Colony of Statues [News Poem by Khakjaan Wessington, March 9, 2012]

Colony of Statues [News Poem by Khakjaan Wessington, March 9, 2012]

Think us a colony—penguins or pinnipeds—

Only we're grizzlies that line up by riverside

Polishing pebbles, or carving them... bashing them

Eager for logos: the pith Michelangelo

Sought in the marble; the flavor pre-Pantheon

Children contained and their father contained—and if

He had a father, then surely the mythos is

Wrong: we're degenerates, castoffs, inferior—

Smaller than granules and less than the ancestors—

Even the best of all human-kinds possible

Cannot converge with the grace of all origin.

Somehow in sight of ourselves we've become what we

See and in sight of ourselves we converge with the

Best of the origin, best of all possible

Ancestors, righteousness, mothers, containers for

Atheist statues resembling epiphany,

Carvings of planets—we've colonized earth.

“A Sunnyvale woman who told a neighbor she felt overwhelmed by caring for her adult autistic son shot him to death before turning her gun on herself, authorities said Wednesday. Elizabeth Hodgins, 53, shot her son, George Hodgins, 22, on Tuesday in a bedroom of their home on the 800 block of Nectarine Avenue, according to police and neighbors.”

—Will Kane,Demian Bulwa; San Francisco Chronicle, Thursday, March 8, 2012

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/03/07/BAVR1NH8B4.DTL

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Water Or Blood? [Today's News Poem, March 2, 2012]

Water Or Blood? [Today's News Poem, March 2, 2012]

Blizzards reversed the polarity,

Conjured the pivot to juncture:

Breathing was never the same again.

Ice for a godmother:

Bikes to the office park

Vanquished by winterness.

Revive them with bourbon

And bless them with stupor.

Slip on the ice—use crampons and slip

(You'll keep slipping)

Off of the surface. Harvest the luck

(Like a truffle

You fed with your excrement

[Kindly intentions]):

Swallow, inhale and recycle

That fragment of nothingness.

Grasp to the luckiest railing,

Treebranch—in fact snap off the first twigs

Spring has to offer and cushion

The imminent fall

(You are falling):

Smother the buzzings of springtime.

A bough is a whip in disguise

As neckties are nooses disguised.

Chase every sunset to rot on horizon.

Grind in the caverns—bury yourself in the mines.

Dodge the commitment.

Trap the undying.

Praise the unyielding absences.

Example:

Snow is the dandruff that falls from temples,

Fragments that signal the stillness deep winter

Offers is gone and that motion's conceivable.

Thaw and thus water is where I am headed.

Water, or blood; am I water or blood?

Nighttime has eyes in the cameras, sky, and faces;

An eye that has blinked itself shut,

Squeezed out a tear and might open again.

“As of 6 p.m. ET, the weather service had 21 active tornado warnings, plus less urgent tornado watches that spanned 11 states.”

—CNN Wire Staff, CNN; 6:29 PM EST, Fri March 2, 2012

http://www.cnn.com/2012/03/02/us/severe-weather/?hpt=hp_c1

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Universal Exchange [Today's News Poem, February 24, 2012]

Universal Exchange [Today's News Poem, February 24, 2012]

Canopy, marketplace, sign of the scale—

What is the balance—what's in the balance?

Is it feast? Is it ample like booty?

If its sum adds to zero, then pity

Losers if loss is our destiny?

Loss is desire, pity's oppression

(And language subjective), meaning's

Subjective. Balance: the anchor,

Currency, chain and the sign of the tongue.

“There are a number of professions in which workers are paid, in part, with a figurative lottery ticket. The worker accepts a lower-paying job in exchange for a slim but real chance of a large, future payday.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/26/magazine/why-are-harvard-graduates-in-the-mailroom.html

=

 =

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Choker of the Apes [Today's News Poem, February 17, 2012]

Choker of the Apes [Today's News Poem, February 17, 2012]

Property is theft; likewise is the self.

Selfness is the lapse, folly and betrays.

Ownership is flaw, ego and the self's

Selfish, and a slave; prayer of the false teeth.

Self is a desire—nothing like our maw.

Atoms and your tears give you to ourselves.

Polymers of life, lifelines on a string,

Billions on our neck: choker of the apes.

