Poetry // Current

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The Trilogies of da Wize one TV

The Party of the year is going down this July 2 2009 9:30p we meeting at Jansen Beach and taking shuttles from there to the... more

birthrightx
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Michael Jackson Poem by damali abrams

Right after hearing of Michael's death, I wrote this on the subway. The poem is unedited and the reading is shaky but the... more

damali
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Poetry Of The Revolution in Iran

One of the most powerful videos to come out of the turmoil in Iran is of a woman reciting a poem from the rooftops of Tehran at... more

singrrr
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Poetry From Iran, One Tweet At A Time

Persians are known for their poetry. So it is not surprising that following Iran's disputed elections, many Iranians have... more

atomiclegion
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The Party of the year is going down this July 2 2009 9:30p

The Party of the year is going down this July 2 2009 9:30p we meeting at Jansen Beach and taking shuttles from there to the... more

birthrightx
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The Party of the year is going down this July 2 2009 9:30p

The Party of the year is going down this July 2 2009 9:30p we meeting at Jansen Beach and taking shuttles from there to the... more

birthrightx
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United Kingdom Talk Saturday 20th June 2009

Saturday's edition of my three times a week talk show.Watch or listen to the show here on CURRENT TV on Tues, Thurs &... more

ChrisReardon
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BirthrightX and Da Vigliatnes No Victoms Tour July 14 - 21th 2009

birthrightx
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BirthrightX and V dub vigulates

connectedcablefadeltallestrapperoftheworld.com BirthrightX and V dub vigulates tour july 14 through 21st

birthrightx
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Http/:www.connectedcablefadeltallestrapperoftheworld.com

connectedcablefadeltallestrapperoftheworld.com Owner: Fadel The Tallest rapper of the world... more

birthrightx
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The Pizza Place

In my hometown of Hammond, Louisiana is a restaurant called The Pizza Place. Memories of when I worked as a waitress at The Pizza... more

shannonfarlouis
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City of Shadows

Poetry. A bewildered mind. A restless soul that roams dark corners. Insanity.

shannonfarlouis
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Images of Cotton Plantations

Nature poetry. Cotton plantations along the Mississippi River.

shannonfarlouis
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Ruth Padel resigns amidst smear row, sparks outrage

Oxford University's first Professor of Poetry, Ruth Padel, has stepped down when it emerged she may have (albeit... more

emmaboswood
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The Perfect High by Shel Silverstein

Wonderfully insightful and lighthearted poem by Shel Silverstein. I thought it was delightful to find that one of my favorite... more

lishi
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Bright Star, the story of Keats and Fanny

Among the movies in competition at the Cannes Film Festival there is also Bright Star of Jane Campion, the director already Palme... more

hyperion74
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Top 100 Poetry Blogs

No longer relegated to textbooks, libraries, and anthologies, poets now have an array of options for reading poetry, posting, the... more

eva2
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Ruth Padel Elected the First Female Oxford Professor of Poetry

"A descendant of Charles Darwin became the new professor of poetry at Oxford University this weekend, and the first woman to... more

St_Alia_10191
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Aspiring Author Pubishes He's First Book!

Bobby R. Lathan Jr., a Texas-based author who is a computer professional with a Bachelor of Science in Computer Information... more

brlathanjr
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"there’s a number that explains it: 566, the number of municipalities in New Jersey, more per square mile than any other state. It’s the same number that explains so much else about our state — its economy, its politics, its landscape, its psychology, and why it has provided such a rich trove of stories for newspapers like this one. Poetry is compressed language, a density of meaning in a small space, and we are a compressed state, a density of communities in a small landscape.

“New Jersey’s gift to its poets,” wrote one of the other Pulitzer winners, Stephen Dunn, “is that it’s a place of many places.”

There are so many of them that the late Dave Van Ronk wrote a song, “Garden State Stomp,” whose lyrics consisted entirely of 80 of the most euphonic place names strung together in a rhyming pattern; and enough remained that he might easily have gone a few stanzas more. “Allamuchy, Hacklebarney, Rockaway, Piscataway,” he opened, and continued all the way to, “Matchaponix, Delawanna, Wawayanda, Timbuctoo.”

It’s a crazy system we have here, inefficient in the extreme and the cause of periodic handwringing, especially in years like this, when a budget crunch makes it seem an unaffordable luxury to have 566 governments serving a population roughly the same size as New York City’s, which manages with just one. A commission in Trenton — the infelicitously named Local Unit Alignment, Reorganization and Consolidation Commission — has been studying the issue for the last year. It recently recommended 26 possible mergers of North Jersey communities; the South Jersey recommendations are expected later this month.

But the commission can only recommend; it can’t undo an entrenched legacy of home rule in the state that dates back before the Revolution. It can’t force any of those 566 municipalities to share schools or police or even garbage collection with any other, let alone ask them to merge. It can’t erase the fiercely parochial bonds shared by those who remember when the mill closed, when the river rose, when the fire struck, when the high school football team won the championship.

Consolidation sounds like a reasonable idea, a rational solution to an expensive and anachronistic status quo, until it starts knocking at your own door. If your blood begins to rise at the prospect of your community joining in wedlock with one of its neighbors, then you’ve just marked yourself as a genuine New Jerseyan.

All those separate places — all 566 of them, with their costly mayors and police chiefs and school principals, but also their priceless heroes and villains, their legends and tragedies — may be bad for our wallets, but they’re essential to our identity. They are the fenced-in gardens where our abundant stories grow; and the smaller they are, the more captive the audience, the faster the stories can root and bloom.""there’s a number that explains it: 566, the number of municipalities in New Jersey, more per square mile than any... more