Lugubrious

Check out this poem from Richard Jones' new book The Correct Spelling & Exact Meaning. I think it is pretty terrific. I love the way this poem interrogates the language we use; and, at a deeper level, leads us to wonder about our various and conflicting motivations for writing poems in the first place:


OED

In the dictionary one finds the word
lucubrate, meaning “to study
by artificial light late at night
that one might express oneself
in writing,” on the heels of luciferous —
“bringing sorrow” — and this immediately
preceded by lucrous, which, of course, is
“pertaining to lucre” and suggests “avaricious.”

To the right of lucubrate is ludibrious —
“subject of mockery” —
and the familiar ludicrous —
all that which is “laughably absurd.”

And in the far-right column, variations
on two small words, luff and lug,
“to bring the head of a ship
nearer the wind,”
and “to pull and tug heavily and slowly,”
two tiny words that describe
what I am doing
writing at my desk late at night,
turning the pages of the dictionary to find
the correct spelling and exact meaning
of lugubrious.


— Richard Jones


*

This is the kookiest acceptance speech ever. I just love it. So much I think I'll buy the book!

Rakesh Satyal Goes Gaga @ Lambda Literary Awards from Lambda Literary on Vimeo.

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same . . .

— RK

Don't you just LOVE WIMBLEDON!!!!

59-all in the 5th set, and going on three days . . . when will it end?

Oh I'm an outsider outside of everything
Oh I'm an outsider outside of everything
Oh I'm an outsider outside of everything
Everything you know
Everything you know
It disturbs me so
Oh I'm an outsider outside of everything
Oh I'm an outsider outside of everything
Oh I'm an outsider outside of everything
Everything you know
Everything you know
It disturbs me so . . .

*

Love this song from the old days. But most people who say they are "outsiders" usually aren't.

I received my copy of Diane Martin's new book Conjugated Visits the other day, fresh out from Dream Horse Press. I saw this book in manuscript, and love how it has turned out. Some favorite poems: "Sonhar," "Was You Ever Bit By a Dead Bee," "Two Bad Books," "Gal Friday." And this last poem in the book, just wonderful:

As It Never Was

The orange moon watching the fields
augurs a good harvest. Small children
unfurl ribbons and clap away crows.
The sky is painted lapis lazuli.
Evening: white-throated swifts cut the air
with their tails. They mate, fall,
uncouple right before they would
crash to earth. We drink apple beer
and sleep. In the distance
bell's toll. Summers, we journey
to the mainland. Once, on our return,
pink and silver dolphins leapt
among the long oars as we rowed.


*

Seattle Cop Punches Woman in Face

I live not far from the intersection where this occurred. Kids are always jaywalking there and making it very dangerous for drivers to pass. There is a pedestrian overpass built so that people can walk over the street without problem. But there are certain characters who seem to get off on jaywalking into traffic anyway, and trying to cause a ruckus. Both of these young women deserved all they got, in my opinion (if you read the papers, they both have prior criminal records, anyway). This is NOT about racism. I am so tired of out-of-control, poorly-parented teens acting out. If you are breaking the law, and doing so brazenly, provocatively -- I'm sorry -- you deserve to get punched in the face.

I think it's good to have Bill Murray as a poetry fan:

Poems about Brooklyn obviously aren’t lost in translation for comic actor Bill Murray.

The legendary star of stage, screen and “Saturday Night Live” walked across the Brooklyn Bridge on Monday night, reciting works that pay homage to our borough as part of the 15th annual “Poetry Walk.”

With the bridge and East River as his backdrop, Murray entertained a crowd of about 300 people with Yonkers-native Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s classic “A Coney Island From the Mind,” Allen Ginsberg’s “Supermarket in California” and Denise Levertov’s “The Rights.”


*

RIP Jerry . . . you will be missed.


Late Fragment

And did you get what
you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth.


-- Raymond Carver

*

The Story of Stuff

This is an amazing video. Every high school student should have to watch it. All of us should have to watch it. Believe me, it will motivate you to change your life.

http://www.storyofstuff.com/

Thanks to KF for forwarding me the link.

Scientists identify meteor event in Walt Whitman poem

I love this kind of thing . . .

Scholars have for decades tried to identify a puzzling celestial event in one of Walt Whitman's poems from his collection "Leaves of Grass." Now they've done so, using clues from a famed American landscape painter.

In the July issue of Sky & Telescope magazine, a team that includes astronomers and a literary scholar — all from Texas State University — details the existence and nature of the rare event, in which meteor fragments crossed the sky in a synchronized fashion.

The heavenly display is described in the poem "Year of Meteors (1859-1960)," in which Whitman writes of the tumultuous period leading up to the Civil War. He touches upon the hanging of abolitionist John Brown and the ascendancy of Abraham Lincoln to the presidency, and he makes two references to astronomy: "The comet that came unannounced out of the north, flaring in heaven," and "the strange huge meteor procession, dazzling and clear, shooting over our heads."