State of the Franco [by Amy Lawless]

This week, New York Magazine published a list of actor-writer-film director-producer-painter James Franco’s favorite poems.

“It has been found again.
 What ? - Eternity.
 It is the sea fled away
 With the sun.”

         --Arthur Rimbaud

 I can remain silent no longer. What stirs my heart is what stirs my heart. While any attention to poetry is necessary and good and a long time a-comin', James Franco is making us look bad, my dear human race.  And poetry is not the virgin sitting hopeful in the corner.

It used to be that each man and woman did one thing apiece. Joseph was a carpenter. Left Eye does the rapping. Chili and T Boz do the singing. A guy named Mungo was a rapist. The world made sense. Each person's task was performed with love and affection or anger [Mungo]. But then there are the exceptions: Lynne Cheney, Leonardo Da Vinci. The Renaissance Man, The Renaissance woman. Sure, it can be argued that the female sex is itself Renaissance, able more easily to multi-task than those with dicks, but that's not my point.  

There are certain professions we can digest as fitting alongside another. "A poet who teaches" tilts the scales of many poetry magazine biographies. "Car mechanic-racer." "Actress-singer"  “Yoga instructor-vegan chef!”  These dualities make us nod and smile. We get it.  We live in a monotheistic society. One nation under God -- singular. Hell even the Christian God supposedly divides his duties into three so he won’t appear to be too overloaded with work.

But hey, wait, aren't our celebrities sorta/kinda also our national gods and demigods? Don't Americans look toward Jennifer Aniston still to find out whether it's OK and how to suck at romantic relationships? And don't we still check in with Britney on occasion to make sure how not to do our hair? Isn’t the whole point of Alec Baldwin’s brother Daniel to be fatter and in AA?  And so, another profession emerges "singer and mentally ill person" or "actor and philanderer." And what about those fascinating to watch because they are so grand and even talented: Lady Gaga, Oprah: the "singer-activist"  and "talk show host-humanitarian."

It’s exciting when someone steps and walks freely outside of their comfort zone and succeeds.  But James Franco, isn’t there a limit?  I don’t write this as a “hater” or “player hater” or to diminish Franco in any way.  I’m just shocked. They call him an endless hyphenate and you know what, America?  He’s making us look bad.

Here: look at me.  I’m a poet who teaches.  It makes sense.  This is what writers do.  Other writers do it. 

Here’s an entirely inappropriate and illogical analogy that will prove my point.  Look below at Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs:

 

Well obviously, James Franco sates all of these needs.  James Franco invented this triangle.  Are you hungry?  Try some Franco!  Feeling unsafe?  Try Franco as a personal bodyguard.  Feel unloved?  Pop in Milk!  What a doll!  Don’t feel high off all that weed? Smoke this weed that Franco says he doesn’t smoke. Need some recognition? Oh – watch this film or read this story. Franco made them and they’ll make you feel like you’re part of something.  

Ha ha funny. I know that made no sense and was off topic, but I couldn’t resist. And besides, I’m a teacher who writes and there are a few things that I’m not terrible at like camel posture in yoga…..and making coffee….and ….uh…….

In May of this year I was on my way to Amherst, Massachusetts from New York for my little sister Carol’s college graduation. I took Amtrak. Amtrak is way overpriced, but it’s also convenient. I boarded the train and considered sitting next to one woman but she had a dog as I had planned on staring off into space uninterrupted for like four hours so I sat two seats back. Onto the train comes James Franco (not kidding) with his girlfriend. He lifts a smile and suddenly the woman with the dog moved back a seat [smiling like a fool as if she’d been foolish to consider that she and her dog should be afforded their own seat] and he and his girlfriend were now safely stationed within my purview until they got off in Springfield, Massachusetts.   