“DURING Mr. Soleri’s long tenure, Arcosanti evolved into a surprising anachronism: a company town. The product line? Handmade bells and heady theories about imaginary cities, or “arcologies.” Ordinary capitalism — independent businesses and privately held homes — was anathema.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/16/garden/an-early-eco-city-faces-the-future.html

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Toylit For February 10, 2012

Toylit For February 10, 2012

Science Failure, The Victory of Failure, and The Psychology of Victory and Failure.

Featuring:

Elegy for Sisyphus, Obituary for Roger Boisjoly, by Valerie Valdes

Miles of Human Files, On Social Media Millionaires, by Khakjaan Wessington

Papier Mâché Jihad, #twitterfoundpoem, by Khakjaan Wessington

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Elegy for Sisyphus [Today's News Poem, by Valerie Valdes, February 10, 2012]

Elegy for Sisyphus [Today's News Poem, February 10, 2012]

By Valerie Valdes

in memoriam, Roger Boisjoly

He rolled boulders off his lawn for hours
every day until his muscles were chained
to exhaustion, until sleep stayed precariously
balanced in his grasp instead of falling
downhill like a punishment for his failure.
"We were talking to the right people," he said, but
seven astronauts were dead, their faces replayed
nonstop on news channels as the shuttle exploded
every time he closed his eyes. Cancer
finally killed what guilt tried to crush: a good man
shouldering the weight of his own impotence.
For almost thirty years he pushed
other engineers to do more, say more, to swear
on words binding as the Styx, where he now waits
quietly for the ferryman to row him across, to a field
green as a Florida summer, with no stones in sight.

"The NASA officials on a conference call didn't want to hear it. The shuttle program managers were desperate to prove they could launch reliably. When do you want me to launch, one of them said, next April? A year later, Boisjoly suffered from disabling headaches. He moved boulders off his lawn all day so he'd be exhausted enough to sleep at night. And he huddled in the corner of a couch, thin and tearful, his arms folded tight, ready to speak out."

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2012/02/06/146490064/remembering-roger-boisjoly-he-tried-to-stop-shuttle-challenger-launch

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Miles of Human Files [Today's News Poem, February 10, 2012]

Miles of Human Files [Today's News Poem, February 10, 2012]

A loneliness file: apartment, an isle—

Classified, epic, layered with red brick.

If the marquee calls in the hall of halls

As wind does battle with door-frame rattles,

Watch the water non-water monitor

And touch the unknown; the fleeting, the flown.

Burn your mascara, corneas, era.

You have indexed lusts and electron busts

And changed the texture of surface: sex-pure,

Gloss and odious—flaws and hideous.

“Imagine looking for a house in San Francisco or one of the nicer parts of Silicon Valley, which are already among the most expensive parts of the country. Now imagine having to bid against a legion of newly minted Facebook millionaires.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/09/us/california-housing-market-braces-for-facebook-millionaires.html

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Papier Mâché Jihad [Tweets+Edits=#twitterfoundpoem, February 10, 2012]

Papier Mâché Jihad [Tweets+Edits=#twitterfoundpoem, February 10, 2012]

I tend to overthink so I'm not going to settle

for just any path of God while seeking the truth. I want a paranoid

schizophrenic Jihad.

Don't be real. Be a paranoid schizophrenic.

it leads to doubt. Which lessens my faith, Which lessens my lessons,

Which causes paranoid schizophrenic Out of nowhere lessons.

Dear God, I want a paranoid God.

Jihad, I want a paranoid Fear God.

God, I want a paranoid God Jihad.

Fear honesty. Fear illusion. Get over illusion.

If you are not your thoughts,

If you are not getting better then what are you doing?

Jihad.

If your thoughts are not getting better then what are you doing?

Lessons of the Out of nowhere schizophrenic God.

instead of papier mâché Jesus, the Out of nowhere schizophrenic

#Jihad!

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News Poem, The Rules

Submissions are due Thursday 6pm PST and post Friday morning (PST). If you still don't understand the antinews ethos, then please read this Duotrope interview with me: http://www.duotrope.com/Interview.aspx?id=5378
Update: I need you to include the link to the news story as well as the quote that inspired the composition. Give me your website also, so I can link you.
Critique: if a news poem inspires you, compose a rebuttal/response and submit it. If I like it, I'll put it up.
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The News Poem Returns! Your Non-Sucky Antinews Submission is Required.

