The best in poetry (and poetic things), this week with Seth Haines. 1 Art I have always wondered about the resale market for stolen art. We’ve all seen the great art-heist capers where a stolen Monet was carried across the world in a courier tube and sold to some Italian billionaire who, despite running an […]
Songs for Our Theme This Month: Wine and Beer
Tweetspeak celebrates Oktoberfest with our monthly theme of Wine and Beer. Whether you’re after a sweet lagered malt with just a thin lacing, a bold shiraz that wants to take its own self out of the bottle, or a dry Albariño with green apple notes, there’s a song here to please your poetic palate. Pick […]
Oktoberfest: Raise a Glass
Wilkommen in Oktober! What’s with the German accent, you ask? It is the last week of Oktoberfest, that German celebration commemorating the marriage of the Crown Prince Ludwig to Princess Therese of Saxe-Hildburghausen in October of 1810. It is said that the royal wedding party was so grand that the citizens of Bavaria decided […]
September: Tea for Two (on Proper Sweet Tea)
Some define the boundaries of the American south by way of the Mason Dixon line. Others define its lines by allegiances during the War of Northern Aggression. Frankly, I find both such delineations to be crude and lacking in nuance. No, I do not ascribe to traditional notions of defining the South. Instead, I reckon its […]
This Week’s Top 10 Poetic Picks
The best in poetry (and poetic things), this week with Seth Haines. 1 Art Brian Hirschy is a good friend and a grand photographer. Last weekend we were discussing the state of photography and how the iPhone has become a useful tool in the photographer’s gear bag. With its high resolution capabilities and the development of […]
Tea for Two: Autumn
The first fall drizzle blew into Fayetteville this weekend, and though it wasn’t yet cold enough to kindle the fireplaces, someone in the neighborhood tried. The smoke came wafting down the road and through my open window. There is a gathering up in Autumn, and not of leaves. I smell it in the fires and […]
THIS WEEK’S TOP 10 POETIC PICKS
The best in poetry (and poetic things), this week with Seth Haines. 1 Art In case you haven’t heard, which is to say in case you live under a rock, the iPhone 5 launched yesterday. Apple’s newest version of their popular telephone/personal computing device is reportedly thinner, lighter, and at twenty times as awesome as […]
September: Tea for Two (on smell memories)
Diving headlong into the world of tea can be disorienting. I know this firsthand. Last week I decided to kick the coffee habit for a month and opted to replace it with a more refined and elegant beverage—tea. But as I visited the local market’s tea aisle, my head swam with the options—black teas, green […]
Songs for Our Theme this Month: The Poet
This month, Tweetspeak is celebrating “The Poet, ” and in musical fashion Seth Haines has compiled this playlist featuring some of the world’s greatest poets and songwriters. Seth has attempted to pair spoken-word poems with songs in a way that creates a series of “couplets.” Save for the introductory couplet (Marsalis/Peyroux), each couplet attempts to explore a […]
September: Tea for Two (the diary of a coffee quitter)
I am a helpless, habitual coffee drinker. For the most part, I don’t drink yuppie, frothy coffee. No, I drink the black stuff, the kind that tastes like ash. I drink it like it’s a badge of American masculinity, I guess. My grandpa used to say, “real men take their coffee the way God intended […]
This Week’s Top Ten Poetic Picks
The best in poetry (and poetic things), this week with Seth Haines. 1 Art Is nothing left sacred? Evidently an elderly townswoman in Spain failed to ask this question before attempting to “touch up” a nineteenth century fresco of Christ, the “ecce homo.” Painted by famous Spanish artist Elias Garcia Martinez in the sanctuary of […]
August Rain: Morose Mother Goose
Nursery rhymes are often our first introductions to poetry. You’d be hard-pressed to find a youngster who was unaware of Jack’s broken crown, the shoe-dwelling woman with more children than the Duggars, or everyone’s favorite fall-on-your-bum game, “ring around the rosie.” But despite the sing-song rhythms and lyrical use of end rhyme, many of Mother […]
August Rain: Stormy Weather
There is a long-standing metaphorical marriage of rain and sorrow. Painters, film-makers, musical artists — they have all used tempestuous imagery to denote loss, grief, and sadness. In 1933 Harold Arlen and Ted Koehler penned “Stormy Weather, ” the quintessential breakup song first performed by Ethel Waters. Covered by greats like Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, […]
Songs for Our Theme this Month: Rain
Got a rain playlist? Share it here in the comment box 🙂 Photo by Emreterok. Creative Commons, via Flickr. Playlist by Seth Haines. _____ Buy Rumors of Water Now
This Week’s Top Ten Poetic Picks
The best in poetry (and poetic things), this week with Seth Haines. 1 Art Since my introduction to Bottle Rocket, I have been a shameless apologist for Wes Anderson. His unabashed use of obscure music, vibrant color, and awkward, character-driven storytelling has led to some of the most artistic film-making in recent memory. His latest release, Moonrise […]
August Rain: The Decisive Moment
As a boy, I lived a spell in East Texas. Somewhere on the edge of the urban sprawl, my sister and I ran barefooted down dirt roads, sat under the shade of mesquite groves, and tromped through fields of briars to the neighbor-lady’s house with all the aquariums. We were home on the range and […]
August Rain: Introduction (and a bit of spiny poetry)
The heartland is ablaze. The five-o’clock news anchor tells us that Tower Mountain was kissed by lightning, that it went up like a harvest bonfire before emergency crews responded. “There have been more than 1, 000 wildfires in Arkansas this year, ” he says, “mostly in rural portions of the state.” He makes some awkward […]
July Mosaics: Concrete Poetry
In the summer of 2008, the local Barnes & Noble invited Geoffrey Brock to read from his first book of Poetry, Weighing Light. Metal folding chairs were placed between the do-it-your self section and the clearance picture-book aisle. I’m not sure whether it was the ideal spot for a poetry reading, what with patrons whizzing through […]