Dying, everyone does it, even the animals and the plants do it- from Rumi

I lived for thousands and thousands of years as a mineral, the then I died and became a plant
I lived for thousands and thousands of years as a plant and then I died and became an animal
I lived for thousands and thousands of years as an animal and then I died and became a human being
Tell me, what have I ever lost by dying?
 

 

-end of Rumi Poem, title of Robert Bye’s book What Have I Ever Lost by Dying. This is from a fine interview of Robert and Ruth Bly in the September/October, 2011, of The American Poetry Review, by Chard deNiord. PP. 7-15

Know The Font Of This Headline? You're 'Just My Type' : NPR

Know The Font Of This Headline? You're 'Just My Type' : NPR

PHILIP LEVINE, POET OF DRUDGERY | More Intelligent Life

PHILIP LEVINE, POET OF DRUDGERY | More Intelligent Life

Jack Kerouac, “Essentials of Spontaneous Prose” in Ann Charters, ed., The Portable Beat Reader (New York: Viking, 1992).

“Essentials of Spontaneous Prose” (1958)

SET-UP The object is set before the mind, either in reality, as in sketching (before a landscape or teacup or old face) or is set in the memory wherein it becomes the sketching from memory of a definite image-object.

PROCEDURE Time being of the essence in the purity of speech, sketching language is undisturbed flow from the mind of personal secret idea-words, blowing (as per jazz musician) on

subject of image.

METHOD No periods separating sentence-structures already arbitrarily riddled by false colons and timid usually needless commas but the vigorous space dash separating rhetorical

breathing (as jazz musician drawing breath between outblown phrases) “measured pauses which are the essentials of our speech” “divisions of the sounds we hear” “time and how to note it down.” (William Carlos Williams)

SCOPING Not “selectivity” of expression but following free deviation (association) of mind into limitless blow-on-subject seas of thought, swimming in sea of English with no discipline

other than rhythms of rhetorical exhalation and expostulated statement, like a fist coming down on a table with each complete utterance, bang! (the space dash) Blow as deep as you

want write as deeply, fish as far down as you want, satisfy yourself first, then reader cannot fail to receive telepathic shock and meaning-excitement by same laws operating in his own human mind.

LAG IN PROCEDURE No pause to think of proper word but the infantile pileup of scatological buildup words till satisfaction is gained, which will turn out to be a great appending

rhythm to a thought and be in accordance with Great Law of timing.

TIMING Nothing is muddy that runs in time and to laws of time Shakespearian stress of dramatic need to speak now in own unalterable way or forever hold tongue no revisions (except

obvious rational mistakes, such as names or calculated insertions in act of not writing but inserting).

CENTER OF INTEREST Begin not from preconceived idea of what to say about image but from jewel center of interest in subject of image at moment of writing, and write outwards

swimming in sea of language to peripheral release and exhaustion Do not afterthink except for poetic or P. S. reasons. Never afterthink to “improve” or defray impressions, as. the best writing

is always the most painful personal wrungout tossed from cradle warm protective mind tap from yourself the song of yourself, blow! now! your way is your only way “good” or

“bad always honest, (“ludicrous”), spontaneous, “confessional” interesting, because not “crafted.” Craft is craft.

STRUCTURE OF WORK Modern bizarre structures (science fiction, etc.) arise from language being dead, “different” themes give illusion of “new” life. Follow roughly outlines in

outfanning movement over subject, as river rock, so mindflow over jewel-center need (run your mind over it, once) arriving at pivot, where what was dim-formed “beginning” becomes sharp—

necessitating “ending” and language shortens in race to wire of time-race of work, following laws of Deep Form, to conclusion, last words, last trickle Night is The End.

MENTAL STATE If possible write “without consciousness” in semitrance (as Yeats’ later “trance writing”) allowing subconscious to admit in own uninhibited interesting necessary and so “modern” language what conscious art would censor, and write excitedly, swiftly, with writing-or-

typing-cramps, in accordance (as from center to periphery) with laws of orgasm, Reich’s “beclouding of consciousness.” Come from within, out to relaxed and said.

Jack Kerouac, “Essentials of Spontaneous Prose” in Ann Charters, ed., The Portable Beat Reader (New York: Viking, 1992).

Pasted from <http://www.elephantjournal.com/2009/04/jack-kerouac-essentials-of-spontaneous-prose/>

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised by Gil Scott-Heron

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised

You will not be able to stay home, brother.
You will not be able to plug in, turn on and cop out.
You will not be able to lose yourself on skag and skip,
Skip out for beer during commercials,
Because the revolution will not be televised.

The revolution will not be televised.
The revolution will not be brought to you by Xerox
In 4 parts without commercial interruptions.
The revolution will not show you pictures of Nixon
blowing a bugle and leading a charge by John
Mitchell, General Abrams and Spiro Agnew to eat
hog maws confiscated from a Harlem sanctuary.
The revolution will not be televised.

The revolution will not be brought to you by the 
Schaefer Award Theatre and will not star Natalie
Woods and Steve McQueen or Bullwinkle and Julia.
The revolution will not give your mouth sex appeal.
The revolution will not get rid of the nubs.
The revolution will not make you look five pounds
thinner, because the revolution will not be televised, Brother.