Listen you vile degenerates, I understand that everything is a swirl of confusing what-the-fuck miasma and that you feel light-headed; I understand, but you need to stop asking me if I want to subscribe to Playboy... what? You mean, you want me to start writing the News Poem again? That's great! How much are you paying? Jack shit still? Oh gee, sorry, I need a little more than that to get by, so maybe we can compromise: maybe you should submit YOUR news poems to me and maybe once a week I will publish them, ok? And if you're not total crapazons, maybe you'll click some ads this time and help subsidize my poetry addict--I mean, my poetry altruism... fuckers--I mean, loyal readers.

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Updates for Jan 2012

So as I was reading through the CIA World Factbook, I remembered that I wrote a pair of essays in October 2006 making specific predictions about the future of Russia. The 1st one accurately predicted Russia's return as a major industrial power (Putin's Portuguese Gambit) and the 2nd one accurately predicted Russia's return as a major military power (The Siloviki Security Vision For Russia). Makes me want to do a followup piece. I have a few projects that I am working on right now, but they are very hush-hush, top secret--so you'll just have to wait. In the meanwhile, if you know any banks that are hiring precognitive poets for 1 hour a year for a $250k/yr salary, let me know and I will consider reasonable offers. Return to Toylit
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You could have had anything and yet this is what you chose? Combatwords July 15-18

Balance does not mean order. It means a chaos antidote for chaos. Examples:

Angus: "it was hard to tell exactly being that he had boobs like some porn deva 30 years in retirement.The only articulating male factor apparent was the summer beard he displayed in patches."

Rtoady/Seann McCollum:
"I carry my shopping bags straight to the second hand shop.
I shit out my food the moment I’ve gobbled it up.
Even better, the stove sits beside the rubbish bin.
I’m bailing this ocean as fast as it’s trickling in."

Khakjaan Wessington (Me): "A ripe gourd fell at my feet and detonated, launching a thousand insects upon impact. Above us, I could see the bloatwood tree teetering, its branches full of parasite-filled fruit that trembled as rockets escaped."

There's still time to play Combatwords. Dare ye join in?

http://combatwords.blogspot.com/2011/07/combatwords-july-15-2011-balance.html

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Science Fiction or Fact? Combatwords, July 8-11, 2011

Sean McCollum: "In the future every baby was born with a computer in its skull which in turn was inhabited by a pixilated ghost prostitute. In the future, cannibalism. In the future, nuclear-powered unicycles were pedaled into the holographic wastelands where we did battle with a race of subterranean Adonises. Moons were lassoed together and flung like giant bolos across the solar system."

Wessington: "Keystrokes and flickered intention on monitor
Linked by the wireless data to trolly:
Sphinx of the fogbelt, lynx of the kilobit,
Minx of the fence—she is orange or tabby."

http://combatwords.blogspot.com/2011/07/combatwords-for-july-11-2011-rules-of.html

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The BATS Will Destroy You: New/Old Essay up on Unlikelystories

Where the fuck have I been? Where the fuck have you been? Okay, okay--let's ignore mutual recriminations... just admit you were wrong and we'll start over. No? Well how about you suck on an essay-pacifier you big baby?

http://unlikelystories.org/11/wessington0611.shtml

Not familiar with BATS? Sure, why would you be familiar with one of the best rock bands out there? You're too aesthetically blighted to find your own cool artistic vectors; that's why you're here, right? Well, after you've purchased their album (http://bats.bandcamp.com), you can read my poetic salute to them here:
http://toylit.blogspot.com/2010/08/stars-of-wormwood-for-star-of-wormwood.html

If you do this out of order, God won't smite you, because God doesn't exist. But you'll suffer a moral decay as you wait for divine punishment and you'll start subtly sabotaging yourself and inevitably this process will end in suicide.

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Exclusive Toylit Scoop: Bin Laden's Last Words! Photo Too!

