tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24429484497980257672024-03-14T11:05:36.992-04:00ROOTDRINKERAlan Caslinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16939561259084352769noreply@blogger.comBlogger54125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2442948449798025767.post-14662448268082601842015-12-09T20:16:00.002-05:002016-01-25T16:47:10.801-05:00Transcontemporation Poem for America's Greatest American Poetry WorkshopDecember 5, 2016 brought a crew of poets to mulled wine and green M and M's. I drank coffee and everything else but went light on cheese and crackers. The words of poet Sampson Starkweather on transcontemporation were clearly pronouncements warmed in canned soup with red labels. I didn't want to get into it (I mean he wasn't there). Everyone had solidarity and fearlessly continued to use any word found in the English language. This helped some but not a whole lot when your poem was a translation seen through the cleashay of beveled glass. Adam Tedesco, who was there got the name, Dale Chihuly, on the first try. I was fumbling stumbling per usual (name, what is in a name?) but once the praise of MassMoca by Adam and Dawn Marar and the wearabouts of Anna Kberg was determined the AGAPW continued. I was at the Seattle sited Chihuly Garden of Glass a few weeks before and while looking at and beyond glass overhead ceilings I though, wow, what a perfect representation of the Transcontemporation Impulse, since the fractured artist beholding views were obviously multi-prompted at their various cells of academia and poetry were only a surface in the variphased bubble and, not to be slighted, not all of it. The photo below exhibits the transcontemporated space-time impulse. Part wall, part ceiling, light and unlit partings at right angles, filtered through camera lens and yes my friends effected by how tall I stand.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbYJGr2Vv6vE7c8nA8xC3Wv2fSIGAGNLcN7M3LiQVR0v68MngIt_jA93vJP39cyMiek1Yxmh-IoJc5ZxbOc34nB9rrJ7aT_xZYfE0te4ntbHcwQ2kh3cylshsJqlT4vQqB_UIhDLsBv1c/s1600/my+pictures+trip+to+sacramento+111.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbYJGr2Vv6vE7c8nA8xC3Wv2fSIGAGNLcN7M3LiQVR0v68MngIt_jA93vJP39cyMiek1Yxmh-IoJc5ZxbOc34nB9rrJ7aT_xZYfE0te4ntbHcwQ2kh3cylshsJqlT4vQqB_UIhDLsBv1c/s320/my+pictures+trip+to+sacramento+111.jpg" width="320" /></a><br />
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One of the language questions I had for the transcontemporated poem was of course the fading across space-time of the recognized idea. Words as moods mean lost possibles like an Apple commercial about lemmings or watches. It would be slap-stick to set up the old infinity in watches pose. I continue to prefer the universal.<br />
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">BAILEY
BRIDGE (Sir Donald Bailey <i>b</i> 1901)<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> no cliff dwellers <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> spaitum tempor<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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(space-time)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif";"> </span></span><span style="background: white; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif";">portable, pre-fabricated, truss<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif";">available
field consulting <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif";"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif";"> on<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><em><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">bridge</span></em><span class="apple-converted-space"><i> </i><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif";"> </span></span><span style="background: white; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif";">applications<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif";"><o:p> Alan Casline</o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif";"> </span><span style="background: white; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 9.0pt;">December
5, 2015</span></div>
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<br />Alan Caslinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16939561259084352769noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2442948449798025767.post-89907732478199150702015-06-03T18:27:00.000-04:002015-12-09T21:11:10.683-05:00W.W. Christman Tribute 2015, June 1, 2015 at Christman PreserveSOAKED WOODS NEAR THE BOZENKILL<br />
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bark smells like<br />
cold coffee grounds<br />
my afternoon’s memories<br />
recall a bright new day<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga96wLlueJUbXyVeHem3enC5JVMHdyqFIWrPrDLAN1mAr8lrjP4a46wwOCbGQS-S8cDwmJH815Hl3wPjgYe93n-syFZ76u0UXKcEooEj6FR3m-RfjHweHvaiiWagIFYdp3klLWRBELCCU/s1600/christman+preserve+april+2014+025.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" closure_lm_525644="null" height="300" mua="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga96wLlueJUbXyVeHem3enC5JVMHdyqFIWrPrDLAN1mAr8lrjP4a46wwOCbGQS-S8cDwmJH815Hl3wPjgYe93n-syFZ76u0UXKcEooEj6FR3m-RfjHweHvaiiWagIFYdp3klLWRBELCCU/s400/christman+preserve+april+2014+025.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">W.W. Christman Tribute 2015</td></tr>
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looking for a place to sit<br />
off the path an old log<br />
beckons<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOK78o8yh73tWJg8EqzvUSM8P_U6Pq1vkl2MNBd8rdwvc68n72G1HjG0MxN1JFAbntcAKfuOcElj_MvDgFXZ0ICL0IUwh0dmezL0Tyekn_xLu4u4yNXpqteSeEG7ljHliPC31oSru87Dk/s1600/christman+preserve+april+2014+033.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" closure_lm_525644="null" height="300" mua="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOK78o8yh73tWJg8EqzvUSM8P_U6Pq1vkl2MNBd8rdwvc68n72G1HjG0MxN1JFAbntcAKfuOcElj_MvDgFXZ0ICL0IUwh0dmezL0Tyekn_xLu4u4yNXpqteSeEG7ljHliPC31oSru87Dk/s400/christman+preserve+april+2014+033.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Christman Preserve</td></tr>
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punky wood<br />
soaked with old rain<br />
drops of water<br />
on the page<br />
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better write uphill<br />
holding notebook near<br />
vertical, makes the<br />
target more narrow<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgG2tgYtGIH8Oaz8MH1IPuoWvNrhvht0F45HAqHuP9Kuq-PMMPA46R1iDB0OzdfCr3c0WV1SHhEX20j-GPRfn4eREH8T_zo6H7SL5zck-LIYwDW7pLYsAL-gaa75OgohJElYIddp3Dihl0/s1600/christman+preserve+april+2014+045.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" closure_lm_525644="null" height="300" mua="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgG2tgYtGIH8Oaz8MH1IPuoWvNrhvht0F45HAqHuP9Kuq-PMMPA46R1iDB0OzdfCr3c0WV1SHhEX20j-GPRfn4eREH8T_zo6H7SL5zck-LIYwDW7pLYsAL-gaa75OgohJElYIddp3Dihl0/s400/christman+preserve+april+2014+045.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">waterfall on Bozenkill</td></tr>
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my wide brim hat<br />
has no such concerns<br />
<br />Alan Caslinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16939561259084352769noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2442948449798025767.post-71544988994420351102015-05-18T18:58:00.001-04:002015-05-18T19:54:48.393-04:00TEARING DOWN THE TRADE FAIR AFTER CLOUDBURST<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOt_qH7RPKPbNe6G34Ajho_vfRdOSJgGSkYUKeUjvF7wyPEvt8CsW06vQRGX7jNuF-vUVHbfegCdgdb0abiEVrdxIvkIKAAYV7YqrmJZrkZjMyDklfmIqldCzddsO22FVYlT0uUkCi3rA/s1600/P5160032.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" lua="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOt_qH7RPKPbNe6G34Ajho_vfRdOSJgGSkYUKeUjvF7wyPEvt8CsW06vQRGX7jNuF-vUVHbfegCdgdb0abiEVrdxIvkIKAAYV7YqrmJZrkZjMyDklfmIqldCzddsO22FVYlT0uUkCi3rA/s400/P5160032.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Blackwater Suite: Mark W. O'Brien and Gail Allen</td></tr>
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TEARING DOWN THE TRADE FAIR AFTER CLOUDBURST COUNCIL<br />
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along with their bedding and books being packed up, the room is filled with all those moving on but in no hurry about it.<br />
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many hands chip in for clean up. <br />
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extra food stuff is distributed<br />
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cartons of eggs named for poets who will digest them<br />
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who’ll take the two open gallons of milk?<br />
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Maril will take milk “We were going to buy some on the way home”<br />
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but won’t take the near full carton because Bob is going to be away and we only need three days worth.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMrAEu6DyQ8wf8hVPy276KEeR_XpttEnqnme4Dp6EDIx3SS7aPv-6zLX9PNd-7nr16ZZCe7jk2zsG9VSj09JmF_6yddvGRDssFmmM1f749EJEwhh08BqM9iDZwd-F42v6gem-dQfPrjuY/s1600/P5150017.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" lua="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMrAEu6DyQ8wf8hVPy276KEeR_XpttEnqnme4Dp6EDIx3SS7aPv-6zLX9PNd-7nr16ZZCe7jk2zsG9VSj09JmF_6yddvGRDssFmmM1f749EJEwhh08BqM9iDZwd-F42v6gem-dQfPrjuY/s400/P5150017.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Grace Panel: Judith Kerman, Helen Ruggieri, David Landrey</td></tr>
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large bag of granola and small bag. <br />
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whose household has more mouths to feed gets the large bag<br />
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will someone please take the Genesee Cream Ale? <br />
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if not we may find ourselves drinking from these cans next year because I’m not drinking it. <br />
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I’ll just bring it back, a year older and no wiser.<br />
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there is a milling of poets with nearly filled backpacks at the free tables. <br />
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hoping to snatch up a last few tidbits <br />
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a small quiet deal is made about a poem and a little book to put it in<br />
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books can be put away for another day – living plants need to find a home. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgyr26b0SEFOrl8Oaa7X0VWEh_YnzIMw_onegsaJDRhHTFo6S6irS_vGkLv9KFhEX7dNcyKlbQKGPfNyTUNs5emcMgMyk-8MCmTSClJH3JODrvgx6cqjA2oZGE8KYNi0pR7tKoUWdJ8gQ/s1600/P5160019.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" lua="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgyr26b0SEFOrl8Oaa7X0VWEh_YnzIMw_onegsaJDRhHTFo6S6irS_vGkLv9KFhEX7dNcyKlbQKGPfNyTUNs5emcMgMyk-8MCmTSClJH3JODrvgx6cqjA2oZGE8KYNi0pR7tKoUWdJ8gQ/s400/P5160019.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">apple blosssoms - here today/gone tomorrow<br />
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John Roche can’t find one for the magical climbing house plant that will grow thousands of yards in <br />
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a single year and sticks to walls, windows and roof tiles cutting out sunlight and making doors inoperable.<br />
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I can’t imagine why? <br />
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he takes his plant back home with him.<br />
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the Trade Fair grounds empty only a few staying for the last clean-up. <br />
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my two corn flower plants not taken. <br />
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my plan to plant them on the grounds at field edge<br />
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Michael thinks there is room at his place and takes them ‘<br />
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they are beautiful blue flowers<br />
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they will spread like crazy that’s the only thing but they are easy to control, just pull up easily<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="300" lua="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhp2aiifXzC72Kzk_L7Qf0M16cYRSuax-ytlXKKjYl7dJLULOCIB2op5wKrpAnfDiU_lg1iLXGHQDgUAuch0VNcJ-sVavMvJoB9jr9KmQ0f-ZrUiyZjPFTEMl0AZqDHVG2nO333im2avcA/s400/P5160040.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="400" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">All One Song: Michael Czarnecki and Sue Spencer</td></tr>
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I don’t know to tell him: Cornflowers are often used as an ingredient in some tea blends and herbal <br />
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teas, and is famous in the Lady Grey blend of Twinings. <br />
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I gather extra handouts.<br />
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if I get around to it, these can be added to mailings for those who might have been here.<br />
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Alan Casline<br />
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May 17, 2015<br />
Gell Center <br />
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near Naples New York<br />
<br />Alan Caslinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16939561259084352769noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2442948449798025767.post-75856515547381960292014-10-09T22:30:00.000-04:002014-10-30T21:13:14.983-04:00CHIEF ROLLING MOUNTAIN THUNDER: Frank Van Zant, One of the Crazy Ones - I-80 in Nevada High Desert (photos and text Alan Casline 2014) <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgG2qsWQsFBZS1CONaFuI7aC1Ub7EFK6ua-fe2adQjOoWT2b1gw54odm20fHdpCLbTHH6O1HgwbWRRl0c8TazT5bJyznEIlbdKFNSpndFnM6Nl9AQNLwQBZcKVsMosQgfnz_50R1Lioxi8/s1600/west+2014+114.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" closure_lm_301614="null" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgG2qsWQsFBZS1CONaFuI7aC1Ub7EFK6ua-fe2adQjOoWT2b1gw54odm20fHdpCLbTHH6O1HgwbWRRl0c8TazT5bJyznEIlbdKFNSpndFnM6Nl9AQNLwQBZcKVsMosQgfnz_50R1Lioxi8/s1600/west+2014+114.jpg" fua="true" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Frank Van Zant <br />
now Chief Rolling Mountain Thunder<br />
haunted visions given</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4pnDHt06tj7yzLjnobH-Wph41EKw7qKxSUKGxXA2FLRC44MwqqGWGKqERIig91NdmytNg38QDMF_tJY0YLpXt8tGTcbNv0yJgJT78KsGqi157CiYNgChWPJ2MbnNxml6K89Rt3K3b1l4/s1600/west+2014+131.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" closure_lm_301614="null" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4pnDHt06tj7yzLjnobH-Wph41EKw7qKxSUKGxXA2FLRC44MwqqGWGKqERIig91NdmytNg38QDMF_tJY0YLpXt8tGTcbNv0yJgJT78KsGqi157CiYNgChWPJ2MbnNxml6K89Rt3K3b1l4/s1600/west+2014+131.jpg" fua="true" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">sorry at end<br />
burnt buildings locals destroyed art<br />
bit the bullet</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRqEIy84U2W-FopMGcEOjg-k1tmypxkmGEl2ZOv2xYXaisCUeDvrNxc6Gts0cNbDZf5Todq_bZTV4Tfr_-FdsJht4QCjunX5WC6rUcmDSr0d5AgzMDL340lhukan2dCROlYxNdK4q0nBM/s1600/west+2014+126.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" closure_lm_301614="null" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRqEIy84U2W-FopMGcEOjg-k1tmypxkmGEl2ZOv2xYXaisCUeDvrNxc6Gts0cNbDZf5Todq_bZTV4Tfr_-FdsJht4QCjunX5WC6rUcmDSr0d5AgzMDL340lhukan2dCROlYxNdK4q0nBM/s1600/west+2014+126.jpg" fua="true" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">saw beauty broken<br />
maker builder his strong energy<br />
followers could help</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEij-f0sjp5G-DCaQOP3j6tEtCUDeG_I_NteY7ujN5S8_97VsvddRU3YeG-mlWgrSoYwT1Q4lx8tzjPUbrA05Iw2rpmOVZBByIbmeoZc8KxByNPl2kn3zl8Mr-rqR8x1HancBtdtjRzuMkM/s1600/west+2014+121.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" closure_lm_301614="null" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEij-f0sjp5G-DCaQOP3j6tEtCUDeG_I_NteY7ujN5S8_97VsvddRU3YeG-mlWgrSoYwT1Q4lx8tzjPUbrA05Iw2rpmOVZBByIbmeoZc8KxByNPl2kn3zl8Mr-rqR8x1HancBtdtjRzuMkM/s1600/west+2014+121.jpg" fua="true" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">two hundred sculptures<br />
native peoples needed protective spirits<br />
story injustice told</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQQIlQatNQpcPEOTBIhQ0eFE3r3wkrZAd18WpLN1vrIkSdxQs7ckKyMW8tyE_EElnjE7mk8A3slsBC3IGqvL4c-7tEMmTgQdJ28L9rAZeXvxiGekbt0jXrv5U8VCVPGfBQf5Kza80T81w/s1600/west+2014+133.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" closure_lm_301614="null" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQQIlQatNQpcPEOTBIhQ0eFE3r3wkrZAd18WpLN1vrIkSdxQs7ckKyMW8tyE_EElnjE7mk8A3slsBC3IGqvL4c-7tEMmTgQdJ28L9rAZeXvxiGekbt0jXrv5U8VCVPGfBQf5Kza80T81w/s1600/west+2014+133.jpg" fua="true" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">large handle so<br />
Great Spirit could take buildings<br />
after Thunder's death</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIuXgno6PWyRBfwFCNDHC88bk1UEabK3C9vaqgvxdT_ggCWS_z5gOPId4onL3LLeye5PDtljM-dvKgV9Yc7JH5BMGQfhsHQ-Qz86nXyirmZYebxj2u6NfRm_lQlO8XR3GGVZ5A8QeDENM/s1600/west+2014+118.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" closure_lm_301614="null" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIuXgno6PWyRBfwFCNDHC88bk1UEabK3C9vaqgvxdT_ggCWS_z5gOPId4onL3LLeye5PDtljM-dvKgV9Yc7JH5BMGQfhsHQ-Qz86nXyirmZYebxj2u6NfRm_lQlO8XR3GGVZ5A8QeDENM/s1600/west+2014+118.jpg" fua="true" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">wood cement glass<br />
stone copper iron paint fabric<br />
dolls typewriters signs</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFyKpPNfSnXLp7wX1T54REGAcVG1SixHhKXqusSOa26wa3ezEUJfLjiWXlQHTA6k_6a-ZGs8FnG2ICekeN8b5P69toK39vOC6mIcxggWRzMdWI8hpEHJ5pj25Qxd_Qn8r7QOvoABROoCY/s1600/west+2014+125.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" closure_lm_301614="null" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFyKpPNfSnXLp7wX1T54REGAcVG1SixHhKXqusSOa26wa3ezEUJfLjiWXlQHTA6k_6a-ZGs8FnG2ICekeN8b5P69toK39vOC6mIcxggWRzMdWI8hpEHJ5pj25Qxd_Qn8r7QOvoABROoCY/s1600/west+2014+125.jpg" fua="true" height="320" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">outsider art works<br />
