Ronnie Scott, editor of Lifted Brow has started posting short-shorts on the mag's website. The first of two short-shorts/prose poems is up right now.
A student told me about a week ago she liked Twilight a lot. I said that's fine.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Poetics? Blah
I.
Stephen Colbert talked to Guillermo Del Toro about the monsters in the latter's films last night. Particularly, the variety in Hellboy--how the monsters, all together, look wildly different yet consistent in terms of "Del Toro's artistic influence." That, intuitively, Del Toro designed the various vampires and monsters with cities growing from their faces, and that he put them all in the same space, created consistency. I found that interesting because I like the second Hellboy and Cronos for intuitive reasons: nothing looked like it existed in this world, but still sort of did. That it all exists in Del Toro's head, and that he places all these "inconsistent" images together, creates the consistency.
II.
That got me thinking about Mary Jo Bang's Bride of E. I tried to read it in the Spring, to review it for New Letters, but I got sidetracked. At the time, I found the book not so much boring but almost too much in terms of high and low culture slammed together. I re-read it for workshop on Tuesday and I think I "get it" now and I think it's excellent. At least I think some of the poems are some of the best I've read in a while.
K as in F Blank Blank K
The friction. The fire. Without the breathless wonder
In front of you. The swimming suit,
The sand.
The book on the nightstand.
In the old way. Open the book.
Here's one beginning: the crab dragged its claws
Across the desert. Sad as sobbing. Sad as what
Our half feet felt as we crawled
From the shallow sea-salt water.
Here's another: Krazy Kat watches while Alice falls
Headfirst and catches a forward jar
Of marmalade in the dark.
Someone whispers, "You
Are surrounded by evil."
Then, "Christ,
Look at the way you use language here
In the common area." And believe me, I know.
Look away, look again.
At that, we can see
The art of the act of the moon
And the earth matching up on the plasma screen.
I'm mostly interested in the poem's title and the appearance of George Herriman's Krazy Kat. Krazy Kat lives in the desert and his friend Ignatz throws bricks at cops. Krazy also speaks in a dialect that at times is almost incomprehensible--Bang kind of plays on that in the title and definitely does when the "someone" steps in: "Look at the way you use language here/In the common area." What I like most about the poem, and the others in Bang's book, is that you don't need to know who Krazy Kat is to get the joke, but it's still cool. That they all exist together in Bang's world and that they're doing/not doing things in highly unusual ways is enough.
Not to say anybody can do anything they want: a logic has to exist.
The "someone" could represent different things: the voice of culture in response to Krazy Kat, the voice of culture in response to Bang's work and the unusual-ness of the book, the voice of culture responding to Bang's funny title. There's logic operating in the poem that makes it work and it only works because Bang is deliberate, either consciously or unconsciously.
III.
I don't know, I like the consistency of inconsistency: to be messy with art. I am still trying to articulate that and it won't happen here.
IV.
A pet peeve: I think, if I get the opportunity to teach poetry, I will say this. "If you bring in a draft and the story you give us about the poem is more interesting than the poem itself, don't fucking bother next time." Not: never write again. Just work at it harder. I get tired of that stuff. Is it still cool to be a curmudgeon? I think I feel like I am an asshole when it comes to the craft.
V.
It's unusually nice in Oklahoma today. That's all I got. 70s-ish.
Stephen Colbert talked to Guillermo Del Toro about the monsters in the latter's films last night. Particularly, the variety in Hellboy--how the monsters, all together, look wildly different yet consistent in terms of "Del Toro's artistic influence." That, intuitively, Del Toro designed the various vampires and monsters with cities growing from their faces, and that he put them all in the same space, created consistency. I found that interesting because I like the second Hellboy and Cronos for intuitive reasons: nothing looked like it existed in this world, but still sort of did. That it all exists in Del Toro's head, and that he places all these "inconsistent" images together, creates the consistency.
II.
That got me thinking about Mary Jo Bang's Bride of E. I tried to read it in the Spring, to review it for New Letters, but I got sidetracked. At the time, I found the book not so much boring but almost too much in terms of high and low culture slammed together. I re-read it for workshop on Tuesday and I think I "get it" now and I think it's excellent. At least I think some of the poems are some of the best I've read in a while.
K as in F Blank Blank K
The friction. The fire. Without the breathless wonder
In front of you. The swimming suit,
The sand.
The book on the nightstand.
In the old way. Open the book.
Here's one beginning: the crab dragged its claws
Across the desert. Sad as sobbing. Sad as what
Our half feet felt as we crawled
From the shallow sea-salt water.
Here's another: Krazy Kat watches while Alice falls
Headfirst and catches a forward jar
Of marmalade in the dark.
Someone whispers, "You
Are surrounded by evil."
Then, "Christ,
Look at the way you use language here
In the common area." And believe me, I know.
Look away, look again.
At that, we can see
The art of the act of the moon
And the earth matching up on the plasma screen.
I'm mostly interested in the poem's title and the appearance of George Herriman's Krazy Kat. Krazy Kat lives in the desert and his friend Ignatz throws bricks at cops. Krazy also speaks in a dialect that at times is almost incomprehensible--Bang kind of plays on that in the title and definitely does when the "someone" steps in: "Look at the way you use language here/In the common area." What I like most about the poem, and the others in Bang's book, is that you don't need to know who Krazy Kat is to get the joke, but it's still cool. That they all exist together in Bang's world and that they're doing/not doing things in highly unusual ways is enough.
Not to say anybody can do anything they want: a logic has to exist.
The "someone" could represent different things: the voice of culture in response to Krazy Kat, the voice of culture in response to Bang's work and the unusual-ness of the book, the voice of culture responding to Bang's funny title. There's logic operating in the poem that makes it work and it only works because Bang is deliberate, either consciously or unconsciously.
III.
I don't know, I like the consistency of inconsistency: to be messy with art. I am still trying to articulate that and it won't happen here.
IV.
A pet peeve: I think, if I get the opportunity to teach poetry, I will say this. "If you bring in a draft and the story you give us about the poem is more interesting than the poem itself, don't fucking bother next time." Not: never write again. Just work at it harder. I get tired of that stuff. Is it still cool to be a curmudgeon? I think I feel like I am an asshole when it comes to the craft.
V.
It's unusually nice in Oklahoma today. That's all I got. 70s-ish.
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