I think Schlitz is swimming in the deep end.

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I wrote a haiku on Holy Island:

1911.
Storm clouds changing direction,
momentarily.

Nice work, but what's Holy Island?

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Does anybody read any of MacFarland's writings about the Old Ways? Wasn't this one of the places he walked across the sand flats to? England has a lot of stuff packed into small spaces, so I am probably confused.

It's a tidal island off the coast of Northumberland. A bunch of saints and intellectuals used to hang out there during the Dark Ages. I visited there on holiday last week. Sitting in the Gertrude Jekyll garden, which was built in 1911, and looking along the coast past the Farne Islands and Bamburgh Castle, trying to figure out in which direction the storm clouds were moving, a stillness came over, and for a moment I forgot everything. This lady is right, it is a magical place to be:

Unclear, but a decent candidate for my Xmas present list, nonetheless.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/20...farlane-review

I also visited Edinburgh for the first time last week. That has a lot of stuff packed into small spaces, including tourists.

I looked it up. (I know I always can, but I like to read other explanations rather than a Wikipedia entry.)

Anyway, that's what Andre talks about in My Dinner With Andre.

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btw, I really like the haiku. It visualizes nicely. With the first line being 1911, it brings you in nicely. And the last line, 'momentarily', the single word. Inspired.

Even if you do it Japanese style as a single line (1911. Storm clouds changing direction, momentarily.), it still works perfectly. Well done.

Looks like Castle Arrggh to me.

Correction: Andre talks about Findhorn not Lindisfarne.



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Love her accent. Gah-trud Gee-kul or thereabouts.

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Probably a Berwick accent. Halfway between Geordie and Scottish. The cab driver back from the Island to Berwick had one. He said that when he visits Edinburgh, they think he's from Newcastle, and vice versa.

Berwick lies on the river Tweed, which is the traditional border between England and Scotland. The artist Lowry liked to visit and paint it. He has taken some artistic license with the colours and probably the people in this 1938 painting, but all the buildings are still as they were:

didn't make it down to Berwick, but North Berwick is a fun little town surrounded by world class golf.

Thanks. I have little formal conception of what makes for good or bad poetry, or art in general, and it's educational to read someone who does. For example, I saw quite a few Lowry's on holiday, both prints in Berwick, and originals in the Laing Art Gallery in Newcastle, and in the Sunderland Museum, and to my mind they've all "got something". But understanding or spelling out what that means is something I wouldn't begin to know how to do.

I know bad poetry when I see it, and I think I know good art when I see it, but I can't explain great art either, so I read art books and look at paintings.

I think I can do a pretty good job with poetry, though, and that was a great haiku.

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My mom (who fancied herself as a poet) had a friend that changed his name to "Tom the World Poet".

I knew a woman who changed her name to Lady Lavender Lee. I don't understand it.

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Phat Mack should construct a baseball haiku! One for the Yankees and one for the Mets.

and one for your Rays getting swept by the Texas Baseball Rangers today

You all do know that poets love baseball, don't you? I think because it begins in Spring when hope hangs gently in the air and any team can win it all.

Here's a poem about baseball and writing poetry:

Pitcher
by Robert Francis

His art is eccentricity, his aim
How not to hit the mark he seems to aim at,

His passion how to avoid the obvious,
His technique how to vary the avoidance.

The others throw to be comprehended. He
Throws to be a moment misunderstood.

Yet not too much. Not errant, arrant, wild,
But every seeming aberration willed.

Not to, yet still, still to communicate
Making the batter understand too late.



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The last stanza is great and the last line perfect.

The poem Describes the batter/pitching duel artfully.

Baseball and Classicism
BY Tom Clark
(Note that it has nine lines)

Every day I peruse the box scores for hours
Sometimes I wonder why I do it
Since I am not going to take a test on it
And no one is going to give me money

The pleasure’s something like that of codes
Of deciphering an ancient alphabet say
So as brightly to picturize Eurydice
In the Elysian Fields on her perfect day

The day she went 5 for 5 against Vic Raschi

T-bone steak this afternoon. Plus Mushrooms. The dancing girls will be arriving soon with the booze. Then we all dance by the light of the moon.

my baseball passion first bloomed during an era of box scores delivered on newsprint.
the sunday edition notably dense with past week's summary statistics,
enhanced by the smell of ink lingering upon fingertips and mingled with comical colors from the funny pages.
scratch 'n' sniff, just don't rub your eyes.
otherwise i relied upon the velvet chords of Mel Allen as he described that previous week that were in baseball