praise the crazy different ones<br />
only ones interesting</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBnAaCWXnQyaA2RuEN3NyOJsyyHu8AstSoNzfZAr_24hkI5aBO3TzSaKJnSono2OeGICtPRP5Kfus8r9hVaSmylMVmh2GKGRieWSxpPnCyJSpS88fwUPfLFsBpJnvyavCg5BFgtp93Io4/s1600/west+2014+117.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" closure_lm_301614="null" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBnAaCWXnQyaA2RuEN3NyOJsyyHu8AstSoNzfZAr_24hkI5aBO3TzSaKJnSono2OeGICtPRP5Kfus8r9hVaSmylMVmh2GKGRieWSxpPnCyJSpS88fwUPfLFsBpJnvyavCg5BFgtp93Io4/s1600/west+2014+117.jpg" fua="true" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">faded photos left<br />
sculptures crumble flake to dust<br />
his children watch</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgshMvgeM3lGQJqpWpOzJ8cxHoMMIl0pQALGJ5agIr9VMj279YjKw9kkJrhSs85Pov3741F3LqtKuwEzvqcUaFyr1wUTtdCT8dr9Au4eenE_oR6f-lj0qUuUAy52pCdE2ZVaM5VZ4yUTAM/s1600/west+2014+130.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="cssfloat: right; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" closure_lm_301614="null" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgshMvgeM3lGQJqpWpOzJ8cxHoMMIl0pQALGJ5agIr9VMj279YjKw9kkJrhSs85Pov3741F3LqtKuwEzvqcUaFyr1wUTtdCT8dr9Au4eenE_oR6f-lj0qUuUAy52pCdE2ZVaM5VZ4yUTAM/s1600/west+2014+130.jpg" fua="true" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">bottle wall stands<br />
a little longer for us<br />
stop and visit<br />
<br />
<br />
---Alan Casline<br />
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Alan Caslinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16939561259084352769noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2442948449798025767.post-54535386901760206372014-03-18T11:35:00.000-04:002014-05-23T15:16:47.220-04:00ENJOY COLDFEST 2014 READING VIA YOUTUBE<span style="font-size: large;">GO TO: </span><span style="color: #0000ee; font-size: large;"><u><a href="http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLSJ0W07nonLtSkSBlI8FjKuWb1NdLlpDj">COLDFEST PLAYLIST LINK</a></u></span><br />
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<span style="height: 183px; left: 312px; mso-ignore: vglayout; position: absolute; top: 876px; width: 244px; z-index: 1;"><br /></span><!--[endif]-->Alan Caslinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16939561259084352769noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2442948449798025767.post-38442531156361674712013-07-30T17:45:00.002-04:002013-07-30T22:02:36.683-04:00JAZZ POETRY ON JULY 26, 2013 <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjcpyBg6w026xPVJq2wISraHm6fCG7v5JUwzzt9ZbWE2u0cTQWlAaVatiGXggUPENrKhXA_P1pJ48hBxSq5ciG7JgNFcVhyphenhyphen_gxe_v4x9CgsgqGrTkJpfK-AwYtQZ9IczFbgCkeEu_dceY/s1600/fall12+498.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjcpyBg6w026xPVJq2wISraHm6fCG7v5JUwzzt9ZbWE2u0cTQWlAaVatiGXggUPENrKhXA_P1pJ48hBxSq5ciG7JgNFcVhyphenhyphen_gxe_v4x9CgsgqGrTkJpfK-AwYtQZ9IczFbgCkeEu_dceY/s320/fall12+498.jpg" /></a><br />
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<br />Alan Caslinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16939561259084352769noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2442948449798025767.post-23156730297989437132013-07-04T03:30:00.001-04:002013-07-04T03:30:33.316-04:00Cloudburst 2013 Recordings Released!The recordings of Cloudburst 2013 have been posted.<br />
<br />
You can access them with the following link:<br />
<a href="http://www.mixcloud.com/TheRootdrinkerInstitute/playlists/cloudburst-council-2013/" target="_blank">http://www.mixcloud.com/TheRootdrinkerInstitute/playlists/cloudburst-council-2013/</a><br />
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Thank you to everyone who attended.Alan Caslinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16939561259084352769noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2442948449798025767.post-18320850490799066782013-05-06T14:03:00.002-04:002013-05-06T14:08:06.615-04:00CLOUDBURST COUNCIL POEM ALAN CASLINE<br />
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PLACE MARKET PLACE AT THE GATHERING</div>
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from a few hills down<o:p></o:p></div>
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his friends and town
seek<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
the help he needs<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
to overcome chaos<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
to arrange<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
to initiate <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
a song afresh<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
a profusion of outlook<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
welcomes inspiration<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
yet working the known<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
means you cannot listen<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
for the new<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
night frost melts <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
wet dew drops hang<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
in morning air a
gentleman<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
stands<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
his cold hut newly
thatched<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
thus he always begins his day<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
yet once he
heard a way out<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
music’s objects of inner <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
sound flow<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
(unknown still elements)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
unite or separate<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
both to be able<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
yet there must be one<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
at the beginning<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
(some difficulty)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<o:p> Alan Casline</o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
11/3/2012<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
Alan Caslinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16939561259084352769noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2442948449798025767.post-42860439812157424542012-12-19T10:51:00.002-05:002012-12-19T11:43:46.478-05:00TEXT AS ART: ON A LAKE FOLLOWING THUNDER<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
<b>ON THE LAKE FOLLOWING THUNDER</b><br />
<br />
there is thunder in the lake<br />
cloud faces,<br />
shadows changing expressions<br />
the light within the clouds<br />
illuminating like a fluctuating lantern<br />
world following the seasons joyfully<br />
the ferry across the ocean of existence<br />
<br />
Alan Casline<br />
10/11/2001<br />
Hudson, New York<br />
<br />
hexagram #17 <i>Sui </i>/ Following<br />
<br />
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<br />
<br />Alan Caslinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16939561259084352769noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2442948449798025767.post-50422828026222191372012-04-07T17:00:00.005-04:002012-04-07T17:31:38.823-04:00GLIMPSES OF LONDON<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
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</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Visit to London from March 26-April 2, 2012. Stuck to the city itself with only side trips by train to city of Bromley to visit one of the few remaining flowing Springs and by river cruise downriver and back to Royal Observatory. The visit was to see my daughter who is studying at University College of London. Was a bit overwhelming because of the number of museums we visited. My observational and interest level was high but after the first thousand items passed my visual stream I started to wear out. I had a list of twenty sacred Springs of London and my wife and son were good sports about trailing along with me as I tried to find them.</div>Visiting POETS' CORNER was satisfying. A new favorite image is sitting on a folding chair in the POETS' CORNER awaiting inspiration. Took many photos and wrote a few poems.<br />
<br />
<br />
<strong>GLIMPSES OF LONDON</strong><br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">raven at Tower of London </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">protects the realm from ill prophecy</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgO_dApdzSijTik-FpJs_xqLEE5DtZhWj96qqSgiH6EVVjLb3vgp-Vi3cJvRG4ri04YBrQ_e2OsgPUsXl18ry5YFb3DAR2YHJY9ua0spCwWSXfQ9SIxVJgvuqzDfK6RAjD04IvJIO1chZ8/s1600/London+119.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" nda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgO_dApdzSijTik-FpJs_xqLEE5DtZhWj96qqSgiH6EVVjLb3vgp-Vi3cJvRG4ri04YBrQ_e2OsgPUsXl18ry5YFb3DAR2YHJY9ua0spCwWSXfQ9SIxVJgvuqzDfK6RAjD04IvJIO1chZ8/s320/London+119.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><em>Indian Tribes of the United States</em> by Schoolcraft</div>on the shelf at British Museum of Natural History<br />
<br />
tiny beads strung in pattern <br />
at chest of young female mummy<br />
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<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhT8JMip9lkqZfZXnsngnLQKvqNSeyIT4SFMrFmWr0UvpRuwYp_zTdA6Ac2-ROOvCgUgmnL3YkbGH5F3N6q4nw4e-uxjpXI-p-M6EvhKqIfaNpp55wEXHTd0vmBqaFIq1HDkrOKzLj53eA/s1600/London+104.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="cssfloat: right; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" nda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhT8JMip9lkqZfZXnsngnLQKvqNSeyIT4SFMrFmWr0UvpRuwYp_zTdA6Ac2-ROOvCgUgmnL3YkbGH5F3N6q4nw4e-uxjpXI-p-M6EvhKqIfaNpp55wEXHTd0vmBqaFIq1HDkrOKzLj53eA/s400/London+104.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Reynard the Fox German illustrations </div></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">from the beginning of Romanism</div></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">fake bundles of ancestor’s bones </div></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">under sign saying some cultures keep their dead with them</div></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">giant turtles and giant bears bigger than SUV’s</div></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">their bones reattached to skeletor frames </div></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">painted taxi body advertising</div></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><em>Singing in the Rain</em></div></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">at Winchester ask the attendant</div></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">“Of course, I know where they keep William Blake”</div></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">1500 headless bodies found buried under</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">the church floor, now nameless traitors</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">homemade meat pies served by the cook herself</div></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">from her kitchen last night, now off a cart at Greenwich Market</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">oval sand-white stone in pocket</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">smooth memory of Saint Blaise’s Spring</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">two wing feathers found side-by-side</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">in a flowerbed at Royal Observatory</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">March 31, 2012</span></div></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">London</span></div></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjj1mKNUTdtHKOaATmf_5ZK8g6DS8eicstNmn07gv8H_gEQ45SmRt1aHW2Fs6THAvZg2YeIs1xXRxDrma5Rp9CzpqxaU_8Q_oNqeoQnavwCrLr8Yg7WwdKqxzlReHXdnLIGtdN31C-3SFo/s1600/London+182.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="cssfloat: right; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" nda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjj1mKNUTdtHKOaATmf_5ZK8g6DS8eicstNmn07gv8H_gEQ45SmRt1aHW2Fs6THAvZg2YeIs1xXRxDrma5Rp9CzpqxaU_8Q_oNqeoQnavwCrLr8Yg7WwdKqxzlReHXdnLIGtdN31C-3SFo/s400/London+182.jpg" width="300" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdLkWYoPHkjAYBxv8TlZOS1aIT9z7wQa9aw_ikBifk1awMo6wploDQKsLSqaSDG_4MzunHLpg-wcizGKdX97IqstAXYIFru7WYS-UqQdKayJccegToGMt7CxIT4vBWoZcslN-nm-ukWTI/s1600/London+049.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" nda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdLkWYoPHkjAYBxv8TlZOS1aIT9z7wQa9aw_ikBifk1awMo6wploDQKsLSqaSDG_4MzunHLpg-wcizGKdX97IqstAXYIFru7WYS-UqQdKayJccegToGMt7CxIT4vBWoZcslN-nm-ukWTI/s400/London+049.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>Alan Caslinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16939561259084352769noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2442948449798025767.post-41975705647541442762012-02-29T17:14:00.012-05:002012-02-29T19:49:25.143-05:00HOT DOG EATING WITH BERNADETTE MAYER, PHIL GOOD & ALAN CASLINE TASTE TEST<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyK7EuMHpb1Vf20gW_yoPQ-SjbpuFpODjerj7L2Zoy6_zP775J757OltNe0iad4fL4HOL6J19j78oefwgBd0XOd2aQXfr1d3fl2res5qndgK8JldC85HlGXzH8gFRe89xGPRnC4kpjbrU/s1600/jan2012+005.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyK7EuMHpb1Vf20gW_yoPQ-SjbpuFpODjerj7L2Zoy6_zP775J757OltNe0iad4fL4HOL6J19j78oefwgBd0XOd2aQXfr1d3fl2res5qndgK8JldC85HlGXzH8gFRe89xGPRnC4kpjbrU/s320/jan2012+005.jpg" uda="true" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><em>Famous Lunch, Troy, New York</em></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div>At Dan Wilcox’s 2012 January 1st poets get-together at his house in Albany, my wife Jennifer Pearce was arguing on my behalf when she heard Bernadette Mayer and Phil Good declare the best hot dogs in the world were found at Famous Lunch in Troy, New York. She knew I had a hound in that pound as I had introduced her to Mike’s Hot Dogs in Schenectady, New York. She came and got me and I was immediately involved in a dispute of epic proportions. Mike’s is a family tradition, my father, Louis Casline having first taken me there when I was still a high school student back in the 1960s. I had long considered Mike’s Hot Dogs to be the best in the area (if not the world) There was no way to settle this, we all decided, except to meet up and do a hot dog comparison. The day started on February 15, 2012 with Jennifer on her way to work as a pediatric medical doctor saying, “I’m going out to save lives. You’re going out to eat hot dogs… That’s my comment.” My comment was “Someone has to be enjoying life.” Later, Bernadette added a comment “Hot dog eating is serious business” and Phil said “It is all part of the process.”<br />
<br />
I had done some preliminary research and felt I had a definite one-up on Mike’s over Famous. On the internet, I discovered that Famous Lunch actually shipped their hot dogs by FedEx anywhere in the world. That was so pretentious! Whatever the results on the taste testing I had a point or two in favor of the authentic workingman’s never shipped farther than City Hall Mike’s Hot Dogs I grew up on. The eventful trip from East Nassau to Troy brought us downhill to the appropriate hole-in-the wall urban location of Famous Lunch. I had eaten there before! Years ago in Troy, I had certainly had breakfast there. We got down to hot dogs and basics. The Famous Lunch hot dogs are mini-dogs, half the size of regular dogs and thus I ordered four with everything on. While waiting, I took out my notebook as Phil and Bernadette agreed with me that we should have CRITERIA.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigjornXV2pLuy_Ez-W0rxVWN0exwRsSUHV2Qt79QUrI4CXD5G6QTXz2fG3KpRk5rqhOewO5GSTtjKXT-d3CrMwpWoAEoZn47vknHW5kMFopvGjBYw8IVVljHpevqXbVk0F0nroE5xTwWM/s1600/jan2012+008.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigjornXV2pLuy_Ez-W0rxVWN0exwRsSUHV2Qt79QUrI4CXD5G6QTXz2fG3KpRk5rqhOewO5GSTtjKXT-d3CrMwpWoAEoZn47vknHW5kMFopvGjBYw8IVVljHpevqXbVk0F0nroE5xTwWM/s320/jan2012+008.jpg" uda="true" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><em>Inside Famous Lunch, Troy New York</em></span><br />
<br />
CRITERIA FOR JUDGMENT<br />
<em>(1) Crispiness</em><br />
<em>(2) Texture</em><br />
<em>(3) Which are more delicious </em><br />
<em> a. Toppings</em><br />
<em> b. Amount of salt<br />
(4) Ratio onion to sauce</em><br />
<em>(5) Ambience</em><br />
<em>(6) Context</em><br />
<br />
The hot dogs arrived and I immediately knew I had been set-up because the Famous Lunch hot dogs are extremely crunchy and crispy. They were more of a sausage consistency than a traditional hot dog.<br />
Very good and I knew I was down to Bernadette and Phil already unless by some change the First Prize Hot Dogs Mike’s used were ones that had sat on the grill for a few hours getting crisper (unlikely because of the quick lunch time sell through). I can report (which may gain me sympathy from local readers) that Bernadette and Phil had never heard of “First Prize Hot Dogs.” I even described the decrepit old First Prize Meats factory building off Everett Road in Albany that pretty much fell down before it could be torn down. They had never heard or seen the old factory building either. We actually agreed that the Famous Lunch hot dog had the best <em>Crispiness.</em> In scoring that would give the Famous one point.<br />
<br />
The criteria <em>Texture</em> was a perfectly good criteria but we failed to discuss texture except to agree the hot dogs had texture. There must be some reason we all liked Mike’s hot dog as a “hot dog” and I’m going to say it was the texture and give Mike’s one point.<br />
<br />
<em>Which are more delicious</em> is a criteria that might as well be “the heading” for the whole hot dog comparison but happily we had added two sub-criteria to make the category measurement clearer. <em>Toppings</em>: Meat sauce, onions, mustard. Here we had much discussion, agreement and disagreement.<br />
