world effect

A new episode of Rabbit Light Movies.

A new chapbook from Sam Starkweather. Poetry is there, but why do we constantly feel the need to prove it exists? To point to it? Like a mountain appearing in the distance. ‘Be an uncarved block of wood’ is what the Sarah Lawrence kids, who hadn’t slept in 40-some hours, still high off ecstasy and acid, sitting Indian-style on the rock, otherwise-silent, would shout at me during tennis matches.

A new issue of Forklift, Ohio. Amy’s poems are in it. The little film on their site shows the editors shooting the cover of the journal. With bullets. And the poems inside are bullets, too. So it works out.

A new review of Document on Jacket, written by Matt Thorburn. Wrought by Matt Thorburn. What we experience in these poems are vital impressions; not the whole story, but the feeling of the story. Alex Dickow called this the “effet-monde” (literally “world-effect”) of fiction: the impression of a fictional universe which extends far beyond the written page. It rocks when thoughtful, generous reviewers get one’s intentions right. It might be that they are great poets. Just a guess.

Hey, I hope you are well. I feel like a cheat, never writing back fast enough, never reading enough, never sleeping enough. So many journals and chapbooks to look at. So many poets to uphold and discover. Maybe some of you out there feel on top of it? Joyful? Let me know how you do it. How do you live in the world.

The Author, Resurrected

Roland Barthes might be found chuckling in his grave this morning at all of the poet egos lamenting, laughing over, or wringing their hands about a kind of anthology that appeared on the web this morning (read the irate comments already piling up here).  Happily, it appears on a blog called, “For Godot,” which is certainly a play on Beckett’s existential play, “Waiting for Godot.” We’ve waited long enough, and now we’ve decided to start making something “for Godot” since we’re still here, waiting.  Might as well do something with all of this waiting, this huge internet, this number of poems in the world.   This something fucks with the authority of authorship, assigning poems to published poets that they did not write. My poem, which is not a product of my brain, but is “my” poem now, like it or not, is called, “A broad man” (page 1663); it seems to have actually been written by someone, not computer-generated. On the other hand, poet, Ana Bozicevic, read “her” poem and suspects otherwise; she believes they are computer-generated.

One of the editors, in the comments section of his blog, gives a silly response to the poets writing in:

Gang,

This is quite an interesting coincidence! Apparently you all have the exact same names as the Ed Baker, Weldon Gardner Hunter and Ted Burke with whom we at the forgodot.com editorial team have been in close contact and collaboration.

I apologize on all of our behalf for this misunderstanding.

Vladimir Zykov
forgodot.com

No response would have been better, and yes, more clever than this answer. Let the act of the anthology work for awhile before inciting violence with your simplistic dismissals, I say.

For Godot (my name for the “anthology”) has been announced on numerous blogs this morning, likely because of the huge number of poets’ “work” included in the anthology: 3,164! That amounts to a whole lotta “Google alerts” arriving in folks’ email boxes this morning. Godot finally appears in the form of your displaced self, your immortalized writing, your electronic/electric words made permanent (or until there is no more elect-ricity) — and they’re not even yours! I have to admit, I’m happy to be “included” in this spectacle. That is, this massive joke, this huge undertaking, this attempt at … what?

The last verse of “my” poem, I admit: I dig it:

Handy as a road
Well-kept as a man
Glittering as a man
Eld as a pain

Men will glitter, are rarely well-kept, but can be handy as a road — all thoughts that have made their way into my brain and are running around now, as effects of the joke, the poem-that-is-not mine — exactly what a poem should do: incite to active thought, thought outside the realm of usual-thought. Is it a poem? Yes. Is it mine? Who cares? Did the joke make me read it? Yes. Would I have read it otherwise? In the sea of poems out there, likely not. So, success? Something of it.

I also have to wonder, did these three gentlemen — I don’t know who they are but have a feeling these are not pseudonyms — take their own unpublished manuscripts, put them together, and add poets’ names to each poem, thus producing a “book” that would finally be read by the poetry world? I hope this isn’t the case; I prefer a more romantic option: they’ve been reading the work of three thousand plus poets for the past few years, and they’ve written a poem in response to each poet, attaching the poet’s name to their specially-tailored odes.

Who knows? I guess we’ll have to wait to hear from the researchers themselves (or actually take the time to email them):

Stephen McLaughlin

• Age: 22
• Gender: Male
• Industry: Student
• Occupation: Media Design student, Piet Zwart Institute
• Location: Rotterdam : Netherlands
• stephen.r.mclaughlin@gmail.com

