Jenny Browne

A recording of my poem “Like the Universe” is featured on KUOW Puget Sound Public Radio.  Much thanks to Elizabeth for her thoughtful attention to the poem.

It’s summer!  

This means I’m finally working my way through the stack of poetry books by my bed.  

So far, the hits include:

John Casteen’s Free Union, Idra Novey’s The Next Country, and Devin Johnston’s Sources.   More to come.

Also, after talking to the lovely Elizabeth Austen about one of my poems on the phone this morning, I spent an hour listening to the wonderful poetry pieces she does for KUOW Public Radio in Seattle, including this one, a rebuttal by the wonderful Lucia Perillo to the equally wonderful Auden poem Musee de Beaux Arts.  Have I said wonderful enough times in this paragraph?  

It’s summer!

Check out two poetry happenings, one local and one national (well sort of), on Tuesday, April 28.

Firstly, in honor of National Poetry Month, A Gathering of Poets at the Twig, 5005 Broadway, 5-7pm

I’ll be reading with several of my favorite poets (and people) Catherine Kasper, Wendy Barker, Marcia Roberts, Lee Robinson, Mo Saidi and Jerry Winakur.

And, out in the virtual word, visit STARTING TODAY: POEMS FOR THE FIRST 100 DAYS,

Beginning with Obama’s inaugural poet Elizabeth Alexander, poets Arielle Greenberg and Rachel Zucker have posted a poem a day written by a contemporary American poet for and during the first 100 days of the new administration.

I’m day #99.

In case you don’t have a magnifying glass in your pocket, that nifty little graphic says the reading is at 7 on the Trinity Campus in the Attic Theater, in the Ruth Taylor Theater Building.  It is free.  So is parking across the street at Alamo Stadium.  The invite also doesn’t say that the day Barbara and Ellen met in a poetry workshop some 35 years ago was the start of a truly great literary friendship.  They will be sharing stories, joys, challenges and poems from the journey. 

Don’t miss this one.

Wednesday, March 25, 8pm
Ruth Taylor Recital Hall (located in the Dicke Art Building @ Trinity University)
Free parking in the Alamo Stadium lot.

Here’s one of my favorites from his recent, “Time and Materials”

A Supple Wreath of Myrtle
by Robert Hass

Poor Nietzsche in Turin, eating sausage his mother
Mails to him from Basel. A rented room,
A small square window framing August clouds
Above the mountain. Brooding on the form
Of things: the dangling spur
Of an Alpine columbine, winter-tortured trunks
Of cedar in the summer sun, the warp in the aspen’s trunk
Where it torqued up through the snowpack.

“Every where the wasteland grows; woe
To him whose wasteland is within.”

Dying of syphilis. Trimming a luxuriant mustache.
In love with the opera of Bizet.