The meat sauce at famous Lunch is called Zippy Sauce. Mike’s meat sauce is called Meat Sauce. Why Zippy Sauce is unknown and lost in time? The sauces are both good but they differ. Famous is coarser with meat in varied pieces. When famous is on your plate a thin red juice comes flowing out of it like two levels of messiness. The actual meat mess and this second outer flow of oily red juice mess. Mike’s is smoother and technically more of a sauce in the dictionary definition sense. The mustards were equal in your standard bright yellow way. The onions were fresh and crunchy raw at Mike’s and Bernadette pointed out this detail of obvious Mike’s superiority to Famous. <em>Amount of salt</em> was chosen as a criteria after the first Famous Lunch hot dogs were eaten and it was noticeable the meat sauce was a bit heavy on the salt. I am going to throw this <em>Amount of salt</em> sub-criteria out because Phil and Bernadette both told me it was unusual that there would be this much salt (something about amount of salt in the water, I didn’t get it) and because the criteria was a SET-UP TO FAIL bogus push poll thought-up item conceived in reaction to a honest experiential moment. <em>Which are more delicious</em> went two to one for Famous Lunch in the Bernadette and Phil on one side and Alan on the other side dichotomy.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhY3M8ZEHHOz1wXOAaKVjYi7IZu7hj9FxCo5QUawcfNhAhaDGz5MRzVhTuwojrTeLFCjnJz0TZqYWY3kOYkWWKl-x6EuQdM9DV_8-u3Uj9DOGhsfdnKQhHCLm4mNyvxJlP9NDofmQ7jopA/s1600/jan2012+007.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhY3M8ZEHHOz1wXOAaKVjYi7IZu7hj9FxCo5QUawcfNhAhaDGz5MRzVhTuwojrTeLFCjnJz0TZqYWY3kOYkWWKl-x6EuQdM9DV_8-u3Uj9DOGhsfdnKQhHCLm4mNyvxJlP9NDofmQ7jopA/s320/jan2012+007.jpg" uda="true" width="320" /></a></div><em><span style="font-size: x-small;">Bernadette and Phil at Famous Lunch</span></em><br />
<br />
<em>Ratio onion to sauce</em> is a beautiful world harmony balance of the spheres kind of criteria. Phil Good was able to expound on this Buddhist Tao inspired inner attunement by relating stories of an earlier “teaching”<br />
that involved “Burger to Bun ratio” Here the best hot dog was Mike’s. The full-size roll helped hold amounts of both and the fresh raw onions reached out to the overlying sauce like brother and sister stars shining in the same heaven on a summer night. One point for Mike’s Hot Dogs for <em>Ratio onion to sauce</em>.<br />
<br />
<em>Ambience</em>/oh that most subjective of criteria. Surroundings? Environment? Cleanliness by unanimous vote is not a considered criteria for a hot dog joint. Bernadette did say Mike’s was “A little too clean. I feel too clean for my taste.” Famous Lunch used to be called “The Hairy Arm” because the cook there had very hairy arms and would stack the hot dogs all along his forearm to carry them to the customer’s plates where he’d pick them off one at a time. He could carry a few dozen hot dogs from the grill to customers on his hairy arms, yum, how appetizing. Famous Lunch also has an arced doorway from main room to hallway that has bathrooms. Mike’s doesn’t…you just go around the corner. <br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg96ljTMAh1-AgXN0M9uTxxlf0OMxEPAq9PPz1OIBU3T2r0QClVPRMsJ1VWZ0Bwt-WfyF1i-_4vAVL7i63MxkEVCnO5ic1va3kjUz1WN-NDB0Vp8UrLl1Lg6rP_g5bbvD8QK3YfN-4ZTzo/s1600/jan2012+017.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg96ljTMAh1-AgXN0M9uTxxlf0OMxEPAq9PPz1OIBU3T2r0QClVPRMsJ1VWZ0Bwt-WfyF1i-_4vAVL7i63MxkEVCnO5ic1va3kjUz1WN-NDB0Vp8UrLl1Lg6rP_g5bbvD8QK3YfN-4ZTzo/s320/jan2012+017.jpg" uda="true" width="320" /></a></div><em><span style="font-size: x-small;">"Nice Neon" MIKE'S HOT DOGS, Schenectady, New York</span></em><br />
<br />
At first the solid wood frame-box around the working coin operated phone at Famous Lunch seemed to be a winner but then we got to Mike’s Hot Dogs and they have two phone booths of exactly the same design so that cancels each other out. Mike’s environment is “neater” but that is not definitely a better trait. Bernadette Mayer observed “Mike’s looks like a bathroom.” It is a long narrow painted concrete block rectangle. Famous Lunch is even narrower, looks like a hallway as much as a room. I had not noticed but sitting there and comparing I realized that, unlike Famous Lunch, Mike’s Hot Dogs probably did a renovation in the last twenty years, mostly that was some fresh paint. Bernadette thought the Norman Rockwell print hanging on one white concrete wall was a “heavy negative.” I thought it was so bad it was good and pointed out the Christmas wrapping paper covering the wall imbedded air-conditioning unit as a possible make-up for the Rockwell. I felt the lack of reading material at Famous Lunch was a weakness. I will read everything and anything when I am looking at a wall containing written material. At Mike’s there was a lot more to read. Stuff like NO TOASTED HARDROLLS BETWEEN 11AM-3PM. No advantage could be decided on for <em>Ambience</em>. Each place in a tie gets one point.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjojVsIsh-lLcMzSEshj6wLu4jVzWi6Cf-Rrjegi0QpsY-3KgUJX0innRg59YO2EIu24vwvgz4f90gyfzmxKs12P6qiLRGp-nWg8EclqQi9abYYtFkSIazBihdwOKewKZ-VPWUbP7aK6DQ/s1600/jan2012+018.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjojVsIsh-lLcMzSEshj6wLu4jVzWi6Cf-Rrjegi0QpsY-3KgUJX0innRg59YO2EIu24vwvgz4f90gyfzmxKs12P6qiLRGp-nWg8EclqQi9abYYtFkSIazBihdwOKewKZ-VPWUbP7aK6DQ/s320/jan2012+018.jpg" uda="true" width="320" /></a></div><em><span style="font-size: x-small;">Alan Casline at Mike's Hot Dogs with his notebook </span></em><br />
<br />
<em>Context</em> is the last criteria. Bernadette and Phil said they have only brought one other poet to Famous Lunch (Brenda Coultas). Family members have been many. Her son Max really likes the place. I have never brought any other poets to Mike’s Hot Dogs. I have talked with poets Tom Corrado and Alan Catlin about Mike’s. My family has been there. I pick Mike’s for my Birthday dinner (their French fries are really good too). My son Tom really likes the place. As I said my father introduced me to Mike’s Hot Dogs over forty years ago. I could walk there when I lived in the Stockade neighborhood with my brother Jamie in Schenectady in the late 1980’s. In the last year of my mother Georgiana’s life she had a Doctor’s appointment in Schenectady and I thought do I dare bring my frail eighty year-old mother to lunch at Mike’s Hot Dogs? I decided I could and when we got there she sat up on a stool and ate two whole dogs with the works. Then she said, “Your father used to bring me here all the time.” Of course he would have. The history of the place in my family got pushed back another ten years. Context seems to me to be another tie in the comparison. The totals come to Famous Lunch five points and Mike’s Hot Dogs five points. We didn’t use the other suggested criteria <em>After Burp</em> or <em>How well</em> <em>do they settle in your stomach?</em> Phil said the Famous Lunch after burp was “good quality” but we hadn’t come up with these additional criteria until after we had exited Famous Lunch. There didn’t seem to be anyway to break the tie. Perhaps it is the best of all outcomes.<br />
<img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibtUV2Bn4eabGrKHPC-VS8aLWvzonJAN299RCD0JLdJGAQ2_4Hj338LpoLY_KM6aUCPKYM5KOKojyFygMWoAsnbvVABWBzaw1Q3mgVBL18H4pRkEgtR94MDAW35uJogdZV5-dTDQ7uuhg/s320/jan2012+019.jpg" uda="true" width="320" /><br />
<em><span style="font-size: x-small;">Phil Good "All Good"</span></em><br />
<br />
Then I got the idea, what about the shipping of hot dogs by FedEx? Surely this would shift a point in my direction. ‘Hey Mike” I said to the guy at the grill (not really). Hey, I said to the guy at the grill, do you ever ship Mike’s Hot Dogs? The answer was “Not very often but yes we have. We have put the hot dogs on dry ice and shipped them by FedEx all over the world. Damm, there went my last advantage. Showing her typical magnanimousness of spirit Bernadette Mayer said I think the very best hot dog would be Mike’s bun and hot dog and Famous Lunch’s zippy sauce and toppings. A utopian vision if there ever was one. <br />
<br />
Next I took Phil and Bernadette to see French’s Hollow on the Normanskill and then to POETS CORNER at Smitty’s Tavern in Voorheesville (which she and Phil were jokingly calling the ‘Ville.) After some wine and beer on the way back to East Nassau, Bernadette went back to change the record a bit. “Tell Jennifer” she said ‘Saving lives is more important but hot dog eating is second.”<br />
<br />
<strong>A GUY SINGS DON’T BE CRUEL OUTSIDE OF FAMOUS LUNCH IN TROY, NEW YORK</strong> <br />
<br />
Bernadette’s already talking to him <br />
as Phil and I leave Famous Lunch.<br />
She’s always talking to people on the street<br />
homeless people, crazies<br />
I’m outside for a smoke she explains<br />
He’s a short little guy <br />
got sort of a permanent squint thing going on<br />
“I got something I got to show you”<br />
Starts reaching in his back pocket<br />
Pulling his wallet out<br />
“That’s not some naughty pornographic picture is it?<br />
I don’t want to see that, don’t show me that”, Bernadette goes<br />
I think streets of New York City.<br />
yeah Bernadette would know what might be up. <br />
It’s his driver’s license photo<br />
Same guy, just his driver’s license picture-face<br />
under smugged plastic cover.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7kTxmDNWj_0CimVvqAEQgVkHN6t26rSbqY-BrJM75i4sY8_JEA2zvQdRgigSpvi0nFtFELL82MXcWSApGSh3oO0vULBY89igbkEbXYsdwoBokRaftQw3BHrXmroyjMmcTzhyvS7WXQGY/s1600/jan2012+016.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7kTxmDNWj_0CimVvqAEQgVkHN6t26rSbqY-BrJM75i4sY8_JEA2zvQdRgigSpvi0nFtFELL82MXcWSApGSh3oO0vULBY89igbkEbXYsdwoBokRaftQw3BHrXmroyjMmcTzhyvS7WXQGY/s320/jan2012+016.jpg" uda="true" width="320" /></a></div>We each lean over and look at it.<br />
“I used to work at Famous Lunch seven years ago, dishwasher<br />
I worked hard, did a good job, he fired me.”<br />
Seven years later the same guy who fired him<br />
is dishing zippy sauce on to mini-dogs.<br />
One of the owners, set up like a minstrel show <br />
performed in the window of the diner.<br />
“I’m not allowed in there anymore.”<br />
“You know the worst thing about working as a dish washer, I ask him<br />
and now I have his attention. “Egg yolks” <br />
He giggles, nods his head, yes. <br />
Cause you got to scrub them. Egg yolk sticks to the plate…<br />
can’t spray them off<br />
have to scrape and scrub<br />
“You have to soak them” Bernadette says.<br />
No, no you can’t do that <br />
you have to clean them right then <br />
you can’t wait.<br />
Street guy nods at me again<br />
Because you need to use the plates again right away Phil says<br />
“Dishwasher, Rootdrinker International Publisher, you’ve got quite a spread there” he goes<br />
Naugh, they’re both the same thing or close to it anyway, I pitch back <br />
Now our sidewalk gathering has attracted another, taller guy in a green camouflage coat.<br />
You going to show them your Elvis?<br />
He nudges the first guy into it.<br />
Sure enough the little guy pulls out some dark sunglasses<br />
and starts crooning some Elvis, really low and all slurred <br />
He’s swaying, doing something with his hands,dancing-like, body going limp.<br />
Till he looks like he is starting to fall<br />
Bernadette puts a hand on him to steady him.<br />
He stops and then he says<br />
They say Elvis is dead. He’s not dead.<br />
I’ll show you come into my room<br />
got my day glow Elvis poster,<br />
mumbles something more then gets clear<br />
Know what’s written on the door to my room<br />
IF YOU ENTER THIS ROOM I’LL KILL YOU.<br />
We switch away and praise him <br />
for his Elvis impersonation and his dance<br />
but I want to say something more to him, <br />
don’t want to just leave it there<br />
so I ask him, “Know what’s written on my door?”<br />
He wants to know so I tell him<br />
IF YOU ENTER THIS ROOM I WILL KILL YOU<br />
I’m hoping he will get the comic absurdity <br />
in the context of the flow of this conversation <br />
but he doesn’t<br />
just looks into my eyes deciding if there is anything he wants to say<br />
I am trying to give him my friendly-eyes <br />
but I don’t think I can help letting in a bit of my measuring eyes<br />
Once again Casline humor puzzles more than laughs<br />
On the way back to the car we talk about how <br />
none of us were afraid of him. <br />
Not afraid scared but maybe worried weird<br />
He wasn’t going to do anything violent<br />
but he could of come out of nowhere<br />
maybe done something really weird<br />
He didn’t. He was an OK guy<br />
A guy singing Don’t Be Cruel outside of Famous Lunch <br />
in Troy, New York<br />
<br />
February 15, 2012<br />
Troy, New York<br />
<br />
<br />
These photos (below) are from Smith's Tavern in Voorheesville, New York. Every Wednesday Evening poets from the region gather there to read poems, pass on books and discuss points of literary merit and local humor. After a day of hot dogs, Bernadette and Phil were welcomed by a few of the regulars.<br />
<br />
<img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOC-h5fgaBhISjUMN8uieNgntW4n672Pglbn1JADbgbhGh-SbkyQN9iLZX2csMUb4hICfZTh5d6Rt463h8davlR63KBtAg1UG2aoA7wOY0FSnQSiMmcG8beSezocZjPf5JSzgE6pqxdLk/s320/jan2012+024.jpg" width="320" yda="true" /> <br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><em><span style="font-size: xx-small;">poets: Jim Williams, Dennis Sullivan, Phil Good, Obeeduid, Tom Corrado and Bernadette Mayer </span></em></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgthpBvTQHODDspbLRHWxstLKovRyEVVqPUCcaMwJH7ut5b4vySN46havMGKKaxYnFhBIJ72HKLWGP1e8SREnYOz5WQlcsly4AGuvfq2pLdSWw5gaFscnBo_EppCwPjK-chllKRqrLtW4I/s1600/jan2012+027.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgthpBvTQHODDspbLRHWxstLKovRyEVVqPUCcaMwJH7ut5b4vySN46havMGKKaxYnFhBIJ72HKLWGP1e8SREnYOz5WQlcsly4AGuvfq2pLdSWw5gaFscnBo_EppCwPjK-chllKRqrLtW4I/s320/jan2012+027.jpg" width="320" yda="true" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><em><span style="font-size: xx-small;"> Obee' imagines what is happening</span></em></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibtUV2Bn4eabGrKHPC-VS8aLWvzonJAN299RCD0JLdJGAQ2_4Hj338LpoLY_KM6aUCPKYM5KOKojyFygMWoAsnbvVABWBzaw1Q3mgVBL18H4pRkEgtR94MDAW35uJogdZV5-dTDQ7uuhg/s1600/jan2012+019.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhu84Sh4tRbyws9W7J8OESrXn1V-fH11Rc9K6n_1p8REwObMeqSP3seNySuNQ0eOxAOXebKERBHTUSoINPkL8soDQpOyK_m2WFxLtmP_XfDVMcK5Efjh39CFtejtyB2z04ZQ0rt0z9C5u0/s1600/jan2012+026.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhu84Sh4tRbyws9W7J8OESrXn1V-fH11Rc9K6n_1p8REwObMeqSP3seNySuNQ0eOxAOXebKERBHTUSoINPkL8soDQpOyK_m2WFxLtmP_XfDVMcK5Efjh39CFtejtyB2z04ZQ0rt0z9C5u0/s320/jan2012+026.jpg" width="320" yda="true" /></a></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><em><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Jim Williams, Dennis Sullivan at Smith's Tavern (2/15/2012)</span></em><br />
<br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white;">Text and all photos by Alan Casline</span></div>Alan Caslinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16939561259084352769noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2442948449798025767.post-76041060170029201122012-02-06T22:39:00.004-05:002012-02-06T22:56:09.276-05:00CLOUDBURST - RED CELL<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtmJMy4aFsKkSlE5O_KK73naHHtn0S0N3vYAI5t3-a3waEXokgqEM78RBS_EBNTy5pabk8gjbkot8TB-9em_9hNkGTkqZMuyp3ijdOK4fUz34gLPEryQbf8vBY3ONyEQFfml9bxVC5cEg/s1600/RF+Hike+184.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" sda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtmJMy4aFsKkSlE5O_KK73naHHtn0S0N3vYAI5t3-a3waEXokgqEM78RBS_EBNTy5pabk8gjbkot8TB-9em_9hNkGTkqZMuyp3ijdOK4fUz34gLPEryQbf8vBY3ONyEQFfml9bxVC5cEg/s320/RF+Hike+184.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">I was thinking about the energy pattern of a cloudburst. I still don't understand the phenomena. Steve Lewandowski said it is caused by extreme temperature differences. I guess that is part of it, I am not convinced and besides it is the moving currents that are my focus. Cloudburst is found in breaking through as energy pattern. One in Rushville, New York had Stephen and I driving around looking at ditches -- twenty-five year event, hundred year-event, thousand year-event (forget-about-it). Next day in a cloudburst for over one-hundred miles driving east. I couldn't outdrive the storm. It brought visibility down to almost zero and my speed to 20 MPH. Then it would clear all the way to sunlight. I'd speed up to 70 MPH but I couldn't outrun this storm as you can with some rain. </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">cloudburst right with me all the way.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">back in cloudburst fury. Our paths converged.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">in one spot a deluge washes over gone and clear</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">cloudburst moves, huge weather patterns move</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">cloudburst a rip in the water-filled clouds</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">carried across continents, bigger than countries</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">I was caught in a cloudburst while driving from west to east along the New York State Thurway this September. It brought visibility down to almost zero and my speed to 20 MPH. Then it would clear all the way to sunlight. I'd speed up to 70MPH but i couldn't outrun the storm for some reason. The perspective of observation seem to be from the point-of-view of the rained-upon. I am interested in what I imagine as a tear in the cloudsky, all the water of a lake brought up and then "burst" and let go. </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Robert Frost goes: </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><em>For when all that was rotted rich</em></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><em>Shall be in the end scoured poor,</em></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><em>When my garden has gone down ditch,</em></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Robert Frost knowing the damage, 15-20 years of soil-building can wash away in a few minutes. Understanding cloudburst I start to realize is about being ready for even the cloudburst that comes once every thousand-years. I woke-up, wide-awake in the middle of the night a few days ago. I remembered that I did write a cloudburst poem a few years ago or at least one on the rushing intense weather coming on.The local weather news has the habit of emitting buzz noice whenever a strong run of lightening runs down the Mohawk Valley to Albany. Here's the poem.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh11vuOUBLvPEQg7wdoB9TD46aXtiOw2cgG-S_qiRStmyF9K_IQTlTMs-rAulQ0uHsN6cl6UYRQHv-__KbCvEEXK9y1oT64R3dNP0OxbpyoagABjPVmHNmJKz-Ikzo__8C79SAWUUXKvtc/s1600/newmex+032.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" sda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh11vuOUBLvPEQg7wdoB9TD46aXtiOw2cgG-S_qiRStmyF9K_IQTlTMs-rAulQ0uHsN6cl6UYRQHv-__KbCvEEXK9y1oT64R3dNP0OxbpyoagABjPVmHNmJKz-Ikzo__8C79SAWUUXKvtc/s320/newmex+032.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
