Poet of the week - Liz Waldner

We live in a dairy-farming area and, on occasion, have had cows on our lawn. (They invited themselves.) So we couldn't resist posting a poem that begins with "Cows on the spine of the hill..."

Where, Broken (the darkness
Liz Waldner

Cows on the spine of the hill like the spine of a book are some letters
Letters with legs; like an E and an L or an R that is squared like the box of the
body of cows
Like the spine of a book, the legs and the bodies of cows spell out the name and
maybe the head spells also the name of the book on whose spine is embossed
the name made of grass:
The light of the many days and the darkness the roots of the grass pull up out
of the hill and the light pushes down with the feet of the cows and the darkness
inside of the skulls of the cows, all these the name has eaten
The lines of the spines of the cows grazing the sky, the meeting of spine and sky
also marking the arcing edges of dark or light letters on dark or light pages
where, broken, the name grazes the thing it will know or mean or become
These are the choices.
However, there are other books.

From A Point Is That Which Has No Part by Liz Waldner, published by University of Iowa Press. Copyright © 2000 by Liz Waldner.

Poet of the week - Dorothy Parker

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Dorothy Parker

Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song,
A medley of extemporanea;
And love is a thing that can can never go wrong,
And I am Marie of Roumania.

From Not So Deep as a Well, 1937.

Other places:

A miscellany of Dorothy Parker quotes can be found here.

A Parker bio. and poems can be found at AmericanPoems.com. Grit your teeth, close the popunder ads and enjoy the rest!

Poet of the week - Ibrahim Ag Alhabib

We've been listening to Amassakoul, the latest release by the Tuareg group Tinariwen, and were impressed by the powerful song lyrics by the group's leader, Ibrahim Ag Alhabib. Although we have to present them in translation, we're certain you'll find them haunting and evocative of life in the Sahara.

Ténéré Daféd Nikchan

I'm in the desert with a wood fire
I'm keeping the night company
With its shooting stars
Life
In the ruins
These traces that cry memories
Deep in nostalgia
My head resting on a pillow of woes
Tonight I sleep in the ruins
I follow the traces of my past
It sometimes befalls me to live like this
My heart oppressed and tight
And I feel the thirst of my soul
Then I hear some music
Sounds, the wind
Some music which takes me far, far away
To the clear light of morning
Where, before my heart
The brilliance of the stars goes out

Copyright © Ibrahim Ag Alhabib, 2003. Translator unknown.

Other places:

Tinariwen is on tour now. Click here for dates and locations.