I liked Charles Bernstein's book from this year...
― Not A Good Cook (bernard snowy), Sunday, 20 October 2013 16:44 (ten years ago) link
markers who do you follow on twitter
― flopson, Sunday, 20 October 2013 18:56 (ten years ago) link
http://shoutkey.com/provision
― markers, Sunday, 20 October 2013 19:39 (ten years ago) link
click that
― markers, Sunday, 20 October 2013 19:40 (ten years ago) link
and no it isn't a trick
New Franz Wright, bleak and amazing as ever.
― Lover (Eazy), Monday, 21 October 2013 03:27 (ten years ago) link
ck williams, my favorite living poet. one of his poems was part of my wedding vows.
and now this
http://www.latimes.com/books/jacketcopy/la-et-jc-a-movie-based-on-a-book-of-poems-tar-stars-james-franco-of-course-20131111,0,2046763.story#axzz2kY6zFryD
― a hard dom is good to find (Edward III), Wednesday, 13 November 2013 17:55 (ten years ago) link
a good friend has a new book coming out soon: http://www.h-ngm-n.com/dear-corp
― festival culture (Jordan), Thursday, 6 February 2014 17:33 (ten years ago) link
A friend of mine sent me the link to this Kate Kilalea poem and I think it's incredible: http://newpoetries.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/don-share-on-kate-kilaleas-henneckers.html
(the subsequent interpretation stuff i find a little wearying: all this i-i-i- itemising of a person's reaction raises my hackles the way faux-naivety does)
― of human sonnage (c sharp major), Tuesday, 25 February 2014 12:43 (ten years ago) link
I've been doing a poetry-reading round-robin email with a few friends - i.e. where we record mp3s of ourselves reading poems and send them to each other - and it's having a huge effect on how i think about poetry, way out of proportion to what i would have expected. I don't feel like I get a better sense of the poems from reading them aloud, but rather a bunch of different conflicting and sometimes unhelpful versions -- as dramatic monologue, as collection of sounds, as rhythm game. It makes everything so much harder; it's turning me against things i've liked for a while.
― of human sonnage (c sharp major), Tuesday, 25 February 2014 12:55 (ten years ago) link
That poem's really exciting. To begin with - e.g. "Wow. The rain. Rose beetles" and "Ickira trecketre stedenthal, said the train" - I was prepared to be irritated, but as it expanded it got more and more wild and interesting.
The interpretation had some useful things to say, but you're spot on with the faux-naivety thing. The whole "I googled this and got nothing, but googling something else gave me a clue" style is very weird unless the point of his site is to be some step-by-step guide to approaching a poem.
― Eyeball Kicks, Tuesday, 25 February 2014 22:19 (ten years ago) link
my friend's new book is really, really good: http://www.h-ngm-n.com/dear-corp/
― festival culture (Jordan), Tuesday, 25 February 2014 23:55 (ten years ago) link
Kilalea is good and so is Tara Bergin I think
― cardamon, Thursday, 10 April 2014 22:02 (ten years ago) link
just read clover's "red epic" and enjoyed it a lot and now i see it is available free: http://communeeditions.com/red-epic-joshua-clover/
― Option ARMs and de Man (s.clover), Saturday, 16 January 2016 23:06 (eight years ago) link
I can't find a more suitable thread to post this to, but I just wanted to say it makes me a little sad to see the dismissal of the poet H.D. in some earlier posts. Have people read Trilogy and Hermetic Definition? The earlier poetry generally hasn't done much for me (though many others swear by it), but I think the late poetry, especially those two collections, are where it's at. I remember "Winter Love" in particular as having some strikingly musical passages, though it's been a while since I read it. (I ditched my copy of Hermetic Definition a long time ago because I was annoyed with my youthful underlining and marginalia.) Helen in Egypt is a hard nut to crack and is perplexingly static. I can't say I've ever loved it either.
Her memoir, Tribute to Freud is also quite good (and I've seen it recommended in bibliographies of works on Freud for non-specialists), and the highly edited memoirs New Directions put out at one time, entitled The Gift, has some fascinating material (though I never made it through the unexpurgated version of the memoir material put out much later by some university press or other). End to Torment (on Pound) is also at least a breeze to read. I can't say I've ever enjoyed her fiction.
