Happy National Poetry Month - John Berryman's Dream Song 29

By Jack Brummet, Poetry Ed.

Dream Song 29

By John Berryman

There sat down, once, a thing on Henry’s heart   

só heavy, if he had a hundred years

& more, & weeping, sleepless, in all them time   

Henry could not make good.

Starts again always in Henry’s ears

the little cough somewhere, an odour, a chime.

And there is another thing he has in mind   

like a grave Sienese face a thousand years

would fail to blur the still profiled reproach of. Ghastly,   

with open eyes, he attends, blind.

All the bells say: too late. This is not for tears;   

thinking.

But never did Henry, as he thought he did,

end anyone and hacks her body up

and hide the pieces, where they may be found.

He knows: he went over everyone, & nobody’s missing.   

Often he reckons, in the dawn, them up.

Nobody is ever missing.

                    ---o0o---

A Memoir of Robert Huff by Lewis Turco

By Jack Brummet, Poetry Ed.

A sad, but fascinating memoir of one of my poetry mentors, Bob Huff.  Jump here, to Lewis Turco's blog to read the story.  Ed's Note: Turco is also the author/editor of a great poetry reference book--The Book of Forms.

I interviewed Robert Huff in 1977 for a magazine--Jeopardy.  I'll have to dig that up. It was priceless...my clueless questions parried by his snarky answers. That's him, second from the left in the photograph. 

I took two classes and one independent study from Bob. Our "one on ones" were usually conducted at a bar; we met on campus only when he was boxed in by faculty or editing duties. Depending on the level of ethel he was running, he ranged from warm, encouraging, and hilarious to the, well, dark polar opposite. On the whole it was great to spend a few sessions outside the classroom. He was wise about poetry and song and the act of writing. And not so wise about his own situation. Another prof I became friends with at Fairhaven/Western, R.D. Brown, published a mass market mystery novel with a lead character loosely but vividly based on Robert Huff. Bob denied this in the interview, where he said "the only thing I have in common with this cop, Killian, is defensive drinking."

Jerry Melin, Keelin Curran, Nick Gattuccio, Jan Newberry, Kevin Francis Aloysius Curran and I first published two or three poems from what would become his final book (the book and poems are mentioned in the article), in the second issue of our NYC literary magazine, Scape, in 1982.

Ed's note:  My friend Pope Francis mentioned, interestingly, that Miller Williams, another poet at the Breadloaf conference (and pictured above) is the father of the singer-songwriter Lucinda Williams.

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Happy 448th birthday, William Shakespeare

By Jack Brummet, Poetry Ed.

Happy 448th birthday to William Shakespeare.  He was born, and died, on April 23.  In these 448 years, no one in any language has come close to what he accomplished.

Sonnet 73

That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou seest the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire
Consumed with that which it was nourish'd by.
This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

                             ---o0o---

Poem: Birdwatching

By Jack Brummet 

Birdwatching

An owl sits in our plum tree.
She doesn't know
I'm glad she's here.

This is as good as it gets.
And it gets this good
Every day.

---o0o---

Alien Lore No. 248 - The Merge: the disappearance of Lieutenant Felix Moncla

By Jack Brummet, Alien Lore Ed.

US Air Force Pilot Lieutenant Felix Moncla was stationed in 1953 at Kinross Air Force Base in Michigan when an airborne object showed up on the radar. 

Moncla scrambled his F-89 Scorpion interceptor to investigate.   Second Lieutenant Robert L. Wilson acted as the Scorpion's radar operator.  Wilson was unable to track the object on the Scorpion's radar, so ground radar operators fed the Lieutenant directions as he flew at 500 miles per hour toward the mysterious object. 

Moncla eventually closed in on the UFO at about 8000 feet in altitude. As he approached the object,   ground radar reported seeing his aircraft merge with the UFO. 

Both objects vanished from the radar.  People theorize that he had had a collision with an unreported aircraft, but Canadian aviation authorities swear there was no such aircraft in the area at the time of “the merging”. 

No confirmed debris or wreckage was ever found below the merging point, and the fate of Lt. Moncla and his radio operator remain unknown. 

