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Ready for…. Issue 2??

Yep. What would an Issue 1 be without an Issue 2?

Deciphering the “mi’kmaq book of the dead”

Although it’s not essential to this visual poem or an appreciation of it, mIEKAL aND has produced a translation of what you see above; it begins like this…

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11.11.08 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (11)

We open on a tiny flat in Dublin. A young poet sits by a window, writing. But something is wrong. The poem—eloquent, sonorous, carefully crafted—feels off. Studying the page, she suddenly realizes why, and the reason hurts harder for having been so easy to miss: she edited herself out.

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11.10.08 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (6)

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Of course we did!

“There is simply too much to think about. It is hopeless — too many kinds of special preparation are required. In electronics, in economics, in social analysis, in history, in psychology, in international politics, most of us are, given the oceanic proliferating complexity of things, paralyzed by the very suggestion that we assume responsibility for so much. This is what makes packaged opinion so attractive.” So said Saul Bellow – to which political speechwriter Barton Swaim recently added: Another name for “packaged opinion” is “politics.” Even if you’re a poet, and ostensibly resist prepackaging… people can probably guess who you voted for. Uh oh!

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11.04.08 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (4)

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Will there be time for eggnogs and eclogues in the place where we’re going?

The title of this post is from my fave Halloween-season poem, “What the Spider Heard,” by Weldon Kees. And just in time for your tricks and treats, a change in seasons, the onset of “standard” time, and the big election – we’re pleased to announce…

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11.03.08 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (1)

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The hybrid-way or the highway

The Oxford English Dictionary says that the word “hybrid” comes from the Latin hibrida – the offspring of a tame sow and wild boar. There are lots of citations of Darwin, but we won’t go there; now, I’m not the guy who just finished reading the entire OED, but it looks to me as though the word has fewer citations from poets than almost any other I can find. It’s quite curious, then, to find Cole Swensen disputing the notion of a fundamental division in American poetry, and proposing that “the model of binary opposition is no longer the most accurate one and that, while extremes remain, and everywhere we find complex aesthetic and ideological differences, the contemporary moment is dominated by rich writings that cannot be categorized, and that hybridize core attributes of previous ‘camps’ in diverse and unprecedented ways.”

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10.08.08 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (65)

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Pompeii and Circumstance

OK, who saw the letter to the editor in the October issue of Harper’s about Charles Bernstein’s poem, “Pompeii?” And who gets to put the iron in irony?

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09.20.08 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (22)

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What Are Years.

Marianne Moore once explained that she did not put a question mark after the title of her poem “What Are Years?” – though it kept being printed with one. It’s not a question at all, she explained: “It’s a meditation: ‘What Are Years. What Are Years.’ You’re not thinking about it, not asking anyone to come and answer you.”
Really, Miss Moore?

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09.05.08 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (17)

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The Name Game

As an adjunct to my Kneejerk Poetry list (and just in time for back to school shopping) I’m now assembling a list of names and phrases that are sure to generate controversy instantly. This list has been empirically tested, and is 100% guaranteed to work as advertised; no batteries required!
It’s all open source, so please add your own! Comment… criticize.. distribute freely!