Gregory Laynor

• gdlaynor@gmail.com

Vladimir Aleksandrovich Zykov

• vazykov@gmail.com

But somehow, the anthology, For Godot, should simply speak for itself and let Poetry World behave as it will. That’s something to listen out for!

~~~~~~~~~~

Announcing the release of Issue 1, edited by Stephen McLaughlin and Jim Carpenter. Now available here as a 3,785-page PDF (3.9 MB).

This issue features new poems by Nada Gordon, Evelyn Reilly, Julianna Mundim, Emmy Catedral, Enid Bagnold, Richard Siken, Stephen Ratcliffe, Michael Gottlieb, Jodie Childers, Norman J. Olson, Brent Hendricks, Sean Kilpatrick, Tom McCarthy, Stacy Doris, Michael Rerick, Corrinne Clegg Hales, Mark Decarteret, Hadewijch of Antwerp, Darren Wershler-Henry, Letitia Trent, Debra Di Blasi, Laura Elrick, Bruna Mori, Popahna Brandes, Robert Sheppard, Diana Magallan, Kristine Danielson, Ed Higgins, Drew Gardner, Kyle Kaufman, Matthew Thorburn, Tiel Aisha Ansari, Christopher Wells, Vanessa Place, Simon Pettet, Grace Vajda, John Bennett, Ian Patterson, Joseph Hutchison, John Cotter, Cheryl Lawson Walker, Scott Esposito, Jason Nelson, Daniel Kane, Kimo Armitage, Alan May, J.D. Nelson, Bob Hershon, Jennifer Karmin, Kim Rosenfield, Nathan Austin, Pearl Pirie, Rosmarie Waldrop, Tara Betts, Donald Revell, Jim Ryals, Danuta Kean, Jeff VanderMeer, Alfredo Bonanno, Irene Latham, Michael Hennesy, Dick Higgins, John Hanson, Billy Merrell, Sam Ladkin, Jeff Ward, Debra Jenks, K. Lorraine Graham, Kenji Okuhira, Sean MacInnes, Adam Seelig, Steve Halle, David Mus, Monique Wittig, Joyelle McSweeney, Daniel E. Levenson, Luke Daly, Henry Thoreau, John Palattella, Abby Trenaman, Kristen Taylor, Vassily Kamensky, David Jhave Johnston, Gene Tanta, Cate Marvin, Alison Roth, Shad Marsh, Asher Ghaffar, Henry Gould, Justin Theroux, Susan Grimm, Bernard Wilson, Ateet Tuli, Laura Moriarty, Mark McMorris, Cruickshank-Hagenbuckle, Jeffrey Cyphers Wright, William Shakespeare, Nick Trinen, Daphne Gottlieb, Magdalena Zurawski, A.K. Arkadin, Matthue Roth, Douglas J. Belcher, After Bitahatini, Neil Schmitz, Liz Henry, Tom Hansen, Craig Saper, Pris Campbell, Afua-Kafi Akua, Amish Trivedi, Chris Hutchinson, Cath Vidler, Sarah Weinman, A.E. Stallings, Robin Blaser, Roland Prevost, Mac Wellman, Steven Schroeder, Joy Garnett, Mark Lamoureux, Julie Clark, Bob Garlitz, Jeff Hamilton, Kara Dorris, Maureen Thorson, Irv Muchnick, Frank O’Hara, Robin Magowan, C. Allen Rearick, A. J. Patrick Liszkiewicz, Tony Leuzzi, Bhanu Kapil, Sage U`ilani Takehiro, Shellie Zacharia, Lorna Dee Cervantes, Camille Martin, Eliot Weinberger, David Nemeth, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Iris Smyles, Bertolt Brecht, David Forbes, Colin Herd, Sergio Bessa, Zach Wollard, Adam Ford, Claudia Keelan, Hank Sotto, Jamba Dunn, Ken Mikolowski, Jean-Jacques Poucel, Santiago B. Villafania, David Valentinovia, Robert Kaufman, Dominique Meens, Joe Elliot, August Stramm, Justin Katko! Sandra Korchenko, Carol Peters, Lilah Hegnauer, Brian Evenson, Wallace Stevens, Timothy Murphy, Joseph Bradshaw, Nick Courtright, Adam Chiles, James, Kane X. Faucher, David Abel, Ray Succre, Gabriel Gudding, Antonin Artaud, Mark Cunningham, Paul Fattaruso, William Saroyan, Aaron McCollough, Confucius/Ezra Pound, David Antin, Rob Mackenzie, Ryan Eckes, Christian Peet, Peter Riley, Litsa Spathi, Anna Ahkmatova, Mark Tursi, J.D. Schraffenberger, Greg Fuchs, Sean Casey, Orpingalik, Hassan Melehy, Rosemarie Waldrop, Phillip Lund, Adam Aitken, Michael Davidson, Andrea Rexilius, William Allegrezza, Raymond Queneau, Fred Wah, Marcia Arrieta, Elizabeth Cross, Jonathan Greene, Gregory Laynor, Preston Spurlock, Jane Sprague, Kevin Thurston, Stephen Berry, William Bronk, Claudia Rankine, Steve Dalachinsky, Ed Sanders, Sam Rasnake, Wes Smiderle, James Belflower, Simmons B. Buntin, Dolores Dorantes, Emilie Clark, Leslie Marmon Silko, Sarah O’Brien, Jack Tricarico, Gerard Van der Luen, Frances Richard, Charlie Bertsch, Bob Cobbing, Sabrina Calle, Steven Burt, Stephane Mallarme, Bob Marcacci, Edwin Torres, Lois Marie Harrod, Evgeny Maizel, Luc Simonic, Lawrence Durrell, Amanda Davidson, Pendergast, Gregory Orr, Lepson, Joseph Duemer, Eric Alterman, Erin M. Bertram, Leopold Sedar Senghor, Suzanne Buffam, Andy Nicholson, Edward Champion, Katy Acheson, Okey Ndibe, Jennifer Mulligan, Renee Zepeda, Alfred Kubin, Sawako Nakayasu, David Prater, Forrest Gander, Mike Gubser, Virginia Heatter, Leslie Winer, Ed Schenk, Doug Holder, Russell Ragsdale, Jose Manuel Velazquez, Dick Jones, Gerry Loose, Daniel J. Vaccaro, Rafael Alberti, Jeff Newberry, Igor Terentiev, Micah Robbins, Friedrich Holderlin, Arif Khan, Laurel Dodge, Ann White, Nicolas Guillen, John Lowther, Cathleen Miller, Josef Vachal, Chris Moran, Miyazawa Kenji, Robert Fitterman, Norman Mailer, Doris Shapiro, Talan Menmott, Alan Licht, John Godfrey, James Maughn, Anne Heide, Jasmine Dreame Wagner, Lina ramona Vitkauskas, Judith Goldman, Rich Murphy, Halvard Johnson, Ariel Dorfman, Ed Baker, Maryrose Larkin, Sheila E. Murphy, Rosanna Warren, Jean Cocteau, Clarence Major, Eleanor Stanford, Teresa Carmody, Kenward Elmslie, Rainer Maria Rilke, Ryan Walker, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Nava Fader, Rob Budde, Allison Cobb, Robert Roley, Alison Collins, Melissa Fondakowski, Nathan Whiting, Jess Rowan, Cid Corman, Bob Heman, Libby Rosof, Cassie Lewis, Scott Saner, Roberta Allen, Raymond Farr, Anne Pierson Wiese, kevin mcpherson eckhoff, Troy Lloyd, Lindsay Boldt, Andrea Baker, Meredith Quartermain, Richard Meier, Louise Mathias, Joseph Cooper, Lynn Strongin, Outlines, Suzanne Stein, Richard de Nooy, Sherry, Robert Chrysler, Ton van’t Hof, Peter Cole, Michael Slosek, June Jordan, Andrew Zitka, Eve Babitz, G.C. Waldrep, Craig Santos Perez, James Sherry, Hugh, David R. Slavitt, Dino Campana, Stephen Berer, Alastair Johnston, Angela Jaeger, Javier Huerta, Jed Birmingham, David Harrison Horton, Alan Baker, Steve Clay, Kevin Coval, Tony Brown, Debesh Goswami, Michael Farrell, Abigail Child, Tanya Larkin, Ron Slate, Emmanuel Hocquard, Lauren Dixon, Jan Zwicky, Andrew Joron, Jessica Wickens, Arthur Sze, David Baptiste Chirot, Steven May, Rob Cook, Ankur Saha, Eric Unger, Chris Heilman, James Purdy, Derek Henderson, James Collins, L.J. Moore, Michael McClure, D.S. Marriott, Michael Heller, Robert Mittenthal, Eileen Tabios, Aki Salmela, Lou Rowan, Jerome Seaton, Lori Lubeski, Paul Hardacre, Rus Bowden, John Wieners, Lauren Levin, Johanna Drucker, Velimir Khlebnikov, Terry Bisson, Martha Plimpton, Miklos Radnoti, Ken Kesey, Matvei Yankelevich, Seth Forrest, Maria Damon, David MacDuff, Kevin Doran, Rob Read, Kristen Gallagher, Rick Visser, Andrei Bely, Sara Crangle, Karl Klingbiel, Jackson Mac Low, Fox, Derik Badman, Paul Griffiths, Oliver Rohe, Mark L. Lilleleht, Michelle Bautista, Monica Schley, Aaron Levy, andrew nightingale, Douglas Messerli, Pattie McCarthy, David West, Jon McKenzie, James Weber, Carlos Rojas, Donatella Izzo, Francois Luong, Daniel Borzutzky, Umm Zaid, Tony D’Arpino, James Tierney, Tao Lin, Rochelle Owens, Amy Friedman, Natalie Zina Walschots, Kayin Wong, Emily Sher, Deborah R. Geis, Kristen Iskandrian, Brother Tom Murphy, Jeremy Gardner, Alcoholic Poet, Chris Mansel, Keith Tuma, Chris Mansell, Rob MacDonald, Yuan Mei, Stanislaw Witkiewicz, Joshua Schuster, Glenn Bach, Maureen Owen, Richard Wink, Guy Bennett, Eric Elshtain, Reza Shirazi, Tonya Foster, Karl Kempton, Allan Gurganus, Alizon Brunning, Christopher Davis, Richard Foreman, Francois Luong, Yvonne Werkman, rob mclennan, Mark McCarthy, Bill Marsh, Tom Devaney, John Most, Nick Moudry, Jennifer Reimer, Charles Baudelaire, Gabriel Pomerand, Crane Giamo, Vernon Frazer, Mike Basinski, Oliver de la Paz, Leon Damas, Mark Ducharme, Jim Leftwich, Eliot Katz, Pat Lawrence, Jeff Daily, Jefferson Navicky, Tom Savage, Legs McNeil, mIEKAL aND, Leevi Lehto, Allyson