The Best American Poetry

Is Shakespeare Still Readable? [by Vincent Katz]

I am excited to be back at the B.A.P. post desk! This week I plan to riff on things I’m reading and see where that takes me. I usually read a mix of favorites and new work, often going back to things that have affected me powerfully in the past. I like the way books come to litter a place, diving into obscurity for extended periods before resurfacing bold-faced and re-determined to command respect. Alternatively, there are those books that lie there perennially, always available yet untouched for months or years at a time. This summer I picked up such a book and threw it into my overnight bag — the updated Folger Library edition of Hamlet, published in 2012 and edited by Barbara A. Mowat and Paul Werstine. I think it belongs to my son Oliver. I say “think” as I found it in the vicinity of his room; there is no handwriting in it I can identify as his, and no evidence he ever looked at it.

 

We used these same editions when I was in high school, probably read the same syllabus. There may be a tendency to look down on these editions as “school” editions, or to think that one should be able to read Shakespeare without notes at this point, that one should be able to get what one gets out of the words alone. I am here to tell you that, unless you are really schooled in sixteenth-century poetry (and I know some of you are), then this is not the case. I understand a lot more of Shakespeare than I did when I was in high school, but there are still usages I want to fine-tune in my reading. And this brings me to the beauty of these editions. They are not at all precious, you can take them anywhere, they are clearly and elegantly designed, they have the benefit of having the notes on pages facing the text, and, for this reader at least, the choices of which usages to include notes for were judicious.

 

For example, in Act 3, Scene 2, when Hamlet is prepping Horatio to observe the King’s reaction during the play Hamlet has prepared for him, here are some of the notes given:

84: comment: observation

85: occulted: deliberately hidden

86: unkennel: a term describing the driving of a fox from its lair

89: Vulcan’s stithy: forge of the Roman god of fire and metalworking

92: censure of: i.e. forming an opinion about; seeming: appearance, behavior

 

Here’s the passage:

I prithee, when thou seest that act afoot,

Even with the very comment of thy soul

Observe my uncle. If his occulted guilt                      85

Do not itself unkennel in one speech,

It is a damnèd ghost that we have seen,

And my imaginations are as foul

As Vulcan’s stithy. Give him heedful note,

For I mine eyes will rivet to his face,                          90

And, after, we will both our judgements join

In censure of his seeming.

[Maurice Jones as Hamlet in Chicago Shakespeare Theater's 2019 production]

The reading is enhanced, made easier, by this helpful edition. I now want to read all of the plays in these editions. I picked up Hamlet in Oliver’s room, thinking, there is a reason I needs must read this text again (Shakespearean English is quite addictive!). And there was. The embodiment of madness, was it not of love fomented? Was it purely of his father’s motive? And what did that entail? I’ve been reading it to my mother, and we love to repeat to each other, “The play’s the thing / Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the King.” It’s an oral art, a text made to be used onstage. It is simultaneously some of the best poetry in our language. I wonder if it is really passing out of use now. I mean, do kids love this language as much I did at their age, and still do?

[Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 2, on Shakespeare at Play's iOS app]

When The Poem Belongs to Everyone: An Editors' Roundtable on Publishing Collaborative Poetry [by Kristina Marie Darling]

The following editors have been kind enough to offer insights about the review process for collaborative poetry submissions, as well as the unique challenges and opportunities associated with publishing collaborative poetry...

Tony Trigilio, author of Inside the Walls of My Own House:  The Complete Dark Shadows (of My Childhood) Book 2, among many other collections of poetry and criticism, and Editor-at-Large for The Columbia Poetry Review.  

Christopher Kondrich, author of Contrapuntal, former editor at Denver Quarterly and current Senior Poetry Editor at Tupelo Quarterly.  

Justin Lawrence Daugherty, editor of Jellyfish Highway Press and Prose Editor for New South.  

_______________________________________________________________________________

KMD:  How does the review process differ (if at all) for collaborative poems vs. single-author poems?

TT: The review process for collaborative poems is the same, for me, as it is for single-author poems. As an editor, I try to determine what the poem is attempting to do, and then I evaluate whether I think it does this well enough to include it in the magazine. I have to add, though, as a person who’s drawn to artistic collaborations, I get an extra thrill when a collaborative piece makes it into the magazine. As writers, we don’t undertake collaborative projects as much as artists in other fields do, and because of this, I try to do all I can to make collaborative work visible.  

CK: It doesn’t change. When submissions arrive, either single-or-collaboratively authored, cover letters are shuffled to the very back of the batch. So, at Denver Quarterly, we never knew a poem’s authorial origins, and I really liked that process. I found it to be more intimate, in a way, to greet poems without mediation. At times, while reading, I could sense the presence of more than one voice. Sometimes that resulted in the discovery of collaborative work. Sometimes not. Through this process, where the voices, presences and authors of a poem only occasionally aligned, I came to see the division between collaborators as more and more porous. And, I think I can speak for my former Denver Quarterly editors, that collaborative work was something we found really compelling, as we did other kinds of hybrid work.

JLD: I’m not sure that the process changes at all. I’m meeting the work where it’s at and where it’s trying to be and investigate the work from there. I suppose one unique concern is in the blending of voices. Are they writers working together well, if the distinctions are noticeable? I also am especially excited with the submission of collaborative works and wish I’d see more of them.

KMD:  Does your definition of collaboration encompass work by writers and visual artists, writers and composers, or collaborative teams working in emerging genres?  Relatedly, can you speak about the decision to narrow your definition of collaboration, if applicable?

TT: It's all collaboration to me. I come from a background as a musician, writing music and playing professionally in bands when I was younger, and now doing the same as a serious hobby. In bands, you see the results palpably—and hear the results loudly—when you’ve negotiated and compromised and essentially collaged everyone’s strengths into the tapestry that is the song. For me, the same principle applies for collaborative writing or collaborations between writers and composers or writers and visual artists. I also see working with an editor as a collaborative act—the editor is another set of eyes and ears who can give you valuable feedback you can’t always get from the voices in your head. Even my own singular pieces of writing are “collaborative” if you consider that I pass along drafts of new poems to my closest poet-friends for their feedback. I can point to almost every poem of mine and show where it benefited from something added or subtracted by a friend in a critique group—and this, for me, makes the seemingly solitary process of compositing a single-author text a collaborative act.

CK: Absolutely. I think predetermining or pre-defining collaborative work as between like writers or artists has to be detrimental, in some way, to the kind of spirit, intention, practice, process and exploration of collaborative work that makes it so exciting. I also think collaborative work doesn’t necessarily need to be equal in the amount of contribution. One of my favorite poems, Peter Gizzi’s “Beginning with a Line by Simone Weil,” is collaborative, I think, even though it’s almost completely his language. Then there’s Lauren Haldeman’s video poems, a few of which were in an issue of Tupelo Quarterly last year. She wrote, illustrated, produced, composed and filmed each piece in a way that is self-collaborative. Gizzi and Haldeman have expanded my understanding of what collaborative art is, so I’m always interested in whatever new manifestation/variation on the collaborative comes my way from writers and artists across all genres and media.  

JLD: I think the collaborative work is a malleable, shifting thing. As with what has been said, collaborations work on a variety of levels. In a novel-in-progress, I borrow a first line from Traci Brimhall’s Our Lady of the Ruins. This is collaboration, in a sense. I’m also finishing a book with Jill Talbot and our process is collaboration, but it’s also a call-and-response. We write sections separately and in response to each other. Sometimes, we’ve only decided on a focus or a theme and we work independently. But, when we start the response, there is always a collaborative blending. I am writing to Jill and there’s a way the styles sort of meet each other at a specific place.

KMD:  From a publisher’s perspective, what are the advantages of publishing collaborative work?

TT: You’re communicating to the reader that this text was the product of an explicit dialogic exchange among artists. It puts the collaborative work in a different space—gives it a different textual/vocal/performative register for readers to respond to. When I read collaborative work, I hear it spoken or performed in my head in multiple voices, even if it is supposed to read on the page as a fictive single voice.

Kudos to Tom Clark [by Vincent Katz]

Over the past 5 years, Tom Clark has been quietly publishing some of the best work of his life (which is saying a lot). I identify the following books of poems:

Feeling for the Ground (BlazeVOX, 2010)

Something in the Air (Shearsman, 2010)

At the Fair (BlazeVOX, 2010)

Canyonesque (BlazeVOX, 2011)

Distance (BlazeVOX, 2012)

The Truth Game (BlazeVOX, 2013)

Evening Train (BlazeVOX, 2014)

There may be others. These seven books account for some six hundred plus pages of poetry that see Clark deeply investing his earliest poetics with a hard-hitting concision in the facture, combined with a wistful yet ultimately optimistic sense of observation. This observation can take place in the poet’s immediate neighborhood, the changing fabric of north Berkeley, where he lives with his wife, Angelica, or it can travel the universe, via Clark’s omnivorous reading and wide-ranging research. He uses his knowledge knowingly, that is, specific details are marshaled in the service of a deeper message, delivered with wit and sophistication.

There is much that is elegiac in the tone of these poems, but the emphasis on the mind thinking and the eloquence with which these tonalities are orchestrated add up to an experience that is terrifically energizing. The way Clark uses line-endings and continuations is unerringly precise. We know we are in the presence of a master. Here is an example, the poem “To a Certain Friend,” from Something in the Air:

 

 

Presence comes before everything, even before being

The you to whom everything once belonged

If by everything one means the fullness of nature’s beauty

You must remember now that much has been taken from you

Grief too will go from you as from sorrowing songs

Sorrow goes, leaving nothing for you after a while

But the memory of the melody, some old familiar tune

That’s lingered on long past the moment you first sailed

Gracefully into the room, as if all the modern languages

Were coming down to me so that I could say these things

 

Then there are poems that are haiku-like in their brevity, American takes on the immediate and the passing, such as “Fame” from At the Fair:

 

A hot dog paper blows across

the infield, passing into

shadows near third base.

 

Other poems register, in language that becomes surprisingly activated, a particular scene observed. One such poem is “Full Moon through Clouds” from Canyonesque:

 

Illuminating

the brief deep blue middle

of the night window

between the third

and fourth in a series

of cold Pacific storms

through an opening

in the flotilla of big

low rain saturated

city light pink underside

tinted clouds

a brilliant full moon

 

Some of Clark’s observations take place on the web, and those familiar with his blog Beyond the Pale can attest to his acuity in combining words with carefully researched images. Here’s one example, a poem embedded within a series of images, Clark’s usual posting technique. This time, the poem comes from painter Jim Dine:

Beyond the Pale

 And Clark himself adds a comment:

 “In case it doesn't totally go without saying, there are a lot of poems in this giant poem of Jim's, and a lot of meanings, Jim's, yours, mine — and he's open to all of them, of course.

Sometimes an incorrect educated guess is the only thing that will get you through the night.

Had stubbornly thought maybe somebody would get up the nerve to pip a squeak about the poem, think it's great, hate it, have a feeling, one way or another, as in — whatever, like, don't like, am confused by, but — dream on, old timer.

Pretty obvious that at least the hosts here (okay, boring old people, but we get to think things too, nothing so smart as the thoughts of the idiot young, but still) were impressed, honoured, grateful.

The psychogeographic mapping power, gestural energy and emotional drive of the thing, remarkable.

To entertain the weird idea that poems should mean or say anything at all about anything real, or have anything at all real buried within them, or should deserve and earn and receive actual serious attention, before being filed under whatever idle categorical predisposition, is, of itself, a sort of violation of the current way of things — too demanding, like. To be serious, to mean something, to admit to and attempt to honestly articulate strong feeling — total no-no's nowadays, ask any ambitious junior professor anywhere.

Just saying.”

Why Language Matters [by Bob Holman]

Language Matters with Bob Holman is now available to stream on PBS Video. 

There’s a new Language Movement in town. 

I remember when Charles and Bruce began publishing L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E, how their writing made me think of language in a new way. Whether I’m in Australia, or on a reservation in South Dakota, when people say they are talking “in Language,” what I know is that they’re talking in their Mother Tongue. To these folks, English is not Language, English is the way you get along. Language is who you are, words that have been passed down through generations. 

“Language Matters” is the first nationwide media recognition of the Language Crisis, which is not just about languages, but cultural diversity. It’s about global homogenization, the Pringleization of society, about cultures being steamrollered under globalization. The growing call to action for language preservation is a drive to see the cultures of the world through a lens of understanding and respect, of seeing the world through a cultural lens, not just a political one. The problem is that in this era of the consciousness of literacy, in this world of hard science, endangered languages and cultures are disadvantaged; if you don’t have the quantification, the metrics, you don’t really have something to say. Quantifying languages is complex (I’d like to say impossible, but I can’t). This is where the poets come in. 

Four years ago, when we started “Language Matters,” people were saying there were 7,000 languages in the world. Now there are 6,000, not because we’ve lost that many languages, but because now that these numbers are really starting to count for something on the political table, linguists are beginning to hedge. It’s hard to know exactly how many languages there are, and harder to enumerate speakers. It’s not like counting the number of pandas. In the prologue to the motion poem “Khonsay,” where each line from a different endangered/minority language, we split the difference, say there are 6,500. And the reason I used the “endangered/minority” construct is because linguists also disagree on the at-risk level of many many languages. 

