The Best American Poetry

Truth and Beauty vs. the Dominating “I” by Eve Grubin

If “Imagination is evidence of the Divine” then, as John Keats wrote in a letter, “What the imagination seizes as beauty must be truth.” 

When something beautiful captured Eve’s imagination, she knew it was “truth.” This link between the imagination, beauty, and truth is surprising, even counterintuitive. We would normally expect an instinctual response to beauty to involve a sense of feeling good, satisfied, a sense of enjoyment in what is pleasing to us. We don’t think of beauty as “true.” Beauty is subjective, not objective. What was Keats suggesting by this link?  

The Rambam (Maimonides, or Moshe Ben Maimon, the 12^th -century Sephardic rabbi and doctor) explains that before Eve spoke to the snake, she understood the world in terms of truth and falsehood. Good and evil were values that did not occur to her. In Eve’s mind truth (the interconnectedness of the spiritual and physical worlds) was beautiful.  

              ‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty’, — that is all

              Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

                                     (John Keats -- from “Ode on a Grecian Urn”)

Here Keats taps into what Eve knew in Eden: that beauty and truth are the same thing. The physical world is beautiful because it represents the spiritual world, and Eve could see “heaven in a wildflower.”  Emily Dickinson wrote of beauty and truth “the two are one.”  

The Rambam contends that when Eve’s imagination seized on beauty and saw truth there, she ignored judgments such as good and bad because the “I” did not dominate her inner life—when the “I” dominates, subjectivity takes over, and we see things as either good or bad. What would it be like to see everything as either true or false?

When something false presented itself to Eve, a voice could suggest: “you” might like this. But that “you” is relatively easy to ignore. It represents a theoretical desire. Eve might have a detached thought such as: “Something in me thinks I want this.” It was not difficult to dismiss such a thought. But once desire begins to speak in the first person, it’s a different situation. Then it’s unequivocally “me.”

The snake was able to draw Eve into a place where the “I” dominated. Where the “I” took control and steered her rather than her steering it. “To be in a passion you good may do” Blake wrote, “But no good if a passion is in you.” If passion is in you, then it controls you. If you are in a passion then you can steer it.

In my next post I will explore how the snake pulled Eve into the place of “I,” where desire began to guide her rather than the other way around.

But now I want to look at a poem by Robert Creeley which laments the dogged persistence of the dominating “I.”  He suggests that the perseverance of the “I” traps one in anxiety. He writes: “What am I to myself / that must be remembered, / insisted upon / so often?” And he asks, “am I to be locked in this / final uneasiness”? Creeley feels that the insistent “I” leads to “tiredness, the fatuousness, the semi- / lust of intentional indifference.”

The snake led Eve out of the poet’s trance where her imagination seized on beauty as truth, and he brought her to a place where the “I” dominates existence. Creeley acknowledges this trap and then finds a way out:

 The Rain by Robert Creeley

All night the sound had  
come back again,
and again falls
this quiet, persistent rain.

What am I to myselft
that must be remembered,  
insisted upon
so often? Is it

that never the ease,  
even the hardness,  
of rain falling
will have for me

something other than this, 
something not so insistent—
am I to be locked in this
final uneasiness.

Love, if you love me,  
lie next to me.
Be for me, like rain,
the getting out

of the tiredness, the fatuousness, the semi-
lust of intentional indifference.
Be wet
with a decent happiness.

 

Robert Creeley, “The Rain” from Selected Poems of Robert Creeley. Copyright © 1991 by the Regents of the University of California.

Poem for the Beginning of Summer

Silence by Marianne Moore

My father used to say,
“Superior people never make long visits,
have to be shown Longfellow’s grave
nor the glass flowers at Harvard.
Self reliant like the cat –
that takes its prey to privacy,
the mouse’s limp tail hanging like a shoelace from its mouth –
they sometimes enjoy solitude,
and can be robbed of speech
by speech which has delighted them.
The deepest feeling always shows itself in silence;
not in silence, but restraint.”
Nor was he insincere in saying, “`Make my house your inn’.”
Inns are not residences.

-- sdh

 

“The Imagination is the Body of God” by Eve Grubin

Yesterday I wrote that the biblical Eve lived in, as Goethe called it, “the poet’s trance.” But then the snake seduced her out of that place of passionate clarity.

Rabbi Moses ben Naḥman, otherwise known as the Ramban or Nachmanides, the leading Medieval Spanish scholar who later settled in Israel, commented on the following language from the text: “Let us make humans in Our image and in Our likeness” (1:26). He wrote that the word which means “Our likeness” in Hebrew, “kidmutanu,” finds its root in the word “dimyon.” This word  means “imagination.” Human beings are defined by the power of broad imagination--God’s imagination was transferred to humanity, and Eve’s “poet’s trance” included what Keats called “the truth of the imagination.” Blake wrote that “the imagination is the body of God” and "Imagination is evidence of the Divine."

When Eve listened to the snake, she limited herself – she moved from continually experiencing the truth of the imagination to a restricted space where the connection between imagination and truth was obscured. Ironically, when she ate from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil she narrowed her knowledge. The Kabbalah calls the tree, "the Tree of Doubt" – her eating from it brought uncertainty, hesitation, and scepticism into the world. And ultimately, shame.

I have been asking myself the question: how did the snake seduce Eve into narrow doubt and bewilderment? If Eve was so lucid, how did the snake manage to confound her? If her sensitivity to truths reverberated through her, and she felt the web of creation shudder every time she touched it, how could he obfuscate her perspicacious vision?  If she gazed through a transparent film and witnessed the connections between the divine and the material, couldn’t she see through the snake?  Tomorrow, I will look at the text, some commentaries, and a Robert Creeley poem to better understand how this happened.

I'll end now with lines from Blake's "Auguries of Innocence," which embody the issues I will address in tomorrow's post:

If the sun and moon should doubt,
They'd immediately go out.
To be in a passion you good may do,
But no good if a passion is in you.

