Recommended Reading

Mark Kraushaar

The Anthony Hecht Poetry Prize: James Fenton & Mark Kraushaar

Folger link

7.30pm Tuesday, 8 November 2011

Elizabethan Theatre, Folger Shakespeare Library

201 East Capitol St SE, Washington, DC 20005

Tickets: $15

Introduction and conversation moderated by Joseph Harrison, poet and Waywiser Press Senior American Editor.

The Anthony Hecht Poetry Prize, created in honor of the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, is awarded annually by Waywiser Press for a poetry collection by a poet who has published no more than one book. The winner receives $3,000 and his collection is published on both sides of the Atlantic. Mark Kraushaar is the 2010 recipient. He will be joined by this year’s judge, James Fenton.

Mark Kraushaar’s first collection, Falling Brick Kills Local Man, won the 2009 Felix Pollak Prize. He was the recipient of Poetry Northwest’s Richard Hugo Award and two Wisconsin Arts Board awards for poetry and has been a finalist for both the Walt Whitman Award and the May Swenson Prize. His poems are widely published and anthologized.

James Fenton has worked as a political journalist, drama critic, book reviewer, war correspondent, foreign correspondent, and columnist. A winner of England’s Newdigate Prize for poetry, he is the author of several volumes of poetry. His latest work is Selected Poems. He edited The New Faber Book of Love Poems and D. H. Lawrence’s Selected Poems. He was an Oxford Professor of Poetry from 1994 to 1999 and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and recipient of the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry.

Excerpt from Third Street Muscles and Fitness*

…and for a moment, for a discrete, small portion
of what I will one day refer to as the past,
there’s the five of us facing three
double-door sized panes
of rattling glass:
rain on the awnings, rain over the windows,
rain over the gutters and rain
in soft, sparkling ropes along the curbs,
and into the drains and under the ground.
—Mark Kraushaar

*From The Uncertainty Principle © 2011 by Mark Kraushaar

Día de los Muertos

Image: Día de los Muertos by Glen’s Pics

Halloween 2011

when memory stirs, save a life

Muslims for Life

Birthday Max

Max (17 November 2010)

WHEREFORE?

O me! O life!–of the questions of these recurring;
Of the endless trains of the faithless–of cities filled with the foolish;
Of myself for ever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and
         who more faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light–of the objects mean–of the struggle
         ever renewed;
Of the poor results of all–of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around
         me;
Of the empty and useless years of the rest–with the rest me intertwined;
The question, O me! so sad, recurring–What good amid these, O me, O life?

ANSWER.

That you are here–that life exists, and identity;
That the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse.
–Walt Whitman

“So you want to get a PhD in the humanities?”

(Created by ALLISONLES at xtranormal)

This video would not be so funny if it weren’t largely true.  Universities nationwide are adopting business-based performance models under which humanities and other “underperforming” departments come under the budget knife.  For example, Texas A&M recently issued a profit-loss assessment of each of it professors (see Wall Street Journal).

This is not a new trend, but one accelerated by the recent financial and economic crises that have left state-funded and private university coffers much diminished.  Not only are those business models demonstrably inappropriate for assessing university education (see, e.g., Daniel Hamermesh and James Kwak), those models haven’t really done so well for businesses either, have they?

What’s at stake here really is society’s valuation of a university education.  There certainly are cheaper and better ways to provide young people with vocational education than the university degree.  While a university degree is a social imprimatur of sorts that young people will naturally seek, the kind of “education” that mindless applications of such performance models will necessarily produce really amounts to a fraud committed on our youth.  They are the ones who will have been denied access to the universitas magistrorum et scholarium that so-called advanced societies should value highly. Those youth may never know what life rewards their contact with such a community would have brought if only universities had remained universities.

equipoise

Edwidge Danticat on Haitian Culture

[From Wall Street Journal, January 14, 2010, 5:00 PM ET]

Earthquake in Haiti:
A Reading (and Listening) List by Edwidge Danticat

Edwidge Danticat, the recipient of a MacArthur “genius” grant and an Oprah’s Book Club author, is one of Haiti’s most acclaimed writers. The Miami-based author of such works of fiction as “Krik? Krak!” and “Breath, Eyes, Memory,” as well as a mini-essay for Speakeasy, has spent the last few days on the phone trying to locate family members in her earthquake-ravaged country.

