Carl Phillips, "Civilization"

Carl Phillips, "Civilization"

As the weeks blend into months and my time with a view onto a succession of gingerbread-like houses fades, a poem called "Civilization" by Carl Phillips has grabbed my attention. The idea of civilization is interesting to me because it is concerned with, at the most basic level, human development, and running into buildings constantly out-dating the founding of the U.S., I find myself in a kind of wonder at how we've made it from cave to hut to...gingerbread-like houses over time. And in Phillips's poem, its development is what I find most interesting.

Beginning with the phrase, "there's an art to everything," and allowing this phrase to bind the poem's multiple subjects, at first outside of the speaker but changing to the speaker him or herself before ending again at a distance, the progression from introduction to conclusion left me asking How far have I traveled in this poem? Rereading reveals that the reader moves a very large distance, from a thought about what the month of April means to a relationship to...not gingerbread-like houses, but a reflection on romantic relationship, which is close enough.

The poem is below, but follow this link in order to view it with its proper formatting.

There's an art
to everything. How
the rain means
April and an ongoingness like
that of song until at last

it ends. A centuries-old
set of silver handbells that
once an altar boy swung,
processing...You're the same
wilderness you've always

been, slashing through briars,
the bracken
of your invasive
self. So he said,
in a dream. But

the rest of it—all the rest—
was waking: more often
than not, to the next
extravagance. Two blackamoor
statues, each mirroring

the other, each hoisting
forever upward his burden of
hand-painted, carved-by-hand
peacock feathers. Don't
you know it, don't you know

I love you, he said. He was
shaking. He said:
I love you. There's an art
to everything. What I've
done with this life,

what I'd meant not to do,
or would have meant, maybe, had I
understood, though I have
no regrets. Not the broken but
still-flowering dogwood. Not

the honey locust, either. Not even
the ghost walnut with its
non-branches whose
every shadow is memory,
memory...As he said to me

once, That's all garbage
down the river, now. Turning,
but as the utterly lost—
because addicted—do:
resigned all over again. It

only looked, it—
It must only look
like leaving. There's an art
to everything. Even
turning away. How

eventually even hunger
can become a space
to live in. How they made
out of shamelessness something
beautiful, for as long as they could.

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Counting Occurrences, Armantrout's "Exact"

Counting Occurrences, Armantrout's "Exact"

Rae Armantrout's poem "Exact" begins with a specific call to the reader: "Quick, before you die, / describe // the exact shade / of this hotel carpet." In these opening lines, the intrigue Armantrout creates through immediacy and the mention of death propels the reader through the poem, albeit with a warning of irony given by the focus on carpet. In addition, the form–line breaks and line length specifically–work perfectly with this tone; form matching tone, a degree more focused than just content, is an advantage and aid missing in many poems, mine included, that when carefully observed moves the poem a step closer to creating the desired impact: what Emily Dickinson described as feeling as if the top of her head "were taken off" after reading.

Here is the poem in full, though with slightly changed formatting because of Blogger so I encourage you to click HERE for the poem on poets.org. I was mostly interested in how this poem pulls the reader through it based on some of what is mentioned above, but there are many things that could be said about this poem. Maybe I will extend this post later, but until then, let's do the important thing and enjoy a poem.

Exact

Quick, before you die,
describe

the exact shade
of this hotel carpet.

What is the meaning
of the irregular, yellow

spheres, some
hollow,

gathered in patches
on this bedspread?

If you love me,
worship

the objects
I have caused

to represent me
in my absence.


*

Over and over
tiers

of houses spill
pleasantly

down that hillside.
It

might be possible
to count occurrences.


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Matthew Zapruder, Wisconsin

Matthew Zapruder, Wisconsin

As protection for public employees disintegrates into, well, nothing in many states, a poem by Matthew Zapruder attempts to comment on the state with the heaviest media attention surrounding this issue: Wisconsin.

The poem, posted below, hinges on this admission: "who are we who see / so much evil and try / to stop it and fail..." If poetry reflects the culture of the time, this poem works as a bridge between passivity and activity for a large group of American citizens. In Wisconsin, as well as many other states, the dormant political resolve has been awakened in many people who have begun to take an interest in who holds political power.

