Poets! Jim They got it Spoken words They do’em Love still on board But it sort of got worse *just kidding* Stonehenge Not solved Only a few tribes gone Light My Fire Muthafucka Seriously It Got Better Love ya!
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drive-by planet: Voice for the exiled: the powerful and moving poetry of Susan Abulhawa
If you’re considering a gift for anyone in the new year I strongly recommend a wonderful poetry collection entitled My Voice Sought the Wind by Susan Abulhawa. Susan Abulhawa is a Palestinian-American writer and activist. Her highly acclaimed novel Mornings in Jenin has been translated into 32 languages since it
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Thriving, not surviving
Thriving, not surviving the slow cello accompaniment wasn’t haunting it wasn’t doubtful it was the soundtrack for the path she was on and it was trapped in a coda trying to find some gravitas instead of just being in touch with her own integrity it was the difference between surviving
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: The Absence of Resilience
The city of pain Absorbs your fracturing soul Social fabric frays March 15, 2009 No One Is Illegal – Ignite resistance ~ Canadian multiculturalism is not enough! (0) December 11, 2013 How Harper is Gutting Canada: THE LIST (0) April 23, 2013 Did Earth Day Not Quite Do It
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: As We go Into The Weekend …
With thanks to Karen, I am reposting a poem that she left in the comment section of an earlier post. Karen writes, On Facebook I follow the goings on of a bear sanctuary in Ontario, and this morning they posted the following with a peaceful photo of two bears sitting
Continue readingTHE CAREGIVERS' LIVING ROOM - A Blog by Donna Thomson: The Gift of Friendship or The Caregiver Ties That Bind
I’m up at our family cottage on a lake in the mountains of Quebec. Yesterday it rained, so naturally I gravitated to the bookshelf in the corner by the fireplace. I found this 1910 copy of “The Gift of Friendship and Other Verses”. Let me share with you one verse
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde
After reading the play by Shakespeare last week, I decided to tackle Chaucer’s epic 8,000-line poem about the Trojan lovers, Troilus and Cressida (or Criseyde as Chaucer writes it). It’s a long, somewhat meandering piece that begins, in the Online Medieval … Continue reading →
Continue readingChadwick's Blog & Commentary: Musing on Melville’s Poetry
I came across a poem last night that I had not read in the past (always a pleasant thing to discover something new in one of your books)*. It is by Herman Melville, an author I associate with novels and … Continue reading →
Continue readingChadwick's Blog & Commentary: Profundity
In 1923, William Carlos Williams wrote one of the most profound poems in the English language: The Red Wheelbarrow. It reads like a Japanese Zen haiku: so much depends upon a red wheel barrow glazed with rain water beside the … Continue reading →
Continue readingMy journey with AIDS...and more!: “A Winter Night” by Robert Burns (25 January 1759 – 21 July 1796)
When biting Boreas, fell and doure, Sharp shivers thro’ the leafless bow’r; When Phoebus gies a short-liv’d glow’r, Far south the lift, Dim-dark’ning thro’ the flaky show’r, Or whirling drift: Ae night the storm the steeples rocked, Poor Labour sweet in sleep was locked, While burns, wi’ snawy wreeths upchoked,
Continue readingcentre of the universe: David
You always remembered Because one time, in passing, I told you “Irises are my favourite flower”. Every year on my birthday, an Iris from your garden. One year, a drawing of an eyeball. “Here’s your birthday iris,” you’d written. Sometimes – often – I hardly understood what you were talking
Continue readingChadwick's Blog & Commentary: Rereading the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
There are many books weighing down my bookshelves into soft, drooping curves, but not many of them have the privilege of tenure. Only a handful have travelled with me for more than a couple of decades; a small selection of … Continue reading →
Continue readingmark a rayner | scribblings, squibs & sundry monkey joys: Selected Media Fads Through the Ages
24,000-22,000 BC: chunky fertility goddess statues (pictured at right: notice the prominent and large brains.) 10,000 BC: cave painting 4,000 BC: ziggurat construction 3,000-1,250 BC: pyramid raising (later revived by Mesoamericans and I.M. Pei) 1480-1700: Witch burning 1500s: homoerotic sonnet … Continue reading →
Continue readingdrive-by planet: New work by Remi Kanazi ‘Normalize This!’ undercuts Israeli spin
Remi Kanazi is a performance poet and rights activist based in NYC. His poetry collection – Poetic Injustice: Writings on Resistance and Palestine – was published in 2011. The novelist John Berger said this about Kanazi’s work: “You want to hear a voice which refuses to be silenced, and only
Continue readingCanadian Progressive: Obert Madondo: Canada, My Paradise Lost
My Paradise Canada Lost Lost to be recovered.
Continue readingMy journey with AIDS...and more!: Re-visiting Windigo ( a poem I wrote about a place I loved)
I know I’ve posted this before but I ventured to submit it to Northern Cardinal Review, an online magazine I happened upon today: Windigo Ripples lick the rocks As the pines and birch politely applaud Gulls catching their petits déjeuners In the waking lake. Sky’s amethyst shroud cascades
Continue readingSketchy Thoughts: Celebrating the Life and Work of Marilyn Buck
Two years ago today, Marilyn Buck died of cancer in New York City; after decades behind bars, she had been released from prison barely a few weeks earlier. As comrade Judy Greenspan wrote at the time: Marilyn died today not in the hospital but at Soffiyah Elijah’s house, her close
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: A Note about Alan Sullivan
Nearly two years ago, the poet and blogger Alan Sullivan died. His final project, a new translation of the Book of Psalms, has been published. The translation can be ordered here. His collaborator and advisor on this translation, Seree Zohar, was kind enough to send me a note to tell me
Continue readingmark a rayner | scribblings, squibs & sundry monkey joys: Byron’s Epic Swims: The Alps
To this day, no one has been able to recreate the feat of naiant heroics that Byron managed in the dark fall of 1816. Having finished buggering Percy Bysshe Shelley senseless, Bryon decided to spend the winter in Venice. He … Continue reading →
Continue readingcentre of the universe: Might Have Been
I am lost and in loss, am losing There beyond my reach the sunlit shore metamorphosis Cold as Odysseus no Circe here no Panacaea just these worn words weary heart eyes gone dry How then can I heal? Spring so … Continue reading →
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