Clay, Cy Mathews, Dereck Clemons, Clayton Eshleman, Benjamin Parzybok, Kevin Isu, Laura Mullen, Angelo Suarez, Kate Greenstreet, Andrew Burke, Natalie Simpson, Susan Smith Nash, Peter Gizzi, Dana Goodyear, Terence Winch, Sandy McIntosh, Cris Mazza, James Thurber, Sarah O‚ÄôBrien, Firoze Shakir, Elizabeth Castagna, D.J. Huppatz, David Koehn, Kyra Saari, Philip Jenks, Martin Corless-Smith, Jacques Leslie, Will Gallien, Mathew Timmons, Eric Lochridge, Buck Downs, Ian Hamilton Finlay, Leonard Michaels, Francis Raven, seflo, Nina Shope, Carson Cistulli, Jennifer Banks, Deborah Burnham, Steve Langan, Rosalva Garcia Coral, Betty Stork, Erica Van Horn, Anna Evans, Lizzie Skurnick, Skip Fox, Olde Quietude, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Jonathan Williams, Sarah Maclay, Pablo Neruda, Richard Tuttle, Fran Herndon, Cheryl Clark, Allen Itz, Derek White, Barry MacSweeney, Eben Eldridge, Sandra Ridley, Normie Salvador, Priscilla Long, Alan Gilbert, Dennis Tedlock, Steve Benson, Brian Whitener, Rene Char, Lawrence Ytzhak Braithwaite, Teresa Ballard, Barbara Henning, Mario Melendez, Jacques Demarcq, Harvey Bialy, Gary Norris, Kerry Shawn Keys, Dawn Pendergast, Aimee Parkison, Michael Cooper, Chris Killen, Les Webb, Roberta Fallon, John Fillwalk, Stephen McLaughlin, Elizabeth Robinson, Bob Heffernan, Zak Smith, Nicholas Lea, Tsering Wangmo Dhompa, Dan Beachy-Quick, Ross White, Stan Mir, Tim Atkins, Poppy Z. Brite, Dylan Hock, Kurt Vonnegut, Mez Breeze, Stephanie Heit, J. Mason, Colleen Lookingbill, John Hall, Michelle Morgan, Alexi Parshchikov, Clemente Padin, Lisa Jarnot, Lance & Andrea Olsen, Mark Wallace, Nancy Kuhl, Xu Smith, Jorge de Lima, Hillary Lyon, Clayton Couch, Gunnar Ekelof, Alex Caldiero, Clifford Burke, Karri Kokko, Brent Goodman, Daniel Clowes, Todd Suomela, Arlene Ang, David McDuff, Bill Sherman, Ezra Mark, Kathryn Pringle, Jem Cohen, Adam Tobin, Thomas Meyer, Clifford Duffy, Anne Waldman, Nancy Shaw, Pilar Olabarria, Chris Maher, Ezra Pound, David Hilmer Rex, Levari, Jerome Sala, Ryan Collins, Alexander Jorgensen, Shouva Chattopadhyay, Linda Susan Jackson, Jonathan Mayhew, Pejk Malinovski, Michael Parker, Claude Simon, Ian Keenan, Peter O’Brien, Jeannie Hoag, Marcel Janko, Beverly Jackson, Loren Webster, Daniel Knudsen, Michael P. Steven, Rose Kelleher, Mare Mikolum, Marcel Broodthaers, Reb Livingston, Steven Lohse, Faye Smailes, Thomas Kinsella, Peter Middleton, Kurt Schwitters, Lou Suarez, Jay Millar, Paul Holman, Michael Palmer, Larry Eigner, Jean-Michel Espitallier, Charles Bernstein, Bill Allegrezza, Tenney Nathanson, Jeff Crouch, Brian Spears, Peter Makin, Lynn Crosbie, Michael Carr, Robinson Jeffers, Fanny Howe, David Vincenti, Erica Wessmann, Lydia Davis, Craig Teicher, Jorge Luiz Antonio, Matt Christie, Jean-Patrice Courtois, Gregory Pardlo, Nathaniel Tarn, Simone Fattal, Orhan Pamuk, Ofelia Hunt, Louise Gluck, David Pavelich, Lanny Quarles, George Seferis, Louise Bogan, Susan Minot, Star Black, Ted Stimpfle, Michael Lally, Sean Whelan, Arlo Quint, Grace Molisa, Jasmine Dream Wagner, Armand Schwerner, Anselm Parlatore, Tom Orange, Frank Kuenstler, Robin Coste Lewis, MacLaren Ross, Nick, Katey Nicosia, Geraldine Connolly, Sharanya Manivannan, Maud Newton, Kerri French, Charles Shere, Stephen Burt, Tony Fitzpatrick, Mark Peters, A. R. Ammons, Jenny Davidson, Tom Hopkins, Laurie Price, Woody Haut, Jim Toweill, Anne Tardos, Ronald Johnson, Will Skinker, Linda Marie Walker, Dave Schiralli, Rachel Talentino, Christopher McVey, Jordan Davis, Chris Tonelli, Patrick Culliton, Michael Basinski, Christina Brown, Kathleen Rooney & Elisa Gabbert, Maria Benet, Regis Bonvicino, Richard Huelsenbeck, Julia Cohen, Jim Behrle, Stephanie Bolster, Timothy Liu, Donna Brook, Kristin Abraham, Marcus Bales, Patricia Wellingham Jones, Susie Timmons, Clayton A. Couch, Myung Mi Kim, John Litzenberg, Zoe Strauss, Jonathan Meakin, Janine Pommy Vega, John Matthew, Robert Sund, Janne Nummela, Robert Archambeau, Dodie Bellamy, Meghan Scott, Stephen Johnson, Brenda Schmidt, Lisa Flaherty, Martine Bellen, Ron Loewinsohn, Darryl Keola Cabacungan, Chris Ransick, Sean T. Hanratty, Tim Gaze, Kathleen Rooney, Tom Mandel, AnnMarie Eldon, Tom Peters, Billy Jones, Gilbert Adair, Jim ¬†Behrle, Peter Jay Shippy, Amanda Laughtland, Juliet Cook, Joshua Marie Wilkinson, Brian Smith, Aldo Palazzeschi, Richard Denner, Anthony Robinson, Chris Tysh, Christopher Stackhouse, Paul Muldoon, Stefania Iryne Marthakis, Ellen Orleans, Robin Reagler, Susan Maxwell, Delia Mellis, John Baker, Jack Boettcher, Lex Camena, Jeffery Bahr, Veronica Montes, Miriam Nichols, Phil Hall, Tyler Carter, Jessica Treat, Mairead Byrne, C.S. Carrier, C.L. Bledsoe, Barbara Maloutas, Peter Schjeldahl, Marc Andre Robinson, Morgan Lucas Schultdt, Sean Thomas Dougherty, Rebecca Hazelton, Ryan Bird, Ernst Meister, Edith Sodergran, Bronwen Tate, Joritz-Nakagawa, Sharon Mollerus, Talan Memmott, Robert Burns, Jim Dunn, Matthew Cheney, Edward Nudelman, Subhro Bandopadhyay, Tiff Dressen, Sandy Florian, Jesse Glass, Jennie Skerl, Phil Fried, Eric Gurney, Christof Scheele, Nicholas Rombes, Billy Collins, Eugenio Montale, Gautam Verma, Tyler Cobb, Kendra Malone, Tom Beckett, Vivian Vavassis, Jude MacDonald, Joanna Sondheim, Paul Naylor, Kazim Ali, Josh Corey, Patrick Donnelly and Stephen Miller, Ari Bania, Geoffrey G. O’Brien, Leonard Kress, Philippe Soupault, Steve Caratzas, Joseph Mains, William Yazbec, Standard Schaefer, Betsy Andrews, Carlo Carra, Marie Hopkins, Anna Maria Hong, Burt Kimmelman, Karen J. Weyant, Max Middle, Joan Retallack, Gil Ott, Dennis Cooper, David Matlin, Tino Gomez, B.J. Love, Helen White, John Crowley, Weldon Kees, Louis Zukofsky, David Trinidad, Andrew Peterson, Bill Seaman and Penny Florence, Heather O’Neill, Reginald Shepherd, Annie Guthrie, Ammiel Alcalay, Carton Tragedy, Alfred Corn, Barbara Smith, Jozef Imrich, Yagi Mikajo, Stephen Thomson, Mark Rudman, Jena Osman, Ernesto Priego, Ken Springtail, Sam Beckbessinger, Cecilia Vicuna, Behm-Steinberg, Kate Schapira, Deidre Elizabeth, Jean Lehrman, Seth Landman, Ana Bozicevic-Bowling, Jess Mynes, Will Yackulic, Caroline Wilkinson, Maria Sabina, eldon, Richard Lighthouse, Michael Smoler, Henry Hills, Mark Marino, Poton, Thomas O’Connell, David Henderson, Michael Cross, Maralyn Lois Polak, Joe Brennan, Alice Cary, Erica Kaufman, Lewis Warsh, Steve Evans, David Byrne, Frank Parker, Kaz Maslanka, Jenna Cardinale, Peter Straub, EK Smith, Megan Martin, Meghan Punschke, Sherry Chandler, E. Tracy Grinnell, Tom Muir, Jeff Davis, F. Daniel Rzicznek, Diana Magallon and Jeff Crouch, Kyle Schlesinger, Stuart Dybek, Marco Giovenale, Zach Savich, Tom Wegrzynowski, Arnie Hoffman, Rikki Ducornet, Dawn, Thomas Fink,, Christian Jensen, Andrew Philip, Dave Pollard, Miriam Burstein, Jessica Bozek, Patrick So, Joe Massey, Carmine Starnino, Evan Kennedy, Chris Vitiello, Nick Bruno, Amy Newman, Sharon Gilbert, Aaron Tieger, William Wordsworth, Eugenio Tisselli, julia doughty, Marko Niemi, Pierre Reverdy, Lytton Smith, Lee Gurga, Jed Shahar, Tim Hunt, Lee Upton, Mark Scroggins, Rachel Smith, Robert Wodzinski, Matthew Blake, Matina Stamatakis, Robert Waxman, Jack McGuane, Bethany Ides, Alfred Arteaga, Kat Meads, Sandra Gilbert, Carlo Parcelli, Jeff Calhoun, John Bryant, Jasper Bernes, Jeffrey Joe Nelson, Joan Houlihan, Lynn Behrendt, Jack Kerouac, Brenda Iijima, James Koller, Sun Yung Shin, Ixta Menchaca, John Barton, Piero Heliczer, Todd Colby, Awotunde Aworinde, Emma Barnes, Allison Whittenberg, Jenni Russell, Rowan Wilken, Daniela Olszewska, Layne Russell, George Oppen, Ben Yarmolinsky, Phil Cordelli, Andrew Kozma, Harry Wilkens, Jonathan Lethem, Richard Gorecki, Jilly Dybka, Kirthi Nath, Jennifer Bredl, Paolo Buzzi, Aime Cesaire & Rene Depestre, Ruben Dario, Rachel Loden, William Bryant, hassen, Kerryn Goldsworthy, Jessamyn West, Salvador Dali, Greg