Breathing Poet

Breathing Poet has very nicely featured one of my poems on her site. Thank you again.

Take time to read more of her blog while you're there!

Pris

Meatloaf still brings out the magic in me

Meatloaf's Bat Out Of Hell has to be one of the best albums of the late seventies's. I love his music. He faded from view after this album to appear again playing small theatres in the late eighties. I saw him then in a theatre over in Palm Beach. He still had the magic, but no new material. I don't know what caused his burnout, but would've loved more albums like this one. This song....well, it's super! So is 'For Crying Out Loud' and 'Paradise By The Dashboard Light' (a classic)

What's your favorite from that album/now out in CD? Hard choice.




I couldn't resist adding Paradise By The Dashboard Light.

Recovering from the flu

I'm over the main thrust of it, but am left weaker than usual and dopey, meaning I've not been around to visit many blogs over the past week, plus.

In the meantime, the editor of Lummox tells me that my chap that they published as part of the Little Red Book series is getting close to being one of their best sellers. Want to help me take it over the top? You can buy Hesitant Commitments for only six dollars, including postage (in the U.S., more out of country) at Lummox Press. Just click on my book cover for the list of recent books there and the paypal button.

I shall return!

'Pretty' Forwards

Maybe I'm a grump today since I'd been feeling pretty good, then was exposed to flu when I went for my fasting bloodwork last Wed and came down with it myself Saturday. I could crawl into a hole and not come out until this passes I feel so lousy. This is one of my five minutes awake, so decided to air a gripe. Mass forwards!

If I go the rest of my life and never see another 'You're my friend, because..' or 'This flower is just for you....' or 'Cute kitten and antelope...', you name it, followed by 'Send this on to all of your friends and one back to me, too' or by 'Something wonderful will happen if you pass this on to 10 friends within the next five minutes' or 'Bad luck will follow you if you don't send this on'. Jesus Louise. And jokes. If I wanted to read that many jokes, I'd buy a joke book.

I never mind a close friend very occasionally forwarding me, individually, something he or she feels is something I'd like to see. My close friends don't mass forward to me, nor me to them. I mean, how many flowers, cute puppies, reindeer, kittens, children doing funny things can one person look at, especially if it's a video you have to sit through if you're tempted to look.

So, I'm saying, if you're my friend, take me off your cute things/ joke forwarding list. Warn me of a virus ONLY if you checked it out at SNOPES first and if it ends with 'this will destroy your entire C drive' please make EXTRA sure you check it out. 99 percent of these types of warnings are fakes. Yes, I know about the e-card virus. That's real. Most stuff that's sent around is an urban legion, including the little boy needing money disparately that dates back to a hoax five years ago. I repeat...MAKE SNOPES YOUR BIBLE.

Okay, I'll take myself back to bed and hope I don't find another handful of forwards waiting for me when I again check email.

One hint: If you use a program that allows sorting, create a folder for forwards and direct them all there using FW as the subject key word. Double check to see if any are from that rare friend you might get something you want and delete the rest.

The grump

Pris

Sea Trails

The following is an excerpt from my just finished collection of poems based on my 1977 six month trip in my 22 foot sailboat. I've begun submitting now. It's a combination of log notes and poems in hopes there'll be crossover appeal to both sailors and poets.



Coming out of the East River in preparation for anchoring at Sandy Hook, N.J., then sailing down the Jersey Coast. You can see the twin towers behind me.

My poem, Streaking, about that leg of the trip is currently in Empowerment4Women.


Pris


Little Adventure: Fitting out the boat. June 1977

Little Adventure is a Tanzer 22 fin keel sailboat, purchased second-hand in Marion, MA, in late 1974. No standing head room in the cabin.She came with two regular jibs (Genoa for light winds and standard size), one small storm jib made of thick canvass, and a compass. R and I add a depth sounder, odometer, ship to shore radio and, before our trip, a second five gallon gas tank and homemade spinnaker. We purchase an Avon to serve as combination dinghy and life raft to replace the fiberglass dinghy we owned the first two years. A supply of paperback books are stored on a shelf in the main cabin where one quarterberth cushion slides back and a pop-up table comes up for meals and for chart space for course plotting.

