The Best American Poetry

Getting to Know: Sparrow (by Daniel Nester)

In which we ask the same questions Teen magazine asked now-pregnant teen idol Jamie Lynn Spears; see original interview here.

Sparrow created quite a stir when, in 1995, he picketed The New Yorker magazine, holding a placard that read “My poetry is as bad as yours.” His poetry has since appeared in that magazine, as well as The Quarterly, The New York Times and many anthologies. He also was featured in the PBS series “The United States of Poetry” and can be heard, along with his legendary band Foamola, on the poetry compilation Poemfone: New Word Order (Tomato). He writes the gossip column for the Phoenicia Times, a contributing editor to Chronogram, works as a substitute teacher, and is the author of America, A Prophecy: The Sparrow Reader, edited by Marcus Boon, as well as Yes, You ARE a Revolutionary! Plus Seven Other Books and Republican Like Me (all from Soft Skull Press), which outlines his unsuccessful run for the 1996 Republican nomination for president. Articles about him have appeared in Rolling Stone, Time and The London Times.  We caught up with Sparrow, who lives with his wife and daughter in the Catskill Mountains hamlet of Phoenicia. And we're glad we did!

BAPB: You'€™re in Jr. High, right?
S: No. I have a Masters degree, actually.

What are you most looking forward to?
Seeing a cement truck.

What kind of car do you want?
What kind of cars are there?

What's your favorite subject?
Economics.  Especially marine economics.

Do you play any sports?
I am drawn to golf, but ultimately I don't quite lift the club.

Are kids in school treating you differently because of Nickelodeon exposure?
Nah!

You have a new puppy named Ali, right? How is she?
Fetching!*

*pun intentional

How old is she now?
She's about four weekends old.

She's a mix, right?
True.

What are your feelings about Ali?
She's young, she's lost, she's almost diseased.  I see her as a template for an army of out-of-work radicals.

Where did you find her?
She was sleeping in a drainpipe near Victoria Station.

Do you dress her up?
Yes, sometimes.

Do you try to coordinate it with what you're wearing?
I try to intuit what her Unconscious desires.

Broadly Speaking, I'm Un-abroad at Present

Meaning I'm in NYC, man. But only for a couple more days. Then it's off to spread mayhem HERE where, my trusty sidekick Jessica Piazza and I have schemed to spend a long weekend immersed in this sort of sassafras. In truth, it is I who is her trusty sidekick as she is truly the mistress of all people worth knowing and all things worth knowing about.

Last I informed the forum, I was off, off, off to Berlin, where I was to kick it with Mr. Cave for my last concert of the European tour. Because I am an insomniac (a fate too common in our community, methinks) I didn't sleep the night before, and so I hied to Berlin utterly schlaflos. But I survived, took a cross-town bus to my friend's place, and met her there just in time to escort her to the post office where she mailed the fruits of her own insomnia (a 20 page paper considering the Church's response to the 3rd Reich) to one of her seminary professors. That done, we had a couple hours of lollygagging before going to the Tempodrom for the show.

I won't linger over details that would only interest fools like me, but I do have to relay a wickedly bad-ass anecdote. A few songs into the show, I had turned to Eva to mention something about the quality of the sound (fan-freakin'-tastic!) and when I turned around, Mistah Cave was standing over me. He asked me how I was and I responded with some sort of enthusiastic jibberish. Then he squared up at the edge of the stage and pointed straight at me and announced "Harlot!" and then said the next song was mine. And then he played "Red Right Hand."

He calls 'em like he sees 'em, me supposes. (Insert mile-wide grin here.)

Then I flew to Chicago for the first ever Pilcrow Lit Fest. Highlights included a plethora of panels, as well as a charity auction benefiting New Orleans' public libraries, where authors were invited to "rebuild" their books into pieces of art. My own contribution was a Harlot Hotel made of the box that my w-husband's* bike helmet came in, complete with anatomically correct sex dollies hand-sewn from previously worn-by-me pantyhose (is it wrong to admit that?). ((And yes, that's a pantyhose foreskin...)). If you are looking to rid your wallet of a couple spare bucks, I would suggest visiting the link to the library rebuilding campaign. In total, $4000 was raised that night. Hot damn!

