Karga

Working on a new one

2010-04-13T23:32:00.000-07:00

I'm changing up my blog game. We'll see how it goes.

Attempt at the Quasicanonical.

2009-05-27T08:07:00.000-07:00

With sports all in the air (NBA playoffs, Champion's League
Final, ginsoaked horseshoes on 10th Street...) it has come to
me, as if in a sublime sugary vision, that it is necessary for
a new class of shittalk. Allow me to enter into the vernacular,
unless it has already been done and erupted inadvertantly
from the cobwebbed recesses of my sleeping mind, my
offering:

Jelly.

This seems a great candidate for the new "money."

To avoid any confusion with the Dr. Scholl's product, I suggest
expansion of Jelly into all fruit-based condiments as a way of
letting your competitor know that you have bested him. For
example:

If Chauncey Billups drops an unbelievable dime on the Lakers
tonight, as no doubt he will a few times over, he could shout
Jelly!

Say Wayne Rooney puts one past the Barcelona keeper this
afternoon.
Mar-me-lade, bitch!

Or Rashard Lewis comes up with another clutch three?
Preserves.

If he passes it to Hedo?
Elma Jolesi, bayanlar baylar.

If Hedo wants to take it in a new direction?
Peltelesmek.

Endless possibilities. Think it over, sporting types.

...Or, maybe it is because your shows court the terminally stupid.

2009-04-27T07:55:00.000-07:00

Great piece here, at least the results. CNN is having a tough
time with ratings. They, and presumably the Times, think this
is because they were going for a "straight news, middle of the road"
approach, as opposed to the nonsense at Fox and the somehow, in
the eyes of many Americans and certainly the majority of our media,
equivalent reporting and commentary at MSNBC.

Side note: This is probably the most pernicious form of idiocy
in the American media. Everything has to have two sides. It doesn't
matter too much which side is truthful. There's a left and a right.
It is odd how things can be so Manichean in a country whose
political spectrum is represented by a center right party and and
extremist right party. Anyway, after years of the American media
ignoring evidence, not bothering, or being co-conspirators with the
criminal enterprise bleeding the country, MSNBC put a guy on the
air who pointed out facts obvious to the literate (here I don't mean
intellectual, I mean people who can read and write at a fifth grade
level) faction of our sad society years prior. "Wow," the news media
said, "this guy is waaaay left. He's like Hannity."

Well, no. Hannity is an empty suit. A blowhard. A dipshit. His
program relies on childish ideology and prevarication. A simple
fact check would put this all to rest. This isn't to say that Olbermann
never games what he's got in order to drive at someone. He doesn't,
however, just make things up. Olbermann is more of a moderate,
really, until the string of lies and felonies got so open and egregious,
until the collective intellect of the American public got so battered
that we were mere minutes away from "GO AWAY, 'BATIN!" until
we came to a point where there was actually a debate about
whether or not to torture and violate international law and common
decency (not much of a debate, as it turns out) that he saw his Murrow
moment. Luckily for Mr. Olbermann, we are still in deep shit, and
most of the media are handmaidens to the ruling class. We are still
imbeciles. He'll have a long career just by going on the television
saying "Are you fucking kidding me?" in a different tone of voice than
Messrs Colbert and Stewart.

Okay. Back to CNN. Could it be that CNN is tanking in the ratings
because any half-serious person finds their coverage laughable? It
really is news at somewhere around the cretin IQ level. Have the writers
of this article watched Don Lemon? He makes Anderson Cooper look
like Sherwood Anderson. A person is, to borrow from Billy Madison,
dumber for having listened to him.

Possibly they could cover a bit of news in-between Mexican bashing
and latest developments on any abducted white girl. Just a suggestion.

Not that NBC is ideal. How a monkeyfaced halfwit like Gregory
could be trusted with the house Russert built is far beyond my
comprehension.

So, here's some free advice for CNN executives: Model yourselves
after the CBC. Report actual news. It doesn't need to be somewhere
in the gray area between Hannity and Olbermann ideologically. This
is why CNN is less trustworthy than MSNBC (one would have to go
a series of surrealist country miles to manage being less trustworthy
than Fox) and will continue to be so. You can't stand in the middle of
facts and lies and seek the truth. The truth is what it is, and it doesn't
matter if the person saying it is Castro, Chavez, Netanyahu or Clinton.
If Barney Frank says it is raining and James Inhofe says that there's
no way to prove it try standing outside. When Anderson Cooper's
hair gets mussed a bit, tell us what the strange wet substance is.
Don't do a three part story on the debate of the existence of rain.

America is not polarized in the way we're being told. There is a
polarization between those of us in the evidence based community
and the ideologues who will work tirelessly to fit square pegs into
round holes. I will avoid a John Mayer joke now. Okay. It has passed.
Try being information dense instead of just being dense. Seriously,
the CBC is a great model.

You might have to travel to Canada to see it. For some reason, it isn't
available through existing satellite and cable providers. Wonder why
that could be...

Saramago's blog.

2009-03-23T07:49:00.000-07:00

I don't know how it took me so long to find this out, but
José Saramago has a blog. (Linked in the title of this entry.)
Downside to it being my foolish decision to opt for German
as my second language years ago, because it is available in
Portugese (which wasn't really an option for me, so I'll let
myself slide) and Spanish (which would've been a bit more
useful, but what can you do?) which every American should
have a working knowledge of, beyond my current capacity, which
is knowing how to get beer, cigarettes, matches and meals and
little else.

Twice as irksome is that the entries are timely. His latest entry
is on El Salvador. Running it through an autotranslation program
is pretty useful. One can read around the inborn vicissitudes of
such a thing and get at the meat, if not the marrow.

I am wont to ruminate on good ole José, who becomes more of
an influence with every passing month. His beauty is his existence
in-between existences, his prose veering betwixt epic and plainspoken,
his characters occupying the terra while straddling some subatomic
plane (or Plain? both, I think) that becomes more real than the
seemingly physical world they find themselves thrust back into,
his "dialogue" or, in this case, Dialogue, at times mystical and
common. If there is a more important living author, I'd be keen on
getting whatever s/he has composed.

It doesn't hurt that his politics are as in line with my own as any
thinker I've been made aware of, and that his background is one
I can relate to, inasmuch as an American in his early (early, I tell
you!) thirties can to a Portugese man in his late eighties. In lieu of
language acquisition, I'll be copying and pasting to autotranslate.

***

In unrelated, sad news, Nicholas Hughes has committed suicide
in Alaska. His life, of course, was his own, and it is somewhat jarring
to see the headlines of "Sylvia's son," which set a backdrop to
a host of complications none of us can imagine, but it is natural
if discourteous to see this as yet another horrific footnote in an
ongoing tale of woe. Incredibly sad stuff.

Iliad Agonistes

2009-02-10T07:07:00.000-08:00

What does a fool do with an unseasonably warm
February day? He begins his quixotic expedition into
the translated Homer. Now, when granted an even
warmer day with nothing on his plate, what would
this recalcitrant masochist set up for his entertainment?
Repeating last week's headache.

Here's the issue, and one I have yet to solve:
Pope, Chapman, Lattimore or Logue? Obviously Chapman
or Pope, at first glance; yet, when considering the Iliad and
Odyssey as a topic of study, Lattimore's versions have
much to compliment, if only as complement. Tuesday
last, I nearly had a breakdown looking at three copies
of the Iliad strewn about the living room floor. Thank God
for Harold Bloom, whose "Where Shall Wisdom Be Found"
served as a much needed slump buster. There's always
"Trolius and Cressida."

There are worse problems to have.

Because "An Escalade! An Escalade! My Kingdom for an Escalade!" just sounds stupid.

2009-01-27T08:30:00.000-08:00

Hello, ether. How have you been?

After a fairly long stint of a quite nonpoetic existence,
it seems the orchestra is tuning its instruments
in the pit.

It seems I never really caught on to the blogging
thing. Shame. I thought this was where unpublish
(ed)(able) essays got thrown into a subatomic world.
More of an insipid collection of half worked out thoughts
thrown up at a regular interval.

Well, this post aside, I think I might stick to irregular
essays on renegade spondees, if you don't mind.

How lucky I am.

2008-11-20T12:48:00.000-08:00

Talk about a good run.

I'd just picked up the full size Bartlett's Roget's Thesaurus,
which was long overdue, and got a sweet deal: new for
$14. Then came today.

The mail was louder than I can remember in quite some
time. The package was an early arriving Christmas gift.
Any sensible person would hand it over to the wife, wait
a month and get what was sure to be a very pleasant
Wassail companion. (The sender is one of the best gift
givers I know, he always has me down cold.) It was
obviously a work of substance in all ways one can mean
that. Any sensible person I am not, so I ripped into the
package while my second cup of Yorkshire Gold waited
for the point between too damned hot and stone cold
spent.

And there it was, in all of its glory: "Letters of Ted
Hughes."

Just when I thought the Translations was an extra gift
from the gods, something even better comes along. Initially,
I didn't know how valuable this volume would be. After
a cursory glance, I can report to the Hughes fanatics that
might happen by my hobbling, neglected ornipomorphic
electronic apartment that this is essential stuff.

What a time to be alive. This tempts a man to pick up the
pen again.

***

Side note: I should put a bit of cross-promotion to my music site,
where I'll likely adding putting poetry/essays. It is still under
construction, but there is free streaming of an album's worth
of songs.

Frankprophet.com

Nostrovia, brothers and sisters.

Religioheroics; Or, A Return to Poetry

2008-05-13T08:38:00.000-07:00

Eventually, I return to literature.

Through distractions, jobs and side jobs,
politics, basketball, digressions into society
and being and Oneness -- it all returns,
eventually, to this.

Had an interesting discussion with an acquaintance
the other day regarding the social value of
poetry. Interesting, largely because he is not
(to my knowledge) a poet or aspiring poet,
and how often does one get to steer the
conversation to a sation con verse? Interest of
full disclosure, he is a songwriter.

At some point, he asked why anyone wrote the
damned stuff in the first place. Fair question,
really. As it has been said a thousand times here,
and billions of times elsewhere, there ain't no money
in it. There's precious little respect, as well. I looked
at him, and realized his rook play had forced me
into the overly sentimental refrain: "Because they
have to." I cannot see any viable alternative to
the answer. I suppose the problem is that the people
that "have to" may not necessarily be the ones one might
want to. But, what can we expect in these times? I made
another observation (I've been keen on observations
lately) that I, along with my wife, exist an anachronism.
I am a typewriter guy who loves books, the art of boxing
and the thrill of Charley Patton in a MacBook world
where youtube videos, "mixed martial arts" and
(insert terrible pop act here) reign. This is not an existential
crisis. It isn't meant to sound as woebegone as it might.
It is just the case.

My remedy? Well, first, I'm ignoring boxing. Anyone who
saw the Hopkins-Calzaghe travesty might come to the
same conclusion. To the more important points: I'll keep
my humble library and enjoy life as I like it. Not becoming
more of a Luddite than I've been before... just realizing that
if I am out of step with the big picture, I don't give a damn.
Have you looked at "big picture society" lately? Who wants
it? I'll keep Barack Obama and -- I'll admit it! -- my MacBook,
bin the rest of it.

A new line of inquiry is that of the power word. Despite the
shenanigans and chicanery of the "mystic" crowd (no more
than the more terrestrial academic or political crowd) there
seems to be something to it. I think this is why good poetry,
with its keen juxtapositions, elicits the Jungian Oceanic
feeling in so many of us. The healing sounds, in qigong
parlance. Increasingly, the role of poetry as a social force,
or, at least, a viable means of communication, seems to be
that of the mystical. People are right to say that poetry
doesn't have much impact on them in the contemporary
age, mainly because poetry shouldn't go to the head so much
as over it and under it: it should reside in the aura and the
gut. One can replace aura for soul or spirit or whatever term
he chooses, the point stays the same. So, the postmodern pull
towards concrete imagery and mundane subject matter is
precisely what has rendered poetry socially inviable. It isn't
hard to see, really. It isn't so much that it is an antiquated
art form in the Information Age. More that it is a specific
art form with a distinct purpose as it relates to the collective
conscience. For the postdurkheimists, collective consciousness.
Both of them. The way to return poetry to its position isn't
to bring it further down to our understanding. Quite the
contrary. The way to return it is to station it where it
properly resides, beyond understanding, beyond thought
and into pure thought. Simply put, to woo our gods. More
simply even, to put together words that resonate beyond
our conscious energy field. To, pardon me for continually
returning to the original Karga commandments, passed
down by its Trinity of Bunting, Byron and Hughes: to take
a chisel to write.

There will be such a movement. For verse to survive, there
needs to be such a movement. Someone let me know when
they get here. I'll make the tea.

The National Discussion

2008-02-26T21:19:00.001-08:00

Being a language guy... or, at least,
a self-appointed language person,
I'd like to bring up a very positive
trend in the national discussion:

Good bye 3 G's.
Welcome back, 3 R's.

Guns, God and Gays are being rightfully
relegated to the rhetorical dustbin.

Religion, Race and Region is America
circa 2008. Not only that, but the 3 R's
aren't about the divisions among them;
rather, they concern the bridges between
them, the similarities across the board
in America. Unity rather than division.

And, of course, the a priori understanding
that 3 R's are counterintuitive. Just like
reading, (w)riting and 'rithmatic, religion,
race and region are very basic. Beyond
that, understanding these things is central
to becoming a productive society.

It is about time.

A post script:

Long live Russert.

A word about class.

2008-01-31T07:18:00.000-08:00

Anyone familiar with filmmaker Michael
Apted's tremendous "Up" series must also
have a sense of familiarity with the
British class system. Odd that it seems
so unfamiliar to American viewers, considering
the rigidity of our own class divides.
Is it odd, though?

There are quite a few differences between
the British class system and the American
one, albeit differences of an aesthetic
kind. First, in the United States there
have always been the twin mythologies of
mobility and meritocracy. Anyone born in
a West Virginia holler could, provided he
had the wit, skill and work ethic, rise
to the upper echelons of achievement. This
misapprehension doesn't appear to have captured
the proletarian mind of Great Britain, and
for good reason. If nothing else, that it
is complete rubbish. Or, in the American
vernacular, more appropriately, bullshit.

And it is a bullshit we hold onto with religious
fervor. This is not to say that lightning doesn't
strike, or that a combination of intelligence
and doggedness will not lead to a better
station. It has happened, and, despite the best
efforts of the ruling class in the States, it
might even continue to happen. This does not
change the manifest truth that it is
a complete aberration. In addition, the American
working class has so completely internalized
this bill of goods that it comes as a great
surprise to many when the clear evidence points
to the fact that social mobility is much more attainable
in Norway, the Netherlands... come to think of it,
probably even in England, Ireland, Scotland and
Wales... than here in the States. Though it is
a pleasant dream to many, one must wonder whether
it is a net positive.

This brings to mind a concrete similarity on both
sides of the pond: the ruling class has and
openly displays a disgust and contempt for its
underlings. One could break it down even to
separate taxable classes, with the net result
always remaining; namely, that each class
above loathes the ones below it, and that the
ones below, by and large, aspire towards the
ones above. This is where old Horatio causes more
than a little head scratching.

Mobility and meritocracy promote class antagonism
among the working class, all right, but it manifests
itself in an injurious sort of self-loathing. "What
does it say about me," the lower income bracket
can be heard to say collectively, "that I am where
I am? Obviously, because I haven't worked hard
enough, I am not smart enough, I haven't the
gumption." Within this formation, the concept of
the American Dream has done little, save to
wrest us from inconvenient realities.

The upper classes have their role to play, too.
Whether consciously or not, they maintain the
mythology. On the question of consciousness, one
might lean to the latter. This function goes on
without so much as a thought to what it is or
why it is being done. The American way about
being upper class is, to use the tired baseball
analogy, to be born on third thinking you've
hit a triple. Forgetting that the preponderance
of wealth is inherited, rather than created,
the higher tax bracket folks... just plain
folks, mind you... renounce the quite admirable
British traditions of noblesse oblige and
wearing an élite education on one's sleeve --
or his blazer, as the case may be. When it
comes to attaining educations or operations,
we're all in it together, the thinking goes.
Never mind that our public schools are looking
more and more like British public schools. (Of
course, a public school in Britain would be called
a private school here. To bring the continent in
for just a moment, I am reminded of just how
gobsmacked an in-law living in Paris was when
she was informed that an American "public" university
education came at a great cost. "How is that
public?" she asked. I didn't have an answer, really,
other than to point out that they are at least
tax exempt.) The leap from an American
public school in, say, rural Mississippi, to
one in Napa Valley, cannot be ignored, try as we
might. It is beyond clear that opportunities are
apportioned, as most opportunity stems from
education, and that the apportionment is overwhelmingly
related to income. That this states the obvious is
not as telling as the fact that it need be stated.
Whether it is technology or tutelage, or the combination,
the poor (and one might hasten to add more
qualifiers, such as black, rural, urban, Latino, &c.)
begin with a marked disadvantage, only to be
sold the idea that it is their lack of initiative
that keeps them behind their affluent countrymen.

A third "m" could be included, in the form of
militarism. Again, it is not so much that the
investigation of militarism in the United States
should lead to a string of truisms, but that they
require any investigation in the first place.
Truism one: the poor disproportionately fight and
die in our wars, to the benefit of the wealthy. Most
of them do so because the possibility of a solid
public education often requires military service to
pay for. If one looks anecdotally to a place like
Manhattan, Kansas, the class rift becomes clear in
euphemism as well as concrete terms.

Manhattan is home to Kansas State University, and
is situated only a few miles from Fort Riley. There
is much lore of the sordid and base ways of the
GI's among nonmilitary residents. This occurs
especially within the academic population, whose
students refer to the soldiers and their offspring
as "Riley Rats." Nice term, that, for the men and
women who, at great cost and little reward, help
to maintain America's economic primacy. Again,
those fortunate enough to have their education paid
in full respond to the working class community, in
this instance, the military, with undisguised contempt.
Again, the people on the lower rungs of the class
ladder respond by endeavoring to join them in their
educational pursuits. These pursuits are demanded
largely because they are becoming the only way to
transition into that mysterious world heretofore
unmentioned: that of the middle class.

With education being a for-profit enterprise, the
best way to sustain profitability is to pretty much
demand universal, or near-universal attendance.
In this globalized economy, the thought of working
an assembly line and earning enough to house, feed,
clothe and educate one's family is nigh on quaint.
So what is the answer? Get some enormous loans,
hope that you keep above water while bettering yourself,
and earn that degree. It would be interesting to
have solid statistics on how many Americans who
give it the old college try a second time around end
up with a diploma rather than just debt. Now, being
a perpetual debtor isn't your only option. There
are recruiters near you just waiting to tell you about
the educational opportunities available to the
few and the proud.

All told, the American class system appears more
intractable than the fabled British one. In the
end, the treadmill working class Americans find
themselves on goes nowhere because of our
mythologies. It is as though there are thousands
of sailboats, dinghies and the like out there,
some of them more posh than others, but most of
them sea worthy. In the old British system, a person
would pick his boat, occasionally making a
fuss over just what kind of a boat he was saddled
with. In the United States, we're told that we
can all, in one way or another, get on the Queen
Mary. Little wonder so many of us find ourselves
out to sea in need of rescue.

A quasiclerihew for a bit of fun.

2008-01-28T11:22:00.000-08:00

Jotted something down last night which
reflects an aesthetic opinion, so I thought
I'd share... also, I need to bump the
election down a little. Politics and
middleweight boxing matches can really
mess with a person's sense.

Academics is a parlor game,
set them up
knock them down.
Evidence available? Today,
do we revere or revile Ezra Pound?

Circular Firing Squads

2008-01-09T08:05:00.000-08:00

It has been a while since
any substantive talk of poetry has come up. At the
moment, versifying has taken a back seat. So, here
goes politics. Again.

The nominations from the "two" parties look to be
a long, hard slog. Just as I found myself poised to
watch a second coffin nail, in the form of a
double digit New Hampshire win, into the tiresome
Clinton dynasty, here came an appalling surprise.
Now, it's on to South Carolina, Nevada and Super
Tuesday. Then, possibly a brokered convention.
Maybe even two. What is the likely outcome? If
recent history is a good judge, two war candidates,
two candidates in the pocket of banks and insurance
and oil companies, a two-headed monster of a decision
which will speed us along to 2012 in a way that
must make the descendants of the Mayans laugh. (If
it weren't for all that death squad business.)

