Archive for June, 2007
Jeffrey McDaniel
>>>
This post is building off the discussion on Emily’s thread.
I lived in Los Angeles from 1996 to 2003, and there was a lot happening there with Latino writers too. (LA is kind of cut off from the rest of the nation in some ways in terms of literature.) I’m thinking of Luis Alfaro (who after poetry got into playwriting and won a MacArthur genius grant), and Michele Serros (who is now writing non-fiction, How To Be A Latina Role Model), and Dennis Cruz (a Bukowski-esque spirit with the power to both terrify and move), and Alicia Vogl Saenz (who has exquisite diction and elegant imagery), and the dark humor of Richard Garcia (The Flying Garcias on Pitt Press). There’s an arts organization in East LA called Self-Help Graphics.
Jeffrey McDaniel
post-confessional poetry?
I’m thinking about Rachel’s recent post and the intersection between experience and art. Some of the most powerful poems I know seem to be, if not drenched in, then at least tinged with experience and have that born-out-of-necessity feel. These poems, a number of which might be called “confessional”, seem to have something at stake emotionally, but for this sort of poem to work, there needs to be something happening on the artistic end as well, something sonically, or metaphorically, or syntactically, that pushes the poem beyond a mere transcription of experience. Even Carolyn Forche’s poem, “The Colonel”, which seems to embrace journalistic techniques (delivered in a block of prose, told in very straightforward, methodical language), has a metaphorical leap at the end as some of the severed ears “caught this scrap of his voice”.
Kenneth Goldsmith
School of Quietitude?
A commenter on Silliman’s blog asked the following question:
“Just curious Ron, but are any of your SoQ [School of Quietitude] poets happy to be tagged with this label now, today? Does anyone refer to him/herself as SoQ? As I say, just curious.”
I’m curious too. Do any of the other bloggers or readers of Harriet identify themselves as such? Either way, how does Silliman’s term strike you? Does such as school exist or is it a figment of Ron’s imagination?
Kenneth Goldsmith
DieKu
Wonderful 5-7-5 syllable haikus comprised of snapshots of tombstones called “DieKu”, mysteriously appearing on the streets of New York recently. Enigmatically penned by “Nick Beef – NYC”
DieKu #1
Corona Brewer
Noble Golden Beer Skillman
Wetmore Lips Aleman
DieKu #2
Bizzaro Bushman
Texas Manno Wargo Wild
George Izzo Looney
Lengthy speculations have been suggested regarding the circumstances of the mysterious Mr. Beef.
Kwame Dawes
Discerning the Hub
Where is the pulse of poetry, today? Is there a pulse? Is there any point in trying to find one? For a while I really felt that the pulse of poetry was this blog site. We were being quite brilliant, insightful and hip to what is going on around us and there were hints here and there that we were going to try to, if not fix the ills of poetry, at least define them and study them and expose them. Of course, this was not what any of us were about, and we should all be grateful for this. Still, I am sure that those of us who write poetry and hang around with poets find ourselves in situations that convince us that we are sitting in the epicenter of poetry in America, and we even offer statements like, “Wow, this is what is happening in poetry, this is where it at!” Then we return to our ordinary lives and we go back to writing our poems, and doing our workshops, and making our livings and dealing with family, and not only does the epicenter of poetry seem like an unlikely place, but it also seems quite irrelevant. So is there an epicenter, a hub? And does anyone care?
Patricia Smith
Complete with a surprise twist ending!
What fun! I want to be sexy, cool and accessible too! So here’s my very own pro-consumerist thingie! Thanks, Kenny!
(You may notice that I don’t touch as many things as Alexandra does, and I wouldn’t know a Bvulgari if it fell on me.)
