If you've clicked on a tag, you will see posts from my blog that have featured that tag. At the bottom of the page is a list of all the tags I've ever used on this blog. -- Jilly
Poetry News:
- — Beautiful vowels —
- — I’m not much for modern poetry, but I like Szymborska because of her compassion, her humility and her warm good humor. —
- — Whiting Writing Prize Winners Are Announced —
- — A fiddling poet reports from the road —
- — Major Project to Record the Voices of Ghana’s Poets —
- — Artist Jenny Holzer has been projecting Szymborska’s words on downtown buildings —
- — Poets see no rhyme or reason for Listener’s decision to drop odes —
- — Oppie’s wife, Kitty (played by sexy new mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke), sings a love poem by Muriel Rukeyser as an aria —
- — Joe Milford Poetry Show Hosts Ravi Shankar! - Nov 02,2008 —
- — Vanderbilt poet Rick Hilles wins Whiting Writers’ Award - $$50,000 prize goes to writers of exceptional promise —
- — What killed Dylan Thomas? —
- — Frieda Hughes at the Ted Hughes Festival —
- — A number of local councils in Britain have banned their staff from using Latin words, because they say they might confuse people—
- — Drawing on records dating back to the journals of Henry David Thoreau, scientists have found that different plant families near Walden Pond have borne the effects of climate change in strikingly different ways —
- — Wordplay this week: Lee Ann Brown [MP3] —
- — Unpacking the Boxes is a tale of a poet’s ambitions, but even more it is a tribute to poetry and the beauty and wonder it gives to life —
- — With the nights drawing in, it’s time to turn our attention to the poetry of snow, sleet and hail. —
- — Bishop for much of her life was a poet’s poet, which means a poet without an audience. —
- — Poet Charles Olson’s book Call Me Ishmael (1947) is a rare thing: a great book about a great book —
- — All this—the mediocrity, the obscurity (whether intentional or not)—stands in such marked contrast to the poetry —
- — Writing in Slate (2003), Adam Kirsch compared O’Driscoll to Philip Larkin, in part because, like Larkin, he has a day job that isn’t teaching, and he writes poems about it —
- — FSU professor puts jazz singer’s life in verse —
- — There’s an unwritten rule in the writing game that states, “The better you write, the less you make” and so most of Ottawa’s poets, and there are reams of them, do something else as well —
- — Poem of the week: Life —
- — Why a particular location can make a poem universal —
Mathematician Cracks Mystery Beatles Chord — the article can be downloaded at this link (PDF). Also see Einstein’s Music here hahaha.
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Friday is the day of my appointment with the retina specialist. I’m trying not to “google” the myriad of horrible scenarios. 
Trying not to freak out about it. Robert Hayden couldn’t see so good & he still wrote some pretty good poems. 
…in related news, the NYT has a weird body quiz.
I have poetry news scheduled for the rest of the week. Have a good Election Day. I have a feeling it is going to be a cluster-you-know-what, like the 2000 election. Hopefully I’m wrong.
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Poetry News:
- — In a country where poets are revered like rock stars, Akhmatova was a celebrity, but that also made her a dark, dangerous figure in the Socialist paradise —
- — The lone witness in poetess Madhumita Shukla murder case was attacked in his village Gohadia in Kaiserganj, police said on Tuesday —
- — It is based on Anne Sexton’s “Transformations,” a poetic, adult reinterpretation of familiar fairy tales —
- — France Encrusts Wall-to-Wall Poetry in Sofia [I like the idea of something being "encrusted" with poetry] —
- — Hear Gwendolyn Brooks read “the mother” and Theodore Roethke read “My Papa’s Waltz,” with insights by ex-US Poet Laureate Donald Hall. [MP3] —
- — Salt has launched Horizon Review, its second online literary magazine and part of its planned expansion into free-to-view Web journals —
- — Perhaps it’s the duality between the intuitive, interiority and the strong authoritative, apocalyptic voices that guide these poems —
I changed our dental insurance to a more local dentist - Dr. Anissa Burgess. Darryl went in for a teeth cleaning & sat down in the chair & asked if the TV (People’s Court) could be turned off. She said no. He asked if it could be turned down. She said no & told him that he seemed like the problematic type who wouldn’t be satisfied with the teeth-cleaning job & he said all I want is a teeth cleaning, then he left. LOL way to make a good first impression, new dentist of ours! (And Darryl is a polite sensitive new age guy so I doubt he was a jerk about it.) He said there was no TP or paper towels in the bathroom, either. Meh. We are both stuck in bizarro world these days. He didn’t get into the dental chair until 55 minutes after the time of appointment; maybe she wanted him to leave because they were overbooked? Or perhaps she simply (obviously) really, really, enjoys daytime TV & would have preferred to watch the People’s Court in peace?
