What Do Y'All Make of This?

The Republicans are now ignoring Clinton, not mentioning her in ads or responding to her attacks. Do they just assume Obama is the presumptive nominee, so they don't want to waste their time and resources? That seems too easy, doesn't it? Plus, the longer this fight drags on, the better for them, so why wouldn't they want to keep Clinton in as long as possible?

Do they actually hope Clinton wins the nomination, so they're trying to bring down Obama for her, and ultimately, their benefit? Perhaps.

Here's a snippet from an article on Politico.

"From top to bottom, from McCain down to the youthful campaign and party staffers who work nearly around the clock to get him elected, the working assumption seems to be that the Democratic contest is over and Obama has won.

Even when Clinton attacks McCain, President Bush or GOP policies, the response is either outright silence or snarky, dismissive ridicule about a failed campaign barely relevant enough to merit a response.

“With ads like that, it’s more likely the call at 3 a.m. is ‘Senator, you just lost another superdelegate,’” quipped McCain adviser Steve Schmidt earlier this month when Clinton aired a version of her “3 a.m.” ad attacking McCain on the economy.

In one revealing glimpse into Republican thinking, when McCain quickly hit back with an ad of his own parroting the genre, he incorporated Barack Obama’s name into the response and spent little money airing it.

Clinton, it seems, has been erased from the picture, Soviet-style. Republicans mostly act like she doesn’t exist—an unusual turn of events considering her run of big-state victories..."
-Jonathan Martin, Politico.com

Frank O'Hara

Today's poem is by the late great New York poetic chronicler, Frank O'Hara. This is the first time I've looked at this particular poem. It's tough, but rather haunting, too, and I just love the way he writes. Hope you do, too.

1951

by Frank O'Hara

Alone at night
in the wet city

the country's wit
is not memorable.

The wind has blown
all the trees down

but these anxieties
remain erect, being

the heart's deliberate
chambers of hurt

and fear whether
from a green apartment

seeming diamonds or
from an airliner

seeming fields. It's
not simple or tidy

though in rows of
rows and numbered;

the literal drifts
colorfully and

the hair is combed
with bridges, all

compromises leap
to stardom and lights.

If alone I am
able to love it,

the serious voices,
the panic of jobs,

it is sweet to me.
Far from burgeoning

verdure, the hard way
in this street.

Pablo Neruda

A love poem for Thursday, by Neruda.

I Do Not Love You Except Because I Love You

by Pablo Neruda

I do not love you except because I love you;
I go from loving to not loving you,
From waiting to not waiting for you
My heart moves from cold to fire.

I love you only because it's you the one I love;
I hate you deeply, and hating you
Bend to you, and the measure of my changing love for you
Is that I do not see you but love you blindly.

Maybe January light will consume
My heart with its cruel
Ray, stealing my key to true calm.

In this part of the story I am the one who
Dies, the only one, and I will die of love because I love you,
Because I love you, Love, in fire and blood.

To Be Gay and Eight, In Bahrain

The Gulf Daily News is reporting that Bahrain is trying to rid its nation of homosexuals (not yet holocaust-style, but stay tuned). Here's a snipet:

"SCHOOL students could soon be spied on under a campaign to stamp out homosexuality, under demands made by MPs yesterday...

MPs also called for regular inspections to root out homosexuals at massage parlours, health clubs and hair salons.

It also called for monitoring in schools and for pupils who veer towards homosexuality to be punished."

Just what a confused gay 8 year old in the Middle East needs...

William Carlos Williams

Today I bring you some William Carlos Williams.

The Last Words of My English Grandmother

by William Carlos Williams

There were some dirty plates

and a glass of milk
beside her on a small table
near the rank, disheveled bed--

Wrinkled and nearly blind
she lay and snored
rousing with anger in her tones
to cry for food,

Gimme something to eat--
They're starving me--
I'm all right--I won't go
to the hospital. No, no, no

Give me something to eat!
Let me take you
to the hospital, I said
and after you are well

you can do as you please.
She smiled, Yes
you do what you please first
then I can do what I please--

Oh, oh, oh! she cried
as the ambulance men lifted
her to the stretcher--
Is this what you call

making me comfortable?
By now her mind was clear--
Oh you think you're smart
you young people,

she said, but I'll tell you
you don't know anything.
Then we started.
On the way

we passed a long row
of elms. She looked at them
awhile out of
the ambulance window and said,

What are all those
fuzzy looking things out there?
Trees? Well, I'm tired
of them and rolled her head away.

On Bulldozers

I want you to look very carefully at this photo of Hillary Clinton's victory speech last night in Philadelphia. Maybe it's hard to see; a larger, clearer pic can be seen here.

