I Remembers with the Garfield Elementary Fourth Grade April 25, 2012: Last year, for National Poetry Month, I visited Garfield Elementary in Loveland, Colorado and did "I remembers" with the fourth grade.  This April, I went again.  Our collaborative poem is in two parts. The first part is with the current fourth grade in Mrs. Strid's class: Mrs. Strid being their incredible teacher who loves poetry, builds it [...] by Bhanu Kapil

Shame May Be Fatal April 24, 2012: "The chrysalis breaks apart to form the wings."  Samuel Delaney.  I was asking him how to write a book. The future body of the book.  I think of these notes as wings: as the wet parts that will re-combine or fold: a living structure.  The essay is the chrysalis. In this weak attempt.  It is okay to feel this weak, this listless.  For [...] by Bhanu Kapil

The Shape of the I: Decompressions April 19, 2012: "Analyze compulsory admissions."—a label/decompression. Vanessa Place stuck it to the lapel of her jacket. I cut off a lock of my hair and placed it on a postcard of Lord Chatterton, then took a photograph before giving it (minus the hair) to Vanessa Place.  This happened in a break between panels at a conference on the self. The [...] by Bhanu Kapil

Laynie Browne: Notes from the Void April 17, 2012: Still thinking about Sina's post on offal-elegies, the "factory turned performance space."  I thought I would test something with it: [her] Manifesto of Lyric Conceptualism.  I want to test a poem by Laynie Browne.  I will test her piece in REVOLUTIONesque, A Very Lovely Matchbox against lines from the manifesto.  The manifesto is in [...] by Bhanu Kapil

How To Read April 12, 2012: Feng Sun Chen's PAUL THEK came from Amazon/Lulu three days ago, but I have not opened it and can't imagine opening it. Eventually, I will. Perhaps I will never cut it out. But for now, I like the membrane-like casing and plush, foamy padding of the object itself. Book as chrysalis event. The cellophane like congealed saliva stretched taut over a [...] by Bhanu Kapil

Stories are Chemical April 9, 2012: I was thinking of Lavinia Greenlaw's London, that she described so eloquently in her last post:  "I have spent most of my life between Keats and Rimbaud. Keats and Fanny Brawne met next to the library I used as a child. Rimbaud slapped Verlaine with a fish near the pool where I learnt to swim."  Like a child, I contrasted this description of [...] by Bhanu Kapil

Divination 3: (For Poetry): Frida Kahlo and The Ghosts of Healing April 5, 2012: As poetry is technically dead, according to some of the other poets blogging this week, I considered speaking directly to the dead instead. Before continuing with this post, I'd like to say that I don't take drugs. (Though my father, before he died, or knew he would, invited me to go on a pilgrimage with him to Badrinath, in the mountains of [...] by Bhanu Kapil

How To Write A Poem April 2, 2012: 1.  Eat the raw heart of a horse.  This will distinguish you from a cast of thousands. 2. Are you an urchin?  If so, consider writing a novel instead. 3. Have carnal encounters with anyone but another poet.  For obvious reasons, you do not want to set a plot line in motion. (See: 2.) 4. As Paul Thek said in 1972: "Redesign the human [...] by Bhanu Kapil

Goodbye, Poetry April 26, 2011: A theory of horizontal evolution holds that you are incubated by what lies next to you, in the rusted out pond, as much as you are by a copulative encounter. To incubate: to transfuse. To become something else.  In time.  As you lie there with the others, in the den. A bacterium on your hem, a raw spot beneath the tongue. In this [...] by Bhanu Kapil

Writing “I remembers” with the Fourth Graders at Garfield Elementary School April 23, 2011: At Naropa, one of my colleagues is the sparkly-eyed Australian emigrée Lisa Birman.  Hope I got the accent on the right e.  The other day, facing an upcoming visit to my son's school in Loveland, Colorado, I called her for help.  Ronaldo Wilson, bibliomancy, and analogies to contemporary architectural theory I can do; ages nine to eleven, [...] by Bhanu Kapil