Democrats seemed ready. Republicans seemed ready.
Independents seemed ready. Whether it was crocodile
tears, the cynical politics to attack JFK and MLK,
or the Bradley effect, the race is going on to all
50 states.

One interesting postulate was given by none other
than Pat Buchanan. As he sees it... and I have a
tough time disagreeing... the Democratic Party
is going through an identity battle, splitting its
six primary blocs into two wings: on one side,
the blue collar (labor) folks, the old and
middle class women; on the other, the educated,
African Americans and the young. I can't see
much cause for arguing Buchanan's assertion.

Despite the fact that Bill brought us NAFTA and
welfare reform, despite the fact that Hillary has
retained the services of a Wal-Mart executive, labor
is somehow leaning towards Clinton. So much for
voting self-interest.

Portion two of the Clinton/establishment triumvirate
are the baby boomers. They like one of their own,
and they don't have any interest in ceding their
stranglehold on the American consciousness. Nothing
suits this group better than America existing to
relive their glory years over and over, until they
leave the country to their kids. (Sorry, GenXers,
your time will not be coming.)

Finally, the women. The woman who is a Hillary voter
swings on the issue of plumbing.

On the Obama/change side, there are the educated.
Does this suggest that those voting for Hillary
are uneducated? Pretty much. Excluding the
baby boomer group, the basis of her support, i.e.
the less than erudite blue collar worker and
the symbolist feminist, is one of blissful
ignorance. It is a curious conundrum for a person
such as myself: the working class, my class, is
again going against me. Much as I loathe academics,
I find myself on their side of things.

My consolation is that I can group myself on
the "young" side of things. Relatively speaking,
I am young. The unfortunate kind of young that
landed before boomer kids, destined to swim in
a sea of sixties nostalgia and ironic despair
until the kids ten years my junior take the
reins. It is obvious why younger voters
swing towards Barack: he's one of us, he's
different, idealistic, he isn't a product of
the cynical Clinton-Bush era. He isn't a Clinton
or a Bush, and that counts for something.

Then, there are the African-Americans. Their
reasoning is pretty obvious. I don't blame
them either. I would, were it not for the
case that Barack Obama is a great candidate
and a great man, from all indications, who
represents the best of this country. You
wouldn't see large percentages of the A-A
vote for J.C. Watts or Alan Keyes. That the
best candidate happens to have this skin
tone is just icing. Plus, you have the Bill
Clinton "first black president" bullshit,
which would be enough for me to vote against
him, were I not so pigment challenged.

So, there you have it. The future of America
comes down to a thirty-five year old black
college professor vs. an old dumb broad.
Unless the Republicans win out. Then, it is
a battle between corporatist religious wingnuts,
populist religious wingnuts, war hawks and
a man with a 9/11 mantra.

Even though they've moved all the primaries
up, we'll still have August conventions,
meaning an Independent would have a tough
time getting on the ballot or building a
ground game. This election season has been
unusually long, but it'll seem very short
if Rudy and Hillary prevail.

What Song Would You Pick?

2008-01-02T09:32:00.001-08:00

A recent development has convinced me that
many of us compose in what amounts to an
electronic Bantustan. This medium allows the
impression of egalitarianism, but it really
isn't the case.

I'll leave it there for the moment.

A nice year in review piece

2007-12-26T13:50:00.000-08:00

The Buffalo Beast has just released
their 50 Most Loathsome list, and I have few complaints.

A few of the highlights:

17. Hillary Clinton
Charges: Began in politics as a teenage Nixon supporter --
that's twisted. Moved on to corporate law, representing
Wal-Mart and bravely defending Coca-Cola from disabled
employees. Married out of ambition. Failed miserably
as the first lady of health care. Has spent whole of
senatorial career as a hawk and a panderer. Would have no
shot at becoming president if she didn't just happen to be
married to one already.

Exhibit A: Has deftly avoided the flip-flopper label --
by never, ever answering a question directly or
committing to a position in the first place.

Sentence: Victim of vast right wing conspiracy to shove
a brick up her ass.

9. You
Charges: You believe in freedom of speech, until
someone says something that offends you. You suddenly
give a damn about border integrity, because the
automated voice system at your pharmacy asked you to
press 9 for Spanish. You cling to every scrap of bullshit
you can find to support your ludicrous belief system,
and reject all empirical evidence to the contrary.
You know the difference between patriotism and nationalism --
it's nationalism when foreigners do it. You hate anyone
who seems smarter than you. You care more about zygotes
than actual people. You love to blame people for their
misfortunes, even if it means screwing yourself over.
You still think Republicans favor limited government.
Your knowledge of politics and government are
dwarfed by your concern for Britney Spears' children.
You think buying Chinese goods stimulates our economy.
You think you're going to get universal health care.
You tolerate the phrase "enhanced interrogation
techniques." You think the government is actually
trying to improve education. You think watching CNN
makes you smarter. You think two parties is enough.
You can't spell. You think $9 trillion in debt is
manageable. You believe in an afterlife for the sole
reason that you don't want to die. You think lowering
taxes raises revenue. You think the economy's doing well.
You're an idiot.

Exhibit A: You couldn't get enough Anna Nicole Smith coverage.

Sentence: A gradual decline into abject poverty as you
continue to vote against your own self-interest. Death by an
easily treated disorder that your health insurance doesn't cover.
You deserve it, chump.

I might make a last minute nomination:

The San Francisco Police Department. Have you assholes heard
of tranquilizer darts?

This Scab's for Hire

2007-12-21T08:56:00.000-08:00

With the Writer's Guild strike continuing,
and Conesy, Colbert and Stewart deciding (or
having it decided) that the show must go on.
I've been kicking myself for not being in
Nuevo Jorc or Los Angeles.

Seems there are enough underemployed
writers/playwrights who could fill in the
gap of the Guild.

I am profoundly pro-Union, but from the onset,
I've been thinking about how this strike
would be very costly to the grips, the
make up artists, the light guys, etc. My
pro-Union stance is more based on working
people, and these are the workers of the
television world.

Now, it would be no tragedy to me if all
of television went up in flames, as long
as I can still get basketball games. I'd
probably get a lot more done if there wasn't
basketball, but that's not the point.

It is with us to stay, I think, and here
we are, giving away so much content online
in the first place. I have two blogs, a
soundclick, a few myspace pages for bands,
and on and on. So, here's my pitch to the
denizens of the tube:

I'll work for scale. If I get to mail it
in, half of scale. I know all the clichés
and talking points, and have a good sense
of just when an ancillary character should
take a shot to the groin or suffer a profound
case of diarrhea on an important date. So,
whaddya' say, television? Let me write a
few scripts? Pick this scab and stop the
bleeding.

Unwelcome News

2007-12-12T18:39:00.000-08:00

A few years ago, I became aware of a
troubadour from Old Sand Mountain, Alabama,
named Cast King. His debut album, released
at the tender age of 79, was a sensation.

The story was terrific, naturally. Here was
a fellow who had recorded some tracks multiple
decades ago, had a little bit of regional run,
and drifted into rural obscurity. Until Matt
Downer of Locust rediscovered
him to make what amounted to a debut.

The tunes on that album, Saw Mill Man were everything the fan of
old time music could hope for, though the picture inside
teased the listener with Cast playing fiddle -- there
was only guitar on the album.

It was a great moment for all who struggle to
create, against the odds of economy, demography
or geography. The talent was certainly there,
but what are the odds in this industry of a 79
year old man from a place hardly anyone knows about
making a critically acclaimed album? Mojo, The New
York Times, Playboy and may others sang his praises.

In the end, every feel good story has its undoing. Just
a few days ago, Cast was diagnosed with... well, follow
the link from the title of this post. It appears he isn't
long for this world.

If nothing else, he'll remain an inspiration. If a person
feels like quitting, think of his story. Please visit
Locust Music, download "Saved," and make a contribution
to his wife. Good reviews will not make a man rich.

***

On a related note, it seems that Jerry Ricks has been
quite ill. I haven't heard the latest, but it sounds
pretty tough. Mr. Ricks, among other things, had a few
albums on Rooster which were the best acoustic blues
recorded since the 1960's. That Many
Miles of Blues is out of print is a goddamned
travesty. If you can't get a copy, e-mail me (through
my profile) and I'll send you at least a few cuts
from it. He deserves a lot more recognition than he's
received. I won't put Jerry in the "goners" column just
yet. I won't put Cast there either, though it doesn't look
good.

***

And, of course, there's this.

Jeez.

November has been long

2007-11-30T06:28:00.000-08:00

The next-to-the-last day of November was one
filled with vitriol. Not that I would apologize
for anything I did yesterday, which is too
much to go into, other than the Cohen gasket
bursting below, but there has been something
in the air in late November. At least, something
around my air.

Bring on December.

Tidbits on Roger Cohen

2007-11-29T08:27:00.000-08:00

Roger Cohen of the New York Times doesn't
really write his column, the words are dictated
to him by the prostitutes he employs to
demean them.

Roger Cohen of the New York Times calls the
White House to ask them what he should have
those prostitutes say.

Roger Cohen of the New York Times visits
Friedman's grave, crying.

Roger Cohen of the New York Times would like
you and your uncle and your family to starve.

Roger Cohen is the fascist.

Roger Cohen drinks blood, probably from the
same syphilitic prostitutes writing his
column in the New York Times.

Roger Cohen is a known cannibal.

Cohen wants you dead.

***

It is possible I've taken a liberty or two, but
I felt that I could be allowed to tell half as
many lies in this humble blog as Cohen does about
Chavez in his Times column today.

Cohen, you're a real piece of shit.

Okay, I'm done now.

The Pleasures of the Damned

2007-11-17T08:59:00.001-08:00

I don't know if John Martin has closed the
gaps left by the five hundred or so posthumous
collections of Bukowski's work, replete with
seemingly every line the man scribbled on a
bar napkin, but the world finally has a volume
by which to judge the poetry of Charles Bukowski:
The Pleasures of the Damned, Collected Poems 1951-1993.

I've been screaming from the rooftops about the
necessity of such a collection. The American literary
scene seems to have two distinct... and
inappropriate... reactions to Buk: 1. Contempt;
2. Lionization, leading to imitation.

For the first, I'd offer that most of his harshest
critics have read little of his work. This is a real
issue with Buk, because, as I mentioned above, hardly
a thing he's put on paper hasn't been published. This
has resulted in scores of volumes which include poems
far better than many (maybe any) of his contemporaries
that are surrounded, it would be fair to say buried,
by hundreds of pages of very pedestrian, stories broken
randomly into line-type stuff.

The principle antagonism, I think, from the academic
poetry world is his class status. "Who is this
poor sot, thinking he's a poet?" I wouldn't hesitate
to state plainly that there's a feeling out there
that Bukowski didn't earn his bona fides in the
academy. Why is it that people who argue that Buk's work
is completely without merit are often quick to sing
Carver's praises? Could it be the fact that he got
himself trained?

It doesn't help that Bukowski has outsold, out-influenced,
and will outlive every poet published in The New Yorker
or POETRY during his career. I think this
drives the Professional Poetry types insane, and they
exorcise it by resorting to criticisms which are often
incorrect and always petty.

The second group, to which I've belonged on and off, can
go a bit far. I have to admit that I love Buk for the
same reason so many ProPoets hate him: he represents
my class, he looks at the world in much the same way
that I do and he can hold his liquor. There is no
question that Bukowski was a great reader. He litters
the page with evidence. To repeat myself again, he has
penned some fantastic, unforgettable, risky stuff.
"Dinosauria, We" alone merits him some inclusion in the
modern canon, to whatever extent there is such a thing.
That said, the guy wasn't Jeffers or Pound or Ted Hughes
or Neruda. Given a comfortable life, who knows what he
might have accomplished?

Some would argue that a comfortable life would've rendered
his work irrelevant. That could be. If it wasn't for the
subject matter, what would distinguish him? Would his
prose style work (this is with his short stories, which
are great -- stop internal dialogue, MFA candidates,
you're wrong, the short stories are very good)in the
context of an Evelyn Waugh type upbringing? Doubtful.
My contention is that Buk's mind could've adapted to this,
possibly went the epic route, but we can't know and
it doesn't matter anyway. He's the laureate of the
working class, and had to compose, more or less, in that
language.

Whether one finds himself in the love or hate group,
at least the attempt has (finally) been made to offer
a selection for consideration. How many of us would
be just fine with offering our first drafts for
publication, especially when it means a huge payday,
relatively speaking. The posthumous stuff has been
out of control, but it was, of course, out of Buk's
control. Any further discussion on his merits or
demerits should focus on this collection... unless
one wants to pore over the thousands of pages we have
looking for the gems. I think it is obvious that
his detractors have no interest in this.

In the end, shouldn't the idea of communication
apply to poetry? After all, communicating an idea is
the reason we write. I don't see the benefit in
having the ideas targeted for an élite group that
operates like a quasi-secret society. If one were
to make a numeric rating for the efficacy of a poem
or poet -- a horrible thought, I'll concede, but
it gets the general point across -- with five
qualities worth two points each (just off the
top of the head, we'll say: 1. Aesthetic achievement;
2. Social relevance; 3. Scale of communication, i.e.,
how many people read the work and find value in it;
4. Metric abilities/rhythm/musicality; 5. Influence
on contemporaries and future poets) Buk would
rate all right. We'll put him up against Robert Lowell.

Lowell
1 - 1.2 points
2 - 0.3 points
3 - 1 point
4 - 1.3 points
5 - 2 points

for a total of 5.8 out of a possible ten.

Bukowski

1 - This is the root of the argument, but I'll throw out a
compromise number of 0.7 points
2 - 1.3 points
3 - 2 points
4 - 0.3 points
5 - 2 points

for a total of 6.3 out of a possible ten.

If we were to discuss the two of them using only
one element, say the size of readership on one hand
or artistic achievement on another, the balance would be
heavily skewed in the direction of either Lowell or
Bukowski. I don't think anyone would argue that
Buk was in the same league in terms of craftsmanship...
hell, I doubt anyone would argue he was in the
same sport! But is that all poetry is? How far
does it go before it comes flat out contempt for the
public? I'm not suggesting Buk was a better
writer than Lowell. I am saying that the aesthetic
side of things is subjective, while numbers, whether
it is in terms of readers or volumes sold, speak
for themselves. I am the first to impugn the
tastes of the general public. The fact that anyone,
much less millions, watches, for instance, "Big
Brother" or the like should be great cause for concern.

I doubt that the same people calling in to vote
on "American Idol" are the ones buying Bukowski or
Lowell or Dugan or any poetry whatever. While we
are mired in what amounts to a cultural sewer, there
isn't a cozy distinction between the literate 10% and
the illiterate 90%. How often do you meet a person that
is either brilliant and urbane or a complete imbecile?
There is a whole lot of gray area in public literacy.
The gray area, one could argue, is where literacy
really exists. It is easy to forget that literature
wasn't designed solely for the study of other
creators. Readers should be nonspecialists, at least
the preponderance of them.

Those who curse the very name Henry Charles Bukowski
are usually specialists writing to other specialists,
and they seem to see no problem in that. More often
than not, their work isn't niche because of its
complexity, though they often try to be as complex
as they can... or at least appear complex... it is
niche and specialist because people rightly consider
it solipsistic shit.

In my barbaric number rankings, one could take
Buk down to zeros on the aesthetics and metrics
scale. I wouldn't agree, but we're compromising here.
He'd still get at least a three in the remaining
categories, which would put him around 3 points ahead
of Michael Ryan and Kay Ryan combined. I rest my
case.

50,000

2007-11-12T12:36:00.000-08:00

Hit it! That wasn't so bad, but now I have
to write the other 40,000 to finish it.

What a tremendous exercise. Through finally
going this far with a piece of prose, I
think I've found the varieties of
protagonist available to me. That thrills
me.

Putting me through my paces.

2007-11-04T06:56:00.000-08:00

I've learned a lot in 3 days of Nanowrimo
participation.

Most importantly, I've learned that my
writing pace, when I want to sit down
and compose, is about 5,000 a day.

A little politics

2007-10-31T09:38:00.000-07:00

After last night's debate (if you didn't get
a chance to see it, today's New York Times
has a very accurate depiction by Nagourney and
another writer) I think I have a horse.

I've been an Obama backer since 2004, but at
this point, it is very clear that John Edwards
is the best guy for the job, whether it is against
Hillary or any other Republican.

Go to the John Edwards campaign site.

He wasn't my ideal candidate, but he's looking
like it more and more. The other nice thing,
he'll win the general.

One more day of rest

2007-10-31T08:49:00.000-07:00

NaNoWriMo starts tomorrow.

Happy Hallowe'en.

The New Yorker. 29 October 2007.

2007-10-24T08:54:00.000-07:00

A few years after tossing a fiction issue
aside in disgust, I've decided to begin
subscribing to The New Yorker
again. Whatever its flaws, it is rough to
miss out on Seymour Hersh's articles.

Now, to its flaws.

For those of you who would inveigh against
The New Yorker's much ballyhooed
"auto reject" function, whereby one sends his
submission strictly through e-mail... and often
receives his prompt rejection that same day...
take heart. Apparently there is also an
"auto accept" setting in their system. We all
have an e-mail contacts list, why should such
an eminent publication be less efficient?

Those of you with a copy, please turn to page
forty five.

One must ask of Dan Chiasson, "Are you even
trying?" His poem, "Man and Derailment," might
work as a short story. That supposes a good deal
of dialogue and, if it were twenty pages in
length, exactly the same occurrence of the phrase
"life-sized." As a poem, I cannot imagine how
it could manage to have any less consequence.

This scratches a scab. If a writer is to toss off
some number of words and have it land straight
on the page of a major magazine, must it be made
to appear meticulous? I count a total of ten lines.
In those ten, there are approximately thirty-five
words begging for the gallows. This is, I must admit,
a neat trick. Seldom has an artist managed to
give us so little with so much filler.

The better selection of the two has to be
Charles Wright's. Certainly more gravitas, and
of his four poems, a person could see two
surviving longer than a decade.

Actually, I like them quite a lot in comparison
to what has become the custom in major poetry
magazines. That said, I'd have to echo my interrogative
on the issue of revision.

"[B]ack in the day"?
"stretched like Saran wrap"?

These ruin the first two. The next two ("Consolation
and the Order of the World" and "We Hope That Love Calls
Us, But Sometimes We're Not So Sure") don't suffer
the same fate. I enjoy how precise and concise both
are. I can see a concrete vision in their themes.

Only one suggestion here: don't be shy of the word
"Untitled."

NaNoWriMo

2007-10-20T10:08:00.000-07:00

I have a feeling my blog presence will again
diminish in the month of November. This is
the first I've heard of NaNoWriMo.

This sounds pretty cool to me. I'm thinking
of a political satire/mystery novel for mine.

I must plug for buddyhood:

ADD HERE.

Again on Uncle Walt

2007-10-18T13:09:00.000-07:00

Then it comes to my attention that things
can be as fine as 1855. Or at least, 1855
could seem equally insane.

"If we don't show
anyone, we're free to write anything." A.G.,1986

Thinking of Whitman

2007-10-18T07:50:00.000-07:00

Whitman is the Alpha of American poetry.
In some ways, he should be considered when
one wants to write anything at all in American
English.

The problem is that he had another
America entirely. This contributed to
how the lines and rhythm went, to the
language, the look, the feel. His America,
while not serene or perfect, was a
free place. The freedom sprawled across
the page.

To imagine a nation like that is false now.
Do we forget Uncle Walt as a result?

It seems
that lines
should
look
more like
this,
in order
to convey
the
absolute
loss
of
person
of
independence.

Much more
like a
box than
Whitman's
fields of
good
and bad
men, living.

We really don't have that anymore.

Or maybe the music thing

2007-10-16T19:15:00.001-07:00

Your Rapper Name Is...

Big Killa

What's Your Rapper Name?

The Available Bad Options

2007-10-16T18:49:00.000-07:00

File Under: Solipsism

Had a bit of a blow up the other night. This
is the real problem with choosing something...
God, I have to say it this way... artistic as
a calling. Especially in the 21st Century.

Knowing that the chances poetry would prove
lucrative enough to buy beer, let alone pay
rent, are at best scant, the idea of again
weighing options comes up. By that, I mean
"What shall I spend my free time on in order
to retain my sanity?"

I've narrowed it down to songwriting and poem
writing. Neither offer much in material or ego
comforts, but if one dedicates himself completely
to one or the other, he gets better, and that's
a victory in itself.