Hillary won this primary because of seniors (she won them 63-37) and white women (66-34). Obama won African-Americans by 9-1.

So Hillary's celebratory crowd should have been very white, and skewed older... but it doesn't. Look at this photo. It's Obama's demographic. This is an overwhelmingly young, multi-cultural crowd.

Hillary won fair and square, but these photos present an image that is a lie. She should be surrounded by white people, mostly women, much older than the attractive, enthusiastic twenty-somethings standing behind her.

It begs the question, do the American people really want another President who lies to us?

In what is probably her most famous quip from last night, Hillary said, "You know, some people counted me out and said to drop out. But the American people don't quit and they deserve a president who doesn't quit, either."

I think that statement, combined with the photos ripped from the "Wag the Dog" playbook, perfectly sum up the kind of presidency we can expect from HRC, which would not be a return to Clinton theatrics, but a continuation of Bush Bulldozing.

Clinton's dogged pursuit of the presidency is starting to feel like Bush's dogged pursuit of the war in Iraq. There's no way Clinton wins her war, or Bush wins his, without engendering great hatred from vast swaths of the American public. In fact, nearly 70% of our nation disapprove of Bush and this war (or something outrageously high), and yet he soldiers on.

Is Bush not the very embodiment of a President who doesn't know when to quit? He bulldozes on because he fiercely believes in his vision for what the world needs. Despite the protests of so many nations, and so many in his own nation, he soldiers on... because Americans deserve a President who doesn't quit?

Well, Hillary, we've had almost 8 years of a President who doesn't quit. The last thing this country needs is four more years of a President who doesn't know when to quit, who soldiers on despite the great harm it will inflict on our nation, who gracelessly fights even when there is no way to win this battle without a lot of blood and a lot tragic loss, not the least of which would be the destruction of the Democratic party, and whose end result feels less like a victory than a supreme, aching loss.

Photos that reflect an alternate reality? Promises to never quit when winning fair and square has long since ceased to be an option? The fact is, the American people deserve a President who knows when to quit. We've had 8 years of the alternative, and the monstrous devastation can be seen throughout the world. Do we really, really need to be told that after 8 years of Bush, what we need is another prophet who knows better than we do what is best for us?

Michael Ondaatje

The author of The English Patient, Michael Ondaatje, is also an accomplished poet. Enjoy this one, care of Knopf Poetry.

Bearhug

by Michael Ondaatje

Griffin calls to come and kiss him goodnight
I yell ok. Finish something I'm doing,
then something else, walk slowly round
the corner to my son's room.
He is standing arms outstretched
waiting for a bearhug. Grinning.

Why do I give my emotion an animal's name,
give it that dark squeeze of death?
This is the hug which collects
all his small bones and his warm neck against me.
The thin tough body under the pyjamas
locks me like a magnet of blood.

How long was he standing there
like that, before I came?

Different Rules, Different Winner

Ok, I fucking LOVE this:

"Former President Bill Clinton, speaking to reporters after his wife’s event in Pittsburgh, PA Monday, said that under the republican primary system –- his wife would be ahead by hundreds of delegates.
"I did not actually get the delegates necessary to have a first power of the nomination under the crazy system the democrats have," Clinton said. "If we were under the republican system which is more like the electoral college, she would have a 300 delegate lead "
-Eloise Harper, ABC News

Right, Bill. That's right. If Hillary WERE A REPUBLICAN and running in the REPUBLICAN PARTY she would be winning.

And if Ice Hockey were played in a baseball stadium then the NY Rangers would skate on grass.

I mean, is he serious? Is he fucking SERIOUS?

Either his point is that middle-of-the-road, never take a risk Hillary should have run as a Republican, or simply, the Democratic primary's rules are unfair.

Boo fucking hoo.

If you don't want to play baseball, then go play hockey, but stand on second base and tell me you'd be winning if you had ice skates on.

And People who are Old and Feeble Are Delusional Victims of Alzheimer's!

A NYT article about the age gap between Hillary's supporters and Barack's. As one lovely Pennsylvanian explained:

“Barack Obama has no experience and no plans. He just works on emotions, and this is why young people like him,” said Kimberly Romm, 44, who is self-employed and heard Mrs. Clinton speak at Haverford College. “People who are more mature analyze things. They’re wiser.”

(Note: some of the other old people in this article are supporting Hillary because 'the world is not ready for a black president' (85 yr old); because 'Hillary's a woman' (67 yr old); and because they like Bill Clinton (72 yr old).

Yeah, maturity seems to be a strong suit of the older generation.

This sounds less mature than my high school's student council elections. At least people voted for whomever gave the funniest speech, or said the most curse words. I mean, Jesus Christ! If you're seriously supporting Hillary because she's a woman, than just be super up-front about it: "I'm voting for the one with the post-menopausal dried up vagina." Simple as that.