― _Rudipherous_, Saturday, 23 January 2016 04:00 (eight years ago) link
(I might be partial to the material in the Gift because of the references to Pennsylvania German culture, which makes up a good part of my own background.)
― _Rudipherous_, Saturday, 23 January 2016 04:04 (eight years ago) link
it makes me a little sad to see the dismissal of the poet H.D. in some earlier posts.
I searched around in this thread for these dismissals and couldn't find them. That doesn't mean they aren't there, but can you give me a hint?
― a little too mature to be cute (Aimless), Saturday, 23 January 2016 04:44 (eight years ago) link
Haha, there were maybe 1.5 dimissals, but not on this thread just in the deep archives of ILB.
― _Rudipherous_, Saturday, 23 January 2016 05:23 (eight years ago) link
HD >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Edith Sitwell >> Amy Lowell
― a little too mature to be cute (Aimless), Saturday, 23 January 2016 05:29 (eight years ago) link
I never cared much about those two. I think I've read more Sitwell than Lowell, but it's been a while. I'd rather read Loy than either of those, if we're doing women poets. But I'd rather read HD or Loy than some very well known male modernist poets as well.
― _Rudipherous_, Saturday, 23 January 2016 18:29 (eight years ago) link
yup, with cardamon here. I think of her as epitome of in-the-academy US poetry.
I think language poetry is the ultimate made-for-the-academy poetry, since it needs so much theory to prop it up, but I largely hate it. And I know that many who love it will say: oh no, it's not about the theory.
I did read some Graham a while back and it seemed okay and everything but went by me in a blur. But most poetry does now. I probably shouldn't even be allowed to comment since although I've read a ton of poetry over the years (not much lately), I only like maybe 1% of it at this point.
― _Rudipherous_, Saturday, 23 January 2016 19:28 (eight years ago) link
Robert Duncan said something in an interview somewhere about how in the Elizabethan era, you wrote poetry for the stage, because that's where the money was; and now you write poetry for the classroom, for the same reason. Something like that. He was including himself in the group of poets writing for the classroom, so it wasn't pointing fingers.
― _Rudipherous_, Saturday, 23 January 2016 19:32 (eight years ago) link
Maybe he didn't say money, maybe he said audience.
― _Rudipherous_, Saturday, 23 January 2016 19:38 (eight years ago) link
Does anyone have anything to say about Akashic Press's Black Goat imprint? I've been a little intrigued with it since finding out about it. It looks like it's slowed down though so maybe nobody has been biting.
http://www.akashicbooks.com/catalog-tag/black-goat/
― _Rudipherous_, Saturday, 23 January 2016 19:41 (eight years ago) link
xps
Being a careful, respectful and understanding reader never requires you to like what you find. These days I find that even the best poetry I read seldom excites me as it did when I was younger, but the best still engages me and gives me worthwhile satisfaction.
If you haven't already perused the many threads where ilxors have posted their own poetry, you really ought to. The results are not overly concerned with theory, reputation-making, or critical approval, and so are rather refreshing. You might like a good 3%!
― a little too mature to be cute (Aimless), Saturday, 23 January 2016 19:47 (eight years ago) link
On the anniversary of the birth of the great Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish (1941-2008), poet Marilyn Hacker shares a new translation:The Second Olive TreeBy Mahmoud DarwishTranslated by Marilyn HackerThe olive tree does not weep and does not laugh. The olive treeIs the hillside’s modest lady. ShadowCovers her one leg, and she will not take her leaves off in front of the storm.Standing, she is seated, and seated, standing.She lives as a friendly sister of eternity, neighbor of timeThat helps her stock her luminous oil andForget the invaders’ names, except the Romans, whoCoexisted with her, and borrowed some of her branchesTo weave wreaths. They did not treat her as a prisoner of warBut as a venerable grandmother, before whose calm dignitySwords shatter. In her reticent silver-greenColor hesitates to say what it thinks, and to look at what is behindThe portrait, for the olive tree is neither green nor silver.The olive tree is the color of peace, if peace neededA color. No one says to the olive tree: How beautiful you are!But: How noble and how splendid! And she,She who teaches soldiers to lay down their riflesAnd re-educates them in tenderness and humility: Go homeAnd light your lamps with my oil! ButThese soldiers, these modern soldiersBesiege her with bulldozers and uproot her from her lineageOf earth. They vanquished our grandmother who foundered,Her branches on the ground, her roots in the sky.She did not weep or cry out. But one of her grandsonsWho witnessed the execution threw a stoneAt a soldier, and he was martyred with her.After the victorious soldiersHad gone on their way, we buried him there, in that deepPit – the grandmother’s cradle. And that is why we wereSure that he would become, in a little while, an oliveTree – a thorny olive tree – and green!
