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2012-02-12T21:33:00.000-05:00

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Top Ten Hits

2012-01-12T21:33:00.001-05:00

The following list shows my most popular posts, according to the blog's auto-tracker--if you can trust Google. Personally, I don't know that you can. The arithmetic seems off at times, but what do I know? I have difficulty balancing my checkbook, though that's primarily because I find negative numbers confusing, if not meaningless. Speaking of which:

1. Emily Dickinson Post is the runaway leader, with twice the hits of any other post & only half the calories. If you're a fan of Emily Dickinson, perhaps you'll enjoy Greetings from Boston. If you're a fan of the pseudo-bio thingy, then perhaps you'll like In Memory. Now in individual fun-size servings!

2. Imitation of Immortality is a parody of sorts of César Vallejo's oft-imitated "Black Stone on Top of a White Stone." By the way, if you have a parody of Vallejo's poem, please feel free to go to this post & share it. If you're into parodies, perhaps you'll enjoy the ironic dissection of the process in Composition of Parody.

3. R-S-T-U-V, Find Out What It Means to Me places third, thanks to geometry. Apparently my attempt to echo, however loosely, Aretha Franklin spelling out the title in her hit single "Respect" parallels a particularly tricky math problem, in which the letters R-S-T-U-V represent points on a geometric figure. For those who've come to this site looking for help with your math, haha! Hmm, I wonder if people who Googled implementing 2nd Amendment Rights were directed to Going Ballistic?

4. How to Make The Divine Comedy Relevant to Today's Audiences, a tongue-in-cheek Lucas-esque adaptation of Dante to film, is one of my personal favorites.  If you like this post, perhaps you'll enjoy Homer's Space Odyssey. Also, The Iliad.  Similarly, why not give Richard Lovelace, Vaudevillian a read too?

5. Rock'em Sock'em Robots: The Movie is the post that spawned the clearly plagiarized movie starring Huge Jackoff. I wants my monies, bitches!  I can't help but wonder how come nobody's ripped off this yet?

6. New Zoo Poetry Review #11 is the result, were I to guess, of web searches for New Zoo Poetry Review. So if you're looking for magazines, may I also recommend NYQ 64, Interpoezia 4, What Are You Reading?, & Verse & Adversity.

7. Presidents Day Poem gets plenty of hits in February, so I figure it's school related. If you're an educator, please feel free to use "Washington Crossing the Delaware" in the classroom. Also, since you've come here looking for classroom material, let me steer you to my extremely helpful comments on "The Road Not Taken" in Frost Warning.

8. Blog Rage is pretty much self-explanatory & if you want to read more angry rants, check out Walter Sobchak's Take on Occupy Wall St., Laying Claim to the Name, Dear Blah Blah Blah, & A Few Thoughts on National Poetry Month. Hell, come to think of it, if you want angry rants, just click about anywhere on this site.

9. Hey, Hollywood! I Got Your Next Blockbuster Right Here! is my initial reaction to the aforementioned Hollywood ripoff.  For a later response, read Real Steel or Reel Steal?

10. The Top Ten Poetry Posts Ever & More serendipitously sits in the 10th spot of this list. If you like lists--& why the hell not!--click here, here, & here.

Return from the Himalayas, Part 7

2012-01-11T09:22:00.002-05:00

Hello, Leonard.

What I Read in 2011: Book Edition

2011-12-31T18:09:00.001-05:00

January

1. Selected Poems, Apollinaire
2. Sky, Michael Benedict
3. The Complete Poems, Stephen Crane
4. Ulysses, James Joyce
5. Poems Seven, Alan Dugan

February

6. The Tormented Mirror, Russell Edson
7. Off the Map, Gloria Fuertes
8. Vita Nova, Louise Gluck
9. What Narcissism Means to Me, Tony Hoagland
10. Collected Poems, James Joyce
11. Passing Through, Stanley Kunitz
12. Masterpieces of Japanese Puppetry; Sculptured Heads of the Bunraku Theater, Roy Andrew Miller, English adaptation
13. The Whitsun Weddings, Philip Larkin
14. Travels, W.S. Merwin

March

15. Dear Blood, Leonard Nathan
16. Love Poems of Ovid, trans. Horace Gregory
17. Winter Trees, Sylvia Plath
18. Selected Poems, Pierre Reverdy
19. A Simple Plan, Gary Soto
20. Malloy, Samuel Beckett
21. Riven Doggeries, James Tate
22. The Dirt, Nance Van Winckel

April

23. Swann’s Way, Marcel Proust
24. Riding the Earthboy, James Welch
25. The Good Earth, Pearl S. Buck
26. The Foggist, Dean Young
27. Family Reunion, Paul Zimmer

May

28. Fate, Ai
29. The Stillness, the Dancing, Linda Bierds
30. Within a Budding Grove, Marcel Proust
31. The Poems of Catullus, trans. Peter Whigham

June

32. The Bomb, Howard Zinn
33. A Drifting Life, Yoshihiro Tatsumi
34. Candide, Voltaire
35. Aunt Julia & the Scriptwriter, Mario Vargas Llosa

July

36. Boone’s Lick, Larry McMurtry
37. The Crying of Lot 49, Thomas Pynchon
38. A Russian Beauty & Other Stories, Vladimir Nabokov

August

39. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
40. Poems Seven, Alan Dugan (2^nd time this year)
41. Collected Poems, T.S. Eliot

September

42. Something Rotten, Jasper Fforde
43. An Imaginary Life, David Malouf
44. Complete Poems, Kenneth Fearing
45. The Great Fires, Jack Gilbert

October

46. The Erotic Poems, Ovid, Peter Green, trans.
47. The Legend of Light, Bob Hicok
48. War & Peace, Leo Tolstoy, Constance Garnett, trans.

November

49. La Vagabonde, Colette
50. The Moviegoer, Walker Percy
51. Ghost Town, Robert Coover

December
52. Inherent Vice, Thomas Pynchon
53. The Dwarf, Par Lagerkvist
54. The Complete Poems, Randall Jarrell
55. The Art of Love, Kenneth Koch

Rewriting Jarrell's "The Soldier"

2011-12-15T21:07:00.002-05:00

In the first year
of the first war
each taught each
to give all for all,
all alike, the poor
& the poorer,
deaths sown over
continents like salt
for the old
evil--the good
of trade, so books
once red
as blood may show
a profit to die for.

In a Dream

2011-11-30T10:32:00.006-05:00

You see her standing
under a bare tree, red hair
tied in a kerchief, raking
leaves into a basket. Clouds
rest atop branches,
fading into white.
But look! in the pocket
of her flowered smock
is a letter she's addressed
to you, her secret pal.

________________________________________

Note: What is it about this poem? It's about as deep as a pile of leaves, but maybe that's why I kind of, sort of like it. I wrote it some 20 odd years ago--bizarre years, to be precise--after receiving an anonymous greeting card in the mail. On the outside, a woman rakes; inside,below a predictably unmemorable message, it's signed, "Your Secret Pal," with each letter amusedly printed backward, as if I would want to hold it up to a mirror to crack the secret code. More than likely, I like the poem not because of its poetic merits, but simply because it reminds me of the "mysterious" card. What would I.A. Richards say about that?Cleanth Brooks? I can't recall submitting my little poem for publication--I've spared it that indignity. In fact, I've shown it to two or three people prior to posting it here, which brings the number to upward of, say, five readers. One problem, I worry, though possibly it's just me, that the expression, "her secret pal," may sound a bit, albeit unintentionally, like a euphemism for menstruation. Anyone?

Toward a Better Tomorrow

2011-11-19T17:38:00.002-05:00

Despite the illusory nature of freedom, I've long been Pro-Choice, but lately I've seen the danger of such liberal thinking. Now I've thrown my considerable weight--it's glandular--behind mandatory abortions. A simple analysis of current crime statistics, not to mention the problem of overcrowded prisons, alone would justify my position. Plus, as any nimrod can tell you--Sean Hannity, for instance--you can't be too soft on crime. Take the problem of illegal aliens, who, if I'm not mistaken, began as unborn babies. Erecting an electrified fence around our border would prove unnecessarily idiotic when worldwide mandatory abortions would not only cut out this problem in its pre-infancy, if you will, but also close the legal loophole that protects anchor babies.  No baby, no anchor, no problem. The solution is so simple that it's surprising that Michele Bachmann hasn't stumbled across it.

To place mandatory abortion in an historical perspective, if everyone were forced to have an abortion in, say, the late 19th century, a poor working Euro-tramp wouldn't have given birth to a boy who'd grow up to be--yes, that's right--Adolf Hitler. Roundly recognized now as the poster child for evil, Hitler could now become the poster boy for mandatory abortions if Rush Limbaugh won't sign on to the cause.  I suppose Glenn Beck would do in a pinch--he'll do anything for a buck.

Obviously, the aforementioned mothers would have been well advised not to have had down & dirty demonic sex with Satan & his minions, but once mandatory abortion becomes law, the threat of demon spawn is effectively minimalized. To be fair, it's time we stop vilifying the devil & give him his due. According to pulpit pundit Pat Robertson, slavery ended in Haiti thanks to Satanic intervention. If true--he swears it is--then we need to reconsider the hackneyed image of the devil as evil incarnate & accord him the recognition long overdue for his admirable work as an abolitionist. All praise Satan!

Of course, if abortions were mandatory, then only outlaws would have babies. Well, that's not what I was going to say, but there's that to consider. It certainly doesn't take much imagination, so no doubt some Hollywood hotshot, perhaps the same person who ripped off my Rock'em Sock'em Robots idea, is rushing into production, at this very instant, a cheesy sci-fi flick in which a young couple in love & on the lam wander across a crumbling dystopian landscape of overreaching religious symbolism, hiding in one slummy hole-in-the-wall after another to escape the soulless bureaucrats who, out to out Herod Herod,mean to terminate, as is the law in those dark days to come,the unborn babe, who represents the last glint of hope for humanity. Featuring High School Musical's Katie Morgan as Ave Maria & the omnipresent Shia LeBeouf as Joe the Plumber. What, no Seth Rogen? No, he's busy writing & producing his new project, in which he stars as an underachieving donor sperm, who, with his ne'erdowell friends, must overcome internal conflicts & biological warfare--literally--when they're injected into Katherine Heigl's system in order to fertilize her lovely, lonely egg in an hilarious remake of Fantastic Voyage.

Anyway, I was going to say that if abortions had been mandatory centuries ago, certain great personages would have never existed. Sadly, this is true, but the downside of not enacting mandatory abortions carries such great risk that society simply can't take that chance.  Ultimately, it comes down to math: for every Albert Schweitzer, countless dictators, rapists, murderers, pedophiles, pickpockets, CEOs, & Fox pundits are allegedly born. There'd be no Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha, Thor or whatever, but on the upside, there'd also be no The Passion of the Christ, or subsequent anti-Semitic Mel Gibson rants, so think about that.

Indeed, most of the world's problems--terrorism, overpopulation, global warming, drug abuse, racism, sexism, inequality, poverty, disease & so on--could be eliminated via mandatory abortions. Clearly, humankind--"humanunkind," more like--is responsible for nearly all the world's problems.  Why don't our so- called leaders have the guts to address this issue? Hell if I know. Do those guys ever make any sense? Not to me, who, one may rightly argue, would not exist if my stinking fetus had been aborted all those years ago. However, that's hardly a new idea.  During my late teens & early 20s, my parents constantly & loudly lamented that I'd ever been born. I confess to similar feelings myself--about my parents.  I mean, my dad was a lifelong alcoholic who never finished high school, yet I could never do anything to live up to his "high" standards. Then there's my mom, who kept buying New Coke for me, no matter how much I complained that it tasted like a skanky stripper pissed in a bottle. (Yes, I know how that tastes--true story!)

Admittedly, even if mandatory abortions were made law this very day, we would still wake up tomorrow with many of the same problems we face today.  Change takes time & meanwhile, life drones on. What can we do now to bring about immediate change?  I suggest, as a stopgap measure, privatizing the United Nations to make it an effective, multi-national corporation.  Next, institute the Profit of Peace program, which, to sum up quickly, works thusly: if a nation wants peace, it has to pay for it. Can't pay? Won't pay?  That would be viewed as an act of war. U.N. forces would then converge upon the financially strapped country with all its shock & awe. This may sound like extortion to a wuss, but as any pinhead knows--shout out to Bill O'Reilly--the Great Depression ended because President Lincoln, guns ablazing, entered WWII. So, ipso-facto, if governments today can't afford to pay for peace, a U.N. military invasion will invigorate the economy of otherwise depressed countries.  It's a win-win situation unless, of course, you invade Afghanistan--that place is a money pit!

Sir Philip Sidney's "An Apology for Poetry" (Abridged)*

2011-10-23T01:18:00.001-04:00

If I offended anyone, I'm sorry. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea culpa. It was a poem, OK? Maybe someone who's knighted shouldn't make poems, but people need to recognize poetry when they hear it. So I'm not going to apologize for poetry. It's not a waste of time & the mother of lies, but a superior form of communication that serves a host of purposes. Plato may be right when he says "secure the border" against poetry & that may mean electrifying the Gates of Poetry or deploying troops where it's truly terrible. Poetry should instruct & delight. I like poetry, so I'm not walking away from it. I just don't want to offend anyone.

Walter Sobchak's Take on Occupy Wall St.

2011-10-19T00:36:00.002-04:00

What can they do? They're a bunch of fucking amateurs, & meanwhile, look at the bottom line: Who's sitting on a million fucking dollars? Those rich fucks! This is what happens when you fuck a stranger in the ass! I did not watch my buddies die face down in the muck so that this . . . shut the fuck up, Donnie! This is not a worthy adversary. These men are nihilists. These men are cowards. I mean, say what you like about the tenets of National Socialism, at least it's an ethos. Fucking Nazis. As if we would ever "dream" of taking your bullshit money! You know, I myself dabbled in pacifism once. Not in 'Nam of course. Have you ever heard of Vietnam? So you have no frame of reference. Pacifism is not something to hide behind. We're talking about unchecked aggression here. You're entering a world of pain. You want a toe? I can get you a toe, believe me. There are ways. You don't wanna know about it, believe me. Hell, I can get you a toe by 3 o’clock this afternoon . . . with nail polish. Has the whole world gone crazy? Am I the only one around here who gives a shit about the rules? For your information, the Supreme Court has roundly rejected prior restraint. Also, let's not forget–let's not forget, that keeping wildlife, an amphibious rodent, for uh, domestic, you know, within the city–that ain’t legal either. Am I wrong? This is not 'Nam. There are rules. Fuck it, Dude, let's go bowling.

Real Steel Or Reel Steal?

2011-10-13T19:44:00.001-04:00

I may be flogging the proverbial dead horse, if that's what the kids call it these days, but before you answer the title question, you'll need to read my post "Rock'em Sock'em Robots: The Movie" from May 18, 2009. Go ahead--I'll wait.

Back already? Whoa, what are you, a speed reader? I barely had time to check my Facebook page & believe me, that doesn't take long. Sheesh, over 700 friends & I rarely hear from anyone. Will Rogers-- brother of Roy, I think--once said & he said a lot of things, "A stranger is just a friend you haven't met." On Facebook, the converse often holds true.

So anyway. So I had an idea for a movie & it's possible that someone may have used--without my permission, I may add & indeed, I believe I just did--that idea in a movie, starring Huge Jackass, no less. So? So consider the copyright statute:

Copyright protection subsists, in accordance with this title, in original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression, now known or later developed, from which they can be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated, either directly or with the aid of a machine or device. 17 U.S.C.102(a)

Real Steel? Or Reel Steal? You be the judge--I can't afford an actual one. They're pricey!

Odi Et Amo

2011-10-09T21:00:00.005-04:00

When down, I read. To give you an inkling of the depths of my depression, I'm currently reading War & Peace. It's the traditional translation by Constance Garnett, no longer the "preferred" version, but it's free online. Besides, I doubt if a new translation would deliver a much better rendering of Tolstoy than the following passage: “Looking into Napoleon's eyes, Prince Andrew thought of the insignificance of greatness, the unimportance of life which no one could understand, & the still greater unimportance of death, the meaning of which no one alive could understand or explain.” That pretty much sums it up for me. Halfway through the book, I don't know how it will all turn out, but I feel fairly confident, like most stories about princes & princesses, that it'll have a happy ending.

I'm also reading The Erotic Poems, Peter Green's translations of Ovid's Amores, Art of Love & Cures for Love. To be honest, I like Horace Gregory's Love Poems of Ovid better, but that may derive, at least in part, from familiarity, given my having it read many times since I found it at a used bookstore decades ago for under a buck--what a bargain! My main complaint about Green is that he often strikes me as too genteel. For example, in Amores 3.7, which he dubs an explicit poem, Green renders politely:

She tried every trick--wound her arms (whiter than snow or

Ivory) around me, pressed

Her thighs snug up under mine, plied me with sexy kisses,

Tongue exploring like mad,

Whispered endearments, called me her master, tried me

With nice four-letter words--they often help.

No good. My member hung slack . . .

Rather than explicit, I'd give it a PG-13 rating, tops; perhaps a Hard-R is too much to ask from a poem about impotence. Such priggishness reminds me of the reluctance, until late, to translate pedicabo et irrumabo in Catullus' infamous poem. Obviously, the thought was that readers were much too squeamish to hear threats of being forcibly sodomized unless uttered in Latin. Today's audience would undoubtedly find it amusing were Bruce Willis, with his quirky trademark smirk & steely stare, to deliver a modern translation.

On the upside, not only does Green provide the complete poems, but also a concise biography of Ovid, as well as such bountiful endnotes that they comprise half the volume. If I recall, Green even gives endnotes to his endnotes. (In your face, TSE!) For the most part, these notes are informative, as when he points out lost puns, discusses the components of, say, an epicedion, or explains why Augustus found Ovid's poetry subversive. At other times, I find the notes a bit befuddling, as when Green speculates--nay, insists--that various vaguely misogynous lines are directed at one of the poet's ex-wives. Green doth project too much, methinks. Elsewhere, Green compares Ovid's diction to that of "a bitchy homosexual." I suppose Green feels it's ok to appeal to stereotypes to make a point--I just wish I knew what that point is.

Peccadillos aside, Green provides an informative, enjoyable read. After I finish this collection, I plan to read his translations of The Poems of Exile: Tristia & the Black Sea Letters. Also, I now have Horace Gregory's translation of The Metamorphoses. (I've read both the Rolfe Humphries & Allen Mandelbaum translations.) So if dead leaves, bare trees, the faint last rays of sunshine, or Tolstoy's epic fairy tale don't lift my flagging spirits, at least I have plenty to peruse.

Happily Ever After

Return from the Himalayas, Part 6

2011-09-27T14:58:00.000-04:00

An all-or-nothing choice is an example of a false dilemma; in reality, all is nothing.

Dream of Wheat

2011-09-12T13:15:00.005-04:00

Dream of Wheat

Back in college, I dreamt one night about wheat. While I don’t recall the particulars–years erode memories–I remember the intensity of color. The vibrant sun shining on a bright yellow field filled me with wonder. At the time, I’m unsure now why, it struck me as vaguely sexual, but to paraphrase Freud (shrugging his shoulders): What isn’t?

Upon waking, I wrote down the dream, then began a rather lengthy project of molding my impressions, as is my wont, into poetry. What an impossible task it seemed to me–as if I were charged with rebuilding the sun! If I could find the poem, I’d consider posting it here, but Fate, a cruel mistress, has decided otherwise. For what it’s worth, my recollection is that it included the requisite allusion to Aldous Huxley, a soft-R depiction of Gaea’s long blonde hair streaming across my face during the impassioned throes of our lovemaking, & lithe, lean lions with golden manes. How all of these came together in a wheat field, I honestly don’t know, but back then, I had a thing for lions–& blondes!

Like Richard Dreyfus in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, I became rather obsessed with the dream’s imagery. Frustrated by the poem’s failure, like lumpy mashed potatoes, to capture the experience–dreams are experience– even though I’d not painted in several years, I attempted to recreate it in a watercolor (I’d dabbled in high school, though I much preferred acrylics & oils). The above image is of the wheat field, but feeling that it lacked the dream’s vivacity, I flipped the image over (see below) & called it, "Daybreak at Clearwater." I used to live there.

Daybreak at Clearwater

Lines from An Imaginary Life

2011-09-09T15:52:00.000-04:00

Recently, while reading David Malouf's An Imaginary Life, I stumbled across the following passage, which I plucked from an awfully long paragraph & recast, with a couple of quick fixes, as a poem. The ending may lean a tad to the unimaginative, but overall, I give it two imaginary thumbs up:

We are preparing to shut ourselves in.

Against the horsemen from the north,
who will surely appear again
as the river freezes & against the wolves.

In each of us there is this sense of withdrawal
into ourselves, this retirement
into the body’s secret
light & warmth, out of the coming cold; this moving

further into some deep inner self that must remain
untouched by the closeness that will be forced
upon us in these winter months, when first
the town is shut up, then our houses . . .

We will spend days & nights equally
huddled together above
the one peat stone in the big central room

over the byre. Winter here is a time

of slow smoldering resentments, of suspicions,

of fantasies that grow as days move deeper

in the year’s darkness & cold

drives us closer together, yet further apart.

On Last Looking into Eliot's Collected Poems

2011-09-03T03:25:00.002-04:00

Eliot, as Walt Disney, introduces
"Mickey Among the Nightingales"
on The Wonderful World of Color.

I’m convinced that my previously held conviction that T.S. Eliot (pronounced "Z'eliot," as the "T" is silent), with the notable exception of two, maybe three poems--in particular "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," long a guilty pleasure--well, I don't want to say "sucks," but yeah, he kinda does, you know.*

One reason is Eliot's anti-Semitism, (e.g., his various allusions to The Jew of Malta & other depictions of Jews in a bad light). Admittedly, Eliot was a product of his time & in those days, anti-Semitism was all the rage. By that logic, however, one could argue that if everyone else is banging your daughter, you may as well bang her too. Sorry, perverts, but popularity doesn't make it right--even if she's ripe & practically begging for it, what with her trendy black jackboots & swastika tramp stamp.

Ok, one may ask, granted that anti-Semitism bites the big one, how does Eliot's biting it reflect negatively on his poetics? Simply put, content matters. Technique & craftsmanship alone don't great poems make. Poetry uses words & words have meanings. Get a dictionary if you don't get that.

Eliot, as Bob Hope,

in The Big Broad-

cast of 1938

Speaking of content, another fault in Eliot's poetry lies in its didacticism. If he's not berating Jews, he's crowing like Simon Peter about Christianity. Both "Ash Wednesday" & "Choruses from The Rock" seem little more than overt attempts to proselytize the reader. (Personally, after Tooth Fairy, I didn't think The Rock could sink any lower, but "Choruses from The Rock," in my estimation, is worse even than Race to Witch Mountain.) **

As for craftsmanship, I don't know which I like less about these poems--the desire to proselytize readers or the shocking lack, line after preachy line, of imagery. Didn't Eliot say he preferred the Metaphysical poets to the Romantics because the former attached emotions to images? What happened to the objective correlative? The only image is the one in my imagination of Eliot in grand ecclesiatical robes perched at the pulpit reading his sermon while I slip, not so quietly, out. ***

Eliot, as Jack Benny, strikes

a familiar pose in It's a Mad,

Mad, Mad, Mad World

In an oft-repeated story, Eliot gave pages & pages of rambling, disconnected lines to fascist friend, Ezra Pound, to make sense of. In retrospect, in light of Pound's Cantos, this strikes me as hilarious. Reportedly, Pound cut huge chunks of trifling tripe; the leftovers we know today as The Waste Land. It makes my head swim, as if I were being waterboarded, to contemplate what material Pound felt too extraneous to leave in The Waste Land, a poem without a center, but I've essentially avoided the doubly long pre-Pound draft, published as a facsimile after Eliot's death. To be frank, I don't need more obscure, willy-nilly references to understand Eliot is a pompous ass, though I'll confess I sometimes have a cockeyed curiosity to read the unedited version, much like one will rubberneck a freeway car wreck for a passing glimpse of somebody else's tragedy.