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Heirs of Air [Combatwords, April 30, 2011]

Heirs of Air [Combatwords, April 30, 2011]

From http://combatwords.blogspot.com/2011/04/combatwords-april-29-2011-ancestors.html

Retrieving nothing home tonight;
Sedated, belated lovers slight the western star—they head to beach
And play with hair they've dyed with bleach.
On Seven One from Haight to beach,
The night's too far, they've lost the bliss
That evening summoned with a kiss.
Acquaintance met and lost, they surf the bus
And slide from triteness, greeting nothing;
Citing names, the nothing names:
A hopeless lay, that skirtless play.
The loneliness that fills their leather boots
Is truth aboard the bus en route
To chicken feather beds and ocean salt:
Determined beach, a terminal breach.
For Ballard wrote about the crash:
Erotic engines, loss and crash—
Wrote about the unseen trash.
Erosion meets the sacred clash
Where plovers meet the city's ash.
It's gone, it's gone to trash at last;
So stand alert and make a joke.
Ride the bus, make silly oaths
To pave the way to bed,
And leave behind this better night,
Offend the sight of moon
With brooding lust and traffic lights.
Farewell, my otter fake-fur coat.
We've gone to sleep at last, at least.

Kiss it—call it kismet.
Where McDonald's floodlights meet
The cunts of red,
The hippy dreads.
Kiss it—fake a joke and fake the fear of joke
And spill the fucking beer upon the Muni floor
Where stench perfume defeats the moon.
So kiss it—cut the cheer in half
Aboard this Viking boat, this fuck-up booth.
Choke the night in search of hundred proof.
Clutch the skateboard, youth is fleeting;
Gone to joint and gone to broken bleating;
To broken-asses in search of weed.
Bleed it out and search it out and kiss the knee that grazes notebooks.
Kiss the legs that open up beside you,
Open where you fear to tread with eyes.
Kiss her every orifice.
Forget it: kiss goodbye.

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Superman Did Baba Yar!

Now that Superman has renounced his American citizenship (http://www.comicsalliance.com/2011/04/27/superman-renounces-us-citizenship/) the truth can finally be told.

Like many war criminals, he kept his Nazi identity a secret, but left us several clues (like 'Superman' durrr).

ps: I know I'm going to hell for this one. Stop reminding me.

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Silk Knight Swoons [Combatwords Poem, April 23, 2011]

Silk Knight Swoons [Combatwords Poem, April 23, 2011]
From http://combatwords.blogspot.com/2011/04/combatwords-april-22-2011-declared-and.html

Knight of granite squares, night of business casual wear;
Fights by chessboard bets—I swear, Ruy Lopez has the night sweats
Underneath tobacco palms and gritty nails and Lasker psalms.

Even though I wore a suit, I paused and watched the two galoots
Murder pawns and trade a pair of dollar bills for several prawns
Fried and battered—basket case: they fed while chessmen scattered.

Low and you'll become the queen.
Slow and knives become serene.
Laugh alone to laugh like hell;
Crazies knew I shared their smell.

"Glasses ain't afraid of anything."
"Watch that tie; he wants to fight."
Silk cocoon and pace of concrete moon—
A silver goon, a briefcase croon;
A stroke, a grand mal swoon:
A check and mated loon.



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AMERICKA [Guest News Poem, by Mike Best; April 22, 2011]

AMERICKA

by Mike Best

Our presidents are felons, America.

I socked a kid in the head, 20 years ago

And now I’m unemployable nationwide.

I can work full time and still receive unemployment benefits.

I’ve been to school for 300 credit hours

And I’m still not highly qualified.

How about you Jeb, George, Barak?

Are you guys highly qualified?

Show me your transcripts. Give me an explanation.

I’ve given you my all and now I’m nothing.

Can I get your permission to kill my neighbor?

Whose permission did you get Dick?

Shit it was self-defense and I still did time.

My psychotherapist said I was right.

She even sold me a dimebag.

Kept me paranoid for days,

No happy hippy flowers, no mellow munchy buzz

Just fear of the fuzz and fear of my sins.

Fear of myself, when will I be cleansed of my sins by angels?

Say, America, when will you be angelic?

Your culture expects me to be some kind of sinister

Predator just to avoid being preyed upon.

