this journal blug

now i've listened again to Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet... it requires 74 minutes of careful listening... when used as ambient sound it will drive you looney... as it almost did to me... it requires a prepared receptivity... a ready brain... i guess... i'm distracted...

o man... did i really post links to stuff at evil amazon... yep... and i'm thoroughly ashamed of myself... yep... next thing you know i'll be shilling for mall-wart... or some such... thing

listening to tom waits growling and wailing the title tune on Go Tell It on the Mountain with the great Blind Boys of Alabama... a fine set... despite the presence of the eternally obnoxious little drummer boy... which has never ever been (may not be capable of being) well done and needs to be put out of its (and our) misery... pa rumpa pum pum...

well... the waits cut reminds me of his old work on gavin bryars' Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet back in... uh... 93... 74 minutes of "minimalist" magic...

... aw right now the blind boys and chrissie hynde are crooning "in the bleak midwinter"... nicely... and now aaron neville warbles in with "joy to the world"... good stuff... mavis staples... o...

nyah nyah nyah nyah nyaaah nyah... i've got my semester exams all writ... but... of course... it's a long road to christmas... and a short one to quarter's end... how does that work... ?

State of Illinois Laureate Announcement Press Release

"Kevin has translated his life experience into rhyme, rhythm and verse and has the wisdom to know that poetry can have as much a place on the factory floor as it does in the lecture hall," Blagojevich said in introducing Stein at the Illinois State Library, Gwendolyn Brooks Building, which was named earlier this year for the state's last poet laureate. "I know you'll inspire young people to put pen to paper, to translate their experiences and observations into writing as powerful as your own."

Private Poets, Worldly Acts
Public and Private History in Contemporary American Poetry by Kevin Stein

Looking through the lens of the careers of Robert Lowell, James Wright, Frank O'Hara, Adrienne Rich, Philip Levine, Yusef Komunyakaa, Rita Dove, David Wojahn, and Carolyn Forché, Stein illuminates the various ways contemporary poets redeem a vision of personal, aesthetic, and social relevancy from the shadow of traditionally narrated history.

Stein is Caterpillar Professor of English and Director of Creative Writing Program at Bradley University, Peoria, IL.

Another poem by Kevin Stein

... at the Colorado Review...

AN ILLINOIS PORTFOLIO - Kevin Stein:

Little Puddles, Spring Buckets, the Earth Awash
by Kevin Stein

with bees, green tea leaves and sassafras,
garden mint so pungent the shut window
can't shut it out --- we lie there, bathed in sweet wet breath of angels
who envy our lips' blessed rush of flesh
on flesh they must turn their eyes from in pain of their own want of a body
we step out of when making love,
vessel we hover above in spent moments, so sweetly deep we've thrashed to come
out this other side, flushed and astonished
to have plucked ourselves free of want: pink and hardy weed whose roots sprout
among puddles on breast and belly
and thigh --- tomorrow's lubricious blossom.

hmmm... and another poem at the site...

Kevin Stein / Bruised Paradise

a book at u of i press...

KEVIN STEIN

his bradley u information...

Chicago Tribune | State's latest laureate crafts verse in a garage

Though Stein has received public acclaim, many poets privately appraise his work as overly sentimental and unpolished. But most agree his affability and drive to form new programs qualify him well for the laureate post, which is unpaid.

there's that sentimental charge... against feeling... or a certain kind of... "unearned" emotional payoff... pushing the buttons... i don't know this poet... kevin stein... where might his stuff be found...

Exquisite Corpse - A Journal of Letters and Life

Harvey's Index
from Patrick Whitgrove

Number of attendees at Harvey Senate's funeral last October 12th,
excluding the priest and altar boys (two): 4
Percentage of attendees bearing the Senate surname: 0

fait accompli:

Walter Benjamin would have
understood that like the growing
masses of moviegoers ,
the thronging masses of bloggers
stand with insourciant
defiance towards the overall capitalist
conception of the function of
information and history.
(n. piombino)

comment: i'm guessing that nyah nyah nyah nyah nyaaah nyah is not quite the insouciance to which nick refers.

Last night I slept in a feather bed
Between my husband and baby.
Tonight I lay on the river banks
In the arms of Black Jack Davey,
Love my Black Jack Davey.

really good christmas listening... right now... leon redbone: christmas island... the whole dang thing... and...

it seems i'm the only guy in the school with a christmas-decorated door... a great big snowman cut out of big white paper... snowflake beadstrings... paper snowflakes... thanks to one eager artistic senior named jessica...

a cool walk under a nearly full moon... kind of like strolling with yr own personal streetlight... moon shadows everywhere

The Emily Dickinson Random Epigram Machine:

Myself was formed - a Carpenter -
An unpretending time
My plane - and I, together wrought
Before a Builder came -

My Tools took Human - Faces -
The Bench, where we had toiled -
Against the Man - persuaded -
We - Temples build - I said -


happy 173... emily d....

we write into a world
that is dry at sunset

tonio has made something beautiful... sad... mysterious... enough

Nobel Lecture - Literature 2003

remember to read this... it is said to be... something (via language hat)

i remember a moment last year when i was trying to help the sophomores write against their one-word title... i said things like "when a natural thought comes to mind, write its opposite"... "don't surrender to the cliche"... "make no sense... if you are making sense you are doing it wrong"... this had at least one poor kid in tears... so desperate to give the teacher what he wanted, so unable to "make no sense"... i felt mean

...the non-poet type person actually already has a poetic template in place. To learn to write the person must unlearn this set of assumptions.

yes... this is good... i find these templates everywhere in my students' reading... as well as writing... the unlearning process is a long arduous tear-stained path... for most

and yet... isn't it all there... because yr doing this thing called "the poem"... how do you suck the thing out of its own context... pretend yr writing a memo to the boss... a get well card... trick yrself into thinking yr no poet at all...

Bemsha Swing:

I dream of a poetry without any poetic vocabulary. That is, no word or phrase that's there in the poem because I am writing a poem. j. mayhew

boyo... i know what you mean... i've had this in mind too... probably impossible... how do you get that intensity... past the flat boredom of simple saying... without goosing yr diction... even just a bit... and what about poems where yr taking on the poetical itself... going nose to elbow with the expectations... which are of course yr expectations... or anyone's...

as if this weren't the tuesday before the last tuesday... the last day... of the first semester... then exams... and christmas

Immaculate Conception

In the Constitution Ineffabilis Deus of 8 December, 1854, Pius IX pronounced and defined that the Blessed Virgin Mary "in the first instance of her conception, by a singular privilege and grace granted by God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the human race, was preserved exempt from all stain of original sin."

... and a holy day OF OBLIGATION... much obliged, ma'am...

John Winston Ono Lennon 10.9.40 - 12.8.80