David Anthony Sam's Blog, page 129
May 21, 2020
Review: An Enemy of the People
An Enemy of the People by Henrik Ibsen
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
A century later, this play seems as relevant as ever. What power does a person of science and medicine have against the rich, the powerful, the mass of pubic opinion, the corrupt? Do facts and science matter? Are we willing to betray our principles for our short-term gain? To betray our health and the health of our children? Can we face an enemy we cannot see, a disease, when our imagination fails to believe it? Is the answer to the worst of democracy some aristocracy of “superior” people?
In the end, is it really true “that the strongest man [sic] in the world is he who stands most alone”?
May 19, 2020
Review: The Collected Poems of Amy Clampitt
The Collected Poems of Amy Clampitt by Amy Clampitt
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
As in any “Collected Poetry,” the totality of the poems in this collection is somewhat uneven. That said, Amy Clampitt’s work still ranks with the very best in English poetry over the last century. Her language is lush, her vocabulary rich (though sometimes verging the arcane and obscure), her poet’s eye that of a naturalist, a scientist, as well as an artist. She has been compared with Wallace Stevens, and there are echoes and influences here. The intellect joined with the body in a dance. The senses all given their due. I have savored these poems for over two years and will savor going back and rereading.
May 6, 2020
My good friend, Pat Bradley, has a new thriller out. Bitter Yellow is a great read – available on Kindle
My good friend, Pat Bradley, has a new thriller out. Bitter Yellow is a great read taking place during the 1918 Flu Pandemic and going at a fast pace that doesn’t stop until the last page. Available on Kindle HERE.
April 25, 2020
Six of my poems are included in the latest Magnolia Review
Six of my poems are included in the latest Magnolia Review available for free download HERE. The theme of the issue was ” A Day That Changed Me.”
“On the Edge of 1969” – on a day shortly after Woodstock when I realized I would never be cool“Beneath the Six-Sided Farmhouse” – on visiting my grandparents and meeting death in their basement“April 22, 1994—For Linda” – on the day my wife and I began our life together“The Context of February” – on the day I realized my first marriage was truly over“October 25, 2001, at 6:45 p.m.” – on the day my father died“Today (September 11, 2001)” – and this one is obvious
My thanks to Editor Suzanna Anderson for continuing to support my work and for allowing me the honor of selecting this year’s Ink Award winner.
April 24, 2020
Review: Blue Horses
Blue Horses by Mary Oliver
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Mary Oliver’s poetry is often deceptively simple, earning a Zen-like wisdom from emotions and images quietly presented. Her latest collection returns to nature and to the most enduring human emotions–love, wonder, the awe-ful truth of our mortality and the power of that knowledge to make us truly see.
April 19, 2020
A poem for the pandemic
Caregiver’s Song
When voices like children
hear themselves in a trickling creek,
I laugh at the wisdom
of their foolishness—
and everything becomes still,
the sun gone down, the moon falling as dew,
my eyes gone black waiting
for my counting off till morning.
Come home, children, home free
before you are caught outside
by dark birds flying their hunger.
The creek sings in children
who laugh again and shout for haven
in the hills that laugh all echoes back.
And I may sleep some night at last,
counting off cold stars past morning.
published in the Hurricane Review
David Anthony Sam
April 17, 2020
Ends Today April 17 – Four of my kindle books free – Here’s sample from Memories in Clay
Ends Today April 17 – Four of my kindle books free until Friday – Click HERE
Here’s sample from Memories in Clay – poem about my father originally published by the Wayne Review:
Fatherhood
There was the valley,
the Youghiogheny cutting
through rounded mountains,
the red clay my father dug
with pickax and shovel
to force a home from
the grudging hillside.
The time was new, the clay
dark red with iron,
the wind warm enough
for summer, but not so
hot you’d think of death.
My father grunted with
each heft and swing.
He sculpted that clay
with the same careful
touch he used when he
etched our busts in
redwood. He showed me
the meaning of the red clay,
the river in the valley
cleft, the rounded mountains.
He showed me the tracks
of the deer, the shy brown
flash of doe between
green undergrowth. He
showed me how to find
wild onions by their
leaves, and how to
recognize wild cherry
trees by their black
bark and sweet sap.
And with the sunburnt sweat
of his rippling back,
and with each heft and swing,
he showed me how to cut
a home from a red hillside.
So with a shaping word
I have tried to hew
a human place from high sun
and the hunger within
the world’s rich clay.
April 16, 2020
What can a poet do to make any difference in a pandemic? Four of my kindle books free until Friday April 17 – Here’s sample from Dark Land, White Light
A collection of my early poetry free on Kindle until April 17 along with 3 other books; Dark Land, White Light
Here’s a sample:
“Death of a Mountainclimber”
I feel the oldness finalize within me,
white as glass chip ice,
and I follow the bone track home.
I am going now.
High, a last climb, a last series
of handgrasps, a last ringing of steel,
a last living above the clouds;
I am going now.
The steeple cliffs sing silently,
reaching (as I’ve always done) higher,
pointing stone Gothic intonations to lead my eyes.
Before, when I reached the top,
the world continued below,
but I had grappled beyond it.
In the past, when I have found my soul,
it was alone on a peak.
Now I am going,
a mourner and a celebrant both.
I pass the last living—the tree line.
The brown rock and the blueburning glacial snow
split the world off from the peaks.
I pass the world to the peak.
Here, alone, I’ll find my soul,
the soul that was never soft-touched
but often knew the love of ice and cold-clawed rock.
Here, alone, I’ll leave my flesh
to tumble with the glacier
and melt its unity below.
April 15, 2020
What can a poet do to make any difference in a pandemic? Two days left to get four of my kindle books free – Here’s sample from Early in the Day
What can a poet do to make any difference in a pandemic? Two days left to get four of my kindle books free – Here’s sample from Early in the Day:
“Bend, Oregon: The Fourth of July 1972”
Tall pines, bed needles beneath,
ash below rock precipice:
He has come to an end of
denials, and flows with the cold
stream of melting ice.
He cuts deep with the rivulets.
He molds crevices in mud.
He tears with the falling water
and leaps rapids of rock and time
diving for the valley.
Surrounded there by sorties
of mosquitoes, water wrigglings
of snakes, he drifts through swamps
in lazy near stagnation
to the waterfall, and midair dances.
He becomes mist.
He powers the small generators.
He runs to the city
and becomes the river,
suspends the swimming children
and the sailboats highing to the wind;
and he reflects fireworks by night.
What can a poet do to make any difference in a pandemic? Two days left to get four of my kindle books free – Here’s sample from Finite to Fail
What can a poet do to make any difference in a pandemic?
Two days left to get four of my kindle books free – including Finite to Fail: Poems After Dickinson
Here is a sample from Finite to Fail:
“Emily’s Ghost Machine”
i am nobody
so you can misread
letters randomed as words
fall of musty dictionary
i am no one
or two or trinity
zeroed before decimal point
or after all where minimal
i am not this or that
nor noun nor name
so easily returned
without comment
i am not placed
in certainty or
misplaced in doubt
but lost between
i have nothing new
but what is borrowed
stolen worn
as rags motley fooled
i envy you who
fall out these cracks
into bright light
for i have shadows
for i am shadows
this in contrast
left to beg for space
where not allowed
i am no one
to sing of nothing
but make these mumbles
assonant to life
i am nobody
to ask if you
wear my anonymity
as saving grace
