Todd bought me the anthology The Poetry of Surrealism edited by Michael Benedikt as a graduation present. Of course, I've heard many of the names in this collection--Breton, Apollinaire, Tzara--but my actual reading experience with them, regretfully, has been minimal. As they influence some of my favorite poets, like Dean Young, I decided to dedicate a good amount of time to enjoying and understanding this wonderful movement. I'm about halfway through the book, spending a few days at a time with a single author. Below is a recording of some of my favorite pieces from the first half of the book.
Reading from The Poetry Of Surrealism Anthology by Stoked Press
Showing posts with label Todd. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Todd. Show all posts
Friday, May 27, 2011
Thursday, March 17, 2011
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 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:
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.
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.
Saturday, February 26, 2011
WORDZ AT MY HEADWEEK
In addition to the sweet visit from Brian Oliu and the Alabama Undergradsthis week, I got to see Mark Halliday and Terrance Hayes read in Indy on Wednesday and Thursday respectively.
Here is a quick rundown of each, followed by one of my favorite poems by each poet:
Halliday: odd quirky personality, like mix of emotionally tender and cynical, style comes across so well during reading, went with Todd, Sara, Cody, and Tyler, Butler has a sweet reading series (HICOK STILL TO COME), got Jab, got Jab autographed, super fun.
Hayes: Really good reader, pace and tone, tried to be funny at times and came off as COME ON MAN, stopped in middle of a poem to explain something=lame, NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER, poems seem deep like goodness, went with Ashley, Cody, Tyler, and DJ, ate at a 50's diner which was cool, U of Indy, Hayes wears two watches, bought Lighthead, got Lighthead signed, so did Tyler, our books look identical.
ODE: THE CAPRIS
by Mark Halliday
from Tasker Street
How do I feel about "There's a Moon Out Tonight"
by the Capris?
I thought you'd never ask
Marcia Koomen lived across Cherry Lane
getting tall, taller than me in fifth grade
and smiling behind her glasses, she knew something.
The summer nights in Raleigh were thick
with something bright in the dark; you could ride
bikes under the moon and in and out of
lampshine at the corner of Wade and Dogwood,
not caring about touching a girl, or, later,
not caring much still but happy to be a boy
who could some day "have" a girl, and be conscious of
a shivering beauty caught in the word girl
There's a girl at my side
that I adore
-the Capris knew something all together
and it called for this new verb, to adore;
something out there ahead of my bicycle in the dark;
I cared a loy about Paladin on "Have Gun - Will Travel"
but did I adore him? Scotty Koomen, years older,
got sort of pale and brittle when he went to visit
a certain girl in his class, he seemed to have trouble
breathing...
There's a glow in my heart
I never felt before
- not exactly in my heart yet but it was
what would be there if I rode just maybe deeper down
Dogwood Lane in the busy dark.
Across Dogwood lived Ann Dailey
who had freckles and an awesome kind of largeness,
not fat but big and this made my eyes feel hot and burny;
she moved slowly doing chores in her yard,
her long tanning thighs seemed sarcastic
as if she knew soon her freckled beauty must positively
carry her somehow out, out and away...And
Shelby Wilson one night kissed her on the lips.
I saw it happen - on the sofa in the basement -
her folks weren't home. Right on the lips!
Amazing lips are in your future, boy. That's
what the Capris were telling me; the North Carolinia moon
is natural and it can find you anywhere;
you have to let the moon paint you and your bike
and the picture of Elvis in your pocket
and it shines down on Marcia's hair
and on the thought of the green eyes of Ann Dailey.
Ride and wait, wait and watch;
you laugh, you shiver in the summer - cool - dark.
You speak of the Yankees and the Pirates but
cut a side glance at Marcia's tall shape
but when she says anything serious exasperate her
yelling Little Richard's wop bop alu bop
but this dodging, dodging will end -
somewhere -
the Capris being on Marcia's side.
Baby, I never felt this way before
I guess it's because there's a moon out tonight
and once that shining starts
no amount of irony will ever quite ride the Capris out of town.
I picture a deep pool with yellow flowers drifting
on the surface. The song pours up
out of that pool.
