Stingy Kids

President-Elect

I've amassed a large folder of links to election-related articles that I've enjoyed over the past few months.  Some of these articles have challenged my understanding of certain issues.  Others, like the Siglo 21 endorsement, struck me for their depth of feeling.  I wanted to share a few of these with you.  I think it's clear from my selections that I endorsed Barack Obama but I also want to call attention to Senator John McCain's concession speech.  I thought it was incredible--gracious, kind, respectful.   

The Poetry of Barack Obama (via NYT)
Obama, Poet by Rebecca Mead

Harold Bloom, who in fifty-three years of teaching literature at Yale University has had many undergraduate poems pressed hopefully upon him said, when reached by telephone in New Haven last week, that he was not familiar with Obama’s oeuvre. But after studying the poems he said that he was not unimpressed with the young man’s efforts—at least, by the standards established by other would-be bards within the political sphere.

The Candidate by William Finnegan

People in Illinois seem largely unaware of Obama’s long, annealing trip into their midst, although they often remark on his unusual calm. Now forty-two and a state senator, Obama emerged, in March, from a raucous primary as the Democratic nominee for the United States Senate. In a seven-person field, he received a remarkable fifty-three per cent of the vote—he even won the “collar” counties around Chicago, communities that supposedly would never support a black candidate. And everyone recalls that, as the votes were being tallied at his headquarters on Election Night, he seemed to be the least agitated person in the place.

Our Support to Barack Obama (Periódico Siglo 21)

For Siglo21, the candidacy of Barack Obama means the freedom and equality made flesh and blood in a political leader.

That only has the meaning of a beautiful season to live, and we want to be here to live it, including, being able to narrate it.

John McCain's Concession Speech

I urge all Americans ... I urge all Americans who supported me to join me in not just congratulating him, but offering our next president our good will and earnest effort to find ways to come together to find the necessary compromises to bridge our differences and help restore our prosperity, defend our security in a dangerous world, and leave our children and grandchildren a stronger, better country than we inherited.

Whatever our differences, we are fellow Americans. And please believe me when I say no association has ever meant more to me than that.

President-Elect Barack Obama, Victory Speech

Let us remember that it was a man from this state who first carried the banner of the Republican Party to the White House (note: referring to Civil War president Abe Lincoln) ­ a party founded on the values of self-reliance, individual liberty, and national unity. Those are values we all share, and while the Democratic Party has won a great victory tonight, we do so with a measure of humility and determination to heal the divides that have held back our progress. As Lincoln said to a nation far more divided than ours, 'We are not enemies, but friends ... though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection.' And to those Americans whose support I have yet to earn ­ I may not have won your vote, but I hear your voices, I need your help, and I will be your President too.

Morning Tabs

Today is going to be one of those long nights at the library. On such days, I give myself a few morning leisure hours with the web and/or a pile of still-unread magazine articles. For example...

1. "Tomaž Šalamun: An Introduction" by Robert Hass and Šalamun's poem "Folk Song" ("Poem of the Week" for 9/20/2004)

Every true poet is a monster.
He destroys people and their speech.

2. "How to Read a Translation" by Lawrence Venuti (via Words Without Borders)

We should view the translator as a special kind of writer, possessing not an originality that competes against the foreign author’s, but rather an art of mimicry, aided by a stylistic repertoire that taps into the literary resources of the translating language.

3. "Loops of perception: sampling, memory, and the semantic web" by Paul D. Miller aka DJ Spooky that Subliminal Kid

We live in an era where quotation and sampling operate on such a deep level that the archaeology of what can be called knowledge floats in a murky realm between the real and unreal.

4. Rattapallax 11: David gave this to me yesterday. I've been listening to the CD all morning and looking up poetry readings as a result.

5. Red Poppy:

A place for poetry. A flower planted during the hour of the garden. A family which hopes to create progressive sustainable social change in Latin America and the world through art. We are a 501(c)(3) non-profit. We are rooted in la tierra of Latin America from the silver stones of Macchu Picchu to the high deserts of Mexico, from the soul of Cuba to the blue snow-capped volcanoes and ancient forests of Southern Chile." [link in the original]

6. "Why name a crater after Pablo Neruda?": If you want to know the answer to this question you must follow the link. You won't regret it. Did you know, for instance, that "only craters on Mercury can be named after literary figures"?

It's time now to hit the books.

Two Headlines

1. Novel Designed for Text Messaging Service (via AP)

2. Engineer Crunches Literary Data to Seek Truth about Fiction (via Princeton Weekly Bulletin)

Bookmark: Gennady Aygi

The word makes sense and sound, and something more. It's the force that holds all the world’s words together. Left all alone, the word can't do much, it's dead. It only can when it is activated by that force. When I realized this, I became aware that the way you handle a word depends on where you put it in relation to the other words. At one time, a pretty long one I'd say, I couldn't squeeze a line out of myself, nor was I comfortable in church. One day at church, I looked around to see the congregation gripped by a sort of shared emotion. While that impression was still hot, I wrote a poem, People Are Like Candles in the Church. "Like candles, their souls light one another." A single line. Quite seriously, it's really more than just a line, it's a great thing. And it has a point of gravity, too. It's title and, of course, there's the subscript, "January 6, 2002, Christmas Eve, Romashkovo Village." This is part of the verse, and the three of them do a common job. I gave you the simplest example I could.

"A Poet is No Different from Other Dogs, Except that He is a Talking Dog"