When I was in Wales asking people if they spoke Welsh, there were people with a junior high level of vocabulary who were quite proud that they could speak Welsh. Others, who were absolutely fluent, said they couldn’t really speak it. They were hanging out with people who were born into the language, who knew more slang. 

The only thing everyone agrees with is that huge numbers of languages, languages that have been around, usually, for millennia, are dying out right now. 

When I tell people we’re losing half the languages on the planet by the end of this century, unless we do something about it, they never ask “how many languages is that, exactly?” Instead, their reactions are always “yes, let’s do something about it.” And again, this is why I think that participating in the Language Movement, helping to protect all languages, is part of the job of the poet in 2015. It’s a movement to protect the diversity of languages in the world. A movement to give respect to all languages. A movement to appreciate that each language has its own poetry, and is an important part of an Ecology of Consciousness.

Digital Consciousness connects us all. But are we listening to each other? Are we respecting each other’s traditions? It’s great to have “Language Matters” find its way out into the world, four years after David Grubin and I had that lunch. When I was working on “The United States of Poetry” with Mark Pellington and Joshua Blum, Josh, who gave me a dictum about TV that I’ll never forget. “The first rule of making a television program, is to get it on television.” The national broadcast of “Language Matters on PBS is the end of that quest, of that story.

Which means it’s the beginning of the journey. Now that people have seen the show, what about the call to activism inherent in it? So I ask all you poets out there to live like Natalie Diaz, and help your own Language find its way into the world. And if that Language happens to be English, well then you don’t understand the part about what Language is. Help me get this program into places where languages are struggling to survive and a screening of the film will give cred to the work. Find languages around you and learn from them. Take seriously the role of the poet as a protector of language, not just a user. 

There’s nothing like writing a poem, to take words, each one with its own history, multiple meanings, and build a sculpture of meaning. It’s a gift, the words that come to us. People have sparked these sounds, people have laid down their lives for their continuation—language is the essence of humanity, and poetry is the essence of language. 

Working with linguists has allowed me to see language from the other side. The collaboration of science and art is good for everybody. If you never could understand the people who come up to you and say they can’t understand poetry, I recommend your going to a linguistics conference and try to understand what those people are talking about! 

But to me that’s what the future holds. Sit through a lecture in a language you don’t understand, listen to the poetry of a language you’re trying to learn, place yourself in a situation where English is useless, learn what Language really is. This is the clarion call of our time. This is why Language Matters. 

To learn more about endangered languages, check out the Language Matters educational resources, visit the Endangered Language Alliance, and write info@elalliance.org

The Chicago School of Poetics Turns Three! (Check out our new master class with CAConrad)

The Chicago School of Poetics survived the “terrible two’s!” According to WebMD, this is a milestone in our cognitive development, even if it feels like we’re sometimes running out of energy. At age three, kids tend to let their imaginations run absolutely wild, and we’re no different. That’s why you should join us for our current master class with CAConrad on Saturday, October 18! Your writing will absolutely benefit from a jolt of imagination with CAConrad as your guide. Plus, educators get a 20% discount!

Description: Study with CAConrad in this one-day online class, RADICAL INSISTENCE: A (Soma)tic Poetry Workshop. (Soma)tic poetry rituals provide a window into the creative viability of everything around us, initiating an extreme present where we learn how even in crisis we can thrive through the poems, as well as learn to collaborate in unexpected ways with other artistic disciplines. In our Chicago School of Poetics workshop we will take notes together for the poems, but we will also talk about how to always be able to see the poems around us. We will discuss the places that seem to prevent us from writing, and we will build rituals within those very places, because if we can write there we are free to write anywhere, whenever we want. A poetics of autonomy is a poetics of RADICAL INSISTENCE, and it is for all of us.

Reserve your seat now (click here). (Class sizes are limited to maximize interaction with the instructor.)

Class Date: Saturday, October 18, 2014
Time: 1 p.m.– 4 p.m. CST
Duration: 1 day (class meets once, for 3 hrs.)
Instructor: CAConrad
Location: Online

Thanks to all who have helped us reach our mini-milestone!

Here’s a brief Q&A about the School's mission and format with the School’s founder/director, Francesco Levato.

Larry Sawyer: What makes the online instruction at The Chicago School of Poetics so different?

Francesco Levato: I think there are a number of aspects of The Chicago School of Poetics that work toward differentiating our programs. Our instructors are all publishing poets who are also very active in the literary community as editors of literary journals, curators of reading series, and as performers themselves. This allows us to offer our students insight into, and advice for working with, publishers and the larger literary scene. Our video-conferenced classrooms allow students from anywhere to work with instructors they would not otherwise have the chance to work with, and to do this in a face-to-face setting. This system also allows us to provide students with access to poets like Charles Bernstein, Eileen Myles, Pierre Joris, Ron Silliman, and CAConrad, through our Master Class series. We have had students attend these and our regular classes from all over the world. It’s a unique experience to be able to work with a poet like Bernstein from my own home while sharing my work with classmates from Japan, Australia, and Morocco. Also, for what students are getting from the classes, it's much more affordable than instruction found elsewhere. We go beyond critique and allow students to see inside the writing process of the instructors in a truly collaborative environment. We’re happy to be celebrating our three-year anniversary. It's been a team effort.

How have students responded to the classes so far?

The response so far has been great, with students returning regularly for both core courses and master classes. In particular, students have commented on: the breadth of our instructors’ knowledge; the variety of in-class writing exercises and how these are both accessible to newer students and challenging for more experienced poets; on the surprise at, and importance of, being exposed to poets and poetic strategies not usually found in other programs, especially MFA programs; on the collegiality, richness, and depth of discussion with classmates and instructors, and how such has led to rewarding collaborations between students that carry on beyond the classroom; and also on the excitement at being able to participate, from a distance, in performance-based courses like Pulse Poem Pulse where students explore poetry through aural, visual, and musical performances.

How is a typical class structured? 

Our instructors design their courses to best suit both the needs of their students and the particular needs of a course’s thematic arc. Because we’re independent we have that flexibility! However, all courses typically include: a combination of short lectures to introduce poets, poetry, and poetic strategies that are unfamiliar to students; readings and discussions to expand on those concepts; writing and/or performance exercises designed to allow students to experiment with those strategies; and in-depth discussion of student poems in a workshop format. Have a look at all of our Fall course offerings by clicking here.

Chicago School of Poetics Core Faculty: Barbara Barg, Kristina Marie Darling, Steve Halle, Francesco Levato, Sharon Mesmer, Larry Sawyer, Laura Skokan

The Rivers Between Us: A Conversation Beginning in the Hudson River Valley with Claire Hero (Lea Graham)

The writer, Claire Hero, and I are neighbors here in the Mid-Hudson River Valley.  I live in Poughkeepsie and she, across the river, in Esopus.  We are also both transplants to the area.  We thought it would be interesting to begin a conversation about our sense of the river valley and see where it took us.  We were curious to find out how or if it had influence in our current writings.  You’ll find New York’s Hudson here, but our talk moves out to New Zealand, Northwest Arkansas, Minnesota, Chicago and Worcester, Massachusetts. We hope you’ll enjoy the ranging and exploratory nature of our talk as much as we did.

 

Claire Hero is the author of the chapbook, Dollyland (Tarpaulin Sky); Sing, Mongrel (Noemi Press) and two other chapbooks: afterpastures (Caketrain) and Cabinet (dancing girl press). Her poems have appeared in Black Warrior Review, Columbia Poetry Review, Denver Quarterly, Handsome and elsewhere.

 

***

 

LG:  I have been thinking a lot about how much I love the Hudson—and the trains that come with it and how it ties me to my home geography on the Arkansas, but how so often I feel daunted by all that the Hudson River brings--the historical significance of it (the Half Moon, the Hudson River School of Painters, etc.) and the enormity of its geographical properties (the estuary itself and the canyons that exist within it).  Sometimes the information bundles that come with the river and this valley sort of stun me in my writing.  

 

Btw, I like the notion of the frozen river between us!  We are neighbors, for sure, but the river as some kind of division or organizing line is interesting.  I always love how people say to me:  "Oh...you really need to move to this side of the river."  What they mean is the political left-ness of the communities to the west of the river, but they use "this side of the river" as a metaphor to talk about it.

 

How does this particular geography affect you?

 

CH:  Stuns, yes. The Hudson River Valley reminds me so much of New Zealand. In part this is due to the silencing factor of the landscape. What is there to say about the sublime?  

But I also like the Hudson Valley, I think, because it has always been a shipping lane. A thoroughfare. The means of exploration. It's like a poetic line.

 

LG:  Yes, the sublime....  I think in some ways for me, the Hudson River Valley reminds me of a grander version of the Arkansas River Valley, partly where I grew up and where my paternal side of the family is from (originally, store owners and cotton farmers in the bottoms). We just didn't have that sense of grandeur.  I mean Arkansas is, after all, considered--or at least for me in my childhood—part of the raffish edges of America!  So in so many ways, it is easier to see it without the grandeur of early U.S. history and the connection to the ocean (hence, Europe) getting in the way.  One of the things that I learned years after I had left home which helped me to reverse this notion of my home place as "backwards" was to read that there were so many accessible rivers that crossed and connected in the state of Arkansas that there wasn't an immediate need for roads.  You could get anywhere more or less in the state on the waterways.  Roads have always been a sign of progress, a measure of how successful or progressive a community is and its desire to connect with the outside and exceed the parochial.  It was a kind of relief and delight to read that the delay in road building was at least in part because of the river roadways that naturally existed.

 

CH:  Rivers as roads.  The Hudson River has frozen this year, two feet thick in some places, but the shipping lanes continue.  Things - information - passes through the Hudson Valley.  We are a thoroughfare.  We are a destination and a means through.  We can stand on the Walkway and watch the river move through and some of us cross over and some of us jump.

 

In New Zealand I was intimidated by the landscape.  It was too sublime.  Either you call out your name and hear only echoes of your own mutilated voice, or you pass through areas so empty, so unfinished, that you realize your car could tip over the edge and no one would find you.  In New Zealand I had to focus on the animals, which were entirely prosaic: sheep, millions of them, bleating each spring into silence.

 

But in New York, everything is wild.  It bears the oldest marks of white colonization of any place I have ever lived; stone walls, like rivers, like arteries, pass information through the broken forests.  Yet it doesn't feel entirely settled yet.  Coyotes howl through the nights.  There are whispers of bears.   New York doesn't have billboards, not really, no signs to clutter up the view.  The landscape feels almost languageless, in a way, as though anything could be scrawled across it, yet it is so wild, so lush, that you know that any mark you made would be, within the month, eaten by weed or water.

 

LG:  Languageless.  I completely agree.  But here's the dissonance for me:  It looks wild, lush and all, but the knowledge of how long people have been here--and particularly, the Europeans--makes me feel like anything I think about this river, this valley has already been thought, already been written about, discovered, or rendered into art.  I especially think about the painters—Thomas Cole and the other Hudson River School.  Cole was thinking seriously about this place, its water and sky, or as he referred to it, “the soul of all scenery,” about 200 years ago.  While his concerns were mostly different than mine, I still find it daunting to think about the length of time people have been here and thinking hard on this place.

 

CH:  "Already been written about, discovered."  - To say that is to say we live in a fixed place, but the thing about places is that they are never fixed.  They bleed through boundaries.  Seeds, animals, humans: everything moves through, leaves traces, makes changes.  I'm thinking about the problem of this dissonance in two ways: palimpsest and translation.

 

Place names, stone walls, brass plaques: these are palimpsests.  I can see traces of the world that was here before, but somehow, I can't really touch it.  A mile and a half from my house is the church where Sojourner Truth's owners went each Sunday.  It's a museum now.  Inside, an older woman in a floral hooded sweatshirt will show you cases with wampum and bone fish hooks, moonshine bottles and an egg beater, the remnants of a sleigh factory destroyed in 1901.  None of these things help me understand where I have landed, yet somehow they congregate into an image.  A sentence.  A vocabulary for Esopus.  And there are other palimpsests: the bones of animals on the shoulders of the road, the wasp globes in the trees that winter reveals, the remains of someone's picnic washed up on the river bank.  In a poem like "reviving Coyote" I was trying to address such palimpsests: the coyote roadkilled at the end of my street growing through elements taken from women's Indian Captivity narratives.

 

 

reviving Coyote

 

Coyote slinks out of the road & into my hands. Out of my hands & into my mouth. With my teeth she bites the bark in two that binds her. With my tongue she licks the placenta off the words. Coyote steals out of my mouth & into my hair. Out of my hair & into my skin.  In my skin she drags the forest floor, looking for the bodies. In my skin she hacks back the dark. (& who are those masked that ring round the wood?—) Coyote sneaks out of my skin & into my lungs. Into my nose. With my nose the earth is clean as paper.  Coyote scrawls herself across it, crawls into my hands. With my hands she rends the voles in two. With my hands she opens a door. Inside I am waiting. Inside I offer her a kind of apple, some Indian cake, a bed of hides, & didn't we bed down, Coyote & I, in this shabby cave while the hunters searched for us in the vast boscage of the body? Didn't we couple in our fear? Coyote runs over my snowy terrain, marking my skin with her claws. How do I tell you that my body is the road upon which Coyote dies? How do I rear what births from my mouth?

