a few things

i also want to note the passing of adrienne rich. a formidable writer. i think most, if not all, poets when we were in school studying english and creative writing and doing whatever we were doing in school, bumped against rich in the anthologies teachers would use. a few years ago she wrote a magnificent text on the french poet, and leader of the french resistance, rene char. her essays were illuminating. i remember she got some flack because of her choices when she edited those goofy best-of year anthologies, BEST AMERICAN POETRY, because of her insistence on including political poets and the like. rich was the embodiment of the activist intellect in her essays and poetry. rich lived a long, good life. she was lucky. and so were we to have her, for a while, in our midst.

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if you haven't read this interview with poet todd colby, i beseech you, do so. colby is a dude electric with life. got the blues? one cure for melancholy is colby. take this snippet regarding the rasing of children as an example.

I'd love my child to be a poet or an astronaut or a water colorist or a hair stylist. Whatever, I'd really just want she/he to feel free and alive and open to the world with all its ridiculous beauty and stunning pain. Openness, and not giving into being a goddamn cynic is the key I'd want them to have in their front pocket.

i am alive in the company of colby's writing. goddam! i am happy to be alive.

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i've been rereading a lot of german poet, and buddhist, stefan hyner lately. he's become kinda my virgil. his mix of politics and the personal is just the sort of brace i need. take this poem on for size.

Secret Mantra of the Red Partisan Buddha

May all Governments
Of all Nations
Vanish.

OM.

see what i mean! i've been carrying that poem around with in my head for several days. the text is a corrective for all the idiocy and silliness i've been watching/reading about our contemporary, fractious politicking and politicians.

there are several who worry that there may be too many of us writers around right now. not me. i believe once you try to live in language the less bullshit you can stomach. our society needs more poets now then it ever has. not that i think a society of poets will make a perfect society, cuz poets are the least perfect creatures i know, but it could be a good start in critical thinking, bullshit detecting and beauty making of which we are in dire short supply.