Thank you Julian and Badbard for bringing us this poetry.
Yes, we're conflicted and contradictory creatures, us things called people.
Reason is the double edged sword which allows us to rationalize ANYTHING. It's terrifying in it's ability to cut both ways. It shouldn't trump instinct. Reason has it's limits. Faith and wisdom step in somewhere I would hope.
Jesus Christ, you are old! Surprised you are from the 60s.. and was involved with the Black Mountaineers (In North Carolina, now devastated by the hurricane). Just amazing.
I thought you were young, your profile picture when not zoomed in, looks like a young guy in the 26-30s!
Maybe you know Pinchbeck too, eh? He's present here in Substack too, his mum dated Kerouac! Was also involved with some beat writers.
But Pinchbeck is not so cool.. he had some elite connections, this guy does a good investigative work:
I also have a recommendation, a great poet that was an older generation than the beats and also a kind of father figure for some of them, Kenneth Rexroth. His biography, his life, is great.
Hi Julian and Badbard, I’m sending best wishes to Badbard in hopes of a speedy recovery. I read the poem posted on Julian’s Substack and enjoyed it immensely, thanks so much for posting! In fact, I have offered to say a few words at an upcoming celebration of life for my Dad who died at age 91 just a few weeks ago. I would like to memorize and recite the poem. My Dad was a longtime political activist, mostly in and around his adopted home town of Ottawa Canada. He was involved in SNCC in the 1960’s and was a member of the short lived NDP break-away Waffle party in the early 1970’s. In his later years he advocated for almost every lefty cause imaginable, from protesting the Canada/USA so-called free trade legislation to the invasion of Iraq, advocacy for public washrooms in the nations capital, and involvement in agitating for the Ontario Health Coalition. As well, he LOVED poetry. He read poetry regularly, bought books of local poets and befriended them, he could recite long passages from Omar Khayyam’s Rubaiyat and occasionally he even wrote poetry himself. He would have been delighted to read this poem and very tickled to know that his son made plans to recite it at his send-off. Thanking you all in advance! - Dave Aplin
Hi Paul, Just a very quick follow-up to my note about reciting your excellent poem “Treason” at my Paw’s COL. I recited the poem before a crowd of about 120 people, many of them old lefty friends of my dads. It went over really well! I received immediate positive feedback, some called the poem “dark”, to which I replied “Exactly”. I told everyone I spoke to afterward that I found the poem on Substack and that the author’s handle is “Badbard”. There is now talk of submitting his obituary, written by my brother, to the “Lives Lived” section of the Globe and Mail. But that would put my dad in company with people like Galen Weston Sr., and in time… Conrad Black. Paw would’ve blanched and rolled over in his grave. Anyways, cheers, all the best.
Thanks to badbard for the words.
And to you for bringing him to our thoughts.
Hope you recover well badbard and keep bring us such great poetry.
Thanks to everyone who still has hope and a desire to make thing better when we get the chance.
Keep on keeping on everyone, we will get there, I know it.
Thank you Julian and Badbard for bringing us this poetry.
Yes, we're conflicted and contradictory creatures, us things called people.
Reason is the double edged sword which allows us to rationalize ANYTHING. It's terrifying in it's ability to cut both ways. It shouldn't trump instinct. Reason has it's limits. Faith and wisdom step in somewhere I would hope.
Best wishes gentlemen.
Indeed a lovable poem from Japan.
Sander
Jesus Christ, you are old! Surprised you are from the 60s.. and was involved with the Black Mountaineers (In North Carolina, now devastated by the hurricane). Just amazing.
I thought you were young, your profile picture when not zoomed in, looks like a young guy in the 26-30s!
Maybe you know Pinchbeck too, eh? He's present here in Substack too, his mum dated Kerouac! Was also involved with some beat writers.
But Pinchbeck is not so cool.. he had some elite connections, this guy does a good investigative work:
https://isgp-studies.com/psychedelics-and-elitism
CTRL+F "Pinchbeck"
I also have a recommendation, a great poet that was an older generation than the beats and also a kind of father figure for some of them, Kenneth Rexroth. His biography, his life, is great.
https://www.bopsecrets.org/rexroth/poems/1940s.dragon.htm
One of his poems, The Dragon and the Unicorn
Hi Julian and Badbard, I’m sending best wishes to Badbard in hopes of a speedy recovery. I read the poem posted on Julian’s Substack and enjoyed it immensely, thanks so much for posting! In fact, I have offered to say a few words at an upcoming celebration of life for my Dad who died at age 91 just a few weeks ago. I would like to memorize and recite the poem. My Dad was a longtime political activist, mostly in and around his adopted home town of Ottawa Canada. He was involved in SNCC in the 1960’s and was a member of the short lived NDP break-away Waffle party in the early 1970’s. In his later years he advocated for almost every lefty cause imaginable, from protesting the Canada/USA so-called free trade legislation to the invasion of Iraq, advocacy for public washrooms in the nations capital, and involvement in agitating for the Ontario Health Coalition. As well, he LOVED poetry. He read poetry regularly, bought books of local poets and befriended them, he could recite long passages from Omar Khayyam’s Rubaiyat and occasionally he even wrote poetry himself. He would have been delighted to read this poem and very tickled to know that his son made plans to recite it at his send-off. Thanking you all in advance! - Dave Aplin
Sorry about your father. I hope you have a great send off for him. Lots of love from elsewhere in Canada
Hi Paul, My dads C.O.L. will take place on Sunday October 27th at GTCT in Ottawa. Cheers!
Hi Paul, Just a very quick follow-up to my note about reciting your excellent poem “Treason” at my Paw’s COL. I recited the poem before a crowd of about 120 people, many of them old lefty friends of my dads. It went over really well! I received immediate positive feedback, some called the poem “dark”, to which I replied “Exactly”. I told everyone I spoke to afterward that I found the poem on Substack and that the author’s handle is “Badbard”. There is now talk of submitting his obituary, written by my brother, to the “Lives Lived” section of the Globe and Mail. But that would put my dad in company with people like Galen Weston Sr., and in time… Conrad Black. Paw would’ve blanched and rolled over in his grave. Anyways, cheers, all the best.
-David Aplin