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My mini-column for last week’s New York Times Magazine is on poetry and song. King David viewed them as natural companions, but these days they’re seen as distinct, unrelated arts.

Accepting Spain’s Prince of Asturias Award for Letters recently, musician and poet Leonard Cohen implicitly took David’s view. He spoke of learning a progression of six flamenco chords from a mysterious young Spaniard who soon killed himself. “It was those six chords,” Cohen said, “it was that guitar pattern that has been the basis of all my songs and all my music… Everything that you have found favorable in my songs, in my poetry are inspired by this soil.”

And he expressed unease over the honor. “Poetry comes from a place that no one commands and no one conquers. So I feel somewhat like a charlatan to accept an award for an activity which I do not command. In other words, if I knew where the good songs came from, I’d go there more often.”

Related: Christopher Ricks, Jonathan Lethem, and Lucinda Williams on the case for Dylan as poet; PEN New England’s new prize for excellence in song lyrics, judged by Paul Simon, Elvis Costello, Rosanne Cash, Paul Muldoon, and others; The Village Voice’s jokey list of contenders for the award; and, courtesy of my friend Michael Taeckens, Rimbaud and Jim Morrison. And, just for fun, Roger Miller and Dave Hickey on Hank Williams’ hooked-up verse.

Lucinda. Do you know her? Have you heard her sing?

Eisha, at 7-Imps, featured the amazing poetry of her dad, Miller Williams, a few months ago, but I don't know if anyone's ever featured Lucinda---her achy, tough, sexy, lyrical self---on a Poetry Friday. I'll let her dad introduce her:

"My poetry and her songs--you could say they both have dirt under the fingernails. In my writing, I try to get down to the nuts and bolts of living, and there’s no question that Lucinda does that, too. Her music is not abstract. There’s real sweat in every song." ---article over at Poets.org.


Sittin in the kitchen a house in Macon
Loretta's singing on the radio
Smell of coffee eggs and bacon
Car wheels on a gravel road
Pull the curtains back and look outside
Somebody somehere I don't know
Come on now child we're gonna go for a ride
Car wheels on a gravel road
Car wheels on a gravel road
Car wheels on a gravel road

---Car Wheels on a Gravel Road, Lucinda Williams. Full lyrics here.

Pair this one with her I Just Wanted to See You So Bad, and you'll be on the road, car wheels making that gravel fly...

Full downloadable concert via NPR here.

Poetry Friday is hosted by Semicolon.

Last week, Jeannine Atkins awarded me a Shameless Lion Powerful Roar award! 



According to the Shameless Lions Writing Circle, the award was created to acknowledge "those people who have blogs we love, can't live without, where we think the writing is good and powerful." The recipients then present the award to five other bloggers,"helping to scream from the mountains the good news about the powerful posts that are produced every day in the blogosphere."

So, I've been thinking about the blogs I love to read. I know some of my very favorite blogs have already received this lovely nod of appreciation and encouragement (one, Susan Taylor Brown's Susan Writes, even got it at the same time I did!). I've tried to pick ones that haven't, but I'm sure I've missed it on some of them.

Anyway, here are five of the many blogs I love:

Elaine Magliaro at Wild Rose Reader is constantly introducing me to new poets and books and poems--or reminding me why I already love the ones she's talking about.

Sara Lewis Holmes at Read * Write * Believe writes clever, thoughtful, thought-provoking posts on everything writing-related. I often find myself thinking about her posts later in the day.

Kelly R. Fineman at Writing and Ruminating shares great info on her works in progress, as well as presenting amazing Poetry Friday posts: scholarly mini-lessons on various poets. I've learned a lot from her!

Andi aka Cloudscome at A Wrung Sponge posts photos and haiku regularly. Her ongoing dedication to photopoetry, which I love, reminds me to look for the poetry in my own life all the time.

And the final spot goes to Tricia at The Miss Rumphius Effect. Her Poetry Stretch Mondays are a terrific way to start my week, and her Poetry Friday posts are a wonderful way to end it. Thank you for making me stretch as a poet.

You're all powerful, and I hope you all continue to roar for a long time. Thanks for enriching my life!

(You can all snag the lion from above or from my sidebar or visit Shameless Lions Writing Circle to pick out your own.) 

And, even though that uses up my 5 spots, I do want to give a shout-out to Laura Coulter at Writing for the Educational Market. This is a brand new blog that I hope has staying power. It's wonderful that she's generously passing along job postings related to the educational market, and starting discussions on the topic, too. I'm looking forward to participating there!