At Pegasus
by Terrance Hayes
from Muscular Music
They are like those crazy women
who tore Orpheus
when he refused to sing,
these men grinding
in the strobe & black lights
of Pegasus. All shadow & sound.
"I'm just here for the music,"
I tell the man who asks me
to the floor. But I have held
a boy on my back before.
Curtis & I used to leap
barefoot into the creek; dance
among maggots & piss,
beer bottles & tadpoles
slippery as sperm;
we used to pull off our shirts,
& slap music into our skin.
He wouldn't know me now
at the edge of these lovers' gyre,
glitter & steam, fire,
bodies blurred sexless
by the music's spinning light.
A young man slips his thumb
into the mouth of an old one,
& I am not that far away.
The whole scene raw & delicate
as Curtis's foot gashed
on a sunken bottle shard.
They press hip to hip,
each breathless as a boy
carrying a friend on his back.
The foot swelling green
as the sewage in that creek.
We never went back.
But I remember his weight
better than I remember
my first kiss.
These men know something
I used to know.
How could I not find them
beautiful, the way they dive & spill
into each other,
the way the dance floor
takes them,
wet & holy in its mouth.
Here is a quick rundown of each, followed by one of my favorite poems by each poet:
Halliday: odd quirky personality, like mix of emotionally tender and cynical, style comes across so well during reading, went with Todd, Sara, Cody, and Tyler, Butler has a sweet reading series (HICOK STILL TO COME), got Jab, got Jab autographed, super fun.
Hayes: Really good reader, pace and tone, tried to be funny at times and came off as COME ON MAN, stopped in middle of a poem to explain something=lame, NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER, poems seem deep like goodness, went with Ashley, Cody, Tyler, and DJ, ate at a 50's diner which was cool, U of Indy, Hayes wears two watches, bought Lighthead, got Lighthead signed, so did Tyler, our books look identical.
ODE: THE CAPRIS
by Mark Halliday
from Tasker Street
How do I feel about "There's a Moon Out Tonight"
by the Capris?
I thought you'd never ask
Marcia Koomen lived across Cherry Lane
getting tall, taller than me in fifth grade
and smiling behind her glasses, she knew something.
The summer nights in Raleigh were thick
with something bright in the dark; you could ride
bikes under the moon and in and out of
lampshine at the corner of Wade and Dogwood,
not caring about touching a girl, or, later,
not caring much still but happy to be a boy
who could some day "have" a girl, and be conscious of
a shivering beauty caught in the word girl
There's a girl at my side
that I adore
-the Capris knew something all together
and it called for this new verb, to adore;
something out there ahead of my bicycle in the dark;
I cared a loy about Paladin on "Have Gun - Will Travel"
but did I adore him? Scotty Koomen, years older,
got sort of pale and brittle when he went to visit
a certain girl in his class, he seemed to have trouble
breathing...
There's a glow in my heart
I never felt before
- not exactly in my heart yet but it was
what would be there if I rode just maybe deeper down
Dogwood Lane in the busy dark.
Across Dogwood lived Ann Dailey
who had freckles and an awesome kind of largeness,
not fat but big and this made my eyes feel hot and burny;
she moved slowly doing chores in her yard,
her long tanning thighs seemed sarcastic
as if she knew soon her freckled beauty must positively
carry her somehow out, out and away...And
Shelby Wilson one night kissed her on the lips.
I saw it happen - on the sofa in the basement -
her folks weren't home. Right on the lips!
Amazing lips are in your future, boy. That's
what the Capris were telling me; the North Carolinia moon
is natural and it can find you anywhere;
you have to let the moon paint you and your bike
and the picture of Elvis in your pocket
and it shines down on Marcia's hair
and on the thought of the green eyes of Ann Dailey.
Ride and wait, wait and watch;
you laugh, you shiver in the summer - cool - dark.
You speak of the Yankees and the Pirates but
cut a side glance at Marcia's tall shape
but when she says anything serious exasperate her
yelling Little Richard's wop bop alu bop
but this dodging, dodging will end -
somewhere -
the Capris being on Marcia's side.
Baby, I never felt this way before
I guess it's because there's a moon out tonight
and once that shining starts
no amount of irony will ever quite ride the Capris out of town.
