Marly Youmans's Blog, page 102

Bright story, new year

The year past was a long and complicated journey, a tempering one--an interesting Bilbo sort of journey, where one grows older and means not to come back. And somehow I feel unready for New Year's resolutions. Perhaps I will make mine around St. Valentine's day, when it used to be said that the birds would fly back to summer homes... By that date, I start to believe that spring will come to the

In the eye of the beholder

Thanks, Alisa Alering. It's always interesting to find out what appeals to a young writer who has been digging around in one's word-hoard, and how one appears--what the strengths are, according to another mind. And I always wanted to be silver-tongued and maybe a bit strange around the edges! Nicely deckled, shall we say...

Huswifery

"My conversation make to be thy Reele..."
           --Edward Taylor

Sent my husband to the wrestling tournament in Cobleskill and spent the day in "huswifery" and the occasional shoveling of snow--four more loads of laundry and I shall put my feet up and be devil-may-care for the evening. Took a whirl by facebook and noticed people arguing that blogs are no longer the "done" thing, so what are

Higher

Here are a few Robert Duncan quotes, plucked from an Angle Mlinko article on poet Robert Duncan and good for the third day of Christmas. Capes and hats and amber necklaces...

I love the way Duncan raises his vocation to the highest levels. He aims at the stars; he aims at God.

As portrayed in Mlinko's description, Duncan the fluent and ecstatic lecturer reminds me of descriptions of Emerson the

The state of poetry, 25 years on--

I went back and reread Joseph Epstein's "Who Killed Poetry?" I wondered if it might have discouraged me from Thaliad if I had remember it better back in 2010 when I wrote the poem. I think not, as I do exactly what I want to do in the kingdom of words. (My luck: I have no merit raise to gain, no academic promotion to seek, no faux-muse to follow.) But it should have done so, no doubt, with its

Box of gratitudes no. 2: the designers

End-of-the-year thanks:


To the design team of Burt and Burt (new parents Mary-Frances Glover Burt and Jim Burt) for the immaculate design on A Death at the White Camellia Orphanage (Mercer University Press - The Ferrol Sams Award), which had such high production values that for the first time a just-published book of mine passed muster with my librarian mother (that means she thought it

Merry Christmas-to-come! Today's posts below: one on rhym...

Merry Christmas-to-come! Today's posts below: one on rhyme; one Box of Gratitudes; and one recommending weaver Susan Leveille of the famous Morgan family of North Carolina, transformers of mountain crafts and culture, and her Oaks Gallery.

Susan Morgan Leveille and Oaks Gallery

If you would like a gift certificate or gift promise here on Christmas Eve, I'm recommending Susan Morgan Leveille's Oaks Gallery in Dillsboro, North Carolina. If not, I'm suggesting the gallery and Susan as a future source of gifts.

The Morgan family is responsible for much of the revival of western North Carolina crafts in the early twentieth century. Lucy Morgan, Susan's aunt, was the founder

Box of gratitudes no. 1: art kindred

Here we are on Christmas Eve Day--a good time to say thanks. I'm starting with a few of my art kindred.

To Yolanda Sharpe (artist and singer based in Oneonta but frequently in Cooperstown), and Ashley Cooper (artist and classicist around the corner) for going on their own wondrous paths with resolution, and for being part of my everyday life in the arts.
To Clive Hicks-Jenkins, for the deep

Exactly so--

As I spent most of the afternoon singing passages of The Messiah, and most of the evening taking an accidental nap (no doubt from all that focus on notes and dynamics and so on), I failed to post on what is now yesterday. And so I leave you with a thought and tumble (deliberately this time) back into bed...

I think there does persist, however, a basic misunderstanding about rhyme and the