Bookish Butch
Proud to say my favorite former used bookstore owner has won best blog in the GLBT category! Way to go, Caroline!! Canadian Blog Awards 2014 results Bookish Butch
poetry
Poets, Jim!
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…
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…
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…
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,…
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…
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.…
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…
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…
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 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:…
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…
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…
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…
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…
Obert Madondo: Canada, My Paradise Lost
My Paradise Canada Lost Lost to be recovered.
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…
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…
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…
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…