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Happy Passover. Happy Easter. Robert Creeley’s poem “Love”: Tracking through this interminable sadness— like somebody said, change the record.

Happy Passover.

Happy Easter.

Robert Creeley’s poem “Love”:

Tracking through this

interminable sadness—

like somebody said,

change the record.

I saw this typewriter in a bookstore in Lisbon in 2009.   In Lisbon, in 1914, Fernando Pessoa, using the heteronym Alberto Caeiro, wrote (in “The Keeper of Sheep,” translated by Richard Zenith): What we see of things are the things. Why would we see one thing when another thing is there? Why would seeing and hearing be to delude ourselves When seeing and hearing are seeing and hearing?

I saw this typewriter in a bookstore in Lisbon in 2009.  

In Lisbon, in 1914, Fernando Pessoa, using the heteronym Alberto Caeiro, wrote (in “The Keeper of Sheep,” translated by Richard Zenith):

What we see of things are the things.

Why would we see one thing when another thing is there?

Why would seeing and hearing be to delude ourselves

When seeing and hearing are seeing and hearing?

Good morning.  I’m Wayne Koestenbaum, your host for today.   Here I am in 1984, right after I moved to New York City.  That year I read John Ashbery’s A Wave.  From his poem, “But What is the Reader to Make of This?”:   We have lived blasphemously in history And nothing has hurt us or can. But beware of the monstrous tenderness, for out of it The same blunt archives loom.  Facts seize hold of the web And leave it ash.  Still, it is the personal, Interior life that gives us something to think about. The rest is only drama.

Good morning.  I’m Wayne Koestenbaum, your host for today.  

Here I am in 1984, right after I moved to New York City.  That year I read John Ashbery’s A Wave.  From his poem, “But What is the Reader to Make of This?”:  

We have lived blasphemously in history

And nothing has hurt us or can.

But beware of the monstrous tenderness, for out of it

The same blunt archives loom.  Facts seize hold of the web

And leave it ash.  Still, it is the personal,

Interior life that gives us something to think about.

The rest is only drama.

When the guest has gone, the morsels dropped on the floor are left as food for the dead—-O my characters, my imagined, here are some fancies of crumbs from under love’s table. -Sharon Olds

When the guest has gone,

the morsels dropped on the floor are left

as food for the dead—-O my characters,

my imagined, here are some fancies of crumbs

from under love’s table.

-Sharon Olds

Shall I say that the container can not contain the thing contained anymore? No. Just that the lamb stew is leaking all across town in one place: it is leaking on the floor of the taxi-cab, and that somebody is going to pay for this ride. -Alan Dugan

Shall I say that the container can not

contain the thing contained anymore? No.

Just that the lamb stew is leaking all across town

in one place: it is leaking on the floor of the taxi-cab,

and that somebody is going to pay for this ride.

-Alan Dugan

…and the largest cookie, which I had saved for last, lay solitary in the tin with a nimbus of crumbs around it. There would be no more parcels from Portland. I took it up and sniffed it, and before eating it, pressed it against my forehead, because it seemed like the next thing to do. -Jane Kenyon

…and the largest cookie,

which I had saved for last, lay

solitary in the tin with a nimbus

of crumbs around it. There would be no more

parcels from Portland. I took it up

and sniffed it, and before eating it,

pressed it against my forehead, because

it seemed like the next thing to do.

-Jane Kenyon

My Mama has made bread and Grampaw has come and everybody is drunk and dancing in the kitchen and singing in the kitchen oh these is good times good times good times -Lucille Clifton

My Mama has made bread

and Grampaw has come

and everybody is drunk

and dancing in the kitchen

and singing in the kitchen

oh these is good times

good times

good times

-Lucille Clifton

Whirling the leaves which I have snipped off as carefully as buttons in the sharp blades of La Machine, adding both white flashes of pine nut and garlic, a long golden drink of sweet olive oil Al pesto though I haven’t used either mortar or pestle My linguini simmers. -Diane Wakoski

Whirling

the leaves which I have snipped off

as carefully as buttons

in the sharp blades of La Machine,

adding both white flashes of pine nut and garlic,

a long golden drink of sweet olive oil

Al pesto

though I haven’t used either mortar or pestle

My linguini simmers.

-Diane Wakoski

We were sitting at the sushi-bar drinking  Kirin  beer and watching the Master chef fastidiously shave salmon, tuna and yellowtail while a slightly more volatile apprentice fanned the rice, every grain of which was magnetised in one direction—east. -Paul Muldoon

We were sitting at the sushi-bar

drinking  Kirin  beer

and watching the Master chef

fastidiously shave

salmon, tuna and yellowtail

while a slightly more volatile

apprentice

fanned the rice,

every grain of which was magnetised

in one direction—east.

-Paul Muldoon

from ODE TO PORK I wouldn’t be here without you. Without you I’d be umpteen pounds lighter & a lot less alive. You stuck round my ribs even when I treated you like a dog dirty, I dare not eat. -Kevin Young

from ODE TO PORK

I wouldn’t be here

without you. Without you

I’d be umpteen

pounds lighter & a lot

less alive. You stuck

round my ribs even

when I treated you like a dog

dirty, I dare not eat.

-Kevin Young