"...it sounded like hope, stupid hope."
~from "Living"
Oh. I'm so sad. I just read at Anglofille that poet Jason Shinder died on Friday, 25 April 2008. He was a wonderful poet and contributed so much to the world of poetry through the YMCA National Writer's Voice project. He was a wonderful and giving teacher.
Shinder's PEN American Center bio
"Crime," from AGNI
"Hospital," from Ploughshares
"Living," from The New Yorker
Check out the "Abbey of the Arts" and the 14th Poetry Party! Seriously cool!
This is a really neat story. I don't think I could sustain myself in a New York City apartment this way, but it's still cool. Via CBS News:
Outside a busy supermarket, Zach Houston isn't looking for a hangout. He's trying to make a living — as a poet.
"Need a poem written while you shop?" Houston asks shoppers. "Need a poem written?"
Houston is the supermarket poet of Berkeley, Calif., reports CBS News correspondent John Blackstone.
"Poems with your groceries? Need a poem?" Houston asks. "What do you want a poem about?"
He’ll give you a poem about anything.
How about "a poem about affordable housing in Berkeley?" a woman asks him.
"Love and motorcycles?" another customer requests.
On his manual typewriter, itself pretty much an oddity these days, Houston taps out his poems as his clients shop or wait expectantly.
Read the whole article here. Kind of makes Avenue Q's opening song "What do you do with a B.A. in English" come alive, no?
Heh. Heh. Write an instant William Carlos Williams poem:
http://ettcweb.lr.k12.nj.us/forms/williams.htm
Heh. Heh.
Check out Brown Rab Fish Girl's "Sibling Creation Stories". In process, but nice, very nice.
Because she wrote an article in Saturday's Guardian entitled "Legislators of the World" arguing for poetry's place in this cruel world:
Poetry has the capacity to remind us of something we are forbidden to see. A forgotten future: a still uncreated site whose moral architecture is founded not on ownership and dispossession, the subjection of women, outcast and tribe, but on the continuous redefining of freedom - that word now held under house arrest by the rhetoric of the "free" market. This on-going future, written-off over and over, is still within view. All over the world its paths are being rediscovered and reinvented.
Because it's about the ability to RE-envision what's before you. That's what art does; it reaches out and grabs you and makes you pay attention.
I've long been a fan of Rich because of her ability to articulate what poetry should do; Rich is among the more articulate contemporary poets who can discuss the importance of a poetry that witnesses the political. Not only does she write wonderful poetry, she is an advocate for the art who seeks a place for poetry beyond the aesthetic richness of language, image and emotion. Rich understands language at its root; language=power.
Oh, yeah. And she just won the National Book Foundation's 2006 Award for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. (Just in case you wanted to argue with me that she rocks...)
For those who sometimes wonder about the quote from poet Nikki Giovanni in my blog header, the following incident should explain a lot. At a recent event Giovanni read a poem entitled "I am Cincinnati" in which, among other things, she blasted Ken Blackwell, the Republican candidate for Ohio Governor.
Via The Enquirer at Cincinnati.com:
If Ken Blackwell does manage to become Ohio’s governor, don’t look for Nikki Giovanni to be appointed the state’s poet laureate.
Giovanni, a native Cincinnatian, read an original poem entitled “I am Cincinnati,” a paean to all that is good and great about the Queen City, like three-way chili and Spring Grove Cemetery. She read her poem during re-opening ceremonies to the new Fountain Square Saturday.
But along with her nostalgic references, Giovanni remained true to her reputation of being an outspoken activist.
“I am not a son of a bitch like Kenny Blackwell,” Giovanni said near the end of the poem.
“I will not use the color of my skin to cover the hatred in my heart. I am not a political whore jumping from bed to bed to see who will stroke my knee.”
Here's an activity custom made for this community. In the comments to the sheet music thread below, Magic Matt writes:
Check out the end of the third poem here. It's like reading a poem that builds to "Fuck you, clown!"
And that is true. So it occurred to me that in a more perfect world, many, if not most, poems would end with "Fuck you, clown."
And so, with Apostropher's gaunlet thrown down, I offer you, humble readers, just 2 of the many entries I fooled around with. With apologies to Thomas:
THE moving sun-shapes on the spray,
The sparkles where the brook was flowing,
Pink faces, plightings, moonlit May,—
These were the clowns we wished would stay;
But they were going.Seasons of blankness as of snow,
The silent bleed of a world decaying,
The moan of multitudes in woe,—
These were the clowns we wished would go;
Fuck you, clowns.
