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Sally Ashton
Silicon Valley
Likes cake; eats it too.
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One of my favorite poems. Thanks.
Theodore Roethke (on His Birthday) [by David Lehman]
No anthology is as nearly complete as the editor wishes. In the case of The Best American Erotic Poems (2008), permission for the use of several poems was denied. Theodore Roethke's 1958 poem "The Sensualists," for example, had an honored place in the book. And his reputation could use a boost....
A very interesting consideration. I tend to think, as you've described, that poetry's loyalty is to language, while nonfiction's is to some sense of fact. It does get tricky when the two become so closely linked, when poetry is driven by memory. Do you think poetry requires this exactitude factitude, or was this just the surprise at memory's blurs? In any case, thanks for posting.
I. To China: That Blue Flower on the Map [by Sarah Howe]
The Savage is flying back home from the New Country in native-style dress with a baggage of sensibility to gaze on the ancestral plains with the myths thought up and dreamed in her kitchens as guides. –Denise Riley, ‘A Note on Sex and “The Reclaiming of Language”’ This Easter I spe...
A gifted poet and a very wise man, apparently. Thanks.
The Most Underrated Poet in America
<<< I remember a poet's writing to me several years back, You are the most underrated poet in the country. But then, he added, that's better than being the most overrated poet in the country. I was and remain impressed by the short distance between the two extremes. -- Howard Nemerov, Journal of...
Vinho Verde, or " “Em flagrante delitro” [by Sally Ashton]
Posted Jul 12, 2011 at The Best American Poetry
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The Art of Waiting [by Sally Ashton]
Posted Jul 10, 2011 at The Best American Poetry
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Port in Porto- Sally Ashton
Posted Jul 9, 2011 at The Best American Poetry
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Saudade- Sally Ashton
Out the open French doors of my pensione on a narrow street in Sevilla, the warm silence is periodically broken by church bells, calling doves, the clatter of hooves on cobble and the rumble of luggage being dragged by tourists to their lodging. Cars are impossible in these ancient streets. I left Lisbon. After many goodbyes, last pictures and drinks, after watching the sun set and lights come on across the hills, I awoke to a city bereft of the faces I’d become friends with, then packed up and got in a cab myself. Curving through the narrow streets then out along the river Tagus, I watched the hills of the city fall behind and I knew I felt it. Saudade. As freedom and the 4th of July are integral to America’s identity, so is saudade to the Portuguese. Saudade is variously defined as a deep longing or melancholy for something irretrievable, but is more frequently described by the Portuguese as something essentially indefinable. At times it seemed to me that they prefer keeping it that way, as if the experience of saudade is as essential and dear as, well, as the concept of freedom is to Americans. While one might agree that people everywhere value freedom, America has made it a lifestyle. Freedom is our essential cultural lightning rod, fireworks, red-white-and blue bunting and all. However, how freedom is defined is not only politically charged, but deeply personal and in that sense, indefinable. Perhaps that’s something of the significance of saudade in the Portuguese psyche. Saudade shapes fado, the music I’ve posted these past 2 weeks, a music both celebrating and keening in the same song. Here is Amalia Rodrigues, the fadista who brought fado, and Portugal, back to life after the Salazar regime. As those of you in the States prepare and celebrate America’s freedom tomorrow, so I celebrate saudade from my pensione in Spain, understanding now what one writer explained, that saudade is not only a sadness for what has been lost, but a simultaneous tender joy in having once known such love for some one, some place, some thing. It is a privilege to know such sorrow. Adeus, Lisboa! When we get to wine country, I’ll let you know. Continue reading
Posted Jul 3, 2011 at The Best American Poetry
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Almost leaving- Sally Ashton
Posted Jul 2, 2011 at The Best American Poetry
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Translated- Sally Ashton
Posted Jun 29, 2011 at The Best American Poetry
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Sounds Like Lisbon - Sally Ashton
Posted Jun 24, 2011 at The Best American Poetry
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“A ship is a piece of floating space” --Sally Ashton
