Remember, remember the Fifth of November...

Remember, remember the Fifth of November,
The Gunpowder Treason and Plot,
I know of no reason
Why the Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot.
Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes, 'twas his intent
To blow up the King and Parli'ment.
Three-score barrels of powder below
To prove old England's overthrow;
By God's providence [or By God's mercy] he was catch'd
With a dark lantern and burning match.
Hulloa boys, Hulloa boys, let the bells ring.
Hulloa boys, hulloa boys, God save the King!

There is also a second verse, though it may not be considered politically correct, that completes the poem which is:

A penny loaf to feed the Pope.
A farthing o' cheese to choke him.
A pint of beer to rinse it down.
A faggot of sticks to burn him.
Burn him in a tub of tar.
Burn him like a blazing star.
Burn his body from his head.
Then we'll say ol' Pope is dead.
Hip hip hoorah!
Hip hip hoorah!


Happy Guy Fawkes Night, where ever you are.

How To Be Alone.

This video was made to the poem, How to be Alone, by Tanya Davis (2009).

Lovely.

Maya Angelou.

Okay. This took me by surprise.



Right, the first thing that hits your lips when you think of Maya Angelou is that she’s “Miss Calypso.” In her early days, the prophet poetess was an oiled-up chanteuse in a slinky red dress back-bending under the limbo bar. This Liberty LP was recorded at The Keyboard club in Hollywood in 1956.

Angelou’s Afro-Cuban-Blues-Jazz songs included “Scandal In the Family”, “Mambo In Africa”, “Donkey City” and “Stone Cold Dead In The Market”, the first two of which she wrote herself, and which undoubtedly tweaked her mind to be able to turn out the voluminous amount of socially-significant material that later tweaked so much of American and world culture.

The Worst Celebrity Product Licenses of All Time, Part 2 | Monkey Goggles

Ode to Mix Tapes.

If someone wants to make a letterpress print of this in a really nice typeface, then give it away, I'll take it.

ODE TO MIX TAPES
by Sherman Alexie

These days, it's too easy to make mix tapes.
CD burners, iPods, and iTunes
Have taken the place
Of vinyl and cassette. And, soon
Enough, clever introverts will create
Quicker point-and-click ways to declare
One's love, lust, friendship, and favor.
But I miss the labor
Of making old school mix tapes-- the mid air

Acrobatics of recording one song
At a time. It sometimes took days
To play, choose, pause,
Ponder, record, replay, erase,
And replace. But there was no magic wand.
It was blue-collar work. A great mix tape
Was sculpture designed to seduce
And let the hounds loose.
A great mix tape was a three-chord parade

Led by the first song, something bold and brave,
A heat-seeker like Prince with "Cream,"
Or "Let's Get It on," by Marvin Gaye.
The next song was always Patsy Cline's "Sweet Dreams,"
or something by Hank. But O, the last track
Was the vessel that contained
The most devotion and pain
And made promises that you couldn't take back.


Art Beat | Weekly Poem: Ode to Mix Tapes | Online NewsHour | PBS

Photo credit: Erica Marshall of muddyboots.org (via flickr)

Billy Collins : Action Poetry

I'm a big fan of Billy Collins, so this site blows me away. Wow.


------ billy collins--action poetry ------

(via Chris Glass. Dude. You rock. This is SO good.)

Poetry & beautiful letterpress type.

The Nobel-prize winning poet Wislawa Szymborska's whimsical poem "Pi" juxtaposes the finite, impermanent world with the familiar never-ending 3.1415... This book's structure and typography echo the poem, juxtaposing the discrete stanzas with the numerical sequence, which starts on the cover and dances across the pages, oblivious to the words, continuing on the back cover, and finally slipping off the edge.

You can read the poem here: http://plagiarist.com/poetry/?wid=9170

Etsy :: Pi (Letterpress Printed Artists Book)

(again, via Design*Sponge)

A little poem for Thursday.

RAIN

when nothing else is going on
rain is a big event but when some event
is happening
rain becomes background
some remember it, some don’t
years later, when everything’s in the past
the rain comes back to us once more
pattering as it falls
nothing happening

© 2007, Han Dong

Poem: Poetry International Web
Photo: 梅雨 on Flickr