The Second Olive Tree
By Mahmoud Darwish
Translated by Marilyn Hacker
The olive tree does not weep and does not laugh. The olive treeIs the hillside’s modest lady. ShadowCovers her one leg, and she will not take her leaves off in front of the storm.Standing, she is seated, and seated, standing.She lives as a friendly sister of eternity, neighbor of timeThat helps her stock her luminous oil andForget the invaders’ names, except the Romans, whoCoexisted with her, and borrowed some of her branchesTo weave wreaths. They did not treat her as a prisoner of warBut as a venerable grandmother, before whose calm dignitySwords shatter. In her reticent silver-greenColor hesitates to say what it thinks, and to look at what is behindThe portrait, for the olive tree is neither green nor silver.The olive tree is the color of peace, if peace neededA color. No one says to the olive tree: How beautiful you are!But: How noble and how splendid! And she,She who teaches soldiers to lay down their riflesAnd re-educates them in tenderness and humility: Go homeAnd light your lamps with my oil! ButThese soldiers, these modern soldiersBesiege her with bulldozers and uproot her from her lineageOf earth. They vanquished our grandmother who foundered,Her branches on the ground, her roots in the sky.She did not weep or cry out. But one of her grandsonsWho witnessed the execution threw a stoneAt a soldier, and he was martyred with her.After the victorious soldiersHad gone on their way, we buried him there, in that deepPit – the grandmother’s cradle. And that is why we wereSure that he would become, in a little while, an oliveTree – a thorny olive tree – and green!
― xyzzzz__, Monday, 14 March 2016 22:43 (eight years ago) link
Derek Walcott
With the stampeding hiss and scurry of green lemmings, midsummer’s leaves race to extinction like the roar of a Brixton riot tunneled by water hoses; they seethe towards autumn’s fire—it is in their nature,5 being men as well as leaves, to die for the sun. The leaf stems tug at their chains, the branches bending like Boer cattle under Tory whips that drag every wagon nearer to apartheid. And, for me, that closes the child’s fairy tale of an antic England—fairy rings,10 thatched cottages fenced with dog roses, a green gale lifting the hair of Warwickshire. I was there to add some color to the British theater. “But the blacks can’t do Shakespeare, they have no experience.” This was true. Their thick skulls bled with rancor15 when the riot police and the skinheads exchanged quips you could trace to the Sonnets, or the Moor’s eclipse Praise had bled my lines white of any more anger, and snow had inducted me into white fellowships, while Calibans howled down the barred streets of an empire20 that began with Caedmon’s raceless dew, and is ending in the alleys of Brixton, burning like Turner’s ships
midsummer’s leaves race to extinction like the roar
of a Brixton riot tunneled by water hoses;
they seethe towards autumn’s fire—it is in their nature,
5 being men as well as leaves, to die for the sun.
The leaf stems tug at their chains, the branches bending
like Boer cattle under Tory whips that drag every wagon
nearer to apartheid. And, for me, that closes
the child’s fairy tale of an antic England—fairy rings,
10 thatched cottages fenced with dog roses,
a green gale lifting the hair of Warwickshire.
I was there to add some color to the British theater.
“But the blacks can’t do Shakespeare, they have no experience.”
This was true. Their thick skulls bled with rancor
15 when the riot police and the skinheads exchanged quips
you could trace to the Sonnets, or the Moor’s eclipse
Praise had bled my lines white of any more anger,
and snow had inducted me into white fellowships,
while Calibans howled down the barred streets of an empire
20 that began with Caedmon’s raceless dew, and is ending
in the alleys of Brixton, burning like Turner’s ships
― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, 21 March 2017 21:54 (seven years ago) link
Ha -- was gonna post that I'm rereading The Bounty.
