Thursday, October 25, 2007

Search Words

Ok.....someone found this blog using the search words "Chinese Tufu Recipes With Cat" and someone else found it looking for "Spiders Named Lindsey."

You've got to love Google.

Really.

Monday, October 22, 2007

Mass. Rules!!!

HURRAY FOR THE


AND THE NEW ENGLAND

Thursday, October 18, 2007

Carol Frost - Poetry Magazine - Go There Now

Call me a formalistic heretic but this free verse poem is absolutely, without doubt, one of the best things I have read in eons.

Really.

Read it and weep.

Literally.

Monday, October 15, 2007

So, T.O.

Would ya like a recap with your

Sunday, October 14, 2007

Dare I say - Patriots???

By God, I think the







just might pull this one off!!!

edited to add after the start of the second half:

Or not.

Thursday, October 11, 2007

Poets, Pundits and Anti-Semitism

I'm not quite sure which one is more pathetic.

Anne Coulter

or

Leo Yankevich

One does it in the name of Christianity and the other does it - well, I'm not quite sure why he does it - because he can, I suppose.

Problem is, they both seem to think they're going to win friends and influence people with their cleverness and their ingenuousness. Someone ought to tell them just how unattractive, unimaginative and unbelievable they are.

Ugly combination, fear and ignorance, hey what?

Tuesday, October 09, 2007

Retraction

Last week I said this: Judging a person's character is different than judging that person's poetry. One should have no bearing on the other.

Today, after meeting poetic racism up-close and personal, I'm printing a public retraction.

I was wrong. It should have a bearing. We are morally responsible for what we write, for what we print, for what we publish, for where we publish, for who we publish and we are morally responsible for making the reasons for our choices known.

If we print the poetry of a known Nazi-sympathizer, if we print the poetry of a Holocaust denier, of a racist, of a bigot, if we give these people praise or even acknowledgement, if we give them even an inch of publicity - we give them a platform and we give them power. By publishing them, by bestowing awards on them, we give the rest of the world a chance to meet them and to embrace them. By virtue of our open-mindedness and our appreciation of art and by our own "acceptance" we make them acceptable.

By admitting them into our magazines and our publishing houses, we send the message to the rest of the world that we approve, not only of their poetry, but also of their beliefs - because, in the eyes of the world, it is damn near impossible to separate the heart of a poet from the heart of his poem.

If we do not speak up and tell the world what we feel we share responsibility for what happens as a result of our silence.

For anyone who thinks editors are not morally (and sometimes legally) responsible for what happens as a result of what they publish, I'd suggest reading up on Julius Streicher.

Wednesday, October 03, 2007

Someone's Playing Stupid on Wikipedia

Within the last 48 hours there was a crudely worded reference on a rather disgusting blog to a wonderfully talented female poet having twice won The Nemerov Sonnet award by virtue of possessing talents other than poetic.

Within the last 24 hours there was a post on the same blog which referred to another well-respected woman poet as a "poetasteress and hybrid human-cow" and which requested her to get off of her "bovine ass."

Knowing both of these ladies as well as I do, and knowing that virtually no one finds the obscure blog in question interesting enough to read very often, I tend to find this all rather amusing. For some reason, the farther from the truth one gets the funnier I find it. Maybe I'm just weird that way, but I think most people would agree with me. Lies and accusations are not humorous when there's a even a kernel of truth in them - but when they're totally outrageous they just can't be taken too damn seriously.

So that kind of childish stuff is just funny. The Internet's full of childish stupidity - the Law of Averages says some of it's got to be funny.

The flip side of the same law, however, says that some of the information which can be found, even on the same subject, will fall into the "not quite so humorous" catagory.

Something like this, for instance.

For one thing, Wikipedia is not some obscure blog. Rightly or wrongly, people from all walks of life use Wikipedia as a kind of Internet-Encyclopedia and they trust it. The fact that anyone would choose to deliberately include dishonest and/or misleading information is utterly unconscionable. The fact that it's gone unchallenged since last July is just ice on the disgusting cake.

For another thing, The Howard Nemerov Sonnet Award established in 1994, has always been one of the more prestegious and sought-after awards for formalist poets and The Formalist first published in 1990, was, from the first issue to the last, a first-rate and highly respected publication, as is the current benefactor/administrator of The Nemerov Sonnet Prize, Measure. To see any of them portrayed in any light other than favorable is just painful.

To further clarify things, neither publication is related (or akin) to the imaginary "It's Talon Time" or the very real "Highlights For Children" Nor was there an award given for "It's Talon Time, Bitch" by a fictitious Michael Plittman in 1993. The Nemerov, as stated above, was not even established until a year later - in 1994.

And just in case you didn't already know it - the judges for The Nemerov Award are now and have always been well-known and well-respected poets - not some secret tribunal committee composed of horse doctors.

I hate to ruin someone's childish fun, but I'm gonna notify both Wikipedia and Measure and hopefully this:

Howard Nemerov Sonnet Award
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Howard Nemerov Sonnet Award was established in 1978 by The Formalist. The winner, usually selected from about 3,000 entrants, receives $1,000 and publication. Beginning in 2006 the winner will appear in It's Talon Time!, a successor publication akin to Highlights for Children also published in Evansville, Indiana.

The award is administered by a secret board of veterinarians.


will be gone soon.

It's my good deed for the day.

Besides that, I really do enjoy stomping the annoying little buzz of idiots. I'm such a taloning-telling little bitch that way.