Monday, April 02, 2012

Over the Starnbergersee / with a shower of rain

Cruel, schmuel. Welcome to April, friends of the Bibliomanse, which is for dozens of reasons a damn fine month. Anakana Schofield's Malarky was officially brought to bookstores yesterday and feted with Guinness shots and soda bread (pictures to follow); we have launches upcoming for Alex Boyd and Mike Barnes, in Windsor, London, Toronto; Claire Tacon undertakes a criss-crossing country tour, arm-in-arm with Jamella Hagen from Nightwood; and, of course, there are the poets. Oh yes. They're coming out of the woodwork, much like Louisiana termites. There will be plenty of poesy-content this month on Thirsty, but for starters, those versifiers looking to whet their quills might check out the site for National Poetry Writing Month. Don't be put off by the abbreviation (how does one scan NaPoWriMo?): this site brings together the 575-plus poets who have committed to writing and blogging a poem a day for 30 days. We here at the Bibliomanse will be doing something similar, in homage of the month in homage of the season. Check back daily for the best and brightest of the Bibliopoets. And since yesterday was (fools notwithstanding!) the true beginning of poetry month, today will be a double feature, beginning with (appropriately enough), a hailing by Norm Sibum. Enjoy, folks. And happy April.

Salvo

Norm Sibum

from The Pangborn Defence (2008)

Quote me, you hosers, the notion that life
Can’t defeat the wise man, the one who’s prepared,
And I’ll respond in the negative and bring
Chaos theory through your doors.
Disparage fortune as a flaky goddess,
Whim of some poet’s capering caprice,
And to the drift that chance tosses at us,
I’ll say, ‘Patience, you’ll get your innings.’
So now rain and thunder. Now the downpour,
And the leaf-heavy branches lift and fall
And hiss, so many sweepings of castanets.
They’re beyond philosophy’s reach :
The roses blooming against the brick.
But it’s as if something in the American mind
Would gut the flowers of their intricate hells
And build camps of detention in the emptiness.


For more from Norm Sibum (on talking poetry with "young people," and many many many other things): Ephemeris.

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