Eliot, as Prof. Wagstaff, at the 1955

London Caedmon Readings

Perhaps a more apt analogy in this case would be the propensity to examine one's finger upon its removal from the nose to see just what was up there, given that Eliot's constant arcane allusions serve to showcase his snooty, snotty, superior intellect. As for his often satirized footnotes, my "favorite" includes a rather long passage--in Latin, of course--from Ovid's Metamorphoses, which Eliot cites for its "anthropological interest." The specious reasoning for the citation as well as its length--part of a footnote, remember--reminds me of my undergraduate essays, in which, under time constraints, I'd add particularly long quotations, pertinent or not, in order to to make the required page limit in order to maintain my GPA. For Eliot, though, it seems a matter of maintaining pretensions.

In short, beneath much of his poetry lies the same simple, moralistic possum: the only hope for breaking the vile & vicious cycle of birth, copulation & death--the curse of humanity--comes via God through a once-in-a-lifetime offer. Some restrictions may apply. Please check your ethnicity for availability.

____________________________

Notes:

* "T.S." stands for "The Shit." I lied beforehand.

** The Rock has actually appeared in worse movies, such as . . . just about any of them.

*** What the thunder really said: Shaddup shaddup shaddup.

Art Necro

2011-09-01T13:52:00.000-04:00

When I Was Young

2011-08-16T20:53:00.002-04:00

I liked to draw & paint. For a while, I considered majoring in art when I went to college, if for no other reason than live nude models. Though true that, decomposition aside, dead models can seemingly hold a pose forever, scouring cemeteries for fresh graves to locate suitable corpses for my artistic endeavors proved exhausting, especially on school nights. Ultimately, poetry--my first love, my only love--won out. Being a poet doesn't require skulking about graveyards, but it sure to hell doesn't hurt. Since I'm unfamiliar with the statute of limitations regarding grave robbing, I'm reluctant to share examples of my "art necro" here, but perhaps the sketch shown below may illustrate why I opted to study literature & creative writing instead.

Self portrait at 17

Follow Your Dreams

2011-08-11T10:03:00.008-04:00

We're often told to follow our dreams, but sometimes in the day-to-day hustle & bustle of trying to make a buck, our dreams are lost along the swerving, curving highway of life. That's why it's good advice to tag your dreams electronically, much like scientists do to track animals in the wild. Thanks to today's state-of-the-art monitoring devices, you'll always know where to find your dreams, no matter how far you are from them, so you'll never have to scour through the stinking rubble of your faded hopes & discarded aspirations again for that last tiny, shiny shard of your lost dreams.

Return from the Himalayas, Part 5

2011-08-09T00:38:00.000-04:00

If someone were to ask if I'm happy, I can truly say, without hesitation, "You kidding? I'm so goddam happy I could shit circus fucking ponies. Thanks for asking, asshole."

Hey, World!

2011-08-08T08:44:00.000-04:00

I banged your fugly mother last night.

Good News

2011-08-07T23:15:00.002-04:00

I've heard of it, but that kinda stuff only happens to other guys.

Obama's Yes, We (Republi)can Agenda

2011-08-06T19:40:00.000-04:00

With the debt-ceiling deal, his latest piece of legislation, perhaps it's no longer accurate to accuse Pres. Obama of caving in. More than likely, he's being true to his belief in Milton Friedman's economics. The debt-ceiling "crisis" was a manufactured disaster that allowed the Blue Dog White House to enact regressive right-wing policies, not to mention to take attention away from his continued abuse of the War Powers Act. Obama may claim he's for Main Street, but that's just the usual political rhetoric. (You don't get elected saying you side with the fat cats.) Like most dupes in Washington, he's a fully owned subsidiary of Wall Street. Just like free verse is free because you don't get paid for it (not really, but I wanted a poetry reference), there's a reason it's called "disaster capitalism": the results are a fucking disaster.

Quote of the Day

2011-08-05T15:39:00.009-04:00

The harder I try, the harder I work, the greater disappointment & frustration I feel when I don’t obtain what I’m working toward.

–Anonymous

Letter to the Editor

2011-08-03T17:01:00.001-04:00

Fuck all y'all.

Ratify

2011-07-29T18:07:00.000-04:00

v.tr., ratified, ratifying, ratifies. 1. To cause the transformation of oneself or another into a rat. 2. To decree or to confirm officially as through legislation that one is a rat. 3. To act in a manner closely associated with a rat. [Latin, ratus, past participle of ratsass, to decline giving a fuck]

French Phrase Book Theatre

2011-07-05T14:04:00.000-04:00

Scène première

SIMONE, JEAN PAUL

SIMONE: Allons au restaurant ce soir!
JEAN PAUL: C'est trop cher.
SIMONE: On pourrait aller ailleurs.
JEAN PAUL: Il fait nuit noire. Attention a' la marche.
SIMONE: Cet homme est un genie.

Scène II
SIMONE: Tout le monde aime le bon vin.
JEAN PAUL: Je ne bois plus une goute d'alcool.
SIMONE: Coupe la viande, s'il te plait.
JEAN PAUL: Il faut aiguiser ce couteau.

Scène III
JEAN PAUL: Ce n'est pas juste.
SIMONE: Ce que tu es mauvais joueur!

Scène IV
SIMONE: On ne nait pas femme, on le devient.

Heat

2011-06-23T08:54:00.000-04:00

if something doesn't turn
up soon I’ll officially
become a monk as if
you’d notice days echo
days begging the question of
how long before I drop
like a clay pot from the ledge
screaming

sorry I missed you sorry
for nothing last night
I nearly drove my mercury off
a hill trying like a teenager
driving with his dick to be
cool gawd almighty
it’s hot & people are dying
everywhere

In Light of My Recent Birthday

2011-06-22T20:17:00.003-04:00

I present a dark photo of myself at 19.

I know it looks as if I'm smoking, but I'm not. In fact, it's an altogether different bad habit. Lost in thought, I'm nibbling on the nub of my ballpoint--no doubt my lucky Papermate Slimline, glowing with the fire caused by the incredible velocity in which I wrote, perhaps immortalizing a pub napkin with one of my early poems, let's say, "Scenes from a Sonata," which appeared umpteen years later in Hunger Mountain.

Speaking of, "Scenes from a Sonata" is the opening poem in my Greatest Hits, which, last I checked, still isn't listed (for whatever reason) among the other such chapbooks at Pudding House. However, as far as I know, you can purchase the book there. In fact, you should purchase it--by whatever means necessary-- because the Google preview of Greatest Hits doesn't include the book in whole. Also, the preview contains errors, most significantly a misprint of the aforementioned poem, that were corrected before the actual release of Greatest Hits, so I'm not giving a link here.

Or perhaps, despite my wearing a winter coat in the above photo, I had just written "Heat."

Blogma

2011-06-01T10:37:00.002-04:00

Anthony Bloggus, A Blogwork Orange
Blogclair Lewis, Arrowblog, Blog Street, Blogsworth, Bloggit, Elmer Blogtry, Kingsblog Royal
Carson McBlogger, The Heart Is a Lonely Blogger
Charles Blogens, A Blog of Two Cities, Blogiver Twist, Blog House, The Old Curiosity Blog, Blog Expectations, David Bloggerfield, Blogolas Blogleby
Daniel Dafoe, Blogison Crusoe, Blog Flanders
E.M. Forster, Where Angels Fear to Blog, A Blog with a View, A Passge to Blogia
Ernest Blogingway, For Whom the Blog Tolls, The Old Man & the Blog, The Sun Also Blogs, To Blog & Blog Not, A Farewell to Blogs
F. Blog Fitzgerald, The Great Blogsby
Flannery O’Blogger, Wise Blog, The Violent Blog It Away
Franz Blogka, "The Metamorphoblog"
Gabriel Garcia Blogquez, One Hundred Years of Blogitude
George Blogwell, Animal Blog
Gustave Flaublog, Madame Bloggery
Haruki Blogakami, The Wind-Up Blog Chronicle
Herman Blogville, Moby Blog, Billy Blogg, Blogito Cereno, "Blogleby, the Blogger"
Honore de Blogac, Pere Blogiot
Isaac Bloggis Singer, Blogsha
Jack Blogdon, The Call of the Blog
James Blogwin, Go Blog It on the Mountain
Jane Blogsten, Blog & Blogibility, Northblogger Abbey
J.D. Blogginger, The Blogger in the Rye, "A Perfect Day for Bloggerfish"
John Blogsey, Blogoshima, A Blog for Adano
John Steinblog, The Wayward Blog, The Blogs of Wrath, Bloggery Row, Tortilla Blogs, The Blogger of Our Discontent, To a Blog Unknown
Kurt Bloggegut, Jr., Slaughterhouse-Blog
Leo Blogstoy, Anna Blogenina
Marcel Blogst, Remembrance of Things Blogged (or In Search of Lost Blogs)
Miguel de Blogantes, Don Blogote
Nathaniel Blogthorne, The Scarlet Blogger, The House of Seven Bloggers, "Young Goodman Blog"
Pearl S. Blog, The Blog Earth
Philip Blog, Blognoy's Complaint
Rudblog Kipling, The Jungle Blog
Salman Blogdie, The Satanic Blogs
Saul Bloggow, The Adventures of Bloggie March, Humblog's Gift
Stendblog, The Red & the Blog
Steblog Crane, The Red Blog of Courage
Thomas Pynblog, The Blogging of Blog 49, Gravity's Rainblog
Toni Bloggison, The Blog of Solomon, The Bloggest Eye
Upton Blogclair, The Bloggle
Vladimir Nablogov, Bloglita
Victor Blogo, The Hunchblog of Notre Dame
Virginia Bloog, Mrs. Bloggoway, To the Bloghouse
William Blogkner, Blogsalom, Blogsalom!, As I Lay Blogging, Light in Blogust
W. Bloggerset Maugham, Of Human Bloggage

For the Love of Liszt

2011-05-18T11:38:00.003-04:00

First, let me begin by saying how sorry I am about the misleading title--yes, it's a pun. The truth of the matter is, however, I'm not in the least bit sorry. Frankly, I've heard worse puns. Anyway, to the point, since everyone is apparently obsessed with what I'm reading, I've provided below, with limited comments, a list of books of poetry I've read--in many cases re-read--thus far this year:

Selected Poems, Apollinaire (bow before his greatness)
Fate, Ai (yes)
Sky, Michael Benedict (underappreciated)
The Stillness, The Dancing, Linda Bierds (currently reading)
Collected Poems, Stephen Crane (prefer his fiction)
Poems Seven, Alan Dugan (best book I've read in a long time)
The Tormented Mirror, Russell Edson (the expected unexpected)
Off the Map, Gloria Fuertes (amazing)
Vita Nova, Louise Gluck (disappointing)
What Narcissism Means to Me, Tony Hoagland
Collected Poems, James Joyce (beats Ulysses, heh)
Passing Through, Stanley Kunitz (well, I don't dislike it)
The Whitsun Weddings, Philip Larkin (I met him once)
Travels, W.S. Merwin (more later in re: "Manual Cordova")
Dear Blood, Leonard Nathan
Love Poems of Ovid, trans. Horace Gregory (I <3 Ovid)
Winter Trees, Sylvia Plath (if you haven't read it, tsk tsk)
Selected Poems, Pierre Reverdy (cet homme est un genie)
A Simple Plan, Gary Soto (good stuff)
Riven Doggeries, James Tate (not his best but ok)
The Dirt, Nance Van Winckel (meh)
Riding the Earthboy, James Welch (more meh)
The Foggist, Dean Young (enjoyable)
Family Reunion, Paul Zimmer (Zimmer-esque)

If you've read any of these books, or maybe a title sounds a tad familiar, please feel free to share your thoughts & opinions here. Also, if you have candy, preferably chocolate, I'd like that too.

What Are You Reading?

2011-05-03T18:42:00.002-04:00

The Spring 2011 issue of Georgetown Review (see left) includes "Walking in Chicago with a Suitcase in My Hand," the title poem of my forthcoming collection. For the sake of clarity, I should point out that I haven’t yet exactly found a publisher, but I’m diligently looking for one, so "forthcoming," when I say it here, implies a certain degree of optimism.

If you can’t wait for the publication of my book–believe me, I know how you feel–then read on. For now, an exciting offer, available exclusively from The Great Encyclopedia of Universal Knowledge, brings the bluesy tapestry of poetry that has appeared (in addition to Georgetown Review) in various literary magazines, such as ABZ, Blue Collar, Blue Mesa, DMQ, Hunger Mountain, Interpoezia, Runes & many more, directly to your computer screen.

For a mere $10, the price of an exceptionally expensive cup of coffee, you can now receive a new poem, many from the approximately seventy-page "forthcoming" book, every month for a year. Like coffee, this poetry will energize you & give you that "can do" feeling to help you through the day, but unlike coffee, it won’t spill onto your keyboard or make you pee.

As a Poem-of-the-Month subscriber, you can offer comments or make suggestions about the poems (admittedly, I probably won’t listen) before my book actually goes to press. Also, when a publisher accepts my book, you will be notified immediately with updates & information, as it becomes available, on how to purchase a copy for yourself & yes, posterity. Imagine–you now have the potential (or perhaps I should say "poet-ential") to get in on the ground floor of the future of literary history!

If you or someone you love or like in the slightest or know from work or are vaguely acquainted with–perhaps you met online or at a party or whatever–are interested in this incredible deal of a lifetime, then contact me via this blog for details. As somebody famous once said: You won’t live to regret it!

Toward a New Disambiguation

2011-04-27T21:27:00.002-04:00

Because of the problem previously discussed here, as of now, I'm changing my name so that, from this moment forward, I will be known as Matmosphere. Not Matamorphosis. Not Matallica. Not Matronymic, Matomic, Matropolitan, Mativation, Matzvah--though I kinda like that one--or Mattitude.

Matmosphere--got it?

If you call me anything besides Matmosphere, I'll refuse to answer. If passing on the street, you address me by my former name or any of the aforementioned names, you may as well talk to the air, for I won't even turn my head to acknowledge you.

I should note that I plan to continue to publish as Matt Morris, as I've done in both this century & the last, the past millennium as well as the present. To change it at this juncture would prove nothing but confusing. Therefore, I'll still write under my established name, albeit with one crucial difference: Matt's now the diminutive form of Matmosphere.

This change has become necessary because the same legislation that gave us the Baby Bells & broke up Microsoft, kaff-kaff, also allowed anyone & everyone to write poetry under my name, resulting in confusion as well as notable dilution of the poetry written under that name--as if any besides myself were actually Matt Morris! Indeed, it should come as no surprise to anyone that these poetasters are wholly owned subsidiaries of Haliburton, those world-killing bastards, whereas I remain, like Walt Whitman, a kosmos.

Yes, Matmosphere is everywhere at once, wherever you turn, like the penetrating rays of the sun or a deluxe tanning bed. I'll also be around in the dark, so leave a key where I can find it, such as in the mailbox or under an unassuming garden gnome. I'll be there in the morning, reading in bed & lounging about in my bathrobe most of the afternoon too, but then I have to take off that evening due to a prior commitment. For wherever there's a snooty snob blathering bad poetry, I'll be there, even though I'd rather not be. I'll be there in the way folks stifle yawns, crack their knuckles & clear their throats when they're gawd almighty bored. I'll be there when they stand & walk out in the pretentious midst of a reading by a wispy graduate of Brown into the dystopian night because they can't take any more & we'll all go out for dinner because we're hungry & we'll have drinks & everyone will be munching succulent morsels & raising their voices & clinking their glasses & laughing like the kids of satyrs. I'll be there too, if it's at all possible, so scootch over a scootch or two, would you?

A Few Thoughts on National Poetry Month

2011-04-11T14:56:00.017-04:00

It's not as if I suddenly decide to read it because of some artificial designation--poetry provides my very sustenance throughout the year--but if saying April is National Poetry Month encourages a few non-poetry readers (i.e., everybody else) to at least acknowledge its existence & maybe even read a poet who isn't dead or named Jewel, then yippee.

What's with its unpopularity? You'd think with the general public's seemingly insatiable hunger for incredibly moronic crap, folks would gobble many of today's poets right up! Oh, but I kid poetry & its self-congratulatory clique of smarmitude 1) because I love & 2) because it's true.

If boring inanity isn't going to move poetry off the shelves, you might think the Great Guardians at the Gates of Poetry would look for something different, perhaps even enlightening. Sadly, unless you have copies of my books--if not, plenty remain available for purchase--you probably won't be reading me. In the past few years, I've published maybe ten poems. I can't seem to give my stuff away, which is, after all, what I do most of the time with poetry. Especially irksome is the kind of tripe that gets published instead. So fuck all y'all & you know who you are.

From this indignity, however, an obvious question springs to mind: Is there a correlation between my near anonymity & poetry's lack of readership?

Naturally, I'm not saying--I'm just saying . . .

Ars Poetica

2011-04-05T12:18:00.000-04:00

A stranger with bad teeth asks for one can
only imagine what. Nobody recognizes

his guttural tongue. Shaking his head, the bar-
keep polishes a tumbler. The stranger babbles

insistently louder. Talk of politics
quiets at a table of locals. Talk

is useless. Tearing his rumpled shirt, the man
bares a map tattooed to his chest, thumps

his fist against a place unknown
miles away. The ceiling fan creaks. A fly

lights on the globe, casting a monstrous
shadow.

first appeared in DMQ, (Spring/Summer 2008)

Return from the Himalayas, Part 4

2011-03-23T22:31:00.001-04:00

It is not enough to participate in life; true happiness occurs when you "heart"icipate.

(Note: This message comes not from the mountaintop directly, but through a series of seemingly random items, individuals, & events--such as a 14th century Mongolian invasion, a phony Taoist priest, the simple yet painstaking combination of sugar, flour, eggs, & water, & a 20th century labor-saving device--by way of a fortune cookie, whose sweet, crispy, twisted shape resembled a broken cinerary vase bearing a facetious deity's face, along with lucky numbers 4, 6, 14, 18, 31, 36.)

Dear Blah Blah Blah

2011-03-15T13:22:00.006-04:00

Going old school, I recently read Leonard Nathan's Dear Blood (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1980). Nathan, a former Berkeley professor, "won wide critical acclaim," as well as a Guggenheim Fellowship & a National Institute of Arts & Letters award for poems (I'm taking this directly from the book cover) that "have an explosive meaning barely contained in the few words that hold them together."

Ok, I get it: Nathan's a minimalist, but how do words hold the poem together if their meanings--to borrow an expression from renowned SCTV Farm Film Review critics Big Jim McBob & Billy Sol Hurok--blow the poem up real good?  Moreover, it strikes me as rather ambiguous to say the "meaning (is) barely contained" in the words, which makes it sound, in one sense, as if Nathan doesn't quite understand what the words mean. When a blurb bothers me--even though it doesn't necessarily follow that the poetry is similarly flawed--I usually take it as a bad omen.

Ah, my tingling poesy sense served me well!  For if Nathan is "a storyteller & a fabulist" as the lying rat's ass of a cover claims, it's only if he intends his numerous poems to/for/about God (the majority of this book) to be seen as not so much fable as complete fabrication. Take "Gap," in which God is the absence of a spider & the presence of a butterfly. (FYI: He's also the absence of dead leaves.) That God's so much a part of the absences may be why, in "Habakkuk," Nathan says, "In conversations with the Lord, / you can't tell always / who's talking to whom."  It's kind of like someone talking on a Blue-Tooth in a dead zone. Or the indigent street person constantly talking to an invisible other, maybe God, or maybe the ghost of Leonard Nathan himself.

In other poems, Nathan wanders a'wonderin' down a trail of abstractions, as in "Hieroglyph":

Much is behind you
not to be known
and much ahead
of where you stand only for one true sound
(less maybe than a word)
before knowledge passes on.

Be ready,
be clear.

(For a detailed explanation of these lines, click here.)

Also included in this volume is "Memo," posted in its entirety below:

Who wrote
"I love you daddy"
on this white page?

The littlest daughter did
on this white page
under which lie concealed
thirty virginal pages
for later messages.

Looking beyond the general saccharine sentiment--if that's possible--& forgiving the use of the homey "littlest" (which Nathan does a couple of times in the book for, I suppose, emetic effect), the entire foundation of the poem rests upon a ridiculous rhetorical device.  The answer to the posed question depends on whether the speaker has any young children at home. If yes, these children may provide an invaluable clue to the sought after information.

If not, then who? Louis XVI, that bad egg? Steve, the mechanical man?  Sylvia Plath? Henry Pussycat? Lolcat? Oh, I don't know--maybe it was Satan?

Do you know who wrote the note? If so, please comment with your guesses. You need not make a purchase to enter; you may enter as many times as you want. The person who submits the winning entry will receive a slightly used copy of Leonard Nathan's Dear Blood.

What "The Change" Means to Me

2011-02-23T23:20:00.004-05:00

At the recent AWP conference, apparently a hubbub erupted over Tony Hoagland's "The Change."   I didn't attend the conference myself because I couldn't book a room. Not because I waited too long--I had the itch, just not the scratch.  But like some guy who stayed at Holiday Inn Express--that'll make you scratch--I heard Hoagland read several years ago. He'd prefaced "The Change" then by saying that it bothered him that poets tend to write self-contragulatory pieces; poets should examine the negative self as well, no matter how uncomfortable the truth. At the time, I found it vaguely unsettling, but given his introduction, if not my intoxication, I took the poem, albeit bland, as a confrontation of one's deep-seated, albeit regrettable, racism.

However, Hoagland has been of late roundly & soundly ripped on the Internet as the snarky, conceited, racist, sexist, mysogynistic, golden (read white supremacist) boy of poetry. Some have suggested that Hoagland exemplifies the racism/sexism inherent in literary history, dubbing all so-called great white poets of the past as nothing more than a school of Moby Dicks--er, well, so to speak--while others have called "The Change" the most racist poem ever written.

Ok, hot button issues, such as racism--which, by the way, sucks & sexism too--often cause people to make hyperbolic statements in anger, which is understandable, but the most racist poem ever? Anyone who's ever read Hoagland's What Narcissism Means to Me knows that's not true. "The Change" isn't even the most racist piece in the book. That dubious distinction belongs to "Rap Music," in which the speaker, hearing rap booming from a car pulling up beside him at a traffic light, imagines "a lot of dead white people in there," beaten to death with bricks so that their skulls can be used to "drink blood from."

For me, that trumps anything in "The Change."

Tempting though it may be to leap to accusation, neither poem necessarily means Hoagland is a racist. For example, what if--as an astute friend astutely asked--Hoagland had written in the third-person? Indeed, readers often, though erroneously, equate the "I" of the poem with the poet, though oddly, these same readers seldom presume that the first-person narrator of a novel or short story is actually the writer.  Few people, besides myself, think Stephen King should be declared a deranged madman & stopped before he writes anything else, but I digress. The point is that Hoagland probably would have insulated himself against the brunt of ad hominem attacks through the use of a third-person persona.

On Facebook--oh, to what depths I've sunk--at least one person may not have found third-person narration a solution. Her problem--with the poem, I mean--is that even though the speaker acknowledges Venus Williams' superior athletic skills lead to her victory, his opinion of her race & gender don't change, which teaches the wrong moral. (Good point. In a related matter, who can forget Jesse Owens winning all those gold medals at the Berlin Olympics, impressing Adolf Hitler so much that the Fuhrer realized the folly of his whole Aryan master race thing? Remember?) Poems such as this, the Facebook-er lamented, make it more difficult to teach students about race.

Should poets write with the classroom in mind? If so, maybe I should pen a sonnet sequence on avoiding the passive voice. Also, abstractions! Beyond that, I disagree with the implication that only literature as didactic as an ABC After School Special can facilitate classroom discussions. In fact, the firestorm of reaction to "The Change" suggests that it may generate student interest; surely an enlightened instructor could turn this into a teaching moment.

I don't know Hoagland's racial views.  Perhaps he is, as some have suggested, a bigot. Or perhaps he hopes to provoke, with his combustible statements, open dialogues about race.  Perhaps he simply sees himself as true to his aesthetics.  Perhaps he just isn't hitting the mark. Whatever the reason, it would seem prudent at this juncture that he stop drinking the Kool-Aid marked "Whites Only." The bad taste alone would turn anyone away.

