Coming Soon to an AWP Near You?
I really have no idea where this came from (WikiLeaks is my guess). The email address that sent the email with this didn’t have much for clues, and it was signed by the company. But on the off-chance that there really is going to be a table at AWP with bumper stickers, it seemed like it might be worth posting. I might even buy one or two. If they’re not too expensive. And they seem to be open to further suggestions, though if you decide to suggest, please keep it clean.
I’m still ambivalent about posting it, though. One person’s satire is another’s snark. And a few of the references elude me entirely. (Maybe someone can clue me in on Amiri Baraka and Barrett Watten?) And it seems odd that one of these mentions a regional university in Missouri, since I teach at a regional university in Missouri (though I never went to Iowa). I feel a little double-dog dared.
Offensive? In good fun? Anyway, if anyone complains that these are over the line, I’ll take them down.
Here you go:
+
Bumper Stickers We Plan to Sell at the 2011 AWP
WHAT WOULD FRANZ WRIGHT DO?
I KNOW WHERE LEW WELCH IS HIDING
MY OTHER POEM'S A HYBRID
FLARF: THE AWP’S WAY OF MOCKING DUMB PEOPLE
FREE KENT JOHNSON
HIP-HOP: THE REAL “NEW FORMALISM”
GOT SILLIMAN?
LANGUAGE POETRY: IT’S NOT YOUR FATHER’S IVY LEAGUE ANYMORE
HONK IF YOU'VE SLEPT WITH MARK STRAND
THE FENEON COLLECTIVE: THEY’RE NOT JUST FOR BREAKFAST ANYMORE
WHAT HAPPENS AT AWP STAYS ON THE INTERNET
KENNY GOLDSMITH IS MY FAVORITE MUPPET
AMERICAN HYBRID IS FOR LOVERS
I HAVE AN MFA; WHAT’S YOUR EXCUSE?
THE POETRY FOUNDATION IS WATCHING
POETRY MAGAZINE: WHERE INTERBREEDING MAKES THINGS OK
DON'T BLAME ME, I DIDN'T GO TO IOWA
DID HE REALLY SAY POETS ARE THE LEGISLATORS OF THE WORLD?
MY PARENTS WENT TO IOWA AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS LOUSY BOOK
I WENT TO IOWA AND NOW I TEACH AT SOUTHWESTERN MISSOURI STATE
POET LAUREATES, THE OTHER WHITE MEAT
DON’T BLAME SETH ABRAMSON FOR YOUR SUFFERING
POETS & WRITERS: THE MAGAZINE FOR WINNERS
WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO LUCY BROCK-BROIDO?
MY PARROT’S A FLARF POET
YES VIRGINIA, THERE IS A RON SILLIMAN
I WAS AT THE WEDDING OF AMIRI BARAKA AND BARRETT WATTEN
WHICH DICKMAN ARE YOU?
DID YOU SAY YOU’RE A BIG POET AND YOUR NAME IS DICKMAN?
POETS FALL UPON THE THORNS OF LIFE. THEY BLEED.
I TOOK A CLASS IN DOGGEREL VERSE WITH MICHAEL ROBBINS
ROMANTIC POETS ALWAYS LEAVE SPOTS
BUT SETH ABRAMSON SAID THIS WAS A FULL RELEASE MFA PROGRAM!
JOSHUA CLOVER IS MY REVOLUTIONARY LEADER
BECAUSE ANIS SHIVANI SAID SO, THAT’S WHY
YOUR MFA PROGRAM DRESSES YOU FUNNY
AN AWP OF ONE
AWP IS MY CO-PILOT
I FLEW ON LYN HEJINIAN’S LEAR JET
IT'S TWO A.M. AT THE AWP. DO YOU KNOW WHERE YOUR CHILDREN ARE?