I picture a deep pool with yellow flowers drifting
on the surface. The song pours up
out of that pool.
At Pegasus
by Terrance Hayes
from Muscular Music
They are like those crazy women
who tore Orpheus
when he refused to sing,
these men grinding
in the strobe & black lights
of Pegasus. All shadow & sound.
"I'm just here for the music,"
I tell the man who asks me
to the floor. But I have held
a boy on my back before.
Curtis & I used to leap
barefoot into the creek; dance
among maggots & piss,
beer bottles & tadpoles
slippery as sperm;
we used to pull off our shirts,
& slap music into our skin.
He wouldn't know me now
at the edge of these lovers' gyre,
glitter & steam, fire,
bodies blurred sexless
by the music's spinning light.
A young man slips his thumb
into the mouth of an old one,
& I am not that far away.
The whole scene raw & delicate
as Curtis's foot gashed
on a sunken bottle shard.
They press hip to hip,
each breathless as a boy
carrying a friend on his back.
The foot swelling green
as the sewage in that creek.
We never went back.
But I remember his weight
better than I remember
my first kiss.
These men know something
I used to know.
How could I not find them
beautiful, the way they dive & spill
into each other,
the way the dance floor
takes them,
wet & holy in its mouth.
Thursday, February 24, 2011
I think about you so much
When I finished The Sleep Hotel by Amy Newlove Schroeder, I thought to myself, Man there are a lot of flames in here. The intersection between nature and human life seems to run as a solid thread holding the fragments of these poems together. My overall reaction to the book floated between indifference and being mesmerized, sometimes being struck by the breathtaking juxtaposition of stark images and clear purpose. Other times, I would get lost in the tangle of the seemingly overworking of these elements. For this response, I want to tease out the difference between the two types of poems I see in this book and why each strike me in their own way.
The first type, the ones that I particularly felt connected to, were shorter pieces, typically less than a page, consisting of fragmented associations and the brief collision of spiritual and/or sexual feelings and strong images. A poem like “Covet” combines a strong opening, quick slices of images, and a deep moral undertaking at the end, alluded to by the title:
The spacing and unraveling exposure of “the point” strikes me in this poem. In a way that reminds me at times of Michael Dickman, Schroeder lets go of her information at just the right time, choosing her timing, words, and space delicately to arrive at the physical consumption by envy. The line “it’s a jeweled abandon, isn’t it being mean,” rules because of its poofing out of “being mean.” In my writing, I force the issue too quick sometimes, if I even get there at all, often by holding my “point” in my head and slapping it down unpurposefully to get it on the page. (Side note: I love the first stanza so much for its combo of attention grabbing quality, image, and deeper meaning.)
A poem like “Sonic” has the opposite effect for me, unraveling in such an ambiguous way, that I never find myself moved in the manner the subject matter and presentation would suggest was the intention. Rather, Schroeder’s longer sectioned poems string me along, and when I was done, I didn’t really feel anything. The first two sections of this poem, for instance, illustrate that this type of writing is essentially fragments within fragments of a fragmented poem:
Typing out those lines, I notice the attempts at tension, like with the parenthesis or line length variation, and awesome lines like “the streets became…”, but it lacks the addition effect of the fragments in “Covet.” I find that these longer poems do not hold my attention or emotionally impact me. I have never written long poems until recently, and that is one concern I have: the sustaining of voice, style, and most importantly purpose. For this poem, Schroeder takes us to the last section where I’m still not holding much:
While this section has more cohesion than the beginning, with a little more sustained in the form and in the interwoven idea, ending the way it does still keeps me from grasping the significance.
My point in this discussion is less about the goodness or badness of this book, but rather looking at Schroeder in terms of the variability of a first book. While on the page, many of these poems look similar, either of the two varieties mentioned, and the content has some reoccurring things, like fire, the method of poetic engagement varies greatly, everything from syntax and word choice to jumping between heavy description in one poem and abstract fragmentation in the next. The title poem, “The Sleep Hotel,” is one of my favorites from the collection, as it allows the image to do the work:
As I’ve discussed before with Todd, my favorite types of poems are the ones that have qualities which allow the reader to simply enjoy them right away, like a compelling narrative (this one) or an energetic mood, but that also possess the depth to reward a reader for further reading and examination. This book shows examples of both types of poems, which illuminates my own difficulty sometimes of leaning one way or the other (immediate enjoyment vs. deep insight).
