Smash block

My Poetics-Chapter Two

2009-06-06T22:26:00.000-07:00

"Metaphorism"

I like Frank O'Hara's description of his movement, Personism, because he lets on really early that it's his personal take on things. I have thought a lot about what the main driving force is for me when I write poetry, and I have to say it's metaphor. Every thing I write is about something concrete. I just couch it in metaphor. While I like the Language poets use of language for its own sake--the whole idea of sculpting words and white space into an experience in its own right is exciting to me--I can't completely divorce the language from my meanings. I use metaphor so I can write about my meaning, and the meaning is hidden in metaphor. This is handy--you can say anything you want to this way! But seriously, for me that's what makes a poem immediate - if I feel passionately about what I'm talking about it seems to give the poem a vitality and makes it interesting. I have focus and find the comic timing easily that way.

My Poetics-Chapter One

2009-06-02T12:40:00.000-07:00

Fame and fortune versus enjoying what you do

I keep thinking about what we talked about in class today. I want to tie two parts of the conversation together:

1) That poets get together to read, read each other's stuff, and write for each other because they love it and do want to be heard, hear others, and publish, and
2) my comment about how it might be if people didn't go for publication, money, recognition, etc.

The two seem like opposites, but ARE they?

I didn't mean that we should cease all shared poetry-don't publish, don't read aloud, hell, don't even print yer stuff at home-of course we want that, but that the focus starts out with what you get out of the actual writing, and then you're moved to put it out in the world. I think most poets do that, and that's what draws me to poetry.

So, although poetry isn't all that popular in the mainstream, I think it just might represent the most-dare I say it?-natural way for people to engage in life. Not that they all should be poets, but that they should choose something they love even if it's not lucrative.

I was wondering how it would be if our culture's attitude towards fame and fortune were less cut-throat. So, instead of people clawing for their fifteen minutes, no matter how they do it - reality tv, having eight babies and saying you're going to have more, singing badly on television, etc- how would it be if people did what they loved first, and worried about the fame later. It 's not a new question but I think it's really relevant these days.

I realize that I've just used two examples that are the opposite ends of the capitalistic spectrum (poetry and the octomom?), but really, a lot of folks are running toward the get-the-money-or-die end, and although I also don't think poetry will change that, I'm wondering if maybe the changes Greta pointed out could one day include a cultural shift towards more people engaged in what they want to do first. Call me a cock-eyed optimist...

Where I'm From

2009-05-13T21:30:00.000-07:00

People, surprised
didn't know it would turn out this way.

It's amazing how they make do.
I'm one of them.

Work can be gotten by word of mouth.
The food services. Clearing out an attic.
And aimlessness.

But they're game.
You don't even see them.

Their only weakness
is a shocking lack of whitened teeth.

Shut Up

2009-05-13T21:25:00.000-07:00

It’s a rude question, but I"ll tell you.
Finish with your arguments.

I’m alright with the situation.
I’m the opposite of it.
If you only knew.
Your jaw would drop, I’ve worked so hard.

I should be President by now.
I should have won the Nobel Peace Prize.

I’ve worked so hard and so well,
and
your jaw would drop
and
if you only knew.

Tie Me UP I and II

2009-05-13T21:21:00.000-07:00

Tie Me UP I

Motivational Speaker Woman, while flying through the sky, says:

“Money does not confer motion.
Not having money does not restrict everything.
You mind does not stop working if you’re down to nothing.
Doing the things that money is needed for are not the only things you can do.

Yes, there are limits, but you don’t have to stay in your room.
And when you have money it is possible to leave behind the shiny new things you have bought.
Shiny new things do not confer motion.”

Tie Me UP II

Motivational Speaker Woman, while flying through the sky, says:

“Money does not confer motion.
Not having money does not blah blah.
You mind does not blah blah blah if you’re down to nothing.
Doing the things that money is needed for are not blobbity blah blah.

