a blind flaneur

Along comes Edna O’Brien, who’s written a new biography called Byron in Love. I could listen to Edna O’Brien read the phone book. She read snatches of her biography and this legendary poem in an On Point interview with Tom Ashbrook. She convinced me to give Byron another chance.

When you need to hear affirmation, count on Mary Oliver.

Poet Billy Collins had an unsettling experience when he downloaded his latest book of verse on an Amazon Kindle. The e-reader squished his lines to fit the screen.

I found a referring link this morning from the blog of poet David Morley. When I tracked it back I found this distinctive graphic bio on his “About” page. Thanks for the link, David. I’ll keep in touch.

After listening to a BBC interview with Imtiaz Dharker in February, I ordered her latest book. The poet read several poems from Leaving Fingerprints, including “S[ire.” I love how it builds a metaphor for poetry and breath itself. Dharker describes herself as a “cultural mongrel” – “a Scottish Muslim Calvinist, brought up in a Lahori household in Glasgow.” Now she lives in London and Mumbai. In the interview she says that religion is “a misuse of the name of God” and poetry is a moment “when everything else falls away.”

I’ve been thinking about Bill Stafford all day. In my last year of high school I won a poetry contest sponsored by Scholastic magazine. What mattered more than the cash prize and publication of some poems was the knowledge that Bill was one of the judges (along with Donald Hall). A decade later, Stafford came to my town to give a poetry reading in a church basement. Afterward I reminded him of our tenuous connection, and he said graciously, “Yes, I remember that poem.”

The voice of Imtiaz Dharker, lyrical, precise and earthy, came to me between sleep and waking. That’s the liminal state in which I listen to the BBC at three in the morning. The poet was being interviewd on a BBC program called Heart and Soul. Dharker describes herself as a “cultural mongrel” – “a Scottish Muslim Calvinist, brought up in a Lahori household in Glasgow.” Now she lives in London and Mumbai. In the interview she says that religion is “a misuse of the name of God” and poetry is a moment “when everything else falls away” [listen now]. Dharker recites poems from her latest book, Leaving Fingerprints (including “Spire” and xxx) as well as “Blessing” (which has been required reading in U.K. schools for over a decade ).

In an NPR commentary, Andrei Codrescu remembers his friend David Franks, who died recently at age 61. This story stands out for its grand gesture and deaconal justice:
At a reception for the Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges, David asked the aged, blind writer to sign his heart. He opens his shirt, and the amused Borges [...]

I left Toronto’s Pearson International Airport this afternoon in a howling snow squall. The Beechcraft labored loudly as it climbed over Lake Ontario. When it finally broke out of the clouds into dazzling sunlight, I could hear again. On an Open Source podcast with Chris Lydon, I heard poet Rick Benjamin reciting this verse from Rumi.

On the day I called my sister and she said her daughter’s baby died, just two days old, I held a bronze Buddha in my hands. Cast by monks in Thailand, the shopkeeper said, just $400. If you really like it, maybe I can do a little better. Around the corner an art dealer dimmed [...]