CruelestMonth.com

Poems

You might be wondering what has roused the Cruelest Month from its unfortuante hibernation.  To answer, I have a few poems that I'd really like to share.  The poets are Sarah Stofko and Tess Stofko (my nieces) who are in the 7th and 5th grades, respectively.

"The Artist's Eye" by Sarah Stofko

Able to see what is not there

Able to create a masterpiece out of nothing

Deep in the mind behind this treasure

Lays a hidden world longing to break free

And soon it will

It will shatter the bounds

Of fear and insecurity

The artist's eye will lead the way

On the path of success

On the path of discovery

On the path of creation

The eye lives on everyone waiting to lead the way

Weather it be directly used for what is considered art

Or if it is creating a home,

A family,

A business,

Some of these eyes

Are more recognizable

And others hide

They lurk just waiting for the right time

To show the mind behind it

A whole new world

An abstract world

A better,

Stranger,

More beautiful world

 

"Untitled" by Tess Stofko

Oceans

Never Whole

Never to Understand

Give and

Take

 

"I Don't Understand" by T.S.

                    I don't understand

Life is short, too short.     How to canter, but not post.

Enjoy it!  You can always,     How to sit 'n trot.

Always enjoy it!     To hard, so I mess it up.

No matter where the wind blows,     While trying again and again

It matters not where you go.     And again.

"Free Verse     Three Word Poem!" by T.S.

I'm going to my Aunt Kimmie's     Lunch, munch, play

In Goshen, New York     Munch, play, talk

All weekend long I'll stay     Play, talk, run

Doing the things we like to do,     Talk, run, classroom

No grouchy adults in our way!     Run, classroom, Bored.

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Of note today, John Ashbery has won the Griffin Poetry Prize for Notes from the Air: Selected Later Poems.

NBCC's Winter Recommended Reads

Poetry

1. Elegy by Mary Jo Bang (Graywolf)
2. Time and Materials by Robert Hass (Ecco)
2. Gulf Music by Robert Pinsky (FSG)
4. The Collected Poems, 1956–1998 by Zbigniew Herbert (Ecco)
5. Sharp Teeth by Toby Barlow (Harper)

Read more at Critical Mass.

Sharp Teeth now on sale!

I went ga-ga about this book back in the dizzle like six months ago.  Now it's on sale, living, breathing, changing out in the market place.  So keep an eye out for Sharp Teeth by Toby Barlow.  And check out the video.

Signed book giveaway at www.olivereader.com.

Center for the Art of Translation...Party!

This Friday from 6:30pm-8:0pm the Center for the Art of Translation will host a "celebration of global voices in Times Square with acclaimed authors and translators from 15 years of TWO LINES: World Writing in Translation."  Readers will include:

Suzanne Jill Levine reading JORGE VOLPI (from Spanish)
Geoffrey Brock reading GUIDO GOZZANO (from Italian)
Alexis Levitin reading ASTRID CABRAL (from Portuguese)
Susan Bernofsky reading YOKO TAWADA (from German)
Trudy Balch reading MATILDA KOEN-SARANO (from Ladino)
Douglas Basford reading JEAN SENAC (from French)

Also, there will be a tribute to special guest Gregory Rabassa.  (He was unable to attend A Tribute to Robert Fagles a little while ago, to my disappointment, so fingers crossed.)

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Also, I'm very happy to read that the University of Michigan's department of English is holding a conference March 6-7 called "Writing in Public: A Celebration of Karl Pohrt," who is founder and owner of Shaman Drum Shop, Ann Arbor, MI.  Read more about the even and Karl here.  I've been lucky enough to work with him on Reading the World.  This celebration is much deserved.

Seven Notebooks by Campbell McGrath

I am bad.  I should have shown you this sooner.  Here is Campbell McGrath's newest collection Seven Notebooks.   According to a close colleague at Ecco, Seven Notebooks is, "formally, unlike any other book of poetry, by McGrath or anyone else (almost a novel in verse). It is his most remarkable, and best, achievement to date."

Zbigniew Herbert Book Club at Words Without Borders

Words Without Borders has dedicated the month of January to a discussion of Zbigniew Herbert and the recently published Collected Poems: 1956-1998 (which will be coming out in paperback next month).  So far, features include an introductory essay by James Marcus and an interview between Cynthia Haven and Peter Dale Scott.  Other notable writers/poets/translators such as Anna Frajlich, Andrzej Franaszek, William Martin, and Alissa Valles will contribute over the course of the month.  I'm so pleased that the spotlight remains bright on Herbert since the publication of his Collected.  If you haven't yet familiarized yourself with this great poet, here's a wonderful opportunity.

