Welcome to where I am, where my kitchen's always messy, a pot's (or a poet) always about to boil over, a dog is always begging to be fed. Drafts of poems on the counter. Windows filled with leaves. Wind. Clouds moving over the mountains. If you like poetry, books, and music--especially dog howls when a siren unwinds down the hill-- you'll like it here.


MY NEW AUTHOR'S SITE, KATHRYNSTRIPLINGBYER.COM, THAT I MYSELF SET UP THROUGH WEEBLY.COM, IS NOW UP. I HAD FUN CREATING THIS SITE AND WOULD RECOMMEND WEEBLY.COM TO ANYONE INTERESTED IN SETTING UP A WEBSITE. I INVITE YOU TO VISIT MY NEW SITE TO KEEP UP WITH EVENTS RELATED TO MY NEW BOOK.


MY NC POET LAUREATE BLOG, MY LAUREATE'S LASSO, WILL REMAIN UP AS AN ARCHIVE OF NC POETS, GRADES K-INFINITY! I INVITE YOU TO VISIT WHEN YOU FEEL THE NEED TO READ SOME GOOD POEMS.

VISIT MY NEW BLOG, MOUNTAIN WOMAN, WHERE YOU WILL FIND UPDATES ON WHAT'S HAPPENING IN MY KITCHEN, IN THE ENVIRONMENT, IN MY IMAGINATION, IN MY GARDEN, AND AMONG MY MOUNTAIN WOMEN FRIENDS.




Monday, November 10, 2008

Alma, in Hungarian




Although I didn't make photographs of the Alma performance and none afterward, except for Harold's birthday cake, I do have images of the program and of Szidi's translations of my poems into Hungarian. Photographed, I might add, on my dining room table and therefore not of professional quallity





ALMA, both the book and this particular poem, began with the rush of blood to my imagination when cold autumn weather arrives. This poem became a song, one that simply took over and carried me with it, much as the manuscript of WILDWOOD FLOWER itself did.







































EMPTY GLASS worked especially well set to Harold's haunting music. A young Hungarian guitarist read it in Hungarian for me during intermission. Because the language and rhythm were so mysterious to me, the poem sounded even more haunting in Hungarian!


































LULLABY has always mystified me. On the literal level, I can say that I wrote it during one of those winters when we still had lots of snow here in the mountains. I had heard of roofs collapsing under heavy snowfall, and I imagined Alma's fear of that happening to her cabin roof. But the internal landscape of the poem still gives me the shivers.


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1 comment:

Nancy Simpson said...

It is exciting to read Alma in Hungarian. Congratulations.