As for the poetry on the whole, I doubt if many would call What Narcissism Means to Me one of Hoagland's best efforts.  Much of the volume, as the title suggests, seems self-absorbed, with the poet--or rather persona--rambling on about his friends & the mundane middle-class life of the literati, the kind of poetry Frank O'Hara, had he lived, might write today if, instead of witty, he were boring.

I won't say there's nothing good here. Take, for instance, the closing lines to "Man Carrying Sofa":

this damaged longing
like a heavy piece of furniture inside you;
you carry it, it burdens you, it drags you down--
then you stop, and rest on top of it.

Now that sounds like a splendid idea.

With the Goo-Goo-Google E-book Previews

2011-02-01T12:38:00.006-05:00

If you'd like to sample my work, then follow this link to the Google book preview of Here's How. The preview allows you to read six of eighteen poems, including personal favorites like "Road Service," "Hole," & "Night at the Improv, c. 1600." If you read only one book of poems this year, that puts you one up on most people I know, & Here's How is an excellent choice.

In case you're wondering, yes, my other Pudding House chapbook, Greatest Hits, is also available as a Google book preview. Strangely, the preview contains a number of printer errors (corrected prior to publication), so I'm not linking it here. Of course, if you're determined, it's easy enough to find. Simply type "greatest hits" & Google instantly links you to sites for Greatest Hits t-shirts, tickets, tailgate parties, maps--all the information you want & need about Greatest Hits. Or read the 99% error-free version by purchasing Greatest Hits wherever Greatest Hits is sold.

But now, Here's How.

Blog Rage

2011-01-18T11:06:00.008-05:00

Nope, I'm not writing another blog entry until you read my last post. Every last word!  I treated you to one of my most popular poems, "Aspects of Dagwood," along with a faux introduction--the kind I might give at a reading--but very few readers have availed themselves of this opportunity.

I bet readers in China would love access to my blog, but they're not allowed. I don't know that for a fact, but it's possible. As if you care! Bah! Just look at yourself, lounging about on the sofa, Cheetos-stained fingers diddling with your laptop, free for now (as Net Neutrality is apparently dead) to browse my blog at your leisure & yet, you take this privilege for granted, throwing your freedom (or its pervasive illusion, to be more accurate) into the trash bin like a snotty Kleenex. Or worse: a generic brand.

I'm not made out of words, you know. I don't have a blog tree in the backyard, branches bowed low, heavy with witty words that I can pluck whenever I want to post something new. As a writer, I have to work to put entries on this blog.   So if sometimes I reprint previously published poems, well, I thought you, my readers, would appreciate that.  Apparently not. Apparently you have more important things to do than read poetry.  O, I'm so sure it's important. Enjoy your porn, perverts!

Damn right I'm angry--& hurt.  (Gentle reader, not all of you are guilty, so I apologize for scolding everyone for the actions of a few. Well, more than a few & the lack of action, to be precise. But anyway, sorry. You caught me on a bad day, a bad life.)

Know what else pisses me off? Rejections. Ok, I mean, it's part of being a writer & most of the time, rejections mean nada to me. Just part of the routine.  As Michael Jordan would say if he were a poet, not the former superstar basketball player: "I have more rejections than publications."  Isn't that a clever way to think about it? Clever. You miss more game-winning shots than you make, but when you make them, everyone likes Mike. Especially (according to court documents) the ladies . . .

But sometimes, sometimes when I see the big clock running out, well, Jesu H. D. Cah-rist, I can't help but think I've dedicated my entire life to poetry & what do I have to show for it? An uneven scrap of paper bearing a Sarah Palin-esque bridge to bullshit "thanks but no thanks," along with an invitation to subscribe to the selfsame rag (which you can't find at any bookstore or even on Google) in which not even one of my poems, in the little magazine editor's estimation, is fit to print. Or maybe in today's high tech world, I get an email with a curt, "I've decided not to use your poetry."  That arbitrary. Editors, by & large, if I may paraphrase Shakespeare, suck on donkey dicks.

One of the reasons I keep this blog is in the wild hope that I'll attract readers to my poetry. Crazy, I know.  Like the devout, head tilted toward the heavens, the sky's lit but nobody's home.  Swear to Ungod, I feel like giving up--as if it matters, so few people read poetry anyway, much less mine--but no doubt, if my personal history serves as any indication, I'll go on, true & fixed as the North Star.

Because I'm fucking insane. Et tu, Brute?

Last Respects for Dagwood

2011-01-11T16:29:00.003-05:00

When Dagwood Bumstead died earlier this year, it hardly made a ripple in the media's nonstop stream of celebrity news & loud-mouthed political punditry. To be fair, most readers of the comic strip had long since passed away themselves years & years ago--much like the newspaper, the medium the strip appears in--so to say that he'll be missed is perhaps a white lie, which seems fitting, given it's hard to be much whiter than Dagwood. He is survived by his wife, Blondie; his son, Baby Dumpling; his daughter, Cookie; & three grandchildren, Huey, Dewey & Louie McDuck. He was 78--though he seemed much, much older. Also, he wore a toupee.

Those who know me may find it odd that I noticed Bumstead's death. After all, I hate comic strips, or funnies as they're sometimes called, both misnomers because they are, by & large, neither. The "phonies," more like! Comic? To be honest, I'm not even sure if they're strips.

However, as a youngster, they were my favorite part of the paper. While I was never a fan of Blondie, it had top billing in the local rag when I was growing up, so Dagwood's antics became imprinted on my impressionable mind. Who knew that as a young adult I would turn this childish distraction into something--dare I say--literary?

I wrote "Aspects of Dagwood" for a poetry workshop as a first year grad student way back in the last millennium. This demonstrates its timelessness. A parody of Weldon Kees' "Aspects of Robinson" (the curious may wish to read my tongue-in-cheek account of its writing by clicking here), it first appeared in Poetry Now (the one E.V. Griffith edited) & has since turned up in various other places, including both Nearing Narcoma & Greatest Hits, available wherever hard-to-find books are sold, but if you click on the book covers to your right, by the power of the Internet, you'll be directed to sites that sell them.

Aspects of Dagwood

Dagwood dealing poker in Ed Feeley's garage; an unshaded
Bulb blares over his pin-cushion head. At the table,
Simple men puffing black stogies, quaffing frothy mugs.
The one with red hair, buck teeth takes the pot with three aces,
A king, & a queen, all the same suit. A fearful voice.
—Here comes Blondie mad as a goose, Dagwood.

Dagwood at the office snoozing at his desk, an unsigned
Contract floating to the floor, pretty as a dream.
His comic cellblock switches from lemon to plum to tangerine,
Serving to foster an atmosphere of insecurity,
Fitfully punctuated by the business end of the boot.
—Dagwood! You do-nothing dimwit! You're fired! Get out!

Dagwood at Herb Woodley's hiding from the wife.
Dagwood at the pool hall making a three bank shot.
Dagwood at the bowling alley knocking down all the pins.
Dagwood at the doorstep bickering with a salesman’s
Onslaught of hard sell punches. Dagwood,
Bruised & beaten, atwitter over his new gizmo.

Insomniac Dagwood with a fat sandwich of cold cuts.
Dagwood squawking in the tub when the ladies' club
drops by. Dagwood dangling from the bathroom window,
Drippy wet towel draped around his bottom,
Red Z’s masking his face like a bland whodunit. Bells.
—Mr. Dithers wants you, Dagwood.

Dagwood whooshing out the door. Dagwood late for the bus.
Dagwood sporting the familiar bow tie & slouch hat.
Dagwood in polka-dot boxers, hiking his trousers,
Pecking Blondie on the cheek, slurping down coffee
As he runs out, slamming pow! into the postman. Letters
Flutter around them like fragments of Dagwood's recycled pulp.

Hey, Hollywood! I Got Your Next Blockbuster Right Here!

2010-12-20T17:21:00.003-05:00

Recently, surfing the 'net as oft I do, I read about a couple of upcoming movies, both based upon one of my favorite childhood toys, Rock'em Sock'em Robots.  One, Real Steel, stars Hugh Jackman & the other, directed by Wolfgang Peterson, is not yet titled.

Ahem. Apparently Hollywood has discovered my blog. As any loyal reader can testify, if not indeed the heretic casual skimmer, I put forth the idea, as well as a detailed plot, for the Rock'em Sock'em Robots movie in a post on this very blog in May 2009.

Listen, I think it's fantastic that Hollywood is finally listening to me, but c'mon fellas, in the immortal words of Billy Jean (the legend, not the song), "Fair's fair."  Which is to say, I want my cut!

As a show of good faith that the good, decent, honest folks in Hollywood will (as Spike Lee reminds us) do the right thing--& to show you I'm no one trick pony--I'm pitching my next blockbuster here & now. Do we have a deal? I'll take your silence as a tacit agreement as legally binding as a copyright.*

Anyway, given the industry's infatuation with old TV shows, retro toys & other nostalgia, may I suggest exploiting a mostly untapped resource, namely, classic commercials. It's product placement & innovative cinema in one fell swoop!

Idea 1: Why Do You Build Me Up, Reese's Peanut Butter Cup, Baby? Dubbed in trailers as "love at first bite,'" the story of chocolate & peanut butter comes to the big screen at last in a sweet romantic tale that makes Romeo look like a homo & Juliet like a slut in comparison.  Peanut Butter, colloquially P.B., is adorably cute.  When Chocolate--Choc, for short--a rich kid trying to make it on his own, moves into her apartment building, his furniture gets delivered to her place by mistake--he's in 6, she's in 9, only a loose nail away, you see.  Such yougotyourchocolateinmypeanutbutternoyougotyourpeanutbutterinmychocolate stuff keeps happening, so much so that they meet up every evening to swap what would be an alarming in real life number of misdelivered things.  (Somebody could lose a job is all I'm saying.) Lots of batted lashes, lots of nervous prattle, lots of exchanged exchanges later, they become an item--one which, need I remind you, can be purchased in the lobby. But just when you think what could be better, one night, while the two great tastes that taste great together are out on a late date, supersexy Ally Monde (Megan Fox is perfect), needing to crash but not wanting to shell out cash for a room, sneaks into Choc's place, thinking it's her cousin P.B.'s apartment.  The comedy of errors continues as Choc's older brother Dark suddenly turns up for no apparent reason at P.B.'s door. What happens next . . . no, I'm through giving away my ideas for nada, but if you'd like a hint, who can resist chocolate? (Also, before I forget, I recommend signing Reese Witherspoon onto the project in some capacity to provide a name tie-in to the product.)

Idea 2:  Wendy's Where's-the-Beef? lady & Alka-Seltzer's I-Can't-Believe-I-Ate-the-Whole-Thing guy come together in a remake of Oedipus Rex.  Actual commercial footage, digitally remastered & colorized, will be seamlessly incorporated into the flick. Think Sophocles meets Forrest Gump.  Cameos by Susie Chapstick, the Wrigley Spearmint twins, the Ty-D-bol man, Mr. Whipple, Arthur Treacher, Mother Nature (as envisioned by Imperial Margarine), the Right Guard Hey Guy guy, the Noxema girl, the Coppertone girl (her little dog too), the Gerber baby, & a special appearance by Orville Redenbacher, as well as numerous immediately recognizable advertising icons from the past, pepper this tour de force that redefines tragedy.

Idea 3: I haven't thought this one all the way through, but do you remember Mr. Microphone? Well, he's baaacccckkk! I'm thinking a slasher flick. It starts with my wrists--I've drawn dotted lines as a guide.

If none of these ideas suit your tastes, perhaps you'd be interested in a trilogy based upon Dante's The Divine Comedy. Or what about Homer?

Ok, the ball's in your court, Hollywood. Feel free to contact me via this blog. One more thing, if you check the comments section of the Rock'em Sock'em Robots entry, you'll see I suggested Twister: Quest for the Big Yellow Dot. If you want to go with this, you need only pay me a nominal fee, for I wish to move away from this particular movie as quickly as possible.

* Copyright protection subsists, in accordance with this title, in original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression, now known or later developed, from which they can be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated, either directly or with the aid of a machine or device. 17 U.S.C.102(a)

Return from the Himalayas, Part 4

2010-12-07T10:46:00.002-05:00

Just last night I heard
the mournful wail of a loon
calling me away.

2nd Verse, Different Than the 1st

2010-12-01T00:47:00.018-05:00

As I come to the conclusion of the second cycle of my reading poets in an ABC manner, some readers may be curious as to whether I plan to begin a third cycle. Frankly, it's none of your business & I would thank you not to pry into my personal affairs.  The relationship between blogger & reader is not without boundaries, you know.

Nice guy that I am, however, let me just say that I consider this reading experiment a mostly positive experience.  By narrowing the choices of what poet to read to a single letter of the alphabet, I spend less time deliberating, especially when I come to the inherently less poetic initials. (If your last name begins with an I, for instance, research shows you probably should choose a line of work outside of poetry.) This time-savings contributed to making this a 100 book year.

Winnowing my selection process in this manner has also led me to read poets I woudn't necessarily have chosen at that particular point in my life--or, in some cases, ever.  For example, I probably wouldn't have read John Updike's Verse if I had more variety of U-poets on my shelf. This experience alone has caused me to question my alphabetic course.

Whatever I decide, I doubt that I'll always post comments on everything I read, so just because I don't blog my opinion of Apollinaire's Alcools doesn't mean I'm not reading it (I'm not--I'm reading The Poet Assassinated) but rather, need I remind you, what I read is not your business. Who are you--the NSA? Recognize & respect the boundaries--please!

Truth is, instead of this rambling spiel, I'd planned to write a detailed essay comparing & contrasting William Stafford's Even in Quiet Places & The Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas, but it entailed far too much effort to say they aren't very much alike. Besides, the Stafford title isn't one I'd recommend.  You'll like Stories That Could Be True, Stafford's collected early works, better.  Also, in lieu of the one I didn't write here, read Stafford's essays about poetics, Writing the Autralian Crawl, a book I enjoyed as a young poet, though even if you're a skin-sagging human fossil, you'll probably still like it.

Whereas Stafford's poetry, unadorned with traditional poetic artifices, is deceptively simple, bombastic Thomas loves, as sullen leaves undie with sawn & splay sounds, his dogdayed adjectives all the numberless days of his cold, kind death, which makes his poems deceptively difficult. (That, in case you're curious, is my non-existent essay in a nutshell, in which I could, as Hamlet says, "be bounded & count myself king of infinite space if not for these bad dreams," e.g., being stuck inside a nutshell.) Thomas wrote a number of memorable poems--I have his reading "Fern Hill" on my iPod--as well as a good many forgettable ones, examples of which I've forgotten.

John Unland, legend has it, gave up a successful practice as a proctologist to become a poet.  Why is that funny? Bottom line, too many of these poems--collected, edited & published posthumously--while showing flashes, seem unfinished. That's my analysis, though in hindsight, perhaps I should say "half-assed,"  assuming it's okay to crack asinine proctology jokes.  But--& this is a big but--there are moments that The Sea Beneath the House makes me think: How terribly sad to be an unknown poet, which, in the end, I'm already painfully aware of.

Mona Van Duyn--for the sake of my project, I hope Van Duyn is her last name--won the Pulitzer Prize in 1991 for Near Changes. Other than the title poem & maybe a couple others, I found myself mostly uninterested--except for her technique, in which she exhibits her skills as a craftsman. Er, craftswoman? Crafts-individual? In particular, I tire quickly, if not angrily, of name-dropping poems written to, for, about other acclaimed poets of one's acquaintance, especially when the point is--I don't know--to tell everyone that Anthony Hecht lays a mean spread--as if those not invited care.

That's not to say there's nothing good to say about acclaimed poets. Asphodel, That Greeny Flower & Other Love Poems may be my favorite book by William Carlos Williams. If you're not familiar with this bibelot, then get it, read it, love it. You can thank me later. Williams shows the full range of his considerable poetic skills, as well as exercising a well-tuned, yet subtle funny bone. I also recently enjoyed William Butler Yeats' Easter 1916 & Other Poems. Thing is, I have several books by Yeats, half of which intimidate with their scholarly covers, but this Dover Edition is topnotch. One buck for really great poetry!

Paul Zimmer's Big Blue Train is simply his best book. If my calculations are correct, he refers to himself as the third person "Zimmer" only once thoughout 70 pages, which results not only in my unsolicited thanks, but some good poems like the angry, not quite elegaic "A Rant Against Losses," a title which doesn't disappoint with its awesome "piss on you, death, and fuck you" ending.  Put that on a sympathy card, Hallmark!

Prolegomenon for Any Furious Readers

2010-11-10T01:58:00.000-05:00

It's come to my attention that I may have misled readers in my previous post about my current situation. While elements of the entry are at least based upon fact, I took poetic license to embellish certain aspects in order to serve my artistic purposes. I'm sorry if I caused undue concern, but I don't apologize.

One would do well to remember that statements made in this blog are not necessarily part of what pragmatists entreat us to accept--given their contempt for insolvable metaphysical questions--as reality.

I'm a poet--& not the virtuous kind who praises gods & heroes, but the other sort, that scurrilous ilk whom Plato in The Republic regards with such suspicion & hostility that he banishes them from his ideal society. To put it simply, poets are liars & as such, detrimental to the state.

Not surprisingly, in his lengthy discussion of absolutes & forms, Plato neglects to mention that this harsh censorship is a form of totalitarianism. Viewed in that light, isn't his much ballyhooed discourse just an ancient percursor to Mein Kampf? Isn't Plato himself little better than Hitler in a tunic, a wreath of laurel leaves adorning his big tyrannical head?

Absolutely yes--or no--whichever supports my point, which is one needs to read this blog not merely as a source of entertainment, but in the proper perspective, as something incredibly rare & noble, a bastion of resistance against iron-fisted philosopher-kings.

The Books of Joblessness

2010-11-07T18:31:00.001-05:00

One of the perks of being unemployed--besides the obvious plus of no pain-in-the-ass bosses--is the surplus of free time I have. By "free," I mean disencumbered, as in spare time, though a case could logically be made that "free" simultaneously refers to my not making money.

In my unemployment, I've questioned a bunch of stuff that people hold as true, but upon reflection, isn't. Turns out, for instance, time isn't money.  Also, despite the often bandied about expression "it's a free country," truth is, it's not even moderately priced.

That said, perhaps I could use this time more productively had I money for the luxuries like food & a roof over my head, but ever the optimist, I appreciate the "freedom" I have to go to the public library, log in to update my blog--you're welcome--& of course, read great authors such as John Steinbeck. Did you know he believed the American Dream is mostly unattainable?

For those who wonder, yes, I have a card. I hope you don't think less of me if I let you in on my minor deception: I gave the library a fake address in order to secure it--96 Riverside Lane (a half-lie, actually, because I live in a '96 Kia by the river).

Here's hoping you'll forgive my peccadillo when I tell you that over the past year I've read over 100 books, some at night, the riverbank lit by fireflies.  Some may wish to denigrate my accomplishment by reminding me that half of those books were poetry. To which I smugly reply, despite my creeping case of scabies: "More than half." Those of you who follow my blog doggedly know that to be the case, given the reviews & remarks I've posted. However, I've also read my fair share of non-poetry over the past year, including the following:

2. The House of Seven Gables. Can seven Gables live together under the same roof without driving each other crazy? Also, what about young Ned's incorrigible sweet tooth? Weaved within the story is a fairly accurate depiction, one assumes, of the lifestyle of early 19th century poultry.

9. Letters to a Young Poet.  Each letter doles out excellent advice that, sadly, given my age, no longer has any application for me.

12. Pnin. The story about an eccentric middle-aged professor (whom students like but administrators don’t) hits a little too close to home. At least he has a job, I thought, but then--spoiler alert--he lost it. We never find out what happens to him–just as I don’t know what happens next for me.

19. The Dharma Bums. Everything is empty.  Life is a dream, so you may as well live in a shack way back in the woods, drunk, penniless, homeless, yab-yumming & writing awful poetry. (Sorry, Japhy Ryder--or should I say Gary Snyder?) In this subjective reality, everything is beautiful, every morning the best morning ever, every meal the best goddam meal ever, every biscuit made with Buddha’s flour.  Richard Scarry is the best Buddhist ever!

25. Cubism. Unfolding like an umbrella dipped into an overflowing Picasso of light, the bowl turns into a moon, an idle moon.  A smudge marks the place where something was, a negation insisting on the existence of Braque, Leger & Gris.

32. Sputnik Sweetheart. "What's profoundly sad," the poet writes "is often beautiful." I'm that poet & I could have been writing about this novel. I wasn't, but I'm just saying.

39. Whatever Happened to Gloomy Gus of the Chicago Bears? I like The Universal Baseball Association, Inc., J. Harry Waugh, Prop. better, but I like this book's discussion of sculpture, obviously a synecdoche for art in general–or should I say "at large," given the size of his gigantic metal Gorky. Is that a metaphor or are you just happy to see me?

43. Introduction to Postmodernism. The book begins with interesting dinner table talk of Baudrillard & Saussure & semiotics, but devolves into parody or pastiche with the sudden injection of Madonna, Beavis & Butthead & MTV. My main complaint is that this book contains no dominant narrative, but only lots of micro-narratives, none of which legitimizes or explains the others.

47. Moby Dick. I'd heard this was a Scaife publication about how in the early '70s the liberal media--this close to making us lose the Vietnam War--concocted a scandalous story about Nixon's presidential re-election campaign in order to ruin him politically & personally, but it's actually an explicit narrative exploring the relationship between seamen & sperm whales. Rather than Googling "sperm lovers," which I'm guessing it won't be what you expect, read this book.

52. Tess of d'Urberville. After reading this novel, which hammers home that double-standards are vastly unjust, I penned my parody, Bess of Tuberville, in which our heroine falls big time for Frisch, the Boise chapter president of The Society for the Prevention of an Unwholesome Diet, but will his digging into her past unearth her dark secret? Do potatoes have eyes?

68. Ethan Frome. Moral: If you want to kiss your sickly wife's fetching cousin, well sir, I reckon you ought to get about doing it while there's time enough. After, I reckon, you can tend to the horse.

71. Dali. Sleep, a heavy monster "held up by the crutches of reality," turns the knob & collapses like a dancer, tall & slim, against the summer sky, dissolving into an empty landscape. Based on The Matchmaker, the musical features the number one hit song by the late great Louis Armstrong.

82. The Aeneid. Ok, I'm know this is poetry, but I just wanted to comment quickly that I'm sorry Vergil met an untimely demise, but if it kept him from revising the totally awesome ending, then so be it.

90. Autopsy on Surrealism. The body was that of a normal art movement with no lasting effect. The eyes belonged to Marquis de Sade. Irises sang like blue milk.  Removal of clothing promoted a near dream state.  Breasts were the palpable stuff of noir, abdomen a socialist map unfolded, genitalia that of an exquisite corpse remarkably intact.

The Top 10 Poetry Posts Ever & More

2010-10-30T18:35:00.000-04:00

Surfing the Web recently, I stumbled across a rather presumptuous list called 100 Best Poetry Blogs. What can I say? I got big feet & fat fingers, so I can be clumsy. Luckily, I caught myself before I fell headlong into my ceramic menagerie, a virtual bookcase of classy stuff. (As the sample picture shows, it's erotica, not porn.) Anyway, the, um, "horn" of my satyr saved, I gave the list the old once-over.

Well, well, well. Hmm. Interesting choices, interesting for substance in some cases & for sheer befuddlement in others. For example, how does Poetry Hut top the list? More like Poetry Huh?!

Ok, it's easy to criticize others--& as Homer reminds us--fun too. Yes, Homer Simpson. However, rather than waste time launching verbal kill shots at some crappy blogs, my energy would be better spent directing ridicule at the listmakers & list itself. After all, the omission of my blog renders the list irrevocably absurd.

Yes, that would be rewarding, I'm sure, but more productive still would be my pointing you, dear reader, to posts on my blog that perhaps you in your busy days--which I understand completely, for every atom belonging to me yadda yadda yadda et cetera et cetera--may have all too regrettably overlooked.