Matthew Zapruder's poem is not a call to action, but it is a reflection on current sentiment handled well. The poem ends with "..something / happened people / turned their beautiful / sparkling angry faces up." These are the final lines of the poem, and the "sparkling angry faces" continue outside of it, even if those faces have the real possibility of becoming placid again after a certain amount of time passes...

Poem for Wisconsin


In Milwaukee it is snowing

on the golden statue

of the 1970s television star

whose television house

was in Milwaukee

and also on the Comet Cafe

and on the white museum

the famous Spanish architect

built with a glass

elevator through it

and a room with a button

that when you press it

makes two wings

on the sides of the building

more quickly than you might

imagine mechanically

rise like a clumsy

thoughtful bird

thinking now

I am at last ready

over the lake

that has many moods

to fly but it will not

and people ask

who are we who see

so much evil and try

to stop it and fail

and know we are no longer

for no reason worrying

the terrible governors

are evil or maybe

just mistaken and nothing

can stop them not even

the workers who keep

working even when

it snows on their heads

and on the bridge

that keeps our cars

above the water

for an hour

in northern California

today it snowed

and something

happened people

turned their beautiful

sparkling angry faces up


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Hiatus Ending Spring Poem

Hiatus Ending Spring Poem

After three weeks away, it is time to add a new post. Vacation ended last week, and it was a nice two weeks off. Classes went well this first week back, but the planning has kept me away from Blogger. Expect some longer posts within two days, and until then, enjoy this Cummings poem that will, unfortunately, not keep its original form so please click here to see it in full. More info on Cummings and links to other poems can be found here.

[in Just-]

in Just-

spring when the world is mud-

luscious the little

lame balloonman

whistles far and wee

and eddieandbill come

running from marbles and

piracies and it's

spring

when the world is puddle-wonderful

the queer

old balloonman whistles

far and wee

and bettyandisbel come dancing

from hop-scotch and jump-rope and

it's

spring

and

the

goat-footed

balloonMan whistles

far

and

wee

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Express Press

Express Press

Amiri Baraka is an interesting person. Interesting people will write interesting things from time to time, and an essay by Baraka has found its way onto my computer screen. "Expressive Language (1963)" was first published in the magazine Kulchur and later in his book Home: Social Essays (1966). In this essay, Baraka claims that all cultures are profound simply by the fact of being cultures, that speech displays culture directly, and that culture is the end point for speech and is what makes it expressive: "Words’ meanings, but also the rhythm and syntax that frame and propel their concatenation, seek their culture as the final reference for what they are describing of the world."

The essay is not long, but the first several paragraphs had to be reread two or three times before I felt comfortable moving on. Words like "hegemony" and references to Pascal and Wittgenstein should be expected, but reading "Expressive Language" will reinforce notions about the strength of culture in our reading today and is insightful.

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Psalm of Home Redux

Psalm of Home Redux

The poem "Psalm of Home Redux" is posted below for your random poem reading pleasure, but before scrolling down, let me give you a warning: you will like it, eventually.

The poem is enjoyable because of David Lee's composition. Broken into three, six-line stanzas, it develops three imperatives that are heightened by aggressive lines like "and race the moon like wild horses / to their death in the darkness" that push the reader toward the stanza's end. Of course, moons and horses aren't necessarily new poetic material (no Stephen Hawking), but when I read those two lines they do not feel cliché. Maybe because of the "death in the darkness?" This was something that bothered me at first, but now that I've looked at the poem a few times, I want to share it:

Psalm of Home Redux

after rereading Cormac McCarthy and taking
a 5 mile run through the River Ranch


Laughter is also a form of prayer

—Kierkegaard

Okay then, right here,
Lord, in Bandera,
tether me to my shadow
like a fat spavined mule
stuck sideways in Texas tank mud
bawling for eternity

At midnight's closing whine
of the 11th Street Bar's steel guitar,
when the stars slip their traces
and race the moon like wild horses
to their death in the darkness,
let my hoarse song twine with the night wind

May the bray of today's good laughter
fall like a brittle top branch
wind nudged from a sprawling live oak
straight down like early spring sleet
to the hill country's bent
and trembling bluebonnet covered knees

- David Lee

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Journal Spotlight

Journal Spotlight

The journal Blackbird is produced with help from Virginia Commonwealth University. It is an online journal with very little tolerance for website dazzle. On its about page, we learn, "We have kept Blackbird structurally simple in order to emphasize the quality of its content and to make reading, viewing, and listening to it as effortless—technologically speaking—as possible." In a land of html hijinks, this journal is refreshing. It tells you the optimal screen resolution to view Blackbird, and on all content pages they provide an optimized version for printing.

