2007 March : Harriet the Blog : The Poetry Foundation

Archive for March, 2007

What I wanted: To teach my sweet, suburban high school freshies to write love poetry. I gave them the tools, hoping they would visit the innocent days of romance, find ways to chronicle their fresh, fumbling attempts at love. I thought I might gather their ode and maybe send them in to Art Linkletter or–in case Art was dead or something–Garrison Keillor. Ah, youth.
What they wrote: Stilted and stiff stanzas, basically limericks without wheels. Bulges. Entanglements. Much wetness. You could almost hear Barry White growling in the backdrop.
What a teacher told me: “You know about the girls giving blowjobs in the stairwells?”
What?

03.21.07 PERMALINK | NO COMMENTS

Poetry Foundation

Direction Reaction Creation

For no good reason, I’ve been reading the liner notes to Direction Reaction Creation, the Jam boxed set (boxed set of Jam sounds delicious) from—I was going to say “a few years back,” but this thing came out in ‘99! (Or ‘97, if you’re a vinylist.) The booklet, which is rather massive, keeps falling open to this passage—a sure sign that I should transcribe it for you:

The strident ‘Here Comes The Weekend’, with its enigmatic reference to human rights abuses in Zaire, was followed by ‘Tonight At Noon’ which once again saw Weller turn to poetry for inspiration—this time that of Liverpudlian beatnik Adrian Henri, whose verse had been anthologized in a 1967 Penguin paperback and British beat poet bible The Mersey Sound. Weller lifted two whole stanzas from Henri’s In the Midnight Hour, suggesting that he was running short of lyrics himself.

“Enigmatic reference” is rather droll, eh?

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03.21.07 PERMALINK | NO COMMENTS

Kenneth Goldsmith

Shame On You, Mr. Walcott

It’s astonishing to me that a writer as celebrated as Derek Wolcott would condescend to spewing such clichés of “terror at the blank page” or tired Romantic notions as to “whether he can make a successful poem again” to a national audience. Do we need this “great Nobel laureate” to reinforce such narrow, sophomoric and unsophisticated notions of what it means to be a writer at this juncture in time, when so many ways of writing and thinking are available to us? Walcott insists: “Anyone [meaning any poet] who tells you otherwise is lying.” Well, Mr. Walcott, I’m telling you otherwise: I wrote nearly 13,000 words on why you are dead wrong on my Poetry Foundation Journal here a few weeks ago. Shame on you, Mr. Walcott, for dumbing-down a discourse instead of raising the bar as a laureate should.

03.21.07 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (3)

Kenneth Goldsmith

Prizes? We Don’t Need No Stinking Prizes!

Kwame, man, do we ever live in different worlds. I am an American poet but in the poetry world I inhabit, first books never win prizes; in fact, the sorts of books myself and my peers write are never even considered for prizes — even some twenty or forty books into a career. This whole awards system you describe — with its sense of entitlement and striving for an upward trajectory — is completely foreign to our notion of what a poetry career is.

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03.20.07 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (1)

Patricia Smith

I’m sick. Bask in my aura.

There’s nothing as pitiful as a sick poet.
I’ve been tussling with a rather raucous flu bug lately. And I’ve never been one of those stiff-upper-lip sickies, sucking it up and persevering, conquering the malady by refusing to give it power. Pshaw. I like to surrender to my germs and wallow among them. I’m a feverish, whiny drippy snorter, hopelessly addicted to the self-centered drama that is run-of-the-mill illness. It’s probably part of my inane belief that all arteeest suffer for a reason, that in the psychedelic throes of a 103-degree temperature I will listlessly drag my pen across a sheet of paper and happen upon the one line the world has been waiting for. Operating on just one nasal passage, I’ll talk endlessly about my constricted chest, aching joints, itchy eyes and spot rashes. Each ailment makes me more insufferable, more tortured and therefore more legitimate as a writer. Who needs a shotglass or a junk-filled hypodermic when you’ve got loose stools?

