A quick one….
I have had the bulk of this sitting about for a week or so. I have been doing art, trying to get the magazine jump started, and dealing with a whole bunch of new customers. Summer is a busy time at Caer Llwydd, and life has been doing a jig in and out the door, through the garden and down our streets.
Mary, Rowan and I had a day together yesterday, first time that we have had an outing in a long time. Took some books to Powell’s warehouse , then off to lunch on NE 23rd at a deli, then to Powell’s itself… Mary picked up some new cook-books (Afghani Food Rocks!), Rowan a gaming book and a small book to carry around for writing down poetry, and I picked up Allen Ginsberg’s Collected Works, 1947-1997, the Gary Snyder Reader, and some design books for the magazine. We had a great time….
California is burning, and my thoughts have been with friends who live in the hills. Here is praying that the fire season passes quickly. I talked to Mike Crowley, who lives in the Trinity Alps, and he says it is beyond smoky where he is. I have emailed other friends on the west slope of the Sierra’s but haven’t heard back yet….
Time to tell ya…. the radio has lots of new music. Please check it out! I am uploading lots of new stuff, and we are looking at doing regular shows again if there is an interest in it from all those good folks who visit it…
There is lots of stuff going on with it, and especially the spoken word channel… as I type this, there is a talk about Ecstasy going on, and there will be poetry coming up shortly…..
Today we are featuring an Italian Folk/Techno outfit: Fiamma Fumana… thanks to Peter for mentioning them in an email.
Bright Blessings,
Gwyllm
On The Menu:
Italian Quotes
Fiamma Fumana 1.0 Live in Winnipeg
Gary Snyder Interview…
Leonard Cohen Poems: Songs Of Love And Hate
Fiamma Fumana “Di madre in figlia” live in Winnipeg
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Italian Quotes:
Old wine and friends improve with age.
He who knows little quickly tells it
Eggs have no business dancing with stones
He who is guilty believes all men speak ill of him
Only your real friends will tell you when your face is dirty.
The teacher is like the candle, which lights others in consuming itself
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Fiamma Fumana 1.0 Live in Winnipeg
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Gary Snyder Interview…
This interview originated at Caffeine Destiny..
Gary Snyder was born in San Francisco and studied at Reed College in Portland. Zen poet and environmental activist, he’s worked as a logger and a trail-crew member, and studied Oriental langauges at Berkeley. He’s also written many books of poetry and prose, including, The Gary Snyder Reader , No Nature:New and Selected Poems , Riprap , Axe Handles , Regarding Wave, and Turtle Island, which won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry.
He is currently a professor of English at the University of California, Davis, and recently took the time to answer a few of our questions.
Caffeine Destiny: What is the most satisfying thing for you about writing, and has that changed over the years?
Gary Snyder: The act of making something, bringing elements together and creating a new thing with craft and wit hidden in it, is a great pleasure. It’s not the only sort of pleasure, but it is challenging and satisfying, and not unlike other sorts of creating and building. In Greek “poema” means “makings.” It doesn’t change with the years, or with the centuries.
How do you know when a poem is finished?
It tastes done.
If animals wrote things down, who would you rather hear a poem by – a raccoon or a possum?
A raccoon’s poem is alert and inquisitive, and amazes you by what a mess it makes. A possum’s poem seems sort of slow and dumb at first, but then it rolls over. When you get close to it, it spits in your eye.
What’s the most striking difference to you between California wilderness and Oregon wilderness?
You need to specify east side or west side, north or south, for this to be a useful question. The northwestern California-southwestern Oregon zone is basically one. Southeast Oregon belongs with the Great Basin and then a lot of eastern Oregon to the Columbia Plateau. Lower Columbia includes both sides of the river. The differences, east or west, are expressed basically in precipitation, and the Northern Spotted Owl needs bigger and denser groves than the Southern.
Do you find yourself working on several poems at once, or do you start one poem and see it through to some kind of conclusion before you start on another one?
Both, and also other strategies and variations as well. An artist is a total switch-hitter.
Are there some poets whose work you return to again and again?
Yes, among them Du Fu, Lorca, Basho, Pound, Yeats, Buson, Bai Ju-yi, Li He, Su Shih, Homer, Mira Bhai, Kalidasa.
What is your advice to writers who are just starting out?
Think like a craftsperson, learn your materials, your tools, and then read a lot of poetry so you don’t keep inventing wheels.
Can poetry change the world?
Ha.
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Leonard Cohen Poems: Songs Of Love And Hate
Avalanche
Well I stepped into an avalanche,
it covered up my soul;
when I am not this hunchback that you see,
I sleep beneath the golden hill.
You who wish to conquer pain,
you must learn, learn to serve me well.
