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Alan W. Powers

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in Springfield, MA, The United States

Educated at Amherst College and the University of Minnesota, plus post-docs at Princeton, Brown, Harvard, Cornell, the Folger Library, Breadloaf, Villa Vergilliana (Cuma, Italy) and the American Academy, Rome. Taught and published on 17C English and Comparative Literature and History, especially Shakespeare and Giordano Bruno. Wrote two books of verse. Appeared in two poetry films, Keats and his Nightingale, and A Loaded Gun. Composed several song settings to Yeats and Dylan Thomas, and jazz heads largely based on birds like Wood Thrush, Oriole, and the European Blackbird. See Google profile for NYT publications and www.zoomusicology.com. Mentors include Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, Leonard Unger, Jean D'Amato Thomas, Thomas M Greene, Annabel Educated at Amherst College and the University of Minnesota, plus post-docs at Princeton, Brown, Harvard, Cornell, the Folger Library, Breadloaf, Villa Vergilliana (Cuma, Italy) and the American Academy, Rome. Taught and published on 17C English and Comparative Literature and History, especially Shakespeare and Giordano Bruno. Wrote two books of verse. Appeared in two poetry films, Keats and his Nightingale, and A Loaded Gun. Composed several song settings to Yeats and Dylan Thomas, and jazz heads largely based on birds like Wood Thrush, Oriole, and the European Blackbird. See Google profile for NYT publications and www.zoomusicology.com. Mentors include Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, Leonard Unger, Jean D'Amato Thomas, Thomas M Greene, Annabel Patterson, Marjorie Garber, Sander Gilman, Tony Molho, LL Lipking, G. Armour Craig, Richard Cody and Theodore Baird. ...more

Alan W. Powers No such thing for an author primarily of non-fiction and translations of plays and poems. Always more to do. If I had writers block, I'd take the hint…moreNo such thing for an author primarily of non-fiction and translations of plays and poems. Always more to do. If I had writers block, I'd take the hint and not write for a bit.(less)

Bernard Shaw's only Irish Play

Complete Plays with Prefaces, Vol 2 Complete Plays with Prefaces, Vol 2 by George Bernard Shaw

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Bernard Shaw, "John Bull’s Other Island"

Like "Pygmalion," much about accent, here an Irish one from a Glaswegian drunk. Rather, "Pygmalion" much like this play, which was a decade earlier. My delight to discover many personal links, like "praaps" for perhaps, and “bigor,” used by my Maine forbears from 18C Nova SRead more of this blog post »

The Complete Poems

Alan is currently reading

Alan Alan said: "A Marvell is a marvell. I spent several years of my life on this book, and of course his delightful prose satires mostly of clerics, such as his Rehearsal Transpros'd, and I have never regretted a minute of it. The book I wrote on him, This Critical A Marvell is a marvell. I spent several years of my life on this book, and of course his delightful prose satires mostly of clerics, such as his Rehearsal Transpros'd, and I have never regretted a minute of it. The book I wrote on him, This Critical Age: Deliberate Departures from Literary Conventions in Seventeenth Century English Poetry, was published by the U MI doctorate mill. It's been in one German library, at the University where Pope Benedict XVI once taught and administered. I cannot claim he ordered it, but...Just last year, 35 years later in 2017, another German library, Frein Universitadt Berlin, added it.

Directing my thesis was the delightful Leonard Unger (U MN), who with his friend Saul Bellow once composed, over lunch, a translation of the first four lines of Eliot's Wasteland--into Yiddish. Leonard had an expansive mind, and broadened my studies of Marvell into comparative European literature-- since Marvell tutored languages to Lord General Fairfax's daughter. They lived near Hull at Appleton House, after Fairfax retired as head of Cromwell's army at age 33, because of his refusal to participate in the trial of Charles I; when Fairfax's name was read in Westminster Hall, a voice called out, "He has too much sense to be here." This caused a mini-riot; it was his wife's voice, Anne Vere's. The following day, someone tried the same thing, and was branded.

