Henry David Thoreau, New Year's Eve 150 Years Ago

Over the nearly three years that I have been posting pieces at “One Poet’s Notes,” I have often spoken of my fondness for the magnificent journals of Henry David Thoreau, and I have wondered what kind of blog Thoreau might have produced had he the technology. As I do frequently during vacations, I returned to the journals during this holiday season, and I noticed an entry written exactly 150 years ago (December 31, 1859)—an excerpt of which addresses issues of time, age, health, contemplation, and poetry—perhaps an appropriate post for this New Year’s Eve:

“A man may be old and infirm. What, then, are the thoughts he thinks? what the life he lives? They and it are, like himself, infirm. But a man may be young, athletic, active, beautiful. Then, too, his thoughts will be like his person. They will wander in a living and beautiful world. If you are well, then how brave you are! How you hope! You are conversant with joy! A man thinks as well through his legs and arms as his brain. We exaggerate the importance of exclusiveness of the headquarters, Do you suppose they were a race of consumptives and dyspeptics who invented Grecian mythology and poetry? The poet’s words are, ‘You would almost say the body thought!’ I quite say it. I trust we have a good body then.”

Visitors are invited to read other posts at “One Poet’s Notes” concerning Thoreau: “Henry David Thoreau: Description of Walden Pond,” “Henry David Thoreau on the Nature of Poetry and the Poetry of Nature,” “Henry David Thoreau on Writing a Journal: 300 Posts,” and “Henry David Thoreau and the Blog.”

Poem of the Week: "Heavy Snow" by Chris Ellis

The VPR Poem of the Week is Chris Ellis’s “Heavy Snow,” which appeared in the Spring/Summer 2008 issue (Volume IX, Number 2) of Valparaiso Poetry Review.

Chris Ellis has had previous poems and an interview of Jonathan Holden published in Valparaiso Poetry Review. Ellis, a former resident of Northwest Indiana, is a veterinarian who co-authored a book of avian and exotic animal studies. She also has been a member of the Center for Disease Control in Fort Collins, Colorado, but now works and continues graduate studies at Kansas State University.

Tuesday of each week “One Poet’s Notes” highlights an excellent work by a poet selected from the issues of Valparaiso Poetry Review, except when other posts with news or updates preempt the usual appearance of this item, with the recommendation that readers revisit it. Please check the sidebar to view the list of poets and works that have been past “Poem of the Week” selections. Additionally, readers are reminded that VPR pages are best read with the browser font preference in which they were set, 12 pt. Times New Roman, in order to guarantee the stanza alignment and the breaks of longer lines are preserved.

Bob Dylan Christmas Party

I know many may have already seen Bob Dylan’s “Must Be Santa,” but I couldn’t let the season pass without including this unusual portrayal of a catchy holiday jingle. I hope all attending office parties or other Christmas Eve gatherings today experience as much excitement, entertainment, energy, and perhaps even eventfulness as depicted in the incidents during Dylan’s lively celebration in the video for this delightful little ditty. Enjoy!

[Visitors are invited to read other posts at “One Poet’s Notes” concerning Bob Dylan, including “Bob Dylan and Billy Collins” and “Bob Dylan’s Beginning.”]

Bruce Springsteen, Southside Johnny, New Jersey Christmas Party

To help everyone get in the Christmas party mood, a little music for the season from Bruce, Southside Johnny, and the rest of the Jersey crew celebrating Yuletide last year at the Count Basie Theatre in Red Bank, New Jersey.

Valparaiso University Press Release: SEEDED LIGHT by Edward Byrne

I am pleased to note the following press release distributed yesterday by Valparaiso University’s office of public relations:

Professor’s poetry book called “scenic and intimate”

“Seeded Light, Dr. Byrne’s sixth collection of poems, is the most extensive book of the English professor’s career.

“‘Seeded Light’ contains a fairly comprehensive scope of poetry,’ Dr. Byrne says, ‘that expresses, through imagery written in accessible language, a variety of views on subjects as diverse as nature, art, literature, music, memory, imagination, friendship, family, love, loss, life, maturity, and mortality.’