Therefore, I've provided below a few links to some of my personal favorite blog entries. I've not arranged them in any particular order, so feel free to click willy-nilly about. Whatever floats your boat. Once you've finished with your willy-nilly, however, I hope you'll find time to read my blog.

Civil Defense of Poetry
Frost Warning
Verse & Adversity
Richard Lovelace, Vaudevillian
Song of the Open Form Road
I Call Copyright
Rock'em Sock'em Robots: The Movie
Composition of Parody
Poetic Reaction
Poetic Truth

If you enjoy these--how could you not?--then maybe you'll like some blogs from earlier this year:

W: What Oliver Stone Didn't Tell You
How to Make The Divine Comedy Relevant to Today's Audiences
Going Ballistic
Emily Dickinson Post
Homer's Space Odyssey. Also, The Iliad

Q: What Do Nabokov, O'Hara, Poole & Rimbaud Have in Common?

2010-10-03T23:39:00.000-04:00

A: I recently read each poet!

In Poems & Problems, Vladimir Nabokov's playfulness often results in great lines, if not great poems. Take, for instance, the following from “Snow”:

Whenever I’m falling asleep
I cannot help think:
Maybe you will find a moment to visit me,
My warmly muffled up, clumsy childhood.

Generally speaking, I prefer his translated Russian poems to his English verse; that said, “An Evening of Russian Poetry,” in which he fields questions from presumably American students, is two thumbs way up.  Higher, higher!

*         *          *
Many of the selections from Voice of the Poet are accompanied, as one may have guessed, with recordings of Frank O’Hara reading his poetry. In my early twenties when I discovered O’Hara (yes, in the same way Columbus discovered America) it changed my poetics dramatically. I began to see how material from my own life held enough significance to be part & parcel of my poems.  Furthermore, I learned that I didn’t need to stifle my sense of humor, which for better or worse, is a big part of my personality. Of course, O’Hara should have revised more, but as he says, in his own defense perhaps, in “Naphtha”:

you can’t make a hat out of steel
and still wear it
who wears hats anyway

*           *           *
Scott Poole (The Cheap Seats) is a bit of a minimalist, not in the creepy Robert Creeley sort of way, but he writes short poems with short words & short sentences to describe, in short, life in suburbia. His poetic sensibilities grant him the ability to write such lines as:

But as I crossed the river
the tombstones were not tombstones
but chimneys,
and houses all alike had grown beneath them.
It was not the death I had expected. (“The Crossing”)

I wish this collection had more like examples, but to make a long story short, The Cheap Seats keeps my interest, though only minimally. Ha!

*           *           *
A Season in Hell and The Drunken Boat, by Arthur Rimbaud (trans. Louise Varese) signals a significant departure from First Blood & its many sequels. A Season in Hell poses the question of how many MIAs can a poet save, even if said poet is a berserk one-man-army with highly volatile verse strapped to his chest? Stallone's never been this good. My favorite lines occur early in “The Drunken Boat,” in which the boat, like me, is only slightly tipsy:

Light as a cork I danced upon the waves,
Eternal rollers of the deep sunk dead . . . .

James Joyce Kilmer Was Here

2010-10-02T16:05:00.000-04:00

I wish that I’d never seen
Stately, plump Buck Mulligan

There at the stairhead, bearing
A bowl of lather, lifting

His big leafy arms to shave!
Slovenly as a tree that may

In summer wear a yellow,
Holey, flowing dressing gown,

The not-so-sweet earth’s bosom
Ungirdled, nest of robins

In tangled curls, dark & bared
For all in mid-morning air,

He, like a fool, greeted me:
Introibo ad altare Dei.

Interpoezia 4

2010-09-11T08:42:00.000-04:00

I have 3 poems in Interpoezia 4, now available online.

Notes from My Reading List

2010-09-08T18:32:00.001-04:00

Terrance Hayes's Muscular Music has too many poems about being a poet without ever mentioning me, the one true poet, but read it if you like. Familiarity with late 20th century pop culture recommended.

Selected Poems shows off Donald Justice's well-deserved reputation as a talented craftsman; on the other hand, while I wouldn't call him boring, I might have thought it.

In Criminal Sonnets, Phyllis Koestenbaum uses crimes ripped not from the headlines so much as the police blotter as starting points, but she quickly diverts to details of her, I assume, personal life, so the sonnet sequence reads like a diary. Enjoyable enough, though the disregard for conventional sonnet development, as well as the admittedly (& thankfully) loose rhyme & meter, renders the form arbitrary.

I like Vanitas Motel. Jon Loomis deserves more recognition, but more importantly, so do I. Here are some nice lines from Loomis:

Do the shoes fret
by the door? Does the rosebush worry?

Or the daylight, rising pale behind the hills? (“The Way”)

Finally--yes, finally--I have, after years of not, finished Archy & Mehitabel. It’s not great-- Mehitabel the Cat’s rhymes border on tripe & Archy gets a tad repetitive--but at times, Don Marquis writes something that is, if not exactly poetry, of poetic interest.

Homer's Space Odyssey. Also, The Iliad

2010-09-03T09:09:00.000-04:00

So many authors have tried to rewrite Homer to relate his epics to their own time, but most have failed. Probably the most well-known example is James Joyce's famous botch-job, Ulysses. However, not many people know that Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo, in which Jimmy Stewart plays a retired detective who trails Kim Novak for what seems years across San Francisco, is a subtle take on The Odyssey. Sadly, not even the great Hitchcock's penchant for cheesy music & extra cheesy special effects nor Novak's exceptional derriere could make this adaptation work.

Perhaps the easiest fix for The Odyssey is to Star Wars it. Instead of a boring story about boring wooden boats & boring crap that nobody cares about, it becomes an imaginative tale about magnificient spaceships, miraculous technology & exotic planets inhabited by strange aliens. So instead of the siren song luring sailors to their deaths, Odysseus must guide his spaceship through a virtual minefield of beautiful fembots who, if he gets too close, BOOM! No more UFO!

To help this epic get off the ground--literally--let's begin with young Captain Odysseus leaving his wife & baby behind to lead the invasion of Troy, a distant planet known for safe sex, horses & universities. Following a montage of space battle imagery, replete with spectacular explosions, the story begins anew some twenty years later. Telemachus, the son Odysseus left behind, has become the man of the house too soon, for his father never returned from war. Although never confirmed, most people believe Odysseus died in battle, but Telly–as he’s called–believes his father still lives.

Indeed Odysseus's shape-shifting alien patron, Princess Athena, disguised as an intergalactic intelligence agent, urges Telly to look for his father. She arranges a starship & crew for Telly, who shortly discovers, much to his chagrin, that Calypso, fabled dominatrix, has held Odysseus captive for seven years, her sex slave. Upon this discovery, the scene shifts to the lush beauty of Ogygia, past throngs of nimble nymphs & towering fragrant flowers of every color to the blue ivy twining around Calypso's palace, where coming into focus is but a glimpse of Odysseus, clever spinner of yarns, cunningly plying his gifted tongue.

You get the idea. If not, I've provided the following tips to help guide you: Imagine Zeus as a powerful computer that rules the universe; Hermes, an intergalactic Twitter; Poseidon, a sort of bad-ass Southern space sheriff (think Max Baer, Jr. in Mason County Line) out for Odysseus's blood for poking out his son Cyclop's one good eye; Charybdis, a huge black hole; Scylla, well, still a six-headed monster, but now with the added awesomeness of being in space. If you need help deciding how to remake Odysseus confronting over a hundred of wife Penelope's suitors, I suggest watching Caligula for inspiration.

As for the Iliad, maybe script it as a World War 2 D-Day story. Or a Western. Wait--samurai!

A Few Words, A Few Poets

2010-08-20T20:42:00.000-04:00

In Then, Suddenly, Lynn Emanuel is "the writer/trying to unwrite the world” (from "Homage to Sharon Stone"). In a sense, she does just that in the title poem:

I erase a dog named Arf;
I erase four cowboys in bolas and yet in
the diminishing bustle of these streets I
nevertheless keep meeting People-I-Know.
I erase them.

Later, she “wind(s) rivers back on their spools, . . . unplug(s)/the bee from the socket of the honeysuckle” until the page is “as bare and smooth as a bowling alley.” However, it is lush imagery that makes Emanuel a pleasure to read, such as "the janitor pushes the big mustache of his broom across the floor" (from “Halfway Through the Book I’m Writing”) & "the voice of the dead man limping/down the long dark corridor of my throat" (from “Persona”).

When this book was first published in 1999, I really liked it. I still do.

There are times in Carolyn Forche's The Country Between in which the writing is lucid as in:

Tell them how his friends found
the soldiers and made them dig him up
and ask forgiveness of the corpse, once
it was assembled again on the ground
like a man. As for the cars, of course
they watch you and for this don’t flatter
yourself. We are all watched. We are
all assembled. (“Return”)

However, there is also this rambling sentence from “Ourselves or Nothing”:

I have come from our cacophonous
ordinary lives where I stood at the sink
last summer scrubbing mud from potatoes
and listening to the supper fish
in the skillet, my eyes on the narrowed
streets of rain through the window
as I thought of the long war
that misted country turned to the moon’s surface,
grey and ring-wormed with ridges of light.

All in all, though, a good read.

Of Jorie Graham's Swarm, I like the white space, of which there is a lot.

Emily Dickinson Post

2010-08-03T20:25:00.000-04:00

As an Emily Dickinson impersonator (see photo, left), I’m often asked questions about the Woman in White, the Nun of Amherst, the Eccentric Recluse, the New England Mystic, or simply Daisy as she was known, not for her well-honed gardening skills, as is commonly held, but rather for her fanatical devotion to multi-pump pneumatic firearms, such as the popular Red Ryder model, featured in Dickinson’s beloved classic, A Christmas Carol, in which Ebenezer Scrooge learns the true meaning of Christmas after being pelted by a BB gun. Based on her childhood in Indiana, I guess.

A major misconception about Dickinson persists that she published only a handful of poems. Where such an egregious lie started, if not Fox News, is difficult to say. In truth, she’s published well over a thousand poems–hell, nearly two thousand! Seriously, you can find collections of her poetry almost anywhere, even at crappy bookstores like Books-A-Missing. Here’s a link in case you’re an idiot.

Though she never married, it wasn’t for lack of opportunity, but personal choice. In “A Narrow Fellow in the Grass,” Dickinson perhaps alludes to an ill-fated affair with Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, his name, one may infer, a laughable misnomer.

Rumors of Reckless (for she was only ironically a recluse) Emily’s involvement with Nathaniel Hawthorne swirled like “butterflies, off banks of noon” at the House of Seven Gables, Nantucket’s oldest guest house, conveniently located within walking distance of beaches, tennis courts, restaurants & unique speciality shops. To this day, no one has thought to provide any serious discussion of the notion that Dickinson wasn’t the inspiration for Hester Prynne in The Scarlet Letter.

Some have speculated on Dickinson’s sexuality–as if it matters–construing her correspondences to her close friend, Sue Gilbert, as love letters & reading between the lines of a handful of poems. Personally, I have my doubts. If true, wouldn’t someone have posted a video of them on YouTube or whatever by now? However, in hopes of finding direct evidence, I’m currently conducting a far-reaching internet search, beginning with the broadest of terms for such a hot-button topic, “hot lesbians.”

After her death in 1863, Dickinson penned several of her most well-known works, including a couple of my personal favorites, “I Heard a Fly Buzz When I Died” & “Because I Could Not Stop for Death.” In early versions of the former, she nails the fly with an air rifle–a remarkable shot–while in the latter, she pops Death with a pellet gun, dead in his tracks, if you’ll pardon the expression. She died again in 1886, but deteriorating health prevented her from writing much thereafter.

Well, that’s about it. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask, but for now, if you’ll excuse me, I must return to my research.

How to Make The Divine Comedy Relevant to Today’s Audiences

2010-07-29T16:47:00.000-04:00

Hellscape: In this remake of Dante’s Inferno, the remains of post-apocalyptic Earth live underground to survive the radiation-poisoned surface world. So many centuries have passed since humanity has moved to the Underworld that no one remembers what life above was like. No written history exists, having been lost in the nuclear holocaust, but images of a world with green flowered fields, rolling mountains, bright blue skies, swirling sun & ocean stretching to the horizon persist in stories passed down through the generations. Most believe these are myths, but a teenager named Dante, tormented with dreams of Beatrice, a beautiful mythic goddess, believes he–as Beatrice has instructed–should leave the Underworld for the surface. Everyone thinks he’s crazy to try such a thing–everyone except a “mecha” called V.I.R.G.I.L. (a Virtual Integrated Robotic Gizmo Intelligence Learning unit) who, having been to the surface on military reconnaissance missions, says he will serve as guide. In a nod to the poetry of the Inferno, as well as Willy Wonka’s beloved Oompa Loompas, V.I.R.G.I.L. will often impart great wisdom in rhymes. Battling through legions of doomed humanity with explosions of sheer pyrotechnic artistry, Dante & his mechanical guide–with the invaluable advice the ghostly vision of Beatrice provides–eventually reach the surface, where it’s just like the teenager’s dreams, all beautiful & stuff, with flowers all over the place & puffy white clouds tumbling by, one of which, taking Beatrice’s benign likeness, smiles knowingly. As the credits roll, a kick-ass rock ballad plays.

Limbo: In this adventure, two insurance executives–Virgil, vice president of Fidelity Life & his young protégé, Dante–set out on a mountain climbing expedition of Mt. Purgatory, a pre-wedding gift to the latter, who next week plans to marry his longtime sweetheart & total hottie, Beatrice. Unlike most action movies, Limbo (which may not mean the same thing but is a catchier, hipper title than Purgatory) will be shot in a formalist style, rendering surrealistic images that readily lend themselves to allegory. For instance, shortly after the avalanche, symbolically wrath, Virgil & Dante fortuitously meet Sordello, a sort of Sherpa of the Pacific Northwest, his own party lost in the falling rocks of pride, who, after helping the two friends through the treacherous crevasses of sloth & the ice slopes of envy, joins them. At the movie’s climax, as they dangle by a single rope from the snowy peak of lust, Dante must either cut the rope to survive or die with his companions. Seeing that his young friend won’t save himself, Virgil implores the teary-eyed Dante, his tormented mind a virtual slide show of sexilicious Beatrice seemingly projected on the snowy mountainside, to “kiss her for me,” then cuts the rope. Sadly, Dante watches Virgil & the incredibly unlucky Sordello plummet to their deaths. As part of the story’s denouement, Dante–having saved the company a fortune by declaring Virgil’s death a suicide–receives a huge bonus from Fidelity Life, which he spends on a honeymoon in Hawaii, where the movie ends, with scrumptious, bikini-clad Beatrice removing her top in the cherub-adorned hot tub as Dante, clipstick extended, tackles her as easily as a climbing wall. (Note: If you’re wondering how Dante was rescued, please remain seated for the duration of the credits. Your patience will be rewarded when the movie resumes with Dante, his partially snow-covered body still on the mountainside, barely breathing, muttering sweet nothings to no one. So the previous ending was merely an hallucination? Apparently, yes!)

Paris Disco: Ever wonder why Dante called his masterpiece The Divine Comedy when there’s not a laugh in the whole damn thing? That all changes in this final remake. In late-70s Paris, Dante & Beatrice want nothing more than to be with each other–well, that & to dance at the hottest discotheque around, Paradiso! However, a mix of hilarious hijinks & kooky characters, including a comically time-warping appearance on the dance floor by Dante’s crazy grandfather who thinks he’s Fred Astaire, conspire to keep them apart. On this particular summer night, Dante plans to ask Beatrice to marry him during the laser light dance. He’s bought a ring from his shady friend Don, unfortunately stuck across town “in traffic,” he says, though he’s secretly wooing Dante’s sister Pia. To complicate matters, Dante has competition. Justin, a transplanted American, is muscling in on Beatrice, threatening Dante privately while acting conspicuously generous & charming in Beatrice’s presence. As if that weren’t enough, the voluptuous duo of Venus & Cleo never tire of tempting Dante with their tight tube tops, red hot pants & seductive moves which Beatrice always seems to stumble upon at the most incriminating moments. Of course, everything works out. Don makes it to the club in time, Pia sheepishly on his arm. Dante gives Cleo & Venus the slip, finds Beatrice hurling–along with a lengthy string of insults–a banana daiquiri in Justin’s face, sweeps her onto the dance floor & just as Donna Summer sings “MacArthur Park,” busts the biggest move of his life. Rated PG-13 for language, adult content & stupidity.

Going Ballistic

2010-07-20T14:55:00.000-04:00

I like Billy Collins, despite the horrible rumors I've heard about him. I enjoy his poetry, especially Nine Horses, which he graciously signed for me when I met him several years ago at a writers conference.

Given his remarkable popularity, I find myself in the minority about his latest effort–& I use that word ironically–Ballistics, which The New York Times calls a “supple collection” & Vanity Fair describes as “Killingly clever,” both facetiously, I’ll assume.

While he's often praised as casual & conversational, Collins is also wordy. Take “January in Paris”–please! The first four stanzas serve merely to set the scene. This seems particularly excessive in that most readers are familiar, if only vicariously, with Paris. For me, the poem begins somewhere around line twenty with Valery’s abandoned poems “Wandering the streets of the city half-clothed” in need of “a final line/or two, a little verbal flourish at the end.”

This “little verbal flourish at the end” brings me to another problem: Such “flourishes” are to Collins as schmaltz is to Spielberg. Rather than relying on a signature sense of closure, perhaps Collins should consider cutting his poems two or three lines short, if for no other reason than to reject his current, albeit successful, formula. As for Spielberg, if he were to remove the schmaltz, he would essentially stop making movies altogether, a splendid idea in itself.

Another problem in Ballistics is that nearly every line of every poem ends with a noun/pronoun. "Aubade"--to choose at random as example--opens:

If I lived across the street from myself
and I was sitting in the dark
on the edge of my bed
at five o’clock in the morning,

I might be wondering what the light . . .

Each line, if not technically an end stop, is virtually so, lacking any thought-provoking enjambment. It’s as if Collins means to dumb down poetry in hopes of reaching a mainstream audience.

Perhaps to this end, Collins often inserts himself into the poem--zing!--not merely as the first person speaker, but as the poet in the act of composing. This nod to post-modernism may work at times, but generally speaking, I’d like to see more distance between Collins & his subject.

While it may seem creative to muse on what one may erroneously think a term, such as "Baby Listening" or "Bathtub Families," means, Collins decides that he also needs to explain what the term actually means. Gentle reader, I’m not violent by nature, but I can be provoked. To assuage my anger, I suggest Collins--giving the reader credit for at least enough intelligence to know how to Google--omit the explanations, combine the two poems into one & never show anyone.

That goes for “The Golden Years” as well as “Despair.” My research indicates that Collins invented the fictitious Chinese poets Wa-Hoo & Ye-Hah in the latter for “cutting-edge comic effect,” according to their imaginary contemporary, Fuk Yu, an interpretation shared by phony Russian literary critic, Yuri Dumaski.

Add to the better-never-seen list “Hippos on Holiday,” in which Collins concludes that “Only a mean-spirited reviewer/Would ask on holiday from what?” Actually, that’s the nice reviewer. However, so as to not to cast myself in the role of curmudgeon, I'll barely mention "The Day Lassie Died," a half-assed parody of Frank O'Hara.

If I’m overcritical, it’s because I expect more from the former U.S. Poet Laureate. Besides, he shows no compunction when pointing the gun at an anonymous poet in the title poem or when he speaks of “the intolerable poetry of my compatriots” in “Le Chien.” On that point, I may have an inkling, as in “The Effort,” as to what he’s trying to say.

In Memory

2010-07-14T20:39:00.000-04:00

George S-- was the son of a bishop (identity undisclosed by the church) who abandoned him in a thicket of pawns to avoid checkmate. Officially, his birth certificate names John Milton as the father. Experts generally discount this, given that Milton, who died in 1674, over 250 years before George's birth, allegedly went blind due to a chronic condition colloquially known as whacking off.

Raised on a trout farm somewhere near Lake Erie possibly, George began writing poetry at an early age, publishing a handful of poems under the name of Pope John Paul II. These early poems appeared on billboards, benches, the backs of buses & just about everywhere he pretended. However, his main ambition remained being an excessive pain-in-the-ass.

From 1954 to 1961, many people died, some mysteriously. Posing as a doorman at an out-of-the way hotel, George met T.S. Eliot, a secret cross-dresser, there for a massage only, according to police records & the two men argued over poetics & a fair price.

George’s first collection of poems appeared on a business trip, so he was reimbursed for the cost. In a private letter to his wife, the former Elsie Borden–if you can believe Wikipedia–Wallace Stevens called it “brilliantly clear & intensely blue . . . beyond what you have ever seen,” referring not to George, whom he considered an utter lout, but to Key West, which he, having recently passed, dubbed paradise.

George worked a variety of jobs, none particularly long or well. He was in New York making helicopter sounds when he formed a group consisting of fellow poets Ted Berrigan & Charles Bukowski to purchase stuff. That group, having jettisoned George after his lobotomy, later enjoyed success as The Captain & Tennille.

He received the Pulitzer Prize in 1989 for New & Collected Poems when former U.S. Poet Laureate Richard Wilbur, leaving the room for a quickie, mistakenly trusted George. Afterward, he ran. His rumored love trysts with Richard Nixon were probably untrue.

Ball of Poetry

2010-06-07T10:19:00.000-04:00

Angela Ball's Night Clerk at the Hotel of Both Worlds, winner of the 2006 Donald Hall Prize in Poetry, while driven by strangeness, is easily navigable by anyone willing to travel with her down the road to absurdity (as I did once as her student at the University of Southern Mississippi & I think we hit a deer).

“So fragrant am I that bees/Follow me day and night,” she writes in “Someday I’ll Take Again My Lightning Drive Through Love,” in which troubled dreams about food & Home Shopping Club gadgeteer, Ron Popeil, transform into a trip into the country past “fruit stands and roadhouses” which, in turn, become “Accidental ballrooms” in the sleeper’s mind.

If Ron Popeil can’t sell the book, what can I possibly do? Perhaps I could mention Ball serves such literary bigwigs as Shelley, Lord Byron, Apollonaire & Borges in delicious slices the whole family will enjoy, as well as poems about fences, dogs, power steering, high rises, inadequacy, divorce & spring, each with her characteristic comic aplomb, perfect for holidays & special events.

Were I to offer a criticism, I'd say line breaks often seem flat--that's phlat for the hipster in you. If you have a hipster in you, it may be the sign of a more serious condition. Please see a doctor immediately. I'm not a doctor.

ABC of Poetry II: This Time It's Personal

2010-06-01T16:31:00.000-04:00

John Ashbery's Shadow Train consists of fifty 16-line poems, just like George Meredith’s Modern Love, sometimes described as a novelette in verse, but no one has suggested Ashbery has provided a storyline here. If so, it’s even less discernable than the thin thread of plot of his later book, Girls on the Run. Does it matter if a storyline exists, given that Shadow Train, as no one in particular stated on the cover, is about “language on a very plain level” & “the truth inside meaning”? Also, is that really an accurate description of the contents?

Obviously, you can't judge a book by its cover, as they say, whoever they are, the phony bastards, but the recurrence of the second person pronoun in each poem–whether addressing the plurality of readers or a singular, personal you–lends the work at least a hint of serial quality. Do these poems, then, detail a love affair, as in the Meredith poems? If so, why don’t I, a devotee of the New York School, know anything about it?

My main complaint is that I'm old & lonely, but as for Ashbery, too many of his poems are essentially the same. For instance, which is better–“Some Old Tires” or “Indelible, Inedible”? Either choice is based more on preference than objective criteria. Furthermore, remove “Paradoxes and Oxymorons” & what’s left but a rather pedestrian collection of poems? No, leave it in. As far as modes of locomotion go, it's the book's cilia & flagella.

A personal, rather petty complaint about J.A. involves my acceptance in the MFA program at Brooklyn College when I was in my early 20s & Ashbery was director of creative writing. I needed financial assistance to attend, so I wrote to ask him about a graduate assistantship, work-study or the like. I closed my brief letter by saying I greatly admired his work–indeed, he was the sole reason I’d applied at BC. In return, I received a crisp letter from his assistant–Anther Smugsworthy, if I recall, which clearly I don’t–not only instructing me to address all future inquiries to him, which, ok, I get, but also explicitly stating, in his most Smugworthian tone, that I was not to write directly to Mr. Ashbery again. Omigod, I thought. What a snot!

