How it goes, Max.
Doug
On Dec 8, 2014, at 9:23 PM, Max Richards <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> My Pinched Pen
>
> I’m drafting these lines
> with this black ballpoint
> I pinched last night.
>
> I walked along to hear
> a Sunday poetry hour:
> eight Seattle readers
>
> and their flown-in guest,
> met in the high space
> of the Lutherans
>
> next door to Hugo House
> where all those writing
> programs take place.
>
> Overflow events
> get scheduled at the warm
> Parish Hall - Copper Canyon
>
> Press events are that.
> The professionalism!
> Their charming interns!
>
> Jacket-and-tie gentlemen
> offering to assist.
> The smart and various books,
>
> at cutely propped angles;
> the tote bag yours -
> should you spend up big.
>
> (Buy two books, the third is free! -
> irresistible,
> except by me.)
>
> And not just today’s
> poets on display -
> Kooser, Skoog, Doshi -
>
> but Tagore, Neruda,
> Cadora’s Rilke -
> ‘You must change your life’!
>
> Before I can sit down
> I must take the leaflet
> and pen. Question:
>
> what words come to mind
> when you meet the word Poem?
> I write down: concentrated,
>
> purified, musical
> (not mentioning
> my own betrayal);
>
> then surrender what really
> they want: contact details.
> Not long till Copper’s
>
> next publicity drive blocks
> my congested inbox.
> Two microphones up there -
>
> soon they’re in action
> welcoming schmoozing
> with introduction
>
> of all and sundry.
> The whole community
> of poetry is here,
>
> the Poetry in Buses
> Poet Planner,
> the Bent Writing
>
> Institute Founder,
> the Copper Executive
> Editor. They all read
>
> and enthuse, we hear
> and applaud. Lord,
> we’re such supporters.
>
> And now the guest,
> the strong dark presence,
> almost-bared chest,
>
> long locks tossed,
> his laughing resonance,
> reads from his new book,
>
> The New Testament!
> Jericho Brown!
> how well you go down,
>
> how jealous I am
> of your nerve and aplomb,
> your bold revisionism,
>
> your pain and redemption.
> My good-bad fortune
> was - unaware almost
>
> of race and identity -
> not being awoken,
> 'not changing that life’,
>
> I slip quietly away
> with my pinched pen
> and so little to say.
Douglas Barbour
[log in to unmask]
http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/
http://eclecticruckus.wordpress.com/
Latest books:
Continuations & Continuations 2 (with Sheila E Murphy)
http://www.uap.ualberta.ca/UAP.asp?LID=41&bookID=962
Recording Dates
(Rubicon Press)
If once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think little of robbing; and from robbing he comes next to drinking and sabbath-breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination.
Thomas De Quincey
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