Muldoon again

Yet another great book by Paul Muldoon. A sampling of poetry by ten major Irish poets after Yeats: Patrick Kavanagh, Louis MacNeice, Thomas Kinsella, John Montague, Michael Longley, Seamus Heaney, Derek Mahon, Paul Durcan, Tom Paulin and Medbh McGuckian. The latest Faber print edition (not this one) has a very nice cover.

WCW

The three-step lines, especially in the later poems, are quite addictive. Now I have to carve out some time for Vol 1.

This Muldoon guy...

Completely overwhelmed by his depth of knowledge, intellectual capacity and mammoth memory bank. How can anyone like this exist in the human world?

If I were reborn...

i will be constantly on the move, stimulating myself with new sights and knowledge, to prevent myself from sinking into mediocrity. i will not have to worry about money because i will not be stuck in an environment that places emphasis on it. i will engage in paid labour when needed and demand immediate payment for fulfilling my immediate needs. i will certainly not be married or tied down in any way because i have suffered enough from trying to fit, trying to adjust. it's never about the two of us, it's always the whole ching gang of stuff and detestable human beings that come along. i do not have to be social and i laugh only when i want to. i do not have to contort any part of myself to fit into any roles, parts, space or circle. i will be alone and seek company, partners, human contact whenever i feel an urge to satisfy any needs that might surface, after which all contact will be discarded like used tissue paper. no baggage, no lingering connections and no need to remember to phone who. if no one deigns to be engaged with me, then i shall be alone and enjoy my loneliness. i do not practise censorship in all sense, whether in speech, manner, behaviour or thoughts. i will have all the time to read and ponder and write, hopefully gaining some money in return to buy myself an occasional coffee. i will drift from one place to another, and no one will know me. truly. i will feel reborn again and again in each new environment and whatever it brings to me. that is truly paradise, which only death and rebirth can deliver.

If I were to choose...

haven't been so disturbed for a while, but I get these attacks rather often. This whole issue of death and choosing it came up during this morning's train ride to work. I have sort of decided to leap off a random but easily accessible building in a "neutral" location. not decided where exactly, probably bishan, thomson area, which is pretty much unknown to most people known. there are so many options to go but when you really think about it, only very few are truly viable ones. Sylvia Plath put her head into a microwave oven but such explosive dramatics! Gassing oneself is reportedly painless but the reality is where to find an airtight place of convenience? And Nat, I really don't fancy leaping into the path of an oncoming MRT train; I can almost hear the crunch and grind of my bones. Tossing myself off some tall architecture seems to work best: I will try and muster a somersault even and a woo hoo~, before landing, preferably softly, on green grass. I think the color red will contrast well with the green.

Imagisme. This whole idea

Direct treatment of the 'thing' whether subjective or objective. Use common speech but employ always the exact word. Present an image - poetry should render particulars exactly and not deal in vague generalities. To produce poetry that is hard and clear, never blur nor indefinite. Concentration is of the very essence of poetry. Imagism refers to the manner of presentation, not to the subject. It means clear presentation of whatever the author wishes to convey. The 'exact' word does not mean the word which exactly describes the object in itself, it means the 'exact' word which brings the effect of that object before the reader as it presented itself to the poet's mind at the time of writing. Rhythm must have meaning. It cannot be merely a careless dash off, with no grip and no real hold to the words and sense.

danger on peaks

travel poetry. haibun style. his use of common speech patterns, either u like it or u don't.

Loose on Earth

....
Humanity,
said Jeffers, is like a quick

explosion on the planet
we're loose on earth
half a million years
our weird blast spreading –

and after,
rubble - millennia to weather,
soften, fragment,
sprout, and green again

Heron's Nest 2007

Hmm. Felt a bit let down by this much vaulted collection. The selection here is pretty uneven, sometimes leaning towards mediocrity. The winners, expectedly, do measure up.



buffalo bones
wind less than a whisper
in the summer grass

— Chad Lee Robinson


circle of lamplight —
I complete the baby quilt
begun for me

— Carolyn Hall



silted river
an old doe turns
to face the flow

— John Barlow

Gotta..

I got to kickstart my writing again. Somehow, it's difficult for me to switch from work mode to writing mode and back again. A clear mind and a relaxed setting are missing crucial elements right now. A 5-day work week is too much for me. Kudos to the forking French for picketing their way to a 4-4.5 days-more-reasonable work week.

Black & White

There's something about black and white photography that gives portraits so much depth, ambiguity and opens up to a whole lot of possible meanings and interpretations. Very haiku-like.