<strong>RED CELL</strong></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">A red cell on the weather map,</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">moving towards Albany</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">with incredible speed.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Racing into town to cause trouble</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">like the over-sized kid</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div>with the angry look on his face<br />
<br />
hurrying to reach the playground<br />
<br />
and moving in the direction of your own child.<br />
<br />
The lightning shook the house.<br />
<br />
Hit so close, my son tells me,<br />
<br />
everything flashed white.<br />
<br />
We could smell burning<br />
<br />
coming from the computer.<br />
<br />
This is not good,<br />
<br />
turned the computer off.<br />
<br />
No tree seems to be down in the back.<br />
<br />
I open a sliding-door,<br />
<br />
to peer through sheets of rain,<br />
<br />
looking for a smoking remnant.<br />
<br />
<br />
June 27, 2007<br />
Delmar, N.Y.<span style="color: white;"><span style="background-color: #eeeeee;"><span style="background-color: #f3f3f3;"> </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNg0EvfN3PiW_zfvcRnkdTS60NpiL-_somf4JZzAiVE2n2Pu5tKhX1XTFShQ0_Vz2cY9iv80Dzott2RomKPKHu6AMrMxEa1M0VWmE_0YJnStsuhcappIfvJqWLGjeVcxngMODTVRnAYR4/s1600/RF+Hike+067.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" sda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNg0EvfN3PiW_zfvcRnkdTS60NpiL-_somf4JZzAiVE2n2Pu5tKhX1XTFShQ0_Vz2cY9iv80Dzott2RomKPKHu6AMrMxEa1M0VWmE_0YJnStsuhcappIfvJqWLGjeVcxngMODTVRnAYR4/s320/RF+Hike+067.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>Alan Caslinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16939561259084352769noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2442948449798025767.post-72588067405618212492012-01-24T21:07:00.005-05:002012-01-24T21:20:22.053-05:00IMPRESSIONS BEFORE & AFTER<strong>IMPRESSIONS OF PEOPLE</strong><br />
<br />
Impressions of people <br />
I have never met<br />
when they touch and connect <br />
with my heart<br />
I am moved by<br />
what leaves an impression. <br />
<br />
……………………………………………………………………………………<br />
<br />
Key: matter in square brackets is the etymology.<br />
ME = Middle English, MF=Middle French, OE=Old English, ON=Old Norse, L=Latin, OHG=Old High German, Gk=Greek. G=German, Hitt=Hittite, Russ=Russian, VL=Vulgar Latin <br />
Etymology: the history of a linguistic form (as a word)<br />
<br />
Impressions: [ME, <em>impressen</em>, from L <em>impressus</em>, pp. of<em> imprimere</em> from <em>in</em>- + <em>premere</em> to press] syn see IDEA<br />
<br />
Of: [ME, <em>off</em>, of from OE; akin to OHG <em>aba</em> off, away, L ab from away, Gk apo] used as a function word to indicate a point of reckoning.<br />
<br />
People: [ME, peple, from OF peuple, from L poplus]<br />
<br />
I: [ME from OE ic; L and Gk ego, Hitt uk, G ich, Russ ja] one who is speaking or writing<br />
<br />
Have: [ME haven from OE habben; haven to lift (see heave)] to hold in possession as property<br />
<br />
Never: [ME from OE næfre from ne not + æfre ever] at no time, degree, under any condition<br />
<br />
Met: past tense of Meet: [ME meten from OE metan akin to OHG muoz meeting] join, find contact, conjunction with another direction<br />
<br />
When: [ME from OE hwanna, hwenne} just at the moment<br />
<br />
They: [ME from ON their] people, used in a generic sense. characteristic of a whole group<br />
<br />
Touch: [ME touchen, VL toccare to knock, strike a bell<br />
<br />
And: [ME from OEakin to OHG unti] indicate connection or addition<br />
<br />
Connect: [L conectere, connectere, from com- + nectere to bind]<br />
<br />
With: [ ME, against, from, with, from OE akin to OE wither against} comparison or equality<br />
<br />
My: [ akin to OE me ]<br />
<br />
Heart: [ ME hert from OE heorte akin to OHG herza, L cord, cor-, Gk kardia] (1.) muscular organ, (2.) playing card, (3.) whole personality (4.),\ the emotional or moral not the intellectual<br />
<br />
I: [ME from OE ic; L and Gk ego, Hitt uk, G ich, Russ ja] one who is speaking or writing<br />
<br />
Am: [ ME from OE eom akin to ON em am, L sum, Gk eimi]<br />
<br />
Moved: [ ME moven from MF monvoir]<br />
syn: see ACTUATE, DRIVE, IMPEL <br />
<br />
By: [ME from OE, akin to OHG bi, near. L ambi- on both sides, around, Gk amphi]<br />
<br />
What: [ME from OE hwaet, ] as adj. expressing inquiry about the identity, nature, or value<br />
<br />
Leaves: [ME leven from OE laefan akin to OHG version of leiben to leave, OE be lifan to be left over]<br />
<br />
An: [ME from OE an one}<br />
<br />
Impression:[ME, impressen, from L impressus, pp. of imprimere from in- + premere to press] <br />
<br />
Note: Thus poem hinges on different meanings for the word impression. Also in a number of words there is a choice between a material meaning and a meaning that describes relational situations. I think in each case it is the relational emotive form that is used, example “moved” Not physically moved but emotionally moved. “Heart” not the muscular organ but the emotional or moral encounter <br />
<br />
<u>Meanings of impression:</u><br />
<br />
1.) Stamping or pressing <br />
<br />
2.) Imprint of the teeth used in dentistry<br />
<br />
3.) Marked influence or effect on feeling, sense, or mind<br />
<br />
4.) A single print or copy made through meeting of inked printing surface and the material being printed<br />
<br />
5.) A usually indistinct or imprecise notion or remembrance<br />
<br />
6.) An imitation of salient features in an artistic or theatrical medium<br />
<br />
I wrote the poem to use meaning (1.) in line one and meaning (3.) in the last line.<br />
Alternatively the last line could be meaning (5.)<br />
or the poem could be stood on its head and the meaning for the first line could be (3.)<br />
and the last line (1.)<br />
<br />
<br />
<strong>IMPRESSIONS OF PEOPLE</strong><br />
<br />
impressions of people <br />
<br />
noiseless shadows,<br />
<br />
tickle my mind.<br />
<br />
never met<br />
<br />
but do not doubt <br />
<br />
their existence.<br />
<br />
just at the moment<br />
<br />
they touch they bind<br />
<br />
my heart<br />
<br />
moved by what <br />
<br />
leaves an impression. <br />
<br />
printed into blank surface<br />
<br />
poetry inked & stamp; pressed<br />
<br />
words from another language<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">January 14, 2012</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Elsmere, New York</span><br />
<br />
Strangely enough this poem now describes the experience of making it. The way words from another person in a poem are also words from another language, from another people and both the person’s words and the people’s words make their impression. If read with enough force, a deep impelling stamp, not a brush of chalk to be quickly erased. The reading of the poem is perhaps the mechanism, the printing press itself, which doesn’t get mentioned in this poem.<br />
<br />
I did this work as assignment for a writing workshop I am taking with Bernadette Mayer. The assignment was to take a poem and research every word. Then rewrite the poem.<br />
<br />
----- Alan Casline<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"> 1/14/2012</span>Alan Caslinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16939561259084352769noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2442948449798025767.post-7025489765442736932011-12-03T00:28:00.007-05:002011-12-03T21:20:41.412-05:00MY EZRA POUND EXPLORATION<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj11sa2La4VBLy0sMVEgjAV6HTUxACKH6GlGpFZY_3ydqg2X3fEXDoEwsVhcMtMA5oWNtPRyZLYE2tNS-lcWw_LnEtsIFlr4dUrrXFAyn0_rpYxhzLt4yyRqw-5bbGVSCI3BPjy5-PGV1M/s1600/Ezra-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" dda="true" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj11sa2La4VBLy0sMVEgjAV6HTUxACKH6GlGpFZY_3ydqg2X3fEXDoEwsVhcMtMA5oWNtPRyZLYE2tNS-lcWw_LnEtsIFlr4dUrrXFAyn0_rpYxhzLt4yyRqw-5bbGVSCI3BPjy5-PGV1M/s400/Ezra-2.jpg" width="308" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I spent a few months exploring Ezar Pound for a Posey Cafe presentation. It gave me an over all sense of Pound's <strong>Cantos</strong> that I had not had before. I looked at only four of the<strong> Cantos</strong> which I picked because they grabbed me and led me to areas of my interest. I also wrote a bit about my backward travel from the <strong>Curriculum of the Soul</strong> to Ezar's epic. </div><br />
going backwards to find Ezra Pound<br />
<br />
a poet with an epic poem <strong>THE CANTOS</strong><br />
<br />
my poetic education through Albert Glover and Jack Clarke, edited and published<br />
<br />
<strong>A Curriculum of the Soul</strong><br />
<br />
understood to be multi-authored time and history capturing like Homer<br />
<br />
cause Homer wasn’t one guy and submerged egotism ownership<br />
<br />
issues, issued forth<br />
<br />
some impressive poets<br />
<br />
my education being<br />
neither Clarke or Glover wanting to say their “great project” was they were creating an epic<br />
instead it was aim at the target without looking at the target<br />
empting mind, knowing the target, arrow etc. (zen tricks)<br />
Greek hubris hanging out there with speculation on ancient Greeks, speculation from scholarly sources <br />
while contempory other poets happy enough to make them a target <br />
<br />
Charles Olson gave a start with his outline or plan plus also<br />
<strong>THE MAXIMUS POEMS</strong><br />
an epic poem I think most would agree<br />
<br />
Maximus is not Charles Olson/Charles Olson is not Maximus<br />
<br />
<em>Olson uses Gloucester history, the lives of past and present Gloucester residents, geological history, and current civic events to anchor Maximus to Gloucester. Sometimes Maximus seems to represent all of Gloucester, and at other times, all of humankind.</em><br />
--- Carl Carlsen – web-site: Poetry of Places in Essex County<br />
<br />
I see Olson walking the streets of Gloucester<br />
Just before or just after midnight<br />
Streetlights on, lights on parking lots and fish-factory buildings, a few bars open<br />
The wind is a sea-breeze, chill night light coat<br />
Clanking sound muted from the harbor<br />
Noises small ships make tugging on their anchoring cables<br />
The hills have curved sections, ridges that ungulate but hold an altitude, rough, the heights<br />
Streets that follow parallel to the shore, go up & down, the city streets<br />
Cut by straight steep roads direct to dock areas<br />
Merchants and old traders homes, substantial, brick-hard, timber-strong<br />
Large man’s large strides, at a pace covers ground, sets a self-propelled wind to mix<br />
With a stronger wind blows clouds high out to sea<br />
<br />
<strong>PATERSON</strong><br />
an epic poem by William Carlos Williams I think most would agree<br />
<br />
poem as a field of action, energy field ..new physics calls for new poetry<br />
<br />
Williams sense of time as poetic meter<br />
applied consciousness of social and physical environment & unconscious possibility<br />
in <strong>PATERSON</strong>. 1940’s found reality in form of letters, historical accounts lifted whole<br />
<br />
<strong>PATERSON</strong>’s poetic collage<br />
<br />
poetry of spontaneous association<br />
<br />
Pound, Williams, Olson<br />
used compound ideogram<br />
for poetic structure<br />
<br />
“creating images”<br />
--Daniel Belgard writes in <strong>The Culture of Spontaneity</strong><br />
Univ. of Chicago Press (1998)<br />
<br />
“images not from analogy or metaphor<br />
but through synecdoche and parataxis.”<br />
<br />
synecdoche:<br />
special for the general make the object the image my red wheel-barrow /the wear on my shoes<br />
general for the special <br />
my hat my house<br />
complex of my thought<br />
shelter of my knowledge<br />
thin shelter from the Chinook knowing the price of milk/scanning groceries<br />
<br />
specific reference shows greater larger <br />
<br />
in<strong> Canto</strong> VII applied to leaders of Irish nationalism<br />
The words rattle: shells given out by shells.<br />
The live man, out of lands and prisons,<br />
shakes the dry pods,<br />
seed case sound from rattling seeds<br />
shell as shell protects the kernel <br />
nut gone loose inside shell<br />
only this year’s food<br />
fed no land or prison<br />
escaped that<br />
more dangerous without<br />
<br />
parataxis:<br />
act of placing side by side<br />
<br />
<strong>Mountain Sky Bird</strong> poem title 1974 <br />
“goose feather bag chest backpack books clothes radio tape music candelabra” line from poem 2011<br />
<br />
materials, side-by-side, without comment on the relations<br />
<br />
parataxis a foundational element in the poetry of Wallace Stevens. Rae quotes Stevens in saying that parataxis offers an “ambiguity that is so favorable to the poetic mind.” <br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">--Patricia Rae, in her essay “Bloody Battle-Flags and Cloudy Days: The Experience of Metaphor in Pound and Stevens"</span><br />
<br />
Ezra Pound’s <strong>Canto</strong> LXXXI lines 34-36<br />
<br />
sky’s clear<br />
night’s sea<br />
green of the mountain pool<br />
<br />
connections left for reader<br />
only seemingly disconnected fragments<br />
without those connector words<br />
like knife, pencil nub, shiny copper button, paint brush<br />
all in a compartment<br />
built into a desk drawer<br />
<br />
Live man goes down into the world of the dead<br />
<br />
Pound more alive than the rest of us<br />
through “directed will”<br />
moves “the outward crust”<br />
of time, place<br />
<br />
reveal past glories make a new age<br />
not to destroy, clearing ground<br />
mistake of Futurism, chrome hubcaps<br />
mod use of words<br />
like language stripped of prior meaning<br />
- unrooted - <br />
<br />
Dead and underworld of early <strong>CANTOS </strong>in their mythological place later<br />
Pound’s contemporaries metaphorically dead <br />
waking world with zombies populating<br />
<br />
poetry is not entertainment pitched to the tune<br />
of low and mid-brow culture –<br />
<br />
poetry not fodder for the common people, <br />
<br />
language charged with meaning to the utmost possible degree<br />
<br />
Alan Caslinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16939561259084352769noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2442948449798025767.post-19131512098901796222011-09-23T14:58:00.002-04:002011-09-23T15:00:32.522-04:00Subject: Will Nixon blogs Christman and Casline<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnmfoELImWll-Mt5-mSBTClgDWRmg2RFFP66IYEGUCgf1eSIvEF94QNCGwI857b0rp-2GHcsvh7Oy75dQILf4PfFhI8rCbLE6NJaoiQXANLmiek4N6KV_52W3Epgp4qxxquxJEEzYR3I8/s1600/aug+2011+126.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" hca="true" height="240px" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnmfoELImWll-Mt5-mSBTClgDWRmg2RFFP66IYEGUCgf1eSIvEF94QNCGwI857b0rp-2GHcsvh7Oy75dQILf4PfFhI8rCbLE6NJaoiQXANLmiek4N6KV_52W3Epgp4qxxquxJEEzYR3I8/s320/aug+2011+126.jpg" width="320px" /></a></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">post on <em>William Weaver Christman:Return of a Forgotten Poet</em></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="http://willnixon.com/christman">http://willnixon.com/christman</a></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">post of <em>Trees</em> by William Weaver Christman</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="http://willnixon.com/christmantrees">http://willnixon.com/christmantrees</a></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">post on <em>Alan Casline, Watershed Poet</em></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><em><br />
</em><a href="http://willnixon.com/alan-casline-watershed-poet">http://willnixon.com/alan-casline-watershed-poet</a></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdJP_afP5EWYR9nT6rjkzJEJTGXf9xmRDyD6O504oDSeXWmoPUtXKjGnNqBT3_BAXV6ogU8-RMUiasa_GK-KyQNHCGaYYne-BFRJvMHoV3lw5CqHSwK2bAx6w9emNB6oSp_-MRJ6WshbA/s1600/aug+2011+001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" hca="true" height="320px" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdJP_afP5EWYR9nT6rjkzJEJTGXf9xmRDyD6O504oDSeXWmoPUtXKjGnNqBT3_BAXV6ogU8-RMUiasa_GK-KyQNHCGaYYne-BFRJvMHoV3lw5CqHSwK2bAx6w9emNB6oSp_-MRJ6WshbA/s320/aug+2011+001.jpg" width="240px" /></a></div>Alan Caslinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16939561259084352769noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2442948449798025767.post-24832492691181238702011-04-30T23:43:00.007-04:002011-05-01T12:21:04.328-04:00<div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhN1Xy4-KmeJ8N8G9xDJB0rZh2SRHenR_9Sf77x2P6X7_db4KSLrrYZGWQkLHPtWzipkmeDh8bvw6O6sccxG0n1eBjA4ih7WaPOMPxvOE_S__UivjhmRicy4dm81yO0szFk2sEgaLPenO4/s1600/mayer+buff+135.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300px" j8="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhN1Xy4-KmeJ8N8G9xDJB0rZh2SRHenR_9Sf77x2P6X7_db4KSLrrYZGWQkLHPtWzipkmeDh8bvw6O6sccxG0n1eBjA4ih7WaPOMPxvOE_S__UivjhmRicy4dm81yO0szFk2sEgaLPenO4/s400/mayer+buff+135.jpg" width="400px" /></a></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiF-utb2uclvmE9VfqDBe5ZseVEVVndSKNIRI_idEWLw63i8VgURTRVdP-7kvOGj4LOBE1tXb2_BMNXO32VUtJB1Jo7tZE1G6X-dYYsEm2LCyWSyhyphenhyphenfY5cW_FOx-Hg9Z7F8WKmzpey71QE/s1600/graphic+kingdom.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;">TURN TURN TURN AGAIN</a></div><br />
