Voices and Visions – William Carlos Williams

An old PBS broadcast about William Carlos Williams, including biography, recordings, and just a bunch of stuff.

Ezra Pound, Modern Poetry Yale Video Lectures

I did say a while back that I’d been throwing in a few poetry lectures and courses…now that school’s started up again…here we go…

The lecture introduces the poetry of Ezra Pound. Tensions in Pound’s personality and career are considered, particularly in terms of his relationships with other poets and his fascism and anti-capitalism. The poem “The Seafarer” is examined as a quintessentially Poundian project in its treatment and translation of poetic forms. The first Canto of his epic project, The Cantos, is analyzed as a meditation on the process of expressing and engaging with history and literary tradition.

Outsourced by Joe Depczynski

Outsourced
by Joe Depczynski

Today I said to sell the car,
yesterday the bike.
Wednesday I told you
we have no money.
The mortgage will go unpaid.
Mom works like a slave,
her eyes have gone dark,
her skin pale,
and I think her soul has been boxed away
like all the Christmas ornaments.
Where is my oldest son?
He left this husk behind.
Where is my youngest son?
Drugs are a powerful thing.
My middle?
Dad, I’m right here. Now put the gun away.

Joe is a student at Southeast Missouri State University. His work can be found on
http://writefromwrong.com/
, an when he isn’t lost in textbooks, he’s thinking about touring the country on a motorcycle.

Poetry Student Workshop at the White House

First Lady Michelle Obama speaks about the importance of poetry and self-expression as she hosts a White House Poetry Student Workshop with students and poets like Rita Dove, Billy Collins, Kenny Goldsmith, Alison Knowles, and Aimee Mann. May 11, 2011.

Last Dance with Mary Jane by Nina Bennett

Last Dance with Mary Jane
by Nina Bennett

Miguel shows me his bag of dope
at every counseling session.
I keep my expression neutral,
refuse to be drawn in when he asks
if it looks like good shit.
We then spend 30 of his 50 minutes
discussing his paranoia. He worries
that he is being ripped off, that his dealer
thinks he is stupid because his English
is poor. I use every maneuver I know
to redirect the session, but each week
we end up gazing at the baggie
he pulls from his backpack.

This week Miguel doesn’t show up,
doesn’t call to cancel, doesn’t answer his phone.
Today I see the article, buried
in the crime section of the newspaper. Shot
in the back, he bled out on the sidewalk,
died alone, three doors from his home.
Outside my window, daffodils bow their heads
as a spring shower cleanses the street.

Nina Bennett is the author of Forgotten Tears A Grandmother’s Journey Through Grief. Her poetry has appeared in numerous journals including Requiem, Tipton Poetry Journal, San Pedro River Review, The Summerset Review, Bryant Literary Review, Yale Journal for Humanities in Medicine, The Broadkill Review, and anthologies such as Spaces Between Us: Poetry, Prose and Art on HIV/AIDS. Nina is a contributing author to the Open to Hope Foundation. www.transcanalwriters.com

Forecasting Hemlines by M.R. Smith

Forecasting Hemlines
by M.R. Smith

Weather will come
in its own fashion. Dark
evening dress, sharp jewelry
meant to kill,
sometimes light and blousy.
Today it is straight-legged
and lined out clean, a casual
bearing trying to portray
confidence and control
of a situation that could
change at the drop
of a barometer.

M.R. Smith lives in Boise, ID and will have work appearing in the fall in The Red River Review.

Resurrection by Nina Bennett

Resurrection
by Nina Bennett

The first Easter after Dad died
I waited for him to come back to life.
I sat at dinner, silence broken
by klink of fork against china,
swish and crackle of ice
as I stirred sugar into my tea.
I tried to ignore the whispered hypocrite,
you don’t believe in the resurrection.

I am responsible for my father’s
death. I’m the one who implored
the ICU doctors to convince my brother
it was time to forgo life-sustaining treatment,
to explain that our father now existed
in a realm we could not access.

