Word: Keep The Nerve. Gil Scott Heron

R.I.P. Jack Kerouac.

Edna St. Vincent Millay reads her poem Recuerdo.

Quatrain #82

Today, like every other day, we wake up empty
and frightened. Don't open the door to the study
and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument.

'Logan Heights and the World' by Juan Felipe Herrera.

'The Lake Isle of Innisfree' by William Butler Yeats.

I created and uploaded the video because this version of the poem with introduction was not available on YouTube.

Poetry On Record: 98 Poets Read Their Work (1888 ~ 2006). Released April 18, 2006 on the Shout! Factory label.

Not 'Alice's Restaurant', but a Thanksgiving classic in its own right.

'A Thanksgiving Prayer' by William S. Burroughs.

In celebration of Walt Whitman's 200th Birthday, my nephew Drew's production company, Manual Cinema, in association with Poetry Foundation & Poetry Magazine, created this puppet animation adapting text from his poem Song of Myself. Check it!

Allen Ginsberg, 'A Supermarket in California'

What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whitman, for I walked down the sidestreets under the trees with a headache self-conscious looking at the full moon.
         In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images, I went into the neon fruit supermarket, dreaming of your enumerations!
         What peaches and what penumbras! Whole families shopping at night! Aisles full of husbands! Wives in the avocados, babies in the tomatoes!—and you, Garcia Lorca, what were you doing down by the watermelons?

         I saw you, Walt Whitman, childless, lonely old grubber, poking among the meats in the refrigerator and eyeing the grocery boys.
         I heard you asking questions of each: Who killed the pork chops? What price bananas? Are you my Angel?
         I wandered in and out of the brilliant stacks of cans following you, and followed in my imagination by the store detective.
         We strode down the open corridors together in our solitary fancy tasting artichokes, possessing every frozen delicacy, and never passing the cashier.

         Where are we going, Walt Whitman? The doors close in an hour. Which way does your beard point tonight?
         (I touch your book and dream of our odyssey in the supermarket and feel absurd.)
         Will we walk all night through solitary streets? The trees add shade to shade, lights out in the houses, we'll both be lonely.
         Will we stroll dreaming of the lost America of love past blue automobiles in driveways, home to our silent cottage?
         Ah, dear father, graybeard, lonely old courage-teacher, what America did you have when Charon quit poling his ferry and you got out on a smoking bank and stood watching the boat disappear on the black waters of Lethe?
 

Edna St. Vincent Millay reads her poem 'Recuerdo' (1920).