That one, though, is really exceptional. Hm.
― Casuistry (Chris P), Thursday, 23 March 2006 02:49 (eighteen years ago) link
All the time they were prayingHe watched the shadow of a treeFlicker on the wall.
There is no need of prayer,He said,No need at all.
The kin-folk thought it strangeThat he should ask them from a dying bed.But they left all in a rowAnd it seemed to ease himTo see them go.
There were some who kept on prayingIn a room across the hallAnd some who listened to the breezeThat made the shadows waverOn the wall.
He tried his nerveOn a song he knewAnd made an empty noteThat might have come,From a bird's harsh throat.
And all the time it worried himThat they were in there prayingAnd all the time he wonderedWhat it was they could be saying.
--Waring Cuney
― j c (j c), Sunday, 26 March 2006 03:48 (eighteen years ago) link
54.
ereupboi ncheeose
idira,toap t, stima disopera teoxc
firty oeur pofour
paosleys lbecua
orusis vocm
mucis
cham
[David Melnick, from PCOET]
― Casuistry (Chris P), Sunday, 26 March 2006 03:57 (eighteen years ago) link
― tom west (thomp), Sunday, 26 March 2006 12:15 (eighteen years ago) link
― Casuistry (Chris P), Sunday, 26 March 2006 12:17 (eighteen years ago) link
― PJ Miller (PJ Miller 68), Monday, 27 March 2006 13:38 (eighteen years ago) link
― Archel (Archel), Monday, 27 March 2006 14:04 (eighteen years ago) link
I didn't even realize he was still alive. Oh well.
http://static.flickr.com/53/119009857_fbce943275.jpg
― Casuistry (Chris P), Tuesday, 28 March 2006 00:01 (eighteen years ago) link
Wanting one good organic lineI wrote a thousand sonnets
Wanting a little peace,I folded a thousand cranes.
Every discipline a new evasion;every crane a dodge:
Basho didn't know a thing about wateruntil he heard the frog.
― Jaq (Jaq), Thursday, 6 April 2006 21:52 (eighteen years ago) link
― Jaq (Jaq), Thursday, 6 April 2006 22:00 (eighteen years ago) link
My Father Christmas passed awayWhen I was barely seven.At twenty-one, alack-a-day,I lost my hope of heaven.
Yet not in either lies the curse:The hell of it's becauseI don't know which loss hurts the worse -My God or Santa Claus.
- Robert Service -
(just to show another side of him than Sam McGee and Dan McGrew)
― Aimless (Aimless), Friday, 7 April 2006 14:54 (eighteen years ago) link
-- Stephen Crane (poem 37, from The Black Riders)
The Holy Time
(1)
Like timid girls the shades are pacing downThe slopes of evening, trailing soberlyTheir vestments grey:
Far, far away,The last, red tingeIs fading into brown;
So far!So faint!Seen but surmisingly!
And now the dusk of evening draws uponThat memory of light,And light is gone!
(2)
The beeSpeedsHome!
The beetle'sWing of hornIs booming by!
The darkness,Every side,Gathers around
On air,And sky,And ground!
The treesSing in the darkness,Far and wide,
In cadenced lift of leaves,A tale of morn!And the moon's circle,
Silver-faint, and thin,Birds lovely on the earth:- There is no sin!
-- James Stephens
Note: Please try to overlook the overpunctuation of this poem, especially (!) the many (!) exclamation (!) marks! Ignoring these improves this poem immensely.
The Emancipators
When you ground the lenses and the moons swam freeFrom that great wanderer; when the apple shoneLike a sea-shell through your prism, voyager;When, dancing in pure flame, the Roman mercy,Your doctrines blew like ashes from your bones;
Did you think, for an instant, past the numeralsJellied in Latin like bacteria in broth,Snatched for by holy Europe like a sign?Past somber tables inched out with the livesForgotten or clapped for by the wigged Societies?
You guessed this? The earth's face altering with iron,The smoke ranged like a wall against the day?- The equations metamorphose into use: the freeDrag their slight bones from tenements to voteTo die with their children in your factories.
Man is born in chains, and everywhere we see him dead.On your earth they sell nothing but our lives.You knew that what you died for was our deaths?You learned, those years, that what men wish is Trade?It was you who understood; it is we who change.
-- Randall Jarrell
― Aimless (Aimless), Wednesday, 12 April 2006 15:59 (eighteen years ago) link
― Casuistry (Chris P), Wednesday, 12 April 2006 23:30 (eighteen years ago) link
"April 15, 2:30 pm. Experience Poetland — an experiment in poetic energy, featuring ten readings of ten poets. Arlo Voorhees presides over Brittany Bladwin, John Hogl, Lisa Steinman, Pat Hathaway, Jim Shugrue, Hazel Dodge, Geraldine Foote, Jeffrey Bershaw, and Tom Blood."