Then it came down to the fact that this isn't so
much about me, but the ideas I want to relate. From
this perspective, songwriting is a better pick.
Even a dismal failure of a songwriter will have
a few hundred people hear his songs. For a poet,
a few thousand is real success. Easier to be in the
"reasonable success" to "outright failure" category
than to climb the ivy tower of the poetry world.

Then again, poetry is a medium composed in granite.
Songs are for now. Sure, good ones will survive, but
if one is responsible, he doesn't live his life by
a song. Great writing, on the other hand, is stuff
to live by throughout time. So, if one is to go
unnoticed, why not attempt the absurd? It is the
only way to achieve the impossible, as we know.

Maybe the written word doesn't lose after all. The
only way to find out if you have a "Double Axe" or
"Leaves of Grass" in you is to attempt it while
suffering poverty, humiliation and rewrites...

File Under: Delusional.

But there's that Unamuno quote once again...

The Newbury Nobel

2007-10-11T08:32:00.000-07:00

Doris Lessing is the recipient of 2007's
Nobel Prize for Literature. If only I were
a one man selection panel. My ten for
prestige, in no particular order:

1. Ernesto Cardenal
2. Christopher Logue
3. Christopher Hitchens
4. Randy Newman
5. Shane MacGowan
(Hey, why should Dylan get all the run?)
6. Stephen Colbert in 2008

And for the Peace Prize:

1. Noam Chomsky
(really, how could he NOT get this?)
2. Hugo Chavez
3. Dennis Kucinich
4. Evo Morales

Why do I love thee, Hitchens?

2007-10-11T08:21:00.000-07:00

Christopher Hitchens has done everything
I can think of to alienate me as a fan
in the last few years. Somehow, I find myself
enjoying him more.

"Everything I can think of," is a little strong,
really. This is the man who penned "The Trial
of Henry Kissinger" as well as "Why Orwell Matters."

He is also the one person who comes to mind
when the word "writer" is bandied about. Hitchens
is the embodiment of all things author: a
sherry swilling, chain smoking,
intractable and arrogant guy who values nothing
above the word. He is, by all accounts, a
great reader, which is step one in a great writer.

Sometimes I think he courts controversy solely for
the sake of courting controversy. This is
the only explanation I have for his opinions vis a vis
the Iraq War and the Islamic world.

One thing is sure, he isn't a slave to contemporary
consensus. What is less fashionable in this
hyperreligious atmosphere than fundamentalist
atheism?

If we are to seek out today's Swift or Pope, Hitchens
is as good a start as I can muster. Wit should
be displayed with savagery. Who does this better?

Wow, Kettle, You are one Black Bastard.

2007-10-11T07:57:00.000-07:00

So, Congress is pushing through the "G" word
in reference to the Ottoman Empire's actions
against the Armenians. Good thing the world
is at peace and we can analyze the past of
another country, when it wasn't even the country
it is today.

What's really telling, to me, is that the same
words haven't been used for Belgium, France,
Spain, Portugal, ourselves, etc.

Most of the massacres that happened in the Congo
weren't even in a time of war. Just senseless
racist cruelty. But I forget, Natives and
Africans don't count.

Apparently, neither do Iraqis. Maybe Hungary
will make it right with choice words against
the aforementioned powers in a hundred years or so.

NPR. NYTimes. Everywhere Else.

2007-10-08T09:28:00.000-07:00

Anyone else suffering from Roth fatigue?

Protagonist is incontinent and impotent. I'll
let that one just swing out there.

More importantly, Kinky Friedman has a
campaign memoir. The book review quoted a
vintage Friedman borrowing:

"I've got nothing against Baptists. I just
think they don't hold them under water long
enough."

Developments?

2007-10-06T06:42:00.000-07:00

Seems a new "verse novel" is calling my name.
Man, I can pick 'em. I'm ballparking the chances
of my getting published in the genre as
about the same the Cubs have of sweeping the
Diamondbacks. So many publishers are looking
for unknown folks peddling book length poems.
I should get a hobby, other than smoking.

In case anyone noticed the blog talk radio
button at the right, sorry. It seems btr is not
Mac ready, and I'm weird about downloads.

Or, I'm a computer idiot. Or, both.

On an unrelated note, nothing is better than
Washington Phillips. Nothing.

Politics again.

2007-09-30T11:02:00.000-07:00

Good call for action by Dave Lindorff
here.

I think I'm in. I've been considering what
he suggests (re-registering as an Independent)
for years. It's funny. When I registered in
Kansas, it was in the heat of the 2004 Election.
A lady working a canvass showed up twenty minutes
after Barack Obama's convention speech.

Here, you can't register Green Party, which is
what I have been for years prior, and given my
excitement for Obama, I registered as a Democrat.

Just about the only thing I can agree with the Party
on is that, given the choice, I'd prefer them to
the Republicans. That isn't saying much.

I still like many in the Party, especially Kucinich,
Edwards, Richardson and Obama. I've even made a small
contribution to Obama. I understand there is a huge
difference between John Edwards and Fred Thompson. But
Hillaryand Rudy? Seems like that old dime's worth
to me.

There is no practical reason for me to remain a
registered Democrat. Kansas doesn't have a national
primary. We have a caucus, which doesn't do
me any good because I'm about as alienated from
the local party as I am the national one. Local
primaries don't do much for me either. On the local
front, a lot could be done. That said, I would
have to dedicate a lot of time and effort getting
out the vote in my neighborhood. Do I owe that to
the Democratic Party? I worked on the Richardson
campaign in New Mexico as a registered Green. If the
right person was running, I suppose I would do a
good deal of work for her or him. Nationally, though,
there is no point as long as the electoral system
remains structured as it is now. I live in Kansas.
It is as likely that Kansas will give its votes
to the Democratic nominee as it is for a Republican
to carry the African-American vote. So, no one is
really interested in what we think, anyway. Why
should I throw my largely symbolic support behind
a party that is not only way to the right of me,
but also impotent and chickenshit? What is the point?

So, I'll go to the clerk in the next couple of days and
do it. I have nothing to lose, really. I will vote
for my Democratic congressman (unless a progressive
candidate is permitted to run against him) and whatever
Democrat there is running against Brownback. (Come on,
how hard could it be to beat him?) If Edwards or Obama
is the nominee, of the media-approved candidates,
I can't see voting against either. Hell, I'll give
money and knock on doors. Should this party be
foolish enough to select Hillary, well, I'll probably
write in Nader.

My vote doesn't count in the first place. If I'm asked
to sell my soul, I'd better get damned good at
guitar.

Library Book Sale

2007-09-29T09:16:00.000-07:00

Few seasonal traditions are more welcome than the
library book sale. It is a lottery in which one always
wins something.

Today, among other things, I've bulked up a Graham
Greene collection that is starting to get obsessive.
I started buying any Greene title I can find at
book sales or used book stores. As the collection
got larger, I started picking up first editions. Now
I have another in that department. I'm not a big
"collectible" guy... content over collectibility has
always been my rule. But I inadvertently started
with Greene, and why not ride it out?

I also picked up Lattimore's Iliad and Odyssey.
Contemporary poets/scholars are often derisive of
Lattimore's word for word technique. He is
definitely out of fashion, and I can understand
the criticism. Even so, I've always liked Lattimore's
notes much more than any other author. I don't plan
on learning Greek too soon, and Lattimore seems the
next best thing.

The Homer thing is snowballing as well. I've got the
Chapman, of course, and now the Lattimore. Working on the
Logue... wish it wasn't necessary to collect separate
books, I think at least five or six, but a poet needs
to get paid. Did I just say that?

Missing Pope. That will be remedied.

Also, a Complete Poems of Thomas Hardy for one dollar.
Not bad.

no time for poetry,but exactly whatitis.

2007-09-20T11:07:00.000-07:00

I've been thumbing through Juvenal's Sixteen Satires and
Petronius, as well as a little Horace & Pope.

Satire is the only saving grace at the moment.

Art will always nourish the soul, but the body
and mind, for the moment, are occupied by
politics and economics. The confluence is
necessarily satire.

The problem is that no conceivable outcome is
positive. Hard to focus on much else when the
republic is arguably experiencing the throes.

Insurance Care for All.

2007-09-17T08:13:00.000-07:00

Great. Here's Hillary's plan:

Sorry for being a trifle inarticulate here, but
all I can say is

What total BULLSHIT.

Basically, it is addressing the health care
crisis by treating it as though it were a highway bill.
That is to say, requiring us to buy insurance.
So, her answer is to hand the reins over to the folks
who make our system Dickensian in the first place.

Nice job. I only want a simple thing: not for profit,
single-payer health care; or, if I can't have health care,
I'd like to not be forced to buy in to this morbid money
system.

Hey, Hillary, I never planned on voting for you, but
I'm sure I won't now. Even if it means (O, God help us)
President Romney.

And if you get in and get this selloff passed, I will
refuse to pay, and I hope many others make the same
decision. I will, just to be easily filed away, send
a photocopy of my middle finger to your people at Kaiser
Permanente.

More than ever, I think all candidates not named
Dennis Kucinich can go fuck themselves.

White Goddess Compatible

2007-09-06T08:19:00.000-07:00

No harmless proclivity tends to irritate
me as much as product evangelism. I find
myself being tugged by that undertow into
the emotional abyss of fellow Macites.

After having it for a week, I am really
starting to see a valid argument for it
being the machine that could contact God.

I have even toyed with the idea of composing
on this keyboard, as opposed to my Olivetti.
Haven't gone that far yet.

The most glorious thing it has provided me with
(so far) is the ability to download and hear
(with no timeouts) Slought's recording of
Bunting reading "Briggflatts."

O, but there was a problem: due to the extended
organ playing on it, the file was too large for
a cd. Why sweat it? I dropped it into Garage Band,
edited it (removing the organ) and fit it on one
disc. All of this in a little over an hour.

Have to think of a way to get that playing on the
page here. I'm sure it is easy.

Also got all Sonnets from another page which is
escaping me at the moment.

The little box is bounding with entertainment,
from Shakespeare to Blind Blake to Lionel
Richie.

If they'd just let me smoke on a damned plane, I
could comfortably make it to India now.

upgrades

2007-09-05T08:15:00.000-07:00

just when i start to get back into this blog thing, i
decide to upgrade my computer. happy i did.
thrilled, actually, though it has set some things
back.

2 cigar tips, for those interested:

1. Padilla 1948 lancero (wheeew boy, it is good)
2. San Cristobal from Ashton (I like the torpedo,
but every size i've had is phenomenal.)

far as poetry, well, i've been in a john fahey mood
lately.

i know, that doesn't count.

Talking

2007-08-28T12:26:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine recently got me hip
to the blog talk radio scene. After searching
for shows whose topic is literature/poetry,
I found that, shall we say, The High Style
doesn't seem to have a dedicated program.

Well, who better than me? Don't answer that,
please.

Anyway, being known for long blog sabbaticals,
I'm aware that many who read this page in the
past have moved on and likely don't check it
anymore. But I have a request of those of you
that still visit from time to time:

If you'd like to periodically tune in to my
call in show (or even better, call in) what
time (CST or EST) would be a good one?

I haven't set it up completely, and have to
pick a time slot. Originally, I was thinking
Thursday at 10 pm CST, but that happens to
correspond with The Daily Show and, more
importantly, The Colbert Report. Hell, I
won't be listening to me in lieu of these
shows.

Still, 11 pm CST seems a bit on the late
side. Other engagements keep me until 9 pm
CST most week nights, and blogger types seldom
wake up early in the morning. Worse yet,
some have to work in the daytime!

Any suggestions, via comment or email, would
be greatly appreciated.

At the moment, I'm leaning towards Thursdays
at 11 pm CST/Midnight Eastern.

Thanks in advance.

They're pretty acurate, I guess

2007-08-28T08:53:00.001-07:00

<<>>

Of course, they've also found that I'm a hyena, Hawai'i, Kent State and Pakistan. O, well.

The Sunday Times

2007-08-26T09:27:00.000-07:00

Though the book review looks very "ehh" the
magazine makes up for it.

Hell, it even makes up for Deb Solomon, for
a change.

Good piece on Jose Saramago.

Though, Bloom continues to confuse. I still can't
decide whether I'm fur or agin'.

Old News

2007-08-25T15:40:00.000-07:00

Recently, Norman Mailer said that the novelist
would soon be comparable to those who write verse
drama in iambic pentameter.

So, what does that make a poet?

Or, for that matter, a verse dramatist?

Anyone doing a good poetry bit on blogtalkradio?

Sirens in the Ether(net), Or Tax Time Blues

2007-04-13T05:36:00.000-07:00

Couldn't resist such a title for the late Mr. Vonnegut.

Lately my thoughts have gone to location. It isn't a
strange idea, here in Kansas. Especially around April,
when both my federal and state government compel
me to pay my dues.

I've lived in a lot of places and in varied income brackets.
It seems that the sure way to end up paying an inordinate
amount this time of year is an easy recipe: Add
one part the lowest survivable income and mix in two
cups of undesirable locale. I shouldn't be too unfair, being
both a native Kansan and a resident of the one town
in said state which boasts a few cosmopolitan benefits. That
being said, the idea that a place like Kansas would have
a very high state tax in relation to neighboring Missouri
(our roads are much better, though) or Texas or a number
of states which any U.S. resident would easily prefer to
reside causes a person to lose sleep.

The purpose of this transmission is not to throw a screed
out into the maelstrom about those 1040 forms. I will
close the topic with my unceasing wonder at all of the
returns received by wealthy folks I know. This leads
me to some conclusions vis a vis Eastern philosophy:

1. Karma must not be separated from caste;
2. It wasn't too hard for Siddhartha, considering he
always had his royalty to fall back on; &/or
3. Devising a logical system of ethics based on
the realities in a predatory market system is less
sage than it seems.

Getting back to location.

It has always been the same in the arts as in real estate.
Talent and perseverance help, but where you pay rent
has a lot to do with your potential to succeed.

As a sometime writer, arguably lacking in the three
aforementioned departments, and musician, I've
frequently looked to the new "hot" location. They
differ based on music or poetry, but there is often
a confluence.

In a recent mood of defeat, a friend and I discussed
just where the new land of milk and honey might
be. We came to the consensus that it could be wherever
you are. Much has been said of the decentralizing
aspect of the Internet. With a few keystrokes and clicks,
billions of people can be introduced to your writing,
music, paintings, etc. In the world of journalism,
sites like Counter Punch and The Huffington Post have
successfully done an end-run around the "filter" as
our president likes to call it.

This seemingly democratizing quality gives a person
hope, even in Kansas. There's only one catch: the big
web sites, to paraphrase Ginsberg, are a mad mirror
image of the big papers, publishers, and entertainment
concerns. Huffington has been high profile for years
and has a megaphone through old venues like television
and radio. Cockburn was, after all, in the employ of
The Wall Street Journal and is still read weekly in
The Nation. I know a few people in my neck of the woods
that spend a great deal of time and energy on their
own indymedia projects. Their efforts strike me as
quixotic.

On my end, I've put up somewhere in the area of 30
songs on various sites. I haven't really attempted to
publicize them (not that I would know how) but the
net result is pretty much that those I am in contact
with are usually the ones who see the sites. The great
benefit is, essentially, that I don't have the overhead
cost of printing CD's to sell at a bar gig. The potential
audience remains close to the same.

Let's say one is enterprising enough to build an online
audience of some size. It can be done, even if you
aren't a respected author or waffling heiress. The
problem remains that without the support of the vast
network (of four companies or so) and resources
of the arts & entertainment industry you aren't likely
to make any money. In a perfect world, this could
result in paying no taxes on no income. There is the
problem of rent, though.

In the net publishing world, there are some positive
signs. Again, there ain't no money in that particular
poetry. An even bigger issue is that, without print,
a writer's words fail to receive the requisite heft. Anybody
can have a website.

So this magical medium becomes just another tool
to catch the attention of the firms that have a hand
in every till, whether it is epic poetry, dance music,
public opinion or public utilities. A means rather than an
end. I don't have an answer here, and welcome
suggestions or contrary opinions to this conclusion, as
the conclusion ends us with a dire prognosis for the
Kulchur.

Wherever you go, it's where you're at.

Absence

2007-03-20T08:10:00.000-07:00

I feel pretty bad about neglecting auld Karga
during the St. Patrick's Day Week... but busy,
busy.

Picked up Legacies by Heberto Padilla. Need
more.

Other than that, the mind has focused more on
The Memphis Jug Band than, as Gord put it,
"those Himalayas of the mind."

Click Here for a Site You Shouldn't Miss

2007-03-02T09:45:00.000-08:00

Linked above is the EMBARGOPOETS blog
site. An odd journey to it.

They put up an Heberto Padilla poem. I was
searching for one of his online while a book is
en route. An odd coincidence, or, rather,
surprising new knowledge about him.

I've been smoking a lot of Padilla cigars lately,
and while looking up some of the lines (all of
which are exceptional) I clicked on the bio.
Usually, cigar makers have the same story,
or some variance thereof: My family owned
ten fincas in Cuba, until Castro came along.
We moved to Miami and funded Somosa's
thugs... now we bring this free market
approved joy to you at an outlandish upcharge.
It puts me in a spot, being a leftist chain
smoker.

Well, Padilla cigars is partly (or fully, not sure)
owned by the son(s) of Cuban Poet (he gets
a capital "P") Heberto Padilla. The name isn't
a coincidence.

One thing I LOVE about Heberto Padilla is that
he was exiled both by Batista and Castro. He
actually came back post-revolution to support
Fidel, but wrote some "counterrevolutionary"
letters that ended him up in prison, house arrest,
and eventually a second forced exile.

I love and support all writers who can boast this
kind of record with all authorities. Too bad there
aren't any Orwell Cigarettes. No matter. March
is beginning with an obsession with the Padillas:
the writing of the father; the cigars of the sons;
the nice wood on the boxes.

Maybe it is a good month for a spotlight on
EMBARGOPOETS in general. Read this
at the Guardian. It'll take me a month to digest it.

Slainte Mhor.

Umm....

2007-02-26T10:27:00.000-08:00

More movie madness.

Someone help me out here. I noticed that a film
called Journey to the End of the Night is coming
out on DVD 27 February. I was very excited, having
not heard of such a film until recently. I saw the
cast and was perplexed. Then I read an imdb review.

This looks to have nothing to do with Celine.

Why would someone tease me in this way?
The humanity.

Me & You, Your Mama &... er... Shane MacGowan too?

2007-02-26T07:27:00.000-08:00

If there was one moment from the Oscars I'll
have tattooed into my brain, it didn't come from
the show itself.

Yes, Karl Shapiro, there is an Advertclause.

After a few hours of sedate speeches, the flavor
this year being off of 8 1/2 X 11 sheets of
paper, and before Martin Scorcese's long overdue
Oscar making us all warm inside, there was...
a Cadillac commercial.

I don't know if anyone else noticed, but while you
were emptying your bladder between blather,
some enterprising man or woman in an ad agency
slipped in The Pogues (greatest band ever,
by the way) to a suburban family/sunshine in
the breakfast nook let's take the dog and kid
through a drive in the redwoods fucking car
commercial.

My wife noted my ire. "Shane needs gin!"

I don't mind at all that the voice of a generation
is in a car commercial. The expression was likely
one of suspense. As in, "what fucking couplet from
'Sunny Side of the Street' are they going to manage
to broadcast in a nukuler family car advert?" The
selection was... and I am not bullshitting here:

So I saw that train and I hopped right on it
with a heart full of hate & a lust for vomit
now I'm walking on the sunny side of the street.

I just want to know if the person at the agency was
being knowingly ironic (other gems from the chune include
"All I can remember now is little kids without no
shoes" and I'll paraphrase, not having the Hell's Ditch
lyric sheet at my disposal, "I swore to stake my life
like I would a whore.") especially on Al Gore's night,
or if Madison Avenue is just that clueless when it comes
to context.

Either the Andy Kaufman moment in American
advertising or reason #4,697 our Kulchur is swirling
around the shitter lid just in time for 2012.

If anyone has inside information, do tell.

Can't Say it Better Myself

2007-02-20T08:23:00.000-08:00

Hurst: The New Iraq sounds an awful lot like the Old Pine Ridge
By Sam Hurst

Which side to choose?

2007-02-14T06:14:00.000-08:00

Got this link from Silliman.

Could take the time to mention that The New
Yorker doesn't seem to value either brevity
or clarity from the article. (O, how you go on!)
But, obtuse though it may be, there's some important
information to consider.