Djanikian, George M Wallace, Sharon Brogan, Roger Farr, Lesley Yalen, Jessica Tillyer, Cathy Eisenhower, Noah Falck, Beka Goedde, Patrick Lovelace, Erik Anderson, Shahar Gold, Olivier Cadiot, Peter O’Leary, Mel Nichols, Juan Felipe Herrera, Mirabai, Rob Mackenzie, Bethany Wright, Joseph Mosconi, MTC Cronin, Terrance Hayes, Bryson Newhart, Yoko Ono, Gherardo Bortolotti, Olli Sinivaara, Jim Crace, Brendan Lorber, Tracie Morris, Jeffrey Side, Brent Cunningham, Henry Miller, Christina McPhee, Mike Nicoloff, Ray Federman, Valerie Coulton, HL Hazuka, Ari Banias, Thomas Hummel, Nicolette Bond, J.F. Quackenbush, Julia Stein, Bill Borneman, Jon Link, Steve Dickison, Scott Helmes, Brion Gysin, Sean Burke, Laynie Brown, Hermit-Sage Tradition, Jane Dark, Scott Withiam, Lance Phillips, Michael Ford, John Olson, John Bailey, Rebecca Morgan Frank, Derek Motion, Ashby Tyler, Sarah Campbell, Andrea Strudensky, Roger Gilbert-Lecomte, Mathias Svalina, Ishle Yi Park, Dubravka Djuriƒá, John McHale, Grant-Lee Phillips, Jeremy Czerw, Richard Newman, Diana Slampyak, David McFadden, Jim McGrath, Gregory Crosby, tyler funk, Kristi Maxwell, Vladimir Zykov, Daniel Brenner, Don Mee Choi, Ted Greenwald, Meena Alexander, Sarah Mangold, Steve McCaffery, Jill Magi, Glen Bach, Hank Lazer, Stephen Brockwell, Helen Adam, Sasha Steensen, Ryan Alexander MacDonald, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Jack Morgan, Jr., Radu Dima, Larissa Szporluk, Teresia Teaiwa, Amiri Baraka, Monica Mody, Vincent Katz, Jen Benka, Roberto Harrison, Edward Byrne, Patrick Rosal, Cheryl Townsend, Carol Novack, Clive Thompson, Mary Biddinger, Erica Lewis, Michael Robins, Mira Schor, Severo Sarduy, John Taggart, Lauren Krueger, Wanda O‚ÄôConnor, Peter Van Toorn, Kevin Varrone, Mark Axelrod, Erica Svec, Erik Donald France, Daniel Green, Marilyn Hacker, Ben Wilkinson, Stephanie Young, David Hall, Joe Moffet, Ric Royer, Basil Bunting, Peter Everwine, Terryanne Chebet, Philip Messenger, Maurice Sendak, Barrett Gordon, Shonni Enelow, Hannah Weiner, Dan Vera, Kristin Berkey-Abbott, Douglas James Martin, Randall Williams, Phil Crippen, Roy Kiyooka, Anita Dolman, Chris Martin, Max Ernst, Michael Rothenberg, Adeena Karasick, D.H. Lawrence, Sean O Riordain, Anne Kaier, Simone dos Anjos, Brian McMahon, Josef Capek, Gloria Oden, Georges Hugnet, Sekuo Sendiata, Timothy Yu, Craig Dworkin, Mary Ann Sullivan, Guillermo Juan Parra, Paul Klinger, Catherine Wagner, Angela Veronica Wong, Terence Gower, Chris Toll, Francis Picabia, David Bromige, John Estes, Kenneth Koch, John Moore Williams, harry k. stammer, Kyle Gann, Paul Guest, Carl Rakosi, Cole Porter, Ray Craig, Bob Holman, Jordan Stempleman, Gilbert Sorrentino, Larissa Shmailo, Kris Hemensley, Jennifer Manzano, Peter Culley, Dan Silliman, Lyn Hejinian, Lloyd Schwartz, Peter Larkin, MaryLou Sanelli, Clare Latremouille, Karla Kelsey, Peter Magliocco, Bruce Stewart, Kyle Simonsen, Glenn Ingersoll, Teri Hoskin, Henry Louis Gates, John Mcmahon, Dan Raphael, Tanya Allen, Annie Finch, Mitch, Bill Kushner, Rochita Ruiz, Tom Gilroy, Yashodhara Raychaudhuri, Elaine Terranova, Tom Hibbard, Joel Nichols, Don Cheney, Ashraf Osman, Melanie Little, Barbara Cole, Chris Higgs, Paul van Ostaijen, Kate Hill Cantrill, George Kalamaras, Ren Powell, Steve Smith, Lloyd Mintern, Denise Duhamel, Veselovsky Pitts, G.L. Ford, Stanton, Kyle Minor, Bradford Haas, Kristy Bowen, Mingus Tourette, Anna Joy Springer, Laetitia Sonami, Sam Silva, Candace Kaucher, James Dickey, Kit Kennedy, Jill Jones, Susan Scarlata, Jack Kimball, Mary-Anne Breeze, Frederico Garcia Lorca, George Kalamaris, Raymond Hsu, Joshua Arnold, Bernadette Mayer, Calvin Bedient, Rachel Tompa, Nathan Curnow, Noel Sloboda, Doug Macpherson, Vivien Bittencourt, Steve Roggenbuck, Jules Boykoff, Jessica Lawless, Raymond Federman, Sandra Miller, Amos Bronson Alcott, Marina Garcia-Vasquez, Mathew Timmons, Paul Killebrew, Mike Young, John Tipton, Chad Parenteau, Michelle Cross, Eric Abbott, Hayden Carruth, Dream Bitches, William James Austin, St. Teresa of Lisieux, Donald Hall, Karen Weiser, Marty Hebrank, Liberty Heise, Kyle Stich, Charles Reznikoff, Chris Felver, Dorothy Trujillo Lusk, Mecca Jamilah Sullivan, Henry David Thoreau, Frances Driscoll, Leonard Gontarek, Edward Smallfield, Chris McCreary, Steven Zultanski, Peter Pereira, Marthe Reed, Mackenzie Carignan, Victor Hugo, Rebecca Gopoian, Ivy Alvarez, Highfill, Harry Gilonis, Sotere Torregian, Judy Kamilhor, Justin Sirois, Suzanna Gig, Peter Seaton, Julie Carr, Mazie Louise Montgomery, Sean Reagan, Tennesee Williams, Anne Kellas, Christopher Nealon, Joan McCracken, Malcolm Phillips, Christopher Casamassima, Andrew Steinmetz, Tom Sheehan, L.Y. Marlow, Martin Larsen, Susana Gardner, David Weinberger, Bill Cohen, Sasha Sommeil, Jill Chan, Josh Robinson, Crag Hill, William Burroughs, Ruthven Todd, Annie Proulx, Monty Reid, Simon Perchik, A.K. Scipioni, Ron Hogan, Marcel Duchamp, Thomas Day, Bob Arnold, Rabia al Basri, Michael Andre, Raymond Foss, Ruby Mohan, Kate Schatz, Elizabeth Smith, Tom Matrullo, Carmen Racovitza, Blake Butler, Maggie O’Sullivan, Eugene Ostashevsky, Therese Halscheid, Lauren Levato, Hermann Hesse, Christian Prigent, Michael Reid Busk, Caroline Sinavaiana, Marcia Roberts, Muriel Rukeyser, Jessica Watson, sara seinberg, Garth Whelan, Peter Ramos, Harry K Stammer, Tom Jones, Arjun Chandramohan Bali, Lawrence Joseph, Lee Posna, Tim Mcnulty, Patrick James Dunagan, Laurie Clark, Sabbir Azam, George Green, David Maney, Jill Alexander Essbaum, Jenny Allan, Gary L. McDowell, Samuel Wharton, Leonard Cohen, Kyle Conner, Maxine Hong Kingston, Stephanie Strickland, Michael Schiavo, Lynne Tillman, Jesus Manuel Mena Garza, David-Baptiste Chirot, Augustine Porras, Juan J. Morales, Tim Z. Hernandez, Diane Ward, Donald Marshall, Jack Collom, Paul Lyons, Megan Kaminski, Chris Fritton, Paul Vermeersch, Aaron Lowinger, Bob Perelman, Steve Yarbrough, J.H. Prynne, Amy King, Geoffrey Chaucer, Joel Dailey, Christopher Hennessy, Meghan O’Rourke and Cathy Park Hong, Jennifer Scappettone, David Hecker, Carl Brush, Joy Hendrickson-Turner, Leny Strobel, John Timpane, Amanda Watson, Cate Peebles, Danny Snelson, Christopher Mulrooney, Jaime Anne Earnest, Trina Gaynon, Caleb Puckett, Weyman Chan, Patricia Dienstfrey, Evelio Rojas, Susan Tichy, Shawn McKinney, Gerald Bosacker, Joel Kuszai, Norman Lock, Eric Gelsinger, Suzanne Frischkorn, Gabor Szilasi, Shannon Smith, Peter J. 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Craig, Berenice Dunford, Michael Harris, JF Quackenbush, Helen Losse, Matt Mullins, Caterina Fake, Matthew Siegel, Julie Patton, Siel, Kristine Leja, Aryanil Mukherjee, Nathaniel Siegel, Kevin Connolly, Philip Levine, Hilda Doolittle (H.D.), Michael Peters, Roger Singer, Carol Jenkins, Gabriela ¬†Erandi Rico, Craig Perez, AE Reiff, Gelett Burgess, Thurston Moore, Sam Byfield, Angela Vogel, Bruce Weber, Steve Tills, Mary Askin-Jencsik, Endre Farkas, Tony Trigilio, Angela Carr, Slater Brown, Toby Olson, K.Silem Mohammad, Elizabeth Bishop, Andrea Zemel, Sean Hill, Ilya Bernstein, Neil Gaiman, Paul Valery, Jaap Blonk, Kim Addonizio, David Thornbrugh, Bern Porter, Megan Milks, Cedar Sigo, Ted Kooser, Miia Toivio, Alena Hairston/elen gebreab, Unica Zuern, Peter Cook, Mike Hauser, Julia Bloch, Charles Stross, Shin Yu Pai, Mikey Golightly, Zhang Er, Paula Grenside, Richard Deming, Linda Russo, Nadia Halim, Geoffrey Hendricks, Kathy Lou Schultz, Stephen Cope, David Hernandez, Cole Swensen, Bill Walsh, Pirooz M. 