David Anthony Sam's Blog, page 160
April 30, 2018
Happy 80th birthday, Bugs, my favorite toon!
Bugs Bunny Has Appeared In More Films Than Any Other Cartoon Character – South Florida Reporter
— Read on southfloridareporter.com/bugs-bunny-has-appeared-in-more-films-than-any-other-cartoon-character/
April 28, 2018
The Universe in Verse – Live Stream April 28 7pm
an evening of science-inspired poems read by artists, writers, scientists, and musicians, part protest and part celebration, with all proceeds benefiting the Natural Resources Defense Council.
— Read on www.brainpickings.org/the-universe-in-verse/
April 27, 2018
Courage vs. Bullying
“Courage is fire, and bullying is smoke.” Benjamin Disraeli
April 26, 2018
Happy Arbor Day. Don’t hug a tree. Plant one. Trees help us breathe and absorb 1/4 of global warming.
This official site of the Arbor Day Foundation provides information about planting and caring for trees, our Rain Forest Rescue and Tree City USA programs, and much more. Buy trees and give a gift of trees through our Trees in Memory and Trees for America programs.
— Read on www.arborday.org/
April 21, 2018
The Harmony of the Whole Harmonium
The Whole Harmonium: The Life of Wallace Stevens by Paul Mariani
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Wallace Stevens was a complex man who wrote complex poetry—and many criticize the man and the poetry as cold and intellectual. From my 1984 masters theses until today, I have found heart and passion and music in Stevens work. Paul Mariani’s biography does a good job of revealing the same in the man and his work.
Yes, Stevens was often boorish, hard to get to know, and sometimes expressed racist and bigoted opinions. Mariani does not shrink from showing that part of the man. But we also see Stevens “at play” in the warmth of the Florida Keys as well as in his poetry.
The analysis and discussion of the poetry is good enough for a biography, allowing for the man to explain the poetry and the poetry to explain the man to some degree. Mariani concludes that Stevens “is among the most important poets of the twentieth and still-young twenty-first century,” placing him with Rilke, Yeats, and Neruda. I would agree in terms of the 20th century while adding three women to the list: Wislawa Symborska, Marianne Moore, and E;Elizabeth Bishop—and I would leave out judgement on the current century except that Steven’s influence certainly has grown wit time.
This is a good biography for both the experienced reader of Stevens and someone wanting to begin to live a bit with the music of Crispin and his poetic islands and cold snow.
April 20, 2018
Copies of my books can be purchased locally in Fredericksburg VA at the Germanna Community College bookstore
Copies of my books can be purchased locally in Fredericksburg VA at the Germanna Community College bookstore. Thank you Follett’s manager Kathleen.
April 17, 2018
The Spring/Summer 2018 issue of Piedmont Virginian Magazine contains three of my poems
The Spring/Summer 2018 issue of Piedmont Virginian Magazine contains three of my poems. Thank you Executive Editor Pam Kamphuis!
April 16, 2018
Geography of Poverty — Matt Black
Matt Black’s photo project The Geography of Poverty documents communities
whose poverty rate exceeds 20%.
— Read on www.mattblack.com/the-geography-of-poverty/
April 12, 2018
Farewell J. D. McClatchy
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With great sadness, we acknowledge the passing this week of J. D. McClatchy, the author of eight volumes of poetry, from Scenes from Another Life (1981) to Plundered Hearts: New and Selected Poems (2014). McClatchy—known as “Sandy” to his fellow poets, and to his colleagues in the world of the opera, where he was a highly regarded librettist—was a tireless and brilliant champion of the literary arts. He was the editor or co-editor of dozens of volumes of other writers’ work, including James Merrill, Thornton Wilder, and Edna St. Vincent Millay, and long served as editor of The Yale Review. As we send our condolences to Sandy’s husband, Chip Kidd, himself an author and celebrated graphic designer (and our colleague here at Knopf), today’s poem touches on what another poet, Howard Moss, termed “rules of sleep”—the post-midnight customs and early morning road maps known only to the two people in a couple.
Going Back to Bed
Up early, trying to muffle
the sounds of small tasks,
grinding, pouring, riffling
through yesterday’s attacks
or market slump, then changing
my mind—what matter the rush
to the waiting room or the ring
of some later dubious excuse?—
having decided to return to bed
and finding you curled in the sheet,
a dream fluttering your eyelids,
still unfallen, still asleep,
I thought of the old pilgrim
when, among the fixed stars
in paradise, he sees Adam
suddenly, the first man, there
in a flame that hides his body,
and when it moves to speak,
what is inside seems not free,
not happy, but huge and weak,
like an animal in a sack.
Who had captured him?
What did he want to say?
I lay down beside you again,
not knowing if I’d stay,
not knowing where I’d been.
More on this book and author:
• Learn more about Plundered Hearts by J. D. McClatchy.
• Browse other books by J. D. McClatchy.
• Visit our Tumblr to share this poem and peruse other poems, audio recordings, and broadsides in the Knopf poem-a-day series.
• To share the poem-a-day experience with friends, pass along this link.
J. D. McClatchy
— Read on x.e.knopfdoubleday.com/ats/msg.aspx