First child, oldest daughter,
I’m the one who rested my head
on Dad’s chest, strained to hear
his fading heartbeat, pressed my fingers
against the once-pulsing artery in his neck,
pushed the call button and told the nurse
his final exhale was at 5 p.m.

Nina Bennett is the author of Forgotten Tears A Grandmother’s Journey Through Grief. Her poetry has appeared in numerous journals including Requiem, Tipton Poetry Journal, San Pedro River Review, The Summerset Review, Bryant Literary Review, Yale Journal for Humanities in Medicine, The Broadkill Review, and anthologies such as Spaces Between Us: Poetry, Prose and Art on HIV/AIDS. Nina is a contributing author to the Open to Hope Foundation. www.transcanalwriters.com

Dear Park Ave. by Gary F. Iorio

Dear Park Ave.
by Gary F. Iorio

She bought a dog to have
someone
to walk with. But the dog never walked.
He ran, and stopped, sprinted, circled, peed, barked,
pooped (shat), yawned and slept.
Really! He
never walked with her – at her side, like
she dreamed.

The town was waiting for her
and her dog.
Outside the bakery, there was a water bowl on an aluminum stand.
Inside, the doggie treats were free.

The guy who owned the franchise-sandwich-shop had
pictures of a Boxer-mix taped to the register. But behind the counter
there was always a sleeping Husky
lying close to a wall papered with black and white images of the
Subway station at Stillwell Avenue,
Coney Island!

She chased and shouted as
he knocked over the clean, aluminum stand; pleaded with him as
he refused and barked loudly at the doggie treats that were offered and free.

Once, while she waited for her small “Veggie-Local,” he cleared the counter
and landed on the sleeping Husky.

She’d walked past my window carrying the huge, heavy, happy beast.
We all knew she whispered his name each night, last thing, before
she dreamed.

GARY F. IORIO was raised in Brooklyn and Massapequa, NY; he has an MFA from The University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Mr. Iorio works as a real estate attorney. His fiction, poetry and memoirs have been published in various publications including SAN PEDRO RIVER REVIEW, FICTION AT WORK, THE EAST HAMPTON STAR, THE WISCONSIN REVIEW, THE MISSISSIPPI REVIEW, FRONT&CENTRE MAGAZINE, ECHO INK REVIEW, BLACK WORDS ON WHITE PAPER, CRACK THE SPINE and MUSED.

City Pool by M.R. Smith

City Pool
by M.R. Smith

I exit the city dripping,
sagging like hip-hop pants,
equally useless; my arms
clutched from my risk-on day.

On the train I think
I must be a sight
with my eyes wide and
leaving a trail like a slug.

My night will consist
of vigorous motion,
pacing, tossing, turning;
trying to dry off

before tomorrow when
I must make another
ill-advised steep dive
into the shallow end.

M.R. Smith lives in Boise, ID and will have work appearing in the fall in The Red River Review.

Skin Elasticity by Robert Strickland

Skin Elasticity
by Robert Strickland

I lost my birth somewhere
in all this shit I’ve been doing
for the last fifty-seven years.

Mother called Sunday.
I asked her but she couldn’t
remember. Friends

I gathered around
like goose down
became recluses

who stock pile canned goods
instead of cleaning the carpet
then walk off the edge

of the world.
So why ask them?
I made money

because there’s no money
in poetry then confirmed
there is no poetry in money either

just like Graves said. It’s true
I lost my birth but, strange
as it seems, eyes get
clearer every day
on where death
is hiding.

Robert Strickland is a bassist, composer, singer, multi-instrumentalist, and poet. His family hails from the American Deep South, with originally English and Dutch roots. Splitting his time between Colorado and Florida, he pursues his interest in the intersection of poetry, music, photography, painting and other art forms. His work has appeared, or is scheduled to appear, in The Pale Horse Review, A Handful Of Stones, and Houseboat, where he was recently a featured poet.