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Dalpiaz, Edna St. Vincent, Caroline Bergvall, Lawrence Giffin, Rob Halpern, Dana Gioia, Daniel Bradley, David Kaufmann, Robert Lowell, kari edwards, Rosanna Lee, Allen Fisher, Stacy Szymaszek, Matt Theado, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Billy Mills, Andy Gricevich, The Philly Sound, Ruel S. De Vera, Trudi West, Daniel C. Remein, Hillary Gravendyk, Mary Burger, Insani Kamil, Guillermo Parra, Ryan Daley, Jessica Schneider, Carol Novack : Playpoem MP3, Jesse Ferguson, Mark Bernstein, KB Jones, Laura Marks, Kent Freeman, Sara Blakeman, Rodrigo Toscano, Sabyasachi Nag, Budd Parr, Peggy Willis Lyles, Keston Sutherland, Simon DeDeo, Marcus Slease, Emily Crocker, Donald Illich, John Sakkis, Andrew Sage, Joseph Harrington, Adrienne Rich, Tad Richards, Mick Rock, Sabina Murray, Michael Friedman, J.V. Foix, Michael McClintock, Dennis Nurkse, Andrew Shields, Susan Bee, Jacques Gaffarel, Paul Rigolle, William Keckler, Evan J. 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Rangaswami, Guile Canencia, Carol Snow, Alysha Wood, Jen Hofer, Greg Mulcahy, Lynne Dreyer, Andrew Feindt, Carlos Drummond de Andrade, Susanna Kittredge, Jason Fraley, Nicholas Messenger, Raymond Filip, Mitch Highfill, Ian Tyson, Lisa Fishman, Gloria Frym, St. John Perse, Robin Purves, Peter Davis, Alison Knowles, Russell Edson, Collin Kelley, Nashi, Jim Dine, Marie Ponsot, Joseph Ceravolo, Jorie Graham, Barbara Guest, Onishi Yasuyo, Matthew Henriksen, Kent Johnson, Eric Bogosian, Craig Shaffer, Hoa Nguyen, Zolt√°n Hom√°lyos, Marcella Durand, Afaa Michael Weaver, CAConrad, Eddie Watkins, Jeanne Marie Beaumont, Beth Joselow, David A. Kirschenbaum, Brandon Shimoda, Richard Taylor, H.T. Harrison, Wolfi Landstreicher, Robert Wilson, Andrew Topel, Juliana Spahr, John Levy, Stuart Ross, William Jay Smith, Jane Holland, Martin Edmond, Aldon Lynn Nielsen, Nikolai Gumilov, Billy Jno Hope, David Patton, Brian VanRemmen, Didi Menendez, Nico Alvarado-Greenwood, Danielle Pafunda, Pam Brown, Alexander Pope, Loss Pequeno Glazier, Jordan Scott, Will Edmiston, Robert Allen, Carly Sachs, Rick Burkhardt, Tisa Bryant, Alison Shaffer, Peter Norman, Roger Dean, Justin Evans, Jan Manzwotz, Don Wentworth, Tim Carmody, Guenter Grass, Ricardo Bracho, Erica Hunt, Robert Service, Katherine Hastings, James Finnegan, Elaine Equi, Clancy Ratliff, Mark Tardi, ee miller, Kara Hearn, Dax Bayard-Murray, Chris Kraus, Marita Dachsel, Redell Olsen, MaryAnn McCarra-Fitzpatrick, Tom Leonard, Wendy Wisner, Jean Roelke, Laura Sells, Donna Kuhn, Wen Yiduo, Erika Mikkalo, Tristan Tzara, Evie Shockley, Sarah Louise Parry, John Dos Passos, Doc Reese, Bob Dylan, Jennifer Montgomery, Lisa Samuels, Nin Andrews, Susan Gevirtz, Karen Mac Cormack, Roger Pao, Wang Ping, Samuel R. 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Antwan Stewart, Hugh MacDiarmid, Rob, Eleanor Wilner, Teresa Nielsen Hayden, Scott Hartwich, Four Horsemen, Gregory Betts, Bill Berkson, Laurel Ransom, George Schneeman, Kristy Odelius, Lisa Cohen, Sina Queyras, Eric Baus, Angela Vasquez-Giroux, David Miller, MaryAnn McCarra Fitzpatrick, D.A. Powell, Julia Story, Andrea Lawlor, Jane Falk, Matthew G. Kirschenbaum, Ellen Baxt, Gisele Prassinos, Ruth Taylor, Laura Harper, artie gold, Jeni Olin, Sergei Gandlevsky, Lila Zemborain, Tony Tost, Juan Jose Flores, Brian Mihok, Tan Lin, Sarojini Sahoo, Paul Siegell, Nicole Mauro, Caroline Conway, Merrill Gillfillan, Geoffrey, Philip Rowland, Jonathan Evison, Ira Joel Haber, Melissa Pakalinsky, Susan Kaiser Greenland, Daniel Bailey, Jenny Boully, Djuna Barnes, David Wolach, Nick Twemlow, Rodney Koeneke, Cheryl Snell, Jennifer K. Dick, Reggie Harris, Peter Ganickz, Sheila Murphy, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Greg Rappleye, Alasdair Gray, Len Shneyder, Zack Linmark, John Seed, Paul Ford, Rachel Mallino, Jan Bindas-Tenney, Tim Botta, The Pines, Ecce Mulier, Kenneth Goldsmith, Daniel Pritchard, R. Zamora Linmark, Karen Wagner, Camille Roy, Steven Gould Axelrod, Vassilis Zambaras, James Bow, Steve Roberts, Ron Padgett, Jason Labbe, Donora Hillard, Larry Kearney, Kristen Orser, Ed Ruscha, Louise Waller, Sherri Wood, Miriam Jones, Steven Moore, Robert Hershon, Patry Francis, Dave Cook, Sara Veglahn, Alfred Leslie, Henri Michaux, C.K. Williams, Doc Searls, Lars Amund Vaage, Rae Armantrout, Rodrigo Flores, Allen Bramhall, Rigoberto Gonzales and Katha Pollitt, Anatol Stern, Sina Fazelpour, Sarith Peou, Harold Jaffe, L.L. De Mars, Peggy Kelley, Sara Marcus, David Applegate, Lisa Janssen, Jim Moore, Edmond Jabes, Ruth, Wei Ying-Wu, India Radfar, Matthew Cooperman, David Dowker, Laird Hunt, Mina Loy, Erin Bertram, Will Alexander, J. F. Quackenbush, John Gallaher, Robert Ashley, Benjamin Paloff, Andrew Neuendorf, Kusano Shimpei, Dion Farquhar, Lisa, Emily Gordon, Karen Plata, Dinah Roma, Doug Lang, Claire Becker, Caryl Pagel, Walter Mosley, Stephanie Stickland, Frank Sherlock, Justin Dodd, Katina Papson, Daniel Zimmerman, Keith Waldrop, Douglas Manson, Charles Olson, Bill Peschel, Franklin Bruno, Nathan Hauke, Paul Hoover, William Moor, C. Harris Stevens, Walter Abish, Amy Lemmon, Claude Royet-Journoud, John Keene, Aaron Armstrong Skomra, Jordan Sanderson, Reg Johanson, Peter Yovu, Daniel Pendergrass, John Beer, Justin Lacour, Jennifer Moxley, Nathan Lang, Hazel Smith, Iamnasra Oman, pr primeau, Sheryl Luna, Jonathan Ball, Terry Southern, Christian Peet, Pierre Joris, Oana Avasilichioaei, Arunta, Deanna Ferguson, Tom Phillips, Susan Schultz, Jason Camlot, David Kirschenbaum, Gail Mazur, Jack Hughes, Zack Finch, J.H.Prynne, Rebecca Loudon, Scott Inguito, Esmail Yazdanpour, Naftali Bacharach, Jennifer Osborne, Sylvia Plath, Richard Lopez, Sandy Baldwin, Kirsten Lavers, Andrew Christ, Ann Lauterbach, Shelly Taylor, Nicole Peyrafitte, Jessica Savitz, Sam Golden Rule Jones, K. Silem Mohammad, Lionel Kearns, Lili Bita, Aime Cesaire, R W Sturgess, James Moran, Mike Topp, Dan Featherston, Chris Daniels, Gregory Botts, Nicole Oquendo, Thomas Devaney, Randall, Keith Shein, William Harris, Rik Roots, Patricia Carragon and Andy Comess, Alejandro Tarrab, Matthew Shindell, Eric Gamalinda, Amy Bernier, Spencer Selby, Simone Muench, Piombino, Michelle Buchanan, David Lehman, Jonathan Skinner, Sandra Beasley, Patricia Spears Jones, Hal Saulson, Laura Riding, Taylor Mali, Nam June Paik, W.B. Yeats, Peter Reading, Graham Foust, Brenda Coultas, Emily Lloyd, Ed Skoog, D.G. Jones, Vicente Huidobro, Jared Schickling, Peter Sacks, Kate Pringle, Rita Wong, Laila Lalami, Nancy Friedman, Franz Kafka, Robert Hellam, Brian Campbell, Danny Fields, Mario Cafiero, Peter Ciccariello, Cat Tyc, Nate Pritts, Andrea Brady, Andy Frazee, Felino Soriano, Clair Becker, Soumana Dasgupta, Jill Riga, David Raphael Israel, Stacey Levine, Mike Magee, Tim Yu, Cesar Vallejo, Isidore Ducasse, Amanda Earl, Romina Freschi, Alan Halsey, Daniel f. Bradley, Charles Rossiter, Noelle Kocot, Jayne Pupek, Aldous Huxley, Deborah Fries, Alani Apio, Jessica Smith, Christopher Barnes, Rick Snyder, Sarah Lang, Emily Dickinson, Cecilia Ann, bpNichol, Susanna Fry, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Charles Borkhuis, Herman Beavers, Stephanie Skura, Jessica Bennett, Steve Carey, Madeline Gins, Thom Donovan, Chuck Perrin, Luci Tapahonso, Mei-Mei Berssenbrugge, Ira Cohen, Marko J. Niemi, Ray Davis, Nancy Gandhi, Dee Rimbaud, Mary O’Malley, Evie Ivie, Pamela Mack, Lawrence Lessig, Allyssa Wolf, and Snezana Zabic.

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Poetry Exercises Wanted!

I am teaching a Writing Poetry course this July, and while I have a curriculum in place, I’d like to change things up a bit and try out some exercises that have worked well for others, which is where you come in. Plus, there are PRIZES!

* My students will range in age from 18 – 84 (it’s true!). The average age is about 20.

* The students have taken a basic Creative Writing course in the past, so they have a working knowledge of the basic elements of poetry.

* The two standard texts I use for reference are Ron Padgett’s Handbook of Poetic Forms and Sleeping on the Wing by Kenneth Koch and Kate Farrell.

* I always bring in supplemental material and am easily able to photocopy materials suggested.

