Six Gallery Press Reading

Photo by Jessica Fenlon

Last Saturday's Six Gallery Press reading at Modern Formations went very well. As with last August's reading, I read a mix of past Lilliput poems and some of my own work. Here are the poems from Lillie:

National Poetry Day

This being that fine occasion
to honor appreciative friends
with a wisdomy verse
pulled from one's hip
I am telling myself to first
keep straight my pockets
so as not to go
blow my nose into
William Carlos Williams

Richard Swanson

only one flower
is needed to answer
your question

Stanford Forrester

winter haiku
here, we have five or six
words for snow
and they all start with fuck

Mark DeCarteret

Because

You are tired, because I thirst for
salt, we turn to each other.
You are barefoot. It is winter.
This is going to be a difficult story.

Gayle Elen Harvey

an echo

The grassy grassy grassy
--plain
reaches out across across the road
--the road
cutting man's lifeline in two two
trying trying to reclaim for mother
--nature nature
what is by all rights
hers and hers and hers

Michael Estabrook

How Frightening to be the Male

a pair of cardinals on my neighbor's
fence: the male--so bright, so eye-
catching, so out-there, so
dispensable

Kelley Jean White

Cannibal

When you've rent the flesh and sinew
from my supple skeleton and you've
sucked the last sweet drop of marrow
leaving lonely, brittle bones
will you save the jagged splinters
to adorn your chieftain's chest
or scatter them like toothpicks
over yesterday's dung.

Sue De Kelver

Each step into simplicity :: undoes the weave

Grant Hackett

We forget we're mostly water
till the rain falls
and every atom
in our body
starts to go home

Albert Huffstickler

¶blue thorn gallop rose
why does language have to be so perfect?

Charlie Mehrhoff

TAOUBT

Ray Skjelbred

In addition to the Lilliput poems, I opened with a quote from Jim Carroll, and a dedication to his memory. The quote:

"It's too late
-to fall in love with Sharon Tate.
-And it's too soon
-to trace the path of the bullet
-in the brain of Reverend Moon."

Jim Carroll

I followed the Lilliput reading with 7 poems of my own, with only one that I'd read in August. Though I practiced "an echo" by Michael Estabrook, it was difficult to get the right aural effect and I'm afraid I didn't do it justice. Otherwise, I think it went over pretty well. Not too shabby for an old man decidedly out of practice. Overall, it was a solid reading by all. Che Elias from Six Gallery did a great job picking readers and so my personal thanks to him. I was particularly taken with the work of M. Callen, Scott Silsbe, Karen Lillis and Bill Hughes but, again, all the readers impressed.



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Since this is a week folks are likely on the road for the holiday, I'll keep it brief. I'm in the process of combing through all the poems for the Bashô Haiku Challenge again. Though I've made a large preliminary selection, I'm going through every poem once more to make sure I didn't miss anything and that what I previously set aside is actually up to snuff. Editing the mag all these years has taught me to space out multiple readings of particular items since mood, attention, and physical condition can actually effect how one approaches work. I read most work first thing in the morning while I'm fresh and rested and save the mundane stuff of replying, printing, collating etc. for later in the day. I'm hoping to make an announcement of the winners by December 2nd, December 9th at the latest.



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This week's featured issue is #150, a broadside of 11 poems by powerful tanka poet, Pamela Miller Ness. Enjoy.

Autumn again
in the Japanese garden;
leaves
of last year's euonymus
burn still in my journal.

A bud
of the red anemone
ready to burst . . .
the child
she never bore.

Years
after her passing
on the path
I greet my neighbor
in Mother's voice.

Pamela Miller Ness

a wind-blown boat
a skylark
crossing paths

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

And thanks to Jessica Fenlon for sending along the photo of me cawing "Crow" from the reading.




best,
Don

Procol Harum: Wreck of the Hesperus - Issa's Sunday Service, #25

Keith Reid 2nd from right

As long-time reader's of The Hut know, Keith Reid, the lyricist for the great artrock band, Procol Harum, is one of my favorite little known songwriters. Reid, like Robert Hunter of the Grateful Dead, is a default member of the band and, since neither plays an instrument in performance, both suffer from a deplorable lack of recognition. I've written about the Reid and the band before and, though I was taken to task for calling A Salty Dog, from which today's featured song is taken, a concept album, my post was reprinted on the Procol Harum blog, Beyond the Pale, so I feel I wasn't too far off the mark. In another post on the previous Lilliput blog, Beneath Cherry Blossoms, I placed Shelley's "Ozymandis" and Reid's "Conquistador" side by side for comparison. Reid's homage to Shelley was skilled, dark, and delightful, and one of Procol Harum's biggest hits. The song itself will no doubt be finding its way on to this ever growing list of literature inflected rock songs some time in the future.

Their most famous song, "Whiter Shade of Pale," is perhaps the consummate litrock song, referencing Chaucer's "The Miller's Tale" from The Canterbury Tales, which I will be cantankerously skipping today, saving it for a future post. Today, to celebrate the birthday of the talented Mr. Reid (which is tomorrow, October 19th), the selected song above is the lesser known "Wreck of the Hesperus," which tips its briny hat to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem of the same name. The contrast might serve as an example of the difference between traditional and modern approaches, Longfellow's being a frightful, external narrative and Reid's, in the context of the songs that surround it (that concept thingy rears its noddling noggin again - perhaps I should simply state the songs are thematically related), an internal, metaphoric one.

Ah, too many words, not enough notes, eh? Well, hope you enjoy it.

For a list of all 25 songs so far, check out this website.