In his "Garden," Marvell writes perhaps the best lines in all lit on the human mind, especially in the midst of nature, "The Mind, that Ocean where each kind/ Does streight its own resemblance find,/ Yet it creates, transcending these,/ Far other Worlds, and other Seas,/ Annihilating all that's made/ To a green Thought, in a green Shade." His environmentalist lines in the same poem criticize Fond lovers' carving names in trees. "Fair trees! where s'eer your barkes I wound/ No names shall but your own be found." He puts this into practice in his Latin version of the same poem, "Hortus." He says he will carve "nullla Naera, or Chloe, but Plane tree and Elm, Plantanus ...Ulmus.
Marvell had a marvelous ear, so that even in his funny prose satirizing the bishops (whom, like Milton, he generally opposed) he writes with amusing alliteration, on Archbishop Parker's sexual peccadilloes, "The sympathy of silk brought tippet to petticoat, and petticoat to tippet."

Here's Marvell's translation from Seneca's Thyestes, the chorus just before Thyestes enters from exile:

Climb at Court for me that will
Tottering favors Pinacle;
All I seek is to lie still.
Settled in some secret Nest
In calm Leisure let me rest.
And far off the publick Stage
Pass away my silent Age.
Thus when without noise, unknown
I have liv'd out all my span,
I shall die, without a groan,
An old honest Country man.
Who expos'd to others Ey's,
Into his own Heart ne'r pry's,
Death to him's a Strange surprise.

My study emphasizes that all of Marvell's poems are criticism of other poems, in verse. Many of them critique the pastoral convention then so prevalent, like "Picture of Little T.C. in a Prospect of Flowers," and "The Garden." His most famous poem, "To his Coy Mistress," unprecedented and unreiterated in his canon, critiques Carpe Diem poems*, including many sonnets. (Shakespeare's "My Mistress' Eyes" also critiques sonnet conventions, as do a a few of Sidney's sonnets.) In fact, English poets until Dryden usually included criticism of other poems--Donne, Jonson, Herbert, Herrick, Carew, Suckling, Cleveland. After Dryden, criticism became a prose landscape. Too bad. With this loss, poetry became famously non-analytical. But why? Many Renaissance poems discourse on natural philosophy, what we call "science." Cowley in English, Giordano Bruno in Latin. (My last two books are on G Bruno.)

* So few love & sex poems in his opus, possibly for clear reason, if he was a eunuch: he has a Latin poem On a poet, a eunuch.

...more"

Is Birdsong Music...

Alan is currently reading

Alan Alan said: "Hollis Taylor writes well, fully evokes her first hearing a Pied Butcherbird song. She starts at Wogarno Station, W. Australia, April, 2001: "Drought has set its oven on slow bake...Round a bend, a nonsensical white pile on the left vies for our atte Hollis Taylor writes well, fully evokes her first hearing a Pied Butcherbird song. She starts at Wogarno Station, W. Australia, April, 2001: "Drought has set its oven on slow bake...Round a bend, a nonsensical white pile on the left vies for our attention: 'bone dry' made manifest in the stacked remains of starving sheep, shot during the last drought." "I hear a leisurely, rich-toned phrase. a jazz flutist in a tree. An explosion of sound in another tree answers--a long, bold rattle descends sharply and swiftly, and a duet ensues--no, a trio. Twenty otherworldly seconds pass: low, slow, and enticingly familiar. I had no idea birds sang in trios.
"'It's the pied butcherbird,' Eva explains to me later. "They get their name from snatching other birds babies right out of the nest. Then they'll wedge their prey into the fork of a tree or skewer it on a broken branch. And they attack peoples' eyes so some folk wear hats with eyes drawn on the back to confuse the birds" (1-2).
I have recently grown analytic of types of birdtalk, especially "subsong" which I have only heard Robins do near their nest, outside my window. Taylor sums up several types of birdtalk: dawn chorus, mate/territory, mobbing and subsong (which really intrigues me, but maybe better "heard" with microphone than my ears needing to be 4' away, or near an open window, nest outside...(173).