But back to my friend Kimberly Romm, the self-professed mature and wise voter. Hillary's old and used up. She preys on the stupidity of Alzheimer's victims who think that it's 1992 and how could they be delusional-- Clinton's on the ballot!

People who are younger are better equiped to consider new ways to solve old problems that Kimberly's mature (i.e. soon to be dead) generation has failed to fix, like, uh, a healthy planet, a peaceful world, a fair and just set of laws that fully embraces civil rights for all. I must be really immature for caring about shit like that.

UGH! It just irks me so much that today's election is in the hands of people like Kimberly Romm.

Kimberly, wherever you are right now, I am vomiting on your face and hoping the stench never leaves you and you smell like my barf for the next 50 years. How's that for mature, bitch?

Dorothy Parker

Today we read 2 short love poems by Dorothy Parker, one of the great Jazz age poets.

Experience

Some men break your heart in two,
Some men fawn and flatter,
Some men never look at you;
And that cleans up the matter.

Incurable

And if my heart be scarred and burned,
The safer, I, for all I learned;
The calmer, I, to see it true
That ways of love are never new-
The love that sets you daft and dazed
Is every love that ever blazed;
The happier, I, to fathom this:
A kiss is every other kiss.
The reckless vow, the lovely name,
When Helen walked, were spoke the same;
The weighted breast, the grinding woe,
When Phaon fled, were ever so.
Oh, it is sure as it is sad
That any lad is every lad,
And what's a girl, to dare implore
Her dear be hers forevermore?
Though he be tried and he be bold,
And swearing death should he be cold,
He'll run the path the others went....
But you, my sweet, are different.

Big Drudge Update

OY!

"Controlled excitement is building inside of Clinton's inner circle as closely guarded internal polling shows the former first lady with an 11-point lead in Pennsylvania!
Clinton is polling near to nearly 2 to 1 over Obama in many regions of the state, a top insider explained to the DRUDGE REPORT.
A strong coalition of middle-class and religious voters has all but secured a Clinton victory Tuesday, with headline-making margins, the campaign believes.
"It's not a matter of if, it's a matter of how much," a senior campaign source said Monday morning. When pressed if the dramatic internal polling numbers could somehow be flawed in a state as demographically complex as Pennsylvania, and with new voter registration surging to unseen levels, the campaign insider held firm. "Senator Obama would be wise not to unpack his bags quite yet."
MORE
With less than 24 hours to go until the beginning of the end of primary season voting, Obama has handedly captured Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, but has failed to dominate suburban sprawl, the campaign's polling reveals. An 11-point victory in Pennsylvania for Clinton would expand on margins scored in Ohio. Clinton will quickly move to feverishly focus on Indiana starting Tuesday night, hoping to somehow convince superdelegates that she not only has superior stamina but has crucial swing state appeal. Without superdelegate intervention, Clinton still faces impossible math to nomination.
Developing..."
-Drudge Report

Her Path to Victory

"To overtake Barack Obama in the nationwide popular vote, Hillary Clinton needs a bigger win in tomorrow's Pennsylvania primary than she has had in any major contest so far. And that's just for starters.
After more than 40 Democratic primaries and caucuses, Obama, the Illinois senator, leads Clinton by more than 800,000 votes. Even if the New York senator wins by more than 20 percentage points tomorrow -- a landslide few experts expect -- she would still have a hard time catching him."
-Catherine Dodge and Kristin Jensen, Bloomberg.com

Emma Lazarus

I read a biography of Emma Lazarus this summer. She's a seriously interesting character in the world of American poetry, and her most famous work, which is featured below, is not only powerful and beautiful, but also a timely reminder about the enduring promise America has always offered to those in need.

The New Colossus

by Emma Lazarus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Some Perspectives on Last Night's Debate

"Let's stop pretending: it's over. Done. Nice run, but time to hit the showers. Last night's debate -- in which Clinton, to her credit, generally refrained from the kind of egregious negative campaigning her campaign focused on before the departure of Mark Penn -- eliminated any possible remaining doubt, not because Obama "won" but simply because he didn't destroy himself.

Clinton's only real chance to win the nomination was for Obama to make a tremendous gaffe - so tremendous that he self-destructed and all the remaining Superdelegates turned to Clinton as the savior of the party - and the only place a hyper-intelligent guy like Obama would possibly slip up is in a highly public, unscripted setting like a debate. But he didn't slip up, and it's starting to look like there won't even be any more debates. At this point the entire endgame is predictable. Clinton, like a good chess player, can easily see that the remaining moves inevitably lead to checkmate; it's time for her to tip over her King and concede defeat."
-M.S. Bellows, Jr., Huffington Post

"Obama and Clinton were completely irresponsible. As the first President Bush discovered, it is simply irresponsible statesmanship (and stupid politics) to make blanket pledges to win votes. Both candidates did that on vital issues.

