There are many English translations of the original French, but I hadn’t come across an audio version until now. Very well done!
Poetry
Today’s Found Poem:
BOWEL, RUPTURE OF. – A ruptured bowel may be caused by an injury, such as a kick, a fall when the bowels are full of injesta, or by a calculus or stone which has gradually formed, wearing the bowel thin, and so readily torn or slit. Such cases end fatally.
[The Stockowner’s Vetenary Aid, A. H. Archer, pg 20]
Doco Recommendo: T.S. Eliot’s The Wasteland
One On One With Paul Simon Interview
Listen to Paul tell stories of his life as a musician and also his creative process in this hour long interview:
No Country For Old Men – W.B. Yeats Documentary
Interview with Paul Simon’s Biographer
Here’s an audio interview with Robert Hilburn, the author of the new Paul Simon biography called Paul Simon, The Life.
I found it somehow reassuring to find out that Graceland came about after a very low period in Paul’s life, after having made the decision to go it alone, which initially didn’t go well, and led to a lot of self-doubt/depression.
Also, it was interesting to find out that he’s done Ayahuasca, quite a few times, and that, while it wasn’t an addiction, it did become a problem for him, and he had to stop it.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon/audio/2018648729/paul-simon-the-life-robert-hilburn
Poet Voice and Why We Should Stop Worrying About It
Some weeks ago i posted a link to an article about Poet Voice, but came across this one today – an opinion piece about why we should forget about it and just perform our poems the way we do:
http://www.lunalunamagazine.com/blog/why-we-need-to-stop-talking-about-poet-voice-other-institutional-nonsense
Discovering Ron Padgett
Forgive me, but I only came across Mr Padgett today, and thought I’d share the poem I read called “How To Be Perfect”:
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/57243/how-to-be-perfect
AMERICAN TOTEM (poem)
AMERICAN TOTEM
Bill Cosby: guilty.
So dispicable, isn’t it?
The man’s god-like; an icon;
the face of the American
dream-come-nightmare.
The object of hope and grace
is now one of shock and vitriole –
a mirror to everything
we hate about ourselves;
human, all too human?
Like Lucifer, the bringer of light,
his love of God was so deep
that he refused to bow
to the Lord’s lesser creations.
Difference is, he’s been trying,
trying so hard to balance
out the ledger ever since,
knowing he wouldn’t be able to
achieve that from a prison cell.
I mean, do you think Jules Winfield
marched straight from delivering
the case to Marsellus
over to the county sherrif?
And hell, could the purpose of sin even be
to create the kind of debt that motivates
good deeds, like how Germany
takes in all those refugees?
Well, whatever.
One thing we can see
is that the ‘media/lawyer T.V. show’
continues to be the highest rating;
former celebrity appearances include
Hulk Hogan, Bill Clinton, O.J. Simpson,
and the list goes on …
Predictable as it is, we just can’t
get enough of it can we?.
Can’t help but love to hate
that baby-face turned heel.
What Is Metamodernism?
Well, I’ve only just been introduced to the term myself, but after watching this short clip, I can think of examples, for instance, Leonard Cohen’s late poetry in The Book of Longing is an attempt to move away from the bleak irony of earlier work. I think that some of Billy Collins’ Sailing Alone Around The Room could be thought of a metamodernism too.