Which brings me to this night that I insomnia myself through. Fine as the night is, this not-sleeping bullshit really blows. But the day was a delight. I traipsed with the lovely Amy Lemmon to The Cloisters where we look-seed us a bunch of medieval stuff. That's a damn cool museum, and she's a damn classy lady to museum with. Tomorrow, the plan involves Jill and Jessica and permanent body art of the ridiculous and poetic variety, as well as some sushi and, likely, liquor. I will post the body art once etched. Depending how much liquor gets imbibed, I may or may not post that.

I will be posting from West Chester. So be nice to me, Formalists!**

Until,
Jill

*"W-husband" is something I came up with the other day..."w" as in "almost ex." It's probably wrong to admit that here, as well.

**I like to think of myself as a formal-ish poet.

The temptations of Mr. Snoid (by Mitch Sisskind)

Flaubert said, "Snoid, c'est moi." Commenting on this, Professor E. Compton Buzzard of Stanford University has written, "Writers are drawn to beautiful women in line with the principle that opposites attract. Thus in the Crumbian mythos Mr. Snoid pursues, zum beispiel, Mode O'Day or Angelfood McSpade. And in what we choose to call the real world, Salman Rushdie marries Padma Lakshmi."

Yes! Salman Rushdie and Padma Lakshmi. They go together like a fish and a bicycle. I loved seeing them out on the town, but now that Padma has sent Salman a "Dear John" email, we aren't going to have many more photos like the one below. So let's enjoy it! And let's also enjoy the really great video of Padma further down. Alas, Salman! Yeats put it so well: "What else was she to do? Was there another Troy for her to burn?"

Some pictures over the years from Karaoke + Poetry = Fun (by Daniel Nester)

Karaoke + Poetry = Fun has, over the years, brought together poets from all ends of the aesthetic spectrum. 

Language poets will sing duets with New Formalists; a pale-faced Saint Marks scenester will cheer on an elbow-patch academic as s/he belts out middle-period Pat Benatar.

It's an Aaron Sorkin utopian vision of Poetryland, a place where Robert Lowell's imagained camps of Raw and Cooked poets come together to sing along to Bonnie Tyler.

Inside the simulrockrum II: Journeys with Journey (by Daniel Nester)

In an earlier post, we examine my clever neologism of simulrockrum, the idea of an imitation in the rock realm superseding its original, with Guitar Hero, competitive air guitar, and bassists who play along with records and put them up on YouTube offered as examples. Today we're going to talk about some more simulrockra, with a Journey with the rock band Journey.

Steve Perry, as many readers might know, is the former lead singer of the rock band Journey. The band was an ubiquitous presence on FM radio in the late 70s and 80s ("Faithfully," "Any Way You Want It,"  "Lovin' Touchin' Squeezin'). And you might recall their song "Don't Stop Believin'" was featured in final scene of The Sopranos finale.

The band broke up in 1984, reunited around 1986 after founding drummer Steve Smith and Ross Valory were thrown out, who were then replaced by two drummers and, on bass, future American Idol judge Randy "Yo Dog" Jackson on bass (that's Jackson and Perry, left).

Getting to Know: Amanda Nadelberg (by Daniel Nester)

In which we ask a contemporary American poet the same questions Teen magazine asked now-pregnant teen idol Jamie Lynn Spears; see original interview here.

Amanda Nadelberg is the author of Isa the Truck Named Isadore (Slope Editions, 2006), winner of the Slope Editions Book Prize chosen by judge Lisa Jarnot. Her poems have appeared in journals including Jubilat, The Canary, Octopus, No, Conduit, Tarpaulin Sky, McSweeney's Sestinas, Poetry Daily, and Unpleasant Event Schedule. She currently lives in Minneapolis, and will be attending the Iowa writing program in the Fall.  We caught Amanda on a break of a reading tour in the Northeast, and we're glad we did.