In this time of tragedy for Haiti, it’s worth noting that the country’s culture is far deeper than the bleak reports currently blanketing the news. Danticat’s writing has long sought to capture the joys and challenges of Haitian life. “Kirk? Krak!” offered up short stories about everyday Haitians, conjuring up the voices of prostitutes, plantation workers and refugees at sea. In her nonfiction book “After the Dance,” Danticat writes of being swept up in carnival festivities in Haiti: “In that brief space and time, the carnival offers all the paradoxical elements I am craving: anonymity, jubilant community, and belonging.”

Danticat took the time today to recommend some books and music that people who are interested in Haitian history and arts should seek out in order to place the current disaster in a broader context.

• “The Black Jacobins” by C.L.R. James: A groudbreaking account of the Haitian revolution of 1791-1804 that examines that leadership of the rebel commander Toussaint L’Ouverture. Other slave uprisings in the Americas ended in defeat; James looks into why the slave rebellion in Haiti was victorious.

• “The Rainy Season: Haiti Since Duvalier,” by Amy Wilentz: This nonfiction book documents the period between 1986-1989 when Haitian dictator Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier was forced to flee the country and mass strikes, government-sponsored vigilante groups, and other kinds of chaos swept though the streets. The book, which blends current events with cultural history, seeks to detail the society beyond the headlines.

• “Love, Anger, Madness: A Haitian Trilogy” by Marie Vieux-Chauvet: This triptych of novellas, recently published in English with an introduction by Danticat, was initially suppressed when it was first released in French in 1968 during François “Papa Doc” Duvalier’s Haitian reign of terror. The trilogy offers portraits of people struggling to survive dictatorship and oppression. “Hurricanes, earthquakes and drought, nothing spares us,” says the narrator of the first novella, titled “Love.”

• Boukman Eksperyans: A “mizik rasin” band from Port-au-Prince that combines elements of Haitian Vodou and folk music with rock and roll. First formed in 1987, its albums include “Vodou Adjae.” The group weaves themes of rebellion into its music, and its 1990 song “Kem Pa Sote” was banned on Haitian radio. You can see a video from the band here.

• Ram: Another mizik rasin group from Port-au-Prince. Formed in 1990, one of the band’s singles, “Fèy” was banned by the military because it was seen as an anthem of support for exiled Haitian President Jean Bertrand Aristide. You can hear the song here.

Image: Haiti Earthquake

(h/t to Lesley Ward)

Earthquake in Haiti–Photoessay

Red Cross: Website and on YouTube

Casting Away

Tashlich, Rosh Hashana, NY

Originally uploaded by Tony Shi, NY-NJ

Sabbaths

“A pious man once took a stroll in his vineyard on the Sabbath. He saw a breach in the fence, and then determined to mend it when the Sabbath would be over. At the expiration of the Sabbath he decided: since the thought of repairing the fence occurred to me on the Sabbath I shall never repair it.”

–A. J. Heschel, The Sabbath

Image: Tuscany’s vineyard by rayced

Medieval Tech Support

This should come in handy for those parents (like me) whose kids need some extra urging to tackle their summer stacks.  Kudos to nrk (Norwegian TV).

Notice: “Takoma Mosaic Project”

(re)designing golem

 

a new golem is being formed.

Originally uploaded by idan x

Some redesign is underway to enhance the flexibility and appearance of golempoem. At this point, the changes should be transparent to readers–if not, please report any difficulties as comment(s) to this post. Meanwhile, the golem and I apologize for any inconveniences the redesign may have caused.

Benjamin Rosenbaum: “The Orange”

HT: n1ckFG