The first type, the ones that I particularly felt connected to, were shorter pieces, typically less than a page, consisting of fragmented associations and the brief collision of spiritual and/or sexual feelings and strong images. A poem like “Covet” combines a strong opening, quick slices of images, and a deep moral undertaking at the end, alluded to by the title:
birds fly when my neighbor tells them to
whenever she waves her hands
or that’s how it seems to me
when I think about her, in my lock box of gravel & sand
my clawed face, my scar
Sycorax cleaving the sprite into the tree
it’s a jeweled abandon, isn’t it being mean
so happy for you so happy so so
envy consumes itself
first the face then the hands the feet
The spacing and unraveling exposure of “the point” strikes me in this poem. In a way that reminds me at times of Michael Dickman, Schroeder lets go of her information at just the right time, choosing her timing, words, and space delicately to arrive at the physical consumption by envy. The line “it’s a jeweled abandon, isn’t it being mean,” rules because of its poofing out of “being mean.” In my writing, I force the issue too quick sometimes, if I even get there at all, often by holding my “point” in my head and slapping it down unpurposefully to get it on the page. (Side note: I love the first stanza so much for its combo of attention grabbing quality, image, and deeper meaning.)
A poem like “Sonic” has the opposite effect for me, unraveling in such an ambiguous way, that I never find myself moved in the manner the subject matter and presentation would suggest was the intention. Rather, Schroeder’s longer sectioned poems string me along, and when I was done, I didn’t really feel anything. The first two sections of this poem, for instance, illustrate that this type of writing is essentially fragments within fragments of a fragmented poem:
where houses used to be
now /
flight vapor
*
trying to see with the mind
or through the mind:
a lot of sex with him—no radiation
(if I didn’t love him
he could hurt me)
the streets became empty fields, but still have names like Buena Vista
doesn’t air speak
the same fluent language as water?
Typing out those lines, I notice the attempts at tension, like with the parenthesis or line length variation, and awesome lines like “the streets became…”, but it lacks the addition effect of the fragments in “Covet.” I find that these longer poems do not hold my attention or emotionally impact me. I have never written long poems until recently, and that is one concern I have: the sustaining of voice, style, and most importantly purpose. For this poem, Schroeder takes us to the last section where I’m still not holding much:
almost asleep but the birds are peevish
the birds don’t sleep
even under the drape of darkness
birdsong, not like bells but bell-shaped
I just wanted to see around it,
around the possibility of flight
chain link fence
diamond-shaped empty
O sound
hidden in the sea
While this section has more cohesion than the beginning, with a little more sustained in the form and in the interwoven idea, ending the way it does still keeps me from grasping the significance.
My point in this discussion is less about the goodness or badness of this book, but rather looking at Schroeder in terms of the variability of a first book. While on the page, many of these poems look similar, either of the two varieties mentioned, and the content has some reoccurring things, like fire, the method of poetic engagement varies greatly, everything from syntax and word choice to jumping between heavy description in one poem and abstract fragmentation in the next. The title poem, “The Sleep Hotel,” is one of my favorites from the collection, as it allows the image to do the work:
lights went back & forth in the near distance
Mars was supposed to be close
but I couldn’t find it
while my father slept
I sat, open-eyed, in a green vinyl chair—
watching tubes, monitors, joking nurses
who made the same jokes over and over,
wearing their brisk obedient clothes
when he woke I fed him
ice chips from a plastic spoon
As I’ve discussed before with Todd, my favorite types of poems are the ones that have qualities which allow the reader to simply enjoy them right away, like a compelling narrative (this one) or an energetic mood, but that also possess the depth to reward a reader for further reading and examination. This book shows examples of both types of poems, which illuminates my own difficulty sometimes of leaning one way or the other (immediate enjoyment vs. deep insight).