As the trip’s leave date nears, jeans and tee shirts are packed into two duffel bags and warmer clothes combined into a third, smaller duffel bag. Nets in the V-berth hold our toiletries. Wet gear hangs from a hook. Canned goods are stored in plastic bins beneath the quarter berths. Potatoes and onions hang from a net in the cabin. Block ice goes into a small front-opening ice chest built into the boat below the stove and sink. We have no hanging locker, no head. A porta potty will have to do. Our cat Monster’s litter box sits under the lip of the V-berth where we’ll sleep. A two-burner kerosene stove is mounted next to a sink too small to do dishes in. A bucket will do for that. Our goal is to make it to Florida, then across the Gulf Stream and down the Abacos, possibly ending up in New Orleans, a city we feel will be similar in spirit to Boston.




Sea Fever Redux

I must go down to the sea again…
John Masefield

I board the tiny sloop that has carried me
twice to Maine with its deep
silent harbors and moaning buoys.
I'm ensnared, trapped by increasing
longings to ride that magic carpet
into places different from my own
narrow world of nine to five rewind.
Saltwater rises through my body,
is transformed through its heat
into golden mist. I expand
without Alice's cookies,
become a gull dropping clams
on the rocks to crack them,
a molting lobster, a leaping dolphin,
a man watching the sky from a deserted dock.
The sea is my cradle and it rocks me,
birthing me into new ways of seeing.
My arms unfurl into sails.
I let the wind take me.

Pris Campbell
©2009




A gas stop.

Playing For Change

Doug Lang sent me the link to this mind-blowingly wonderful video from the growing collection of songs for change, by singers all over the world.

Two of the best scenes from Tommy..Clapton and Elton John

If any of you remember, the entire musical was originally on a LP by The Who. Roger Daltry played in the movie, as well. Worth renting and watching. Beneath the videos is a poem I wrote a few years back about my own experience seeing the movie in Boston in the seventies at a time when this movie was on a fast track with Hair and Jesus Christ Superstar. Either you get it or you don't.








Tommy In The Sky With Diamonds

Stars blinked in the sky
that was us, high
in blackened theatre seats,
Roger Daltrey screaming,
seeeee me, heaaaaar me.
Clapton strutted down the aisle
with his MM crazed crowd
banners waving, blood of the
scotch bottle bled for thee--
Elton pin-balling that Wizard
in three foot laced shoes.
Pot so thick you could
slice the air.

Tommy, in rock opera glory,
resurrected across
that hazy Boston banned screen.

Tommy, Tommy,
sing us up the mountaintop.
Tommy, Tommy
lead us to the revolution.

We fell into each other after,
grasping and frantic,
eager to stretch
that fire into forever.

~

I rented the video years later.
My neighbor napped right through it and
my husband cracked lousy jokes, but

I slipped back with Daltrey
to the commune and you,
our bodies sweat-tight,
reliving the night when Tommy
lit up the theatre on Beacon Street.

Submitting Poetry

How many journals have you submitted to in the past six months? A rough estimate is fine. Do you submit simultaneously? I've been terribly lax lately in submitting my own work. I don't submit simultaneously, btw, unless the journal says that's okay. My own feeling is that, while I wish that was kosher in the same way that novels are submitted simultaneously to agents (or we'd be 80 trying to get THOSE seen), since turn around time tends to be reasonably fast it's easy enough to submit poems that are all different to several journals.

How important is publishing your work in journals? Do you prefer chapbooks?

I need a good boot to get me going again. I did submit to two journals this morning, but it's been a while. Part of the problem is the sheer volume of work involved in comparing my available poems to my list of submitted and rejected to make sure they're still free (no, at this point I don't remember) and then trying to match a group of poems with the tone the journal tends to take.

