Quick shots, like how twitter works

I'll be in Dayton twice in less than two months. There is a flarf issue of Poetry.

Inspector vs. Evader is pretty good--Rob let me borrow it while I was in Lawrence this weekend.

Bon Jovi sang a song in Farsi.

The effects of the revolution maybe greatly diminished.

That's it for now.

I thought everything might be okay but then I saw ductape on the car

The prose poem draft's title is a line by Mark McKee from his poem "Jalopy Bellicose" from his chapbook What Apocalypse?

NOÖ Journal has their lineup posted for issue [10]. My poem "Junichiro Koizumi Doesn't Care About White People" will appear in that issue. Also, my friend Greg Lamer (that's his real last name, that's how you say it too) has a photograph in the magazine.

I met Robert Olen Bulter today. He's a very nice guy.

Sometimes we are fantasm vendors, a prose poem draft

William Butler Yeats (1865-1939) allowed ghosts inside him--this achieved automatic writing. If I lived and died before Yeats and he opened his mouth, waived his hands and said "come in, incantations, come in," I'd jump down his throat. Then I'd make William Butler Yeats draw penises all over the walls of his house and if he sat down with his pen and paper--or typewriter, however famous Irish writers write things--I'd still taunt him. "This is no country for old penises. The young/In one another's arms, birds in the penises". Napoleon (1769-1821) and former National League outfielder Mike King Kelly (1857-1894) would see what's going on. "I'm fucking with Billy, you guys should join in." It would be all right to make William Butler Yeats draw penises, mock the struggle for Irish independence, mock the convergence of art and death, until the ghost of my father would get involved. My father would wonder why I reverted to dick jokes in this prose poem. I don't have anything, to write about, I'd say. It's been a tough two weeks. He'd ask about King Kelly. I'd explain he was the first $10,000 baseball player and the first to be paid by an owner for his face and image, the first licensing deal in history.

My father and I are alive now though.

Calling this post No Country for Old Men may cause confusion. This is not about the movie or book. Sort of about Yeats, though.

I've had an ear infection in my right ear since last Monday. On Tuesday, I took 6 ibuprofen in less than 24 hours--the box says that's the maximum you should take--and then I drank sake and beer with Joni that night. We walked a little bit and I felt high, like I existed in dream sequences from Save By the Bell. The little pink border surrounded by the scene. I guess with ibuprofen and alcohol your stomach lining can bleed.

Me and Joni ate at Blue Koi on 39th street. That's were we had the sake. We walked north, for a little bit into the neighborhood then came back to 39th and we crossed state line toward KU Med. I had the beer at Jaywalkers on their patio. She said she went out with her roommates last Saturday to a bar in Overland Park called Kite's to dance. Kite's had a UFC match on and the bar was packed with "duders." Joni's word for guys with buzz cuts and polo shirts. They all left after the fight. I said I didn't get MMA. She said it's kind of interesting, more interesting than boxing, which is legit since the only boxers people talk about haven't been relevant for 15-20 years (Mike Tyson, Evander Hollyfield, Ali, etc).

I went to the health center on Wednesday about my ear. They gave me ear drops and pills. The nurse practitioner thought I might have hyper-tension--my blood pressure was 130/90, then 142/90. She thought it might be from the pain in my ear. But it could be hyper-tension.

Writing has been tough. I've written about dog-men with giant scrotums and professional basketball in Turkey. It's been mostly miss with me. Though I have gotten positive responses from places on work that's currently out.

I only found Ron Silliman's blog recently--I know of the name, but it wasn't until I met Robert Baumann that I started looking at the blog. I always feel pretty lower-middle-class when it comes to poetic theory. That might be because of my background (only the third person in family history with a college degree, dad works as a librarian, in student loan debt up to my ass). During a night with people from Mizzou's program, at their favorite bar, I made a joke about how the hand dryer looked like the sex machine Sandra Bullock and Sylvester Stallone use in Demolition Man. The dryer consisted of white plastic and had a blue light that flicked on when I put my hands in the machine.

Sorry, this is all to show my lack of confidence when talking about poetics.

Silliman's blog has links to conversations about accessibility in poetry. How do we open this stuff up to people outside of, or without access to, colleges and small press scenes. Blogs kind of function like that right now I think.

I read John Gallaher's post on accessibility. At first, I didn't like what he was saying. To identify being "accessible" with "crass commercialism." The second time around, as I read, I liked what he was getting at. We need to be "clear." Clear needs to be the term. This allows difficult work to be difficult, and doesn't create an economic term, or marketing "buzz-words" for poetry.

Bob Stewart always pushes for clearness and conciseness in writing poety. We need to learn how to write a sentence before we break it all down. Hadara says the same thing. I think a lot of the poetry I don't like doesn't think about that. The people who I don't like write guys like B.H. Fairchild off as conservative or boring (Gallaher does not). I don't know what poetry needs to be. I know if it isn't "clear" to me, it seems like a fucking put on.

There does, however, needs to be greater access to contemporary poetry, or the development of poems that could hit with a wider audience quicker. Get people to stop thinking of Shelley, Woodsworth, or Yeats and they rolling their eyes into the back of their head (no offense to the dead guys). I'm thinking of a poetry equivlent of the French New Wave. Or a movement outside of the academy. This going on right now, though, with poetry blogs and small press. The breakdown of old media meaning more people have access to audiences. Yeah.

I will say this about Gallaher's blogpost. I don't care about jazz, and I don't know why one brings jazz up. I think it's because I'm 28 years old and jazz seems old to me. Also I think it's funny when other white people try to talk about jazz to black people to make themselves seem cool. I probably do this with the NBA subconsciously. The NBA is cooler than jazz right now, though. I also like to think my love is genuine. I guess people who love jazz think the same thing.

I don't know what I'm talking about.

This could also count as a tweet if I tweeted

My friend Aaron djs at the premier gentleman's club in Dayton, Ohio. He made a Dylan Thomas reference last night I guess:

Members, last time I checked it was Sunday. I know, I know. The weekend is almost over but do not go gently into that good night. Rage, Rage against the dying of the light by getting two fully nude performances for the price of one.

I don't really read Dylan Thomas. I probably should. I still think that's funny.