You expect me to get a job but create rules that keep me

From getting hired. Without the right ratio of callous and

Reticence I’m gonna get fired. You can’t go

Into education and expect to help people. All you get

Is your head chopped off at the neck. I got a

Long neck, America. So I’m gonna

Stick my head in the sand because, America,

Quite frankly, I’m sick of your insane demands.

My age old Friend Kenny stuck

His arm in a machine, America,

And his coworker turned it on for kicks.

Tore his arm off – doctors put it back

On – And got rich.

So did Kenny. But now his beloved American

Ex-Wife wants it all for herself – that’s your lifestyle,

America – that’s the American Dream.

That’s the values you hold, get rich quick and easy.

But I won’t have it – your machinery is too much for me.

It’s left me like Willie Loman.

Dreaming big wispy dreams of a

Life less low man. I have five

Minute schemes, - sell the car and buy a ticket out

Picture me in Vietnam with the mud

Between my toes. Picture me in a

Suit and tie with a roll in my pocket

As big as that 10 year old crack dealer’s.

But it won’t be here America, not in this nation.

I promise you, I have mystical visions and cosmic vibrations.

Ginsberg’s not the only one with

Sentimental feelings for the Wobblies. Not

The only one who smokes marijuana

Every chance he gets. Only I got a

Family to feed, America.

Even with a weed licensee and

Chemo - I could still lose my job - if only I

Had one. Catch me with a roach

And I haven’t a Chinaman’s chance

Of getting a way to get paid. Which is why

Whenever I go to Chinatown I can’t get drunk or laid

You allow criminals to make the laws, America.

You pay them so well, America.

I never wanted to be rich but the only

Alternative is dirt poor. You bail

Out the big ballers and blast the

Middle right off the court, America.

I don’t mind dirty rivers.

I don’t care about an endangered rat’s rights.

If the meat is cheap

I’ll eat it off the bone, barbecued and fricasseed.

Because it’s you America, not Russia rising against me

I’ve seen how the other half live.

It’s no better than here.

They’re locked in jobs while I’m locked out.

They kill themselves over college. I’ll do it because

I stole a pair of goggles at eighteen. Larceny.

What a scary word! Don’t let me

Near a public school I might steal a pencil – I’ve done

It before, I swear! For real!

I did it because I’m psychopathetic anyways.

I think it because when I was seven momma took me to communist cell meetings.

America, how can I write when even

The blogs won’t print me?

If I wanna be a writer I’m supposed to have balls

But if I wanna be a teacher I gotta clip them off

And keep my mouth shut at all times.

America, is this correct?

America, you make me have to be a saint.

Or a woman, or anything but an educated white male, America

Those damn Nazi rednecks were right

About it!

It’s all in the statistics, America.

There is no way to settle the argument.

It’s cannibalization – eat or be eaten.

No symbiosis. No shit turned fertilizer.

It’s all about the plague, America.

Cholera, kudzu, Siberian ginseng, zebra clams,

Mosquitoes, angry white feminazis,

America. Fruits of Islam love to see

Me squirm. Holy rollers multiply and play

The population game – and I won’t say the Lord’s Prayer!

God is man and woman ripping one another

To shreds, America – you’re god, America.

God is them Russians and Chinamen.

God is fucking and its fucking obscene.

Don’t let your children hear the word nigger America. Change the spelling or

Something for God’s sake, say it

Backwards – it sounds like your favorite president that way

Fuck it I’m God, America.

And as an unemployed untouchable it

Occurs to me that I’m America.

Do they need old English majors in the Air Force?

Can a writer turn lathes into precision parts?

It’s true – I don’t want to.

I’d just as soon help Indians learn to read.

I’d just as soon sell my opinions.

Penny for my thought. Pick it up and find good luck.

Make me work 16 hour days. I done it before.

Send me to Tangiers with Burroughs.

The ultra-conservative queer – and I don’t give a shit if

You are queer America so long as you give me a job.

I want to put my own queer shoulder to the wheel, America.

Mike Best is an unemployed American writer, world traveler and teacher who is currently attempting to escape the United States as quickly as possible. He doesn't feel welcome in the United States nor anywhere else, but prefers being unwelcomed somewhere else. He's written for several online magazines and enjoyed a brief moment of fame in Asia, before making the mistake of returning to the United States. The End.

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Breaking News! Today's News Poem On Hiatus!