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From featured song to featured poems, which come from Lilliput Review, #38, October 1992. With the leaves reeling and the snow falling and memories of the nicest summer in these parts (and, I suspect, many others) in quite sometime, here's a little bouquet of two (plus Issa) to spruce things up a bit. Enjoy.

daisies

daisies in a ceramic
---swan vase
on a living room sill
---in the sun
radiating
---white and yellow
'till the end of time

Michael Estabrook

Lilacs.
Somehow it seems true.
Delicate of scent and color,
they hurt one's heart so.

Terria Tucker Smith

wildflowers--
all we say or speak about
is autumn wind

Issa
translated by David Lanoue

And, because I always spend so time on Mr. Reid, here's the band at its height, showing their talents in the instrumental "Repent Walpurgis."






Walpurgis, after whom Walpurgis Night is named, was a British missionary and saint, who died somewhere in the late 770's. Why or even if she needed to repent I'm not sure.




best,
Don

Issa's Sunday Service, #18

This week's offering from Issa's Sunday Service comes from the album I would take to a desert island if only one is allowed: Van Morrison's It's Too Late To Stop Now. Ok, it's 2 discs, but you'll let me slide, right? Tomorrow is Mr. Morrison's birthday and, as a present, he becomes the first artist to appear on this weekly feature twice (and this will be, by no means, his last appearance). Not much of present, you ask? He has everything else.

As with so many of the performances on It's Too Late To Stop Now, this rendition of Wild Children is far superior to the studio original. The song itself sums up a generation, for better and worse, and, if I can mix my clichés, this would be the song I buried in a time capsule on that desert island for some far future alien culture to discover when they go on vacation.

As a bonus this week (and just to see if anybody is paying attention), I'll give a free 6 issue subscription to Lilliput Review to anyone who knows who is being quoted in the album's title? (Hint: it isn't because Morrison says what would become the title during the end of "Cyprus Avenue." In the BBC review, linked above, they even have Morrison saying it during "Into The Mystic." Fact-checker, please!)


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Here's a poem from issue #25, September 1991, by Michael Estabrook. It was on my short list to read this past weekend at the Six Gallery Press reading. Try reading this one aloud, softening the repeated words (and parts of words) as an echo would.

an echo

The grassy grassy grassy
--plain
reaches out across across the road
--the road
cutting man's lifeline line in two two
trying trying to reclaim for mother
--nature nature
what is by all rights
hers and hers and hers

Michael Estabrook

even wild roses
of a downtrodden land
reach enlightenment

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don

Issa's Sunday Service, #13

Arguably the last fine song by America's premiere popular music group of 60's, The Band, Ophelia hits all the stops: fine arrangement, tongue-in-cheek lyrics, and still another outstanding vocal performance by yesterday's birthday boy, Levon Helm.

Finest line: "The ghost is clear."

As a bonus, here's the old man proving he's still got it in 2008, performing today's Sunday Service selection with the Levon Helm Band.




This week's archive poem comes from issue #25, Sept. 1991. A little something for mid-summer to remind us exactly (exactly) where we are.




an echo

The grassy grassy grassy
--plain
reaches out across across the road
--the road
cutting man's lifeline line in two two
trying trying to reclaim for mother
--nature nature
what is by all rights
hers and hers and hers

Michael Estabrook

is the wind
on summer vacation?
grassy field

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don

For more LitRock songs, see the Issa's Sunday Service homepage.

Big Glitch and a Few Poems

Cover, w/tea stain, by Albert Huffstickler

* The above image was added afterwards, making some of what follows obsolete. *

Well, the year is starting out with a different kind of bang, not exactly one I'd hoped for or anticipated. With one issue in the rear view, another popped up immediately before I could get out of the way: computer problems.

I can't really figure out what is going on at the moment. I've been running all kind of diagnostics but the best I can sort out is that it must be some kind of virus. I can surf at the moment and minimally check email and blogger, but I don't seem to be able to upload images and when posting occasionally get broken connection messages. This may take awhile to sort out and things could be intermittent at best for the next little while.

Since today is Archive Tuesday, I'm going to try to post a few poems without the cover image. This week's trip into the past arrives at April 1994, issue #55. The further we go back in time, the wordier the work, if still limited to 10 lines. My evolution, as editor and just plain folk, is evident, at least to me. Enjoy.





Inside Spring

A robin walks across
a quiet street, as if
there's a choice.

K. Shabee

Summer

shining shining
black crow strutting
open-beaked
across the dried crumbling
street

Michael Estabrook

a new eden

time to chase god
out of the garden, restore
forests, listen again
to a wisdom of serpents
to voices of trees,
time to take on
all that terrible
knowing

Will Inman

Painting

The feeling
jumps
from deep
inside
your gut
to canvas
in a lump
of red
which will be
someone else's
sun

Suzanne Bowers

Cafe Poem

The woman in
the corner,
white on black,
white skin,
black hair,
black dress,
lights a
long, white
cigarette,
the orange flame
bright
against her cheek.

Albert Huffstickler

Looking these over, I notice I chose the most minimal, so it doesn't appear much different than usual. You'll have to trust me on the wordiness part.

I'll keep plugging away at this end, but this computer thing doesn't have a good feel. I've got all the files for Lilliput saved to a separate portable hard drive so, if I've got clean the whole disk and start from scratch, it is doable, if painful.

More soon ...


Hopefully.

Don

PS If the print size is minuscule, I apologize. See aforementioned glitch. This is my second shot at posting this; the first put an early, incomplete draft up.