First, my Motorola
Then my KMart
Then my Dell
Then my Krups
Then my Sonicare
Then my Ivory
Then my Crest
Then my Lady Speed Stick
Then my Suave
Then my Nair
Then my Loreal
Then my JCPenney
Then my Motorola
Then my KMart
Then my Sony
Then my Skagen
Then my Sears
Then my Proctor-Silex
Then my Magic Chef
Then my Kashi
Then my Hood
Jeffrey McDaniel
Washington DC poetry slam, 1993-95
A few weeks ago Patricia talked about her coming up through the slam in Chicago, how that is where she emerged wholly as a writer and performer. That a writer of her caliber could emerge from the slam community is a testimony to the possibilities of that community. The slam was not my first artist home, but it was an important early one.
Kenneth Goldsmith
Pro-Consumerist Poetry
With a discussion recently here involving Time Magazine’s suggestion that “what poetry really needs is a writer who can do for it what Andy Warhol did for avant-garde visual art: make it sexy and cool and accessible without making it stupid or patronizing”, I think the first thing we need to do is to find a poet who is unabashedly pro-consumerist. In our overdrive hyper-capitalist frenzied world, it’s hard to find poets that actually celebrate, say, shopping. You might think that during the Bush administration, pro-consumerist poets would be coming out of the woodwork. But no, instead our Poet Laureates write about fishing on the Susquehanna in July, or porch swings in September, or ox-cart men (ox cart men???!!! WTF???!!!), hopelessly out of touch with what is obsessing most Americans (and most of the world): buying things.
The poetry world has yet to experience its version of Pop Art — and Pop Art happened nearly 50 years ago. While the New York School fondled consumerism sweetly, using pop as a portal to subjectivity — (O’Hara: “Having a Coke with you /is even more fun than going to San Sebastian, Irún, Hendaye, Biarritz, Bayonne”) — it never came close to the cold objectivity, naked, prophetic words of Warhol: “If you’re the Queen of England you couldn’t have a better Coke than the bum on the corner.” Clearly, Frank O’Hara is not our Andy Warhol.
However, all is not lost. In the two posts below are two contemporary poets dealing with consumerism head-on, in a way that would make Andy proud.
Kenneth Goldsmith
Pro-Consumerist Poet #1
First, my Motorola
Alexandra Nemerov
Nemerov constructed this poem by simply listing every brand she touched sequentially during a day, from the moment she woke up, until the moment she went to sleep: it’s hard to imagine a more accurate contemporary self-portrait. And it doesn’t get “sexier”, “cooler”, or “more accessible” than this.
First, my Motorola
Then my Frette
Then my Sonia Rykiel
Then my Bvulgari
Then my Asprey
Then my Cartier
Then my Kohler
Then my Brightsmile
Then my Cetaphil
Then my Braun
Then my Brightsmile
Then my Kohler
Then my Cetaphil
Then my Bliss
Then my Apple
Then my Kashi
Then my Maytag
Then my Silk
Then my Pom
Then my Maytag
Then my Kohler
Then my Pur
Then my Fiji
Then my Kohler
Then my Maytag
Then my Herman Miller
Then my Crate and Barrel
Then my Apple
Then my On Gossamer
Then my La Perla
Then my Vince
Then my D&G
Then my Ralph Lauren
Then my Moschino
Then my Ralph Lauren
Then my Lucchese
Then my Apple
Kenneth Goldsmith
Pro-Consumerist Poet #2
from Mon Catalogue
Claude Closky
Using a tactic similar to Nemerov’s, Mon Catalogue is a complete listing of every possession Closky owns, which he then transcribed into first-person singular possessive catalogue-speak. Again, it’s an amazingly contemporary form of self-portraiture, defining oneself not only by what one owns, but described in the language of consumerism. Chilling and dead-on.
Mon réfrigérateur
Le volume utile de mon réfrigérateur est bien supérieur aux capacités habituelles, et me permet de stocker mes produits frais et surgelés. Le compartiment a viande a temperature réglable et le bac a legumes avec contrôle d’humidité m’assurent une parfaite conservation de mes aliments. Outre le froid ventilé, il me fabrique et me distribue des glaçons ainsi que de l’eau fraIche. De plus, mon réfrigérateur est équipé d’une façade anti-salissure qui me facilite son entretien.