GERALD STERN DOES IT BETTER
SMILE, WILLIAM LOGAN LOVES YOU
posted by John Gallaher @ 5:55 PM
50 comments
50 Comments:
ala the Dickman sticker:
"Team Matthew"
&
"Team Michael"
"I've Fallen and I can't reach my BAP"
"I bent my Whitman"
"My other car runs on similes"
"The New Sincerity is the New Black"
Lament For the Zebra
Zebra! You for whom birth
was an incarceration,
your body is a substratum
of black flames, or a hillside
of birches and their shadows.
You wait at the end
of the abedecarium
for every child. You wait,
patient in the fire's thrall,
a sinecure of silence and snow.
- de Luna
Justin, you're better at this than I am. All I could come up with is:
Ted Kooser: Get Off My Lawn You Damn Kids!
"Dead Poet's Society, My Ass. AWP 2011!
"Bob Hicok knows where you sleep"
"Bo Jackson Knows Poetry"
"Emily Dickinson Died For Your Sins"
"We can put a man on the moon but we can't get a poetry best seller?"
"My State Poet Can Beat up Your State Poet"
"Poets for Cthulu"
"Let's Get Mikey. He'll Read Anything"
"It's all about the Dickmans"
"Bob Hicok: Not Your Fathr's Poet"
"A Poet's Life: It's all about the Hamiltons, baby!"
These are pretty funny! Justin, yours are too. I would be tempted to buy some.
What if I wrote, "The fire tosses
the chimney's salad"? Would you
forbid my verses from crossing
the cool porticos of your daughter's ears?
And what if I wrote,
"My penis crumbles,
a pillar of pink salt"? Would you
shade your son's eyes with the
unleavened loaves of your hands?
What if I came to your cool
portico? What if all night
I licked the clearcut slopes
of your body? What if my tongue
were your soul's tangential fire?
What then?
- de Luna
Free Kent Johnson?
How about this instead:
A Day Without Kent Johnson Is Like A Day
The one on Michael Robbins is sorta weak. Here's an improvement:
Last Words of Michael Robbins: "My Doggerel Did This To Me"
OK, I'll chip in. Though I have to admit it's not my idea, wish it were:
Palin/Seidel in 2012
I love the vanquished zero of your mouth.
Let mine be vanquished by it,
our mouths a mathematician's
squished zeros in one of his error-
strewn calculations of time:
let him run out of page
before he runs out of zeros,
and let ours be the last two,
pressed, one against the other,
in the intimacy of ink. Or, if you think
our love worthy of more
than a numeral astonishment,
let your mouth be X and my
mouth Y. Do not mouth "Why?"
my love. Kiss me now.
- de Luna
You know, I've got to say, these poems by De Luna are tremendous. Reminds me of Omar Caceres, the great apocryphal poet of Chile, ca. 1930s. I wish these were translations of some forgotten Andean poet from that period, but it doesn't seem so. Doesn't anyone else think these are fabulous? And if anyone thinks I've written them, forget it.
Seriously, I am saying that these De Luna interventions, wherever they are coming from, is an event in the making.
Here's a piece on Omar Caceres, by Eliot Weinberger.
http://jacketmagazine.com/03/violinist.html
"Palin/Seidel in 2012."
Harsh. Cruel.
Almost as harsh and cruel as the one about Lucie Brock-Broido above.
And, sure, Maestro de Luna, your tidal effigies. We like.
--Eli
Eli,
This de Luna unrolling. Don't know if what we're seeing here is an actual Latin American poet (entirely possible--the poems are "authentic" in ways that Koch's South American poets aren't, say), or some new Yank or Brit Pessoa suddenly exploding forth (the prolific production, if so, reminds of FP's explosion of Caeiro work).
I'm calling this: Something very strong and interesting happening here. Whoever you are, de Luna, don't tell us.
Well, this was posted on the bottom of one of these that was posted the other day:
(from a forthcoming collection to be published by Red Tanagram Press this spring, entitled Will You Follow Me Into the Trees, Love, Where We Will Dally Awhile With Pink Revolvers?)
