Patrick Kanouse's Blog, page 54

Poem at Astropoetica

Astropoetica , one of my favorite journals, has just published my poem, "Cosmologies." Go check it out.

And while your there, make sure to check out the other poems, especially Jared Carter's "As Others See Us."

The NOOK Book, Second Edition: Pre-Order

The second edition of my book is now available for pre-order!

Make the Most of Your New Barnes and Noble NOOK Color or NOOK ebook Reader!
Read books, play media, get free content, uncover powerful, little-known features you'll love!
Do all this, and much more...Learn about the NOOK Study capabilitiesRoot your NOOK Color to add third-party apps from the Android MarketFind and read free books on your NOOK Color or NOOKUse Barnes and Noble's unique LendMe feature to lend and borrow booksPlay music, audiobooks, podcasts, even videoAutomatically download full-color book coversUse your NOOK Color to browse the webAdd highlights, notes, and bookmarks Read Barnes and Noble ebooks on your iPhone, iPad, computer, Android phone, or BlackberrySet up your own color wallpaper or screensaverPublish your own ebooks with Barnes and Noble PubItDownload and use Barnes and Noble NOOK AppsLearn how to use NOOK Friends to recommend books and give updatesRead enhanced ebooks with video and audioRead Barnes and Noble children's books with interactive activities Buy it from Barnes and Noble here.
Buy it from Amazon here.

Shakespeare Insult: #7

Here is the next Shakespearean insult in a series:

"Thou crusty botch of nature"

Can you name the play, act, scene, and speaker?
NOTE: Sometimes the quote is "Thou crusty batch of nature"

Poetry as Witness?

I encountered this Letter to the Editor by Michael Hudson at the Poetry Foundation (the publishers of Poetry ) website. I read Carolyn Forché's article and concur with Hudson's assessment of that article. Hudson quote's an Allen Tate speech that rings very true, and I re-quote it here:

I confess that the political responsibility of poets bores me; I am discussing it because it irritates me more than it bores me. It irritates me because the poet has a great responsibility of his own: it is the responsibility to be a poet, to write poems, and not to gad about using the rumor of his verse, as I am now doing, as the excuse to appear on platforms and to view with alarm. I have a deep, unbecoming suspicion of such talking poets: whatever other desirable things they may believe in, they do not believe in poetry. They believe that poets should write tracts, or perhaps autobiographies; encourage the public, further this cause or that, good or bad, depending upon whose political ox is being gored.

Certainly poetry can act as a witness to evil and injustice, but that witness should arise from the poet's context and not be a forced act. I agree with Tate, a poet's responsibility is to write poems, and the poet's context, interests, and talents and skills will determine the context.

Craftsy!: Shameless Plug for My Wife

Gina, my wife, has recently added a new page to her expanding knitting and crochet business at Craftsy! If you are interested, you can see a list of her fabulous projects there.




You can also visit her Etsy store here.



Gina's Sleep Sack pattern with our niece: Ella.

10 Years

On this day in 2001, I married this spectacular woman! I could get overly cheesy and sappy about this, and it wouldn't be hard, believe me. I could state the standard fair that she's my best friend, that every day I love her more, that she's taught me so much, that I would do it all over again without a nanosecond of hesitation, but what is I want to say is how much she inspires me.

And I do not use that word, "inspire," lightly. I mean it in the common sense that she inspires me to better myself, to be a better person, and all that, but I also mean it in the poetic sense, which, for readers of my blog, will realize just how much value on I place on that conception. But what do I mean in this case? It's quite simple really.

Every writer, every artist needs inspiration of some sort, some fragment of internalness that exists outside of pure skill. Inspiration allows the skills to cross the divide and connect with others. In some sense, whether overtly or not, every poem I have written after meeting her has seen her been the inspiration. I may write with her explicitly, but many covert ways exist too, but I won't delve into them here. One: a magician never reveals the mechanics. Two: It's something for us to share.

Happy Anniversary, My Love!

The Poetics of Space

I have begun reading Gaston Bachelard's The Poetics of Space, mentioned by my good friend Chuck some months ago.

Already, I've found some quite interesting quotes...just from the Introduction:

If there be a philosophy of poetry, it must appear and re-appear through a significant verse, in total adherence to an isolated image.

The poetic image is a sudden salience on the surface of the psyche.

The reader of poems is asked to consider an image not as an object and even less as the substitute for an object, but to seize its specific reality.

Bachelard quoting Pierre-Jean Jouve: "Poetry is a soul inaugurating form."

The poem possesses us entirely.

The image offered us by reading the poem now becomes really our own. It takes root in us. It has been given us by another, but we begin to have the impression that we could have created it, that we should have created it. It becomes a new being in our language, expressing us by making us what it expresses; in other words, it is at once a becoming of expression, and a becoming of our being. Here expression creates being.

That Quote Is From.... #6

That Shakespearen insult "Not so much brain as earwax"is from Troilus and Cressida, Act V, Scene 1. Here's the larger context:

 ACHILLES.  My sweet Patroclus, I am thwarted quiteFrom my great purpose in to-morrow's battle.Here is a letter from Queen Hecuba,A token from her daughter, my fair love

Shakespeare Insult: #6

Here is the second Shakespearean insult in a series:

     "Not so much brain as earwax"

Can you name the play, act, scene, and speaker?

Just wanted to share the wonderful gift my wife, Gina, su...

Just wanted to share the wonderful gift my wife, Gina, surprised me with last weekend. She secretly got a copy of The NOOK Book cover and had it beautifully framed.



Shown here hanging on my office wall.