With apologies to Emily:
SAFE in their alabaster chambers,
Untouched by morning and untouched by noon,
Sleep the meek clowns of the resurrection,
Rafter of satin, and roof of stone.Light laughs the breeze in her castle of sunshine;
Babbles the bee in a stolid ear;
Pipe the sweet clowns in ignorant cadence,—
Ah, what sagacity perished here!Grand go the years in the crescent above them;
Worlds scoop their arcs, and firmaments row,
Diadems drop and Doges surrender,
Fuck you clowns!
Make sure you read the "comments" over at Unfogged. Last I checked, they were up to 506 responses. Among my favorites, Matt's (#3)
There's a stake in your fat black heart
And the villagers never liked you.
They are dancing and stamping on you.
They always knew it was you.
Daddy, daddy, you bastard, fuck you, clown.
Armsmasher's (#13):
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately edict thus decree:
Fuck you, clown.
And the best comment on the thread? "Mona Van Duyn needed TiVo," posted by Robust McManly Pants!
Do try your own. It's hours of endless fun!
Hat Tip to Bitch, Ph.D. for the link.
Lorna Dee Cervantes has a great reflection up on Cafe Cafe about the history of Mango Press and the Kitchen Table Press. We owe her, and the other women who had the vision to make words change the world, such a debt of gratitude! Check out her reflection here.
This should have been a bigger news item than it has been so far. Former Poet Laureate, Stanley Kunitz, died on 14 May 2006. From the Cape Cod Times:
Born in Worcester when Theodore Roosevelt was president and in the year that nearly saw San Francisco destroyed by the worst earthquake in U.S. history, it was not the span of Kunitz's life that affected those who knew him. It was the breadth and depth of his intellect, his passion for words, and the magnitude of his generosity toward young artists and writers that served as the hallmark for this remarkable talent and life.
I was out and about with my camera today on my way to work and I started thinking about my recent crankiness with regard to poetry. I've always been a boom or bust poet. My writing is both deadline and emotionally driven. I write because I have to--literally for a workshop or a class or because I just don't know what to do with what I'm feeling. Lizzie West's song, "Take These Demons," certainly serves as one articulation of why I write:
Take these demons from my brain; I can't get caught in that thought again. And all these patterns seem the same. First my mind begins to slip. Then I fall and lose my grip. And it all comes back to this. Take these demons from my brain; I can't get caught in that thought again. And all these patterns seem the same...
But lately (oh, say, the last two or two and a half years or so...) I've taken to avoiding writing poetry at all costs. And, this blog is certainly yet one more distraction in the search to avoid writing. And, probably, at the end of the day, while I enjoy blogging, I don't consider it "writing" in the same sense I do a poem or an article. My blog posts tend to be immediate thoughts, reactions, and reflections written as first drafts. My poems, on the other hand, suffer through endless revision after revision after revision.
I've spent a lot of time thinking about why I am not writing, and why poetry seems like the only form of "legitimate writing" to me. I certainly spend my days immersed in words--from articles to editing to blogging to work-related writing--yet none of that seems to "count" for my writer identity. Even my scholarship doesn't feel like real "writing" in the way that poetry does.
Poetry, for me, is ultimately a task of housekeeping. It's how I make sense of the world and how I organize it. Poems allow me the opportunity to compartmentalize and order an often chaotic world. I won't die if I never write another scholarly article, but I don't know what would happen if I never wrote another poem. It's not a "hobby," or a "past-time," it's a vital part of who I am and how I interact with the world around me. Poetry makes more sense to me than anything else.
So, then, why do I avoid it? This morning, as I was meandering my way towards work, I saw this "Do Not Enter" sign and realized it's the perfect metaphor for why I am avoiding writing. For the first time in my life, I am censoring my writing, deciding that there are topics I just "can't" write about.
I was tickled to see that I'm blogrolled on WOMB as a poet who blogs. It gave me pause since I don't often blog about poetry or blog poems. So, here are two quick morning poems. Let's call them rusty-haiku-like poems. Thanks to WOMB for the little creative push!
