And Again more happiness: USA Fellowship grants

From Poets and Writers:

Harryette Mullen and Barry Hannah Among This Year's USA Fellows

United States Artists (USA) today announced the recipients of the third annual USA Fellowship grants. The nine literature fellows for 2008 are poets Forrest Gander, Laura Kasischke, Lê Thi Diem Thúy, Joy Harjo, A. Van Jordan, and Harryette Mullen, novelists Barry Hannah and Tayari Jones, and nonfiction writer Jeff Chang.

Full list with photos here

UberBlogging Ms Jones (shown here with fellow USA Fellow, Cave Canem's own A Van Jordan) in the house! The next award's gonna be for your photographs, right? Stay by your phones, friends -- I'll be making calls asking for a little 'Economic Stimulus Package' from you VERY soon:)

Cheers, ya'll!

I want to give a special Congratulations to two Elders on the list: jazz giant Muhal Richard Abrams, co-founder of the great Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), and the magnificent multi-instrumentalist, composer, and bandleader Henry Threadgill. His 1995 recording Makin' a Move is one of the pieces of music I MUST have with me every time I travel, and is a continuing source of inspiration. I can never seem to get enough of it....

Congrats to all!

Now Back to Your Irregularly Scheduled Poetry News (Awards Season, continued)

Fantastic news for two dynamic, genre-busting artists.

Congratulations to the 2008 Whiting Writers Awards. I know the work of two of the winners, playwright Dael Orlandersmith (her play Yellowman), and fiction writer Manuel Muñoz, whose beautiful and moving short story collection The Faith Healer of Olive Avenue was a finalist for last year's Lambda Literary Award.

Especial congratulations, however, to my friend Doug Kearney (I'm using a blurry 'action photo' of DK on purpose here, because he and his work truly has to be seen/experienced to be fully appreciated). This well deserved award is the perfect end to a somewhat difficult year for him. Happy, Happy/Joy Joy, boy-ee

Three poems by Doug with must hear mp3 audio from Mipoesias

Good news also for Poet and sound collagest Latasha Natasha Nevada Diggs, who has recently recived an Individual Artist Grant from the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund. She, also is an artist who needs to be seen and heard to be fully appreciated (Hear her Live at the Knitting Factory here). Both are doing fantastic work that pushes the envelope of sound and poetry both on the page and in performance. It's a thrill to see them getting much deserved support.


Shadowboxer On The Lookout
(Doug Kearney)

they wait for me to turn my back
leave something open they’ll climb in
sooty fingerprints staining drums
push past my dead bolts window
bars chain raise heavy fists
make my home tremble
* * * *
sunday a woman screams
loud enough to stun a cab someone
runs in the street his voice
a flare undershirt blood
his woman all over his hands
it could have been me both of them
* * * *
smoke on the corner
shadows on the porch
niggers in the street
* * * *
. . . broke into a million pieces luck already
bad as it can get now’s no time to stare at
mirrors they’re out there I better . . .
* * * *
nigger eyes rifle through me like some wallet
war drums batter their radios ribcages
swollen with nicotine tough talk I cross

the street

(from Fear, Some, Red Hen Press, 2006)



blank cassette
(Latasha Nevada Diggs)

you showcase the worst of summer
by noon the forest details your scorch
I taste the battery from your match alone, I chase the hum of helicopters. make a melody from the evoke of hum
alone, I sing blue lakes’ dinleave me a rock with some seed. leave me a drop or more.
my name is whyI am here in pink carpenters and ashy palms
while rain purees the soot
I pelican from couch to window

make a melody from the evoke of hum

leave me rocks with some seed. leave me a drop or more
my name is whythe creek keeps me in pulse an elegy for peppery char
I whisper leave me something something
the volcanic rocks are everywhere.

my terrain dead soon newborns.leave me rocks with some seed. leave me a drop or more
my name is whyyou last whispered a sorrel refrain
I forgot to press record

first published in Semantikon, Vol 3, Version 4, March 2005, reprinted (with audio) on the glorious From The Fishouse

... And a few steps back

I keep hearing this term "re-defining" marriage.