BAPB: You’re in Jr. High, right?
AN: No, but one time I was. Bigelow Bulldogs class of ’96. I was one of the valedictorians. I think the speech was about saying hello to people. Whatever.

Inside the simulrockrum (by Daniel Nester)

Of course many BAPB blog readers have heard of those popular Guitar Hero video games, in which a player, wielding an ersatz guitar game controller, follows colored dots that mimic the guitar part of popular rock tunes. 

There's a screen capture above--notice the "Rock"-o-meter, which increases as the accuracy of hitting those pesky dots increases. Players even have a whammy/vibrato bar on their controller, which earns players extra points if whammied at the right point in the song.

It has occurred to this guest blogger--who is very much interested in rock music--that Guitar Hero is just the iceberg tip of what he has coined previously as the simulrockrum, a ham-handed portmanteu of simulacrum and rock. The simulacrum, you might recall, is a copy or imitation of something that becomes just as real as the original. "The simulacrum is never that which conceals the truth--it is the truth which conceals that there is none," the late French theorist Jean Baudrillard writes. "The simulacrum is true."

And such is the case, it seems, inside the simulrockrum. Here's some examples submitted for your approval.

eddiesinner is a bassist who plays along with songs by the rock band Whitesnake.  And we're not just talking the late 80's decadent rococo videos-with-Tawny Kitaen Whitesnake, either.  We're talkin' post-Deep Purple, bell-bottomed, keyboard-player-with-the-floppy-hat Whitesnake.

Get a load of eddiesinner playing along to the live version of the 'Snake's recording of "Sweet Talker," above.  This guest blogger has at times preferred the Whitesnake + eddiesinner clips to listening to original Whitesnake recordings; he says this not because he prefers eddiesinner's bass playing over Neil Murray's on Ready 'n Willing. No: It is the combination of the two, of female fanshriek as David Coverdale as he croons "the bitch is in heat/so you better run" combined with the decor of eddisinner's recreation room, his deep, zen-like concentration that only bassists can make. As well as the swig from the bottle and cigarette puffs.

Getting to Know: Peter Conners

In which we ask the same questions Teen magazine asked teen idol Zac Efron, star of the Disney Channel’s High School Musical movies; see original interview here.

Peter Conners is the author of the widely acclaimed prose poetry collection Of Whiskey and Winter (White Pine Press, 2008), the novella Emily Ate the Wind Marick Press. His memoir about touring with the Grateful Dead, Growing Up Dead, will be published by Da Capo Press in Spring 2009. He is also editor of PP/FF: An Anthology, which was published by Starcherone Books in 2006. [Full disclosure: a piece by this interviewer appears in that anthology.] Peter is co-founder and co-editor of the journal Double Room: A Journal of Prose Poetry & Flash Fiction. He served as a 2005 guest editor for American Book Review. Peter does a lot of things, so it was a miracle we got a hold of him in his Rochester, NY home. And we're glad we did!   

Age: Street Legal

Sign: PP/FF

Birthplace: Gwenyth F. Conners

You may know me because: You don’t know me.

My house is: Hovering six feet over the ground.

The first thing I do every morning is: Get out of bed, drag a comb across my head.

About my pets: Most are dead. One is living.

I exercise: Therefore I am.

Walt Whitman and the Civil War (by Jenny Factor)

Walt Whitman did not sit home when Civil War gripped the U.S. In 1863-1864 (for two long years' of days in his early 40's), Whitman passed throughout the military hospitals of Washington D.C. as a volunteer, sitting with soldiers, using his meager funds to buy them everything from ice cream to brandy, reading them letters from home, and writing letters to their loved ones. Whitman was never the same. On May 7 at the Huntington Library, Civil War scholar Drew Faust tried to make the numbers of that war real for us. There was no military i.d. system then--not even an official form of dog tag. American families often lived out the remaining decades of the 19th century never knowing what had happened to their loved ones. Whitman leant his pen at the most practical level--bedside by bedside--carrying connections and news.

