Sea of Love, a thriller from 1989, is not your typical police drama. Yeah, there’s the career cop drinking too much (Al Pacino) and the sexy woman who becomes a suspect (Ellen Barkin), and the cop’s buddy who offers comic relief (John Goodman). But the killer finds victims through poetic ditties in the newspaper personal ads. Continue reading “Come With Me, My Love”
Category: Musings
Musings on poetry and such
The Shock-Receiving Capacity
Virginia Woolf wrote that it was her “shock-receiving capacity” that made her a writer. I think writers, particularly poets, have a perpetual déjà vu, remembering bits and pieces of experiences, usually nondescript, that harbor images that repeatedly cry out to be cast upon paper. Continue reading “The Shock-Receiving Capacity”
Barbaric Yawp
A teacher friend of mine loves Walt Whitman’s work just like I do. She and her students regularly sound their “barbaric yawp” around the classroom and hallways. Unfortunately, as is the case in many schools, the administration does not appreciate nor understand poetic expression. She recently received this email from her principal: Continue reading “Barbaric Yawp”
Gangy’s Drugstore Calendar
My grandmother (Gangy) kept a diary most years on a drugstore calendar. In the date blocks she wrote the high and low temperatures. On the back of each page, she wrote a brief entry for the highlight of most days. Most of the comments are about people who came to see her and how long they stayed, food she canned, weather observations.
This is where poetry lives: Continue reading “Gangy’s Drugstore Calendar”
The Writing on the Wall
Once I was walking around Boston and stopped at a brick building that had some chalked words written on it. The words were “The Writing.” I kept walking and then I got it. I laughed out loud. What is the writing on your wall? Continue reading “The Writing on the Wall”
Singing as the Farm was Home
Another display we’ll have in the museum, besides Marginalia, Doors, and Poet Products, is an interactive one where people can record themselves saying a poem. I just bought 100 blank cassettes off of ebay for this purpose. My other tools are an outdated cassette player gangked from some school in my past and an old karaoke machine that has a cassette player on it (I don’t have one of these yet). Continue reading “Singing as the Farm was Home”
Rural Oklahoma Museum of Poetry 