If this country hadn't re-defined marriage, black people still couldn't marry white people. Sixteen states had laws on the books which made that illegal... in 1967. 1967. The parents of the President-Elect of the United States couldn't have married in nearly one third of the states of the country their son grew up to lead. But it's worse than that. If this country had not "re-defined" marriage, some black people still couldn't marry...black people. It is one of the most overlooked and cruelest parts of our sad story of slavery. Marriages were not legally recognized, if the people were slaves. Since slaves were property, they could not legally be husband and wife, or mother and child. Their marriage vows were different: not "Until Death, Do You Part," but "Until Death or Distance, Do You Part." Marriages among slaves were not legally recognized. You know, just like marriages today in California are not legally recognized, if the people are... gay. -- MSNBC's Keith Olbermann, Nov 10, 2008



The sad news from last Tuesday concerns rollbacks in rights for gay and lesbian people across the country

Arizona and Florida approved anti-gay marriage propositions, and Arkansas approved an Initiative barring unmarried people from adopting children.

The big loss, however, was in California, with the passage of Proposition 8, reversing the California Supreme Court's decision approving gay marriage.

Fingers are being pointed over the loss -- many of them pointed at African Americans:

"African American voters in California voted overwhelmingly for Prop 8, writing anti-gay discrimination into California’s constitution and banning same-sex marriage in that state. Seventy percent of African American voters approved Prop 8, according to exit polls, compared to 53% of Latino voters, 49% of white voters, 49% of Asian voters.... I’m done pretending that the handful of racist gay white men out there — and they’re out there, and I think they’re scum — are a bigger problem for African Americans, gay and straight, than the huge numbers of homophobic African Americans are for gay Americans, whatever their color." -- Dan Savage

"Three older men accosted my friend and shouted, 'Black people did this, I hope you people are happy!' A young lesbian couple with mohawks and Obama buttons joined the shouting and said there were 'very disappointed with black people' and 'how could we' after the Obama victory. This was stupid for them to single us out because we were carrying those blue NO ON PROP 8 signs! I pointed that out and the one of the older men said it didn't matter because "most black people hated gays" and he was "wrong" to think we had compassion. That was the most insulting thing I had ever heard. I guess he never thought we were gay." -- "Ronald" at the marriage equality rally in Los Angeles, reported by Rod McCollum (More follow-up from Rod here)

Many Gay Rights organizations continually just don't get it when it comes to people of color, as Andres Duque points out:

"Let me say this: I don't have much money but I have donated to the "No on 8" campaign to support their efforts (as well as "No on 2" in FL and "No on 102" in AZ); I also know that they have attempted to make inroads among Latino communities; but I was less than thrilled by their discourse in media during these last few days on the issue of Latino voters and not too impressed by their ads targeting Latino media."

From the VivirLatino website:

Gloria Nieto had a sense of those demographic forces, too. When Nieto, a lead organizer for the No on Proposition 8 campaign in San Jose, wanted to distribute campaign signs in Spanish and Vietnamese this fall, she had to get them made herself because the statewide campaign only had signs in English.
What this suggests to me is that communities of color have their problems--but largely white organizations seem to not value those communities until the time comes when they need them for their own agendas, and even then not so much.

I have been wanting to comment about this since November 5, but everytime I start I get extremely upset (okay, as La Familia would attest, the right word for me to use here is not "upset" but "livid"). I probably would have come out with something similar to Ernest Hardy's long and 'colorful' response to Mr Savage, or it's followup

I'm upset at the racism of some members of the white gay community

I'm upset at the homophobia of some members of the black community

I am saddened and disturbed by the 'white' "Gay Community" for their lack of understanding of non-white communities. As well as the fact that there's little to no realization from many of them that people can be BOTH black and gay.

And I'm mad at both groups for playing directly into the hands of Right Wingers who would deny ALL of us of our rights if given half a chance.

