The First Winter Snow

Oh, pretty girl, you have trapped

yourself in the wrong body. Twenty

extra pounds hang like a lumpy

tapestry on your perfect mammal nature.

Three months ago you were like a

deer staring at the first winter snow.

Now Aphrodite thumbs her nose at you

and tells stories behind your back.

-Richard Brautigan

Re: Wordsworth

As I venture further into Wordsworth's 1805 Prelude I have noticed striking similarities and poetic aesthetic choices within it that many of my favorite, more contemporary poets continue to utilize (not to mention my own work). This could quite possibly be the greatest poem I have read to date. This poem seems to be, at least so far (I just finished Book 3 of 13), strictly procedural. What I mean is that Wordsworth's Prelude is a poem about the instance of its making. There is a presence of the present within the poem that is at play with the fact that the poem itself is referential to its own past as well as Wordsworth's. There is more poetic insight within this poem than an actual poem, and therein lies its strangeness--this is first and foremost a poem, but unlike his contemporaries and predecessors, Wordsworth's own poetic process is being evaluated throughout. It's a poem for poets--a proclamation of ambition and failure and success all at the same moment. The poem reads as if it were written in the 20th century at times and is as fresh today (to me) as it was in 1805. My appreciation for Wordsworth before diving into his work the past few months was marginal at best. I would encourage all of you to revisit those poets you may have, at some point, dismissed for whatever reason. There may be the greatest poem ever written awaiting you.

Some favorite portions:

And now it would content me to yield up

Those lofty hopes awhile, for present gifts

Of humbler industry. But, o dear friend,

The poet, gentle creature as he is,

Has like the lover his unruly times -

His fits when he is neither sick nor well,

Though no distress be near him but his own

Unmanageable thoughts. (Wordsworth, Prelude, Book I, Lines 142-149)

Ah me, that all

The terrors, all the early miseries,

Regrets, vexations, lassitudes, that all

The thoughts and feelings which have been infused

Into my mind, should ever have made up

The calm existence that is mine when I

Am worthy of myself. (Wordsworth, Prelude, Book I, Lines 355-361)

Back

When we last left our hero...

Read as much Wordsworth as you can. So I'm taking the graduate seminar, "Wordsworth and His Circle" with Martin Corless-Smith. I was always intrigued by the romantics for their audacity to write poems to essentially save the world. There isn't that kind of poetics any longer, or if there is, I haven't come across it yet. An explanation for this, I will posit, stems from our(poets) lack of ambition. Ambition not only insofar as production and output of poems, but a lack of concern for the grandness of what a poem can be. I'm not saying this is a new end of mine by any means. However, it is interesting to read poems and read about poets, who at one point, believed poetry could achieve certain things that a variety of wars, genocides, and indifference seem to have swept away.

That being said, what is poetry? According to Martin, poetry is seen by many (and this was prefaced with the idea that poetry has in fact earned this reputation) as, "a parlor game for intellectuals." This, as far as I can tell, may indeed be the case. Who reads poems outside of poets? My stance on publishing is ambivalence and indifference. A poem is something that is and will always be regardless of whether it is published today, tomorrow, or the next decade. What do I get outside of some fleeting feeling of satisfaction from seeing my name/poem in print? My ultimate satisfaction is the poem. The poem will figure itself out eventually--both in its eventual becoming and being, as well as ultimate end point. Whatever dusty notebook/laptop/anthology/collection that might be.




Martin :)

Let's Get Together

oh, this guy

DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM

Possibly and perhaps set out
to watch the clouding willows droop
though a storm returned the borrowed sky
tomorrow did not reply.

-N.H. Pritchard

Perspective

The only thing that's capital-T True is that you get to decide how you're gonna try to see it. This, I submit, is the freedom of a real education, of learning how to be well- adjusted. You get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn't. You get to decide what to worship. Because here's something else that's weird but true: in the day-to day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship -- be it JC or Allah, bet it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles -- is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you. On one level we all know this stuff already. It's been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, epigrams, parables; the skeleton of every great story. The whole trick is keeping the e truth up front in daily consciousness. Worship power, you will end up feeling weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to numb you to your own fear. Worship your intellect being seen as smart, you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. But the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they're evil or sinful, it's that they're unconscious. They are default settings. They're the kind of worship you just gradually slip into, day after day, getting more and more selective about what you see and how you measure value without ever being fully aware that that's what you're doing. -- D.F.W.

Mom Quotes

I'm curious to see some of your (if there are actually any of you out there) favorite mom quotes.

Mom's are classic.

"I found what I believe to be, a marijuana" - my mom

the new and improved

Kyle J Karate

Omar

One of my favorite fictional characters.

