patrickkanouse.com Blog

Petrichor: Interesting Word

Here’s an interesting word that I just heard briefly on the radio: petrichor. I immediately looked it up. Here’s the definition from wordsmit.org:

petrichor (PET-ri-kuhr) nounThe pleasant smell that accompanies the first rain after a dry spell.

[From petro- (rock), from Greek petros (stone) + ichor (the fluid that is supposed to flow in the veins of the gods in Greek mythology). Coined by researchers I.J. Bear and R.G. Thomas.]

“Petrichor, the name for the smell of rain on dry ground, is from oils given off by vegetation, absorbed onto neighboring surfaces, and released into the air after a first rain.” Matthew Bettelheim; Nature’s Laboratory; Shasta Parent (Mt Shasta, California); Jan 2002.

“But, even in the other pieces, her prose breaks into passages of lyrical beauty that come as a sorely needed revivifying petrichor amid the pitiless glare of callousness and cruelty.” Pradip Bhattacharya; Forest Interludes; Indianest.com; Jul 29, 2001.

A further definition from Wikipedia.

Garage Sale

This weekend Gina and I worked on the items for our Garage sale. If you live in the area, come on by:

John Berryman: A Parody

Several months ago, I was participating in a dialogue about work and John Berryman…the conversation was not quite so unified as that might sound, though it was with the same person. I do love the fact that my work provides many an opportunity to discuss poetry and literature.

Anyway, I spent a few minutes to crank out a suitable parody of a poem in the Dream Song style, though I won’t pretend that I’m either parodying well or accurately, but I was just having a bit of fun for a few minutes. Do note, I admire Berryman’s work, but this was a lot of fun to write.

Homage to Henry & Berry-Man

Despite my failures, I’ve promised again
to lose 15 pounds, smoking quit &
vices other such. Still         Still
profits growing $8.0 or $8,000,000.
Business non-traditional I sustain
but tradition I tells Henry needs no
history so Berry the Man tells me so.
Partners international and hip will
rock the towns of the world. Oh the gain
Henry say sullen and maybe but face-
book ride and zombie take. So little grace
Berry-Man but to spin anew revisions
& to see new visions.

My boss, Berry-Man replied, says best of best
till I renaissance and humbled and blessed.
Adapt, faster faster adapt and ride Henry!
Grate steeled nerves in foe’s faces
& there there the word the alpha the first light – Innovate.

Mahmoud Darwish (1941-2008)

Mahmoud Darwish once said,

I thought poetry could change everything, could change history and could humanize, and I think that the illusion is very necessary to push poets to be involved and to believe, but now I think that poetry changes only the poet.

Here is “Psalm Three,” translated by Ben Bennani:

On the day when my words
were earth…
I was a friend to stalks of wheat.

On the day when my words
were wrath
I was a friend to chains.

On the day when my words
were stones
I was a friend to streams.

On the day when my words
were a rebellion
I was a friend to earthquakes.

On the day when my words
were bitter apples
I was a friend to the optimist.

But when my words became
honey…
flies covered
my lips!…

Cinema Moments: A Stream-of-Conscious Entry

I have occasionally experienced “cinema moments.” These are moments that to me resemble images or scenes in movies – images and scenes that represent something beyond the mundane in our lives, that capture fleeting episodes in our life when “perfection” is achieved. I put that in quotes because, of course, perfection is not possible, yet…yet, there are times when it seems as if it has breezed into our lives. Additionally, these are neither “happy” or “sad,” moments, for they can be either. I remember distinctly one late fall night driving in a steady rain, Eric Satie’s “Trois Gymnopedies” (specifically, movement I, “Lent et douleureux”) playing, and the lights from buildings and street lamps having a crispness to them. And the steady beat of the windshield wipers.

Or the time driving through Illinois, Gina driving, the flatness of the central-eastern part of the state, late afternoon, late spring, the rhythm of telephone poles passing, and my turning to look at her and just the sense that nothing could have been better. No words. Silence except for the ambient sounds of the car. Copses of trees amongst the fields. And that sense of perfection. Perhaps what I mean by that is that in that very moment I would change absolutely nothing.

***

I think that these “moments” are often the things I try to capture in my poems. It is as if these moments, these ephemeral accidents are the very nature of life…a life to be appreciative of. We work away our days for endless reasons (mortgages, food, even enjoyment), but rarely do we seem to connect to a reason for all this. Art is one thing (watching PBS’s broadcast of the Metropolitan Opera’s performance of Peter Grimes the other day helped reinforce some of the very stunning achievements of human creativity…of a sense of pride in our abilities for creation). But I think that the beauty of living provides the impulse to art.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

The great Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn has passed. His obit at The New York Times. His One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is a classic of literature that reveals one of the dark secrets of the Soviet system.