There's more than enough 'blame' to go around. For example, some folk would have been attacking Catholics if one could tell religion by looking at someone, for, as blogger JoeMyGod points out:

The last Field Poll, conducted a week before the election, showed that weekly churchgoers increased their support in the final week from 72 percent to 84 percent. Catholic support increased from 44 percent to 64 percent - a jump that accounted for 6 percent of the total California electorate and equivalent to the state's entire African American population combined. The shift in Catholics alone more than accounted for Prop. 8's 5 percent margin of victory.

I'm glad to see folks are challenging the Morman Church, which poured huge amounts of money across the border from Utah into California to pass Prop 8. (They should all watch the very moving film "Latter Days" to get some idea of what it might feel like to be a young gay Mormon)

I also agree with some friends who think the idea of having voters decide on the rights others should have is an extremely bad idea. A lot of American's wouldn't vote for the Bill of Rights in the US Consitution either! And I doubt that there would be school desegregation, Civil Rights Acts of 1964 or '65, nor legal-all-across the US interracial marriage if they had been put to a vote either.

So: rather than get mad, lemme DO something

National Fight the H8 rallys at city halls across America, Saturday November 15, 2008
As poet C Dale Young says:

You don't have to chant. You don't have to carry a sign. We just want you to stand with us. If you have ever loved someone enough to want to marry them; If you have ever married; If you thank God every day for your husband or wife; If you ever wonder how you would get through the week without your significant other, stand with us. Everyone deserves the right to love someone and be treated with dignity. Everyone deserves a chance at happiness. None of us want to be treated like second-class citizens. So stand with me for Love. Stand against H8.

Continuing Updates on Prop 8 and protests at Towleroad

Some resources for our us and our Straight Allies to help discuss heterosexism/homophobia within the Black community, courtesy of the all-across-the-spectrum-of-sexual-orientation poets of Cave Canem:

Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack II: Sexual Orientation
Daily effects of straight privilege


How Homophobia Hurts Everyone: A Theoretical Foundation by Warren J. Blumenfeld (PDF)

"Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence" by Adrienne Rich

Why I Hate Abercrombie and Fitch by Dwight McBride

Black Sexual Politics: African Americans, Gender, and the New Racism by Patricia Hill Collins

Appropriating Blackness: Performance and the Politics of Authenticity and Sweet Tea: Black Gay Men of the South by E Patrick Johnson (Performing part of Sweet Tea here)

Afrekete: An Anthology of Black Lesbian Writing edited by Catherine McKinley & L. Joyce DeLaney

Redbone Press' Spirited: Affirming the Soul and Black Gay/Lesbian Identity

Words to Our Now: Imagination and Dissent by Thomas Glave

DVDs
Marlon Rigg's Black Is...Black Ain't

Cheryl Dunne's The Watermelon Woman

Brother to Brother

Brother Outsider: The Life of Bayard Rustin

Last but most decidly NOT least, Keith Olbermann's emotional Special Comment, which asks a question I ask myself -- what the hell's it to YOU if Gays and Lesbians want to get married?



Thank You, Keith

The First Reader

Some friends and I are doing the 'happy dance' over this:

Obama spotted carrying poetry book
CHICAGO, Nov. 8 (UPI) -- President-elect Barack Obama was carrying a book of poems while leaving the Chicago school of his daughters, witnesses say.

The U.S. senator, fresh off his Election Day victory, presumably had time to enjoy some poetry while visiting his daughters' school Friday, The Daily Telegraph reported Saturday.

While the Illinois Democrat was not spotted reading the book of poems by Nobel laureate Derek Walcott, he personally carried the new-looking book to an awaiting car.

Versifyers around the world rejoice.....

This New Tomorrow

The New Era of Obama

We did something remarkable Tuesday, but our work isn't done. The challenges we're facing are great, and the obstacles to progress won't disappear overnight. We all have to remain active and engaged if we are to realize the promise of yesterday's election.

