Author Archives: Don Yorty

50

… I am singular and we are plural. I see us walking on the busy street and waiting for the bus. Each day I meet him, Walt Whitman, whose kind face I see all over the place. Or I am … Continue reading →

36

28 May ’12

… I see how strong a fragile thing can be. Look! A butterfly comes fluttering over its own reflection hovering out in the middle of a pond so deep and close you’d think no insect strength could last the distance … Continue reading →

If I Told Him: A Complete Portrait of Picasso

27 May ’12

… I wanted to make a video poem out of the Caedmon recording of Gertrude Stein reciting If I Told Him. In late May, shortly before it closed, I saw the Stein show at the Met and filmed some of … Continue reading →

24

20 May ’12

… The sun is bright reflected on water shimmering it to pieces. With too much light I’m blind. They say when we see God up close we die. I’m pretty sure I’ve never looked on God up close but every … Continue reading →

Robert Frost reads Acquainted with the Night (a closer look at the present perfect tense in English)

10 May ’12

… Acquainted with the Night I have been one acquainted with the night. I have walked out in rain—and back in rain. I have outwalked the furthest city light. I have looked down the saddest city lane. I have passed … Continue reading →

Five Sonnets

4 May ’12

… I focused on these sonnets, part of Sonnets 1 – 60, this late winter and spring prior to a reading I was going to do in Philly and managed to change most of the things that bothered me about … Continue reading →

Songs

29 Apr ’12

… I wrote the lyrics for the following songs mostly in my 20s. I was doing poetry performances in Philly in the late 70s and began singing with a band, The Sea of Hands, who accompanied me, before doing songs … Continue reading →

The Tuft of Flowers by Robert Frost

28 Apr ’12

… Was Robert Frost chained resolutely to the laws of metrics? “Iamb the iamb,” he said. As strictly as The Tuft of Flowers sticks to form (couplets of iambic pentameter), in the reading Frost changes words: the instead of a … Continue reading →

The Waste Land

21 Apr ’12

….. In 1968 at the age of 19, I was waiting for inspiration’s kiss when I was supposed to be the one doing the kissing, but I didn’t know that until I found The Waste Land on a dusty shelf … Continue reading →

A Few Swimmers Appear

19 Apr ’12

… … Apparent rari nantes in gurgite vasto. A few swimmers appear in a huge whirlpool. —Vergil … sleep vanishes When sleep vanishes then you swim. Awake is no island merely swift stroke and breath. The moon is not the … Continue reading →

Fucking II, part II: Poet Laundromat: I see a Tiajuana donkey leans

14 Apr ’12

… Poet Laundromat was published with the help of Stephen Spera & Philadelphia Eye & Ear Press in 1983. It comes from a long poem I was working on called Fucking, but it took its own form from the larger … Continue reading →

74

5 Apr ’12

… I saw the bluebird first, its beating soft Red breast. Young water snake, I looked for it Next settled near the dock but it hadn’t Risen yet or already’d slithered off. The pond’s cold. I won’t dive in. It … Continue reading →