January 22, 2008
3QD gets serious about poetry
You may have noticed that I have been posting more poetry recently at 3QD. This is not because I have suddenly become more literate, but because my friend Jim Culleny has been sending me poems almost every day. In addition to having exquisite taste in poetry, Jim is himself a distinguished and fine poet. In fact, we became friends a few years ago when someone sent me something by him, which I posted at 3QD then and reproduce here:
I was just looking through a hole in Van Gogh's head. The hole I was peering through is a painting some call Terrasse de Cafe. It could be called Fire and Ice. Wonderful would be another apt name for it.
This piece of Vincent is a night sky hung with stellar lanterns as near as lightposts, as if the cosmos was just another canopy slightly beyond the one shielding the cafe. Just a stone's throw beyond. Within spitting distance. Half a hair's breadth away.
Stars big as moons hang in this room in Vincent's skull. Stars ready as wet Cortlands to be plucked from trees in orchards of exploding hydrogen.
Under the cafe canopy nano-figures repose upon cobbles of burning coals.
Sipping wine maybe; savoring oysters; sucking energy from supernovas.
Near and Far opposed as lovers in Vincent's embracing mind.
There and Here tangled beyond belief.
I am happy and proud to say that Jim has agreed to become 3QD's Poetry Editor. He will be posting poems daily, and will also contribute original poems on Mondays. You can see his first post just below this one and can read more about Jim on our About Us page. Please join me in welcoming him to 3QD.
Posted by Abbas Raza at 04:29 AM | Permalink
Comments
I have been delighted to see more poetry here! A poetry editor is excellent news.
Posted by: Christine | Jan 22, 2008 9:28:59 AM
splendiferous
Huzzahs
all round
Posted by: suzanne | Jan 22, 2008 9:51:46 AM
Great thinking, Abbas! When you don't have time to read a short poem a day -- especially if Jim chooses it -- you know you're in real trouble. Oh, Newton...let it not get that bad.
Now -- perhaps Sughra would increase PERCEPTIONS to a three times weekly affair?
Also, there is a growing body of Op-Ed length fiction out there, 1500 words or less. Just wondering, would people give this 5 minutes every once in a while if it were chosen for their attention? If not, what about micro-fiction -- not bigger than a window, that is? It would mean a new editor to truffle out all that concision, but I've often wondered if people would enjoy it.
Posted by: Elatia Harris | Jan 22, 2008 1:20:09 PM
Wonderful idea!
"The poems to come are for you and for me and are not for mostpeople-- it's no use trying to pretend that mostpeople and ourselves are alike. Mostpeople have less in common with ourselves than the squarerootofminusone. You and I are human beings;mostpeople are snobs. Take the matter of being born. What does being born mean to mostpeople? Catastrophe unmitigated. Socialrevolution. The cultured aristocrat yanked out of his hyperexclusively ultravoluptuous superpalazzo,and dumped into an incredibly vulgar detentioncamp swarming with every conceivable species of undesirable organism. Mostpeople fancy a guaranteed birthproof safetysuit of nondestructible selflessness. If mostpeople were to be born twice they'd improbably call it dying--
you and I are not snobs. We can never be born enough. We are human beings;for whom birth is a supremely welcome mystery,the mystery of growing:which happens only and whenever we are faithful to ourselves. You and I wear the dangerous looseness of doom and find it becoming. Life,for eternal us,is now'and now is much to busy being a little more than everything to seem anything,catastrophic included.
... Always the beautiful answer who asks a more beautiful question."
(E.E. Cummings, Introduction to New Poems. 1938)
So, Thanks and good luck to Jim.
Posted by: dkmy | Jan 22, 2008 3:32:28 PM
This is excellent! I have been wanting an introduction to contemporary poetry, but being a medievalist by training and now a technical writer by trade, have been overwhelmed and not sure where to start. When Muhammed cannot go to the mountain, the mountain must come to Muhammed, I guess? Thanks again for such an excellently curated daily gathering of bits and pieces. I look forward to the poetry!
Posted by: ecp | Jan 22, 2008 3:51:27 PM
Very good, better than that snotty Ozzie Peter Nicholson.
Posted by: aguy109 | Jan 22, 2008 4:18:40 PM
It great to see this enthusiam for poetry -atypical in our society at large.
Thanks for the welcome and encouragement. I'll do my best to deliver.
Posted by: Jim | Jan 22, 2008 5:02:33 PM
Welcome, Jim. I too have been pleased to see more poetry lately, and am even happier to learn that it will continue.
Posted by: bill | Jan 24, 2008 5:12:40 AM
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