David Hess (clink link to left) has written a very sweet song for me on his blog. It shows he has been reading the words here very closely. A+, Dave.
(I’m guessing that the pronunciation of Nevada in it should rrrrhyme with my name?)
(I’ve been through Nevada several times. I like that arid sage-y smell.)
Ron gets it absolutely right today, IMHO, with his comments on the intellectual bad faith of the “school of quietude.”
Strange because I was thinking, upon awakening this morning, that one of the problems for me with language poetry, in retrospect, was that it was too cool (in the sense of temperature), not inflammatory enough, with the notable exception of the work of Bruce Andrews. That in fact it often did seem to aim for a kind of cerebral quietude, especially on the West Coast. Lyn Hejinian, Queen of Contemplativeness, seems a paradigm of this mode.
My problem is, how to take those extraordinary formal moves — yes, the range of stylistic devices (Lyn claims in a letter to the Po Proj that LP was not a “style” — which sounds to me like saying that punk is not a style — of course it is! and of course there are any number of variations proposed within that style — but it is a style. And with LP, it’s all about parataxis) and mix them up, MOTIVATE them, with strains of McClure and Corso, as any good New Beat should. Heat it up, mon… ME WANT BIG NOISE NOW!
Check out this British Women Romantic Poets website!
Yesterday, Laurable reminds us, was Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s birthday. EBB is one of my most-loved poets and perhaps the one I most physically resemble! Laurable says EBB was the first poet to write love poems in English from a woman’s perspective. I’m wondering, can this be true? What about Anne Bradstreet? Or is she considered to have written duty poems instead of love poems?
Jim Behrle writes in:
I didn’t know about your condition, sorry.
–Jim
Benediction granted.
The ironic thing is: The pain’s cause is writing! and writing exacerbates it! and I can’t stop myself!
Maybe someday it will totally go away? Or will it keep influencing my work as Hannah Weiner and Larry Eigner’s respective conditions did theirs?… not that mine is at all comparable in terms of severity…
I also had to include a few poems for his class reader. I chose
The Ecstasy by John Donne
Grind by Diane Ward
Women by Clark Coolidge
Love Songs I – XIII by Mina Loy
If You by Robert Creeley
Gary’s letter poem to me beginning Brilliant wind conflicts the absorb …
and I would have sent five trillion others if I’d had any more time.
He wanted us to suggest some critical readings as well — I suggested anything by Tristan Tzara!
Oh gee oh gosh, this really makes me want to teach a poetry class.
Oh yeah, I sent him the Proverbs of Hell, too. Can’t live without those.
Kasey, bless his heart, is going to teach my book V. Imp. next semester. He wanted me to write a statement of poetics so here it is:
V. Imp. is “very important” (marginally, or as [musical] notation) but in shorthand, because not enough time or languor. V. Imp.‘s defining gesture is kicking — podiums, authority — kicking up at barriers and limits, or kicking legs up sideways in the air á la Dick Van Dyke, an important early influence. V. Imp. — serious fluff or frivolous gravitas? It’s “oscillating bimbo poetics”. The poems are my odalisques and I am their master (this is revenge for centuries of the inverse). They yearn hungrily –at the moon?– out the arched windows of the palace; the tinkling fountains, the caged birds (their pretty familiars) do not soothe them. They know there is more to experience. Anyway, forget everything you ever learned about poetry. If you don’t know anything about poetry, just forget what you don’t know. Then we can begin. The writing takes my hand (and by extension, both our heads) in another absurdly orientalist gesture, flying us about through squalor and pulchritude, delighted with its own stupid wit. “No money in buffoonerie” — oh well. Change “peace state” to “war state” : ululate. It’s urban, psychic, lexical spelunking, the old Romantic impulse but jerkier and more twisted, clumsy, raging when not just campy. Total drama: opera, porn, Bollywood, and old musicals: each word has a bared midriff and thrusting pelvis. Poetry (not mine) has become sickeningly reasonable despite the pulsating metropoli and deep illogic of everything. The “uses” of poetry more frangible… than tangible. Remember: the striped fish is still in the blank space but its jaw yammers up and down. Exercise of autonomy, rhythm in amber, song of my elf…
Jim Behrle is abrasive, is alienating me. Abrasion is distinct from insurrection.
I’m not convinced anyone will be talking about my poetry in 20 years (much less talking about anything, the way things are going these days), but if they are I think that yes, the effects of analgesics will be discussed as a significant influence.
I have a chronic pain condition — wheee! See my play, “PtArmIgaN”, for more information.
