Song of the Open Road
BY WALT WHITMAN
1
Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road,
Healthy, free, the world before me,
The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose.
.
Poetry at the Post: Healthy And Happy And Heading For Peru!
Poetry at the Post: Heading To Peru With Vallejo In Mi Bolsa….
Miguel
BY CÉSAR VALLEJO
TRANSLATED BY DON PATERSON
I’m sitting here on the old patio
beside your absence. It is a black well.
We’d be playing, now. . .
“Faryab- village dug well” by Didiervberghe – Own work. Licensed under Public Domain via Commons –
A beautiful poem… you can listen to the awesome Mercedes Sosa sing it in Spanish here:
Poetry at the Post: Glory Be To God For Powdered Blue Helmets Or Three Things An Ole Miss Mom Learned From The Rebels’ Win Over Alabama
Pied Beauty
BY GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS
Glory be to God for dappled things –
…
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced – fold, fallow, and plough;
And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.
- Those powder blue helmets rock! I vote for powder blue all the way for the rest of the season. I’m already updating my game day outfits to match.
- QB Chad Kelly got it done but it is WR Quincy Adeboyejo who is my fave right now—two catches for 71 yards and a TD! Plus he’s from Texas!
- Ole Miss is blessed.”God has been so good to us,” said Hugh Freeze in his post game interview. Amen. Even I felt a twinge of religion at 12:24 am CDT. Hell Yes!
Poetry at the Post: When A Neighbor Brings You Peonies, Think of Keats…
Ode on Melancholy
BY JOHN KEATS
But when the melancholy fit shall fall
Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud,
That fosters the droop-headed flowers all,
And hides the green hill in an April shroud;
Then glut thy sorrow on a morning rose,
Or on the rainbow of the salt sand-wave,
Or on the wealth of globed peonies;
Poetry at the Post: A Woman Named Claire, Franciscan Women & Amiri Baraka
The New World
BY AMIRI BARAKA
The sun is folding, cars stall and rise
beyond the window. The workmen leave
the street to the bums and painters’ wives
pushing their babies home…
CALL FOR PAPERS
“Franciscan Women: Medieval & Beyond”
Women and the Franciscan Tradition Conference
The Franciscan Institute at St. Bonaventure University
July 12-15, 2016
From July 12-15, 2016, the Franciscan Institute at Saint Bonaventure University will host a major conference dedicated to women and the Franciscan Tradition, ranging from the Middle Ages to the contemporary world. The organizers seek to bring together women and men who are living the Franciscan tradition in various ways — as members or associates of the three Franciscan orders, coworkers in Franciscan institutions, etc. — with academic scholars who want to bring their research into a mutually enriching conversation with a broader audience.
Individual papers, panels, and workshop proposals are sought that engage academic, pastoral, and socio-political aspects of this topic.
Possible areas of focus include, but are not limited to the following:
Franciscan women and leadership
Female Franciscanism during the Middle Ages
Female Franciscanism and the Early Modern World
Franciscan women in the “New World”
Franciscan women and ministry
Scholarly trends and the study of religious women
Women and the Franciscan Intellectual Tradition through the ages
Franciscan Women and the Contemporary Church.
Proposals are due by November 20, 2015. Notifications of acceptance, rejection or need for alterations will be sent to authors by January 11, 2016. Send a paper proposal/ draft of your text no later than November 20, 2015, directly to:
Women & the Franciscan Tradition Conference
Franciscan Institute St. Bonaventure University
Murphy Building – Room 100
St. Bonaventure, NY 14778
Organizing Committee:
Lezlie Knox (Marquette University)
David Couturier OFM Cap. (St.Bonaventure University)
Timothy Johnson (Flagler College)
Diane V. Tomkinson OSF (Neumann University)
For more information, contact David Couturier OFM Cap at dcouturi@sbu.edu
Poetry at the Post: Reading Poetry in Alphabetical Order—Stuck on “D” or A Home for Every Syrian Refugee Family
St. Francis of Assisi *
The View
by W. S. Di Piero
…
September, thirsting,
sings our Hosannah..
#RefugeesWelcome
“Pope Francis has called on every European parish, religious community, monastery and sanctuary to take in one refugee family, as thousands of people from war-torn countries continued to stream into Germany via Austria.” (Aljazeera). And, refugee families will be offered shelter in the two parishes within the jurisdiction of Vatican City. (Washington Post)
This pope rocks! I love that he is living the gospel and the way of St. Francis but can the churches of Europe absorb all the refugees? Not hardly as hundreds of European churches have been closed or are being repurposed. (The Wall Street Journal) and the war in Syria is worsening causing even more Syrians to flee. According to statistics from MercyCorps, “Four million Syrians have registered or are awaiting registration with the United Nations High Commission of Refugees…” The current Syrian refugee crisis is the worst since the Rwandan genocide of 1994.
