Field Recordings

Ah. Abstract art. No matter if you love it, hate it, or couldn't care less, you probably know of Pollock. I'm not a huge fan of JP the person, but the artist interests me, and one of the best looks at the man happens to be a biography of a poet I admire, Frank O'Hara. City Poet by Brad Gooch is a great read, and if you love the New York Bohemian art scene and literary scene it's a must. While O'Hara worked as an art critic he ran around with Pollock and his crew. Fun stuff, sometimes brutal, but always fascinating. So on Pollock's birfday, as my four year old would say, become the painter for a while. Check it out at http://www.jacksonpollock.org/ Double click your mouse to change colors. Drag your mouse like a paintbrush. Enjoy!

Personal note: Not my best...but crunched in a day Postcards from the Mirror: Cecelia Woloch’s Narcissus “I doubt/ I am aware” is etched into the WC mirror in Café Les Philosophes, and it isn’t hard to imagine the speaker of Cecelia Woloch’s Narcissus edging away from the mirror, wondering who am I? How did I arrive? Woloch’s elegy to worn-out love echoes with doubt, and eventually hope, and is haunted by desire, “We were husband and wife in that house because that's what we'd been pronounced,” she states in “Postcard to Kim from The Cafe Les Philosophes,” as if by addressing her failing love is the way back to love, a journey fraught with danger, both physical and romantic. While walking with a spouse/lover along the Lethe he “plucked from the grass/ a single flower by its throat/ to shut me up.…” presumably the same lover who in “Postcard to Kim” “was angry and swinging a bat. He was maybe drunk. It was maybe my fault.” The striking image of the small flower, perhaps a Nar...

(Shoulder shrug) Can't exactly say I didn't see it coming. When doom and gloom loom 'round the corner...cut the arts. Worcester County is shaving money off the music budget for the next two years, at least. Accomac County is looking to cut 66 jobs, which means arts positions, if left vacant, will not be filled. And that's just for the 09-10 school year. Deeper cuts are always a possibility. But what remains is a will to power. Fund-raise , beg, borrow, steal, and think outside box. A DIY approach to school arts programs. Already the theatre departments of Northampton, Nandua , Arcadia, Broadwater Academy, and Pocomoke High Schools in Maryland are combining forces to produce a show at a neutral site, North Street Playhouse . While the show will not bring in hundreds of dollars, each school stands to make a nice chunk of change to pay for royalties for spring shows.

http://public.coe.edu/coereview/coereview/backissues/cr_33.pdf#Page=49 “Diagram of a Walking Poem” http://www.deadmule.com/poetry/2007/07/s-scott-whitaker-poetry/ “To the Loggerhead” “Put to good use” “Tobacco Tax” http://www.depoetry.com/poets/200706/whitakerscott.html “On Summer Nights When” “Put to Good Use” “The Cartographer’s Mistake” “Umpire School” http://cutbankpoetry.blogspot.com/2007/10/blame-everything-on-love-on-beekeepers.html Review: “Blame Everything on Love” http://www.friggmagazine.com/volumeonearchive/archivedirectory.htm http://www.friggmagazine.com/volumeonearchive/jean.htm http://www.friggmagazine.com/volumeonearchive/ophelia.htm http://www.friggmagazine.com/volumeonearchive/suchaday.htm “Jean” “Dear Ophelia” “Such a Day is This” http://www.sundress.net/stirring/archives/v2/e8/whitakers.htm “Disembodied” http://www.havescripts.com/Book_Wildeness_Review_Broadkill.html Review: “Got Story?” http://www.capegazette.com/storiescurrent/200712/miltonpoetry120707.html About...

This past weekend began with a nice mellow Friday, the end of HSA testing, and then, gasp, a Pushcart Nomination for Fiction , which is pretty cool, all on top of the final hours of GWB presidency (do I dare say presidency?) I started this blog to both give myself an easy publishing outlet, as well as store a bunch of ephemra I am drawn to, and in the spring this blog will backup my professional arts and humanties blog with Delmarva Quarterly. Back on election night I wrote something for our president elect. A hopeful little thing...I've revised it some. And just for fun I'm posting my jab at GWB...I couldn't just make fun of his incompetence, I had to nail him for having no love in his wee heart. 11/5/08 CNN PROJECTS OBAMA FOR PRESIDENT- 11:00 PM Because Obama has won today one must force change which translates into: cut out junk food, car pool, save, avoid the drive through, invest wisely, volunteer, turn off the TV, read more poetry, read more books. Tell jokes. If your...

Not that I'd win. Really. The competition is ...tough (cough, adjust shirt and tie). But to be nominated is like humbling.

Today I learned that I was nominated for a 2008 Pushcart Prize for fiction. Stunned. Thanks to Jamie Brown and the Broadkill Review for nominating my story "Of Rust and Wreckage." Will keep you aprised of any further news. Thanks all!

It's a bustle And so cold your lips turn to glass when the air meets them Like kissing a frozen pond and your lungs pause and hitch and only the birds know what you are feeling

And of course I've lost my notes. Alas. I am late to the party, again. Early December rang in the holiday season, for poetry lovers in Delmarva, with a rousing start to the 10th annual John Milton Poetry Festival. Following an interesting panel discussion of publishing poetry with Schyullkill Review's Peter Krok, Broadkill Review's Jamie Brown (organizer of the event), Delmarva Quarterly's Dennis Forney, Delaware Poetry Review's Michael Blaine, Beltway Poetry Quarterly's Kim Roberts, and Bay Oak Publishing's HA Maxson, was a three hour poetry reading featuring the best of the region. Only one picture survived and I'm not even sure who she is...did I mention I lost my notes? A fabulous time in the great redbrick Milton theatre.