Leonard, Suzanne & stuff

My namesake, Pris Campbell, did a good public service a few days back with a post featuring Leonard Cohen's recent Suzanne video, the lyrics of that classic song, and perhaps most interesting of all, a link to a lengthy interview with Suzanne. I never met her, but have a close friend who ran an alternative art gallery here of which she was an habituée. He remembers her as an eccentric, whimsical, delightful woman, and very bohemian -- as this interview bears out. It seems she has fallen on hard times of late, which is really too bad. (Check Pris' post for details.) Let's hope Leonard and/or friends can find it within themselves to scrape together the wherewithal to bail her out and ease her suffering. As he himself put it, she did give him his best song.

Some quotes on poetry, compliments of R.W. Watkins, my good squawkbox demon (I have no evil ones, as yet):

"Poetry is things that poets write."--Robert Frost

"Poetry is news that stays news."--Ezra Pound

"A good poem is like a good hot beer shit. You think, Uh, I've done it. And there's the smell of the turds, the fumes and everything. And you flush it away, and the water flows in, and there's a sense of sadness. That's what a good poem is like, a good hot beer shit. Got it?"
--Charles Bukowski