“Dr. Byrne says lyrics in his newest collection connect the past to the present, raising readers’ awareness of their own worlds.

“Noted poets have offered praise for the book.

“Award-winning poet David Baker writes ‘Edward Byrne shows the lyric couplet to be a form with its own remarkable flexibility and narrative capacity. Seeded Light is memorial and social, scenic and intimate, by turns, providing a humane pathway of one gentle man’s passage through the world in all its weather and worry.’

“‘Seeded Light,’ poet Alfred Corn writes, ‘offers abundant evidence of a mind’s alertness to the world of nature and to modern urban reality . . . . The fineness of Byrne’s perceptions and the musicality of his lines make following his journeys an instructive pleasure . . . .’”

Visitors are invited to read the rest of the press release.

Poem of the Week: "Small Girl in a Gift Shop" by Catherine Tufariello

The VPR Poem of the Week is Catherine Tufariello’s “Small Girl in a Gift Shop,” which appeared in the Spring/Summer 2006 issue (Volume VII, Number 2) of Valparaiso Poetry Review.

Catherine Tufariello’s first full-length collection of poems, Keeping My Name (Texas Tech University Press, 2004), was a Booklist Editor’s Choice selection for 2004, a finalist for the 2005 Los Angeles Times Book Prize in Poetry, and the winner of the 2006 Poets’ Prize. She also has published a limited-edition letterpress book, Annunciations (Aralia Press, 2001), and a chapbook, Free Time (Robert L. Barth, 2001). Her poems and translations from Italian have appeared in a number of literary journals, including Hudson Review and Poetry, as well as various anthologies, including The New Penguin Book of Love Poetry, Western Wind, Contemporary American Poetry, and The Poetry Anthology: 1912-2002. She is currently the Associate Director of Communications for the Project on Civic Reflection at Valparaiso University.

Tuesday of each week “One Poet’s Notes” highlights an excellent work by a poet selected from the issues of Valparaiso Poetry Review, except when other posts with news or updates preempt the usual appearance of this item, with the recommendation that readers revisit it. Please check the sidebar to view the list of poets and works that have been past “Poem of the Week” selections. Additionally, readers are reminded that VPR pages are best read with the browser font preference in which they were set, 12 pt. Times New Roman, in order to guarantee the stanza alignment and the breaks of longer lines are preserved.

Most Popular Posts of 2009

As has been an annual practice near the end of the year, this appears to be a good time to pause and look back at issues, literary topics, news articles, poets, poems, and commentary included during 2009 among the posts at “One Poet’s Notes” that proved most popular with readers. Once more, I have been pleased to notice readers’ interest in a wide array of entries, measured by the site meter statistics of viewers’ entry pages and frequently visited items, as well as the most popular subjects sought by those entering the blog through web search engines.

Amazingly, statistics indicate that during the last twelve months there have been about 150,000 visits to the posts at “One Poet’s Notes,” while approximately another 150.000 visited the various pages in the twenty-one issues of Valparaiso Poetry Review. Indeed, the current ten-year anniversary issue (Fall/Winter 2009-2010: Volume XI, Number 1)) of VPR has proved to be the most popular in the journal’s history.

Therefore, as a re-introduction and an invitation to new readers who would like to browse through those most visited pages of the past year at “One Poet’s Notes,” I submit the following “top ten list” of titles viewed (determined solely according to frequency figures) by users of “One Poet’s Notes” beyond the usual entry points of the blog’s main page or the most recently posted item.

1. Inaugural Poem by Elizabeth Alexander
2. Elizabeth Alexander Comments on Her Inaugural Poem
3. John Ashbery, Pierre Martory, and Jackson Pollock
4. James Dickey’s Last Lecture: What It Means to Be a Poet
5. Rating Great Poets and Considering Contemporary Concerns
6. Sylvia Plath and Nicholas Hughes: Mother and Son
7. John Updike and John Cheever
8. John Ashbery Presentation at NBCC Ceremony
9. Craig Arnold, “Scrubbing Mussels,” and David Wojahn
10. W.S. Merwin Wins Pulitzer Prize in Poetry

I am pleased to report that a post announcing the publication of Valparaiso Poetry Review’s tenth-anniversary issue in October also received enough visits to qualify as a top-ten candidate.