Yes, there are limits, but you don’t have to stay in your room.
And when you have money it is possible to
blah blah,
blah blah,
blah blah,
blah blah.
Shiny new things do not confer motion.”

Blah Blah Blah.

Reference Materials

2009-05-13T21:00:00.000-07:00

Call:
You know, it's that "post-modern sort of we're-in-the-know,
everything is referencing everything" thing. And people are okay with that.

Response:
Oh, I know what you mean. it's like, there I was in the cafeteria and there, at eye level, was this little wooden Easter Island head, on a counter, and someone, someone had fashioned, out of a paper napkin, out of a school cafeteria, food services, in bulk, bleached white paper napkin, a tiny tie on it.

I mean, there were so many things there. Like, Easter Island. And the commercialization of Easter Island. And commercialization. And forests being cut down. And men in ties, which references the fifties and the sixties and the seventies and now and the eighties and mainly Father Knows Best, right? The tie, that's also all about the colonization of the brown man by the white man, that's what. And multi-culturalism. And art, because it was a sculpture, and finally, after all that, the whole damn thing was taking place inside of a cafeteria. A school cafeteria, with all that implies: bad food. Mass production. Mean cafeteria ladies. Bad food. Pepsi machines, which calls to mind coke, which calls to mind the history of coke, which started with cocaine in it, and then it got taken out, which calls to mind who did the taking out and why?

It all got called up, from one giant pomo data bank, one huge thumb drive sitting on a floor with people walking on it, flashing one icon after another: Easter Island Head. Money. Environmental Degradation. Food and Our Health. Stereotyped People. The Floor (which, by the way, was linoleum, which conjured up A New Life With Plastics). And there were also Cash Registers which practically screamed Trying To Live on a Minimum Wage Income. And Those Little Stiles that make you remember the New York subway. And it was all there, and it all swirled around and around until, once the sound of it had risen and risen and drowned out everything and everybody, and nobody could hear or see anything, the little Easter Island guy wearing the paper napkin tie just stood up and screamed:

"WILL EVERYBODY PLEASE SHUT UP?!"

Drying out

2009-05-08T11:04:00.000-07:00

Dry day.
Dry thought.
Dry, completely dry.

Dry as hell.
Dry as middle age.
Dry as lizard skin.

Sahara sun dry,
middle of summer dry,
dry as caked squirrel.

No assurances.
No last minute deliveries.
No mighty riffs.

Nothing.

Where

is

the
promised

payment?

Another Manifesto

2009-05-05T18:30:00.001-07:00

Well, I thought I'd try one too. Here's draft one...

I

You will say it anyway.

II
.
Pretend you can sing.

III

Confess.
Take attention.

IV

Play well: you will always know.
The overwhelm will take care of the necessary utterances.

V

Be aware of the ocean--the grey, weird sea, arms reaching up from it, everyone speaking--
Their sentences occur by themselves.

VI

You must let them overlap
You've been hearing them all your life

they come from a non-place.

VI I

All I'm saying, is:
Please shout the story.

Corso

2009-05-05T18:11:00.000-07:00

Before we get out of the beats I want to say how much I liked Corso. He's got such an emotional range, and his style changes a bit with each different type of poem. I think he's very confessional at times and it works.

In "The Mad Yak" he's just riffing, in my opinion - he may have seen a yak or not, doesn't even matter, and he just wrote what he thought a yak would say -- so he's funny. He gets funnier in "Marriage." It's not cynical and disrespectful at all - he's telling one on himself as he points out the pitfalls of marriage. I love the "shouted" out nonsense: Pie Glue! Radio belly! Yet he gets serious, wondering how he'd handle dealing with an infant. He's all over the map with this poem but he makes it work. It's a rich subject and he goes deep into it. In "Love Poem for Three for Kaye & Me" he is completely serious and gets really lyrical and romantic, and he pulls it off. Same for "I Held a Shelley Manuscript" - his reverence for Shelley is clear but there's no preaching, which I appreciate. I think Corso's work falls into O'Hara's definition of good poetry: his poems wear those tight pants and folks like it.