What Blackbird loses in attractiveness it makes up for in content. An interesting poem using Stephen Hawking as a poetic subject by Stefi Weisburd is below, but in the current issue there are many poems that work well and I encourage you to discover what they have to offer.

Hawking in Zero-G

On April 26, 2007, astrophysicist Stephen Hawking
experienced microgravity aboard a modified Boeing 727.

At the peak of the arc, you sail
in the weightless freight of your body
stiff arms crossed like a mummy.

The 727’s apogee
disables gravity, and
your face goes nova-bright.

Laid down again for the dive,
still grinning as the plane careens
through eight full swoops and

swoons. Joy as loud as terror.
Someone lets loose a Red Delicious,
and Newton’s apple crests, the praxis

of ballistic art. Forget the errors
spooled down the helix. Forget
the withering that hobbled

limbs and chest, bobble head,
atrophy, slumped in the claw
of a wheelchair on stage, your canned

voice calling to the universe.
In zero-g, the heart
is as round as an orb. Space

here I come, stocked
with star clusters like relief
ganglia to repair your shorted

lines. On the plane,
the preagreed signal was
a grimace for stop

or your eyebrows raised
for keep going & you never
put them down.


Granted, the ending approaches sentimentality, but I feel the poem avoids it. Thoughts?

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Didacticism's Poetic Drag

Didacticism's Poetic Drag

Today a poem came into my inbox that raised a question: can poetry cause an individual to act? But that question is too broad, and it's kind of lame. So then, a better question is, can didactic poetry with a moralistic slant cause an individual to act in the way the poem wants the person to act? My answer is no, mostly because a poem is a piece of art, is artifice, and we mainly read for enjoyment, even when pursuing academic aims. To demonstrate a poem that tries to move us, here is one example:

The Truth About the Present

after Bei Dao

when rivers are intoxicated
with dioxide you gather lotus shoots
to pick their pockets is
the clock of the age

when the last songbird
shivers with undue cold like wires overhead
to handle harsh metals is
the clock of the age

when your keyboard dissolves
in the pit of nations
to write in echoes is
the clock of the age

when you forge transparencies
in the foundries upstream
the bridges are blocked by karaoke
their digital sand is
the clock of the age

the cell phone's face is always
time-dependent on fingers somewhere
today opens to the nearby delta
and tomorrow
is the clock of the age

Do you feel like doing anything...other than turning the page? John Lane's poem attempts to criticize consumer culture, create guilt because of that culture, and show what to do–avoid certain products–by revealing their harmful afterlife, while at the same time subverting the poem's rhetoric through awkward syntax, repetition of an abstract phrase "clock of the age," and the conjuring of Bei Dao, writer and activist. I mean, I get it, the bad things, but I want to tell my friends to be sure to recycle their electronics by pointing them HERE instead of this poem.

For poetry with moralistic goals to work it must be entertaining–it should want to be read again and again. When writing poems that feel accusatory this becomes difficult because the reader is resistant; for the poem to work it must invite the reader to join in on the bad-bashing. I don't feel invited into this poem but cast out, as if I need to write the poet a letter and assure them that I'm not the "you" who doesn't recycle or understand where the precious metals came from to build my motherboard.

I have yet to read a poem that inspires me to do some "good," though I have read investigative journalism that has. I've read poems that made me think, "Wow, that poem was awesome," like this one, but that's where poetry's force stops for me. I want to believe it can change the minds of millions and inspire a wave of do-gooders to combat Bush's evil-doers and all other "bad" things, but I just don't see it. I want to be entertained when I read, not scolded, but maybe I just haven't found the right activist-poetics to light my fire?

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Poet Highlight

Poet Highlight

At the American Library there is an adequate selection of poetry. A book series they have invested in is called the American Poets Project from the Library of America. If you are tired of the word America right now, you aren't 'Merican.

