[ Last Modified 7/3/05. Link to Air America Radio's New News Page, established by AA 7/1/05 ]
Our Site re 1938
'War Of The
Worlds' radio program. A poetry site, est 1999
Our Site
with
'Runixie'--a fantasy about Night Sky beyond 4 July. With NASA's upper
atmosphere 'Sprite' image. An art, song & music site, est
2004
NASA National Science Center Site pages re 'Deep Impact' Outer Space Fireworks on 7/4/05
About the Narrative Poem re 4th of July at this Webpage
Americans celebrating July 4th know that--in
addition to having a public dimension we share & enjoy--
the holiday has a private side, too. We enjoy July 4th with our friends &
family & loved ones, etc.--each in our own way.
That too, is part of being American & patriotic,
right?
To you & to yours--Happy Independence Day!
'4th of July Fireworks--NY, NJ & Laura
& Me' is also a poem about the interactions of things public & things
private.
It's a happy, Romantic modern poem using
Romantic diction, set on banks of Hudson just south of Columbia U. area of
NYC's Upper West Side
However, on a far less than happy
NYC local note ('01), here's info re
Columbia U. as--of all
things--Writer-Evicting Landlord.
Supplementing that, a legal amateur's sampling of Federal &
Local Links opposing Housing Discrimination in USA.
F
O U R T H O F J U L Y
F I R E W O R K S
NEW YORK AND NEW JERSEY & LAURA &
ME
New Jersey, along the western Hudson shore,
where my sweet lady Laura doth dwell in handsome high-rise
facing Upper West Side Manhattan, hath big, natural
cliffs (they're called "The Palisades")
But compared to NYC for example, only relatively tiny firework-displays on
July Fourth.
On the other hand in Manhattan, along the eastern Hudson shore where I doth
dwell in relaticely downscale low-rise,
in area just south of Columbia University
We have really immense Municipal fireworks on July 4th, but only relatively
small & mostly
man-made cliffs
Known informally--among various enlightened Columbia students dorming thereabouts
& also
various long-term Upper West Side residents like
me--as "The Stone Declevities"
Which drop down via various zig-zagging stone stairways, from Riverside Drive
to Riverside Park
& Since on July 4 nite, I was not smart
enuf to accept my beloved Laura's sweet invitation
to scoot over to her lofty picture-window'd apartment
o'er on opposite Hudson shore,
there to behold in panorama NYC's grand &
glorious firework whiz-bangs co-sponsored by Macy's Dep't. Store
& projected o'er Manhattan's skyline
from several sites in Central Park & also misc. great big barges anchored
in East River
(The angle-of-vision from my particular digs for the grand annual event being,
as Laura hath wisely
pointed out to me far far less than optimal)
As darkness fell, from my apartment & down those stone stairways athwart
Stone Declevities to banks
of Hudson we did run,
With lovely Laura carrying champagne-bottle & a couple of long-stemmed
plastic glasses;
& I a wicker picnic-basket replete with apple-pie, petite-fours &
napkins galore, plus US-flag-patterned tablecloth
--Which was certainly suitably celebrative of us we trusted, on the night
of the Anniversary
of OurCountry's umpteenth Birthday. Anyway
As darkness fell, what a great view looking
westward from Riverside Park we had, of the stately, stone-faced NJ
Palisades;
plus heard we many distant, miniature fireworks
explosions, like tiny muffled popguns going off
accompanied by faintly flashing lights somewhere
o'er on distant, misty Jerseyside;
& As we stood there holding hands or sat there holding hands after sitting
down duly for serious smooching on bench of
Riverside Park facing Hudson & NJ (with
tablecloth between us & contents of wicker basket tumbled out upon it,
whilst sipping champagne from long-stemmed plastic
glasses)
Midst merry company of miscellaneous raucous zealots detonating cherrybombs
& treetop rockets around us
In two senses, together my lovely laughing Love & I got almost
Bombed!