Readers are invited to return to the lists of most popular posts for 2007 and most popular posts for 2008. In addition to visiting these popular pages, I urge all to browse through the archives of “One Poet’s Notes” and Valparaiso Poetry Review to discover other items or creative works they might find interesting and deserving of renewed attention. Once again, I thank readers of Valparaiso Poetry Review and “One Poet’s Notes” for their continuing support and encouragement.

Edward Byrne: "Grace Notes"

This morning, on my son’s eighteenth birthday, I recall the first lines of poetry written about my impressions of Alex on the day he was born, a bright and frigid morning very much like today. Now, although Alex stands about six feet tall, my initial image of him still seems important to preserve, like an old photograph showing a stilled moment that remains significant because it somehow captures more than the physical features of an individual or the visual characteristics of a setting.

“Grace Notes” serves as the opening poem in Tidal Air, my book-length sequence published by Pecan Grove Press.





GRACE NOTES

—For Alex

. . . We must try
To love so well the world that we may believe, in the end, in God.
—Robert Penn Warren


I

This morning while the vagrant moon’s white
wafer still spots the western sky, and hoary

boughs of pine stand stark against a fire-bright
sunrise, all nature seems quiet, as though a sweet

sterility has opened its invisible umbrella
over everything. In this time when even early

risers creep from cot to coffee pot, and the first
few tentative signs of human life have at last

begun to usurp the night-long silence, my son,
only hours old, carefully curls both hands, high

as his arms will allow, above his head, reaching
blindly into the uncharted air around him.


II

If he, too, could see the scene outside this window
and know the enormity of the lifelong plunge

to which he was now committed, would he
also recognize the remarkable effortlessness

with which the world presents itself? There is
no way to anticipate the many nameless meadows

incandescent in midday blaze, the wintry heights
of mountains snow-whitened and blurred by blizzard

winds, or the motion of steadfast tides that push
upon an uneven shoreline broken by centuries

of exposure. Nothing prepares us. Innocence
ensures surprise at each grace note nature offers.


III

And so I watch my son’s initial movements,
hands stretching and the unconscious yawn

of sleep, and I try to imagine what words one
could use to tell—should one decide it were right

to confide such things—how it feels to be a father,
or how, even now, this is just one more unexpected

pleasure of nature. In the years since my own
October birth, I’ve come to discover joy in images:

this afternoon, though the sky goes gold in sunlight,
and all the small stones strewn along the shore sparkle

like gems displayed as gifts until the whole seaside
seems to shudder, I know no more the world could give.


—Edward Byrne

Poem of the Week: "Winter Turkeys" by Jeff Knorr

The VPR Poem of the Week is Jeff Knorr’s “Winter Turkeys,” which appeared in the Fall/Winter 2003-2004 issue (Volume V, Number 1) of Valparaiso Poetry Review.

Jeff Knorr is the author of five books, including Standing Up to the Day (Pecan Grove Press), Keeper (Mammoth Books), and The Third Body (Cherry Grove Press). He is also the co-author of Mooring Against the Tide: Writing Poetry and Fiction (Prentice Hall), as well as the co-editor of A Writer's Country (Prentice Hall). His work has appeared in Chelsea, Connecticut Review, Oxford Magazine, Red Rock Review, and various other literary journals. Jeff Knorr teaches literature and writing at Sacramento City College.

Tuesday of each week “One Poet’s Notes” highlights an excellent work by a poet selected from the issues of Valparaiso Poetry Review, except when other posts with news or updates preempt the usual appearance of this item, with the recommendation that readers revisit it. Please check the sidebar to view the list of poets and works that have been past “Poem of the Week” selections. Additionally, readers are reminded that VPR pages are best read with the browser font preference in which they were set, 12 pt. Times New Roman, in order to guarantee the stanza alignment and the breaks of longer lines are preserved.

