Sunday, February 19, 2012
Friday, February 17, 2012
Remembering You Through and Through
Dearest Harvey,
You've been my sweetheart, my cattleprod, my reason, my insanity, my muse, my motivator, my lover, my lively lizard, my best friend, my inspiration. And no longer are you those things, and still you are all those things and more.
I've written you a book. It's as good as I could make it. I sent it out into the world today. I hope that someone will read it, someday, and know how very much we loved each other.
It's a good MS. It's a great love story. And I told it the best I could.
And now my work is done. And now I can perhaps get well.
I will never forget you, and if I could be with you tomorrow, I'd leave tonight.
You've been my sweetheart, my cattleprod, my reason, my insanity, my muse, my motivator, my lover, my lively lizard, my best friend, my inspiration. And no longer are you those things, and still you are all those things and more.
I've written you a book. It's as good as I could make it. I sent it out into the world today. I hope that someone will read it, someday, and know how very much we loved each other.
It's a good MS. It's a great love story. And I told it the best I could.
And now my work is done. And now I can perhaps get well.
I will never forget you, and if I could be with you tomorrow, I'd leave tonight.
On the Fly: James Galvin
James Galvin was my first creative writing teacher; I was in the initial group of students he taught at Murray State, back in 1977, when he was 25 years old and fresh from the MFA program at UI. From him I learned that poetry is a made thing, not a made-up thing. Every time I sit down to write, I'm thankful for that lesson, even though it took me from 1977 to 2006 to sit down and write.
It's phenomenal that today, when I've put my first full-length collection to bed, when I have no idea what I'm going to write about now that the elegies for Harvey are out of my hands (literally, in the sense that they were handwritten), I find this interview about writing out of not-knowing. I guess everything truly does come full circle.
Thanks, Jim Galvin. I should have told you that during the last century.
Your former student,
Pamela (Blincoe) Parker
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Valentine from 2010
Dear Pamela,
I know I can never repay you for all you do for me.
But if I could, I would bring you these:
From across the Gobi
Mongolian horses
camels
yak felt,
Manchurian mullet,
Korean sable
falcons,
Japanese pinenuts,
Pearls from the South China Sea,
Annamese ivory,
silver,
gold,
Champanese rhinoceros horn
dragons blood
panaceas,
Siamese sandelwood,
Sumatran dill
pepper,
Burmese amber,
peacock feathers,
coconuts and ambergris from Nicobar Island,
Ceylonese rubies,
spinach grown on the Ganges,
Indian jasmine,
saffron
water lilies,
Persian peaches
dates and tapestry,
Crystals form Samarkand,
Lapis from Tashkent,
Ferghanan dragon horses
lap dogs,
grapes from Qoco,
jade from Khotan,
jujubes from Hami,
Then down the Yellow River
to begin again
(and that's just from the Eastern Hemisphere)
Love,
Harv
I know I can never repay you for all you do for me.
But if I could, I would bring you these:
From across the Gobi
Mongolian horses
camels
yak felt,
Manchurian mullet,
Korean sable
falcons,
Japanese pinenuts,
Pearls from the South China Sea,
Annamese ivory,
silver,
gold,
Champanese rhinoceros horn
dragons blood
panaceas,
Siamese sandelwood,
Sumatran dill
pepper,
Burmese amber,
peacock feathers,
coconuts and ambergris from Nicobar Island,
Ceylonese rubies,
spinach grown on the Ganges,
Indian jasmine,
saffron
water lilies,
Persian peaches
dates and tapestry,
Crystals form Samarkand,
Lapis from Tashkent,
Ferghanan dragon horses
lap dogs,
grapes from Qoco,
jade from Khotan,
jujubes from Hami,
Then down the Yellow River
to begin again
(and that's just from the Eastern Hemisphere)
Love,
Harv
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Sarcelle
Contentment Island, Helen Frankenthaler
If you look closely I'm in the picture, not quite blue and not quite alone.
Happy Valentine's Day. Cherish someone today.
Saturday, February 11, 2012
Friday, February 10, 2012
Angus & Julia Stone - You're the one that I want / Live acoustique RCS#12
If I could sing, and if I could sing to Harvey, I would want to sound like this. You'll never believe that this is a cover of OLIVIA NEWTON JOHN.
Wednesday, February 08, 2012
Happy 101st Birthday, Elizabeth Bishop!
An imitation of "One Art" that I wrote is featured today on qarrtsiluni. Click the link to hear/read along.
Tuesday, February 07, 2012
Monday, February 06, 2012
Without It, We Die
Touch Me--Stanley Kunitz
Summer is late, my heart.
Words plucked out of the air
some forty years ago
when I was wild with love
and torn almost in two
scatter like leaves this night
of whistling wind and rain.
It is my heart that's late,
it is my song that's flown.