So said Michel Foucault in Different Spaces. I arrived in Lisbon Saturday by airship—the jet—a kind of airborne floating space, “a non-place going places,” a placeless place that is at once threshold and destination, neither “here” nor yet “there,” time traveling between zones, continents, and consciousness, across 5600 miles and hours that expanded, contracted. I flew, to “—Lisbon, the Tagus, and the rest— A useless onlooker of you and of myself, A foreigner here like everywhere else, —” Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet Disquieted, I came to Disquiet: Dzanc Books International Literary Program, a brand new, two week literary and cultural conference held in Lisbon, where I will teach and be taught, engage with the heritage of Portuguese literature, contemporary writers, and the rich and vibrant Portuguese culture. I will bring highlights, hoping to prove a more useful onlooker than the native son Pessoa, above, suggests. It has taken these few days to disembark from traveling’s “non-place,” but I feel on terra firma today and look forward to bringing news of Lisbon to you. But now, “The morning unfurls itself upon the city,” and I’m off to find breakfast before my workshop begins. How about a little music to go out on. Continue reading
Posted Jun 22, 2011 at The Best American Poetry
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Good Company [by Sally Ashton]
Posted Dec 12, 2009 at The Best American Poetry
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Real Men ? [by Sally Ashton]
Posted Dec 11, 2009 at The Best American Poetry
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Real Men [by Sally Ashton]
Outside the open window The morning air is all awash with angels. I'm imagining many of you across the country will wake up to a morning like this--snow!--from all the weather reports I've seen. Snow, and lots of it. I couldn't help but repost this couplet from the Richard Wilbur poem included at the end of yesterday's entry. But close that window! Even here in California, it's too cold for that. The solstice presses upon us and we gather our traditions close to prepare for the darkest night of the year...Cards have begun to arrive in earnest, invitations extended or hoped for. The morning air is all awash with angels. I'm typing in the dark. I'm always a day behind (and a dollar short, sadly) on the west coast. If I tried to compose and post the same day, you'd never see this until evening on the east coast. So I sit with laptop and down comforter and think of the distances. The computerized bell on the Presbyterian church strikes six... Some are in bed-sheets, some are in blouses, Some are in smocks: but truly there they are I can't believe that the commentator on the News Hour just called the health care overhaul and debate, "sausage making." No kidding. Is there a sausage zeitgeist after all? Do the angels know my name? Now they are rising together in calm swells Of halcyon feeling, filling whatever they wear With the deep joy of their impersonal breathing; In my beginning poetry class, I won't let students write poems using angels. No angels, no butterflies, and no "love." Perhaps that's why I'm so smitten by Wilbur's poem. He leaves butterflies out. Now they are flying in place, conveying The terrible speed of their ominpresence "The snow fell at the rate of an inch an hour. Whiteout. Flights cancelled." And yet, my youngest son arrived at JFK after a year abroad this evening at 8pm. My friends, Lisabeth and Colin, en route from San Diego to a new home in Massachusetts driving their packed car and dog, get stuck in first Albuquerque, then Amarillo, waiting out the storm. and now of a sudden They swoon down in so rapt a quiet That nobody seems to be there. I don't know about angels. If they are like snow, okay. Otherwise I'd rather not see any. In the Bible they are terrifying. They are not like what my beginning workshop students want to say they are. "Oh, let there by nothing on earth but laundry, Nothing but rosy hands in the rising steam And clear dances done in the sight of heaven." That more or less sums it up for me. But, when it first falls, after the first few hours, before the plows, the first footprints, the car accidents, the lost power, before the elderly woman bundles up, goes out to her snow-filled walkway and wields the shovel of her late husband--then, the way the world seems to wait in its stillness of snow,... Continue reading
Posted Dec 10, 2009 at The Best American Poetry
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Real Critics; Real Men [by Sally Ashton]
Posted Dec 9, 2009 at The Best American Poetry
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Speaking of Rejection [by Sally Ashton]
Speaking as an editor speaking of rejection I will say this. Rejection involves the Golden Rule: it is better to give than to receive. You didn't really expect me to say the opposite, did you? Anyone who has risked rejection by submitting a piece of writing knows the spectacular if momentary rush of success and satisfaction that comes upon opening an acceptance letter or email. So too on the other end of emotion's spectrum when your work is rejected: deflation, discouragement, frustration. Etc. And it doesn't really help that a given editorial team "particularly admired" a certain piece. If they admire it, why don't they just go ahead and publish it? Let's not enter that quagmire, but I will say that saying a poem "came close" may offer some distant encouragement to some poets, and some lessening of angst to some editors who offer such small comfort, but in the short term that's all it is. Small. Very small and very Unsatisfying. And No, No Comfort. I've never had the experience summed up any better than in this fine poem by Marjorie Manwaring first