This is a learned work, built on her Ph.D., but filled with spicy, unexpected details. Say, most birds learn most songs in their first year, though some are "open-ended learners." And they do not produce their songs as soon as they learn them: Swamp Sparrows, for instance, rehearse the songs they learned 240 days AFTER they last heard the training song (24, cites Peter Marler). Aboriginals add interest, where Pied Butcherbirds are totemic ancestors of individuals. In Luritja, our bird is called "kurbaru," which HT suggests could imitate a common kurbaru three-note phrase (400). The Alyawarr language group sees these birds as mockers, 'You are hopeless, you won't get any game'" whereas the Anmatyerr group sees Pied Butcherbirds as sounding memorials, specific names of the dead"(39).
Delightful anecdotes abound, such as the "Christian bird" who was banned to a "soak" from a church he went to every Sunday, probably to hear the choir, and possibly the "pump-style harmonium" which indeed my marriage at a small stone church on Star Island, off Portsmouth NH, featured. (Dan Hathaway, choir director at Harvard and at Star, played my own composition among others; his irony, "What a day for you--marriage, and Opus 1!") In Australia, the "Christian bird" had made such vocal interruptions that the preacher--whose voice could not have competed--had him banned. John Strehlow says this has to be the only bird ever banned for going to church (41).

HT kindly includes my Birdtalk in her bibliography, as she has earlier included me on her website, www.zoomusicology.com. And she quotes me as a retrograde bird-notator (my favorite is Schuyler Matthews, 1911, who notates birdsong and even compares the Song Sparrow to Verdi's La Donna é mobile), a Butcherbird sample, "first, it's mostly a diminished chord, all minor thirds except a final full step"(75). I personally know another of her sources, Jeff Titon, who was in grad school at Minnesota when I was, in American lit (a whole dif enterprise from Renaissance English); Jeff played the blues guitar, with major artists coming to the Twin Cities, his Ph.D. in ethnomusicology.
Though I have heard a full CD of HT's Pied Butcherbird recordings, I haven't yet looked up the online book Audio --never knew the Pied Butcherbird did ostinato to Shrike Thrush. Second Fiddle! Takes an excellent musician not to stand out front.
As for Is it Music...hmmm. I remain in the corner that most of it is bird Talk, Conversation: so, their conversation is much better than ours. If some of it is NOT conversation, but in fact music composition, they are natural musicians, so again, better than we are. Either way, we pale in comparison.

...more"