NYC's & Macy's USA Birthday display heard
we but distantly, thudding tremendously above but miles behind us,
from Central Park afar & those barges still
further off floating somewhere on East River
--But invisibly alas, due to the direction in which together my Love &
I--totally entranced whilst we held hands--
were steadfastly gazing;
Best display of 4th of July lights we saw,
while gazing across the sparkling, starlit Hudson waters
(Besides intermittent, brilliantly fleeting flashings from wing-lights
of great Kennedy & Newark Airport airplanes plying
their Hudson River route, loaded with apostate
hordes of American summer-time vacation travelers
bound for Europe
& Besides numerous tinier twinklings from smaller airplanes
seeking aerial views of pyrotechnic entertainment
on that night, plus madly-blinking running-lights
of nautical pleasurecraft jockeying for position in
perilously close proximity & also trying
to get a better look;
& Besides far-off blazing chains of lights draping distant uptown
towers of George Washington Bridge like some
intricate, miles-off miniature toy neatly linking
as if with dotted lines, building-crowded banks
of my own radiant New York State & lucent
shorelines of Laura's NJ Garden State,
the latter highlit by assorted neon advertising-signs
scatter'd upon The Palisades all winking on & off incessantly)
Were some faintly luminous twinklings & twirlings on the far-off Hudson
horizon
Which NJ-geography-experienced Laura did identify for me immediately as
emanating
"Bravely, from a tiny little mini-park, located at the far end of North
Bergen...."
Thinking over that July 4th date & picnic
now, I remember how towards midnight it suddenly occurred to me
(Even as--panting & laughing & with echoes of dwindling fireworks
still thudding o'erhead--Laura & I dashed back
up stone stairways carrying empty champagne-glasses
& by then also empty champagne-bottle
as either souvenirs or else--who knows?--perhaps
items to recycle;
& Even as we raced semi-stumbling back up to my apartment for the balance
of the evening & for various private July 4th
fireworks of our own)
That, to the scatter'd groups of carefree merry-makers still assembled relatively
riotously back down there
along Riverside,
My Love & I, there on our bench alone together & holding hands &
hugging & smooching & gazing into each
others' eyes & not paying much attention
to other people at that moment--or to anything else in the world for that
matter--
May have looked like the proverbial "Two People in the Wrong Place at The Wrong Time."
--Yes, especially as my Love & I were
running back up to my apartment & away I wondered: did we look that
way?
But I remember even now, as together my we ran swiftly by, how some tall,
good-natured passing stranger
wearing
Uncle
Sam hat, did single us
out from various sidewalk strollers around us to wish us--
somehow as if personally--a "Happy
Fourth of July";
As if even with all our laughter & our total involvement with
each other, we two, too,
might have had something serious to do
With Our USA's Happy Birthday
--& With a certain Originality, on
Independence
Day.
'Fourth of July Fireworks: New York and New
Jersey & Laura and Me"
is narrative poetry about Independence Day & independence in general,
& interactions of things public & things private.
Drafted in l986, poem was completed for 4th of July
'99 & for this Mini-Site. Parts, revised '00--'05.
This Webversion © Michael Benedikt
2005.
We use a 19th century "Romantic" dictional style such as
can be found in English landscape poets of that period
because as we see it, the banks-of-the-Hudson landscape described in it is
as wondrous, lovely & sublime in its way
as any to be found in the English "Lake Country" which Wordsworth, for example,
wrote about.
Author's Other Holiday Season Sites Other Mini-Sites with Off-Beat Americana
In '04: Direct link
to
'Runixie'--Night Sky beyond 4th of July. Multi-Media
Fantasy with Song Lyric, Art, Music.
(Complete bio. in Who's Who in America; Who's Who in Entertainment, Who's Who in World, etc.)
Selections from published poetry books by author appear online at other Websites
Contemporary US poet Michael Benedikt has published five collections of poetry: The Badminton at Great Barrington; Or Gustave Mahler & The Chattanooga Choo-Choo, a poem-sequence about tragi-comical love (published by University of Pittsburgh Press, l980). Published by Wesleyan University Press: Night Cries (prose poems, l976); Mole Notes (prose poems, l971); Sky (l970); and The Body (l968). He's editor of The Prose Poem: An International Anthology (Dell/Laurel, l976); and The Poetry of Surrealism (Little, Brown & Co., l974). Benedikt is a former Poetry Editor of The Paris Review (l974-78). His editorial selections are represented in The Paris Review Anthology (Norton, l990). His own work appears in circa 70 anthologies of US poetry. His poetry has appeared in such literary magazines as Agni, Iowa Review, Jerusalem Review, Lips, Michigan Quarterly Review, The New Republic, New York Quarterly, Washington Square, Partisan Review & The Paris Review. Benedikt taught Literature and Creative Writing as Visiting Professor at Bennington, Sarah Lawrence, Hampshire, and Vassar College/s, and at Boston University. He's given many poetry readings at colleges and bookstores, etc., around the USA--in l986, for Library of Congress in Washington, DC. Most recent appearances at various Barnes & Noble "Superstores" in NY Metro area. Benedikt is a long-time resident of Upper West Side Manhattan. Poet's a 1956 Graduate of NYU's Washington Square College; MA, 1961 from Columbia University--the latter, less than a mile north of where poem at this site takes place (* ).