At some point Franco got out of his chair and headed to the loo with a copy of Robert Hass’ Human Wishes, a book I adore.  Here’s a photo of me in reaction to this happening:

<Thought bubble over my head.> Wow. What poem does James Franco like the best?  Should I have knocked on the bathroom door? My fist was clenched but I didn't move, so we may never know.  But just like a high school crush, I reread Human Wishes in the following weeks and decided without question that James Franco and I would obviously have the same favorite poem: Paschal Lamb.  RIGHT?  I even wrote a whole poem after the line “The vice president started to cry” to commemorate this feeling. Surely the concept of the sacrificial lamb would appeal to anyone in a position of societal authority. 2 cute 4 words. 

We poets are not desperate people who should just be thankful that poetry or a few poems are given just an itsy bitsy weensy bit of attention.  American Poetry is not the shy virgin in the corner.  And yet…

[This] one can’t help looking up some poems that James Franco recommends. He’s so cute.  He’s flipping it. Don’t you see, America?  He isn’t doing the expected thing that young male writers are doing.  His young American writer correlate is sitting on a filthy couch in Williamsburg high off his ass in disbelief that he’s not famous already.  His correlate, America, has had his stories rejected from magazines that Esquire readers have never even heard of.  His correlate, America, has paid some ridiculous amount of money on an MFA.   His correlate, America, is broke and disenfranchised.  And no, his correlate isn’t as cute. 

But that’s not important.  Here’s what’s important. Imagine you and I are sitting on barstools beside one another with Franco’s picks in front of us.  Are these the new poems that you’re reading right now?  No. These  are the safe picks.  Are they on the cutting edge of what so many writers are doing now? Of course not.  As a writer, aren't you just as informed by the poems of your peers and friends?  It is wonderful that Franco chose three O’Hara poems.  And wonderful for many reasons, the least of which is this quote when considered in parallel to the fact that Kerouac and Ginsberg (who Franco just played in a movie) were friends:

Kerouac: You're ruining American poetry, O'Hara.
O'Hara: That's more than you ever did for it, Kerouac.

But what do I know? 

I acknowledge that I am giving James Franco an amount of credit as a part of the conversation of American letters. People used to shit on Bono for his ceaseless media whoring, but you know what? AIDS in Africa is a problem and the guy was using his authority for good.  And who am I to shit on Franco for being a part of the conversation?  Plus, like I said a few times already, he’s eternally cute. 

Addendum:

I'm in the woods far away from New York Magazine.  Far away from the movie theater and the magazine rack. To my left are four writers  tinker words, sip coffee.  I like this kind of influence better.

Comments

[james]