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Influence Vs. Imitation Vs. Showing Off
For my Independent study with Todd, I'll be reading a series of poetry books that have won awards early in writers' careers, are first books, or are early books on presses I dig, along with the Robert Pinsky criticism collection, The Situation of Poetry. We have decided to begin the semester with the Pinsky collection, using different elements of craft and style discussed in the book as possible conversation points for the poetry collections and my own poems. After reading each book or section, I'll blog in some manner about my reaction, my application, or something else about it.
The Introduction to Pinsky's book sets the stage for the rest of the book by explaining his usage of "Modern" and "Contemporary" in regards to the poetry in point. The main sketch he makes is about influence, with the primary example being two excerpts, one from Stevens and one from Moore, as examples of presenting metaphor and images in a direct, sincere way, a trend that came into being, Pinsky says, in the Modernist era. Furthermore, he uses images/metaphors from a poem by Robert Bly and another by Mary Swenson to discuss what he calls an "exhibitionist" approach to such poetic devices, how he contends that "the aggressive yoking of unlike things can sometimes amount to little more than showing off." To the first by Bly, he labels it "a kind of gaud or badge" the writer employs to establish oneself as a writer, exploiting "an inherited mannerism without full understanding it." To the second, it sees it as a sort of begging for admiration "of the writing for its own sake", void of a solid subject.
To me, Pinsky, already, makes several valid points, at least valuable to think about in my own writing. For instance, where in my aesthetic does the practice of images/metaphors fall, and with what methods/style? I'm of the mind that one thing writing needs is an excited audience, one who wants to read more, wants to buy books, wants to talk about the writing, wants to let the writing be purposeful and helpful in some way in their lives. While I see many approaches to do this, the importance of metaphors/images, certainly a large part of our current society's everyday life, seems a valuable avenue (I'm thinking of TV in particular). Pinsky admits that the way Bly and Swenson use these devices does not necessarily need to be a forbidden practice, but one acknowledged. It is often easily "identifiable when least assimilated," and holds importance and familiarity in contemporary poetry writing, which helps point to influence.
For my own writing, my main way of attempting to get people excited about writing is to capitalize on the elements that my readers find most engaging and thought-provoking. Today's reader, or at least the ones I see my poetry most fit to connect with, are flooded with poems, not to mention all of the other, likely higher-prioritized, means of interaction with the world. The poems I've been writing lately seem to be finding the balance between attention-grabbing, often startling or thought-provoking, and tightness, in terms of language use and "point." In this way, I believe my influences will be intact and honored, while still assimilated in a manner that adds to the complexity and excitability of the piece.
After reading this intro, I sat down to do some writing, and one poem in particular struck me as in need of some serious editing, though I do feel like it is worthy of being included in this project, if I work hard enough on it. It's the poem "This Is So Romantic," which appeared late last year in Novelletum, in an admittedly less-tight and sometimes superfluous version. The part that startled me, as it threw up the Pinsky flag, was the beginning of original published version:
After not reading this poem for awhile, coupled with Pinsky's poignant discussion, the metaphors and images jumped out as over-the-top and useless, especially in the context of the rest of the poem. The use of "like oyster shells" and "pearl heads" was weightless, lacking the purposefulness, like what does this say about the characters/speakers/the situation?, and irrelevant, as it's talking about riding bikes in the suburbs. The last excerpted line seemed way to dramatic, an attempt perhaps, with the affection theme, to get "hugging" into the poem. I felt that the beginning lacked the directness and relevancy to push the poem to the point of connecting with the reader, an valuable part of a good opening.
After tinkering around with it, the newer draft, though certainly no final draft now, appears as such:
I made the decision to cut the metaphor about our helmets/heads to a more direct line, complemented by the (hopefully) weightier and more poignant "soft from the fossil fuel burgers," a line that is not nearly as direct but also holds some connotations, with the bike riding, the suburbs, and other images that have been reworked or added into the poem. This change, I hope, starts the poem off on a different foot, adding to the focus and hopefully impact the rest of the poem shapes into being. While I certainly think the type of images/metaphors Pinsky describe Bly's and Swenson's as have their place and purpose, the biggest thing I take from this introduction is to be more careful and considerate of my image/metaphor usage.