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Happy National Poetry Month - Theodore Roethke's pub song "Gob Music"

Theodore Roethke's pub song, "Gob Music"

[click the images below to enlarge]

ATIT Reheated--> five years ago: My favorite folk tale: Paul Bunyan, and how he dug Puget Sound, and dozens of other tales

By Jack Brummet, Folklore Ed.

click to enlarge - Jack inspects Babe The Blue Ox's testes in Klamath, California

Growing up in Kent, Washington, every week I trudged a few blocks up 4th Avenue to check out five or six books from the Public Library, . There were two books I checked out over and over through the years. I now own Paul Stevens' Paul Bunyan, (Alfred A. Knopf., NYC, 1925, 3rd edition...alas...but signed by the author, in great shape, with an intact dust jacket) and another, later book (collecting even more Paul Bunyan stories, Tall Timber Tales - More Paul Bunyan Stories by Dell J. McCormick (Caxton Printers/McCormick 1939 - I have the 16th printing in hardcover, from 1985 ).
I go back every couple of years and read the tall tales of Paul Bunyan and Babe, The Blue Ox. Paul Bunyan is a genuine American folk hero (right up there with Johnny Appleseed, John Henry, Pecos Bill, Koba, Atticus Finch [not a true folk hero, being from a novel], and Zorro), and a prototype of typical American tall tales you find gathered in folk tale anthologies. I was able to read all the stories I could get my hands on to my three children.

Something about Paul and Babe resonated with me. Partly it was the constellation of characters Paul assembled--people like Sourdough Sam; Cream Puff Fatty, and the other cooks; Johnny Inkslinger, the brilliant poet, accountant and all round deep thinker; Babe of course, with his Gargantuan feats of strength; Paul's foreman, the Swede Hel Helson; Brimstone Bill; Big Ole; Chris Crosshaul; and Sport ,the reversible dog.

The tales were about mosquitos the size of wild horses; logging problems and troubles moving the logs downriver; a winter so cold the flames froze, when all their cuss words froze and fell to the ground only to unthaw in a cacophonous babble later that spring; Biblical rainstorms that lasted for months (welcome to Seattle); and natural obstructions like mountains ranges that Paul needed to level to make progress in his clearing of the land. Paul Bunyan was popularized by newspapers across the country in 1910 and has been a part of the American culture ever since. Unfortunately, Paul liked to cut down vast forests (he wasn't replanting seedlings or "reforesting" either...he was CLEARING land), and eat bacon and ducks; he is probably not Sierra Club, Greenpeace, Grist, or PETA-approved.


Delaney Brummet standing on Paul's logging boot in Klamath, Califorina.

Paul Bunyan was a hero of North America’s lumberjacks -- those sawyers and fellers, choke-setters, and woodsmen who cut down the trees impinging the road of progress, and, conversely, needed to build the foundations of the burgeoning West and Southwest. Paul was known for his strength, speed and his incredible skill with the crosscut saw, the maul, and the axe. Paul, Babe, and the crew leveled forests from Maine to Minnesota, all the way to right here in Seattle, alongside the Pacific Ocean , from which he would excavate a large swath to create Puget Sound (he threw the sand, rock, and mud he dug out over his shoulder, and created Mount Baker and the San Juan Islands). Paul Bunyan also dug the Mississippi river, built the Rocky mountains, and hollowed out the Grand Canyon,

Some people say Paul Bunyan comes from the middle western Great Lakes area of the United States. Other people say the stories about him originated in French Canada.

· Paul Bunyan was 63 ax handles tall.
· Babe, Paul's blue ox, was 42 ax handles wide from the tip of one horn to the tip of the other horn.
· Paul Bunyan had a frying pan that covered an area of one acre, which was used to make pancakes. The cooks greased the pan by ice skating across the griddle with sides of bacon strapped to their skates.
· Paul Bunyan and Babe created the 10,000 lakes of Minnesota. Their footsteps created impressions in the land that filled with rainwater, forming lakes throughout the state.
· Paul Bunyan once trained giant 2,000 pound ants. Each ant could each do the work of 50 men.
· Paul Bunyan herded whales in Lake Superior.
· Paul Bunyan created the Puget Sound in Washington by digging a hole along the west coast of the state, and simultaneously created Mt. Rainer and Mt. Baker, and as I mentioned, the San Juan Islands.
· Babe could eat 30 bales of hay, wires and all, in a day.
· It took a crow a day to fly from one Babe’s horn tips to the other.