When Barr published his essay in POETRY last
year, I was thrilled. My take on it was quite different
from that of this New Yorker piece. I would be happy
about this information... but it is tough to enjoy
knowing something new when the Greeks are the
Academic Establishment and the Trojans are
wealthy business types who seek to improve poetry
by screaming "Sell... sell!!!"

Could it be that Wiman and Barr aren't as they're
portrayed in the piece? When I read Barr's essay, or one
of Wiman's, I don't come away with the
sensation that either wants solely to commodify
the art. I could be wrong.

I must say that the passage where the Editorial
meeting takes place seems like nonsense to me. If
the folks at POETRY are so focused on bringing
us something new and exciting, what are they
waiting for? Methinks there was a bit of staging
to that sequence.

This whole debate leaves me (and I would venture to
guess a lot of other writers) at best confused. When
clarity comes into play, it leaves me (and...) despondent.
As a working-class individual, the investment banker
types and religious conservatives are my natural enemies.
As a working-class writer, the academic establishment
has no use for me whatever. It is a difficult choice, which
side to root for. Unless I look at those statements of
place above and determine that it doesn't matter either
way. The enemy of one's enemy isn't always a friend.

Go on, tell Mama.

2007-02-12T05:24:00.000-08:00

Though I am a fairly political person, I make every
attempt to keep Karga on topic. This creates those
absences from time to time... when I don't have
something I want to share about the subject of
literature, I don't sully the page too much. With that,
allow me to jump in with both feet.

If you are thinking of voting for Hillary in
2008, I recommend you get your bullshit
detector checked out.

I've been dreaming of Barack Obama's candidacy since
before the 2004 Convention Speech. As we approach
2008, it seems more and more like there's a real chance
with him. As Faux News and the Faux Lites out there
make every attempt to assassinate his character and
make hay out of that "Muslimy" name, it indicates to me
that The Powers That Be are getting edgy about
the '08 Election. Incidentally, who thinks it is a bad idea
for The United States of America to have a president
who can relate to The Global South?

60 Minutes featured him and his wife last night. I could
empathize with the smoking thing, having caught one hell
of a cold. This caused me to involuntarily quit for... what
is it now... 2 days. I hope he's sneaking a fag every now
and then. This would be an inopportune time to play with
a person's addictive centers. By day three, I'll probably
be hallucinating. Stay strong, Barack, and please God don't
throw down any screams.

Today's Morning Edition on NPR ran a piece on Hillary and
Obama, in New Hampshire and Iowa respectively. They
pointed out, as did Frank Rich yesterday, that Obama was
against the Iraq War from the get-go. This "inexperienced"
state legislator from Illinois somehow knew something the
Beltway Brahmins hadn't thought of: that the war would
be a disaster, and that the Bush Administration isn't to be
trusted. Let that stand on its own.

Then, there's Hillary. It is amusing to see her backtrack and
attempt the performance of rhetorical somersaults in regard
to her downright Hawkish stance up until, when was it, o, yes,
last week. Mrs. Clinton is about as cynical an operator as can
be found in Washington, which makes it tough to see how she
can think that people are simple enough to fall for the "if I knew
then what I know now... we were misled" gambit. First off, I knew
then what you know now. A lot of people did. Actually, everyone
did, though some who tried to play both sides (read: most of
The Democratic Party) are trying to make us think they were
unsophisticated enough to buy the truckload of bullshit about
weapons, freedom, &c. Hopefully this horseshit (running out of
things to call what Hillary, Rahm and the whole Corporate
Takeover masquerading as an opposition spout) will hurt her
numbers. The American people aren't the brightest bulbs in
the cabinet by a long stretch, but it is so obvious even the
McDonald's fattened masses can see through this charade.

I got some disturbing news from a friend in a neighboring
county. "I'm voting for Hillary," he said, "hell, most everybody
I know is... to be part of something historic."

Because, if you hadn't noticed, she's a woman.

I understand this impulse. I have been going back and forth
between the two attractive candidates in the field, Mr. Obama
and Mr. Edwards, and asking myself whether I'd be in the
Edwards camp were it not for my desire to see an
AfriKansan Executive. Basing a vote on gender, in this instance,
is wasting a vote.

Lemme say it again:

Remember 2004? The Party Establishment squandered
a clear opportunity, and if you let them the song
will remain the same in 2008. Fool me once, shame on
you. Fool me twice, kick the power chords Mr. Townshend.

This is it. Get ready.

Fellow Democrats, please don't make me switch so I can
at least vote for Hagel.

tinstaafl, for me, at least.

2007-02-06T07:50:00.000-08:00

I was never the belle of economics courses. Being
an externality, it never appealed to me. I will have
to thank the instructor of my first class in the subject
for focusing on the familiar TINSTAAFL acronym.
(At the time, I was focusing on just how catchy
those numbers guys could be with their acronyms.)

I didn't learn many lessons formally, but I should've
kept that piece of information at the front of my
mind. (In case I am being opaque, which apparently
I have a tendency to be, the acronym stands for
There is no such thing as a free lunch.)

I did not heed the early instruction, and submitted
to Ron Offen's publication. A great idea, I think.
The mission statement goes something like this:
Free Lunch Arts Alliance seeks to publish poets,
big and small, and is quite keen on new talent.
We will give a free sub to any writer of merit,
whether or not we publish your work.
It may take some time, as we give an
actual critique of all submissions.
Minnows will swim with minotaurs, and we
shall see that it is good.

Or something along those lines.

"What've I got to lose?" I says to myself.
"If nothing else, I'll get a few issues of a
magazine that from my investigations
(visiting the website) I hold in some regard."

As the bold print indicates, I was very taken by
the idea of actually having some notes on just
why I'd be rejected. The lack of such notation
can drive a person mad. It leaves one with nothing
but questions... namely, "what am I doing wrong?"

Well, I get the rejection back in the mail. I shall
quote the passages, on post-it notes affixed to
my returned pages. (Don't worry, it won't take long.)

First, from the intern:

"I am intrigued by both these poems, but I don't
understand either of them. Is there more (especially
w/"Renewal".)[?] Also[,] "Chesapeake" is so short
and written in the specialized language of boating
that I don't understand what it is supposed to be
about."

At least they're intriguing. I have no beef with this.
Actually, it was a wonderful feeling. Whenever a
work is rejected, I always think immediately that
the reader sees some unforgivable incompetence.
This boils the blood before sending me into a
depressive hibernation, where I will not even look
towards the typewriter, favoring a banjo for
company. These notes, however, are quite clear.
For that I am thankful.

I submitted two, and "Chesapeake" is indeed
short. Before submitting, I had it whittled down to
28 words from its original 35 or so. It does involve
specific nautical terminology, and a bit of sailing
history, and as such is very specific and not
necessarily a hit with many audiences. The second
poem, to me, is pretty straightforward. Not as
short, but less than a page. (This makes me wonder
why someone would ask if there was more to it.
Have you ever submitted half a poem?)

No matter, the notes provided me with the reasons
for rejection. They are reasons I am happy with.
Any poem I submit has undergone the Papa
treatment, whittled down to words of necessity.
This may not square with some (read: most) but
it is my aesthetic choice, so we can cordially disagree.
The second point, about being cryptic or opaque,
is also well-taken. I have failed in the sense that
two well-read folks didn't understand what in the
hell I was talking about, but neither said that
the lines and/or rhythm were lacking.
I return to Logan's Crane review, and not to
flatter myself with unwarranted comparison,
but as a general point:
"Crane was mystified, as most obscure poets are,
when readers found his poems difficult-- after
all, they were perfectly clear to him."

So, let's get this little psychoanalytic exercise
over with as quickly as possible.

On to Offen's comments.

On "Renewal": "I don't get it either."

I had half a mind to write him a rejection of
that rejection. It is, after all, so short.

On "Chesapeake": "Wogs?! Pretty nasty
term-- also Green Wogs?"

Aha, I am guilty of a racist abstraction! That is
the worst kind indeed.

Well, I don't blame the outraged question mark/
exclamation mark couple on the post-it. Again,
it is a term that has evolved over time for sailors,
but for readers of history it could be construed as
this.

This is the maritime usage, at least as it is practiced
to this day. Being honest, the word is loaded and
I know it and that is why I am keen on it. Both
sides of the wog coin speak to a kind of alienation
I was driving at.

(Sorry to link to Wiki, a site that has given Basil
Bunting the wrong birthday! But on this, it is
pretty much accurate. I didn't write anyone about
it because the birthday they list for him is my own,
so I'm pretending for awhile.)

All in all, I am happy with the rejection. At least I
know the why, which is all I ever want.

I didn't stay very happy very long. There is a form
with returned submissions which has three options.
They go something like this:

Sorry, we've decided not to use the enclosed.

___ But based on the quality of your work, we feel
you are entitled to a free sub.

___ You previously had a free sub, but you moved
and you didn't tell us, so send us some money and we'll
re-free your sub.

___ We think your work has no merit, you get no
free sub, go fuck yourself.

Guess which one had the "X"?

Don't send another until 4-15-07.

Don't worry. Right back atcha.

Links

2007-01-31T15:42:00.000-08:00

When I changed this page after signing into
New! Blogger (my Blogger has commentary
by Tom Wolfe) I somehow lost my links.

Didn't lose them, really, but they are waiting
patiently in a Word document. I've been
thinking of resurrecting them, much like I've
been contemplating the crow Kawing on a more
regular basis.

If any past linkee is on the page, wouldn't want
him/her to think that I've dropped it for
any particular reason save laziness.

In any event, the title is a link for a new (to me)
page. The guy likes Crane and Carver and
dislikes Billy Logan. I think we'd get along.

***

To be fair, I seem to recall that Logan did
something somewhere that caused me to speak
in very laudatory tones about him. It was
probably aired out on this page somewhere...
somewhere... I'll have to look into it, but the
NYTBR piece may be a RED CARD situation.

***

The whole episode engendered an affection
for Franz Wright. Well, that and his great
"fuck you" to POETRY after receiving that
all-too-familiar standard rejection "letter."
That, and the fact the guy seems to be ready
to go at the drop of a hat. I love that spirit.

Wondering... if I write to Franz Wright, what
are the Vegas odds that I get any sort of
response? Double down by speculating whether
he'd tell me he'd knock me out if he got the
chance. And if so, where and when? Hell, even
if a big P winner gets the better of you, it might
move a few pieces. Who knows?

An Early Contender for Enmity of the Year. (Ask Franz Wright)

2007-01-30T07:34:00.000-08:00

"Not being a seagoing breed, poets rarely die by water--"

This gem appears in the first paragraph of the New York
Times Book Review hit on Hart Crane. Your mechanic,
ladies & gentlemen, Mr. William Logan.

That the Book Review gave two full pages (counting the
large picture of Crane) to a review of the new Complete
Poems and Selected Letters (an immense 849 pp!) is
cause for celebration. To paraphrase Saint Ron, of all
people to do the review, why Logan?

While reading the piece, I had to stop and light around
four cigarettes, fuming at the arrogant upper middle
class attitude that was dripping so heavily off the page
the ink ran. I have no idea how many (or how few) folks
read this page... especially since going on a long blogging
sabbatical, you see, folks who don't inhabit asylums
for obsequious idlers can take vacations from things
as well... and I am aware that this exercise is mostly
therapeutic... but as well as an exercise I must exorcise
the ulcer Logan would no doubt create if someone
somewhere didn't shout out his window regarding this
trifling piece of prose.

Let's begin with the seagoing part. Poets not being a
seagoing breed? Really? Aside from the small detail
that the very beginning of Anglo-Saxon poetry can be
traced back to "The Seafarer," I seem to recall that
a number of poets were called by the sea. No doubt
Logan views the sealtyþa gelac as those high streams
of consciousness emanating from behind desks from
Iowa City to Gainesville. From the outset, it is clear that
there is bound to be a good deal of Crane that is
inaccessible to Logan's bourgeois verse aesthetic.

"Crane dreamed of being a poet much more often
than he sat at his desk and wrote poems; and he was
forever complaining in letters that he had no time to
write, though he found plenty of time to drink."

This comes a few paragraphs after a useful bit of
biography: "Most of Crane's short life was spent
scuffling for money."

That the two would not connect clearly for Logan is
no surprise. Lemme 'splain something to you, Mr.
Logan. When a person is short on money, or has to
cobble together a living doing odd jobs in order to
subsidize his writing (while, of course, begging
people for cash) it takes a toll on desk time. Further,
a drinker will drink, often to serenade the muse...
more often to turn the bleeding voices off. I'll put it
in terms a chap like Logan can understand clearly:
for some poets, a night out drinking is like teaching
a class. It is something they do while being them, and
it does take away from writing time, but it is how they
get by.
No doubt many of the great minds history will record
from our contemporary scene (there could even be
an American poet in this group) could've created so
much more if it weren't for that damned survey. We all
have crosses to take up.

As for doing more dreaming than writing? I'd dare say
that today's poets could stand to do a hell of a lot more
dreaming before setting fingers to laptops. Give me
ten spectacular failures whose life work is one slim
volume premised on dreams as lofty as the Romantics
to every single pragmatic craftsman churning out
forgettable, competent stabs at academic verisimilitude.

Actually, the reader could be saved an arduous journey
into Logan's weird world with a simple two sentence
review.

"Hart Crane had plenty of time to drink, but complained of
no time to write. His work is untrained, and as such, of little
value." Throw in "his idea of a revolutionary aesthetic
repels me and I will take it out in a review of the long dead
beauty" and you've pretty much got it.

Actually, I'm being unfair. To be honest, I have roughly the
same take on "The Bridge" as Logan does, though I certainly
think it is a work undeserving of the poisoned jabs thrown at
it in this review. Again, brevity being the soul of wit, Logan
could have left it at one of his own sentences when talking
about "The Bridge" which was pretty on-the-money:
"We have no long poems this close to being great that are
greater failures." Attention, New York Times: stop
paying contributors to the book review by volume!
Had he left it there, that bile taste Logan is known for
inducing in readers and poets alike would have been at
usual dosage.

But Logan cannot resist his impulses. He is like Alexander
Pope... except not in the same league wit-wise (or even
the same sport or species) and, of course, hasn't created
an eternal work like "The Dunciad" and... mm... Pope was
always entertaining. But in the field of bile, I think the
bitter little Pointdexter matches the whole Pope/Swift
scene.

The final blow which Logan could not resist? I'll quote
one last time. "[W]e are lucky he left nothing of his
projected epic on the Aztecs." A bit presumptuous,
wouldn't you say? It is extreme even in a piece which
relies much more on character assassination (though
for rogues such as myself, a great drinker is certainly
more praiseworthy than a fastidious craftsman) than
actual consideration of the poetry. Auden is rolling
over. Bunting is too stern to roll, but might when he
feels the need to break the silence of the congregation.

Lucky he left nothing of his projected epic on the Aztecs?
Well, it makes sense, when you think about it. I mean,
just like poets being known for lack of adventure and
clinging to the safety of the shore, there has never been
an example of an ambitious poet endeavoring to
revolutionize the medium finally getting where he was
looking to go after a few false starts. Never.

Besides, Crane didn't have an MF(A). He couldn't
have crafted the thing if he'd tried.

Un

2007-01-27T08:21:00.000-08:00

This thought of the 21st Century being an exception
to history... dangerous and foolish and everything
we've come to expect from Western man.

As it relates to literature, it seems that the postmods
and their heirs are more content with wordgames
and performance art than with writing. I can
understand the impulse, as the exponents of
conventional verse and prose tend to be dreadful
bores... but does it seem odd to anyone else that
those who would "evolve" the art choose a
method closer to Nash during the schizophrenic years
than, say, Whitman or Jones as an inspirational
influence? (Or a number of others... I'd just prefer
for poets they be poets or at least writers of
some sort.)

Hell, look what Logue is doing with Homer. Homer,
for Chrissake. Is it hopelessly anachronistic to
ask the vanguard to focus at least as much on
writing something worth reading as they do on
parlor tricks?

Year of The Underdog

2007-01-02T14:43:00.000-08:00

A dash of fire. A bit of positive yang. The willingness
to make broad generalizations about life and art as a
result of a sporting competition.

As of 18 February, 2007 will become year of the pig.
We're still in the dog year, and it is time that 2007
is declared Year of the Underdog no matter what means
of divination one prefers.

I wasn't quite sure what to make of this new year until
last night. There was a good deal of optimism from half
of the house guests at the New Year's Eve boozer. The other
half seemed... not despondent, but less optimistic.
Even into 1 January, my personal inventory left
me with a weighted feeling. I have always been one
to stay outside of the system, relying on a vague notion
that a person could accomplish a good deal through
strength of personality, character, or work. (I'll get around
to one of them eventually.) As the New Year's inventory
was being compiled, though, I started to get the feeling
that the system would crush me after all. Indeed, it
had crushed me and any thoughts I had to the contrary
were pure delusion.

While watching the Rose Bowl at a cigar lounge with a few
friends, I'd made clear my singular sports wish for the
year. Namely, that Boise State would dispatch Oklahoma
with extreme prejudice. They scoffed. "I'll go one further,"
I told one of them, "I will personally stake my year on
the result of the Boise State-Oklahoma game."

I've never been to Boise. I don't crochet. Nevertheless,
their rise in collegiate football means a lot to me on a
symbolic level. It illustrates the hope many of us have.
Here is a group of people who weren't given much of a
chance by anyone other than their peers (in the WAC)
and were presented by the Establishment with a token
opportunity. "Once they're vanquished," the Establishment
thought, "we can get on with things as planned."

Boise had those three strengths. They proved that not
only did they deserve a chance to compete against the
legacy team with a Warbucks daddy and a better resume...
they proved that they were better.

I think this is a lesson for all of us. All of us, that is, who
aren't blessed with a large trust fund, who didn't
attend the big name schools, who have no one outside
of their peer group to rely on for support.

In the interest of this particular blog site, I'll extend it
to literature. The literature scene, especially poetry,
is about as rigged a game as the BCS. Take heart,
friends. If you're not plugged into the system, you
probably won't get a nod for The Big Prize-- the
title game as it were.

If you prove you are better than those that do, they
can only ignore you for so long. Add a fourth
strength to the aforementioned list: patience. Today's
muse inspiration is Ian Johnson.

Now, where can I get one of those hats?

OKLAHOMA: 42
BOISE STATE: 43

Happy New Year, Mr. Shelley

2006-12-29T08:52:00.000-08:00

The January 2007 issue of POETRY graced the
mailbox yesterday morning. After such a good run
last year, the inaugural issue of '07 features a
disappointingly weak offering in the best section of
the magazine: Letters to the Editor.

The Comment (or Prose) portion of the magazine is
not incredibly robust... though it could portend good
things-- maybe the Comment section will outshine the
Letters this year... but it has some strong suits. First
off, Peter Campion does a service to criticism by throwing
out some biting reviews. See his takes on A.E. Stallings
(where he is merciful, but does the job) and James
Fenton. After these two, I am inclined to purchase the
Hopler title. I'm beginning to really trust Campion.
Did I just say that?

Also, the conversation in this section is better than one
might think. From the Daisy Fried quote on the back,
I was not incredibly hopeful. I expected a hand-wringing
pityfest when the title "Does Poetry Have a Social Function?"
appeared. I got a good deal of that. I pictured four
thirtysomethings in L.L. Bean gear on a Vermont campus
sipping decaf teas searching for cute quips. Again, not
too disappointed from the color of the Exchange.

There was one really worthwhile bit, provided by Major
Jackson. I shall quote a bit of it:

"But anyway, let's face it: were Daisy's nineteenth-century
poet-revolutionaries alive today, they would be unemployed
and writing in obscurity. (Note: there are jobs outside
of universities, but I get your point.) They would likely be
committed to mental institutions for claims of having visions,
of the socially relevant and supernatural variety; at least
one would be labeled a terrorist or terrorist-sympathizer
for speaking against the state and/or professing anti-
Christian beliefs; another ostracized for brazenly exercising
self-proclaimed, progressive forms of natural love All, except
Keats maybe, would be ignored and cast aside as personae
non gratae by the critical, academic, and literary establishments:
no Guggenheim for you, Mr. Shelley.
"True revolutionary poets are stripped of their laureateships
or never reviewed in these pages, for some reason probably
having to do with the worn-out argument of lack of
aesthetic worth or little merit. Martin Espada, John Yau, and
Nikki Finney are just a few of many poets who write
poetry that 'embraces experience in its full complexity,' yet
their books never receive a nod in Poetry. Even when the
Establishment posthumously highlights a poet such as
June Jordan... it does so patronizingly."