  

CH:  Then there's translation. Recently I've been interested in bacteria, specifically in invasion and translation. Bacteria exchange DNA with members of their own and other species in three ways, but the most interesting to me is translation, whereby a bacteria cell can absorb naked DNA left by a dead cell and add it directly to its own. This leads to change, to adaptation. The “evolutionary butterfly effect,” as explained by the Italian biologist Telmo Pievani, is “the uncontrollable propagations of nonadaptive effects beginning from a functional modification.” Or, as Emily Dickinson would put it, “Infection in the sentence breeds.”

 

I am an invasive species. Anything I wish to say about the Hudson Valley has to pass through a mouth that has opened in many places. These places change my language, my hearing, my sense of how to name the world and what the world includes. I carry place in my accent, my mouth which refuses to give up the Minnesota O even after years away, and in my vocabulary, which swaps and absorbs new names for old things. To be transient is to be always translating, it seems, so there are gaps, but there is also that possibility of infection, of a new organ arising from a new combination. This is what I was getting at in a poem like “[Dredge up].”

 

 

DREDGE up

the earthwords,

hook them

onto your tongue –

 

*

 

these castings:

            the breakdown

of organic

matter

 

terraundeforming

 

*

 

& the slow

articulation

 

joint to joint

 

tongue to

whatever emerges

 

with various organs &.

 

 

 

LG:  The palimpsest and translation, yes.  As you talked about the church turned museum and all of the traces (moonshine bottles, egg beater, etc.) that are left from the turn of the century, I began to think of the various ways I’ve experienced that in all of the places I’ve lived.  Growing up for a time with my maternal grandparents on a large and working farm outside of Fayetteville, Arkansas, there were all kinds of traces of what had been there before.  One of the enduring images in my work is a toolbox stowed in the bathroom that was full of arrowheads, fishhooks, grinding stones, and Civil War cannon balls.  Each morning I would go into the bathroom and consider the mystery of that box containing the objects discovered from plowing.  These physical objects in this particular place connected with my learning Arkansas history:  my grandparents’ farm wasn’t so far off The Trail of Tears.  A few years ago, while visiting my father, who lives in the Arkansas River Valley area, I went to look at the gallows where Judge Parker, the “hanging judge,” presided.  I discovered not only that the names of those killed at the gallows were largely indigenous names, but that nearby was a bend in the river where you could have seen the tribes floating by on their forced relocation to Oklahoma.  The Trail of Tears happened in more ways than one.

 

When I moved to urban places, I found these remnants in different ways.  In Chicago, there are the storefronts and cornices that are left over from businesses long gone that you notice for their elegance and/or out of place-ness within the surroundings.  For about a year or so I worked at the Jane Addams Hull House Museum as a docent. The house is located on the University of Illinois-Chicago campus and was a pretty stark difference against the surrounding architecture.  To be sitting in this house that helped birth the Settlement House movement and early social work, but that was adjacent to the 1970s architecture of the campus, felt like a secret, in some ways.  I had a sense of that neighborhood before the university had arrived.  There was a quiet and solemnity among the 19^th century furniture and art that created an energy against Halsted’s traffic bustle, co-eds and Greektown up the street.  Teaching at the university when I was a grad student was a similar experience (though different sense of time) since we were teaching in classrooms with bolted down desks and these long, thin bullet-proof windows.  The university had been built around the time of the Chicago Riots and that history was built into its very rooms.  One of my early teaching tactics around analysis was to ask students why they thought their seats were bolted to the floor. 

 

When I moved to Worcester, Massachusetts, where I lived for eight years, I noticed the palimpsestic nature in the names of places.  When you talked to a Worcester native about Rizutti’s Goodnight Café burning down, he or she might say, “Oh, you mean what used to be Old Billy’s Lounge.”  There was even a certain pride among people who could name what the place had been called several businesses earlier.  And as you said, I wasn’t quite sure that it helped me understand where I was, but it did accumulate as image and tone of the place.  

 

I think you’re exactly right about translating.  The mouth that has opened in other places.  While the Mid-Hudson River Valley may seem overwhelming at times, I, too, think that I translate the place out of my various accumulations and sensibilities that come from elsewhere.  You with your Minnesota O, me with my love of double modals and slower, circuitous talking and walking.

 

CH: I envy you your toolbox of mystery!  My grandmother’s house was similar.  She was a hoarder, part of the generation that went through the Depression.  Everything, from button to jar, had value and a multiplicity of possibilities.  Like words, they accrued and offered.  They were for picking over and dreaming through.

 

You know, Lea, it’s funny that we’re both from river towns.  I grew up in a river town in southern Minnesota, and I have been wondering lately if living beside the river made me restless.  Is this why we are both so transient?  Oceans are grand but annihilating, and lakes are stable but stagnant, but a river is somehow always new.  It is passage and possibility.  It endures and erases and alters.  Often as a prelude to writing I go for a walk, and here in Esopus it means down the hill, past the overgrown orchard where the deer linger, to watch the Hudson.  And even better, the Hudson is tidal!  It moves both ways.  Like a poem,

Friday February 21st: i pocket a tangerine [by Julia Cohen]

This is my last day with you! And it’s already late afternoon. I’ve been in meetings and then working on a syllabus for Experiments in Literature for the CCC system here. Sorry. There is so much to get to. I’m going to warble. I’m going to make a bird’s nest out of bobby pins.

 Here is one thing about objects I feel vulnerable to admit:

 I have joint-custody of my dog (this is not the embarrassing part, this is the part of genuine love). He lives in Denver right now, where he gets to go to the mountains and hang out at friends’ houses. Here is a little proof:

In Chicago, he’d be inside all day by himself and wouldn’t have that many houses to visit. His paws would be so cold. So I will go collect him in July when the city will be a sunny adventure for him. I think that without him, I started to grow attached to weird objects. For example, this badger stuffed animal:

 

That snout is just asking to be petted. Am I right?

 Eh, I’m pretty sure I’m wrong.

 Before this, it was a TempurPedic pillow. I spent 4 months living alone in Chicago while my furniture and all of my books were still in storage in Denver. I slept on a hard futon on the floor in an empty apartment. My bureau was a cardboard box. I bummed wifi from my downstairs neighbors for $20 a month. I ate weird meals, like bags of Indian food you buy at the grocery store and then boil??

 I focused on teaching. I’d come home, eat, watch something trashy like an episode of Gossip Girl, and then get back to work. Which meant it was me, a hard futon, and a TempurPedic pillow. This pillow was the only giving thing in my apartment. I didn’t name it or anything entirely screwy, but I started to feel a weird affection for it. Like, a step below a pet fish or how people care for a certain houseplant. I didn’t do anything with it, obviously, other than rest my head when I slept or lean on it when I worked. But there was this strange part of my brain that started to feel like this pillow was looking out for me. It was comforting me. This pillow had my back, physically and figuratively.  

 In an empty apartment, I had the space to think about objects. I had so many in storage. Occasionally I missed them, but despite my slightly abysmal descriptions above, I actually liked the emptiness. There were no distractions. I could focus more intensely. I could see the entire wall. The entire floor. I paid attention to the light. To the few pencils scattered around my bed. To the bobby pins.

In retrospect, I wonder if it allowed me to focus too intensively. I was more anxious, more obsessive in my thinking patterns. So now that I have all my possessions out of storage, I’ve been wondering about their almost unconscious interactions with my brain. Most of the items I own are strange and nostalgic. A chunk of aqua glass I picked up on a road trip after graduating college. A ceramic duck from my grandma’s house. Their sole value I suppose is to trigger memories, feelings. I think it keeps my brain more a-temporal. I guess what I mean is, I find myself deliberately cultivating living habitats that, when I look up from typing a sentence on my computer and plotting my lesson plan for tomorrow, almost immediately take me out of the present moment. In those wanderings through familiar yet slightly altered memories, new images are able to shake loose, as these memories slide into the current surroundings.

**

I haven't abandoned my train of thought about objects but: I began this week by bringing up Facebook. Let’s come full-circle, shall we? First, I want to emphasize that I wished people “shared” (and I need to do this too) other people’s links to their published work more often. I began by saying that I only “like” something if I actually read it. But I want to suggest, since so many magazines are “released” on Facebook, that we make more of an effort to not just “like” but to “share” the work when we think the issue or a particular piece is worth it. Or, re-tweet something instead of starring it. Because people moan about limited audiences, etc etc, but simply “sharing” something with your different community on FB might help widen the audience. I’m sure there is plenty of overlap, but who cares. So I want to encourage myself along with everyone else, to take the time to circulate work you genuinely respond to. This is a babystep, but a step toward and in support of others.

I like when I finally meet in person someone whose work (and public personality) I’ve been following for years on Facebook. It’s a weird sense of familiarity smashed up against the realization that you get to know someone in an entirely different, long-conversation-realface-go-to-poetry-readings-together-kind-of-way. A huge part of the awesomeness of moving to Chicago has been meeting poets who, geographically, I’ve only been able to admire and communicate with from afar. One such poet is Daniela Oslzewska. Her work appears in the online journal Alice Blue Review and I particularly like this one poem that animates objects and drags them into the relationship.

**

Day 5 Journal: Alice Blue Review

http://www.alicebluereview.org/

This review is on its 22^nd issue! That’s awesome. Prose and poetry: a simple, easy to navigate layout. Click on the names. Archived issues are also easy to find. This .org also publishes chapbooks, which you can find here: http://www.etsy.com/shop/alicebluebooks

 **

Day 5 Poetry Spotlight: Daniela Oslzewska

actually, neither of us deserves the certificate of completion

 

i am an emotion-


manufacturing machine,


corset-tight in beaded cow


bodice + the awards hall


is filled w/potted


ferns that are probably


actually special

agents
w/spot-poison darts


just twitch-quicking


for our weather


to get inclement again.


i pocket a tangerine


+ gold-leafed ashtray anyways—


who cares if they take me


out when you can’t


even meet my bare minimum


of wearing a cummerbund


well + not only loving me


back in real-time,


but loving me enough


to claim it in front


of the presidential security


cameras, on a tuesday night,


w/the whole nation


watching all slack-jawed?

 

I love that the title inculcates the reader in a failure to complete an unknown certificate class. There is nothing incomplete about this poem, yet it maintains an energy that’s rushed, breathy, calamitous in lower case. Simultaneously accusatory and exuberant. I love that the speaker’s contact with all the objects in this poem seems uncomfortable, delusional, or sensuous. I love the tanginess of the tangerine with the acrid angularity of the ashtray. And how the shape of the tangerine, regardless of its harsh and zinging name, seems to roll with the bustiness of the cummerbund. I love the privacy of accusations and desires in relation to the lost opportunity for public exhibitionism.

You can find her full-length book, from horse less press, here: http://www.spdbooks.org/Producte/9780982989630/default.aspx.

 **

Day 5 Poetry Exercise:

Write a poem in which you

1)    Have no lines that are longer than 5-6 words

2)    Invent 3 compound words, like “corset-tight” and “twitch-quicking”

3)    Create 3 images based off of the objects in the photos below (taken from around my house)

4)    Accuse the “you” in your poem of something for which you have to decide whether he/she can or cannot be forgiven

 

Photos:

 

Thanks for having me.

Rusty Water & Interrupture [by Julia Cohen]

Hi. It’s Tuesday as you read this but I’m writing on Monday. I’ve eaten 1.5 English muffins and drank countless cups of ginger tea. Rusty water sputtered out of my kitchen tap on Thursday and then I spent most of the weekend dehydrated, avoiding the scary orange water, Sochi Olympics style. Boiling it for tea somehow seemed like a compromise today. Since it’s President’s Day I’ve been curled on my couch, prepping for my English 101 classes this week while glancing out the window, watching the snow blot out the buildings.

I’ve been writing a sample introductory paragraph and body paragraph for my students to identify the structural elements and model them in their own essays. I spend a lot of time conveying to them that I’m never looking for correct answers, that interpretation is various, and that I hope to learn from them in each class. But then I also have to make sure they can organize their paragraphs to coherently convey their arguments. Which means I don’t make it mandatory that they use templates, but I strongly encourage it for their first few papers. And my hope in making these sample paragraphs—which relate to a recent article they read but not the one they’re currently writing about—is that we can walk through them together and discuss what each sentence contributes and how the order affects the reader.  And they can start to build more fluidity and connective tissue in their paragraphs. To substantiate the ideas I hope they genuinely care about.

So much of teaching poetry seems to be about enabling students to break down and reconfigure language in new ways. To dissolve templates and restrictive formulas that expectations of language can trap us in. How to embrace ambiguity. In teaching English 101, I’ve struggled philosophically with how to encourage specific structures and not feel like I’m facilitating the architecture of those very traps. Through this struggle, I think I’ve actually become less angry at language’s potential to silence. I work with these students to understand for the first time the difference between a thesis statement and a personal opinion; why a specific example is more persuasive than a list of hypothetical generalizations. My students tend to come to English 101 not yet feeling like intellectual citizens. And when they pass English 101, I think it’s important that they not only feel more connected to the critical process of reading and the potential to clearly express themselves, but that they can continue to question these articulations. In a sense, that revision is a mode of being in the world. And perpetually questioning and revising one’s thoughts is not a sign of weakness (of being “incorrect”), but of openness.

This might be a good example for my students of digression. Let’s get to it:

 **

Day 2 Journal: inter|rupture

http://www.interrupture.com

inter|rupture: publishes poetry 3 times a year. The current issue features 1-2 poems per contributor. On the one hand, it leaves you wanting more. On the other, it’s a good sampling and bios can direct you to more of their work if you like what you read. The format is crisp and easy to navigate and the poems seem short, though eclectic. Just from quickly clicking from poem to poem, you can see the varied line lengths and stanza formations, not to mention content.  Go explore.