Poet of the Year: W.S. Merwin

Each December “One Poet’s Notes” participates in the annual ritual practiced by numerous magazines, newspapers, and television programs that review the previous year in order to create various “best of” lists or to select an “Entertainer of the Year,” “Athlete of the Year,” or even “Person of the Year,” as Time magazine labels its choice. As has been the case in the past, “One Poet’s Notes” designates a “Poet of the Year.” At the close of each year, a poet whose notable work merited attention during the previous twelve months is selected for acknowledgment and appreciation.

Just as in previous years, a number of outstanding poets have distinguished themselves since last December to a degree that they earned serious consideration for this annual recognition. Nevertheless, one poet’s work garnered praise for its content and quality, but also encouraged a wide array of readers to review and reconsider a lifetime of considerable contribution to poetry worthy of acclaim and applause. Consequently, W.S. Merwin deserves designation as the 2009 Poet of the Year.

As noted in a “One Poet’s Notes” article last April, W.S. Merwin won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry for The Shadow of Sirius, published by Copper Canyon Press. Merwin had previously won a Pulitzer Prize nearly forty years ago for his book of poems, The Carrier of Ladders, published in 1970. Indeed, W.S. Merwin has been an important voice in American poetry since winning the Yale Series of Younger Poets award with his first volume of poems, A Mask for Janus, in 1952.

Some of the accomplishments chronicled in that previous post at “One Poet’s Notes” include the following: “W.S. Merwin has published nearly two dozen collections of poetry and twenty books of translation, as well as numerous plays and books of prose. In addition to the two Pulitzer Prizes, Merwin also has won the National Book Award for Migration: New and Selected Poems, published in 2005. Furthermore, he has received the Aiken Taylor Award for Modern American Poetry, the Bollingen Prize, a Ford Foundation grant, the Governor’s Award for Literature of the State of Hawaii, the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, the Harriet Monroe Award, the PEN Translation Prize, the Shelley Memorial Award, the Wallace Stevens Award, a Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Writers’ Award, the Tanning Prize, the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize, and fellowships from The Academy of American Poets, the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Rockefeller Foundation. W.S. Merwin is a former Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and has served as Poetry Consultant to the Library of Congress.”

During the last year, success enjoyed by The Shadow of Sirius, accompanied by some news features and interviews on television or radio, has expanded the audience for W.S. Merwin’s poetry and extended interest in his unique style of writing to numerous new readers of poetry. The spotlight focused upon Merwin’s latest collection of poetry has created a larger readership for his poems, one that consists of many younger readers just discovering his work, and resulted in renewing older readers’ attention to Merwin’s distinguished lifetime of writing.

Indeed, various reviews of The Shadow of Sirius have remarked upon the book’s sense of retrospection, how this volume seems to present messages that blend memory and imagination with a mixture of mature wisdom and acute awareness of mortality (“part memory part distance remaining”), apparently serving as an apt culmination of his career. The Harvard Review concluded: “The Shadow of Sirius may be showing us some of the best poetry written today, but unlike the impossible shadow cast by the sky’s brightest star, the book also shows the earthly possibilities of simple completeness in a writer’s mature work.” Harold Bloom has hailed The Shadow of Sirius as “the very best of Merwin,” and the Pulitzer Prize citation for The Shadow of Sirius declared it “a collection of luminous, often tender poems that focus on the profound power of memory.”

Commenting on The Shadow of Sirius in a lengthy televised interview with Bill Moyers, Merwin offered: “We are the shadow of Sirius. There is the other side—as we talk to each other, we see the light, and we see these faces, but we know that behind that, there’s the other side, which we never know. And that—it’s the dark, the unknown side that guides us—and that is part of our lives all the time. It’s the mystery. That’s always with us, too. And it gives the depth and dimension to the rest of it.”