As you may have just read, I'm taking a break from Today's News Poem. It's true, I could keep doing this indefinitely, but other projects are calling me and there's only so much time in the day. Oh, don't you fret. I'll keep posting News Poems, but they'll probably be a weekly thing. You can look forward to the Complete Daily News Poems in print in a couple of months and Toylit will continue to take submissions.

I hope you enjoyed reading this project. I came into it thinking I knew it all already. As the year progressed, so did my skills. It's been fun. Anyhow, thanks for reading and I hope you gained something from my verse. I certainly gained from your readership.

-Khakjaan Wessington

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Guard the Poet [Today's News Poem, April 8, 2011]

Guard the Poet [Today's News Poem, April 8, 2011]

Ah muses I've served you with focused devotion;
I've served as your goblet, I've served you as jester.
I used to be bitter—but now I'm ecstatic;
My heart's uninstalled and you've turned me to poem.

Poison nutritious; nomad exquisite;
Pantomime artist loves all this sadness.
Farewell my folly, grant me your magic
Save all my foolish songs in the ether:

Stave off the darkness—it's calling me softly,
Shave off the edges of pummeling sidewalks;
Call all the cables and seagulls and airplanes—
Hold it together, preserve all this chaos.

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Tastes of Home [Today's News Poem, April 7 2011]

Tastes of Home [Today's News Poem, April 7 2011]

Slush on the sidewalk
Snow in the doorway,
Beaks in the salad—
A seabird's attacking.

Shells were the home,
Yolk was the baby,
Whites were the mother
Hugging the offspring.

Home: where the flesh
Wraps in a blanket,
Whips to an omelet,
Stares out the window.

Springtime: a woodpecker sleeps in the branches;
White and black beak—its redness its life.
Summer: the woodchuck devours the garden—
Poison its lair and pitchfork its torso.
Autumn: the crows stand on the pikes—call them cornstalks.
Winter: the straggler is freezing,
She shatters the ice on the window
And batters stalactites—
Calling for springtime you flushed after dinner.

"Karen Cooke Phillip keeps the basement freezer of her new Anchorage house stocked with food to ward off homesickness. There is a whole king eider sea duck, including feathers and head. And she has three plastic bottles filled with seal oil: liquid gold to a Yupik Eskimo like Mrs. Cooke Phillip."
—KIM SEVERSON, The New York Times, Published: April 7, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/08/us/08alaska.html

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Nineveh [Today's News Poem, April 6, 2011]

Nineveh [Today's News Poem, April 6, 2011]

Shame there's no limit
To depths in the soil.
Rootlets had branched
Nodules like tumors, potatoes;
While the snout with an eyeball
Roots for excitement then lays it in sunlight
To wither or blossom—Nineveh kikayon,
Lot's wife of salt.

"Officer Trey Economidy of the Albuquerque police now realizes that he should have thought harder before listing his occupation on his Facebook profile as “human waste disposal.” After he was involved in a fatal on-duty shooting in February, a local television station dug up the Facebook page. Officer Economidy was placed on desk duty, and last month the Albuquerque Police Department announced a new policy to govern officers’ use of social networking sites. Social networking tools like Facebook and Twitter can be valuable assets for law enforcement agencies, helping them alert the public, seek information about crimes and gather evidence about the backgrounds of criminal suspects."
—ERICA GOODE, The New York Times, Published: April 6, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/07/us/07police.html

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I Would Tell You To Fuck Off And Die, But You're Fucked And Dead Already [Today's News Poem, April 5, 2011]

I Would Tell You To Fuck Off And Die, But You're Fucked And Dead Already [Today's News Poem, April 5, 2011]

You lost all credibility with me when you voted for anti-craft with Elana Bell,
Her prose with linebreaks,
Gonad worship, identity hustle.
You anti-craft cantists in search of the correct shibboleth
And poet to perpetuate your modern-American-academic-poetic-narrative:
Be anti-audience, self-indulge, stay irrelevant to non-core poetry readers, ignore metrical schemas—
Winning narratives should be simple and egotistical.
You claim it's taste, but how can you discern the difference between Elana
And every poetry blogger who confessed his cock?
You disgrace Whitman with your award:
Song of Sinecure.

