Yesterday on the local talk show from Chicago, Windy City Live, I heard it’s almost been the coldest average February in Chicago since the late 1800s or something—we’re only missing it by a degree or two. It’s a record I don’t care if we break. Ambivalence – it’s a quality I am trying to develop, especially as it applies to wanting something too much. Well, at least that’s what I think this morning. That’s because last night I read Amy Poehler’s book Yes Please and in the … [Read more...]
Philip Levine and solace (and me)
I just heard the news that Philip Levine has left this earth. The work he left behind is something we can find solace in when we miss his voice. So many great poems. I have fond memories of Phil Levine because he is a contributor to Solace in So Many Words, and we had a lot of correspondence about which poems of his to use. I felt like I knew him a little, that I could call him Phil. That's how he signed his emails: “Be well, Phil.” In spring 2007 I had an idea for an … [Read more...]
Winter weekend: reading Philip Levine and Donna Hilbert
It's a quiet weekend here and a perfect time to post. Did you read The New Yorker (Feb 11 & 18 issue)? Philip Levine has a poem "In Another Country" and when I say it's dreamy, I mean it literally. In this other country, ". . . There is no town, only / fields of long grass blowing in the wind / and beyond the wind the gray mountains." It ends, ". . . . The wind kept prodding / at my back as though determined / to push me away from where I was, / fearful, perhaps, I … [Read more...]