You strike my side by accident
as you go down for your gold.
The cripple here that you clothe and feed
is neither starved nor cold;
he does not ask for your company,
not at the centre, the centre of the world.
When I am on a pedestal,
you did not raise me there.
Your laws do not compel me
to kneel grotesque and bare.
I myself am the pedestal
for this ugly hump at which you stare.
You who wish to conquer pain,
you must learn what makes me kind;
the crumbs of love that you offer me,
they’re the crumbs I’ve left behind.
Your pain is no credential here,
it’s just the shadow, shadow of my wound.
I have begun to long for you,
I who have no greed;
I have begun to ask for you,
I who have no need.
You say you’ve gone away from me,
but I can feel you when you breathe.
Do not dress in those rags for me,
I know you are not poor;
you don’t love me quite so fiercely now
when you know that you are not sure,
it is your turn, beloved,
it is your flesh that I wear.
—
Joan Of Arc
Now the flames they followed Joan of Arc
as she came riding through the dark;
no moon to keep her armour bright,
no man to get her through this very smoky night.
She said, “I’m tired of the war,
I want the kind of work I had before,
a wedding dress or something white
to wear upon my swollen appetite.”
Well, I’m glad to hear you talk this way,
you know I’ve watched you riding every day
and something in me yearns to win
such a cold and lonesome heroine.
“And who are you?” she sternly spoke
to the one beneath the smoke.
“Why, I’m fire,” he replied,
“And I love your solitude, I love your pride.”
“Then fire, make your body cold,
I’m going to give you mine to hold,”
saying this she climbed inside
to be his one, to be his only bride.
And deep into his fiery heart
he took the dust of Joan of Arc,
and high above the wedding guests
he hung the ashes of her wedding dress.
It was deep into his fiery heart
he took the dust of Joan of Arc,
and then she clearly understood
if he was fire, oh then she must be wood.
I saw her wince, I saw her cry,
I saw the glory in her eye.
Myself I long for love and light,
but must it come so cruel, and oh so bright?
—
Famous Blue Raincoat
It’s four in the morning, the end of December
I’m writing you now just to see if you’re better
New York is cold, but I like where I’m living
There’s music on Clinton Street all through the evening.
I hear that you’re building your little house deep in the desert
You’re living for nothing now, I hope you’re keeping some kind of record.
Yes, and Jane came by with a lock of your hair
She said that you gave it to her
That night that you planned to go clear
Did you ever go clear?
Ah, the last time we saw you you looked so much older
Your famous blue raincoat was torn at the shoulder
You’d been to the station to meet every train
And you came home without Lili Marlene
And you treated my woman to a flake of your life
And when she came back she was nobody’s wife.
Well I see you there with the rose in your teeth
One more thin gypsy thief
Well I see Jane’s awake –
She sends her regards.
And what can I tell you my brother, my killer
What can I possibly say?
I guess that I miss you, I guess I forgive you
I’m glad you stood in my way.
If you ever come by here, for Jane or for me
Your enemy is sleeping, and his woman is free.
Yes, and thanks, for the trouble you took from her eyes
I thought it was there for good so I never tried.
And Jane came by with a lock of your hair
She said that you gave it to her
That night that you planned to go clear
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Love Calls You By Your Name
You thought that it could never happen
to all the people that you became,
your body lost in legend, the beast so very tame.
But here, right here,
between the birthmark and the stain,
between the ocean and your open vein,
between the snowman and the rain,
once again, once again,
love calls you by your name.
The women in your scrapbook
whom you still praise and blame,
you say they chained you to your fingernails
and you climb the halls of fame.
Oh but here, right here,
between the peanuts and the cage,
between the darkness and the stage,
between the hour and the age,
once again, once again,
love calls you by your name.
Shouldering your loneliness
like a gun that you will not learn to aim,
you stumble into this movie house,
then you climb, you climb into the frame.
Yes, and here, right here
between the moonlight and the lane,
between the tunnel and the train,
between the victim and his stain,
once again, once again,
love calls you by your name.
I leave the lady meditating
on the very love which I, I do not wish to claim,
I journey down the hundred steps,
but the street is still the very same.
And here, right here,
between the dancer and his cane,
between the sailboat and the drain,
between the newsreel and your tiny pain,
once again, once again,
love calls you by your name.
Where are you, Judy, where are you, Anne?
Where are the paths your heroes came?
Wondering out loud as the bandage pulls away,
was I, was I only limping, was I really lame?
Oh here, come over here,
between the windmill and the grain,
between the sundial and the chain,
between the traitor and her pain,
once again, once again,
love calls you by your name.
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Fiamma Fumana “Di madre in figlia” live in Winnipeg
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