Mentshes/1

Dear Shannon, I enjoyed our long conversation on Saturday afternoon at 6 North Coffee. I appreciate you taking the time to visit on such a busy weekend. After our chats, the strong impression I am…

Inspirations

[A Beggar in Jerusalem] is neither novel nor anti-novel, neither fiction nor autobiography, neither poem nor prose—it is all this together. — Elie Wiesel My idea of the ideal text is still the Talmud. I…

Back from the Soulless Void

Chris Hedges and Laila al-Arian, Collateral Damage: America’s War against Iraqi Civilians  Campbell: But you have this: I remember my unit was coming along this elevated overpass. And this kid is in the trash pile below, pulls…

The Way It Looked in 1969

Now the age of 101, Lawrence Ferlinghetti has composed poetical works about most U.S. presidents since the administrations of Eisenhower in the 1950s. I recall with appreciation his poem “Tale Tale of the Tall Cowboy”…

A Hierarchy of Human Life?

Nawal El Saadawi, The Essential Reader In his poem “Cosmopolitan Greetings,” Allen Ginsberg urged: Stand up against governments, against God.  This expresses the life and work of Nawal El-Saadawi. I am African from Egypt, not…

Totally Alive

A book I am most looking forward to reading is not due to be published until November 10th of this year.  The title:  Sarasvati’s Gift: The Autobiography of Mayumi Oda–Artist, Activist, and Modern Buddhist Revolutionary. …

Gleanings and Connections

Anne Waldman and Laura Wright, editors,  Cross Worlds: Transcultural Poetics—An Anthology Dear Layla: “modernist textual montage/collage of a wide-ranging array mixing the personal and the historical” Dear Layla: “Ezra Pound’s Cantos gave me a way…

A Gift from Rob in Minnesota

Today I received a book, The Burglary: The Discovery of J. Edgar Hoover’s Secret FBI, from Rob Trousdale, who’s a part of the Catholic Worker community in Minnesota. (Some of Rob’s poems grace this blog.)…