The Introduction to Pinsky's book sets the stage for the rest of the book by explaining his usage of "Modern" and "Contemporary" in regards to the poetry in point. The main sketch he makes is about influence, with the primary example being two excerpts, one from Stevens and one from Moore, as examples of presenting metaphor and images in a direct, sincere way, a trend that came into being, Pinsky says, in the Modernist era. Furthermore, he uses images/metaphors from a poem by Robert Bly and another by Mary Swenson to discuss what he calls an "exhibitionist" approach to such poetic devices, how he contends that "the aggressive yoking of unlike things can sometimes amount to little more than showing off." To the first by Bly, he labels it "a kind of gaud or badge" the writer employs to establish oneself as a writer, exploiting "an inherited mannerism without full understanding it." To the second, it sees it as a sort of begging for admiration "of the writing for its own sake", void of a solid subject.
To me, Pinsky, already, makes several valid points, at least valuable to think about in my own writing. For instance, where in my aesthetic does the practice of images/metaphors fall, and with what methods/style? I'm of the mind that one thing writing needs is an excited audience, one who wants to read more, wants to buy books, wants to talk about the writing, wants to let the writing be purposeful and helpful in some way in their lives. While I see many approaches to do this, the importance of metaphors/images, certainly a large part of our current society's everyday life, seems a valuable avenue (I'm thinking of TV in particular). Pinsky admits that the way Bly and Swenson use these devices does not necessarily need to be a forbidden practice, but one acknowledged. It is often easily "identifiable when least assimilated," and holds importance and familiarity in contemporary poetry writing, which helps point to influence.
For my own writing, my main way of attempting to get people excited about writing is to capitalize on the elements that my readers find most engaging and thought-provoking. Today's reader, or at least the ones I see my poetry most fit to connect with, are flooded with poems, not to mention all of the other, likely higher-prioritized, means of interaction with the world. The poems I've been writing lately seem to be finding the balance between attention-grabbing, often startling or thought-provoking, and tightness, in terms of language use and "point." In this way, I believe my influences will be intact and honored, while still assimilated in a manner that adds to the complexity and excitability of the piece.
After reading this intro, I sat down to do some writing, and one poem in particular struck me as in need of some serious editing, though I do feel like it is worthy of being included in this project, if I work hard enough on it. It's the poem "This Is So Romantic," which appeared late last year in Novelletum, in an admittedly less-tight and sometimes superfluous version. The part that startled me, as it threw up the Pinsky flag, was the beginning of original published version:
Ride bikes with me
with our helmets like oyster shells
protecting our pearl heads
with our feet hugging metal pedals:
After not reading this poem for awhile, coupled with Pinsky's poignant discussion, the metaphors and images jumped out as over-the-top and useless, especially in the context of the rest of the poem. The use of "like oyster shells" and "pearl heads" was weightless, lacking the purposefulness, like what does this say about the characters/speakers/the situation?, and irrelevant, as it's talking about riding bikes in the suburbs. The last excerpted line seemed way to dramatic, an attempt perhaps, with the affection theme, to get "hugging" into the poem. I felt that the beginning lacked the directness and relevancy to push the poem to the point of connecting with the reader, an valuable part of a good opening.
After tinkering around with it, the newer draft, though certainly no final draft now, appears as such:
Ride bikes with me!
Our helmets protect our heads
soft from the fossil fuel burgers:
I made the decision to cut the metaphor about our helmets/heads to a more direct line, complemented by the (hopefully) weightier and more poignant "soft from the fossil fuel burgers," a line that is not nearly as direct but also holds some connotations, with the bike riding, the suburbs, and other images that have been reworked or added into the poem. This change, I hope, starts the poem off on a different foot, adding to the focus and hopefully impact the rest of the poem shapes into being. While I certainly think the type of images/metaphors Pinsky describe Bly's and Swenson's as have their place and purpose, the biggest thing I take from this introduction is to be more careful and considerate of my image/metaphor usage.
