David Cherry's blog

Jim Carroll (1949 - 2009)

Submitted by David Cherry on Mon, 09/14/2009 - 9:16am

Stairwell at CBGBs, Circa 2003 Photo by bettyx1138 via Flickr Creative CommonsIf you're of a certain age and have a bent toward a certain kind of music, then you probably ground the grooves flat on your copy of Jim Carroll's "People Who Died." It wasn’t an anthem (which by definition excludes); it was something purer than that: a coyote howl of mourning--not for those who had gone (because they had reached something permanent, if only the void), but for those who remained, those who were forced to go on with one more ragged hole in their lives where a person once had been.

All that, and the song just flat out rocked.

In Praise of Futility

Submitted by David Cherry on Fri, 09/11/2009 - 4:02pm

Photograph: Old Keys Upclose by Laineys Repertoire via Flickr.com Creative CommonsWhat’s a guy gotta do to get some reaction around here? In last week's post I more or less said Emily Dickinson--had she not found poetry--would have turned out to be a serial poisoner and that Walt Whitman could have been a darn fine used car salesman, and I didn’t hear even a grandmotherly tsk tsk tsk.

Have we really reached the point where any schmo with a keyboard can slag two of the purest of American literature’s saints, and it doesn’t even warrant lukewarm pique?

I, frankly, am outraged.

Not really.

Haiku, or: It Takes Me More Than Seventeen Syllables Just to Get Out of Bed in the Morning

Submitted by David Cherry on Thu, 09/10/2009 - 8:53am

The formal requirements of the haiku may be as stringent as an IRS form, but a good one is pithy, sometimes revelatory and, occasionally, just flat out funny.

Miss Em' and Walt and All the Rest of Us

Submitted by David Cherry on Fri, 09/04/2009 - 2:42pm

Portrait: Emily Dickinson courtesy Poetry FoundationIt’s not a particularly fresh notion to say that Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson representPortrait: Walt Whitman courtesy Poetry Foundation a sort of yin and yang of American literature, or that they are the progenitors of the two main strands of American poetry’s DNA. Whether it’s true or not, the notion just seems to satisfy that human need to reduce complex issues to either/or propositions.

The "How" is Easy; the "What" and "Why" are the Hard Parts.

Submitted by David Cherry on Fri, 08/28/2009 - 4:08pm

Photo by Thomas Smillie. Courtesy Smithsonian InstitutionThis is the age of the how-to. The Complete Idiot’s Guides and For Dummies franchises are wildly successful for a reason: it seems a lot of folks are under the impression that any task, including building a full-scale replica of the Great Pyramid of Cheops, is a do-it-yourself project as long as they have enough time and the right book

Syndicate content