just done w/ a first read of c logue's all day permanent red...

And here it comes:
That unpremeditated joy as you
--The Uzi shuddering warm against your hip
Happy in danger in a dangerous place
Yourself another self you found at Troy--
Squeeze nickel through that rush of Greekoid scum!

creative anachronism... makes me want to jump back into the iliad... & simone weil's essay on it... and dig up logue's first volume... war music

such are the times...

KENTUCKY WRITERS DRAW BIGGEST CROWDS AT STATE BOOK FAIR

w berry from "Work Song" in Clearing:

... And I know my words
have gone in search of things.
They are hunting the song
that will celebrate the absence
of what does not belong.

Hedgehog: You can't be about things. This is strictly forbidden.
o... ZOTZ... in which malcolm davidson momentarily makes me wish i'd been chosen as a best american po-it of 2004... just to get into the zoo... a muddy little squat of a cage for my pomes... even if i were to meet say a carp or a maggot...

and then there's c murray's positive appraisal of said blog's roots in the dialogical earth...

in the mail this past week... two berry first editions... good deals... the unsettling of america and clearing... both '77... both with pages browning... was '77 that long ago... year of the first talking heads lp... first year of teaching in houston... long ago... far away

'We Were Just Singing' ... o... dear... me...

It was the battle of two one-eyed monsters writ large. No nuances. No common ground. No common sense. No real evidence.

Every time I wake I understand how easy it is to be nothing. ... antonio porchia... born this day in 1885... (with appreciation to fait accompli for occasional reminders of porchia's provocations)

most noticeable below is the strangeness that many who voted for bush also voted for obama... and vice versa, of course...

How Carmel Voted... mock election results...

Total # of voters for President: 770
Bush: 489
Kerry:204
Badnarik: 13
Nader: 16

Total # of voters for U.S. Senate: 703
Obama:376
Keyes:274
Kohn:23
Franzen: 18

SUBLIME...
[adj] (archaic) lifted up or set high; 'their hearts were jocund and sublime'- Milton
[adj] inspiring awe; 'well-meaning ineptitude that rises to empyreal absurdity'- M.S.Dworkin; 'empyrean aplomb'- Hamilton Basso; 'the sublime beauty of the night'
[adj] worthy of adoration or reverence
[v] vaporize and then condense right back again
[v] change or cause to change directly from a solid into a vapor without first melting; 'sublime iodine'; 'some salts sublime when heated'

drawings on paper 10.15.2004 ... so cool

BorderManager Information Alert... funny... i just tried to get to the Smith-Berry Winery... run by wendell berry's daughter and her husband... but I guess the school's filters won't let that happen... you can still get there, though... have a sip for me

'Seventy-eight years ago, I was a freshman here. I was completely devoted to contemporary music - Stravinsky, Bartok. Charles Ives wrote a letter of recommendation for me. I wrote a big, dissonant piece that caused a great deal of consternation. But I went frequently to hear the Boston Symphony Orchestra and sat in those rush seats, and after a while I began to discover a little bit of harmony.' ...elliot carter at 95

"Those old songs are my lexicon and prayer book," Bob Dylan said in 1997, when the release of his "Time Out of Mind" album returned him to his rightful place front and center in the rock 'n roll consciousness after years of uncertain drift.

Why level downward to our dullest perception always, and praise that as common sense? The commonest sense is the sense of men asleep, which they express by snoring. Sometimes we are inclined to class those who are once-and-a half witted with the half-witted, because we appreciate only a third part of their wit. Some would find fault with the morning-red, if they ever got up early enough. "They pretend," as I hear, "that the verses of Kabir have four different senses; illusion, spirit, intellect, and the exoteric doctrine of the Vedas;" but in this part of the world it is considered a ground for complaint if a man's writings admit of more than one interpretation. While England endeavors to cure the potato-rot, will not any endeavor to cure the brain-rot, which prevails so much more widely and fatally? ... thoreau... walden

i'm off to joliet... for my brother-in-law's father's services...may he rest in peace...

John F. Egizio, Sr.
Age 89. Passed away peacefully on Sunday, November 7, 2004 at his home surrounded by his family.

Born July 17, 1915 in Joliet, he was a lifelong resident. Served the United States Army during WWII in Hawaii. Member of the Stone City Post #2199. John worked for nearly 30 years as an electrician at Caterpillar. He was an avid fisherman, hunter and bowler.

Survived by his wife of 63 years, Mary C. (nee Simunovich) Egizio; children, John F. Egizio, Jr. (Mary Therese) and Judy (Kevin) Barnes; grandchildren, Therese Ann (Anthony) Fracaro, Rebecca, Clare and Matthew Egizio; great-grandchildren, Anthony, Delaney and Brennen; two sisters, Mary (late William) Stukel and Ann (late Bud) McNamara; one son-in-law, James (Mary) Yahnke. Numerous nieces, nephews and cousins also survive.