While looking through the titles, a name that seemed vaguely familiar caught my attention: Amy Lowell. Who was she? What did she write? Am I just thinking of Robert Lowell? After leafing through the introduction, reading, "Anyone with more than a passing knowledge of American poetry has heard of Amy Lowell..." by Honor Moore, I felt judged enough to borrow it.

Amy Lowell (1874-1925) is connected to the Imagist movement that was led by Ezra Pound. Though she and Pound had a love/hate relationship (Pound wasn't really a nice guy, so this type of relationship wasn't unusual), she identified herself as an Imagist and propounded its values in the U.S.

Her first book was published in 1912, and Lowell would go on to publish several books of poems, anthologies, and critical studies until her death. In her poems, she "pioneered the use of 'polyphonic prose' in English, mixing formal verse and free forms" (poets.org). Her work is characterized for its clarity, but it is also noted for its "bald audacity" and "eroticism" (Moore in Amy Lowell selected poems, American Poets Project). Amy Lowell was outspoken, forceful, kind, and a known lesbian in a time when silence was golden.

For links to some examples of her poetry, you can click here, here, or here. From what I've read so far, I am a bit wishy-washy, meaning I understand the rationale for those interested in her, but I don't find her in my top ten favorite poets. The first poem in this list of the three would be my favorite if I had to choose one to click.

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Journal Fest

Journal Fest

I was not able to go to the AWP conference this year, which is too bad. Not too bad because it's great to be surrounded by writers trying not to look too much like writers (or are trying really hard to look like them), or because I couldn't go to the off-site readings that I'm sure were mostly a great time. And it's not too bad I missed out on listening to an interesting lecture or missed wandering into a talk that was starting to get heated. No, it's too bad I missed out on all of the free journals and awesome books to tempt the plastic in my wallet.

However, with all of those journals passed around at AWP like coupons for discounted car washes, I wonder how many of them will be around ten years from now? Which ones will make their mark on the literary community? What editors will become respected for finding the next great so-and-so? Which one seems worth buying a subscription?

For the question concerning which print journals might be around ten years from now, a new study shows that if a journal has survived its first three years or has an affiliation with a university, the chances of sticking around for another seven plus are pretty good.

Of course, the print periodical industry as a whole has been licking its wounds for awhile, especially with the increasing quality of and demand for online journals. At 41% of literary journals still being published today from an initial 1980 launch, though it's nothing to go crazy about, literary journals and popular magazines (43%) are almost on par (source)

So, if you are fresh from AWP with an extra duffel bag of journals, take a few minutes and see who supports them and how long they have been printing. If there is no college affiliation, the journal is in its first three years, and you like what the editors have done, this is where your subscription dollars should go. Also, if you have been pounded by snow and ice and have driven through all of the salt-soaked roads, get your car washed.

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Cream City

Cream City

The Cream City Review is a nonprofit journal produced with help from, among other places, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. I first became aware of this journal after seeing Haines Eason leave a short note about some of his poems that will be published there (side note, Haines won the PSA chapbook contest last year and his poems, well, are often very good).

I've written about journals from time to time here, and I think The Cream City Review needs to be highlighted for a few things that it does well / could do better. First, they have been publishing poets and writers since 1975 and today have a large staff that is kept busy with numerous submissions. Second, they have an annual literary prize for fiction, poetry, and nonfiction (side note, Haines won this year's poetry prize). Third, the journal is large and diverse, putting out over 200 pages of material twice a year, and as of 2008 eight, CCR even includes comics.

On the down-side, however, navigating their website to find past material and not just lists of past contributors is difficult. I often find reading an issue from a year ago or two years ago, though not an exact gauge of the editors' tastes because staff change occasionally, at least something to help me decide whether I want to submit my own work, buy a subscription, or recommend the journal to someone I think would like it. CCR is a print journal, so it's no surprise that their focus is on producing a solid print issue. On the other hand, I found and would most likely only have found CCR online.

So, if you are interested in reading more about Cream City Review, follow the links.