So there. After many, many years, I finally, finally got it off my chest, but the question remains: where do I keep it now?

A: My blog, where it will surely remain secret.

2010-05-11T09:22:00.001-04:00

The Final Chapter: Exhibiting Your Zither

2010-05-07T19:22:00.000-04:00

Charles Xavier, X-treme Measures. Before I begin discussing Xavier’s poetry, I should point out the difficulty in finding an X poet. At first, I considered reading The Brand X Anthology of Poetry, an uneven collection of parodies, but neither the authors nor the editor, William Zaranka, have names that begin with X, so I would be selecting it based on its title, which doesn’t, in case you’ve forgotten, comply with the guidelines of my project. Besides, to be honest, that rather bulky anthology is best encountered in bits & pieces rather than as a whole. I also thought about substituting any poet who has X as an initial somewhere in his/her name–for instance, X.J. Kennedy or Frank X. Walker–but again, such alternatives seemed to bend to the point of breaking the rules, however arbitrary they may be (the rules, not Kennedy & Walker).

Rather than calling X an unsolvable variable in an algebraic equation, I decided to look to other genres on my shelves in hopes I could reclassify any of these works, which is to say, honor them as poetry. I thought about The Autobiography of Malcolm X, but as it turns out, X isn’t actually his last name. (True story–in reality, Malcolm is the mysterious Racer X, who, unbeknownst to all, is Speed Racer’s older brother Rex, believed to have died in a car crash.)

Finally, as I determined nothing fit the bill, an inner voice, not mine, reminded me that “any dream worth having is a dream worth fighting for.” Yes, that voice belonged to Charles Xavier. As a mutant poet, Xavier says his book, X-treme Measures, remains unpublished–out of necessity.

Why? According to Xavier in “Imagine That,” written on my mind’s blank pages:

Poetry has the power

to crack the firm-

ament & extinguish

suns. Imagine that

in the wrong hands.

His point–he must keep his poetry out of print for the sake of humanity–of which I am in complete agreement. However, that doesn’t mean he’s abandoned his poetic dream. In “Parting Gift,” he explains through metaphor & telepathy, opening my mind to the appropriate page: “It appears if I am ever/to achieve my dream I will/need you to walk me there.” Ultimately, he concludes, “The greatest power is the magnificent/power we all possess–the power/of the human brain!”

This telepathic transmission lends the book an eerie, dream-like quality, for only the mind's eye can read it. As you may have guessed, because of my agreement with Xavier, I can’t share the whole of his collection, but he has consented to allow me to reprint, along with the above snippets, the beginning lines from “Mutant Heaven”:

Death & birth are the same. When one
stops, new possibilities open up.

No pearly gates, but revolving doors.
No species rule. There’s room for all.

Truth is, I don’t recommend X-treme Measures; even its title comes across as juvenile. But–I hasten to add before inflicted with a mega-migraine–it’s strikingly memorable. Indeed, it often proves impossible to get Xavier’s verse out of your head, even if you don a fancy state-of-the-art helmet like Magneto. Obviously, you must first train against telepathic attacks before the telepathy-blocking technology will do you any good.

Dean Young, Elegy on Toy Piano. Full-disclosure: I’m a big fan of Dean Young, which is, in fact, how I introduced myself when I met him at the 2000 Vermont College writers’ workshop, which you may read about in one of my previous blog entries ("D'oh," May 19, 2007). In the ensuing conversation, I erroneously attributed a David Lehman poem to him, which apparently made an impression. For in “Lives of the Mortals,” he uses the idea I presented to him:

If only.
And that’s all the further that sentence goes,
a dependant clause with nothing to depend on,
a ladder with nothing to prop against but clouds
which are a form of emptiness
made opaque.

Clouds, then, serve as the antithesis of Marcel Duchamp’s La Boite-in-Valise in which the contents are visible, but the meaning, as Tim Martin says in Essential Surrealists, is opaque--but I digress, which is Young’s forte. In this book, Young, a virtuoso not unlike Schroeder (Peanuts) in skill & stature, plays the toy piano as if tinkling the ivories of a baby grand with his characteristic wit & intelligence, as in the title poem. But that isn’t to say that he never hits a sour note. “Learn by Doing,” for instance, reads like a failed automatic writing experiment:

The device in the last line recalls Pope but the aftertaste is purely Crabbe.
You don’t want to know.
No, really.
The one with hearsay through the head like the body politic.
You and whose army?

Later, he continues to mail it in–or as he might say:

Let them eat fakery.
Touch my eel.
The electric guitar parts confiscated by elevators.
The naked parts intercepted by disclaimers WHAM.
Why bother lyrics.
You write like you don’t know the meaning of a single word.
Singed world.

My favorite books by Young are Strike Anywhere, Skid, & First Course in Turbulence, in which Young seems to actually–if I may split an infinitive–care with an almost Kenneth Koch-ian passion about poetry. That said, a few bad to innocuous poems don’t put me off Young. If his poetry is on the menu, I still recommend it, though you may want to ask Nick, your server tonight, who, after some thought, will no doubt suggest “Lemon Garlic Duck,” which I also like, but, to be different, I’m going with the chef salad, “Bathed in Dust and Ash.”

Paul Zimmer, The Great Bird of Love. This book received praise from likes of Raymond Carver, Susan Sontag, Hayden Carruth, Maxine Kumin & William Stafford (who selected it as part of the 1989 National Poetry Series). These “quirky” poems are, according to Stafford, “full of surprise, variety, humor.” All true–when Zimmer succeeds (“Zimmer Succeeds,” feel free to use it as a title sometime, P. Zim) as in the title poem, but at other times, his predilection for referring to himself as Zimmer sounds a little too much like Henry Pussycat-speak to my ear. Did Zimmer have Berryman’s Dream Songs in mind? Eh, whatever. I view this collection as a mixed bag, in which some poems work better than others & some, like my relatives in Bluefield, barely work at all. Personally, I like the short poems, “Winter” “How Birds Should Die” & “The Tenth Circle,” all of which appear 100 percent Zimmer-free. Ultimately I may not necessarily recommend The Great Bird of Love, but it honestly wouldn’t kill you to read it.

W: What Oliver Stone Didn't Tell You

2010-05-01T11:17:00.000-04:00

C.K. Williams, A Dream of Mind. Edward Hirsch calls Williams a "poet of disquietudes," an assessment I find myself in agreement with, but for different reasons. No book that I've read in many a year agitated me quite as much.

When I read "History," for instance, in which Williams, no doubt pursued in a dream by a giant thesaurus, finds himself "in danger, at peril, at immediate, furious, frightening risk," I caught Barkley unsuspectingly across the snout with the rolled book, wagging my finger & shouting over & over about the needless repetition, the redundancy, the senseless repeating of the same idea in different words. Even a stray dog should know better, I scolded. No, Barkley wasn't the one who in the very next line "evaded the risk, eluded the danger, . . . conned the peril," but he fled the room anyway, tail between his legs, whimpering.

Before I could apologize to my imaginary pooch, albeit still wronged, the situation worsened. As I read "Helen," a 10-page poem divided into 5 sections, not even the rain could stop me from heaving a perfectly good living room set onto the lawn. Crazy? In my defense, the sofa was a little worse for wear, though not nearly as bad as the 1st section of this poem, in which Williams takes 12 to 24 lines (it depends on how you count them) to say, if I may summarize, "She tried to speak but started to cough."

In fact, throughout this poem, we discover very little about the title character, other than she was married to the speaker; once timid, she became sensual; later, she got sick &--spoiler alert--died. The poem seems more about the speaker--an acceptable narrative strategy, I suppose, except we mostly learn that he's dull & self-absorbed. Which, if this is the same speaker who delivered "Soliloquies" earlier in the book, I'd pretty much gleaned that tidbit of information already.

Ironically, I could go on & on about his verbosity, but that alone isn't what turned me into some sort of cartoon caricature of raving lunatic Glenn Beck, who, by the way, is a cartoon caricature of himself. No, that's not it. What I'm complaining about has merit; Beck is full of shit.

If I were to narrow my criticism of this book, I'd focus on the lack of imagery. The book's title section consists of 30 pages of Williams analyzing, inspecting, reflecting on dreams, which he does almost to the complete exclusion of images. This strikes me as odd--it also makes me angry, but who hears my Munch-like scream in the blogosphere? One dreams not verbally, but visually. In fact, when most people recall their dreams, they remember bizarre images. I would expect a poet writing about dreams to delve into the surreal & symbolic, to make hunger a skinny buffalo perhaps, or to show inner drive as a dark blue Delta 88. Given a world in which all things are possible, the closest Williams comes to images, strange or otherwise, are such weak examples as "bridges of innocence" & "shells of fearful insensitivity."

When I think of Williams, I think of William Carlos Williams & his oft quoted axiom, "No ideas but in things." Instead, as if the weird love-child of Edward Lear & Edward Cayce, C.K.Williams gives us such lines as:

I dream a dream of method, comprehending little of the real forces or necessities of dream,

and find myself entangled in the dream, entrapped, already caught in what the dream contrived,

in what it made, of my ambitions, or of what it itself aspired to for its darker dreaming.

("The Method")

When I bought this book during the past millennium, I enjoyed it. To be sure, Williams has written some outstanding poems ("The Question" remains a particular favorite). So what has changed my opinion of the collection on the whole? Have I, as I've grown older--gracefully & ever so slightly--become infinitely wiser? I don't know, maybe, sure, I guess so.

Return from the Himalayas, Part 3

2010-04-22T13:39:00.000-04:00

The world is filled with pain & sorrow, the Buddha teaches--yeah, I kind of already knew that, ok?

R-S-T-U-V, Find Out What It Means to Me

2010-04-16T03:55:00.000-04:00

Barbara Ras, Bite Every Sorrow. No wonder this book won the 1997 Walt Whitman Award. Ras “unscrew(s) the doors themselves from their jambs,” welcoming all things into her poetry in lines that, if not sprawling, are sprawl-ish. I like Ras’s poems, so it may seem contradictory to admit that I had difficulty reading this book. So many words, so many ideas, all presented in lines that stretch & yawn across the page. Too often, I found myself shortening--I like to think--strengthening lines. (I filled a notebook with alternate line breaks--if interested, text me.) At her best, Ras displays a flair for metaphor, giving it multiple layers, braiding imagery together: "not the flash in the pan heat that turned shrimp pink, but steady/pie-cooking heat, the kind that would make meringue rise, confessions falter,/heat that made the horizon burn unattainably beyond the water where the sun/laid itself like gooey sequins, like Pizarro's dreams of gold." Needless to say, this example has nothing to do with the fun fact that you can sing the book title to the tune of Chaka Khan's hit single, "I'm Every Woman."

Charles Simic, That Little Something. My initial reaction to this volume was, “Doh! I meant to read Shelley!” Aside from that, Simic is an exceptional poet. I’ve read many of his nearly 30 books, my favorites being his earlier works, such as Return to a Place Lit by a Glass of Milk, Charon’s Cosmology & School for Dark Thoughts. He’s won numerous prizes & has served as U.S. Poet Laureate, so far be it from me to criticize such a distinguished poet. Well, not so far actually. Most of the poems in the collection lean toward the forgettable, but there remains some quality material here, like “Doubles,” “Walking” & the title poem, each reminiscent of the kind of work that has landed Simic a Pulitzer Prize & MacArthur Fellowship. However, other pieces don’t meet expectations, great or otherwise. For instance, “Metaphysics Anonymous” & “The Ice Cubes Are on Fire” disappoint, neither living up to the tease of their tantalizing titles. Worse, “Ghost Ships” regrettably begins, “The soul is a ghost ship/Set adrift on the seas of eternity . . .” You’re trying too hard, I imagine myself telling a student who’d written those lines in creative writing class, to make the poem important. For my money, an implicitly soulless ship sailing on a specific ocean, maybe the Pacific, can express the same idea. Of course, I don’t actually have money. I’m a poet.

James Tate, Distance from Loved Ones. On the poetry Mt. Rushmore carved in the granite slab inside my ego-inflated noggin, James Tate occupies the spot afforded in the real world to Washington or Jefferson, but not Lincoln or Roosevelt. Tate’s my favorite living poet. (I’ve heard he’s not in the best of health these days, which saddens me. Get well!) I selected Distance from the Loved Ones (1990) because of all of Tate’s books, I remembered the least about this volume. It doesn't contain any miraculously great poems, but there's still enough of Tate’s characteristic wit, non-sequiturs, charm, & absurdity to feed a multitude of literati. If you'd like to sample a few of the poems, I'm providing a link to an abbreviated online copy of the book here. I highly recommend this & all of Tate's books.

John Updike, Verse. This 1965 Crest collection of Updike’s two early books of poetry, The Carpentered Hen (1958) & Telephone Poles (1963), isn’t the worst poetry I’ve ever read. That distinction belongs to Michael McClure’s September Blackberries. I bought Verse at a used book store for 50 Cent, but the Grammy Award winning rapper & actor threw it back in my face. To be fair, Updike earned his stellar reputation mostly as an author of short stories & novels, some of which–the blowjob scene from Rabbit Run, for instance–once gave me pleasure, maybe twice. However, if Stephen Crane & Gunther Grass, both better known for genres outside of poetry, write competent verse, why not Updike–especially considering nearly 3/4 of these poems appeared in The New Yorker? Updike, at least in his early work, saw himself as a writer of light verse. Indeed, at times, poems like “Umbrella,” “Stopper,” “Vacuum Cleaner,” & “Wheel,” read a little like Ogden Nash--or rather his less amusing cousin, Oddjob. I can’t stress the depths to which I hate, loathe, despise “Publius Vergilius Maro, The Madison Avenue Hick,” written in dialect, as if Updike were a wannabe Whitcomb Riley. If you're like me, reading “Reel,” you’ll probably contemplate different ways to kill yourself, such as flinging yourself headlong from the literary heights of Updike’s lifetime achievements. Of course, you could choose the slow, torturous death of continuing to read this volume. It’s not that Updike has written no good poems (“Sonic Boom”), but to paraphrase “Hairbrush”: “ . . . here,/my son,/you have a book of poetry,/but not much of one.”

The Last Neanderthal, Michael Van Walleghen. I thought it might be funny to call the author Philip Levine Lite, but it would be more ironic than funny. Both Van Walleghen & Levine come from the same geographic area, which they write about in a similar style down to their compact lines, but while Levine is not known for his sense of humor, Van Walleghen might not know what humor is. Don’t misunderstand me: he isn’t funny. He has obvious skills as a poet–I can’t complain about his craftsmanship–but this volume, consisting predominantly of nostalgic poems of his childhood & early adulthood, desperately needs comic relief. Let me give you a few examples of the associative process at play: 1) accordion music leads to the remembrance of an unknown man crushed in Calumet; 2) snow stimulates the relatively (it was his mother's recollection) happy thought of not starving because of the family cow; 3) the general impression of the Upper Peninsula in three words: diphtheria, typhoid, lice. That's just from one poem! Speaking of nostalgia, I'm reminded that as an undergraduate, I garnered the nickname of Matt “Morose,” because, believe it or not, my poetry used to be dark & moody. I imagine we'd have called Van Walleghen something fittingly witty too, like Michael “Hey Lighten Up You’re Really Starting to Bring Me Down” Van Walleghen. Seriously, a better book by Van Walleghen, poet lauraete of Illinois, is his 1980 Lamont Poetry Prize winner, More Trouble with the Obvious. If you've not read Van Walleghen, that's the place to start.

Coming soon: W, X, Y, Z!

An Important Message for Poets & Their Loved Ones

2010-04-08T14:07:00.001-04:00

This coming Sunday afternoon at 2, the mixed media poetry troupe I perform with--I juggle pantoums while riding a mad ghazal up a Burmese climbing rhyme blindfolded--presents an encore showing of Poems in an Exhibition at the Cabell County Public Library at 9th St. & 5th Ave. in Huntington, West Virginia. Most of the verse is free, though authors will have selected volumes of their work for sale.

If you've not caught this act before--or even if you have--bob & wheel downtown for an aesthetic movement you don't want to miss. Fabliau, professor emeritus at the Fleshly School of Poetry, will reunite with his longtime partner, Little Willy, Crown Prince of Syzygy, to present the burlesques & clerihews that made them household words in Tornada & the tri-state area.

Macaronic verse & molossus will be served. Couplets welcome. Parataxis & quatrains are conveniently located within walking distance of the library.

Epic fail if you're not there.

Mind Your Ps & Qs

2010-03-13T14:53:00.000-05:00

Linda Pastan, The Five Stages of Grief. Borrowing from Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’s popular On Death & Dying–& how could it not be popular with an upbeat title like that–Pastan arranges poems extraneously related to the five stages of grief--Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance--which serve as section headings. The title poem, at just over 60 lines, is one of the longest & best pieces in this easy-to-read collection. A minimalist--i.e., one who exerts minimal effort, zing!--Pastan relies primarily on imagery to convey complex ideas–sometimes in a poem of a single sentence or a few fragments–with varied success. Some, like “A Short History of Judaic Thought in the Twentieth Century” & “The Mirror,” work well enough, but others, such as “25th High School Reunion” & “Caroline,” seem incomplete–more like starting points than finished poems. To be fair, I’m glad she didn’t expound upon “25th High School Reunion.” I’m not interested my reunions, much less hearing the details of someone else’s. Of course, if I were so inclined, I could watch Archie: Return to Riverdale, Beautiful Girls, Class Reunion, Class Reunion Massacre, Grosse Point Blank, Just Friends, National Lampoon’s Class Reunion, Peggy Sue Got Married, Romy & Michele’s High School Reunion, Something Wild, Terror Stalks the Class Reunion, Zack & Miri Make a Porno or any of the fine selections available at Netflix. Not a member? Sign up for your free trial today!

Carol Quinn, Acetylene. As winner of the 2008 Cider Press Review Book Award, Quinn has a good ear--her left, I think--for poetry. I like “Sequoia” in particular. However, I have a problem with this collection. Out of thirty poems, thirteen begin with an inscription. In baseball, that sort of average would threaten Ted Williams–I mean, of course, before his corpse was frozen & his decapitated head used for fungo, but still not in a good way. Additionally, following quotations from Anne Dillard & Federico Garcia Lorca which open the book, the Proem (a short poem, "Afterimage," allotted a section unto itself) precedes the “actual” poems. To put a cherry on it, Quinn includes a page of notes to elucidate further upon her work. At times, such notes & inscriptions may be vital, but too often–& Quinn’s not alone in this respect–they seem pretentious, as if the poet were Charlie Tuna, propping up poems with scholarly ornamentations. For instance, Quinn describes “Chaconne” in her end notes as “a response to J.S. Bach’s Chaconne from Partia No. 2 for Solo Violin in D minor.” Speaking of, my “response” is to ask if I don’t get the reference to Bach from the title, can I appreciate the poem without listening to, let’s say, Itzhak “Trust your ability!” Perlman? If not, perhaps Acetylene should be published online so Quinn can provide links, which would be, if I may defer to Urban Dictionary, “god pimp perfect.”

To be continued . . .

O for Ovid: Losses in Translations

2010-03-07T20:09:00.000-05:00

“One morning, as Publius Ovidius Naso woke from anxious dreams, he found that he had morphed while asleep into a monstrous insect.” So begins Ovid’s ambitious fifteen-book epic, Metamorphoses. Rife with tales of creation & destruction, love & war, weddings & wakes, songs & festivals, gods & heroes, nymphs & naiads, centaurs & satyrs, suicides & suitors, rape & incest, cannibalism & rape, marriage & rape, rape & birth, drunkenness & drunken rape, rape & rape & lest I forget, rape--it's kind of like the Bible sans the preachy stuff.

I read two translations of Metamorphoses, one by Rolfe Humphries (1954) & the other by Allan Mandelbaum (1995). Neither text is bilingual, so it’s difficult for me to say with certainty, but it might seem that Mandelbaum, judging by the stilted, if not awkward phrasing, adheres to the text fastidiously–which is not to say that’s how Ovid wrote, but that often literal translations read that way. In the past, I’ve always enjoyed Humphries' translation, which, perhaps because of its colloquial tone, I’ve assumed to be more impressionistic than literal. However, appearances–as the old chestnut, apropos of the poem, would have us believe–can deceive.

According to Sara Mack in The New Criterion, “Humphries probably comes close. But Humphries, while offering us a readable poem, doesn’t give us Ovid–he prunes Ovid’s luxuriance too drastically.” Whereas Mack may be slightly critical of Humphries, she deems Mandelbaum’s translation as “so heavily padded that he isn’t always recognizable as Ovid at all.” She cites as example Mandelbaum needing seven lines (51 words) to render Caenis’s response to Neptune, though Ovid required only two & a half (18 words). That, sorry to say if you’re Mandelbaum--& if you are, welcome to my blog!--proves to be one of Mack’s milder criticisms, as she expounds upon such errors as misused or misunderstood idioms, inaccurate word choices, mistranslations, misspelled names, mistaken characters, sporadic rhyming & tedious poetics. Mandelbaum, she concludes, “has done Ovid a great disservice.”

More recently, Charles Martin's translation of Metamorphoses appeared in 2003, which Mark Jarman, writing in The Hudson Review, praises wholeheartedly, saying it “reminds us that in these tales Ovid remains our contemporary.” To illustrate his point, Jarman writes:

One of Martin’s numerous tours de force, as he transforms Ovid into contemporary American English that dogs, cats, and the hip can understand, is to depict the daughters of Pierus challenging the Muses to a poetry slam, as follows:

“‘We’ll show you girls just what real class is
Give up tryin’ to deceive the masses
Your rhymes are fake: accept our wager
Learn which of us is minor and which is major
There’s nine of us here and there’s nine of you
And you’ll be nowhere long before we’re through
Nothin’s gonna save you ’cuz your songs are lame
And the way you sing ’em is really a shame
So stop with, “Well I never!” and “This can’t be real”
We’re the newest New Thing and here is our deal
If we beat you, obsolete you, then you just get gone
From these classy haunts on Mount Helicon
We give you Macedonia—if we lose
An’ that’s an offer you just can’t refuse
So take the wings off, sisters, get down and jam
And let the nymphs be the judges of our poetry slam!’”

Sigh, I hardly know where to begin. Well, how about for starters we “recognize” this passage is about as “hep” as a Toon Disney promo telling all the kids to “posse up” for the upcoming Hercules episode. Aw, yeah. Corn factor aside, it's not translation--it's paraphrasing. Not even that really. My Latin may be limited to translating inscriptions from statues in the park, but I’m pretty damn sure Ovid doesn't write rhyming couplets or portray the daughters of Pierus as crappy wannabe rappers from the suburbs. To be fair, I haven't read the Martin text, but if the idea is to bring Ovid into the 21st century, then shouldn't he be on Twitter?

I-N Like Flynn

2010-03-01T09:01:00.000-05:00

Early last month, as I cleaned my glasses before settling in for the evening with Mrs. Dalloway–as if I were that doting dolt, Peter Walsh–my frames snapped like a twig. Efforts to repair them myself, however nerdy or valiant, were in vain, as Scotch tape proved futile & over the next couple of weeks, I was forced to wear “loaner” frames (I never knew such things existed--they were like ligers, cockapoos & sewer gators all rolled into one) fashioned not from titanium like my lightweight pair, but from cast-iron salvaged from the Titanic, heavy & ironic. Anyway, despite the obstacle of impaired vision, here are the poets I read in February as part of My ABC of Poetry experience.

David Ignatow, Poems: 1934-1969. Lots of poems here–266 pages worth–jammed into this volume however they fit, two or sometimes three to a page, spanning the poet’s work over four decades. Ignatow has impressive literary credentials, having served as editor of American Poetry Review & poetry editor of The Nation, but the book’s layout does nothing to enhance his work. Not that I dislike it, but Ignatow’s poetry often seems rhythmically flat & in terms of imagery, trite at times, so the reading becomes tedious. For instance, the volume includes several unfortunate poems about being on stage–all the world’s one, ya know–at which times weird, often violent, scenes ensue. Generally speaking, I like the later work in which Ignatow appears less inhibited, a reflection of changes all-around in poetics during the late 50s & throughout the 60s.