I like the pink revolvers.
I don't think that's an existing press, John, is it?
Well, that brings us into some difficult theorizing regarding the a priori nature of pre-existing, as well as the possibilities of which poet is in the framed portrait on the desk.
Well said.
I think.
We used to have a tangram puzzle box for the kids. People sure do like their puzzles.
I published a book with Curbstone Press years back, which carried the horrendous title _Have You Seen a Red Curtain Hanging in My Weary Chamber?_ The books was a collections of poems and poetic prose by Comandante Tomas Borge Martinez, then Minister of the Interior of the Sandinista government of Nicaragua. I'd spent two whole days at Borge's home, interviewing him on the cultural politics of the Sandinista Revolution (interview published in a major daily of Mexico, where about five other ones I did during that trip also appeared), and he gave the manuscript to me.
The title of de Luna's book is awkwardly long, too, but much better...
Back to the bumper stickers. I like
AMERICAN POETRY: WANDS AWAY!
Or, a la Joseph Conrad,
AWP NOW
It makes sense for an imaginary poet to publish with an imaginary press--I like this. Though from the on-line profiles, Maestro de Luna is rather present, for an absence. Can anyone else say more about Red Tanagram Press?
--Eli
(word verification: noncom)
Friends! I will keep singing to you
from these blue latitudes, from this sea
that is a poultice of vowels, from this
shack beside this sea where I whittle
and carve my sexual archery, from
this sorrow that resides in my breast
where I sit in this shack, my sorrow
for the death of my love, Maria de Luna,
will keep singing to you my psalm
of blind dominos, falling, falling,
towards you from the everywhere
where you are not, No One.
- de Luna
THAT'S NOT POETRY, IT'S MY TAILPIPE
DON'T HONK IF YOU LOVE HAIKU
BEE-LOUD GLADE OR BUST
"You, Me & David Dodd Lee"
"Ted Kooser's head is cryogenically frozen."
"Bukowski fucked your mom."
"Don't bother me. I'm feeling Plathed."
"I've got a bottle of wine. Where's the release party?"
This makes me simultaneously happy and nauseated.
flarfrompuken
If you don't see a feminine ending, the bitch fell off.
If you're close enough to read this, you must be a New Critic.
I break lines for no apparent reason.
The revolutionists brake for Baltimore Orioles.
If I stepped out of my body I would break into publishing.
There's too much blood in my alcoholstream.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
BE-LOUD GLADE OR BUST
is excellent.
--Eli
Since I have opened the wound, Maria,
I will sing of you, Maria.
When you disappeared, Maria,
into the forest of your death, Maria,
with the walnut-face of an owl, Maria,
with arms as thin as the arms, Maria,
of an old postman's chair, Maria,
I wept for four days, Maria,
tears black as November rain, Maria,
into a bowl I poured into a bottle, Maria,
which I corked and placed, Maria,
on the sill, a green bottle, Maria,
filled with black tears, Maria,
like a June forest, Maria,
filled with November rain.
- de Luna
"Be my Jean Valentine"
"Do you know the F!#%* Wright way?!"
"I <3 Kerouac-y night"
"Master of
Freaking
Awesomeness"--(this is what my husband put on my graduation cake...)
I'LL HAVE WHAT DEAN YOUNG IS HAVING
IF IT LOOKS LIKE POETRY BUT IT'S NOT, IT'S IN THE NEW YORKER
WHAT THE PARIS REVIEW GIVETH THE PARIS REVIEW TAKETH AWAY
AND ON THE 8TH DAY GOD CREATED TED GENOWAYS
I'm allergic to censorship, but a few of these are over the line and should be removed. I'll leave everything untouched for now, but at some point in the near future I'm going to come back and remove the offensive ones. Or at least the really offensive ones. I'm uncomfortable about having offensive things sitting on the blog for the long haul.
Just sayin.
