The Pornographic Writings of Robert Burns

Read this article on his poem "The Merry Muses," about a well-endowed ambassador.

And there's more where that came from.

Medical Poetry

THIS ARTICLE FROM THE NEW YORKER explores new medical poetry. It isn't rare--which is exactly why the Hippocrates Initiative and the Institute for Poetic Medicine exist. And there's always William Carlos Williams.

Collage with poem from Hair magazine circa 1999

Thin Nimbus

Cool stuff HERE

Happy Halloween from Emily Dickinson

'Tis so appalling -- it exhilarates by Emily Dickinson

'Tis so appalling -- it exhilarates --
So over Horror, it half Captivates --
The Soul stares after it, secure --
A Sepulchre, fears frost, no more --

To scan a Ghost, is faint --
But grappling, conquers it --
How easy, Torment, now --
Suspense kept sawing so --

The Truth, is Bald, and Cold --
But that will hold --
If any are not sure --
We show them -- prayer --
But we, who know,
Stop hoping, now --

Looking at Death, is Dying --
Just let go the Breath --
And not the pillow at your Cheek
So Slumbereth --

Others, Can wrestle --
Yours, is done --
And so of Woe, bleak dreaded -- come,
It sets the Fright at liberty --
And Terror's free --
Gay, Ghastly, Holiday!

Dickinson and Chemotherapy

In an article on the side effects of chemotherapy, Susan Gubar uses Emily Dickinson to explain one of the worst--anhedonia, 'the inability to experience pleasure from activities usually found enjoyable.'


I felt a Funeral, in my Brain (280)

I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,
And Mourners to and fro
Kept treading – treading – till it seemed
That Sense was breaking through –

And when they all were seated,
A Service, like a Drum –
Kept beating – beating – till I thought
My Mind was going numb –

And then I heard them lift a Box
And creak across my Soul
With those same Boots of Lead, again,
Then Space – began to toll,

As all the Heavens were a Bell,
And Being, but an Ear,
And I, and Silence, some strange Race
Wrecked, solitary, here –

And then a Plank in Reason, broke,
And I dropped down, and down –
And hit a World, at every plunge,
And Finished knowing – then –


© 2012, Academy of American Poets. All Rights Reserved

WCW on whales

An excerpt from Some Simple Measures in the American Idiom and the Variable Foot:

II: HISTOLOGY

There is

the

microscopic

anatomy

of

the whale

this is

reassuring

Whale, American Museum of Natural History, New York

Brueghel, Bowie, and William Carlos Williams

Man who fell to Earth- Icarus Descending

www.youtube.com

The clips are from the film The man who fell to Earth. The song is from The man who fell to Earth musical

David Bowie wrote this for the movie The Man Who Fell to Earth. In it, he opens a book of poetry with Brueghel's Fall of Icarus illustrated. I would like to think it's a version of WCW's poems:

See the poem here:
http://wcwbrueghelpoetry.blogspot.com/2007/05/landscape-with-fall-of-icarus.html

Spring is like that, I guess

Some samples of my favorite poems:

‎"Christmas lights left up all year
thus robbed of the emotive force
of their redeployment I do not like."

-Dean Young, Don't Need a New One, Just Fix What You Got

‎"April
Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers."
-Edna St Vincent Millay, Spring