Bombs away! Behrle lets loose

On the Bomb blog, poet Jim Behrle chats with Luke Degnan about the Boston Poet Tea Party and other celebrations. Also, about getting hit in the face. As far as the Tea Party goes, he appreciates being able to meet new poets and learn about their work:

Aaron Kiely ran one in ‘95 or ‘96, the first one. It was in Cambridge. I was like “holy shit.” I met at least 25-30 poets who I still know today and whose work I think is great. For a long time, when I was a kid, when I was in college, I thought, I’m a poet and I want to be a poet, but I was like, how come I don’t like poetry? How come I don’t like what my teachers are teaching me? Louise Glück is that all there is? She’s nice, but is there anything else? For me that was a huge event, that first one, and then ever since it’s been an opportunity to meet people who I wouldn’t have a chance to hear or see read ever.

Not only Glück suffers Behrle's discriminating analysis. He himself recently wrote a poem about Snooki which is, he says, "the worst thing I’ve ever written.”

I literally wrote it on the Green Line. If you’ve ever been on the Green Line when it gets above the street it is just shaking back and forth. I’m just hitting my head against the wall writing this crappy poem. It’s garbage. People are like, “Wow, a poem about Snooki. How interesting.”

In response to the Bomb blog Behrle interview, poet C.A. Conrad offered his two cents about Berhle’s somewhat scathing take on trying to plan a poetry festival in Philly (he mentions Conrad.)

You can read his response to the Berhle interview on Conrad’s blog, PhillySound:

The post is titled “JUST ANOTHER CREEP: The Jim Behrle story,” and that about sums up along with words like “manic” and “sadistic.”

In other news, Behrle wants to legally change his name to “American Poetry.”