A Day to Remember

Remember

-- sdh

Eve Grubin, Guest Blogger May 29-June 3

This week we welcome Eve Grubin as our guest blogger.  Eve’s book of poems, Morning Prayer, was published by the Sheep Meadow Press. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in many literary journals and magazines, including The American Poetry Review,The Virginia Quarterly Review, The New Republic, Poetry Review, and Conjunctions, where her chapbook-size group of poems was featured and introduced by Fanny Howe. Her essays have appeared in various magazines and anthologies including, The Veil: Women Writers on Its History Lore and Politics (U of CA Press, 2009). Eve was the programs director at the Poetry Society of America for five years. She has taught poetry at The New School University and in the graduate creative writing program at the City College of New York. She writes a column, Letters from London, for Poetry International, and she is a tutor at the Poetry School. She lectures at New York University in London where she also runs the Poetry Club. She is the Poet in Residence at the London School of Jewish Studies.

Welcome, Eve

-- sdh

The Poet's Trance and the Biblical Eve by Eve Grubin

Last week, C.K. Williams gave the annual Poetry Society lecture in London where he quoted Goethe who said (this is paraphrased – Williams said the words quickly, and I scribbled down what I could): “The poet’s requisite trance is the most fragile element in his armory." 

I have been thinking about the poet’s trance—that room we enter (or room that enters us) in the middle of, or just before, writing a poem: a necessary space fusing silence and music, detachment and emotion, calm and energy. It’s a room of stirring clarity and peaceful vitality. The Goethe quote is not unlike Wordsworth’s “Poetry is emotion recollected in tranquillity.”

It’s a state that poets wait for, long for. We fear it will not come.

I imagine that Keats wrote, “My heart aches and a drowsy numbness pains...” and then he stepped into this eloquent armour.

The trance is not just for poets. It’s also useful for those who pray, play tennis, kiss, perform surgery, build a bookcase, and perform other activities that require creativity, focus, imagination, assimilated learning and knowledge, spontaneity, and an affectionate attachment to the subject of the endeavour.

I am preparing to teach a class at the London School of Jewish Studies on the biblical Eve. We will look at the text in the Hebrew and English translations, study classic commentaries, and then look at poems that explore Eve. I have been asking myself the question: did Eve go into a “poet’s trance” when the serpent spoke to her or was she in a trance up until the moment the serpent began to speak to her?

“And God said, Let’s make man in Our image. . . God created Man, in His image, in the image of God He created him; male and female he created them.” (Genesis 1.26-27)

The text repeats the idea of creating the human being at least three times, and the idea of creating a person in “God’s image” is also repeated three times. The repetition of both emphasizes the significance of human life. Rashi, the medieval French commentator and grammarian, explains that the enigmatic phrase should be read “with God’s image,” emphasizing that God has no physicality. Rashi offers this metaphor: God used a kind of stamp reflecting the divine unphysical qualities and created the human form with that stamp. The bodies of humans correspond to a counterpart in the spiritual world. Because Eve was created with God’s image, she lived inside a kind of passionate clarity: she was aware of how the physical world paralleled the spiritual one. The following lines by Blake could describe Eve’s awareness of how hidden truths were buried in the veil of the natural world:

               To see a World in a Grain of Sand

               And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,

               Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand

               And Eternity in an hour. (“Auguries of Innocence”: 1-4)

She lived in the mode of the poet’s trance – vivid clarity, focused creativity, and a spontaneous sanity saturated existence. The snake led her out of the trance room and into the room of rationalization and bewilderment. The connections between the divine and the physical world became less apparent. Harmony was no longer the default; everything suddenly seemed out of sync.

I will end this post with Marie Howe’s poem “Part of Eve’s Discussion,” a prose poem, which captures Eve’s disorientation, a sense of having stepped out of the trance and into a world of confusion, much like the world we live in today (unless we are lucky enough to find ourselves in moments where we can put on Goethe’s eloquent armour):

"It was like the moment when a bird decides not to eat from your hand, and flies, just before it flies, just before it flies, the moment the rivers seem to still and stop because a storm is coming, but there is no storm, as when a hundred starlings lift and bank together before they wheel and drop, very much like the moment, driving on bad ice, when it occurs to you your car could spin, just before it slowly begins to spin, like the moment just before you forgot what it was you were about to say, it was like that, and after that, it was still like that, only all the time."

Family dinner: A round table with 7 bona fide poets (Ray DeJesús)

Inquistor: Ray DeJesús

Participants: Christine N. Kanowink, Jeff T. Johnson, Claire Donato, Mark Guarie, Amanda SmeltzScene: Virtual round table discussion. Questions are posed by the inquisitor. Panelists eag, Allison Power, David Blasco

Let's get it on!

Do you consider yourself 'poets'? If so, how do you negotiate around the traffic of social conversations that would require you to admit such a label, or is it as my friend Lauren Hunter says, "your dirty little secret"?

CK: It helps that 90% of my friends are also poets or something equally silly, but, yes, it is hard to say it with a straight face sometimes, especially among respectable members of the community.

JJ: I admit to writing poetry, but don’t usually call myself a poet. If someone else does, fine. But what do we even mean by poet, or by poetry? Even in a poetry workshop, we all have different ideas of what poetry is, or what effective or worthwhile poetry is. Anyway, I’d rather describe myself as a writer, just as I prefer to think about writing as writing, rather than a particular form or genre. I do think what is it is an ok question, but just like I prefer what does it do to what does it mean, I prefer what does it do to what is it. And maybe what does it do and who or what does it do it to, and when, etc, is a more productive series of questions. So when people ask me what I do, I might say I write, or that I write poetry, if it makes sense in context, but I am a poet sounds to me like I’m different from you, or I have a different/superior grasp of language than you do. If we feel self-conscious as writers of poetry, or as self-proclaimed writers of poetry, is it because we perceive poetry to be ridiculous or unnecessary? Or are we giving ourselves a backhanded compliment, bemoaning the myth that poetry is not valued in society, or that poetry is an occupation that doesn’t pay, but we do it anyway, or that we are misunderstood? Poems are more interesting than poets, and poetry is more interesting than poems. I make poems, sometimes with words; call me what you want to. Call me Jeff or hey you.

