A Poem

Somewhere

(Back in the Bus)

for Sandra Barry

Tears, clouds, tides, crumbs, birds -- 

disturbed, crossbred, simulcast --

recognizable.

29 June 2018

[For some years now I have been exploring the possibilities of anagram haiku.  In this one the title is a quotation from Elizabeth Bishop's poem "The Moose." So is the third line. The first line of the poem is a quotation from an unpublished piece by my senior partner in crime for this venue, Sandra Barry; hence the dedication. The second line is an anagram of the first one. -- JAB]

A Poem --

Last Year on the #8 Bus

Never to be seen

again the woman berates

the stolid driver. 

The boneset veneer

of resigned solicitude

is showing its seams:

her anathemas

meanwhile begin new eras --

two entirely new

ones, but short-lived, tired,

much-tried,  yellow divider 

lines for throstle beaks,

like the two now left

half-open in the asphalt

behind the stopped bus.

JAB

Sunday, June 20, 2021

Breaking news about Sarah Ruhl’s play Dear Elizabeth

On Thursday, June 17, at 8 PM, EDT, none other than Meryl Streep and Kevin Kline will be playing Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell in a livestream and on demand performance of Sarah Ruhl’s play Dear Elizabeth, which is based on Words in Air: The Complete Correspondence Between Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell (Thomas Travisano principal editor). As Travisano writes: “Meryl Streep has always been my dream Elizabeth Bishop and Kevin Kline is also one of my favorite actors, so this is very exciting indeed.”

Information on how to get tickets—with proceeds benefiting the Actors Fund—is in the link below. Tickets purchased before June 15 receive a discount. If you can’t watch when the event goes live, it can be viewed on demand (or re-watched) until 6 PM, June 21. The online performance appears in the streaming series Spotlight on Plays.

 https://www.stellartickets.com/o/spotlight-on-plays/events/dear-elizabeth/occurrences/c97cdbff-9c70-4973-8e5f-d0042830d9fc

Exhibit at Fraser Cultural Centre

In April, I posted a note about Nova Scotia artists Joy Laking and Susan Paterson’sresidency at the Elizabeth Bishop House in Great Village in February, and the lovely paintings they did during a wintery week. I am excited to report that these paintings will be exhibited at the Fraser Cultural Centre in Tatamagouche, N.S., from 18 June to 7 July. It is wonderful that these beautiful images of this beloved house and village will have an in-person airing, to be enjoyed and admired directly, not just virtually. By the end of June, Nova Scotia will be further out of lock-down, so I hope lots of folks will get out to visit the centre and see these paintings.

(Joy Laking, Bells in the window, EB House)

(Susan Paterson, Front Hall, EB House)