Both promised to not raise taxes on those making less than $200,000 or $250,000 a year. They both just emasculated their domestic programs. Returning the rich to their Clinton-era tax rates will yield, at best, $40 billion a year in revenue. It’s impossible to fund a health care plan, let alone anything else, with that kind of money. The consequences are clear: if elected they will have to break their pledge, and thus destroy their credibility, or run a minimalist administration.

The second pledge was just as bad. Nobody knows what the situation in Iraq will be like. To pledge an automatic withdrawal is just insane. A mature politician would’ve been honest and said: I fully intend to withdraw, but I want to know what the reality is at that moment...

Final grades:
ABC: A
Clinton: B
Obama: D+ "

-David Brooks, NYT

"Why in the world George Stephanopoulos felt compelled to ask Barack Obama if Reverend Wright "loved America" after he had already been made to give another recitation of his repudiation of Wright's remarks is a question that simply defies the imagination. What sort of sensible answer can be given to that question? It would require astral projection to properly gauge another man's emotional state. And if you want to ask Hillary Clinton to account for the odd contortions she advanced on the matter of her Bosnia recollections, just sack up and ask. Don't hide behind the additional, pointless cruelty of a random voter's scoldings that Clinton lost their vote. What a wholly superfluous pile on!

And the flag lapel pin question came with this admonishment from Charles Gibson: "It keeps coming up, again and again." Well, no shit, Charlie! It keeps "coming up, again and again" because the media resolutely refuses to obtain the necessary courage to stop doing so."
-Jason Linkins, Huffington Post

"In the summer of 1969, when Hillary was just entering Yale Law School, she went to work for the foremost radical law firm in, yes, Berkeley... Every one deserves the best legal defense possible, and I have no problem with Hillary having worked for a law firm run by Communists and engaged in defending Huey Newton and other radicals accused of killing cops and other violent acts.

But the hypocrisy by Clinton on this matter and the acrobatic cherry-picking by Stephanopoulos are simply staggering."
-Marc Cooper, Huffington Post

Anna Margolin

Today I give you a poem that, with the help of wikipedia, I just discovered myself. I was looking for a new poem by a poet I'd never read before. Anna Margolin, nee Rona Harning Levensbaum was born in Belarus in 1887, and moved to America when she was 26. She wrote in Yiddish, so this is a translation of the original, but the power of her words is felt nonetheless.

With Half-Shut Eyes

by Anna Margolin

Seated at a table in the gray hall,
Idle and anxious, wrapping myself in my shawl,
I don't look at you, do I?
I don't call you to me, do I?
But my mouth is redder now,
And my half-shut eyes
Are smoky.

But I am flooded with sound and light,
And I see your face through fog and flame,
And on my lips the taste
Of sun and wind is sharp.

But I pull myself up with a choked cry,
I grow trembling, feverish,
And this growing hurts.

Removed to a corner of the gray hall,
In the long flaming folds of my shawl,
I don't look at you, do I?
I don't call you to me, do I?
But a little painfully and deeply and blindly,
With half-shut eyes
I have taken you into myself.

Bernstein on a Hillary Presidency

"What will a Hillary Clinton presidency look like?

The answer by now seems obvious: It will look like her presidential campaign, which in turn looks increasingly like the first Clinton presidency.

Which is to say, high-minded ideals, lowered execution, half truths, outright lies (and imaginary flights), take-no prisoners politics, some very good policy ideas, a presidential spouse given to wallowing in anger and self-pity, and a succession of aides and surrogates pushed under the bus when things don’t go right. Which is to say, often."

-Carl Bernstein

Please Be Gone Already

OH THIS MAKES ME ANGRY!!!

Why are we still debating the need to take care of our planet?!? Even if you don't think global warming is "real" why can't you be pro-active in wanting to leave your children a healthy world? UGH!

Bush, go away.

W.B. Yeats

In honor of my dearest friend and dear reader, one Nicole Rivera, I'm posting one of her favorite poems, a beautiful work by W.B. Yeats.

The Lake Isle of Innisfree

by W.B. Yeats

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the mourning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.

Adrienne Rich

I kind of love Rich's poetry. She's tough and complex and difficult, and I must admit, I never fully understand all that she is saying... which makes it a joy to mull over.