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Pale Ravener of Horrible Meat

Pale Ravener of Horrible Meat

The Maldives is an island nation in the Indian Ocean connected by dozens of atolls, which are little ring-shaped islands. It is an area known for its sharks (over 25 types), and sharks are awesome, though I'm not sure exactly which one Herman Melville describes in this short poem, "The Maldive Shark," so maybe someone can help me:

About the Shark, phlegmatical one,
Pale sot of the Maldive sea,
The sleek little pilot-fish, azure and slim,
How alert in attendance be.
From his saw-pit of mouth, from his charnel of maw
They have nothing of harm to dread,
But liquidly glide on his ghastly flank
Or before his Gorgonian head;
Or lurk in the port of serrated teeth
In white triple tiers of glittering gates,
And there find a haven when peril’s abroad,
An asylum in jaws of the Fates!
They are friends; and friendly they guide him to prey,
Yet never partake of the treat—
Eyes and brains to the dotard lethargic and dull,
Pale ravener of horrible meat.

A few things about this poem draw me in. First, the word "phlegmatical" in the first line that, if not looked up, can be guessed at accurately using clues about the shark in the poem. A problem, sometimes, with words that come into poems and are not in the common vernacular is that they can seem a little pretentious, like the poet is talking down to you. In Melville's poem, published in the late 1800s, "phlegmatical" doesn't come off as pretentious but as a perfect fit: it makes the reader pay attention immediately, looks interesting, sounds interesting, and its definition fits (having an unemotional...disposition).

The most interesting aspect of this poem, though, has to be its perspective. Pilot fish congregate around sharks (and other species) in order to eat ectoparasites and loose scraps, and in Melville's poem we are with them, next to the shark, so the tension of the poem raises significantly. We are even inside the jaws, "an asylum." The metaphoric value held in "asylum" is that it is both a safe place and somewhere you do not want to be, or how Melville views the pilot fish's life, and this is another accurate and powerful word choice in "The Maldive Shark."

The last line strongly closes the poem while allowing the creation of the shark, one that is nasty, vicious, and dumb, to continue infinitely into some unknown. I'm not going to write much more about this now, but I'm definitely going to watch this a few times.

p.s. To see a "text-flow" of this poem on the Academy of American Poets website click here.

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Visual Poetics

Visual Poetics

Today I found this poem, which you must click in order to understand the very little I'm going to say about it because I can't post it here without Blogger exploding.

A major goal of poems, of course not all, is to arrange words onto lines that create an image in the reader's consciousness. A way to take this one step further is to create the image out of words you want your reader to imagine. For example, writing a poem about a swan while literally creating an image of a swan with the words in the poem. This is called concrete poetry, and this is often called cheesy poetry, at least by me.

A different twist is to still use words to create an image, except the only requirement is to make it interesting (assuming the poet wants you to be interested). This is what Mary Szybist does in her poem "All Times and All Tenses in this Moment."

This poem rotates around a point and its lines occasionally connect to others in terms of subject. At first glance, it's difficult not to say, "Cooool." But beyond this immediate reaction, I'm left feeling a bit let down by what the poem has to offer me. If a poem is to be judged by the originality of its language, its ability to create an emotional response in the reader, and its development from point A to B, Szybist does not win any medals from me with this poem.

However, this poem isn't playing by conventional rules, but rather against them, so the original criteria for a poem's success don't really matter. Maybe this poem only wants a, "Coooool," and nothing more. If so, then two "cool's" up; if this poem still wants to play in the conventional realm (but it doesn't), I give it only a half "cool." What'dya think? What are your thoughts on Szybist poem?

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Editor Tic-Talk

Editor Tic-Talk

The Kenyon Review's online feature that allows an editor to vouch for a particular poem or story is, if a little too "this is why I am smart and can spot good art," a really good thing.

Why We Chose It is KR's way of opening the sacrosanct box of editorial decision making. When we pick up a journal at the bookstore, or flip through one that has been shoved in our face by a man with a beard (call out, Patrick Harned), we read knowing little to nothing about the editorial process that went into shaping the work now held. The chances are high that at least one piece of work will beg the question, "Why was this in here? I hate it." KR's Why We Chose It will tell you, kind of.

