Category Archives: Poetry

Hanging from the Monkey Bars

In Fish Bones, Gillian Sze grabs you by the shifts in tense, keeps you bouncing about in time frames. And aptly it’s the opening to a poem called “The Shaman’s Dance” that offers the perfect locus upon which to pin … Continue reading

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Having Doing

Experience versus Theory These days you have to have a P.H.D. In the old days all you had to do was dance. Ishmael Reed “Tea Dance Turns Thirty-Nine” in A Secretary to the Spirits And so for day 2082 25.08.2012

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Whither Eros

Howard Gardner (5 Minds for the Future) on the Respectful Mind… We homo sapiens must somehow learn how to inhabit neighboring places — and the same planet — without hating one another, without lusting to injure or kill one another, … Continue reading

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Where Has Been There Will Be

This begins like a call and response and turns into a round and then closes with a synoptic clincher. Answer July … #386 Answer July – Where is the Bee – Where is the Blush – Where is the Hay? … Continue reading

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Almost a Scar

It’s a wonderfully rambling poem & A Serial Poem by Daryl Hine which through a circuitous route brings you back to a variation on a Latin tag about omens and spirit once in a negation and once in an affirmation … Continue reading

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Counting Sections

Phillip B. Williams “He Loved Him Madly” is a partial (15-section) pecha kucha for my father, Calvin Ford, and uses titles from Miles Davis compositions (odd-numbered stanzas) and various Hip Hop and spoken word tracks (even-numbered stanzas). In order of … Continue reading

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A Tool in the Sky

To fully appreciate the bravura of the ending to this poem, you need to recall the beginning. “a brief history of time” concludes “the mezzaluna rocking” section of Heartland by Michele Leggott. the book slips past my ears on the … Continue reading

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Agreeing to Perpetual Commotion

Inscribed under the sign of fado, Michele Leggott’s conclusion to milk & honey is an expansive poem called “wild light” whose ending opens the mind onto wide vistas […] travelling light because our hearts those crazy old caloyers have gone … Continue reading

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4 Down: Inhabitant of Lesbos

I have heard variations on this joke but here it takes on a charm of its own. WHEN MY GRANDMOTHER LEARNS I AM A LESBIAN (looking up from her crossword page) “Don’t be silly, dear. You’re Scandanavian.” from Julie Marie … Continue reading

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yr utopia: dreem not uv its prfekshun

bill bissett – The Gypsy Dreamer Director: Luis De Estores Described as “an evocative, multifaceted portrait of acclaimed Canadian poet, artist, singer, and peer mental health advocate, bill bissett”. “forget living a normal life that’s my message of hope, my … Continue reading

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