poetryrepairs #196 14.01:012
DAVID JAMES : Flood of Centuries
JANE HUTTO : Family Picnic
John Horvath Jr : To Writers of Poetry and Verse
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DAVID JAMES
Flood of Centuries
Entomologists working in Iran and Turkey     learned that a rare species of solitary bee builds brood chambers of brightly colored flowers." Harper's, July 2012
Even bees get depressed, down in the flower dumps of bee-dom. Everyone needs some alone time, space to remind yourself there's only one chance to get it right, or semi-right, or done in a wly that won't embarrass you. In dreams, the bee discovers a blossom larger than an oak tree, waterfalls of pollen roaring out. In life, he heads to the brood chamber, punching his fists through walls, screaming at the top of his tiny lungs. I'm no hero. The good parts of me crumble off my shoes like dried mud. If I'm lucky, I'll come to terms living as a footnote in the flood of centuries. If not, I'll need more than a fucking brood chamber to stay alive.
poetryrepairs #196 14.01:012
All the fine arts are species of poetry--Samuel Taylor Coleridge

poetry repairs your heart
even as it splits it open.
VIRGINIA WOOLF
The Art of Reading



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JANE HUTTO
Family Picnic
Packed were hapless chickens, Fried with backs and wings And legs done up in crispy brown-- Sandwiches of olive, egg, and ham Squeezed into a hamper covered Over with Grandmother's finest linen. Oh! We were so grand on the Suwannee River's bank, and we Drank iced tea and colas spiked With salted peanuts. Grandfather laughed and slapped His leg, while children smiled politely At jokes more stale than last week's Light bread, but grown-ups nodded wisely "Aha, aha," in the sticky summer air. Then we all drove home together, Singing softly under an early evening sky.
poetryrepairs #196 14.01:012
I have many things to write unto you but
I will not write with pen and ink
--JOHN the theologian

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JOHN HORVATH Jr To Writers of Poetry and Verse
Writing poetry - that is, poems or verse meant to be published - requires some definite sense of 'what I have is important to say'. Many poets have said it is not ego but a compulsion, one I expect similar to the yoke of prophecy. Consider Gideon and Cincinnatus upon whom an unwanted gift is thrust. Upon completion of their tasks, they return to mundane life.

The poets among us are not those of bombast and ritual - the readings, the interviews, the invitation to teach, crave reviews, and moneybags. One day, future readers will look for the ordinary who've extraordinary things to say. T S Eliot, the bank teller; William Carlos Williams, the pediatrician; Walt Whitman, the opera reviewer; mad Emily who merely tossed short poems to passers-by; Steven Crane whose War is Kind outranks all war poetry to date. Many more. Meanwhile, those who think their lives extraordinary write a self-indulgent/self-important form of advertising.

Who is popular today is safe. The legion of academic poets who cannot rile the possibility of promotion and tenure, the corner office with the window; the grant whores. But, most of the poets in poetryrepairs are not state organs; most do not accept government monies; few accept even the payment of praise. Those are the poets, those in their daily lives who find the commonplace extraordinary enough to be examined and reported, they compose active insights. And, it is never enough, never THE poem, not the one that allows the poet to 'return to the farm'. Robert Frost and Carl Sanburg wrote of farm life and workers, their poems have sweat and scars and smiles, immigrants and whores. Yet each poet for all the hoopla surrounding his work essentially stayed a New England farmer and a boy in the brothel.

For fifty years I have tried to get my work accepted. Had some success. I figured, if there are no editors who like my style of work, there must be poets like myself. I and poetryrepairs are advocates for those all too silent speakers of insight.

Whatever may come to you via poetry; simply accept it. You've no idea when that yoke will be lifted from your shoulders. All you can do is make the furrow as straight and as honestly as you can. Your particular gift is quite amazing. Keep writing about what you see in the surrounding world.

Thank you I am your admiring reader. John Horvath, editor at poetryrepairs
Poetry endangers the established order
of the soul - Plato

REPAIR: resort, frequent or habitual going; concourse or confluence of people at or in a place; making one's way; to go, betake oneself, to arrive; return to a place; to dwell; to recover, heal, or cure; to renew; to fix to original condition.
-- Oxford English Dictionary



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poetryrepairs #196 14.01:012
DAVID JAMES : Flood of Centuries
JANE HUTTO : Family Picnic
John Horvath Jr : To Writers of Poetry and Verse

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