[incli]nation » Poetry

Fifty People, One Question: Brooklyn

Staff — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 10:51:00 +0000

“Take 5 minutes out of your day and WATCH THIS BEAUTIFUL VIDEO! really.

Fifty People, One Question: Brooklyn from Crush + Lovely on Vimeo.

Proverbios y Cantares by Antonio Machado

Staff — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 16:29:09 +0000

Your footsteps are the path, and nothing else;
there is no path, paths are made by walking.
Walking makes the path, and on looking back
We see a trail that never can be walked again.
Traveler, there is no path,
Only a wake in the sea.

- Antonio Machado
Proverbios y Cantares

via

Let’s Get Lost @ NWFF Oct. 26 – Nov. 1, Seattle, WA

Staff — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 20:58:18 +0000

As long time Chet Baker fans, we can’t wait to view this one:

OCTOBER 26 – NOVEMBER 1, Fri – Thurs at 7 & 9:15pm

LET’S GET LOST

(Bruce Weber, USA, 1988, 35mm, 119 min)
In the 1950s, Chet Baker’s jazz trumpeting, edgy, intimate crooning and pretty boy good looks epitomized West Coast "cool."When famed photographer Bruce Weber caught up with him three decades later, time and drug addiction had ravaged his life and angelic beauty with deep valleys and crevasses. LET’S GET LOST artfully intercuts gorgeous black and white footage of the gaunt latter-day Baker, with images of the young jazz trumpeter in iconic 1950s early television and film appearances and photographs by William Claxton. Shot by Weber and cinematographer Jeff Preiss during what would turn out to be Baker’s final year, the film also includes interviews with friends, family, lovers and associates. This transfixing, bittersweet portrait of the jazz legend won the Critics’ Prize at the Venice Film Festival and was nominated for an Academy Award. Nearly 20 years since its premiere and nearly 15 since it has been seen in any medium, we’re pleased to present a brand new 35mm print of a recent restoration done by Weber himself.

"It’s the music doc as film noir, with a vampirish city-of-night gleam that suits the subject and his darkly romantic sound."-Jim Ridley, THE VILLAGE VOICE

OCTOBER 26, Fri at 7 & 9:15pm
NOT AVAILABLE ON VIDEO

Your Catfish Friend by Richard Brautigan

Staff — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 20:09:26 +0000

If I were to live my life
in catfish forms
in scaffolds of skin and whiskers
at the bottom of a pond
and you were to come by
. . . one evening
when the moon was shining
down into my dark home
and stand there at the edge
. . . of my affection
and think, "It’s beautiful
here by this pond. I wish
. . . somebody loved me,"
I’d love you and be your catfish
friend and drive such lonely
thoughts from your mind
and suddenly you would be
. . . at peace,
and ask yourself, "I wonder
if there are any catfish
in this pond? It seems like
a perfect place for them."

- Richard Brautigan
The Pill Versus the Springhill Mine Disaster

via whiskey river

Waiting; Roland Barthes

Staff — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 21:25:56 +0000

I am waiting for an arrival, a return, a promised sign. This can be futile, or immensely pathetic; in Erwartung (Waiting), a woman waits for her lover, at night, in the forest; I am waiting for no more than a telephone call, but the anxiety is the same. Everything is solemn; I have no sense of proportions.(…)
Waiting is enchantment: I have received orders not to move. Waiting for a telephone call is thereby woven out of tiny unavowable interdictions to infinity: I forbid myself to leave the room, to go to the toilet, even to telephone (to keep the line from being busy); I suffer torments if someone else telephones me (for the same reason); I madden myself by the thought that at a certain (imminent) hour I shall have to leave, thereby running the risk of missing the healing call, the return of the Mother. All these diversions which solicit me are so many wasted moments for waiting, so many impurities of anxiety. For the anxiety of waiting, in its pure state, requires that I be sitting in a chair within reach of the telephone, without doing anything.(…)

The being I am waiting for is not real. Like the mother’s breast for the infant, “I create and re-create it over and over, starting from my capacity to love, starting from my need for it”: the other comes here where I am waiting, here where I have already created him/her. And if the other does not come, I hallucinate the other: waiting is a delirium…. (more)

via the incomparable wood s lot

The Ars Poetica Machine by Ted Berrigan

Staff — Tue, 15 May 2007 18:01:49 +0000

A poem should be palpable and mute
as a globed fruit,

Dumb
As old medallions to the thumb,

Silent as the sleeve-worn stone
Of casement ledges where the moss has grown -

A poem should be wordless
As the flight of birds.

- Ted Berrigan

also see Ars Poetica by Archibald MacLeish

via whiskey river

Join the NY Media Elite – FREE!

Staff — Sun, 22 Apr 2007 20:54:12 +0000

This is just so much dorky goodness that I have to post the full entry. From Kottke.com:

I might be shooting myself in the foot by posting this, but the table of contents for the newest issue of the New Yorker is usually available on Sunday on newyorker.com, the day before the issue hits the newsstands and arrives in subscriber mailboxes. All you need to do is hack the URL of the TOC from the previous Monday. Here’s the URL for the April 23 TOC:

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/toc/2007/04/23/toc_20070416

“2007/04/23″ is the date of the issue and “toc_20070416″ refers to the date of the posting. This then is the URL for the April 30 issue:

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/toc/2007/04/30/toc_20070423

At right is the cover for tomorrow’s issue, which includes Adam Gopnik’s piece on the Virginia Tech shooting, a new piece by Atul Gawande, and Anthony Lane’s review of Hot Fuzz. Monday’s New Yorker on Sunday is usually only available to the select few of the Manhattan media elite who are sped their new issues hot off the presses. Now everyone can have a similar experience on the web.

Enjoy.

via kottke.org

J. Prévert – Le Discours Sur La Paix – Speech on Peace

Staff — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 15:13:12 +0000

Vers la fin d’un discours extrêmement important
le grand homme d’Etat trébuchant
sur une belle phrase creuse
tombe dedans
et désemparé la bouche grande ouverte
haletant
montre les dents
et la carie dentaire de ses pacifiques raisonnements
met à vif le nerf de la guerre
la délicate question d’argent.

(Near the end of an extremely important discourse
the great man of state
tumbling on a beautiful hollow phrase
falls over it
and undone with gaping mouth
shows his teeth
and the dental decay of his peaceful reasoning
exposes the nerve of war
the delicate question of money)

The Flame’s Core

Staff — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 11:15:13 +0000

Thinking gives off smoke to prove the existence of fire
There are wonderful shapes in rising smoke that imagination loves to watch
But it’s a mistake to leave the fire for that filmy sight
Stay here at the flame’s core
- Rumi

via Whiskey River

A Poet is a Poet: Dylan Thomas

Staff — Mon, 02 Apr 2007 10:12:16 +0000

"A poet is a poet for such a very tiny bit of his life; for the rest he is a human being, one of whose responsibilities is to know and feel, as much as he can, all that is moving around and within him."

- Dylan Thomas

via Whiskey River