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 21 March 2017 21:55 (seven years ago) link
I've been enjoying the Szymborska collection I've been reading. She got good pretty early on (by her early 30s at least) and stayed very good for a long period of time. I feel like that's one award the Nobel committee got right.
― o. nate, Wednesday, 22 March 2017 01:04 (seven years ago) link
^^^
― I hear from this arsehole again, he's going in the river (James Morrison), Wednesday, 22 March 2017 04:30 (seven years ago) link
Especially her death poems
― And Run Into It And Blecch It (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 24 March 2017 02:48 (seven years ago) link
New Frederick Seidel poem this week:
https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2017/03/21/now/
― who even are those other cats (Eazy), Wednesday, 29 March 2017 02:44 (seven years ago) link
Started reading Patricia Lockwood’s memoir, Preistdaddy.
― the ghost of markers, Sunday, 7 May 2017 20:05 (seven years ago) link
FOGLAND
In winter my lover thrivesamong the forest creatures.The laughing fox knows I must returnbefore morning.How the clouds tremble! And a layerof broken ice falls on mefrom the snow craters. In winter my loveris a tree among trees invitingthe melancholic crowsto its lovely branches. She knowsthat at dusk, the wind will raiseher stiff adorned evening gownand chase me home. In winter my loverswims mute among the fish.On the bank, I stand in thrall to waters,caressed from withinby the stroke of her fins.I watch as she dips and turns,till banished by the floes. And warned once more by the shriekof the bird that arcs stifflyabove, I head for the open field: thereshe plucks the hens bald,throws me a white collarbone.I wield it to my throat,make my way through the scattered plumage. A faithless lover, as well I know,at times she sweeps into townin her high-heels,she parades herself in bars, the strawfrom her glass deep in her mouth,the mot juste tripping from her lips.I do not understand this language. I have seen fog-land,I have eaten the smoke-screened heart.
-- Ingeborg Bachmann
― xyzzzz__, Wednesday, 24 May 2017 12:06 (seven years ago) link
Finished both of Patricia Lockwood’s poetry books & her memoir.
― the ghost of markers, Wednesday, 24 May 2017 23:06 (seven years ago) link
How were they?
― Never changed username before (cardamon), Monday, 10 July 2017 14:52 (six years ago) link
That was to ghost of markers above. Anyone found anything else good?
lockwood's poetry doesn't really do much for me but i found her memoir to be pretty good. it's often hilarious (obv.) and touching. i thought the chapter on music was particularly good
― just another (diamonddave85), Monday, 10 July 2017 15:54 (six years ago) link
her poetry is pretty prose-ey (prosaic but without the negative connotation) tbh
― flopson, Monday, 10 July 2017 18:46 (six years ago) link
100+ free PDF poetry chapbooks "celebrating" 100+ days of Trump awfulness: http://www.moriapoetry.com/locofo.html
― Mince Pramthwart (James Morrison), Friday, 14 July 2017 00:15 (six years ago) link
(Haven't read any of them yet, but surely worth a look)
are all the chapbooks about trump
― flopson, Friday, 14 July 2017 03:30 (six years ago) link
inspired by the america of his first 100 days, but not necessarily about _him_ per se
― Mince Pramthwart (James Morrison), Friday, 14 July 2017 05:06 (six years ago) link
Some very choice stuff to be had here:
https://www.spectator.co.uk/2017/07/the-magic-of-limestone-country/
‘It was a shock, and an epiphany,’ says Fiona Sampson, to realise that many of her favourite places were built on and out of limestone: the cosy Cotswold village of Coleshill, the shambolic hamlet of Le Chambon in the Dordogne, the limestone Karst region of western Slovenia, and the honeycombed hills of Jerusalem and the Holy Land. ‘Surely, I thought, this has to be more than mere coincidence.’From a strictly demographic point of view, it isn’t even much of a coincidence: about one quarter of the world’s population lives in limestone country or depends on it for its water. But the mind of a poet can feed on the slightest chance connection. While her neighbours in Coleshill go about their spongy, fossil-filled environment with nary a thought of ‘chthonic forces’, Sampson inhabits a half-soluble landscape of subterranean streams and geopathic stress created by the compacted shells and skeletons of primeval sea-creatures.A professor of poetry and champion of creative writing as a therapeutic tool, Sampson fortunately finds other people as interesting as herself. This ‘personal exploration’ of the ways in which a mind interacts with a landscape might have been a gallery of psycho-geographical selfies in picturesque settings; which, to some extent, it is. She relives an early love affair with a chain-smoking Macedonian in the ‘intractable, dense and mysterious’ Slovenian Karst and ...
