Our dream wrestles in the castle of doubt.

Big thx to Scott at Split Lip for talking to me about poetry and my silly efforts. Also, big high-five to David Tomaloff for saying the best thing ever about me: "When I think about T-Gob and his work, I imagine an America remixed by deejay saints in tank tops; I imagine trees growing ice cream that melts under the Midwest summer sun, dripping and forming text on the shells of silverback turtle-puppies, who then carry it off to his editors—and then that, my friends, is how cookies are made."

Christopher Newgent, one of the cool dudes and a stellar writer and a bourbon guy, writes a bourbon column for Hobart, bringing together these three awesome attributes. His newest post is total WOW.

Hellyeah to Vonnegut letters. 

This looks like a really interesting book about atheists/religious people relations. Check this excerpt.

Major woot-woot for my pals Mark Neely and Ashley Ford for their Pushcart nominations from Pank.

Maurice Manning on Conservatism

The poetry world lost a real deal in Jack Gilbert this week.

Horses at Midnight Without a Moon
by Jack Gilbert
Our heart wanders lost in the dark woods. Our dream wrestles in the castle of doubt. But there's music in us. Hope is pushed down but the angel flies up again taking us with her. The summer mornings begin inch by inch while we sleep, and walk with us later as long-legged beauty through the dirty streets. It is no surprise that danger and suffering surround us. What astonishes is the singing. We know the horses are there in the dark meadow because we can smell them, can hear them breathing. Our spirit persists like a man struggling through the frozen valley who suddenly smells flowers and realizes the snow is melting out of sight on top of the mountain, knows that spring has begun. Fire When Ready were one of the best bands no one has ever heard of.

Link Plop

My skull is kinda whimpy so Im gonna start plopping online goodness I like here, for me, for memory, for maybe others if that is what they are into.

Mary Ruefle on Fear

Fear is the greatest motivator of all time. Conflict born of fear is behind our every action, driving us forward like the cogs of a clock. Fear is desire’s dark dress, its doppelgänger. “Love and dread are brothers,” says Julian of Norwich. As desire is wanting and fear is not-wanting, they become inexorably linked; just as desire can be destructive (the desire for power), fear can be constructive (fear of hurting another); fear of poverty becomes desire for wealth. Collective actions are not exempt from these double powers

Lovelace notes on revision

7.     How do you think the backside of a mirror feels? Think about how lonely that is, to be the backside of a mirror. Or maybe not at all. Maybe it’s a relief. It must be such pressure to be the front of a mirror.

Wayne Koestenbaum, Matt Rohrer, Rachel Zucker In Conversation regarding the domestic 

Chris Higgs with a list of 50 Best Instant Movies 

 Awesome poem by Mark Neely

Bunch Of Pals Asking Me Questions: Part 1

1. Have you always been stoked? What was the first thing you were stoked about? - Mark Neely

I’ve always felt this often-overwhelming appreciation/joy/rattling about the art and people and moments that “touch” me. Like weirdo life does, it has evolved. As a kid, I didn’t really know how to deal with it or what it meant, so I yapped and yapped about everything, sports and girls and trapper keeps and hair gel, but mostly about myself. As a teenager, I started listening to/hanging out with this local band, Away With Vega, and their lead singer, Zack Melton, who was about four years older than me, through girl troubles and school distractions and etcetera, would unleash at shows, dance around, flap his arms, boogie in the parking lot to Hall and Oates. And that was when I started letting my stoked-ness out, when I realized that was cool and okay and fun. When I like (here meaning really like it, feel it in the gut, can’t shake it) something, I holler. When I like something, I get on the interwebs and tell someone. When I like something, I throw dollars at it. Because a lot of my life is fogged by depression, shaded by social anxiety, lost in my own selfishness, being stoked is my defense mechanism, my way of being a normal loving human being.

The first thing I remember being stoked about was when I found an Ultimate Warrior action figure. I don’t remember my age. I was in elementary school, I think. It was at the Indy Toys R Us. I was shaking it above my head and going WOOT WOOT and my mom was like I’M NOT WAITING ON YOU ANYMORE and gave me twenty bux and waited in the car.

