BOOOKS

I haven't been happy with my reading lately, nor with my blogging, nor with my interacting with books. To fix that quickly, I'm gonna talk about a few books I've read in recent weeks:

Work's Tiring (from his Complete Poems 1930-1950 Disaffections) by Cesare Pavese

I'm not sure if I've ever read a book of poems like this before. So calm, so freshly narrative. Pavese knows what stories to tell, what images to show. Like in the following poem, "Ballet," where Pavese molds together the image of the giant and his various women, around them places the fight, the chaos of life. When the BOOYEAH image comes, in the final stanza below, I'm shaking my head as the poem ends, like I did with most of these poems, astounded not that I didn't see it coming (oh how warm I am, nuzzled along by Pavese's charm), but baffled by his vision, his shaping of the things I need to see.

Ballet (Read Whole Poem)

If the woman and the giant take off their clothes—
and later they will—the giant will resemble
the serenity of cliffs grown hot in the sun,
the girl-child pressing against them for warmth.

Thank You and Other Poems (from the Collected Poems) by Kenneth Koch

How did I make it this long without Koch? A huge influence of some of my favorite poets, like Dean Young, I'd only read some Koch in anthologies. I saw this collected poems at a Half Price Books and boy it must be fate or destiny or killer timing. Besides having a wonderful coverface to look at, the poems inside are majorly energetic. There's a sort of sense of enjoyment in life that I'm constantly looking for (both in living and in my poems) and Koch has painted a nice how-to guide. "To You" has shot straight up my FAVORITE POEMS OF ALL TIME list because it does that: finds the joy and splatters it on every wall. OH KOCH I'LL NEVER LET YOU GO.

To You (Read Whole Poem)

I love you as a sheriff searches for a walnut
That will solve a murder case unsolved for years
Because the murderer left it in the snow beside a window
Through which he saw her head, connecting with
Her shoulders by a neck, and laid a red
Roof in her heart.

Simple Machines by Michael Bible (Awesome Machine Press)

This might sound silly, but this book is a fabulous reminder of how letters (and sounds) combine to make words, words to make sentences. The sentence: a simple machine that can be so loud, can create so much. The sentences here don't have to add up to say something grand, though they might. For me, this reminder was enough: DON'T FORGET WHAT A SENTENCE CAN DO.

Praying Is boring.

The doctors think
everything is interesting.

The Voice Of The Poet (audiocassette and book) by W.H. Auden

Todd gave me this thing and I listened/read along to each side on its own night. After school, I'd come home, hop in some gym shorts, and plop on my bed and listen to Auden say his goodness. I'm glad I didn't tackle a lot of Auden a few years ago, because my silliness would have got caught up in his rhyming, his "oldness." Now, I see that he's as fresh as the day he wrote those poems. Go read from "In Time Of War"and tell me I'm wrong.

A Coney Island Of The Mind by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

This one got read in a treestand, opening day of bowhunting 2011. Weird right? Five deer probably walked by me and I didn't look up. I didn't care. My goal was rereading this powerful book in its entirety. Speaking of lists earlier, I'd probably put this as top 10 poetry books of all-time for me. I'm amazed by how Ferlinghetti can holler without seeming whiny, can philosophize without being preachy, can slam it out without being attacking.

1 (Click Here For Whole Poem)
In Goya’s greatest scenes we seem to see
the people of the world
exactly at the moment when
they first attained the title of
‘suffering humanity’
They writhe upon the page
in a veritable rage
of adversity
Heaped up
groaning with babies and bayonets
under cement skies
in an abstract landscape of blasted trees
bent statues bats wings and beaks
slippery gibbets
cadavers and carnivorous cocks
and all the final hollering monsters
of the
‘imagination of disaster’
they are so bloody real
it is as if they really still existed

Paragraphs About 4 Books I Read Recently

Tasker Street by Mark Halliday

Not the Halliday book I bought at the reading, but contains my favorite poem from that evening: Ode: The Capris; Having read this book and Little Star, two of Halliday's earliest works, and having heard and read many of his newer poems, I'm realizing his older stuff connects with me more; hIs sincere approach to narrative, through a talkative tone and straightforward presentation of images and emotions, captivates me; at once, he seems to defy poetic conventions by recreating them in this tug-o-war of recognizability and freshness.


Skid by Dean Young

One of the final Dean Young books I haven't read; these poems fall somewhere in between the rawness of the things I love in First Course and Strike Anywhere and the established-voice-trying-new-things that sometimes puzzles sometimes excites me in his later books; of course not a poem in here I didn't find cool lines or an energetic approach that pushed me towards a migraine; rather, I sometimes feel as if Dean's attempt to balance his natural approach and attempts to push his aesthetic results in something a little too jumbled to take me to that level I love in poems like "Frottage"; favorites in this book include "Brighthead," "Whale Watch," "Action Figuring," and "Pulse."


Lighthead by Terrance Hayes

I totally see how this book could win the National Book Award; it has that meshing of political awareness, personal exploration, and balance of humor and deep material; though it wouldn't be my choice; Hayes connects with me most when sincerity seems like the driving principle exposing his situation; for instance, the opening poem, "Lighthead's Guide to the Galaxy," knocked me out; its association, its opening of "Ladies and gentlemen, ghosts and children of the state" as a point of entry, its beautiful balance of meditation and imagery; while at times he missed me with his approach, the times Hayes vividly describes his situation and compounds that with exposure of his mind and heart floored me; other poems that do this: "Shakur," "The Avocado," and "Arbor for Butch."


