March 27, 2008
In Your Absence
American Life in Poetry: Column 157
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
From your school days you may remember A. E. Housman's poem that begins, "Loveliest of trees, the cherry now/ Is hung with bloom along the bough." Here's a look at a blossoming cherry, done 120 years later, on site among the famous cherry trees of Washington, by D.C. poet Judith Harris.
In Your Absence
Not yet summer,
but unseasonable heat
pries open the cherry tree.
It stands there stupefied,
in its sham, pink frills,
dense with early blooming.
Then, as afternoon cools
into more furtive winds,
I look up to see
a blizzard of petals
rushing the sky.
It is only April.
I can't stop my own life
from hurrying by.
The moon, already pacing.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 2007 by Judith Harris, whose most recent collection of poems is The Bad Secret, Louisiana State University Press, 2006. Reprinted by permission of Judith Harris. Introduction copyright (c) 2008 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
Posted by Bill Trippe at 5:10 PM | Comments (0)
March 26, 2008
"And this also," said Marlow suddenly...
... , "has been one of the dark places of the earth."
I am reviewing an eBook device and decided to see what it would like to re-read Heart of Darkness on it. The verdict? I think I am sold on eBook devices, and Conrad is still brilliant.
Posted by Bill Trippe at 11:19 PM | Comments (0)
March 25, 2008
Quirky Signs of Spring
- My clock radio waking me at 6:30 AM to the sounds of a Red Sox baseball game
- Even stranger--being in bumper-to-bumper traffic when the Red Sox tied it in the top of the 9th on Brandon Moss's first-ever major league home run
- Three guys ogling a new driver in the parking lot when I got to the office.
- We just had Easter, which is about as early as you can have it, and I don't see much green yet. I am still waiting for more traditional signs of Spring, like buttercups!
Posted by Bill Trippe at 9:35 AM
March 23, 2008
Pint and Pen
My friend Paul Evenson writes with the happy news that he won second prize in the Pint and Pen writing contest sponsored by Bukowski's tavern in Cambridge. His story, "Vincenco's Mistake," is very clever.
Posted by Bill Trippe at 10:07 AM
William Butler Yeats
It's Easter, and somehow I woke up thinking of Yeats and his poem Easter, 1916. There was a period in my life when Yeats was a cornerstone poet for me. I think, among other things, I was fascinated with how his life and work bridged the Victorian and Modern eras--he lived from the end of the U.S. civil war (1865) to the outbreak of the second World War (1939). But I also was attracted to his melancholy in poems like "The Lake Isle of Innisfree" and "Sailing to Byzantium" (and yes, that opening line of Byzantium, "That is no country for old men" is indeed the source of the title of the book and the movie).
Not surprisingly, the Web is full of terrific Yeats resources. The Wikipedia article is excellent and chock full of citations and outbound links. I also found a voice recording of Yeats reading Innisfree, and you can find a wonderful short video about the genesis of "Byzantium."
Posted by Bill Trippe at 8:31 AM | Comments (1)
March 22, 2008
Fantasy Baseball
So I drafted my fantasy baseball team this morning. It's a traditional rotisserie league team, so the stats are runs, home runs, average, RBIs, and stolen bases for hitters, and innings pitched, wins, saves, strikeouts and WHIP for pitchers. I think I did OK. I ended up with:
- C--Kenji Johjima
- 1B--David Ortiz
- 2B--Plácido Polanco
- 3B--Kevin Youkilis
- SS--Derek Jeter
- OF--Vernon Wells
- OF--Jacoby Ellsbury
- OF--Raúl Ibañez
- Util--Frank Thomas
- Bench--Evan Longoria, Melky Cabrera, Casey Blake, Bengie Molina, Mark DeRosa
- Starting Pitchers--Jake Peavy, Roy Halladay, Dontrelle Willis
- Relief Pitchers--Jonathan Papelbon, Takashi Saito, Todd Jones, George Sherrill
I don't feel like I have enough pitchers. (You never have enough pitching in baseball, right?)
Let the games begin! The Sox open in Japan this coming Wednesday. I hope it's warmer here than it is here, though I believe the games are going to be held indoor.
Posted by Bill Trippe at 5:35 PM
March 21, 2008
Today's News
American Life in Poetry: Column 156
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
We greatly appreciate your newspaper’s use of this column, and today we want to recognize newspaper employees by including a poem from the inside of a newsroom. David Tucker is deputy managing editor of the New Jersey “Star-Ledger” and has been a reporter and editor at the “Toronto Star” and the “Philadelphia Inquirer.” He was on the “Star-Ledger” team that won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for breaking news. Mr. Tucker was awarded a Witter-Bynner fellowship for poetry in 2007 by former U. S. Poet Laureate, Donald Hall.
Today’s News
A slow news day, but I did like the obit about the butcher
who kept the same store for fifty years. People remembered
when his street was sweetly roaring, aproned
with flower stalls and fish stands.
The stock market wandered, spooked by presidential winks,
by micro-winds and the shadows of earnings. News was stationed
around the horizon, ready as summer clouds to thunder--
but it moved off and we covered the committee meeting
at the back of the statehouse, sat around on our desks,
then went home early. The birds were still singing,
the sun just going down. Working these long hours,
you forget how beautiful the early evening can be,
the big houses like ships turning into the night,
their rooms piled high with silence.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. Poem copyright © 2006 by David Tucker. Reprinted from Late for Work by David Tucker, Mariner Books, 2006, by permission of the author. First printed in Montana Journalism Review. Introduction copyright © 2008 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction’s author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
Posted by Bill Trippe at 12:41 PM
March 13, 2008
Oh, The Places You'll Go!
From my high school newspaper, junior year.
Posted by Bill Trippe at 12:44 PM | Comments (3)
March 1, 2008
We Interrupt this Miserable Winter Day to Bring You
A moment of summer bliss, foreshadowed.
Brought to you by the great Joel Meyerowitz and Cape Light.
Posted by Bill Trippe at 5:48 PM