By the way, you may be surprised at how few poets have surnames that begin with “I” Other than Ignatow there’s maybe three. Honestly, I’m considering changing my name so I won’t have to contend with the multitudes of Matt Morrises out there. But Matt Imperial sounds too snooty. Matt Incognito–too phony. Matt Imus–uh, no. Matt Idle, brother to Eric, or Matt Idol, cousin to Billy–decide, decide! Matt Ignatius–I’d need a stupid hat with ear flaps. Matt Irani–no, my life’s difficult enough already. Irons–too hard. Infante–too juvenile. Ives–too “Burl”-y. Ix–too icky! Maybe I should sleep on it.

Louis Jenkins, Nice Fish. Winner of the 1995 Minnesota Book Award, this selection of prose poems, some new, some from Jenkins’ two prior books (much like my Greatest Hits, recently published by Pudding House) include “Football,” “War Surplus,” “Appointed Rounds,” “Violence on TV” & “After School.” I know I don’t write it, but prose poetry is a choice & I’m pro-choice. Personally, I see enjambment as one of my strengths, but I also get that in free verse line breaks, if not quite arbitrary, are discretionary–so, one may think, why bother? After all, while at a reading, do you hear line breaks? If not, does the work cease being a poem when read aloud? Poetry remains, whether written in lines or paragraphs, more economical, more musical than most prose, Virginia Woolf excepted.

Kenneth Koch, Seasons on Earth. This book features Koch’s two mock epic poems, Ko, A Season on Earth & its–kaff–sequel–kaff–The Duplications, as well as a preface, each written in terza rima. Each has moments of Koch’s playful genius, such as when he writes: “If you are wondering about Aqua’s age,/Since she is young and gorgeous, though Etruscan,/And how she got her name, don’t skip this page.” But too often the rhymes seem forced, the storylines predicated by the rudder of rhymes, which Koch admits in the preface, "Seasons on Earth." Sometimes this strategy proves fun & funny, watching the corners Koch paints himself in & then, like a cartoonist with a magic brush, paint his way out of. At other times, he goes on at length, amusing only himself with stanzas of uninteresting or sophomoric rhymes that serve no purpose other than to illustrate Koch’s ability to write terza rima ad nauseam. I recommend this volume for Koch fans, but the unenlightened would find greater delight in other Koch works, such as The Pleasures of Peace, Thank You & Other Poems, The Art of Love, One Train, etc.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Song of Hiawatha. You can’t escape trochaic tetrameter, poetry’s Alcatraz. Even if you scale the walls, you’ll drown in the frigid water before you reach shore. In a way, however, it actually makes the piece easier to read. Like listening to Van Halen while riding a stationary bike, you may think it sucks, particularly with Sammy Hagar singing, but the tempo keeps you moving, so you almost forget that you’re bored or that you’d read Hiawatha in an undergraduate class about myth & folklore, which is kind of odd considering the stories are mostly Longfellow’s own literary–so to speak–creations. (Spoiler alert–the final section, “Hiawatha’s Departure,” is not only condescending but also surprisingly anti-Semitic!)

Cate Marvin, World’s Tallest Disaster.“Maybe you didn’t hear me so good," Joe Flaherty says in SCTV's Irwin Allen parody, "TOWERING INFERNO!” Whether Marvin had the one time king of disaster flicks in mind–or SCTV, for that matter–when she titled her book is idle speculation on my part. Winner of the 2000 Kathryn A. Morton Prize, it’s thankfully not about 9/11. The title poem employs the same metaphoric equation (body + desire = building on fire) as Mayakovsky’s “Cloud in Trousers,” but tallest? Is it a tribute to Anna Swan? Gheorghe Muresan? Is the poet herself abnormally tall? In the introduction, Robert Pinsky compares Marvin to George Herbert & Philip Sidney, which sounds nice, I suppose, but I’d probably slug someone for saying that about me. In my favorite poem from this collection, “On Parting,” Marvin wishes a plague of misfortunes upon her ex, stated with such a light touch that even he’d have to admit, in spite of being mugged or lying dead at the bottom of a lake, that she’s got a keen sense of humor. If I have a complaint–obviously, yes–it’s that nothing particularly distinguishes Marvin from any number of good poets writing today.

Pablo Neruda, Full Woman, Fleshly Apple, Hot Moon. What can I say that hasn’t been said? Neruda transforms the commonplace, breathing new life into everyday items. For him, a book is a “minuscule forest,” the wine glass curves like the hips of a lover, the artichoke has its own mythology, each living thing (excluding racehorses & their whining) possesses its own language the poet wants to learn so that he can “be intimate with this world.” But you know all that already. Instead, let me comment on Stephen Mitchell, the translator. From what I can discern from this bilingual text–keep in mind I know next to nada about Spanish–Mitchell seems not to stray far from the original. I’ve also read Mitchell’s translations of Rilke–all of them–& I’m almost ashamed to admit, but before his translations, I never really liked Rilke. Now I sport an artsy Rilke tattoo–just like Lady Gaga!

To be continued . . .

Presidents Day Poem

2010-02-15T10:29:00.000-05:00

Reproductions of Emanuel Leutze's Washington Crossing the Delaware graced the wall of my elementary school, as well as middle school & I'm pretty sure high school too. There are historical inaccuracies in Leutze's depiciton; the flag, for instance, displayed prominently in the painting, didn't exist at the time of the battle.

To be fair, one could level similar charges against my poem. I don't have any sources to confirm what items Washington packed for his overnighter, but at the same time, nor do I know any that debunk my claim, so as far as I know, I freakin' nailed it!

To whatever degree of success, my idea was to write a tongue-in-cheek description of the Leutz painting. I had Larry River's painting & Frank O'Hara's "On Seeing Larry Rivers' Washington Crossing the Delaware at the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art" in mind when I wrote.

"Washington Crossing the Delaware" first appeared in Swink & subsequently, in my chapbook, Here's How. I'm presenting it here as a Presidents Day poem in hopes of placing my name on the list of candidates for the next U.S. Poet Laureate. I understand it's a long list--here's hoping!

Washington Crossing the Delaware

What does one pack
for a jaunt into history?
Honeywell reports: A change
of clothes, powder

for his periwig & a Fannie
Burney novel to pass
the night in Trenton. But now, icy
clumps batter the klutzy

ferry. Frozen in his stance, boot
propped confidently atop
his duffel bag, he fixes
his determined gaze

upon New Jersey, drawing
closer as if
he willed it so, his ragged
troops slaving to propel

the Durham up-
stream, the turgid river
maintaining fierce
loyalty to the crown.

He stands, tattered
flag at his shoulder, saber
at his side, big hands
curled into fists.

ABC of Poetry

2010-02-01T18:52:00.000-05:00

I have, in my humble estimation, about a hundred zillion volumes of poetry. My personal library includes the first book of poems I bought (Poe--I was 12 or 13) as well as worn & weathered Cummings & Stevens collections from high school. What happened to my Brautigan? Lost in a cheap motel with lights all over the place, grungy ice machine outside moaning, I suspect. Of course, a fair share of these books I bought in college--some for classes, but most for my own enjoyment & enlightenment.

Since graduation, I've continued, as one may rightly assume, to acquire more & more poetry, so much so that I can't remember every book I own. As a result, I've repurchased titles that have sat idly on my shelves for years. Why keep a book, it occurs to me in those moments of buyer's remorse, if it exists simply to gather dust, its contents occupying not a whit of the owner's consciousness?

As part of my new year's self-reclamation project, I decided to read--or rather, re-read, as predominantly is the case--from A to Z, the poets on my shelves. To be clear, my idea is to read a poet whose last name begins with the letter A, then one whose name begins with B, then C & so on until I exhaust the alphabet--perhaps myself as well--before returning to A.

Listed below are the books I've read so far--I'm currently reading David Ignatow for I--along with brief comments about each:

Dick Allen, Flight & Pursuit. I could have chosen Ai, Addonizio, Akmatova, Ammons, Angelou, Apollonaire, Arnold, Ashbery, Auden--among others--to begin my poetic journey, but I picked a poet I had basically forgotten. A skilled writer, Allen counts & recounts flowers on the trellis, symbolizing (I think) his tendency to sentimentalize. I place this book on par with televised golf in the sleep-inducing section of my sofa.

Michael Benedikt, The Body. Other than The Poetry of Surrealism, that classic anthology which he compiled, I hadn't read Benedikt for quite a while. Sometimes the poems–"Air" & “Hair” come to mind–remind me of early Kenneth Koch. After reading The Body, I reread it. I thought about delving into other books by Benedikt, but adhering to my plan--to the letter, I might add--I moved on to . . .

Raymond Carver, Where Water Comes Together with Other Water. I consider meeting Raymond Carver as a highlight of my piddling literary life. Even if alive, he wouldn't remember me or that he signed my copy of Would You Please Be Quiet Please?, the best short story collection ever: "To Matt--With admiration for his poems." Point is, I'd feel like a heel were I to say anything negative about his poetry, for instance, that his poems about writing poems & those in which he achieves closure through the deus ex machina of love seem somewhat, uh, amatuerish. I'm nobody & he's a great writer. Besides, some truly excellent poems here, such as "Blood," "Next Door" & "Ask Him," make me recommend this collection wholeheartedly.

Tim Dlugos, Powerless. Billing himself a post-New York School poet, embracing O'Hara's Personism as his aesthetic spirit guide, but lacking--who doesn't?--O’Hara’s wit, Dlugos is a decent poet, but sadly, the poems generally become more interesting when he finds out that he’s dying of AIDS. Those poems--I want to say ironically but fear it would seem insensitive--have lots of power.

Russell Edson, The Tunnel. If Gary Larson wrote poems, I’m tempted to say in order to characterize this book for the uninitiated, he’d write prose-poems like Edson, but such conjecture undercuts the philosophic nature of this enigmatic volume of selected poems (1964-1985). For me, Edson hits his stride in 1973 with The Clam Theater & The Childhood of an Equestrian.

Kenneth Fearing, Afternoon of a Pawnbroker. Perhaps one of the most overlooked poets of the 20th century, Fearing remains one of my favorites. I like the way he merges pop culture, society, politics, the arts, etc., into noir-ish poetry. A must read!

Tess Gallagher, Portable Kisses. Not Neruda, but several good poems like “One Kiss” & “Sugarcane” make this an enjoyable collection of love poems. Some are forgettable or forgiveable but never dull as a thud. As the title suggests, this book is ideal for carrying around to read in spare moments. Gallagher also advises readers to kiss someone when they're done, which seems, at first blush, terrific advice. However, I'm no longer welcome at Starbucks as a result, so let this serve as a cautionary tale.

James Harms, Freeways & Aqueducts. In flowing, sometimes flowery lines, Harms seems to hold an abiding appreciation & compassion for everyone & everything. I particularly like “Copernicus,” which I heard him read a few years ago in Morgantown. If you’ve not read Harms--not that I want to tell you how to live your life--but maybe you should.

To be continued . . .

Going Retro: "Music Lessons"

2010-01-30T14:42:00.000-05:00

My previous post reminded me of a poem I'd written early in my twenties. What great days, hanging out with Scott & Zelda! No, I'm not that old. Nor am I as old as "Music Lessons" makes me seem.

I listened to a lot of retro back then & I wanted to write a rock history of sorts--like Don McLean's "American Pie" but without the numb-nuts symbolism & allusions. (FYI: The jester is Dylan!)

As I typed the poem into my post, I thought about revising it. After all, rather than rock history, "Music Lessons" is more about getting laid, a recurrent theme in my youth. However, having read Wordsworth's Preludes, I fought the urge--er, to revise. Well, mostly. I changed some line lengths because I hoped to limit how often screen resolution forced line breaks.

Otherwise, "Music Lessons" appears below, with all its pimply angst, as it originally did in G.W. Review & later in One Shot.

Music Lessons

a) Piano

I wanted to talk about my albums, my Stevie Wonder
Light My Fire, my Aretha Franklin Gold, my Supremes'
Superstar, my Everly Brothers' Greatest Hits, my Buddy
Holly, my early Beatles' stuff, my Hometown
USA with the Chiffons & Dion,
My Hits of the 60s with the Boxtops, Chubby
Checker, Gary Lewis & the Playboys, my Goofy
Greats, my Loony Tunes, my Herman's Hermits--but
You weren't interested. You wanted
Something of substance, like art, philosophy,
Eucharistic wafers. "Don't you like me?" you asked, your teeth
Shark white & my heart stopped as if
I were reading a stroke book about intelligence.
I wanted to tell you everything--the novels, the movies,
The garden hose. No, not soap. Radio.

b) Guitar

Midnight. Hillside approached the quiet lake, a blue stain
In my dreams of mindless summer. I had the "real" lyrics
To "Louie, Louie" crammed in my pocket along with a kazoo
& your phone number. You called me a "boner-head" because
I fell for you--like stars, as they say--from the disco
Steps into an evil black puddle. Symbolism! I thought
Before you snapped me back to reality with a No-
Nukes kick in the groin. Your tiny hands touched where
My shirt had opened & breathed. Turtles! I shouted. Hollies!
Little Richard! The Coasters! Sam the Sham
& the Pharoahs! Brooklyn Bridge! Iron
Butterfly! Jerry Lee Lewis! Elvis Presley! The Monkees!
Even Fabian! I'm so happy! You soldered
Your mouth to mine & bam! Bill Haley & the Comets!

R U Ready 2 Rock?

2010-01-17T15:38:00.000-05:00

Pudding House Publications, with no association whatsoever with K-tel International, proudly presents Matt Morris: Greatest Hits 1982-2009.

Twelve creative hits! Three decadent decades! One original artist!

Feel the power of "Aspects of Dagwood," "Spirit of the Dead Watching," "Ars Poetica," "Night at the Improv, C. 1600," "Life of God," "Road Service" & many, many more.

Remember the Clash . . . Devo . . . X . . . the Ramones? Sure, I do, but I'm f'ing old, I confess, as the cover--as well as the insightful, entertaining sleeve notes printed inside--suggests, for 1982 represents not the year of my birth--say it ain't so--but the publication date of the first poem in this twisted chronology. (Ok, I'm dating myself, but on the upside, I'm a total pushover once plied with a few poems, so guess who's getting lucky tonight? Heh, heh.)

Yes, there's magic in the music. The Hives. Polysics. The Flaming Lips. White Stripes.

Plus, if you order now, you'll receive--at no extra charge--the never before published in any book, "Scenes from a Sonata." Rush delivery available! Get yours today!

Andy's Songs

2010-01-02T12:07:00.000-05:00

Andy has a lot of CDs--more than anyone I know, myself included--with everything from classical to classic rock, from blues to bluegrass, from soundtracks to sound-effects, from mainstream to alternative, from retro to progressive jazz. I know where he keeps them, too, if you're interested.

Perhaps the only thing Andy has more of than CDs is time. So every year, Andy pours his considerable resources & energy--albeit considerably less considerable--into the creation of elaborate mixes of music developed around a theme. This year, Andy chose a song about each state, an arduous task to say the least. I can't imagine the amount of time--time he could have spent, say, reading comic books or perhaps taking quizzes on Facebook about comic books--he invested in this project.

The first volume begins with John (They Might Be Giants) Linnell's "The Songs of the 50 States," a fitting declaration of Andy's purpose. The next tune, "Everyone Loves Delaware" by Pookey Bleum, seems a bit sarcastic when coupled with Linnell's tongue-in-cheek introduction, for the listener may be misled initially about the quality of the songs to follow. However, this is not simply a silly collection of novelty songs, but a fairly eclectic selection of songs, mostly out of the mainstream, representing a wide array of emotions, ideas & musical styles.

To be fair, I have no idea how difficult it was to find songs about Delaware. Maybe this is "the" song. Indeed, it would be easy to quibble about some of Andy's picks--"Georgia Hard" is too countrified for my tastes--but this collection hits the mark with nearly every song. Some of my personal favorites include Sonic Youth's "New Hampshire," Joe West's "South Dakota Hairdo" & Brian Borcherdt's "New Mexico." In fact, since Andy gave me these CDs last month, they're the only music in my car. I keep them on a constant three disc rotation.

If we recall Sir Philip Sidney said the purpose of poetry is to instruct & delight, then Andy's latest, greatest mix is, in a convoluted sense, poetry. For not only are the songs enjoyable, but Andy showed the foresight to arrange the selections in the order that each state gained admission into the union. "That's educational!" as Black Francis would tell you. Well, he would have if the Pixies' "UMass" were included in this collection--which inexplicably it isn't. Nevertheless, these are some of the best CDs I've listened to in a long time.

Thanks, Andy.

Behind the Music: The Making of Greatest Hits

2009-12-22T05:14:00.000-05:00

Yes, it's a glimpse behind the curtain--hey, perv, not that curtain! Now come here. Look--it's the cover of my latest chapbook. Sadly, a printing glitch has delayed its long-awaited December release. Well, that's the "cover" story. Now the inside scoop. This "setback" is part of the elaborate pre-publication hype meant to garner media attention. It's just the kind of publicity stunt, like Paul McCartney's (Here's another clue . . . the walrus was Paul) rumored death due to a lethal saccharine overdose back in the '60s, sure to drive sales. Pretty smart, huh?

What Place Is This? Where Are We Now?

2009-12-02T11:42:00.001-05:00

Let this title--lines from Carl Sandburg's "Grass"--serve as an epigraph.

Last night, President Obama announced his plan to send 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan to "finish the job."

I can't help but recall the wisdom Vizzini imparts to the disguised Westley in The Princess Bride: "You fool! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders--the most famous of which is 'Never get involved in a land war in Asia.'"

Although Vizzini's subsequent insight ("Never go against a Sicilian with death on the line") fortunately proves false, history supports his former assertion.

The decision to escalate U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan is attributed obstensibly to fighting terrorism, replete with invocations of 9/11 & the continued search for Osama bin Laden.

If true, then why is our government reportedly working with the Taliban? Why help keep a corrupt government in power with our resources, our lives?

I'm not anti-Obama. I opposed Bush's invasion of Afghanistan & Iraq from the very start--& lest we forget, let's not gloss over the fact that our troops are still in Iraq, despite the president's campaign pledge to bring them home.

I reject the administration's hawking further involvement in Afghanistan as fighting the good war. No war is good. Some may prove necessary, but this one isn't being fought from necessity, but (it would seem) for political expediency.

Ah, but alas, this is a poetry blog, so here's a shortened version of Kenneth Koch's "The Pleasure of Peace" for your perusal & well, yes, pleasure.

Comments?

What's Profoundly Sad

2009-11-28T19:44:00.000-05:00

is often beautiful. Sorrow,
spit from a fireplug uncorked
in a fatal pileup, drums
pity on black bumbershoots

opening like a Caillebotte
exhibit. Despondency
fills the cup of the young mother
slumped against a weathered

blue balustrade, checkered robe
undone, & the colicky baby
sucking a melancholy breast,
having tasted despair too

early, grows up suicidal
like Schumann, Van Gogh
or Marilyn Monroe maybe.
These days, seeing no one,

hearing nothing but moaning
& heavy breathing, climbing
the interminable flights
to my dark efficiency,

I sit beside the window, bare
elm branches straining
to hold a sky flushed
with artificial clouds. Dusk

palls mottled rooftops, & just
when I think no hope is left,
the last dancing ray disappears
like Giselle into the forest.

(as appeared in Main Street Rag)

Song of the Open Form Road

2009-10-26T10:03:00.000-04:00

Some of my best ideas come while driving, many of which don't include sex. Ok, "many" may be an exaggeration, but the point is, Sigmund, not everything is about sex. In my younger days, as one of over 3 million Americans who commute more than 90 minutes to work--the average commute is around 25 minutes--I used to compose poetry mentally while in the car, but too often, by the time I'd reached my destination, I'd remember only the basic outline, not the specific lines I'd carefully crafted while stuck behind trucks that spit chunks of coal down the narrow, winding blacktop of Rt. 52.

I tried bringing along a tape player to record my ideas as I drove, but it proved unworkable, for I found myself struck with tape anxiety: I would "freeze" whenever I pushed the red "Record" button. Instead of crafting lines of poetry in the oral tradition of Homer, I would usually entertain myself by singing a diverse selection of favorite & not so favorite songs. Not to brag, but I hit nearly every note in an extremely sentimental rendition of "Something Stupid" & sounded just like Elvis in a rockabilly cover of "Leaving on a Jet Plane."

But thanks to a great new invention, I envision my productivity going through the roof. It's not the wheel, but it may be the next best thing: a laptop desk that mounts on the steering wheel. In fact, I'm writing this post while driving I-64 into Kanawha City. Yesterday, while driving to campus, I began a pantoum & jotted down a few lines I can use in my comic tour-de-force, "Portrait of Arabella Cope, Duchess of Dorset." Killer stuff, trust me, that if not for the laptop steering wheel desk may have been lost for all time! What's more, if uninspired, I can pass the time playing computer games in traffic. For instance, I can probably level my Night Elf druid before I reach my exit, if the redneck in the pickup behind me would lay off his "elfin" horn.

One may note that the makers of DeskDrive Plus caution that it isn't intended for use while driving. But that doesn't make it illegal. Like warnings on cigarette packs, it's your choice as an American to heed or disregard. If something's really important, laws are enacted--as with health reform. Q: How does the Senate propose to deal with the 46 million uninsured Americans? A: Require them by law to buy insurance! Easy peasy.

While we're at it, let's eradicate unemployment. Make it illegal not to have a job. Problem fixed. As for poverty, anyone living below the poverty level should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. I favor the death penalty for the poor, thereby ridding society once & for all of this blight. You can't rehabilitate the poor. Also, terrorism. If it's not illegal, it should be.

Anyway, I'm nearly at Radio Shack, so . . . holy crap! I almost ran over a deer!

Apocatastasis of Ekphrasis

2009-10-08T11:30:00.000-04:00

If you missed the Poems at an Exhibition reading last Saturday at Taylor Books, you now face the outer darkness. Wailing, weeping & gnashing your teeth, you wish you'd not only attended the reading, but that you'd brushed & flossed as well.

"Have mercy on me," you plead. "Send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water & cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame." (An outlandish request, but to be fair, the furnace of eternal fire makes loads of noise, so I may have misheard.)

Listen, I bring you good news of great joy. For lo, Vic Burkhammer of The Charleston Gazette has put together a neat sampler of images from the event which you may view at Mountainword. It's way cooler than a glass of water.

Thanks, Vic!

Poems at an Exhibition

2009-09-30T13:29:00.000-04:00

My Favre-esque Things

2009-09-14T12:31:00.000-04:00

On Sunday, I played Brett Favre--no, not in fantasy football, but the drinking game! You know the rules: every time announcers mention Brett Favre, you gotta swill your favorite legal beverage. This week, in light of Tila Tequila being strangled by Shawn Merriman--allegedly--I went totally Mezcal while tuned to the Vikings-Browns game (I'm a Cleveland fan, so kick me again). For a taste of how my Sunday went, here's a sample from that silver-tongued football analyst Brian Billick:

We talked with Brett Favre & his Viking teammates this week & heard a lot of Brett Favre stories, but the Brett Favre story I liked best was about Percy Harvin, who was 3 years old when Brett Favre began his NFL career. So, of course, he grew up watching Brett Favre, admiring Brett Favre, you know, idolizing Brett Favre as all the young players did, so when he sees Brett Favre in the locker room, he knows Brett Favre. Brett Favre! I mean, who doesn't know Brett Favre? Haha! Can you imagine that? And there he is, Brett Favre, just an arm-length--a future Hall of Fame arm--away! Brett Favre notices Percy staring at him, so he--Brett Favre--Brett Favre walks over & introduces himself: "Hi, I'm Brett Favre . . . "

I passed out minutes into the 1st quarter, which at least spared me the thumping the Browns took in the 2nd half. If you're not a sports fan, you may want to play the death panel drinking game instead. Sheesh, all this news about death panels in which, every five years once you reach 65, you have to meet with a government agent who'll decide whether you live or die--how can anyone believe crap like that? Have you ever tried to contact a government agent? Good luck! Let me know when you get through.