The current featured poem is called "Why We Must Have Canonical Hours and Islands" by Elizabeth T. Gray Jr. The poem in full:

Iona

To resist the hollowing, difficult to bear,
that draws us across an expanse of sea or year
to meet, in winter, on a narrow stair,

a desolation folded in a cowl of wool
or winged lions at the edges of the air.
To allow some story from a hill or well,

or this sere call, through mottled glass, of gull,
the rise and fall of prayer, this full
and relentless curl and then recoil of swell.

To pull us past the brittle mainland’s edge
where the great beasts stand in gold and there
break open for us abbeys in the air.

The editor assigned to tackle the rationale for inclusion of this poem is Tyler Meier. In his reasoning, he mentions the pull of the title, the rhythm of the poem, its vowels playing tricks in your mouth. And he ends with a nod to John Keats's idea of Negative Capability, capable of dwelling in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact & reason.

Basically, the the poem boggled him, leaving Meier "asking questions," so he was constantly drawn back to the poem partly because of its musical qualities and partly because he wanted to figure it out. The poem certainly leaves one asking questions, but so does the Why We Chose It feature. After reading the entire thing, I'm not sure if I'm any more knowledgeable about the reasoning for this particular poem's selection. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the poem and agree with what Meier is saying about its positive aspects, but perhaps a side-by-side with a "lesser" poem by this editor's standards might take the online feature a step further? Anyone, at KR, the lid has at least cracked some.

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Tongue in Cheek

Tongue in Cheek

Today I read a poem titled "Vision" which employs a classical turn with its last two lines, exposing itself to the reader and creating an ironic moment. The poet's tongue is in her cheek, the poet being Erica Funkhouser, someone I'm not familiar with beyond this particular poem. Her it is in full:

With age
mirage
assuages
what the youthful eye
would have studied
until identified—
chicory? bluebird? debris?
Today no nomenclature
ruptures
the composure
of a chalk-blue haze
pausing, even dawdling,
now and then trembling
over what I'm going to call
fresh water.

The final "what I'm going to call" makes the poem. More specifically, it makes the poem ironic and comedic, which are the poem's goals. Beginning at first with minor word play, all of those "ages" make more sense once we come to the penultimate line; the poet wants to pun in this poem, like I wanted to use a lot of "p's."

"Vision" is a poem that deals with a serious subject–becoming old and losing certain abilities–while reducing the threat of that subject through irony. Though I can't take a whole lot of poems like this without getting bored, they are fun, especially at the moment when they "turn," as with "what I'm going to call."

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Poets of the Night

Poets of the Night

Everyone knows that you can't make any money in art, especially poetry. The poet-only role vanished with John Keats's death by tuberculosis, and even during the Romantic age was rare and never really existed. Reintroducing 1920's nightlife flair in poetry brothels, though, might just help underpaid poets make next month's rent.

The concept works like this (a full and extremely interesting article describing Chicago's Poetry Brothel can be found by clicking): full bar, entertainment beyond poetry reading, and an intimate mood. Upon entering the Chicago Poetry Brothel scheduled every month, after a modest 5-10$ cover charge, one will find people dressed in 20's fashion and with names like "Good Doctor" and "Durham Pure," and interesting, invented personal histories as well. Once the lights go down, poets (a.k.a. the whores) take the stage one by one and give a quick tease–instead of 10 minutes, you are more likely to hear 20-30 seconds. A poet will peak your interest or they won't. But it they do, the fun begins.

As the poets leave the stage and you are treated to live music, including a live pianist playing period music, you might want to get to know the poet a little more. It will cost you, but only five bucks. Or, if you want, 20 dollars for five rounds at special times. You are buying a private, one-on-one poetry reading, where the poet leads you to a room with a name like "Divinity" and reads you a full poem....hard.

A way to change the poetry reading experience, this idea sounds so fun I want to hop along to Barcelona (one of the few large cities with a similar concept) and get my money's worth. The idea is intriguing: a mix of vaudeville, poetry, and mock sexual provocation.

Some poets have to work the "johns" to get them to pony-up the dough (actually a poker chip representing 5$ bought from a pimp helping to work the crowd), but I can imagine it wouldn't take long. I mean, what's sexier than poetry these days?

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Elizabeth Bishop and Geography III

Elizabeth Bishop and Geography III

There is an American library in Nancy with a sizable poetry collection I've just discovered. Yesterday, I grabbed Elizabeth Bishop's collected poems which contains arguably her best-known work in the book Geography III.