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Alan made a comment onhis reviewofRabbit at Rest (Rabbit Angstrom, #4) Rabbit at Rest by John Updike "George wrote: "Nice review. Yes, such a memorable book, mores o than the other three Rabbit novels. Bellow’s wit is hard to beat. I loved Herzog (5 st _George wrote: "Nice review. Yes, such a memorable book, mores o than the other three Rabbit novels. Bellow’s wit is hard to beat. I loved Herzog (5 stars), Mr Humboldt’s Gift and Angie March. I am still to read M..."_Mr Sammler will change yr idea of bus rides forever. ...more"
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Alan made a comment onhis reviewofThe Distinguished Guest The Distinguished Guest by Sue Miller "David Sidwell, Thanks for liking. I've a great friend, Maggi Peirce, who's from N of Belfast: she a famous story-teller, now 92. David Sidwell, Thanks for liking. I've a great friend, Maggi Peirce, who's from N of Belfast: she a famous story-teller, now 92. ...more"
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**Alan**rated a book it was amazing Omeros by Derek Walcott Omeros by Derek Walcott Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars2 of 5 stars3 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars5 of 5 stars
I read this when it came out, and was startled by its ductile grandeur and directness. I aloudread it to various students, in classes, and in large gatherings, for several years. It is simply the best re-working of the Odyssey since Joyce's Ulysses. I read this when it came out, and was startled by its ductile grandeur and directness. I aloudread it to various students, in classes, and in large gatherings, for several years. It is simply the best re-working of the Odyssey since Joyce's Ulysses. And of course, Walcott has the daring of poetry; Joyce collapsed into prose.A decade ago I had maybe fifty lines by heart, in short passages, simply because I had aloudread it enough to remember them. The only one that stays with me in my decline is the one I tried--and failed--to say to the author when he was signing books at a community college convention in Portsmouth, NH (I think). Waiting in a long line, I brought my copy from home to him, and tried to say the very last line, "The moon shone like a slice of raw onion." But my voice failed me, only the second time in my life: the first was in third grade, in a Christmas pageant, where I had trouble reading the Luke story in front of an audience. By the way, Walcott's multi-linguality does not really come through in the poem, and maybe it shouldn't; but here is a man for whom English may be the second or third language he learned as a child, after Creole and perhaps French. I think he may have read some Homer in Greek as well. ...more
Sep 02, 2024 12:52PM · 22 likes · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview ofOmeros by Derek Walcott. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Omeros by Derek Walcott
**Alan**rated a book it was amazing The Complete Poems 1927-1979 by Elizabeth Bishop The Complete Poems 1927-1979 by Elizabeth Bishop Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars2 of 5 stars3 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars5 of 5 stars
I cannot be objective: Bishop was a friend since HS, throughout the Vassar College years and beyond, of my mentor and patron Rhoda Sheehan; in fact, Bishop rented Rhoda's "Hurricane House" that floated over Westport Harbor in the '38 hurricane. That' I cannot be objective: Bishop was a friend since HS, throughout the Vassar College years and beyond, of my mentor and patron Rhoda Sheehan; in fact, Bishop rented Rhoda's "Hurricane House" that floated over Westport Harbor in the '38 hurricane. That's where I met her once, individually, and asked her about prosody. I never realized until I read a Bishop biography, maybe Remembering Elizabeth Bishop, how much effort Rhoda must have put into getting Bishop to talk to me. She dreaded students, even when she was fairly remunerated out at U WA when she took over a year or two for Roethke. Fairly remunerated she was not by my humble Bristol Community College, where she gave readings three years in a row in the late 70s, when she'd come back from Brazil--and when her longtime Brazilian friend committed suicide. One of those "readings" she played and discussed sambas--how everyone in Brazil wrote them, the janitor, the poet laureate. She played a few on an old 78 phonograph, to an audience of perhaps 25, while our community college students on break from class were in the next "room" (divided by a supposed wall, movable) playing rock on 6' speakers by their pool table. I recall thinking at the time: One major trouble with modern life is that the wrong people (and interests) have the best megaphones and speakers. Since Rhoda was her friend, Bishop came to talk for a Department outlay of 100,toolowforadministratorstocareabouttheevent.AdecadeearlierwehadhadGinsbergandevenWHAuden(thenpricedat100, too low for administrators to care about the event. A decade earlier we had had Ginsberg and even WH Auden (then priced at 100,toolowforadministratorstocareabouttheevent.AdecadeearlierwehadhadGinsbergandevenWHAuden(thenpricedat3500) to read. By the late 80s, no adminstrator knew the distinguished history of our poetry readings, and when they came up with $1500 inflated dollars to invite a Pawtucket poet (with some name, yes), they bragged about "our first prominent poetry reading." We had also, in the 80s, had Marge Piercy from the Cape, and I would invite several including Alan Dugan. I think Bishop is the Dickinson of my lifetime: low, under the radar of fame and celebration until quite late in her life, though always known to the best editors and people like Roethke. Bishop tinkered with her great vilanelle "One Art" for years at Rhoda Sheehan's Hurricane House--perhaps the central achievement of Westport in verse, though we have housed in summers distinguished profs and critics galore, including from the New Yorker and the NYT. Bishop's colloquialism is deceptive, appearing casual but in fact finely honed. Still, I do not find her poems easy to remember and recite, except "One Art." "The art of losing isn't hard to master..."But as with any great poet, there are lines throughout that pop out when re-read. Last night we had tremendous thunder storms in the wake of the devastating tornadoes a couple weeks ago in Oklahoma.Bishop has it, "Personal and spiteful as a neighbor's child,/ thunder began to bang and bump the roof" (Eectrical Storm). Well, I did not know enough to learn much from her when I met her, though I learned lots every time she read at my college, but I can boast this: I cleaned a fish--a Bluefish-- for the author of The Fish, for her and her friends including Alice Methfessel from California. ...more
May 24, 2024 07:29AM · 64 likes · like · see review