<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">A small creek with sand and flat stone in dry season,</div><br />
<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">snow melt stirs and carries brown waters swiftly in front of me.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Someone has strung a rope from one bank to the other</div><br />
leaving me to contemplate how deep the narrow crossing.<br />
<br />
Angry river, holes sucking in, walls racing by<br />
<br />
Still, footsteps in mud of cattle and people go in the water and come out the other side.<br />
<br />
They are wet despite it being two days since the last rain.<br />
<br />
I look up and down the road and see no one coming from either direction.<br />
<br />
The morning sun doing nothing more then drive a chill wind.<br />
<br />
There is I see a faint pathway that follows the river bank<br />
<br />
its paltry impression tells me there is not much to merit a turn either up river or down<br />
<br />
<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">I look at my shoes choose their soaking over cold toes on slippery purchase.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Roll my pant legs up, grip the rope and travel its sway </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">placing each step at regular pace just ahead.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">There are tiny, unforeseen slips at foot </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">where the rope steadies, takes a bit of weight</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">and rights the man.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">The water that runs off (excepting that inside my shoes) is a torrent, a trickle, then wrung drops </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">as I twist the cloth to remove its bite.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Twist the water from my socks as well and go on with bare feet in wet shoes.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Late morning the sun warms the sand so I walk unshod. </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Shoes tied together, their string thrown over my shoulder</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">This is the day I turn for the mountains.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Against their pull I had set my exile.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div>Could there possibly be anything for me there?<br />
<br />
Far distant their snow-covered peaks catch light or hold dark.<br />
<br />
All the turnings I had made away I could not shake them<br />
<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">as I could not shake the caress of my other ghosts.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Stubborn for any illusion of freedom as the slaver’s lash sends me on my way</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">condemned by the laws of the over rulers court.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">I don’t think then what strange guarded gates lay in high pastures.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">When I set out it was to live, to sing any song, yes beyond their laws and censure.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">I look again at the high pass. Maybe there is a different land beyond?</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Maybe there is some turn I cannot see that turns me back or causes me to no longer care?</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Alan Casline</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Exile poem #3</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">April 14, 2011</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Elsmere, New York</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div>Alan Caslinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16939561259084352769noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2442948449798025767.post-81907466900232844012011-04-09T16:13:00.005-04:002011-04-09T16:21:11.130-04:00eerie from within radioactive Japan- raw video<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikNBf6Xx2zBkP6iEAWDINCNBqWkuLAgNfttYYQtdC5Dw2hrxw2zw7ToAIdRH3VqKhIVgjIq0IpyedjuxAA7G6Q9FRDOrlghWWtG6zqkvmZRsUwMtU_bX_7CpTJAqVI_Q1BwqgUGlDFtww/s1600/March+2011+048.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" r6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikNBf6Xx2zBkP6iEAWDINCNBqWkuLAgNfttYYQtdC5Dw2hrxw2zw7ToAIdRH3VqKhIVgjIq0IpyedjuxAA7G6Q9FRDOrlghWWtG6zqkvmZRsUwMtU_bX_7CpTJAqVI_Q1BwqgUGlDFtww/s320/March+2011+048.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>global warming solved by use of glowing cows instead of electric lights.<br />
<br />
seriously this is a raw video of a trip along roads to close into the area of radioactive reactors in Japan.<br />
<br />
http://www.rawstory.com/rawreplay/2011/04/eerie-footage-from-inside-japans-radioactive-evacuation-zone/<br />
<br />
not a disaster movie<br />
not a road trip<br />
no picnic eitherAlan Caslinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16939561259084352769noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2442948449798025767.post-8687646111128195142011-03-20T13:04:00.006-04:002011-03-23T18:10:01.084-04:00TEXT AS ART IN A COMPARTMENTAL MINDI thought I'd send a few collage poems to, as it turned out, Nancy Klepsch the curater of a a show called TEXT AS ART held at The Arts Center of the Capital <span style="background-color: white;">Region. I didn't</span> have high expectations but thought, if they didn't have a lot of submissions maybe my collage poems would fit their criteria and I'd be included in the show. As it turned out the show was small with only seven pieces selected and I made the grade with a bit more <em><span style="font-size: x-small;">RAPIDITAS</span></em> and I'm told by Nancy exceptionalism (I never said my collage poems weren't good). We had the opening on February 28, 2011 in The Arts Center in Troy, New York. I have a compartmentalized mind. For example I have different publications and do books from my Benevolent Bird Press based on different sections of my thinking which often include different groups of people. Probably most people have different group mailing lists and here I separate even information about what I am doing or new discoveries...send my different arrows flying to hopefully receptive targets. I try to avoid the hive-mind and the blanket cover of "BIG EGO". The upshot of this is that after attending this TEXT AS ART event, I decided I need to start a new compartment/e-mail list. The show is now over but the effects of the show have the potential to go on. The Albany New York Region has a lot of practicing poets. I throw around the figure of 1000 and it is easily that if you consider the different venues, open mics, workshops, college programs, waitress who hand us doggeral written on napkins, the rappers and slam poets, the country music near-poets and the Irish... Experiencing Daniel Nester and Mary Kathryn Jablonski's contribution and reading on February 28th -- I had heard them both "feature read" in the area -- but the context and subject splash of this night just added something and made me think they and the other contributers and myself were held together in a special place. The other disparant souls brought together by Nancy Klepsh were by her design working through different media but the added on energy field of words/text and data rich surface made something different than Albany's 1000 poets all gathered in a single room. Examples: Susan Rivers * "Fabric Memories"; Sara Tack * motion typography; Mary Kathryn Jablonski * particitatory assemblage poem; Joelle Nadeau Hotaling * poster art; Daniel Nester * first-person conceptual performance and my collage poem.<br />
<br />
Seeing is better than reading. I am really just writing this post so I can put up my photographs. The way blogger works if you click on any photo it will enlarge to full screen size. Help yourself!<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdDv8ipux4-ZIcA35xmo6nEdn0JHYmez2pjjaN0s3E07fX5XAB8l_AsDy20QQpQ1J0YGidnH3Cm-YslZryL-QQzyN8yn8agQBgYu1D4LSuLbthI7OSRYoIz_d-0UOX4MM7L-yZzQ2rjH0/s1600/March+2011+053.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" r6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdDv8ipux4-ZIcA35xmo6nEdn0JHYmez2pjjaN0s3E07fX5XAB8l_AsDy20QQpQ1J0YGidnH3Cm-YslZryL-QQzyN8yn8agQBgYu1D4LSuLbthI7OSRYoIz_d-0UOX4MM7L-yZzQ2rjH0/s320/March+2011+053.jpg" width="320" /></a></div> <span style="font-size: xx-small;"> Mary Kathryn Jablonski work <strong>Quicksilver</strong></span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7fDDc-KtEQz0Pp_Ix4Hp359mobgkfNC0KyYFt3M_gj36bVLAqAQx0IwinppX4CiGrAdmGQOi7FIC4ZnRc4PEPPeXZe6v164LnkJp9UBesSf6f385_af10qoyVODBfU9L49Lq8VzR-T9A/s1600/March+2011+054.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" r6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7fDDc-KtEQz0Pp_Ix4Hp359mobgkfNC0KyYFt3M_gj36bVLAqAQx0IwinppX4CiGrAdmGQOi7FIC4ZnRc4PEPPeXZe6v164LnkJp9UBesSf6f385_af10qoyVODBfU9L49Lq8VzR-T9A/s320/March+2011+054.jpg" width="320" /></a></div> <span style="font-size: xx-small;"> (L to R) Sara Tack, Mary Kathrym Jablonski and Daniel Nester</span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"> Nester at <strong>The Memoir Office</strong></span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjkGofkYQSMvtmREJIBpIYgjNFO4YN1CReZHYXn-C3J5unhwqfWa1xAH7OKd21vdf2doKxPqvDrGe1mI7erKpX74oroCRz0xqxFIze-1jAEcUFox5D1lPqeifXTWbDKXwsxwnYsR2a2kM/s1600/March+2011+057.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" r6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjkGofkYQSMvtmREJIBpIYgjNFO4YN1CReZHYXn-C3J5unhwqfWa1xAH7OKd21vdf2doKxPqvDrGe1mI7erKpX74oroCRz0xqxFIze-1jAEcUFox5D1lPqeifXTWbDKXwsxwnYsR2a2kM/s320/March+2011+057.jpg" width="320" /></a></div> <span style="font-size: xx-small;"> Susan Rivers work <strong>Meet Bella</strong></span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhw_Hq9KhzoFWqjfSM9vJjrRrKw5p_7nsIqMnwjGDnH-Bhp1UYsAHnb2xru7wPizKMUVAx577zBvLs7bwz4_5OhEnuvij5DLXjSexrPjRcjEy5fCA0PU4OUhhgm-9Svcsb59q9sOUd3a-Y/s1600/March+2011+056.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" r6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhw_Hq9KhzoFWqjfSM9vJjrRrKw5p_7nsIqMnwjGDnH-Bhp1UYsAHnb2xru7wPizKMUVAx577zBvLs7bwz4_5OhEnuvij5DLXjSexrPjRcjEy5fCA0PU4OUhhgm-9Svcsb59q9sOUd3a-Y/s320/March+2011+056.jpg" width="320" /></a></div> <span style="font-size: xx-small;"> Kate Laity work <strong>The Square Root of 1 is 1 </strong></span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSCrpxZM8UcajClCTwV5o83ZYRdyQvGbteHoZxTrTjS70CkaVPUdfCCz6Pp8N1SujqVo78CEdK_8KTgn4uo9P5RY4slc1CJlNQ3e_mYA14SQC6etDN-RXovcJTRvZCT-gQoH57QiF_W9A/s1600/March+2011+001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" r6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSCrpxZM8UcajClCTwV5o83ZYRdyQvGbteHoZxTrTjS70CkaVPUdfCCz6Pp8N1SujqVo78CEdK_8KTgn4uo9P5RY4slc1CJlNQ3e_mYA14SQC6etDN-RXovcJTRvZCT-gQoH57QiF_W9A/s320/March+2011+001.jpg" width="242" /></a></div> <span style="font-size: xx-small;"> Alan Casline work <strong>Saddam Don't Like It</strong></span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiceBE_SAszuRrusme1HjAjKIT0epRTs4iYf0ouL58PVSXEdLLbkpyGsBGeXsY4N0IAEthg-lObS04IZk2VRezipoCylm1Fhj1Dmf5AAcE5FA1ov8LLCOHEph1wUfFaPcAh3KXrnp0-l4/s1600/March+2011+052.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" r6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiceBE_SAszuRrusme1HjAjKIT0epRTs4iYf0ouL58PVSXEdLLbkpyGsBGeXsY4N0IAEthg-lObS04IZk2VRezipoCylm1Fhj1Dmf5AAcE5FA1ov8LLCOHEph1wUfFaPcAh3KXrnp0-l4/s320/March+2011+052.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-size: xx-small;"> Alan Casline at the Opening Feb. 28, 2011</span>Alan Caslinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16939561259084352769noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2442948449798025767.post-31293148434121807272011-02-09T19:48:00.021-05:002011-02-10T12:17:40.938-05:00BERNADETTE MAYER: SNAKES AND ICICLES<div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7CZVGPs1g_gHpalt_tkIRpmCURPdxzYYzJS9x7sb7Q3AusyX1IAGIn6APGUwdRF9QOO6DVkjf91VwEzrfLVSt-Rd-hCAJSBKehx-zJu6lmNno23QyTnU2_MWm8WP0rE3DWxrBQcFjrZ4/s1600/Jan+2011+038.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" h5="true" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7CZVGPs1g_gHpalt_tkIRpmCURPdxzYYzJS9x7sb7Q3AusyX1IAGIn6APGUwdRF9QOO6DVkjf91VwEzrfLVSt-Rd-hCAJSBKehx-zJu6lmNno23QyTnU2_MWm8WP0rE3DWxrBQcFjrZ4/s640/Jan+2011+038.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><em><span style="font-size: x-small;">Kinderhook Creek</span></em></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><em><span style="font-size: x-small;"></span></em></div>It has been a great "old fashion" winter here in the northeastern woodlands. Last few winters have been too warm with little snow until February and March. Those late winter storms carry lots of moisture and are helpful for filling the streams but we haven't had a socked in storm piled on storm winter where the snow level goes up and down but never leaves until mud season finally arrives in more years then I can count. That's what we have this winter and despite the snow shoveling I think the earth is more comfortable covered under a blanket of snow and breathing cold air which translates to my comfort too. My daughter Liz gave me snowshoes and I have been watching the weather and snow conditions for the right days to head for the woods. I used to cross-country ski and for backyard trekking I know from experience some winters there are only a few perfect days and if you laze your way past them you are out of luck till next winter. Ever since I got the snowshoes I've been thinking about the hollow of land "cup of water" Tsatsawassa where Bernadette Mayer and Philip Good live. In early January I had found the book <strong>Mills on the Tsatsawassa</strong> (1983) by Philip L. Lord, Jr. in a bookstore in Saratoga Springs, N.Y.. It is a book I knew about because I researched the area as I wanted to understand the looping and winding of Kinderhook Creek and the confluence of other small tributaries that created the Tsatawassa "cup" but I never thought I'd actually see a copy for sale. When I did I bought the book for Bernadette and Phil. Now as I set out on my choosen perfect day, I was thinking it won't be a problem if they are home to be allowed to snowshoe down to the Kinderhook but just in case I brought a few trade goods. Besides the mills book, I had a bottle of wine and a set of the 2010 Benevolent Bird broadsides plus the mini-book <strong>Ten Thoughts About the Eternity of Day </strong>by Dennis Sullivan that I used graphics from the exterior plates of Gundestrup Cauldron on. The Cauldron is subject of a current obsession of mine as will be referred to later in this post when we get to the "snakes" part. Phillip was away at work but Bernadette made me welcome (you can't get that many visitors on <em>that </em>road in January). I did my snowshoe trek following animal tracks and staying up on the banks above the Kinderhook Creek. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-HRDKFAFQMx0TzLaBrYJRv2ZWtdPsUfioN1qqnIZBJizoPjjIEXY_EPvHkv2sOERLynqHP4h0bJjurXyBt70NJVKn3n5erDtVgs8cSnDS2KrT0RF0J9HDM-OY1BLmwmTEn0jchvFXc4Y/s1600/Jan+2011+032.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" h5="true" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-HRDKFAFQMx0TzLaBrYJRv2ZWtdPsUfioN1qqnIZBJizoPjjIEXY_EPvHkv2sOERLynqHP4h0bJjurXyBt70NJVKn3n5erDtVgs8cSnDS2KrT0RF0J9HDM-OY1BLmwmTEn0jchvFXc4Y/s320/Jan+2011+032.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><em><span style="font-size: x-small;">snowshoe path</span></em></div><br />
There was a layer of hard crust on top of about a foot of powder and on top of the icy crust was about ten inches of fresh soft snow from the last storm. The snowshoes cracked but did not break through the icy layer and the going was pretty easy--held up above the layer of deep snow. I turned up the Tsatsawassa Creek past a low area which showed signs of previous flooding and went on to where the road crossed above and climbed up the steep bank. I got my snowshoe caught under a layer of crust, fell, and had to back up and restart twice before I came out on the roadway again. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrUwYtHzfSHxEx8dN2JsYAbPT6N10JEE-f3-ta7b5zrNgzxfe0yCZmu-kl_gq3JtPFHNHdvOdC3_ux-NCJPtHWpbiQ2kvBqQ39CzxmM1_qy3MuDycNGewQTqlLo4iGQy5YqsD5HE6rdAw/s1600/Jan+2011+043.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" h5="true" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrUwYtHzfSHxEx8dN2JsYAbPT6N10JEE-f3-ta7b5zrNgzxfe0yCZmu-kl_gq3JtPFHNHdvOdC3_ux-NCJPtHWpbiQ2kvBqQ39CzxmM1_qy3MuDycNGewQTqlLo4iGQy5YqsD5HE6rdAw/s320/Jan+2011+043.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><em><span style="font-size: x-small;">Bernadette Mayer January 2011</span></em></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Back inside again, Bernadette and I fell into our conversation. It was talking about things like different strategies of insulation for which she encouraged me to take a trip to see the attic room, snow for snowshoeing and the need or not for ski poles when doing it. Also the history of the house (which was very interesting to me, twice a church for different congregations and then owned by a Rabbi -- when Bernadette moved in the rooms all had numbers on the doors and they would joke "I'll meet you in room 3 at 8:15") <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXg-GACbZdNKos3Zchswqss1UDXZFLt5GEx4ZjcsUh7jnaILNyHspIkkPPMpIqwbd34FPag9LRUPRYd_uqSTWM_kDilZaGIEdhy0yPWscdbkWK8d2L7xXvayR726EHHE7i3hbCQDQCtEE/s1600/Jan+2011+052.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" h5="true" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXg-GACbZdNKos3Zchswqss1UDXZFLt5GEx4ZjcsUh7jnaILNyHspIkkPPMpIqwbd34FPag9LRUPRYd_uqSTWM_kDilZaGIEdhy0yPWscdbkWK8d2L7xXvayR726EHHE7i3hbCQDQCtEE/s320/Jan+2011+052.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><em><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span></em><em><span style="font-size: x-small;"> attic view</span></em> <br />