2. What is your writing process? - Jim Chambers

It is something like this:

- I’m not good at going from blank page to full draft. I start with a cluster of words. Example include: I’ll do an erasure of a blog post that I really liked, I’ll take some phrases from my phone that I’ve typed in an ongoing Note of possible lines, I’ll do a sestina, etc. A lot of this starting material eventually gets edited out or changed, but it gives me a place to start. Most of the clustering is done on my phone or on paper. About half of my drafting is done on paper. The other half is done on the computer.

- Most of my poems, especially in this book, have been through 6-10 drafts, the earlier ones being major revisions and changes, the later ones being tightening of language, word choice, that type of stuff. I typically edit on the computer, though I used to be that dude with a stack of printed poems, scribbling edits on the bus.

- A big part of my process is exchanging with trusted friends and writers. These include (and are not limited to) Layne Ransom, Laura Straub, Diana Salier, Christopher Newgent, Mike Krutel, and Todd McKinney. I never send first or second, usually not even third drafts, to these people. This is like the step right before I’m thinking of sending the poems to a journal, unless a special case arises. This is vital for me.

- Revising never really stops for me. I still edit poems from my first chapbooks.

3. You leave your book in three places. What are those places and who do you hope finds them?- Layne Ransom

1. In a random mailbox; the owner of that mailbox.

2. In a disc golf basket; some rad golfer who just hit his/her first ace.

3. My urn; some nice person who is interested in how my ashes are doing.

4. Was there a defining moment in your life when you knew you had to write or have you always been a writer? - Laura Straub

AND

I find origin stories fascinating. Growing up in small town Indiana, how did you come to writing poetry? - Christopher Newgent

I didn’t read a book, like engage with a book, care about a book, until I was 16. It was The Great Gatsby. (And though I love the book still, I have no clue how that was the book!) From there, I read more classics, then read some contemporary stuff that intrigued me in my late teen years like Eggers and Klosterman (Also, this journal-type book by the sports talker Mike Greenberg called Why My Wife Thinks I'm An Idiot had a strange effect on me. I remember that was the first moment I cared about other people expressing themselves.), then I found the BSU Writers Community my freshman year of college and it has been all rolling up and down a stupid hill since then. Defining moment: I’d say when Todd McKinney read a Dean Young poem at Writers Community. It was the magical experience of community and energy and discovery. Writing made sense as a contemporary living thing after that moment.

5. Where do babies come from? - Ryan Rader

Go ask your mother.

6. If your book were a song what would it sound like? Who would play it? - Layne Ransom

I’ve actually been thinking lately, after hearing Matt Hart’s band Travel’s new album (which comes with his new book) (which puts a bunch of his poems to songs), that I’d love to try this with some of my poems.

Problem is: I don’t know how to make music.

Solution: I have some talented music friends.

Dream friend backing band: Ryan Rader, bass; Cody Davis, drums; Christopher Newgent, guitar; Frank Schweikhardt, guitar; Layne Ransom, keys; Nick Teaford, anything he wants as long as he’s a part of it.

Sound: My goal would probably be like part State Champion (the start/stop pulse), part Cap’n Jazz (the wackiness), and part In The Face of War (the spirit, man, the energy).

Even talking in this Word Doc about this makes me overwhelmed with anxiety and regret. The biggest regret of my teenage years is not learning an instrument. The people I listed above are such for real artists, in my mind. I don’t know if I could handle it.

7. If you were a cocktail, what would you be? - Laura Straub

8. Do you ever think about names for your hypothetical children? And what are they? - Ryan Rader

You know, the whole 2ish years I was married, I never really thought about or wanted kids. We did have names picked out (girl: Kaylee Sue—combo of our middle names + both of our moms’ middle names) (boy: Zachary Evan—my best friend’s name + a name we both thought was neat). Now, I think about kids constantly, probably because I’m around them all day, probably because I wanna go back back back. Names now: (girl: Maggie Sue) (boy: Abraham Evan). Those first names are built for camping and riding bicycles and being read poems and living in a cabin. We should all be so lucky.

10. When will there be daily meetings about you? - Ashley Farmer

That is a freaking question! It should be soon, as much as I’ve been hollering, as much of a mess as I’ve been making. On a hospital bed with my arm inches out of socket, I thought the next day they’d start. The last time I told a human I loved them, but not myself, I thought it’d start. The last time I flew a kite with 27 first graders and I was the one who refused to go inside, I thought it’d start. But that’s all a bunch of boo-ha-ha anyways. Imagine the cost of such operations, tremendous!