Day 2 Poetry Spotlight: Tina Brown Celona

Celona has one poem titled “He Had Never Had a Fine Time of Anything.” Here it is:

He Had Never Had a Fine Time of Anything

I have space around me
but inside it is a screaming wind tunnel
of bluish babies
and zinc counters
with candied squash seeds
in small square dishes
I try not to notice
that my hair is growing white

before I have learned to walk
the allure of the nineteenth century
of the eighteenth and seventeenth centuries
of the early twentieth century
the appeal of the 1920s
the objective method in the novel
all these are relevant
I haven’t got a theory

structure imposed on a medium
a chalkboard and the periodic table
the Musee des Beaux-Arts
the Victorian couple on holiday
the architect slipping
away through the fog
under carriage wheels
and horses hooves trampled

**

Day 2 Brief Thoughts

 Celona’s poems work through the history of literature and theory via her own body and her personal history of anxiety and love. Her books, The Real Moon of Poetry and Other Poems and Snip! Snip! heave with the very acts of these knowledge acquisitions. Her poems generate meta-didactic meditations that reveal a level of vulnerability and candidness I admire, that I can hardly attain in my daily life. And these reveals are coupled with an incessant questioning that never allows us to rest. She asks, “Where is the lie? in the poem / or in behavior.” So now on to her new poem:

The first two lines create boundaries that immediately seem confused. The speaker claims there is space—but what kind? Space for what? This external room is interrupted: “but inside it is a screaming wind tunnel.” Inside what? The speaker’s house? Brain? Whatever this inside is, it’s loud and cluttered. Haunting images of bluish babies spin around with typical domestic items that could be found on a kitchen or coffee table. This stanza unnerves me because it captures how easily we misperceive a calmness in the cleanliness or ordered objects when we enter someone else’s house. Or the misperception of stability we assume when we see someone who presents as put together. Delicately placed offerings like candied squash seeds rocked by emotional tremors. That screaming wind tunnel, that is the internal monologue that envelopes us, which we can never fully share.  The messages we send ourselves that turn our hair white or the ways in which we distract and obsess ourselves to circumvent the “notice.” A metaphor for subjectivity.

The verb tense of the second stanza also jars me, “before I have learned to walk.” I expect the “have” to be “had,” in that I assumed the speaker can currently walk. The “have” throws the poem into perpetual learning, which juxtaposes the following list of quarantined literary eras: “the allure of the nineteenth century /of the eighteenth and seventeenth centuries / of the early twentieth century / the appeal of the 1920s / the objective method in the novel.” These are sectioned off, contained for easy reference in school and in criticism. Arbitrary historical designations superimposed on the messiness of life. And the suggestion of the overwhelmingness and weight of all that history and tradition making it challenging to confidently “walk.” 

In this poem, though, nothing can be sectioned off for long— categorization and hierarchy are replaced by a feeling without a theory, “all these are relevant / I haven’t got a theory.” With the “got,” the last line is candid, colloquial. Yet, there is always something slightly detached or unknowable even when the “I” manifests. For instance, while the I opens up, we’re still left to wonder how or why these literary periods are “relevant.” And since relevance changes person to person (or lyric I to lyric I), maybe the theory shouldn’t be static. Instead, these eras can be felt, they can be got, without a theory.

Temporal organization of literature segues into the physical. The third stanza begins with “structure imposed on a medium” and the drops us into “a chalkboard and the periodic table.” Slate and a tabular arrangement of chemical elements remind us of the convenient yet often arbitrarily organization of that the way we see and use things. Like this poem’s structure is an chance 8-line stanza repeated; the form determines the way the content will be apprehended, and—to some degree—what the content will be; like subjectivity determines the experience and thus, the poem.

At the same time, through Celona’s poem, which references John Galsworthy’s novel titled The Man of Property (1906), the structure of the novel is itself collapsed and re-appropriated in another medium. In this last stanza, the very constitution of a man implodes along with expected syntax as the architect (someone who typically imposes structure on a medium) slips into the fog (a medium blotting out everything) is mangled under a carriage, “and horses hooves trampled.” The syntax allows us to read it as the horse hooves, too, are being trampled along with the man. In a way, this mash of bodies and movements becomes the frenetic wind tunnel and the follicle of white hair. Nothing is calm. And why should it be?

**

Day 2 Poetry Exercise:

1) Find the oldest non-poetry book on your shelf. Open to a random page and select a line. This will be the title of your poem.

2) Select 5 items in your house that interest you. Write them down. Then, translate them into loose metaphors. For instance, I could select a black bobby pin as my item and then translate it into “a lost mustache” or “a black matchstick.” Cross off the original items and keep the metaphors/new images.

3) Make a list of 5 things you “try not to notice” or think about.

4) Re-open the book. Open to a random page and select 5 words from that page of your choosing.

5) Weave these metaphors/images, lists, and words into a poem.  Think about how you it relates to the title. You are welcome to add whatever additional phrases you want in order or this poem to feel complete. Share it with me!

 

Facebook, Best Ofs, Online Journals [Julia Cohen]

Day 1 Intro: Hi. Thanks for having me here. It’s snowing in Chicago right now and my record player is filling my living room with Nina Simone. I want to share with you the journals and poets who have rejuvenated my spirits this year but maybe a little context for this decision would be helpful?:

The last few months have been flooded with Best Books of 2013 lists. Many of the books on the Best Of lists are stacked on my bedside-table unread. And many amazing books that are not on the Best Of lists are also stacked on my bedside-table unread. For me, 2013 was a difficult year to sit down and read a complete book. I spent the first 12 months 1) on the job market 2) adjuncting in Denver 3) working in a university Writing Center 4) acting as the Associate Editor of the Denver Quarterly while 5) finishing and then defending my PhD dissertation. Also, 6) playing with my dog and 7) trying to be a decent friend and daughter and sister. I spent the next few months moving to Chicago and then adjusting to teaching new classes after very gratefully being offered a job here. Mainly I have been trolling composition textbooks and grading papers.

In a day divided between teaching, office hours, grading, and class planning on my laptop, one thing I’m grateful for is easy access to the myriad online journals. Peeking at poems during lunch gives me more energy than the dry, crumbly granola bars I keep somehow buying and storing in my desk.

I’ve noticed that journals tend to announce new issues on Facebook (and Twitter) without sending an email or notifying a readership through other mediums. And then contributors in a particular issue circulate their own links. It’s easy to “like” a link on Facebook without actually clicking on it. Or rather, it was easy for me to do that. I told myself, “I’ll ‘like’ it now and then I can come back and read it later when I’m done scarfing down this dry, crumbly granola bar.” Or, “Well, I do ‘like’ the idea that my friend has a poem published in [substitute any hundred journal names], but I don’t have time to read it this second.” So in 2013, my quiet and modest new years resolution was simply to read the poems to which my friends were linking before I clicked “like.” Because ultimately, when I let the Facebook world know that a poem of mine has been published, I hope my friends actually take the time to read it. I don’t necessarily want them to “like” it, right? They can be disturbed, unnerved, prompted to daydream, etc. I want to believe that poems cause some sort of reaction. I want to believe in a community of reciprocal writers who are not just interested in rounding up people to read their work, but are intellectually and creatively engaging the work of others.

 I have 5 days to have a conversation with you. Each day my plan is to discuss a journal that rocked me and focus on one particular poem from that issue. Then, I’m going to make up a writing exercise based off of the poem. I welcome you to post your poems in the comment box or email them to me or simply share them with your friends or your strangers

I’m not here to tell you that these are the best issues/journals of 2013. That’s not my intention. I’m here, as a biased and limited human, to tell you that these journals made me feel excited about language. In a year in which I was unable to strike a better balance for myself in terms of thinking and writing creatively, I am humbled, inspired, and disturbed by the work I’ve read. They gave birth to images, syntax, and enjambments that did not previously exist. I want to discuss with you their existence. I want you to react and interact with their existence. I want you to write poems even if you’ve never written one before.

***

Day 1 Journal: Similar:Peaks::

http://similarpeakspoetry.com/

Similar:Peaks:: publishes poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and interviews. Honestly, so far I have only read the poetry. It’s a relatively new journal and I’m intrigued by the format. It doesn’t publish large issues: “we will feature four posts of new literature every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.” I like this because it’s digestible yet persistent. When I glance at the names of their contributors I recognize about half, which is exciting because I can follow the poets I know I already love while also being introduced to ones whose work I’m not yet familiar with.

Day 1 Poetry Spotlight: Amy Lawless

Lawless has 3 poems up at Similar:Peaks::, all titled “The Secret Lives of Deer.” Here is one of them:

The Secret Lives of Deer

When the wolf and the deer look at one another, they both like what they see. The deer is a hearty mirror giving in to his reflection’s every whim. He doesn’t think of consequences. The wolf sees things as they are. When the wolf and the deer fall in love, it’s real. The wolf anticipates her lover’s every need. Some deer are selfish as fuck. But not this one. See: deer love a good narrative, and love taking charge of building one. He loves wooing, preying upon the wolf and also protecting her. The wolf changes shape into any chalice. You know, like a thesis statement. The deer is direct, a hook. The wolf understands and responds to this passion—probably on her back. Jupiter allows this trouble to unfold like a letter inside an envelope inside another envelop inside a bubble mailer. You’ve heard of “rock, paper, scissors”? But this is more like paper, paper, paper because both are writers and would resent all other conclusions.

I have your lending-hand. You have lent me your hand. I have let you have my hand.

**

Day 1 Brief Thoughts

I love the convoluted relational dynamic of this poem. Two animals (deer/he and wolf/she) love each other and “it’s real.” Okay. But each sentence complicates the one before. Two animals like what they see but by the second sentence the deer/he is a “hearty mirror” so that when we go back to the first sentence (“they both like what they see”) we now know that the relationship is more like Narcissus. Yet, the deer/he is not the reflection of the other’s self but the living object that reflects. But then “The wolf sees things like they are…The wolf anticipates her lover’s every need.” So the wolf is aware that she likes the deer because he mirrors herself? And if the deer is already giving in to the wolf’s “every whim,” how can the wolf predict “her lover’s every need”? My brain starts to scream WHAT KIND OF WEIRD RELATIONSHIP IS THIS? Well, isn’t that the question we should be asking about anything?

 Yes, I think so. Because nothing is isolated and everything is weird if we squint at it. If we paw and scrape it. If we let it breathe on us or let it rub our bellies. The wolf and the deer are not static creatures and their relationship drips with variance. The variance is intimate. This poem cultivates the feeling that the closer you inspect, the closer you “know” an object/subject, the more contradictory and multifarious it becomes. It’s playful and scary and here. This is intimacy.

How do we sustain and consume each other? How do we produce each other? As the poem continues the animals become both the elements of an essay (the wolf is the thesis and the deer is the hook) and writers of such texts. I appreciate how the tone sounds like a clairvoyant teenager animatedly evaluating strips of Victorian wallpaper.

The second paragraph of this prose poem is three short sentences, “I have your lending-hand. You have lent me your hand. I have let you have my hand.” I’m not sure if Lawless is speaking for the deer or the wolf or the narrator of the poem or herself. So then I’m not sure who the “you” is either. But I see the intention shifting through these sentences and how syntax holds and releases relationships. Body parts as impermanent gifts, as objects to be loaned and returned, as metaphors for something more internally unseeable. I like how the poem ends in a transitory moment that tricks us briefly into feeling the permanence of “having.”

You can read the rest of the poems by clicking on the link above and/or buy Amy Lawless’ new book, My Death, from Octopus Books.

 **

Day 1 Poetry Exercise: for ‘The Secret Lives of ______”:

1)    Think of a friend you have.

2)    Make a list of 4 characteristics your friend has. Is she forgiving? Jealous? An insomniac?

3)    Make a list of 7 weird actions/behaviors your friend has done since you’ve known her. One sentence or phrase per moment. Does she walk out of all the movies she goes to see? Does she brush her teeth with her eyes closed?

4)    Re-appropriate these attributes to an inanimate object or a nonhuman animal. For instance, I would change the above to: The lampshade brushes her teeth with her eyes closed.

5)    Write a poem that

                   A)   creates 2 images that embody 2 of the 4 characteristics

                   B)    incorporates 4 of the “weird actions” now attributed to an inanimate object or nonhuman animal

                  C)    describes what happens when you take that inanimate object/nonhuman animal on vacation. Or, describes what happens when you take the inanimate object/nonhuman animal as your guest to a wedding. What transpires? What do you learn through disruption or interaction? How does it affect you? Your relationships? Remember that feelings are always real.

Post your poem in the comments. Or, you can email it to me (julesycohen@gmail.com) and I’ll post it on my blog.

 

 

 

 

What’s New at The Chicago School of Poetics

 

Now in its second successful year, The Chicago School of Poetics (CSoP) is kicking off 2014 with truly unique online course offerings and amazing opportunities to work with leading international poets in an intimate and collaborative setting.

From the comfort of your home or a nearby café, you can participate in courses using our innovative and user-friendly program—choose face-to-face, real-time video or simply listen in. Join an international conversation—courses have included students from Morocco, Canada, and Australia, as well as from the United States. This is a friendly environment for anyone who is looking to refine their work and connect with others.