MG: Well yeah, so I just tell them that I write stuff and it’s mostly poetry. I don’t often use that label (‘poet’) in describing myself, but I certainly won’t correct anyone if that’s what they chose to use to describe me. 

CD: In response to the first question, a quote from my friend and teacher Ross Gay comes to mind: ‘We are not our poems.’ 

In response to the second question: When I find myself in a social situation that requires me to talk about poetry, I usually say, ‘I studied poetry in graduate school’ or ‘My formal training was in poetry writing.’ And then I qualify the statement by stating that I’ve also studied and written and done a lot of things, all of which feel like poetry to me.

AS: I don’t know that I’d call myself a Poet. I’ll wait for other people to do that.

When it comes up in conversation, I often dodge - talk about writing first, and then if people press, I mention poetry. I’m reluctant to have to explain myself too much.

DB: In my experience, the conversation rarely makes it much further. If you say you're a poet, people take your word for it; whether it's from manners or indifference or both, most people leave it at that (& I don't feel obligated to explain anything). 

AP: I smile and change the subject.

Why? Why poetry?

CK: No one has good reason to do anything. I was good at writing and people complimented me on my writing and I kept on writing and then I went to study poetry at various accredited universities and now it is what I am always doing and thinking about. That’s not a very romantic answer. I think it suits me and the way my brain processes things, but if things had gone a little differently I could imagine myself pursuing any number of ridiculous artist endeavors.

JJ: Because it is.

MG: For the money and the fame.

CD: Right now, my mind goes here: Because everything has a poetics, and because language lets me check in with my ears.

 AS: Because I came out of the womb rhyming. Because elliptical and inverted expression. Because over-explanation bores. Because the mystery of shared language is one I serve. Because singing.

AP: Because I'm not a painter. (Too obvious? Sorry, but I hate this question.)

DB: Could you repeat the question?

But isn't poetry a dead art form?

CK: If an art critic for the New York Times hasn’t declared your art form dead, then it isn’t worth doing.

JJ: What is poetry’s form? What’s it made of? If language, what is that? Isn’t language always dying in the form of utterance? How long do poems stay fresh? Why do we keep making them? Are we just trying to make a really good one so we can stop making them? Poetry is a form of death. Art is what you make it.

MG: Most things taste better when they are dead.

CD: If every word invokes a little death, I die – ‘I’ become(s) dead – as I write. I aspire toward the deadest death, and I call for you, the reader, to press your mind against the surface of this text. It will come alive.

AS: As long as humans speak to one another and babies babble after birth, poetry is inherent in  existence.

DB: Undead.

AP: Nope.

One of our panelists, Jeff T. Johnson has said that, and correct me if I'm wrong, JJ, that poetry is as much an art form as the visual arts (e.g., painting, photography, video, et al). Jeff, can you can you exlplain this theory a bit more? How do the you others feel about this theory?

CK: I’m not sure I get this one and would hate to get egg on my face in front of the whole BAP readership. Poetry is art, the same way a painting is art and dance and basket weaving and songwriting are art. Is poetry a visual art? Depends on the poet/poem. Poetry does exist visually since most people experience it on the page in its visual form; however very few poems would do well framed and hanged in a gallery. Saroyan and Appolinaire would, though.

JJ: Claire Donato and I have an ongoing conversation about this. I probably got the notion from her, and she probably discovered it elsewhere. We (the larger, more nebulous we) are comfortable describing painting as art (though art, or the art world, whatever that is, is currently over painting, maybe), but we don’t necessarily think of poetry as art. Or, better said, when we say art we might think of painting or sculpture or drawing or video installation, etc., but we probably don’t think of poetry. Why is that? Visual art sounds familiar to us, but we don’t think of poetry as visual art, even though we like to recognize poetry as text with line breaks. (Who is we?) But poetry is visual art. Poetry is language art. Sound and meaning are important in poetry, but so is shape. And, to be sure, poetry (and language) is not just words. If one of poetry’s best strategies is juxtaposition, can we do the work of poetry using only images? Of course we can. And words can also act as visual objects to be looked at. We can read images, we can look at text. And we do. Why shouldn’t we create multimedia poetry?

MG: I’d argue that poetry can work like the visual arts, and yet, on a couple levels it is a completely different animal. For one thing, the aural quality of poetry predates its written presentation: long before languages were codified, long before print, there were story-tellers, Greek theatrical epics, bards, etc. Here’s the big, bold and probably refutable statement: No matter what their aesthetic is, all poets working today are still reckoning with the pre-codified, aural ancestry of the art form. I’d even argue that “visual approaches” to poetics, still imply some sort of sense of real-time, of being inside time with the spaces between stanzas enacting pauses of sorts. That being said, I think visual arts approaches to poetry most assuredly do inform the way a poem is read. Many decisions that poets make are ‘visual’ or ‘graphic’ in nature. I don’t even know if I answered the question. 

CD: I’m interested in what Jennifer DeVere Brody calls “an expanded field of writing” where language is embodied material that takes shape both on- and off- of the physical page.  With regard to embodied writing practices, it seems many visual artists are writers and vice-versa and versa-vice until the boundaries are broken down and blurry. I think of Jenny Holzer’s nighttime projections, Tom Phillips’s treated Victorian novel A Humument, Caroline Bergvall’s language-driven installations, Aram Saroyan’s lighght verse, Kenneth Goldsmith’s book-objects, C.D. Wright’s carefully sculpted texts. The list goes on.  