I'm all for universal health care, particularly the single-payer option, which the powers-that-be say isn't an option. We wouldn't want to stop making insurance companies rich--er, richer, would we? If not insurance companies, who'd make substantial donations to our representatives' political campaigns? Such contributions allow these corporations to extort control--I mean, exert control--over Congress. In fact, if the public option is eliminated & the individual mandate is invoked, the only ones who'll profit from the current health care reform are insurance companies--& politicians.

I wish there were a mandate that said anyone who didn't buy my Greatest Hits collection (forthcoming from Pudding House Publications) would be fined. Instead of 10 bucks, the current price, how about 100 bucks? Don't read, don't "get" poetry? Tough titty. I don't "get" what my insurance agent knows about heart attacks, but I don't want to have one when I "get" fined for not buying his product. Ultimately, that's what insurance policies are: a product, not unlike the empty boxes you see Progressive hawking in its auto insurance ads, sold for profit.

Speaking of policies, the same company that denied your claims before the mandate will undoubtedly deny your claims afterward as a matter of policy. How's that for a kicker?

You know what? Screw it. I not only want death panels, I want death squads. I want Josef F'n Stalin reincarnated to oversee them. Ah, Stalin! Vladimir Lenin dubbed him ruthless. Yes, the same Lenin who organized the Russian revolution, who shrugged off the execution of Nicholas & his family, called Stalin ruthless. That's like Dick Cheney saying someone is "cold." As for me, I know who's quarterbacking my death squad!

I may sound angry, but listen, once the statute of limitations has elapsed, I'll tell you an hilarious story about [RETRACTED] and a minivan of monks. Until then, how about a poem from my forthcoming Greatest Hits collection? Nah, better not. If Glenn Beck knows anything (he doesn't), that's creeping socialism. If you believe in America, you'll buy my book.

Or die.

Richard Lovelace, Vaudevillian

2009-08-30T12:36:00.000-04:00

"See!" With what constant motion, even & glorious as the sun, Gratiana steers that noble frame, closing the door behind her.

"What beautiful flowers!" I say, lighting a cigar, "Soft as your breast, sweet as your voice that gives each winding law & poise--"

Swifter than the wings of fame, she beat the happy pavement by such a star made firmament, which now no more the roof envies & interjects, "It was your idea."

"My idea?" A puff of cigar smoke swells up high with Atlas even, bearing the brighter, nobler heaven & in her, all the deities.

"Sure," she explains, looking for a vase, as if each step trods out a lover's thought & the ambitious hopes he brought, chained to her brave feet with such art. "You know Amarantha just got out of the hospital & you told me when I visit her, I should take her flowers. Remember?"

"Yes, of course." Such sweet command & gentle awe as when she ceased, pausing to place the flowers in the vase, we sighing saw the floor lay paved with broken hearts.

"Well, I went to see her this afternoon &--" So did she move, so did she sing like the harmonious spheres that bring unto their rounds music's aid. "I thought about what you said & when she left the room, I took her flowers."

Which she performed such a way as all the enamored world will say the Graces danced & Apollo played.

Odds Bodkins in the Land of Nod

2009-08-25T13:45:00.000-04:00

Did anyone see District 9? Now that's one awful movie. I say this because it wasn't a double feature or it would be two horrible movies. Who knew the shantytown aliens would turn out to be more human than human beings? Who knew de Jerk would turn into a "prawn"? I'd guess everyone. If Peter Jackson's not ashamed of himself, I am of myself for paying to see this predictable pile of extra terrestrial poop.

Speaking of extra terrestrials, I saw E.T. for the first time the other day. Is it one of the best movies of the 80s? In a word, no. Spielberg tends to lay on the shmaltz way too thick--& please don't tell me E.T. was made for kids. That doesn't change the fact I've been puking shmaltz since Saturday.

I'm trying to remember the last good movie I've seen. It sure wasn't Star Trek Babies nor the latest Harry Potter. What was the title, Harry Potter & the Milking of the Franchise? Sheesh, other than the opening scene in which Snape swears his loyalty to Voldemort, nothing else that happens has anything to do with the ending. It's all irrelevant filler. Oh, sure, it's artsy, but if the point is that teens wanna get it on, I can find more graphic depictions at no cost on the web.

I would do well to stay immersed in poetry if for no other reason than to avoid such excruciating experiences. I certainly have plenty to do. I have a full-length book manuscript--a semi-finalist in a recent competition--I'm continuing to circulate, as well as two new chapbooks I'm working on. Plus, I have several new poems I want to send out. Hey, how come no one's offered to make movies out of my poems? Sadly, I'm relegated to surveillance cameras at Dollar General.

Wait, I got one, a good movie I've seen recently: I'm a Cyborg, But That's OK. Let's just say I was skeptical because it stars Rain--cheap shot, sorry--but I enjoyed the surrealistic probing of the line between reality & fantasy, illustrated by the delusions of patients in a psychiatric hospital. I especially like the part in which Peter Jackson, his enormous head wrapped in aluminum foil, apologizes profusely for everything while J.K. Rowling sings rich mushy love songs. Spielberg, ass bared in his untied gown, fancies himself the world's greatest ping-pong player until Leonard Nimoy with rabbit ears bursts into the room & confesses--he's the thief!

Greetings from Boston

2009-08-11T11:49:00.000-04:00

I recently returned from a trip to Boston. Not to tell stories out of school--more about that later--but I overheard a British couple complaining about the cold, rainy weather, if that tells you anything.

My travel guide called the Boston Museum one of world's largest. I love museums, but world's largest . . . not. Great gift shop, though. It also has a Great Hall which looks something like this:

As many of my readers know, I went to Harvard--not only on Friday, but Saturday too! Here's a picture of me at the Sackler Museum--the "Slacker" as it's called in my dyslexic subjective reality--mugging with the bust of fellow poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow:

Speaking of, here's a poem from Nearing Narcoma that mentions Longfellow:

Whitman's Sampler

The last great poet has died,
having joined the immortals
for a softball game in the sky.
He lofts a deep fly to center,
his soul a can of corn.

That rummy Edgar Allan Poe
tags at third & foots the line,
testing the unknown arm of
aloof academician
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

I can watch them play all day
if I gaze into the sun
& stand on one leg just so.
And when the sun goes down,
I close my eyes & listen.

What slow summer evenings
I've heard the muse calling
Emily Dickinson--sliding,
cleats high, across the plate
in a cloud of dust--safe at home.

Song 2

2009-07-15T13:20:00.000-04:00

Woohoo! as Blur might say. Woohoo!

In an earlier post, I described a tongue-in-cheek formula for composing songs. Although I don't write them anymore--I don't play guitar anymore either or do math for that matter, so you do it--I'd written scores, if you'll pardon the pun, without benefit of the formula, which, in brief, states songs require 3 verses, a chorus & a bridge. The following example, one of the last pieces I wrote back in my days of guitars & psychosis, has 4 verses, no chorus & no bridge; a simple 3 chord progression in whatever key suits your fancy, with a few minor chords thrown in for variety, it's called "You Again."

I didn't have a friend & my dog was dead when I checked into the motel.
Before I saw you that night I thought I'd take my life on a handful of pills,
but you were acutely aware & astute & I started to wonder
right there & then if my ship had come in or had it already gone under.

In addition to setting the scene, the first verse (in poetry we'd probably call it a "stanza," another distinction, albeit one of semantics, between the genres) establishes a pattern of both internal & end rhymes (mostly slant) maintained throughout the song. For instance, in line 1, "friend" rhymes with "dead"; in line 2, "night" rhymes with "life" while "motel" rhymes with "pills." That pattern, if you're scoring at home or even if you're alone, is xx xx y / zz zz y.

Technical stuff aside, as for the narrative, the lonely, suicidal singer meets someone who somehow knows he's planning to kill himself & means to stop him. With no rational explanation how she would know his plans or why she'd show up now, much less care about him, the singer wonders if she isn't perhaps a product of his drug overdose--or perhaps he, like his figurative dog, is already dead.

Yeah, you were a ship & we took a trip from New York to Port-au-Prince.
We tossed & turned like the ocean & burned incense for ambiance.
I remember the night we saw the lights on the shore with the tourists.
You took my hand, we strolled down the strand & disappeared in the mist.

Here, the verse is an extended metaphor comparing sex to a sea cruise. I find it amusing naming the specific route "from New York to Port-au-Prince" as if it were some obscure double-entendre. Also, I like that it rhymes with "ambiance." When the singer & his anonymous lover "disappeared in the mist," it symbolizes both sex--the afterglow, so to speak--& death, reminding us of the attempted suicide.

When I woke up & looked down in my cup, the non-dairy creamer
afloat on the top was symbolic I thought that I'd just been dreaming,
so I took a walk to try to cool off before I went off the deep end.
As I talked to myself, I couldn't help if I felt that I'd just lost my best friend.

It's at this juncture, using a harmonica holder like Dylan did back in the day, I'd squawk on my mouth harp while strumming along to the melody because I can't play lead guitar. I mean, go figure--I practice guitar almost everyday for 10 years & other than a few boogie rifts & "Sunshine of Your Love," I'm strictly rhythm.

Anyway, the next day, the singer sees it all as a dream, but still feels the pangs of lost love. I should point out the enjambment of the first line, breaking the typical pattern of end-stops--which I discuss in my earlier entry as one of the major distinctions between songs & poems--but frankly, I'm tired of doing what I should, so you'll have to notice of your own accord while I continue with the song:

Years have gone by & I didn't die that I can remember
& I've been with a few others too who were dreaming I'm sure.
For this universe is often perverse, but it's all that we're given
& maybe one night--who knows--I just might dream about you again.

Had I written this narrative as a poem, among other numerous changes, most notably disencumbering it of rhymes, I would have omitted this last--complete with moral--passage, but as far as the song goes, it works well enough. If nothing else, it provides the title, so why question it?

Perhaps it goes without saying, but to be clear let me say again that songs are not poems. Why, then, you may ask, did I decide to include this song on my poetry blog? Probably the main reason is that while many of my poems have been published, none of my songs have ever been seen--or rather heard--outside of live performances. Let's call it ego.

Also, this is my blog, so stop hassling me, man.

I Call Copyright

2009-06-23T14:50:00.000-04:00

I've gotten used to popular comedians "recycling" my comedy bits in their routines. I bet you didn't know, for instance, that George Carlin based his famous "7 Words You Can Never Say on Television" on an improvisation I performed at recess during the 3rd grade. It's true my initial performance lacked many of the sophisticated nuances that Carlin employed, but then again, he didn't shout his from an out-of-control merry-go-round spinning a zillion miles an hour while trying not to hurl.

Of course, Carlin would never have heard about my performance had Judy Palmer, her eyes blue as my shtik, her hair sheer comedy gold, not ratted me out to Mrs. Cooley, who, despite her name, wasn't "cool" at all. Mrs. un-Cooley, in turn, told the principal about my little thing--hey, I was only 8 years old!--who shared snippets, completely out of context, with my parents who repeated it ad nauseum to me that evening along with a rather vociferous critique.

Before long, it seemed everyone had heard about my obscenity-laced ad lib & the next thing I knew, there was Carlin reaping the rewards for the bit that got my ass busted. I felt a little like Lenny Bruce, I'll admit, but that's the nature of the comic beast. Indeed, stealing jokes can be be traced as far back as the dawn of the Paleogene, where a young rodent-sized mammal, Milton Berle (remembered these days, if at all, not for his wit, but for his mammoth dong) devoured Henny Youngman & his young for a one-liner about manipulative, overbearing mothers-in-law.

Today, when someone rips off one of my jokes, I take it as a compliment, as further affirmation that I know funny. However, the other evening while watching The Colbert Report interview with poet Paul Muldoon, I executed a well-timed spit-take that would have made Danny Thomas proud when Colbert alluded to Shakespeare's 18th sonnet in a rather silly discussion about metaphor. I had recently written a parody of that very same sonnet & feared some less talented poet--perhaps one of the poetasters who use my name--would "borrow" the idea & write some half-assed poem.

To be proactive, I've decided to post my parody below in order to establish a clear copyright date. I doubt the poem's in its final draft--I've not settled on a title either, so please share any ideas you may have--but if I understand copyright law, I can claim the idea as well as the language as my intellectual property because "anti-intellectual property" just sounds messed up.

To Paris Hilton

If I were to compare you
to a summer's day, it wouldn't be
the 4th; however much
I enjoy fireworks kissing

the sky like Hendrix, vintage
Stratocaster ablaze, it isn't patri-
otism I feel for you. You're
not a summer solstice sun

wreathed in red as ancients
samba, Isis' tears swelling
the Nile. Not canicular dies nor Labor
Day's gray finale, but eyes

closed, bare breasted, fern flower
in hair, you might be Ivan Kupala Day.

Poetry Reading

2009-06-08T20:28:00.000-04:00

Rock'em Sock'em Robots: The Movie

2009-05-18T12:40:00.000-04:00

If you've seen the trailer for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, you pretty much know what to expect: this movie's gonna suck. I base this not only on the giant robot depicted sucking sand, trucks & everything in its path into oblivion, but also on the basis of Michael Bay's previous movie, Transformers, which sucked. In fact, don't Michael Bay's movies generally suck? Isn't that the consensus opinion?

If you're a fanboy like me, no doubt you love stories about giant robots & teenagers saving the world, so to help fill the void created by Transformers' extraordinary sucking, I've prepared a synopsis for a long overdue movie based upon one of my favorite childhood toys, Rock'em Sock'em Robots.

Somewhere faraway in the future, say 2010 or 2011, robots have replaced greedy, unreliable, steriod juiced athletes. This is true not only in major professional sports, such as baseball, basketball, football (both American & international styles), but in sports across the boards, including the sweet science, boxing. Backed by the Mafia, the Yakuza, the RNC, Trump, the Russian Science Academy, Microsoft, Don King & all the usual suspects, robots battle for the fame & fortune of world boxing domination.

In order to gain the upperhand, promoters--always looking for enhancements & upgrades-- employ hordes of lab-coated, bespectacled geeks at their labratories. The Yakuza have forced Bobby, a blue jeaned teenage computer prodigy, to work for them to repay his stepfather's gambling debt. Held hostage, his redheaded stepdad, Lon, has lost everything--even more than Bobby knows! For the Yakuza are secretly experimenting on humans to turn them into robots (think Robocop) for fighting purposes.

Bobby has become an expert at tweaking A.I. to increase the robot's ability to adapt to its opponent's tendencies & to make its own punches less predictable, less telegraphed. All is going well--other than his being a slave & his stepdad kidnapped & tortured--until Bobby tweaks the subroutine & the robot somehow becomes sentient. While Blue's (as Bobby nicknames the robot) nonverbal communications result in several comic mishaps, as the days go by leading up to the next fight, Bobby & Blue develop a special friendship.

When the Russian Science Academy's robot knocks the block off Blue, who'd refused to fight as a form of protest, the Yakuza cut all ties with Bobby & the decapitated robot by dumping them in a sealed crate into the Pacific. Miraculously, Blue reboots himself in the nick of time to reattach his head & save Bobby.

As they languish by a remote shore, wet metal & flesh glistening in the sun, the boy & his robot, looking toward the distant horizon, decide to barnstorm the country as a boxer/programmer team. Since they don't have much upfront money, they have to start at the bottom, fighting at state fairs, for instance, or human tough man contests, in which Blue wears street clothes & greasepaint to hide the fact that he's a robot.

During one such event, Bobby meets Zoe, a smart, sassy, sexy, barely legal dancer at the club where Blue's posing as a woman wrestler to vie for a hundred dollar prize. Zoe sees through the disguise--they could afford only a cheap wig--but she also sees potential. Having saved & invested her tips wisely, she agrees to become their financial backer, but she insists that she travel with them, as she says, to protect her investment. Also, although it seems at first that they don't like each other, she & Bobby are really hitting it off!

This arrangement comes as no small relief for Bobby since it helps to keep his & Blue's true identities hidden. He imagines the grisly details of what the Yakuza might do if they found out they weren't rotting at the bottom of the sea. Besides, with Zoe's backing, the venues become bigger. In a montage that includes magazine covers & ESPN snippets, Blue's KO'ing the mob, uppercutting Trump, giving the RNC a devasting roundhouse, knocking the block off Microsoft, with Bill Gates, in a cameo, slinging his laptop onto the canvas. Finally, after avenging his loss to the Russian Science Academy with a single blow, Blue's worked his way back to the top. A title match for all the marbles awaits.

Success is coming fast for Bobby, but after an argument with Zoe about free will, exploitation, the nature of good & evil & so forth, he feels perhaps he used Blue against his will. Brooding over it, he tells Blue--earnestly, sincerely, genuinely--that he doesn't care about fame & fortune. It's Blue's decision alone & he doesn't have to fight if he doesn't want to. With a pregnant pause followed by a series of complex robotic gestures, Blue makes his intention, his metallic blue desire, known.

No longer controlled by his programming, he decides of his own volition to fight Lon, now fully acclimated as the Yakuza's candy apple red robot, for a billion dollar purse. There would be some moral ambiguity at this juncture, had Bobby--having sneaked into the Yakuza compound prior to the event to retreive some parts he had designed for Blue--not overheard Lon confess he only married Bobby's mother for her money & regretted that Bobby died before he'd taken out a huge insurance policy on the stupid kid. Then he laughed--a tinny, insidious, robotic laugh.

After the exciting boxing match that ensues, in the closing scene, Bobby--arm draped around Zoe, obviously his soulmate, his teary mother kissing him, overjoyed that he's still alive--slaps the dancing Blue high five, money raining down like confetti.

A great synopsis, you may say, I can't wait to see the movie, but what has this to do with poetry? In reply, let me say I'd considered writing the entire screenplay in rhyming iambic pentamenter, ala Moliere, trans. Richard Wilbur, but then I had an even better idea. The entire script will be written as a shape poem, intricately designed so that once unfolded, it resembles the original Rock'em Sock'em Robots toy in silhouette.

If that's not genius, I don't know what is.

Songs & Poems

2009-04-28T10:29:00.000-04:00

Recently, while talking with my son about music, a common topic of conversation for us, I stumbled upon a line which struck me as worthy of being a song refrain. I told him, adding with a snicker--he prefers Kit Kats, I'm reminded--that I could probably write the entire song in less than an hour.

Song lyrics are not poetry, not in intent or in form. They are at best cousins, kissing cousins perhaps. Sure, sometimes the kisses become passionate, hands begin to roam here & there--yes, mostly there--& in an moment elapsing in slow motion, song & poem, puddles of discarded clothing on the dewy ground, arch & rise, exploring the boundaries of forbidden love between genres.

I don't intend this distinction between songs & poems as an insult, merely as a statement of fact; however, experience has taught me that making this distinction tends to rile Dead-heads, Parrot-heads, Fanilows, Claymates & their ilk. It doesn't imply that one genre is better than the other, but apparently, McCartney-Lennonists, Zimmerfans, even Air Supply fans, whatever they're called--[provide your own joke here]--feel their favorite songs must be dubbed poetry as if doing so bestows special status upon them.

Believe me, poets' perks don't begin to approach those accorded rock stars. Admittedly, both have their groupies--feel free to inquire--but poets rarely see drunken fans at readings with lighters held high shouting, not "Freebird!" but "Free verse!" Nor has the expression "sex, drugs & poetry" ever caught on outside literary circles.

The most notable difference between the genres is intent. Songs are to be sung. Even great lyrics when read, not sung, lack their usual emotional intensity, in part due to the nearly unvaried repetition of end-stopping, in which each line expresses, if not a complete thought, then a linguistic unit of sense. While maybe a necessity for a song's sensibility, end-stops make the reading of lyrics flat, monotonous.

Poets, on the other hand, employ enjambment to help create rhythm for the spoken word. Of course, poets use other devices too, such as meter, that songwriters mostly ignore. Given the trend toward free verse, however, I won't pursue this further. Oh, I could, making reference to specific songs & poems, show how metaphor & imagery, for instance, remain more the domain of poetry than songs, but back to my new tune.

As a poet, I'm fairly free in terms of form & content, but I have very traditional views when it comes to composing a song, which limits me as a songwriter. However, on the upside, these rules make it easy for me to write songs on the fly. Here are my basic precepts: all songs have 3 verses, a chorus & a bridge. Also--no, that's all. Hit it!

We Gotta Stop This

chorus:
jane jane
we gotta stop this
crazy thing
jane jane
we gotta stop this
crazy thing

we both know it's wrong
but we've been doing it for so long
good loving's hard to quit
once you get a taste of it (chorus)

george's gone rosie said
so i asked to talk to you instead
good morning how are you
im at the venus inn room 302

bridge:
jane i'm waiting for you
gotta room with a view
when you look in the mirror
is the coast any clearer
before people start to blog
you gotta walk the dog
we gotta do it now
we gotta finish somehow (chorus)

with your digs in the clouds
two good kids who make you proud
pearl necklace diamond ring
how bored you are with everything (chorus & fade)

I haven't written the music, but if I return in my mind to my guitar days, I'd have probably used a combination of the following chords: Bb, Dm, Gm7, F, Cm7, Eb, Ab9 or whatever. If anyone wants to write the music for me, make it bouncy & you're free to use the lyrics. Should it become the hit I see it as becoming, of course, I expect royalties.

In Honor of National Poetry Month

2009-04-25T13:36:00.000-04:00

The American Library Association & Nextbook, in conjunction with the Jewish Literature Series, is sponsoring a mixed media poetry reading on Monday, April 27, at 7pm in downtown Huntington at the Cabell Country Public Library. The event will feature area poets such as Bev Delidow, Ron Houchin, John and Llewellyn McKernan, Matt Morris (click here for his mention in The Gazz) & Matthew Wolfe. The library is located at 455 Ninth Street in Huntington.

National Poetry Month Public Service Announcement

2009-04-20T19:25:00.000-04:00

Did you know many people suffer from poetry deprivation, surviving on crumbs of stale verse, leftovers from a dull English class? By purchasing copies of Nearing Narcoma (selected by Joy Harjo as winner of the 2003 Main Street Rag Poetry Award) and my chapbook, Here's How, which placed 3rd in the annual Pudding House competition, you can help raise poetry awareness and end this travesty. Thank you.

[Dead American Poets]

2009-03-24T10:51:00.000-04:00

If you're like everyone else & me, you're caught up in the dementia that sweeps America this time of year. You've filled out your brackets for the office pool & you're eager to see who'll wear the championship crown of sonnets come National Poetry Month, a.k.a. April. Here are a few observations from last weekend's action:

Not surprisingly, Ginsberg went down early, as top-seeded Whitman administered the lopsided beat down. Ginsberg made the mistake of trying to play Whitman's game & Whitman showed that he was just flat out better.

So much depends upon how far William Carlos Williams' small ball can go in the tourney. A No. 5 seed, he had little difficulty overcoming the size of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow or the run & gun of Charles Bukowski. The true test will come against John Berryman when the two square off Thursday.

T.S. Eliot is the wild card. Love him or hate him, he certainly has the pedigree to advance, but I wouldn't bet my paycheck on him just yet. You never know which Eliot you're going to get--the poet of "Prufrock" or the one that spawned Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats & its litter. Let's see how he fares when he faces Wallace Stevens, whom I see moving on to the Elite Eight.

Fresh off victories against Edgar Allan Poe & Edwin Arlington Robinson, Kenneth Fearing remains as the only Cinderella in this year's dance, though the film noir quality of his game hardly seems to befit a fairytale. In any event, the big clock may strike midnight for this glass slipper story in the late game on Friday when he meets high-octane Kenneth Koch.

Other key match ups include Frank O'Hara versus Emily Dickinson. Can anyone imagine a greater difference between aesthetes? E.E. Cummings takes on Robert Lowell, but you can throw in Amy & James Russell Lowell--Cummings will prove too much. It's your pick who'll survive the Plath-Sexton match up. That's not a game I care to see.

Dead Dad

2009-03-20T15:09:00.000-04:00

My dad died last week. For the past year & a half, he'd been severely incapacitated due to a major stroke.