A slim volume by itself at 50 pages, in the collected poems it takes up even less space and can be read through easily in one sitting. Bishop's style in Geography III is plain, precise, and at times whimsical. Recalling the past in poems like "The Waiting Room," she is not overly personal but instead "focuse[s] her precise and carefully crafted lines on subtle impressions of the physical world" (poets.org). The focus on that world through the pages of National Geographic at age seven seems to have had a profound effect on Bishop (of course using the assumption of speaker-as-poet in this case), and taking a moment to click here and read this narrative poem is well worth your time.


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Internet

Internet

The past few days have been difficult. What is sad is that the difficulty has only been dealing with not having the internet. After going two years without it in my apartment, I became spoiled (especially using Megan's fancy-schmancy MacBook Pro).

I decided to search the word "internet" on poets.org's website and it gave me this:

April 27, 1937 by Timothy Steele ... satellites that serve the Internet. But still, despite our ...

Credible Information, 1999 - 2003 by Mark Pawlak ... foreign news media and the Internet to tell the American side of ...

Marble Hill by Kazim Ali ... of the actual hanging on the internet. I watched it myself. ...

String Theory Sutra by Brenda Hillman ... I mean the internet. Turns out ...

This is Lagos by John Koethe ... around the world from Internet cafés; violence and ...

Zozo-ji by Dana Levin ... dead. I found it via the Internet. Where they offered ...

So if you are up with a few poems with the word "internet" in them, you are in luck. Maybe you will even discover a new poet. My new find was Mark Pawlak. Enjoy your internet.

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Essential American Poets

Essential American Poets

There is a podcast and online collection of recordings on the Poetry Foundation's website called Essential American Poets. Created by Donald Hall in 2006 while he was poet laureate, each podcast condenses a poet's life and work into a few minutes of biographical high points and ends with a reading of several poems, which are often older recordings by the poet him/herself. The most recent addition to the podcast is Robert Hayden, known best for the poem "Those Winter Sundays:"

Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.

I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he'd call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,

Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love's austere and lonely offices? 

This poem seems especially fitting now as we settle into winter's cold. It is subtle, sincere, and ends with a line on love that doesn't make me want to throw-up: it isn't overly sentimental. Rather, it is full of the question the adult speaker is not asking in the poem but implies, which is, "Why?" Why did you love me, why did you do this, why did you not want something in return, etc.? This poem is an example of how to investigate childhood, familial love, and adult uncertainty with tact and sincerity.

I encourage you to sift through the many audio clips available and discover a new voice. Stay warm, everybody.

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Heart Heart Heart

Heart Heart Heart

As the new year begins, emotions of all kinds are being stirred with resolutions, break-ups, breakdowns and, judged using the U.S. citizen's alert-o-meter, are at level red. Kim Addonizio has a poem that attempts to categorize this feeling of high intensity in the poem "My Heart."

That Mississippi chicken shack.
That initial-scarred tabletop,
that tiny little dance floor to the left of the band.
That kiosk at the mall selling caramels and kitsch.
That tollbooth with its white-plastic-gloved worker
handing you your change.
That phone booth with the receiver ripped out.
That dressing room in the fetish boutique,
those curtains and mirrors.
That funhouse, that horror, that soundtrack of screams.
That putti-filled heaven raining gilt from the ceiling.
That haven for truckers, that bottomless cup.
That biome. That wilderness preserve.
That landing strip with no runway lights
where you are aiming your plane,
imagining a voice in the tower,
imagining a tower.

So what can we learn about extreme feeling in this poem? First, that it is multifaceted; second, that it is imagined, and through these imaginings we rev ourselves into a furry of feeling. What better outlet than poetry, where everything is permissible and imagination is rewarded with oohs and ahhs? In this poem, I find myself doing that a lot.

To read more of Addonizio's work, click on her name to discover more poetry.

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Books on Writing

Books on Writing

Today I was included in a note that asked what books on writing seemed worth having, were effective, and if they had been used in classes. I wrote two paragraphs on style guides and creative writing prompt/advice texts, but I wanted to continue the discussion on writing guides here, with one poetry writing book in particular: Mary Kinzie's A Poet's Guide To Poetry.