W.S. Merwin has delighted and inspired readers with his singular style of poetry and insightful perceptions of the world around him for more than half a century. With The Shadow of Sirius, this poet continues to educate and enlighten everyone with an engaging work that in 2009 has reached a larger audience and now is establishing connections with a new generation of readers.

[Readers are invited to visit posts at “One Poet’s Notes” in the past that have announced the Poet of the Year: “Poet of the Year: John Ashbery” (2007) and “Poet of the Year: Mark Doty” (2008).]

Remembering and Celebrating the Poetry of James Wright

James Wright was born in Martins Ferry, Ohio on this date (December 13) in 1927. The author of a dozen books of poetry, Wright’s career as a poet was framed by his first volume, The Green Wall, winning the Yale Series of Younger Poets award in 1957 and his Collected Poems winning the Pulitzer Prize in 1980, the year of his death. Stanley Plumly, a fellow Ohio poet, has written in an essay titled “Sentimental Forms” from his book of criticism, Argument & Song: Sources & Silences in Poetry: “Wright’s gift to us is his ability to identify and identify with the sources of emotion. His poems are among the most generous we have because they risk again and again the tension of the form not finding what will suffice.”

In his collection of critical essays, Unassigned Frequencies, Laurence Lieberman similarly describes Wright: “He has the largeness of heart of the great empathizers, and worse, a mind suicidally honest, a mind hellishly bent on stripping away all self-protective devices. His best poems enact the drama of a mind struggling, usually with punishing success, to resist the temptation to take solace from its own compassionating ardor. The pain he feels for another never becomes a disguised way of cheering himself up. It is a tougher thing.”

This blog’s meter displaying statistics of visitors to the site indicates one of the most popular posts published at “One Poet’s Notes”—originally appearing in February, 2008—has been an article written about James Wright and his wonderful work titled “Autumn Begins in Martins Ferry, Ohio,” which may be the best-known poem concerning football and Americans’ fascination with sport. In that piece I offered how Wright identifies and empathizes with the individuals depicted in his poem, presenting scholastic athletics as part of a metaphor that “addresses social issues of distinction or contrast based upon individuals’ wealth, class, ethnicity, race, and gender.”

Today, as Wright’s birth date coincides with the weekend’s announcement of another Heisman Trophy winner, a pinnacle achievement in scholastic athletics, perhaps this is an apt time to invite readers to revisit my commentary on “Autumn Begins in Martins Ferry, Ohio,” as well as to urge everyone to take this opportunity to remember and celebrate the poetic achievement of James Wright.

Update on Poetry Books: EAST OF OMAHA and TIDAL AIR

I have been informed that Pecan Grove Press, which has published two of my poetry books (East of Omaha and Tidal Air), has updated its authors’ web pages and now includes a shopping cart feature that enables easier selection of volumes for purchasing. Readers interested in obtaining copies of these books are invited to visit the web page for my publications at Pecan Grove Press. I also urge everyone to take advantage of the provided links to check the PGP main page and browse the assorted pages displaying the press’s various other poets for information about the many fine books published by Pecan Grove Press under the wise guidance of its editor, Palmer Hall.

Poem of the Week: "Cold River Season" by Patricia Fargnoli

The VPR Poem of the Week is Patricia Fargnoli’s “Cold River Season,” which appeared in the Fall/Winter 2009-2010 issue (Volume XI, Number 1) of Valparaiso Poetry Review.

Patricia Fargnoli, the New Hampshire Poet Laureate from 2005 to March 2009, is the author of five collections of poetry. Her recent book of poems, Then, Something, was published by Tupelo Press in 2009. Duties of the Spirit (Tupelo Press, 2005) won the N.H. Jane Kenyon Poetry Award for an Outstanding Book of Poetry, and her first book, Necessary Light, (Utah State University Press, 2000), won the May Swenson Poetry Award. Her work has appeared in various literary journals, including Nimrod, Ploughshares, Poet Lore, Poetry International, and Yalobusha Review.

