A Brand New Poem (by me!) Geared Toward the Young Adult Market...

...can be found on the NEW WORK page.

"Mass-care" vs. "Obamacare"

Two brief excerpts from the Ryan Lizza article 'Romney's Dilemma' from the 6/6/11 New Yorker -

1) It's not entirely unreasonable to praise Mass-care while bashing Obamacare. Obama's law, the Affordable Care Act, is more sweeping than Romney's,and even though they use the same mechanisms to expand insurance, it's possible to argue that the national law costs too much or raises taxes or includes additional provisions that are unacceptable to principled conservatives. Romney's argument, however, became strained when he asserted that the individual mandate is the ideal solution at the state level but tryannical when imposed at the federal level.

2)As the Boston Phoenix pointed out, when "No Apology" [a Romney memoir - IBL] was issued in paperback, in February, Romney made a notable change from the original version. In the hardcover, published in early 2010, Romney, after reviewing the success of health care in Massachusetts, wrote, "We can accomplish the same thing for everyone in the country." In the paperback, the line has been deleted.

quick comments on ibl poems 1 and 2

I'll try to make my comments as civilly as possible:
Jesus Matador - brilliant. Looking forward to more.
Poem the Second: Glad to have been privy to its inspiration - and with that I lift my glass to the friendliest town in the ol' USA - Pittsburgh.

POVs as structure in poetry

Feel free to dismiss this as pedantic rambling.

Poem the Second has got me thinking about the following:

Multiple Points of View within a piece of art.

1st person, 2nd person narrative, various characters within plus the artist's personal view, these all are potential POVs.

To be thorough, the viewer must account for all POVs. The more abstract or minimalist, the greater the possibility for the viewer's imagination to create POVs that were not considered by the artist (I suppose).

Is the artist using the work to argue a position? Ultimately how removed can the personal views of the artist be for any given work? Can the viewer actually know the intention of the artist in regard to the desire to express their (the artist's) personal view? To embrace a work the viewer must be willing to accept at least one of multiple POVs (I suppose). It's a commitment, because the viewer then invests in objective/subjective train of thought and comes away with some emotional response.

When experiencing art, it's a noble struggle to hit our internal 'reset button'. To re-evaluate, re-experience from a different POV. Don't let it keep hanging on the wall because it's a consistent 'home' for your psyche. Follow up on some ambiguity or alternate POV and re-experience it. Try to draw out of others what their experience is, add that to the list of the many ways you can see it.

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William Paul Murray - June 1st, 1907 (near Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada) to March 9th, 1987 (Fullerton, California, United States).