America only seems to love its poets if they’re mad. Or half-mad. Or dead-drunk. Perhaps that’s why the only poets getting big screen-time this coming fall are Edgar Allen Poe and Charles Bukowski. Bukowski will be portrayed by Matt Dillon in “Factotum,” opening in a few days. And the Poe film, “The Death of Poe,” is to open sometime in the fall. Of course, there has also been a lot of stuff about Plath in…
It’s that time of year, for midsummer viewing of the Perseids meteor showers (am I developing a meteor obsession?). While I can’t quite get up two hours before dawn in the next business day or two, I will stay up tonight to see a few shooting stars. The most spectacular Perseid viewing I ever did was lying on a lawn on Kauai at about midnight. The trick, we decided, was to unfocus your eyes and…
Maybe it’s me, but all the blogs I read lately seem to have been authored by the same whiny post-adolescent with micro-tunnel vision. I’ve read blog entries about taking licensing exams, burning fingers on a hot steering wheel, preparing for vacations and other illuminating topics. I’m thinking it’s half me — I just want to scream at a narcissist monologue — and half August. No one can summon a critical or creative thought. That said,…
Thanks to Garrison Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac for this item of rocket science nostalgia: On this day in 1964, Ranger 7 radioed to earth the first clear, close-up pictures of the moon. There were 4,000 pictures in all, one thousand times as clear as anything ever produced by earth-bound telescopes. The pictures showed craters three feet in diameter and up to a foot and a half deep. When the pictures were transmitted on closed-circuit TV into…
I love people who make me mad enough to think through an issue for myself. That seems to me the function of the essayist — to kick-start your own processes of meditation. Gabriel Gudding’s essay on the evolution of contemporary poetry is a splendid example of the kind of writing that gets you mad enough to engage (or at least it did me). Mad as in a rage of interest and self-debate. As in “what…
Was part of my answer to the question, What makes good poetry in the early years of the 21st century? at YahooAnswers. 2River editor Richard Long put up the question and it already looks as though he’ll get interesting answers from some interesting poets. Want to answer the question? Click on the first link above. Visit https://racheldacus.net for more information and writing by Rachel Dacus.
Poemeleon is a wonderful find — if only I had better glasses. This new zine is a beautiful read, except for the teeny-tiny font size, which gives me a headache after about three poems. Editor Cati Porter puts her mission for poemeleon this way: “poemeleon seeks to make visible the invisible. By placing disparate poems alongside one another I aim to highlight not just their contrasts, but their similarities. To quote Forrest Gander: “Like species,…
(No, it’s not a new band) . . .Found this via Poetry Hut Blog: Pinsky on the Post. Love the pumpkin poem. Spent a night rather like that last night. Wrote a poem at 3:30 a.m. I used to know a midnight poet who not only dated his poems, but gave them times of night as well. But then he moved on to multimedia. Visit https://racheldacus.net for more information and writing by Rachel Dacus.
I stumbled on this amazing site last night. I would have told you about it sooner, but I was up late stumblingupon. I swear it’s going to be a verb in the next edition of the online Merriam Webster, like “google.” StumbleUpon is better than television. Which is why I lost sleep. I wouldn’t stay up for Dave or late night movies or Charlie Rose, but I totally lost track of time through StumbleUpon. Try…
On a poetry listserv I belong to, a debate rages today on the merit of Garrison Keillor’s skewering of poets, poetry and especially women poets in his film, show and books. The man who once referred to Anne Sexton as a “hot babe” is taking a little heat of his own this morning in the interesting discussion I’ve been party to. Poetry Foundation’s Ange Mlinko doesn’t much like his satirical subjects either. Interesting way to…