Modern Poetry (ENGL 310) with Langdon Hammer

What have I been up to?  I've been watching these poetry classes from Yale Open Course. They are so meaty that I can watch them over and over and pick up something new every time.  I've never actually studied poetry, so it has been a real treat.  I stream these videos on my laptop (macbook pro) and use Google Chrome to get them up on the the TV.  I bought myself a SmartTV for an early birthday present and should check and see if I can get right to YouTube from there.  I love this guy Hammer!  There are lots of videos in this class.  The handouts and whatever the class is seeing on the overhead is not available which is annoying but probably has to do with copyright.

Juan Felipe Herrera’s winding path to poetry

Hello Again

I've been sucked into the immediate gratification of Facebook & Twitter. Is that good for me? I plan to return to blogging. Am preparing for Centrum Writer's Workshop with Mark Doty. I'm reading poems from my classmates and I never realized how many poems I'd be reading for this event! It's kinda fun but having no pometry background I don't know what to say about most of them!

Rainer Maria Rilke -- Do not write love poems;

Paris, February 17, 1903 from Letters to a Young Poet

...avoid at first those forms that are too facile and commonplace...describe your sorrows and desires, passing thoughts and the belief in some kind of beauty--describe all these with loving, quite, humble sincerity, and use to express yourself, the things in your environment, the images from your dreams, and the objects of your memory. If your daily life seems poor, do not blame it; blame yourself, tell yourself that you are not poet enough to call forth its riches; for to the creator there is no poverty and no poor indifferent place. And even if you were in some prison the walls of which let none of the sounds of the world come to your senses--would you not still then have your childhood, that precious, kingly possession, that treasure house of memories? Try to raise the submerged sensations of that simple; your personality will grow more firm, your solitude will widen and will become a dusky dwelling past which the noise of others goes by far away.

Inaugural Challenge

I've been thinking about the challenge to Elizabeth Alexander to write an inaugural poem for Obama. I am sure that she needs no help, but I think Obama deserves more than one poem.

I say, let's all write him one! Let's all give our poems the same title:

Inaugural, 2009

or something like that, and see what we come up with. According the NYTimes, Ms. Alexander has turned to W.H. Auden and Gwendolyn Brooks in order to write her "occasional" poem.

So how about it? How often do we get a chance to write inaugural poems like this!

Still Snowed In

I'm still snowed in here. I also had minor eye surgery yesterday to correct my overly droopy eyes. I was told not to strain my face. I've never heard of face straining but it doesn't sound good. Or does it? Does a smile or frown strain the face?

I've spent most of the day resting, setting up the new blog and icing my face which Eleni tells me looks like I was beaten. I was not! We couldn't get a cab to the surgery center due to the snow, so I called my new friend Mason to give us a ride.

I've been looking for poems again. I was looking for a youtube of Gwendolyn Brooks and found a 12 year old poet named Autumn Ashante' who knocked my socks off. I couldn't find a video that was of good enough quality so I'm sharing a reading by Elizabeth Alexander instead. Her claim to fame is that she has been selected to read a poem for the inauguration.

Xmas Eve Poetry-- Elizabeth Alexander