So, what if every US church were to take in one refugee family? That could make a significant dent in the problem as there are estimated to be about 450,000 churches in the United States. I’m churchless and believe in the daily walk of meditation but if you have a church in Marfa, Fort Davis, Alpine or Austin, Texas that wants to sponsor a refugee family, contact me. I can help.
Meanwhile, the Episcopal Ministries Services, has outlined 3 simple steps you can take that will make a difference:
1. Contact one of their local resettlement partners and volunteer to welcome refugees as they arrive in the United States. This can mean anything from donating household items to helping our new American friends and neighbors learn their way around your community. Find a partner near you: http://bit.ly/EMMpartners
2. Join the #RefugeesWelcome global social media campaign urging governments to welcome refugees to their countries. See the sample photos from our resettlement partner in New Haven: IRIS – Integrated Refugee & Immigrant Services.
3. Sign the White House petition asking the President and the government to pledge to resettle at least 65,000 Syrians by 2016: http://1.usa.gov/1L6zh9l.
- From Chinese Apples [New and Selected Poems] by W. S. Di Piero, Alfred A. Knopf, 2009.
Poetry at the Post: Reading Poetry in Alphabetical Order or “D” is for Matt Donovan
To a Student Who Refuses to Read More
of The Inferno After Learning None of It Is True*
by Matt Donovan
Pliny tells us Zeuxis rendered the grapes with such care
crows circled back all afternoon to peck at the work he’d done.
Interesting factoid: Pliny the Elder died on August 25, AD 79, while attempting to rescue Pomponianus (a friend of Pliny’s) and his family from the eruption of Mount Vesuvius that had just destroyed the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum. (Professor Wikipedia)
Not a believer in Dante’s Inferno? Then, how about Purgatorio? We’ll be reading Dante’s Purgatorio in the Global Reading Group next Lenten season. Pre-read salon is already up and active. Free and open to all readers, writers and those searching for redemption. Click here to join.
- From Vellum by Matt Donovan, Houghton Mifflin Company, 2007.
Poetry at the Post: Reading Poetry in Alphabetical Order or “C” Is For Christian Campbell
AT BUCKINGHAM PALACE*
by Christian Campbell
I
I am the first of my family
to go to Buckingham Palace.
I had the flu, I nearly stayed home;…
*From Running the Dusk by Christian Campbell, Peepal Tree Press Ltd., 2010. Running the Dusk gives us a new voice for Caribbean arts and letters…(Yusef Komunyakaa)
Poetry at the Post: The Last Days of Summer and Peaches!
From Blossoms
BY LI-YOUNG LEE
From blossoms comes
this brown paper bag of peaches
Li-Young Lee’s poem is a luscious poem. It moves from the “bite into/ the round jubilance of peach” to joy and death then circles back to the beginning, or the blossoms of the peach. Check it out here.
Here’s another “peach” poem:
Peach Farm
BY DEAN YOUNG
I’m thinking it’s time to go back
to the peach farm or rather
the peach farm seems to be wanting me back
Actually, I could go on and on with “peach” poems and “peach” art. The peach seems to be inspirational. But, instead, I’ll end with this photo of a peach-bourbon (yep, some bourbon for a bit of a kick!) pie baked yesterday by Baker John at the Casa 300 Bakery & Literary Salon in Mano Prieto, a few miles north of Marfa, TX.
Poetry at the Post: Texts and Transformations in Stellenbosch, South Africa
12 weeks 4 days sonar
by ANTJIE KROG
…distressed I sit
and look at the eland the mountain and the sky so nothing
do I remember of the de-nothinged from which I come
Call for Papers
Southern Africa Society of Medieval and Renaissance Studies Conference
26 – 28th August, 2016
We are pleased to announce that the 23rd biennial conference of SASMARS will be held at Mont Fleur in Stellenbosch, South Africa on 26 – 28th August 2016.
“Texts and Transformations: Medieval and Early Modern Cultures”
Medieval and Early Modern societies weathered various socio-cultural transformations, ranging from economic developments to religious conflicts, across a range of different geographies and in urban and rural spaces. How did poetry, theatre, prose, visual art, architecture, and other forms of art respond to such changes? How do we historically understand and assess various kinds of social transitions?
Topics for this conference can include but are not limited to:
• Adaptions of classical texts and artworks
• Translation of texts and ideas
• Contemporary readings of old texts
• Cross-cultural interactions and influences
• Historical transitions and periodisation
• Religious reform
• Urban renewal and development
• Medieval and Early Modern studies in contemporary education
• Appropriations of Medieval and Early Modern culture
• Cultural responses to economic change
• Representations of political dissent and rebellion
• Utopias and dystopias
• Gender, sexuality, and social change
Deadline: A conference proposal and a short biography to derrick.higginbotham@uct.ac.za by 30 November 2015. Any inquires can be directed to the same email address.
Alice-Catherine 