"Snow-Flakes"

The Academy of American Poets sent a very nice poem along with their season's greetings.  It's just too perfect; I hope they don't mind if I share it as well:

"Snow-Flakes"

Out of the bosom of the Air,
     Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken,
Over the woodlands brown and bare,
     Over the harvest-fields forsaken,
        Silent, and soft, and slow
        Descends the snow.

Even as our cloudy fancies take
    Suddenly shape in some divine expression,
Even as the troubled heart doth make
    In the white countenance confession,
        The troubled sky reveals
        The grief it feels.

This is the poem of the air,
    Slowly in silent syllables recorded;
This is the secret of despair,
    Long in its cloudy bosom hoarded,
        Now whispered and revealed
        To wood and field.

-- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: Poems and Other Writings, Library of America, 2000.

As it so happened, Outre-Mer: A Pilgrimage beyond the Sea by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1835) was the first book Harper ever published.

Happy New Year, Y'all!

The New Year approaches and along with it so does the Cruelest Month's second birthday. Conceived on a muggy winter afternoon, born and reared by the imprint Ecco, it stands, in the twilight of 2007, on a crumbling precipice. Where have the posts been? Will the sounding of the New Year also ring the final tolls for this happy little blog? I aver that I don't know. Maybe, maybe not. Possibly. But possibly maybe.

Not that you require me to justify myself, it's only a natural reaction when one knows what they should be doing and they aren't. I think they call that a sin of omission. But let's hope I manage, for your sake and mine, that I keep the posts worthwhile. Is this post worthwhile? Well, it's just got to be.

Anyway, I wanted to thank everyone who has stayed up with the site. Thanks for all your wonderful comments and enthusiasm for poetry and literature. I look forward to all that comes next...with us...together in a committed relationship...sharing everything.

Happy New Year!

Happy Holidays!

Portraits

I've lifted this from a post on Paper Cuts, where you can find more information on the paintings and the video's creator. 

Marginalia

Here are a few things you may want to do, read, or see:

The Academy of American Poets and Viking Penguin present A Tribute to Robert Fagles.
Tuesday, December 11
The Times Center, 242 West 41st Street
7:00 p.m.

From the official copy: "Please join Francine du Plessix Gray, Edith Grossman, Shirley Hazzard, Richard Howard, J.D. McClathcy, Charles McGrath, Gregory Rabassa, David Remnick, and C.K. Williams in this celebration of poet and translator Robert Fagles's repeated success in illuminating the ground between "the features of an ancient author and the expectation of a contemporary reader." 

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Prague Summer Program with Stuart Dybek

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Poets House presents "Our Emily Dickinson: A 21st Century Response by Artists & Writers" @ Tribeca Peforming Arts Center, 199 Chambers Street.  Thursday, December 6, 7:00 p.m.

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Beth Dow - Fieldwork is showing until December 8th at the Jen Bekman gallery at 6 Spring Street.  I popped in over the weekend.  There are thirteen black and white photographs printed in silver platinum-palladium process; the technical aspects of which I can tell you nothing about.  And never forget Jen's generous, nay, genius website 20x200!

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Read, see, and do when Esther K. Smith, author of How to Make Books, speaks at Cooper Union's Great Hall (7 East 7th Street, Free).  Follow the link above for the official copy.

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And when you've finally tuckered yourself out, when all the dishes are drying on the rack, when the hallway lights are off, when the curtains are drawn, but not before you brush your teeth, dip into Sleeping and Waking by Michael O'Brien or The Selected Writings of Daniil Kharms.  Assuming you have a hallway.  Pff.

Preening

You may have gleaned from my posts that I'm learning French or, more accurately, that I'm enrolled in French classes.  Whether there has been any learning remains to be seen.  Happily, I find one of the best modes of instruction is reading French poetry.  (I mean, what do you know?)  Here's a poem from one of my favorite authors, Raymond Queneau.  See what you can understand (translation below).  (And it helps to read the original aloud with a rhee-di-kuh-lus Frauench aghsennt.)