--Joan Blades, co-founder MoveOn.org

I believe that historians will look back on 2008 as the end of the Reagan conservative era and the start of a new period of progressive federal activism.

-- Robert Dallek, author, presidential historian

He has the chance to overturn Bush administration policies that compromised basic human rights. One of Obama's first actions should be to close the prison at Guantánamo Bay and either transfer its inmates to federal prisons or release them. Guantánamo is an international embarrassment and has become a symbol of America's violations of international law.

Obama also needs to immediately rescind Bush administration policies authorizing torture, permitting renditions that violate international law, and authorizing extrajudicial spying on Americans. From the moment of his inauguration, Obama must declare that the United States will comply with international law and follow its own Constitution.

-- Erwin Chemerinsky, Dean of the University of California Irvine School of Law

Yes, it's historic and incredible that a black man is president of the United States. But, dang it, it's just as important that a black woman is the first lady. Think about it. Jackie O! Lady Bird Johnson! And Michelle Obama in her Gap dresses! Please don't discount the cultural power of the first lady. I am very excited to see how Michelle Obama also revolutionizes the White House.

-- Sherman Alexie, novelist and poet

Ladies & Gentlemen, your new First Family

Madelyn Dunham (1922-2008)

“It is with great sadness that we announce that our grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, has died peacefully after a battle with cancer,” Mr. Obama said in a statement. “She was the cornerstone of our family, and a woman of extraordinary accomplishment, strength, and humility. She was the person who encouraged and allowed us to take chances.”

Thank you for raising a remarkable young man. Our thoughts and prayers are with Barack and his family at this time.


Ta-Nehisi Coates on The Grandparents:

One of the big mistakes we make when we look at the history of race in this country is to focus on big people and big events. What should be remembered is that, though our racial history is mired in utter disgrace, though the deep cowardice of post-reconstruction haunts us into the 21st century, at any point on the timeline, you can find ordinary white people doing the right thing

Do Your Duty

(From designforobama.org)

And for our California friends

No on 8

While you were voting....

It seems obvious that the Bush administration is determined to be evil to the end: not only have they saddled their successor with a quagmire of a war and a wreck of an economic system, this article in the Washington Post notes that they also wish to gut a number of rules and regulations before Dick and Dubya leave office, further tying the next president's hands.

The White House is working to enact a wide array of federal regulations, many of which would weaken government rules aimed at protecting consumers and the environment, before President Bush leaves office in January..... would help clear obstacles to some commercial ocean-fishing activities, ease controls on emissions of pollutants that contribute to global warming, relax drinking-water standards and lift a key restriction on mountaintop coal mining.

Once such rules take effect, they typically can be undone only through a laborious new regulatory proceeding, including lengthy periods of public comment, drafting and mandated reanalysis....

!Evil!

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi recently visited us, and my partner decided not to attend, in part because he didn't want to 'slip' and tell her how upset he was over her decision not to impeach George W Bush. It took me a while to get around to agreeing that impeachment proceedings should have been seriously considered by the House. It now seems obvious that, for the sake of the nation, our Constitution, and our future, throwing the bums out truly was the way to go.

We all need to closely watch the current administration from now until the moment the next president takes the oath of office in January 2009. I wonder, for example, who will get a traditional end of year/end of administration pardon?

Sunrise in America

Watching Barack Obama's half-hour campaign 'infomercial' last night, my first thought was "Ronald Reagan." Obama and his team have obviously learned quite a bit from "The Great Communicator" about production, stagecraft, and putting a message across. From the opening shot of the 'amber waves of grain,' followed by some purple mountains in the distance above fruited plain to the end, as an animated sun rose over a multicolored arc to turn into the Obama "O".....amazing. What can I say? It's "Morning in America" again!