Implosions

by Adrienne Rich

The world's
not wanton
only wild and wavering

I wanted to choose words that even you
would have to be changed by

Take the word
of my pulse, loving and ordinary
Send out your signals, hoist
your dark scribbled flags
but take
my hand

All wars are useless to the dead

My hands are knotted in the rope
and I cannot sound the bell

My hands are frozen to the switch
and I cannot throw it

The foot is in the wheel

When it's finished and we're lying
in a stubble of blistered flowers
eyes gaping, mouths staring
dusted with crushed arterial blues

I'll have done nothing
even for you?

Let's Answer it Now

When asked the last time she shot a gun, Hillary said, "we can answer that some other time."

Well, no honey, it doesn't work that way. You want to pretend to be this gun-toting, church-going down-home $109 million dollar American, then you better own up to the claims you yourself have made.

I Love You So Much Barack Hussein Obama!

Jane: You're Just That Good

Jane Smiley, wonderful Pulitzer-Prize winning novelist of A Thousand Acres, decries Hillary's rebuttal of Obama's San Francisco fundraising remarks (side note: why couldn't he have said this at a fundraiser in Scranton or Pittsburgh? I mean, the people he offended are already offended that San Francisco even exists to begin with):

"I cannot believe how angry this makes me. I cannot believe that after the last seven and a half years, I can even get this angry. Yes, I know she is pandering to her audience. Yes, I know she will do anything to get elected. Yes, I know that she and Bill Clinton are corrupt to the core, and that I should have never expected anything better of her. But, please, any of you angry white women who still support this craven shill, don't mention it to me. "
-Jane Smiley, Huffington Post

Theodore Roethke

Staying with the theme of last Friday, here's a poem by Theodore Roethke which I was privileged to hear Alan Alda read, and which I also studied with Mary Zimmerman, whose hand I can still hear slapping against her leg as she beat out the uneven rhythm of this waltz. Enjoy...

My Papa's Waltz

by Theodore Roethke

The whiskey on your breath
Could make a small boy dizzy;
But I hung on like death:
Such waltzing was not easy.

We romped until the pans
Slid from the kitchen shelf;
My mother's countenance
Could not unfrown itself.

The hand that held my wrist
Was battered on one knuckle;
At every step you missed
My right ear scraped a buckle.

You beat time on my head
With a palm caked hard by dirt,
Then waltzed me off to bed
Still clinging to your shirt.

Getting the Rules Straight

Ok, just want to be clear on this. I'm actually not easily offended, but it's good to know the rules of any game if you want to play.

1) Don Imus refers to a group of young African-American women as "nappy-headed hoes" and he is fired.

2) Jay Leno tells Ryan Phillipe to give the camera "his gayest look" on The Tonight Show. Jay is also host to Halle Berry in October of '07, who refers to a distorted photo of herself with a large nose as looking "like my Jewish cousin."

So if Don Imus had asked Jay Leno to give him his "blackest voice" on-air, that would have been ok? You can ask someone to make a stereotypical gesture, you just can't make fun of it afterwards? I'm so confused!

It's all so absurd, but if you can't get away with insulting one group, why is it acceptable to insult others? Why isn't Al Sharpton telling Jay, it's time for him to say goodnight?

They Are So Gonna Last!

Am I the only one who didn't know that Ashlee Simpson and Pete Wentz are engaged? So amazing! They are PERFECT for each other.

Ashlee, Peter-- I know you two were made for each other. Your marriage is so gonna last. I totally believe.

In Response to Jong

This is a fun and slightly amazing diversion, a response by Matt Taibbi to Erica Jong's piece questioning his decision to call Hillary Clinton "flabby." As he points out, he's gone after the boys, too... I particularly like this description of Boris Yelstin: "A pig... A human appendage of a rotting, corrupt state, a crook who would emerge even from the hottest bath still stinking of booze, concrete and sausage."

ee cummings

God I love this man so intensely. He needs no introduction. He's ee. Enjoy.

somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond

by ee cummings

somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously) her first rose

or if your wish be to close me,i and
my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens; only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain, has such small hands

Obama in The Advocate

Here's his interview, kids. Make of it what you will. But I can't say I find this statement all that inspiring:

"Anybody who’s been at an LGBT event with me can testify that my message is very explicit -- I don’t think that the gay and lesbian community, the LGBT community, should take its cues from me or some political leader in terms of what they think is right for them. It’s not my place to tell the LGBT community, wait your turn. I’m very mindful of Dr. King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” where he says to the white clergy, don’t tell me to wait for my freedom.
So I strongly respect the right of same-sex couples to insist that even if we got complete equality in benefits, it still wouldn’t be equal because there’s a stigma associated with not having the same word, marriage, assigned to it. I understand that, but my perspective is also shaped by the broader political and historical context in which I’m operating. And I’ve said this before -- I’m the product of a mixed marriage that would have been illegal in 12 states when I was born. That doesn’t mean that had I been an adviser to Dr. King back then, I would have told him to lead with repealing an anti-miscegenation law, because it just might not have been the best strategy in terms of moving broader equality forward. That’s a decision that the LGBT community has to make. That’s not a decision for me to make."