* This course will result in the production of a chapbook for each student, so exercises that are geared towards that feat are helpful.

That’s the gist of it. I’d love to hear about exercises that worked well for you!  Additionally, I am aware of Charles Bernstein’s list of experiments, Bernadette Mayer’s Writing Experiments, and Daisy Fried’s Poetry Exercises, so no need to point me in those directions.  I want your personal successes!

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Please add your poetry exercise suggestion(s) as a comment on this post. I have a few rewards to send out if I end up using your exercise. Gifts to choose from:

* Rod Smith’s audio CD, “fear the sky“, compliments of Narrow House Records.

* Anselm Berrigan’s audio CD, “pictures for private devotion“, compliments of Narrow House Records.

* Matthew Rotando’s “The Comeback’s Exoskeleton“, compliments of UpSet Press, Inc.

* Amy King’s “I’m the Man Who Loves You“, compliments of moi.

* Kate Greenstreet’s “case sensitive“, compliments of moi.

Thank you in advance!

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Daisy Fried’s Poetry Exercises

Daisy Fried on Poetry:

* I’ve never found an explanation for why poetry, apparently alone among the art forms, is asked to do more than be itself.

* But poetry’s the High Art which is also democratic: inexpensive, portable, reproducible, quickly consumed (except for epic and very difficult poetry), requiring only literacy to participate. So maybe it’s good that poetry carries this extra burden, even if it means that the idea of poetry is more necessary to people than individual poems, and that people tend not to pay attention to what’s happening on the page. But this doesn’t explain why the superfluous demands are often made by educated poetry experts. I doubt most poets, good and bad, political or not, put these demands on their own work. Why should we make them of poetry in general?

* Words matter. Use is not function. War and Peace makes an excellent paperweight; I’ve used it that way myself, after reading it. The function of War and Peace is greater than its many uses. So too poetry. Bad poems are often more useful for healing, persuasion, and celebration than good ones. They lack that rich ambiguity which Keats called negative capability, and so fail as poems. Take, for example, bad 9/11 poems, at which I do “sniff the air.” There are good 9/11 poems. The degraded Romanticism of the mass of bad ones often amounts to decorative displays of the poet’s own sensibility. Such displays may be emotionally or politically useful, but who needs them? They seem to claim authenticity for individual experiences derived from watching TV—and fail to ask the question, why do these people want to kill us? Good 9/11 poems sustain the possibility that America was both victim and guilty. I believe 9/11 solace poetry has given support, however indirectly and unintentionally, to the Bush administration. Solace poetry is to serious poetry as pornography is to serious art. Sex pornography has its uses, even positive ones, but nobody confuses it with serious art about love. The difference between solace porn and sex porn is that solace pornographers seldom seem aware that they’re making pornography. Shame on them.* Poetry matters. Great poems don’t always fit categories of usage: Martial’s hilariously filthy invectives, Dickinson’s apolitical lyrics, and, despite their stupid fascism, Pound’s Cantos, all function as great poetry. Meanwhile, the four of us write poems. We might begin by intending to be merely useful (I never have). But at some point the poem takes over, makes requirements of us instead of vice versa. That’s the moment of poetry; poems exist to let readers share in that moment. So our focus on mere use strikes me as odd: is this really all we know about our poems? Why exclude ourselves from our own readership?

* Enjoyment matters. Poetry is fun! I mean this seriously. In “Lapis Lazuli,” Yeats insists on the gaiety of human existence alongside its tragedy. Yes, there is terrible suffering; we are all going to die. And when, on the carved lapis lazuli, a man “asks for mournful melodies;/Accomplished fingers begin to play;/…their eyes,/Their ancient, glittering eyes, are gay.” The gaiety of great poetry reinforces and deepens our humanity. That’s personal—and therefore social. Forget that, and we forget poetry’s true function.

–from “Does Poetry Have a Social Function” @ The Poetry Foundation

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ALSO, listen in on a conversation I had with Daisy Fried HERE: powered by ODEO

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A POEM A DAY BY DAISY FRIED

1. Write a ten-line poem in which each line is a lie.

2. Write a poem that tells a story in 18 lines or less, and includes at least four proper nouns.

3. Write a poem that uses any of the senses EXCEPT SIGHT as its predominant imagery.

4. Write a poem inspired by a newspaper article you read this week.

5. Write a poem without adjectives.

6. Ask your roommate/neighbor/lover/friend/mother/anyone for a subject (as wild as they want to make it) for a ten-minute poem. Now write a poem about that subject in ten minutes; make it have a beginning, a middle and an end.

7. Write the worst poem you possibly can. Now edit it and make it even worse.

8. Poem subject: A wind blows something down. Or else it doesn’t. Write it in ten minutes.

9. Write a poem with each line, or at least many of the lines, filling in the blanks of “I used to________, but now I_________.”

11. Write a poem consisting entirely of things you’d like to say, but never would, to a parent, lover, sibling, child, teacher, roommate, best

friend, mayor, president, corporate CEO, etc.

12. Write a poem that uses as a starting point a conversation you overheard.

13. First line of today’s poem: “This is not a poem, but…”

14. Write a poem in the form of either a letter or a speech which uses at least six of the following words: horses, “no, duh,” adolescent, autumn

leaves, necklace, lamb chop, Tikrit, country rock, mother, scamper, zap, bankrupt. Take no more than 13 minutes to write it.

15. Write a poem which includes a list or lists-shopping list, things to do, lists of flowers or rocks, lists of colors, inventory lists,

lists of events, lists of names…

16. Poem subject: A person runs where no running is allowed. Write it in ten minutes.

17. Write a poem in the form of a personal ad.

18. Write a poem made up entirely of questions. Or write a poem made up entirely of directions.

19. Write a poem about the first time you did something.

20. Write a poem about falling out of love.

21. Make up a secret. Then write a poem about it. Or ask someone to give you a made-up or real secret, and write a poem about it.

22. Write a poem about a bird you don’t know the name of.

23. Write a hate poem.

24. Free-write for, say, 15 minutes, but start with the phrase “In the kitchen” and every time you get stuck, repeat the phrase “In the

kitchen.” Alternatively, use any part of a house you have lots of associations with-”In the garage,” “In the basement,” “In the bathroom,” “In the yard.”

25. Write down 5-10 words that sound ugly to you. Use them in a poem.

26. Write a poem in which a motorcycle and a ballerina appear.

27. Write a poem out of the worst part of your character.

28. Write a poem that involves modern technology-voice mail, or instant messaging, or video games, or… 29. Write a seduction poem in which somebody seduces you.

30. Radically revise a poem you wrote earlier this month.

Benjamin on Baudelaire

 The Writer of Modern Life: Essays on Charles Baudelaire

From the “INTRODUCTION” By Michael W. Jennings — THE WRITER OF MODERN LIFE: ESSAYS ON CHARLES BAUDELAIRE by Walter Benjamin:

