Photo of the Day: Pelicans

This week, leading up to the Broken Gulf benefit on Saturday, I will be posting a picture and some information about the damage each morning.

In this image, pelicans sit on oil retention boom. Raccoon Island, the largest pelican rookery in Louisiana, was devastated by the spill, leaving huge numbers of adult pelicans dead, and many immature birds suffering.

Image courtesy Getty Images.

For more images of the horrific toll on wildlife, the Today Show has compiled a grim slideshow. Please note, while informative and urgent, some of these images are graphic.

"Howl" in the City in the Washington Post

Check out David Montgomery's article in the Post about "Howl in the City":

There's a bit of a "Howl" boomlet going on -- books, photographs, an upcoming movie starring James Franco and, most immediately, a "Howl in the City" series of readings and music Friday and Saturday in Washington.

The timing of the convergence is mainly coincidental, the fruit of projects launched around the 50th anniversary of the poem, which Ginsberg first recited to spellbound hipster audiences in the fall of 1955, at the age of 29. He published it in 1956. Then came the obscenity trial in 1957, which Ginsberg's publisher won, a free-speech landmark. Ginsberg died in 1997, at 70.

Brightest Young Things Article about "Howl" in the City"

Check out the Brightest Young Things story about "Howl" in the City http://www.brightestyoungthings.com/articles/howl-in-the-city.htm. An excerpt follows:

In 1955 Allen Ginsberg's therapist encouraged him to quit his day job and devote more of his time to poetry. Experimentations (of all kinds) later, in 1956 he published HOWL, a poem in three parts and a footnote, which caused an unspeakable stir at the time ("so obscene") and often referred to "as the poem that helped change the world", a tall order for sure, and is considered one of the benchmarks of Beat Generation's opus. Many of you have read it, many of you feel like you have heard enough about it that you don't have to read it but this weekend 55 years later DC gets to experience firsthand this piece as it was intented to be experienced: as a performance piece

Poem of the Week: Carly Sachs

Maine

Where does memory go?

…………Our windows looking out on the bay,

my wet clothes hanging on the antlers

…………of a deer someone else killed,

but Isabelle remembers the trigger,

…………the blood—

The lobster boats, early morning,

…………the buoys marking their traps.

If only it was as easy to find

…………where the hurt sleeps, our secrets,

or our anchors, our cabin on the coast,

…………the mind, a landmine;

my friend’s brother who forced him down,

…………or my own version of the story.

The fog rolls in and behind it

…………the lobster men will come to retrieve

what has been trapped.

-Carly Sachs

Used by permission.

Carly Sachs is a writer, yoga teacher, and bartender who lives and works in New York City. She is the author of the steam sequence (WWPH, 2006) and the editor of the anthology the why and later (Deep Cleveland Press, 2007). For more information, please visit her website: thewhyandlater.com

Sachs appeared on the panel From Survivor to Thriver: Write Yourself during Split This Rock Poetry Festival: Poems of Provocation & Witness 2010.

Please feel free to forward Split This Rock Poem-of-the-Week widely. We just ask you to include all of the information in this email, including this request. Thanks!

Split This Rock

www.splitthisrock.org

info@splitthisrock.org

202-787-5210

Photo of the Week: City Lights Bookstore

Building up to the event "Howl" in the City, the Photo of the Week will feature one of Ginsberg's photographs, courtesy of the National Gallery of Art.

Bob Donlon (Rob Donnelly, Kerouac's Desolation Angels), Neal Cassady, myself in black corduroy jacket, Bay Area poets' "Court Painter" Robert La Vigne & poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti in front of his City Lights Books shop, Broadway & Columbus Avenue North Beach. Donlon worked seasonally as Las Vegas waiter & oft drank with Jack K., Neal looks good in tee shirt, Howl first printing hadn't arrived from England yet (500 copies), we were just hanging around, Peter Orlovsky stepped back off curb & snapped shot, San Francisco spring 1956.

2010 Miller Cabin Poetry Series Flyer

Marie-Elizabeth Mali and Donald Illich at Miller Cabin Tuesday - Check 'em out!

Marie-Elizabeth won second place in this year's Split This Rock Poetry Contest and Don is a local light whose poetry always surprises with innovative and rich imagery. Read Marie-Elizabeth's winning poem here: http://www.splitthisrock.org/contest2010.html

Tuesday, July 20 at 7:30 pm at the Joaquin Miller Cabin in Rock Creek Park, Picnic Area #6, Beach Drive at Military Road Overpass. Sign up for opening reading at 7:15 pm. For more information and rain location, call Kathi Morrison-Taylor at 703-820-8113.