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
I WANT TO TELL YOU SOME THINGS SO I HAVE A BLOG
- Just got back from the reading with Jeremy and Lindsey. Layne hosted. What a killer trio of pals right there. Layne did funny intros, like mine was about Mac from It's Always Sunny... and people think I look like him (OKAY I CONCEDE THAT I DO), and people cracked up, like YEAH HE DOES TOTALLY. It was Lindsey's first reading, and she did a nice job, with a couple truly well-written stories. I think this was probably my best reading, definitely in terms of pieces, also my longest, also my Mom's first time to see me read. My mom knows I curse and has a vague idea of how I talk in my poems, but I was worried about her seeing me do that in public. She was a sport and took me to Greek's and it was good (GRILLED CHICKEN PIZZA SHELL). Jeremy ruled too, with some stuff I haven't read or don't remember and some cool new stuff and some fun stuff from the chapbook. Sold some books which is always nice. Village Green Records (TRAVIS SERIOUSLY RULES) was so sweet to host us, and I saw a few people buy things which is awesome. The crowd was not huge, but tidy and sweet and comfy and beautiful and friends. When people who don't "do" poetry come, it's a nice feeling. When professors get babysitters to come, it's a nice feeling. When friends keep coming to these events, it's a nice feeling. Overall, I think it was a radical time, though I wish there was an after-party.
- If I were still 16 year old Tyler, I would be rockin' out to this stuff right now. Taking Back Sunday TELL ALL YOUR FRIENDS LINEUP OMG DUDEZ. 22 year old Tyler listened once.
- Todd and I were talking about Steve Orlen today, poet and teacher, and then I find out he died. It's got me shakyweird because Todd just introduced me to him. Tony Hoagland, Orlen's former student, had a nice essay over at H_NGM_N about Orlen.
- I'm making a Christmas list, per my two sets of parents' instructions. Orlen's Selected Poems is definitely on the list now. Also, Matt Hart's Wolf Face, some more Dean Young books, and Stevens' Collected on high on the book list. Also, I'd like a subscription to Pank I think. They do good work. I'm also really wanting some new jeans. I have like three pairs that I dig and they are wearing out. Also, my awesome comfy warm socks have holes, so they are on the list. I don't think this matters.
- What do you want me to blog about?
- If I were still 16 year old Tyler, I would be rockin' out to this stuff right now. Taking Back Sunday TELL ALL YOUR FRIENDS LINEUP OMG DUDEZ. 22 year old Tyler listened once.
- Todd and I were talking about Steve Orlen today, poet and teacher, and then I find out he died. It's got me shakyweird because Todd just introduced me to him. Tony Hoagland, Orlen's former student, had a nice essay over at H_NGM_N about Orlen.
- I'm making a Christmas list, per my two sets of parents' instructions. Orlen's Selected Poems is definitely on the list now. Also, Matt Hart's Wolf Face, some more Dean Young books, and Stevens' Collected on high on the book list. Also, I'd like a subscription to Pank I think. They do good work. I'm also really wanting some new jeans. I have like three pairs that I dig and they are wearing out. Also, my awesome comfy warm socks have holes, so they are on the list. I don't think this matters.
- What do you want me to blog about?
Monday, October 18, 2010
Five Dolphins Flippin' Out
1. That is Jumex. It is empty. The box promises it is 100% Nectar, but I'm not sure what all that entails. I know it is empty. I know it was delicious.
2. I just finished reading "Mantodea" from How They Were Found , Matt Bell's fabulous debut story collection. I don't remember ever reading this piece before, but man it is a hard hitter, there's some swallowing of nails, coins, etc., some bathroom sex, and a whole lot of obsession. Matt's stories do a nice job of building, taking odd/crazy/horrifying things and piling them atop each other. Once he lets the steam out at the end, I kind of feel dead, but like a good dead or something. I'll definitely write some kind of big response to this book once I get to it. I'm not sure why you wouldn't own this book, but here is a good place to get it if you don't.
3. I DONT WANNA BEG BUT PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE SUBMIT TO THE BROKEN PLATE.
4. Wednesday October 27th Blazers vs. Clippers on ESPN. That's the start of my NBA season right there. I haven't been this stoked for a Clippers game since....uh-oh.
5. Next semester, I'm doing an independent study poetry class with Todd, compiling "an undergraduate thesis/chapbook manuscript." For the class, I'll be studying/reading lots of first books and chapbooks, primarily ones that have won contests/awards, and working on my own manuscript. Probably an extra-ambitious project and super hopeful, but hey, I need another class and how fun does that sound: SUPER FUN. I'm looking for suggestions on books to read/study. THANKS.
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