Jag vill börja med ett glädjande val. I en tidigare "Utblick" gick jag igenom de nominerade diktsamlingarna till "PEN Open Book Award ($5,000): For an exceptional book-length work of literature by an author of color published in 2013." De var tre stycken och jag skrev i mitt inlägg "Men om priset tilldelas en diktsamling så hoppas jag att det går till Ruth Ellen Kochers intressanta experiment "domina Un/blued", i vilket hon leker med kampfenomen."
Nu har PEN America tillkännagett vinnarna. Det blev två verk som delade på prissumman $5000.
Ruth Ellen Kocher, domina Un/blued (Tupelo Press)
Nina McConigley, Cowboys and East Indians (FiveChapters Books)
Yippie! Ruth Ellens diktsamling är nu officiellt placerad på min önskelista (jag fyller år i september).
***
Jag vill också passa på att hylla en traditionsbunden poesisammankomst. I juni var det 45:e gången som man anordnade Annual Poetry Society of Texas Conference. Årets temaslogan var "On the Wings of Poetry". Den var faktiskt inspirationskälla till mina fågeldikter på fredagar.
Bland de medverkande i Texas fanns Lisa Salinas. Hon har skrivit en dikt som passar väl in i den här bloggens andemening.
How to Read a Poem, by Lisa Salinas
Make yourself the smallest leaf
upon the tree and let the breeze
of gentle words begin to blow,
then loosen from your branch. Let go.
As gusts of newfound thoughts begin
to give your soul a little spin
allow the air to raise you high
and let yourself begin to fly
to see the world you knew beneath
from vantage point of soaring leaf.
***
Slutligen så är det 50 år sedan Frank O'Haras "Lunch poems" publicerades. Med anledning av jubileet har förlaget valt att publicera delar av O'Haras brevväxling med sin redaktör Lawrence Ferlinghetti.
Här får ni dikten: Music, av Frank O'Hara (1926-1966)
(Från Lunch Poems. City Lights Books, 1964.)
If I rest for a moment near The Equestrian
pausing for a liver sausage sandwich in the Mayflower Shoppe,
that angel seems to be leading the horse into Bergdorf's
and I am naked as a table cloth, my nerves humming.
Close to the fear of war and the stars which have disappeared.
I have in my hands only 35¢, it's so meaningless to eat!
and gusts of water spray over the basins of leaves
like the hammers of a glass pianoforte. If I seem to you
to have lavender lips under the leaves of the world,
I must tighten my belt.
It's like a locomotive on the march, the season
of distress and clarity
and my door is open to the evenings of midwinter's
lightly falling snow over the newspapers.
Clasp me in your handkerchief like a tear, trumpet
of early afternoon! in the foggy autumn.
As they're putting, up the Christmas trees on Park Avenue
I shall see my daydreams walking by with dogs in blankets,
put to some use before all those coloured lights come on!
But no more fountains and no more rain,
and the stores stay open terribly late.
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