**Alan**rated a book it was amazing Candelaio by Alan W. Powers Candelaio: A New Stage Translation by Alan W. Powers (Goodreads Author) Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars2 of 5 stars3 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars5 of 5 stars
For a video of two scenes from Bridewell Theatre, London (2014) see Alan W Powers's profile here.In one scene, III.12, the Latin teacher, Manny, refuses to call out "Robber!" because, "Robbery is an assault accompanied by larceny-- from Old French 'r For a video of two scenes from Bridewell Theatre, London (2014) see Alan W Powers's profile here.In one scene, III.12, the Latin teacher, Manny, refuses to call out "Robber!" because, "Robbery is an assault accompanied by larceny-- from Old French 'rober.' 'Surreptor,' on the other hand, implies deceit or snare, as he has done to me." His friend, "Now, see how you've advanced in your studies so you can't communicate with the common man"(54). I translated Bruno's one play in Carrara, parked on the oily marble sidewalks because my computer then couldn't use 220 European current, and in London. Its first performance was directed by Philippa Waller and Tom Bruno-Magdich, at the Bridewell Theatre, 4 April '14. The Bridewell is near the spot where Bruno lived, at the French ambassador's house, in the 1580s. It will surprise many, even italianists who think of Bruno as a philosopher and dour martyr. No, he can be hilarious, and racy. This play features a bisexual, a would-be pederast Latin teacher, and a workaholic scientist who neglects his wife. There's also street bums who dress up in security uniforms in order to steal. And there's a "bed-trick" as in Shakespeare's MFM and AWEW, but fifteen year earlier. I've said Bruno's is the Best First Play ever written--hands down better than Titus Andronicus, despite fancy films etc. Yes, it's long, needs cutting for zippy modern stage performance. I cut all but two of the prologs. But those prologs could be called post-modern, as can various other Brechtian distancing effects, which are effectively metadramatic. What could be more metadramatic than a character's feeling that he is in a play, and his interlocutor asking, "At what point in the play would you prefer to be?" The end, the end--he volunteers. And presto, Candelaio ends: out comes the Plaudite sign. A prominent international scholar-critic, skeptical of Bruno because of his new book on Galileo, recently praised my translation of the play: "It's lots of fun (and other stuff) and was certainly new to me. I especially enjoyed the sense of how much you share with Bruno: so much energy, wit, learning, boldness (chutzpah)--and neither of you seems afraid of being outrageous or over the top or silly." Reading over my "Candelaio," five years later, I found a perfect description of US Pres. Trumpster. A servant, Ascanio says of his boss, Bony / Bonifacio, "Who doesn't know more than he does tends to value more or less what he does" (V.xxiv, p.125). In original, "Chi non sa e conosce piú né men che lui, e chi non vale piú né men che lui."(Einaudi 1964, p.161) When Bart and Consalvo are bound together on the ground, and later when Bony is being marched off to the Vicaria prison, St Leonard is invoked, patron of prisoners and captives. Bruno discusses the prominence of bordellos near Santa Maria del Carmine, Naples, and in Rome the Pope's locking sex workers up to enable taxation and keep honest women from corruption, while Venice with its wealth treated them best-- Venetian prostitutes not even taxed (V.xviii, p.107). Bruno writes hilarious, almost proverbial vulgarities, like the teen Ascanio telling Bernie about the god Momus's asking Mercury, "Perché la potta non ha bottoni?" Mercury answers, "Perché il cazzo non ha le unghie per spuntarlo"(V.xix, p. 113). For my racy version, check out the book. In the penultimate scene, Latin-teacher Manny is given the choice of his own school punishments, ratten on his hand, or slaps on his bottom, but finally gives up his briefcase of money. Earlier Bernie, says the Rolling Stones line, "I can't get no satisfaction" from Bony's impersonation, though he drops his charges after convincing Bony to defer to his wife and himself (V.22, p.119). Royal Danish Library lists it (worldcat), as does the British Library, the Renaissance Center (U Mass) which does not loan, and maybe ten others including Amherst College, Bristol Community College, and local libraries like Snow (Orleans, MA), Rogers (Bristol, RI) and South Kingston, RI. Some foreign libraries have added it, like Liceo Aristofane, Rome, and Catholic Private University, Linz, Austria, as well as many teachers of Italian (librarything). Foyles Bookstore, London, includes it. My former Prof Lawence Lipking said in a letter, "It's lots of fun (and other stuff) and was certainly new to mw....This is much better than Galileo's (unfinished) play. At times it reminds me of Ben Jonson." ...more
Apr 21, 2024 06:00AM · 23 likes · like · see review
**Alan**rated a book it was amazing Collected Poems by Dylan Thomas Collected Poems by Dylan Thomas Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars2 of 5 stars3 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars5 of 5 stars
Where I began writing, during a fine undergrad English major. "Days of daisies, swaying lazily,/ Light and easy, breeze-blown days" and"Love-burst firth, froth on the sluicing sea/ Foams on the rolling, beating surf..." The first I submitted to enter Where I began writing, during a fine undergrad English major. "Days of daisies, swaying lazily,/ Light and easy, breeze-blown days" and"Love-burst firth, froth on the sluicing sea/ Foams on the rolling, beating surf..." The first I submitted to enter a poetry writing class, and I was admitted--by Archibald MacLeish. Later, in grad school at Minnesota, I set Dylan Thomas's "Death Shall Have No Dominion" to music*,SATB, organ, fleugel horn, cello and trombone. (It's on google+, linked to "Blues for AJ Take One" on Youtube.) I memorized a half hour of DT,not that easy, for Fern Hill has half lines where the mind can skip forward to a similar half-line.Later still we toured Wales four times, and stopped in Laugharne at a B&B which was previously a bar where the poet hung out. I was shocked to see Fern Hill the farm in town, on a knoll a hundred yards above the old square. I volunteered to recite some DT at his cottage, now a teahouse. For some tea. No go, "But you can recite some of his poems." I,"No, like Dylan Thomas, I only recite when remunerated--if only by tea."*May 5, New Bedford Unitarian Chuch, 11 A.M service, I'm having my setting performed honoring my wife who passed away recently. She played cello when 1st performed 40 years ago at Fall river Unitarian Church. ...more
Mar 28, 2024 07:18AM · 14 likes · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview ofCollected Poems by Dylan Thomas. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Collected Poems by Dylan Thomas

