Bonnie McClellan-Broussard

The Store (For Matthew): by Bonnie Broussard

The written version of this poem has disappeared. Find a reading and a link to other work by this poet below:

To listen to a reading of this poem, click on the player:

To read or hear more work by Bonnie McClellan-Broussard, click HERE

immagini rubate: by giacomo gusmeroli

La versione scritta di questa poesia è scomparsa. Una versione audio possono essere trovate qui sotto con i link ad altre informazioni sul poeta:

lettura di: Marisa Colognesi

Trovate QUI più informazione sul Giacomo Gusmeroli, incluso il suo nuovo libro Lucore d’acque

The written version of this poem has disappeared. More information about Giacomo Gusmeroli and his work can be found in Italian at the links above. A reading of this poem in English can be found below:

to listen to more poems by Giacomo Gusmeroli on this blog, click HERE.

Tea: by Chris Fillebrown

The written poem has disappeared. It can now be found at Frame of Reference.

An audio version can be found below along with a link to Chris’ website.

To read more work by Chris Fillebrown, click HERE.

On the Wings of Blue Doves: by Liliane Richman

This written version of this poem has disappeared. A reading of the poem can be found below:

Copyright Liliane Richman 2011

To listen to more poems by Liliane Richman, click HERE.

FLORAISON ARBITRAIRE: by Giles-Marie Chenot

Vous pouvez lire ce poésie en français ICI. Écoutez une lecture ci-dessous.

The written version of this poem is available in French at the above link. An audio version of the English translation is available below:

To read more work by GMC in French and English, click HERE.

To find GMC on this blog click HERE.

It’s All Too Much: the ‘Whatfore?’ of Poetry

‘Poetry, poetry, whatfore art thou poetry?’

In the previous post I wrote about the friable nature of digital media; but, often analogue media does not fare much better. Humans are not gentle beasts and the destruction, intentional or unintentional, of libraries, archives and museums is old as Alexandria and recent as Iraq (2003), Weimar (2004), and Egypt (2011).

Some of them do make it; but, is trying to give words wings, making a poetic gesture – like Occupy Wall Street or the Arab Spring – an endeavour that will be obscured in apathy and confusion, or flower into something enduring? Is writing worth it when the world is already full of really good poetry that not many bother to read anyway? Poetry, what for?

In answer I offer a quote from the poet Andrea Scarpino, featured in a recent issue of Blood Orange Review:

“There are millions of reasons not to write: earning an income, a beautiful fall day, that greasy brunch spot. What keeps me moving forward is a commitment to my own voice, my own stories, to sharing with others. A commitment to telling stories that I think need to be told. A commitment to sound and light and the ways in which language shapes our understanding of the world, the things that language can teach us about ourselves. And also, a rebelliousness. A friend once told me, ‘No one will make it easy for you to write.’ So sometimes, I sit down at my desk just to prove that I can. Because committing to my own writing can be such an act of rebellion, of going against the grain, of proving that no matter what the world thinks I should value, I value this.” – Andrea Scarpino

It is this gesture towards real communication, offered in the midst of the flash-flood of information that our culture deluges us with every morning as soon as we open our eyes, that is being offered by the poets who will be presented over the next 29 days. An arbitrary flower in the midst of chaos for you, the reader.

Take it.

Mini-Cowl from Mamma’s handspun yarn

My mother, who you can find over at saramuz, sent me some of her beautiful hand-spun yarn for my birthday. You can see her blog about this yarn and the Hill Country wool market HERE.

I played with it for a few hours, mixing it, doing stockinette stitch and garter stitch until I decided on a mini-cowl based on the one they have attached to the hat in Lynne Barr’s Reversible Knitting.

I knitted it up on #15’s (US) and it made up in about 7 rows of circular stockinette which rolls to show the purl side. I love it! Simple and a nice extra warm something with no dangling ends that have to be kept from falling into the soup (or the dishwater). In our climate where I don’t go out without a coat, it shows above the coat collar, doesn’t come loose or get caught in the zipper. Thanks Mom :)!

Déjà vu: Poetry in Hand

As I mentioned in the previous post, poetry serves as a bridge across time and culture, carrying the author’s ‘voice’ across generations and places but what about the gesture, the language of the body? Will the YouTube video that I posted, or all of those digital photos carefully placed in albums on my hard drive, and on Face Book, last as long as an inscription on a clay tablet? As you read this sentence and I write it we both know that the answer is already, emphatically no. Yet, gesture does seem to have a life of its own…

When my daughter was tiny I noticed that her hands made shapes that I recognized from images of both Byzantine and Hindu art; I called them ‘baby mudras’. Where did these miniature, elegant gestures come from?

Those tiny conical fingers, with their slender tips and chubby bases that, for my husband and I, recalled 10 little Campari Soda bottles, eventually grew longer and more slender. One day, having eaten some toast at the kitchen table, my then two year old began sweeping crumbs along the yellow Formica surface and into the open face of her cupped palm. I recognized the gesture immediately as my mothers and only later caught my own hands in the act. So, from where had my mother received this gesture and just how old was it?

Although it is impossible to know either the source of the ‘baby mudra’ or the genealogy of that peculiar arc of the fingers as they sweep up crumbs, the questions scratched at that vague itch for meaning that seems so basic to being human.

Gestures that gives words wings, gestures that give wings to what cannot be said with words – evoking only questions; then there are the gestures that are meant to express something but somehow end up clanking emptily. Futile, hollow gestures…

Flowers…and more flowers!


portrait of a lady

Jan Joseph van Goyen

Had a great birthday weekend in Milan! The city has so much to offer even if it’s spread out from one neighbourhood to another. After our trip to the Pinacoteca di Brera where I got an eyeful of wonderful paintings. Matthew did most of the girl wrangling so that I could look in peace while she had a tour of fancy chairs with velvet cushions. Some of the most engaging paintings were the smallest; I loved the portraits by an unknown Venetian painter that were over to the side of the door in room 20. Trying to look at a notebook sized painting by Brueghel, I had to keep slipping my glasses up and down to see it, I really felt like an old lady! Next to it was this jewel of a Dutch seascape:

After the museum we stopped for a glass of wine and then went on to see our friend Renato at Mint Market, the beautiful home/beauty/flower store for which Matthew designed the furnishings. Renato was just finishing up with some customers so we ordered aperetivi from the bar down the street (one of the pleasures of the city is that, if they know you, the local bar will deliver cocktails down the street to where you are). While we were waiting, Matthew said, “Did you see that bouquet of white flowers?” pointing to a stunning arrangement of roses, broom, miniature lilies and fresia that was as big as our daughter. As we walked over to admire them he said, “Those are for your birthday.” I felt like an actress who’d just won an Oscar without having done anything to deserve it!

My birthday bouquet from Mint Market

As a testimony to the quality of the flowers at Mint Market, these survived being carried through the very crowded Milanese metro three times, a night in a warm apartment and a 2 hour train ride before I took this picture!
Mint Market’s owner, Renato Baldini, is a truly lovely person. He gave my daughter Robin Kay a splendid bouquet of sunset coloured runculus so that she would feel special too:

Robin’s Runculus and my Cake

Then he let her help carry the flowers in before closing the store. He also gave me this elegant hyacinth so that now the whole house feels like spring right in the midst of winter.