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</div>The topic we spent the most time talking about was snakes. It was the Gundestrup Cauldron that pointed me towards the Celtic two-headed snake which is found in the interior detail. Celtic warriors wore two-headed snake torques as armbands. Bernadette knew of the Celtic symbol but didn't know any particular myth or story. She thought that maybe the two heads got into arguments, they disagreed. I don't know why I would get interested in any subject having to do with snakes because they make me uneasy. As I told Bernadette, it is not the sight of a snake, I can look at a snake, watch a snake--it is the rustling, the movement sound that startles me, gives me the heebie-jeebies, makes me jump (supposed to be a survival instinct as old as upright man). She is not brothered by snakes but said she has a friend who also has a snake phobia and whenever the friend visits and they go for a walk, they see snake after snake after snake. The snakes showing themselves. Bernadette asked me if I thought there was a decline in the garter snake population. We both fond of these foundation and sun loving little creatures. My mother had names for favorites who lived in the loose limestone flowerbed walls my Dad hauled stone for and rebuilt every Spring after frost heaves. I said I didn't think there were less garters as I am still seeing them regularly and have a number of nice photos of garter snakes that I have taken in my own Normanskill Watershed. I'll have to research it. I know there is a world-wide problem with frog and other small reptiles "disappearing" to possible extinction and I've already got bees, herrings and brown bats on my watch list. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHwQgxpaYQ5j_mjrCRcrrAN1usfxur2HKh49bgXt1mTEH2BPPBFq1OfwRsF5xsKd8rynotzByY2nLwAG8AgcNaFZELVRfXp2jWHPdLYhg5-tmYmhePKSK7cCpFZ4Rva5RfRvICV2HTuA0/s1600/027_25_00.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" h5="true" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHwQgxpaYQ5j_mjrCRcrrAN1usfxur2HKh49bgXt1mTEH2BPPBFq1OfwRsF5xsKd8rynotzByY2nLwAG8AgcNaFZELVRfXp2jWHPdLYhg5-tmYmhePKSK7cCpFZ4Rva5RfRvICV2HTuA0/s320/027_25_00.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><em><span style="font-size: x-small;">garter snake at Christman Preserve</span></em></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">It was kind of an abrupt change of topic and really it was cool to just shoot the breeze but I thought I should ask Bernadette something literary if I was going to go to the trouble of writing some of our conversation up and what she had to say was pretty smart. I said, "I've often stated the position that I would not change a word in one of my poems for the sake of a particular poetic form. There are many poets who do, who change the language to make it fit the requirement of a form." Bernadette Mayer said well it would depend on how much you liked that particular poetic form. She said she could do that, she could take a Bernadette Mayer poem and then write a second Bernadette Mayer poem with the same words but an entire different form and put them both out there side by side. She said she didn't see any reason why a poet couldn't just have one poem they had written in their lifetime and just continually write the poem again and again, each time using a different spacing, line breaks, placement on the page. Made me realize I was thinking of form too narrowly.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">We talked some more about wintercold. She said, "Before you go I have to show you my icicle. I show it to everyone who comes and visits." Outside the small kitchen window a massive icicle flowed down. A distance from the side of the house with the lightcatcher still maybe a body length to go before it reached the ground. A great season for icicles as well as the deep snow.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Where had I learned of the Philip L. Lord book? I googled Tsatsawassa because I wanted to understand and draw a map of the different streams and waterways that came together to make the landscape so unique around Mayer and Good's neighborhood. There are not that many internet addresses that mentioned "Tsatawassa." as I told Bernadette. There should be one for the magazine <strong>THE TSATSAWASSANS</strong> she thought so I volunteered to put notice of it here. <strong>THE TSATSAWASSANS</strong> is edited by Bernadette Mayer and published by Mademoiselle de la Staples Press. There are still copies of ISSUE #2 available for $7.00 (I'd include a few more dollars for postage) I know blogs like this one have an international reach and it would be cool if this little notice generated some poet to poet exchange. One thing a magazine is about is the associations or poeticworld created in combination, all shaking and shining and emiting an energy field. Besides Bernadette Mayer poems in the magazine there are experiments and colloborations, shared compositions, rewritten poems, eight different poems from eight different poets about neutrinos, a superbowl poem by Mayer and Good (you get the idea). Philip Good, housemate amd major contributor (I think he drove to Staples), editor of <strong>Blue Smoke</strong> and wrote<strong> </strong>the<strong> Drunken Bees Poems</strong> is found in the magazine<strong>.</strong><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg67OIuylMEl9-QHyQK1CrejBZkEWOYrVrdqQALE4OtKBFaW5zeCK7ZX8cnBaupQ0OBpZXT5sJVvX9WbezQ02on11J1srZsT-nmtOMMwmRHn8rUN1GLk3QMiy6sZMH_xw0iC3mL_bLWlTI/s1600/Jan+2011+055.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" h5="true" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg67OIuylMEl9-QHyQK1CrejBZkEWOYrVrdqQALE4OtKBFaW5zeCK7ZX8cnBaupQ0OBpZXT5sJVvX9WbezQ02on11J1srZsT-nmtOMMwmRHn8rUN1GLk3QMiy6sZMH_xw0iC3mL_bLWlTI/s320/Jan+2011+055.jpg" width="242" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><em><span style="font-size: x-small;">COVER: THE TSATSAWASSANS, ISSUE #2</span></em></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">PLUS:</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Jack Collom--Colorado based with attachments with Naropa-- elder with a <strong>Selected Poems 1955-2000 </strong>and <strong>Exchange of Earth and Sky</strong> (2005)</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Jamey Jones--Blue Rain Morning-- You-Tube <em>Jamey Jones:The New York Poems</em></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Laura Goldstein-- published <strong>ICE IN INTERVALS</strong> (2008)-- writer & text sound writer--Chicago</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Bill Kusher--NYC poet--praised, was in Creeley edited <strong>Best American Poetry 2002</strong></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Jennifer Karmin-- multidisciplinary projects, poet, artist--founding member of public art group Anti Gravity Surprise, curates the Red Rover Series</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Jason Morris--Vermont Native</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Deborah Poe-- fiction editor for <strong>Drunken Boat--</strong>wrote <strong>Elements</strong> (Stockport Flats Press 2010)</div>Layne Browne--born 1966 in Los Angeles--flora/fauna/present.<br />
<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">and Others </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">I notice Bernadette Mayer had a book <strong>Mutual Aid </strong>published by Mademoiselle de la Mole Press in 1985. I wonder what happened to that Mademoiselle? The 3rd issue of <strong>THE TSATSAWASSANS</strong> will be poets whose first name is Bill. Here is the opportunity to get ISSUE #2 pick it up while you can ( $7.00 ) at:</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><strong>THE TSATSAWASSANS</strong></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">53 Tasatsawassa Lake Road</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">East Nassau, NY 12062</div>USA<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUJpo0sFzw0pExfWAfy_56lU9_mshVEjWwVsr6i0Q1XLU4A2ucGv6ocCL2UWaifvoWLDEA5ExXPU9UW23AxAHQarWXC7E4r1XnA8sVKWiCwPIFdL7JNI5tb7XHk-RLkBzPHqTkZmGm7Jg/s1600/Jan+2011+042.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" h5="true" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUJpo0sFzw0pExfWAfy_56lU9_mshVEjWwVsr6i0Q1XLU4A2ucGv6ocCL2UWaifvoWLDEA5ExXPU9UW23AxAHQarWXC7E4r1XnA8sVKWiCwPIFdL7JNI5tb7XHk-RLkBzPHqTkZmGm7Jg/s400/Jan+2011+042.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><em><span style="font-size: x-small;">Tsatsawassa Creek and Bridge</span></em></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div>Alan Caslinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16939561259084352769noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2442948449798025767.post-70801637896584530782011-01-24T17:07:00.010-05:002011-01-25T09:31:41.146-05:00UNLIKELY AS IT MAY BE<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmK-zsYZA_novQDHnQ2LW7IVM8n_0l3slqzHnBAsahIaRcDJF5RECBItNXKV8xh_FVNzghqFMAUxWxbP4WJwqT6k9L7PdF8IusgknU5CYsvm6urUJN5ZqDx3FMsivjunEZkS5-e731kQg/s1600/Jan+2011+018.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 232px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5565888539646481106" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmK-zsYZA_novQDHnQ2LW7IVM8n_0l3slqzHnBAsahIaRcDJF5RECBItNXKV8xh_FVNzghqFMAUxWxbP4WJwqT6k9L7PdF8IusgknU5CYsvm6urUJN5ZqDx3FMsivjunEZkS5-e731kQg/s400/Jan+2011+018.jpg" /></a><br /><br />Paul Doty, who is one of the St. Lawrence County members of Rootdrinker Institute, has been doing a blog for a Friends of the Library group at St. Lawrence University in Canton, N.Y.. Unlikely as it may be, he just published my poem ON MY DESK AT COLLEGE IN 1973 (actually it makes sense for it to appear there.) I am curious to observe any reaction from the college community. Meanwhile, I think I have some kind of reverse energy going with Barbara Vink of the Thursday Night Poetry critique group that meets at the Voorheesville Library in Voorheesville, N.Y.. I brought this poem to the group to more or less show Barbara and the others a stretching of poetic form and to give the "is it or isn't it poetry" conversation another consideration from my work. Yet it seems that these experimental(or whatever you want to call them) poems find their own little homes. Somewhere I have the notes where I wrote down every object found in my backpack, either hitch-hiking or coming or going from Honolulu. Now I want to find that scrap as a follow-up. When I got to the blog, I was pleased to find posted the recording that Jason Crane and I did of Albert Glover's poetry reading at Caffe Lena. As I have been telling folks it was a "wish you could have been there" event and now it is available for listening to. Here is the link:<br /><br />http://blogs.stlawu.edu/fodyll/2011/01/10/2011-starts-with-poetry/<br /><br />My poem is just down the page with a January 24, 2011 publication date.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgacXivCpxYBcwGX3CJTl1XmCkzRjkR3A_omE3mT1UvxPOXIkMZ44-EcLZjlW9EDlBeDLbvJ-39n663_807MuD4eZI0tCf7X62YyrOgxKCzQUOddSUuNiqej6LkdxpGXguVRb6T9uRBwqU/s1600/Photo-0005.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 400px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5565955824988172530" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgacXivCpxYBcwGX3CJTl1XmCkzRjkR3A_omE3mT1UvxPOXIkMZ44-EcLZjlW9EDlBeDLbvJ-39n663_807MuD4eZI0tCf7X62YyrOgxKCzQUOddSUuNiqej6LkdxpGXguVRb6T9uRBwqU/s400/Photo-0005.jpg" /></a><br /><br />The poet Dennis Sullivan asked me, "What is it about Jason Crane that you like?" I said, "He reminds me of a young Dennis Sullivan." Which stopped the old Dennis Sullivan right in his tracks. Then I gave the rest of the answer. "I like Jason because he is doing things." His jazz blog is a marvel at<br /><br />http://thejazzsession.com/<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhU-abfJvdYCmJz_A1HDzLCIQfEnk7gnyXx4O0cgSVPmqIApi28gukKokPTdqc5jm74azXSnLmiBj9s0uHCd5M1io47NcCN_BbKs-mWYs0OWq5C1sXiPFNdC27wQ5KAOBvV-AjJYTmhB4/s1600/Jan+2011+022.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 268px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5565888202238726322" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhU-abfJvdYCmJz_A1HDzLCIQfEnk7gnyXx4O0cgSVPmqIApi28gukKokPTdqc5jm74azXSnLmiBj9s0uHCd5M1io47NcCN_BbKs-mWYs0OWq5C1sXiPFNdC27wQ5KAOBvV-AjJYTmhB4/s400/Jan+2011+022.jpg" /></a><br /><br />I also like him cause he listens to me. He has started a Zine called <strong>DAYLIGHT ROBBERY</strong>(Volume 1 Issue 1 - January 20011)and I tried to give him some advise about small press magazines (you know pit falls and mistakes people usually make). His endeavor is low budget by design and necessity. He put two of my New Mexico Rinconada Canyon Blues poems in the first issue. I am looking forward to his selections of poets (a national mix he says). The daylight robbery in my poems had to do with the petroglyphs being next to holes where other petroglyphs were cut out of the stone and then it goes yeah we steal what we see for our poems --we're thieves too. Other poets in the first issue are; Aaron Belz, Molly Lawless, Carol Graser, John Gallaher with design for logo by Carolee Sherwood. Carol Graser is the host for the Caffe Lena poetry reading series . See it all circles around.<br /><br />Find Jason Crane and <strong>DAYLIGHT ROBBERY </strong>at info@snafupress.com or by mail at SNAFU Press, PO BOX 8660, Albany, NY 12208. Subscriptions are $5 per year.<br /><br /><em><span style="font-size:85%;"><strong>Credits </strong>top: Gundestrup Cauldron detail from interior plate, middle: Albert Glover at Caffe Lena photo by Obeedude, bottom: graphic by Carolee Sherwood.</span></em>Alan Caslinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16939561259084352769noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2442948449798025767.post-47374421214953467162010-11-30T20:26:00.026-05:002011-03-23T18:12:47.373-04:00SOUL IN BUFFALO<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEho12-FD7PLQAUD9Wlq5mO9OJesnCLjlt9kGDIhTNGIvU_g3aj3U3NyAYn2sM1gYZpiYcfu1s6wh_FpJncD5UsElq3xPI84vzs_DLOXpVAs7WWYevHShue9ZpBZsgaoRjmZeKulHPG-GuY/s1600/pine+hollow+II+110.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5546203232655055298" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEho12-FD7PLQAUD9Wlq5mO9OJesnCLjlt9kGDIhTNGIvU_g3aj3U3NyAYn2sM1gYZpiYcfu1s6wh_FpJncD5UsElq3xPI84vzs_DLOXpVAs7WWYevHShue9ZpBZsgaoRjmZeKulHPG-GuY/s400/pine+hollow+II+110.jpg" style="cursor: hand; display: block; height: 300px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px;" /></a><br />
<div><strong>SOUL IN BUFFALO</strong><br />
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<em>A three-day free conference (18-20 November, 2010) in Buffalo, NY to celebrate and explore Charles Olson's legacy and extension through 'A Curriculum of the Soul", a series of poetic essays published as fascicles edited by Albert Glover and John C. (Jack) Clarke. Sponsored by: The Analytical Psychology Society of Western New York, Just Buffalo, Kareples Manuscript Library Museum, the Poetry Collection at University at Buffalo.</em><br />
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World-view with a vector. The talk of fields mixed in poetry, in lives, between covers and on the page. All those fields, all those fasicles, poets/ then & now and thinking just how the combined forces of these contributors would create image and movement. "What is the use of" was an opportunity (bunch of serious students of poetry, tied by some threads, bunch of different threads) to find common language. In a year of Charles Olson events this one was the from Buffalo out vector or so I hoped pulled together by Kenneth Warren of <strong>House Organ</strong> and fired by Glover/Clarke time factor. The combining of fields, the wave tank that rolls distinctions and allows for resounding surf. At the Conference, Joe Napora told a tale of whitewater kayaking the Colorado River (which I don't want to steal entire because he can probably keep telling it for five or ten years ) how at the last run of giant rapids it becomes important to follow the tiny bubbles. I listened in when Pat Glover asked him to explain more and he described the physical geography, a fold made between different million years-old rock formations on the river bottom. Not that that made paddler, kayak and white water all work together. I could be all over Napora's metaphor but like I said somehow it goes with him. I mean he's the guy with the paddle in his hand. Follow the tiny bubbles.<br />
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<img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5546192541390335986" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIDt97GGs_qMD8lyzwjZUdeQmmA64stF6_l44b2DEHl19rRbaUuqftZMAyPpWsS9ftf3oSIYfzXABZDPEIXo2XD3JGZ4KpCmOIeFFLxLgfTyy8wJqRSETZYa-_SsMB-iHnYMmpTqcI7vE/s200/pine+hollow+II+103.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: left; height: 130px; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; width: 177px;" /><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2WKniv_u81N8RCgE_V3n9dd2XEZdi-TCyso4kz2SBW9Lwru9c2qXvUxkRArO59CZYa5YrqPs0dUhDjzTNlQflgWaawHLEq1rZJJPRGW8UP_M6VynKugobCLt5n-v5gw5KK_RbsjQH_DY/s1600/pine+hollow+II+098.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5546193300352528242" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2WKniv_u81N8RCgE_V3n9dd2XEZdi-TCyso4kz2SBW9Lwru9c2qXvUxkRArO59CZYa5YrqPs0dUhDjzTNlQflgWaawHLEq1rZJJPRGW8UP_M6VynKugobCLt5n-v5gw5KK_RbsjQH_DY/s200/pine+hollow+II+098.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: right; height: 137px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; width: 168px;" /></a><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjflEJ7NTDGneMqqfwFUhzZX4zaLR_RGKDgX8FmmhKdcQ7pdhrHNW-wygUlWJk5FUCZK1IUNg7mdh2IhB3BzIt8LBZ7ygPrIbeXDESjnQYKlHKq4uQ01FJpeGHHNgwXC_dx3jl4gjihFUM/s1600/pine+hollow+II+099.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5546196831074271362" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjflEJ7NTDGneMqqfwFUhzZX4zaLR_RGKDgX8FmmhKdcQ7pdhrHNW-wygUlWJk5FUCZK1IUNg7mdh2IhB3BzIt8LBZ7ygPrIbeXDESjnQYKlHKq4uQ01FJpeGHHNgwXC_dx3jl4gjihFUM/s200/pine+hollow+II+099.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: left; height: 169px; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; width: 223px;" /></a><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhX143Y7cwUOtGtSOuW_qNDXftcgL2ZF14qTerSrx5zj0p2Asc3Ea7mRziCxIziBoqxJfARXTFL-CYrcuTW5HpjxNtfuAgYHhT-ziJ0lfOYtjRfQkkjbQNdzwRp72mnHxgGKc0mjL8g6EM/s1600/pine+hollow+II+088.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5546193081444212274" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhX143Y7cwUOtGtSOuW_qNDXftcgL2ZF14qTerSrx5zj0p2Asc3Ea7mRziCxIziBoqxJfARXTFL-CYrcuTW5HpjxNtfuAgYHhT-ziJ0lfOYtjRfQkkjbQNdzwRp72mnHxgGKc0mjL8g6EM/s200/pine+hollow+II+088.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: left; height: 142px; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; width: 181px;" /></a><br />
