Poem

When I read A Blessing, a poem by James Wright in poems about horses, I leapt at the last sentence. I recognise this reaction. The same one when I read it last time.

Recently Billy Collins against expectation did not consider rap as poetry. A friend considers unrhyming poetry as rap.

I like poems. I like songs. I like music. I like lyric.

One is not other.

What is Poetry? A posy that you want to add to your basket. A gadget that you know of it from its effect but not what it is. A Swiss army knife.

Throw back

Yesterday afternoon
I went on a walk
AC inside was too cool
Next to the bushes
breathing in
I was reminded of
white milk icecream
that we had on sticks
sold in blue cart on wheels
by a hawker
Was it the squeezing of self
to take in the melted juices?

Back inside I had momentary
cold and sneeze from the
pollen/milk icecream.

Proximate nature

Crow planet
If you tell me that you havent seen a young crow, I will believe you. But the author wont. She says " .. it is unlikely to be true... The problem is that we equate youngness with smallness, a mistake when it comes to most birds". Its through such breaking of our uninformed notions about crows, that the author makes us aware of the ubiquitous bird, its nesting behavior, its smartness.
Quoting Louis Pasteur that 'chance favors the prepared mind' she urges us to know more about our home ecosystems, get out walking and do the bird watching right outside our house instead of bringing our scopes out after driving hours to the other place called wilderness.
Bat box
Dec 22,2009

Aftermath

What happens to the passion
of artists like Jackson Pollock
when they die?

Next stop Getty center

By 1830s Victor Hugo was all Nostradamus about architecture being replaced by the products of printing press. But in 1420's, Cyriacus believed that ancient monuments were more crucial than texts. On travels as an accountant, Cyriacus was very fascinated by the ancient monuments in Venice, Alexandria, Constantinople. He set about travelling around and documenting all the sites of the ancient world. He turned the focus of the people from texts to the physical monuments.
To wake the dead

Dec 27,2009

When are you done appreciating art

When you cam move onto the next
when you are hungry or angry
when you are tailgated

Sociology

Global Sociology, Introducing Five Contemporary societies begins with Japan. Sadly, my book has only two societies, Japan and Egypt.
Reading about Japanese children blocks being big and involving teamwork, I want to knwo mroe about other societies.
Reading of deviant behavior, I want to know more about what holds the 'culture' in place. If there is a mechanism for preservation or flexibility is a part of it. Japan, small still has half of US population. In the beginning the author talk of its culture being open to influences, yet to know how it assimilates the deviances.