The Afterlife: Letter to Sam Hamill, Hayden Carruth

[moireach.livejournal.com]

The Afterlife: Letter to Sam Hamill
Hayden Carruth

(August 3, 1921-September 29, 2008)

You may think it strange, Sam, that I'm writing
a letter in these circumstances. I thought
it strange too—the first time. But there's
a misconception I was laboring under, and you
are too, viz. that the imagination in your
vicinity is free and powerful. After all,
you say, you've been creating yourself all
along imaginatively. You imagine yourself
playing golf or hiking in the Olympics or
writing a poem and then it becomes true.
But you still have to do it, you have to exert
yourself, will, courage, whatever you've got, you're
mired in the unimaginative. Here I imagine a letter
and it's written. Takes about two-fifths of a
second, your time. Hell, this is heaven, man.
I can deluge Congress with letters telling
every one of those mendacious sons of bitches
exactly what he or she is, in maybe about
half an hour. In spite of your Buddhist
proclivities, when you imagine bliss
you still must struggle to get there.( By the way )

Poems are fluttering
everywhere like seed from a cottonwood tree.
Sam, the remarkable truth is I can do any
fucking thing I want. Speaking of which
there's this dazzling young Naomi who
wiped out on I-80 just west of Truckee
last winter, and I think this is the moment
for me to go and pay her my respects.
Don't go way. I'll be right back.

A favor to ask.

[grammarfight.livejournal.com]

Dear Poetry Friends,

I hope you don't mind me asking this here. I have read so many wonderful poems in this community thanks to you. And now I come to you, cap in hand, with a request. I host a weekly public radio show called The Anthologist's Cabinet of Musical Marvels. It's an eclectic program of interesting music and other ephemera.

I would like to try something. I want to play some of your sounds, whether you are friend, stranger or otherwise, on an upcoming episode. Don't be shy. Are you game? Here's what it would entail.

Use the voice post feature (I like the low-fi-ness of it) and read a poem into your blog. I'll snip it out and put it with the others for a "found sound" episode. You can be as anonymous or renowned as you wish to be.

If you're game, make your voice post (or two, or three) and then leave me a comment here. I will go find them. It would mean a lot to me.

(Unfamiliar with the whole voice post thing? Check this out: it's very easy.)

Thank you, fellow poets and poetry-lovers.

When we two are parted- Lord Byron

[twoja-magdalena.livejournal.com]

When we two are parted
Lord Byron

When we two parted
In silence and tears,
Half broken-hearted,
To sever for years,
Pale grew thy cheek and cold,
Colder thy kiss;
Truly that hour foretold
Sorrow to this.

The dew of the morning
Sank chill on my brow
It felt like the warning
Of what I feel now.
Thy vows are all broken,
And light is thy fame:
I hear thy name spoken,
And share in its shame.

They name thee before me,
A knell to mine ear;
A shudder comes o'er me
Why wert thou so dear?
They know not I knew thee,
Who knew thee too well:
Long, long shall I rue thee
Too deeply to tell.

In secret we met
In silence I grieve
That thy heart could forget,
Thy spirit deceive.
If I should meet thee
After long years,
How should I greet thee?
With silence and tears.

Padraic Pearse

[harmoner.livejournal.com]

Some poems by the Irish rebel/recolutionary Padraig Pearse who was involved in the Easter Rising of 1916 and subsequently arrested and executed.


The Mother
I do not grudge them: Lord, I do not grudge
My two strong sons that I have seen go out
To break their strength and die, they and a few,
In bloody protest for a glorious thing,
They shall be spoken of among their people,
The generations shall remember them,
And call them blessed;
But I will speak their names to my own heart
In the long nights;
The little names that were familiar once
Round my dead hearth.
Lord, thou art hard on mothers:
We suffer in their coming and their going;
And tho' I grudge them not, I weary, weary
Of the long sorrow—And yet I have my joy:
My sons were faithful, and they fought.

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