listen to kyle bang

I will admit, I had read no more than three poems by Mary Jo Bang before attending the reading she gave at Nebraska Wesleyan University last night. I had heard good things from some of my writer friends over the years. I was intrigued.

The reading began with an introduction that ended with the most appropriate phrase I think I've ever heard at a poetry reading, "Now let's listen to Mary Jo Bang." The playfulness of language was so apparent in the way Mary Jo was going to read by banging out poems. Whether or not this was her given name from birth isn't necessarily important, but it did cause me to question identity, generally and in the poet herself. An interesting device, intentional or otherwise, for a reader or listener who is just beginning to invest themselves in a poet's work.

The unfortunate aspect of poetry readings, at least for myself, is that they are extremely distracting. Not necessarily because of things going on in one's periphery, rather the poems and the poet specifically. If I hear a line that interests me, it distracts my ability to focus on the next line. Missteps by the poet and a poet retracing their steps by re-reading a line without the appropriate breath all kick my attention around in ways that lose the poem. These distractions are magnified if a listener has not invested themselves in a poet beforehand.

Regardless, Mary Jo Bang mentioned her interest in experimenting with language (dare I say artifice?). But an aspect of her poetics that interested me even more was her interest in the combination of experiment and narrative. Not necessarily narrative in the way one would think of a traditional narrative poem, but rather the ability to affect a reader with some sort of conclusive feeling at the end of a poem that ties human experience together. The ability to satisfy both, feelings of bewilderment and excitement through the playfulness of language, as well as a connection to a reader in some sort of living way, is something that has interested and influenced my own writing.

Mary Jo Bang likely directs a reader more so than other poets more vested in a "Language School" approach. By directs, I'm trying to get across an idea of a reader following words, phrases, and sentences in a way that one might possibly follow a friend's voice in a conversation about baseball. My interaction with something like Lyn Hejinian's texts, on the other hand, are limiting in certain ways, but unconfined in other ways. Words are limited in their ability to produce a sort of meaning that hold traditional society's standards of utility. However because those standards are denied, a reader is freed to experience the poem for what it is, nothing more than a rock or a tree, as it were. Mary Jo Bang's texts, from what I heard last night, are similar to this to a point. She does seem to utilize language's traditional standards more so than some of her contemporaries, however, but I think she does it in a way that does miss the mark of an extremely daring poetry. Where along this spectrum of utility a poet places themselves is a question one needs to answer in order to understand a poet's poetics and approach.

Maybe it's because I've been reading and editing so many poems lately, but there were times during the reading where I had the desire to bounce some things off of the poet. I started thinking about the periods of a poet's life and how, eventually, one will likely reach a point where input from others isn't necessarily expected, or possibly even appreciated. I understand that workshops aren't at a very high level of priority for poets who have been writing for a long period of time, and even less of a priority for those few poets whose poetry has been validated as much as a poet such as Mary Jo bang. When she says a poem is finished, I guess her poem is finished. After it is in a book, it isn't polite to say, "did you ever think about doing this?" But if Walt Whitman can mess with Leaves of Grass a gazillion times after it was originally published, I don't see why I couldn't when the time comes. I guess I just don't know how it works. I'm afraid to grow up and lose all of my friends and have everyone around me too afraid to tell me when something does not work. Always tell me. Please.

thursdays are for friends

I met with Marco yesterday (tall German professor friend not large black and white cat). Marco applied to 13 or 14 schools after his undergraduate work. Let me repeat that, Marco applied to 13 or 14 schools after his undergraduate work. ! Out of those 13 or 14 schools, he was accepted into 3. Time to start saving money for application fees? Most likely. My naivety regarding the grad school application process was glaring last evening. I'm glad this is January and not October. That's what I'm saying.

What would an attempt at an a-signifying poetry look like, DJ Spooky? I guess that's sort of what I'm interested in right now. But when I think about my brain, I think about how dumb it is. "Language is about force not representation!" Well yeah. But how do I explain that to my mother? WWJBD?

While watching the first episode of 24 I've ever seen, Mallory mentioned how much more of a badass Jack Bauer is than Jason Bourne. I've only seen one of the Bourne movies, but he seemed pretty badass. This argument will always eventually lead into the Keiffer Southerland v. Matt Damon argument. According to Bennie, Keiffer Southerland can neck down a fair amount of booze. This is where the argument stops at my house. It's all laughing from there. I wonder what their political affiliations are. Keifer and Jack, and Matt and Jason.

Read these:

A Heap of Language

I switch on the light and clear
the table. You come from the ocean
and dry yourself. Inside us, apologies inch
their way around. Most of what we say will hardly matter.


*

Poem with Trademark for a Plastic Disk Thrown From Person to Person in a Game

Fuck magic.

I throw
a Frisbee and it goes

right to you.

- Graham Foust

Season 2 of

AMC's Breaking Bad

premieres March 8, 2009



!

ppppppppp

Milk - A
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - B-
Slumdog Millionaire - C-
Gran Torino - F
Glory - B

Characters are more important than story. That is all the justification I am giving right now. Good acting can also help a film tremendously.

poor poor noodle

I was reading about teaching poetry over at Ron Silliman's BLOG, and a lot was talked about the process of writing and how changing, even slightly, certain things about your process could greatly affect the product produced. Something was mentioned about Robert Creeley saying that changing the means of producing your work can help relieve writer's block (if you write mainly from a computer, switch to a notebook.)

I almost exclusively write poems sitting at a computer--either at my office (my state poetry grant, as I like to call it at times) or cramped at my desk in the corner of my room, typing away poems on my laptop. Recently, however, I bought two (they came in a pair) moleskin pocket size notebooks to carry with me. I don't know if I did this because I actually wanted to try to write "en route," or rather, felt obligated as a writer to carry a notebook and pen around with me. Regardless, I now carry around a notebook. As of this morning, I have written on three pages. Two of those pages are a drunken poem I wrote at Duffy's one night sitting at the end of the bar (god, could have i been any more obvious?) that nothing will ever come of. The other page is a short poem that I could, eventually, do something with.

I think the computer itself has become some sort of reference, in and of itself, for my writing. It's the means of production and a lot of my writing, at least lately, calls attention to that process of production. I'm unfamiliar with creativity through a blank piece of paper. I realize that they are the SAME words, but the computer doesn't make them so permanent (although thinking about it, that kind of seems backwards.) On a computer my words are clean and legible; I can minimize the window to make them go away! Whereas on a piece of paper, they are usually messy and never stop staring up at me. There is a certain level of anxiety that goes along with writing, not to mention carrying the words around with you that you often times so desperately want to get away from. I think I am simply choosing the easy way out, the lesser anxious feeling. I do not want to continue this. I need to see what comes out of THAT anxiety.

Tonight, I'm going to read William Blake and try to figure out why my eyes hurt when I move them.

why not, buy a goddamn big car

I've been reading your poems, don't worry.

Anyone own Lost in Translation? I'd like to borrow it, should your answer be "yes." This is the INTERNET. I'm lost in communication. It's like what do these words even mean, man? srsly.

My office mate just said, "set you up to fail." We're all failing, kid. Don't worry about it.