Tuesday of each week “One Poet’s Notes” highlights an excellent work by a poet selected from the issues of Valparaiso Poetry Review, except when other posts with news or updates preempt the usual appearance of this item, with the recommendation that readers revisit it. Please check the sidebar to view the list of poets and works that have been past “Poem of the Week” selections. Additionally, readers are reminded that VPR pages are best read with the browser font preference in which they were set, 12 pt. Times New Roman, in order to guarantee the stanza alignment and the breaks of longer lines are preserved.

Sherman Alexie Talks About Book Publication with Stephen Colbert

Sherman Alexie—whose “Homily” appears in the latest issue (Fall/Winter 2009-2010: Volume XI, Number 1) of Valparaiso Poetry Review and also is the current VPR “Poem of the Week” on “One Poets Note’s”—discussed with Stephen Colbert the other day a few of his views on the nature of book publication and digital distribution of literary works.

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Sherman Alexie
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor U.S. Speedskating

Allen Ginsberg's "Howl": The Movie

This week, the roster of independent films to be premiered and to contend for prizes at the Sundance Film Festival was announced. More than 100 movies have been chosen for screenings to be held during the festival’s ten days of events, January 21-31. Attendees at Utah’s Park City will have an opportunity to view Howl, one of the more anticipated works, which concerns Allen Ginsberg’s composition of his most famous poem, “Howl,” as well as its publication by City Lights Books and the subsequent trial for charges of obscenity that occurred more than half a century ago.

The film, which presents James Franco’s portrayal of Ginsberg (pictured here), as well as other Hollywood stars—including Mary-Louise Parker, Jeff Daniels, Alan Alda, and Treat Williams—in supporting roles, is directed by Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman, best known for Academy Award-winning documentaries such as Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt and The Times of Harvey Milk.

Allen Ginsberg first introduced his groundbreaking poem in October of 1955 at a poetry reading in San Francisco’s Six Gallery. Ginsberg’s performance of the poem created an immediate response from listeners, who knew the landscape of Modern American poetry had been expanded. Kenneth Rexroth once described the experience of Ginsberg’s reading to be a significant change in the voice of American poetry as oral presentation in opposition to merely words on the printed page. Michael McClure, who attended the reading, wrote about a gathering in which people were left “cheering or wondering, but knowing at the deepest level that a barrier had been broken, that a human voice and body had been hurled against the harsh wall of America.”

Lawrence Ferlinghetti also attended the reading, and he promptly requested from Ginsberg a manuscript of “Howl” for a poetry series published by Ferlinghetti’s fledgling press, City Lights Books. After the poem’s release in Howl and Other Poems, copies were obtained by the government as evidence in an obscenity trial targeting language within “Howl.” The 1957 trial extended for months, with testimony by poets, editors, and professors in support of Ginsberg’s poem as a work of cultural and social significance. The court’s verdict concluded that publication of “Howl” was legal, covered by the Constitution’s guarantees of free speech and equal protection, and it proved to be a landmark decision that has influenced content included in all sorts of art forms during the past fifty years.

Readers are invited to listen to Allen Ginsberg’s reading of “Howl.”

LIGHT FROM A BULLET HOLE: POEMS NEW AND SELECTED 1950-2008, Ralph Salisbury (VPR Editor's Pick)

Editor's Pick: Recommended Reading

In correspondence received from readers of Valparaiso Poetry Review over the years, one regular feature of the journal, “Recent and Recommended Books,” repeatedly has been complimented and noted for its usefulness. Accompanying each issue of VPR, this page lists current volumes of poetry or poetics, as well as other books concerning poets, such as biographies, readers of the journal might wish to examine.

Despite the fact that a number of the collections cited have been reviewed within the issues of Valparaiso Poetry Review or in the posts of “One Poet’s Notes,” the editor’s blog, the unfortunate reality is that most of those worthy books received do not get enough specific attention and could be overlooked, lost among the long list annually tucked away in the additional pages archived at VPR. Therefore, to increase awareness about more of those valuable collections that have not been a subject of individual commentary or review in Valparaiso Poetry Review, “One Poet’s Notes” offers a continuing series of brief notices, known as “Editor’s Picks,” containing additional information concerning highly recommended books.

