Thursday, January 03, 2013

Why Books?/Coletti "Coltrane, Dig?" and "Bodies" a Painting/Amy Trussell & Krista Brown/


Happy New Year 2012 from Ed Coletti at No Money in Poetry 



The unadmitted reason why traditional readers 
are hostile to e-books is that we still hold the

superstitious idea that a book is like a soul, and

that every soul should have its own body.

Adam Kirsch in Poetry November 2012


I like and respect Kirsch's quotation with the

              possible exception of the word "superstitious." -ejc


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Painting "Bodies" (Acrylic December 2012) also by Ed Coletti (more images of coletti paintings)


Coltrane, Dig?




I suppose what it is with trane and me is
he takes all the time he wants to take
even outside of time, sidereal time,
stardust time, bessie blue time,
through-and-through-him time,
trancey groove time, even arranged time.

The duke laying down stevie blocks,
trane ain’t gonna be no mortar here
he gonna weave a kinda mesh  
round duke’s work, trane lacing
duke’s solidity with blue spirit,
blues spirit.  duke hears it, stays
near it, layin’ stevie blocks
now playing trane blocks, the duke
in-spired, layin’ down trane blocks.

Then comes slo-trane’s pleasing
molasses blue invention and
no one makes new like coltrane,
the original organic cat and not such
a stranger-in-a-not-so-strange-land,
he resonates—that’s it—we get trane,
that why trane — is — trane.
you hear a bass soloing, wherever
that bass is echoing, whoever
that bass, he echoing trane
that what jazz all about.

If the drum set belong to tootie heath or to
philly joe jones, it don’t matter. they both
coltrane without his horn, c’est la vie, man,
trane be something else, something like
                        deity ethereal night, man. I mean you take
nancy, you give her a lavender face
so she be nancy with the laughing face.
what you got be only coltrane stirring
something delicious in his pot,
coltrane doing nancy, no need explaining
her gleeful countenance,  you dig?
trane, hey, he got no need to wreck the show.



- ed coletti

 Comment or Read Comments Here on any of the above or below. If you do not have a Google account, log in under "Name/URL," (it's easy). Just the name (don't worry about the URL). Actual name is best, but use what you like. Or email me at edcoletti@sbcglobal.net, and I can post it.


                                                                      

Qatari poet Mohamed Ibn Al Ajami’s crime consisted of reciting a poem extolling the courage and values of the popular uprisings in Tunisia. For that he's been sentenced to life in prison.

Please join with a remarkable list of prominent poets from around the world and urge the court in Qatar to reconsider.



POETS MUST HELP POETS! ONE OF THE MOST SIGNIFICANT FREE SPEECH ACTIONS ORGANIZED BY POETS IN MANY YEARS!
Please join Alice Walker, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Michael McClure, Marcia Lynx Qualey, Sam Hamill, Philip Levine, Naomi Shihab Nye, Carolyn Forché, Martin Espada, Chris Abani, Jerome Rothenberg, Pina Piccolo, Pilar Rodriguez Aranda, Nana Nestoros, Jack Hirschman, Patricia Smith, Paul Polansky, Ron Silliman, Menka Shivdasani, Karam Youssef, PEN America Center, Michael Rothenberg and Terri Carrion, co-founders of 100 Thousand Poets for Change, Rootsaction.org, Code Pink and Split This Rock, and many more of our friends in this global campaign to free the Qatari poet Mohamed Ibn Al Ajami, sentenced to life imprisonment for reciting a poem! Sign this petition and send a letter the Qatar Embassy! We can do this!

http://act.rootsaction.org/o/6503/t/0/blastContent.jsp?email_blast_KEY=136398


 
 "Poetry Moonspell" by Krista Brown

Moonspell

There seems to be little territory to stand on
anymore, only several inches of water
running through the canal streets
of this nearly abandoned heart
housed in the city that was almost
sucked down as the next Atlantis,
drenched in toxicity,
blue gas flames shooting from
the top of the water.
We were hip deep in despair
but the temple priestess said
the ocean goddess has given us a gift.
So I looked in the palette and saw
the woman of the tide pool and starfish
that are open wherever they end up
in this earth and sky running with river,
oceans, blood, oil paint.
Go to the blood bank and let them
tap my heart, feeling back to the time
of my own transfusion,
how light I felt the next day
standing next to the sea of the outpost,
moon in the sky like a tugboat.
Some liquid part flowing through me
was once filtered through another’s center.
Look at the fishes’ perseverance
and intelligence as it whips upstream
to find its pool of re-creation,
the flesh medicine for our sad restless brains.
And there are the elephants
who sensed a tsunami before it came,
and bowed down to lift people
and carry them back up into the jungle.
Scientists say we are not that different
in our chromosomes from eels and butterflies
so maybe there is hope for us.
Fluttering in the chest as my offspring plays guitar.
A coastguard or fireman rushes into the
double doors on the news
carrying a perfect baby to safety
and the moon card turns over in endless sky.
Trust instinct, trust the inner pull
toward illuminated mystery
even in times of shipwreck.

-Amy Trussell



Comment or Read Comments Here on any of the above or below. If you do not have a Google account, log in under "Name/URL," (it's easy). Just the name (don't worry about the URL). Actual name is best, but use what you like. Or email me at edcoletti@sbcglobal.net, and I can post it.



Rare Footage of Jack Micheline Reading/A.D. Winans/Photos from Festival of The Long Poem/ Coletti Works/ Etc.

Jack Micheline and Al Winans (right to left in this cool painting by Jason Hardung) click for  Jack Micheline Reading A. D. Winans Remembers...