{{{{{DUDUDUDUDUDUDUDUDUDU}}}}}}

April 4, 2010. 8:00 p.m. The Bourbon Theater. Lincoln, Nebraska.

Hip Hop

is better when it's more about, "Money, gear, drugs, guns, Goodyears" than your typical, disingenuous, socially conscious bull you hear in groups such as, Blue Scholars (I saw them recently--not impressed). Having a so called, "social conscious," regardless of artistic context, takes the art out of the social; it makes the artist more apparent than the art.



Raekwon's music, although likely exaggerated and embellished (but what good art isn't?), exposes much more of the hip hop culture than anything a group that editorializes their particular point of view could ever do.

Overtly politicized art is half art as far as I am concerned. Art can only reach as far as its fundamental limitations will allow. Therefore, art based in the ideas, policies, and consciouses of others' is art that only belongs to that artist insofar as they have developed these things for themselves.

Raekwon is an artIst. His songs grow past society's limitations in a way that use a sort of social artifice to recognize culture in a way that allows the product to be the product, as opposed to an auxiliary end to the producer. Right?

Some of my poems

published here.

A Poet You Should Know Is

Martha Ronk. While in Chicago last week I spent a fair amount of time at Powell's thumbing through their used poetry. I found a book called Why/Why Not.

Here's a sneak peak:

GETTING A HOLD

The foreign objects are related to the accent
adopted on moving to the coast or the slang she picked up later
slung across the countertop or the glassy essence she was
drinking from a transparent object she got in a pawnshop
which defines what it’s like to hold a cup.

Or water running through one’s hands.

She meant to bring him some as well
and an invitation to an occasion she couldn’t name
like “getting hold of yourself” is wrapping a hand around
or a way of phrasing a song too fast to catch the words.

Two more poems here.

Re: Vampire Weekend

"They're good if you dig that Paul Simon rip off kind of thing. Which I do." - Paul

Meh.

Rotating Kitchen

rotating kitchen from Zeger Reyers on Vimeo.

A State of Affairs

Only 8.3% of Americans read poetry in 2008 (cha cha cha cha ch-eeck it out) That's approximately 25,000,000 people. I wonder how many of those people read something written within the last 10 years. Even within the last 50. Contemporary poetry, I would ASSUME, has a much different audience. 1%? It would be reassuring if it was even that.

with my poems I am purchased
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxtonight I believe this

vision rises like light to its wave

the exact moment a poem dies it takes root

- Tony Tost, from Elephant and Obelisk (Published here)

Graham Foust

Graham Foust from joshuamarie on Vimeo.

St. Vincent

Chicago Checklist:

I'm going to Chicago (I've never been) on January 22, 2010 until January 26, 2010. I will be compiling a list of things I would like to see while I am there.

I'd like to check this place out, and hopefully have some sort of conversation with someone involved with this. This is the sort of thing I'm interested in pursuing at some point in my life.

As much as I dislike poetry readings, in general, it might be nice to expose myself to a variety of them, demographically. I feel like Chicago might be more engaging? That still will do nothing for my inability to pay attention (unless you're Peter Gizzi) to your poems. Maybe they'll have an overhead projector? I could think of worse things to do, however. I might want to check this out. ***EDIT-Judging by the quick google search of the poets reading, I'm not so sure.***

The Art Institute of Chicago appears to have some interesting exhibitions showing during my time there. This looks interesting, among other things. I don't know much about the Museum of Contemporary Art, but it could prove to be interesting?

I've heard good things about POWELLS, but have never had the opportunity to see what it's all about. If any of you have any book requests, let me know.

This is more of a blog for me to keep track of possibilities. Feel free to offer suggestions as, like I said, I've never been to Chicago.

Update (01/05):

FRI. 1/22/10 (10:00pm; $10)

The Empty Bottle & Polyvinyl present "The Joan of Arc Don't Mind Control Variety Show"

Featuring:
Josh Abrams related: DRMWPN, Town & Country
A Tundra
Disappears
Jeremy Boyle
Lites Alive
Matt Clark
Motel Smell
Owen
Pillars & Tongues
The Zoo Wheel
Tim Kinsella
Vacations
plus a special performance by Slick Conditions and other surprise special guests

Out last month on Polyvinyl, Don’t Mind Control is a collection of 18 exclusive songs curated by JOAN OF ARC front man TIM KINSELLA from bands that all feature members who have played in JOAN OF ARC at one point in the band’s lustrous history. The release features the prowess of over 41 musicians and a 24 page photo book documenting KINSELLA and Co’s history of making music together. Tonight is a celebration of musical friendships and partnerships in the Chicago indie music scene that have changed and flourished over the last fifteen years.