Unfortunately, I’ve been seeing a lot of the medical profession these days - 3 appointments so far this week. Most of it has been a good experience but I have to wonder what in the heck some people are thinking. My [very few] “WTF encounters” have been with Interns or with office staff. With the Interns - most of my care is at a University Medical Center - it’s like they didn’t know yet that it’s not cool to exclaim “is that permanent??!!” or whatever. And with the staff: yes I want to stand in front of the little window in the packed waiting room, giving you my medical history in front of everyone so you can decide if you want to pronounce my “referral fax form” worthy enough to give to the Dr. or not. (Was not at the University Medical Center.)
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Poetry News:
- — Memorial for Idaho poet, kayaker Studebaker to be Saturday in Twin Falls —
- — Poets, Fiddlers and Leaving Seattle —
- — Exene Cervenka: Fom X To Missouri —
- — Tuesday’s Poem: “Old Timers’ Day” by Donald Hall from White Apples and the Taste of Stone [mp3] —
- — What Am I Doing Wrong With This Poem? —
- — Milarepa picked for 22nd Napa Sonoma Film Festival 2008 —
- — August Kleinzahler’s ugly gifts —
- — What makes Shapiro so important to American poetry right now is the success with which he’s taken over the territory of fiction writers —
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Barack Obama was among the 69 senators voting to broaden government spy powers and give immunity to phone companies that aided in secret wiretapping. way to go.
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I must have been living in an alternate reality or am utterly clueless or oblivious because this confused the heck out of me:
“If born female into the majority of US American households, one will live 20, perhaps 30 years under the moniker ‘girl.’” [comments]
20 or 30 years?? What??
Has that really been your experience? Daaang! Personally, the only time I ever have had the adult moniker “girl” is with some of my mostly-African-American-coworkers at the HCBU I work at — and I have the feeling that the Gurlesque “girl” and the HCBU “girl” are not equivalent.
What do you think?
Why do most American women have the moniker “girl” ’til maybe age 30 nowadays? (?) Is that something they are self-identifying with? Or is it a generational thing that I am oblivious to? The comment that I linked to says that society is doing it to women. Powerfully.
Do you think you are a “girl?” Do others call you “girl”? How old are you? Where do you live? Help I’m confused.
– signed, 40-year-old woman
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Poetry News:
- — Economy in writing can put garrulous narration or evasive speechifying to shame (congrats c. dale)—
- — The American College of Physicians, the nation’s largest medical specialty organization, has published a compilation of stories, essays, and poems by doctors and their patients —
- — America’s newest, and foreign-born, poet laureate has traveled a long way —
- — Married M’s: The Metropolitan Market’s Logo Questioned —
- — Where Sheep Once Grazed, Now Poems Take Root —
- — Taslima wants adequate security after death threat —
- — Each week, Ed Shakespeare, the bard of Brooklyn baseball, will take a page from his ancient ancestor and add a bit of iambic pentameter to all our lives —
So for the last 11 days here in Nashville, it has been over 100 degrees F for 10 of them — including one day when it reached 106 degrees F. The hottest it has been here EVER (since they have been keeping records) is 107 degrees F. We are also in an “extreme drought.” I feel really bad for the farmers. We had a really hard freeze in April (?) and that messed things up and now this.
In more positive news, I got a new adult literacy student. That should help shake me out of my funk. My previous student graduated out of the program & got his CDL. 
Then I took a break because of the surgery. But I’m back & ready to share the wonderment of wordage. If you are in Nashville, the Nashville Adult Literacy Council needs YOU! They have a waiting list of folks who WANT to LEARN!!! It just takes a couple of hours every week and is fun! If you don’t live in Nashville, I’m sure your town has a similar organization with a long waiting list.
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Poetry News:
- — When Donald Hall’s father died, he said he wrote immediately about his father‘ passing, but that the poem took 17 years to complete —
- — delicate and imaginative tableaus —
- — who said it better, the minor poet or the major politician? —
- — Streets of poets facing the final stanza —
- — Q&A Joyce Brinkman Indiana Poet Laureate —
- — Syd Barrett’s love poem to Viv, his ‘little twig’, up for auction —
- — The Cult of the Amateur: How Today’s Internet is Killing Our Culture —
- — a poem reports about something different from news, even when the material is similar —
I’ve been having physical therapy for my mysterious back/shoulder problem. Part of it is a rotator cuff injury. Weird. I learned a new word though - supraspinatus. I can’t stop saying it. Supraspinatus!
Still can’t figure out how it happened. Darryl hasn’t given me an accordion lesson since before the surgery. (”Given me an accordion lesson” is not an euphemism for anything. He is teaching me how to play the accordion.) Darryl is 1/2 Polish and 1/2 Mexican. That’s some heavy accordion juju LOL. When he was about 10, his dad took him and his accordion over to the Motown studio for an audition haha.
Contest: Guess how much my uterus weighed in grams (per the pathology report) and whomever comes closest, I’ll mail you something. You can post in the comments but you’ll need to use a valid email address. Guess before Wednesday at 11:49 pm CST.
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