AS: Of course it’s an equal art form. Poetry does things these other arts can’t, which is not to their detriment, but is worth noting: verse can be memorized and carried in the brain whole. You can only have a memory of your experience of those other art forms, but the moment you recite a poem from inside your self you experience it again, in total. It’s awe-inspiring.

DB: There's less money in it.

AP: Agree. 

Okay, time for some irreverence. Are smoking and drinking prerequisites to becoming a 'poet'?

My Playlist (Ray DeJesús)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(drawing by Raymond Pettibon)

 

Take heed of the silence of mind in sound.; the serenity of frenzy. Those records that have moved you, shook you, crushed you, those records that you have risen to, hold on to them, use them wisely. Hold on to the music, it's as necessary as oxygen, sleep, bathroom visits, I'm sure of it. Here is a list of bands, records, albums that have, and continue to be, my salve.

Minor Threat: Complete Discography

Charles Bronson: Complete Discography

Husker Du: Zen Arcade, New Day Rising, Flip Your Wig. Everything Falls Apart (a collection of singles), Metal Circus

Ramones: Ramones, Leave Home, Rocket to Russia, Road to Ruin

Angry Samoans: Back to Samoa, Inside My Brain (These cats could care less about who they offend; very audacious bunch out of LA)

Bikini Kill: First Two Records, Rebel Girl, Pussy Whipped, Reject All American

All of Charley/Charlie Patton

Anything by Slim Harpo

Anything by Andre "Mr. Rhythm" Williams

The Cramps: Songs the Lord Taught Us, Psychedelic Jungle/Gravest Hits

D.O.A. War and Peace

Dead Kennedys: Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables, In God We Trust, Inc., Frankenchrist, Bedtime for Democracy, Plastic Surgery Disasters, Give Me Convenience or Give Me Death

The Damned: The Damned

Breaking news: Just received, via postal service, the galley of Paul Legault's The Other Poems, and when I say you should be excited about this new volume of poems, I mean you need to be excited, Sally. Please, reserve your copy today, you will not be disappointed. The poems in this volume, if you're not familiar with Mr. Legault's work are humorous, erudite,  and austere. The poems come pregnant with wit, and unmitigated deftness. Thank you, Paul Legault.

A car, a shower, a love poem: Anectdotes, questions, vignettes (Ray DeJesús)

After much discussion with friend, Jeff T. Johnson, I decided on his advice: I went for a drive to figure, to compose, ponder, to breathe. Here are the ramblings of a mad man gone mad.

1. So much for a visit to the psychiatrist's office: 10 minutes, 1 script, twenty dollar co-payment.

2. I tend to do my finest thinking in the shower, and by finest thinking, I don't mean, in any way, that it is lucid, complex thought, but it's fine enough for me. Warm water: focus. Warm water for twenty minutes: discipline. Warm water for twenty minutes, at least three times a day: productivity. What's better, a drive or a shower?

3. Last night, a former student penned me a note asking me what would the best way to go about getting published. My advice: Don't worry about that, just write. He thanked me.

4. I tend to go for long drives at night. Being nocturnal since birth, it all makes sense. Much like a shower, it forces me to focus, produce. Driving, in my humble opinion, is divinity coupled with grace. Thurston might say, a benediction.

5. I once asked a girl out and she said, no. I once asked a girl out and she said, yes.

6. Today, I took a walk to Unnameable Books and purchased 16 Short Plays by Israel Horovitz, The Orange Eats Creeps by Grace Krilanovich (suggested to me by JTJ), Never Any End to Paris by Enrique Vila-Matas. I was going to purchase After Spicer: Critcal Essays edited by John Emil Vincent, but decided, next time.

7. Read four beautiful poems by Jake Kennedy featured in The Awl (Mark Bibbins, Editor): http://www.theawl.com/2011/05/four-poems-by-jake-kennedy

8. Is there anymore use for the love poem? Obsolete?Dead? What purpose does it serve? Is it coded? Bring it back.

9. Faith in love? Love in faith? Love in?

10. Read a wonderful article on Cummings and Thayer in The Awl this afternoon: http://www.theawl.com/2011/05/a-lost-e-e-cummings-poem-discovered

11: Heard Howard Stern talking about masturbation. He said something to the effect of 3 times a day. I say, on a good day, once, and that usually takes an hour.

12. Today marks the first barbecue of the year at the DeJesús homestead.

13. I love Larry Fisher of Vortex fame. He was my boss for three years at Space Age Bachelor Pad Junk Shop located on E. 11th between 3rd and 4th across from what used to be 99 X. You can find him here and there. Check his site out: http://garbology.wordpress.com/

Samantha Zighelboim says, "Why don't you write about things that make you happy?" (Ray DeJesús)

During a conversation with Samantha the other day, it was suggested that my next post simply be about things that make me happy. Below, you will a find a harum-scarum list of some of the things that happen to make this crazy cat smile. This one is for you, Sam.