I'm not saying this to be negative. I'm saying this because I'm very impressed -- and enjoy the irony of how tactics and techniques of the GOP's favorite president have been turned against them. And there was not a dry eye in our house during the segment concerning the elderly black couple where the cost of medication for the wife's severe arthritis forces her 70+ year old husband to work at WalMart (having cared for older relatives that one almost makes me teary just thinking about it).

If Senator Obama wins next Tuesday (and I hope and pray that he does), I'm expecting to see four - to - eight years of speeches, podcasts, e-mail blasts, and YouTube video from a President poised to join Lincoln, Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt, Bill Clinton, and yes Ronald Reagan (although somehow his messages were always lost on me), as one of the truly finest 'communicators' ever to use the Bully Pulpit of the White House. And considering the amazing network of supporters that have joined together for the campaign (all ready and waiting to continue to work after the election) it's going to be a very interesting administration, not only in Washington, but also (especially?) out here in the 'grass roots.'

Poem: Palinode, Once Removed by Kyle Dargan

In honor of a missed connection between myself and Kyle Dargan last week (and today, too, since I was supposed to be off but.....), here's one of Mr. Post No Ills' poems from Bouquet of Hungers, winner of the 2008 Hurston Wright Legacy Award in Poetry.







Palinode, Once Removed
Bloomington, Indiana

The Negro is America's metaphor
Richard Wright


The girl from Martinsville sets her eyes on me
like they are elbows -- intently boring
at my cheeks. This sentiment bleeds
throughout my class. Slouched, heads
tilted, they wait for the day I come in,
pull out a handkerchief, a vial of alcohol,
and wipe this vexing complexion from my skin.

Before I left home, Uncle called -- said,
"You're going to teach them people, huh?
Well, teach 'em.:

The day we pursue metaphor, I will
teach them about the brain -- how there is a center
to catch discrepancy between the expected
and the perceived. Stimulate the mechanism,
you are working in metaphor.

Though surprising
I am not a metaphor. This is: I am a period,
small and dark. If you read me correctly,
you are to stop. Pause. Breathe.

Colin Powell, All-American

"Now, I understand what politics is all about. I know how you can go after one another, and that's good. But I think this goes too far. And I think it has made the McCain campaign look a little narrow. It's not what the American people are looking for. And I look at these kinds of approaches to the campaign and they trouble me. And the party has moved even further to the right, and Governor Palin has indicated a further rightward shift. I would have difficulty with two more conservative appointments to the Supreme Court, but that's what we'd be looking at in a McCain administration. I'm also troubled by, not what Senator McCain says, but what members of the party say. And it is permitted to be said such things as, "Well, you know that Mr. Obama is a Muslim." Well, the correct answer is, he is not a Muslim, he's a Christian. He's always been a Christian. But the really right answer is, what if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer's no, that's not America. Is there something wrong with some seven-year-old Muslim-American kid believing that he or she could be president? Yet, I have heard senior members of my own party drop the suggestion, "He's a Muslim and he might be associated terrorists." This is not the way we should be doing it in America.

"I feel strongly about this particular point because of a picture I saw in a magazine. It was a photo essay about troops who are serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. And one picture at the tail end of this photo essay was of a mother in Arlington Cemetery, and she had her head on the headstone of her son's grave. And as the picture focused in, you could see the writing on the headstone. And it gave his awards--Purple Heart, Bronze Star--showed that he died in Iraq, gave his date of birth, date of death. He was 20 years old. And then, at the very top of the headstone, it didn't have a Christian cross, it didn't have the Star of David, it had crescent and a star of the Islamic faith. And his name was Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan, and he was an American. He was born in New Jersey. He was 14 years old at the time of 9/11, and he waited until he can go serve his country, and he gave his life. Now, we have got to stop polarizing ourself in this way. And John McCain is as nondiscriminatory as anyone I know. But I'm troubled about the fact that, within the party, we have these kinds of expressions."

Former Secretary of State Gen. Colin Powell (Ret.),
'Meet the Press,' October 19, 2008



Spc. Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan, 1987-2007

Blog Action Day 2008

The Bean Eaters


They eat beans mostly, this old yellow pair.
Dinner is a casual affair.
Plain chipware on a plain and creaking wood,
Tin flatware.