Mon gel purifiant
Pour matifier peu à peu l’aspect luisant de ma peau, resserrer mes pores dilatés et assainir mes comédons, j’ai une solution: nettoyer chaque soir mon visage avec mon gel purifiant au zinc associé à un actif régulateur de sébum qui élimine, sans me décaper, les impuretés accumulées pendant la journée. Ma peau ne brille plus. Le pouvoir apaisant du zinc, renforcé par un agent hydratant, adoucit et ressource les zones sèches de mon visage. Ma peau ne tire plus.
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
Thom Donovan
Bhanu Kapil
Fred Moten
Craig Santos Perez
Sina Queyras
Sotère Torregian
STAFF WRITERS
Cathy Halley
Michael Marcinkowski
Travis Nichols
Fred Sasaki
Don Share
RECENT COMMENTS
-
This is terrific; too often sentences are seen as shopping carts, used simply to move ... MORE »
vanessa place | 03.22.10 -
Michael R. wrote:
>If you’d been reading, you’d realize that the point of that passage is ... MORE »
Kent Johnson | 03.21.10 -
Yes, that would be me. SQ and LH are one and not the same. MORE »
Sina | 03.21.10 -
Very cool. I had not heard of Piet Hein, and will look him up. A ... MORE »
LH | 03.21.10 -
Definitely very cool, Craig. Very much liked kari edwards' book and will put this on ... MORE »
Sina Queyras | 03.21.10
Beyond Careerism? (Redistributing Poetic... (33)
Anthology Spotlight: The Space Between: Negotiating... (1)
On the matter of career (40)
To Sonnet, to Son-net, Tuscon Net (55)
Women’s History Month: A Salute (3)
RECENT POSTS
- Art Strike Anyone?
- More Lives of Poets
- Anthology Spotlight: The Space Between: Negotiating Culture, Place, and Identity in the Pacific
- Saturdays in Early Spring
- All sides now: a correspondence with Lisa Robertson
MONTHLY ARCHIVE
- March 2010
- February 2010
- January 2010
- December 2009
- November 2009
- October 2009
- September 2009
- August 2009
- July 2009
- June 2009
- May 2009
- April 2009
- March 2009
- February 2009
- January 2009
- December 2008
- November 2008
- October 2008
- September 2008
- August 2008
- July 2008
- June 2008
- May 2008
- April 2008
- March 2008
- February 2008
- January 2008
- December 2007
- November 2007
- October 2007
- September 2007
- August 2007
- July 2007
- June 2007
- May 2007
- April 2007
- March 2007
- February 2007
- January 2007
- December 2006
- November 2006
- October 2006
- September 2006
- August 2006
- July 2006
- June 2006
- May 2006
- April 2006
- March 2006
- February 2006
- January 2006
CATEGORY ARCHIVE
- Arts (76)
- Audio (42)
- Awards (25)
- AWP (14)
- Best Sellers (6)
- Books (170)
- Criticism (202)
- Distribution (4)
- Education (38)
- Harriet (17)
- Interviews (15)
- Journals (266)
- Live Readings (34)
- Music (44)
- News (62)
- Obituaries (16)
- Photography (3)
- Poems (241)
- Poetry magazine (55)
- Poetry Out Loud (14)
- poetryfoundation.org (9)
- Politics (121)
- Readings (36)
- Science (12)