Monkey Hands

2009-04-27T22:05:00.000-07:00

This is better than charity.
Sure I cut a corner. I cut three!
But I went back, kissed the paper, saw black.
What can you do in such a short time?

I hammered and hammered, sweated, cried.
Obsession is a god.
You choose where you'll be a hero, and where you'll just jump right over that particular puddle.
Everyone wants to be tired at the end of the day.

Beats

2009-04-27T21:22:00.000-07:00

Well, I'll start with Ginsberg. It's very interesting, and I have to keep reminding myself of this, that Ginsberg -and all the beats - were writing during one of the most repressive and scary times in this country. The fifties were not so fun, not so Happy Days. My dad was subpeonaed by HUAC (House Un-American Activities Committe), lost his job, all that - it was three months before I was born - and that is one of our family sagas. So to read the beats is so affirming for me - there were people who not only hated the political hysteria (AND the rest of it, the rampant conformity, the idiotic fall into the consumerism that's still going on and just destroying us), but they were brave enough to talk out loud about it. It helped that they didn't seem to care - most people were terrified. And they didn't just talk about it - they created wild poetry, and I think the Kerouac technique of "first thought, no corrections" was a perfect antidote to what they were seeing all around them: it makes perfect sense in that it was two sides of the same coin, all that planned and repressed behavior on one side, and the beats just letting it rip on the other.

"America," fits with all that. I like the length, of all things, because it is so brazen: he just will not stop, he isn't oblique about what he says, he exhausts the subject head on. You can feel his rage. Personifying America worked, and putting that "person" on an equal level with the poet - without larger than life dazzle (read: Iraq rhetoric today) -making it a really dysfunctional character called America, may have pissed a few people off. And to talk about his red connections, his mother's and his own membership when people were committing suicide if they were named as commie- well, it was brave. The people who gravitated to the beat culture must have felt this incredible relief when they listened to the poetry. It must have been like a cool drink.

Zukofsky

2009-04-22T20:04:00.000-07:00

I liked his humor in the Dedication - some of his references to the following poem made sense - citing Eliot's The Waste Land for lines 25-27, but some were obscure (to me), like "Geoffrey Chaucer...College Cheer" on line 45. I still liked it - he is making light of literary pretensions there, looks like to me, with his remark "I dedicate this poem to Anyone and Anything I have unjustifiably forgotten," but he is so well read the poking fun isn't malicous at all. He as good as says so with the quote on the title line of First Movement, "And out of olde bokes, in good feith."

Some of First Movement gives me the feeling of Russia before Communism - I thought "Chekov" when I read "Winged wild geese, who knows the pathway?//Winds of the South and wind of the North".

The rhythm of his language sounds so good, really musical. For instance, lines 31 through about 46 of First Movement, where he gets "modern", just flow along and take you with it.

Reznikoff

2009-04-22T19:50:00.000-07:00

Well, I liked Reznikoff a lot. He has the knack of telling really dark stuff without self pity. Given the subject matter, he could have really played that card. I appreciate messages about the worst things told in a straightforward manner. For instance, "It Had Long Been Dark..." Wow. That one reminds me of my own childhood, although religion wasn't why I felt that way. Reznikoff seems to feel it's important - and I agree - to make us know that sort of prejudice goes on, yet gives us plenty of room to make up our own minds about it - hard to do with the more weighty problems on Earth - we're used to having our fugurative (and sometimes real) lapels grabbed while someone shouts at us. I think the social conscience he brings to his writing is important, and to put it in poetry is an accomplishment - could have gotten boring, instead it's riveting.