There will be no pictures of you and Willie May
pushing that shopping cart down the block on the dead run,
or trying to slide that color television into a stolen ambulance.
NBC will not be able predict the winner at 8:32
or report from 29 districts.
The revolution will not be televised.

There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down
brothers in the instant replay.
There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down
brothers in the instant replay.
There will be no pictures of Whitney Young being
run out of Harlem on a rail with a brand new process.
There will be no slow motion or still life of Roy
Wilkens strolling through Watts in a Red, Black and
Green liberation jumpsuit that he had been saving
For just the proper occasion.

Green Acres, The Beverly Hillbillies, and Hooterville
Junction will no longer be so damned relevant, and
women will not care if Dick finally gets down with
Jane on Search for Tomorrow because Black people
will be in the street looking for a brighter day.
The revolution will not be televised.

There will be no highlights on the eleven o'clock
news and no pictures of hairy armed women
liberationists and Jackie Onassis blowing her nose.
The theme song will not be written by Jim Webb,
Francis Scott Key, nor sung by Glen Campbell, Tom
Jones, Johnny Cash, Englebert Humperdink, or the Rare Earth.
The revolution will not be televised.

The revolution will not be right back after a message
bbout a white tornado, white lightning, or white people.
You will not have to worry about a dove in your
bedroom, a tiger in your tank, or the giant in your toilet bowl.
The revolution will not go better with Coke.
The revolution will not fight the germs that may cause bad breath.
The revolution will put you in the driver's seat.

The revolution will not be televised, will not be televised,
will not be televised, will not be televised.
The revolution will be no re-run brothers;
The revolution will be live.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGaoXAwl9kw&feature=share  

The day the Bomb fell, the anniversary in 2011 is also during Ramadan Peace for all

IN the midst of a politically hot time in good old Wisconsin, with recall elections on this coming Tuesday I have two other issues on my mind.  If you live in WI vote on Tuesday to throw out Luther Olson and his bunch of thugs. Thanks!!!!  (non-violently)

Karen and I have been on the road for the last ten days, I apologize, we did not send out my Ramadan message of thanksgiving, compassion and love to our sisters and brothers of The Book and the spiritual practice of Islam. My brothers in Australia, the young Muslim rap group I met at the Parliament in December 2009 have kept me updated of their celebration, fast and service, with their texts messages. “ the Brothahood” is a group U should check out. We send this message of prayer, chants, deep bows and thanks to all.  As the sun sets on this Saturday evening in the woods, in East Central WI we can smell the fine feast being readied for about 9pm in this part of the world, blessings on all Muslims and beings.

There are three memorial museum’s that have never left my consciousness, the Battle of Okinawa, the Nagasaki Peace Museum and the one in Hiroshima at ground zero, now across from the ball park. I visited these more than once when I lived in Japan, and could never stop myself from embracement, a strange kind of guilt and responsibility for what we did to these beautiful places and people. May I share a couple of stories. I know most of you love to visit book stores. In Japan the international book stores are wonderful and helpful when U do not read Japanese. One hot afternoon I was in one in Hiroshima, and I was looking through the English books and a short man, disfigured beyond belief, handed me a small paper and on it was written, “I am survivor, help me, peace”. In a strange sense, he was not asking for money, but compassion beyond the violence of war. We could not talk, our language ability was limited in each other’s language, so eye contact, hands together and a slow but compassionate bow ended this encounter, but I cannot find a place to file his face…

The second, was on the day Desert Storm began. At 8am one of my students called me, “the war is on CNN” We had dishes and all that before the USA did. I turned it on and the first fire bombs had fallen. I watched awhile and hopped on the fast train to Hiroshima and was sitting in front of the eternal flame at ground zero by noon. It is where thousands of victims names are listed, some still added each year as people die from the diseases of the Atom Bomb. I do not remember what I wrote, although I have found a post card I scribbled some words on that day. But for some reason I thought, here we go again. And we have many times since then. If you could see Hiroshima or Nagasaki now and realize they were completely destroyed, although Nagasaki’s hills saved many, I hope you would agree, this shit does not work, Atom bombs, wars, violence against nations or people. Add the tragedy of this last year in Japan and you wonder, when will humanity learn to live in peace rather than always trying to find peace.

Remember Hiroshima, Okinawa, Nagasaki, Ramadan a scared time, a gift to all beings, to take time daily to be quiet and be peace and serve those in need…we are not called to make war, but to be peace in all we are. Thanks for your time!   

 The Mushroom over Nagasaki, the second Bomb!

 A Hospital place in Hiroshima, after the Bomb!

 the last drink of water before death...Hiroshima

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSvjr44FqXU

Week Four:Dr. Harryette Mullen's handout and reading list

Again left click to enlarge these pages. I found the first page a very helpful and exciting process I think writers should go through maybe once a year if not every time we start a new project. Writing inventory, Habits and the issues of writing within a community. Or does our creations move us and or the reader to a kind of activism that can transform community, one block at a time.....? enjoy  Thanks Dr. Mullen!