- Translation (25)
- Uncategorized (887)
- Video (22)
PREVIOUS WRITERS
- A.E. Stallings (54)
- Abigail Deutsch (17)
- Ada Limón (18)
- Adrian Blevins (3)
- Alan Gilbert (30)
- Amber Tamblyn (6)
- Andrew Feld (3)
- Ange Mlinko (73)
- Annie Finch (47)
- Anselm Berrigan (24)
- April Ossmann (5)
- Barbara Jane Reyes (21)
- Bhanu Kapil (9)
- Bill Zavatsky (5)
- Bread Loaf Writers' Conference (5)
- Brian Turner (5)
- C. Dale Young (4)
- Camille Dungy (31)
- Cate Marvin (2)
- Cathy Halley (21)
- Catherine Wagner (5)
- Cathy Park Hong (14)
- Christian Bök (61)
- Clare Cavanagh (5)
- Craig Santos Perez (22)
- D.A. Powell (24)
- Daisy Fried (46)
- Don Share (58)
- Edwin Torres (17)
- Eileen Myles (40)
- Emily Warn (29)
- Erin Belieu (5)
- Forrest Gander (25)
- Fred Moten (11)
- Fred Sasaki (16)
- Gillian Conoley (5)
- Harriet Monroe (1)
- Janet Holmes (5)
- Jason Guriel (24)
- Javier Huerta (31)
- Jeff Shotts (5)
- Jeffrey McDaniel (46)
- Joel Brouwer (22)
- John S. O'Connor (21)
- Jonathan Galassi (5)
- Joshua Beckman (5)
- Joshua Weiner (5)
- Joy Harjo (5)
- Katie Hartsock (3)
- Kay Ryan (5)
- Kazim Ali (5)
- Kenneth Goldsmith (114)
- Kim Addonizio (5)
- Kwame Dawes (99)
- Lavinia Greenlaw (18)
- Linh Dinh (72)
- Lisa Robertson (5)
- Lorna Dee Cervantes (1)
- Lucia Perillo (13)
- Major Jackson (30)
- Mark Nowak (31)
- Mark Thwaite (5)
- Martin Earl (17)
- Matvei Yankelevich (1)
- Maureen N. McLane (5)
- Mónica de la Torre (5)
- Melissa Friedling (17)
- Michael Dumanis (3)
- Michael Marcinkowski (5)
- Milan Gagnon (1)
- Monica Youn (6)
- Nick Twemlow (8)
- Olena Kalytiak Davis (16)
- Patricia Smith (66)
- Patricia Spears Jones (5)
- Peter Campion (5)
- Pimone Triplett (2)
- Poetry (1)
- Poetry Foundation (26)
- Rachel Zucker (30)
- Rebecca Wolff (20)
- Reginald Shepherd (43)
- Richard Siken (5)
- Rigoberto González (76)
- Robert Hershon (5)
- Rodrigo Toscano (1)
- Sina Queyras (22)
- Sotère Torregian (30)
- Stephen Burt (54)
- Steve Young (5)
- Terrance Hayes (5)
- Thom Donovan (20)
- Tonya Foster (5)
- Tracie Morris (5)
- Travis Nichols (100)
- Tyehimba Jess (5)
- Valerie Johnson (1)
- W.S. Di Piero (5)
- Wanda Coleman (19)
- Wave Books Poetry Bus Tour (40)
- William Logan (5)
IN THIS ISSUE: March 2010
A selection of new work from Dorothea Grossman; new poems by Lavinia Greenlaw, David Yezzi, A.E. Stallings, Gerald Stern, and Dan Gerber; translations of Carlo Betocchi, and Mahmoud Darwish; an Editorial on Ruth Lilly; an exchange between Ilya Kaminsky and Adam Kirsch; an essay by Chen Li; and a review by Daisy Fried.
CHICAGO EVENTS
Poetry Off the Shelf: David Baker
Fri, March 26th, 6:00 PM
Open Books
213 West Institute Place
Free admission
Copyright © 2010 Poetry Foundation Contact: mail@poetryfoundation.org Privacy Policy / Terms of Use
Poetryfoundation.org article RSS. Magazine RSS. Blog RSS. Poem of the Day RSS. Glossary Term of the Day RSS.