1. Books by Rod Smith: Deed, Protective Immediacy, Music or Honesty, In Memory of My Theories, et al
2. Reruns of Three's Company
3. Jim Jarmusch
4. Books by Rachel Zolf: Human Resources, Masque, Neighbour Procedure, et al
5. Claire Donato's chapbook and website: Someone Else's Body and somanytumbleweeds, respectively
6. Supermachine Magazine          
7. Books of Ben Mirov: Ghost Machine, I is Vorticism, Vortexts, et al
8. Maggy Poetry Magazine
9. 1913: a Journal of Forms
10. The work of Mark Bibbins: Sky Lounge, The Dance of No Hard Feelings, his work at The Awl, his apartment
11. Elaine Equi's whimsy and brilliance
12. The Melvins
13. The Ramones
14. The Smiths
15. George MacLarty
16. Vanessa Place
17. St. Mark's Bookshop
18. Telephone (eited by Sharmila Cohen and Paul Legault
19. My dog, Zoe
20. My cat, Mischa
21. Street punk, crust punk, pop punk, chaos punk, anarcho-punk
22. Maximum Rocknroll magazine
23. Victor Hernández Cruz's Maraca (Coffee House Press, 2001)
24. Robert Fernandez's We are Pharaoh (Canarium Press)
25. Laura Minor's music, poetry
26. The Song Cave (Edited by Ben Estes and Alan Felsenthal)
27. Flying Object, Hadley, Mass-Dynamite people
28. LL Cool J
29. Christine Kanowink's red hair
30. Augury Books (Edited by Christine Kanowink and Kate Angus)
31. Roger Federer
32. Leah Iannone's New Jersey
33. Chesterfield cigarettes
34. Pall Mall cigarettes
35. Gin
36. Women (Is this a bad thing?)
37. Jaime DeJesus' letter To Ken Davidoff, of NY Newsday fame, regarding newspaper versus magazine in sports.
38. Angry Samoans
39. Cafe Danton-Paris, France
40. The work of Paul Legault: The Madeline Poems, The Other Poems (got a sneek peek)
41. Ted Berrigan
42. Buster Keaton
43. Laurel and Hardy
44. Al Pacino
45. Jeff Bridges
46. Chocolate egg creams
47. The Queers
48. The Krays
49. Packages
50. Marianna's laugh
51. Panick Attack!: Art in the Punk Years (Merrell Publishers, 2007)
52. Howie Pyro's Intoxica Radio
53. Destroy All Movies!!! The Complete Guide to Punk on Film (Fantagraphics Books, 2010)
54. Jeff Johnson's manuscript: Filmography
55. Pornography (Video tape, dvd, internet, any will do)
56. K. Silem Mohammad's Sonnagrams
57. Airplanes
58. Notebooks
59. Martin Beeler's poetry
60. Michel Gizzi (RIP)
61. Peter Gizzi
62. Semi-colons
63. Klonopin
64. Ampersands
65. The Verrazano Bridge
66. Tony Manero's hair
67. Any mention of the television show Small Wonder
68. Winnie Cooper
69. My mother's latina/Brooklyn accent
70. Georgina's whispers
71. Long autumn rides with Karen Cervasio Kolyer
72. Hüsker Dü
73. The photos of Dash Snow
74. Hans Peter-Feldman
75. The idea of Los Angeles
76. Jessica Madison's smile
77. Ariel Kates-Harris' "Rad!"
78. Ashleigh Allen's booming laugh
79. Dean, of Cafe Loup fame
80. Natalie Portman
81. Maggie Q
82. Disliking Madonna
83. My suspicion of folks who hate television, but watch Hulu all day (Thanks, Christine)
84. Dad
85. Bensonhurst, circa 1990 and earlier
86. Coney Island High (No longer)
87. CBGB's (No longer)
88. The Truents (NYC punk)
89. Popcorn
90. My adopted niece, Elizabeth Collins
91. Cursing in English
92. Cursing in Spanish
93. Meliza's "Cawfee"
94. Rachel's Penelope Cruz and Julia Louis-Dreyfus
95. Allison Power's hair
96. Allison Tray and Maria
97. Little House on the Prairie (TV show)
98. Root beer
99. Poems
100. Ernest Borgnine
101. Popeye
102. Illiana and Amanda
103. Smeltz
104. Joe Weil's mind
105. Ron Silliman
106. Charles Bernstein
107. PennSound
108. EPC (Electronic Poetry Center)
109. Modigliani
110. Susan Bee
111. Grollier Poetry Book Shop
112. The old Bowery
113. Bernadate Mayer 
114. Aram Sarayon's Minimal Poems (Ugly Duckling Presse)

Samantha Zighelboim holds an MFA from Columbia University. Her poems, translations, and book reviews have appeared in Maggy, Thumbnail, TheThe Poetry Blog  BOMB, Rattapallax, and The People’s Poetry Project.  Recently, she was nominated for a Pushcart Prize on behalf of Thumbnail. She received an honorable mention for the 2010 Bennett Poetry Prize at Columbia University, sponsored by the Academy of American Poets.  Currently she’s working on her first collection of poems, and lives in New York City with her cat, Buddha.

Song:

 

Puertorriqueño (Ray DeJesús)

The following post is dedicated to my grandmother Raquel "Quequi" Maldanado Rodriguez (1926-1994). Me haces falta, mami. Te amo.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

i) For the past several weeks I have given much thought to the idea of identity crisis in poetics. I've been much beleaguered with conflict:  Do I keep my mouth shut? Don't agitate, to I need this discussion in order to sleep soundly, even if this discussion is whispered, a monologue.

ii.) My conscience directs me towards that second choice. Dad: "Don't get on some soapbox!" Me: "I won't!" Mom: "You need to do it! Why not?"

1) There is a silence to my last name, a quietude I've never been able to completely discern. What does it mean? Do I change it? You know, cute high school kids can be quite cruel. Like so many other high school students,I heard the jokes, and I took them, stored them away, festered they did, I'd let them go, eventually. The power of affirmation, reaffirmation, embrace, detachment.

2) What in the hell is poetry? I'm fifteen-years-old, and I'm looking at trochees, stanzas, enjambments, and what I once completely disregarded, dismissed, I decide to touch, devour. In a previous post, I mentioned that cummings' 100 poems was the first volume of poetry I truly read, parsed. I carried it with me at all times: On my way to a friend's, on the N train headed towards Brighton. Why was this text becoming inextricable from my person? A limb. Forgive the mawkishness, it's nostalgia.

3) I remember handing George (Mr. MacLarty at the time) my first attempt. He was so very kind; he was diplomatic, generous. A little too lyrical, but keep trying he said. I was easily discouraged. I decided to sleep for the next two years, but I kept on reading during those moments of wakefulness. I'd scribble something for my la-dy friend, proudly signing it before handing it to her. Silly. Too lyrical, but maybe I'd get it straight. I never did get it straight, and don't plan on getting it straight, but I stay its path. I'm still sleeping, but college in September, time to wake up, just a little.