I received Kinzie's guide around three or four years ago as a gift from my aunt. It is divided into several chapters discussing many aspects of poetry, like meter and rhyme, while giving numerous sample poems. Also, there is a chapter on poetry writing prompts in the back. The book attempts to cover all-things-poetry and really dig into what is happening not only within individual lines of a poem, but words.

What is interesting to me about this book though is that I've never been able to sustain momentum in reading it. At more than 500 pages, it doubles as a solid reference source and poetic dictionary, but as a book designed as what feels like a textbook, it does not do itself any favors by appealing to Sunday afternoon poetry investigation. So, with books like these, books that aren't meant to be light but are more seriously focused on writing, how should they be used? The answer lies in active reading.

Active reading is first evaluating a text (what is it?), discovering how the text is organized (chapters, sections, etc.), and deciding what your motives and goals for reading the book are and what areas of the book to read. This is something that I haven't been doing the past 3 years. Before, I would pick up the book, read the introduction, and start at page one: I wanted to learn everything the book had to offer. Reading this way, based on pencil scratches in the margins, has only taken me to page 140. It was like opening a high school textbook and reading front to back: it was boring, I wasn't engaged, and ultimately it was a waste of time.

Books on writing are designed to motivate you to write and, by writing, write better. If you have a thick, academic book on writing like A Poet's Guide To Poetry, the best way to approach books like this are to only read chapters that are relevant to you (if you are like me and must read cover to cover, this is hard, but will save you a lot of time and you will remember more of what you read) and don't bother with the rest. Seemingly obvious, abandoning the standard front to back method saves time. Who knew?

If anyone cares to recommend a book on writing, poetry or otherwise, that has been helpful, please do. Kinzie's book is a nice book to own but not the most fascinating–solid discussion, references and comment.

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Goethe's House

Goethe's House

For three days my wife and I shuffled around Frankfurt's cold streets, visiting museums, enjoying cheaper and better beer than can be easily found in Nancy, France, and practicing German phrases that translate to "Excuse me" and "Sorry (accompanied by a truly sincere face), I don't speak German."

The city of Frankfurt had much to offer but was blasted by most people in our hostel. Apparently, there wasn't as much to do here. For three days, though, we were able to keep busy and I wouldn't mind going back: the city was clean, the public transport was great, and costs were very reasonable. But enough about the city–let's talk about a house and someone who grew up in it: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

Goethe wrote mainly between 1773 until his death in 1832. He wrote drama, fiction, poetry and scientific works, his most famous titles including the plays Faust Part 1 and Faust Part 2 (published posthumously), the novel The Sorrows of Young Werther, the poems "Mignon's Song" and "Marienbad Elegy" and the scientific study Theory of Colours. Below is the poem "Mignon's Song," which comes from within The Sorrows of Young Werther and contains one of German poetry's most recognized opening lines. (the opening line supposedly refers to Italy, a country Goethe became infatuated with as a boy and where he lived for some time, inspiring many German youth to follow in his footsteps.)

MIGNON.
[This universally known poem is also to be found in Wilhelm Meister.]

KNOW'ST thou the land where the fair citron blows,
Where the bright orange midst the foliage glows,
Where soft winds greet us from the azure skies,
Where silent myrtles, stately laurels rise,
Know'st thou it well?

'Tis there, 'tis there,
That I with thee, beloved one, would repair.

Know'st thou the house? On columns rests its pile,
Its halls are gleaming, and its chambers smile,
And marble statues stand and gaze on me:
"Poor child! what sorrow hath befallen thee?"
Know'st thou it well?

'Tis there, 'tis there,
That I with thee, protector, would repair!

Know'st thou the mountain, and its cloudy bridge?
The mule can scarcely find the misty ridge;
In caverns dwells the dragon's olden brood,
The frowning crag obstructs the raging flood.
Know'st thou it well?

'Tis there, 'tis there,
Our path lies--Father--thither, oh repair!

1795.*

The "Marianbad Elegy" is too long to post here, but is worth reading if you have the time.

So then, the refresher course on Goethe is over, along with vacation. Now, time to find some new poetry to start the new year! New post in two days.

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