Berfrois

Intellectual Jousting in the Republic of Letters

[berfrois]

[berfrois]

I would have been the world’s greatest at whatever I did. If I were a garbage man, I’d be the world’s greatest garbage man! I’d pick up more garbage and faster than anyone has ever seen. To tell you the truth, I would have been the greatest at whatever I'd done. ― Muhammad Ali (January 17 1942 – June 3 2016)

[berfrois]

It is impossible to communicate to people who have not experienced it the undefinable menace of total rationalism.

 Czesław Miłosz

[berfrois]

Willem Roelofs, Polder Landscape With Windmill Near Abcoude, c. 1870

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[berfrois]

George Inness, The Home of the Heron, 1891

[newhive]

immeuble-villas iv by sabrinaratte

[queenmobs]

MISFIT DOC: How to Cancel a Social Engagement: For Creative Types

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[berfrois]

Good Char, Bad Char

by Russell Bennetts and Rauan Klassnik Her creatures appear duty-bound and virtuous Char, of the Good Tweet Washes her hand and unicyles our fastticking hearts wine aloft & hurtling decode The Famous Full Back Ogling the Red Chanticleer hurtling Big Ben's fears of ceasing to fall Aliens in the mouth. Aliens Rattling her clicker She doesn't ride-- wait--she flies Wine-Dark Cease. Sh.

(SLOW MUSIC)

[berfrois]

I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.

  Jorge Luis Borges

[berfrois]

[alldeciduousthings]

Poets for Corbyn anthology edited by Russell Bennetts and published by Berfrois

My poem Modern Ruin was included in the recent Poets for Corbyn anthology. It’s a free ebook also featuring Erin Belieu, Ian Birchall, Becky Cherriman, Natalie Chin, Josephine Corcoran, Martin Figura, Alec Finlay, Iain Galbraith, Jess Green, Kirsten Irving, Helen Ivory, Andy Jackson, Erik Kennedy, Marion McCready, Nicholas Murray, Pascale Petit, Tom Pickard, Ian Pindar, Michael Rosen, Michael Schmidt, Ernest Schonfield, Todd Swift, Nick Telfer and Rory Waterman. Go download it now if you haven’t already!

[berfrois]

Babes in Toyland - We Are Family

[myjetpack]

A recent cartoon for the Guardian.

[rubybrunton]

Visit Original Link

I recorded my poem Falling originally published in Queen Mob’s Teahouse

[queenmobs]

1 Question With Erin Belieu

Is it mourning in America again?

It is, Russell. Prince’s death, so young, no doubt hits generations of serious music lovers very hard.

But for those of us who were beginning high school when Prince came bottle-rocketing onto the music scene–this was the height of the fake sock hop, sexually repressed Reagan nostalgia-porn era that was the 80s in America–and we kids who weren’t buying that show–those of us coming of age in that moment–we were basically saved by Prince.

It’s worth remembering musically-lobotomized goo like Dan Fogelberg, Air Supply, Billy Joel—this is what was topping the radio charts in the early 80s in America. Most pop music then made you feel like you were being force fed your mom’s leftover, key party quaaludes. The awful Reagan years, where the government seemed to be chanting, “Don’t worry, folks. There’s no man behind the curtain. Go to sleeeeeeeeep.”

But being a teenager is all about waking up. And Prince, with his gender bending groove and musical virtuosity, his stance against the corporate machines that kept trying to tame and package him—this was essential to ushering in another way of being for many of us. Like, “Fuck your Baby Boomer bobby sox! I can be as freaky as I wanna be!’

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[berfrois]

All my life I have lived and behaved very much like the sandpiper - just running down the edges of different countries and continents, 'looking for something'.

 Elizabeth Bishop