4) First semester concludes, I decide on my major: Comparative Literature. Fancy, no? Dad: "What the hell are you going to do with that? Maybe advertising." At the time, I wasn't sure, and I'm still not sure, but I was certain that I loved books, text; I liked slamming my body against the shelves of the college library (true story). Chuito Sin Coquis: My first college attempt at writing a one-act play. Good? No. Necessary? Yes. Poorly acted by yours truly on a stage in St. John's University? Of course. Necessary? Yes. Born: 1993. From: Disparaging remarks made by some latina friends at the time. Some of those gems: "Why you dress like that?"; "You smoke Chesterfields?"; "You're like a blancito." Now, mind you, I love, and still love, these friends, but make no mistake, a challenge had been declared by said friends. Why should I write this one-act-er that was best suited for the litter box. Necessary? Yes. Why should I keep writing? Should I? what are 'mi gente' going to think of me. Should I write about the cultura, la famalia? Could I write about other things? Maybe. Not sure. Hand me that riddle.

5) Fast forward: Years later, I continue writing that thing called poetry or poesia; I'm stubborn. Problem: That damn last name. If I only I could change it. No, I'll keep it. Mami would slapped me in the head for even thinking such a thing. I keep it. Now what? What? Yes, Victor Hernández Cruz, William Carlos Williams, Piri Thomas, Miguel Piñero, Julia de Burgos, they'd all been there, done it. Caveat: Not in anyway am I putting my name in that list, just imparting examples.

6) La familia: DeJesús, Rodriguez. Locations: Caguas, Ponce, Brooklyn. Scattered about cool cats. Diaspora with a smile. Grandma (Mami) took care of me, taught me la lengua, made me eat the food, waved the flag, proud to be boricua. Me, proud? Not so much. It took years of thought and therapy before I'd embrace that last name. I suppose my problem with the last name is that it seemed to obstruct, impede my plans. What plans? How? Don't have an answer. Lucky to be bilingual, right Mami, Mom, Dad, Papi? You see, I'm not pontificating, but paying homage to my roots, my foundation, my cement. This for Pepe, John (mi primo, dead at 37 due to alcoholism), Ismael, Abuelo Fingue, Abuelo Luis, Titi Lola, Titi Carmen, Tio Paco ( the gang stories of Red Hook, priceless. Names: The Chaplin Mau-Maus, The Apaches, et al). All them cowboy and indians, my family. Wild cats, Fragmented, but united under one organic, poetic smile. Prosody, unbeknownst to them, was and is in their blood. Whether it manifests itself in form of "Coño" (fuck in our dialect), merengue, salsa, Hector Lavove, Tito, the music, the perpetual dance, tounge and foot. Ray, write about anything you want, it's all there for you to cradle. Use it all. Combine it all. Make it one. Sonrisa. Oh, the physiognomy of it all. The physiology. Orgullo. 

Scenes from a Book Launch by Stacey Harwood

David Lehman (left) and Terence Winch

Book sales were brisk at the Hanging Loose spring book launch party last week.  No surprise if you consider that the press was celebrating the release of new volumes by Jen Benka, Gerald Fleming, Pablo Medina, Elizabeth Swados, and Terence Winch, who we're lucky to have as a regular contributor to this blog. I love Winch's book Falling Out of Bed in a Room with no Floor and each time I open it, which is often, I marvel at his mastery of forms, his range of subjects, and his wit and wordplay. (Check out this alliteration, from "Snow Days":  I'll envision / snoring steamboat captains sailing in celestial / circles round the rings of the tree of life, / cheerily chiding: "Regardez la neige!" / while begging for English and breakfast in bed.")  Read David Lehman's brief review here and Winch's Sic Transit Gloria here.  And buy the book here. 

Winch, photo left, with Michael Lally; photo right with yours truly. 

L to R:  David Lehman, Hanging Loose Co-editor Bob Hershon, Bill Zavatsky, and Michael Lally
-- sdh

Sic Transit Gloria by Terence Winch

Guy asks me for $1.80 on the subway.
White guy, bald, shirt and tie.
Says they towed his car with his wallet in it.
He is sitting in front of me.  All the men
in the car have been stealthily eyeing
an astonishingly beautiful young woman
in a very short skirt, who has been
drawing in a big sketchbook.  She is luminous.
Summer is almost over.  I can't concentrate
on reading because I have to sneak looks
at the gorgeous artist.  The day is flying
past in the fading sunlight.

Big bald oval head right in my face.
I'll pay you back, he says.  That's okay,
I say.  I give him two dollars.  He says thanks
and turns around.  We all resume studying
the woman.  Two young black guys sit
across from me.  One of them keeps 
snapping his gum so loud it's like 
a cap gun going off.  

An enormous fat guy says to the beauty as he heads
for the door: I don't know how you can draw
with the train bumping around.  She smiles
at him.  We are all overcome with the radiant
brilliance of her smile.  I think about music,
I think about my godson smashing nine windows
in New Jersey yesterday.  We are always trying
to break out.  Sex is better than religion.

She gets up at Metro Center.  The doors slide open
for her and she's gone.  It's back to real time.  
The Yankees are one and a half games out of first.  
Someone's cell phone rings and he squawks: 
Can't hear you. I'm on the subway.  What?  
The bald guy rises up.  I know he will turn 
around before exiting and thank me again, 
give a further gesture of appreciation.
It's the right thing to do. Two bucks 
is not nothing between strangers.
I'm sure he'll give me that bonus nod.

        first published in Smartish Pace

This poem appears in Falling Out of Bed in a Room with no Floor.  Read more about it here. Purchase here.