11. What is Your Favorite Painting Tonight? - Ashley Farmer

Most previous nights, I'd say Number 1, 1950 (Lavender Mist) by Pollock, that wild emotional mess. I stood in front of that thing with my ex-wife, then girlfriend, and we both said WOW. That was a good word then.

Now, though, Tonight, as you say, I'd say, every 8.5x11 white construction paper sheet doused and dripped and rubbed with water color pictures of flowers that my kids made today, hanging from yarn and paper clips around the classroom. Some are blue tulips smiled on by the sun. Some are hunks. Some have hatchets centimeters from the stem. Some have red Xs where the artist wanted to quit but I wouldn't let them, wouldn't give them a new sheet. They are the most beautiful things I've ever seen created.

12. What do you think of these rising gas prices? - Laura Straub

It suxxxxxxxxxxxxx. I haven’t owned a vehicle for four and a half years. A month ago, I bought an S10 pickup. That first time I filled up, fifty bux, that sucked. Then, I remembered how much I spend per gallon of booze and I thought SHUT UP YOU IDIOT.

FOUR OF A KIND BY MARK NEELY: A RESPONSE

When starting this project, Todd asked me the direction I wanted to go with the poems for the manuscript, a question we returned to last week. We talked about series and themes, how they can add unity to a manuscript. Until this talk and the further thinking that evolved from it, I hadn’t really contemplated the importance of a definable theme or even style, assuming naively it just comes. Reading Four of a Kind by Mark Neely, I was reminded of the ability of a series to right away solidify a manuscript in some sort of a way. These poems, each titled things like “Four Accidents” or “Four Threads,” are constructed on the page in four equally-sized “windows” of text, two on top and two on bottom. Beyond being formatted and sized the same, the content of the poems, at once, hold their own as individual pieces but more importantly pull themselves together under each umbrella of “Four Somethings.”

Maybe the most, I appreciate Neely’s use of the image to play on and delve into the title. A sense of purpose unfolded as I moved from block to block. The poem “Four Fields” is an excellent example of such, as the first one begins, “The locust trees could hiss like snakes,/then still to painted leaves—the wind playing with its paper toys” leading to the first line of the last section, beginning, “These nights the silence has a human shape.” To me, throughout this poem, the associative quality, in this case nature-oriented, of each section pushes them together, while each still makes an impact of its own.

I think this complexity and unique design is what makes this a solid foundation for the collection. While I do very much enjoy the language and the content of the poems, I’m going to focus on the larger structure here, as it pertains to my process of developing this manuscript with Todd. Basically, I have two series of poems developing. One is the set that I’m using for this class, what Todd calls “The Stoked Poems,” where my voice is excited, often using caps, my slang, and energetic association (hopefully well). The other is “The On Poems,” which because of their stage of development and (GASP) simpler construct, I’ve decided to develop on my own, with some help from pals. These have a similar set-up to the Stoked Poems in general style, but they pay less attention to poetic sensibilities and more attention to the relationship between thinking and feeling as expressed in writing. Sometimes, I even feel guilty calling them poems.

There, I think I found it, my point to this post. When thinking about series, especially in the vein of the On Poems, but certainly in generally, I often wonder when something becomes less about the poetry and more about the exercise or the act of behaving a certain way on the page. Before I delve deeper into Neely’s book with this idea in mind, along with Descriptive Sketches by Nate Pritts and Poetry! Poetry! Poetry! by Peter Davis, I want to consider my series with this idea in mind.

Last summer, I started these pieces as an attempt to “calm down.” Often, I was getting lost in the “coolness” of language, and I’d end up with this emotionally-empty but (hopefully) cool sounding thing. When trying to correct it, I’d end up writing these thoughtful poems that were boring. The solution: state a simple topic of concern or interest, disregard linebreaks/rhyme/other poetic conventions, and simply merge the thinking and the feeling. I’ve written about 60 of these and I’m proud of maybe 40 of them for accomplishing my task. The concern I have is about the artifice of it. Of course, as Todd says, all poetry is artifice, but how does such an artifice become relevant, legitimate, and poetic? I guess I have similar concerns about the stoked poems, especially because a lot of readers won’t know me, and might think that this is just a ploy, not me really saying my guts sincerely.