The legends of Paul Bunyan incorporate dozens of points of interest in the United States, including: Maine, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Arizona, Washington State, The Grand Canyon, The Grand Tetons, Puget Sound, and The Great Lakes.

Paul Bunyan and Babe cleared the trees from the states of North Dakota and South Dakota to prepared the area for farming.

In the early days, whenever Paul Bunyan was broke between logging seasons, he traveled around like other lumberjacks doing any kind of pioneering work he could find. He showed up in Washington about the time The Puget Construction Co. was building Puget Sound and Billy Puget was making history by moving dirt with platoons of dirt-throwing badgers.

Paul and Billy Puget got into an argument over who had shoveled the most. Paul got mad and said he'd show Billy Puget a thing or two, and started to throw the dirt back. Before Billy stopped him Paul had piled up the San Juan Islands. [Jack note: another story about the Creation of Puget Sound says that Paul was actually digging a grave for his beloved Ox Babe and it became Puget Sound (which I can see from my front yard...and therefore always feel a little connection to Paul) when Babe miraculously recovered.

There are statues of Paul and Babe in Klamath, California [see the photos, above, of Jack and Del in Klamath), Brainerd, Minnesota; Hackensack, Minnesota; Westwood, California; Del Norte County, California; St. Ignace, Michigan, Ossineke, Michigan; and in Eau Claire, Wisconsin; Old Forge, New York; Akeley, Minnesota; Tucson, Arizona; Bangor, Maine; Minocqua, Wisconsin; Rumford, Maine; Oscoda, Michigan; Portland, Oregon; St. Maries, Idaho; Shelton, Washington; Lake Nebagamon, Wisconsin; Aline, Oklahoma; and also on top of a Vietnamese restaurant in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He is also depicted on the world's largest wood carving, at the entrance to Sequoia National Park in California. There is a group/fraternal order called the Mystic Knights of the Blue Ox in Bayfield, Wisconsin.

Paul Bunyan Land, an amusement park east of Brainerd, Minnesota, features a talking statue of Paul with a statue of Babe (its original Baxter location was cleared in 2003 to make room for new commercial development). There are two other (smaller, non-talking) statues located in Brainerd.

The Trees of Mystery, a roadside attraction in Klamath, California, features a 49 foot tall statue of Bunyan and a 35 ft (10m) tall statue of Babe. There are also carvings and characters from stories of Paul. See Babe and Paul photos above....

How Paul Bunyan created Puget Sound, by S. E. Schlosser - When Paul Bunyan was with the Puget Construction company and old man Elliott and Mr. Rainier on the contract to dig Puget Sound, the city council of Bellingham sent in to the company and asked them if they couldn't have Paul come up and make a bay for them so the ships from Alaska could get nearer land than they had before. They were willing to pay for it, and Paul went up with the blue ox to dig it for them. But when he got there he found that the land where he wanted to make the bay was held by an old homesteader by the name of Baker, who refused to give it up.

Paul offered to pay him three times as much as the farm was worth, but the old man was stubborn and would not give it up anyway. Well, Paul tried several times to argue with him and talked himself blue in the face nearly, and even hired a lawyer who could talk both backwards and forwards, but still the old man wouldn't give in. By that time Paul was getting pretty mad and he went down to see the old man again and they had a row that time.

When Paul dug out the bay he threw the dirt up into a big pile on the other side of the city. It didn't take him long to finish the job.

A couple of months later, after old man Baker had got out of the hospital, Paul met him on the street one day. "There's your farm," says Paul. "It's all there, I guess. You can name it for yourself if you want to." And that's how Mount Baker happens to be Mount Baker.