Jeff Bridges: A flash essay prefaced with a poem by Macgreogor Card with a dash of Fear and The Krays (Ray DeJesús)

THAT OLD WOOLLY BLOODLETTING by Macgregor Card

In youth you tend to look rather frequently into a mirror,
not at all necessarily from vanity. You say to yourself,
“What an interesting face; I wonder what he’ll be up to?”
—J. M. Barrie, “Courage”

Here is how pussycat /
I will show you to carry /
your unframed Cortez /
the conqueror portrait /
out of your nursery and into the forest
you’ll kneel in to sleep
the cock of the walk
through falling of dead
unalterable leaves
you cannot yearn to ally
your friends with influence of law
Learn your Greek
You’re a hero to open your book to learn
Jupiter failed as a nation
Though made by the giants

Australian is English!
I’d fold the universe
shut with tears
choking my prize
four crosses of shirts and trousers
in my fist
and a poor fellow’s sword on my floor
Come from somewhere for a purpose
Go to somewhere for none
The angry burst into the room
The mad burst into the wall
as a victory poem
let it not be said
in the song that is so true
no ship moves up the one star night
without a plan to execute
in perpetuity, no no no no no no no
No, my boy, no no no no no no no no no no no
No no no, my boy, no no no no no no no no no no no
The ship is a natural ship
as the wand is a natural wand
as the Englishman is hearing the frogs
uplifted as the queerest antique stag

Don’t play with banker’s straw, my boy
but talk the penny down
from its smoldering cloud
into your cup
you are that human shape
of public statuary
not to be
that town crier
in a meat locker
(armies travel on their stomachs)
Everyone’s beloved
is a finite distance from your bed

Carry your portrait
close to the vest
leave your liqueur
set down by the fire
pick up the receiver
remember your Greek
and strum your important guitar.

You are doing what I tell you to do.
What more do you want us to do.
We will eat and then we will guard.
I want you to obey me willfully.
I do this to make us work.
The giants made me for this purpose.
We will guard and then we will sleep.
That is the action.
There’ll be enough trouble.
I’m a hero to open your book.
We will work on the same shift.

 

Jeff Bridges

 

i. I'm on a train headed towards New England with Jeff in my hands. Jeff is on the cover of Esquire in Elvis pose with mic. He's staring at me with those, those tough yet warm eyes. I'm thinking Robert Mitchum with a warm smile. Whenever I start to shake, lose it, I go back to Jeff.

II. Jeff knows how to laugh, smirk. I don't know Jeff, but I'd like to think, at the very least, that Jeff is my safe place. Watching his interviews one immediately becomes cognizant of the fact  that he's a thoughtful man, a surgeon with a tough facade, a soft interior. Do I know Jeff? No, I don't know Jeff, but I'm pretty sure he's confident with his masculinity. Jeff's maculinity ain't about machismo, no. Rather, his masculinity is all about assuredness and subtlety coupled with some frenetic energy. Jeff is a curious man: Actor, painter, sculptor, musician, photographer, zen master, et al. Jeff is sure; his laugh says it all, man.

III. I remember Jeff in Against All Odds. Remember Jeff in Against All Odds? Rachel Ward, James Woods? That bastard grabbed hold of me back in 1984. Jeff knew how to love, how to make love. Yeah, he wasn't fucking Rachel Ward, he was loving her Take heed, boys.Jeff transcends sex. Do I know Jeff? No, but his laugh keeps me afloat.

iv. Remember Jeff in Tron (1982) and Starman (1984)? Yeah, he is good. A few weeks ago, I was watching a short documentary on Jeff on American Masters (Jeff Bridges: The Dude Abides, PBS) in which Karen Allen says the following in regards to Jeff's preparation for his role in Starman: "He actually watched birds and babies, he told me." He probably did, and that's why we believe him. Tron? I remember thinking, I'm Kevin Flynn, I am Clu, I am the user. Yes, I was Jeff for a few hours of the day, everyday. Imagine that, an 11-year-old Jeff.

v. I could mention "The Dude," but I won't. Everything that needs to be said about The Big Lebowski has been said by better men than I, so we'll leave that one alone. Remember Jeff in Crazy Heart? I do, but what  I really remember about that role is the speech it inspired him to make on that dais upon receiving his Oscar for Best Actor. He didn't start by kowtowing to the agents, the press, no. Instead, he held that statue up to the sky and thanked mom and dad. He thanked them for the ride, the experience, and isn't that what it's all about? Whether you're an actor, painter, poet, novelist, accountant, farmer, it's about  family. I think so, and apparently so does Jeff.

vi. Does this small case study smell of stalker? Idolatry? Most likely, but I'm just going to continue to embrace Jeff until the day I stop shaking, and who knows when that will be.

 

 

Macregor Card is the author of Duties of an English Foreign Secretary published by Fence Books, 2009. Mr. Card is a wonderful man and brilliant poet/translator/editor who happens to know his Chaka Khan. Many thanks to Macgregor for allowing me to use "That Old Woolly Bloodletting".

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Songs of the day: "Now You're Dead" Fear

 

The Krays "Invincible"

 

Didi Menendez's Portrait Project

Didi Menendez's portrait project is designed for poets as well as visual artists. She has selected and posted photogaphic portraits to serve as models  Here are some of the particlars centerting on a Star Black photograph from February 2011. There are five other photographs at the moment and Didi may add to that number. For full details, click here.

<<<
Deadline: August 15, 2011

Visual Artists:

Render a portrait using this image and send a jpg of your portrait to didimenendez at hotmail.com. Place on subject line PORTRAIT STUDY #2. You may render the portrait in your preferred medium. Specify with your submission the size and medium of your entry along with your name and web site/online portfolio address. Everyone is welcomed to submit a portrait. All entries following the guidelines will be placed on this blog post. Once all entries have been submitted by the deadline, the best will be featured in PoetsArtists (www.poetsandartists.com) web site.

