Jeffrey McDaniel : Harriet the Blog : The Poetry Foundation

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I saw the headline “Illegal Migrants Dissect Details of Senate Deal” in the New York Times over the weekend, and I wondered if they had a linguistic policy change, as I didn’t remember seeing that phrase “Illegal Migrant” in a headline before, so I did searches of the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, and Fox News websites to see which phrases they used most often. The phrases I searched were “undocumented workers”, “undocumented migrants”, “illegal migrants”, “illegal immigrants”, and “illegal aliens”.

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05.21.07 PERMALINK | NO COMMENTS

Jeffrey McDaniel

the Public Bus Rule

Kenny’s post about a readership existing solely in the academy made me think about a ridership. I usually resist decrees about what is and isn’t a poem, who is and isn’t a poet etc. But if I had a rule, it might be that every person who claims the title poet must have at least one poem that they could sit down and read to a stranger on a public bus and forge some kind of connection. I’d call it the public bus rule. You could have nine hundred other poems that are elusive, difficult etc., but you’d need at least one poem that engages a regular person on a single listen.

05.20.07 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (3)

Jeffrey McDaniel

from the New York Times this week

This is the most whimsical thing I’ve seen in a while, and seems to capture the Czech spirit.
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I could be wrong, but I wonder if this sort of theater would be up Kenneth’s alley. It’s a site-speciifc, conceptual piece, where a German director hires an American actor to act like a farmer on an actual farm, as real farmers watch.
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If anyone will be in New York over the next couple months, this exhibit at the Grolier Club on miniature books looks off-beat and charming.

05.20.07 PERMALINK | NO COMMENTS

Jeffrey McDaniel

writing a political poem

When I was in my senior year of college, I was dating the granddaughter of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, and I found myself wanting to address their execution in a poem. I had passionate feelings about her, and the execution of her grandparents. The intensity of my feelings was actually a barrier to accessing something authentic. I quickly found how difficult it is to write a poem when you enter into the experience with a preconceived notion of what the poem should be. The poem kept coming out “that was wrong”, or “the government sucks”—I couldn’t move beyond that. What I lacked was an entry point. What I also lacked was an open-ness to letting the poem become whatever it needed to be. After a few months of banging my head into the blank page, which was beginning to feel like a brick wall (funny, how something so seemingly light can become so hard and solid), I started doing research about the Rosenbergs, reading about their case. Eventually an entry point revealed itself—instead of talking about the Rosenbergs in general terms, as historical icons, I decided to make them personal, three-dimensional. I ended up writing a love poem of sorts, centered on an imagined last kiss, the night before their execution, the last time they would rub their noses together. I don’t know whether they had such a moment in real life, but for the poem’s sake that kiss good-bye needed to happen.

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05.14.07 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (3)

Jeffrey McDaniel

Derrick Brown video

This is a video of a poet named Derrick Brown. The video isn’t the greatest, but it gives a sense of his work, which walks an elegant line between music and poetry.

05.10.07 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (1)

Jeffrey McDaniel

David Lerner

Here’s an introduction I wrote about David Lerner for a new anthology called The Spoken Word Revolution Redux (edited by Mark Eleveld). Lerner is a poet few people have heard of; his top dozen poems or so are outstanding. After the introduction, I’ve pasted one of his poems.
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05.10.07 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (6)

Jeffrey McDaniel

notes from a poetry festival

Victor Hernandez Cruz and Thomas Lux kick things off with a wonderful, spirited reading. It’s inspiring to see two poets in their late 50’s/early 60’s still writing with imagination and fire.
Cruz is an old school Nuyorican (with Miguel Pinero and company in the late 60’s) who should be more in the loop somehow—for instance, getting good gig$ at the 92nd Street Y and being included in PSA events.
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05.03.07 PERMALINK | NO COMMENTS

Jeffrey McDaniel

anatomy of a poem: Joanna Fuhrman

This is an interview I conducted several years ago with Joanna Fuhrman via e-mail about her poem “In the Basement of the Museum of Potential Urges”, which appears in her book Ugh, Ugh Ocean (Hanging Loose Press). The poem appears below, followed by specific questions about the poem.

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05.02.07 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (1)