Two who are Mostly Good.
Two who have lived their day,
But keep on putting on their clothes
And putting things away.

And remembering . . .
Remembering, with twinklings and twinges,
As they lean over the beans in their rented back room that
is full of beads and receipts and dolls and cloths,
tobacco crumbs, vases and fringes.

Gwendolyn Brooks


What does it mean to be poor? For the most part, people focus on the homeless, those we see sleeping on the street or begging for change on corners and outside (and sometimes inside) stores. This is as it should be perhaps, those we see in dire straits are the most in need, and deserve our focus and attention.

But there are others, possible millions of others, hidden from sight, who are struggling. And sadly, while our Presidential candidates are doing a lot of talking about the Middle Class and what the definition of "Rich" is, there has been next to no discussion about the Poor, working or otherwise. Very troubling. There's little we can do about the problem if we don't see that there is a problem. One of the first steps we can take is to open our eyes.

Faces of World Poverty

What we can do to help end poverty in the Third World

Help eliminate poverty – invest in women

On The Working Poor

Poor & Elderly

Health care for the Poor and Elderly

More Poverty Fighting ideas . (I am a big fan of the idea of Microlending, as well as the venerable Oxfam America, and regularly contribute to the local Maryland Food Bank)

Blog Action Day 2008

Crisis? What Crisis?

Heartiest Congratulations to economist and NYTimes columist Paul Krugman, Winner of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Economics! (Now all you need to do is become Governor of Maine and it's on to The West Wing!)

Although Krugman's selection is based on his economic theories (explained here and here), considering his high profile as a liberal public intellectual , the choice, combined with the selection of Martti Ahtisaari, Former President of Finland, as the Peace Prize winner for his work as “'an outstanding international mediator' whose efforts “have contributed to a more peaceful world and to ‘fraternity between nations’," strikes me as also being yet another needle jabbed at the Bush Administration from Sweden.


So, since the Stock Market soared today, thanks to the global embrace of...well, Socialism, actually..., is it time to pop the champagne and move on to the next crisis? I don't think so. It took a while to get into this mess, and it will take some time to get us out. Now is the time for all of us to take some deep breaths and get ed-u-ma-cated.

There have been a number of places to find good, solid information about what's going on in banking, housing, and on Wall Street lately. Here are a few I've found particularly enlightening. Some can be relatively long and complicated, but since we're going to be in for one hell of a time for at least the first two years of the next president's administration, we have some time to savor them. Also considering the artificial 'sweeteners' needed to pass the Bailout Bill, when we were threatened with nothing less than The Apocalypse, perhaps its best that we try to slow down a bit and actually consider what we should do next.

Paul Krugman's Blog at the New York Times (Wonder what he's going to do with Mr Nobel's $4million in prize money?)

McClatchy Newspaper's "Economy in Turmoil" series

The Brookings Institute on the US Economy (Full Dislosure: As a fresh-out-of-college Poly Sci major, I lusted after a job at Brookings, but lacked the self-confidence to go for it!)

Salon's "How The World Works"

Although we are on opposite sides of the politial spectrum (he thought Congress should eliminate the Capital Gains Tax, for example), I have a lot of respect for the personal finance tips of Dave Ramsey.

JD Roth's "Get Rich Slowly" blog and his List of Financial Literacy Resources



(Cartoon from The New Yorker)

Nobel Thoughts

Congratulations to the newest Nobel Laureate in Literature, novelist Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio. I don't know his work, but am very happy for him (...although, to be honest, my first reactions upon hearing he'd won were; 1)"Jean-Marie Who?" and; 2)isn't Michel Tournier still alive?)

Much was made of recent comments by Horace Engdahl, the permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, attacking US writers for being "too isolated, too insular...Europe is still the center of the literary world..."

Uh, yeah, right....This is so wrong on so many levels it's hard to know where to start. Help me out here John....