Huzzah, Mr. Jackson. I feel like I'll be getting my $17.50
worth this year. The last point referenced a Dan Chiasson
review from November of 2005. One thing I adore about
POETRY is that the exchanges which inevitably come
around to the atrophy of the art under the watch of today's
Establishment could be referenced in the front of that
month's magazine... say, I dunno, page 290. (I must admit
there are a few poems I'll be going back to, mainly
the Herbert stuff.)

This month's award has to go to Major Jackson.

Keep it up and they'll make you a Colonel.

Apoestasies I.

2006-12-07T13:37:00.000-08:00

Who does not relish in being a craft heretic? No one
I'd like to know too well. Confessions of heresy.
Apoestasy:

I find the notion of an "abstraction" too vague... to
abstract. It would seem that many writers or would-be
web critics have never looked at the bathroom wall
paint and clearly saw the shape of a whaleshark in the
chips. Then, they never credited said whaleshark with
dreams, a family, a goal. Beyond this, what of the
subatomic world?

Not only does the flower in the vase have its own
personality, so does the vase. And beyond that, the
parts that make up the vase and their smaller parts,
&c. Seems rather obvious to this observer, anyway.

The Contemporary Aesthetic

2006-12-06T10:57:00.000-08:00

I am getting weary of long lines. So many syllables, so many
    adjectives. Ever continuing lines. Though
    Though many great poems share this feature,
    it is getting to the point that
    writers are becoming enamored of it.
    Then there are modernists and LANGPOS
    and they skew towards the short line.

I like the short line. I enjoy concise, condensed,
    distilled. No more than one needs,
    no less. And modernism lives, which is
    positive. And, truth be told, that long
    line has a magic. When done right, it
    is positively Hellenistic. Yet,
    there must be an innovation on the
    horizon. You cannot innovate backwards,
    thus it becomes ill-advised to mine the
    modernists too much. But poetry
    looking like prose? It is a
    godawful development.

Even when the lines are only ten words long, it
seems that we're dealing with short margins, rather than an
interesting break pattern. Indeed, it looks in many ways more
prosy or mundane than the sprawling Whitmanian line. Of course,
there is an attraction to the mundane. It is a
stark departure from the dramatic tone set by Pound, Bunting,
and the like. But after awhile, that tends to get
a bit boring. It certainly doesn't move the medium forward.

The mix of long
and short
seems nice, though

it can appear erratic, undisciplined. And in a way, that mixture is again
quite modernist.

I have
no answers,
but questions.

Ahem. Kaw.

2006-12-04T16:34:00.000-08:00

What the Chairman Told Tom
Basil Bunting, 1965

Poetry? It's a hobby.
I run model trains.
Mr Shaw there breeds pigeons.

It's not work. You dont sweat.
Nobody pays for it.
You could advertise soap.

Art, that's opera; or repertory --
The Desert Song.
Nancy was in the chorus.

But to ask for twelve pounds a week --
married, aren't you? --
you've got a nerve.

How could I look a bus conductor
in the face
if I paid you twelve pounds?

Who says it's poetry, anyhow?
My ten year old
can do it and rhyme.

I get three thousand and expenses,
a car, vouchers,
but I'm an accountant.

They do what I tell them,
my company.
What do you do?

Nasty little words, nasty long words,
it's unhealthy.
I want to wash when I meet a poet.

They're Reds, addicts,
all delinquents.
What you write is rot.

Mr Hines says so, and he's a schoolteacher,
he ought to know.
Go and find work.

_____________________________________________________

a cheerful little ditty from auld Basil to say hello again to the
blog world. a lot of reflecting upon poetry of late, its role and my
role and your role and the role of people i meet at dinner
parties.

made a bit of scratch lately from writing. that feels good,
being paid. and then i think of the hughes admonition. when he
was getting near the end, his self-diagnosis was writing
"too much prose."

innit always the question, though? get paid or write poetry.
what a thinker. i'd like to be counted alongside the other
helpless wretches writing rot, for what it's worth. apparently,
it isn't worth much.

who said that it would be?

PODSIDES

2006-05-27T07:51:00.000-07:00

So, I got this idea (link through this post's title) and
rather than really think it through I just acted. Kooser
says to never send a work out "wet" because over
time 1,000 deficiencies you didn't notice during the
creative high pop up. Conventional wisdom.

If you judge from the quality of the work on this site,
that wisdom is right on the money!

But what appears are really examples of something
I'd like people to take part in. Mainly the six or so
people that visit this blog.

Not crazy about doing it on murdochspace, but
there aren't a whole lot of places so user-friendly.

Spellcheck thinks "PODSIDES" should be
"BODYSUITS." Who am I to argue?

Verse Popular

2006-05-23T07:36:00.000-07:00

Picked up the AQR for Spring & Summer 2006 last night.
Compared to its competition on the literary magazine rack,
The Alaska is a steal. So far, Nick Flynn is the highlight in this
issue. Nick, you've got me thinking...

I haven't heard too many people assert an impending return
to dominance for poetry. Actually, I've never heard it
asserted... well, once I paid a guy outside an East Kansas
City liquor store a few bucks to say it to me, but he demanded
a 10 spot before he'd place me in the new generation's
pantheon. Once again, I'll take it upon myself to diagnose
the problem.

Issue 1: cost ratio. America is preoccupied with size. After
all, you've seen Florida. Compared to Italy, we're B-movie
status in that department. Go to any large restaurant, at
least in the South and Midwest, and you are likely to have
appetizers the size of entrees and entrees that could comfortably
feed six in most countries. Gluttony is one reason for this.
Another is that we're preoccupied with getting the most
for our money.

Why, then, would the average reading public (this could
get us into another bucket of chicken entirely) spend,
say, $20 on Star Dust?

I have nothing against Frank Bidart. Actually, I'm starting
to grow fond of his writing. I had designs on picking up
Dust, but $20?

I know that we're dealing with the economics of margins.
Compared to the new Philip Roth novel (which actually
falls into the same camp as many volumes of poetry with
its price per page ratio) Bidart is not likely to sell many books
at all. I'm not up on all the numbers, but I'm sure a resounding
industrywide success for a volume of poetry would be
a one-way ticket to the twofer pile for a novel.

I can see that changing, which we'll get to presently, but
even excepting that I count myself as one reader not
likely to buy this book. At $12 no doubt. At $15 likely.
$20 is rarefied air for my book dollar. Once we plateau
that price point I make demands not on considering a
person's work... I'd better damn well love it.
Especially when I can get 49 poets to consider further
in the AQR for $6.95.

Given the bantustan most poetry sections occupy in your
neighborhood bookmonger's, one would think FSG et al.
would be at the drawing board for a pricing and publicity
strategy. Simple logic: if you could sell 1,000 books for $14.50
or 250 for $22.00, your cost being around $6 (all hypotheticals)
which do you choose?

A crass retail perspective? Mayhaps, dearie o, but
we are discussing sales here.

This brings us to Issue 2: The appeal of poetry. Many
would-be, has-been, will-be and a few is writers would
take exception to my cost analysis and counter by claiming
that poetry doesn't enjoy the broad appeal of the novel.
Some would debate the novel's standing. Another distinctly
American trait is that we ain't much on booklearnin'.

I hear it from all sides: verse is anachronistic; poetry in
general can't keep pace with the times; outside of Central
Asia and Latin America the pacing and rhythms of the
poem are not digestible to the reading public. In a sense,
it is an agrarian art form in a technological economy.

All this has been said while placing a bookmark in the new
Howl retrospective.

When we get into the American public's appetite for
reading (or lack thereof) we are immediately accosted
by the fact that Americans just don't have time. Our society
puts no stock whatever in leisure time. We vacation less
than any European nation. Outside of the education
racket, most folks from wageslaves to stock brokers spend
a few hours a day on the highway or commuter rails
with an 8-10 hour worksteak placed in between.

When they finally get home, their energy level is somewhere
between television passivity and scouring the web for
pornography. Those who travel by bus or rail can at least
digest a newspaper or magazine. Many have books. In
the automobile the best we can hope for is a bookontape.

Now we get to it. In this hurried atmosphere the only reason
for poetry to fail is the poets themselves.

Poetry is virtually always digestible in small portions. Unlike
the sprawl of the novel or history, poetry when done well
achieves its communique within minutes.

Add to that the obvious element of rhythm and music for the
unlucky bastards chained to their automobile and there is
precious little excuse for poetry not to have a resurgence. It
is practically tailor made for our time!

"Yes, but poetry is much more difficult. This is why the public
shies away. It is daunting, it makes demands the average reader
isn't equipped to handle."

Done yet, Mr. Wright? Alright.

This argument is pretty much bullshit.

Devices such as rhyme exist for the purpose of oral transmission.
If pre-print societies can manage to gather the limbs of
their Osiris, how is it that an empire such as our own
wouldn't be able? Historically poetry hasn't been "hard."
This happens when you have a Gongorist group of jackoffs
writing to themselves for themselves.

Which is not to say that the medium should be dumbed
down. Far from it. Easily one of the most accomplished
and "challenging" poets of our time, Ted Hughes remains
very readable. A basic background in mythology will get
you far with him, and with Robert Graves. The further you
delve, the more you get. But a work such as Crow needs
little effort. You can appreciate it on a superficial level,
and how far one wishes to dig into the mineshaft of Ted
Huge's id is up to the individual. Hughes stands out, but
the reason he does (and the reason Bukowski does, and
the reason Flynn will) is that he is saying something.

Any writing, after all, is basically a way of communicating
ideas. In today's poetry world, saying something has
become a bit taboo. (See Tony Hoagland's piece in the
March 2006 POETRY for further illumination. Even
better, see Bill Witherup's letter in the same publication's
February 2006 issue.) Any wonder the public repels from
an art form so self-obsessed it forgets its original intent?

Finally, back to the page.

Brevity is the chief virtue of poetry. It is a trick, to be
sure. The single page can and often does contain multitudes.
Great writing should have layers of meaning and technical
mastery. The cats at universities should still have a reason
to dissect and deconstruct a page of poetry even when it
bothers to say something meaningful. If a reader of average
intelligence gets nothing out of it, though, you are speaking
a coded or worse yet dead language.

Even on the surface a poem will cause the reader to spend
time digesting. It is a springboard to further contemplation.
It is a medium that demands silence follow. These qualities
are essential in the public's intellectual life. Without some
time allotted for thought we end up with the society we have
now, likely even worse. But it is not the public's duty to come
to terms with the poet. It is the poet's duty to make herself
relevant. The artist does have a societal duty whether he
chooses to accept it or not. He is given time and space
not afforded to the working masses and it is only fair the public
should expect something in return for that freedom.

Yes, popularity depends upon giving people something they
can use. Utilitarian poetry does seem contradictory. (So does
a metric foot, as I've said.) Keep expanding and exploring
the possibilities within the art form. Give professional poets
something to chew on during their sabbatical. Most musicians
know that Coltrane flatted a fifth here, toyed with time there.
If that type of specialist knowledge were required to enjoy
"A Love Supreme" I doubt the album would be anywhere
near as iconic as it is.

The broad appeal is what Coltrane managed to do with about
3 words and a canvas of sound. Something our establishment
poets often fail to accomplish with pages and pages of words.

He said something.

Felt the Need

2006-05-15T08:04:00.000-07:00

Had to say hello to Karga. It has been awhile.

It seems more and more necessary for me to return to
Jeffers as a source of inspiration. It has been said that the
age of irony is drawing to a close. Peak oil and environmental
degradation, the results of which cause shortages which
in turn fuel conflict (ah, the age of pun is alive! sadly.) bring
us to a world that cannot afford cute.

The role of poet could well return to soothsayer, or at least
to priest of magical language. Where better to find
the modern beginnings of this role than in "The Double
Axe" -- Inhumanism and narrative verse?

Other voices.

2005-12-28T20:03:00.000-08:00

It has been a long absence from Karga. So many other things, and
to be truthful I haven't been thinking about the poem as obsessively
as usual. There was the aborted manuscript post, which was in many
ways a very bad idea. No matter.

I'll do something I haven't been a proponent of with blogging. A post which
is an admission of sorts.

I have the contemptible habit of scattering my creative energies to the
winds with a zeal that would spell success provided I corral those same
energies to one purpose. It is detrimental, but I had a thought today.
I spend an equal amount of time toying with essays, outlines and songs
as with verse. Why write a song, especially when one has no intention
of putting it out into the world? Because some themes can only be
done justice with melody. Some things are only worthy of a page essay.
Some things demand an exhaustive study and lengthy manuscript.

Then there is the issue of poetry.

As much as I enjoy Dugan and Bukowski, there is something lacking in
a poetry of realism. At least realism as it applies to everyday life. One
could argue that both Dugan and Bukowski are in their own ways proponents
of a sort of magical realism or are making a statement beyond the barstool
and into the whole bloody operation. So it is not their work I am referring
to when I speak of everyday realism.

It is the cumulative work of those who don't seem in the least interested
with the world outside of the author. Beating this page's dead horse in my
return, I know.

This sort of confessional poetry is only worthwhile when the larger world
is not only a part but the actual topic. In much of today's verse, it doesn't
seem to be. So when I approach the poem, the sounds of Piers Ploughman
and the Kalevala are everpresent. Poetry should be shamanistic magical
language. Anyone who fails should try again, but not be read. Or write prose.
Of course, I fail nine times out of ten. Ten times out of ten if you ask some
people. I'll fail a thousand times. I'd imagine everyone-- including Mr. Bunting--
has, did, does and will.

Those that don't often write "good" poems. They are the cheap beer of the
literary culture. As the kind folks at Warsteiner would tell you: life is indeed
too short. No attempts, no failure tonight. Just prose. And bad prose at that.

Nostrovia.

From The Flying Aspidistra, thought I'd share on two sites.

2005-12-01T17:41:00.000-08:00

For those of you inclined to tow the Rumsfeld line
about insurgents not being insurgent, here is a definition
provided in that apocryphal text known to us insiders as"The Dictionary."

insurgent: a [L. insurgens (-entis), ppr. of insurgere, to rise up,
rise up against; in, in, upon, and surgere, to rise.] rising in
opposition to governmental or political authority;
insubordinate; as, insurgent provinces.

insurgent: n. an insurgent person.

So what exactly is the administration's beef with this term,
other than it is an accurate depiction of precisely the type of
person causing our military headaches in Iraq?

Words matter. They know this. Linguistics give way to ideas,
and you shouldn't need George Orwell to tell you that when
you forfeit your language your freedom soon follows.

We'll see how obedient the media is with the term "rejectionist"
(a word suspiciously absent in Webster's New UniversalUnabridged
Dictionary) in lieu of "insurgent" the right proper word for the
person they're attempting to describe.The results, if you're keeping
score, could be doubleplusungood.

Hit these letters with yr. mouse!

2005-08-19T06:18:00.000-07:00

And read Alexander Cockburn's last 3
entries on The Meat Eating History of the
West.

Folk versus Hoch und Blogger's Defense

2005-08-17T05:59:00.000-07:00

An ever recurring area of interest for the crow has
been the relationship between what societies in the
twentieth and twenty-first centuries consider "High
Art Poetry" and "Folk Poetry" and just what distinctions
one might draw.

As a template, I'll cite an example from the United States
as well as one from Turkey. In the U.S., it would be fair
to say that we consider a chap like Ezra Pound a
High Art author and Woody Guthrie falls into the
Folk category. The distinctions were blurred a bit
in the 1960's it seems, and to this day it is hard to
come across a Boomer who doesn't see Dylan as the
poet of his or her generation. (Lyrics to the current
adaptation of the classic "Oxford Town" will be posted presently.)
In the States, a linguistic bastard that has never
thought kindly upon intellectual elitism, the experience
of the times seems to dictate title. No question that
without Woody, Dylan's career would be in impossibility.
With Mr. Guthrie, it became an inevitability.

Further, one sees a parallel between Ginsberg and Pound
in the hospital and Woody and Bob... was it in the
hospital? (As an aside, Hugh Kenner has a great
book on the subject of seeking out one's influences
and the benefits of such an encounter.) Things appear
to go topsy turvy in the States, with the disciple of
the Folk Poet becoming the heir apparent for
"meaningful" poetry and the disciple of the High Art
Poet becoming a sort of folk hero.

One thing Ginsberg must have inherited from Pound
and his writings (see: Guide to Kulchur and ABC of
Reading) is the historical assertion that any line
drawn between the two groups is a social demarcation,
not an artistic one. In some respects, written verse
is an artificial construct. Pound's obsession with the
French troubadours leads us to this road map of poet as
oral tribal historian meeting at a crossroad with wandering
minstrel. Poetry, like history, can be viewed through
a number of lenses. If one prefers Howard Zinn to
Will Durant, it is likely because of point of view rather
than the pacing of prose.

Poets of the Anglo-Saxon strain have always had an
important role in the recitation of history. It could
be "big picture" history, such as Whitman; "personal"
history from the lens of the monied class, such as
Sexton and Lowell; "personal" history from other
classes, as in Bukowski and Dugan; or, one of a
number of combinations. There is hardly a Folk
Poet that doesn't work both in the field of woo and
in the hard streets of social and economic criticism.
We could break it down even more by maintaining
that when it comes right down to it, our goal as a
species is the same as any other: eating and fucking.
The relationship of our larynx to the rest of us allows
us the tradition of poetic self-importance.

Back to Ginsy.

My relationship with Allen Ginsberg has been a rocky
one. I must admit that at first I was not enthusiastic
about President Ginsberg. I wasn't a fan of Howl, and
as a rule preferred the short line, and anything generally
unWhitmanian. My wife, on the other hand, loves Ginsy.
Not being one to exercise all-out literary fascism,
it was standard to give the gift of Ginsberg to her on a
regular basis. Naturally, as I became more acquainted
with his oeuvre, I liked him more and more. The turning
point came not in an early, more Poundian poem (though
that started the walk) but in the form of song.

It wasn't long after I gave my wife the boxed set
Holy Soul, Jelly Roll that I found myself taking
it over. Mainly the Ashes & Blues disc. This convinced
me, in a moment somewhat like Celalludin Rumi's
donkey fall when encountering Shams. "Allen Ginsberg,"
one could find me yelling at the bar, "is the only
important American poet since 1950!" High Art
Poets do what they do, but writing a blues? Of course,
Langston Hughes was adept at this. (An additional side
note: can anyone cite an example of a poetic invention
of such genius as African American song in the nineteenth
and twentieth centuries? Yes, we deal with woo and
history, but to transmit a hidden history disguised
as woo and beyond that sacrament?) Ginsberg's blues
are decidedly off-kilter, but they stand out as having
an honesty necessary to pull the form off.

It illustrates the primary argument of my chosen
aesthetic: the poem derives from the song, and one
can dress it up with any amount of High Art trappings
he so chooses... it remains that the minstrel, the shaman
and the griot (in many cases one in the same) are the
very bloodline of poetry. Whether the poet is the
University dandy, fresh off spending mum's trust
fund, or the street-drunkard playing for coins, the
complete poet has to realize all of his relationships.
This is why an aesthetic such as mine, one that is
openly hostile all things academic, could put a fellow
like Ted Hughes at a lofty perch. Ted was one of the
very best because his writing was informed by
voluminous study but never lost sight of the shaman
from whom we descend. It is also why a fellow like
Robert Johnson captures our attention. It is quite
common to salute a songster for shades of sophistication.
It is even more likely that a page poet will suffer
needless derision for slumming about in the world
of the coal mine, the factory, the field.

I was first made aware of the "New Urbanism" movement
by watching "The End of Suburbia." I might borrow
from the architectural aesthetic to define my poetic
position as "Old Ruralism." In short, try not to forget
that there are parts of the anatomy (even the anatomy
of today's poet!) below the neck.

Now, on to Turkey.

Though I could argue my point for days within the
perameters of Anglo-Saxon tradition, other socio-
linguistic groups aren't so neatly packaged.

We may use the examples of two men whose work is
linked to your left: Asik Veysel Satiroglu and Orhan
Veli Kanik.

One of the strongest memories of my times in Istanbul
is the discussion of this very topic. As a musician, I was
immediately drawn to the Asiks, their skillful saz
playing and the obvious similarities to American blues.
For example, it is quite common to find blindness in
an Asik. Naturally, the economics of Anatolia
are very similar to those of the Old Deep South.
Lots of rain, lots of cotton, &c. When one is stricken
with blindness, the life of a minstrel is almost thrust
upon him.