Starting From San Francisco by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

I've heard people say that Ferlinghetti published one excellent book, A Coney Island of the Mind, (YES IT IS GREAT), and other just-okay books; this book fell into the latter for me, for sure; at times, the beautiful charm and energy of Ferlinghetti, which make him such a respected literary person, drive the poems, like how they carry him to great heights in Coney Island; but other times, Ferlinghetti loses me in his experimentation, his run-away style of pushing the joke/metaphor/point, and seeming disregard for connectivity; a poem like "Euphoria," with its repetition of "As I approach the state of euphoria" and its striking sense of addition of pieces, stays with me, buries within me; however, a poem like "Tentative Description of a Dinner to Promote the Impeachment of President Eisenhower" chunks itself away from the title with obscurities and disengaging non-sequiturs; while Ferlinghetti holds a special place in my heart already as a poet and friend of literature, this book did nothing greater than make me remember how fantastic Coney Island is.

Also, I'm gonna try to read a book of poems a day over Spring Break and blog about each of those. Additionally, I'm gonna try to catch up on some blog topics I've been meaning to get to, including the greatness of Smalldoggies Magazine, Stoked Press news, the next Independent Study post (about Mark Neely's chapbook), and more.

RESOLUTION TO WEIRDHEAD SYNDROME

I've made New Years Resolutions before, like stop being chubby (one year that was a success and has stuck) or write everyday (still working on that one), but I think generally my head goes New Year hey Tyler let's do something cool this year. Recently, my head has been wobbling through a minefield of questions and self-accusations about who I am.

Recently, I pulled out this poem to re-read. When Sara asked to read it and liked it, I realized that this poem is gonna be my New Years resolution. I want to apply it to my everyday life, not just the writer side of me. I think it has a very universal, contemporary message about interacting and loving and doing, three things I value greatly. As this resolution is contained in a poem, it has added importance to me, something that will hopefully push me to be the dude I wanna be.

Populist Manifesto No. 1
by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Poets, come out of your closets,
Open your windows, open your doors,
You have been holed-up too long
in your closed worlds.
Come down, come down
from your Russian Hills and Telegraph Hills,
your Beacon Hills and your Chapel Hills,
your Mount Analogues and Montparnasses,
down from your foothills and mountains,
out of your teepees and domes.
The trees are still falling
and we’ll to the woods no more.
No time now for sitting in them
As man burns down his own house
to roast his pig
No more chanting Hare Krishna
while Rome burns.
San Francisco’s burning,
Mayakovsky’s Moscow’s burning
the fossil-fuels of life.
Night & the Horse approaches
eating light, heat & power,
and the clouds have trousers.
No time now for the artist to hide
above, beyond, behind the scenes,
indifferent, paring his fingernails,
refining himself out of existence.
No time now for our little literary games,
no time now for our paranoias & hypochondrias,
no time now for fear & loathing,
time now only for light & love.
We have seen the best minds of our generation
destroyed by boredom at poetry readings.
Poetry isn’t a secret society,
It isn’t a temple either.
Secret words & chants won’t do any longer.
The hour of oming is over,
the time of keening come,
a time for keening & rejoicing
over the coming end
of industrial civilization
which is bad for earth & Man.
Time now to face outward
in the full lotus position
with eyes wide open,
Time now to open your mouths
with a new open speech,
time now to communicate with all sentient beings,
All you ‘Poets of the Cities’
hung in museums including myself,
All you poet’s poets writing poetry
about poetry,
All you poetry workshop poets
in the boondock heart of America,
All you housebroken Ezra Pounds,
All you far-out freaked-out cut-up poets,
All you pre-stressed Concrete poets,
All you cunnilingual poets,
All you pay-toilet poets groaning with graffiti,
All you A-train swingers who never swing on birches,
All you masters of the sawmill haiku in the Siberias of America,
All you eyeless unrealists,
All you self-occulting supersurrealists,
All you bedroom visionaries and closet agitpropagators,
All you Groucho Marxist poets
and leisure-class Comrades
who lie around all day and talk about the workingclass proletariat,
All you Catholic anarchists of poetry,
All you Black Mountaineers of poetry,
All you Boston Brahims and Bolinas bucolics,
All you den mothers of poetry,
All you zen brothers of poetry,
All you suicide lovers of poetry,
All you hairy professors of poesie,
All you poetry reviewers
drinking the blood of the poet,
All you Poetry Police -
Where are Whitman’s wild children,
where the great voices speaking out
with a sense of sweetness and sublimity,
where the great’new vision,
the great world-view,
the high prophetic song
of the immense earth
and all that sings in it
And our relations to it -
Poets, descend
to the street of the world once more
And open your minds & eyes
with the old visual delight,
Clear your throat and speak up,
Poetry is dead, long live poetry
with terrible eyes and buffalo strength.
Don’t wait for the Revolution
or it’ll happen without you,
Stop mumbling and speak out
with a new wide-open poetry
with a new commonsensual ‘public surface’
with other subjective levels
or other subversive levels,
a tuning fork in the inner ear
to strike below the surface.
Of your own sweet Self still sing
yet utter ‘the word en-masse -
Poetry the common carrier
for the transportation of the public
to higher places
than other wheels can carry it.
Poetry still falls from the skies
into our streets still open.
They haven’t put up the barricades, yet,
the streets still alive with faces,
lovely men & women still walking there,
still lovely creatures everywhere,
in the eyes of all the secret of all
still buried there,
Whitman’s wild children still sleeping there,
Awake and walk in the open air.