Yes the ragpicker is also a figure for Baudelaire, for the poet who draws on the detritus of the society through which he moves, seizing that which seems useful in part because society has found it useless. And finally, the ragpicker is a figure for Baudelaire himself, for the critic who assembles his critical montage from inconspicuous images wrested forcefully from the seeming coherence of Baudelaire’s poems. Here and throughout Benjamin’s writings on Baudelaire, we find a powerful identification with the poet: with his social isolation, with the relative failure of his work, and in particular with the fathomless melancholy that suffuses every page.

Benjamin concludes this first constellation by contrasting Baudelaire with Pierre Dupont, an avowed social poet, whose work strives for a direct, indeed simple tendentious engagement with the political events of the day. In contrasting Baudelaire with Dupont, Benjamin reveals a “profound duplicity” at the heart of Baudelaire’s poetry–which, he contends, is less a statement of support for the cause of the oppressed, than a violent unveiling of their illusions. As Benjamin wrote in his notes to the essay, “It would be an almost complete waste of time to attempt to draw the position of a Baudelaire into the network of the most advanced positions in the struggle for human liberation. From the outset, it seems more promising to investigate his machinations where he was undoubtedly at home: in the enemy camp … Baudelaire was a secret agent–an agent of the secret discontent of his class with its own rule.” … By the late 1930s Benjamin was convinced that traditional historiography, with its reliance upon the kind of storytelling that suggests the inevitable process and outcome of historical change, “is meant to cover up the revolutionary moments in the occurrence of history … The places where tradition breaks off–hence its peaks and crags, which offer footing to one who would cross over them–it misses.” … Benjamin thus seeks to create a textual space in which a speculative, intuitive, and analytical intelligence can move, reading images and the relays between them in such a way that the present meaning of “what has been comes together in a flash.” This is what Benjamin calls the dialectical image.

In the central section of “Paris of the Second Empire in Baudelaire,” titled “The Flaneur,” Benjamin turns to an extended consideration of the reciprocally generative relations between certain artistic genres and societal forms. In the crowded streets of the urban metropolis, the individual is not merely absorbed into the masses: all traces of individual existence are in fact effaced. And popular literary and artistic forms such as physiologies (literary and artistic exemplifications of physiognomic types) and panoramas (representations of “typical” tableaux in Paris) arose, Benjamin argues, precisely in order to quell the deep-seated unease that characterized this situation: through their “harmlessness” they suggested a “perfect bonhomie” devoid of all resistance to the social order of the day, and in so doing contributed to the “phantasmagoria of Parisian life.”

…Physiologies are in this sense deeply complicit with phantasmagoria, in that they fraudulently suggest we are in possession of a knowledge that we do not in fact have. As Benjamin says, physiologies “assured people that everyone could — unencumbered by any factual knowledge — make out the profession, character, background, and lifestyle of passers-by.” …

If Baudelaire’s poetry is neither symptomatic of social conditions (as were the physiologies) nor capable of providing procedures for dealing with them (as did the detective story), what exactly is the relationship of that poetry to modernity? Benjamin champions Baudelaire precisely because his work claims a particular historical responsibility: in allowing itself to be marked by the ruptures and aporias of modern life, it reveals the brokenness and falseness of modern experience. At the heart of Benjamin’s reading is thus a theory of shock, developed on the basis of a now-famous reading of the poem “A une passante” (To a Passer-By). The speaker of the poem, moving through the “deafening” street amid the crowd, suddenly spies a woman walking along and “with imposing hand / Gathering up a scalloped hem.” The speaker is transfixed, his body twitches, wholly overcome by the power of the image. Yet, Benjamin argues, the spasms that run through the body are not caused by “the excitement of a man in whom an image has taken possession of every fiber of his being”; their cause is instead the powerful, isolated shock “with which an imperious desire suddenly overcomes a lonely man.”

This notion of a shock-driven poetic capability as a significant departure from the understanding of artistic creation prevalent in Benjamin’s day and in fact still powerfully present today. The poet is, in this view, not a genius who “rises above” his age and distills its essence for posterity. For Benjamin, the greatness of Baudelaire consists instead in his absolute susceptibility to the worst excrescences of modern life: Baudelaire was in possession not of genius, but of an extraordinarily “sensitive disposition” that enable him to perceive, through a painful empathy, the character of an age. And for Benjamin, the “character of the age” consisted in its thoroughgoing commodification. Baudelaire was not simply aware of the processes of commodification from which the phantasmagoria constructs itself; he in fact embodied those processes in an emphatic manner. When he takes his work to market, the poet surrenders himself as a commodity to the “intoxification of the commodity immersed in a surging stream of customers.” The poet’s role as a producer and purveyor of commodities opens him to a special “empathy with inorganic things.” And this, in turn, “was one of his sources of inspiration.” Baudelaire’s poetry is thus riven by its images o a history that is nothing less than a “permanent catastrophe.” This is the sense in which Baudelaire was the “secret agent” of the destruction of his own class.

…Baudelaire’s spleen–that is, his profound disgust at things as they were–is only the most evident emotional sign of this state of affairs.

–From the “INTRODUCTION” By Michael W. Jennings — THE WRITER OF MODERN LIFE: ESSAYS ON CHARLES BAUDELAIRE by Walter Benjamin

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How to Hate Hillary

“You can … discuss this avalanche of misogyny without endorsing her campaign …” –Bill Moyers in conversation with Kathleen Hall Jamieson

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Select excerpts from Robin Morgan’s “Goodbye To All That (#2)“:

—When a sexist idiot screamed “Iron my shirt!” at HRC, it was considered amusing; if a racist idiot shouted “Shine my shoes!” at BO, it would’ve inspired hours of airtime and pages of newsprint analyzing our national dishonor.

—John McCain answering “How do we beat the bitch?” with “Excellent question!” Would he have dared reply similarly to “How do we beat the black bastard?” For shame.

—Goodbye to the sick, malicious idea that this is funny. This is not “Clinton hating,” not “Hillary hating.” This is sociopathic woman-hating. If it were about Jews, we would recognize it instantly as anti-Semitic propaganda; if about race, as KKK poison. Hell, PETA would go ballistic if such vomitous spew were directed at animals. Where is our sense of outrage—as citizens, voters, Americans?

—Goodbye to the news-coverage target-practice . . .

The women’s movement and Media Matters wrung an apology from MSNBC’s Chris Matthews for relentless misogynistic comments (www.womensmediacenter.com). But what about NBC’s Tim Russert’s continual sexist asides and his all-white-male panels pontificating on race and gender? Or CNN’s Tony Harris chuckling at “the chromosome thing” while interviewing a woman from The White House Project? And that’s not even mentioning Fox News.

