Tag Archives: poems

The Prison Poetry of Ho Chi Minh

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This week marks the convergence of a number of important dates: May Day, the end of National Poetry Month (April 30th), and the 50th anniversary of the fall of Saigon (also April 30th). So I thought I’d acknowledge all of them at once with the poetry of Ho Chi Minh. He was arrested as a spy in August 1942 by the Kuo Min Tang and put into a series of Chinese prisons, enduring harsh conditions. He wrote over hundred short poems in prison, mostly in quatrain form, and they have been translated by several English translators including Aileen Palmer, Timothy Allen, and Kenneth Rexroth.

Click on the small triangle or MP3 link above to listen to a selection of the poems, as broadcast this week on the Arts Express radio program, heard on WBAI-FM and Pacifica affiliates across the nation.

Tonight’s Quiet

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Our dear friend, Connie Norgren, died Monday. She was a wonderful, caring woman who spent her life making her community better. She was a committed public school teacher for decades, as well as a political activist, fighting against military recruitment in the schools. Her love and passion was poetry–she was an award winning poet. We were fortunate to have had her as a guest on Arts Express several times to read her poetry and talk about her writing. Here’s an interview and poetry reading featuring Connie. If you put her name into the blog’s search bar, you’ll find more:

Tonight’s Quiet and More: Constance Norgren

Two Poems by Caitlin Johnstone

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If there’s anything that defines today’s political era, it is the amount of pure BS that is spouted and accepted every day. One of my favorite writers who cuts through all that is Australian based Caitlin Johnstone. With a sharp eye and a sharp tongue and a sharp pen she states the obvious, but forbidden, that the emperor has no clothes.

Here are two poems of hers written within the last year that I particularly like. The first is called “In Times Like These” which is self-explanatory, and the second is called “Thank You for Your Service,” written on the occasion of the death of whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg.

Click on the triangle or mp3 link above to hear my reading of the two poems, as broadcast yesterday on Arts Express radio on WBAI FM and Pacifica affiliates across the nation,

Mary Oliver: I Don’t Want To End Up Simply Having Visited This World

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I find that as the world seems ever more bleak, I enjoy turning to the poetry of Mary Oliver. Her poems of disappointment, hope, and eventual learning from the natural world can get me through to the next day.

Here then is Arts Express favorite, actress Mary Murphy, superbly voicing a selection of poems by Mary Oliver.

Click on the mp3 link or arrow above to hear the poems as broadcast today on the Arts Express radio program, heard on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica affiliates across the nation.

Connie Norgren: Recent Poems

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Sycamore by Tom Keough

The wonderful Connie Norgen, reading some of her recent poems, as broadcast today on the Arts Express radio program on WBAI FM NY and Pacifica affiliates across the nation.

Click on the triangle or mp3 link above to listen

“I Feel Drunk All The Time” : The Poems of Kenneth Patchen

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Kenneth Patchen’s poetry is a bullet right between the eyes.

Click on the triangle or mp3 link above to hear Mary Murphy and me read a selection of poems by Kenneth Patchen, as broadcast today on the Arts Express radio program on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica affiliates across the country.

Thanks to New Directions Publishing Corporation for the following poems: “And When Freedom is Achieved,” “I Feel Drunk All the Time,” “The Way Men Live is a Lie,” “What I’d Like to Know Is,” “All The Roses of the World,” “No One Ever Works Alone,” “The Orange Bears,” “Should Be Sufficient,” “Lonesome Boy Blues,” and “Delighted With Bluepink” by Kenneth Patchen, from COLLECTED POEMS OF KENNETH PATCHEN, copyright ©1936, 1942, 1943, 1945, 1946, 1952, 1963, 1968 by Kenneth Patchen. Used by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp.

The Poems of Denise Levertov

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Today we’ll be celebrating the work of much-loved poet Denise Levertov, who published her poems over a span of 40 years and influenced generations of British and American poets.

Levertov has said that “I knew before I was ten that I was an artist-person and I had a destiny.”

Click the triangle or mp3 link above to hear the segment I produced, with the poems read by Mary Murphy, broadcast today on Arts Express on WBAI and Pacifica affiliates across the nation.

Everyone Was Beautiful: Paul Hostovsky

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I first heard poet Paul Hostovsky reading in a poetry series out of Boston called Rozzie Reads. His poems immediately struck me as funny, closely observed crafted stories, the kind you come home and tell your intimate other about.

Paul’s work for the past decades situates him in a unique position with regard to language: Hostovsky is a sign language interpreter and a Braille instructor who has been a recipient of an award from the American Association of the DeafBlind “for being a devoted friend and ambassador by promoting the interests and well-being of DeafBlind Americans.”

Click on the triangle or the mp3 link above to hear the poems as broadcast yesterday on the Arts Express radio program on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica stations across the nation.

Paul’s website is www.paulhostovsky.com and you can get his latest book, Mostly, at: https://www.amazon.com/Mostly-Paul-Hostovsky-ebook/dp/B08Z4GYRBM/

“Oh God, And This Is Only A Metaphor!”: Molly Peacock

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(photo by Candice Ferreira)

I was happy to become acquainted recently with Toronto-based writer Molly Peacock and to help produce a selection of her poems for broadcast, voiced by the always wonderful Mary Murphy.

Whether Molly is writing as a poet, biographer, essayist or novelist, we love how her multi-genre literary work is always infused with both playfulness and rigor.

Molly’s latest poetry collections are The Analyst: Poems and Cornucopia: New and Selected Poems published by W.W Norton and Company. She is a former President of the Poetry Society of America and Poet-in-Residence at the American Poets’ corner. She’s also the co-founder of Poetry In Motion on New York’s subways and buses and the founder of the series  The Best Canadian Poetry.