This sounds a lot like Hillary's It took LBJ to get done what MLK fought for. I can't say that's the change I want...

Elizabeth Bishop

This poem by Elizabeth Bishop holds a special place in my heart, for I got to hear it read two years ago by Meryl Streep at the annual Poetry Month celebration at Lincoln Center. It's a bit longer than what I normally post, but close your eyes and imagine it being read by Meryl (well, ok, keep your eyes open while you read it but imagine Meryl's voice or something). When I read it, I can hear her still... It's really quite thrilling.

The Fish

by Elizabeth Bishop

I caught a tremendous fish
and held him beside the boat
half out of water, with my hook
fast in a corner of his mouth.
He didn't fight.
He hadn't fought at all.
He hung a grunting weight,
battered and venerable
and homely. Here and there
his brown skin hung in strips
like ancient wallpaper,
and its pattern of darker brown
was like wallpaper:
shapes like full-blown roses
stained and lost through age.
He was speckled with barnacles,
fine rosettes of lime,
and infested
with tiny white sea-lice,
and underneath two or three
rags of green weed hung down.
While his gills were breathing in
the terrible oxygen
--the frightening gills,
fresh and crisp with blood,
that can cut so badly--
I thought of the coarse white flesh
packed in like feathers,
the big bones and the little bones,
the dramatic reds and blacks
of his shiny entrails,
and the pink swim-bladder
like a big peony.
I looked into his eyes
which were far larger than mine
but shallower, and yellowed,
the irises backed and packed
with tarnished tinfoil
seen through the lenses
of old scratched isinglass.
They shifted a little, but not
to return my stare.
--It was more like the tipping
of an object toward the light.
I admired his sullen face,
the mechanism of his jaw,
and then I saw
that from his lower lip
--if you could call it a lip
grim, wet, and weaponlike,
hung five old pieces of fish-line,
or four and a wire leader
with the swivel still attached,
with all their five big hooks
grown firmly in his mouth.
A green line, frayed at the end
where he broke it, two heavier lines,
and a fine black thread
still crimped from the strain and snap
when it broke and he got away.
Like medals with their ribbons
frayed and wavering,
a five-haired beard of wisdom
trailing from his aching jaw.
I stared and stared
and victory filled up
the little rented boat,
from the pool of bilge
where oil had spread a rainbow
around the rusted engine
to the bailer rusted orange,
the sun-cracked thwarts,
the oarlocks on their strings,
the gunnels--until everything
was rainbow, rainbow, rainbow!
And I let the fish go.

Some Fun Polling Data

Check it out here, care of our friends at Huffington.

On another note, I'll be in Philly on Saturday to work for Obama. Anyone else planning to go? Let me know! (Yes, I know I only have like 4 readers, but whatever...)

Philip Levine

One of my favorite poems by the great Philip Levine.

The Simple Truth

by Philip Levine

I bought a dollar and a half's worth of small red potatoes,
took them home, boiled them in their jackets
and ate them for dinner with a little butter and salt.
Then I walked through the dried fields
on the edge of town. In middle June the light
hung on in the dark furrows at my feet,
and in the mountain oaks overhead the birds
were gathering for the night, the jays and mockers
squawking back and forth, the finches still darting
into the dusty light. The woman who sold me
the potatoes was from Poland; she was someone
out of my childhood in a pink spangled sweater and sunglasses
praising the perfection of all her fruits and vegetables
at the road-side stand and urging me to taste
even the pale, raw sweet corn trucked all the way,
she swore, from New Jersey. "Eat, eat" she said,
"Even if you don't I'll say you did."
Some things
you know all your life. They are so simple and true
they must be said without elegance, meter and rhyme,
they must be laid on the table beside the salt shaker,
the glass of water, the absence of light gathering
in the shadows of picture frames, they must be
naked and alone, they must stand for themselves.
My friend Henri and I arrived at this together in 1965
before I went away, before he began to kill himself,
and the two of us to betray our love. Can you taste
what I'm saying? It is onions or potatoes, a pinch
of simple salt, the wealth of melting butter, it is obvious,
it stays in the back of your throat like a truth
you never uttered because the time was always wrong,
it stays there for the rest of your life, unspoken,
made of that dirt we call earth, the metal we call salt,
in a form we have no words for, and you live on it.

When is Too Much Too Much?

Check out this story of a Hispanic Obama delegate who stepped down from her post because of an incident in which she yelled at her neighbor's kids (who happen to be Black) to stop playing in the trees like monkeys.