(*) Note 7/01. Some other, rather unusual (we hope) Columbia-related Info: Here's a link to a site re a NYC, Upper West Side anti-Tenant--& it would seem also general Human Disgrace. Perpetrated by the Trustees of Benedikt's old Alma Mater, Columbia University against Writer Vicki Richman & life-partner Eileen Casey. Please take note Columbia University Students & Parents of CU Students & Parents of Would-Be CU Students and my fellow Columbia University Alumni! In effect, some snakes may have crept beneath all that lovely Ivy. Columbia U.owns many apartment-houses on the Upper West Side, where it acts as both Educational Institution & Landlord. Persons whom at this writing (7/01) Columbia is trying to evict from an apartment--throwing the weight of its vast, accumulated-from-many-sources financial resources against them (Alumni Funds possibly included)--are brave, articulate writer Vicki Richman & her life-partner, Casey. Vicki R. is also a delegate at the 2001 Delegates Assembly of the National Writers Union--representing the New York local. Writers! Writing Students! For link to Writer's Eviction-Suit story and to learn about National Writers Union: 'Home Page' of Vicki Richman. Or, click just below to go directly to page with full text of V.R.'s astonishing Eviction-Suit Story. Carefully read tenant's allegations--including those related to what allegedly happened to an aged parent as result of alleged failure to make electrical repairs by landlord Columbia. And, re what happened to the duo as transgendered couple partners in the 1970's in a prior eviction from another apt on Manhattan's "Intellectual Upper West Side"--as local lore & also official NYC publicity copy for tourists sometimes terms it. Re the 1970's event/s, Richman reports: "The landlord charged Vicki with taking an illegal roommate. We argued that our relationship was no different from that of a married couple, but--perhaps overcome by [opposing] attorney's jokes about Vicki's appearance and name--the judge laughed and ordered us out." In more recent years, such laughter if it occurred & if recorded in a non- clipped transcript, might have been termed Discriminatory. Read about Fed/HUD-related, NYC local Fair Housing Laws--which pertain to several types of housing discrimination including (but not limited to) "discrimination in (existing) housing and public accommodations based on actual or perceived race, color, creed, age, national origin...gender (including gender identity), sexual orientation, disability, & (discrimination based on) marital status")--at NYC Commission on Human Rights: Human Rights Laws in NYC in Plain Language. "In housing, the law affords additional protections based on lawful occupation and family status... City Human Rights Law also prohibits retaliation and bias-related harassment"). Note 7/02: The above link hasn't worked for a while. NYC Commission on Human Rights Housing Discrimination info starts at NYCCR Home Page. Note Statues of Limitations).
Further Notes 7/02: Vicki R. 'Home Page' now reflects Columbia's success at eviction effort. For revealing perspectives on the tense Landlord vs. Tenant situation in NYC which lurks just beneath the surface of the lives of many New Yorkers--not an exaggeration, since circa 2 1/2 million NYC tenants still live in rent regulated apartments whose landlords stand for the most part to gain rent increases following evictions & other forms of vacancies--visit Rent Wars.Com It's an animated parody of NYC court battles, using realistic legal principles in fanciful kung fu scenarios which aim to entertain while educating in Tenant Rights & in related, basic legal concepts. Site also includes one of the still relatively rare Tenant Forums on the Net. Also commentary on Manhattan's busy Housing Court where cases are entertained which are mainly launched by Landlords often backed by full-fledged companies or other corporate-level entities, usually seeking evictions of relatively poorly-heeled individual tenants whether they pay their rent on time or not. All in all, Rent Wars is an informal web Academy which may be an education for New Yorkers & others seeking an insider view of the trials & tribulations which can beset NYC's rent-regulated & other tenants. Rent Wars General Help Page, here. Forum, here.
Note 7/04: Some may find the latest chapter in the astonishing saga of monolithic Columbia vs. the duo an extra-curricular education in & of itself. It would seem from what Rochman reports, that the duo continued to be ragged by their former landlord as even former tenants. Also note Richman's comments on blacklistings in NYC of so-called uncooperative Tenants, making it difficult for them to find decent accomodations--in this case, uncooperative being a buzzword reflecting that tenants did not clear out of an apartment when landlord demanded, & sought to exercise their rights as incumbent tenants. Also you might have to brace yourself for Richman's observations as a would-be tenant & then as an actual tenant in yet another apartment in glamorous West Side of Manhattan (this one in vicinity of City College), at this latest page.