Yea John I thought some of that Sergio guy's were just sick. Horribly offensive. Please remove them. Who the hell are you, Megalopolis?
You're right Chuck. I've deleted it. I thought, as I really hate deleting things, to leave a few. So here they are:
Sergio Megalopolis said...
How Berryman Got His Beard Back
I'm Wright-Handed
Have You Talked To Your Kids About Sexton Today?
It Doesn't Take a Mirror To Double MY Flowering!
Poets For um...
"Is that a Dickman in your pocket, or are you just published in The New Yorker?"
also:
"It's Gallaher's FIELD, we just play in it"
-Michael Dickman
WILL VOICE THE VOICELESS FOR TENURE
ASK ME ABOUT MY SPOTS OF TIME
CAUTION: POET ON BOARD
God, John, are those bumper stickers really the best you can do? Not one of the strikes me as funny--and I am dying for something genuinely humorous-- not do I think they'd be funny even to the few people o earth who would get them. Also, I read somewhere where you attributed my attacks on MFA programs to "the dismissal of my work"--by whom, and where was it dismissed to., Still seems to be around--it's all in print. You should see your work "dismissed" the way mine is. Won't you ever give up? Are you and Logan secret jerk off buddies? FW
Hello, Mr. Wright,
I didn't write these bumper stickers. They were sent to me and I found some to be funny, some to be in bad taste, and some I didn't get.
I don't remember ever saying your work has been dismissed.
I really dislike the way William Logan goes about his reviewing. Even when I now and then agree with his view on a book, I dislike his method.
Franz Wright, by commenting on this post in typical FW fashion has taken a mildly amusing slogan, “What Would Franz Wright Do,” and made it absolutely hilarious. Franz “the Mel Gibson of contemporary poetry” Wright, you just made my day.
-Chris
These bumper stickers are pretty boring, but the mysterious Julio de Luna, straddling the border of personhood, is awesome.
Ana,
Several people have emailed me about the de Luna, really getting a kick out of it/them. I must admit, I don't see the attraction. But that's OK too. They don't make me rise up in anger or anything. They're over-the-top, and that makes them valuable things to have around. There are so many NOT over-the-top things around.
Ana, I agree on de Luna! Great to see you comment on him.
John, yes, de Luna is over the top, but in ways that Pessoa's hetoronyms are over the top. de Luna I see as unintentionally mingling the demotic, depurated mysticism of Alberto Caeiro with the red-hot, ironic camp of Alvaro de Campos.
I say "unintentionally," because I know the "de Luna" of de Luna has only in past few days begun to read the work of Fernando Pessoa.
Let me go on record again in saying that something most unusual and exciting is happening with this sudden explosion. There is unevenness, yes, but that seems somehow, in these, part of the aesthetic. Or even ethic!
Whatever publisher first snatches these up will have made a grandly good choice.
Your eyes are like an old letterpress
in a cold shed, cold to the touch,
arcane, difficult, requiring
an apprenticeship to learn, a blister
bulging with blood, a poem
terrified of its own shadow.
- de Luna
That should be "heteronyms."
Wanted to correct the typo, because it's a word we will hopefully begin seeing more often in American poetry, with more gestures of the de Luna kind...
Old Dan Tucker down in town,
A-lookin' up an' a lookin' down,
Huntin' a grass-widder for to fuck,
Poor old Dan didn't have no luck.
-Anon
Kent, somehow the presence of you and de Luna in the same thread rings some bells, but I will just take them for jingle bells and enjoy the over-the-top rss lyricism of de Luna for its deja-vu but still highly effective gestures. It's a hell of a lot more fun that much of what passes for 'poetics' these days.
Ana, yes, I can see that, inasmuch as I've been involved in a few projects of ambiguous authorship. And I know that some people think it is me writing in here!
Just to say I WISH it were so.
Kent
Forget Obama or Palin in 2012 - de Luna for President!
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