Little Reviews: Poem for Saturday and More Ikebana

The Case Against Poetry
By Edward Hirsch

While you made the case against poetry --
Plato's critique of the irrational,
Homeric lying, deluded citizens --
to a group of poets in Prague,

night deepened in old windows,
swallows gathered on a narrow ledge
and called to the vanishing twilight,
and a beggar began to sing in the street.

--------

"As numerous literary fashions have come and gone, Edward Hirsch has resolutely produced the personal, quietly narrative, image-centered lyric poems that were the hallmark of the 20th century," writes Steven Ratiner in The Washington Post in a short review of The Living Fire: New and Selected Poems. "We find work rooted in the old-fashioned concept of the poem as a tool for discovery, whether the subject lies in the self or our shared world. When a Hirsch poem strikes its mark, you feel the utter necessity of its impulse: language unveiling the lived moment."

I have absolutely no explanation of what happened to my morning; I was downstairs by 8:30 but I didn't start working on my "Tapestry" until lunchtime. I did a bit of cleaning up and tried, unsuccessfully, to repair the clasp on a necklace (apparently I am not adept enough to use small pliers) assisted by too many cats. I did a bit of research for Adam, who is looking for a good free/inexpensive video editor that works with MOV files, or conversely a good free/inexpensive program to convert MOV to AVI. And I did a bit of research for myself on scanners -- I still need one, since there is no driver in the world that will make mine work with Windows 7 -- and on where to buy vegan calcium citrate, since I can't tell the source of calcium in the vitamins I currently take.

We had dinner with my parents, then came home for Smallville, which sometimes seems to be turning into Heroes with its big supporting cast and people with powers not trusting each other, but there was lots of Lois, which I liked, though for the most part it was relationship stuff instead of her kicking butt, which I didn't like so much. Then we watched a BBC production of The Mikado because Daniel's high school is performing it this weekend and we're going to see it Saturday night -- as with all productions, there were some hilarious bits and some utterly cringe-worthy bits. The Redskins had no draft picks on Friday, having traded them for Donovan McNabb, but the Ravens took Texas linebacker Sergio Kindle in the second round and last night everyone thought he should have been picked sooner, plus they got defensive tackle Terrence Cody and tight end Ed Dickson, so that's good news.

The Friday Five: Cooking/Food, Again
1. Tea or coffee or juice in the morning, and why? Usually decaf tea, sometimes juice -- I'm not supposed to have much caffeine and I am supposed to have more fruit.
2. What's your typical breakfast on workdays, and what on weekends? Either hot instant oatmeal with raisins, or one of several organic cold cereals.
3. What do you drink through the day? Lots of decaf tea and water, occasional orange juice, sometimes Diet Coke if I'm out for lunch.
4. Best snack? Unsalted walnuts, frozen yogurt with granola, chocolate.
5. Your favourite dinner when you cook for yourself alone? I don't cook when I'm alone; it would be something like a bagel with cream cheese or hummus and pita.

Fannish5: Name 5 characters you think would have a good time hanging out with you and your friends - in your world, not theirs.
1. Gretchen Berg, Heroes - she's a total fangirl.
2. Willow Rosenberg, Buffy the Vampire Slayer - in her pre-scary witch years at least, when she was a brilliant nerd.
3. Eowyn, The Lord of the Rings - we'd all admire her skill with a sword and tell her to go for it re: being a warrior, and we'd be happy to giggle with her about how hot Aragorn and Faramir are.
4. Moaning Myrtle, Harry Potter - she'd forget to feel sorry for herself.
5. Jen Lindley, Dawson's Creek - none of us would judge her for her wild past in New York and we'd all sympathize about her family.