Though there are very practical reasons for Asik
Veysel and Blind Willie Johnson (both religious
mystics as well as brilliant folk songsters) sharing
an ailment, it isn't suitably romantic for the crow.
I like to see it as a cosmological continuum.

One distinguishing trait is that Veysel's compositions
are far more complex than most blues singers.
"Kara Toprak" is one example. (A translation will hopefully
follow.) Lyrically, Veysel hasn't a peer. Oddly,
the history and culture of Turkey seem to marginalize
Veysel as a simple folk poet, and not in the same
class as Hikmet, Kanik, et al. (A VERY IMPORTANT
NOTE ON THE PREVIOUS STATEMENT: "Marginalize"
should in no way be construed as a lack of
appreciation. If you go looking for a person in
Turkey who doesn't consider Veysel a national
treasure and a bit of a hero, you will have a very
long search. Still, this categorization exists in Turkey
as it does in any country or language family.)

I am in no way an expert on the complexities of
Turkish or Ottoman poetry. My very grasp of
the language is at best elementary. That being
said, the song form is to my eyes every bit as
relevant and challenging in any language or
culture as any piece of modernist verse.

In short, it seems to me (my total lack of
qualification to speak on Turkish verse being
stipulated) that just as we can expect and
academic poet singing the praises, should they
do any singing at all, of Lowell and even owning
the collected recordings of Big Bill Broonzy, s/he
probably wouldn't condescend to comparison of the
two as poets.

To draw a line, while an erudite speaker of
Turkish can appreciate Veysel and Kanik
alike, there is little debate as to who is the superior
poet.

I cannot help but think that the biggest distinction
between the two men, whether it is in the States
or in Turkey, is location and economics. Where
Veysel's true love is the dark soil on the banks
of Kizilirmak, Orhan Veli's is the city of Istanbul.
The songster is of the country, of the soil.
The poet is of the city.

I will close with the assertion that the two are
artificial in many regards, not the least of which
being that poetry is a human enterprise
that aims to do one of three things: woo the
opposite sex; recall a history; and/or, celebrate
an idol whether it be a metropolis, a field, or a
god. The importance of emotive reaction
from the reader/listener cannot be overstated.
They are, to paraphrase Auden, the words of dead
men modified in the guts of the living.

And now for something not completely
different:

In a recent post, the thought of Blogger Agonistes
came to mind. I feel that I must defend this
preoccupation, which today has been an hour
or more of time, five cigarettes and one pot of
coffee.

A.D.'s thought was what put it into its most
proper context.

I live in a town that has its share of poets, one
notable can be found on Silliman's link area.
I have conversed and read with others in the
area, mainly Kansas City. The problem with
almost all things local (I don't have the advantage
of a city such as New York, Istanbul or London)
is that I have yet to find another with which I could
get along on a protracted basis. There are
various sorts and conditions among the poets
in the area. One is the self-aware hipster, likely
to be more of a live reading type. Another is
the university poet, whose talents display themselves
in being smug and self-aggrandizing. Another is
most like myself, drinking at home and quite
disinterested in what the previous two fuckers
are up to. (I might pass one or both of the first
two at a coffee shop on my way to get
a growler of oatmeal stout
and some documentaries at Liberty Hall.)

I would love to sit around drinking with A.D.
and Alberto, being true to the oral tradition.
What this form of internet publishing serves
isn't really "publishing" at all. They aren't
essays, as much as arguments. There is the
problem of being saved "in print" to some
degree, but without it I wouldn't have come
across those two guys, and I'd be stuck with
the other two fuckers at the coffee shop...
not for long. I'm sure all feelings are mutual.

In the original post I joked about Vic Contoski
not returning my calls. Seemed funny at the time,
but last year he did indeed meet me, give me words
of encouragement and read some of my stuff.
Hell, he's a busy guy. The Kenner book, by the way,
is The Elsewhere Community.

Serefe.

Ranting, Raving, generally Kaw!ing about Perre Shelton.

2005-08-08T10:12:00.000-07:00

As you'll see in the post below this one, I can
be easily irritated by print. Especially when the
leading luminaries of the lexicon and their editors
can allow such sloppiness. (This is one of the
virtues of being a humble internetista, as the standards
for Karga are reasonably low!)

So I thought I'd note some positive things I've come
across:

1. Perre Shelton.
I love this kid. I am not one for Slam or Youth poetry...
hell, I don't even like going to readings! But his appearance
on Def Poetry (yes, I don't get out much) this weekend
was enthralling. From initial research he is seventeen
years of age, and it was great to see him blow Sharon
Olds right off the stage! The only info I've been able to
dig up on the lad is from his high school, where he inexplicably
took second place in the school's poetry competition. (If this
is the case, I suggest we send our budding MFAers to
Northwest Indiana to enroll in that high school's Lit courses.)

Perre, give us a web page! Most talent I've seen (and certainly
heard) in a long time.

2. At the library today perusing and stumbled into Winter
Pollen. Not news, just a nice benefit for yrs.

3. Same library has recently acquired the twentieth century
epic to stand beside (who knows, above?) Pound's Cantos:
Human Landscapes from my Country by Nazim Hikmet.
Beautiful thing about public libraries: in a few months someone
will stumble upon this and be enriched by it.

A Polite Nostrovia to you all.

A Note From Abe Simpson's buddy Jasper... Or, "The Old Grey Mare."

2005-08-07T16:26:00.000-07:00

Maybe the thought arose because it is Sunday.

I cannot help thinking of Abe Simpson's grey-bearded
(the "e" is admittedly an affectation, one which I intends
ta' keep) companero Jasper dancing a jig and singing
"The Old Grey Mare, she
ain't what she useda' be,
ain't what she useda' be,
ain't what she useda' be."

This is the only image I can muster wading through my
Sunday Times Book Review and Travel sections.

Exhibit A:
Heather Timmons has apparently escaped her A.P. English
Class to party with the Swingers in the "very gay" resort
area of Mykonos. One can follow the link above to the
story. Please read the closing. Don't worry about starting
with the close, because as you'll see it could easily
be plugged into any other paragraph in the piece.
Should you like to be saved some time and effort, though,
I can excerpt a few quality sentences to illustrate my
irritation:

Paragraph 8, Sentence 1:
"On the far side of the harbor, under Mykonos's
trademark windmills, and with candle-lighted tables
set just near the water's edge, the restaurant is a jewel-
like setting for dinner, although the crowd can sometimes
be jarring." (Emphasis mine.)

Paragraph 12, Sentence 1:
"The mix can be jarring."

While in Mykonos, Miss Timmons would have done
well to consult that Greek classic "The Thesaurus."

There, she might find words such as "harsh,
grating, rough, strident, stridulent" or, if you like,
"stridulous."

Exhibit B:
Brad Leithauser, who in his defense is kindly employing
his brother Mark, reviews Ted Kooser's Flying at Night.
I will say this for auld Brad: he is the first guy to make
me stand in a room and sing Kooser's praises. Not that
I don't like Ted. I like his poetry quite a lot, though I
am not necessarily enamored of the underlying aesthetic.

I don't have the time or patience to go into an analysis of
just what Leithauser's review lacks in understanding the
Great Plains. (God help you if I did, Leithauser!) I'll just
go out on a limb and say the guy has never seen an ear
of corn that hasn't been transited by way of his local Food
Lion or Safeway, depending upon the Coast he lives on.
I could, as they say, fill a book with everything he obviously
doesn't know about my part of the country.

That isn't my real beef. In the closing paragraph of his
review (which, I feel compelled to mention again, ran in
the Sunday Times!!!) he.... well, I'll quote the offending
lines and let you draw your own conclusion:

"If at the end of the day Kooser's poetic aesthetic
is not mine (I prefer a thicker mix of language, a more
complicated architecture)"

Thanks, fucko. I was wondering the whole time just
what butters your parsnips.

Nosfuckin'strovia.

Music Update

2005-08-04T06:31:00.000-07:00

Just because popular music is at a level so
dismal sometimes we need a check of things
going on...

Here are 3 albums (technically four, for the
vinylphile) that will make up for most of it:

Ali Farka Toure: Red & Green
a re-release of the great Lp's from the
late 1970's & 1980's.

Ali Farka Toure & Toumani Diabate: In the Heart of the Moon
Scheduled for September 13, 2005.
This should be the constant companion of anyone
driving to Chicago for Farm Aid.

and

Teenage Fanclub: Man-Made (link above)
Our favourite Glaswegians are back with another
solid album for lovers of solid pop music absent
the pretenses of certain bands whose names end in
"head." Though Bandwagonesque and Grand Prix
still stand out as the best of the Fanclub offerings,
this album is wonderful for summer. The thing I
like best about these guys is their knack for writing
songs as though English were a second language (which
is arguable in Scotland)... a fitting match to
the simplicity of their musical arrangements.
Anymore, releases by Fanclub & Neil Young are about the only
"rock" albums I can see running out to get.
And if you think what Blake, Love & McGinley do
is easy, try sustaining 16 years on approximately
9 chords and keeping cynical fuckers such as myself
on board.

Slainte.

Canon Fodder

2005-07-25T06:46:00.000-07:00

The person whose mind I admire most has recently
voiced his bemusement with my return to the crow.
"I refuse them categorically," was his comment regarding
this form of Internet Publishing.

He is a reasonable man...

But here I go again, spouting off and putting rambling
thoughts onto the "public" space of the Internet.

Proposal for New Canon:

(apologies, Mr. Bloom, but the bloom is off of your'n)

Ministers of Prose: Graham Greene & George Orwell.

Ministers of Verse: Ted Hughes, Nazim Hikmet & Ernesto Cardenal.

Woody Guthrie Memorial Troubadour Division:
Neil Young, Phil Ochs, Willie King Abdullah, Billy Bragg.

Short Story Secretary: Sait Faik.

Walt Whitman Memorial Secretary of Letters:
President Ginsberg.

Ministers of Imbibery: Shane MacGowan, Brendan Behan,
Willie Nelson.

Division of Social Sciences: John Dos Passos.

Vice President: No canon is complete without Ernest Hemingway,
and naturally he will be loyal to the President:

Mark Twain, the alpha and omega of all American literature.

It has come to my attention that I have not mentioned
Mrs. Olds, Mr. Pamuk, Frank "Star Dust" Bidart or Bobby
"Star Bucks" Dylan... Sorry, Frank.

Kaw

2005-07-10T08:32:00.000-07:00

Can't seem to kill this crow.

Incidentally, if you can only read one book this summer,
it should certainly be Confessions of an Economic Hit Man
by John Perkins. Mind-blowing.

Soon to follow: Handy Tips for the Poetry Reading, another
in the Writing Tips series.

Slainte.

Is this the future of Poetry?

2005-06-02T20:33:00.000-07:00

I guess we'll see if someone gets published.

Everyone should submit.

Peter Campion Rides the Sea Camel

2005-05-30T09:58:00.000-07:00

A few days back, the Corvus posted a
rather mean-spirited polemic aimed at
a portion of the Peter Campion essay in
POETRY. I have to admit that I hadn't
given his essay a moment to sink in
before pulling out the dagger and stabbing
at the wind.

It took me about a day to pull it. After
sleeping on it, it seemed foolish of me to
post such a thing. Not that I would necessarily
retract any statements... just that I had
liked the majority of the essay and profoundly
disliked his take on the poetry blog world.

What I found most objectionable was the
treatment of bloggers as a monolith, citing
one example (albeit a rather hilarious one)
from C. Dale's blog and interpreting it (retroactively
to boot) into the larger world of poetry blogs.

It seemed quite insulting that he would use
his position to take shots at the whole of us, most
of us not having nearly the kind of sway
he or his chosen target exhibit. Especially intimating
that this type of web-publishing facilitates
Pro Poetry careerism. This bothers me because
the blog format (and here's my first agreement
with Campion: it is a very ugly word, even in
an Old English sort of way) is precisely the
kind of web publishing that could serve to
democratize the "guild system" Campion laments.

Unlike the pages of POETRY or Ploughshares,
there is no resume requirement for maintaining
a site on blogger.com. One can post his/her poems,
ideas, criticism, &c. and have it undergo a sort
of peer review independent of a middle man. This
is a godsend in an environment of ass kissing ladder
climbing.

Though it has all the potential in the world, it does
fall short. Kind of like the Internet writ large.

I was very slow to join in on both. My initial thought
was that the "tech" world wasn't interested in
anything literary or "important" but rather was a
sort of wireless Star Trek convention and a
virtual white noise nothingness. After my first
phone bill in Mexico, I got hip. While signing up
for a Yahoo! e-mail account (this was 1998) it
shocked me quite a lot that the account names
"tarr" and "buckmulligan" had been taken.
It didn't take long to see the potential in the Internet,
even for someone who was interested only
in things literary. But, as the joke goes, "I bought
a new laptop... now I have a $3000 porno
magazine."

My point being that though there is limitless
potential for valuable information dissemination,
the primary use of the Internet has been
mercantile. (Notable exceptions abound, not the
least of which being the phenomenal archive.org.)
And like the technology that breeds it, the poetry
blogosphere is more like Campion's observation
than comfort allows.

Though I still find it contemptible for someone
on such a lofty perch should accuse the common
man, as it were, of fomenting careerism (again,
I maintain innocence on this, as I have no career
to speak of) it is hard to fault Campion on his
logic. Truth be told, there is as much in the way
of bootlicking out here in cyberspace as one might
find in an Iowa City coffee shop. And while we
all have the opportunity to utilize in the best
ways possible (See: Ana's blog) the vast majority
of "poetry blogs" seem to carry the same gravitas
as just plain auld blogs. (An exercise: visit a
poetry blog at random from Silliman's site, making
sure it is a dot-blogspot one, and hit that "next
blog" button on the top right of the screen...
judge the artistic merits of a. versus b.)

I have the uneasy feeling that Campion is quite
right that "anything's better" from an artistic
perspective. Quite a few of us have come to
that conclusion. As with everything, there is a
gray lurking between the black of the blog and the
white of Campion's cozy world. That being the
uncomfortable fact that while Campion is welcome
to pen essays for journals such as POETRY, I am
most assuredly not.

Blogging could be the best way to follow Biafra's
advice and "become the media." It is essential
that the literary magazines as they exist do not
dictate aesthetic fashion from an Ivy Tower.
It is necessary to take writing back from
the academic world. In order for poetry to
flourish... it will exist in one form or another
no matter what... the outside perspective of
people like A.D. Thomas, Alberto Romero Bermo,
and even Ron Silliman must be constantly
charging the gates. If it happens that you are
outside with only a pair of coconut shells to
feign the stampede of your barbarian invasion,
make it work. And Christina Pugh will likely
taunt you again. No matter.

"Becoming the media" has earned dividends
throughout the history of poetry. To cite
distinctly American examples: Whitman;
Pound's BLAST!; hell, even Naropa to
some extent.

I do not know if this format was intended to
be used in this manner. I am becoming more
and more convinced that it is
ill-equipped for such a task.

He'll never see the original post, but for the
sake of form: Campion, I take it back. I wish
that you'd visited a plurality of blogs and witnessed
the crying out for aesthetic virtue over
MF(A) and workshop bullshit.

42%.

Check and mate.

2005-05-24T06:18:00.000-07:00

Any port side cabin will do.

Anyone for sonnets and shuffleboard? -- Blogoview

2005-05-24T06:05:00.000-07:00

RE: Charles Jensen's Blogoview

After much deliberation, the decision is
quite simple: The QE2.

How could it get any better than that?
At sea all year, but not cleaning a galley!
Besides, most of the runners up were on
the Turkish, Scottish, Icelandic, Norwegian
or Italian coasts.

Ah, the QE2. Comfort and viking.
(Ya' know, Nahm, the word "weekend"
comes from "viking" because they used
to go pillaging and such on Saturdays.)

Pork Barrel Poetics?

2005-05-23T06:07:00.000-07:00

I should just put a permanent link to Peter's
site, as it is getting all the action these days!

As to the memorization "bees" I think it would
be useful to limit finalists to Shakespeare's
Sonnets and sudden-death to best rendition
of Twain's Ode to Stephen Dowling Botts.

Someone had misgivings about all the competitions
being an East Coast thing. In the NPR story,
Levine (I think it was him) commented on
the uselessness of studying why people in
Amarillo don't read (I can't remember the
poet he used as an example, but let's say)
Komunyakaa.

Well, shucks (drawing circles in fresh topsoil
with three year old shoes) I guess that
we ain't much for fancy booklearnin' out
here West of the Hudson. If'n we was,
we wouldn't'a said no what to all that
money we was'a promised by them thar
folks from the Poetry Foundation thang.
Is Conway Twitty in New Letters
this month?

I must take issue with him that brung me
into the sphere in the first place (sorry, I know
that isn't fair to out you on your role
bringing evil into the blogworld!) for this comment:

"It's not a matter of marketing or raising awareness,
it's one of developing a literary culture. Poetry is
perhaps losing because its value is understated or
ignored within our culture, not because poets or
publishers are doing anything wrong. "

Et tu, A.D.?

To paraphrase Cioran's take on Claudel:
"That is enough to wake the Sillimanist
sleeping inside every man."

(Sorry, I can't resist a Cioran reference!)

I'm with you up to a point, but poets and
publishers have a disconnect with the public
in part because of things like the Amarillo
comment. FS & G could put a little more into
pushing poetry, as could just about every
large house. Seems to me that: a) poetry occupies
the same territory in publishing as news
does with the networks... a loss-leader that
they feel is compulsory due to historical
precedent; b) unlike prose authors, poets tend
to view the universe in an academicentric
manner. Again and again I say it, what is there
to relate to?

I was talking to the editor of a poetry journal
on a radio show some months back, and
she seemed to be completely oblivious to the
existence of Alan Dugan. He's only won
the NBA, Yale Younger Poets, &c. and happens
to be one of the few relevant big ticket
poets out there. I would suggest that if the
Nick Flynns and Alan Dugans of the world
were representatives of poetry in the States,
people would be reading a lot more of it.
Frankly, many of the most recognized writers
of verse are a bore.

This quiz I liked

2005-05-22T10:20:00.000-07:00

After discovering that I was Iceland,
Catch-22 and Camus, Peter's blog led
me to my favorite (and likely most
accurate, concerning temperament)
result:

You are Samuel Taylor Coleridge! The infamous
"archangel a little damaged!" You
took drugs and talked for hours, it's true, but
you also made a conscious choice to cultivate
the image of the deranged poet in a frenzy of
genius. You claimed you wrote "Kubla
Khan" in an afternoon after a laudanum,
when you pretty manifestly did no such thing.
You and your flashing eyes and floating hair.
And your brilliant scholarship and obvious
genius.

Which Major Romantic Poet Would You Be (if You Were a Major Romantic Poet)?
brought to you by Quizilla

A Sick Feeling

2005-05-20T07:08:00.000-07:00

Fucking dial-up.

After finally getting May's POETRY and
attempting to post a reaction, which was
around forty paragraphs and included
various takes on class issues, Cornell West,
academic reform, the NEA's soldier-poet
project, the dearth of variety in the prestigious
publication in contrast to the perceived
aesthetic free-for-all which some letters
lamented, and also how that relates to
the class status of MF(A) Poets and
city reporters (which included what I thought
to be a rather witty "Bob Novak served
in the Civil War" quip) I hit the "save" button
and received a white "Page cannot be
displayed" page.

Lost.

Fucking dial-up. The venomous outpouring
of profanity has caused rain in my house.

Well, shit, then. I'll be concise, as my spirit
has capsized.

1. I think I would win a humor contest with
Franz Wright. (See: Wright's letter to POETRY
and my "Perfect Submission Letter" entry.
Though I'd argue mine had more humor,
his was, to be fair, a lot funnier.)

2. What is the deal with Atsuro Riley?
Could someone please explain his overwhelming
appeal to the editors?

I'm going to compose on the typewriter now.

Unrevised, &c. Poem 18

2005-05-19T05:42:00.000-07:00

On the Grave of Theo Van Gogh

Fearlessness is an attribute
We value too much.

When engaged in struggle,
A tenet of Islamic fatalism is that
One cannot kill a man who doesn't fear death.

When engaged in struggle,
A tenet of Parliamentary procedure is that
Any press is good press.
And films can win elections,
And allow a candidate to speak.

When confronted with these,
You will be swallowed.

But the Muslims who do not fear death are dying in droves
And the Parliamentarians are chanting eulogies
And your fearlessness in the service of Our Lady of the BBC
Is rewarded with blades scewering skin,
Eating the heart like vultures.

Newspeak Continued

2005-05-17T20:10:00.000-07:00

Alright. I was in a bit of a rush this morning.

