Author Archives: Don Yorty

January 16 – 31

… January 16 Yesterday I really thought Dad was dying. He wasn’t comfortable. If he was sitting, he wanted to go to bed; if he was in bed, he wanted to get up again. He’d sit on the edge of … Continue reading →

John Godfrey at KGB 11/21/16

31 Jan ’17

… I no longer teach on Monday nights so I can get to the KGB poetry readings whenever I want, and I was especially looking forward to hearing John Godfrey read. When host, Ali Power, introduced John saying he was … Continue reading →

January 11 – 15

30 Jan ’17

An afternoon to evening walk. January 12. Sunset. South Mountain. January 13 When it started to snow a few days ago, it seemed to me that the snow had finally brought the birds to the bird feeder. For many days … Continue reading →

January Notes: 1 – 10

30 Jan ’17

January 1, 2017 The first day begins to end. If you are Pennsylvania Dutch and it’s New Year’s Day, you eat mashed potatoes, pork and sauerkraut. Here it is 2017 and Dad has made it to another year. Two weeks … Continue reading →

Fucking

14 Jan ’17

… for Janis A bedroom. North Philadelphia. 1972 Ouvrez-moi cette porte où je frappe en pleurant. Open this door where I knock weeping. … I I WILL COME TO YOU WITH A CANDLE BURNING light a stick of incense comb … Continue reading →

Home

10 Jan ’17

… on walking through a caterpillar plague They come down the threads they make crawl in a straight line. There is the sound, soft rainlike fall of leaves chewed off. One’s crawling on my arm. Shaken to the ground my … Continue reading →

Bernadette Mayer reads from Works & Days

7 Jan ’17

… “Here in beautiful aloneness forest” is where Bernadette lives in a house with a windowpane back porch looking out toward a stream (you must go down the hill to see it, but it is there) and a rectangular piece … Continue reading →

December 30 & 31: Taking a Walk in the Woods

31 Dec ’16

… December 30, 2016 I’m going to take a walk although it’s cold. Have soothed my dry itching skin with Crisco and off I go. Can you see by the ripples on the pond where it isn’t frozen that the … Continue reading →

December 23rd

30 Dec ’16

… Dad gets his antibiotic at 6 a.m. and midnight; he has some sort of pneumonia; there’s been no fever and the coughing has stopped, but still he gets more antibiotics until Monday midnight. I gave him the pill at … Continue reading →

Poems by Gil Ott 1977 – 78

28 Dec ’16

… I knew Gil Ott when I lived in Philadelphia in the 1970s. He was hosting a poetry program on the radio at the University of Pennsylvania on Saturdays that featured both local and visiting poets. Philly had a vibrant … Continue reading →

December 18th at Midnight

26 Dec ’16

… My father’s high school portrait (he went off to war shortly after it was taken) and his grandparent’s wedding portrait all very dusty on the mantle; the glass fruit was my mother’s. My great grandfather looks like my uncle … Continue reading →

Revenge of the Rejected Ones

11 Dec ’16

… By way of explanation before you read: Revenge of the Rejected Ones is part of Fucking, a poem I wrote for performance in the 1970s that I pretty much finished in 1976 and continued to perform in both Philadelphia … Continue reading →