In order to give students more opportunities to work with our faculty, we have initiated a new 6-week shortened course format that costs less and requires less of a time commitment. We’ve also streamlined our website, so courses are easier to find and registration is only a click away. Click here to register now: Class sizes are limited to maximize face time with the instructors.

Also, check back at chicagoschoolofpoetics.com for registration information about our next master class with Pierre Joris on April 26.

The glowing space is ours. CSoP showed the way!
—Eileen Myles

This is what a school truly should be – think of Black Mountain College – beyond all the boundaries & borders.
 
—Ron Silliman

 

I am surprised at how much I have learned and how much my writing and editing process has evolved.
—Angie T.

 

I felt lucky to receive such input from an established poet and the price was a bargain because I felt I gained a lot from the class.
—Michael S.

 

Winter 2014 Course Offerings

Poetics Level I with Kristina Marie Darling
Saturdays, February 22 – March 29
Time: 10 a.m. – 12 p.m. CST
Blending lecture, written exercises, and in-class feedback this course is designed to help you view your poetry with the cold eyes that are necessary to make instinctual edits based on the many tools at your disposal.

 

Poetics Level II with Larry Sawyer
Saturdays, February 22 – March 29
Time: 12:30 p.m. – 2:30 p.m. CST
Poets use techniques such as automatic writing, random effect, shifts in writing method and even location, personal archeology, access to a wide variety of secondary source texts, found language, investigative poetry techniques, journal keeping, experiments with the basics of traditional forms, list poems, etc.

 

Pulse Poem Pulse with Barbara Barg
Mondays, February 24 – March 31
Time: 7 p.m. – 9 p.m. CST
Language is a poet’s instrument. This class focuses on developing dexterity and creativity with the rhythm, texture, and tonal qualities of language. Students will break language down to its melodic and percussive elements and explore rhythms and sounds from diverse, sometimes unusual sources.

 

Red-Headed Stepchild: The Unholy Spawn of Poetry and Story with Sharon Mesmer
Tuesdays, February 25 – April 1
Time: 7 p.m. – 9 p.m. CST
Students will examine some very early examples of what we now think of as “hybrid” writing, then blend the hallmarks of those early models (brevity, spontaneity, tightly-focused imagery) with contemporary ideas and techniques (collage, appropriation).

 

Shock the Monkey: Poetry and Mass Media with Larry Sawyer
Sundays, February 23 – March 30
Time: 10 a.m. – 12 p.m. CST
Marshall McLuhan’s statement that “Art is anything you can get away with” will be a stepping off point for an examination of how current or popular music, movies, and the cult of celebrity influences one’s world and therefore also one’s writing. Students will study the slings and arrows of the outrageous fortunes of present-day celebrities and use appropriation, investigative methods, parody, the conceptual, replacement methods, hybrid narrative, and ekphrasis to push the limits of their poetry.

 

Erasure Poetry with Kristina Marie Darling
Thursdays, February 20 – March 27
Time: 7 p.m. – 9 p.m. CST
This course will focus on erasure poetry, meaning poetry created by excising significant portions of a found text, which is then edited, shaped, and structured by the poet.

 

                                     

                                     

 

Chicago School of Poetics core faculty: Barbara Barg, Kristina Marie Darling, Steve Halle, Francesco Levato,  Sharon Mesmer, Larry Sawyer

 

Leave It to Beaver: The Lost Episode Guide [by Larry Sawyer]

Perhaps the archetypal “feel-good” family situational comedy, the television show Leave it to Beaver first aired on April 23, 1957 and provided viewers with a peek into the inner melodramatic turmoil of the Cleaver family at 485 Grant Avenue in Mayfield. Few at the time knew that “beaver cleaver” was a euphemism for a penis but the show’s writers didn’t stop there. (An early episode found June asking Eddie Haskell about his rubbers.) The most famous double entendre from the show dialogue surely must have been a concerned June Cleaver scolding “Ward, weren’t you a little hard on the Beaver last night?” Although in the late 1950s the media was strictly censored, this type of innocent raunch still flew stealthily right over home plate. The very few who did scratch their head or bat an eyelash or crack a smile at the realization that all the talk about Beaver wasn’t perhaps so innocent didn’t quite mind enough to report their suspicions to the censors, so the cast enjoyed a healthy run of six seasons. By the last season Theodore Cleaver’s day-to-day melodramas finally started to seem canned.

When the last episode aired on June 20, 1963 the nation had no idea that a president’s assassination was to be waiting on its doorstep just a few months later and that a war in Vietnam would soon be broadcast daily on every television screen, which had once been merely the source of idyllic scenes from other family-oriented sitcoms and variety shows.

Nearly every episode of Leave it to Beaver culminated in an absurdist epiphany from the “little goof.” Beaver’s illuminations offered proof that the outside world made absolutely no sense until his judgment of it was offered, and during the delivery of each epiphany, time nearly stopped until all those within earshot of the proffered wisdom had duly noted its relevance. Beaver’s mini-sermons-on-the-mount were always ludicrous yet often they were also right on the money. In the Cleaver household, where all except Wally had already resigned themselves to absolute entropy, Beaver’s asides resembled aphorisms, maxims, and even an absurdist version of Hindu darshana. According to Wikipedia “In many cultures, including Samuel Johnson’s England, many East and Southeast Asian societies, and throughout the world, the ability to spontaneously produce aphoristic sayings at exactly the right moment is a key determinant of social status. Many societies have traditional sages or culture heroes to whom aphorisms are commonly attributed, such as the Seven Sages of Greece, Confucius or King Solomon.” A maxim, uttered to advise, is succinct and offers little wiggle room for the listener. From the Latin maxima propositio, or “greatest premise” the most effective maxims seem like completely closed systems. Theodore Cleaver, however, in the delivery of his random epiphanies always gave the impression to viewers that he would be perfectly fine completely contradicting himself the following day—or even in the next five minutes. This utter adaptability made Beaver seem more advanced than the other members of the cast. Like a true Postmodern, Beaver would pick and choose knowledge at random and use only what worked.

 

from The Lost Episode Guide

Oh that Eddie Haskell’s parents stop by to tell Ward and June about their son’s latest atrocity but the Beave gosh overhears and mistakenly thinks they’re talking about him. He packs his bag and decides to hitchhike to Alaska where a kid can live without parents and stuff. Ward intervenes when Larry Mondello pays a visit to the Cleaver home carrying a suitcase full of peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches.

_____

Beaver and Whitey want to help their country after watching a filmstrip in school about oh boy Communism. Beaver decides the best way to help is to just stay in his room with the door locked for a few hours. Ward arrives home and convinces the Beaver that the best way to fight Communism is to come out and help mother with dinner by setting the table.

_____

Beaver gosh feels the soft pangs of love and gets Wally to help him pen a love letter to the object of his affections only to discover that the letter fell into the hands of their substitute teacher. The little goof has some explaining to do when she mistakenly surmises the letter is from oh boy Mr. Cleaver.

100,000 Poets for Change in Chicago: Private Eyes (They're Watching You) [by Larry Sawyer]

 

You might not think of this 1981 dab of pop schmaltz served up by the Philly duo Hall & Oates when you think about the National Security Agency but the song makes a point. Other than its obvious message about stepping out on a lover and the mayhem that ensues, in the context of our Chicago 100,000 Poets for Change event tonight it’s being used to spread a message that as our local, state, and federal governments become less and less transparent in their activities they are spending huge sums of money in their efforts to watch us. (Recent headlines also show that government employees have also been using their increased reach not only to spy on potential threats to national security but also ex-girlfriends and wives.)

It’s worth mentioning that increased surveillance to some degree does make our world a bit safer, but the larger question is what are we sacrificing for this safety and where is the line when collectively Americans need to say enough. From the elevated train you rode to work, to the convenience store where you bought a bagel, to efforts championed by some health insurance companies that would require potential customers to provide DNA mapping, technology and our efforts to make urban environments more livable are colliding in sometimes strange ways, indeed.

Poets, artists, and musicians worldwide tonight are getting together to talk about the issues that affect their communities for the third installment of the global 100, 000 Poets for Change. Join us! Details follow. (I’ve also included a journal entry about participating in my very first 100, 000 Poets for Change event three years ago.)
 

TONIGHT: Private Eyes (They’re Watching You): A special event in conjunction with 100 Thousand Poets for Change, 

 
7pm at Outer Space Studio
1474 N. Milwaukee Avenue, Chicago
near the CTA Damen blue line
suggested donation $4 

About: On September 28, 2013, thousands of poets around the world will make their voices heard. To declare the change they'd like to see most in the U.S. and throughout the international community, events are being staged worldwide as part of 100 Thousand Poets for Change. This night of poetry and activism in Chicago asks the questions: What is freedom of expression? Is surveillance dangerous?  Who chooses the information our government can access and censor? When has it gone too far?

FEATURING: Darren Angle, Barbara Barg, Joel Craig, Nina Corwin, Adrienne Dodt, Rey Escobar, Cean Gamalinda, Laura Goldstein, Jeanette Gomes, Kevin, Gunnerson, Nathan Hoks, Felicia Holman, J'Sun Howard, Noël Jones, Jennifer Karmin, Emily Lansana, Daniela Olszewska, Matthias Regan, Timothy David Rey, Larry Sawyer, Jennifer Steele, Keli Stewart, Russ Woods, and Lina Ramona Vitkauskas

**all proceeds to be donated to Kiva**

http://www.kiva.org

Logistics -- near CTA Damen blue line, third floor walk up, not wheelchair accessible

Co-sponsored by the Chicago Calling Arts Festival & curated by the 100 Thousand Poets for Change, Chicago Community Council 2013: Barbara Barg, Laura Goldstein, Jennifer Karmin, Timothy Rey, Larry Sawyer, Keli Stewart, and Lina Ramona Vitkauskas

Red Rover Series is curated by Laura Goldstein and Jennifer Karmin. Each event is designed as a reading experiment with participation by local, national, and international writers, artists, and performers. Founded  in 2005 by Amina Cain and Jennifer Karmin, the over sixty events have  featured a diversity of renowned creative minds.  Email ideas for reading experiments to us at redroverseries@yahoogroups.com.

About My First 100,000 Poets for Change: Bad Date America

I’m trying to remember when I first heard of 100,000 Poets for Change. I know as a poet I picked up on it much more quickly than the general populace probably. Anything with “poets” in the title would end up on my radar eventually. I do remember being on the phone with Michael Rothenberg at some point talking with him about something else and saying “so, what’s this 100,000 Poets for Change? I mean, 100,000? What do you mean by change? Whose change? What does that look like?” I remember Michael answering my questions fairly patiently, if not giving me the impression that I was being too skeptical. Almost the tone of his voice, from what I remember, being kind of like, don’t you get it?

I did get it and he knew I did, but I was asking questions because I was intrigued.

I do think that since being written up by the major news media (Huffington Post, methinks), poets and the public at large are taking it much more seriously as a vehicle for dialogue and a motivator for communities to band together and solve problems with art. Essentially that’s what it is. But its nebulous qualities are what makes it unique. It’s really all-inclusive, nearly to a fault. Bob Holman pointed out that the strength of it lies in the fact that anyone can take the idea and pour it into the mold of what works in their own community. I agreed.

For Chicago, my plan was to provide some sugar, maybe some hilarity, so the bitter pill of what was happening in America would go down a little easier. Everything in the news reminded me of being on a bad date. It was BAD DATE AMERICA. The idea of being stuck in a clock-watching scenario and grimacing through every moment of it. The worst bad dates also involve a CHAIN OF EVENTS that progressively worsens. “Well, at least THAT hasn’t happened, yet.”

Also, giving the event a conceptual theme might make the audience feel a bit better about an event involving 15 to 20 poets. It seemed to work.

After coming up with a viable concept, of course I had to act as MC and participate by reading my own poetry and recounting an actual bad date experience. I dressed up like a waiter, wore a white shirt and black tie, threw a towel over my arm, and seated each reader at the front of the room at the candlelight table we’d propped up just for the occasion. The audience tittered and gasped and I think came away with more of an understanding of how art can bridge gaps between communities and also grease the wheels of change. I enjoyed myself.

After all, has there been a time when more is at stake? In addition to the complacency on the part of many regarding the evidence that the earth is in danger of the kind of climate change that could at the least ruin lives and at the most result in a world war over resources, disruption in trade and eco-disaster, IN ADDITION TO THAT the United States was still involved in two foreign wars and the global economy was in the midst of a recession that had curbed everyone’s enthusiasm for anything. I was astounded to see that so many local poets and publishers agreed to participate, including: Kaveh Adel, Barbara Barg, Jen Besemer, Dan Godston, Laura Goldstein, Ezzat Goushegir, Kurt Heintz, Marcy Henry, Philip Jenks, Jennifer Karmin, Francesco Levato, Toni Asante Lightfoot, Monica Long, Anthony Madrid, Mario, Ario Mashayekhi, Charlie Newman, Ladan Osman, Timothy David Ray, Roger Reeves, Kenyatta Rogers, Jacob Saenz, Don Share, Keli Stewart, Tony Trigilio, and Lina ramona Vitkauskas. These poets have my heartfelt thanks and respect for being the first to light the fire.

"Al Farber who art in heaven" (by Mitch Sisskind)

(Ed note: We are in L.A. where it is a near certainty that conversations will eventually turn to traffic, just as in NYC they turn to real estate.  I was reminded of this poem by Chicago-born L.A. transplant, poet Mitch Sisskind. sdh)

 

1.