I mean, yes, calling a black person a monkey has a historically racist connotation. But the kids were swinging from trees! And I just don't see how calling someone a monkey is so heinous and unforgiveable that she has to abandon her political post.

There is a difference between upholding the values of civil rights, and just being ridiculous.

My Kid is Involved in Politics

A great article about, frankly, people like me, who have emailed and debated, cajoled and arm-twisted their parents trying to get their message across: vote for Obama.

Last June, I bought my father a t-shirt featuring an artistic rendition of Obama's face for his birthday. He chuckled at the time. By Super Tuesday, he and my mother, both registered Democrats (despite a consistent independent voting record) voted for Obama.

In March, at my grandfather's 83rd birthday party, I got into a heated debate with my Aunt and decried her candidate (Senator Clinton) for failing to speak up for gay rights when she ran for re-election in '06 while her fellow statesman, frm. Gov. Spitzer, came out in favor of gay marriage. I didn't change any minds that night, but I did silence my Aunt, and in the process (and I thank you in advance, Ms. Clinton, for allowing me to crib this line), found my own voice.

I don't know if I'll get my parents to hang on for the ride through November. My Mom was really bothered by the Rev. Wright fiasco, and is a strident enough independent that she will seriously consider all the candidates, including peripheral third-party ones. Nothing wrong with that. But I, for one, intend to keep hammering away.

As my Dad said on the phone today, "Do you think there's any chance your mother and I would have been Obama supporters without your input?"

Emily Dickinson

Today, I bring you three poems by Emily Dickinson. She's been on my mind a lot lately, though I'm not sure why. Her poetry is tough and complicated. My favorite professor in college, Mary Zimmerman, said she didn't appreciate Dickinson's work until she was older; I look forward to better understanding her poetry myself. Until then, I'll take from it what I can, and hope that you, dear reader, will too.
__________________

I HIDE myself within my flower,
That wearing on your breast,
You, unsuspecting, wear me too—
And angels know the rest.

I hide myself within my flower,
That, fading from your vase,
You, unsuspecting, feel for me
Almost a loneliness.
__________________

MY river runs to thee:
Blue sea, wilt welcome me?

My river waits reply.
Oh sea, look graciously!

I ’ll fetch thee brooks
From spotted nooks,—

Say, sea,
Take me!
__________________

TO fight aloud is very brave,
But gallanter, I know,
Who charge within the bosom,
The cavalry of woe.

Who win, and nations do not see,
Who fall, and none observe,
Whose dying eyes no country
Regards with patriot love.

We trust, in plumed procession,
For such the angels go,
Rank after rank, with even feet
And uniforms of snow.

August Wins the Pulitzer

Tracy Letts scored the prize. No need to add any more adjectives to the overwhelming chorus of praise. It deserves every prize it wins, but nothing I say can illuminate this brilliant, searing, soaring, etc. drama more than any other critic has. Just go see it. That's all. Go.

Britney Dubois?

Say it ain't so!

Britney's being considered to play Blanche Dubois in London! Ack!

Stanley Kunitz

Today I give you what is perhaps my favorite poem by my favorite poet. Stanley Kunitz lived to a hundred, and left a legacy of beautiful poems that will inspire for hundreds of years to come. I've read this poem maybe 800 times in my life, and I always discover something new with each reading.

The Round

by Stanley Kunitz

Light splashed this morning
on the shell-pink anemones
swaying on their tall stems;
down blue-spiked veronica
light flowed in rivulets
over the humps of the honeybees;
this morning I saw light kiss
the silk of the roses
in their second flowering,
my late bloomers
flushed with their brandy.
A curious gladness shook me.

So I have shut the doors of my house,
so I have trudged downstairs to my cell,
so I am sitting in semi-dark
hunched over my desk
with nothing for a view
to tempt me but a bloated compost heap,
steamy old stinkpile,
under my window;
and I pick my notebook up
and I start to read aloud
the still-wet words I scribbled
on the blotted page:
"Light splashed . . ."

I can scarcely wait till tomorrow
when a new life begins for me,
as it does each day,
as it does each day.

Eliza Griswold

I don't know much about this poet, but I read this poem in The New Yorker about three years ago and it has stayed with me ever since. I just think it's complete perfection. I hope you enjoy it as well.

Tigers

by Eliza Griswold

What are we now but voices
who promise each other
a life neither one can deliver
not for lack of wanting
but wanting can't make it so.
We hang from a vine
at the cliff's edge.
There are tigers above
and below. Let us love
one another and let go.

