Author Archives: Oscar Bermeo

X-Post: McCartney’s ex donating $1M in vegan food to the Bronx


Hunt’s Point art
Originally uploaded by NotTheDuck

Make no mistake, Hunts Point is one of the roughest parts of the Bx. Its main function is the home of the Hunts Point Market, the world’s largest food distribution center, providing fresh meat, fish, and produce to the New York Tri-State Area’s various food industries.

The irony is that most of that fresh produce doesn’t make it to the local hood which thrives and suffers from the Market which provides many low paying jobs to the residents but little else to the Point.

I hope that Heather Mills’ donation of $1M in soy food is not just another Anglo Santa one-time charity stunt and actually turns into a rallying cry from the residents of the Point for more quality food products from the local bodega.

¡Feliz cumpleaño, William Carlos Williams!


Rescate de Terreno
Originally uploaded by Rigglord

To celebrate the good Doctor’s birthday, Minnesota Public Radio has a great show, A man of science and letters, with clips of Wiliiams himself (thanks to the Penn Archives), poet/historian Neil Baldwin, and poet Bill Zavatsky.

It’s great to hear such a great breakdown on Williams’ work and legacy. I was especially interested on the discussion regarding pastoral since urban images are the be all and end all for me. Where someone might say, “A sip from the stream,” and I can taste the cool metallic water flowing from an open fire hydrant. Another might say, “The crowing of the dawn,” and I hear the #6 train speeding up from local to express so commuters can reach downtown faster. And if one was to try to evoke a shepherd, all I can picture is a crossing guard (maybe the kind elderly lady or the broad as a bus cold cop) guiding pedestrians and vehicles through the tight right angles of a crowded intersection. That’s the place my pastoral lives. Glad to know that the good Doctor’s pastoral is not too far from there, too.

Pastoral

When I was younger
it was plain to me
I must make something of myself.
Older now
I walk back streets
admiring the houses
of the very poor:
roof out of line with sides
the yards cluttered
with old chicken wire, ashes,
furniture gone wrong;
the fences and outhouses
built of barrel-staves
and parts of boxes, all,
if I am fortunate,
smeared a bluish green
that properly weathered
pleases me best
of all colors.

No one
will believe this
of vast import to the nation.

© William Carlos Williams (from Al Que Quiere!)

X-Post: Seven Years Later, Impact of 9/11 Still Resonates

The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer takes a look back at the impact of 9/11 with a diverse panel that includes Martín Espada. Martín’s comments on how 9/11 has impacted language and politics are spot on but my favorite quote is when he is asked what the U.S. government should do with its enemies, “I also think we need to sit down and start talking to those enemies.”

Seven Years Later, Impact of 9/11 Still Resonates

Seven years after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, a panel of writers and scholars examines the event’s continuing impact on American life and on the world.

JIM LEHRER: And now we explore the impact of 9/11 on American life with Jean Bethke Elshtain, professor of social and political ethics at the University of Chicago, John Ridley, author, award-winning director and screenwriter, Amanda Carpenter, national political reporter for Townhall.com; and Martin Espada, poet, professor of English at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst.

And, Martin Espada, to you first.

How do you read the impact 9/11 has had on Americans?

MARTIN ESPADA, Poet: Well, as a poet, I would have to say that 9/11 has changed the language.

First of all, there’s the phrase 9/11 itself. It’s a big abstraction. And we who remember what happened that day have to do whatever we can to make that big abstraction as concrete as possible, so that we truly remember those who were murdered that day, so this does not turn into a memorial by rote, like so many others. And, this way, the dead can truly be honored.

There is another way, however, in which I think 9/11 changed the language. In the name of 9/11, in the name of the war on terror, phrases like weapons of mass destruction and enhanced interrogation have entered our political vocabulary.

These phrases, for me, divorce language from meaning. And, thus, they divorce action from consequence. If you are engaged in enhanced interrogation, you are not engaged in torture. And, thus, we as a society come to embrace torture in the name of security.

I think we have to do whatever we can to combat this tendency in the language. The fact is that this language is used to foster a culture of fear, so that people will, in turn, act against their own interests. And that’s why we’re now embroiled in two wars without end.

Full Transcript
MP3

Shout It Out: Douglas Kearney, the National Poetry Series, and louderARTS


louderARTS at Bar13
Originally uploaded by geminipoet

Fly news: Douglas Kearney’s second manuscript, The Black Automaton, was selected for the National Poetry Series and will be published by Fence Books in 2009.

Nice!

For all you NYCers, Doug will be the featured poet this Monday at the louderARTS Reading Series’ Open Slam night. This should be a real interesting mix of open mic goodness, Doug’s awesome work, and some interesting slam poetry (especially considering that winning the louderARTS Slam this season gets you one step closer to a writing fellowship).

from Battery to holy Bronx on benzedrine

Slowly but surely James Franco is going from pretty boy film eye candy to bonafide completely unafraid actor in what feels like a page from the late Heath Ledger’s book or maybe the blueprint for Johnny Depp’s stellar career. His latest move is playing Ginsberg in the movie Howl. The rest of the cast list looks great but what I want to know is who will be playing Ferlinghetti and Shigeyoshi Murao?

Beatnik Biopic Howl Lands A Cast

James Franco’s going from stoner to beat poet (not a long road, some would say) with the lead role as Allen Ginsberg in Howl, but he won’t be alone. A rather tasty ensemble has joined him, including David Strathairn, Alan Alda, Jeff Daniels, Mary-Louise Parker and Paul Rudd.

The story focuses on the obscenity trial launched to censor Ginsberg’s groundbreaking poem Howl (hence the title of the film, see?). For those of you who avoid poetry like a particularly virulent form of plague, that’s the one that starts, “I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness” and gets more impassioned from there.

The trial, in 1957, featured certain real-life characters who will appear in the film. There’s prosecuting attorney Ralph McIntosh (Strathairn); Judge Clayton Horn (Alda); prosecution witness – and, we’re guessing, literary expert – Professor David Kirk (Daniels); prosecution witness and radio personality Gail Potter (Parker) and literary critic and defence witness Luther Nichols (Rudd).

More here.