Where Neely’s collection takes a step above simply being a series or exercise is the way the language, the construct, and the poems themselves come together. Though not always aesthetically pleasing for me, I appreciate his sense of the image, the sense of how things unfold in these little windows, which says a lot about the power of the way they are presented, automatically creating a balance in the purpose, the content, and the delivery. Most importantly for me, when together, these poems create their own image about the author, about the style, about the scenes laid out, piled together, that pushes this collection to be a true achievement in series writing.

Because of the descriptive style of Neely, I was reminded of another chapbook with a unique style and construction called Descriptive Sketches by Nate Pritts. On the acknowledgements page, Pritts explains that “each sketch is a haze of language built out of the first line” with the point “to explore the tensile strength of language itself.” While I certainly appreciate that attempt and style as an exercise, these pieces together as a chapbook of poems clashed with my understanding of what makes a solidified work.

Maybe it is a result of differences in aesthetics, though I certainly love other poems of Pritts, I feel that these poems run their course and lose their uniqueness only a few poems in. This is not to say the writing or the language exploration is bad. Here, I am talking about how a series comes together. Looking at the first and last of the bunch might help this point. The first one begins with an onslaught of autumn-devolving-into-winter imagery:

this spinning snow fall leaves scattered bird bright in grey
bright leaves scattered spinning fall snow this bird in grey
snowfall in grey this bird spinning scattered leaves bright

This continues for four more stanzas. Certainly, the ability to refigure language in this way is notable, but when the last one, and the ones in between, look, feel, and resonate so similarly, it is difficult to grasp onto the collection as a whole, as in the beginning of the last one:

I am right now more than ever feeling again
I am feeling again right now more than ever
again more now feeling I am ever right than

While certainly the content and even diction is different, the result for me, merely thinking about how the poems work together does not illicit any sort of overall response from me as a reader, a fear I constantly have with my poems.

Neely’s book on the other hand sticks with me because of how the stark images and underlying emotion are framed within the artifice of the series in a way that lets them breath their own life, but are even stronger in such a contained series.
This reminds me of Poetry! Poetry! Poetry! by Peter Davis. With all poems titled “Poems Addressing…”, everything from Babies to People Who Read My First Book Of Poems, so Are Checking This Out, Davis comes at the audience in a straight forward way that at first can seem unpoetic and plain.

However, what makes this book so impactful for me is the unrelenting assault on the reader of this back and forth between the deeper emotions Davis expresses and the humor as the guise. For instance, several poems address people, such as universities or reviewers, that Davis is seeking approval and recognition from. While the style and the series makes this humorous, the underlying emotion is astounding. When these are packed and repeated in a full length collection, the quality and the quantity of emotional honesty breaks through the humor, creating a lasting set of poems.

I suppose my point with this post is to not necessarily criticize Pritts, as he did do some cool things in those sketches, or point to Davis’ or Neely’s books as any revolutionary works. Rather, they all three are helping me deal with coming to grips with my project, the focus of it, and how I can improve it to make the lasting impression on the readers that I want.

Life Goes Into Words

This weekend is going to be cool. Friday: Savage's with Sara and Jeremy; Osteoferocious and CaddyWhompus at VGR! Saturday: Disc golf in the morning; Family Reunion at night. Sunday: Big 4th of July show at VGR, featuring Cowboy Angels, Timbre, and Small Wonders, amongst others.

My pals in The Bonesetters are playing an awesome show on July 12th.

My dear friend Elysia Smith has a nice piece up at Elimae. I was privileged enough to see a few drafts of this, and really this final is something coooool. I'm proud of my friend.

Collagist contributor and my Facebook friend, Sandy Longhorn, has a poem at Glass: A Journal of Poetry. Look at that ending!

Speaking of cool poems by people I know, Mark Neely, my professor and fellow Muncie Disc Golf player, has a cool one at Juked. I'm super looking forward to my classes with him this Fall: The Broken Plate class and "Collages, Remixes and Readymades: Experiments in Creative Writing."

Speaking of disc golf, how did it take me this long to find this awesome dg essay by the killer Ander Monson?

Speaking of disc golf again, I'm not doing so hot lately.

Speaking of hot, here is a picture of my wife.