The Log Jam by S. E. Schlosser - One spring day, the loggers on the Wisconsin River discovered a huge log jam, the biggest they'd ever seen. The logs were piled about two hundred feet high and the jam went upriver for a mile or more. Those loggers chopped and hauled at the jam, but it wouldn't budge an inch. So they called for Paul Bunyan to give them a hand.

Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox sized up the log jam. Then Paul told the loggers to stand back. He put Babe in the river in front of the log jam and began shooting his rifle, peppering the Blue Ox with shot. Babe thought he was being bothered by a particularly nasty breed of fly, so he began swishing his tail back and forth.

Well, that stirred things up a bit in the river. It got so agitated that the water began to flow upstream, taking the logs with it. Bit by bit, the log jam broke apart. Finally, Paul pulled Babe out of the water, and the river and logs began to float downstream again the way they should.

Frozen Flames, by S. E. Schlosser - One winter, shortly after Paul Bunyan dug Lake Michigan as a drinking hole for his blue ox, Babe, he decided to camp out in the Upper Peninsula. It was so cold in that there logging camp, that one evening, the temperature dropped to 68 degrees below zero. Each degree in the camp thermometer measured sixteen inches long and the flames in the lanterns froze solid. No one, not even Paul Bunyan, could blow them out.

The lumberjacks didn't want the bunkhouse lit at night, because they wouldn't get any sleep. So they put the lanterns way outside of camp where they wouldn't disturb anyone. But they forgot about the lanterns, so that when thaw came in the the early spring, the lanterns flared up again and set all of northern Michigan on fire! They had to wake Paul Bunyan up so he could stamp out the fire with his boots.

Paul Bunyan's Kitchen, retold by S. E. Schlosser - One winter, Paul Bunyan came to log along the Little Gimlet in Oregon. Ask any old timer who was logging that winter, and they'll tell you I ain't lying when I say his kitchen covered about ten miles of territory.

That stove, now, she were a grand one. An acre long, taller than a scrub pine, and when she was warm, she melted the snow for about twenty miles around. The men logging in the vicinity never had to put on their jackets 'til about noon on a day when Paul Bunyan wanted flapjacks.

It was quite a site to see, that cook of Paul Bunyan's making flapjacks. Cookie would send four of the boys up with a side of hog tied to each of their snowshoes, and they'd skate around up there keeping the griddle greased while Cookie and seven other men flipped flapjacks for Paul Bunyan. Took them about an hour to make enough flapjacks to fill him up. The rest of us had to wait our turn.

The table we had set up for the camp was about ten miles long. We rigged elevators to the table to bring the vittles to each end, and some of the younger lads in the camp rode bicycles down the path at the center, carrying cakes and such wherever they were called for.

We had one mishap that winter. Babe the Blue Ox accidentally knocked a bag of dried peas off the countertop when he swished his tail. Well, them peas flew so far and so fast out of the kitchen that they knocked over a dozen loggers coming home for lunch, clipped the tops off of several pine trees, and landed in the hot spring. We had pea soup to eat for the rest of the season, which was okay by me, but them boys whose Mama's insisted they bathe more than once a year were pretty sore at losing their swimming hole.

---o0o--- 

Painting: Digital Spring

By Jack Brummet 

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Video: What to do in a zombie attack (By Jose Carrillo), a very funny compilation of public domain footage over hilarious narration

By Jack Brummet 

A pretty hilarious series of shorts on surviving the zombie apocalypse, based on  1950's public domain footage. This film was created  by Jose Carrillo using Public Domain films from the Prelinger Archives (on archive.org). 

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A gift from our French friends: The Statue of Liberty in Paris, 1986

By Jack Brummet, Franco-friend and Franco-phobe Ed.

The Statue of Liberty was built in Paris.  It was designed by Frédéric Bartholdi, but actually built by none other than Alexandre-Gustave Eiffel ten years before he built his tower.

The statue was under construction for about eight years (1877-85), before it was disassembled, crated up, and shipped to New York.  

There are three, much smaller, replicas of the statue in Paris.

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Gyyp's amazing weird animals

By Jack Brummet, Art Ed.

The artist gyyp has created some pretty amazing confabulations of animals.  Jump here to Imgur to see them.