From a strictly demographic point of view, it isn’t even much of a coincidence: about one quarter of the world’s population lives in limestone country or depends on it for its water. But the mind of a poet can feed on the slightest chance connection. While her neighbours in Coleshill go about their spongy, fossil-filled environment with nary a thought of ‘chthonic forces’, Sampson inhabits a half-soluble landscape of subterranean streams and geopathic stress created by the compacted shells and skeletons of primeval sea-creatures.
A professor of poetry and champion of creative writing as a therapeutic tool, Sampson fortunately finds other people as interesting as herself. This ‘personal exploration’ of the ways in which a mind interacts with a landscape might have been a gallery of psycho-geographical selfies in picturesque settings; which, to some extent, it is. She relives an early love affair with a chain-smoking Macedonian in the ‘intractable, dense and mysterious’ Slovenian Karst and ...
― Never changed username before (cardamon), Tuesday, 25 July 2017 19:31 (six years ago) link
jeez---contemporary enough, still: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46560/dulce-et-decorum-est
― dow, Friday, 11 August 2017 00:38 (six years ago) link
Saddened to find out that Tom Raworth passed away last February.
― alimosina, Monday, 4 December 2017 15:49 (six years ago) link
"Anxiety is just another form of entertainment." NEA Presents: Frank O'Hara reading his poetry,writing some more while talking on the phone and being filmed, also discussing his multimedia collabs, in progrss (shortly before his death). Ed Sanders reads his poetry in his Peace Eye Bookstore (a bunch of other poets on this same page)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89pOmcTVbTY
― dow, Wednesday, 13 December 2017 18:31 (six years ago) link
This happened (and the Guardian editorialised it terribly), what do you lot think
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jan/23/poetry-world-split-over-polemic-attacking-amateur-work-by-young-female-poets
― Never changed username before (cardamon), Tuesday, 23 January 2018 21:41 (six years ago) link
Well, it's... not black and white. I think this debate playing out as it is, is something to be welcomed and is right on time. I can go a long way with Watts:
"Watts attacks the “cohort of young female poets who are currently being lauded by the poetic establishment for their ‘honesty’ and ‘accessibility’"
'Honesty' and 'accessibility' have never been things that attracted me in poetry. Honesty and accessibility is what I look for in an automobile mechanic, not poetry. One can easily argue both are 'enemies' of poetry. What's good poetry without a secret, without having to overcome at least some obstacle, without running your head into its wall, without dirt or ugliness, to ultimately come to a revelation or enjoyment or?
Also, honesty and accessibility is goddamn tiring. *Everything* is honest and accessible nowadays. It's all available, shared within a second. This was already uninteresting when Seneca wrote poetry, let alone today w/ instagram etc.
So if the quoted “you should see me / when my heart is broken / i don’t grieve / i shatter” is exemplary, yeah, pass the Dutchie the left hand side man, it's not for me.
But... All that doesn't mean it's not poetry, or shouldn't be called poetry, or shouldn't be lauded, shouldn't be praised. It's not that it's not poetry; it is. It's that it's bad poetry is what deserves critique imo. Everyone has the right to write (or love) bad poetry. We've all done it. Every single one of us is guilty of doing that. Loving bad shit.
Tl;dr:
Saying it's not poetry: badSaying it's bad poetry: yes
― ♫ very clever with maracas.jpg ♫ (Le Bateau Ivre), Tuesday, 23 January 2018 22:16 (six years ago) link