These are all quickies.
I bought some books:
Alan Dugan Poems Seven: New and Complete Poems
(Haesong let me borrow this for a while but I just bought a used copy on Abe.)
Jack Spicer My Vocabulary Did This to Me
Ben Mirov Ghost Machine
Lucas Farrell Birds Any Damn Kind
II.
My friend Karen's mom got me Carta Blanca from just across the border. I drank three last night I drank them while I talked to my friend Jason Frisbie. I got kind of buzzed, it's all 3.2 beer in Oklahoma, and I talked about Dugan--like how I like him and how he is a middle-class Bukowski, someone much more relate-able to the young male rust-belt mind set. Dugan went to college, not great colleges, and worked office jobs I think. At least the work points to that. Some of his poems are about ad agencies, but he is the Peggy, not the Don Draper.
III.
I also watched Army of Shadows (1969), which was the saddest film I think I have ever seen. It is amazing.
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Friday, November 12, 2010
Man...
I only ever talked to C.D. Wright once and she warned me that the worst thing that will happen to me is that I will imitate myself. That seems to be happening right now.
Like, I am trying to use Takashi Shimura in a poem. Or the feeling of being Takashi Shimura (he is in the blog pic). I don't know how to write those eyes.
Dang.
Like, I am trying to use Takashi Shimura in a poem. Or the feeling of being Takashi Shimura (he is in the blog pic). I don't know how to write those eyes.
Dang.
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Thinly veiled marketing; movies with dick jokes; White Male Heterosexual Poetics
I.
I've never lived on the coasts or went to a liberal arts college and I've never lived in a "college town" until now, and I have picked a hell of a place. Stillwater is okay, but I don't travel around it much. People outrage over two Wal-Marts and Chili's and that stuff and that all sucks, but I don't know, the weather bothers me most. 82 during the day and then 40ish at night. There's no middle ground. It overcasted yesterday and stuck around the high-60s, which was nice, and Nebraska-OSU meant the town was easy to navigate. I don't like using the word "happy"--who knows what that means, but I do like driving around on Saturday/Sunday afternoons in the fall. South and East KC provided that opportunity pretty regularly. Stillwater doesn't: the town is small and everybody is out, so it's kind of miserable trying to get downtown or on Perkins--the big strip of Wal-Marts and Chili's. Everybody's out and having a good time and I hate it.
Best thing about football games, though: the town dies. I drove to a coffee shop and met with Haesong and Andrew Terhune and we talked about the first year exam and conducted a "team-building exercise" by watching Jackass 3D. Sometimes, people take movies too seriously but not seriously enough. Jackass 3D was pretty good--I look forward to True Grit and Tron Legacy.
II.
I think white male heterosexual American poets should stop writing about jazz, one thing, and another thing: we should not try to write about our vacations to third world countries; we confuse sympathy and empathy for the locals. I think the one thing a white male heterosexual American poet can take on in a political sense, and not sound like a retard or a colonial, is in the context of class. That's the one grief a white male heterosexual American poet can experience first-hand that doesn't involve relationship heartbreak.
III.
I am reading with Justin Runge on November 5th as part of An Actual Kansas.
This all I have right now.
I've never lived on the coasts or went to a liberal arts college and I've never lived in a "college town" until now, and I have picked a hell of a place. Stillwater is okay, but I don't travel around it much. People outrage over two Wal-Marts and Chili's and that stuff and that all sucks, but I don't know, the weather bothers me most. 82 during the day and then 40ish at night. There's no middle ground. It overcasted yesterday and stuck around the high-60s, which was nice, and Nebraska-OSU meant the town was easy to navigate. I don't like using the word "happy"--who knows what that means, but I do like driving around on Saturday/Sunday afternoons in the fall. South and East KC provided that opportunity pretty regularly. Stillwater doesn't: the town is small and everybody is out, so it's kind of miserable trying to get downtown or on Perkins--the big strip of Wal-Marts and Chili's. Everybody's out and having a good time and I hate it.
Best thing about football games, though: the town dies. I drove to a coffee shop and met with Haesong and Andrew Terhune and we talked about the first year exam and conducted a "team-building exercise" by watching Jackass 3D. Sometimes, people take movies too seriously but not seriously enough. Jackass 3D was pretty good--I look forward to True Grit and Tron Legacy.
II.
I think white male heterosexual American poets should stop writing about jazz, one thing, and another thing: we should not try to write about our vacations to third world countries; we confuse sympathy and empathy for the locals. I think the one thing a white male heterosexual American poet can take on in a political sense, and not sound like a retard or a colonial, is in the context of class. That's the one grief a white male heterosexual American poet can experience first-hand that doesn't involve relationship heartbreak.
III.
I am reading with Justin Runge on November 5th as part of An Actual Kansas.
This all I have right now.
Sunday, October 10, 2010
MARKET SYNERGY
PANK Magazine asked me some questions.
Jellyfish 3.0 is up with two prose poems.
My friend suggested I try anacoluthon. I always thought my work is inherently messy/strange. I don't know if I can get away with that.
Jellyfish 3.0 is up with two prose poems.
My friend suggested I try anacoluthon. I always thought my work is inherently messy/strange. I don't know if I can get away with that.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Lifted Brow Online
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.
A student told me about a week ago she liked Twilight a lot. I said that's fine.
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.
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Gem City/Fountain City
Greg Lamer has copies of my chapbook Gem City/Fountain City still available. It's a classy looking chap for a decent price in the Black Sparrow vein. The poems are pretty strange and loose.
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