#1
Sturdy black tie shoes:
the imprisoned foot longing
for freedom like the spring skirt fluttering in the wind
an emerging tulip's petals
#2
Flowering trees drop
fragrant carpets of petals:
walk on spring's bounty
Bah. I feel somewhat grumpy about National Poetry Month this year, for no apparent reason. I don't feel like writing poems. I feel like blogging because it actually seems like someone reads what I write! With all that's going on nationally, I don't feel like celebrating poetry, unless it's the likes of Poets Against War.
However, Ann White over at The Red Hibiscus brightened my day with these poems, so, read them; celebrate Ann; and raise a little cheer for good poetry.
Today, like many others in the poetry community, I received the sad news that Tory Dent died last Friday. At 47, she ended her 17 year struggle with HIV/AIDS leaving behind her a considerable legacy of passion, poetics, elegance, and grace. But those words are too generic to describe someone who changed her world with every word. Tonight, I am anything but eloquent; my profound sadness at this deep hole in the fabric of the world leaves my words--and therefore my tribute--lacking. But I want you to know this: Tory Dent was the kind of person we should all want to be. Poet, activist, and brave warrior, she made language churn, agitating for the changes she sought. Tory Dent came and found the world lacking, so she disturbed the world with her 3 collections of brilliant work.
I have rarely read or loved a writer whose pen was truly as mighty as Tory's. Deftly, poignantly, and righteously, Dent chronicled an invisible AIDS, the experiences of women and children and those soon forgotten, even as HIV consumed her own body (In HIV, Mon Amour she writes, "the way the shipwrecked do into the ocean, the way HIV overrides my body as/if overwriting the flesh, the waterline rising above my upturned, gasping face.").
American AIDS has drifted into the background noise of the larger--and often more palatable--pandemic of African AIDS, but Tory worked eloquently and fearlessly to keep American AIDS as ever-present as possible and to seek changes in legislation, medication, and culture. She didn't ask for our attention; she demanded it with a language that inspired, chronicled, philosophized, and disrupted our expectations.
I'm having a Mr. Tanner moment today; after several days of grading papers--that time of the semester when I feel like I'm a paper ATM--I begin to wonder why I spend virtually no time doing the thing I love best, writing poetry. I started thinking about it last night after class when a very talented photography student asked me what she should do with her life; she wants to spend her days taking photographs, but she's not sure how she'll support herself that way. Welcome to the club?
Rita Dove has a wonderful book of poems, On the Bus With Rosa Parks.
To remember Rosa Parks today, consider picking up a copy of the book; it's a beautiful, meditative read. For a few on-line poems from that book, click here. See especially the entire poem "Lady Freedom Among Us" from which I borrowed these lines:
don't think you can ever forget her
don't even try
she's not going to budge
no choice but to grant her space
crown her with sky
for she is one of the many
and she is each of us
American literature often oscillates between the perilous extremes of utile and dulce; forever locked in a battle over the "use" of literature and the "appropriate" role of poets, writers, playwrights, and other artists in society. The often immature sibling of older literatures--most notably Eastern European and Latin American literary traditions--American literature falls, even so often, into the firmly apolitical stance. Literature, the aesthetes claim, should only offer pleasure.
Increasingly, against the 1980s and 1990s backlash against political literature, more and more writers and poets have emerged to claim their literary production as a crucial site of social and cultural critique. Of course there are many uses for literature, but for me, raising social conscience is among the most important roles that a vibrant literature can offer its society. A studied consideration--through fiction, poetry, & drama--can often offer a more compelling & affective commentary on historical and contemporary events than non-fiction accounts.
So, I'd like to acclaim Sharon Olds and Harold Pinter (yes, I know he's British!), both recently in the news, for their firm stance on the relationship between literature and society.
From Brutal Women comes today's inspired 5 a.m. post! Instead of writing before going to work--I'm blogging!
So, by way of narrative introduction: on Saturday I bought a first birthday present for my godson at fabulous chic baby store in NYC: a cool blue ball that has farm animals stamped on it (You know: cows go "moo," chickens go "cluck," pig go "oink"). Underneath each animal is the sound it makes. The sales clerk, in making her avid pitch, told me it was "better than a ball from Walmart because you can blow it back up." Ummm. But we don't have Walmarts in NYC, dear.
And now? I totally want a Walmart (well, not really) if only for the new and fun activity of weeknight guerilla poetry!
Drunk and Unpublished, "an unofficial poetry organization," conducted their second session of guerilla poetry Monday night. Their target audience: Wal-Mart patrons.
Too bad they're in Indiana. Maybe we could have a New York branch in...Starbuck's or the Gap or Barnes and Noble or Crate and Barrel....