And We're Done

Glad MSNBC had a good laugh this morning at the expense of this transgendered pregnant guy. I'm certainly not condoning the fact that this couple has made a media spectacle of themselves, and that by doing so, they have freely opened themselves up to public ridicule. But it's a cheap shot, and the transgendered kid who's sitting at home watching three journalists get a hearty laugh over one person's apparently successful transgender journey... Scarborough's son has Asperger's. Anyone got a good joke about those freaks??

Gerald Stern

I've had the pleasure of seeing Gerald Stern at several poetry readings in the last few years. A major staple of the New York poetry world, this 82 year old is not just a great reader, but a powerful writer as well.

I Remember Galileo

by Gerald Stern

I remember Galileo describing the mind
as a piece of paper blown around by the wind,
and I loved the sight of it sticking to a tree,
or jumping into the backseat of a car,
and for years I watched paper leap through my cities;
but yesterday I saw the mind was a squirrel caught crossing
Route 80 between the wheels of a giant truck,
dancing back and forth like a thin leaf,
or a frightened string, for only two seconds living
on the white concrete before he got away,
his life shortened by all that terror, his head
jerking, his yellow teeth ground down to dust.

It was the speed of the squirrel and his lowness to the ground,
his great purpose and the alertness of his dancing,
that showed me the difference between him and paper.
Paper will do in theory, when there is time
to sit back in a metal chair and study shadows;
but for this life I need a squirrel,
his clawed feet spread, his whole soul quivering,
the loud noise shaking him from head to tail.
O philosophical mind, O mind of paper, I need a squirrel
finishing his wild dash across the highway,
rushing up his green ungoverned hillside.

Natasha Trethewey

Ms. Trethewey is the most recent American poet to win the Pulitzer Prize for her collection Native Guard. Of the poems in that collection, this is my favorite. Read it, then read it again, then once more for good measure. Or you can listen to Trethewey read it herself.

Theories of Space and Time

by Natasha Trethewey

You can get there from here, though
there’s no going home.

Everywhere you go will be somewhere
you’ve never been. Try this:

head south on Mississippi 49, one-
by-one mile markers ticking off

another minute of your life. Follow this
to its natural conclusion – dead end

at the coast, the pier at Gulfport where
riggings of shrimp boats are loose stitches

in a sky threatening rain. Cross over
the man-made beach, 26 miles of sand

dumped on a mangrove swamp – buried
terrain of the past. Bring only

what you must carry – tome of memory
its random blank pages. On the dock

where you board the boat for Ship Island,
someone will take your picture:

the photograph – who you were –
will be waiting when you return

Hitchens on Hillary

A powerful argument against Senator Clinton.

"I remember disembarking at the Sarajevo airport in the summer of 1992 after an agonizing flight on a U.N. relief plane that had had to "corkscrew" its downward approach in order to avoid Serbian flak and ground fire. As I hunched over to scuttle the distance to the terminal, a mortar shell fell as close to me as I ever want any mortar shell to fall. The vicious noise it made is with me still. And so is the shock I felt at seeing a civilized and multicultural European city bombarded round the clock by an ethno-religious militia under the command of fascistic barbarians... I can tell you for an absolute certainty that it would be quite impossible to imagine that one had undergone that experience at the airport if one actually had not. Yet Sen. Clinton, given repeated chances to modify her absurd claim to have operated under fire while in the company of her then-16-year-old daughter and a USO entertainment troupe, kept up a stone-faced and self-loving insistence that, yes, she had exposed herself to sniper fire... Let the memory of the truth, and the exposure of the lie, at least make us resolve that no Clinton ever sees the inside of the White House again."
-Christopher Hitchens, Slate

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Poetry month is here, my friends! Spring is here! Jhumpa Lahiri's new book is here! Love may be in the air, but love of literature is even more pungent.

In honor of all this joy, I will be celebrating some of my favorite poets and poems. And to begin, here is a sonnet by the incomparable Edna St. Vincent Millay (Learn more about her here). I hold her very dear to my heart. Of all her poems- and there are many to treasure- it is her sonnets for which she is best remembered, in part because they are so masterful.

Millay was usually vigilant about meter, but here she veers off at times, as some lines are 11 syllables and some are ten. Because she strictly adhered to the norms of iambic pentameter, what do you, my fair readers, make of her choice here not to (and of course, it is a choice)? I hope we can engage in a dialogue about this and other poems in the weeks to come. Enjoy!

Love is Not All

by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Love is not all: It is not meat nor drink
Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain,
Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink
and rise and sink and rise and sink again.
Love cannot fill the thickened lung with breath
Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone;
Yet many a man is making friends with death
even as I speak, for lack of love alone.
It well may be that in a difficult hour,
pinned down by need and moaning for release
or nagged by want past resolution's power,
I might be driven to sell your love for peace,
Or trade the memory of this night for food.
It may well be. I do not think I would.