Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Lilliput Review in Your Pocket Day


Art by the incomparable Wayne Hogan


Poets. org, from the Academy of American Poets, has some interesting ideas, actually 30 of them, for celebrating National Poetry month. Two are of particular interest, I think. The first is something that Lillie has been promoting, by its very nature, since its inception: Poem in Your Pocket Day. And so AAP is advocating for April 17th to be Poem in Your Pocket Day and, if your at a loss of which poem to choose (there is a nice selection at the Poem in Your Pocket page that you can actually print out to fit in your pocket), why not choose an issue of Lilliput Review, which fits neatly in the pocket and, on average, has around 25 to 30 poems per issue.


Shameless self-promotion or national celebration? You decide.


It's always a pleasure to pass along new information concerning the work of Albert Huffstickler and there are two bits. First, at her librarian blog Speed of Light, Keddy Ann Outlaw has published a lovely collage entitled Retablo of Huff, along with the beautiful Huff poem entitled "Nostrum." This Huff post is a beauty, folded in as it is into an ongoing library project dealing with things Web 2.0.


In addition, on the Lillie homepage there are two new mp3 related Huff items. One is to a link at indieonestop.com to Huff reading "Intimacy", the other of Huff reading a poem entitled "Education". Hope you enjoy them.


There are two fine short poems worth a peak in the April 14th issue of the New Yorker : Michael Longley's powerfully ambivalent "In the New York Public Library" and Emily Moore's raucous "Auld Lang Syne." Great work if you can get it ... where to send can be found here.

This week's Lilliput poems come from issue #98, July 1998, pictured above. Let's start out with one of M. Kettner's always fresh and startling highkus:




#739

high
toenails with yellow polish
only buoy on the lake.

M. Kettner






What is Silence that I Fear It

When sound darkens into silence
I am drawn inward,
until trapped
as if between two mirrors.
Bruce Miller







Silence
is the haunting
voice of father,

what he didn't say,
how I keep hearing it.
Louis McKee






And this little nugget of wisdom, which perhaps might just as soon have seen its subjects switch places; though that most certainly would have been a different poem, different, too, is good:





Apologies to Mr. Shelton

Meditation will get you through
times of no bebop
better than bebop
will get you through
times of no meditation

W. T. Ranney







Until next week,
Don

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm a huge fan of assignments and "a-day" projects; thanks so much for the link!

I would add, read a poem to one's companion animals. Who knows at what level it might move them?

--LAV

Issa's Untidy Hut said...

LA:

Many thanks. For some reason your idea of a poem for animals brought to mind Stevie Smith. I found this little gem on Jeanette Winterson's page, written by Stevie Smith:

http://www.jeanettewinterson.com/pages/
content/index.asp?PageID=415

Don

Anonymous said...

Dear Don:

Here's my idea:


April l7th Dawn

poems of Unending Night
in the pocket
of my fishing shirt


Best Regards!

Jeffery Skeate

Issa's Untidy Hut said...

Jeffrey:

Very nice, indeed - I forgot about the chap's portability, too.

Glad you liked it ... did I tell you I'll be publishing a companion book - nature poems selected from 100 Poems by 100 Poets - also translated by Dennis and Hide Oshiro?

best,
Don