"Dear Poet,
Thank you for submitting your work to the 2011 Walt Whitman Award. This year's judge, Fanny Howe, has selected Elana Bell's manuscript, eyes, stones, to receive the award.
Of the nearly 1,200 entries we received this fall, there were so many extraordinary manuscripts. If by September your manuscript has not yet found a publisher, we hope that you will consider submitting to the Walt Whitman Award again. Many past winners submitted several times before their manuscripts were ultimately selected.
The judge for the 2012 award will be announced later this summer, and the submission period will extend from September 15 to November 15, 2011. To receive guidelines and to submit your work on-line, please visit the Academy of American Poets' website at www.poets.org/whitman.
We wish you the very best of luck with your writing. Thank you, again, for submitting to the Walt Whitman Award.
Respectfully,

Alex Dimitrov
Awards Coordinator
The Academy of American Poets"
—Academy of American Poets, poetnews@poets.org



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Innocence Attritted [Today's News Poem, April 4, 2011]

Innocence Attritted [Today's News Poem, April 4, 2011]

There's so much freshness, so much more innocence to shed.
The tide for example withdraws all the sand,
Draws all the hermit crabs, basks in the droppings of pelicans.
Fish fake the song at the crest of the swell—
Throbbing; a heart that pumps gills and ocean.
Welcome the edges of food-chain and welcome the
song of ablation,
the pockmarks of moon;
welcome births with one's mouth
and silvery slivers from eggs in the moonlight—
innocent still, for a moment at least.

"The federal government's chief climate adviser Professor Ross Garnaut believes nuclear power still has a vital role to play in global efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, despite the crisis at Japan's Fukushima plant."
—Evan Schwarten, Sydney Morning Herald, April 5, 2011 - 2:54PM
http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/nuclear-power-still-important-garnaut-20110405-1d1wh.html

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Declining Momentum [Today's News Poem, April 3, 2011]

Declining Momentum [Today's News Poem, April 3, 2011]

The concrete is cracking and punctures your tires,
Yet celebrate roots pushing pavement apart.
The birds are returning, they nest in the alder,
And shit on the sidewalk you hate—do not hate;
It's time for renewal—the wheels must stop spinning.

"Tokyo Electric Power is struggling to block a crack discovered in a pit that is leaking highly radioactive water into the ocean at its Fukushima Daiichi plant, and said it had discovered the bodies of its two missing employees at the stricken plant. "
—Lindsay Whipp in Tokyo, The Financial Times, Published: April 2 2011 17:09 | Last updated: April 3 2011 08:34
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/9d7b6070-5d40-11e0-a008-00144feab49a.html

"As Southwest Airlines canceled 300 flights throughout the country after one of its jets developed a hole in its roof during a flight, Bay Area travelers Saturday had hit-or-miss experiences getting to and from their destinations."
—Lisa Fernandez and Doug Jastrow, Bay Area News Group, Posted: 04/02/2011 09:37:19 PM PDT, Updated: 04/02/2011 10:20:22 PM PDT

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The New Normal [Today's News Poem, April 2, 2011]

The New Normal [Today's News Poem, April 2, 2011]

I thought that the average was something like grasping,
Something like murder and incest; torture and me.
I thought that because I could break, I was broken;
Born to a luck that I spurned because it's not fair.
And life is for idiots, error, repentance.
Life is not fair, so go quickly, even it out.
I've tried to exhaustion the rage and it failed me
Anger's the doorway to patience, love, compassion.
And normal's not average, it's more aspiration,
Noble and lie it's the mother goddess of hearth.
The lies do not bind us and babies aren't silenced
Shouting them down, nor by reason, terror—just love.

"there are many reasons to believe that measuring and reporting metrics of social mobility will be a meaningless task. Complete measures of social mobility, such as looking at the link between parental and children's incomes or parents' and children's education, take a lifetime to evaluate."
—Imran Hussain, Letters, The Guardian, Saturday 2 April 2011
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/apr/02/income-inequality-social-mobility

"A host of Asian performing artists have staged a three-hour charity concert in Hong Kong to raise funds for victims of Japan's earthquake and tsunami. "
—Xinhuanet, 2011-04-02 11:13:09
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/video/2011-04/02/c_13810387.htm

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Tales From The CombatWords Arena. 26.75 More Hours of Combat Left!

http://combatwords.blogspot.com/2011/04/combatwords-april-1-2011-nostalgia.html

If you've been avoiding CombatWords because you are threatened by the idea of competitive writing, maybe you should be. I want you to note the timestamps for this combat after you admire the quality of the offered samples. If you can't take the heat, that's cool, but consider being an anonymous chicken and critiquing the comps. I mean, you might bring up valid points, but trust me, nobody is going to feel threatened by someone too scared to step into the arena him or herself.