In days of yore when the men played pinochle

At Julius Jaffe’s apartment a tradition grew up,

A rhetorical set piece evolved whereby

Al Farber in manly tones would describe

The route he’d driven in his Oldsmobile

From Skokie to the Jaffe residence on

Wellington Avenue. As a rule he took

Dempster Street to Ridge Road,

To Peterson, then south on the Outer Drive

Exiting at Belmont. But oh there were occasions

When the rain fell or the snow fell or in summer’s

Blaze the asphalt on Peterson Avenue buckled,

Or the Outer Drive itself was closed for some

Cockamamie reason. Then drawing himself

To his full height and waving his arms about,

Al Farber would declare, “I stayed on Dempster

All the way to Sheridan Road! I had no choice!”

Railing on and on until -- falling silent as

Julius Jaffe shuffled the cards -- he had the air

Of a man staring into the void. But this lasted

Only a moment, and once again he exploded

And the window panes rattled and the

Ashtrays lurched around on the card table.

“What else could I do?” he pleaded, existentially.

“Ridge Road was closed off. Traffic was a mess.”

 

 

2.

Forty years he's gone! Christ, here was a man

Who owned dozens of businesses: dump

Trucks, a line of hair care products, a bowling

Paraphernalia store, carpet cleaning equipment,

Children’s furniture, sick room supplies --

All under the aegis of Al Farber Enterprises.

Yet he never ate his heart out over money matters

Nor in all those years we met at the Belden

Corned Beef Center did he show any interest

In financial vicissitudes. We spoke instead

Of getting from one place to another, of alternate

Routes when Lincoln Avenue was congested

Or Pratt Avenue was impassable, as it often was.

In fact, the ever-worsening congestion on Pratt

And in Rogers Park as a whole caused Al Farber

To make a solemn vow. “I will no longer eat at

Ashkenaz,” he told me, referring to the delicatessen

located at Pratt and Greenview. “It’s not worth my

Time to sit behind the wheel for forty-five minutes

For a corned beef sandwich, especially when

A better sandwich with more meat on it can be had

At the Corned Beef Center. It isn’t called

The Corned Beef Center for nothing! Aw haw

Haw haw! Ah ha ha! Aw haw haw haw haw!”

 

 

3.

But then came the day -- this too in the

Belden Corned Beef Center– when

Al Farber suddenly inclined himself

Across the Formica and spoke sotto voce:

“There was a time,” he said, “when the

Four of us – myself, Julius Jaffe, Gus Golding,

And Charlie Shapiro – would jump in the

Car after the pinochle game and drive

To Wilmette for an ice cream cone!

There was no traffic to speak of, Mitchell.

At the most, twenty-five minutes straight up

Sheridan Road where there was a place

Called the Dairy Bar on the border of

Wilmette and Kenilworth in that unincorporated

Area referred to as No Man’s Land.”

Pausing abruptly, he was overcome by a

Coughing fit and turned a bright blue, but

Somehow managed to say, “In Wilmette

Jews could live, but there was not one Jew

In Kenilworth. Not one!” And he died.

 

 

4.

Now in Los Angeles, lo, I am master of

Little-known routes and side streets bypassing

The cement mixers and FedEx trucks parked

On LaBrea Avenue or Highland. What others

Take forty minutes to drive, I can drive in twenty.

But this too is vanity because – and I make this

Public for the first time – I always feel not lost

Exactly, but not really there. Turning left

From Wilshire onto Rimpau, inwardly I head

North on Crawford Avenue in Lincolnwood,

Passing the Bryn Mawr Country Club, skirting

The sewage treatment plant at Howard Street,

On and on, all the way to Wilmette Avenue

Where Crawford becomes Hunter Road.

Picking up the children at Franklin and Western,

What in my mind’s eye do I see but the electric

blue roof light of a Chicago police car weaving

In and out of traffic on Milwaukee Avenue near

Where the Como Inn was. But the worst or best

Is this: alone in the Passat, I’m with Al Farber

In the Oldsmobile the day he said the hell with it

And stayed on Foster Avenue all the way

To Nagle. “I’m staying on Foster!” he cried,

And struck the steering wheel to challenge God.

But bear with my muse. It is not as it was.

 

RANDOM ACCESS MEMORIES, the poetry of Andrei Codrescu (a review of So Recently Rent a World) [by Larry Sawyer]

For decades Andrei Codrescu has seen many roles: cultural commentator, witness to the fall of the Soviet Union and communism in Romania, erstwhile comedian, filmmaker, respected literary editor, and educator but he's always primarily been a poet. When speaking of memory or social history, it's difficult to assume now that a collective we exists let alone for younger generations to understand older and vice versa. There is a certain randomness to memory. Codrescu opens his new and selected with a short aside on the ever-changing nature of the pronoun "I" and how over his years spent in America that "I" has changed. 

What the eye sees and what the mind remembers has changed with the takeover that technology has meant in our lives but we, as 21st century humans, are nothing if not persistent. As the pace of life seems to quicken, each moment takes on a seeming greater importance as the flickers of our existence speed up. Technology has closed gaps but also created a new abyss.

The original daft punks, poets have traditionally held as one of their roles gatekeeper for collective memory, although poetry also obviously provides pleasure and has no need to be useful in a strict sense. Andrei Codrescu's poetry serves several unique functions in addition to providing pleasure. It's an invaluable record of what the writing life of this poet became, which is transformative, as well as the details of how life on planet earth has changed in the past few generations as our 21st century lives become more complex. All of these facets are preserved here. Yet

(p. 166)

 

memory disregards context
it is an enemy of experience
therefore unreliable and since
basic memory is a condition of survival
i assume that we survive
in spite of experience

when one forgets as a philosophy
each forgotten thing is raised to the status
of a god (i.e. objective condition)
and makes everyone else remember<
things that they haven't experienced

some memories bring with them brand new
experiences different
from the original contexts in which they occurred
and thus set up the conditions
for brand new memories

most things endowed with memory die

prenatal memory is common property
but it is not 
objective

words and pictures are the only
things one can forget at leisure
and look up later

His underlying worldview always seems a bit more Buddhist and less Freudian. Codrescu emigrated to the United States in 1966 from Romania and his time here has sharpened his eye rather than dulling it. If he sometimes seems like the canary in the coal mine of our consumer driven society, he performs that operation with much humor, although of the black variety. 

(p. 256)

a petite histoire of red fascism

All connections
are made by energy.
The inert masses
know nobody & not
themselves. Nobody &
Not Self are well worth
knowing but connecting
them takes energy
so they are known
only by their masks
of inert proletarian 
matter--Bolshevik
statues. The people
with the most energy
employ themselves
to know the statues.
The statues are well-known
by the inert masses.
The people with just
a little less energy
are then employed
to interrogate the inert
proletariat. One energy
grade below, the police &
mental-health apparatus
energize the inert mass
which is now for the
first time broken up
into individuals.
Breaking it up releases
energy--enough energy
to respond to questioning.
The police level then ex-
tract a primitive narra-
tive from the recently
inert & this narrative
generates enough energy
& excitement to produce
a two-level discourse which
makes sense to the upper
energy level. New 
energy is created & soon
the top echelons are
introduced to the dis-
courses of Nobody &
Not Self. Together, 
the brass & the mass
envision the statues:
the energy of the mass
will henceforth be em-
ployed to make statues
of the brass.

It's this production, procreation, which provides the only new energy, which provides fresh resources to serve as grist to be thrown back into the mill of the system. In a sort-of circle jerk of meaningless repetitive political motion, the masses exist only to validate the worthless existences of the rulers. This cycle of manipulation is commemorated by the observance of hollow statues but in a complete breakdown of life over time the manufacture of these simulacra has become the only occupation. Life is a pursuit of energy, an increasingly rare commodity, and happiness no longer figures into anything. Not a poet to ignore the absurdities of American life, Codrescu at least gives us a laugh, while diagnosing some of the maladies of our current social condition.

Codrescu has always been able to quickly slip into and out of various personae. His first book was written in 1970 in fact from the perspective of a persona of his own invention, Julio Hernandez, a Puerto Rican living on the Lower East Side of New York. As an immigrant himself, it's no surprise that he writes that Hernandez "hovers saintly on the edge of all my action." Codrescu uses the persona of Hernandez to navigate what he calls "prison reality." 

(p. 101)

from a trilogy of birds

 

in birds is our stolen being, from summer to summer
they carry on my destruction, more obvious
as i get closer to death.
in the kitchen powerful lights stay on at night
watching the summer passage of birds.
the sea contains
their thick excrement, our longing to fly,
the sea changes color.
weak ships over the water.
i am seasonal.
i offer poisoned lights to passing birds
through the guarded door of the kitchen.
it suddenly opens.
i catch the sea when it is taken away
by disciplined clouds of birds.

 

In this world of new identities it makes sense that birds symbolize our desire and longing for some indefinable escape. If Codrescu's poetry has represented to some extent a mordant or ironic paen of the schizophrene, this observer has loved it. By providing this illogical logic, often using a surrealist lens, Codrescu illumines just how fractured our lives have become. He does so with a deft painterly touch. In his poems, image and metaphor usually figure large. As with Artaud there is a grand gesture at play. 

(p. 223)

en face

I have been altered like a suit
to accommodate a much larger man.
Dedication & appalling motives support this enlargement
like crossbeams in a simple church in Transylvania.
I have gone against nature
and now I have fur.
I am the most ruthlessly hunted
but the most ecologically abundant animal.
My name is victory over mother and father.

In the transformation that Codrescu assumes, to the extent we are able to bear it, may be recognized, if anything, a suit of mirrors. Although in this poem the implication is that a Romantic victory over the pitfalls of the preceding generation involves a feat that might look similar to lycanthropy. The poet is tasked with a dangerous role and she may even be metaphorically hunted for it. 

An epigraph by Romanian poet Mircea Cărtărescu to a later poem (p. 393) called "Walnuts," reads "I don't like the substances from which poetry is made… you have to consume your own self too much… the truer prose writer consumes others." If Americans seem to like writing poetry but not reading it, this epigraph may hint at the reason. Codrescu provides the kind of self-analysis in his poetry that recreational readers of best seller lists would find repellent. 

Codrescu, in his poem "Epitaph" (p. 222) hints of a poetry that doesn't exist to placate the masses.

he was a young guy with surrealist connections.
this tombstone does not lie
it merely stands imbedded in the sweet dark stew
waiting for the connoisseur

This is why his documentarian eye is so valuable (he has three). His poetry provides the unflinching gaze that we need but no longer get from the news. In his poem about another shatterer of complicity "tristan tzara the man who said no" (p. 395) we see Codrescu memorializing the founder of Dada somewhat but more importantly pointing out that something is missing today, and that we desperately need to regain it.

...in 1913, a jewish boy

fresh out of the ghetto of moineşti  in the kingdom of romania
bursts into a concentrated violence of guffaws before the swiss
releasing centuries of repression and fear combined with a strict
alphabet that until now left no airy gap for youth's springtime
and he does so in public, the war be damned and propriety, too.
he is staring at the nude legs of a mannequin bei in a shop window
and it's cracking him up: her beige ceramic ankles signal
the death of his required ancestral gloom.
lenin gives him a look as he ambles toward the library.
death is suddenly upset and sets her minions to work.
we must recover tzara's laugh! we know what happened later.

Other than humor and prescience, Codrescu has always excelled at producing some of the most memorable imagery of any living poet.

(p. 401)

toltec submarine with dragonfly wings
mating with two or three of your kind on the wet ass
of the beloved floating downstream on a frog floatie

He's able to diagnose our maladies on the grandest of scales but the bedrock of his dark, yet amiable, agenda is a talent for the razor sharp one-liner:

(p. 358)

I had a youth once
I was very good at it

At their best, Codrescu's poems carry a sublime disorder that can seem simultaneously elegant and grotesque. In his poem "intention" for the poet Tom Clark he writes

(p. 358)

Poems be not intended
therefore I be always writin
never intendin

 and
…To make 
is to order which is why
it is important to make
without a plan. Intention
lands one in bed with cliché,  
which is somebody's old plan
to bed somebody else's old
plan...

 

In Codrescu's bendable world we are all allowed to try on his insouciant thoughts and walk around in them for awhile. If you find his clothes out of fashion, it may be that he's always been a few steps ahead. He is one of the most well-known poets in the world but seems most at home in those liminal spaces that defy description, but this is a poet whose gags are quite serious. In this new and selected book of poems, Codrescu is still one of our most skilled interlocutors and he sings above the abyss skillfully, reminding us that:

(p. 23)

There is only one subject: the abyss between theory and practice
The abyss is interesting: both theory and practice suck.

Dylan Thomas: Wild Child [by Larry Sawyer]

I was recently marveling over this poem by Dylan Thomas, “Who are you who is born in the next room...” (published in 1945) from a series of pattern poems called Vision and Prayer because of what it does or enacts so successfully, and in doing so, how it transcends its arbitrary form. I don’t have the entire series in front of me, so it may be that this particular shape has some relevance that isn’t obvious when it’s viewed out of context because apparently these shapes form a series. What seems most interesting to me is how this writing works so well to set a scene and create a poetic equation with an ending that comes as somewhat of a surprise in a visceral way with such depth of metaphor, while it almost completely resists its own rhyme scheme. It provides an almost perfect balance between meaning and form that still manages to raise interesting questions because of certain effects.