Following up, the Studio 360 program (or
programme, if you prefer) was replete with
yet more hipster banalities. One wonders if
Miss Wilson is an actress playing the part of
the "GenX sarcastic slacker." Someone said
that all bad poetry is sincere. If this is the
determinating factor, I suggest Wilson take
up poetry. She is in no danger of penning
anything wrought with sincerity.

This came on the heels of the recent Newspea....
I mean, Newsweek, retraction.
It would almost be humorous, were it not for
the fact that the claims of an "unreliable unnamed
source" didn't sound so identical to the
backpeddling in reportage of the Abu
Ghraib torture cases. All over NPR one could
hear the question-and-answer volleys
about whether or not people in the Muslim
world believed the allegations vis a vis the
Guantanamo Qu'Ran flushing scandal.

People in the Muslim World???

This is to say that Westerners had any reservations
regarding this scandalous behavior. With verified
tales of female officers mocking menstrual blood
and smearing it on the faces of Muslim men
in captivity as a tool of dehabilitation, it is hard
to imagine that holy books weren't desecrated.
That would be a story.

The two are more related than this Corvus could
possibly put into words.

On the one hand we have Cintra Wilson (and just
about any novelist going around these days, excepting
the old guard) and on the other the mainstream
media. In the case of cultural writing, which is
run by around five multinational conglomerates,
we have individuals so immersed in solipsism,
banality and pop-Kulcher that American fiction
has been rendered.... well, I suppose it is best
to say that it has been rendered. This novelistic
Alpo is reviewed by the major media outlets, who,
to be fair, are owned by as many as five multinational
conglomerates, and then moves on to the next page.

And what is on the next page?

Currency crises in Ecuador.

Oh. Wait.

The rendering of further prison abuse as a non-
story. I'll bet the brass at Newsweek is facing
east and washing feet in hopes that no one at
the concentration ca.... I mean, detention centers,
was using one of those rare picture capturing
cel phones! That's how Abu Ghraib happened,
after all.

Sixty Minutes recently featured Dr. Frankfurt,
who has attained best-seller status for
On Bullshit. There doesn't seem to be a time
in recent memory more worthy of calling
bullshit on television, publishing or the
university. Let us read from Network,
Chapter 3 Verse 19,
"I'm Mad as hell..."

Well, here's one for today:

"I call Bullshit."

Calling all Writers Educated in Newspeak.... A Prelude

2005-05-17T06:03:00.000-07:00

If you didn't get a chance to hear Bill Moyers
(my wife and I pronounce it "Moy yae") at the
Media Reform convention in St. Louis, link above
and stream away! You won't regret it. For an
analogue vibe, I caught it on CSPAN 2, though
I don't know whether or not it will be on again.

That Moyers speech bookended my day. I listened
to it in the car at 9 AM and finished with the
video version from 11:10 to 12:15. Nutshell:
PBS is fucked. Consolidation is close to complete.
In this airwave version of Risk, all the red men
are lined up surrounding our (by "our" I mean
residents of the U.S. regardless of political
affiliation) humble troop in Brazil... and they've
four sets of dice.

In-between these gasps of fresh air was
more of the usual. NPR's Studio 360 featured
the opinions of "writer" Cintra Wilson.

Anyone that heard it may know well what I'm
talking about. If you've seen the Simpsons with
Hullabalooza, you know precisely the irritating
intonation patterns ("This guy's cool."
"Really, or are you being sarcastic?"
"I don't even know anymore.") Miss Wilson
seems so obsessed with appearing hipper than
thou that she seems to forget how bloody
irritating it is to listen to her.

More to follow on Wilson, Moyers and
the omnipresent conglomerates. At the moment,
I am late in picking up my 1952 Olympia
from the shop. If I run late, I may be compelled
into typing on this tunnel vision machine
for another week.

Nostrovia.

Thanks, Jeff

2005-05-14T09:41:00.000-07:00

I am now a big Jeff Bahr fan. Adopting Ted Hughes.
Huzzah.

BUT ROBERT GRAVES IS STUCK IN THE
FOSTER CARE COLLECTIVE! NO ONE TO
ADOPT THIS BOUNCING BUNDLE OF
MYTHOS? (Hey, I spent my $30 on stir fry,
Kirin Ichiban, truffles from Andre's and a
cigar. Priorities.)

AND MY MAIN MAN ERNESTO CARDENAL
ISN'T EVEN ON THE "FIND A POET"
LIST. WHAT, POETS.ORG, IS THERE NO
ROOM FOR THE NICARAGUANS? I DIDN'T
SEE DARIO EITHER. I SEE HOW YOU ARE,
ACADEMY.

Relevance

2005-05-10T09:17:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I composed an entry based on something
that I find very amusing. The premise, in essence,
is that of a heavyweight bout for the title of poetry.

Not in the sense of "greatest poet" or "wittiest wordplays"
or any of that business... The battle proposed was one
where the two primary camps of modern poetry
have a representative square off in prosodic pugilism.
My example was Ernesto Cardenal vs. Ted Kooser.

It seems to me that today's poetry (in English as well
as most European tongues) is divided into two
groups better illustrated by their social policy leanings
than by stylistic trappings. They seem to be traceable
to a reverence for or an acrimony towards Mr. Ezra Pound.

The Pro-Pound, or Protoimagist if you will, is best displayed
by Cardenal. The Nicaraguan priest seems the obvious
evolution of the Poundian aesthetic. From With Walker in
Nicaragua to Cosmic Canticle, he has evolved a distinctive
writing style that reminds one very much of Auld Ez.
The commitment to verse as a vehicle of historic
transmission and social welfare may not have started with
the lanky Idahoan, but one could make the case that
in our century he is the place to start.

The Non-Pound, or Tosser, can be found in practically
every American university. Billy Collins and Ted Kooser
are certainly UnPound. This is not to disparage either
man's work (though I'll admit the Tosser title is a cheap
shot) or to single out Poet Laureates, though that is
a nice bonus. Simply put, the SoQ have both feet
firmly planted in the soil of Iowa City or Cambridge.

After reading Kooser's Poetry Home Repair Manual,
the thing that stayed with me from the minute I
laid eyes on it was the declaration that "poems are
triggered by catchy twists of language or little glimpses
of life. The poet's ideas might emerge while he or she
is playfully writing about, say, the appearance of a
stack of storm windows lying in the grass or the way
in which a praying mantis turns her head to look
at the mate she's about to eat." What is with the
fucking storm windows and barn planks?!?

Confession: I have composed many poems which
were inspired by the actions of insects and
arachnids. I will come back to my perceived
difference in due course.

Getting back to Ted, then.

That first sentence sounded an awfully lot like
some sort of quietudenal code. "Twists of
language" and "glimpses of life" signify to this
reader the bigger by smaller aesthetic. The
world-weary hipsterism (though I have not
seen Kooser documented wearing either a
large belt buckle nor a snap-button shirt from
Urban Outfitters.... I think Collins read in that
outfit once in Santa Cruz, though) is, I suppose,
the root of our UnPound types. It says to me
that "bombs dropping on hundreds of thousands
of innocent civilians for the purpose of lining
the pockets of the Multinationals that run
the U.S. and by extension the U.K. are too
obvious. The true poet is beyond this,
and by focusing on the little things, he or she
shows the expansiveness of his or her versifyin'
mind."

This focus on the small seems to have taken
over the American poetry scene. The only American
poet I know of speaking with the force of even
Les Murray is Dugan, and Dugan's been around
quite some time.

The argument between "schools" or more precisely
the very definition of poetry harkens once again
to the Epic vs. Mundane debate. I would posit
that the Protoimagist school is progeny of
The Kalevala, Gilgamesh, Homer, Villon and later
Pound, Ginsberg, Cardenal and even Graves.
The role of the poet in this mindset resembles that
of the first satirists in the line of Bion or the West
African griot. That role is the transmitter of history,
mythos, the singer of battles and the Complete
Mind. Seems far more demanding a job description
than that of the focused student of writing.

Possibly SoQ (or MFA) is a deficient bastard. The
people we see debating poetry's audience, popularity
and relevance with the most hand wringing are these
men and women. I don't see where the confusion comes
from. Could it be that most Americans couldn't care
less about the triste trysts of Sharon Olds?
I plead guilty to broken record, but what precisely
does anyone outside of Loaf, Iowa, &c. share with
those inside? They eat, shit, sleep and fuck.
But most people don't have the time or inclination
(thankfully) to attempt art out of that. The solipsistic
urge displayed borders on nauseating.

Not that there isn't a place for the biographical
poet. Graham and Larkin would defy a claim
to the contrary. Put simply, though: if you choose
to make yourself the primary subject of
your work, do us the favor of living a life
worth telling us all about. Boiled down even more:
I don't give a shit about your yard, even if there's
a dead wren lying amongst the storm windows.

How could this be avoided, considering the
push towards creative writing programs
(proudly alien in Britain, I might add) and
how does poetry become relevant in the States?

A few suggestions:
1. Though it is desirable for poets to be
treated like rock stars, it isn't a good thing
at all to start thinking like them;
2. If the university system urges you to
get that narcissistic bugger of a writing
degree, don't let your schooling get in the
way of your education;
3.The best poetry is universal. This means
a bigger audience and possibly even more
money. (I stress "possibly.") It isn't a
mystical sect of the initiated gathering in
groups over sixteen ounce Americanos
laughing derisively at the expense of
that mythical "Red State Voter."
Alienation breeds contempt, and Professional
Poets of America limit the scope of
their audience further by suggesting that
the scope of their audience is limited
as a result of the intellectual deficiency of
the public at large. I can't say whether or
not an American Zero Hour would be picked
up by FSG or even City Lights. I will guarantee,
however, that it would outsell every other
book of poems released this decade.

Bold as it may be, my prediction is that
American poetry has the option of coming
home to Pound or dying on the vine. Verse
in the twenty first century needs to be
larger in scale than that of the latter half of
the twentieth.

Historians, Prophets and Madmen only need
apply.

Follow-up: I still take umbrage with the
mantis bit, though I focus largely on the
insect, reptile, arachnid world, &c. It seems
to me that focusing on, say, an ant when
viewed with Cartesian beer goggles is
derivative while viewing the plight of
that ant in respect to ahimsa is in line
with larger themes. The concept of
other animals existing solely for the the
purpose of metaphor seems again to
be a small and self-centered way to view
the poem or the world. The problem is that
it is not necessarily looking outward, but
incessantly inward. A good piece of advice
I got from Vic Contoski was to take out
every "I" in one of my poems. This seems to
extend well beyond that individual capital
letter.

Cheers.

Matter of fact, I want you to find me TWO horses....

2005-05-07T11:29:00.000-07:00

So, this is how David E. Kelley feels every couple of years!

Well, the humble grackel has been forced into temporary
hiatus due to some... hmm... let's say issues related
to moving. Does anyone know why setting up DSL for
an in-town move takes so bloody long? I crunched the
numbers, and there's no amount of video downloading
that could make up for the initial week allowed for
setup, or the following two due to general apathy.

The upside being that I've done odd things like taking
walks and finishing books. It is difficult to quantify
the amount of time one can dedicate to reading when
the tele and internet are not interfering.

Among numerous others, read Kooser's home repair
manual (yes, there are thoughts to follow on that,
Smithers) and On Bullshit, a PhD. type book whose
principle virtue is that it is in itself the epitome
of bullshit. Mr. Frankfurt has a well-developed
sense of humor. I'm still deciding whether the
punchline was worth the set-up.

Highest recommendations on Mrs. Shafak's
Saint of Insipient Insanities (Araf) though the
ending is lacking. It is still a wonderful insight on
a certain type of immigrant life in the States.
I could pick and discuss a few other weaknesses,
but I will give this Turkish author a pass. Nearly
every book has flaws unless your name happens
to be Sam Clemens, but few released lately are
worth the time. This one was for me, though I
have the contemptible habit of reading half a
book and letting it breathe for a month or two
before finishing it.

Phony Tony won again. On behalf of the
People of the United States, I'd like to welcome
our bitch back. Don't step outta' line 'less
you want five cross the head, girl.

Bis Spater.

That Perfect Submission Letter

2005-04-12T05:35:00.000-07:00

File Under: Handy Writing Tip.

Few aspects of the poetry game are as
daunting as that pesky submission letter.
Should one make an effort to personalize
it? What information should I include or
leave out? Well, it just so happens that your
humble crow has been in correspondence
with various editors at The New Yorker,
The Atlantic and POETRY. Each publication
has its own preferences... I've taken the trouble
to gel together elements from their
suggestions thus producing the ideal
submission letter.

(A note on the text: due to my own limitations
with the format, I am not able to block out
the sheet and provide sufficient letterhead.
Obviously, the submission letter should be
on a 3 X 4 or so sheet of stationery. One's own
letterhead is of course a matter of taste.)

The Submission Letter to End All Submission Letters
(of yours being considered by an editor of verse)

Bryan Newbury

Established 1977

Thank you for considering my poetry.

Due to my large number of submissions

lately, I am unable to pen a submission

letter to each individual publication. Given

my small staff (which is, as it turns out,

myself) and the numerous simultaneous

submissions of mine out there, no doubt

you'll understand. I can assure you that

I have personally affixed each stamp,

and that I have taken great pains to

workshop and revise each poem herein.

I thank you for your continued support.

The beauty of this format is that you can

take it to the local printer and run off a few

hundred. Should a new publication arise,

you needn't research the names or titles

of potential readers. An added benefit is

that this is most surely a professional

way to handle it. Starting your own publication

is a huge plus, as you can plug special

National Poetry Month subscription rates

to the reader.

As a consideration to the author, please

wait about six to eight weeks before

employing this SuperLetter. I have three

poems floating around using it.

Serefe.

The Good, The Bad, And The "Awww Jesus, They Didn't Did They?"

2005-04-06T12:21:00.000-07:00

Alright. The one thing one can find in April
5's election here in Kansas that comes somewhat
close to resembling a silver lining is the
duality. (This is from the perspective of
Lawrence. The rest of the state... I just
don't know.)

Yes, Kansans that bothered to vote on this
off-year April ballot overwhelmingly passed
an amendment to the state constitution
that NOT ONLY banned gay marriage
(wish someone would have thought to get
a civil union law put on the books!) but
also threw in NO civil unions, NO legal
protections, and pretty much legalized
bigotry. Canonized it, actually.

Naturally, Douglas County (Lawrence, &c.)
voted overwhelmingly against this
religious horseshit. We also kept a Progressive
majority on the council, for what that's worth...

Oregon, are you accepting
applications for Lawrence to
be part of your state? There's
a commute issue, but we'd be
like your Hawaii! We will NOT
change the basketball mascot
to a Rainbow Warrior, though.

So, my state of birth and residence has
yet another black mark on it, thanks to
a group of religious fuckwits. By that,
I mean the leadership. Let me provide
an anecdote as illustration:

Today I was in the yard playing my mandolin.
A stunning rendition of "Darling Cora" as I
remember. My neighbor, a darling man of
87 years, surfaced in his yard. It had just
rained, so gardening work would have to
wait. (He has a thumb greener than my
politics and is very giving with produce.)

On two occasions he'd queried my wife and
I on our relationship with Jesus. These two
included a Baptist minister. (I love the
guy, and anyone who would judge him for
this is in the same camp as the aforementioned
fuckwits; however, this was a bit
unsettling when one considers the signed
"Cosmopolitan Greetings" print front and
center in the living room and the numerous
Buddhas and Kuan Yins hanging out in the
house. Further thought: for anything
pertaining to religious conversions by
those close to you please refer to THE
GOURDS and their wonderful song "Lament.")

An understanding was reached, and though
Christianity is bound to enter conversations,
there is no prodding from him one way
or the other.

Fundamentally (pardon the pun) he is a great
person and a wonderful illustration of what
Christianity should look like.

I'll be moving soon, so I thought it'd be a
nice thing to sit down and visit with him
while I'm still in this house. Played a few
reels on the mandolin and we talked about
The Dust Bowl, farming, what size our new
garden would be, life on the other side
of the river and such. After an hour or two
I had to go.

As I tied up my WhiteonWhite Chucks, I
saw his car on the garage had a bumper
sticker on it. It was an endorsement for
the Kansas marriage amendment.

At first, there was some sense of betrayal.
"God, I know the guy. Never pegged him
for a bigot."

Upon further rumination, I found that the
reason I hadn't was because he wasn't. What
he was was a parishoner at a Baptist church.
In a year of knowing him, we've never
discussed anything political. For this one issue,
he has a bumper sticker no doubt provided
at his church, or at least from it.

I don't know exactly how many times this
story could be repeated across the state, but
I'd wager the number is large. The
churches are influencing (steering, really)
public policy. Rather blatantly at that.

So, my friends, I propose that it is well past
time we tax religion, and tax it heavily.
Who's with me on this?

There's the bad and the "Awww, Jesus."
(Cue whistle from spaghetti western.)

Now, the good: I got free hockey tickets
for myself and some friends. Free.

Nowadays It Does Pay To Be A Good Ol' Boy

2005-04-03T11:51:00.000-07:00

Some excitement. Steve Earle is gracing
the Liberty Hall stage in humble
Lawrence, Kansas. (I am beginning a
campaign locally to enact the official
slogan: Lawrence, Kansas -- Good Vibes
Capital of the World!)

This occurs while being uprooted to some
extent. Usually we move from, say, Aroostook
County, Maine to Morgan County, Georgia.
Or Lincoln to Carlsbad, &c. But there's something
about Lawrence. So now we find ourselves
crossing the Bridge and heading into
East Larry, only a few blocks from the
aforementioned Liberty Hall. I may accidentally
develop something resembling a social
life. I shall attempt not to, but people are
gregarious here.

I say this for inspirational purposes: we also
found a place with twice the space for less
money. This is quite the renting coup in our
real estate landscape.

Also, found a great copy of POETRY from
January of 1959 (The Indian issue, kicked
off by Rabindranath Tagore) at the library
book sale. And a copy of "mishaps, perhaps"
by Carl Solomon for all off $0.75.

Satisfaction level high.

I am still disillusioned with what is transpiring
within the American verse world. But, as they
say, fuck it. No need to look for a complaint.

Considering it is snowing on A.D., I haven't
any complaints. Dogwood allergies are
a small price to pay!

To C. Dale

2005-03-24T06:26:00.000-08:00

C. Dale,

Commentary has been disabled.
I suppose I will post it here,
re: "...Bitterness"
(A.D., where would you like the
punctuation? Ah, yes)

.

C. Dale, Odd dichotomy. I suppose I am in the "bitter"
category to some extent, but it is because of the careerism.
To me, it goes back (actually to Juvenal -- we'll keep it
English) to Pope and Swift, Colley Cibber and Prose
Run Mad.

One can accuse people like me of being a quaint
romantic anachronism. I am often comforted by
fantasies of the nineteenth century. It is arguably the
birth of American culture. The Trinity being Lincoln,
Twain and Whitman. By the standards of the time none
of them had a "formal" education. The poetic
temperament seems ill-served by it being comfortable
with institutions. The personality traits that lead me to
the written word as way of life were the same ones
that caused me to despise the university.

This gets into the discussion about "greatness."
Lately, it has been all over the sphere and in the
pages of all sorts of publications, not the least of
which being POETRY. One conclusion arising
from the conversation is that today's Professional
Poet is far more likely to desire some type of
upward mobility within the poetry world at the
expense of any poetic ambition. Thus, they crank
out good poetry, but nothing likely to be "for the ages."

So, to the "bitterness." I am aware that you are
speaking largely of this Future "Proet" class
within the academies. My bitterness resides in
having spent the last nine years with the sole
preoccupation of (pardon the New Agist sound of it)
being poetry. I've certainly read much more than
I've written. My sole purpose on earth has been
the metaphysical ecstasies of the written word.
The more I study, the less I write. I submit very little,
because the measuring devices for "good" poetry
are deadly serious.

I've given my life to words, and as a result
I've volunteered myself into a very low tax
bracket. My disgust with the poetry landscape
lies in the widely held misconception that if one
doesn't hold an advanced degree, he is a dilettante
who picked up a few phrases from Whitman with
no understanding of the Classical elements,
archetypes and tonal relationships
integral to the art form.

What's missing in today's poetry scene is the
wisdom of a man like Yeats, who famously
stated of the young Pound that he made
many errors, but at least they were vigorous errors.

Sticky Wicket

2005-03-20T14:24:00.000-08:00

Ana passed the stick. Quite nice of her,
I must say.

you're stuck inside fahrenheit 451, which
book do you want to be?