Onyxsupersonics (April 1, 2011 4:52 PM PST http://onyxsupersonics.blogspot.com/):
"my first trip to philadelphia, my first trip to new york, when i saw guernica at moma, my first flight to london ... i always thought i could do it again and it would be even better ... sometimes i did it again and it was, sometimes i did it again and it wasn't, but usually i couldn't and i'll never know whether it would've been or wouldn't have been ... "

Valerie Valdes (April 1, 2011 5:32 PM PST http://candleinsunshine.com/asthemoonclimbs/):
""In Cuba, it wasn't like this"
was the common joke
when something bad happened
in America."

Amalia Dillin (April 1, 2011 6:42 PM PST http://blog.amaliadillin.com/):
"My cousins and I jockeyed for the center seat, crawling over one another, climbing, twisting. The hammock twisted and one of them was hanging upside down on the outside, clinging like a monkey. We helped him back in, pulling him up like a sailors dragging a drowned man from the sea. "

Steven Marty Grant (April 1, 2011 7:30 PM PST http://roomspimp.blogspot.com/):
"Of course I know
I fought with her too
but those battlefields
are green and over grown;
Appomattox, Utah beach,
Hue City. "

Seann McCollum (April 2, 2011 11:34 AM PST http://carrioncall.blogspot.com/):
"In all the years since the weekend you
“didn’t sleep with” that fellow
you met at GothFest at the Trocadero"

I can't sit this one out--looks too fun. It's an extra good combat this week which is why you should try it out. I respect anyone willing to fall flat on his or her face in public, even if not for the quality of composition.

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COMBATWORDS IS ON RIGHT NOW! April 1, 2011 [Last Week's CW Poem Enclosed]

Fight, read, or critique; it's up to you: http://combatwords.blogspot.com/2011/04/combatwords-april-1-2011-nostalgia.html

Fruit of Knowledge [Combatwords repost from 3.25.2011]
From http://combatwords.blogspot.com/2011/03/combatwords-march-25-2011-hooray-for.html

Should you call it a baby tooth tucked in a pillow
Or call it a molar that crumbled with grinding?
Maybe it's better to say it's a fang
With venomous sacs, else a poison saliva?

You could wish for anything, but instead wish for money.
You ablate in the night as you sweat out anxiety—
And you ache for a cushion for teeth:
Something to suck-in your antidote.

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Gaol For Agoraphobics [Today's News Poem, April 1, 2011]

Gaol For Agoraphobics [Today's News Poem, April 1, 2011]

Leap from the floor to the counter.
Knock off the dishes, then land on the floor.

The labors of cat: in the sunbeam;

Gnaw on arachnids in paw,
Open the window—the garden awaits.

The rosemary blossomed this month.

Look at the world. It is freedom,
Smells like a spice on the currents of clouds.

The fences are flimsy, yet bind.

Pick a known path in the tangle.
Slink in the bushes then lay on cement.

The warden of prison appears

Reckless; he staggers down stairwell
Speaks in his language, contains the escape

With some tuna, a scratch for the ears
And a view from the window of mazes—
Abstractions gone monsters in lettuce—
Lock, latch and door.

"The Labor Department will release its monthly snapshot of the job market on Friday, and economists expect it to show that the nation’s employers added about 190,000 jobs in March. With an unemployment rate that has been stubbornly stuck near 9 percent, those workers could be considered lucky. But many of the jobs being added in retail, hospitality and home health care, to name a few categories, are unlikely to pay enough for workers to cover the cost of fundamentals like housing, utilities, food, health care, transportation and, in the case of working parents, child care. "
—MOTOKO RICH, The New York Times, Published: March 31, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/01/business/economy/01jobs.html

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