Poetrymind: June 2009

Saturday, June 20, 2009

Ali Akbar Khan 1922-2009

Photo Credit: By Lawson Knight

ALI AKBAR KHAN, SUPREME SIDDHA, brother of legendary hermit musician Annupurna, son of the great wizard Ustad Alauddin Khan, who broughtt the solo instrumental music of the West to the USA, in his performances w. Chatur Lal at the Museum of Modern Art in the 1950's- who taught thousands of students at his school in San Raphel, California,which I was privileged to attend, who taught me the melodies for the Mira Bai Bhajans which you have heard on many occasions -who gave me a scholarship to study at the Conservatory of Music in Basel - Heaven is blessed to receive him.

from an email by Louise Landes Levi, June 20, 2009

for a video of Ali Akbar Khan, click here

Obituary from the Washington Post

More links to come

Wednesday, June 03, 2009

Allen Ginsberg--83rd Birthday, June 3

Garrison Keeler on the Writer's Almanac this morning gave a fine and intelligent homage to Allen on his birthday today, June 3.
The Bard lives on. You can listen to it below.

Tuesday, June 02, 2009

Remembering Tiananmen Square June 4, 1989-Twenty Years Ago

To read the compelling story of Shi Tao's poem, June, click here. Shi Tao is one of many Chinese writers currently imprisoned. His poem, June, was selected by the Pen Poem Relay to be rranslated in every language and circle the globe.

June

by Shi Tao

My whole life

Will never get past “June”
June, when my heart died
When my poetry died
When my lover
Died in romance’s pool of blood

June, the scorching sun burns open my skin
Revealing the true nature of my wound
June, the fish swims out of the blood-red sea
Toward another place to hibernate
June, the earth shifts, the rivers fall silent
Piled up letters unable to be delivered to the dead

Translated to English from Chinese by Chip Rolley.

WHAT IS POETRYMIND?

Officially Poetrymind’s a Decade Old

In the Spring of 2005 while co-directing the New England College MFA Program in Poetry, I considered starting my own blog. I had been introduced to blogging through an MAT program in Information Technology I was enrolled in at Marlboro College.

I still remember sitting bolt upright one night when the word poetrymind manifested as the title. I believe I first heard this word from Russell Edson--at NEC when he read. At one point he responded to a challenge from a faculty saying something like there is only one thing that matters and that is poetrymind. Edson was a magical and deeply ironic prose poet whose work I admire. His work epitomizes for me the simple notion that things are not what they seem. Thus, the phenomenal world is infused with magic and the mystery of discovery with ever fresh eyes.

For me poetrymind is synonymous with “First Thought, Best Thought,” which is to say, thought that represents a state of mind free from conceptual overlays of judgment and second guessing. Rather it is elegant thought borne from pure perception, the original thought before attaching judgement. The slogan, "First Thought, Best Thought", coined by the late Chogyam Trungpa and Allen Ginsberg at the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics is not about writing without revision, as some believe. It is about experience first hand--direct and pure without a lot of egotistic filters or projections.

I am reminded of what the great Zen master, Susuki Roshi called “Beginner’s Mind” --- every moment offers a “fresh” experience. The ground is open vast mind or as Pema Chodron aptly puts it—The sky is open mind and everything else is the weather. Words are the display of poetrymind –alive with potentiality. Words in this context can become a vehicle for discovery of who we are.

See No Blood for Hubris on Russell Edson