Threading Delightfully Loose Ends

Ryokan

Here's a tangle of loose ends that are coming undone, together, very nicely.

Recently I posted my semi-lame Top 5 Poetry Books for 2008. If anyone is looking for a comprehensive list of good work actually published in 2008, check out Cold Front Magazine's year end list of the best in poetry. Thanks to Ron Silliman, once again, for pointing the way.

Also, an excellent collection of poems attributed to Han Shan can be found at Moon Soup (No Bowl, No Moon), in various translations.

A creditable job was done by James Campbell in the NYTBR looking at the Letters of Allen Ginsberg and The Selected Letters of Allen Ginsberg and Gary Snyder. I've read about a dozen reviews of these two books and this one was one of the best.

Stuck on the mp3 player (and computer) is Apples in Stereo's New Magnetic Wonder and though one could cop to the cynicism (try that for a title), download these two tracks for free in their entirety, legally, from amazon: "Can You Feel It" and "Energy" and let that cynicism wash over you awhile and see if it doesn't transmute into something else altogether.

Stumbled across an interesting site of book extracts entitled Books in the Darkroom. This post reminded me how wonderful Kenneth Rexroth translations from the Chinese and Japanese are.

Finally, a poem by Ryokan, Zen poet known as the great fool, perfectly captured on film: