tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-335322642024-03-15T18:10:02.033-07:00Nothing to Say & Saying ItSearching for a Heartbeat in Poetry & MusicUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger1133125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33532264.post-73524900938547503602014-10-17T08:47:00.001-07:002014-10-17T08:49:54.451-07:00In a Landscape - The Playlist<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/d2TNDevy1yY?list=PL4JSV71SlqLPLhvtXipvGJ-itUwbphEc8" width="560"></iframe><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">John Cage, “In
a Landscape”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">Bob Dylan, “My
Back Pages”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">Neil Young,
“Ambulance Blues”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">The Twilight
Zone Theme<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">Babylon 5 Theme<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">Simon &
Garfunkel, “Richard Cory”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">Susumu Ohno:
Music Based on part of a Immunoglobulin Gene<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">Chuck Berry, “You
Never Can Tell”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">Camptown Races<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">2001: A Space
Odyssey<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">John Lennon,
“Beautiful Boy”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">Barney Miller
Theme<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">Fleetwood Mac,
“Gold Dust Woman”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">“Yo ho, yo ho,
a pirate’s life for me”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">Babar Theme<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">The Flaming
Lips, “When Yer Twenty-Two”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">The Flaming
Lips, “A Spoonful Weighs a Ton”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">Billy Joel, “My
Life”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">Neil Young,
“Down By the River”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">George
Harrison, “All Things Must Pass”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">America, “A
Horse with No Name”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">Willie Nelson,
“It’s Not Supposed to Be that Way”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">True Grit Theme
1969<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">The Wonder
Years Intro “With a Little Help From My Friends”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">Neil Young,
“Powderfinger”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">The B-52s,
“Rock Lobster”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">Clem Snide,
“Born a Man”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">Stevie Ray
Vaughan, “Texas Flood”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">Woody Guthrie,
“Dust Bowl Refugee”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">Neko Case, “I’m
an Animal”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">Neil Young,
“When You Dance I Can Really Love” (live) Year of the Horse<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">Get Smart Theme<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">Star Wars Theme<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">Palmolive “You’re
Soaking In It" (Commercial, 1981)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">The National,
“Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">John Lennon,
“God”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">Beck, “Black
Tambourine”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">Logan’s Run
Theme<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">The Hitchhiker’s
Guide to the Galaxy TV Theme<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">Raging Bull
Theme<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">George Michael,
“Faith”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">Voyage to the
Bottom of the Sea Theme<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">Bob the Builder
US TV Theme<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">Neil Young,
“Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black)”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">Ian Hunter,
“Irene Wilde”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">Neil Young,
“Old Man”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">Son Volt, “Phosphate
Skin”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">The Flaming
Lips, “Waiting for Superman”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">Bill Cosby NEW
Coke Commercial 1985<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">Radiohead, “All
I Need”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">DeVotchKa, “Exhaustible”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";"><br /></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33532264.post-89886112260306301572013-11-01T11:20:00.004-07:002013-11-01T11:24:03.716-07:00Interview with Matthew Cooperman - Imago for the Fallen World <br />
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<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">I love this
book.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And the good thing about loving a
book these days, is you can post something about it on the internet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So here are a few questions and answers about
the book I have the good fortune to be able to post. We barely scratch the surface here. I hope to post more in the future. </span></div>
<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgODns1F61ZxlOuyM7qyGGyQPs7snUqR8Q5Droy6mQZI0qEe9D-2lUxdIIFgAWuV59O_tDDJgoa_O1oJfsWhaVaYNZJKAoHiqkrWPinDQjJVjVwV1f0io7wBtmDy-p69SLmVj5LkQ/s1600/imagothumb.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgODns1F61ZxlOuyM7qyGGyQPs7snUqR8Q5Droy6mQZI0qEe9D-2lUxdIIFgAWuV59O_tDDJgoa_O1oJfsWhaVaYNZJKAoHiqkrWPinDQjJVjVwV1f0io7wBtmDy-p69SLmVj5LkQ/s1600/imagothumb.jpg" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
(More on the book here: <a href="https://www.createspace.com/4159818">https://www.createspace.com/4159818</a>)<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><strong>LR: Visually,
and as a collaboration, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Imago for the
Fallen World</i> is really an unusual book. How did it get started?<o:p></o:p></strong></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">MC: The how’s
really a where; the book got started in a museum, which is not unusual for me. I
find museums intensely generative––the space of museums, the public
presentation of art, the art of watching museum goers, the codes of viewing,
curating, framing, etc, and the syntax itself of visual art, a bodily immediacy
I crave. I was at SF MOMA, somewhere in the late 90s. Per a certain routine, I
was wandering about taking notes, visiting some familiar pieces. I stumbled
onto a regional California photography exhibit, the history of WPA Projects in
California. Something about the way the show documented the scene intrigued me.
Curatorially speaking, there was a parallel “text” alongside the photographs that
gave lots of information about the ostensible subjects—amount of concrete
poured for a given damn, amount of money the project cost, the number of people
killed in the construction, the cost, say 1935, of a gallon of milk, that kind
of thing. The juxtaposition of information to image, how one 'still' indexed
the other in a kind of capture was intense. That got me going. And not only the
juxtaposition but the manner in which the textual data seemed to be in dialogue
with the images such that a category, a voice, a persona—the persona, oddly of
the curator—was navigating the art. Subjects interrogating a photographic
'stills,' or a curator leading one through a hallway of experiences.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>So I started writing these poems,
which were very much driven by outrage, political outrage at the stolen
election that got George Bush Jr into office, 9/11, the Patriot Act, the first
war in Iraq, all that, and environmental outrage at the denial of global
warming, our thirst for oil, and just our culture of violence and retribution
that seemed bloodthirsty. I felt frustrated as a writer because my inherently
lyric voice seemed pitiful next to these problems, so a kind of poetic outrage
as well. It seemed to me that there wasn't any place for these large
"subjects" in poetry, or that aboutness itself was taboo. So I wrote these
poems, "Still: Environment," "Still: Shooting," and so on
to attempt to document something of the times. Eventually these gathered into a
monster I called <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Still: Writing</i>, which
spawned a series of books and chapbooks (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Still:
(to be) Perpetual</i>, dove/tail poetry, 2007; <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Still: of the Earth as the Ark which Does Not Move</i>, Counterpath,
2011); and finally <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Imago for the Fallen
World</i>, which came out with Jaded Ibis in 2013.</span> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCswLl_CPG82veBD-A1VrZ1_u_3yTTMIq-B_BZG4vCrbaHypESzhslamga4YGTXv9LfkJb2V_cJIO_7zlv-s5jcEMvMWbLfQgHtQx9z615iWIU6OD8T2KomCRFXnHkclmuDI7C-g/s1600/IMAGO-pages1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="120" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCswLl_CPG82veBD-A1VrZ1_u_3yTTMIq-B_BZG4vCrbaHypESzhslamga4YGTXv9LfkJb2V_cJIO_7zlv-s5jcEMvMWbLfQgHtQx9z615iWIU6OD8T2KomCRFXnHkclmuDI7C-g/s320/IMAGO-pages1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><strong>LR: Was <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Imago</i> always a collaboration? How did
Marius Lehene get involved?<o:p></o:p></strong></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">MC: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Imago</i> really evolved into a special node
of this larger writing project. </span>It’s
a collaborative book, to be sure, but also a visual-text book in the sense that
I'm obsessed with visual art, and I was always writing into topical images. If
I had the chops I’d be a painter. But alas, no mad skills. As luck would have
it, though, I happened to meet Marius, an extraordinary painter-assemblagist,
by the happy accident of academia. He’s a prof in CSU’s Art Department. <span style="font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">I had always felt like these poems were
seeking a visual analogue, and my friendship with Marius lead rather naturally
into collaboration. We like a lot of the same artists, filmmakers, etc--Dada,
Kurt Schwitters, Matthew Barney, Gerhard Richter, Francis Bacon, Lars van
Trier--so we started hanging out. This evolved into a collaborative arts group
that we co-founded at CSU, Accidental Vestments, mostly formed of our mutual
MFA students in creative writing and visual arts. It was pretty lively for
about five years. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I think our first foray into publically
presenting the work in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Imago</i> was for
the "Giving Attention" Conference, held at Denver University in, I
think, 2005. I asked Marius to visually score some of the poems I'd written,
which we then presented at a wonderful reading alongside Eleni Sikelianos and
Joseph Lease. Marius understood from the very beginning how the colon functions
in these poems––how it structures and frames information, syntactically marks
something as a list, or alternatively, as a kind of dramaturgical cue for
speech and character. And he got the play, the satiric investigation of
"information" that both exposed and undermined the
"subjects" of the poems </span>His
brush or his splice was remarkably parallel my line. <span style="font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The book's essentially collage, a
collage aesthetic, and we both found that a productive way to work.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><strong>LR: Did Marius
simply respond to the poems? Or was the collaboration more dynamic?</strong> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">MC: It started
out with Marius reading these poems, then creating slides that corresponded in
some way. He got the colon, for sure, but also the kind of Google mining that
these "subjects" implied. So he followed that lead, sought out the
public domain, the actual visual minefield of daily life. That was really
inspiring, how much he got the documentarian mode. His approach to these subjects
had the effect of reopening, or enlarging them for me. So it became much more
back and forth as things went on, new poems arising out of his visual field,
and my sense that there might be more textures of visuality to the (already) written
words. All this conversation had the effect of foregrounding the visual
dominances of current media imagination, shifting the mode of the poems toward
visuality itself. Looking at it now, I see how much more ekphrastic these "Stills"
are than the other parts of the triptych, how they've become a kind of museum.
Or maybe mausoleum is more accurate.</span> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><strong>LR: The book is
excessively quotative. It’s rather maddening. What’s with that? Are you okay?<o:p></o:p></strong></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">MC: Cultural
Schizophrenia, substances, a need for Zaum. It’s really the build up of a
specific time, a chronicle of a decade, the dark occasion of the millennial
turn. It’s both what people have to say, are saying about a given “thing,” and
a way of representing the breadth of any act of representation. Talk poetry all
the time. The book’s like a garbage heap, or an archive, with all the voices
piled together. The way things ‘go viral’ in our time means the sources of
statements—or the veracity of ‘facts’—are always moving at light speed.
Benjamin’s entourage has its own reality show, or, to quote from Balzac, who
himself is quoted early in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Arcades
Project </i>(one of the inspirations for the book)<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">, </i>“The great poem of display chants its stanzas of color from the
Church of the Madeleine to the Porte Saint-Denis.” I love the spatiality of all
this, literally hi/low. And I hope <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Imago </i>captures
some of that journey from the sacred to the profane.</span> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><strong>LR: The design
of the book is really interesting, too. Can you tell me about working with
Jaded Ibis, how you came to reside there?<o:p></o:p></strong></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">MC: I'd been
shopping the book around a bit, had sent it to Sidebrow, Siglio Editions, Ugly
Duckling Presse, and got some good feedback, but no takers. I knew it would
require a really special press, and there aren't too many of those visual/text
houses, so I was getting a little nervous. But as luck would have it, I was at
AWP, in Washington DC, and I ran into an old friend, Doug Powell, who was
sitting with the poet Sam Witt. I knew Sam slightly, really liked his work, and
in fact had interviewed him for a job he'd applied for at CSU. We got to
talking, and he described this new press he was the Poetry Editor for, Jaded
Ibis. From what he described, it sounded perfect, so I sent it there. And
indeed it has been perfect.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Ultimately that meant working with
the Editor and Publisher, Debra DiBlasi. She's really visionary, not only a
cutting edge aesthetic, but a master of new media technology, the platforms by
which any kind of work might be delivered. Jaded Ibis books all work from
multiple iterations––e books, black and white editions, four-color fine art editions,
and an object d'art subscription series produced out of the books. Regardless
of whether they are collaborative to begin with, each title includes visual art
by a notable artist or artists, and an audio track or tracks of music, spoken
world, or sound art. Fine arts editions incorporate a variety of materials that
conceptually reflect the content of the book. I can only tell you where I'm at,
which is mid-stream; the black and white and fine art editions have now been
published, but we're working on the music and further art iterations. It's
really amazing, like no other press I know.</span><span style="color: #535353; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"> </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>What I like, too, is the way in
which working with Debra and Sam has itself been collaborative. Once they got
the original manuscript, the conversation changed the book. I had some vague
idea how I wanted it to look, or at least how pages needed to juxtapose, but
Debra really shaped that into something I could not have anticipated. For
instance, I love the weird, high key acid green in the color edition, and the
way that color functions as a bleed on each of the pages. It really pops, and
underscores the satiric play of the writing.</span> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdcnASXhLdaEMLNpTHCpVJ6H2HzqRO1LVreCAPtNbi18Gxr4huId-ALJOcbE4spc5g9QxlYlNUfRFH-2eOmr64J1dIFVXTiUZ95Txmo33l4Lx0bF82rLq9JegYBmxO2VriD66agg/s1600/IMAGO-SPREADS-01-copy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="113" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdcnASXhLdaEMLNpTHCpVJ6H2HzqRO1LVreCAPtNbi18Gxr4huId-ALJOcbE4spc5g9QxlYlNUfRFH-2eOmr64J1dIFVXTiUZ95Txmo33l4Lx0bF82rLq9JegYBmxO2VriD66agg/s320/IMAGO-SPREADS-01-copy.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><strong>LR: Could you
talk about the form, or better said, the forms of the book? <o:p></o:p></strong></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">MC: Whatever merits
the book has, they are, to my mind, ultimately formal. I figure content will
take care of itself, either you're interested or you're not. But something
instructional happened in the accommodational need of the writing. As
statistics, people, places, events, quotes, historical contexts, etc, entered
the poems, the challenge was always to represent them. A visual crisis. Mimesis
doesn’t cut it in such a fast-moving world. Hence collage. And so what is the
particular tone of a subject. Or how does a list distill, distend. Or who is
speaking all this information. The syntax of all that capture became an impulse
to scan, to incorporate. A paradox of moving stills. This also came out of my reading
of Husserl, whose insight into earth, into ground—that it is the foundational
principle of all our senses of space––is really quite profound. He says "the
original ark of the earth does not move." It is, as object, as body, prior
to any conception of space. I used that phrase as the title of the Counterpath
book, and it's continued to haunt me. The dominant form of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Imago</i> are these "Still" poems, which have long strings of
information, examples, mashups, quotes, speakers, etc. That put pressure on the
index, and the equational balance that the colon offers as punctuation. It’s a
list, but it’s apposition, metonymy. Epic catalogue becomes daily catalogs,
inboxes and mailboxes…stuff. It’s hard to breathe, but there’s something
democratic in that, too. I’ve always loved Ammons’ <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Garbage</i>. It’s totally American, garrulous, spatial, concerned with
its body. In my case that impulse has pushed away from the lyric to prose,
which accounts for the line—mine—if you want to call it that. The book’s line
spills right up to the bean counter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>But then there’s the relief, the
need for one. As things went on I began imagining the earth itself as a
character, something hidden in plain sight. That really intrigued me. We all
assume earth, its manner and appearance, but very few of us have ever seen it,
that planetary figure from space. Is it solid ground or is it spinning? No
first person, who's to say? That paradox stunned me, a kind of intense
loneliness to this assumed being. So I started writing the earth letters. Those
are the "_______ Planet" pieces, which are both direct in their prose
address, and elegiac in tone. Hopefully that works as an apt counterpoint to
the poems. </span></span><span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33532264.post-88680050418502973952013-08-14T11:57:00.003-07:002013-08-14T11:57:38.602-07:00TOP TEN LIST1<br />
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4<br />
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5<br />
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10<br />
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33532264.post-89592516891713920532013-08-14T08:41:00.002-07:002013-08-14T08:41:50.585-07:00Top 10 List of Top Ten Lists On Poetry
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgakPeO8id0giB5RvDUXegZftEKhww8K9OalHxCtw1dcW1VKRg0oFPt2hkouBuZteXn-RAMqf8yDrr0uXzqAk7ge018lGslWFAYyGaGYx0F6KYT3-ltfplsg5gP_AUDLbYYezUJYg/s1600/IMG-20130728-00898.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgakPeO8id0giB5RvDUXegZftEKhww8K9OalHxCtw1dcW1VKRg0oFPt2hkouBuZteXn-RAMqf8yDrr0uXzqAk7ge018lGslWFAYyGaGYx0F6KYT3-ltfplsg5gP_AUDLbYYezUJYg/s320/IMG-20130728-00898.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">These lists that have been coming out recently of “poets who make
me care about poetry” or “advocates for poetry”, I’m sure you’ve
seen them (or some of them – I’ve seen four so far [links below]).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m not adverse to lists.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And lists, by and large, don’t hurt anything
(unless someone takes them seriously, of course).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They are made to impress, to be consumed, to give some props.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I remember, when I was young, how much I enjoyed <em>The Book of
Lists</em>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And there’s <em>SPIN</em> magazine that’s
always having a list of something or other.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And there’s Buzzfeed, and their cotton candy lists of pop ephemera.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I make some lists myself,
mostly lists of albums (I’ll make another at the end of the year).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I tried for several years to make lists of
books of poetry, but I found I very quickly couldn’t keep up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">And that’s what each of these lists (below) reveals, as well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No one can keep up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The secret number ONE of all of these lists
is the narrowness of the vision of the person or persons making the list, and
how little anyone can know of “what’s going on,” so Seth Abramson’s list of Top
Advocates of for American Poetry (2013) swells to 200, and still feels
incomplete.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bill Knott makes the list
but D.A. Powell doesn’t, that sort of thing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And then there’s the now and then Scarriet lists.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> And what is an advocate, anyway? Is Anne Carson one? Is President Obama? And the word TOP makes the rest of us feel like failures, you know? We'd better get moving. Start advocating. So, here goes:</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">Three Books Of Poetry I've Read This Week That You Should Read (Or You're Missing Out On What Makes Me Believe In Poetry This Week) In Alphabetical Order By Title:</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><em>The Fabulous Bilocation of B. Lee</em> (chapbook) - Jen Tynes</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><em>How We Light</em> - Nick Sturm</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><em>IMAGO (for the fallen world)</em> - Matthew Cooperman / Marius Lehene</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">These lists, in the end, are possibly helpful (if they get someone to go check something out and find something new and good, as I hope you go check out the three new and good books I listed above) and fairly useless when they attempt anything larger, but even so, useless
isn’t the worst thing that could happen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At the very least,
as these lists proliferate (containing names of people I've never heard of), I’m reminded of how little I know of a lot of what’s
going on . . . and that’s interesting, because it means a WHOLE LOT of things
are going on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And that IS a good
thing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Including a list I'm compiling of all the
people who are annoyed by poetry lists.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The Top 200 Advocates for American Poetry (2013)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/seth-abramson/the-top-200-advocates-for_b_3750440.html">http://www.huffingtonpost.com/seth-abramson/the-top-200-advocates-for_b_3750440.html</a><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The Ten Most Influential People in Poetry Today<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><a href="http://commercialpoetry.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-ten-most-influential-people-in.html">http://commercialpoetry.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-ten-most-influential-people-in.html</a><o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">A List of Things to Ask Yourself When You’re Making a List
of Poets<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<a href="http://flavorwire.com/408365/a-list-of-things-to-ask-yourself-when-youre-making-a-list-of-poets"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Calibri;">http://flavorwire.com/408365/a-list-of-things-to-ask-yourself-when-youre-making-a-list-of-poets</span></a><o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">23 People Who Will Make You Care About Poetry in 2013<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><a href="http://flavorwire.com/406950/23-people-that-make-you-pay-attention-poetry">http://flavorwire.com/406950/23-people-that-make-you-pay-attention-poetry</a><o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span></o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span><br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjb8aDYpQ8hs9oCP2_uJSdP1dJv7hykeHurI-bvpxpxuFO67T9ZAIRNm2TN07zSweoZ0MrMO8jnXhNW4l6oy-mkOTNOz1UnRuVirnAymIThAUEc-PVjCANpMfWRn1D3Y7tVEGKZrw/s1600/220px-Chimenea-20080706.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjb8aDYpQ8hs9oCP2_uJSdP1dJv7hykeHurI-bvpxpxuFO67T9ZAIRNm2TN07zSweoZ0MrMO8jnXhNW4l6oy-mkOTNOz1UnRuVirnAymIThAUEc-PVjCANpMfWRn1D3Y7tVEGKZrw/s1600/220px-Chimenea-20080706.jpg" /></a></div>
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
The only way out is through. </div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33532264.post-80083062315391035852013-07-31T11:31:00.001-07:002013-07-31T11:31:08.019-07:00ON THE WRITING OF POETRY<span class="userContent"></span><br />
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<span class="userContent"></span> </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span class="userContent">If There Are Rules To This Who Made Them And Why</span></div>
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<span class="userContent"></span> </div>
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<span class="userContent"></span> </div>
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<span class="userContent"></span> </div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33532264.post-5716259587310615732013-07-21T08:54:00.003-07:002013-07-21T08:54:31.568-07:00Gen-M Literary Metamodernism
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<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Seth Abramson has
an essay up on literary Metamodernism (defined here: </span><a href="http://www.metamodernism.org/"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Calibri;">http://www.metamodernism.org/</span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">) over
here: </span><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/seth-abramson/on-literary-metamodernism_b_3629021.html"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Calibri;">http://www.huffingtonpost.com/seth-abramson/on-literary-metamodernism_b_3629021.html</span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">.
<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Here’s the
opening sentence: <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><em>It’s not so often
anymore that we read a book of poetry and think to ourselves, “This poet means
exactly what they say.”</em><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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+ <br />
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<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I’m still
thinking about that sentence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ve been thinking
about it a day or so.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I know (kind of)
where Abramson is coming from, but I still can’t grasp it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Is there a feeling, then, that as we read
most books of poetry (new poetry, I’m imagining?) we get the feeling that this
poet doesn’t mean exactly what they say?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I can see that, I suppose, but it’s not really a question that comes to
my mind while reading a book of poetry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I guess it does in a book where that is a foregrounded question, when it’s
way up front, but I don’t usually think to myself “does this poet mean exactly
what is being said here?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
It’s an interesting perspective, but I don’t share it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That problematizes my reading of the essay,
as I can’t quite ride with the anxiety for authenticity that permeates the rest
of the piece.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I can understand that
if one does have that feeling, that the poetry one is reading doesn’t mean
exactly what it’s saying, then I can see what Abramson is getting at.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span></div>
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Maybe it’s a generational thing, and I’m slipping out of
generational relevance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It happens to us
all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span></div>
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</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33532264.post-38698911793293409222013-06-01T08:21:00.000-07:002013-06-01T08:21:02.218-07:00Albums of 2013 (So Far)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7SJOIAx7PBN0Y60q7Z6dt1OcXSxOhOCySs7L0uTm_ZUaWkAYUxRaHopl1ppKjQjkV31WY-MEUxFi6yWU_8VyNiYibRp9KEbkkVrCVP7MLpDzhV2U_at0MVfRQzZf31mMXNzi48g/s1600/theTerror.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7SJOIAx7PBN0Y60q7Z6dt1OcXSxOhOCySs7L0uTm_ZUaWkAYUxRaHopl1ppKjQjkV31WY-MEUxFi6yWU_8VyNiYibRp9KEbkkVrCVP7MLpDzhV2U_at0MVfRQzZf31mMXNzi48g/s320/theTerror.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Here are some I like quite a bit: <o:p></o:p></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
1.The Flaming Lips – The Terror (This is an important album,
reimagining sound and structure in challenging but always interesting ways –
The songs aren’t always as successful as they might have been in a more
conventional setting, but the landscape The Flaming Lips have ventured out into
here is largely unexplored.)<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
2.The National – Trouble Will Find Me – Seriously, these
guys just do what they do better than anyone else.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Wonderfully listenable, musically as well as
lyrically.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
3. Son Volt – Honky Tonk – Reinterpreting the classic Bakersfield
sound into a more Indie, 2013 sensibility.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
Basically, it's Farrar doing what Farrar does best. </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
4. She & Him – Volume 3 – I was surprised at how much I’ve
liked this album, as I’ve not paid much attention to volumes 1 and 2.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Going back, I still don’t love those albums,
but this one strikes me. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s that
classic 60s girl-group sensibility, but it’s smarter, and more clever.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
5. Eleanor Friedberger – Personal Record – Though I don’t
like it quite as much as her first album, Last Summer, I still like this one
quite a bit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Friedberger (half of The Fiery
Furnaces), has a way of making it seem she’s just talking, recollecting, in her
casual, (mostly) low-key songs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
6. Atoms for Peace – AMOK – It’s not as good as most things
Thom Yorke has been a part of over the last 20 years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I can’t tell if I like it because it’s actually
good, or if it’s because I’ve been a Radiohead/Yorke fan for so long.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe someday I’ll know.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
7. Eluvium – Nightmare Ending – There should be room in
everyone’s album collection for (mostly) instrumental music such as this and
the next album, Peals’s Walking Field.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m
thinking of John Cage’s conversation about how music must be able to fit into
its time, and these two albums fit seamlessly into going about my day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
8. Peals – Walking Field <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
9. Junip – Junip – Not as strong as their first album, but,
like their first album, it’s a different take on contemporary indie music.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Prog elements lightly through an acoustic
veil, or something like that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I like
them a lot.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
10. Thao & The Get Down Stay Down – We The Common – Thao
Nguyen has one of the best voices in indie music.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She has a dry delivery that’s both playful
and highly controlled.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And the songs set
it well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
11. Phosphorescent – Muchacho – I don’t why this album wasn’t
in the top five.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe it’s me?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Looking at it, they’re playing to that
Phosphorescent strength.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And they do it
well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
12. Camera Obscura – Desire Lines – Tweegasm!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Everyone must have a twee album or two in
their collection.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Camera Obscura is a
great choice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
13.Brass Bed – The Secret Will Keep You – Maybe this is a
bad way to praise this album, but this is the album Wilco should have made
instead of what they’ve been doing over the last decade.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
14. The Reflections – Limerence – They do the
retro-contemporary mash up very well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Parts ELO and Gerry Rafferty but not in a bad way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In a good way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s as if the 80s had something to teach
us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And, although I don’t like
descriptions like this, I like this album a lot.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
15. Vampire Weekend – Modern Vampires of the City – I’ve
never liked Vampire Weekend, and so I’m quite surprised I like this album.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Of course, I hate several things about this
album, but I love several other things about this album.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Color me conflicted.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
Other albums of interest<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
Jarret/Peacock/DeJohnette – Somewhere – Excellent three-piece
run through and messing around with pop and jazz classics.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you like your jazz laid back and cool,
this is a must.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
Nigel Kennedy – Recital – Unclassifiable mix of old jazz and
classical played on the violin.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
thought I was going to hate it and I didn’t.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
Pat Metheny – Tap – Metheny plays Zorn.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s OK.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>If you like either one, you should probably like it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
Rodrigo Amado Trio – The Flame Alphabet – If you like free
jazz, you should really like this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It
got on my nerves pretty quickly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
The Great Gatsby – While you’re skipping the movie, please
also skip the soundtrack.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
David Bowie – The Next Day – It’s his best album in ten
years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
Camper Van Beethoven – La Costa Perdida – I was hoping to
like this a lot more than I did.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
Eels – Wonderful, Glorious – Again, I was hoping to like
this a lot more than I did.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
Iggy & The Stooges – Ready To Die – Who knew?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They can still bring it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Worth a listen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
Iron & Wine – Ghost on Ghost – Wow, how much I no longer
really like Iron & Wine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
Laura Marling – Once I Was an Eagle – If you can get past
how much she sounds like Joni Mitchell filtered through Nick Drake, it’s a good
album.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
Local Natives – Hummingbird – If you like your indie music
fairly light and wispy, Local Natives . . . <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
Yellowbirds – Songs from the Vanished Frontier – . . . and
Yellowbirds . . . <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
Villagers – {Awayland} – <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>. . . and Villagers . . . <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
Night Beds – Country Sleep – . . . and Night Beds do it quite
well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Worth a listen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
Natalie Maines – Mother – Turns out she’s an excellent
singer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These are mostly covers,
including a strong take on Pink Floyd’s “Mother,” but she brings a lot of
energy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A standout is “Lover, You Should’ve
Come Over.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s a must-hear.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
Scout Niblett – It’s Up to Emma – It got on my nerves after
a while, but in small doses, it’s good.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
Yo La Tengo – Fade – I keep thinking I really like Yo La
Tengo, and then it turns out, they’re just OK.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
Remasters/Re-releases Of Note<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
1.The Breeders – Last Splash – What a great album.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Just what a great album that was.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>LSXX, they’re calling this, and it’s WELL
WORTH the time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Live versions, alternate
versions, extra songs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All good to
great.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
2.Paul McCartney & Wings – Wings Over America – This was
just about the last time Paul McCartney was good.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s a much better way to remember him than
most everything he’s done since.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
3.David Bowie – Aladdin Sane – Too bad this came out right
after The Next Day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It reminded me just
how much better Bowie was 40 years ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
4.The Flaming Lips – Zaireeka – OK, well, mostly this is for
the vinyl lovers, but it’s out again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Still, if you haven’t heard it, you should try sometime.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have the MP3s, and made my own stereo mixes
using Audacity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Worked pretty well,
though I had to mess with some of the tracks a bit and delete a few.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It doesn’t translate to stereo as well as it
translates to a large listening party.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
5.Four Tet – Rounds – If you missed it last time (ten years
ago) it’s OK to keep missing it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But if
you remember it, then it might be fun to take a listen to the anniversary
edition.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
6.John Coltrane – Sun Ship – Just about my least favorite Coltrane
album, and now with alternate versions and studio chatter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you like Coltrane’s late period, go for
it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33532264.post-22856441786955917192013-05-21T14:07:00.003-07:002013-05-21T14:07:33.942-07:00Benedikt on changing
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
Here’s a little blip from Michael Benedikt on changing one’s
mode, or method, or style.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s not that
he’s saying something earth-shattering that’s interesting to me here, but that
he’s saying something very basic that I think can be easily forgotten by poets/writers/artists,
etc.: <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
Partly it’s an attempt to get at all the corners of one’s
consciousness, to use all the resources that you have.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You pursue an idea as far as it goes, and
when you begin to feel that it’s weakening, that it won’t carry the thrust of
what one feels and thinks, you try another route.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And sometimes those routes appear to be
opposites, but they are contained within, hopefully, the same mind and have
some kind of internal consistency.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And,
if one dare use the word, integrity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33532264.post-27520726064589130282013-05-09T09:59:00.002-07:002013-05-09T09:59:54.103-07:00Hamilton's Dark Dreambox
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi83o8eP7kKEkFxVJUWlDCnvw1uDLWVe7Acl0LNFGNnc711cDwGKs3gG7Wg2qma4RvNlKaNUF6kwb1XdgEIdVUPk1SBBBmlHN-snaFntbZyMPzIen7n-o8vlBwP_fCywwrYvZ8RyA/s1600/ASHamilton.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi83o8eP7kKEkFxVJUWlDCnvw1uDLWVe7Acl0LNFGNnc711cDwGKs3gG7Wg2qma4RvNlKaNUF6kwb1XdgEIdVUPk1SBBBmlHN-snaFntbZyMPzIen7n-o8vlBwP_fCywwrYvZ8RyA/s320/ASHamilton.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: center;">
<o:p><span style="font-size: x-small;">Through a glass, darkly</span></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
I really can't stress enough how much I like this book. At
moments I get a similar feeling to that feeling I first got when reading
Michael Palmer's SUN for the first time. <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
This is a must read. If you like it or not is beside the
point of what Alfred Starr Hamilton was trying to do with language. <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
Thanks to The Song Cave editors (Ben Estes, Alan Felsenthal), Mary
Austin Speaker, and everyone else who had anything to do with this. <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<a href="http://books.the-song-cave.com/post/48136016043/a-dark-dreambox-of-another-kind-the-poems-of"><span style="color: blue;">http://books.the-song-cave.com/post/48136016043/a-dark-dreambox-of-another-kind-the-poems-of</span></a><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
Here are a few poems:<o:p> </o:p><br />
<o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-size: large;">SUMMER<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
Why didn’t you say an inkstand</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
Why didn’t you say all of this was for the blue sky <o:p></o:p></div>
Why didn’t you say a sheet of writing paper was for a cloud <o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
<br />
<o:p> </o:p><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-size: large;">JANUARY PARLOR</span> <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
But a snowflake stayed on one’s lips </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
I talked to a golden jar of white roses <o:p></o:p></div>
That stayed in the January parlor<o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-size: large;">A CARROT<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<o:p> </o:p><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
I wanted to find a little yellow candlelight in the garden <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-size: large;">WHERE RESIDES THE SINEWY LIZARD<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
At the back of the skull Tonight I knew of the House </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
That lodged the living muscle that clung to the starlight<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<o:p></o:p> </div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-size: large;">HOME OR ABROAD<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
Why didn’t you say the stars were in her eyes</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
Why didn’t you say the cloud was over the sun </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
Why didn’t you say every cloud has a silver lining </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
Why didn’t you say the sun comes shining through </div>
Why didn't you say you were for peace<o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
Why didn’t you stay home</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
Why didn’t you say there was thunder over the grass </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
Why didn’t you count the stumbling blocks over again </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
Why didn’t you say your elbow was on fire <o:p></o:p></div>
Why didn’t you say you were for freedom <o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
Why didn’t you say you were stupefied </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
Why didn’t you say you were dumbfounded </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
Why weren’t you confounded </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
Why didn’t you say the sun was for the looking glass <o:p></o:p></div>
Why didn’t you say a cloud just now has passed over the
looking glass <o:p></o:p><br />
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33532264.post-39126056499172840522013-04-15T12:09:00.003-07:002013-04-15T12:09:14.690-07:00We survived another year of the Pulitzers. I guess. Wa wa wah:<br />
<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.pulitzer.org/citation/2013-Poetry">http://www.pulitzer.org/citation/2013-Poetry</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33532264.post-13653079509492019012013-04-11T10:32:00.002-07:002013-04-11T10:32:45.857-07:00Michael Benedikt: "To live alone is to be immensely in charge of the silence."<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijm15v32_4doXMEkOM8cKR2oChyphenhyphenILgFyWw-M4EHNMyOaXahT768rjbaItfHG3FuKD3amkATT4aDTcrE9j04y2Bgjp91p5_Lb0ha2_rOiAVphtFaiOabyklwstF8GwOD1RJr3OkUA/s1600/benediktpapers2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijm15v32_4doXMEkOM8cKR2oChyphenhyphenILgFyWw-M4EHNMyOaXahT768rjbaItfHG3FuKD3amkATT4aDTcrE9j04y2Bgjp91p5_Lb0ha2_rOiAVphtFaiOabyklwstF8GwOD1RJr3OkUA/s320/benediktpapers2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<span class="userContent">The Benedict Project continues! Follow the link below to The Bakery for an announcement, along with a baker’s dozen poems. I hope you like them as much as I do. </span><br />
<span class="userContent"></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHDNkxM3luRjlPydDacHE9J9QyTbxzRyACzuZMfd5H64ZMcUt4ozYwwhgxi3OIYrbLwAjyLQBAkFSo0BS6s8-zU3MmsPkC916w-QxDsIdVJ6wKGg30wVMpjifabQFNRmWob5Rqzw/s1600/benediktpapers1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHDNkxM3luRjlPydDacHE9J9QyTbxzRyACzuZMfd5H64ZMcUt4ozYwwhgxi3OIYrbLwAjyLQBAkFSo0BS6s8-zU3MmsPkC916w-QxDsIdVJ6wKGg30wVMpjifabQFNRmWob5Rqzw/s320/benediktpapers1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<span class="userContent">And please spread the word. His story could be the story of any of us. <br /> </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnLUWMmvvTgYnuCLgb-mife3zUfjhAe9q2-ZkjlvJOo1yLcvzIxNDFlAojE9WDrE168f8fqcOV2ySjOZWEJs5m6FlbB8qo2BMaqwgr4VJY9heV39DrL-WSj5cjK736A-Z8QHnFNg/s1600/BenediktSuitcase.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnLUWMmvvTgYnuCLgb-mife3zUfjhAe9q2-ZkjlvJOo1yLcvzIxNDFlAojE9WDrE168f8fqcOV2ySjOZWEJs5m6FlbB8qo2BMaqwgr4VJY9heV39DrL-WSj5cjK736A-Z8QHnFNg/s320/BenediktSuitcase.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span class="userContent"><br /> <a href="http://www.thebakerypoetry.com/from-time-is-a-toy-a-special-feature-on-the-work-of-michael-benedikt/" rel="nofollow nofollow" target="_blank">http://www.thebakerypoetry.com/from-time-is-a-toy-a-special-feature-on-the-work-of-michael-benedikt/</a></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33532264.post-87825417145785592232013-03-23T07:41:00.004-07:002013-03-23T07:41:58.884-07:00Cinderella - Alfred Starr Hamilton
This wonderful poem from The Boston Review:<br />
<a href="http://www.bostonreview.net/">http://www.bostonreview.net/</a><br />
<br />
Which also includes a web-only interview with Chris Martin and a review of Carson and Bang, and more.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">Alfred Starr Hamilton <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 16pt;">Cinderella<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>were you ever a little reindeer<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>out in the clear<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>not too tiny a reindeer<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>but a little reindeer<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and the way was clear<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>were you ever a little reindeer<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>out in the rain<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>not a big rain<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>but a little rain<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and the way was clear<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and you had your umbrella with you<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>not too big an umbrella<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>but a little umbrella<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and your name was Cinderella<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>wonderfully you were invited<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>to a ceremony<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>not too big a ball<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>but a little ball<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and you had your umbrella with you<o:p></o:p></span><br />
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33532264.post-50562551666602328522013-03-14T07:52:00.002-07:002013-03-14T07:53:06.942-07:00Miguel Hernández - Lullaby of the Onion <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibvbQNRaio3qanBNYOgs58mPYwGNJnTZtYWvUH2Jn3OHMSpxvx_kbTgRWjqgIBNog9ySnLx3zPjxnNe2xrHF0dPNJo2pn2k0Rp9d6ruq1_VsppowNz0E9UkZ4HLYF6yKw2QDGR8Q/s1600/DonShareAWP2013.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibvbQNRaio3qanBNYOgs58mPYwGNJnTZtYWvUH2Jn3OHMSpxvx_kbTgRWjqgIBNog9ySnLx3zPjxnNe2xrHF0dPNJo2pn2k0Rp9d6ruq1_VsppowNz0E9UkZ4HLYF6yKw2QDGR8Q/s1600/DonShareAWP2013.jpg" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Don Share saying something like, "Aw, don't take my picture..."</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Far
and away my best AWP moment (as the conference itself goes and why it was
created in the first place) was Don Share reading his translation of Miguel
Hernández's poem “Lullaby of the Onion.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What to say. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Well, number one, I'd never heard it read
before. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And number two, after it, when
he said his own poems were not going to be able to stand up to it, I wanted to
stand up and say, that's OK, none of our poems will either. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Here it is:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><em><span style="font-size: x-large;">Lullaby
of the Onion</span></em> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Miguel
Hernández<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";"><span style="font-size: x-small;">(dedicated
to his son, after receiving a letter from his wife <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-small;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">in
which she said she had nothing to eat but bread and onions) <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">Translated
by Don Share from <span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";"><em>Miguel Hernández<o:p></o:p></em></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";"><a href="http://www.nybooks.com/books/imprints/nyrb-poets/miguel-hernandez/"><span style="font-size: x-small;">http://www.nybooks.com/books/imprints/nyrb-poets/miguel-hernandez/</span></a></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">The
onion is frost <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">shut
in and poor. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Frost
of your days <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">and
of my nights. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Hunger
and onion, <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">black
ice and frost <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">large
and round. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">My
little boy <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">was
in hunger's cradle. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">He
was nursed <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">on
onion blood. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">But
your blood <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">is
frosted with sugar, <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">onion
and hunger. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">A
dark woman <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">dissolved
in moonlight <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">pours
herself thread by thread <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">into
the cradle. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Laugh,
son, <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">you
can swallow the moon <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">when
you want to. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Lark
of my house, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">keep
laughing. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">The
laughter in your eyes <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">is
the light of the world. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Laugh
so much <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">that
my soul, hearing you, <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">will
beat in space. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Your
laughter frees me, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">gives
me wings. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">It
sweeps away my loneliness, <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">knocks
down my cell. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Mouth
that flies, <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">heart
that turns <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">to
lightning on your lips. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Your
laughter is <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">the
sharpest sword, <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">conqueror
of flowers <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">and
larks. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Rival
of the sun. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Future
of my bones <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">and
of my love. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">The
flesh fluttering, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">the
sudden eyelid, <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">and
the baby is rosier <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">than
ever. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">How
many linnets <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">take
off, wings fluttering, <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">from
your body! <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">I
woke up from childhood: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">don't
you wake up. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">I
have to frown: <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">always
laugh. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Keep
to your cradle, <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">defending
laughter <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">feather
by feather. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Yours
is a flight so high, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">so
wide, <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">that
your body is a sky <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">newly
born. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">If
only I could climb <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">to
the origin <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">of
your flight! <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Eight
months old you laugh <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">with
five orange blossoms. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">With
five little <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">ferocities.
<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">With
five teeth <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">like
five young <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">jasmine
blossoms. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">They
will be the frontier <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">of
tomorrow's kisses <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">when
you feel your teeth <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">as
weapons, <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">when
you feel a flame <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">running
under your gums <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">driving
toward the centre. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Fly
away, son, on the double <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">moon
of the breast: <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">it
is saddened by onion, <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">you
are satisfied. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Don't
let go. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Don't
find out what's happening, <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">or
what goes on.<o:p></o:p></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33532264.post-78407514738609108142013-03-10T09:26:00.002-07:002013-03-13T04:38:49.529-07:00Another AWP another opportunity for Tony Hoagland to almost get it right and then blow it<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">R236.
Camouflage and Capitalism: The Intellectual Appropriation of American Poetry,
Sponsored by Alice James Books. (Laura McCullough, Tony Hoagland, Kathleen
Graber, Reginald Dwayne Betts, Peter Campion) Alice James Books presents Tony
Hoagland on the state of American Poetry. Hoagland will present an essay on
poetry as camouflage, as something smuggled into the culture and how the poetry
community hides behind the overintellectualization of aesthetics. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Kathleen Graber, Reginald Dwayne Betts, and
Peter Campion respond, offering assessments of the current condition of poetry
in this dialogue and debate moderated by Alice James Books board member, Laura
McCullough.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">So
this was the panel description. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was on Thursday.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There were several takeaways:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">The essays were all interesting and I hope they’re being published somewhere,
as none of the presenters, I believe, read their entire papers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe Kathleen Graber did?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">To begin, I have sympathy for Tony Hoagland.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He’s
a humanist.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He advocates a human
approach to art with which I reflexively feel kinship.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But then he starts talking, getting specific, and I start to
cringe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> His opening</span> essay, which I’m not going
to be able to summarize (I should have recorded it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I even thought about it.), had a few
different points, some of which, as I said, I generally could go along with, but
specifically, or when he added examples, I found disagreeable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
other presenters did a pretty good job of deconstructing them, so again, I wait for the recording to surface.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">Basically,
here are the main points, which Hoagland admitted are not final, but are open (opening)
questions:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">1. Soul
is a bad word in workshops and in discourse on poetry, and has been supplanted by “intelligence.”
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">2. Wisdom
is a bad word in workshops and in discourse on poetry, and has been supplanted by “intelligence”
and “cleverness.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">3. Poetry,
under these pressures, has gotten too “intelligent” and lost its humanity (or something
like that), as evidenced by a poem example from Ben Lerner.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">4. The
university system is largely to blame.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";"><o:p>+ </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">There
is, as with most essays on poetry, some truth to Hoagland’s claims.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One can always find, as Peter Campion agreed,
some bullshit poets out there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I
have to echo Campion when he says that he was (as I believe Kathleen Graber
and Reginald Dwayne Betts also noted) unaware that “soul” and “wisdom” were
terms non grata. This is a major flaw in Hoagland's thinking, taking an example (this time a casual conversation with a friend about poetry, where the friend uses word like "dumb" and "stupid" in disparaging some poets) and then conflating it to be a general method.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">It
seems to me, at times like this, that Hoagland is laying his perceptions of what’s going on over the
reality of what’s really going on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We
all do this, sure, but when Hoagland does this by proclamation in a large
public setting, he’s setting himself up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">His premise/premises, in my experience, are simply wrong.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Right in some places in some poets, but
wrong as a generalization.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And also,
his assertion that the “thinky,” “overintellectualization” of contemporary
poetry can largely be laid at the feet of academia (we mostly have academic
jobs, therefore we privilege academic discourse in our poetry) I find to be severely
reductive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">Hoagland’s
arguments, while not without merit, rely on strawman props, which became all
the more ironic after Peter Campion delivered his spirited reply to Hoagland’s
essay.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At that time, as Campion went
last, Hoagland, visibly angered, demanded the microphone for a rebuttal, and
delivered a direct attack on Campion (first briefly praising Kathleen Graber and
Reginald Dwayne Betts) as a symptom of what’s wrong in contemporary poetry and
criticism, and specifically charging him with having committed an immoral (maybe
he didn’t say "immoral," maybe it was more like “unconscionable” or something
similar) ad hominem attack on Hoagland’s primary source, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property</i>, by Lewis
Hyde.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">Basically,
Campion’s argument went like this: beware the call for “soul” and “wisdom” in poetry,
because these terms (and he was NOT saying that “soul” and “wisdom” are bad
things, by the way, just dangerous as <em>criteria</em>) can lead one to make value judgments on poetry from outside
the poem itself, for example, the way Lewis Hyde dismissed the work of John
Berryman because of his “moral failings” (specifically alcoholism).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">It
seemed a valid example to me, but it upset Hoagland.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">If
the panel had ended there, with just the four essays (and without the Hoagland
mic-grabbing finale) it would have been an interesting swirl of positions and
thoughts, but as it stands, it’s now another example of Hoagland’s thin-skinned,
aggressive nature.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> I</span> left the panel
thinking only of Hoagland vs Campion, while the interesting and valuable thoughts of Kathleen
Graber and Reginald Dwayne Betts were almost completely effaced from my memory.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">I
hope, as I said above, that the essays (or the recording) will appear somewhere.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’d love a chance for those who weren’t there
to weigh in on the ideas (not just Hoagland's outburst). If I get the opportunity to see them, I'll link to them or post what I can, as there's a lot of interest (some of it being Hoagland's ideas) that I'm not remembering. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: large;">PS:</span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">Someone made
a comment on this post (right around comment 80) to ask why I keep “attacking”
Tony Hoagland on my blog.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The person
then when on to suggest I do something else with my time, making a joke about
my “soul.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This reminds me that I should
clarify my position.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">This is what
I wrote in response: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">Well, I
guess that needed to be said. But from my point of view, it’s more like “Why
does he keep hammering at this?” This paper is another version of “The
Elliptical Poets Have Ruined Poetry” that he’s been doing for years. I don’t
get the luxury of choosing my “targets.” What Hoagland says with a broad brush
against a type of poetry I admire forces me to respond. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">I have never
(to the best of my knowledge) attacked Hoagland’s poetry. Responding to his
attacks is a responsibility, just as, for him, making the attacks against a
type of poetry he thinks is “bad” is his responsibility. For the health of my
real soul, I must respond. I will continue to say my piece to his. Just as
you’re tired of hearing me go on, I’m tired of him going on. I’m tired of the
fight. But, you know, as he has said:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">“I'm not one
of those people who eschews value judgments of our art, who beams benevolently
on all examples of all aesthetics. I believe that judgment is an accessory and
an accomplice of taste. I myself love to make and to contemplate descriptive
pronouncements of aesthetics. At their best, expressions of judgment are
enlivening; they offer the authentic challenge of accuracy and discernment.
Critical proclamations offer an audience—readers or listeners—a compressed,
potentially illuminating descriptive summary of an artist or a work of art, to
verify or disagree with.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">If he’s sincere
in this, then a response should be welcome, and disagreement allowed. You can
accuse me of whatever, but you could also accuse him of a vendetta against Ben
Lerner, for example, who is his only example in his paper on “what’s wrong with
contemporary poetry.” After the presentation, he said that Peter Campion was
also what’s wrong in the conversation about poetry. If he’s allowed to continue
to hammer away at what he sees is wrong in poetry, I must also be allowed. I
don’t think Tony Hoagland is what’s wrong in poetry. He’s just saying his
piece. What’s wrong is the large microphone he gets, and the deference paid to
his accusations.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com90tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33532264.post-83479173719791701542013-03-04T08:58:00.003-08:002013-03-04T08:58:51.348-08:00The Laurel Review at AWP 2013 Table S-3<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0fpWgJOiV4WPEhuklWlZS4lrfBKZderINly27QxtRXYWk68iaN_kMRuBEHX8M7xfo7c3i8DjKGQ6LsenE1cV7TcP-Qtz5zt6cNfFqsAysZ0Jnlgfr_SwzviaFiAdS9XTyaoO95w/s1600/CoffeeSan+Antonio4-20130217-00567.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0fpWgJOiV4WPEhuklWlZS4lrfBKZderINly27QxtRXYWk68iaN_kMRuBEHX8M7xfo7c3i8DjKGQ6LsenE1cV7TcP-Qtz5zt6cNfFqsAysZ0Jnlgfr_SwzviaFiAdS9XTyaoO95w/s320/CoffeeSan+Antonio4-20130217-00567.jpg" width="251" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Hey there!</div>
<br />
<br />
So, are you going to AWP? Well, if so, The Laurel Review will be at Table S - 3. That will be on the second floor. We'll be selling subscriptions. One year for $5.00 and two years for $10.00 (plus a chapbook!). <br /> <br /> Here's a link to the maps:<br /> <br /> <a href="https://www.awpwriter.org/awp_conference/bookfair_floor_plan" rel="nofollow nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.awpwriter.org/awp_conference/bookfair_floor_plan</a><br />
<br />
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33532264.post-52153063910686640792013-02-13T06:41:00.002-08:002013-02-13T06:45:26.457-08:00The Next Big ThingHow about we soften that a bit to just something more like "The Next Thing" or something. So the tagging that's going around asking questions about what people are working on next finally ended up tagging me (Though I have to admit it was more like "Who wants to be tagged?" and I said "I guess I do.") Now I get to go tag five people!<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/XF1DoVdHM9M" width="420"></iframe><br />
Hit play! <br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">What is your working
title of your book (or story)?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">In
a Landscape. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Where did the idea come
from for the book?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">There
was no idea, really, not at first. I sat
down one day after having written a lot of poems where I didn’t use the first
person, and I thought it might be nice to try a direct address to the reader, a
kind of pretend conversation or something.
Something about what was happening that day, full of the names and
places and dates, and what I thought about, what my views were on all manner of
subjects. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">That’s
what I thought over time, but on day one, I just sat down to write in the first
person, and I’d just finished re-reading John Cage’s <i>SILENCE</i>, so I put on an album of his compositions, titled <i>In a Landscape</i>. I titled my poem that, out of convenience, and
when I felt like that poem was over, I started another, and used the same
title, just to keep things simple. I was
several poems/sections in before I realized what I was doing. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">In
the final say, it’s a book-length poem in 71 discrete sections, each titled “In
a Landscape,” and numbered and presented in compositional order (with a couple
shufflings due to bad book-keeping), and each composed while listening to that
album. I wrote mostly in the mornings, and then
added to and tinkered with them here and there over the last couple years. When I add something, I usually go ahead and
put in the new date. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">What genre does your
book fall under?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Poetry
(though one could call it memoir, or diary or essay, if one felt like thinking
of it that way)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Which actors would you
choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";"><span style="font-size: small;">As
it would be a documentary if it were filmed, I’d have us all play ourselves,
but maybe with stunt doubles for the ify parts.
“Actor re-creations.” Maybe Martin Freeman, the guy who plays Bilbo
Baggins in </span><i style="font-size: 12pt;">The Hobbit</i><span style="font-size: small;"> could play me,
but they’d have to thin his hair out a lot. He </span>doesn't<span style="font-size: small;"> look anything like me, but he plays
exasperated well. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">What is the
one-sentence synopsis of your book?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">A
person at middle age is thinking about children, friends, family, music, books,
films, love, embarrassment, the dead, God, and lunch, while trying not to make
anything up. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Will your book be
self-published or represented by an agency? (if this applies - otherwise, make
up another question to answer!)<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">It
will come out through BOA in 2015<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">How long did it take
you to write the first draft of your manuscript?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">October
2009 through December 2009<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">What other books would
you compare this story to within your genre?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Maybe
Lowell’s <i>Life Studies</i>, because of the
theme? But that makes me sound like I’m
puffing myself up, so I’ll kind fo take it back but leave it in anyway. Other people are doing really interesting things
right now with stories and parts of autobiography in poetry: Kate Greenstreet, Craig
Morgan Teicher, just to name a couple.
But probably the book it has the most in common with is John Cage’s <i>SILENCE</i>, specifically his use of
autobiographical anecdotes here and there in a cut-up, methodically random
way. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Who or what inspired
you to write this book?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">It
was, I think, a direct reaction to working with G.C. Waldrep on the book <i>Your Father on the Train of Ghosts</i>,
which was collaborative, and written mostly in the second person. After that, I wanted to do something
completely different, as did he. This is
one of the things that ended up happening.
We both wrote book-length poems! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">What else about your
book might pique the reader's interest?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Maybe
some samples? Here are several sections
of the poem in one place, which maybe gives one a feeling for it:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://atlengthmag.com/poetry/from-in-a-landscape/"><span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">http://atlengthmag.com/poetry/from-in-a-landscape/</span></a><span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">And
then, as context: In late 2009, spilling over into 2010 and onward to now, I’ve
felt a bit splintered. As I’ve worked on
the autobiographical, essayistic, <i>In a
Landscape</i>, I’ve also taken little detours, culminating in three additional
manuscripts, and a collection of selected poems by Michael Benedikt that I’m
editing with Laura Boss, that I worked on during a period of forced
not-writing. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">One
of my manuscripts is similar to the poems I wrote before <i>Your Father on the Train of Ghosts</i>, titled <i>Radio Good Luck</i>. The other
two are different, I think, than anything else I’ve published. The first is titled <i>At Last the Festival Will Pay for Itself</i>, and a little series of
those poems can be found here: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://octopusmagazine.com/Issue15/gallaher.html"><span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">http://octopusmagazine.com/Issue15/gallaher.html</span></a><span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">And
another completed, but untitled, manuscript that I’m calling <i>When We Squinted Our Eyes It Looked Just
Like Morning</i>. A few of those poems
can be found here:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://www.omni-verse.net/poetry-john-gallaher/"><span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">http://www.omni-verse.net/poetry-john-gallaher/</span></a><span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33532264.post-8627364702802852032013-02-03T14:46:00.001-08:002013-02-03T14:48:17.978-08:00Letter Machine Editions!<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/KZ4mb7-LlrI" width="420"></iframe><br />
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<h2>
<span style="font-size: 10px;">Hey, they're half way there! Let's jump in: </span></h2>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCARWRnqAsPGHhz9ueVtCRFINUKy7-N_atObwgROtqwvKaHprYldcj9ta4KsTRePcJWoZz4qn8u_FWLS7ogt6uAtOEBl5O0FWex1qTJhCwogjnyimk8ZjGaztaqQ8HQa-T8s-vwA/s1600/LetterMachine1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCARWRnqAsPGHhz9ueVtCRFINUKy7-N_atObwgROtqwvKaHprYldcj9ta4KsTRePcJWoZz4qn8u_FWLS7ogt6uAtOEBl5O0FWex1qTJhCwogjnyimk8ZjGaztaqQ8HQa-T8s-vwA/s320/LetterMachine1.jpg" width="224" /></a></div>
<h2>
<span style="font-size: 10px;"></span> </h2>
<h2>
<span style="font-size: 10px;"></span> </h2>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33532264.post-41550663753470616142013-01-30T07:07:00.004-08:002013-01-30T07:07:51.413-08:00Mary Reufle: Madness, Rack, and Honey<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmjihkHiJr_ykfiYEO6ClGuOarf2HulIuK0UvU_dvURclRLu3K_2eyj8vrlo9-ggcayyPgi793ekhEPEw33APpY6twOwk5lpRWAaU4UD4Mxjqf9PNKFosvzs_Y6SCgHNuYA1xS9Q/s1600/ModEuroPoetry.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmjihkHiJr_ykfiYEO6ClGuOarf2HulIuK0UvU_dvURclRLu3K_2eyj8vrlo9-ggcayyPgi793ekhEPEw33APpY6twOwk5lpRWAaU4UD4Mxjqf9PNKFosvzs_Y6SCgHNuYA1xS9Q/s320/ModEuroPoetry.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">My copy is <em>my</em> copy. You can't have it.</span></div>
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">Reading
Mary Ruefle’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Madness, Rack, and Honey</i>,
there’s a lot to love.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s the kind of
book that I feel at times is reading my mind, and then at other times I feel is
visiting from outer space.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">So
much so, that when I got to the part where she mentions losing her old copy of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Modern European Poetry</i>, I went to my
bookshelf and briefly contemplated sending her mine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But then I thought, “Why on earth would I
part with this book?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mine’s held
together by tape.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m sure Ruefle would
not only understand, but agree with me keeping it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s been an important book for me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In fact, that’s one fo the things I really
like about <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Madness, Rack, and Honey</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Many of the books she talks about loving are
also books I love.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Except when it gets
to novels.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m not much for novels.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">It’s
a fragmentary text, so that when I go back to it to find a moment I want to
re-read, I end up getting lost.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But that
turns out OK, too, as I get lost in a place of finding helpful things.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I went back to find the passage on <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Modern European Poetry</i>, and couldn’t
find it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Instead, I found other moments
well worth mentioning: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">She
mentions on page 133 a feeling she had one time, a dark night of the soul
moment, that I think all poets need to have at some point: “I felt, for a
while, that I was wasting my life making idle comparisons between things that
could not and need not be compared.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
had a similar moment ten or so years ago, and it reminds me of an interview I
read recently with the poet Timothy Donnelly, where he states: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">“Now
I worry that when I sit down I’m thinking whether what I’m writing is going to
tap into the zeitgeist. I’m fearful that I’ll start censoring myself if
something doesn’t participate in that kind of a conversation. I don’t want to
sit down and write poems that have a secular piety to them, trying to solve the
next big crisis — it seems very artificial to me. So I’m trying to disable
that. I want the next poems I write to be ridiculous, over the top, appalling —
poems that don’t overannounce their moral sensitivity. When you see poetry
contenting itself with small things, that can be frustrating too. A lot of
poetry today seems to me to be just dicking around with voice — being charming
or superficially Ashberyesque.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">It’s
all part of the same economy, how one feels about what one is doing, what one
wants to do, wants NOT to do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
pitfalls of reductive earnestness on the one hand and futile superficiality on
the other.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s not an either-or thing
though, as much as we like to frame it that way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are other options, there always
are.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I think it’s healthy to have
personal conceptions of both these locations, and to worry about falling into
each/either.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Also, though, I think it’s
profitable to risk both of them, both these locations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s important to know yourself, to know
that, as Ruefle says, these moves, these poems might just be “idle comparisons
between things that could not and need not be compared.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And then to risk that, to go to the edge of
comparability, and over the edge, just as it’s important to go to the edge and
over, into announcements of moral sensitivity as well as “just dicking around
with voice.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And then, of course, where
you decide you’ve made bad art, to put it in a drawer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And where you decide others have made bad
art, you turn from them, as Ruefle writes:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">“I
remember the day I stood in front of a great, famous sculpture by a great,
famous sculptor and didn’t like it.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It
was Rodin, and she later felt vindicated by reading an essay by John Berger on
Rodin.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s the first move, but what I
like even more, is Ruefle’s second move, after her thrill of vindicaion:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">“I
remember thinking my feelings implicated me with Rodin and though now I liked
him less than ever, my repulsion was braided with a profound sympathy inseparable
from my feelings for myself.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33532264.post-64592280117791505752013-01-30T05:07:00.003-08:002013-01-30T05:07:47.110-08:00Coldfront's Best ListColdfront had as good a list as anyone, and a better list than most, of books of poetry from 2012. <br />
<br />
Here's the final bit:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://coldfrontmag.com/news/top-40-poetry-books-of-2012-10-1">http://coldfrontmag.com/news/top-40-poetry-books-of-2012-10-1</a><br />
<br />
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33532264.post-24591942282330868462013-01-24T06:48:00.000-08:002013-01-24T06:51:04.721-08:00From The Department of Welcome News: New Poetry Foundation PresidentHow could I not like a guy who name-drops Kenneth Fearing, John Cage, and Rube Goldberg (and with a lot of my favorite poets also getting a shout-out)? I'm seriously impressed. This is most welcome news. Now, what will this mean for The Poetry Foundation, I've no idea, but it seems off to a good re-boot!<br />
<br />
<h1>
Meet the Poetry Foundation’s New President Robert Polito</h1>
<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2013/01/meet-the-poetry-foundations-new-president-robert-polito/">http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2013/01/meet-the-poetry-foundations-new-president-robert-polito/</a><br />
<br />
<div sizcache="5783" sizset="0">
<strong>Poetry Foundation Staff:</strong> <em sizcache="5783" sizset="0">You have been the director of the <a href="http://www.newschool.edu/public-engagement/school-of-writing/" jquery151004175217766667372="157" target="_blank">Writing Program at the New
School</a> for 20 years. What attracted you to this opportunity at the Poetry
Foundation?</em></div>
<br />
<div sizcache="9" sizset="181">
<strong>Robert Polito:</strong> The New School and
the Poetry Foundation, notably through the history of <em>Poetry</em> magazine,
are both institutions with distinguished, even glorious pasts that are always in
need of reinvention by each new generation. If you had come to the New School to
study poetry in the 1960s, you could have taken workshops or seminars with <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/robert-lowell">Robert Lowell</a>, <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/frank-ohara">Frank O’Hara</a>, and <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/kenneth-koch">Kenneth Koch</a>, and
the legacy of <em>Poetry</em> originates in Modernism—Harriet Monroe, <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/ezra-pound">Ezra Pound</a>, <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/t-s-eliot">T.S. Eliot</a>, <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/h-d">H.D.</a>, and <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/marianne-moore">Marianne Moore</a>, on
down to us a century later. One way of moving forward sometimes is to try to tap
back into the innovative spirit of a place, not out of nostalgia, but for
rejuvenation. Also, poetry—and what I’ve learned through reading and writing
it—is at the center of everything I do. This is true of my nonfiction as well as
my teaching.</div>
<br />
<strong>PF:</strong> <em>How has working in academia prepared you for being
president of the Foundation?</em><br />
<br />
<div sizcache="9" sizset="188">
<strong>RP:</strong> For all their popularity,
writing programs still operate at the margins of academia, but they advance
vital skills that elsewhere are increasingly elusive in universities and the
culture at large, skills involving a close attention to language as a writer and
a reader. That accent on close reading and the importance of an intensive focus
on language for politics, media, and the Internet should be part of our national
discussion about what’s customarily tagged “the value of poetry.” You turn on
your computer, and what do you immediately encounter? Fragmentation, collage,
and unreliable narrators—that’s Modernism, but it is also the grain of daily
life for nearly everyone alive today. You might even say that the Modernist
poets and novelists—<a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/james-joyce">James Joyce</a>, <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/gertrude-stein">Gertrude Stein</a>,
Eliot, and Pound—invented, or certainly at least anticipated, the Internet.</div>
<br />
<strong>PF:</strong> <em>You were born in Boston, live in New York City, and
have taught at Harvard, Wellesley, and NYU. What are you looking forward to in
Chicago? </em><br />
<br />
<div sizcache="24" sizset="155">
<strong>RP:</strong> I love the Poetry
Foundation’s new building, and I’m eager to explore the holdings of the library.
Chicago is a grand poetry city, and there are lots of wonderful book and record
stores—the <a href="http://www.semcoop.com/" jquery151004175217766667372="158" target="_blank">Seminary Coop</a> and <a href="http://www.dustygroove.com/" jquery151004175217766667372="159" target="_blank">Dusty Groove</a> are already favorites. My
wife, Kristine Harris, is a scholar of Chinese film, and in 2007 and 2009, she
was a visiting professor at the University of Chicago, so we already have good
friends here. I am also eager to expand the collaborations of the Poetry
Foundation with other Chicago artists and arts organizations in music, film,
theater, and dance. The University of Chicago Press is also my publisher for
poetry. </div>
<br />
<div sizcache="24" sizset="157">
<strong>PF:</strong> <em sizcache="24" sizset="157">Your 1996 biography of the crime novelist <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Thompson_(writer)" jquery151004175217766667372="160" target="_blank">Jim Thompson</a>,</em> Savage Art<em>, won a
National Book Critics Circle Award. Tell us about your interest in
noir.</em></div>
<br />
<div sizcache="24" sizset="158">
<strong>RP:</strong> I came to noir through <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/samuel-beckett">Samuel Beckett</a>:
all those beautiful sentences telling you the most terrible things. Noir—film
noir as well as the fiction—is a crucial element of the American experimental
tradition. Think of the self-consuming novelistic structures in Thompson, or
those little repeated bits in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Goodis" jquery151004175217766667372="161" target="_blank">David Goodis</a> that intimate the bars of the
psychic prison his characters live inside. Apart from Goodis, who else ever
wrote that way, except maybe Gertrude Stein in <em>The Making of Americans</em>?
Noir is also a crucial aspect of the political and social literary tradition of
the “secret history”—in America from Dashiell Hammett and Chester Himes through
James Ellroy and Walter Mosley, but also European writers like Jean-Patrick
Manchette and Henning Mankell.</div>
<br />
<div sizcache="9" sizset="195">
<strong>PF:</strong> <em sizcache="9" sizset="195"><a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/frank-bidart">Frank
Bidart</a> said of the poems in your last collection,</em> Hollywood &
God<em>, “the obsession with celebrity and the yearning toward God constantly
threaten to turn into each other.” What role does pop culture play in your work?
What role does religion?</em></div>
<br />
<div sizcache="9" sizset="196">
<strong>RP:</strong> For <em>Hollywood &
God</em>, I wanted to track some of the ways a search for transcendence coming
out of the New England of the 18th and 19th centuries bumps up against
contemporary media and celebrity culture. “The spectacle,” Guy Debord once said,
“is the material reconstruction of the religious illusion.” So the poems include
collaged fragments from Cotton Mather, early execution sermons, last-speech
broadsides, and the Baltimore Catechism alongside B-movie actors, Paris Hilton,
as-told-to bios, and Elvis impersonators. As far back as <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/hart-crane">Hart Crane</a> and <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/kenneth-fearing">Kenneth Fearing</a>,
film is incredibly important to 20th-century American poetry, for both material
and montage. For me, and many other poets of my generation, popular music
provided the education in sensibility that high culture offered to previous
writers. Early on, the Kinks, for instance, taught me so much about tone, style,
diction, double-mindedness, and the resources of multiple traditions. For a
graduate school Latin final examination question that asked us to map the
different kinds of irony in the Satyricon, I remember thinking about the ironic
range of Kinks songs and then tipped in passages from <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/gaius-petronius">Petronius</a>. </div>
<br />
<div sizcache="9" sizset="199">
<strong>PF:</strong> <em sizcache="9" sizset="199">In 2006, you wrote an essay for the Poetry Foundation website about
<a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/article/178703">Bob Dylan’s creative
“sampling”</a> of an obscure Civil War poet. You are something of a Dylan
scholar. What’s your favorite song, and why does he continue to be so
fascinating to so many?</em></div>
<br />
<strong>RP:</strong> There are so many. Right now I’m still exploring
<em>Tempest</em>, his latest from this past September, and discovering fresh
wrinkles as I listen—“Scarlet Town” and “Long and Wasted Years,” especially. But
one favorite song? Maybe “Not Dark Yet” off the album <em>Time Out of Mind</em>
from 1997. To mention Beckett again, it’s the kind of song he might have written
if he played country music. Dylan is the best songwriter in part because of the
many different kinds of songs he writes across the vast traditions of American
music. He’s also a master of self-reinvention, and how you keep your art alive
over the decades. Plus, he’s an amazing singer with just devastating
phrasing.<br />
<br />
<strong>PF:</strong> <em>Speaking of continued relevance, what place do you
think poetry holds in American culture in 2013?</em> <br />
<br />
<div sizcache="9" sizset="200">
<strong>RP:</strong> I was excited to hear <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/richard-blanco">Richard Blanco</a> at
the inauguration Monday. This is a fascinating moment for us, as over the past
few decades the poetry world in America has smartly recreated itself around
clusters of vibrant local cultures, each with its own magazines, presses,
websites, blogs, and reading series, almost along an old indie rock model. At
the annual AWP conference the most rousing feature is the book and magazine
hall. Recently, I’ve been absorbed by the new—or newish—books of <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/brenda-shaughnessy">Brenda
Shaughnessy</a>, <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/catherine-barnett">Catherine
Barnett</a>, <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/tom-sleigh">Tom
Sleigh</a>, <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/da-powell">D.A.
Powell</a>, <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/tracy-k-smith">Tracy K.
Smith</a>, Sally Keith, <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/kevin-prufer">Kevin Prufer</a>, <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/terrance-hayes">Terrance Hayes</a>, <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/c-d-wright">C. D. Wright</a>, <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/thomas-sayers-ellis">Thomas Sayers
Ellis</a>, Mark Ford, Deborah Landau, <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/timothy-donnelly">Timothy
Donnelly</a>, <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/major-jackson">Major
Jackson</a>, <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/jorie-graham">Jorie
Graham</a>, <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/don-paterson">Don
Paterson</a>, <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/tom-healy">Tom
Healy</a>, <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/nikky-finney">Nikky
Finney</a>, <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/susan-wheeler">Susan
Wheeler</a>, Christian Wiman, <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/cathy-park-hong">Cathy Park Hong</a>,
<a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/gail-mazur">Gail Mazur</a>, <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/mark-bibbins">Mark Bibbins</a>, <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/alan-shapiro">Alan Shapiro</a>, <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/ange-mlinko">Ange Mlinko</a>, Geoffrey
G. O’Brien, Dana Goodyear, <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/matthea-harvey">Matthea Harvey</a>, <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/robin-robertson">Robin Robertson</a>,
<a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/craig-morgan-teicher">Craig
Teicher</a>, <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/john-yau">John
Yau</a>, <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/kevin-young">Kevin
Young</a>, <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/brenda-hillman">Brenda
Hillman</a>, <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/rae-armantrout">Rae
Armantrout</a>, <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/honor-moore">Honor
Moore</a>, <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/eduardo-c-corral">Eduardo C.
Corral</a>, Juliana Spahr, <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/peter-gizzi">Peter Gizzi</a>, <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/natasha-trethewey">Natasha
Trethewey</a>, Laura Cronk, <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/matthew-rohrer">Matthew Rohrer</a>,
Alan Michael Parker, and <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/ariana-reines">Ariana Reines</a>. So
many superb new books, and those are just the ones that have come my way. As I
say, this is a fascinating moment. </div>
<br />
<strong>PF:</strong> <em>Who are some of your favorite poets, and who do you
wish would write another collection?</em><br />
<br />
<div sizcache="9" sizset="235">
<strong>RP:</strong> <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/andrew-marvell">Andrew Marvell</a> is
probably my favorite poet, still shadowy and troubling no matter how often I
reread him. Also, <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/lord-byron">Byron</a>, <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/samuel-taylor-coleridge">Samuel
Coleridge</a>, <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/emily-dickinson">Emily Dickinson</a>,
<a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/william-butler-yeats">W. B.
Yeats</a>, Marianne Moore, <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/wallace-stevens">Wallace Stevens</a>,
<a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/lorine-niedecker">Lorine
Niedecker</a>, <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/william-carlos-williams">William
Carlos Williams</a>, Kenneth Fearing, <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/elizabeth-bishop">Elizabeth
Bishop</a>, <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/gwendolyn-brooks">Gwendolyn
Brooks</a>, <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/thom-gunn">Thom
Gunn</a>, <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/james-merrill">James
Merrill</a>, <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/john-ashbery">John
Ashbery</a>, Frank Bidart, <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/ron-silliman">Ron Silliman</a>, <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/ai">Ai</a>, <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/louise-gluck">Louise Glück</a>, <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/james-tate">James Tate</a>, <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/robert-pinsky">Robert Pinsky</a>, <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/nathaniel-mackey">Nathaniel
Mackey</a>, <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/anne-carson">Anne
Carson</a>, <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/charles-bernstein">Charles
Bernstein</a>, and <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/robert-hass">Robert Hass</a>. I’m
looking forward to the next books of Lloyd Schwartz, <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/lawrence-joseph">Lawrence Joseph</a>,
<a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/lucie-brock-broido">Lucie
Brock-Broido</a>, <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/joshua-clover">Joshua Clover</a>, <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/claudia-rankine">Claudia Rankine</a>,
<a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/stephen-burt">Stephen Burt</a>, and
Gabrielle Calvocoressi, and the debut collections of <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/adam-fitzgerald">Adam Fitzgerald</a>
and Alex Dimitrov.</div>
<br />
<strong>PF:</strong> <em>What are you working on now?</em><br />
<br />
<strong>RP:</strong> I’m working on a sequence of poems rooted in Plutarch’s
essays, and another nonfiction book, <em>Detours: Seven Noir Lives</em>.
Eventually also a Dylan book. <br />
<br />
<strong>PF:</strong> <em>Anything else you’d like to tell us about
yourself?</em><br />
<br />
<strong>RP:</strong> Is this where I get to obsess about my little
collections? I collect tintypes of people reading, holding books, or posing with
books, mostly from the turn of the last century. Similarly, and as ambient
research, I have a small shelf of the high school or college yearbooks of some
people who interest me—Dylan, Bishop, Merrill, Ashbery, Andy Warhol, O’Hara,
William Burroughs, Goodis, John Cage, and Rube Goldberg. <br />
<!-- You can start editing here. --><br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33532264.post-54298849260021791532013-01-22T10:06:00.004-08:002013-01-22T10:06:55.862-08:00What Do Newspaper people Think of Poetry?Not very much or well, it turns out:<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Is poetry dead?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">By Alexandra Petri , Updated: January 22, 2013<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/compost/wp/2013/01/22/is-poetry-dead/">http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/compost/wp/2013/01/22/is-poetry-dead/</a><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Inaugural poet Richard Blanco said that his story is
America’s story.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">If that’s the case, America should be slightly concerned.
Mr. Blanco is a walking example of the American dream — as he eloquently puts
it, “the American story is in many ways my story — a country still trying to
negotiate its own identity, caught between the paradise of its founding ideals
and the realities of its history, trying to figure it out, trying to ‘become’
even today — the word “hope” as fresh on our tongues as it ever was.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">He has overcome numerous obstacles, struggled against
opposition both internal and external — in order to excel in poetry, a field
that may very well be obsolete.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I say this lovingly as a member of the print media. If
poetry is dead, we are in the next ward over, wheezing noisily, with our family
gathered around looking concerned and asking about our stereos.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Still I think there is a question to be asked. You can tell
that a medium is still vital by posing the question: Can it change anything?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Can a poem still change anything?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I think the medium might not be loud enough any longer.
There are about six people who buy new poetry, but they are not feeling very
well. I bumped very lightly into one of them while walking down the sidewalk,
and for a while I was terrified that I would have to write to eleven MFA
programs explaining why everyone was going to have to apply for grants that
year. The last time I stumbled upon a poetry reading, the attendees were almost
without exception students of the poet who were there in the hopes of extra
credit. One of the poems, if memory serves, consisted of a list of names of
Supreme Court justices. I am not saying that it was a bad poem. It was a good
poem, within the constraints of what poetry means now. But I think what we mean
by poetry is a limp and fangless thing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Poetry has gone from being something that you did in order
to Write Your Name Large Across the Sky and sound your barbaric yawp and
generally Shake Things Up to a very carefully gated medium that requires years
of study and apprenticeship in order to produce meticulous, perfect, golden
lines that up to ten people will ever voluntarily read.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Or is this too harsh?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">We know, we think, from high school, the sort of thing a
poem is. It is generally in free verse, although it could be a sonnet, if it
wanted. It describes something very carefully, or it makes a sound we did not
expect, and it has deep layers that we need to analyze. We analyze it. We
analyze the heck out of it. How quaint, we think, that people express
themselves in this way. Then we put it back in the drawer and go about our
lives.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The kind of poetry they read to you at poetry readings and
ladle in your direction at the Inaugural is — well, it’s all very nice, and
sounds a lot like a Poem, but — it has changed nothing. No truly radical art
form has such a well-established grant process.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I understand that this is the point when someone stands up
on a chair and starts to explain that poetry is the strainer through which we
glimpse ourselves and hear the true story of our era. But is it? You do not get
the news from poems, as William Carlos Williams said. Full stop. You barely get
the news from the news.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">All the prestige of poetry dates back to when it was the way
you got the most vital news there is — your people’s stories. “The Iliad.” “The
Odyssey.” “Gilgamesh.” All literature used to be poetry. But then fiction
splintered off. Then the sort of tale you sung could be recorded and the words
did not have to spend any time outside the company of their music if they did
not want to. We have movies now that are capable of presenting images to us
with a precision that would have made Ezra Pound keel over. All the things that
poetry used to do, other things do much better. But naturally we still have
government-subsidized poets. Poets are like the Postal Service — a group of
people sedulously doing something that we no longer need, under the
misapprehension that they are offering us a vital service.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Poetry is dead,” playwright Gwydion Suleibhan tweeted
Monday. “What pretends to be poetry now is either New Age blather or vague
nonsense or gibberish. It’s zombie poetry.” There is no longer, really, any
formal innovation possible. The constraints of meter have long been abandoned.
What is left? It is a parroting of something that used to be radical. It is
about as useful as the clavichord. There is no “Howl” possible or “Song of
Myself.” There is no “Wasteland.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">As someone who loves print books, I hate to type this and I
hope that I am wrong. I want to hear the case for poetry. It is something that
you read in school and that you write in school. But it used to be that if you
were young and you wanted to Change Things with your Words, you darted off and
wrote poetry somewhere. You got together with friends at cafes and you wrote
verses and talked revolution. Now that is the last thing you do.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">These days, poetry is institutionalized. Everyone can write
it. But if you want a lot of people to read it, or at least the Right
Interested Persons, there are a few choked channels of Reputable Publications.
Or you can just spray it liberally onto the Internet and hope it sticks.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Or am I being too harsh?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Something similar could be said of journalism, after all.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">And whenever people say this about journalism, they note
that people have an insatiable hunger for news. Journalism in its present form
may not continue, but journalism will. It will have to. Otherwise where will
the news come from?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">And this might be the silver lining for poets. The kind of
news you get from poems, as William Carlos Williams has it, must come from
somewhere. And there is a similar hunger for poetry that persists. We get it in
diluted doses in song lyrics. Song lyrics are incomplete poems, as Sondheim
notes in the book of his own. If it is complete on the page, it makes a shoddy
lyric. But there is still wonderful music to be found in those words. We get it
in rap. If we really want to read it, it is everywhere. Poetry, taken back to
its roots, is just the process of making — and making you listen.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">But after the inaugural, after Richard Blanco’s almost
seventy lines of self-reflection and the use of phrases like “plum blush” —
which sounded like exactly what the phrase “poem” denotes to us now — I wonder
what will become of it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I don’t know where the words that will define us next will
come from. But from Poetry Qua Poetry With Grants And Titles? Hope may be as
fresh on our tongues as it ever was. But is poetry?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">© The Washington Post Company<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33532264.post-46383323407056096992013-01-22T05:07:00.003-08:002013-01-22T05:07:50.262-08:00Unforseen Benefits #1<span class="userContent"><span style="font-size: large;">An unforeseen benefit of being a minor poet in a small town in rural Missouri, is that I’ll never have to write an inaugural poem.</span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33532264.post-73141339575940259832013-01-15T08:35:00.001-08:002013-01-15T08:35:05.127-08:00NBF Announces Changes in the National Book Awards Review and Selection Process - National Book Awards, The National Book Foundation<a href="http://www.nationalbook.org/2013_01_15_nba_changes.html?utm_source=January+2013+eNewsletter+FINAL&utm_campaign=January+2013+eNews&utm_medium=email#.UPWEfX6Gt5V.blogger">NBF Announces Changes in the National Book Awards Review and Selection Process - National Book Awards, The National Book Foundation</a><br />
<br />
Two big changes:<br />
<br />
1. One change in the process will increase the number of honored books by selecting a “Long-List” of ten titles in each of the four genres, to be announced five weeks before the Finalists Announcement. In 2013, the Long-Lists will be announced on September 12th (forty titles), the Finalists on October 15th (twenty titles) and the National Book Award Winners on November 20th (four titles.)<br />
<br />
2. Judges comprising the four panels—Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, and Young People’s Literature—will no longer be limited to writers, but now may also include other experts in the field including literary critics, librarians, and booksellers. The number of judges in each panel will remain at five. <br />
<br />
I think I like these changes. Number one, certainly, is good. Number two, I'm thinking could be good, or could be very much not good, depending on how "they" go about selecting the panel. But of course, that's always been the case. <br />
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33532264.post-73177917209118223092013-01-15T08:17:00.003-08:002013-01-15T08:17:37.577-08:00Question 4 (Because why not keep going?)
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">This is another question that seems to circle the obsessions of
1973.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Is there any interest in it in
2013?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Answer if you’d like.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s far away in the distance, waving to
you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(See how it still feels the weight
of Pound?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Can we save it?)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(And also the idea of “the experience of the
text” that it’s either avoiding or unaware of.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Q: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I wonder how much
you believe a direct representation of experience is possible in poetry, apart
from interpretation or comprehension or distillation of the materials of the
experience.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33532264.post-71805798257214731462013-01-14T08:12:00.003-08:002013-01-14T08:12:38.490-08:00Will the Circle be UnbrokenHere's the circle:<br />
<br />
<br />
David Ferry. Bewilderment: New Poems and Translations. University of Chicago Press<br />Lucia Perillo. On the Spectrum of Possible Deaths. Copper Canyon Press<br />Allan Peterson. Fragile Acts. McSweeney’s Books<br />D. A. Powell. Useless Landscape, or A Guide for Boys. Graywolf Press<br />A. E. Stallings. Olives. Triquarterly: Northwestern University Press<br />
<br />
<br />
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0