“L’Espèce Humaine”

L’espèce humaine m’a donné
le droit d’être mortel
le devoir d’être civilisé
la conscience humaine
deux yeux qui d’ailleurs ne fonctionnent pas très bien
le nez au milieu du visage
deux pieds deux mains
le langage
l’espèce humaine m’a donné
mon père et ma mère
peut-être des frères on ne sait
des cousins à pelletées
et des arrière-grands-pères
l’espèce humaine m’a donné
ses trois facultés
le sentiment l’intelligence et la volonté
chaque chose de façon modérée
l’espèce humaine m’a donné
trente-deux dents un cœur un foie
d’autres viscères et dix doigts
l’espèce humaine m’a donné
de quoi se dire satisfait

"The Human Species"

The human species has given me
the right to be mortal

the duty to be civilized

a conscience

2 eyes that don't always function very well

a nose in the middle of my face

2 feet 2 hands

speech

the human species has given me

my father and mother

some brothers maybe who knows

a whole mess of cousins

and some great-grandfathers

the human species has given me

its 3 faculties

feeling intellect and will

each in moderation

32 teeth 10 fingers a liver

a heart and some other viscera

the human species has given me

what I'm supposed to be satisfied with

--translated by Teo Savory (The Random House Book of Twentieth Century French Poetry, edited by Paul Auster, 1984)

Now may be an opportune moment to mention exactly how I feel about the book above.  Go buy it!  The introduction is fantastic.  The translations were all crafted by leading literary figures of the 20th century.  The original poems are by the most impeccable French poets.  Plus the books looks très moderne, so people will think you are wicked smart.  That may not have been exactly how I feel, but it dances near enough to the truth.

More of the Man

Will you look at that?  Fanciness for the Buk.  We've got broadsides.  I've got five with your name on them.  Some of you are already rather adept at writing CruelestMonthPoetry@yahoo.com (for which I am extremely grateful) but for anyone new to the game, to receive a broadside be one of the first five readers to email me with the subject heading "Buduku Broadside" and with your mailing address in the body of the message.  So here's what I'm talking about:

BAM

The final installment of Between the Lines: Emerging Voices in American Literature and Film happens Thursday, Decemeber 6th at 8pm.  This event is co-presented by the Brooklyn Academy of Music and A Public Space.

The Buk

It may seem like I am inflicting a rather slow, painful death upon my own website, and though I can't actually deny that, I ask that you imagine that the Cruelest Month is sleeping peacefully, storing energy for a balls-out comeback.  As way of explanation for the lack of activity over the past few months, you guessed it, I've been good and busy.  So has Ecco for that matter, and Fall 2007 has been a strong season.  Rounding out 2007 is The Pleasures of the Damned: Poems, 1951-1993 by Charles Bukowski, edited by John Martin, which was reviewed by Jim Harrison in the NY Times this past week.

I am not inclined to make elaborate claims for Bukowski, because there is no one to compare him to, plus or minus. He wrote in the language of his class as surely as Wallace Stevens wrote in the language of his own. This book offers you a fair chance to make up your own mind on this quarrelsome monster. It is ironical that those who man the gates of the canon will rarely if ever make it inside themselves. Bukowski came in a secret back door.

We're happy to play our part.  Oh, and the first three readers to write CruelestMonthPoetry@yahoo.com with "Pleasures of the Damned" as their subject line and with their mailing address in the body will receive a free copy.  A little later in the week, I'll post the broadside and send a few of those out.

The NY Times Notable list has been posted, as well.  Ecco makes a fair showing on a strong list.  It's worth a look.

*Three readers wrote in.  Three books will be sent out.  Thanks for reading and writing--in and in general!

Congratulations to Robert Hass!

Time & Materials by Robert Hass has won the 2007 National Book Award!  We'll be changing that seal shortly.  The NY Times reports.

 

Norman Mailer dies at 84

Norman Mailer, American novelist, dies at 84.  The NY Times.  The Guardian.

Ashbery at 192 Books Tonight!

See him at 7pm.  I should have posted this earlier.  Event details.

Yves Bonnefoy honored by the Franz Kafka Society

Belated but worthy news from last week:

In Prague, the Franz Kafka Society honored the French poet Yves Bonnefoy with the Franz Kafka Prize, given annually to "authors whose works of exceptional artistic qualities are found to appeal to readers regardless of their origin, nationality and culture."

The Guardian called Bonnefoy, 84, "one of the most influential French poets of the second half of the 20th century.  He is also a respected essayist and the pre-eminent French translator of the work of William Shakespeare."

