William J. Harris reads "Nobody Wants to Write an Elegy" English & Italian

William J. Harris: "Nobody Wants to Write an Elegy"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytavbCJvcG4
This link leads to YouTube version--with Italian translation by Nicola Manupelli. Stanley Lombardo reads the Italian at this Feb. 23, 2012 reading at the Raven Bookstore in Lawrence, Kansas. Harris's introduction references Kevin Young's elegy for his father. The poem is from a new bilingual book CROONERS by Harris and Manupelli.

William J. Harris reads "Great Performance" with Itallian translation by Nicola Manupelli, Italian reading by Stanley Lombardo

Recorded at the Big Tent reading Feb. 23, 2012, the Raven Bookstore, Lawrence.

Wm. J. Harris reads "GreatPerformance" & Italian by Stan Lombardo

Michael Waters is one of the poets I have followed through the years because of his excellence of style and range of subjects. He participates fully in European high culture as well as lowbrow American media. In his new book, Gospel Night: Poems (BOA Editions), his imagery is graphic as he creates video-like poems. With wide-lens views that scan 360 degrees, Waters brings to life train rides, Mozart’s sonatas “sparked with vengeful glee,” and Sierra Mountain cannibals, the Donner Party. Among the many stunning poems in this collection is this brilliant one about one of the gravest modern sins—spectacle. He opens with the grisly painting of John the Baptist by Carravaggio, which shows the butchery in detail, then compares it to the beheading of a hostage on CNN. Theatric techniques applied to execution is his first point, and then the complicity between creator and viewer of the grotesque. Waters is not content to simply report; he also participates, senses, takes into his own sensibilities the horror, and admits his own individual connection. He addresses difficult topics, and his body of work gathers gravitas with each new book. He is an essential commentator about contemporary life.

Michelangelo Merisi Da Caravaggio:

The Beheading of St. John 1608

The Baptist’s beheaded Arab fashion:

Throat slit with the long sword, then the gristly
Tendons of the neck severed with the knife
Still sheathed behind this executioner’s
Back—the beheading’s not quite over yet,
Like the tape loop broadcast on CNN:
Al-Qaeda zealots crisscrossed with bullets
Posing with the blindfolded journalist
Before the anonymous assassin
Steps forward to undertake his righteous
Labor. On websites the tape winds forward
To the crass, theatrical brandishing
Of the skull, another obscene gesture
In a war targeted toward spectacle.
Two prisoners gape from their somber cell.
The girl-servant grips the copper platter
Upon which the head will be presented
To Salomé. Blood puddles the stone floor
Where, aswirl, it twists into the artist’s
Only surviving signature, Michel,
To confess his helpless complicity.

CHEROKEE WRITERS FROM THE FLINT HILLS OF OKLAHOMA

In Tahlequah at the Cherokee Nation Arts Center gift shop I found a copy of a book I have been looking for, this 350-plus-page collection of historic and contemporary fiction, essays, and poetry by Cherokee writers. Some of the entries are bi-lingual, in syllabary. All is readily accessible. The editors write: "This is the first comprehensive anthology of contemporary Oklahoma writers." Cherokee Nation has over 200,000 enrolled members plus many others with documented heritage. Many writers refer to the environment of "foothills of the Ozarks environment, the social and politival actiities of the state of Oklahoma, and our adjacency to the Great Plains." They reference Eastern Cherokee Band relatives, as well. This is an ambitious publication, and it succeeds in showing a cultural and historic context along with contemporary issues in one volume. Some names are familiar--Robert Conley, author of 80 books; Geary Hobson, author, editor, and OU professor; Eddie Chuculate Penn/O.Henry prize winner for short story in 2007; Roy Boney, artist; Kathleen Johnson, Kansas Notable Book winner and editor or New Mexico Poetry Review. Others are elders: Benny Smith, Sequoyah Guess, and others. Editors are Roy Hamilton and Karen Coody Cooper. The book was first published in September, 2011 and a second edition was published in December, 2011, so this is new. Copies are available at Indigitronic Publishing House, Cherokee Nation, www.cherokeeculture.org , R.R. 4, Box 692, Stillwell, OK 74960.