alice under skies

interview with bob dylan

BF: When you think back to the Civil War, one thing you forget is that no battles, except Gettysburg, were fought in the North.

Bob Dylan: Yeah. That’s what probably makes the Southern part of the country so different.

BF: There is a certain sensibility, but I’m not sure how that connects?

BD: It must be the Southern air. It’s filled with rambling ghosts and disturbed spirits. They’re all screaming and forlorning. It’s like they are caught in some weird web - some purgatory between heaven and hell and they can’t rest. They can’t live, and they can’t die. It’s like they were cut off in their prime, wanting to tell somebody something. It’s all over the place. There are war fields everywhere … a lot of times even in people’s backyards.

Audio: Bob Dylan on Barack Obama, Ulysses Grant and American Civil War ghosts

a friend read this onto my voicemail last night

To Myself

W.S. Merwin

Even when I forget you
I go on looking for you
I believe I would know you
I keep remembering you
sometimes long ago but then
other times I am sure you
were here for a moment before
and the air is still alive
around where you were and I
think then I can recognize
you who are always the same
who pretend to be time but
you are not time and who speak
in the words but you are not
what they say you who are not
lost when I do not find you

April 14, 2009: The Poem, Franz Wright

april-is:

The Poem
Franz Wright

It was like getting a love letter from a tree

Eyes closed forever to find you—

There is a life which
if I could have it
I would have chosen for myself from the beginning


[From the fantastic Walking to Martha’s Vineyard, which won the 2004 Pulitzer Prize. More excellent poems by Franz Wright:  Letter; The Only Animal; Publication Date]


A year ago today: Morning Poem, Robin Becker
Two years ago: Supple Cord, Naomi Shihab Nye
Three years ago: Wish For a Young Wife, Theodore Roethke
Four years ago: The Benjamin Franklin of Monogamy, Jeffrey McDaniel

April 2, 2008: A Birthday, W.S. Merwin

april-is:

A Birthday
W.S. Merwin

Something continues and     I don’t know what to call it
though the language is full of suggestions
in the way of language
but they are all anonymous
and it’s almost your birthday     music next to my bones

these nights we hear the horses     running in the rain
it stops and the moon comes out     and we are still here
the leaks in the roof go on dripping     after the rain has passed
smell of ginger flowers     slips through the dark house
down near the sea     the slow heart of the beacon flashes

the long way to you is still tied to me     but it brought me to you
I keep wanting to give you     what is already yours
it is the morning     of the mornings together
breath of summer     oh my found one
the sleep in the same current     and each waking to you

when I open my eyes     you are what I wanted to see.

[I love the way Merwin uses caesuras in the middle of his lines to slow the poem down, give it a sense of hesitancy or carefulness. (You can read more on Merwin and caesuras here.)]

A year ago: Words for Love, Ted Berrigan
Two years ago: At the Trial of Hamlet, Chicago, 1994, Sherman Alexie
Three years ago: The Waking, Theodore Roethke

Martha’s poetry selections help make april bearable for me despite all of the requisite storms and turmoils rough anniversaries. She’s got a fine eye for poetry—I look forward every day to the poem in my email, and am happy to find that she’s got a tumblr archive of all the previous aprils.