Click on the triangle or mp3 link above to hear a selection of Molly’s poetry as broadcast today on the Arts Express radio program on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica affiliates across the nation.

More Molly at Mollypeacock.org

March Madness

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In our latest Arts Express Newsletter:

*Erin Brockovich, the great environmental activist, talks about her new book on how to do grassroots organizing.

*American-Canadian poet Molly Peacock offers up a plateful of playful and provocative poetry

*Artist Vivienne Shalom mesmerizes with her mosaics and acrylic paintings.

and much more!

Click here to view online:

March 2021 Newsletter

And if you like what you see, get your free subscription by emailing us at Artsexpresslist@gmail.com and put the word “subscribe” in the subject line

Connie Norgren: Poems In A Time Of Crisis

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I was happy to voice these poems of poet Connie Norgren on the Arts Express program. Click on the triangle to hear the poems as broadcast today on WBAI NY and Pacifica affiliates across the nation.

Charles Bukowski: “Don’t Try”

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It’s August and that’s the month poet Charles Bukowski was born in 1920. With over 5000 poems and six novels and hundreds of short stories to his name, he’s become a kind of cult figure over the last decades. While his writings have stamped him with the indelible persona of an alcoholic anti-social misanthropic and misogynistic git, yet there’s also a gentler humanness in Bukowski.

He died at the age of 74. On his gravestone the epitaph reads, “Don’t Try.”

Come with us now as we go out to our favorite virtual watering hole, knock down a couple of drinks, and listen to a performance of some of Bukowski’s poems as broadcast today on Arts Express radio on Pacifica stations across the nation.

Click on the grey triangle or mp3 link above to listen.

“Coming To You With A Sad Glass Of Soda And A Vague Sense That The World Was Coming To An End”: Peter Davis

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I first encountered Indiana poet/musician Peter Davis’s work only a few months ago, but his laconic slacker sensibility, quirky playful sense of humor and self-deprecation immediately appealed to me.

His poems start off ordinarily enough, and then often veer into strange territory, defying expectation. Underlying much of it, the poems are about self-justification and what we say to ourselves and others in order to get us out of the existential jam that we have no idea what we’re doing, even as we proceed with bluff assurance.

Click on the triangle or mp3 link above to hear my reading of some of Peter Davis’s poems as broadcast today on the Arts Express radio program on WBAI NY, WBAI.org, and Pacifica affiliates across the country.

You can catch up with Peter Davis’s work  at artisnecessary.com

“Queen Bee” Cavity: The Poetry of Camryn Bruno

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Our newest Arts Express contributor, KeShaun Luckie, put together this audio segment highlighting the wonderful poems of Camryn “Queen Bee” Bruno, performed by the author. It was a pleasure to have two such talented artists over here recording.

You can listen to Queen Bee’s reading, as broadcast today on Arts Express on WBAI 99.5 FM NYC, by clicking on the triangle above.

Federico Garcia Lorca And The Duende

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Federico Garcia Lorca was an extraordinary poet, painter, composer, actor, director, playwright, and socialist. We celebrated his June birthday on Arts Express today with a short selection of his poems read in English by myself and the wonderful Mary Murphy.

You can hear the poems and a brief intro as broadcast on WBAI 99.5FM NYC by clicking on the grey triangle above.

You Don’t Look A Day Over 450

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In celebration of Shakespeare’s birthday this past week, Mary Murphy and I put together a short segment about the Shakespearean sonnets, aired last night on the Arts Express program (on radio station WBAI 99.5 FM NYC). I talk a bit about the history and structure of the poems, and then we read five of our favorite lesser-known sonnets. Click on the triangle above to wish Will a Happy 455th.

By the way, the portrait above may just well be the only extant likeness of Shakespeare done in his lifetime. It is purported to be Shakespeare at age 39. I like the idea of seeing him with a full head of hair and a sly smile.

There Once Was A Magical Duck…

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Here’s another installment of my limerick game contributions. As I stated in the first installment, on one of the online magic forums, there’s a game where one person suggests a first line for a limerick, and the next person has to complete the other four lines of the limerick. Many of the limericks have a magic-oriented theme, but that’s not a requirement. Here are a few of my better efforts. (Remember, all first lines were given by others):

There once was a magical duck
Enamored with some poor dumb cluck
He climbed on her bones
She started to moan
Hey!!–It’s a family website you schm*ck!

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On a cold dismal night in mid Feb
I Googled ’bout every celeb
I perused every writer
Yes, much like the spider
I waste too much time on the web.

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On the top of the mountain stood Harry
Houdini, that is, and then Larry
Jennings, of course
A powerful force
My favorite is Richardson, Barrie.

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A man once married his dog
“I’m happy,” he wrote on his blog
The bathroom is free
From ten until three
While the wife is out using a log.

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Derren Brown was reading my mind,
Attempting to do it while blind.
But the dude didn’t know
Of my years of Cointreau–
So there was nothing there he could find!

Wisdom of the Sages

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meditation

 

Let’s say good-bye to the old year with two pensive haikus from David Bader’s Haikus for Jews:

 

BLT on Toast–

the rabbi takes his first bite,

then the lightening bolt.

 

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The same kimono

the top geishas are wearing–

got it at Loehmann’s.

 

Late In The Day: Constance Norgren

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I was happy to welcome back poet Constance Norgren yesterday to the Arts Express radio program on WBAI 99.5 NY to read from her latest collection of previously unpublished poems, Late In The Day. Click on the grey triangle above for some wonderful short poems.