Preceded in death by his parents, Rosario and Antonette (nee Mancini) Egizio; daughter, Jeanette Egizio; brother, Philip; and sisters, Nancy (James) Gleason and Sue (Clem) Albert.

Funeral services for John F. Egizio, Sr. will be Thursday, November 11, 2004 at 9:15 a.m. from the funeral home chapel to St. Anne Catholic Church, Crest Hill where a Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated at 10:00 a.m. Interment St. Mary Nativity Cemetery where full military honors will be conducted by the United States Army. Memorials in his memory to Joliet Area Community Hospice would be appreciated. Visitation Wednesday 2-4 and 6-8 p.m. at:
FRED C. DAMES FUNERAL HOME
3200 Black at Essington Rds.
For information: 741-5500

Alice Waters Speaks...
It is self-evident to me - as it probably is to everyone else in this enlightened audience - that the best way to bring people together, and the best way to create caring, compassionate, peaceful communities, is to bring people together around food. And yet people around the world are increasingly alienated from meaningful participation in the everyday act of feeding themselves. This is driving us apart, and diminishing our world.

invading fallujah from the north

ah... suzanne's pictures were too big to load in this lifetime via my home dialup... but here on the school's t1 they're just fine... it's as good as a walk with herself...

this flood of links below indicates that i've been sitting at the big teacher desk all afternoon while the sophomores write an in-class essay on three 19th century snow poems... i've been googling "a timbered choir"... looking for useful wendell berry stuff... a couple sermons that note him... a film review that quotes him... but now the sophs are all gone... i've got this thick folder of paper... to read

Mary, Mary | A Sermon by Jan Carlsson-Bull

Courage in Troubled Times 2/2/03

The DVD Journal | Reviews : Northfork

The Limits of Nature: What I've Learned from Wendell Berry

anonymous brief essay on A Timbered Choir ... pdf file for Adobe Reader

afield in the desert, the mountains, the cosmos

Gather Us In... interesting to see that berry's poems have been incorporated into liturgical prayer...

Now you know the worst ... i remember how shortly after 9/11 my old friend jacqui (how are ya? where are ya? ah, still at smith) wrote to ask who wrote this... i had a feeling it was berry, but hadn't yet immersed myself in A Timbered Choir...

As we wander around the neighborhood

Flaherty: A Timbered Choir

Book Review: A Timbered Choir

Bloom's Anxiety of Influence by Dan Geddes...
Bloom argues that new poems originate mainly from old poems; that the primary struggle of the young poet is against the old masters. He, the ephebe, must 'clear imaginative space' (1) for himself through a creative misreading of the strong poets of the past. Only strong poets can overcome this anxiety of influence; lesser lights become derivative flatterers and never achieve poetic immortality for themselves ... The struggle between the young poet (the "ephebe," the "citizen of poetry" as ancient Athenians termed him) and his great precursors is more of a psychological agon, where the young poet's only weapon against the greats is creative misprision. A successful misreading of past works allows the ephebe room for his own voice to be heard--and if spectacularly successful, he can come dwarf even the precursor, to make us read the precursor in terms of the later poet, rather than vice versa.

Leonard Pitts: Where's the morality in Bush's policy?
And if you are, as I am, a Christian who remembers what Jesus told Simon Peter, it is galling to see Him reduced to a GOP shill, wrapped in a flag and used as a prop to advance a conservative agenda -- which, by the way, stands the Bible on its head ... So I look at the success that conservatives on the so-called Christian right have had in claiming Him as their exclusive property, and I wonder, where in the heck is the Christian left? Where are the people who preach -- and live -- the biblical values of inclusion, service, humility and sacrifice, and why haven't they coalesced into an alternative political force? ... good stuff from mr. pitts...

Questions about poetry:
1. How can one forward along with poetry after poetry ?

Poetry never did anything else but getting out of poetry. Through an active process, it always carries on and disregards. It is part of its essence to forge forward ahead. That's its very way of becoming identified : restlessness, impatience, care for language, i.e. when all is said, lyricism.... glorious translation

OWL at Purdue University: Writing About Poetry

Hamilton College - Writing Center - Poetry

Writing About Poetry

While working the rich soil of Missoula's Rattlesnake Community Farm, an idea was born to honor the act of tending the earth and to celebrate its gifts of renewal.

Peace, Earth & Justice News

Kevin Kelly on abortion - The consequences of treating a fetus as a human being

In the end, the most important person you have to live with is the one inside your skin. If you don't live by your deepest truths, you have not only failed your self, you have failed your community. so... they're all counting on me... as i'm counting on them... you... that kind of authenticity will seem rare if i only look to find it on the evening news...