Outdoors all afternoon
under a gunmetal sky
staking my garden down,
I kneeled to the crickets trilling
underfoot as if about
to burst from their crusty shells;
and like a child again
marveled to hear so clear
and brave a music pour
from such a small machine.
What makes the engine go?
Desire, desire, desire.
The longing for the dance
stirs in the buried life.
One season only,
and it's done.
So let the battered old willow
thrash against the windowpanes
and the house timbers creak.
Darling, do you remember
the man you married? Touch me,
remind me who I am.
!-- AddThis Button BEGIN -->
Summer is late, my heart.
Words plucked out of the air
some forty years ago
when I was wild with love
and torn almost in two
scatter like leaves this night
of whistling wind and rain.
It is my heart that's late,
it is my song that's flown.
Outdoors all afternoon
under a gunmetal sky
staking my garden down,
I kneeled to the crickets trilling
underfoot as if about
to burst from their crusty shells;
and like a child again
marveled to hear so clear
and brave a music pour
from such a small machine.
What makes the engine go?
Desire, desire, desire.
The longing for the dance
stirs in the buried life.
One season only,
and it's done.
So let the battered old willow
thrash against the windowpanes
and the house timbers creak.
Darling, do you remember
the man you married? Touch me,
remind me who I am.
!-- AddThis Button BEGIN -->
572 Days
Every day, I get up in the morning., and I just don't want to go on. I try to convince myself that I can hang on--first for a month, then for a week, and then for a day. I am now at the point that not even an hour seems manageable.
The word of the day is bereft.
I go to the doctor, and she tells me I'm managing. I go to the counselor, and she tells me I'm managing brilliantly. I go to myself or to God in prayer and I know I'm not managing at all. I get nothing done these days. I feel as though I'm walking through water with every step.
The word of the day is bereft.
I go to the doctor, and she tells me I'm managing. I go to the counselor, and she tells me I'm managing brilliantly. I go to myself or to God in prayer and I know I'm not managing at all. I get nothing done these days. I feel as though I'm walking through water with every step.
Thursday, February 02, 2012
Szymborska: "View with a Grain of Sand"
View With a Grain of Sand
We call it a grain of sand,
but it calls itself neither grain nor sand.
It does just fine, without a name,
whether general, particular,
permanent, passing,
incorrect, or apt.
Our glance, our touch means nothing to it.
It doesn't feel itself seen and touched.
And that it fell on the windowsill
is only our experience, not its.
For it, it is not different from falling on anything else
with no assurance that it has finished falling
or that it is falling still.
The window has a wonderful view of a lake,
but the view doesn't view itself.
It exists in this world
colorless, shapeless,
soundless, odorless, and painless.
The lake's floor exists floorlessly,
and its shore exists shorelessly.
The water feels itself neither wet nor dry
and its waves to themselves are neither singular nor plural.
They splash deaf to their own noise
on pebbles neither large nor small.
And all this beheath a sky by nature skyless
in which the sun sets without setting at all
and hides without hiding behind an unminding cloud.
The wind ruffles it, its only reason being
that it blows.
A second passes.
A second second.
A third.
But they're three seconds only for us.
Time has passed like courier with urgent news.
But that's just our simile.
The character is inverted, his haste is make believe,
his news inhuman.
_____
Three actual views of sand grains under a microscope:
We call it a grain of sand,
but it calls itself neither grain nor sand.
It does just fine, without a name,
whether general, particular,
permanent, passing,
incorrect, or apt.
Our glance, our touch means nothing to it.
It doesn't feel itself seen and touched.
And that it fell on the windowsill
is only our experience, not its.
For it, it is not different from falling on anything else
with no assurance that it has finished falling
or that it is falling still.
The window has a wonderful view of a lake,
but the view doesn't view itself.
It exists in this world
colorless, shapeless,
soundless, odorless, and painless.
The lake's floor exists floorlessly,
and its shore exists shorelessly.
The water feels itself neither wet nor dry
and its waves to themselves are neither singular nor plural.
They splash deaf to their own noise
on pebbles neither large nor small.
And all this beheath a sky by nature skyless
in which the sun sets without setting at all
and hides without hiding behind an unminding cloud.
The wind ruffles it, its only reason being
that it blows.
A second passes.
A second second.
A third.
But they're three seconds only for us.
Time has passed like courier with urgent news.
But that's just our simile.
The character is inverted, his haste is make believe,
his news inhuman.
_____
Three actual views of sand grains under a microscope:
Wednesday, February 01, 2012
Wisława Szymborska, 1923-2012 : Harriet Staff : Harriet the Blog : The Poetry Foundation
Wisława Szymborska, 1923-2012 : Harriet Staff : Harriet the Blog : The Poetry Foundation
This breaks my heart a little bit more than it was already broken.
Berryman: There Sat Down, Once, a Thing on Henry's Heart.
Nothing is ever lost. Robert Penn Warren, All the King's Men
Nobody is ever missing. John Berryman, "Dream Song 29"
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