Image Credit: George C. Cox, 1887 in New York.

Getting to Know: Sharon Mesmer (by Daniel Nester)

In which we ask a contemporary American poet the same questions Teen magazine asked now-pregnant teen idol Jamie Lynn Spears; see original interview here.

Sharon Mesmer is the author of Annoying Diabetic Bitch (Combo Books, 2008), The Virgin Formica (Hanging Loose, 2008), Vertigo Seeks Affinities (Belladonna Books, 2006), Half Angel, Half Lunch (Hard Press, 1998) and Crossing Second Avenue (ABJ Books, Japan, 1997). Her prose collections are Ma Vie à Yonago (Hachette Littératures, France, in French translation, 2005) and In Ordinary Time and The Empty Quarter (Hanging Loose Press, 2005 and 2000). Lonely Tylenol, an art book in collaboration with the painter David Humphrey, was published in 2003 by Flying Horse Editions/University of Central Florida. She is a two-time New York Foundation for the Arts fellow in poetry. We caught up with Sharon while she was doing time in the wilds of rural Pennsylvania--and when shes says wilds, she means "like a bear came right up on our deck last night and stuck its nose against the glass door"--with an iffy internet connection.  And we're glad we did!

BAPB: You’re in Jr. High, right?
SM: Yes, and like Kentucky I am 56.3% illiterate. 

What are you most looking forward to?
Experimenting with rideable unicorns — flaring nostrils, slaying the evil beast.  I am evil and narcissistic!  But tonight I am just contemplating the magic of dolphin elbows.

What kind of car do you want?
One with sensitive teeth.  You’ve probably heard of a narwal, who may still play a role in mating rituals or determining male hierarchies.  Narwals hate dolphins, tho.

What's your favorite subject?
The atavistic mating rituals of unicorns. We believe in One Unicorn, The Pink, The Invisible. Every day we discover new plant life, insects, and animals in humanoid form. The Giant Unicorn (Elasmotherium sibiricus) was once a massive powerful female dark elf.

Do you play any sports?
Wringing every possible dollar, pound, yen, drachma and Euro singing “Kashmir” and “Stairway” to the back rows of interchangeable enormodomes the world over.

Are kids in school treating you differently because of Nickelodeon exposure?
They wake up knowing I am putting in the work to pursue my dream, and it makes them feel alive and free.  Right now, their sensations are unfolding like the petals of a flower, and the stimulus is so overwhelming they can't be anywhere BUT in the moment.  It's like a perfect storm of "a-ha" moments. They learn more and more from my thighs.  My glutes are two vacuum hoses they LOVE, LOVE, LOVE to process. They love learning. They love to learn, and I love to facilitate their long-term goals, the path to the summit.

You have a new puppy named Ali, right? How is she?
Ali's stratagems originally emerged as mercantile vigilantism incarnate via her asymmetrical silhouette which blurred the boundaries of day/night.  Just as Nature equipped the porcupine with a means of defense, Ali wore her embattled position external to the world: ethnic communities turned into war zones once normative gendered binarisms were undone by the shock of pleated chiffon in a wearable skirt length.  Drawing on Nietzsche, Ali announced with aggressively concocted assurances the primacy of her surfaces as a navigation between the elegant Scylla of Balenciaga/Dior historicity (purposefully reserved non-flounciness) and the cheap Charybdis of Wal-Mart blackguardism (fabrics that "degrade," i.e., stretch denim).

How old is she now?
Old enough to open the floodgates to even more delish seitan dishes.

She's a mix, right?
A rock and roll behemoth.  The horsey-chested Zep frontman.