"Entertainment" is a case in point. Hard to take, but again, needed to be said. It's a timeless poem in the sense that we - -us hoo-manz - - have always done that sort of shit and are still doing it: Sierra Leone, Ruanda, Darfur anyone? Reznikoff does something I really love to read and try to do in my own writing - the best way to tell about really horrific stuff is to be as simple and non-sensational as possible, just to say it without exclamation points or excessive adjectives. Very clear eyed work.

Residents

2009-04-17T15:32:00.000-07:00

Occassionally the folksy housekeeper tells me that I ought to care more about my job, which is also housekeeping. Food on the table and all that. Well. We disagree there. Other than that, she's a funny woman and we get along.

The 70's coke guy, who is a deceitful thief, just can't get it together. I met him at a party and he gave me some drugs. Thinking, since he was so generous, there was no reason he would not be a swell guy, I was startled when he first behaved badly.

The redneck is just such a sexist bastard. Any tiny little thing I do, he disapproves. I pay him little mind. I know if we start arguing, it will be all over.

They confer. I can't hear what they're talking about.

Clear out! This, my good, good buddies, is my house.

Ezra, Mina, et al

2009-04-13T21:07:00.000-07:00

A couple of poets in this group of poets really stood out for me. I liked Marianne Moore and Wallace Stevens. Stevens seems like the earliest Language poet I've heard of. His work had more through line, but not always, and it is interesting the way he played with words. in "Bantams in Pine-Woods" he is really playing with language. It a little reminiscent of Caroll's Jabberwocky. Lots of alliteration and disconnected images, but still an engaging story. He is talking about a rooster, but just. "An inchling bristles in these pines" creates an image for me of a feisty little bird. "I am my world" is an animal claiming territory. "Fat! Fat! Fat! Fat!" could be anything, but I think it's Steven's rendition of crowing. Interesting.

I liked Moore's complete literal sentences that she presents in a sideways kind of way. In "Poetry" she just says "these things are important not because a/high-sounding interpretation can be put upon them but because they/are/useful." Meaning that reading poetry is good for you, can help your life, like all art.

Emily Dickenson

2009-04-13T20:58:00.000-07:00

I've always enjoyed Dickenson's humor. She had a dark streak alright. But she will turn around and say something enlightened, like #657: "I dwell in possibility." Although that could have meant she kept positive in the face of a life that may have been disappointing. In 712 she is laughing at the joke played on herself: "Feels shorter than the Day/I first surmised the Horses' Heads/ Were towards Eternity."

Walt

2009-04-09T18:45:00.000-07:00

I love the way Whitman's mind works! He's the master of free association. I read "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry" completely. It's really beautiful how he starts with a simple setting - the observation of the flood tide and passengers - but pretty quickly ups the ante by jumping into the future: "And you that shall cross from shore to shore years hence are more to me, and more in my meditations, than you might suppose."

I think he lives in human experience the way Stein lives in process, just puts himself squarely in the middle of it. Pretty soon he's talking abut Manhattan Island, then jumps to waking up to his own sensuality: "I too felt the curious abrupt questionings stir within me...I too had received identity by my body/That I was I knew was of my body, and what I should be I knew I should be of my body."

Excuse the whoo-whooishness, but he does make it sound like he has a direct experience of everything being connected, like he can see the big web of energy everything is held in. In section 8 he talks about it really well - and I like the way he defends his point of view with the last three lines of that section: "We understand, do we not?/What I promis'd without mentioning it, have you not accepted?/ What the study could not teach-what the preaching could not accomplish is accomplish'd, is it not?" So he's saying people are connected, and don't need anyone giving them permission to be.

I like his simpler descriptions. In section 9 he says "Receive the summer sky, you water, and faithfully hold it till all downcast eyes have time to take it from you!" That's such a powerful way to talk about looking at sunlight on water. Then in the next line he makes all people angels! "Diverge, fine spokes of light, from the shape of my head, or any one's head, in the sunlit water!"

That whole last section he brings it all together. He looks at the city and gives the skyline a whole new meaning, and a persona, then uses it to keep on with the connectedness theme: "We plant you permanently within us."