Thursday, February 23, 2012

Hugo House Poetry Class

This sounds like a fantastic class. Elizabeth is a terrific poet, and teacher. Check it out!


Poetry: The Practice of Revision. Wednesdays from 7 to 9p March 14 to May 23 (no class May 16). Registration is open online at Richard Hugo House or via phone at (206) 322-7030.
$360 general public/$324 Hugo House members.
·        
Class description: You’ve got a first draft. Now what? How do you revise toward a richer, more compelling poem? We’ll work with a variety of craft elements including image, music and form in order to develop strong, flexible tools for revision. We’ll wrestle with the distinction between mystery and confusion, and experiment with making bolder, riskier choices. In-class exercises, take-home assignments and and reading will prompt you to dismantle and re-assemble draft poems with gusto and a sense of inquiry. You’ll leave with a clearer sense of your own aesthetic and tools to sustain your development as a writer. Required books: Next Word, Better Word, by Stephen Dobyns and Art and Fear, by David Bayles and Ted Orland.
·        
Elizabeth Austen is the author of “Every Dress a Decision” (Blue Begonia Press, 2011), and the chapbooks “The Girl Who Goes Alone” (Floating Bridge Press, 2010) and “Where Currents Meet” (part of the Toadlily Press quartet Sightline). Her poems have been featured on Garrison Keillor’s The Writer’s Almanac and Verse Daily. She was the Washington state “roadshow poet” and is the literary producer for KUOW 94.9 public radio. She has an MFA in poetry from Antioch University Los Angeles, and was part of the 2009 Hugo House Literary Series.More info at elizabethausten.wordpress.com/.

Saturday, February 18, 2012

I love this poem from Poem a Day. And such sweetness and light, from Ezra Pound, of all people!


Come My Cantilations
by Ezra Pound

Come my cantilations,
Let us dump our hatreds into one bunch and be done with them,
Hot sun, clear water, fresh wind,
Let me be free of pavements,
Let me be free of the printers.
Let come beautiful people
Wearing raw silk of good colour,
Let come the graceful speakers,
Let come the ready of wit,
Let come the gay of manner, the insolent and the exulting.
We speak of burnished lakes,
And of dry air, as clear as metal.


*


Having a great time in Palm Springs. Not quite as sunny as we had hoped. But lovely to see friends, and the Mid-Century Modern homes, and Tennis and golf and spa places. Tomorrow we'll go to Joshua Tree. And Monday, Bingo at the Ace with Linda! Fun fun!


*

Sunday, February 12, 2012

WA Poet Laureate!

Yay Kathleen!

State names Richland native its poet laureate for 2012-14

This past week, Kathleen Flenniken, a Richland native and Washington State University alumna, was named Washington's poet laureate for 2012-14. She lives in Seattle with her husband and has three children.
full story here

Sunday, February 05, 2012

Class Warfare? Get Real.

I love this quote from Al Franken, that I read in the current issue of The Sun:

"In her book A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous Fourteenth Century, Barbara Tuchman writes about a peasant revolt in 1358 that began in the village of St. Leu and spread throughout the Oise Valley. At one estate, the serfs sacked the manor house, killed the knight, and roasted him on a spit in front of his wife and kids. Then, after ten or twelve peasants violated the lady, with the children still watching, they forced her to eat the roasted flesh of her dead husband and then killed her.

That is class warfare.

Arguing over the optimum marginal tax rate for the top one percent is not."

*

This video about texters is too funny! Enjoy . . .

Wednesday, February 01, 2012

GAY MARRIAGE PASSES IN WA STATE!

Yee-haw. Goin' to the chapel and we're . . . gonna get married . . . !

(Probably not, but it's fun to know we could if we wanted)

Cheers!

from the web:

On February 1, the Washington State Senate voted to approve SB 6239, the marriage equality legislation, by a vote of 28-21. Your senator, Adam Kline , voted with the majority to grant loving, committed same-sex families equal civil marriage in the Evergreen State. Please send Sen. Kline a thank you right now by clicking here. 

The senate was considered by most observers as the more difficult chamber to pass the legislation through. Without Sen. Kline 's support, advocates would have failed to make Washington State the 7th in the nation to legalize same-sex marriage.

With the State House expected to vote on the measure in the coming days, it's time to take a moment to recognize the courage and conviction your senator took for standing up and doing the right thing. Thank Sen. Kline today!

Thank you,



Marty Rouse
National Field Director

P.S. Save the Date! Join us in Olympia on February 16th for Washington United’s

Are Conservatives and Racists Less Intelligent?

Intelligence Study Links Low I.Q. To Prejudice, Racism, Conservatism

The study, published in Psychological Science, showed that people who score low on I.Q. tests in childhood are more likely to develop prejudiced beliefs and socially conservative politics in adulthood.
I.Q., or intelligence quotient, is a score determined by standardized tests, but whether the tests truly reveal intelligence remains a topic of hot debate among psychologists.
Dr. Gordon Hodson, a professor of psychology at the university and the study's lead author, said the finding represented evidence of a vicious cycle: People of low intelligence gravitate toward socially conservative ideologies, which stress resistance to change and, in turn, prejudice, he told LiveScience.
Why might less intelligent people be drawn to conservative ideologies? Because such ideologies feature "structure and order" that make it easier to comprehend a complicated world, Dodson said. "Unfortunately, many of these features can also contribute to prejudice," he added.