Also, seems to me as a reader, that, depending on what you mean, there is either NO "Center of the Literary World" (shades of The Death of the Author!), or that The Center 'floats', and the location where the most vital and interesting work comes from changes. During "El Boom" (and after) it was Central and South America; writers from the Indian subcontinent have been 'must reads' in recent years (a few here -- although I don't count politically proto-European grandee Nobelist VS Naipaul -- and here).

Personally I wasn't entirely sure that any of the US writers who are on my shortlist (Philip Roth, for example, or Joyce "Stop Me Before I Write Another Novel Before Breakfast" Carol Oates -- Just kidding, JCO, us Mike Tyson Fans have to stick together...) had a ghost of a chance this year. What has been obvious to many of us for quite some time is that American writers should put the Nobel completly out of their minds as long as George W Bush occupies the White House. The anti-Bush/anti-US occupation of Iraq feeling is so strong in European literary circles now that we scribblers are being punished so that there could be zero chance of The Academy being seen as 'rewarding' the United States in any way.

Yet another reason to Vote Obama!

Finally on this year's award: No offense to fiction, but -- What's up with Poetry? In 1995 and '96 when the Swedish Academy went wild and voted in two poets back to back ( "Famous Seamus" Heaney and the luminous Wislawa Szymborska). Since then, novelists and playwrites. I was thinking that this might be the year for Tomas Tranströmer, although the Swedes are sensitive of giving The Big One to one of their own, Bei Dao -- or, say, Adonis (or Mahmoud Darwish if he'd lived) both for the quality of their work and as yet another way to needle the Bush Administration. Again this year, Stockholm sent regrets to John Ashbery, Claribel Alegria, Jay Wright (whose Polynomials and Pollen: Parables, Proverbs, Paradigms, and Praise for Lois is making me cry right now), and on and on and on ......

Come on Academy: What did us versifyers ever do to Sweden?

The Verdict on Presidential Debate #2

Debate Postscript Extra Credit Question

("It's very important when you consider even national security issues with Russia as Putin rears his head and comes into the air space of the United States of America, where—where do they go?")


Listening to the debate, and then perusing the transcript, I wonder: Is it really too much to ask that a person running for elected office in 2008 be able to speak comprehensible English (right there, also)?

Slate diagrams the sentences of Sarah Palin (hat tip and eternal love to the amazing Tayari Jones)

Here's to the new Veep, same as the old Veep....

....strike that: make it WORSE than the current VP


(portions of the transcript of the vice-presidential debate between Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Gov. Sarah Palin in St. Louis, 2 October 2008, as recorded by CQ Transcriptions)

IFILL: ....We're going to move on to the next question. Governor, you said in July that someone would have to explain to you exactly what it is the vice president does every day.... But tell us now, looking forward, what it is you think the vice presidency is worth now.

{...}

PALIN: No, no. Of course, we know what a vice president does. And that's not only to preside over the Senate and will take that position very seriously also. I'm thankful the Constitution would allow a bit more authority given to the vice president if that vice president so chose to exert it in working with the Senate and making sure that we are supportive of the president's policies and making sure too that our president understands what our strengths are. John McCain and I have had good conversations about where I would lead with his agenda. That is energy independence in America and reform of government over all, and then working with families of children with special needs. That's near and dear to my heart also. In those arenas, John McCain has already tapped me and said, that's where I want you, I want you to lead. I said, I can't wait to get and there go to work with you.

{...}

IFILL: Governor, you mentioned a moment ago the constitution might give the vice president more power than it has in the past. Do you believe as Vice President Cheney does, that the Executive Branch does not hold complete sway over the office of the vice presidency, that it it is also a member of the Legislative Branch?