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“Good teachers get fired; great teachers, killed--Socrates, Christ, and Giordano Bruno.”
― Alan W. Powers

“I practice Dying--every night--
But have not learned to, still--
Though Talented--by Mortal bones--
For such a common Skill.”
― Alan W. Powers

“from "After the Fall"

When Kennedy dropped from the sky
To honor the poet Frost, ...
So MacLeish spoke.."Not
To mention Robert Frost. For Frost,
Of course, is another matter, as he
Always was, spoke to the throng an the one
Hatless in October, but days before
Dallas and November.”
― Alan W. Powers, Westport Soundings

Topics Mentioning This Author

“Good teachers get fired; great teachers, killed--Socrates, Christ, and Giordano Bruno.”
― Alan W. Powers

“I practice Dying--every night--
But have not learned to, still--
Though Talented--by Mortal bones--
For such a common Skill.”
― Alan W. Powers

“Trovo la televisione molto educativa. Ogni volta che qualcuno la accende, vado in biblioteca e leggo un buon libro.”
― Groucho Marx

“Give me a kiss, and to that kiss a score; then to that twenty, add a hundred more; a thousand to that hundred: so kiss on, to make that thousand up a million. treble that million, and when that is done, let's kiss afresh, as when we first begun!”
― Robert Herrick

“The ear is the only true writer and the only true reader. I know people who read without hearing the sentence sounds and they were the fastest readers. Eye readers we call them. They get the meaning by glances. But they are bad readers because they miss the best part of what a good writer puts into his work.”
― Robert Frost

546114 Freedom and Liberty — 67 members — last activity Jun 15, 2020 05:05AM
Welcome one, welcome all. I hereby invite you to Freedom and Liberty a group that remains free and lets true patriots (to their nation) join with mora Welcome one, welcome all. I hereby invite you to Freedom and Liberty a group that remains free and lets true patriots (to their nation) join with morality. Let's discuss our beliefs with minor conflict and our stance with opinions. Standing strong and upholding integrity, we never revise our rights nor let them be infringed upon. ...more