"Ham on Rye" by Bukowski. (I figure that
way I'd burn quicker -- all the booze --
so it would be more humane.)

have you ever had a crush on a fictional
character?

Which ones have I not had a crush on?
Ophelia, for sure. Lady MacBeth a little bit.
And Kate and Bianca.
Plus, most of the Orwell heroines to a certain
extent -- and certainly Hamsun's lasses in
"Pan" and "Hunger".

the last book you bought is:

"Complete Poems" Ernest Hemingway.

the last book you read:

"Collected Poems" Donald Justice.

what are you currently reading?

"The Saint of Incipient Insanities" Elif Shafak
&
"More Collected Poems" Hugh MacDiarmid.

five books you would take to a deserted island:

1. The Yale Shakespeare
2. "Collected Poems" Ted Hughes
3. "The Cantos" Ezra Pound
4. The Unabridged Mark Twain
5. The Mathnawi of Celalludin Rumi

(at any time Attar's "...Birds" may be a
replacement pick in the top 5.)

I'll trust A.D.'s contention that the baton has
passed the finish line. I'll introduce it to
three "offliners" or otherwise non-blgrs.

Handy Writing Tips I've Heard (Or Made Up)

2005-03-13T09:25:00.000-08:00

Well, it seems that the hot new trend is
quitting, or at least suspending, one's weblog.

It is a tough topic to tackle, so I'll leave it
dormant for the time-being. The difficulty
is that of the four or five that have recently
been pulled by their authors, two are from
people I like, the other three... not so much.
And were I to sharpen the quill for an invective
on the three, I run the risk of inadvertently
associating the ones I like with them. (Here,
I would love to stream audio so I could cough
names out without the solidity of print.)
So, anyway... next subject.

FIVE HANDY TIPS FOR WRITING.

C. Dale Young has been posting (off and on)
handy publishing tips. As he said, and as
has been oft-repeated, writing and publishing
aren't the same thing. So, I've decided to
share some tips for writing, with a few
publication angles.

1. Quit your day job.

I can't relate how important this is! If you
haven't noticed, the majority of authors
published since the printing press have had
either large trusts and leisurely lifestyles
allowing them to write productively or
chosen abject poverty (see: Knut Hamsun)
in order to liberate themselves from the
eight hours of mind numbing subjugation
of work. Some have even (like Sait Faik,
whom we'll discuss later) opted for both,
denouncing their privilege and living with
the folks. In any event, the only writer
worth a fuck that has maintained his
daily drudgery was Kafka. This was also
a man who decided to become a vegetarian
in early twentieth century Prague -- a city
that makes Chicago look like Eugene, Oregon
in terms of meat consumption. This was
a man who ate less than his household rodents
and died on the daylight side of forty.
His writing discipline was admirable, but
seems a more self-destructive path. (Hamsun,
we'll recall, lived to be 92.)

2. Never Revise

The common mythology that has been
bandied about in writing circles is one of
self-obsessive crafting. Editors have
urged that one not send out work
"still dripping with inspiration." Bollocks.
The aforementioned Faik, widely acknowledged
as one of Turkey's best modern writers,
often responded to assignments by penning
a piece and stuffing it in the envelope
with the ink still wet, let alone the inspiration!
It is debated whether these tales of Sait
were a form of self-mythologizing... to which,
I'll only say, "Good Form, man!"
In terms of poetry: If you look at a poem
long enough, every single deficiency will
scream out loud at you and none will
be worthy of the journal you wish to publish
in. This revision process is a form of
neurosis. Besides, the whole thing is a
crapshoot. One is no more likely to earn
the praises of an editor after workshopping
a piece into the ground than if he sends
in the "wet" piece. Also, if you're not one
of the SoQ minions, it is best to not try
and write like them. You will be discovered
as a fraud, without that elbowpatch and
ivy background and will have gained nothing
of it save failing to emulate little men and
women when you could have been ripping
off more worthy stenographers.

First thought, best thought.

3. Experience the other, non-canonical
Great Poets.

We all remember the Honorable Professor
Bloom's Western Canon. Though I tend
to agree with many of Harry's (can I call ya'
Harry? Thanks.) choices, I do take issue
with the heavy dose of Proust (from Ed
Abbey: " 'The mind is everything,' wrote
Proust. No doubt true, when you're dead from
the neck down." or, "Proust again: One can
only wish that a man with such powers of
total recall had led a less tedious life, moved
among somewhat livelier circles....") and
the exclusion of some great wits.
Randy Newman, for example. He is by
a long stretch our best satirist. I would
also include Shane MacGowan in a
must-read category. There's also Ted
Rall. Judging from someone's (I'll not
mention names, being a gentleman) new
"film noir verse novel" it seems Tom
Waits has made his way into the back
pages of POETRY. I salute this development,
just wish Waits was given the proper
credit.

4. Don't read the publications to
which you are submitting.

You've quit your job, remember?
You aren't made of money! And if you
were, you would've joined an MF(A)
program and met the editors anyway!
Pick up POETRY and Hustler. That
should suffice.

5. Drink yourself stupid and
act A Fool.

Hey, it has worked for writers from
the dawn of time! A quick refresher:
Li Po, Ernest Hemingway, Rudaki,
Omar Khayyam, Ed Abbey, W. H.
Auden, Rabelais, Charles Bukowski,
Villon, Hart Crane, Faulkner, Chaucer...
feel free to add at will. I recommend
whiskey or absinthe. Gin is nice,
but one must buy a special keyboard
with five by five inch keys. Also,
one will write (and say) things on a
whiskey drunk that he wouldn't
otherwise have written or said.
This is also true of gin, but as a general
rule the song of whiskey tends to
be more true. Strong drink is the
food of the author. Other chemical
preoccupations are to be generally
avoided. With that other fine intoxicant
we all know so well, the tendency is
to begin a project updating Goethe's
Faust and ending with a disco opera
about Tony Danza. Stick with the
sauce and you'll be alright, kid.

An Observation

2005-03-09T06:08:00.000-08:00

Seems that Hart Crane had boundless
expectations for The Bridge. I can't
recall the quote, but it ended in the
assertion that if he put it down, no such
dancing would have ever been recorded
on paper.

The observation being: reading that
poem, it is quite obvious that he failed
in what he set out to do, but this is a
different "risk" category, if you will.
Crane failed at upstaging Whitman, but
if one didn't know the lofty goals he'd
put up for himself he'd no doubt declare
The Bridge a triumph. Here we have
that elusive risk, which seems to be the
common thread in all really great writing:
attempting something beyond your power
which results in something better than
you would have produced with more common
goals.

It takes that combination of sheer audacity
and a library large enough to solidify a
rightful self-consciousness to do what Crane
did.

I know very little of Donald Justice as a person
or creative force. I don't know how he works,
or what his ambition is when he picks up his
pen. Reading his Collected Poems makes me
glad he is out there, and can teach a writer
quite well the auld Poundism (though he
adopted it, I can only think of Pound when I
utter it) Dichtung = Condensare. (Or thereabouts.)
Justice seems to have a discipline that is
lacking in most of today's vanguard. (Economy
of language isn't the phrase one thinks of
thumbing through most quarterlies.) If one
judges from the body of work, the man's
picture and his bio, it would be hard to imagine
Justice having that streak of romanticist
self-destructiveness. It would be hard to see
him saying "This will change the course of
literature." It seems rather absurd, actually.

Dugan, yes.

His oeuvre is replete with grand failures. There
is a tone to each of his Poems that reminds
the reader of those wild-eyed poets, the poet
fixed in the popular imagination of most
outside the publishing industry/MF(A) circles.
The kind of guy a person would love to get
drunk with and swing sticks madly at passers-
by. Naturally, I see most of Dugan's poems
as brilliant -- but I'm sure he'd tell you different,
probably about the best ones. He seems the
natural progression past Bukowski, who may have
worshipped Hemingway to the point that
advancing past a certain point in poetry was
made impossible.

I recently engaged in a correspondence with a
fellow wild-eyed romantic who declared all of
his work to be "drafts." I don't know if this
was because of self-doubt, but in reading one
of these "drafts" I was struck by the fact that
it was indeed better than most of what is being
produced in the quarterly market. My guess
is that he is actively pursuing something great,
if not a new thing under the sun at least a
shake-up of the poetry hierarchy that seems
to be bookended by "Proets" whose work
is workshopped to impotency (I miss that word!)
and langpos who tend to display a "postmodern"
(a word I wouldn't miss if it were to be hurled
into a great chasm of word-death) hipness that
doesn't resemble poetry at all. (I am not saying
the work is without value, but for those of us
who revel in our romantic anachronism it is
just too coy.)

In this one page "draft" I feel more comfortable
about the future of poetry than I have in some
time. I am certain that those from the two
opposed schools feel a return to transcendental
or romantic verse is beyond anachronism and
into the territory of second-rate modes of thought,
something one decides upon because s/he hasn't
read enough contemporary verse, or refuses to
step into the 21st century... Well, I've seen about all
I need to of the 21st century as it is (a continuation
of the twentieth with a few nightmare twists)
and I'd wager the two schools will be outmoded
quicker than you can say "Wordsworth, Whitman,
Keats" three times quickly.

Neruda is a hell of a model for the New 21st.
South America is the global bright spot. There
is hope on the one continent actually ambling
into democracy. Big Hope is the only antidote
to the poisonous atmosphere of fear and repression
we see in, well, everywhere else. Neruda maintained
that type of Hope through very dark days for
Chile. Did he see a Chavez, a Lula coming? Maybe.
The two schools are an "is" type of equation.
The new poetry landscape, should people like
that friend of mine continue to write and not
jump off of anything high anytime soon, will again
be that of "what should be." I can tell you
"is" all bloody day. In third person. Big fucking
deal. We're through the looking glass where
"objective" writing is the most narcissistic.
Imagine the solipsistic weltanschaung of a writer
whose goal is strictly portraying "is" through
his own glasses, actually pretending to have
objectivity. It is a pessimistic way to do things,
and art (especially poetry) should be a
vaccine against the shit this criminal enterprise
of a Western World throws at us.

I DECLARE THE POPULACE TO HAVE A
SOUL. AN ACTUAL SOUL, COLLECTIVE
AND INDIVIDUAL.

Maybe this will fail. Maybe South America
will fall again. And maybe those of us who
think like nineteenth century outcasts are
going to be scorned or ignored.

As Hart Crane might tell you, that grand
failure is better than any measured success.

2005-03-07T06:57:00.000-08:00

"All the Federalis say/ they could've had him any day/ they only let him slip away. Out of Kindness, I suppose.

Turnstyled, Junkpiled

2005-03-07T06:01:00.000-08:00

"Railroaded, too."

Today, March 7, commemorates the birthdate
of The Late Great Townes Van Zandt. I would
join Steve Earle naked in cowboy boots on
Bob Dylan's dining room table to bear witness
to Townes being the greatest American folk
song writer since Woody Guthrie.

I missed the fifth, which found Gabriel Garcia
Marquez celebrating his birthday, along with
Lou Reed on the second. I suppose the lesson
here is that the Fish reigns supreme. (We are
the oldest souls, you know.)

Townes has been one of those profound influences,
the kind that has caused me to follow -- sometimes
to my detriment.

The first person to act upon me in this fashion
was Joseph Conrad. I was so full of Conrad,
I joined the Navy. Thanks, Joe!

Blind Willie McTell and Tampa Red influenced
time in Georgia.

I was in Lincoln, Nebraska when I really got into
Townes. I was driving a 1983 Cadillac Coupe de Ville
(still my favorite car) with a cassette deck, rotating
Woody, Lyle Lovett (Ensenada) and Townes.
Every night after work we'd have a pickin' session,
as they say, usually culminating in either "White
Freightliner Blues" or "Heavenly Houseboat Blues."

It wasn't long before the Caddy was loaded up,
broken down ("No Deal" hadn't any influence on that,
just bad luck) and the wife and I found ourselves
in Wise County, Texas. This was just a few miles
from Mr. Van Zandt's final resting place in Dido.
No small coincidence there. I wasn't aware of the
whole "dry county" phenomenon (even though I'd
lived in Bowling Green, Kentucky which is surrounded
by perpetual drouth -- but I worked at a liquor store,
after all!) and was not pleased when I finally broke
down and asked a gas station attendant where in the
hell I could get a twelve pack of beer. (This was while
gassing up the U Haul!) He told me "Lindsey."

"Alright, how do I get to Lindsay Street?"

"No, Lindsey's about twenty miles thataway."

Never has the phrase "You have got to be fucking
kidding me" rang more truthfully.

Well, one advantage was that I made it a habit to
do my beer run in "good ol' Denton" Texas (the
Right Oner capital of the low plains) which was
a cultural island from the whole DFW metromess
and footwashin' rural atmosphere. The road
I took went through Sanger, and from what evidence
I can gather, by the motel in which Townes wrote
"Pancho and Lefty." At this time in life the only
thing in my Ford Festiva (yes, if you're wondering,
the de Ville to the Festiva will adjust one's driving
habits significantly) was a copy of "The Late,
Great Townes Van Zandt" (Side A) and "High,
Low and In Between" (B).

Enough of the personal stories, now to the man
himself.

Townes is special for a number of reasons. His
distinctive voice, his skillful guitar playing, and
most of all his gift for songwriting. There are only
a few songwriters who have been given the title
"Poet" not only by fans and peers, but those
outside folk circles. Woody, of course. (He is our
Robert Burns, after all.) Many say Dylan. I'll
accept that. Guy Clark, surely.

But what separates Townes is the way he wrote.
Take a song like "She Came and She Touched Me."
There are precious few who would put such an
adventurous scheme in a love song. (If you could
ever call one of his songs such.) Simply put, Townes
scans better than any other songwriter this nation
has produced.

Further, he forged his own mythology. The holy
writ of Townes Van Zandt can be found in
Our Mother The Mountain. There is a mysticism
that runs throughout. A Comanche Sufi lamenting
fast women and in turn consoling them; bridging
the sacred and the profane throughout (see: "St.
John the Gambler" for the primary surah); and
the power and spirit of nature in the mountains
themselves. Townes was an American of two
citizenships. Steve Earle would pardon me for
asserting that he was both a Texan and a
Colorado mountain prophet.

Recently, Townes has been receiving more
attention. Though purists tend to bemoan
the popularization of "one of their own"
(myself included in this: I finally landed
a copy of the once vinyl-only two lp
Live at the Old Quarter, the best live
album ever made, for what it's worth...
two years later they release the damn thing
on CD! Now that's just cheating!) Townes
deserves his place on the turntable of any
serious fan of music or poetry.

So, if you haven't come to know the Tao
of Townes, I'd suggest running to the nearest
record store and acquainting yourself, and
joining us "purists" in March 7 festivities from
here on out. If you are already a devotee,
pour a big glass of jug wine and drink one to
him. Pick a guitar, get a friend with a fiddle or
mandolin, and don't forget to end the night with
this, remembering the C run at the end:

"I'm goin' out on the highway,
listen to them big trucks whine
I'm goin' out on the highway,
listen to them big trucks whi-hine.
White Freightliner won't you haul away my mind.

Bad news from Houston,
half my friends are dying.
Bad news from Houston,
half my friends are dying
White Freightliner won't you haul away my mind.

New Mexico ain't bad, lord
the people there they treat you fine.
New Mexico ain't bad
the people there they treat you fine
White Freightliner won't you haul away my mind.

Lord, I'm gonna' ramble 'til I
get back from where I came.
Lord, I'm gonna ramble 'til I
get back from where I came
White Freightliner, won't you haul away my brain.

I'm goin' out on the highway,
listen to them big trucks whine.
I'm goin' out on the highway
listen to them big trucks whi-hine,
White Freightliner won't you
Haul away My Mind."

3 March 2005

2005-03-03T06:05:00.000-08:00

William Godwin's birthday today.

Should anyone desire links to free online
versions of his timeless Enquiry Concerning
Political Justice, comment away.

"I am wrapped in dismal thinkings."

2005-03-02T05:35:00.000-08:00

I am about to repeat a sentiment that
virtually everyone has at one time no
doubt uttered. I think it bears repeating
from time to time.

You can't go wrong with Shakespeare.

Watched All's Well That Ends Well last
night. If measured up against most of his
plays, it is weak tea. The Countess in this
comedy provides not nearly as much comedy
as Polonius in his "advice." (I understand,
of course, this is not her function; however,
it seems that the play could have used such
a thing from someone.) Paroles isn't, as they
say, a pimple on Falstaff's arse as a character.
The Merry Wives of Windsor is far funnier
in every Act and Scene. One could go on and on.

Yet, it is an evening well spent. The King
is responsible for some great lines (such as the
title here) and the farcical capture of Paroles
is a delight. Which delivers the main point:
A lower tier play (there are no lower tier
sonnets, I'd posit) by Shakespeare is better
than the best of anything else.

The debate has raged at times as to whether
Wagner was a greater mind. My knowledge of
German leaves something to be desired (I have
grown rusty, not living in Milwaukee or Bonn)
but from the librettos a case could be made.
Add to this that Shakespeare didn't (to our
knowledge) write any of the sweeping music
that sweats out of every pore in one of Richard's
operas. That said, I still find no competition.
This may be an Anglo bias, which I will freely
admit having, but as a singular artist Shakespeare
maintains that "I know not what" -- that magical
element is ever-present. Others have moments.
Wagner has hundreds (though one could argue
that the presence of the music is an unfair
emotive advantage) and even Hasek and Heller
have that magic in certain passages.

Only our friend William manages to mystify,
to codify our collective religion as writers. The musical
element is enormous in his work. I suppose
that is the triumph above all else. The spoken
words of any Shakespeare play well-acted
contains musical elements, an otherworldly
("oceanic" to use Jung's term) sensation that
even music cannot match. That is a triumph
never before seen and never to be repeated.

If ever there was a competitor, possibly it
would be Mark Twain. I am unable to
think of another author who has defined
a country the way Twain did, or who has
been so much to so many. Wrap up all of
the Roman playwrights and collected
satirists (though we know precious little
of Bion) and you have in their collected
body about half of what Twain accomplished.
Obviously, having any writer do battle
with Shakespeare is akin to matching Jack
Johnson with the best of the lightweight
divisions. My contention is simply that
Twain may well be the only middleweight.

Alright, I have accomplished the feeling
Larry King lives with.

I shall endeavor to not follow this with
such posts as:

"Leo Kottke is a good guitar player"
"That Citizen Kane was pretty damned good"
or
"You know, Groucho Marx was funny."

Nostrovia.

A Shocking Story with Few Details

2005-02-21T05:39:00.000-08:00

Well, it appears that the good Doctor
Thompson has been... I mean, has
committed suicide.

Almost no details, and as far as
Morning Edition is concerned
(7:41 CST) it isn't much of a story.

This leaves me with a very uncomfortable sensation.

More to follow, let's hope.

I know I screwed you over last game, but I PROMISE not to Fortify South America if you don't roll the dice against my men in Asia.

2005-02-18T06:59:00.000-08:00

Should one be a Jensenite?

I think so.

I am calling on everyone to step up to the
edge of the cliff and take a long metrical
piss over the side! As for me,

A Planned Manuscript:

1. Start off with a poem that doesn't jump
out (that won't be hard) at an editor, that
also uses antiquated devices and begins the
first three lines with "I".

2. Use the word "beauty" twice. Per Frost's
dictum, one would have one more "beauty"
left -- now that's danger.

3. Use hate speech liberally. (In quotations,
naturally. I am a Green Social Democrat after
all.)

4. Abstraction after abstraction!
(To be fair, nothing is really an abstraction.
That is a function of a small mind. We must
consider Hamsun's comment that
Dostoyevsky's writings weren't strange at
all... he saw things like that all the time.)

5. Tell the Muse to get off her ass and do
the rewriting! I don't have time for that
shit. I gotsta go to my jobby job!

6. There are hundreds of approximate
words in a poem, actually. My manuscript
will contain at least ninety of them.

7. At least thirty-five epigraphs. Some from
guys playing chess at the corner of 12th and
Mass. Some from John Negroponte and other
war criminals.

8. And there is the "Poet's Handshake."
I will present my dick, thanks.

Thanks, Charles.

Hitler und Jensen

2005-02-17T14:24:00.000-08:00

Two things seem quite certain:

Mr. Jensen (link at left) is this week's
Most inspiring Ploggist.

&

Ted Hitler is the best thing going for
American journalism.

Huzzah to both!