I’m drawn at the outset to the two somewhat cavernous caesuras. The first comes after “In the birth.” It seems appropriate that the poet creates this gap in the line after the word birth (where the reader nearly falls in), and the second occurs after the word “alone.” Both caesuras offer a perfect physical illustration of what is being described (the pregnant pause) because the reader is forced to involuntarily pause after these words, which not only gives them emphasis but reemphasizes in a very graphic way the visual provided a few lines earlier with “I can hear the womb opening.”

From the poem’s opening there is a double meaning established because of the dramatic tension inherent in the first three words. The intentional ambiguity almost has the reader questioning himself or this might also be Thomas asking the question of himself.

Dualities cascade throughout. In the idea that Jesus was God’s word made flesh. The two physically separated rooms exist showing the reader as separate from what goes on in the other room. Also, the mention of a “wall thin as a wren’s bone” seems to underscore a difference between what the speaker perceives as the natural and unnatural world.

It’s quite marvelous that “Wren bone” is an anagram of “new borne.” Other imagery underscores an idea that this event on some level is holy but, again, a duality within the structures finds the reader noticing a shift of perspective in the mirror image of the poem that begins as the lines reach a midpoint and then recede in the second half. The poem’s structure mimics what is described, i.e., the poem itself is turning or shifting. These lines could be read in multiple ways “In the birth/bloody room/unknown to the …” or “In the birth bloody/room unknown to the…”

The poem, although only 71 words, does start with a vision and end with a sort of prayer but is Thomas describing his own thoughts on his own life that started with a similar birth but resulted in the many physical, mental, and domestic problems which plagued him for years? Or is this a meditation on our relation to the natural world and the unnatural, as represented in the poem, is the overlay of religiosity that is placed upon us that begins at birth? Thomas paints a prime moment, birth, which serves as a hinge between these two “worlds” i.e., the natural world and the world of civilization (and all the socialization that civilization demands).

As the wall is a part of the civilized world, the infant is not, yet anyway, and the point is emphasized internally as the rhyme scheme pairs “wild” and “child” together as a final example of the mysterious duality that ripples throughout what might have been a poem that Thomas wrote in one sitting in a very short amount of time.

The visual pattern creates interesting parallels that otherwise might not have existed had the poem been left aligned. The final interesting afterthought is that the form provides the reader with an object to be stared at, which it gives it an element of spectacle. Because of its symmetry the object simultaneously resembles a box, a shape of some sort like a pyramid reflected in water, a crucifix, the human form with arms outspread, and finally and obviously a diamond. Sixteenth Century alchemist Agrippa also included this shape and its opposite, which would look like a jagged hourglass, in his “Of the Proportion, Measure, and Harmony of Man’s Body,” which included diagrams of geometric shapes aligned with the human form. These two shapes comprise the ebb and flow of the alternating patterns in the book.

By starting with such an unanswerable question, by including such vivid imagery (e.g., heart print), and ending with such a violent twist, the poem registers like a minor earthquake and we stare down into its dark abyss and wonder what it meant to the author, as well as what it might mean to everyone facing the riddle of human existence.

Nota bene: See if you can guess which other literary wild child may have served as partial inspiration for this particular song by The Doors.

  

Chicago Artists Resource Interview with Larry Sawyer on The Chicago School of Poetics

photo (c)Lawrence Schwartzwald

How does not having a physical school benefit your students and classes?

The online classes simply allow us to invite students into our community no matter where they’re living. With a laptop, students could take a class at home, in a café, or sitting in a car. Anywhere with Wi-Fi really. We’ve had students from Canada, Morocco, and the Philippines in addition to students right here in Chicago.

What have you noticed that has changed in Chicago’s poetry scene over the years?

There are more reading series, more journals. It’s a destination for poetry now. There has been a genuine influx of poets. I recently covered the Chicago literary scene for Ploughshares and mentioned the wide variety of events and institutions.

What event(s) would you recommend to a poet just starting out in Chicago?

Go to the readings. There are sometimes multiple events in one night but really try to get out and experience poetry. From Hyde Park to Wicker Park to Rogers Park, there is poetry to be heard somewhere nearly every night of the week.

 

How does Chicago’s poetry community differentiate itself from others like NY and LA?

I’m sure there are similarities but the Chicago poetry community is probably more varied. At some point there was some discussion as to whether the poets here constituted a "new Chicago school" but I think stylistically every type of poetry can be found here.

There is a long history of poetry in Chicago of course. Going back to Carl Sandburg or Gwendolyn Brooks. In 1920, H.L. Menken famously commented that Chicago was the literary capital of the United States. Other than Sandburg and Brooks, the city has been almost more well-known as a home to novelists but that seems to be changing. In the past 7 or 8 years, more and more poets seem to have moved to Chicago.

What’s going on in American poetry now that excites you?

Read the work of Lina Ramona Vitkauskas, Dana Ward, Tom Clark or Tracey K. Smith. I always like to see what Johannes Göransson and Bob Archambeau are writing about. The recent bickering about conceptualism has been sometimes interesting. Goldsmith is probably having a good laugh at the ire he’s produced in poets.

Lately we were happy to add Sharon Mesmer to the faculty at The Chicago School of Poetics. (Welcome, Sharon!)

Also, the events here in Chicago are great. I’m still excited by the readings at Myopic Books. I’ve been curating the reading series there for over 8 years now. I recently hosted my 200^th poetry reading there. 

Also, a few months ago I participated in and helped plan a wake for the famous Irish poet Fallon McPhael. OK, so he never existed.

I’m excited to see the late poet Joe Ceravolo being recognized now for his work with a big collected poems. Also, it’s been exciting to see Chicago in the past 10 years become a destination for poetry. I was just talking about this with the poet and Columbia College professor Tony Trigilio for his podcast, Radio Free Albion.

Next month, I plan to lead a situationist-style dérive around Rogers Park for the Absinthe and Zygote reading series. There’s just always so much going on. Chicago is amazing.

What inspired the creation of The Chicago School of Poetics?

The founding of the school really resulted from a conversation with fellow poets Francesco Levato and Lina Ramona Vitkauskas, and also Francesco’s fiancé Laura Skokan one night during dinner. What began to emerge was a sense that there was a need for a different kind of school. One that offered poetics instruction but outside the strictures of the MFA culture. Many of the poets I’d come into contact with since moving to Chicago had described to me an MFA experience that sounded hyper-competitive and left students saddled with enormous debt with little promise of securing a viable teaching job upon graduation.

Looking back 15 years ago the MFA system didn’t seem to be quite the stronghold that it is now. Rather than try to poke holes in that system our discussion involved founding a school as a community beyond and alternative to that system, which we felt had become very cost prohibitive. A two-year MFA program can put a student from $28,000 to $74,000 in debt. Our 8-week courses are $399 but we also now have a new tiered pricing structure as well as a student discount. Our work study program lowers tuition even further by $100. We also used Indie Go Go recently to raise funds to provide scholarships to students in need. 

In addition to cost, it had also begun to seem that MFA programs were the cause of a rather homogenous environment in American poetry. We wanted to found a school with a focus on collaboration, rather than competition—One with less of a focus on creativity and more on craft because we agreed that creativity can’t really be taught.

We offer instruction that has the rigorous nature of MFA studies at a more flexible and affordable price. And by creating an online community for those outside of urban centers, the School provides the kind of community you might find in an MFA program but one that goes "beyond" geographical limitations.

We critique work based on its own merits. Literary theory isn’t avoided, but the craft of writing poetry is always the primary focus and intense focus on selected readings and the poems the students have written.

How alliteration, assonance, caesura, extended metaphor, hyperbole, inverted syntax, onomatopoeia, synecdoche, varying levels of tone or diction, and use of irony produces meaning and doesn’t merely convey meaning. The word produce in that last sentence should be emphasized heavily. That’s the key. Teaching methods involve critique of poems written in the class with a goal of actually publishing the work. Instructors bring all of their publishing experience to the class and freely share advice with the students. The focus is always intently on the poems that are being discussed by the class and the craft elements that could make them resonate more fully.  Students can really get inside the writing process of the instructor.

We wanted to be able to discuss writing strategies with students that went beyond the confessional, narrative, or merely descriptive. So our goal was to transcend borders in the writing itself but also to actually transcend physical boundaries. We wanted to provide a resource for poets to find community outside of urban centers, so we wanted to provide visual face-to-face conferencing online. We aren’t merely trading files via email or engaging in group reading assignments. The face-to-face, real-time, interaction allows a remarkable interactive experience and group discussion. Our fall class schedules are now online.

How do the online classes work?

Students simply need a computer with a Macintosh, Windows, or Linux operating system; a microphone (most have one built in) for voice conferencing; a webcam for video conferencing (most newer computers already have one built in); and a high-speed internet connection. The software is really easy to use. During online sessions instructors and students can share links to videos online, sound files, documents such as PDFs of specific poems, and everyone involved can communicate visually in real time. There is also a chat feature so side discussions can occur while the instructor lectures without any disruption. It leads to some really interesting discussion. Students can gather to learn about writing poetry across time zones and even across continents. Our instruction method is truly different. We aren’t merely offering online poetics instruction.

Eileen Myles taught one of our master classes and recently commented: “Time to pull down the time space limitations of what and where poetry exchange is occurring in our broken and beautiful 21st Century. Chicago School of Poetics is the only institution I know that’s experimenting so widely and freely with making the occasion of writing and community and pedagogy be at all our fingertips and in our eyes. I myself was both elated and terrified to teach a master class through CSoP because I’d previously counted on the presence of bodies as my teaching familiar. Yet I’m turned around now after conducting my master class because my students were funny and dazzling and awkward and engaged and we were also like cats seeing each other in our very own lairs and now I only want to go further and totally relish the feel of this new working and playing field. The glowing space is ours. CSoP showed the way.”

 

On the American Grotesque [by Larry Sawyer]

In writing about themes including the sleaziness of the film industry, war in Afghanistan, the gutter nature of politics, and the absurdity of American life, my book Unable to Fully California seats itself squarely in a tradition of the American grotesque. Of course, Flannery O’Connor once famously stated that the problem for a serious writer of the grotesque is “one of finding something that is not grotesque.”

But to point at the existence of the grotesque as observer, i.e. include it as subject matter, creates a critical distancing from it and implies that the observer is not a part of the tableaux that inspired such art. But the waking up from this American dream often includes a tense realization that we are all a part of this intertwined society like it or not.

The grotesque exists at the local mall, definitely all over television, in the imminent political primaries, sitting at home by the fire, everywhere except in the wilds. People create a scenario that can be called grotesque, although the wilderness was the first common metaphor that implied a backdrop in front of which the early inhabitants of the newly formed United States enacted their grotesque scenarios.

Kenneth Burke in the 1930s called the idea of the grotesque an “attitude toward history” that is evident in contemporary life and a “cult of incongruity without the laughter.” What I sought to accomplish by sticking some pins in the film industry in my own first book.

E. H. Gombrich has written of the long tradition of grotesque motifs within the world history of visual art and names some of the work of Albrecht Dürer as being early examples of the grotesque in social settings.

The American author most typically identified as writing in a grotesque tradition is Edgar Allen Poe, but to that list could be added Sherwood Anderson, Flannery O’Connor, Sylvia Plath, and possibly also William Carlos Williams.

Grotesque

The city has tits in rows.
The country is in the main—male,
It butts me with blunt stub-horns,
Forces me to oppose it
Or be trampled.

The city is full of milk
And lies still for the most part.
These crack skulls
And spill brains
Against her stomach.

(1914)

The poem still has a slight shock value. But mere shock is never the goal of the grotesque. The poem begins with what could be a description of milk bottles lined up in rows along a city street. A sight probably not seen in the country but we’re left to wonder how the action in the poem will be resolved. It ends with a fairly graphic depiction of violence that might describe the outdated practice of consuming lambs brains during pregnancy. What makes this grotesque is that we don’t quite know. Williams offers this partial portrait to heighten the effect of the grotesque.

Taken to its logical conclusion the tradition of the grotesque in America also includes some of the best rock ‘n roll. Musical poets such as the Lou Reed of the albums Berlin and Sally Can’t Dance offer grotesque portraits of decadence and trash. The style originated by Richard Hell points to the grotesque.

And although the wilderness constituted the setting for many an early American depiction of the grotesque, Sir Thomas Browne in Religio Medici, as early as 1643, had removed the idea of the grotesque from any natural setting, and placed it in the domain of art and “human intentionality” according to James Goodwin by writing “There are no Grotesques in nature; nor any thing framed to fill up empty cantons, and unnecessary spaces.” The idea of the grotesque, which started as a visual design element including depictions of “rude” people that set off a subject that comparatively speaking might look placid and serene includes the urban and also the urbane.

It’s always in the everyday that the grotesque is most readily apparent.

According to Goodwin it was Henry James who faulted the French poet Charles Baudelaire for being responsible for single-handedly dragging art down into the dumps and “besmirching” and “bespattering” art with common interests that degraded its integrity and reduced its stature.

The line in visual art that started as the connection that can be drawn between Honoré Daumier’s famous painting, “Rue Transnonain, le 15 avril 1834”, which shows a man dead on the floor apparently knifed, and the still-life journalism of the photographer WeeGee whose photos often depicted grisly scenes of street crimes continues now with the photography of Diane Arbus. Rather than shock modern audiences, however, often the grotesque now may produce a wry smile.