Poets:

Submit a poem inspired from this image to didimenendez at hotmail.com. Place on subject line Portrait Study #2. Send poem attached to a word document along with your web site address and short bio. If the poem is well received by our editor (me), it will be published on this post. The best poem will be published in the PoetsArtists web site along with the best portrait submitted by a visual artist.
>>>

Brooklyn: Kissed and coldcocked (Ray DeJesús)

i. Is it Barcelona? Is it Brooklyn? Paris? No, Brooklyn, I'm sure of it. After all,for  37 years it's the city that's taken so much from me, but, simultaneously, givenme its heart and marrow. I owe this cement and tar; this cement and tar knows of my debt. Whether we’re talking Dyker, Carroll Gardens, Bushwick, Canarsie, Windsor, Kensington, Manhattan Beach, Brighton, and ah, Sunset Park (Gunset to its natives, me included), et al, home.

 

ii. Sunset for 28 years. My first kiss; first love, Kim Toler; loves come and gone; first making whoopee; mortality here and there; loves gone and come; books stacked, books tossed; sheets of scribbling thrown to the wolves and the dumpster (true story); cheese sandwiches in the church vestibule; catholic schoolboy/school girl uniforms; stolen bikes; eight hour wiffle ball marathons(“Scuff that ball good,kid”); slap; spud; manhunt; manic late night drives (2AM to be exact) from Sunset to Gravesend and back.

 

iii. I may have had the honor, the privilege to travel here and there, but these is some special, gritty streets. Mind you, I'm not the only one born out of Brooklyn's womb: The Millers, Selby Jr., Mailer, Woody, Basquiat, Streissand, Louie the Lizard, Frankie from Smith, Angela (those eyes), Illiana (damn fabulous smile), The Savasta sisters (Marianna, Giulieta, Vincenza; Marianna, them poutty lips) Colleen, Mr.Mouse and his brother Red, and yes, Violi, Sir Paul Violi.

 

iv. Doesn't Brooklyn know its language, its prosody? Of course it does, Brooklyn comes equipped. Whether you hear the syllables, the cadences, the beat, in the trees, on the train platform, your local deli, in traffic, in line for your lotto ticket (the beautiful and talented poet, Ashleigh Allen, would be proud of my preposition selection there), the language is there, always there. It refuses to move. It's in constant flux, morphing. Beautiful lines, crass and uncomfortable lines. Some favorites of mine, and it’s all about delivery: "Do me favor? Go fuck yourself!" Or, the ubiquitous, "Go fuck your mother’!"  When you hear these gems, accept them, embrace them, you know your home. Let me not forget that it was here that I found and read my first collections of poetry thanks to Mr. Ed Breslin and Mr. George MacLarty (poet, best friend and high school English teacher): cummings, Ferlinghetti, Ginsberg, yes. I was 15, and stuffed in my back pocket, true story, Ferlinghetti's Coney Island of the Mind and cummings' 100 poems. Yes, methinks I'm home.

 

Books of the day: Sarah Sarai's The Future is Happy; Lauren Hunter's forthcoming chapbook titled, My Own Fires; Rachel Zolf's Human Resources (more on Zolf's work later this week), Ben Mirov’s Ghost Machine, Elaine Equi’s Click and Clone

 

Poets to look for/ read: Jeff T. Johnson, Claire Donato, Samantha Zighelboim, David Blasco,  Allison Power, Amanda Smeltz, Mark Guarie, Christine N. Kanowink, Alina Gregorian, Martin Beeler, Camilo Roldan,  Adam Fitzgerald,, Kate Angus, Laura Minor. Joe Weil, Lauren Hunter, Sharmilla Cohen. More to come.

 Journals/magazines to look for: Maggy, Supermachine, Infinite Editions, 1913, G(o)BBet

 

Ray DeJesús, guest blogger, May 22-28

This week we welcome Ray DeJesús as our guest blogger.  Ray was born, raised, and still resides in Brooklyn, NY. A first generation Nuyorican, Ray is a graduate of The New School (MFA, Poetry, May 2010), and he currently teaches writing at St. Francis College.   His poetry has twice been published in The Best American Poetry's Blog, Maggy Poetry Magazine (Issue 2), and Literary Chaos and is forthcoming in G(o)BBet Magazine out of the UK. He can also be found shielding his ears from the awful, shrill sound of church bells on a daily basis in his Bay Ridge neighborhood. Ray is working on two collaborations: A chapbook long project with poet Christine Kanownik, and a pseudo/quasi-epic poem with singer/songwriter/poet Laura Minor. His mantra: Sometimes things is just things.

 In other news . . . 

Thursday, June 16, The Inspired Word presents Big Apple BAP: NYC's Best American Poetry Poets. Featuring readings by Katha Pollitt, Mark Bibbins, Jennifer Michael Hecht, David Shapiro, R. Erica Doyle, Jerome Sala, Elaine Equi, Michael Cirelli, Stacey Harwood, George Green, Carly Sachs, Matthew Yeager, Amy Holman, Vicki Hudspith, and David Lehman (who will also host the event). 6:30 PM One and One Bar & Restaurant * 76 East 1st Street (corner of 1st Avenue), NYC.  More information here. 

And please support the Motionpoems Kickstarter campaign to bring BAP 2011 to the big screen. Find complete information here. 

-- sdh

"Harvesters" [by Johnny Chinnici]

If only I could find work
as free from uncertainty
as the task on Brueghel's folks
I would gladly sweat
        for my boss, hay.
I would laze upon
        my bed of hay.
Take a scythe to the ankles
        of my enemy, hay.
Share a pear over hay.
Find a wife and roll in the hay.
March like an unworried
        ant in a map of hay
with a colleague giving the report:

there is more hay, over
there, past all the hay
you see, and when
it's gone, wait
and there will come more.
Yea, only when we
are gone will hay not
be, and even then
it will still be
dead grass.

-- Johnny Chinnici

University Place & 11th Street, May 21, 3:00 PM

-- sdh