Our frequent Honored Guest Pamela Miller Ness was very successful
in contests sponsored by the Haiku Poets of Northern California for
2004 — she scored a first place in the tanka genre, and 2nd place with
honored guest Michael Dylan Welch for their rengay sequence.
rengay (defined here):
Idlers in the Gallery
(by Pamela Miller Ness & Michael Dylan Welch)
overflowing
its cut-glass vase
La Farge’s magnolia pmn
Homer’s croquet player
hides a ball with her skirt mdw
strewn across
her studio table
Nell Braine’s turnips pmn
the unused pencils
Jacob Lawrence grins
in his self-portrait mdw
gathering hollyhocks
Frieseke’s woman in blue pmn
to the porch born
the precise signature
on Blum’s two idlers mdw
[each poem in the Idlers rengay is based on a painting
in the National Academy of Design, NYC. Five of the
six can be seen here.]
tanka (defined here)
Dressing
for a meal I’ll eat
alone
I decide to let loose
my hair
bonus from Pamela Miller Ness:
storm watch
we talk
about getting old
by dagosan
unseen bird
keeps repeating itself —
“you talkin’ to me?”
meeting the new
upstairs tenant
feet smaller than they sound
[May 22, 2005]
potluck
Columnist Ellen Goodman made a linguistic point over the weekend
that I’ve been meaning to make for the past couple of months:
“I’m not keen on the politics of destruction, let alone the
language of destruction. If I hear about the ‘nuclear option’
one more time, I think I will go ballistic. Nuclear warnings
should be reserved for the real thing, like say, North Korea.”
Your editor has previously complained that “The lazy linguistic practice
(often perpetrated and perpetuated by the popular media) of using familiar
analogous situations not merely to explain a new concept, but also to name
it, is making a mess of our language, with more and more phrases simply
making no sense on their face.” (We used “black box” and “DNA finger-
prints” as examples. ) But, taking the term “nuclear option” out of the realm
of war strategy, and using it in the context of U.S. Senate filibuster rules is
several steps farther down the road toward language lunacy. I don’t care
that a politican used the phrase. The media are in the communications
business, they need to use words that express meaning. Did anyone think
of calling it the Filibuster Buster Option?
interstate wine sales were adopted to protect economic interests, not children.
The next thing you know, someone will be saying that bar associations are just
guilds!
Thank you, Eugene Volokh, for explaining how silly it is to ask questions
like Which Are Better — Blogs or the Traditional Media?. That should stop all the
chest-thumping!
got three mentions in Blawg Review #7, at the critically-acclaimed Jeremy Richey Blawg.
Bar associations are just guilds. There I said it. Whew! That was just building up and I could no longer contain it.
Comment by Martin — May 23, 2005 @ 2:08 pm
Bar associations are just guilds. There I said it. Whew! That was just building up and I could no longer contain it.
Comment by Martin — May 23, 2005 @ 2:08 pm
Always happy to let a loyal reader vent, Martin. Can I quote you?
Actually, I should have merely said “guilds,” given the multiple meanings of the word “just.”
Comment by David Giacalone — May 23, 2005 @ 2:14 pm
Always happy to let a loyal reader vent, Martin. Can I quote you?
Actually, I should have merely said “guilds,” given the multiple meanings of the word “just.”
Comment by David Giacalone — May 23, 2005 @ 2:14 pm