Are you a last minute stand-in, or have you changed your performing name to Tom Blood -- for artistic purposes, of course?
― Aimless (Aimless), Wednesday, 12 April 2006 23:49 (eighteen years ago) link
― Casuistry (Chris P), Thursday, 13 April 2006 00:24 (eighteen years ago) link
― Aimless (Aimless), Thursday, 13 April 2006 02:21 (eighteen years ago) link
― youn, Monday, 17 April 2006 00:43 (eighteen years ago) link
--------------
Anyways: Sarah Lawrence! I don't want to blab on too much, but some categories?
Famous old people of varying degrees of experimentalness: Eleanor Wilner, Gerald Stern, Marie Ponsot, Frank Bidart, Jean Valentine (http://www.jeanvalentine.com/poems.html).
Young Famouse semi-avants: Claudia Rankin, Martha Rhodes.
I don't know the other people as well. I'd say the best way is to just google or look at the Amazon "Look Inside" for these people and see who you'd like. If I were going, I'd check out Bidard, Valentine, and Rankin.
― kenchen, Monday, 17 April 2006 03:37 (eighteen years ago) link
My reading went well. Or, at least, I think it did. I don't know if it was as shall-we-say "magical" as January's reading was but it was somewhat difficult and somewhat accessible material read very, very fast that people were able to get things out of. People seemed to especially like my emceeing, which is really what I'm known for. There was something of a fight at the end of the part I emceed, which was awkward and kinda fun and kinda not at all. It was "memorable".
In all, a reminder that I really have no clue what most people are thinking of when they talk about "poetry".
― Casuistry (Chris P), Monday, 17 April 2006 04:03 (eighteen years ago) link
― Beth Parker (Beth Parker), Monday, 17 April 2006 12:22 (eighteen years ago) link
― Jaq (Jaq), Monday, 17 April 2006 13:43 (eighteen years ago) link
His poetry, to my mind, left something to be desired, perhaps because he thought that communication happened outside the space of the poem, or that a poem was something that one should be able to respond to immediately, intelligibly, and without your interruption doing damage to its sense or effect.
― Casuistry (Chris P), Monday, 17 April 2006 15:24 (eighteen years ago) link
― Beth Parker (Beth Parker), Monday, 17 April 2006 16:09 (eighteen years ago) link
― Aimless (Aimless), Monday, 17 April 2006 16:20 (eighteen years ago) link
I have to say Chris that your emceeing was delightful, as were your 125 poems read with astonishing speed and dexterity. Also, thank you for putting us on to Lindsay Hill.
― Jaq (Jaq), Monday, 17 April 2006 16:40 (eighteen years ago) link
Yeah, I meant to post some of Lindsay's book here, but it was late. If there was a part you liked, feel free to post it...
― Casuistry (Chris P), Monday, 17 April 2006 18:12 (eighteen years ago) link
― Jaq (Jaq), Monday, 17 April 2006 18:34 (eighteen years ago) link
Here I was able to read that The Poet Known to ILB as Casuistry...
"...began the 5 p.m. session at New American Art Union gallery, a block from East Burnside in inner Southeast. His piece compiled 125 poems, each five words long. No. 41: "Now now now no now" [others presented greater transcription challenges]."
Thus endeth the lesson. Sorry I wasn't able to make it.
― Aimless (Aimless), Monday, 17 April 2006 19:26 (eighteen years ago) link
― Casuistry (Chris P), Tuesday, 18 April 2006 02:42 (eighteen years ago) link
― tom west (thomp), Tuesday, 18 April 2006 22:28 (eighteen years ago) link
― Casuistry (Chris P), Tuesday, 18 April 2006 23:55 (eighteen years ago) link
do you have it written down?
― tom west (thomp), Wednesday, 19 April 2006 00:13 (eighteen years ago) link
― Casuistry (Chris P), Wednesday, 19 April 2006 02:08 (eighteen years ago) link
― tom west (thomp), Wednesday, 19 April 2006 09:13 (eighteen years ago) link
― PJ Miller (PJ Miller 68), Wednesday, 19 April 2006 09:29 (eighteen years ago) link
"The Light Above Cities"
Sitting in darkness,I see how the light of the cityfills the clouds, rosewater lightpoured into the skylike the single body we are. It is the sumof a million lives; a man drinking beerbeneath a light bulb, a dancer spinningin a fluorescent room, a girl reading a bookbeneath a lamp.
Yet there are others—astronomers,thieves, lovers—whose work is only donein darkness. SometimesI don't want to show these poemsto anyone, sometimesI want to remain hidden, deep in the coalswith the one who pulls the starsthrough a telescope's glass, the one who listensfor the click of the lock, the onewho kisses softly a woman's eyes.
--Jay Leeming
― j c (j c), Saturday, 22 April 2006 11:42 (eighteen years ago) link
― tom west (thomp), Saturday, 22 April 2006 13:05 (eighteen years ago) link
For some folks "poetry" might mean wordsthat rise up corbelled and corniced,elaborately carven as Corinthian capitols,a sort of awful edifice of frozen musicor the death mask of a majestic thought.
