notes from the islands

Stopped for the mo (spam …)

Interview with Rodger Kamenetz

On Ginsberg: “I think intrinsically he was a Jewish poet and he saw himself, in the beginning, in the line of the Hebrew prophets–sort of a minor Hebrew prophet. He wrote “Howl,” which is kind of a prophetic protest, and he wrote “Kaddish,” which is the only example I know of an American poem written to Aramaic. The whole rhythm of that poem is to the Kaddish. So, he was a Jewish poet but he died as a Buddhist.”

Plus comment on writing after Eliot and Pound.

1. I wish the critics wouldn’t cos they ruin him going on about “poetics of the environment” and that kinda chip paper stuff.

2. I feel let down, like he’s going for fourth then puts the car into neutral. For example, good:

driven against
insect-noise, a breeze that should

be rustling up a performance.

and okay:

bark-texture

runs to colour like bad blood.

but:

The sky is brittle blue,
foliage thin but determined:
colour indefinable beyond green.

Huh? Especialy to the last line: brittle blue sky is competent, thin but determined foiliage, nb: not grass, changes up a gear, but how pastel-guru is a colour indefinable beyond green?.

3. John Wayne reading in a bar.

4. A chunkiness of single words and punctuation, like the gift of a Yorkie bar from your dentist.

Figures in a paddock (brown background)

Down the Rabbit Hole of Mathematical Uncertainty is a poem about maths apparently by “infamous Russian-American poet” Alexander Shaumyan, but as ever it’s about love, and a damn site better than most NW3 takes on the topic (ie optimistic):

But you and I, darling,
Could never be square,
For we are well-rounded
And well aware
That the truth lies
Somewhere between
Zero and one,
Where a small
Chance of
Winning is
Still better
Than none

On alt.arts.poetry

this was high colloquy / But it was still penis

From Peter Redgrove’s poem Who Is the Higher Penis Here? (which can be found on the archaicly presented Poetry London website).  I find this hugely funny and mystical, as only Redgrove is. Peter Redgrove died in June 2003 from diabetic related kidney failure. He was 71 years old. His poems, though, still a running engine, hence ‘is’ not ‘was’.

Apples and Snakes present a celebration of The Wolf, London’s best underground poetry magazine - five front-runners from its pack:

• lyrical philosopher Roddy Lumsden
• Arabic translator par excellence Hafiz Kheir
• people-watcher Fiona Curran
• one-man whirlwind Niall McDevitt
• and the ‘deliciously dark’ Annie Brechin.

Compèred by Mr Wolf himself, editor James Byrne.

When: 9pm Friday 2 February 2007 @. Where: Battersea Arts Centre, Lavender Hill, London, SW11 5TN. Tickets: £4.75 (£3.50). Book: 020 7223 2223 or bac.org.uk. Contact: charlotte@applesandsnakes.org

Wallingford library patron find poetry in unsual places

Dan Champagne writes (for Record-Journal):

Julian Aiken, a reference and technology librarian, recently introduced “Poetry in the Lavatory.” Every few days, he changes the poems mounted above the urinal and on the stall walls in the men’s room and on the stall walls in the women’s room of the library’s public restrooms.

He changes the women’s room poems early in the morning or has a female librarian do it for him.

“Poetry is something the whole library staff is interested in,” Aiken said. “We really want people to read poetry and get interested in it. It gets people thinking about poetry while they’re in there doing something else.”

Aiken, a native of Manchester, England, recalled a nightclub in his hometown that had an entire stall filled with laminated poetry.

etc

On Newsday