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Happy National Poetry Month: From Christopher Smart's Jubilate Agno - For I Will Consider My Cat Jeoffry (the best poem ever written about a cat)

By Jack Brummet 


Kit Smart is one of my favorite poets.  This is excerpt, written in the mid-18th century, is from Jubilate Agno, which has to be the best cat poem of all time.

Jubilate Agno (excerpt)

For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry.
For he is the servant of the Living God duly and daily serving him.
For at the first glance of the glory of God in the East he worships in his way.
For this is done by wreathing his body seven times round with elegant quickness.
For then he leaps up to catch the musk, which is the blessing of God upon his prayer.
For he rolls upon prank to work it in.
For having done duty and received blessing he begins to consider himself.
For this he performs in ten degrees.
For first he looks upon his forepaws to see if they are clean.
For secondly he kicks up behind to clear away there.
For thirdly he works it upon stretch with the forepaws extended.
For fourthly he sharpens his paws by wood.
For fifthly he washes himself.
For sixthly he rolls upon wash.
For seventhly he fleas himself, that he may not be interrupted upon the beat.
For eighthly he rubs himself against a post.
For ninthly he looks up for his instructions.
For tenthly he goes in quest of food.
For having consider'd God and himself he will consider his neighbour.
For if he meets another cat he will kiss her in kindness.
For when he takes his prey he plays with it to give it a chance.
For one mouse in seven escapes by his dallying.
For when his day's work is done his business more properly begins.
For he keeps the Lord's watch in the night against the adversary.
For he counteracts the powers of darkness by his electrical skin and glaring eyes.
For he counteracts the Devil, who is death, by brisking about the life.
For in his morning orisons he loves the sun and the sun loves him.
For he is of the tribe of Tiger.
For the Cherub Cat is a term of the Angel Tiger.
For he has the subtlety and hissing of a serpent, which in goodness he suppresses.
For he will not do destruction, if he is well-fed, neither will he spit without provocation.
For he purrs in thankfulness, when God tells him he's a good Cat.
For he is an instrument for the children to learn benevolence upon.
For every house is incomplete without him and a blessing is lacking in the spirit.
For the Lord commanded Moses concerning the cats at the departure of the Children of Israel from Egypt.
For every family had one cat at least in the bag.
For the English Cats are the best in Europe.
For he is the cleanest in the use of his forepaws of any quadruped.
For the dexterity of his defence is an instance of the love of God to him exceedingly.
For he is the quickest to his mark of any creature.
For he is tenacious of his point.
For he is a mixture of gravity and waggery.
For he knows that God is his Saviour.
For there is nothing sweeter than his peace when at rest.
For there is nothing brisker than his life when in motion.
For he is of the Lord's poor and so indeed is he called by benevolence perpetually--Poor Jeoffry! poor Jeoffry! the rat has bit thy throat.
For I bless the name of the Lord Jesus that Jeoffry is better.
For the divine spirit comes about his body to sustain it in complete cat.
For his tongue is exceeding pure so that it has in purity what it wants in music.
For he is docile and can learn certain things.
For he can set up with gravity which is patience upon approbation.
For he can fetch and carry, which is patience in employment.
For he can jump over a stick which is patience upon proof positive.
For he can spraggle upon waggle at the word of command.
For he can jump from an eminence into his master's bosom.
For he can catch the cork and toss it again.
For he is hated by the hypocrite and miser.
For the former is afraid of detection.
For the latter refuses the charge.
For he camels his back to bear the first notion of business.
For he is good to think on, if a man would express himself neatly.
For he made a great figure in Egypt for his signal services.
For he killed the Ichneumon-rat very pernicious by land.
For his ears are so acute that they sting again.
For from this proceeds the passing quickness of his attention.
For by stroking of him I have found out electricity.
For I perceived God's light about him both wax and fire.
For the Electrical fire is the spiritual substance, which God sends from heaven to sustain the bodies both of man and beast.
For God has blessed him in the variety of his movements.
For, tho he cannot fly, he is an excellent clamberer.
For his motions upon the face of the earth are more than any other quadruped.
For he can tread to all the measures upon the music.
For he can swim for life.
For he can creep.

- Christopher Smart

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