Kate Beall

book whose text is obscured with paper

blank friday

“‘You are the world expert in your idea,’ I would say.”

This essay is big-hearted, heart-aching, tenderhearted, 🫀. It’s also so wise about the value of close reading, now/forever.

I only know about this through family lore: the family dachshund once made off with the entire (yet to be cooked) turkey; they finally found him in the laundry room with his little butt wiggling out from the turkey's neck hole while he munched away at the inside

It was a tur-dachshund

Under the Light, yet under, Under the Grass and the Dirt, Under the Beetle’s Cellar Under the Clover’s Root, Further than Arm could stretch Were it Giant long, Further than Sunshine could Were the Day Year long, Over the Light, yet over, Over the Arc of the Bird - Over the Comet’s chimney - Over the Cubit’s Head, Further than Guess can gallop Further than Riddle ride - Oh for a Disc to the Distance Between Ourselves and the Dead!

Light blue trumpet shaped lichen growing on dried moss bank

Cladonia fimbriata, our Trumpet Lichen, seen Sunday at Deer Creek Canyon 🌿

Knock the light-wedges away: the floating word is dusk's.

Klopf die Lichtkeile weg: das schwimmende Wort hat der Dämmer.

For #smallpoemsunday Paul Celan, born on this day, translated by John Felstiner.

In German, it says "Dusk has the swimming word." "Floating" is a fair translation, more beautiful, but the translation implies that the word belongs to dusk, whereas in the German dusk only "has" it, as we read...

Came to the comments for the name of these beauties; very much enjoying people’s guesses—so much so that I’m pretending “Cezanne painting,” “Luscious,” and “Art” are also the names of apples I have yet to hear of but yearn to try.

A half-page of Dickinson’s loopy handwriting, containing her poem beginning “Much madness is divinest Sense - “ All the lines, including the final line, end with a small mark, barely wider than a period, set apart from the text and vertically centered (as a dash would be). The same mark is also used within some of the lines.

I used to shudder at editions of Dickinson’s work that used hyphens—but the more I study her manuscripts, the less I feel there’s any adequate way to represent her mark-making in type. It’s hard for me to see the below as em-dashes, for example. (image from www.edickinson.org/editions/1/i...)

A little Emily Dickinson for #SmallPoemSunday, one that’s been playing in my head through the bizarre news cycles of this week.

Palestine by Heart: Poetry Memorization Challenge & Fundraiser for Gaza Thank you for supporting our newest fundraising campaign! Click here to learn more about Palestine by Heart: A Poetry Memorization Challenge & Fundraiser for Gaza. Fill out this form to join as a ...

More info on the @openpoetrybooks.bsky.social website: open-books-a-poem-emporium.myshopify.com/products/pal...

Ah, speaking of memorizing poetry—

what a bargain! ;)

⚰️ bsky.app/profile/cell...

A photo looking straight down at dried up mud in the desert. The mud has cracked into numerous geometric pieces and has many dimples on it from light rainfall.

Desert mud (forbidden chocolate). #photography

Ohh, I was just suggesting that my spouse get a whole bunch of these as holiday/end-of-semester gifts for colleagues before realizing I didn’t know if they still exist. This is excellent news.

Currently trying to figure that out! I tried some Escalantes and yeah, they aren’t really what I like in terms of groundfeel, but might be the best I can do with my wide, high-volume toes (I tried some Xeros recently and they felt miserably narrow to me, for example). The search continues…

very much same

the foot thing, calling autofiction “wan little husks,” generally being a sourpuss and a pill

Hey you can memorize and recite a poem even if you’re not in David’s course. And you could do it in any language!

Here’s Ana Luísa Amaral’s “A verdade histórica” (text and translation in replies)

May we print our way into not needing them anymore!

Great porcine drag queen

You who grew erudite in the slaughterhouse shadow

Eyelashes like black swords teased up to challenge heaven

-"Miss Piggy," Sam Sax

Ohh, now is a good moment to revisit that poem, that book. Thank you for the reminder!

There’s a link to a list of whistle designs in this post—at least one had instructions to customize with text bsky.app/profile/dans...

That’s awesome! I love a minimalist/barefoot shoe. I’ve worn Topos for years; it’s too bad they’ve ended all the 0-drop/lower-cushion models besides the ST-5. It’s probably a good gym/treadmill shoe, but on streets/trails, I wore a hole clean through each of those soft foam heels in no time.

A VERDADE HISTÓRICA A minha filha partiu uma tigela na cozinha. E eu que me apetecia escrever sobre o evento, tive que pôr de lado inspiração e lápis, pegar numa vassoura e varrer a cozinha. A cozinha varrida de tigela ficou diferente da cozinha de tigela intacta: local propício a escavação e estudo, curto mapa arqueológico num futuro remoto. Uma tigela de louça branca com flores, restos de cereais tratados em embalagem estanque espalhados pelo chão. Não eram grão de trigo de Pompeia, mas eram respeitosos cereais de qualquer forma. E a tigela, mesmo não sendo da dinastia Ming, mas das Caldas, daqui a cinco ou dez mil anos devia ter estatuto admirativo. Mas a hecatombe deu-se. E escorregada de pequeninas mãos, ficou esquecida de famas e proveitos, varrida de vassouras e memórias. Por mísero e cruel balde de lixo azul em plástico moderno (indestrutível)

The Historical Truth My daughter broke a bowl in the kitchen. And when I fancied writing a poem about the incident I had to put aside inspiration and pen, pick up a broom and sweep the kitchen floor. The kitchen swept clean of the broken bowl looked different from the kitchen with the bowl intact: a place ready to be excavated and studied a brief archeological map of a remote future. A white china bowl decorated with flowers, the remnants of processed cereal in watertight wrapping scattered on the floor. They weren't grains of wheat from Pompeii but respectable cereals nonetheless. And the bowl, although not exactly Ming dynasty, but made in Caldas da Rainha, in five or ten thousand years should find its own admiring audience. But disaster struck. And having slipped from those small hands, the bowl, achieving neither fame nor advantage, was swept up by brooms and memories Into a miserable cruel blue bin in modern (indestructible) plastic

Ana Luísa Amaral, “A verdade histórica,” translated by Margaret Jull Costa as “The Historical Truth”

Hey you can memorize and recite a poem even if you’re not in David’s course. And you could do it in any language!

Here’s Ana Luísa Amaral’s “A verdade histórica” (text and translation in replies)

The student who filmed this wanted you to know the prof’s name, too—they captured it on the projected slide above his head.

this, all day right now

(unmute, it’s a bop)

At Night the States: a Memorial Celebration for Alice Notley This will be a gathering to read perform and listen to works by and with and about Alice Notley, who passed away this past spring in Paris. Notley said St. Mark's Church was where she imagined her wor...

free memorial event for Alice (Mom) Notley happening tomorrow eve. Six months from the date of her death. Which also means we just got the French tax bill. So the memorial's free, but if anyone brings a big bag of money to lend us for a spell, that's cool

www.poetryproject.org/events/at-ni...

i asked jeeves