PALIN: Well, our founding fathers were very wise there in allowing through the Constitution much flexibility there in the office of the vice president. And we will do what is best for the American people in tapping into that position and ushering in an agenda that is supportive and cooperative with the president's agenda in that position. Yeah, so I do agree with him that we have a lot of flexibility in there, and we'll do what we have to do to administer very appropriately the plans that are needed for this nation. And it is my executive experience that is partly to be attributed to my pick as V.P. with McCain, not only as a governor, but earlier on as a mayor, as an oil and gas regulator, as a business owner. It is those years of experience on an executive level that will be put to good use in the White House also.


Governor, meet the Constitution; US Constitution, Governor Palin:

The Vice President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no Vote, unless they be equally divided. (US Constitution, Article I, Section III)

In Case of the Removal of the President from Office, or of his Death, Resignation, or Inability to discharge the Powers and Duties of the said Office, the same shall devolve on the Vice President (US Constitution, Article II, Section I)

How will your representative vote?

Poetry Bailout Will Restore Confidence of Readers

By Charles Bernstein

Chairman (David) Lehman, Secretary (Robert) Polito, distinguished poets and readers—I regret having to interrupt the celebrations tonight with an important announcement. As you know, the glut of illiquid, insolvent, and troubled poems is clogging the literary arteries of the West. These debt-ridden poems threaten to infect other areas of the literary sector and ultimately to topple our culture industry.

Cultural leaders have come together to announce a massive poetry buyout: leveraged and unsecured poems, poetry derivatives, delinquent poems, and subprime poems will be removed from circulation in the biggest poetry bailout since the Victorian era. We believe the plan is a comprehensive approach to relieving the stresses on our literary institutions and markets.

Let there be no mistake: the fundamentals of our poetry are sound. The problem is not poetry but poems. The crisis has been precipitated by the escalation of poetry debt—poems that circulate in the market at an economic loss due to their difficulty, incompetence, or irrelevance.

Illiquid poetry assets are choking off the flow of imagination that is so vital to our literature. When the literary system works as it should, poetry and poetry assets flow to and from readers and writers to create a productive part of the cultural field. As toxic poetry assets block the system, the poisoning of literary markets has the potential to damage our cultural institutions irreparably.

As we know, lax composition practices since the advent of modernism led to irresponsible poets and irresponsible readers. Simply put, too many poets composed works they could not justify. We are seeing the impact on poetry, with a massive loss of confidence on the part of readers. What began as a subprime poetry problem on essentially unregulated poetry websites has spread to other, more stable, literary magazines and presses and contributed to excess poetry inventories that have pushed down the value of responsible poems.

The risks poets have taken have been too great; the aesthetic negligence has been profound. The age of decadence must come to an end with the imposition of oversight and regulation on poetry composition and publishing practices.

We are convinced that once we have removed these troubled and distressed poems from circulation, our cultural sector will stabilize and readers will regain confidence in American literature. We estimate that for the buyout to be successful, we will need to remove from circulation all poems written after 1904.

This will be a fresh start, a new dawn of a new day. Without these illiquid poems threatening to overwhelm readers, we will be able to create a literary culture with a solid aesthetic foundation.


I’m Charles Bernstein, and I approved this message.

Poems Against War: Ars Poetica

Hot off the Presses:

It also seems to me that those of us on this side of the political spectrum have to do more than just be against something. Here in Baltimore we’ve seen a former mayor’s administration plaster posters and bumper stickers all around the city asking us to “Believe.” Fine – Believe in what? So too with those of us against the war: we are anti-war, but what do we believe in? What are we for? What does the alternative to war look like, smell like, taste like?

Poetry helps to answer these questions by giving both writers and readers visions of the possible. While giving comfort and pleasure to readers and listeners and speaking to what’s happening now, poets also help to create the future. Not that we versifiers know more than anyone else about what tomorrow will look like, but rather, through our work, we insist that there must BE a future, that there’s something out there worth living for. Something worth bringing the troops back home to.

The rest of my Ars Poetica: Roses in a Time of War, and work by Antler, Tony Hoagland, and others (with paintings Minás Konsolas) debuts in Poems Against War #7 at the Baltimore Book Festival Sunday (9/28/08).