Republicans Finally Out of the Closet: GOP Opposes Critical Thinking

Neruda will have to wait. I just saw this infuriating piece of nonsense today.

http://www.austinchronicle.com/blogs/news/2012-06-27/gop-opposes-critical-thinking/

Here's Richard Whitaker of the Austin Chronicle quoting from the Texas GOP's official platform.

Pablo Neruda

I believe my next post will be about Pablo Neruda, and how he makes poetry seem both easy and impossible.

Until then, here is a rather pleasant translation of one of his early poems, by Stephen Mitchell. Found in the anthology, Full Woman, Fleshly Apple, Hot Moon. I think I would let that fourth stanza do whatever it wanted with me, and then invite the fifth and the sixth over for dinner. Would?

"Walking Around

It so happens that I'm tired of being human.
It so happens that I enter tailor shops and movie theaters
withered, impenetrable, like a swan made of felt
sailing on a lake of origin and ashes.

Psychic Telephone Service

My friend Rosemary just suggested I start a psychic telephone service.

Sleep, Kenneth Koch

I'm sick today.

Whipping Girl

Reading a trans manifesto / collection of critical essays on feminism / gender mindfuck in a desperately needed way. Called Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity. It's blowing my mind. Dissecting sexism and privilege into 3 major camps. Promoting a bimodal distribution pattern for the relationship between gender expression and biological sex. Identifying and undermining both cultural and personal patterns of cissexual privilege and transphobia. If any of this stuff interests you, reader, by all means, this book is a gem.

Hurm. Stakes, Dean Young, and Unblocking.

Hokay. So, I don't want this space to turn into a gripe-fest. Practically, based on my last two posts, it has. Ultimately, though, the idea is less about whining and more about writing. Let's talk a little about block, stakes, and why I have always been secretly attracted to Dean Young.

Life as of 8-2, Like a Geode

So I haven't done anything writerly for a while. No poems, no essays, no stories. I may be blocked, but block implies I've been trying to write. Sometimes you need a break, even from things you enjoy. Makes me remember why I enjoy them when I come back. Assuming I do come back.