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03.20.07 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (2)

Kwame Dawes

Poetry Terrors

On NPR a few days ago, Derek Walcott confessed to feeling terror at the blank page—the terror of someone wondering whether he can do it again, whether he can make a successful poem again. The interviewer laughed with some disbelief remarking that even the great Nobel laureate could feel such terror. Walcott insisted, “Anyone [meaning any poet] who tells you otherwise is lying.” I can imagine that in the face of mortality and with the desire for longevity and the continuation of a legacy of presence in the minds of people who live after us, even the great poets of our time, as arrogant as they might be, must wonder about their greatness.

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03.20.07 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (1)

Kenneth Goldsmith

“Name, a novel” by Toadex Hobogrammathon

Name is about as close as one can get to a “novel” that was written by a machine and for a machine: it seems especially primed to attract and repel spam-blockers with its pseudo-porn opening, and yet it also tosses a distracting bone to the bots with its stream of seemingly random verbiage after its first paragraphs. But far as we can tell, Name is the exorbitant creation of a single human being who is known only by the name of “Toadex Hobogrammathon,” the same person who created the Jarry-esque, day-glo colored website Dagmars Chili Pitas, the only “poetry” blog that renders even the marginal trappings of the format itself—such as the date, tables, fonts, colors, etc.—fodder for its neo-Dada somersaults.
Surprisingly, Name turns out to be a good read, perhaps more along the line of the current crop of procedural projects or Peter Manson’s aggregation of junk phrases, Adjunct, than anything from Toni Morrison or Alan Davies, but nonetheless something to keep the retina fused to the screen, with a furious, decidedly No Wave soundtrack to boot. This is the perfect novel to run your computer’s voice emulator on in the background while you while away precious life at the office.
Read Name in its entirety after the jump…

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03.19.07 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (2)

Jeffrey McDaniel

poet/animator collaboration

Last summer I was a part of a poet/animator collaboration organized by poet Pat Payne, in conjunction with NewTown Pasadena. I was paired with an animator, Nick Fox-Gieg. We met once over tea in the Lower East Side and had a rambling discussion that kept swirling back to religion; perhaps this is why he selected my poem The Foxhole Manifesto to work with. When I was very pleased with what Nick came up with. He just sent me the final draft, so I will share it here. He has a bunch of other excellent stuff online on youtube.

03.19.07 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (1)

Kenneth Goldsmith

In Sara Mencken, Christ and Beethoveen there were men and women (1944)

“In her very truly great manners of Johannes Brahms very heroically Sara Powell Haardt had very allegorically come amongst his very really grand men and women to Clarence Day, Jr., John Donne, Ruggiero Leoncavalo, James Owen Hannay, Gustav Frenssen, Thomas Beer, Joris Karl Huysmans and Franz Peter Schubert very titanically.” – John Barton Wolgamot
MP3: Robert Ashley In Sara Mencken, Christ and Beethoveen there were men and women (1972)
PDF: Full Poem & Text
The amazing story after the jump..

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03.19.07 PERMALINK | NO COMMENTS

Kwame Dawes

Kingston Afternoon

There is something physical about the comfort of Kingston for me. Clearly, stitched into my skin is the memory of the body’s reaction to this heat, these smells, these sounds and the sudden amazement of pouis trees blooming with uncanny colors—bright surreal yellows and delicate light blues as if someone has decided to create an otherworldly landscape. I feel the trickle of sweat on me, and find comfort in the cool shade—the heat seems to understand the covenant of heat and shade. I walk into family and friendships as if I have never left, and I know that I can make art here. There is still so much to write about, to chart . . . It is hard to sigh with ennui, to say I have nothing to say, I have nothing to write.

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03.19.07 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (1)

Archive for March, 2007

Patricia Smith

Just hand me my walker….

Poetry Foundation

Direction Reaction Creation

Kenneth Goldsmith

Shame On You, Mr. Walcott

Kenneth Goldsmith

Prizes? We Don’t Need No Stinking Prizes!

Patricia Smith

I’m sick. Bask in my aura.

Kwame Dawes

Poetry Terrors

Kenneth Goldsmith

“Name, a novel” by Toadex Hobogrammathon

Jeffrey McDaniel

poet/animator collaboration

Kenneth Goldsmith

In Sara Mencken, Christ and Beethoveen there were men and women (1944)

Kwame Dawes

Kingston Afternoon

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