From Thunder Sandwich Issue 25

Thunder Sandwich, a journal edited by Jim Chandler, has been inactive/closed for a while now. Ron Androla recently was digging through the archives and posted a couple of his poems from an old issue on Pressure Point Press Board. That prompted me to look up the two I had in the journal shortly before it closed. We're trying to rouse Jim to bring out another issue. He's on that board too and is thinking:-)


See these online in the archived Thunder Sandwich

Guarding The Edge


Outside my bedroom window,
dealers meet their daily quota
pumping the walking dead.
Hookers bargain for memories
in the back of run-down Chevrolets.

A man screams Armageddon
Nobody cares what he says.

The Buddhist sits on my doorstep.
Mud stains coat his feet.
He says we're all connected;
muggers hiding in alleys,
old ladies prone on the street.

I laugh at the distant rumblings,
flip on my wide screen TV,
ignore cracks already cobwebbing
my carefully guarded space.


Bedding the Butterfly


I watch you watch her wriggle
center stage, bait for the guy
with orange hair and bad voice
netting the throbbing crowd.

The guitar worships her,
kisses her sweet ass,
pubescent hips gyrating
in the doo-whap thick of the night.

I know you will grope me later,
imagining her instead,
her halter top tossed free
and floating-

your red sequined butterfly
of receding youth,
flutterdying
on our cold hardwood floor.


Pris Campbell
in Thunder Sandwich

A Gigapan shot of the inauguration crowds. Taken at 1,474 megapixels!!!!

The below text came from my daily Kim Komando newsletter. I wish there was a way to link to it, but go to Gigapan.org and play with different pans of the crowd. Fun and amazing detail. You really have to see this on site to fully appreciate it. (Sometimes I get error messages when I click on the link, so this is the URL direct to the site: http://www.gigapan.org/viewGigapan.php?id=15374 They have messages up saying there's a big load on the site today)

This is the long range shot (click to enlarge)




This is a pan down to Obama.




From the newsletter:
A close look at the inauguration
Barack Obama's inauguration drew huge crowds to Washington. The Washington Post estimated that 1.8 million people attended. That estimate was accepted by the National Park Service. It is believed to have been the biggest crowd in Washington's history.

So, what does a crowd of 1.8 million look like? Well, I'm sure you've seen the news photos. They sure are impressive. They really give you a good feel for the size of the crowds.

Well, David Bergman has created a photo that is even more impressive. It's a panoramic image of the crowds.The image is an astounding 1,474 megapixels. No, that's not a typo!Bergman actually created the panorama from 220 individual images. He took the shots with his 14.7-megapixel Canon G10.

You will be amazed by the panorama. You can make out the faces in the crowd. Or, see the secret service agents on the rooftops.

You can see the panorama on Gigapan's site. You can also see thousands of other gigapixel images.

The Inaugural Poem

If you want to both watch the video and read the poem, go to Ed Byrne's blog.

I'm among those hoping this would be a chance for large numbers of non poets to see that poetry has a strong voice and was disappointed in the reading. Where do you weigh in on the inaugural poem?

The link opens in a separate window, so you can read there and leave reactions both on his blog and here, if you like.

Pris

Best Movie Dances

These are three dances in movies that continue to stand out in my memory. I could watch them over and over. I'm not trying to include the oldies with Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire...another whole group of wonderful dances in those, too. What's your favorite??



The Scent of a Woman (tugs at heartstrings)




The Sound of Music (most romantic)



Shall We Dance (sexiest)

Empowerment4Women is out

Find the poetry page HERE. My poem, Streaking, is from the collection of sea poems I've been writing based on my 1977 six month trip in my Tanzer 22 and have now submitting to the Main Street Rag annual poetry chapbook competition. I really enjoy this journal.

Mama Mia

I understand that this movie has been panned by a lot of people, the singing, as well. I found the movie to be delightful, personally. It was fun seeing a movie depicting people who lived through the 'hippie' generation in the here and now--and done in musical form. While it was no Hair or Jesus Christ Superstar, or even Tommy, doing it this way took me back to those and the days when I saw Hair live in San Francisco. The actors looked like people out on the streets. I saw Hair again in the eighties and the actors wore wigs. It was no longer a statement, but a period piece. Yes, I'm getting older:-)

So, if you've seen it, tell me what you thought of the movie and your general age group, ie were you of age enough to remember the late sixties, early seventies??