For others "poetry" might mean wordsthat fall all pat and neatly donepatterned in rows as do the pleatsin a schoolgirl uniform's skirt,which repeat, repeat and repeat.
For others "poetry" might mean wordsdark, static, stark and few,croaks, barks and stutters, bitter as gall;not dead (you understand) because still jerking,and yet too dry and hard to have much life.
With the best luck "poetry" means wordsthat turn and turn and turn about again,continuing to describe a shapethe mind and lips and heart acceptas easily as leaves drink of the sun.
-- Aimless
― Aimless (Aimless), Sunday, 23 April 2006 02:22 (eighteen years ago) link
Under the eglantineThe fretful concubineSaid, "Phooey! Phoo!"She whispered, "Pfui!"
The demi-mondeOn the mezzanineSaid, Phooey!" too,And a "Hey-de-i-do!"
The bee may have all sweetFor his honey-hive-o,From the eglantine-o.
And the chandeliers are neat...But their mignon, marblish glare!We are cold, the parrots cried,In a place so debonair.
The Johannisberger, Hans.I love the metal grapes,The rusty, battered shapesOf the pears and of the cheese
And the window's lemon light,The very will of the nerves,The crack across the pane,The dirt along the sill.
-- Wallace Stevens (The Cat With the Mouse's Tail Between His Lips)
― Aimless (Aimless), Thursday, 27 April 2006 00:43 (eighteen years ago) link
Although 'the window's lemon light' wow.
― Archel (Archel), Thursday, 27 April 2006 08:14 (eighteen years ago) link
― Aimless (Aimless), Thursday, 27 April 2006 14:16 (eighteen years ago) link
My skin is pemiced to faultI am down to hair-roots, down to fibre filtersOf the raw tobacco nerve
Your net is spun of sitar stringsTo hold the griefs of gods: I wander longIn tear vaults of the sublime
Queen of night torments, you strainSutures of song to bear imposition of the ritesOf living and of death. You
Pluck strange dirges from the stormSift rare stones from ashes of the moon, and riseNight errands to the throne of anguish
Oh there is too much crush of petalsFor perfume, too heavy tread of air on mothwingFor a cup of rainbow dust
Too much pain, oh midwife at the cryOf severance, fingers at the cosmic cord, too vastThe pains of easters for a hint of the eternal.
I wiould be free of your tyranny, freeFrom sudden plunges of the flesh in earthquakeBeyond all subsidence of sense
I would be free from headlong ridesIn rock seams and volcanic veins, drawn by dark steedsOn grey melodic reins.
--Wole Soyinka
― Haikunym (Haikunym), Thursday, 27 April 2006 15:51 (eighteen years ago) link
I do think Aimless's poem about what poetry means to people doesn't address the people that the original poet might have been confused by. All those meanings make sense.
― Casuistry (Chris P), Wednesday, 3 May 2006 23:09 (eighteen years ago) link
― Aimless (Aimless), Thursday, 4 May 2006 01:51 (eighteen years ago) link
― Casuistry (Chris P), Thursday, 4 May 2006 14:59 (eighteen years ago) link
― Aimless (Aimless), Thursday, 4 May 2006 15:16 (eighteen years ago) link
― Casuistry (Chris P), Friday, 5 May 2006 02:47 (eighteen years ago) link
'Pomology', Anselm Hollo
An apple a dayis 365 apples.A poem a day is 365 poems.Most years.Any doctor will tell youit is easier to eat an applethan to make a poem.It is also easierto eat a poemthan to make an applebut only just. But hereis what you doto keep the doctor out of it: publish a poemon your appletree.Have an applein your next book.
― tom west (thomp), Monday, 8 May 2006 01:02 (eighteen years ago) link
-- Edna St. Vincent Millay
I thought this hovered very nicely between the formal language of traditional sonnetry and the informality of speech, which nicely suits the non-traditional approach to the traditional theme of love. It has a very Cavalier feeling to it and would snuggle up beautifully next to anything written by John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester.
― Aimless (Aimless), Wednesday, 24 May 2006 16:08 (seventeen years ago) link
1.
I chopped down the house that you had been saving to live in next summer.I am sorry, but it was morning, and I had nothing to doand its wooden beams were so inviting.
2.
We laughed at the hollyhocks togetherand then I sprayed them with lye.Forgive me. I simply do not know what I am doing.
3.
I gave away the money that you had been saving to live on for the next ten years.The man who asked for it was shabbyand the firm March wind on the porch was so juicy and cold.
4.
Last evening we went dancing and I broke your leg.Forgive me. I was clumsy, andI wanted you here in the wards, where I am the doctor!
― tom west (thomp), Wednesday, 24 May 2006 16:28 (seventeen years ago) link