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No pretensions: just poetry. Stop by, recommend books, offer up poems (excerpted), tempt us, taunt us, tell us what to read and where to go (to read No pretensions: just poetry. Stop by, recommend books, offer up poems (excerpted), tempt us, taunt us, tell us what to read and where to go (to read it!) Goodreads honors wordsmiths: poets and poetry promoted and prompted here. ~~~ "Poetry is the synthesis of hyacinths and biscuits." -- Carl Sandburg “God has a brown voice, as soft and full as beer.” —Anne Sexton On Clouds – “…what primitive tastes the ancients must have had if their poets were inspired by those absurd, untidy clumps of mist, idiotically jostling one another about…” —Yevgeny Zamyatin “If the poet wants to be a poet, the poet must force the poet to revise. If the poet doesn’t wish to revise, let the poet abandon poetry and take up stamp-collecting or real estate.” —Donald Hall “Poetry is a rich, full-bodied whistle, cracked ice crunching in pails, the night that numbs the leaf, the duel of two nightingales, the sweet pea that has run wild, Creation’s tears in shoulder blades.” —Boris Pasternak “Wanted: a needle swift enough to sew this poem into a blanket.” —Charles Simic “Language is a cracked kettle on which we beat out tunes for bears to dance to, while all the time we long to move the stars to pity.” —Gustave Flaubert “Poetry is not an expression of the party line. It’s that time of night, lying in bed, thinking what you really think, making the private world public, that’s what the poet does.” —Allen Ginsberg. ~~~~~ Amy King, Moderator Amy King is the recipient of the 2015 Winner of the WNBA Award (Women’s National Book Association). Her latest collection, The Missing Museum, is a winner of the 2015 Tarpaulin Sky Book Prize. She serves on the executive board of VIDA: Women in Literary Arts and is co-editing with Heidi Lynn Staples the anthology, Big Energy Poets of the Anthropocene: When Ecopoets Think Climate Change. She is also co-editing the anthology, Bettering American Poetry 2015, and is an Associate Professor of Creative Writing at SUNY Nassau Community College. ...more

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Create polls and have people in the group vote on them! Only join this group if you don't mind getting an occasional poll invite. Each individual shou Create polls and have people in the group vote on them! Only join this group if you don't mind getting an occasional poll invite. Each individual shouldn't create more than three polls in one day, just so spam is avoided. Also please keep in mind that making a thread instead of a poll may be a more fitting choice. Lastly, we prefer that people do not invite people to their polls very frequently...if people would like to participate in polls they can just go to the group's page on their own;) Enjoy, and happy reading ;) Spam of any kind isn't tolerated. It'll be deleted immediately and the user blocked from the group. Members, please PM one of the moderators if we accidentally overlook any spam or other matters needing attention. ...more

97141 The Underrated Authors Project 2013 — 141 members — last activity May 04, 2020 09:50PM
Now, I am not sure if this has been done before, so I apologise if this already exists (I'd be surprised if it hasn't). I wanted to make a group dedic Now, I am not sure if this has been done before, so I apologise if this already exists (I'd be surprised if it hasn't). I wanted to make a group dedicated to collecting, sharing and discussing some of the most underrated authors of 2013. Authors that have just started out, who have perhaps only published on their blogs so far and have a book coming out this year. I want us to help get the word out. I am also doing this with kind of selfish reasons. We have set up a book club on our website and we'll be writing reviews on the latest books. I want to get some new names out there and this seems to be a fab way of finding some. I have included a link to the book club to show you where I mean. Any genres are welcome on here, although I will probably have to avoid fantasy (even though I love it so) for the blog and definitely avoid erotica. Link to The London Magazine Bookclub http://thelondonmagazine.org/tlm-book-club/ ...more

25x33 Wilderness Reading Group — 25 members — last activity May 09, 2016 08:07AM
We read books related to wildlands or wildlife, all genres, and meet every other month in Bozeman, MT. Our next book is Peter Mattheissen's book on cr We read books related to wildlands or wildlife, all genres, and meet every other month in Bozeman, MT. Our next book is Peter Mattheissen's book on cranes. ...more

25x33 Ask Stef Smulders — 18 members — last activity May 06, 2020 09:28AM
...August 20, 2017 to September 19, 2017... I am a Dutch expat living in Italy since 2008 operating a bed and breakfast. I write about our experiences ...August 20, 2017 to September 19, 2017... I am a Dutch expat living in Italy since 2008 operating a bed and breakfast. I write about our experiences, Italian culture, books, people etc. Happy to discuss about anything Italian! ...more

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