I’m sitting here – hungry – and waiting for my next fix. I am the correlate of James Franco, often high off my ass in a (n East) Williamsburg apartment. Have my dues been paid? Yes. Have I gotten them? No. I’m writing this in the comment box of this article because I was rejected from Best American Poetry. Three times. I wouldn’t think I would be considered for a spot as “guest columnist”.
I don’t take to town anything James Franco does – I admire the man. I even admire his choice of poems and poets as suggested reading. They may be safe choices, but they are good choices. They are choices any of my teachers at my universities would have put on their syllabi. (Ten dollars to me for the use of the plural ‘syllabus’…still waiting on that check…)
Last week I wrote a few pieces on high profile artwork for a high profile art dealer. It paid well. But it was the first paying writing gig I’ve had in over a year.
While in university I was wholly discouraged from teaching. This coming from the higher-ups in the department. “You don’t wanna teach” They blathered. “There’s no money in it.” They blathered, amid sips of their martinis. Then they went on a 20-minute diatribe of which I have either blocked out because of trauma or because I was too buzzed at the time to remember. Probably a little bit (or a lot) of both. I went to university to get a degree. I wanted to get a degree to teach. This was my plan. And being a writer, as all writers are, I have a bit of a sensitive skin concerning those little things about my persona like MY ASPIRATIONS IN LIFE.
Here’s my point. I’m not just a writer. Failing being a writer/teacher (which I hear comes down, in this day and age, to one word – nepotism), I am a writer/artist/photographer/videographer/journalist. Add to those the prefix starving-. I have been paid in all fields of work, and am more than an amateur in every single one. Do I get work? Yes. Can I pay my rent on time? NO.
So Ms. Lawless is right. But what Ms. Lawless is failing to take into account is that amorphous, tiny slice of the American population known as the Poets. And I’m not talking about me, the guy on the bench in Union Square park, writing about the birds, waiting for his man. I’m not talking about the James Franco correlate. I’m talking about the Literati. The gatekeepers. The ones who decide who gets in what publication. Rejected three times from Best American Poetry? I’m looking you square in the eye, David Lehman.
Ms. Lawless has the distinction of being a published poet as well as a teacher of writing. I do not, at least not in any formal, Library of Congress catalogue number sort of sense or any check-from-the-bursar sorta sense.
So when Ms. Lawless feels a bit perturbed by the fact that a guy like James Franco just happens, in passing, to take up poetry as another source of his creative output, I say, “good for him”. I actually relate more to James Franco than I do to Ms. Lawless.
And here’s why. Though I might be starving, literally right now, starving, and sitting in my Williamsburg apartment, waiting for my next fix rather than high off my ass, I am working, and working on things most people who call themselves “poets” will never work on – namely, the other artistic media. I’ve taken up painting and playing piano in the last two years because I wasn’t “getting it” in the poetry world. I’ve had much more success in any other artistic medium, as far as getting paid, than I ever did with poetry. And much less rejection.
Nowadays, one might call this The Problem with Poetry. Imagine a trial taking place, in the vein of Howl, because of one of Ms. Lawless’s recently published poems. Not gonna happen. Why? Because the floodgates of culture have been opened. Nobody cares. And somewhere along the way, poets got swept under the carpet. Who is there now to help out? The ones who seem to only ever subscribe to CK Williams and Ashbery. Sure, they are the greatest living American poets. But where are the young’n’s? Where is their scene? Where are the publications that scoff “Best American Poetry” and are publishing the truly Best American Poetry by the crazies and the hacks and the intellectuals? Where are the broadsides of the ‘70’s nowadays? Blogs? No don’t think so. This is just the tip of the iceberg of the problem of poetry.
I once thought the real poets were the ones so dedicated to the craft that the only profession that would allow them to breathe would be teaching. Now I can see, considering my circumstances as well as the detritus of the almost nonexistent world of contemporary poetry, those best minds of my generation who, like Ginsberg’s, are still starving, hysterical, and naked in the streets, that there is only one thing any self-respecting poet can do nowadays. Something else.

[amy]

good one!

[DL]

Dear James, While I am glad to know you are looking me straight in the eye, I don't see how you can have been rejected by the Best American Poetry for the simple reason that we don't accept submissions and consequently do not issue rejection slips. Amy Lawless's beautiful point is that "poet and teacher" is positively boring and predicable compared to, say, "writer and worker's compensation expert" (Kafka's MO) or "poet and pediatrician" (W. C. Williams). To succeed as a freelance writer or journalist, you always had to be something of an entrepreneur, versatile and adaptable. Whining ill suits the aspiring poet. Read Keats's letters. If ever somebody was dealt a lousy hand, it was this tubercular poet who dwelled in the vale of soul-making. But I do love the last dozen words of your comment.

[Diya]

I posted a disbelieving tweet about how the Poetry Foundation follows JamesFrancoNews (still. cannot. believe. it.), and got a curt retweet and cutoff from the esteemed JFN for my cheek.

That said, I just lost it when I looked at Maslow's Hierarchy and imagined Franco's face looming behind it. Love it.

[Jerry]

Thanks a lot, Amy, for actually making me give a crap about this James Franco situation. Meaning: until you wrote your really funny, excellent post I wasn't really paying attention. And I liked it that way. I figured I could just ignore it (the James Franco situation) and it would go away, like when Bruce Willis tried to sing in a blues band. That said, I've learned two important things in the last half-hour, checking out your post and the subsequent comments: (1) Best American Poetry does not accept submissions (just kidding, I knew that, it just cracks me up, the whole idea of it) and (2) the key to whining is this: come up with something original to whine about or whine about something old in a new way. Wait, that sounds familiar.

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