Light from a Bullet Hole: Poems New and Selected 1950–2008, Ralph Salisbury. Silverfish Review Press, 2009.

Ralph Salisbury is the author of ten books of poetry and three books of short fiction. His awards include a Rockefeller Bellagio Award, a Northwest Review Poetry Award, and a Chapelbrook Award. His poems have appeared in various anthologies and numerous journals, including Carolina Quarterly, New Letters, New Yorker, Ploughshares, Poetry, and Poetry Northwest. In choosing him as a finalist for the Oregon Book Award, judge Maxine Kumin wrote, “This is a poet dedicated to keeping his heritage alive. His book deserves a broad audience.”

In an introduction to Light from a Bullethole: Poems New and Selected 1950-2008, Andre Krupat reports about this new collection of poetry and its author: “The poems of this volume make stunningly clear the ways in which Ralph Salisbury continues to model the traditional and modern (postmodern, if you will) roles of the poet as Cherokee humanist and indigenous cosmopolitan. Marked by deep roots and varied routes—he has read and taught in Italy, England, Norway, Germany, and India, and helped to English the work of the Finnish Sami, Nils-Aslak Valkeapaa—he is a little like the postindian but deeply tribal characters in Gerald Vizenor’s novels, The Heirs of Columbus and Dead Voices. This is to say that Salisbury writes, as he puts it in the dedication to Rainbows of Stone (2000), in the interest of all ‘the human tribe of this world,’ and the animal tribes as well.”

Praise for Light from a Bullet Hole: Poems New and Selected 1950-2008:

“Although Ralph Salisbury may refer to himself as ‘A Killer Seeking Forgiveness,’ this collection of his new and selected work shows him to be one of the most thoughtful and moral writers of his generation. Without ever sacrificing literary excellence for self-righteousness or eloquence for polemic, Salisbury’s memorable poetry reflects not only his long full life and the Cherokee culture that has shaped his vision, it is also a corrective lens through which we may view anew the story of our American nation.” —Joseph Bruchac

Poem of the Week: "Homily" by Sherman Alexie

The VPR Poem of the Week is Sherman Alexie’s “Homily,” which appeared in the Fall/Winter 2009-2010 issue (Volume XI, Number 1) of Valparaiso Poetry Review.

Sherman Alexie is the author of 21 books of poetry and prose. His collections of poetry include the recent Face (Hanging Loose, 2009), as well as One Stick Song (2000), The Man Who Loves Salmon (1998), The Summer of Black Widows (1996), Water Flowing Home (1995), Old Shirts & New Skins (1993), First Indian on the Moon (1993), I Would Steal Horses (1992), and The Business of Fancydancing (1992). He is also the author of several novels and collections of short fiction, including Reservation Blues (1994), which won the Before Columbus Foundation’s American Book Award; and The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven (1993), which received a Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award.

Among his other honors and awards are poetry fellowships from the Washington State Arts Commission and the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as a Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Writers’ Award. In addition, he has received the Stranger Genius Award, a Boston Globe–Horn Book Award, a National Book Award, a Pushcart Prize, and the PEN/Malamud Award. Alexie co-wrote the screenplay for the movie Smoke Signals, which was based on Alexie’s short story “This is What it Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona.” The movie won two awards at the Sundance Film Festival in 1998 and was released internationally by Miramax Films. He lives with his family in Seattle.

Tuesday of each week “One Poet’s Notes” highlights an excellent work by a poet selected from the issues of Valparaiso Poetry Review, except when other posts with news or updates preempt the usual appearance of this item, with the recommendation that readers revisit it. Please check the sidebar of “One Poet’s Notes” to view the list of poets and works that have been past “Poem of the Week” selections. Additionally, readers are reminded that VPR pages are best read with the browser font preference in which they were set, 12 pt. Times New Roman, in order to guarantee the stanza alignment and the breaks of longer lines are preserved.