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<img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5546192933864031970" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgih_FLogKYs9H0ksLkpUyPndN1ILxsUZA0X3G5TRj0RHuN-yUO_7-N8nZMotuzOfF9BrvEWKYBQYYr71LRJL5ym_Bza9U3w_Qmk4qyimEu5ryS1Scdxh-bANnkqqS8D5UbycJELfSrMvQ/s200/pine+hollow+II+092.jpg" style="cursor: hand; display: block; height: 134px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 177px;" /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzb8vDZlc2SZ_gTY-RQZ40RgLYkGoNsx6urph4FCY3fFXwu9tDX5mNJoDcuyUhFRNVNFtfSpPUaaJRc8C1BptoRGrpFbusSE4bd_jG7MWrv221wdt3ftNNPZ-jMrZo8l6rQ2lDbTUdzPk/s1600/pine+hollow+II+085.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5546189862482834386" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzb8vDZlc2SZ_gTY-RQZ40RgLYkGoNsx6urph4FCY3fFXwu9tDX5mNJoDcuyUhFRNVNFtfSpPUaaJRc8C1BptoRGrpFbusSE4bd_jG7MWrv221wdt3ftNNPZ-jMrZo8l6rQ2lDbTUdzPk/s200/pine+hollow+II+085.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: right; height: 130px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; width: 176px;" /></a><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5546192701823044274" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiItDUnQ0HAp0rOuJo6Sw68qVl_l0GnQqklcF7zM0nsTTsWHtZ5D1zMh59lXNB2t3pgKar-CIsr7Mf0ijK_8JYn1AA7y9P9kv8ytx3_vfX98b4Q-GByzxh5qkNB84m05Q3x8LKMDo56xtc/s200/pine+hollow+II+091.jpg" style="cursor: hand; display: block; height: 127px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 173px;" /> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNI5ealFUEQ0y8L7BMxq41wDvTHmIDibcNDVDRj5VZDqDwNbEgbMyqYFf6_zgQvKCkES0BkO_XmKQw1OFtPiBHDckO-S-7MrJ8LiWIQ7r7D6ZzKNN0ZDZLyLmY4lHspYUPNOKlXAtDsfY/s1600/pine+hollow+II+083.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5546189512863444562" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNI5ealFUEQ0y8L7BMxq41wDvTHmIDibcNDVDRj5VZDqDwNbEgbMyqYFf6_zgQvKCkES0BkO_XmKQw1OFtPiBHDckO-S-7MrJ8LiWIQ7r7D6ZzKNN0ZDZLyLmY4lHspYUPNOKlXAtDsfY/s200/pine+hollow+II+083.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: left; height: 131px; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; width: 168px;" /></a><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5546190108248517730" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqcSR8hVU-3cxb12JZtwVGev4AQg2vfSPDX086fKMJkDGf2uOtZzGH-0suhtGYwPbEcPtSi3n0eLaIpvSLFaCUH_BoivaJtkFLK_ujewxn3HyF834N_OsmjQ5dC_dCxZ39LbbzKKCJUeg/s200/pine+hollow+II+086.jpg" style="cursor: hand; display: block; height: 129px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 171px;" /><br />
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PHOTO KEY: top to bottom & left to right. 1.) Kitty Jospe 2.) John Roche 3.) group: Amarilys Lora, Pat Tansay, Kathy Tussing, Pat Glover 4.) Albert Glover 5.) Daniel Zimmerman 6.) Andre Spears 7.) Kenneth Warren 8.) David Landrey 9.) Stephen Ellis.<br />
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<span style="font-size: 85%;"><em>click on any photo and enlarge . all photos by Alan Casline on November 20, 2010<br />
</em></span><br />
I want to post something on the celebration found at the <em>Soul in Buffalo</em> Conference. It was a low-cost (bring your own coffee) human event. The kind which happens sometimes when good intentions and civil people gather around shared ideals. Albert Glover, Daniel Zimmerman, Michael Bylebyl, David Tirrell and Michael Boughn all present and read from the completed CofS book their long ago work is a part of. Very interesting the book as object brought to life with Glover inspired method of not self protecting rather reading from any author/any selection. He did the same thing in Rochester at the <em>Black Montain North Symposium</em> in October when he read from Harvey Brown's <strong>JAZZ PLAYING</strong> section. He and Michael Boughn didn't read their own work this time but read from other sections. The voices of Zimmerman, Bylebyl and Tirrrell were all very welcome to me. I had read their individual CofS fasicles and perhaps now heard them joined. Kind of irritating that the whole book is not generally available to read but when online version appears that issue disappears. Cass Clarke in Buffalo I thought as talk drifted away from Olson to Jack's work she seemed energized and sharp.. She didn't come back for days two and three, however and expressed distrust of Analytical Psychology examination (as in Kenneth Warren's benevolent obsession) For me, meeting Joe Napora and Stephen Ellis was great. David Landrey and I were talking as the final clean-up went on that along with whatever else happened it was nice that the poetic corridor running from Albany through Rochester to Buffalo seemed alive and ready for more.<br />
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<strong>WORDS FROM THE BACKSIDE OF A POST-MODERN CURRICULUM OF THE SOUL MANDALA</strong><br />
collective torn images, twice collected<br />
or more each migration heaped up<br />
not yin/yang (once past the selection over mine and yours)<br />
one over the other, on surface, over edge.<br />
first dealing with the crap, the junk<br />
tie it down in the middle<br />
easy beyond beginning specs<br />
balance bung, usu, low building with low-pitched roof<br />
shared rhythm picked up<br />
agreed to use care when overlapped<br />
space remains, a vector world-view<br />
spin toward the better<br />
we say it, more of the good<br />
turn over with grins<br />
that now we can create chaos<br />
KAOS<br />
KRAFT<br />
HANDS<br />
CONCOCTION<br />
POLIS<br />
TYGERS<br />
THESIS<br />
THEMIS<br />
<span style="font-size: 85%;">Alan Casline<br />
November, 20, 2010<br />
Buffalo, NY</span></div>Alan Caslinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16939561259084352769noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2442948449798025767.post-25434874873808731172010-11-08T21:12:00.034-05:002010-12-02T20:29:18.821-05:00Ten Most Important Mountains in Poetry<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimRFJ566UcIEczkwZr0q5p_x7gqhqFhMtD7xhCONj5yB0iQUEgqksy0sw2ODzym5WVm4s9Ftq6WiA1MV5dlnf4dz9w5ol3_N1v-Ou2m-zU57LgYS9ofh1dGe1yHRa48Stw2y5GwsUGcX4/s1600/SLURootdrinker+060.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 455px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5537370701060645682" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimRFJ566UcIEczkwZr0q5p_x7gqhqFhMtD7xhCONj5yB0iQUEgqksy0sw2ODzym5WVm4s9Ftq6WiA1MV5dlnf4dz9w5ol3_N1v-Ou2m-zU57LgYS9ofh1dGe1yHRa48Stw2y5GwsUGcX4/s400/SLURootdrinker+060.jpg" /></a><br /><br /><br /><div>As part of the Black Mountain North Symposium I presented a selection of the ten most important mountains in poetry. I wanted to get a conversation started and also thought by putting together a hand-out I could impress upon people the background on my picks. Here is the list:<br /><br /><strong>Ten Most Important Mountains in Poetry</strong> </div><br /><div>Alan Casline List October 5, 2010<br /><strong></strong><br /><strong>1] Black Mountain</strong><br /><br /><strong>2] Cold Mountain</strong><br /><strong></strong><br /><strong>3] Machu Picchu</strong><br /><br /><strong>4] Four Sacred Mountains of the Navajo</strong><br /><strong></strong><br /><strong>5] Inyan Kaga (Black Buffalo Horn) or Harney Peak</strong><br /><strong></strong><br /><strong>6] Mount Olympus</strong><br /><strong></strong><br /><strong>7] Sourdough Mountain</strong><br /><strong></strong><br /><strong>8] Mount Liupan</strong><br /><br /><strong>9] Fujiyama or Mount Fuji</strong><br /><strong></strong><br /><strong>10] Monument Mountain</strong></div><br /><div><br /></div><br /><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 437px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 294px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5537371704746482882" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJgmTZcOIv3rSL0KoDGxZbVKkE-MR4DpFBpSaHXXPUS-WzH2wOo7bLAck3yQIFC5J-SiKTTbA7-tK83tWZuzjGHzbtxz5VzABW5UskSnQZQ4gqu_PfMcwrHHI-Q-69zEOwTKcfkKEFhEA/s200/SLURootdrinker+061.jpg" /><strong>Black Mountain</strong> has probably the least profile as a geological feature. Black Mountain College, <em>Black Mountain Review</em> and Black Mountain School of Poetry all carry the notation. There is a Black Mountain as part of the landscape in North Carolina but the actuality of stone and heighth is not as important as Black Mountain is as a place. All the mountains on the list have mythos and imaginative place as well as physical. Charles Olson in an April 1969 interview with Andrew S. Leinoff (<em>Muthologos</em> 2010) had this to say; <em>Black mountain to my mind is not only not in past time but is a flag hanging out in the future which hasn't yet been, hasn't been redrawn, in a funny way.</em><br /><br /><strong>Cold Mountain</strong> has a ancient and modern tale to tell. Han Shan the Chinese monk who legend has as the author wrote the originals and Gary Snyder provided an introduction to most of us through his translations. He famously used a language of the trails and mountains of the Pacific Northwest to shape and surprise us (scree, riprap etc.) These are poems that really place you on the mountain and helped me understand how mountain poems could be important. Also in my library the Burton Watson translation of 100 Cold Mountain poems has long held a prominent placement. For many years I had it at my desk at work.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">They critcized the Old Poet of Cold Mountain</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">'Why write poems other people can't understand?"</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">"Unlike you," he offered, "I have read of the ancients, </span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">beings not ashamed to be poor and humble..."</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">This caused laughter at his poem and his answer,</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">"How can you talk such foolishness?"</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">"Then carry on my friends, go as you are.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">you let money be your whole life!" </span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><strong>Machu Picchu</strong> I selected because of Michael McClure's poems and visit to there. There was a program on the site that I saw on TV not too long ago which reinforced it's unique presence. It is in a part of the world still dangerous to travel to. McClure said "Machu Picchu is an interesting place. It can really get one into an entirely different way of feeling." He said he noticed "it's not the buildings that are interesting but where the windows look out to." He wrote the poem VILLANELL for Gary Snyder while he was at Machu Picchu. The poem is on "creating visions not solutions." When I wasn't sure about keeping Machu Picchu on the list, Gary Lawless let me know about the Pablo Neruda poetry that travels spiritually from lost jungles up the ladder of the earth to "Mother of Stone, spume of the condors./Highest reef of the human dawn./Shovel buried in the first sand." Neruda's poetry on Machu Picchu is expansive and moves the mountain city into literary significance and on to another list of mine, the list of poetry I need to spent some time studying.<br /><br /><strong>Four Sacred Mountains of the Navajo </strong>like Machu Picchu and further down the list Mount Fuji are significant beyond the poets who might have created lasting impressions of them. There are some mountains that are sacred to a people and culture. You can say, of course, all nature is sacred to people and cultures. Some mountains, like the Navajo peaks, are specific in importance to the mythology and religion. My visit to New Mexico in Spring 2010 placed me in Navajo lands and I joke about spending too much time there talking to the Cloud People when I should have been paying attention to heavy traffic on the interstate (inner state?). Four mountains, as I have been multi-corrected, make my list of 10 actually 13 to which I am going to add three more Navajo mountains to total 16. Think of the Navajo mountains as boundary stones as the Navajos believe they were placed on the land between four mountains by their Creator. Four is a sacred number and the four mountains represent the four cardinal directions. Song poems from the native southwest use four as repeating form and rhythmic magic.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Tsisnaasjini, dawn mountain, mountain white shell<br />boundary stone above San Luis Valley<br />over you comes the morning sun<br />your peak opens to the East<br /><br />Tsoodzil, blue stone bead, turquoise charm<br />Laguna lies past your guard<br />arc of sun path in your sky<br />roads escape to the South<br /><br />Doko'oosliid, mountain Abalone shell<br />late shadows trail dusty Flagstaff<br />you rise, sun passed over your head<br />faded light echos the distant West<br /><br />Dibe Nitsaa, graze mountain sheep<br />high on your rock face grass grows<br />Cloud people gift on the La Plata mountains</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">North where clouds gather<br /></span><br />If you are looking for them: Tsisnaasjini is Mount Blanca, Tsoodzil is Mount Taylor, Doko'oosliid is San Francisco Peaks and Dibe Nitsaa is La Plata Mountains. The three inner mountains added to Navajo sacred mountains are Dzil Na'oodilii or Huefano Mesa, Ch'oolii or Governador Knob and Naatsis'aan or Navajo Mountain. These three are all sites important to the mythology of the peoples. The three are known as the lungs, heart and head of Navajo country with their stories tied to the tale of Changing Woman. Now you can see why I didn't pick just one of these sacred mountains and why they make the list of the most important mountains in poetry.<br /><br />Black Elk's Vision brought the site of his visionary trance, <strong>Inyan Kaga</strong> or Black Buffalo Horn to the list. Known as Harney's Peak in the Black Hills of Dakota, it is unfortunately named after the Military leader responsible for taking native land for US government land in the area. The Black Hills are a geologically old mountain range that have long been sacred to the native peoples. Most know the story of how gold was found and to protect the unlawful miners the US government pushed out the natives, mostly by armed intervention. Black Elk's story was told in the 1930-31 although he had his great vision at the age 9 in the year 1872. When first published in 1932, I suspect it fed the nostalgia and awakened consciousness of educated Americans. When republished in 1961, it was available for counter-cultural native lore seeking hippies and others in the sixties. I read the vision during my undergraduate college years in the early 1970's. It is a beautiful language net which you can see why Carl Jung found it interesting. In the tradition of magpie poetry there are many shiny pieces in thoughts, word phrases and images available in it. It could be a good workshop to have every poet read this text, go away for a few hours and then return to write a poem influenced by the experience. Here is a small sample of the words: "And as I passed before them there, each gave again the gift that he had given me before--the cup of water and the bow and arrows, the power to make live and to destroy: the white wing of cleansing and the healing herb; the sacred pipe; the flowering stick. And each one spoke in turn from west to south, explaining what he gave as he had done before, and as each one spoke he melted down into the earth and rose again; and as each did this, I felt nearer to the earth."<br /><strong></strong><br /><strong>Mount Olympus</strong> seems like a no-brainer as an important mountain in poetry. Found in the poetry of Homer, Milton and must be lots of others. When asking other poets for possible mountains for this list Mount Olympus was always among the first handful mentioned. Mount Olympus, Home of the Gods, Big head faces looking down on tiny us and pinching out a life or raising storms and sinking ships, you know the whole pop cultural thing is so ingrained. I find, however, no signature poem(s) with Mount Olympus as subject or even as primary setting. It must be my lack of a classical education. Maybe someone else can help me out. As subject matter for poetry the Greek myths are used and reused. They trace the whole of poetry's ages in art and culture, however a Mount Olympus poem, I don't know?<br /><br /><strong>Sourdough Mountain </strong>doesn't have that problem. It has a poem, SOURDOUGH MOUNTAIN LOOKOUT by Phil Whalen. Sourdough has more than one poem from the days poets worked as fire tower keepers but this one by Whalen puts one on the mountain and opens space to all-seeing transformation, a verse meditation, life/death poet stuff: <em>This rock, me,/To no purpose/I tell you anyway (as</em> <em>a kind of loving...) </em>He says, <em>I destroy myself, the universe (an egg)/And time to get an answer.</em> Let's generalize on these mountain poems, what for to go there -- to make a climb, the metaphor like Grandfather Carp swims upriver. Whalen ends the poem, <em>Like they say, Four times up,/Three times down." I'm still on the mountain.</em> I recommend the book <strong>POETS on the PEAKS: Gary</strong> <strong>Snyder, Philip Whalen & Jack Kerouac in the North Cascades</strong> by John Suiter published by COUNTERPOINT (2002). The story is there with quotes from poems and journals with photos historic and contemporary to the books publication.