*
Sidelights & Footnotes--Some Links Which May be of Interest to Prospective Renters (& even Current Renters) with Disabilities--or who have over time suffered Disabilities: There's a page at NYC Commission On Human Rights site re Reasonable Accommodations for Persons with Disabilities in Housing. "Reasonable accommodations can be structural, such as a ramp at the primary entrance to provide wheelchair access, or installing grab bars in the bathroom. They can also involve [a landlord's making] policy or rule changes, such as permitting a tenant who is blind or has a psychological disability to have a guide dog or a companion animal, despite a building's 'no pets' policy. The Law provides guidance in assessing requests for reasonable accommodation, taking into account the nature and cost of the proposed accommodation and the financial resources of the landlord"). Look for caveats such as Statues of Limitations, etc.
*
Fed/HUD Gen'l Info on filing Housing
Discrimination Complaints (including filing complaints online),
here. There's
a page of Fair Housing Laws and Presidential Executive Orders opposing
Housing Discrimination,
here. Additional
Protection for People With Disabilities, including Protection for those
living in existing housing,
here. Similar
info at National Fair Housing Advocate Online,
here. Also at at NFHAO:
US
Code Chapter 45--Fair Housing--Subchapter I, Section
3604).(Discrimination In The Sale Or Rental Of Housing
and Other Prohibited Practices).
New Disability-Related Link in
'04:
Joint Statement 5/17/04 by the Fed. Department of Housing and Urban Development
and the US Department of Justice:
"Reasonable Accommodations Under the Fair Housing Act"
* Arts Advocacy, Tenant Advocacy, & Anti-Discrimination Advocacy aside: Happy July Fourth-- & so forth! *
[Space reserved here for picture of Columbia Campus Alma Mater Statue--as of '01, in effect seated upside-down]
'The Compleat
Michael Benedikt--Poet Laureate of The Net'
Feature Article at about.com re Benedikt's background
pre-Websites
Benedikt
pages at Academy of American Poets
With a poem from 4 of Benedikt's 5 published poetry collections, &
a more complete bio. than appears here.
(Note 7/05: above link temporarily in limbo due to site-wide
design overhaul)
(Suggestion--Bookmark Some Of Us!)
HOLIDAY SITES
S p o o k y P o e m s F o r H a l l o w e e n & A l l Y e a r R o u n d
'Xmas on Bay State Road' & Other Poems from Boston & Cambridge
NEW LISTINGS--OTHER
MINI-SITES RE OFF-BEAT AMERICANA
Of
Orson Welles' Remarkable l938 Radio Program 'The War Of The
Worlds'
Poem about Classic Sci-Fi show re Martian landings in N.J. &
a legendary program which shook a Nation.
American
Vibrations
Adult Themes--Female Erotic Pioneer USA
SELECTED OTHER SITES
Guide to Benedikt Mini-Web Comprehensive Guide to All Benedikt Sites
The
Body & Sky. Home Page of multi-paged
site re Benedikt's first two, much-anthologized poetry collections.
Has Selected
Poems from The Body &
Selected
Poems from Sky.
(Sky-page has an earlier narrative poem about an urban
landscape: "Passing Through Troy"(NY).
Theatre, Film
& TV Poems, poems about Entertainment World
& Showbiz.
With. 'Rita & Ringo' starring former Beatle Ringo Starr & a
prose poem praising Mae West.
Also, info on three 1960's anthologies of modern plays in translation ed.
by Benedikt. With Agent Contact info.
The
Badminton at Great Barrington; or, Gustave Mahler & The Chattanooga
Choo-Choo,
from a book re joys & sorrows of love. With
lyric poem about a reunion of lovers on
4 Ju
l y.
The
Thesaurus and Other New Verse, verse from
manuscript-in-progress entitled OF:
With poem about not-so-offbeat
Americana:
Of Granny
Smith's Green Apples
PROSE POEMS
Brief Prose
Poems, from Benedikt's 4th poetry book,Night
Cries. With interview on prose poetry
from Poetry Society of America Newsletter which answers question,
'What's A Prose Poem?'
Also essay on "Future of American Prose Poem"
Prose Poems
& Microfictions. Others from Night
Cries. With book review from London Times Literary Supplement.
Also with info on Benedikt's landmark poetry antho, The Prose Poem:
An International Anthology
