Every now and then an essay comes around that captures an inchoate idea in poetry and amplifies and shapes that idea. Take Charles Olson's magisterial "Projective Verse," which not only explicates but embodies the poetic principles it talks about. Dan Hoy's newly minted, THE PIN-UP STAKES, over at Montevidayo, is one such essay. In brief, Hoy talks about the relatively new coupling of poetry and the marketing of poetry, (via social networking, blogging, publicity stunts, etc.) thereby defining an emerging poetic category of "Image Artist". According to Hoy's assessment, image artists fall within a category of poet that uses poetry as a platform to create a "strategic framework" and or brand for themselves.
(Disclaimer: I am the current poetry editor of LIT Magazine and will become editor-in-chief next issue, so if you hate thinly veiled self-promotion, please skip ahead.)
The current issue of LIT Magazine is days away from being printed. We are going to have a release party at Housing Works in NYC. Get all the details and an author's list by clicking on the image of the cover. I've been super proud to work on LIT with our great team of editors. Our current editors-in-chief, Jackie Clark and Ben Kendrick are stepping down after this issue. It will be difficult to see them go and the magazine will suffer without their insight and hard work. Thanks, bros.
Also, I'd like to congratulate Jennifer L. Knox (LIT #17: "Kiri Te Kanawa Singing 'O Mio Babbino Caro') and Farrah Field (LIT #18: "You're Really Starting to Suck, Amy" and "Amy Survives Another Apocalypse") for having their poems chosen for the next Best American Poetry.
Here is a quote by James Tate (right) from an interview in Durak #2 (1979) I've been thinking about:
Interviewer: How do you characterize your sense of humor?
Tate: I've never been able to separate and identify my sense of humor, even or myself. Insights are funny, and perceptions can be funny when they're sharp enough. You could say about humor that in the long run it's more hopeless than tragedy. I'm not apologetic about that part of myself; I learned to live with it a long time ago.
I love WORLD BALL NOTEBOOK by Sesshu Foster from City Lights Books. It's a collection of microcosms, mostly prose poems, that examine minute social interactions, mishaps, conversations, travelogs, and emails. The poems are placed within the context of a ubiquitous game, so that the people in each poem become players, unaware of the game's rules and ultimate goal. What condenses over WORLD BALL NOTEBOOK's 137 pages is a beautiful, pathos filled, picture of humanity that is both entertaining and visionary.