<br /><br /><p><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 255px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 288px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5537644720994754194" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1MXEPxeadHDezuDPKUGOIg9PwRPMZ2WWcbGq-FzODkRVk4cOSBZywvDVy9B-kpQTfNcug_9vxOH3psN3fk6Iw6OZrRzc-rG831KPoKGhOuJDoKeMhppwWqkQY0lVeCaMOIr3Awb2LMnA/s400/SLURootdrinker+062.jpg" />Rooting around in the material from the time of these poets in the mountains. Poet Lew Welch I believe also was a fire tower lookout or at least he spent time in the same mountain range. Gary Snyder's poem AUGUST ON SOURDOUGH, A VISIT FROM DICK BREWER is an account of Brewer's visit when they lay in their sleeping bags "talking half the night". Gary Snyder staying and Dick Brewer hitching to New York. Snyder ends the poem "me back to my mountain and far, far west." These mountains would have nothing in the human language to say without our involvement. </p><p><strong>Mount Liupan </strong>is the most obscure and perhaps that makes it the most personal. In July 1983 when I lived in Saratoga Springs, New York I wrote and later had published a poem ON TWO POEMS OF MAO WITH RED BANNERS. The Mao Zedong poems were <em>Jinggang Mountain</em> <em>(1928)</em> and <em>Mount Liupan (1935).</em> My poem was an idealistic expression of the value for the character of a person and for a political movement of not giving up on beliefs even in the most difficult situation. Mao had written these poems while on the longest march. In looking Mao's poem up for this list I found he had written a later poem, <em>Reascending Jinggang</em> <em>Mountain (1965).</em> He finds new scenes have replaced the old. "Everywhere orioles sing, swallows dart,/Streams babble/And the road mount skyward." Thirty-eight years are gone in a snap and the old soldier knows wherever men live "Flags and bannners are flying" (political strife goes on). it is not on that note the poets ends however:</p><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">We can clasp the moon in the Ninth Heaven</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">And seize turtles deep down in the Five Seas:</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Nothing is hard in this world</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">If you dare to scale the heights.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">from <em>Reascending Jinggang Mountain (1965)</em> by Mao Zedong</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br />Chinese cities on the moon. We may both live to see them!<br /><br /><strong>Fujiyama </strong>or Mount Fuji is the Japanese sacred mountain found in poems for centuries. Like Mount Olympus a mountain included by everyone asked to help me with this list. From the haiku of Matsuo and Yosa Bunson all the way back to the poems of the Man'yoshu, the oldest exisiting collection of Japanese poetry. Still a potent symbol in the 20th Century, an anti-war poem by Mitsuharu Kaneko places us at the foot of the mountain as father and mother talk of hiding their son from the draft. <em>Birth certificates, they ought to be burned right away./Nobody should remember my son.</em> When night time at last ends this is the mountain he sees: <em>The rain has let up./In the sky vacant without my son,/well, how damnably disgusting,/like a shabby worn-out bathrobe,/Fuji!.</em> Not songs of praise and thanksgiving the Japanese poets make Fujiyama clear or obscured depending on each poems moment of insight. Here is my current collection of poems:<br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">in the misty rain<br />Mount Fuji is veiled all day -<br />how intriguing!<br />-- Matsuo Basho<br /><br />the wind of Mt. Fuji<br />I've brought on my fan!<br />a gift from Edo<br />-- Matsuo Basho</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">O snail</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Climb Mount Fuji,</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">But slowly, slowly!</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">-- Kobayashi Lssa</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><strong><span style="font-size:85%;">Oh Mt. Fuji</span></strong><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Grey sky, green pine.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Soon will snow fall.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Grey will turn to white,</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Will fall on pine,</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Will flutter on ground.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">I've got to sit down</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">and rest this heavy bundle</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Which is making me</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Black and blue.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">I'll take off my tabi</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">and scratch my foot</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">which itches. Oh, Mt. Fuji!</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">-- Yosa Buson</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">pouring floods of rain</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">won't Mount Fuji wash away</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">to a muddy lake?</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">--Matsuo Basho</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Immobile Fuji</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">alone unblanketed by</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">millions of new leaves</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">--Yosa Bunson</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">peacefulness ... today</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Fujiyama stands above us</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">mist-invisible</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">-- Matsuo Basho</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">to celebrate new year's</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">we feast newly-opened eyes on</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">snowy Fujiyama</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">--Sokan</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><strong>Monument Mountain </strong>is not that far from my home and is one of two of the Ten Most Important Mountains in Poetry that I have climbed to the top of. The other is Harney Peak which I climbed as a teenager on a family trip to the Black Hills. Monument Mountain is not a difficult climb. It stands tall with a sharp cliff-side and is quite beautiful with large sections of white marble stone. There is a poem <em>Monument Mountain</em> by William Cullen Bryant that tells the story of a fair Indian maid who loved her cousin, a forbidden love which so upset the girl that she began wasting away and became "sick of life". Her friends went to the cliff edge with her and sang all day songs of love and death. <em>And decked the poor wan victim's hair with flowers,/And prayed that safe and swift might be her way/To the calm world of sunshine, where no grief/Makes the heart heavy and the eyelids red.</em> Kind of tribal assisted suicide on moral grounds. She jumped and they buried her upon the mountains southern slope. A pile of small stones marks the grave. This cone of stones was added to by each visitor and according to Bryant is the monument the mountain is named for. There is a lot to chew on with this poem.When hearing it, poet Tim Lake supported the notion that now centuries old social and cultural conventions could intensify emotions to the point love unrequited could physically harm and even kill (through physical neglect) the tragic lover. Monument Mountain's importance grows because on August 5, 1850 Herman Melville, the editor Evert Duckinck and Oliver Wendell Homes joined a party on the mountain that included their host, David Dudley Field Jr. and Nathaniel Hawthorn. The meeting and friendship that began between Melville and Hawthorn started on the mountain ridge where the party read Bryant's poem. The story goes when a thunderstorm arrived Holmes built an umbrella from branches and they passed around Champage in a silver mug.<br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br />Now that I have a list what about the mountains I have left off? Shelly's Mount Blac is mentioned by Gary Lawless and Stephen Baraban. Stephen Lewandowski suggested Mount Tamalpais writing Snyder, Whalen and Welch all have a poem about Tamalpais. John Roche had the most suggestions so far. He says <em>Olympus is good, but Mount Parnassus, home of the Muses, even more essential to poets; Dante’s Mount Purgatory; Yeats’ Ben Bulben; the Hill of Tara (Red Branch Tales, etc.); Mt. Tamalpais, sacred to SF Zen Center and all those poets (Snyder, Whalen, etc.); also for Kerouac, Desolation Peak; Mt. Katahdin in Maine: “In the 1840s, Henry David Thoreau climbed Mount Katahdin. His observations are recorded in a chapter his famous Maine Woods. Katahdin had such a profound effect on Thoreau that he was inspired to call for a creation of a national parks system.” What was John Muir’s favorite Yosemite peak? N. Scott Momaday: Rainy Mountain. Noah’s rock (Mt. Ararat); Gilgamesh’s mountain (Mountain of Nisir); On Top of Old Smokie; The Mountains of the Moon; Mt. Etna must be in a lot of poems; Everest, the Matterhorn, etc. must be in many..</em><br /><br />Many good mountains to add but I am sticking to my list for the moment.<br />--- Alan CaslineAlan Caslinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16939561259084352769noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2442948449798025767.post-44142003332176561902010-10-17T19:29:00.005-04:002010-10-17T19:53:59.600-04:00OLD MISTER LITTLE TREEPicked up an old post card in Pottersville, New York last Thursday. With United States election day coming up it a few weeks I was amused by the comments attributed to Hosteen Yazzie, an old Navajo. The back of the postcard has this to say:<br /><br />"Old Hosteen Yazzie, was one of the last Navajo Indians to surrender to the Army Scout, Kit Carson, and the U. S. Soldiers. He has been a familiar figure throughout the Southwest. His "LAMENT" gives an idea how difficult it is for him to understand "White Man's Ways". He is past 110 years of age."<br /><br />J.R. Willis, Gallup, New Mexico is company responsible for the card.<br /><br />A little internet research finds he is also known as<br />Hosteen Tee Yazzie. The Navajo meaning is<br />Hosteen (Mister, Sir, a very Respected Elderly Man)Tee (pronounced "Tsh E") (Little)Yazzie (Tree)Old Mr. Little Tree<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNSZm7psVxGwVOUIVyTzfMOeRLDYCXD1oJsDLUhzWNMCSfowv7uYhyNMd8LA4pF90zxKbqX7Sib6D8O1wAASELNBcTzWvO9HR9YHYEGcGSQvpWuffVIXfBhnU-XACz8EZHsNd-9EIGV7o/s1600/oct+2010+114.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 263px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 400px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5529162650911463714" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNSZm7psVxGwVOUIVyTzfMOeRLDYCXD1oJsDLUhzWNMCSfowv7uYhyNMd8LA4pF90zxKbqX7Sib6D8O1wAASELNBcTzWvO9HR9YHYEGcGSQvpWuffVIXfBhnU-XACz8EZHsNd-9EIGV7o/s400/oct+2010+114.jpg" /></a>Alan Caslinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16939561259084352769noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2442948449798025767.post-69239733877245221952010-10-07T21:19:00.007-04:002010-12-02T20:07:54.128-05:00JIMMY OLSON, CUB REPORTER<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyZ_L0HWCE7rCZNATfODyHjxa1fPpYkcEkp7kxEPSngv8obS-BO7GPFMeuf-s6SHlMIgjYYZxNy8lLoDWNTpWZMhXWaqGAkYKafcIxxVtIXNaIsV90dpjVq93c8xIRVQ50YlMVLVei5YA/s1600/assorted+graphics.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 283px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 400px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5525485095602282626" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyZ_L0HWCE7rCZNATfODyHjxa1fPpYkcEkp7kxEPSngv8obS-BO7GPFMeuf-s6SHlMIgjYYZxNy8lLoDWNTpWZMhXWaqGAkYKafcIxxVtIXNaIsV90dpjVq93c8xIRVQ50YlMVLVei5YA/s400/assorted+graphics.jpg" /></a> <span style="font-size:78%;"><em>Click on image to enlarge</em> </span><br /><span style="font-size:78%;"></span><br /><div><div>On a rainy wet moist night (It was October 6, 2010. It was too many adjectives on purpose) WOW! My Black Mountain North adventure took a predictable turn, a run around the block on Irving Street in Albany New York (the dirty, the mean streets, urban decay, wet leaves waiting for street cleaners) Yes we waited. We waited for street cleaners as a few of us, braze souls, waited for MORE! Cleaning like the fire that swept through Clarksville, New York burning houses, rumbustious old photos, that have caught--yes predictable, inevitable has caught the eyes of Obeedude. "Bird, Bird ", he said. "There is a lot of history in Clarksville." Braze meant "hardened". With the end in the beginning, I see cosmic sorting out. Said to Jason Crane, "Surely you know from jazzchasing the sound certain times when the players, the sound is perfect & right and you look around and see who is there, how the heck you got there to that club at that time and the wonder of the sorting out not formula though you could probably do it mathematically but as I know there are wee people inside the numbers on the page as well. It was a daRK ANd storMy night when into the Parting Glass Tavern in Saratoga Springs walked Tim Cook who unsurprisingly greeted Albert and Pat Glover first. I had arrived earlier. Glover had his nose in Obeedude's IPAD. Now there was a meeting strong in ROOTDRINKER mythos, "Obeedude meet Glover" "Albert this is Obeedude" I was dejected like Creeley. No not like Creeley, "Creeley was Creeley" as Albert was kind enough to school me. I thought instead of lesson of silence when I wasn't shouting and strutting my stuff.<br /><br />The scene moved. I am overcredited. On Phila Street next to Hattie's Chicken Shack above a comic book store lying in wait Cafe Lena. </div><div><br /></div><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 300px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5525489020064496914" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDjDtnxgBy2IQtVWcKtOQA4heTsRmufVoR0uJnuGPuL8RHes4gQJ3tbfzno0sq3MnNt9Ff42D7R7N8B5AV-tNDuUbvUHxRoFNgsfHdXsOS2-ADtOEULARvIYHlNq1gh9zQLK74rXoWhUQ/s400/SLURootdrinker+020.jpg" /><br />No joke Albert Glover gave us a great poetry reading. Jason Crane recorded the event which means at some near point he and I will make it available to the World-O-Sphere. For Ken Warren, Michael Boughn, Hoa Nguyen, John Roche and other A Curriculum of the Soul (the book version) fans here is what happened. Carol Graser the open mic host asked me if I had any personal bits she could use in introducing Al. I went over to Glover's table and hijacked the copy he had in front of him brought it over to her, I took it out of the plastic bag it was in and then out of the box the book fit in and put it in front of her. She opened it and spent a minute or two looking at pages. During her introduction she referred to it. She wanted to say "Bible" but then changed it to "Dictionary". I guess other people there were paying more attention to this all then I thought. Glover read beautifully from RELAX YR FACE and OMEGA SEQUENCES. Then something happened that had never happened in Cafe Lena poetry history (to anyone there's memory). Carol asked Albert (after he had already sat back at his table) if he would do an encore and the crowd (not those of us with intimate knowledge of the CofS) started calling for Albert to read more poetry and started calling for A Curriculum of the Soul. "Read from the Curriculum" 'Read from the big book" The crowd actually called for the Curriculum to be read to them. WOW! again (more sincerely this time) so Albert read briefly from the Charles Olson Introduction, read the Table of Contents and then read a nice piece of THE MUSHROOM<br /><br />If you have not yet seen here is a taste <a href="http://jasoncrane.org/2010/10/">http://jasoncrane.org/2010/10/</a><br /><br /><br />Now Thursday morning a respite from many-armed Black Mountain slopes. Blue sky</div>Alan Caslinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16939561259084352769noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2442948449798025767.post-80929538359989841652010-08-31T20:49:00.006-04:002010-11-10T13:22:22.997-05:00HEARING FROM HERRINGA global problem with local impact. Still not understood the decline in what are unfortunately seen as "bait fish" will lead to a catastrophic decline in sea life if the overharvesting does not stop soon. Harvesting from lower in the ocean food chain is an all too familar example of the trail to ecosystem destruction. Think of a forest impacted by over cutting. Soon the large trees are gone and harvestable timber is redefined as younger and smaller growth. The demand for wood fuel in many parts of the world strips the forest of the growth of small trees and bush. If conditions allow it grassland appears for a time until over grazing and erosion finishes the job. On the way back home after a weekend in Maine, my alternator and battery quit, resulting in a night at Motel 6, not quite the fun poet Obeeduid had had the previous two nights camping out at Lake St. George State Park. Developing awareness and raising consciousness the poets Gary Lawless and Karin Spitfire held events all summer in the coastal towns of Maine where an once thriving sardine fishery allowed small town factories to process and can the fish for later consumption. The closing of the last operating sardine factory this year punctuated the effort.<br />One cosmic connect of the extra day on the road was the discovery of a column in the Worcester, MA. <em>Telegram & Gazette </em>newspaper (8/20/2010) by the outdoors writer Mark Blazis (<a href="mailto:markblazis@charter.net">markblazis@charter.net</a>) The title "Giants gobbling up fish"Alan Caslinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16939561259084352769noreply@blogger.com0