published in the DMQ Review where Manwaring was subsequently invited to join the editorial team. Anyone with the ability to render this particularly nasty but necessary (?) experience so wittily as a poet is someone you want as an editor. Rejection Letter from Gertrude Stein Dear Poet Dear Author Dear Someone We are pleased very pleased To regret sir. Regret to inform you the list for Talents selected not you dear. So many many and many Many talents not you dear. Received many fine not you. Thank you extremely fine thank you. Keep us I mind please keep us. Please keep Your submission in mind. Entries so fine many fine Winners selected not you. Not you. Not quite What we need At this time not quite. Keep in mind best of luck next time. Editors wish you this guideline. Best of selected regret. Not chosen you were not able. We inform our regret. We reject your receive. We receive we regret. Inform you we do. We do as we do. Today: To do: Don’t forget. Difficult choice we regret. Space an issue weren’t able. Limited Space unable. Please Accept this issue Our complimentary Gift to you. Letterpressed gift in which you Do not appear we regret you. We regret to reject with respect Please accept. Do Not not accept This reject If you do If you do With respect With respect We reject you. -by Marjorie Manwaring Continue reading
Posted Dec 8, 2009 at The Best American Poetry
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Speaking of Editors [by Sally Ashton]
But first—woooooooot! Just JUST finished teaching my last class of the semester. That’s the last of it for this meat grinder. Okay, okay. No more sausage. And I do have something more serious to consider today. It’s Monday, afterall. But once you get started with a metaphor, it’s so hard to let it go. As editor of a poetry journal, the DMQ Review, I must admit the first thing I read in any new issue of the annual Best American Poetry Anthology, once I’ve scanned the list of names on the back cover for my own personal favorites, is the pair of introductions to each volume. These introductions, the guest editor’s and the series editor’s, are always must-reads. In his, David Lehman offers both an introduction to the guest editor as well as an incisive “year in review” look at the world of poetry, its trends and trend-setters. Never afraid of the Big Questions or the hot topic, Lehman opens this year’s consideration asking, “What is a poet?” The guest editor, on the other hand, must provide a rationale—if not defense—as to why she or he is naming these poems “Best” out of all the poems published in a year, as well as why he or she feels qualified to make such determinations. Tricky and instructive. This year, I am particularly intrigued with guest editor David Wagoner’s introduction to Best American Poetry 2009. Wagoner doesn’t shy away from the hard questions either, asking at one point, “What is a poem?” Between the two of them, these editors are taking nothing for granted! What I found really fascinating was the submission test Wagoner put himself through during his guest-editing stint in order to gauge current response times, effectively asking why can’t poetry editors make up their minds sooner!?! He relates how on December 1, 2007, he submitted poems to fifty American magazines, and 13 months later had not heard back from almost a fifth of them! Nine journals still had not responded! This is news most poets could have provided themselves, but coming from the founding editor of Poetry Northwest, this is news indeed. Did he use a pseudonym, for chrissake? When he was still serving as editor, Wagoner says his own policy was to reply in a month. This made me wish I’d submitted to Poetry Northwest before! Editors are often writers, too, and know both sides of this conundrum, making those who don’t respond to their contributors within some “reasonable” time frame seem less than compassionate. At the DMQ, response time is typically 2 months. For us, a virtual team of far-flung editors, our method of collecting and distributing online submissions on a monthly basis doesn’t allow for a quicker turn-around. Submissions must be processed, distributed, reviewed, returned and re-processed. This takes untold hours. If our submissions suddenly doubled, there’s no way we could keep current response times without some serious restructuring. . .And we, like many journals, are an all-volunteer operation. The DMQ editorial team is a cracker-jack... Continue reading
Posted Dec 7, 2009 at The Best American Poetry
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The Sausage Factor [by Sally Ashton]