The Roots like William T. Vollmann

The next LP from the hip-hop group The Roots, which will release in April 2008, entitled Rising Down, is named after William T.Vollmann's seven-volume treatise on human violence, Rising Up and Rising Down: Some Thoughts on Violence, Freedom, and Urgent Means.  Ecco publishes an abridged paperback.  I hope Bill makes a cameo on the album.  He's got mad words.

SF Chronicle on Robert Hass

The San Francisco Chronicle ran a very nice feature on Robert Hass today: "Poet Robert Hass goes back in time with new work."

I apologize that things have been slow here lately; things have been fast elsewhere.

2007 Quill Book Awards

Though Al Roker and Ann Curry have already announced the big-category winners some suspense remains.  At the Quill Book Awards' ceremony tonight the overall winner, the work that by its powerful nature renders classification by genre obsolete, will be announced by the lovely Ann Curry.  Kevin Young won in poetry for his collection For the Confederate Dead (Knopf, 2007).  For a full list of winners, visit the Quill site.

*Book of the Year -- Angels Fall by Nora Roberts (Putnam, 2007)

The Present Age by Søren Kierkegaard

What a varied and strange universe!?  What a week of surprises!  I have no commentary to contextualize those statements; it wouldn't belong on a company blog anyhow.  And though I risk sounding like I'm high on mushrooms, when do I not? 

In this spirit of high-minded enthusiasm, I recently began reading The Present Age by Søren Kierkegaard (Harper Torchbooks, 1962) which includes the essays "The Present Age" (the latter part of the book A Literary Review) and "Of the Difference Between a Genius and an Apostle."  Without going on about Kierkegaard's ideas contained therein, I thought I'd be more qualified to comment on the effect of its introduction.  I can't remember the last time I've been so freely batted around by preliminary material.  Walter Kaufmann, the American philosopher, begins his introduction so:

It is one of the characteristics of the present age that books of the previous century are reissued with more or less--usually less--learned prefaces.  The point is partly that the new edition should have something new in it; partly that the reader should be told what a great classic will confront him when he is done with the preface.  The reader wants to be reassured that he is not going to waste his time.  And he is also supposed to be anxious to know what he should think of the book--which is another way of saying that he is supposed to be afraid of having to think for himself, though this is after all the only kind of thinking there is.  In Kierkegaard's words, in The Present Age, the reader must be reassured that 'something is going to happen,' for 'ours is the age of advertisement and publicity.'  Indeed, the preface is expected to say what is going to happen --or, more precisely, which parts of what is about to happen may be safely forgotten, which points are memorable, and what observations about them should be remembered for use in conversation.

And he goes on.  An editor could graph this first paragraph onto almost any introduction, so long as the author being introduced is one of the celebrated dead (and, to temper that statement, so long as the intro continues in that vein (I'm not really going out on a limb here)), but it remains poignant where it is.  He strikes solid ground between competence and enthusiasm when others of us can only try. If anyone wants a copy of this book, I'm going to order some and send one to you.  My e-mail address is on this website, so do whatever's necessary.

Have a blessed weekend!

Just a note that everyone who wrote in for a broadside will be receiving one.  Check your mailboxes next week!

PW Starred Review - Notes from the Air

"Ashbery's original, seminal Selected Poems crowned the first half of a career that has largely defined American poetry since the middle of the 20th century.  Once could think of that first Selected, published in 1985, as the summation of Ashbery's philosophical period, in which the poet self-consciously interrogated the grip--or lack of one--language exerts on the world at large, most notably in poems like 'Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror.'  This new volume--beginning with poems from April Galleons (1987) and ending with Where Shall I Wander (2005)--presents the first panoramic view of Ashbery's second phase, in which he explores, celebrates, sends up and revels in the American vernacular.  Encompassing the surreal ('You mop your forehead with a rose, recommending its thorns'), the tender ('Everything was spotless in the little house of our desire'), the self-deprecating ('There was I: a stinking adult') and the quietly, utterly haunting ('Those who came closest did not come close'), Ashbery seems to hit every possible note in his scattershot manner.  Of particular interest are extended selections from the book-length works Flow Chart (1991) and Girls on the Run (1999).  This is an essential book.  Along with the original Selected (Penguin), we can now see the full impact of the most representative poets of the last 50 years.  (Nov.)"

Notes from the Air: Selected Poems by John Ashbery goes on sale November 6th.