most e-mailed NYT article today.

Key words: literary Darwinism, "mapping wonderland," cognitive psychologists, memory, visual cortex, levels of intentionality, mechanics of reading, "alt...

Sunday Morning Coffee: "Harlequin," Lunacon, and Middle-Earth More Real Than the New Yorker

[Dave Grusin, Lee Ritenour, Ivan Lins, "Harlequin," 1985:]


[Margaret Organ-Kean, "Masque," no date, c. 2008:]


[Matthew Stewart, "Dernhelm," 2009:]


[K.M. Kotulak, "Hiberno-Curio," 2009:]


[Christy Grandjean, a.k.a, Goldenwolf, "Spirit Hunter," 2007:]


[Donato Giancola, "Out of the Frying Pan, Into the Fire," 2009:]

Coffee is ready! We're listening to "Harlequin" this morning, recalling the show by vocalist Ivan Lins at the Blue Note in the Village a few years ago.

The lobster and the canary participated las...

Recommended Reading: First Quarter, 2010

Lobster murmurs and canary whistles... time to blog again...

Recommended books read this first quarter of 2010:

We highly recommend N.K. Jemisin's debut, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms (Orbit, released February, 2010). Jemisin has created a distinctive world, with idiosyncratic characters, vaguely Peakean in flavor, but entirely her own. We especially enjoy her dry wit, precise prose, and intricate plotting. Above all, we like her portrayals of the gods who have been enslaved: they are both mo...

Sharon Dolin: Composing for the eye

The lobster and canary are especially delighted to offer today's post: an interview with widely acclaimed poet Sharon Dolin. Sharon has published four books and five chapbooks of poetry; she has taught or teaches at the New School University, The Cooper Union, New York University, and the Unterberg Center at the 92nd Street Y in NYC.

Click here for her website.

Lobster & Canary: You frequently give readings. How does reading your work aloud for an audience influence (or not) how you...

Supper's Ready

[Chaim Soutine, Still Life with Fish, c. 1921:]


[Paul Cezanne, Ginger Jar and Fruit, 1895:]


[Pierre Bonnard, The Dining Room, c. 1940-1946:]Daniel A. Rabuzzi is author of the fantasy novel "The Choir Boats," available from ChiZine Publications in September 2009."The Choir Boats" explores issues of race, gender, sin, and salvation, and includes a mysterious letter, knuckledogs, carkodrillos, smilax root, goat stew, and one very fierce golden cat. (www.danielarabuzzi.com). Daniel blogs at Lobster & ...