“Thinking about a poem I’ll never write. With gut on wood and hide, and plucking thumb, Grope and stutter for the words, invent a tune, In any tongue, this moment one time true Be wine or blood or rhythm drives it through — A leap of words to things and there it stops. Creating empty caves and tools in shops And holy domes, and nothing you can name; The long old chorus blowing underfoot Makes high wild notes of mountains in the sea. O Muse, a goddess gone astray Who warms the cow and makes the wise man sane, (&even madness gobbles demons down) Then dance through jewelled trees & lotus crowns For Narihira’s lover, the crying plover, For babies grown and childhood homes And moving, moving, on through scenes and towns Weep for the crowds of men Like birds gone south forever. The long-lost hawk of Yakamochi and Thoreau Flits over yonder hill, the hand is bare, The noise of living families fills the air.”
Our First of Three Daryl Howard Woodblock Prints (Kenne, Daryl and Joy, 1992)
Our Second of Three Daryl Howard Woodblock Prints (Kenne, Daryl and Joy, 1996)
In the early 90’s Joy and I were at an event at the George R. Brown convention center in downtown Houston, which included a gallery of artists. As we like to do, we spent some time window shopping the various exhibits, no planning on buying any art. But, that was before we noticed the woodblock prints of Daryl Howard, an artist out of Austin, Texas. The one print that really got our attention was, “Dawn’s Moment . . . Vision of Light” now hanging in our entranceway in Tucson.
Four years later we purchased two more of Daryl’s works of art, “Timeless Path Toward Home” and “Crow’s Gift” now proudly hanging in our dining area.
Yesterday, Joy was purging some of our old files when she found these two Polaroid images. You can learn more about Daryl and her work at http://www.darylhoward.com/index.htm
You Indian paintbrush of red! You in your mountain home! You dancing with your shadow! You lady in red among gold and blue! You of short September sun! You neighbor to running water! You native of the Americas’ west!
You of captured beauty! You named of Domingo Castillejo!
You of limited time!
Good in all, In the satisfaction and aplomb of animals, In the annual return of the seasons, In the hilarity of youth, In the strength and flush of manhood, In the grandeur and exquisiteness of old age, In the superb vistas of death.
Wonderful to depart! Wonderful to be here! The heart, to jet the all-alike and innocent blood! To breathe the air, how delicious! To speak—to walk—to seize something by the hand! To prepare for sleep, for bed, to look on my rose-color’d flesh! To be conscious of my body, so satisfied, so large! To be this incredible God I am! To have gone forth among other Gods, these men and women I love.
“Instead of just recording reality,
photographs have become the norm
for the way things appear to us,
thereby changing the very idea
of reality, and of realism.”
sBluebonnet Poetry Slam Winner (April 24, 2004) — Grunge Art by kenne
Based on the premise that a good poem deserves a good performance, in November 1984 a Chicago construction worker, Marc (Slam Papi) Smith, started an open mic night at the Get Me High lounge called the “Monday Night Poetry Reading.” This was the beginning of the Poetry Slam movement. The signature of Mark’s led slams was the audience yelling,”SO WHAT?!” It was his way of declaring that everyone in the room was just as important for participating as he was for starting the movement.
In the early 2000’s, Carol and Stan Schneider started the Bluebonnet Poetry Slam in Conroe, Texas. Like in Chicago, in the beginning the Bluebonnet Poetry Slam took place in saloons in the Conroe area, and yes, we brought in Marc to conduct the slams. The slams became so popular, the organizers began to work in conjunction with the Friends of Conroe to schedule the annual event at the Montgomery County Fairgrounds where 300-400 attended the event, which attracted some of the best slam poets from around the country. In 2001 & 2002 the Bluebonnet Slam winner was National Poetry Slam champion, Taylor Mali. (See Taylor preform in video below.)
In time the Bluebonnet Poetry Slam died as a result of it’s popularity and moving out of a more intimate saloon setting. Poetry slams must have that “SO WHAT?” element where it can give poetry a stage to say what poets say is valuable, even when we don’t reach the complete potential of a given poem. Slams bring poetry back to its origins, an art experienced through oration and performance, rather than strictly in print.
In a true sense of the word, poetry slams are grunge poetry.
“The philosophy of the populists was that you can’t have political democracy if you don’t have economic democracy. Justice Brandeis put it plainly: ‘You can have democracy in this country or you can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but you can’t have both.’ When I get a chance, I go out and talk about this thing, write about it, and preach about it.”
Merle Hansen, 74 (Newman Grove, Nebraska) — from “Coming of Age – The Story of Our Century By Those Who’ve Lived It” by Studs Terkel
“Tea Garden” — Computer Painting by kenne