—Goodbye to pretending the black community is entirely male and all women are white . . .

Surprise! Women exist in all opinions, pigmentations, ethnicities, abilities, sexual preferences, and ages—not only African American and European American but Latina and Native American, Asian American and Pacific Islanders, Arab American and—hey, every group, because a group wouldn’t exist if we hadn’t given birth to it. A few non-racist countries may exist—but sexism is everywhere. No matter how many ways a woman breaks free from other discriminations, she remains a female human being in a world still so patriarchal that it’s the “norm.”

—Goodbye to some women letting history pass by while wringing their hands, because Hillary isn’t as “likeable” as they’ve been warned they must be, or because she didn’t leave him, couldn’t “control” him, kept her family together and raised a smart, sane daughter. (Think of the blame if Chelsea had ever acted in the alcoholic, neurotic manner of the Bush twins!) Goodbye to some women pouting because she didn’t bake cookies or she did, sniping because she learned the rules and then bent or broke them. Grow the hell up. She is not running for Ms.-perfect-pure-queen-icon of the feminist movement. She’s running to be president of the United States.

—Goodbye to some young women eager to win male approval by showing they’re not feminists (at least not the kind who actually threaten thestatus quo), who can’t identify with a woman candidate because she is unafraid of eeueweeeu yucky power, who fear their boyfriends might look at them funny if they say something good about her. Goodbye to women of any age again feeling unworthy, sulking “what if she’s not electable?” or “maybe it’s post-feminism and whoooosh we’re already free.”

—So listen to her voice:

“For too long, the history of women has been a history of silence. Even today, there are those who are trying to silence our words.

“It is a violation of human rights when babies are denied food, or drowned, or suffocated, or their spines broken, simply because they are born girls. It is a violation of human rights when woman and girls are sold into the slavery of prostitution. It is a violation of human rights when women are doused with gasoline, set on fire and burned to death because their marriage dowries are deemed too small. It is a violation of human rights when individual women are raped in their own communities and when thousands of women are subjected to rape as a tactic or prize of war. It is a violation of human rights when a leading cause of death worldwide along women ages 14 to 44 is the violence they are subjected to in their own homes. It is a violation of human rights when women are denied the right to plan their own families, and that includes being forced to have abortions or being sterilized against their will.

“Women’s rights are human rights. Among those rights are the right to speak freely—and the right to be heard.”

That was Hillary Rodham Clinton defying the U.S. State Department and the Chinese Government at the 1995 UN World Conference on Women in Beijing (look here for the full, stunning speech).

–Select excerpts from Robin Morgan’s “Goodbye To All That (#2)”

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From “All You Need is Hate” by Stanley Fish:

She is vilified for being a feminist and for not being one, for being an extreme leftist and for being a “warmongering hawk,” for being godless and for being “frighteningly fundamentalist,” for being the victim of her husband’s peccadilloes and for enabling them…

But the people and groups Horowitz surveys have brought criticism of Clinton to what sportswriters call “the next level,” in this case to the level of personal vituperation unconnected to, and often unconcerned with, the facts. These people are obsessed with things like her hair styles, the “strangeness” of her eyes — “Analysis of Clinton’s eyes is a favorite motif among her most rabid adversaries” — and they retail and recycle items from what Horowitz calls “The Crazy Files”: she’s Osama bin Laden’s candidate; she kills cats; she’s a witch (this is not meant metaphorically)…

The closest analogy is to anti-Semitism. But before you hit the comment button, I don’t mean that the two are alike either in their significance or in the damage they do. It’s just that they both feed on air and flourish independently of anything external to their obsessions. Anti-Semitism doesn’t need Jews and anti-Hillaryism doesn’t need Hillary, except as a figment of its collective imagination. However this campaign turns out, Hillary-hating, like rock ‘n’ roll, is here to stay.

–from “All You Need is Hate” by Stanley Fish

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And lest you buy into the notion that Clinton is “calculating” while the other campaigns are not, take a peek at “Mr. Obama Goes to Washington“:

That’s the key word in trying to figure out Obama: He seems like everything to everybody, which is not necessarily his fault. Much of the media coverage of Obama has been personality focused, as the story of the son of a Kenyan and a Kansan, the third African-American senator since Reconstruction. Because the media have not looked as closely at his political positions, Obama has taken on the quality of a blank screen on which people can project whatever they like. But he hasn’t discouraged this. A masterful politician, Obama has a Bill Clinton-esque talent for maximizing that screen and appearing comfortable in almost any setting. And, like Clinton, Obama has an impressive control of the issues and a mesmerizing ability to connect with people…

Obama has a remarkable ability to convince you that his positions are motivated purely by principles, not tactical considerations. This skill is so subtle and impressive, it resembles Luke Skywalker’s mastery of the Force. It’s a powerful tool for a Democratic Party that often emanates calculation rather than conviction….

–from “Mr. Obama Goes to Washington”

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All campaigns and politicians are calculated, especially in terms of appealing to people on an emotional level. If they weren’t, they’d flop. So let’s call out and then ditch the ad hominem woman-hating attacks and start dealing with what really separates Clinton and Obama. Please.

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7 Responses to “How to Hate Hillary”

Not Thinking Alike

“It is not best that we all should think alike, it is differences of opinion that make horse races.”

–Mark Twain

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A few new poems written by my non-pseudonym in Jacket Magazine:

* The Arm of Eden
* Where Bullfinches Go to Defy
* Two if by Land, I Do
* A Martyrdom Should Behave Us All

This is an early appearance as Jacket #35 is still under construction though you’ll find a little action there already.

Please enjoy!

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4 Responses to “Not Thinking Alike”

Kiss Me With the Mouth of Your Country

I have just finished sending out my chapbook copies for the DUSIE Chapbook Kollectiv.

The title is this post’s title. I have a few copies left over, so if you’re interested in receiving one – freely and imminently – please drop your snail mail address to me at amyhappens @ gmail . com – I’ll post it to you before the holidays.

My DUSIE chapbook from last year can now be viewed online here, “The Good Campaign“. Read a review of it by Chris Rizzo here or read another review of it by Fionna Doney Simmonds here.

5 Responses to “Kiss Me With the Mouth of Your Country”

Mariah Carey Revisited

By Owen Pallett from Final Fantasy and The Arcade Fire.

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3 Responses to “Mariah Carey Revisited”