June 2011
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Oh my pa-pa
Our fathers have formed a poetry workshop. They sit in a circle of disappointment over our fastballs and wives. We thought they didn’t read our stuff, whole anthologies of poems that begin, My father never, or those that end, and he was silent as a carp, or those with middles which, if you think of the right side as a sketch, look like a paunch of beer and worry, but secretly, with...
October 2010
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Robert Bruce: Talking Show #43 →
Quicktime link. One of his most honest podcast episodes yet. Great poem.
Combinatorics →
bobulate:
The divide between poetry and science isn’t as wide as one might think. In the 1700s certain poems had inherent scientific messages:
[T]he point of poetry was pattern; to use a strict structure of rhythm and rhyme as a framework for words of passion or pedantry that would become fixed in a reader’s brain.
In other words:
Poetry … is mathematics. It is close to a particular branch of...
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Trying to Get Through
I make a knife of words. I sit here waiting. I play with crumbs.
Her eyes that should look straight at me are toward the window, glazed— husband’s horizon?
Not armored. Only armed with pots and pans. Not out of arm’s reach, beyond curtains of doorbells, garden gates.
She puts up ironwork in her eyes; it draws a bolt over what’s real— then looks at me.
I wish I’d brought my saw.
by Eleanor...
“Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is...”
– Attributed to Leonard Cohen.
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Popshot Magazine →
Welcome to the future.
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Poem for Starlings →
By Matthew Rohrer. Great stuff. Hat tip to Matthew Zapruder.
September 2010
29 posts
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For The Unemployed And Underpaid
Wash your face. Be all the beautiful you can. Wear lipstick and fill the cracks left by former love. Cover your eyes in shadow, taint your brows with color. For market. For all of us. We’re all so incandescent with secrets. We’re all agleam with starting over. Let’s vogue. We are the surprised. The divorced. It was never supposed to be like this. Lord God. We’re all...
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To →
A great poem by Franz Wright.
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Page Meets Stage Series →
Let’s just say that I’ve completely underestimated Taylor Mali. His Page Meets Stage series is fantastic. I’ll be linking to more individual videos in the future. Great stuff.
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Everything Before “Happy” Is True
Mrs. Richey manned the big desk, marking quizzes, my little desk pulled next to hers like a tender moored in the lee of a dreadnought holed below the waterline, while I sidled fearfully through rows of students crooked by the state over the state’s disfigured books, laboring toward the past perfect tense. “Is that past perfect or simply the past?” I asked again and again until a ...
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“Dear Lord, we lurch from metaphor to metaphor, which is—let it be so—a form of...”
– Andrew Hudgins, from his poem “Praying Drunk.”
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“Ideas are a form of telepathy — they move from one brain to another.”
– John Gruber (of Daring Fireball fame) from written commentary for a Layer Tennis match.
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Club Midnight
Are you the sole owner of a seedy night club?
Are you its sole customer, sole bartender, Sole waiter prowling around the empty tables?
Do you put on wee-hour girlie shows With dead stars of black and white films?
Is your office upstairs over the neon lights, Or down deep in the dank rat cellar?
Are bearded Russian thinkers your silent partners? Do you have a doorman by the name of...
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Born Yesterday
Tightly-folded bud, I have wished you something None of the others would: Not the usual stuff About being beautiful, Or running off a spring Of innocence and love - They will all wish you that, And should it prove possible, Well, you’re a lucky girl. But if it shouldn’t, then May you be ordinary; Have, like other women, An average of talents: Not ugly, not good-looking, ...
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Another Thing I'd Rather Not Know About Myself →
A great poem by Elly Bookman.
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The Saws by Robert Pinsky →
The saying dead as a doornail is still dead as a doornail: Whatever a doornail might be or was, long lost in the dark….
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Write and Submit: Easier Than Ever
When I was in college, minoring in poetry, there were high hopes for me. From my professors, from my friends, most of all, from myself. And it all came down to a choice I had to make. Pursue a career in the technology industry and hope that I find time to write or swallow the peach and commit to chasing the dragon, which if I was honest, was always my dream.
Even now, with a successful career...
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“Writers are desperate people and when they stop being desperate they stop being...”
– Charles Bukowski
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WatchThe video reading of “Black Smoke.” I usually put a black screen on after the introduction and during the actual reading of the poem, but I decided to leave it off and see how it goes.
And while I tried to avoid taking myself too seriously, this is about as serious a subject as there is. This video, is of course, for Vida.
August 2010
25 posts
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Raúl Zurita talks about life after Pinochet →
When being a poet under a dictatorship meant being persecuted. An inspiring read.
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Howl! →
James Franco stars as Allen Ginsberg. I cannot wait to see this movie.
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The 400 Hour Work Week →
Robert Bruce explains how to outsource poetry in this little piece. Enjoy.
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How A Poem Happens →
Just found this site by Brian Brodeur. I’ll be making it a daily read.
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Dire Straights
The blue economy car moved quick against the cold on that highway. How I was in love, with every twist and turn my mother’s tires kissed the road, running from the wind; and watching it all, I could see the towns and lights grow slowly faint like the pale lights that lit the heating console, coerced to sleep by the foreboding sense of quiet, the soft tangle of road. Trapped by my suburban...
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Moon City Press →
Moon City Press (published by my Alma Mater) is accepting submissions until October 1st.
UPDATE: Sorry, I had the dates wrong. Moon City Press is reading submission from September to January, 2011. I also believe the invitation is especially pertinent to former students of Missouri State University. The limit is five poems. I’ve already submitted mine. Fingers crossed.
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Lines for Winter by Mark Strand →
A video where Mary Louis Parker (of Weeds and West Wing fame) reads “Lines for Winter” by Mark Strand.
I think this is a good idea. We should have more celebrities pushing content of value like this. Trade this content for what’s on television now, we’d have a vastly different country.