Acquainted with the Night

Acquainted With The Night is one of the most famous examples of an American poem written in terza rima. (So says Wikipedia & that happens to be correct.) I haven't been reading Frost lately, who is not a huge favorite. It's just my lazy, quick way to post a title that does not say "Oh my %#$@(*&, I have to go to a clinic overnight for this now." Not tonight but soon. I'm so floopy & weirded out that I probably cannot make it to Carol Gillot's reception this evening (see post below). Mimph. Whine. Snarl. Week's End post that will be, if not hilarious, then somehow funnier. (Tim Walker & yes, I'll find other photographs soon. Vogue UK 2006)

Update already - Breaking news from any number of literary listservs, etc. Oprah just announced that Freedom is her next book club choice Maybe I'll hop in to the Franzenphilia/phobia-festival after all.... No, I don't watch her anymore (in years). Yes, I read The Corrections the day it was published (OK, well it took a week to read & should be cut by 200+pages.) I'll be reading Freedom, too, I can't buy it at the moment.

I've started to feel sorry & concerned for Franzen's mental health now. Another reason for not sleeping. Oprah--how dare you? Couldn't you have consulted me & waited until next week? (For Antipodean pals...I don't know if it's published there yet, though it has been in UK. BTW, it cannot have gone unnoticed that The Oprah is on her way to Australia. Hold onto your hats. Oy.)

Darling, It's Not Me, It's You (by The Paris Review)

I usually refrain from spreading gossip unless it's of my own concoction. Still, this is what I call news. I have warned writers, especially poets, to be careful with their CV/bio. Do not, I repeat, do not, (are you listening?) tell the entire world that you have a poem, a story, an interview, etc. "forthcoming." Until it happens/just before it happens. You will seem tasteful, elegant, & suitably modest. Oh, what a delightful surprise, there is your work, your quote, an interview with your charming self in [insert title of periodical]. But really, I'm trying to save you from possible public humiliation. Now, if others need to be contacted, of course, you tell them that a reporter will be calling, etc. Use your commonsense, if you have it. If not, borrow some.

Articles & columns are spiked routinely. But "unacceptances" such as being reported? No. What's worse, writers are turning on writers, poets on poets, editors on editors (well, OK this is not news), telling others to get over it. So rafts of accepted poems have been unaccepted at a major literary journal, so what? Oh, it happens all the time, etc. No it does not. Rinse, repeat, with adverb. No, actually, it does not.

Here are pertinent links. Behind the Scenes, We Who are About To Die, The Great Paris Review Poetry Purge, Part I, here. Part 2, here. The Poetry Foundation Harriet blog, here. Follow the threads. I don't particularly like to wallow in this ugliness, but people need to look out for themselves. I don't blame anyone for telling about acceptances (it is exciting, yes). It can help one's lot. Just don't FB/Twitter/Blog/YouTube to the moon & back, if it's not out/imminent. (Books are a different matter.) But now...hmmm. Back to fussing with templates, annoying phone calls, the cat's hurt feelings, & so on.

For those who don't give a damn (who could blame you?), there are worthy links on this blog & on Giulia Geranium about other matters. It's all a mash-up, anyway.

[lovely photograph by Dottie via her Dream Camera tumblr. Now I have to bookmark her Let's Go Ride a Bike blog & flickr account. She turns out to be very interesting, damn her.]

The Itinerant Poetry Librarian

From Politics & Prose a.m. email. Intriguing.

Modern Times Coffeehouse is delighted to welcome the Itinerant Poetry Library and Librarian on WEDNESDAY JULY 14th 2010, where from 7-10pm, she’ll be installed in our coffeehouse with her library OPEN. Come and visit her, discover her ever-expanding poetry collection – and add to it yourself if you've an appropriate title to donate – or even join the growing community worldwide who are members of TIPL.

The Itinerant Poetry Library is a free travelling poetry library, which for the past 4 years has circumnavigated the globe providing a free public poetry library service to the good citizens of 12 countries, 29 cities, in 150+ different locations, and with over 1000+ members undergoing joining procedures during the 1000+ hours of public library service it has provided. Come Join Before She Travels On!

For further information see The Itinerant Poetry Library website: http://www.tipl.info

Bloomsday Wedding

In your pink wool knitted dress / Before anything had smudged anything / You stood at the altar. Bloomsday--Ted Hughes

I've been writing a remembrance of the only Molly Bloom (to me), Siobhán McKenna. Difficult to edit in time, though, & I want to post a photograph. So I thought, yes, well this will do nicely--a 54-year anniversary. I don't think of it as a failed marriage, actually. Wanted to link to the Hughes poem but it is not an easy task to find one without the requisite "He killed her" business. Then we get to the matter of photographs; same unsavory stuff. There is not a photograph--or if there is I don't remember & am too lazy to look through my bookshelves. The one that stands in on many websites is actually from a Paris honeymoon, before a Spanish summer (about which Plath wrote vividly in her notebooks, including good sketches/drawings.) This chandelier looks very celebratory out there in what I think of as a meadow, edged with darker woods.

Meanwhile, I'm trying to figure out whether or not to take Julie to the beach overnight (soon). This is a sudden & welcome question & possibility.

[chandelier by Leigh Miller Photography via we heart it ]

Week's End - Floralia/Country Girl

Mother of flowers, Flora, present be, / We raise the chant midst jocund games to thee. / Begun in April, unto May deferred, / For both are thine, the jocund song is heard/Upon the confines of both months we stand/Embellished with the bounties of thy hand.--Ovid (sexy devil)

Update: I'm editing the mess that was this post. Enjoy the images. (Saturday, 3 July 2010)

Worlds Collide Warning - World Day Against Cyber Censorship

Oh I'm late with this...Italian friends say. I ask you. What's more Italian than being late? OK, great food, clothes, style. I'm in trouble no matter what I type now. It's World Day Against Cyber Censorship. Great good feelings go out to those in Iran, China (& elsewhere) who are imprisoned or in hiding. Here's Amnesty International link, too.

The second photograph is by Susannah Conway of Ink on My Fingers & sums up what's happening here now. (Along with azure chandelier longings.)

Week's End late tonight...