Sadly, we didn't have a good relationship. I wouldn't liken it to Plath's "Daddy," or, for that matter, Hayden's "Those Winter Sundays" either. Nor was it like Roethke's "My Papa's Waltz," although Dad's alcoholism has blurred & tainted most of my memories of him.

I allude to this in "The Summer Before Last Summer" (which appears in both Nearing Narcoma & Manthology: Poems of the Male Experience). I've reprinted the poem below as if an elegy:

The Summer Before Last Summer

Taking the fishing trip I never had as a boy,
I’m standing on the boat’s port side because,
well, I like standing, the handle of my rod
propped against my gut. I’m a man.
It’s what men do. When I feel my line go taut,

I begin to reel it in. I’m not very good at this,
& it’s a struggle. Nothing like Santiago’s
great fish, I’ll confess, but there’s definitely
something on the other end. Maybe a hubcap,
maybe a fish. Like a pediatrician,

I have little patience, which
I expect to snap, that is, if my hands don't cramp.
I draw the line in, take up the slack
until, with just a gentle jerk, I’m left
holding a pole, limp & weightless.

My arms can’t describe my loss. I stop, eyes fixed
on white fins cutting across the surface.
I think sharks, but upon closer inspection,
I see it’s my old man, young again behind
the wheel of his ’60 Plymouth, off on a binge,

driving home the long way, the wrong way.

Poe-tic Reaction

2009-02-23T11:58:00.000-05:00

I apparently ruffled a few inky feathers, not because of my hilarious send up of Poe's "Philosophy of Composition" in my previous post, "Composition of Parody," but because in the subsequent comments I implied--basically said--"The Raven" isn't very good. To paraphrase a Monty Python skit, it's a good thing I didn't mention "The Bells."

Although none of those who objected felt strongly enough to air their views on my blog--& by the way, I encourage all readers to comment, even if just to say how great my posts are--they've confronted me face-to-face with their views, though not always in so many words. Sometimes it's simply a cocked eyebrow & the once-over with a pale filmy vulture eye, questioning, badgering, insisting I explain how I dare suggest that I am superior to Poe as a poet. It's very creepy.

Maybe I'm paranoid, but the clerk at Starbucks has acted a little petulant the last few days too, so I suspect he's a "venti" Poe-ster. Nuts to him, I'm keeping my change. Also, those Dockered oafs who intentionally bumped into me with their laptops as I left, spilling my Frappuccino, let me remind those Poe-loving goons once again about the physical properties of rubber & glue.

For the record, Poe used to be my favorite poet--when I was twelve. It's easy to see why I was drawn to him as a prepubescent preteen: he's kind of a macabre Dr. Seuss, what, with his predictable rhymes, singsongy rhythms & ham-handed alliteration. If Poe were alive today, he'd be very old, but I'll bet he would have written spooky children's classics like Green Eggs & Death ("I am Son of Sam, Son of Sam I am. My dog doesn't like you, so you die. Blam! Blam!"), Manson Hears a Who, The Severed Parts of Bartholomew Cubbins & "The Cask of Amontillado."

In fact, Poe's significance as a writer is his prose, not his poetry. His eccentric, brilliant detective Auguste Dupin begat not only Sherlock Holmes, but myriad novels, movies & TV series; also, his gothic horror stories have inspired many of today's popular writers, but it's completely unfair to blame Poe for all that.

I'm not saying that he never wrote a good poem. For instance, "Sonnet: To Science," with its erratic meter, exemplifies the irrational fear of science during the Romantic age. To make it relevant to today's audience, it speaks to Republicans & the religious right, seemingly stuck in the 19th century, unable to budge from the flypaper of their antebellum views.

I'm fairly confident Poe wrote other good poems too--I mean, he probably did, right? Odds are in his favor.

(Fun fact: you can sing "Annabel Lee" to the tune of the Benny Hill theme. It's true! Try it yourself! )

Composition of Parody

2009-02-17T13:45:00.001-05:00

I thought it might be interesting or at least time-consuming to make an entry detailing the processes by which I wrote one of my poetic parodies. I'm sure some poets would prefer having it understood that they compose by ecstatic intuition--A Fine Madness (1966), if you will, starring Sean Connery & Joanne Woodward--& would shudder if the public took a peep behind the scenes at the unspoken crudities of thoughts, or worse yet, witnessed the totally groddy reality of throwing back chalices of Cold Duck, burning clove cigarettes down to their nubby butts, vociferously disowning hackneyed ideas like skanky promiscuous cousins while selecting & rejecting pretentious, possibly plagiarized lines from poets long dead, gratefully, their work now public domain.

For my part, I have neither sympathy for the alluded repugnances (hint: set out a bowl of chips & wear more than a bathrobe when the public plans to drop by) nor the least difficulty in recounting the progressive or retrogressive steps, the chutes & ladders, the candy apple red & metallic blue spray painted graffiti, the fancy faded feathers of my great great great grandmother's mothballed boa, the ridiculously numbered & numerous saved files & folders that comprise my literary histrio, so I hope it will not be looked upon as breach of decorum or, worse, interminably dull if slowly I turn-- for the sake of analysis & self-promotion--& step by step, en by en detail the M.O. of one of my works, i.e., "Aspects of Dagwood."

I've selected this poem because it is conveniently located on my publisher's website, where my book, Nearing Narcoma, can be procured at a reasonable price.

If we dismiss as irrelevant to the circumstance--or say, the drunken debauchery, requisite, if we are to understand determinism, of my graduate studies--which, in the first place, gave rise to the intention of composing a poem, this post would proceed considerably faster, so let us, then, skip giddy as schoolgirls ahead.

Obviously, there's a limit in relation to length for all works of literary art—that limit being the patience of today's reader--think fruit fly--& although in certain genres this limit may be exceeded--I'm looking at you, Stephen King--in a poem, eh, not so much. Indeed, the poem seems to have, at least on some level, an intimate relationship with its merit—in other words, to the excitement or degree of elevation (if you know what I mean, wink, nudge) it is capable of inducing; for clearly length is in direct ratio to the intensity of the intended effect, with one proviso—that some duration is absolutely necessary for producing any effect at all. Am I right, ladies?

Again, in other words, it's not the length, but how you use it. Holding in view these considerations, as well as that degree of excitement which I hoped to achieve, I reached at once, having meditated long & hard, a right length for my intended poem: 30 lines, the exact number of lines Weldon Kees should have used in "Aspects of Robinson," which, coincidentally, I'd chosen to parody.

My next thought concerned dinner. The choice of an impression or effect to be conveyed I kept in view throughout the rendering of the meal, a recipe universally recognizable as stew. I should be carried too far out of my immediate topic were I to elucidate upon the ingredients--corn, peppers, chicken, onions, potatoes, green beans, etc. However, my point is, as I repeatedly insisted between nibbling saltines & slurping spoonfuls of victuals, whereas Beauty is the sole legitimate province of the poem, Humor, if not a self-governing commonwealth like Puerto Rico, is (at the very least) an unincorporated territory like Guam.

The question of citizenry settled, my next question referred to tone. All experience has shown the tone of poetry to be one of sadness. "What's profoundly sad/is often beautiful," I myself have written in a poem which appeared a few years ago in Main Street Rag. Unfortunately, unless you purchase a back issue of the magazine, you won't be able to read this potentially classic poem in its entirety until I find a publisher for my second full-length manuscript. Adding to this tone--or, if you will, tome--of melancholy, is the difficulty I have encountered in finding a home for this aforesaid manuscript, although well respected editors at more than one university publishing house have deemed it "smart & funny."

Thus, melancholy must surely be the most "legitimate" of all the poetical tones. Having stayed out all hours on the weekend--despite having sworn "nevermore" to such escapades--& waking up next to a wild eyed apparition with a screeching raven tattoo on her left breast, I asked myself—“Of all melancholy topics, what, according to the universal understanding of mankind, is the most melancholy?” Sunday morning—was the obvious reply. “And what,” I said, “of this most melancholy of topics is most ironic?” For anyone who knows me, the answer, here also, is obvious—Sunday funnies because, unquestionably, they're just not funny.

Here then the poem may be said to have its beginning—at the beginning, where all works of art should begin--for it was here, at this point of my preconsiderations, that I began:

Dagwood dealing poker in Ed Feeley's garage; an unshaded
Bulb blares over his pin-cushion head. At the table,
Simple men puffing black stogies, quaffing frothy mugs.
The one with red hair, buck teeth takes the pot with three aces,
A king & a queen, all the same suit. A fearful voice.
—Here comes Blondie mad as a goose, Dagwood.

I may as well say a few words about versification since I have a few minutes before tee time. My first object (as usual) was originality, to the extent to which this is possible in parody. Where I have been negligent, I offer in my defense: 1). for centuries, no one has, in reality, done anything original; 2). the attainment of originality is less the product of invention than negation, the baliwick of parody; & 3). I have a terrible slice that I can't seem to straighten out, if you'll pardon the pun, no matter how many buckets of balls I hit at the driving range.

However skillfully handled, there's always a certain hardness which repels the artistic eye. For my part, I've included nonesuch imagery in my poem, having declined to impart into a work of art details of the more grotesque nature I have personally encountered, in especial, the turd frozen in the inoperative public toilet at a local Texaco. Rendering instead the colorful, dream-like quality of the comics, the stomping grounds of today's transcendentalists, I thus instilled my poem with lasting literary quality, as is apparent in the concluding stanzas—

Insomniac Dagwood with a fat sandwich of cold cuts.
Dagwood squawking in the tub when the ladies' club
Drops by. Dagwood dangling from the bathroom window,
Drippy wet towel draped around his bottom,
Red Z’s masking his face like a bland whodunit. Bells.
—Mr. Dithers wants you, Dagwood.

Dagwood whooshing out the door. Dagwood late for the bus.
Dagwood sporting the familiar bow tie & slouch hat.
Dagwood in polka-dot boxers, hiking his trousers,
Pecking Blondie on the cheek, slurping down coffee
As he runs out, slamming pow! into the postman. Letters
Flutter around them like fragments of Dagwood's recycled pulp.

Free Sample

2009-02-04T18:17:00.000-05:00

Since my web page remains under construction, I've decided you, gentle reader, should be rewarded for your patience. Therefore, I'm providing you absolutely free of charge a poem freshly selected from my chapbook, Here's How--which, if you care about me & by extension all humanity, you'll freely purchase a copy of tout de suite.

Leda & the Sun

A lemon wedge pushing through some ice cubes
which are actually clouds, the sun beads down
on the woman. As if feeding a flame,
she re-lubes the backs of her thighs, her ass
round as a turtle shell. Knowing the sun
isn't really a fruit, she shakes the sand
from her peroxidic mop. Fingers climb
her back to find the vague string that loosens

with a quick tug her small swimsuit & she
wriggles free. Now the sun's on her however
she turns, her skin tingling with each ray's
penetration. Being so undone, does
she shudder in light of the changing tide
when the indifferent sun goes down on her?

This poem first appeared in the long defunct Great Midwestern Journal during the last millennium--so there's the test of time, the test of all great poetry, put to rest one way or another--under the title "The Sunbather." I changed the title prior to the publication of Here's How--which by law you've implicitly agreed to purchase by continuing to read my post--to "Leda & the Sun" in an attempt to ride Yeats' considerable coattails.

My dear reader, of course, you don't actually have to purchase Here's How. You could buy Nearing Narcoma, my prize winning first book, which is now out of print, so be smart & pick up a few extra copies today before it's a collector's item.

Also, be sure to ask me how you can receive an autographed copy of either book. Or better yet, both! Operators are on duty. Inquire within!

Call for Dap

2009-02-03T13:18:00.000-05:00

Yeah, I pretty much nailed the Super Bowl with my prediction. True, I was a smidge off on the final score, but I was in the general neighborhood--now decimated by the bad economy--calling the 4 point margin of victory on the nose.

Still not convinced? Wait--there's more!

Not only did I have the exact point differential, but I also foresaw the Steelers' 4th quarter comeback as well as the Cardinals' failed rally as time wound down. I'm a poet & a prophet as in a Frank Sinatra tune.

Okay, he says "pauper," not "prophet," but both apply to me--& if Frank's crooning about you, baby, you gotsta be doing something right.

Literary Illusions

2009-01-31T10:15:00.000-05:00

With this Sunday marking the occasion of the 43rd Super Bowl, the past two weeks have shown sports analysts & commentators working 24/7, waxing the poetic to fill the dead air so that we should never have a moment's silence without homage being paid to the teams, their players, their cities, their owners, their children, their pets & their officially NFL licensed team pajamas.

Obviously, these sports reporters have never read Kenneth Koch's ars poetica, "Fresh Air," in which he creates "a Zorro-like alter ego called the Strangler whose task it is to suppress poetic dullness," as John Ashbery describes it, "violently if necessary."

Apropos of the violence of the game, Koch writes: "In the football stadium I also see him,/He leaps through the frosty air at the maker of comparisons/Between football and life and silently, silently strangles him."

Let us hope the Strangler appears at this year's game when the announcers inevitably describe Larry Fitzgerald as "poetry in motion" or wonder aloud if Shakespeare could have written Kurt Warner's "bags to riches" story; he didn't--Ben Jonson did.

You'd think fear of showing their stupidity would muzzle some of these inane, cliche-ridden comments, but sports announcers apparently have had their already gi-normous egos amply fluffed so that they believe they are not only literate, but literary. I suppose to the inebriated, these guys pass for Nobel Laureates.

Everything's relative. For instance, one of the low points of Joe Namath's life--& that's saying something--would have been a highlight in mine. If I'd got really, really drunk at a football game & Suzy Kolber wanted to interview me on live national tv, but I told her that I didn't care about my team strugg-a-ling--I just wanted to kiss her, what a sweet, dumb memory for me! Broadway Joe, on the other hand, had to issue a public apology & enter rehab. Say it ain't so, Joe!

Back to the game, I predict Ben Roethlisberg will surmount an heroic 4th quarter comeback comparable to Tennyson's "The Charge of the Light Brigade." Then, with under 2 minutes left, the Steelers defense, led by Troy Polamalu, whose name neatly fits the meter, will hold off the swift-winged Cardinals' late rally, their scarlet glory falling short that winter's day.

Final score: Steelers 21, Cardinals 17.

Our Last Hope

2009-01-26T00:08:00.000-05:00

I've always liked Richard Lovelace's sweet, melodious "Gratiana Dancing & Singing." Given my predilection for parody, I've written several spoofs of it over the years, one of which I thought particularly funny. My memory's sketchy, but I think it's called "Brittiana Drinking & Farting." I know! Good stuff!

Sadly, during the past few years, I've experienced more than my fair share of computer problems. Most notably, a summer storm fried my hard drive, despite my having used a surge protector. Since it was guaranteed, I got a new surge protector free of charge--which is akin to your server at Applebee's saying the riblets are "a bit off," so she threw in a few extra.

I'd backed-up my files. However, apparently some were infected with a virus, so when I downloaded them after installing a new hard drive, I spent the ensuing week trying to clean my system of a bug that kept recurring like a bad dream, one in which you're having a nice dinner out, but as events develop you grow increasingly uneasy about the way it's all unfolding & suddenly you're singing karaoke & a gigantic tri-headed beast that spits grenades chases you through a drunken maze, though you may call it corn.

The upshot is I lost many files, including my parodies of Lovelace. I've contacted a few friends to whom I emailed the poem for laughs, but as it was at least a couple of years ago, they've long since deleted those messages, so screw them, ok?

In light of the revelation that the NSA spied on Americans via emails & phone conversations, it occured to me that I have another way to recover this lost file.

Listen, NSA, since I'm technically a taxpayer & you technically work for me, I'd appreciate if you'd look around for a copy of my aforementioned poem. As I understand it, the government has absolved you & the telecommunications companies of any past, present, or future crimes related to "illegal" spying, so there's no need to fear legal recourse on my part. Plus, if you've been monitoring me for the past few years, you know I'm unlikely to say anything--not with the kind of information you've gathered on me.

Also, I lost a villanelle that depicts a menage a trois in such explicit terms that it borders on pornographic, so I'm pretty sure, given the details of the kind of "spying" you guys "allegedly" did--perhaps still do--you have that one handy. You can send it to . . . well, you know where to send it!

Putting the X Back in Xmas

2008-12-23T10:57:00.000-05:00

Ok, I'm in a bit of a rush. I've got to meet Scrooge & the Grinch for lunch, but I want to knock out this entry before I go. Thing is, I'd planned to introduce different poems of the holidays--Hanukkah, Xmas, Kwanzaa, Festivus--but while searching for a link to Charles Harper Webb's "The Death of Santa Claus," one of my favorites, I discovered a plethora--plethora, what a fun word--of sites when I Googled the title.

To be honest, I sure as hell don't feel like sorting through the seasonably schmaltzy tripe to find other smartly crafted work. Rather, given my limited time, I'll provide a selection of links gleaned from my search, beginning with, by way of a segue from the Webb poem, this apt photo.

Want an obituary to accompany it? Sorry, wrong link. Try this. Wait, that's not it either. Dammit, here!

Too real? Perhaps you'd prefer an editorial which explores the death of the Santa myth. Or maybe a story or two--eh, sort of.

Actually, since this a poetry blog, you no doubt hope Santa's substantial sack overflows with versified goodness to stuff your always alliterative stocking with. But as the old chestnut, roasted or otherwise, warns: be careful what you wish for. Like the time you'd asked for an HO slot car set--it's what you really, really wanted--but you got a crappy model train set instead, not even a Lionel, but some cheapo-cheapo N gauge knockoff manufactured by Acme. Ok, that's not the best example, but I'm still pissed.

Anyway, here you go, kaff, poetry lovers. Happy "elfin" holidays.

FYI

2008-12-08T09:10:00.000-05:00

Readers who have tried to access my website lately have come away disappointed. The site's down as am I. My site's down while being retooled; me, I'm frustrated that Obama hasn't named Dennis Kucinich Secretary of Peace.

Also, I could use a little retooling myself, if you know what I mean. Sigh.

Not knowing when the site will be back up, I've moved much of it to this blog. For those of you wanting to sample poems, you can follow the links--well, some of them--to magazines which, if you're willing to search, have published my work online. Even if you're not looking for my work, the linked sites are well worth your perusal.

The best way to sample my poems, however, is to buy my books. As Wilford Brimley would say, it's the right thing to do. Once you read me, you'll want to possess me & my poems. As readers & lovers alike, if prompted, will tell you--once you go Matt, there's no going back.

Here's hoping the site is back up soon. I'm sorry for the inconvenience. In the meantime, my blog will have to pull double duty.

If you have ideas for my site, seeing as it is under construction, please feel free to make suggestions. Who knows? If I use your idea maybe I'll send you a t-shirt or something. I think I have a couple I haven't worn too often.

The Civil Defense of Poetry

2008-11-07T11:51:00.000-05:00

Last month, while crawling under my desk–long story, don’t ask–I came across an unopened letter in the sprawling mess littering my study floor. Its time beneath my feet had rendered its return address illegible.

Looking inside the envelope, I found a long treatise in verse, a mock crown of sonnets scribbled in purple ink, devoted to the frustrations of the lofty, lowly life of a poet, along with a terse, enigmatic handwritten note that read, “Like to know what you think–I’ve gone for sheep.”

Scrawled atop the first page was its title, “A Civil Defense of Poetry,”& under this, presumably, the poet’s name, Edwin R. Beaverman.

I’d attended a poetry workshop years ago with a fellow student named Eddie Beaver--I think. Admittedly, I’m horrible with names, so maybe it’s the same guy, maybe not. Even so, why had he written me? We shared nothing except an affinity for ampersands.

I don’t know what to make of it, but since I can’t return it to Mr. Beaverman, I’m sharing it below.

1

My friend, before you commit to the cause,
weigh the advice Rilke gives the young poet:
Ask yourself, alone in your bed at night,
if there’s anything else you’d rather
be doing. Wink, nudge. But say cable’s not
available in your area & you
don’t know what opportunities await
you at DeVry. Well, let me point
out many find careers in computer
programming extremely gratifying.
Poetry requires a life’s devotion,
whereas DeVry offers a two year plan
with financial aid if you qualify.
You should at least read the literature.

2

You should at least read the literature
of previous generations if for no
other reason than not referring to
Alexander Pope as His Eminence.

Sadly, much of this second sonnet is lost, for which I take some responsibility. During my lengthy deliberation on what to do with this poem, I had set it atop my desk, where it doubled as a coaster. As a result, a series of watery purple rings have replaced most of the octave & the sestet.

However, from what I can discern from the smudges, the sonnet derides others for not knowing the great poets, whom Beaverman implies are difficult primarily because they are dull. This segues into his lampooning poetic diction in the third sonnet. He says somewhere within the concentric purple rings:

Oft poets hide with odd syntax notions
which, like stroke books under mattresses tucked,
when uncovered embarrassing prove & dumb.

The sonnet devolves into angry, explicit claims about the uncertain sex lives of certain poets, which for legal concerns, I think it best I not repeat, no matter how intriguing, then concludes with lines that serve as a strange springboard into sonnet 4 & the subject of the writing craft:

Such fetishes, however, represent but
one reason poets turn suicidal.

4

One reason poets turn suicidal
is to free themselves of the burden of
revision.

Recognizing Mr. Beaverman’s tips for composing poetry has proven difficult, for he has repeatedly crossed through lines & drawn arrows pointing to shorthand scraps of marginalia that resemble aimless doodles more than words. At one point, he'd written, See back, but as fate would have it, I had used the back to jot down a few items I needed to pick up before going out of town for the weekend. I accept total ownership of the blame, but in fairness, if I hadn't made a list, I probably would have forgotten something. As is, my trip went fine.

In any event, the next sonnet, the fifth, discusses the different ways poets find inspiration for writing. I truly regret that I, for reasons that if roles were reversed would be obvious, can’t share these with you other than a paltry few stray lines. In this sonnet, the speaker endeavors to answer the self-imposed question: How do poets use sex to invoke the muse?

Here Beaverman returns to his unsubstantiated, often graphic, usually titillating depictions of ritualistic activities involving, for instance, farm animals, electrical appliances & the exhumed remains of Edna St. Vincent Millay. The sonnet ends with the lines:

. . . Then there’s booze. Sometimes nothing
more than whiskey made Dylan Thomas write.

6

More than whiskey made Dylan Thomas write . . .

I don't know if Thomas wrote for whiskey, because of whiskey or both; frankly, I don't think Mr. Beaverman does either. Herein lies one of the problems with his poem: he makes unwarranted allegations, often scurrilous, against others, but provides no evidence of the validity of the assertions, save that his saying so makes it true.

Quickly changing subjects, Beaverman somehow maneuvers the sixth sonnet into a retelling of what appears to be a personal experience, though seemingly not particularly appropriate given his purpose. He recalls a professor at the University of --- made copies of around 50 poems he planned to use in the class. Pages secured, but copyrights not, with large binder clips, Prof. G- required students to purchase the “book” from him for thirty bucks or something, which, back then, back in the 80s, I assume, given Beaverman's myriad references to Lycra skirts & leg-warmers, well exceeded the cost of copies.

Again, I can’t reprint this sonnet because of legal concerns. Too many individuals are implicated, including the professor, several snobby nonfictional students, one of whom, by way of full-disclosure, I personally know, & the apparently indifferent head of the Library of Congress.

Fortunately, the seventh & final sonnet, the mock jewel of the mock crown, unsullied by legalities or the smudges of condensation, I can, will & do reprint in full below:

7

Consider the thinly disguised travelogue,
ornately versified to illustrate
that classy Charlie Poet’s got good taste.
Sputtering along in his clunker up
the tree-lined Champs Elysees, making
observations one step removed from seasoned
lecture notes as he continues to recount
the minutia of his trip, all without

benefit of the corresponding slides,
he slips in a metaphor, comparing
the Arc de Triomphe to a baguette--
“after a nip,” he quips. Subsequently, he’s
praised for his biting wit. Think about that,
my friend, before you commit to the cause.

Thus ends Mr. Beaverman’s sonnet sequence. What do I make of it? Well, Eddie, if you’re out there, good luck with your sheep.