I know, I know. I’m writing this at the risk of being forever categorized as the blogger of processed meat. If you spend much time here at the Best American Poetry Blog, you will typically find at the bottom of an entry the suggestion “You might also like:” with 3 links to previous entries. I always wonder what those suggestions are based on, the profile of the visitor or the associations of the current posting? Likely the latter. However, often enough the blog-gods suggest that I might also like: the M-m-etc.-mortadella entry. Of course I would; I wrote it, AND I’m at least temporarily still crazy for Mortadella di Bologna (see said former entry). And it’s strictly coincidental that my introduction to this week of guest-blogging should once again veer toward a meat grinder’s product, but alas. Such is the case. Here at BAP, as it’s fondly referred to after typing the full name out a couple of times, we guest bloggers move freely from the highbrow to the lowbrow. I for one was swept off my feet by last week’s guest blogger Lera Auerbach’s engaging entries. What a stunning combination of reflection, music, photos and video. If you missed them, go back and catch up. I especially recommend the video documentary, Return to Dresden (yes, embedded right there). Brava Lera, and thanks. It was a remarkable week. Besides Lera, Nin Andrews posted a bitch of a poem, and what could be hotter than a man in the kitchen (a man in a yurt??)—I ask you. As you can see, there’s always something to pique anyone’s interest here at BAP, from the sublime to the, er, sausage. So as I considered how to dive into my own guest blogging stint, I was reminded of the story my good friend Rich tells about the time he ran for the school board in our community. One evening during the campaign, the candidates were given the opportunity to give speeches to the voters. Rich tells how the candidate before him got up and introduced himself. “Good evening. I’m George Buonocore. In Italian, buonocuore means good heart. If I’m elected that’s what you’ll get, a good heart.” I happened to have had this gentleman as a high school science teacher. I could picture him, tall, dark, doe-eyed, soft-spoken. Buonocuore to the core. After his opponent had elaborated his strengths and strategies, Rich, also Italian but of stockier build, took the podium. “Good evening,” he said to the audience. “My name is Richard Salsiccia. Salsiccia. In Italian that means sausage.” While ultimately he didn’t win the election, his good humor served him well. I’m looking forward to spending time here this coming week with the best of company, and like Rich, serving up what I can. See you tomorrow, PST. Continue reading
Posted Dec 6, 2009 at The Best American Poetry
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Yo, bitch.
"Why I'm Not a Bitch" [by Nin Andrews]
Why I’m Not a Bitch After Frank O’Hara I’m not a bitch. I’m a poet. Why? I don't know. I think I’d rather be a bitch, to tell you the truth. Like Nicole. She’s just bitching. Sometimes I stop in, and she says to me, Come on in, bitch. Let’s bitch. I do. We do. We both bitch. We bitc...
Laura-Also Dylan Thomas' birthday today, and here, a reading of his Poem in October celebrating his 30th...strange coincidence.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBQWYO_3FqM&feature=related
A Birthday (by Laura Orem)
Today would have been Sylvia Plath's 77th birthday. She left an astonishing number of good-to-excellent poems for someone who died at 30, a testament not only to her talent but to her dedication to her craft and iron Yankee work-ethic. Easily, so easily, she could have been writing still - imagi...
It sure would be nice to have a West Coast reading sometime...sigh. Have fun!
BAP 2009 Kickoff Reading: Thursday, September 24, 2009 at 7PM
On September 24, 2009. at 7 PM, in the New School's Tishman Auditorium (66 West 12 Street, ground floor), series editor David Lehman will host a gala launch reading for The Best American Poetry 2009, and it's free so we hope everyone will come except for freeloading ill-mannered creeps but the...
I have to say my romanticism for the process has faded. The wool looks more like what I'd expect that Scottish dish Haggis looks like, and if Grace's meatballs look anything like those shanks of wet wool, Grace please at least get some tomato sauce to cover them.
More About Wool, or What Your Socks Never Told You (by Laura Orem)
Last week, I shared with you the pictures from shearing day. Today, I'd like to show you what happens to the wool after it's off the sheep. First, the fleece is "skirted." This means it is laid out flat, and all the nasty, dirty bits are removed. Sheep live in barns, and they get a lot of VM (ve...
This redeems the city of Bologna once and for all! Thanks Terrence.
Daniel Cassidy: There’s a Sách úr Born Every Minute (Terence Winch)
Most visitors to this site share a common tool: the English language, which, as the authors of The Story of English wrote in 1986, “…has become the language of the planet, the first truly global language,” spoken by a billion or so people. They will also tell you that “the English language has ...
The duck story makes me cry. I must go to Indiana. I have never been.
Mitch Sisskind presents a poem by Shaindel Beers
I found the work of Shaindel Beers online. I was interested that she grew up in rural Indiana where once I was wont to roam. In the town of North Liberty a man asked me the date. I told him and he replied, “Eighty-five years ago today I shot my first duck.” Then he began to cry. The great Theod...
I've enjoyed your posts. Thanks-
Thinking of Taking Fido to the Fireworks? (by Tess Callahan)
Because life is not hectic enough with two kids, three birds, four fish tanks, a teaching job and writing deadlines, I cajoled my poor husband one year ago into adopting a second dog. It started out innocently enough. Since adopting a golden retriever mix four years ago, we occasionally helped...
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