Ummm. I should be writing, but instead, I visited Cmdr Taco's Amazing Poetry Generator and turned my recent blog entries into a poem. This is going to be like my addiction to the on-line subservient chicken...
Lingual Tremors X Posted
If You like women like me
Send news from
Dear George Pataki,
The battery seller
A part of the Seven Deadly Sins Seven Deadly Sins Seven Deadly Sins
Best argument for taking a
Better Fiction Writer aspirin.
EC Please
give women like me,
this fabulous uterus
puppet. ACLU Play Nicely
Posted on
the womb,
giving her pregnancy Prevention
Please sign the MTA/in our
Bodies
It reaches your Birth
Control, Read It. Has it Undermined Women so much?
The Answer...
When I first started my blog, I thought I'd spend more time talking about poetry. But, in the midst of current affairs, I haven't felt very poetic lately. Like many others, I am vitally concerned with the current national state of affairs and when I sit down to write, that seems to be what's most on my mind.
However, in tribute to my original intention for the blog, I thought I might spend a few minutes waxing poetic on the 150th anniversary of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass.
4 July 2005 is the official birthday of Leaves of Grass. Suffice it to say, without Uncle Walt's example, modern and contemporary American poetry might be a much more formal, staid affair.
What Whitman did for poetry was to unleash a force upon the page. His barbaric yawp has come to define what's great about American poetry--the ability to find vibrant and lush organic forms to match one's content. To read Whitman's orgiastic lines as they rush across the page--seeming to promise an almost endless verse--until they yield in breathless exhaustion to pick up on the very next line is to understand what settlers in the United States understood about the promise of the frontier, the promise of the skies, the promise of exploration and discovery.
What Whitman also did for American poetry was to give it permission to be American, to celebrate the unruly, rugged, and raw American spirit. Sometimes, when in the midst of teaching about multiculturalism in the U.S., my students will claim that white Americans have no culture. And I respond, but what about Whitman? What Whitman did was to celebrate the United States in its many erratic and expanding forms. Whitman's wide catalogs, an attempt to address it all, was an acceptance of the diversity and plethora of ways to define Americanness. I am of a generation of poets trained to accept Whitman as the father of American poetry and Dickinson the mother of American poetry. While I normally chafe at patriarchal constructions in literature, if I had to choose a father for my poetry, I wouldn't have anyone else than that celebrant of pan-Americanism, Uncle Walt. Happy Birthday to that amazing book that changed the way we would come to understand American literature. Thanks for the vision, the passion, the exuberance of the changed page.
I am the poet of the Body and the poet of the Soul....
Further Reading (some excellent writings on Whitman & interesting collections):
Whitman's Men: Walt Whitman's Calamus Poems (Whitman, 1992)
Walt Whitman: The Poem as Private History (Clarke, 1991)
Walt Whitman's New York: From Manhattan to Montauk (Whitman, 1963)
Whitman and the Romance of Medicine (Davis, 1997)
Whitman, the Political Poet (Erkkila, 1989)
Resources:
The Walt Whitman Archive
The Walt Whitman collection from the Library of Congress
Modern American Poetry site entry on Whitman
American Academy of Poets entry on Whitman
On a gorgeous Sunday afternoon, I climbed up and down San Francisco from Union Square to Washington Square to Nob Hill to Lombardi Street to Chinatown to North Beach to Fisherman's Wharf. Let's hear it for San Francisco in the sun! Let's hear it for street fairs and free music! Let's have a little shout out for Ferlinghetti. Yay City Lights Bookstore!
Ferlinghetti, from "Brainwashed Poet"
He dropped his pencil
And picked up a bomb
And the pencil writing backward
Came to a point
And exploded as if it were loaded
With something worse than verse
And he was the first poet
To have his pencil shots
Ring through the night
Writing the “Found” Poem (one of my better Creative Writing class assignments):
Found Poem Word List (from my office door)
Take the word or phrase you want. Cross it off the list so that no one else takes it. Continue on your journey! Remember to use the word or phrase in the form it appears below.
Banana Cemetery
Sex Hurricanes
Mojito
Equitable Justice
Freshly Foudroyant Fantasy
Sockdologer
Undulating
Camel Spit
Jobbernowl
Leisure Sickness
Cruciverbalist
Cachinnatory
Deipnosophist
Salutatory snickersnee
Polypill progeny
Floccinaucinihilipilification
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