I recently wrote a piece about my friend Ann Menebroker, the fine poet who died recently at the age of eighty. In response, I received a number of communiqués from people who wanted to read more snippets from Annie’s letters, so I present them here with one of Annie’s poems.
Posts published by “Todd Walton”
I moved to Sacramento in 1980. I was 31 and experiencing a bit of success with my writing. I bought a piano and an old house in a quiet neighborhood and thus began my fifteen-year residency in that river town. I still own the piano and play her every day.
Yesterday, the basketball player Kevin Durant signed a two-year contract with the Golden State Warriors for 55 million dollars and I read Chris Hedges’ interview with Mumia Abu Jamal, who has now served thirty-five years of a life sentence for a murder he may or may not have committed.
When I heard that a majority of British voters wanted to leave the European Union, my first thought was, “Well, I would want to leave, too, after what that union did and is continuing to do to the people of Greece and Spain in order to funnel more billions into the coffers of the corporate overlords via their putrid toxic derivative hedge funds.”
We recently saw a French film made in 2008, Summer Hours, written and directed by Olivier Assayas and recommended to us by Louis Bedrock, the writer and translator. A beautifully made film set in present-day France, I immediately loved the sights and sounds, but found I was not connecting emotionally with the characters.
Now that the people of California have spoken at the polls and assured the nomination of the poster girl for Monsanto, fracking, endless war, tax breaks for the wealthy, the continuing ruination of the lower eighty per cent of Americans, and the destruction of the biosphere, I feel sad. Where were all the Bernie Sanders supporters? The vote wasn’t even close, not that very many people voted.
Marcia came into my office a few days ago and said, “Have you seen the little gnome in Flower Pot Village?”
I thought she might be pulling my leg, since we are not gnome collectors, but lo, clinging with both hands to the edge of a large terra cotta flower pot in the assemblage of flower pots we call Flower Pot Village was a small Caucasian gnome, five-inches-tall, a happy smiling ceramic fellow with a white beard, pointy gold hat, turquoise jacket, brown trousers and black shoes.