re: last night's post [see below] about creative reading.  i was on the john where lately i've been doing most of my poetry reading.  okay, not most but when i do sit on the pot i read at least several poems each morning.  if that is what the kids call 'too much information' i doubt that.  i'm sure you and you and you read too while taking a crap.  it's probably one of the more intimate activities a mammal can do and reading poetry is an even more intimate an experience.

well then this morning i was reading thru ambush review, a poetry journal published in san francisco.   my brothafromanothamutha jonathan hayes pointed out the mag when we were visiting the beat museum a few weeks ago.  hayes has a poem in the publication that [self-disclosure] was written in response to something i wrote and dedicated to s.f. writer mel c. thompson.  and the review published two pieces by duncan mcnaughton, a maestro if there ever was one.

i bought the mag, read hayes' text and mcnaughton's poems too.  then i put the journal in the drawer in the bathroom where i keep a few books and magazines just when the occasion arises.  i've been reading other stuff for my morning ablutions until this morning.  that's when i read the poems by angelos sakkis published therein.  dig this.

                                 reading all the time
                                 mostly undisciplined, haphazard
                                 serendipitous stuff, no method, just
                                 for fun, catch as catch can, then
                                 as he plies that new voice, he finds
                                 that it comes to bear, how he has
                                 barely, hardly at all, scratched
                                 the surface.

hells yes!  i know that reader.  i am that reader.  i love the third and fourth lines 'serendipitous' which was like my own self-education as one discovery led to another, 'no method' because i read for the love of it and was without a syllabus, 'just for fun' because fun is fuel for the adventure of a life in poetry.  finally, the final two lines sums up a life in reading, or a life period, because no matter how deep you dig you 'barely. . .scratched/the surface.'

angelos sakkis rocked my world.  his poem is an example of what i mean by creative reading.  the bio in ambush review states that english is sakkis' second language.  a quick google search revealed that sakkis is the uncle of bay area poet john sakkis and together both sakkis have translated the poems of demosthenes agrafiotis.  i didn't find more poems online by angelos sakkis. 

i hope there are many, many more poems by angelos sakkis coming.  at least for this reader.

peace out