It seems certain that there is no shortage of the grotesque in American life and it’s natural to, as a condition of being, be fascinated by it. Especially in America we like a spectacle, and as observers of media it’s that distancing that makes us feel separate from it—as we sit surrounded by it in our living rooms.

Cinematic Qualities in the Poetry of Emily Dickinson and Edwin Denby [by Larry Sawyer]

Given the difficulty Americans seem to have finding any common ground on the question of gun control, unsurprisingly, as a poet, I hear a particular poem rise up in my memory to provide a quiet but definitive answer. In fact, this particular poem is known for its haunting quality and its orchestral force that contradicts its seeming simplicity. I’m writing about Emily Dickinson’s “My Life It Stood – A Loaded Gun (764).”

No one would turn to the poetry of Emily Dickinson to find solutions to the current American gun control issue, which is why the possibility intrigues me. (If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is Florida.)

Rather than point to what the poem might mean, I’m more interested in Dickinson’s description, which provides such indelible force. Buoyed by an off-kilter rhythmic sensibility that required extreme daring and skill to execute, the first two stanzas provide some of the best lines of poetry ever written by an American. With a deadpan subtlety, Dickinson’s implication that the mountains’ echo to the report of the gun completes a tableau where the reader is able to visualize the action so seamlessly it actually feels as though we are also a part of that picture caught within the frame of the poem. In fact, the entire poem has a filmic quality. The action that drives this poem could easily serve as the plot for a short experimental film.

My Life had stood - a Loaded Gun -
In Corners - till a Day
The Owner passed - identified -
And carried Me away -

And now We roam in Sovereign Woods -
And now We hunt the Doe -
And every time I speak for Him -
The Mountains straight reply -

And do I smile, such cordial light
Upon the Valley glow -
It is as a Vesuvian face
Had let its pleasure through -

And when at Night - Our good Day done -
I guard My Master’s Head -
’Tis better than the Eider-Duck’s
Deep Pillow - to have shared -

To foe of His - I'm deadly foe -
None stir the second time -
On whom I lay a Yellow Eye -
Or an emphatic Thumb -

Though I than He - may longer live
He longer must - than I -
For I have but the power to kill,
Without - the power to die -

With the line “The Mountains straight reply -” Dickinson provides such a convincing psychological photograph that, once this fiery image appears in the imagination of the reader, it’s nearly impossible to extinguish. The image is lasting because it’s provided in such stark contrast: we nearly expect the fourth line of that second stanza to rhyme with its second line because that’s the expectation created by the first stanza. This defiant unexpectedness gives the line its subtle visual force.

Edwin Denby, another poet able to do this, wrote poetry known for a somewhat elegiac mood, a certain bittersweet severity, and a terseness or brevity. Although Denby’s poetry also contains much wry humor, each short poem can seem like a photographic still-life, as consistently captured through stark description, a portrait of the details of his metropolitan life.

Without much of the surrealist quality that attracted me to other New York School writers, there has always been a quality to the poetry of Edwin Denby that satisfies on an almost visual level. In lines such as:

New York dark in August, seaward
Creeping breeze, building to building
Old poems by Frank O’Hara
At 3 a.m. I sit reading
Like a blue-black surf rider, shark
Nipping at my Charvet tie, toe-tied
Heart in my mouth—or my New York
At dawn smiling I turn out the light
Inside out like a room in gritty
Gale, features moving fierce or void
Intimate, the lunch hour city
One’s own heart eating undestroyed
Complicities of New York speech
Embrace me as I fall asleep

The scene is set in very few words, and the reader is immediately subsumed in Denby’s world. There is almost a painful clarity that, if not lingered upon because of its conversational tone, can almost be missed entirely. The drama provided by much of Denby’s work is somewhat muted but always very human. But the mechanical function of lines such as “At dawn smiling I turn out the light/Inside out like a room in gritty/Gale, features moving fierce or void/Intimate…” provide a big return on your investment of minimal time.

Denby shifts in his poetry very quickly from macro to micro and back, which is that at which Dickinson excelled. Other than simply gleaning the details and preoccupations of both writers as those qualities are displayed in the literal meaning inherent in the poems, this poet still marvels at how the visual aspects of the work of these two poets can absolutely haunt the mind. 

 

A Supermarket on Facebook and 'Free Union' by Breton [by Larry Sawyer]

[Happy birthday, Guillaume Apollinaire, 1880–1918]

André Breton's agenda to destroy bourgeois forms of consciousness with the exploration of desire as "a theatre of provocations" is possibly most apparent and memorable in his poem from 1931, "Free Union." In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images on Facebook I came upon a request made by Mark Lamoureux for surrealist love poems for a wedding ceremony and saw a comment by Noah Eli Gordon that Mark ought not to choose "Free Union" because it objectifies women. I would submit that 

"Everything tends to make us believe that there exists a certain point of the mind at which life and death, the real and the imagined, past and future, the communicable and the incommunicable, high and low, cease to be perceived as contradictions."

So, in Breton's conception of this poem there is no true object. Not in any typical sense. I would argue that in Breton's conception of this poem the images presented and the result is to show through some small crack in our realities that women, men, and all of the objects in our world are much larger than we previously supposed and also conjoined. The lightning released by the poem is bizarre, haunting, and does indeed contain some baroque element of schlock. This is absolutely why I love it. Most have stated that it actually memorializes a particular woman and wasn't directed toward women. 

Whether modern society has supplanted our primal consciousness with some false rationality is debatable, perhaps, but the poem "Free Union," even its title, seeks to conjoin the disparate elements of our being through an analysis of what drives us on our most elemental level--desire. Reader, please substitute the word "wife" in the poem with "husband" or any other number of words--the goal is some indefinable totality that is supra-conscious.

Unlike Thomas Campion's "There is a Garden in Her Face," the famous poem published in 1617, i.e.,

There is a garden in her face

Where roses and white lilies grow;

A heav'nly paradise is that place

Wherein all pleasant fruits do flow.

 
Breton seeks to cross the chasm inherent in the blason as it existed since Clément Marot's time in 1536 by using an apparition of the form to praise but he does so by skipping a crucial step. To Breton his 

 

... wife whose hair is a brush fire

Whose thoughts are summer lightning

Whose waist is an hourglass

Whose waist is the waist of an otter caught in the teeth of a tiger

Whose mouth is a bright cockade with the fragrance of a star of the first magnitude

Whose teeth leave prints like the tracks of white mice over snow

Whose tongue is made out of amber and polished glass

Whose tongue is a stabbed wafer

The tongue of a doll with eyes that open and shut

Whose tongue is an incredible stone

My wife whose eyelashes are strokes in the handwriting of a child

Whose eyebrows are nests of swallows

My wife whose temples are the slate of greenhouse roofs

With steam on the windows

My wife whose shoulders are champagne

Are fountains that curl from the heads of dolphins over the ice

My wife whose wrists are matches

Whose fingers are raffles holding the ace of hearts

Whose fingers are fresh cut hay

My wife with the armpits of martens and beech fruit

And Midsummer Night

That are hedges of privet and resting places for sea snails

Whose arms are of sea foam and a landlocked sea

And a fusion of wheat and a mill

Whose legs are spindles

In the delicate movements of watches and despair

My wife whose calves are sweet with the sap of elders

Whose feet are carved initials

Keyrings and the feet of steeplejacks

My wife whose neck is fine milled barley

Whose throat contains the Valley of God

And encounters in the bed of the maelstrom

My wife whose breasts are of night

—

And are undersea molehills

And crucibles of rubies

My wife whose breasts are haunted by the ghosts of dew-moistened roses

Whose belly is a fan unfolded in the sunlight

Is a giant talon

My wife with the back of a bird in vertical flight

With a back of quicksilver

And bright lights

My wife whose nape is of smooth worn stone and white chalk

And of a glass slipped through the fingers of someone who has just drunk

My wife with the thighs of a skiff

That are lustrous and feathered like arrows

Stemmed with the light tailbones of a white peacock

And imperceptible balance

My wife whose rump is sandstone and flax

Whose rump is the back of a swan and the spring

My wife with the sex of an iris

A mine and a platypus

With the sex of an alga and old-fashioned candles

My wife with the sex of a mirror

My wife with eyes full of tears

With eyes that are purple armour and a magnetized needle

With eyes of savannahs

With eyes full of water to drink in prisons

My wife with eyes that are forests forever under the axe

My wife with eyes that are the equal of water and air and earth and fire

(trans. by David Antin)

 

The poem confounds our preconceptions, driving us toward a point where we begin to question our learned associations and free-fall through the sensory impressions of the poem, if we submit to it, which guides us toward a reckoning with what we thought was reality. His wife, on an elemental level, absolutely is. The equation “this is that” runs throughout. The surrealist biomorphic melds all into one and transcends boundaries, rather than providing mere simile (think Robert Burns, “My Love is Like a Red, Red Rose,” 1794).

“My wife with eyes of savannahs” as a line of poetry may be easy to disparage but as evidence of the Surrealist plot it is Exhibit A. This is just a single poem in a concerted worldwide movement that attempted nothing less than the overthrow of time itself.

This poem is an attempt to map the dark matter, even if its center is the rather formulaic "my wife." For Breton poetry was just a beginning point and the goal was a revolution of mind and a total liberation from the self-imposed confines of the dualities that prevent our full awareness. A reverse engineering of surrealist method doesn't do much justice to its otherworldly aims.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Untitled," collage by Andrew Lundwall

 

Lingering Loss [by Catherine Woodard]

Loss must linger on the minds of the 28 NBA teams not on the court last night when the Oklahoma City Thunder beat the Miami Heat in the first game of the championship series. LeBron James of the Heat and Kevin Durant of the Thunder are in their 20s, certain to dazzle for years to come on their way to the Basketball Hall of Fame. But neither superstar is likely to usurp Michael Jordan as the greatest NBA player ever.

So why did Quincy Troupe, poet and former professional basketball player, write a villanelle for the winning shot Jordan sank with six seconds left for his sixth NBA championship as a Chicago Bull in 1998? Doesn’t a form often associated with loss seem a strange fit for the reigning champ of champs?

Troupe offered two excellent explanations at a craft talk this spring at Poet’s House where he compared the Jordan villanelle “Forty-One Seconds on a Sunday in June, in Salt Lake City, Utah” to a free verse poem for Magic Johnson, the improv king of NBA point guards.   

To Troupe, the villanelle’s echoing lines matched Jordan, so often returning to the championship to terrorize his opponents. No one who guarded Jordan would need evidence of the link to loss found in these four villanelles by Dylan Thomas, Edward Arlington Robinson, Sylvia Plath, and Elizabeth Bishop.

Troupe also described Jordan as a mechanics player who over and over again literally soared above opponents with a 48-inch vertical leap. Players knew exactly what Jordan was going to do; they just couldn’t stop him. The repetition of a villanelle is precisely that predictable. The resonant image of a Jordan dunk or jump shot is the hang time. The first line of the Troupe villanelle, by form repeated three more times: “rising up in time, michael jordan hangs like an icon, suspended in space.”

In contrast, Troupe’s first basketball poem in 1985 heralded an improv player, Magic Johnson of the Los Angeles Lakers, an agile and innovative point guard, the epitome of surprise.

Was Troupe an improv or mechanics basketball player? At 72, he still answers with his body as well as his words, as if he is trying to twist around an opponent. He wasn’t a tall point guard so “you’re going to learn improv or you are going to get stuffed.”

Troupe’s segue from basketball to poetry? Jean Paul Sartre and a busted left knee. Seriously.

Troupe joined the Army in the early 1960s and went from boot camp to basketball for Army and All-Army teams in France (nice work if you can get it) and a French pro team. Then he blew out his left knee. So Troupe tried writing “an awesomely bad novel” -- the sexual conquests of a pro athlete touring Europe. A French girlfriend said a family friend might have some advice.

That writer, “a little French guy with glasses,” turned out to be Sartre, who suggested Troupe learn control over language by reading poets.

Practiced control, passionate practice – Troupe already knew from basketball. His competitive juices kicked in too. Just as kids in playgrounds and backyards still want to imitate a Magic Johnson no-look pass, Troupe wanted to make poems like Pablo Neruda or Dylan Thomas. So he taught himself to write in various poetic forms, including the villanelle.

“I found I loved writing just as much as I loved to play basketball,” Troupe said at Poets House. “I could do it all day long, and want more.”

Troupe also already knew much about music, having absorbed lots of jazz, gospel and Latin music during his childhood in St. Louis, Missouri. By the time he wrote a break-though poem on John Coltrane, Troupe appreciated that those who soar in improv are building on solid, honed fundamentals, whether in basketball or jazz or poetry.

Flash forward to lots of writing success but still not a poem that satisfied Troupe about basketball. Then he moved from LA to NYC and the sounds of his new city started to alter his line from a long 12-syllable hexameter to something shorter and quicker and more unpredictable. Which led to a start and many revisions to the ode to Magic.

“I wanted a line close to a jazz riff,” said Troupe, who coauthored with jazz musician Miles Davis, “Miles: The Autobiography” in 1989, which won the American Book Award.

Jazz and basketball, like poetry, all offer Troupe a way to express American affinities. “I was hell-bent on establishing an American form, rooted in my own experiences,” he said.

With thanks to Poets House, see both poems and hear Troupe read the villanelle.