• dysprosody •

2006-12-17T14:54:00.000-08:00

Happy Holidays, Bitches.

Leah "Hummus" Green

Christina Sighting.

from "Clearances"

2006-12-03T18:50:00.000-08:00

IV

Fear of affectation made her affect
Inadequacy whenever it came to
Pronouncing words ‘beyond her’. Bertold Brek.
She’d manage something hampered and askew
Every time, as if she might betray
The hampered and inadequate by too
Well-adjusted a vocabulary.
With more challenge than pride, she’d tell me, ‘You
Know all them things.’ So I governed my tongue
In front of her, a genuinely well-
Adjusted adequate betrayal
Of what I knew better. I’d naw and aye
And decently relapse into the wrong
Grammar which kept us allied and at bay.

Seamus Heaney

2006-11-25T00:30:00.000-08:00

a love poem written in youth. stupid, stupid

Original Pink
for Silvia

We never want to
ground ourselves—
why is that?

You see the dumb sky—other skies,
stretched,
perfectly numb—

and you’re filled
with huge globs of joy.

The canvas for perfecting
and projecting,
being blank essence—

what was the original pink?
—a steady, uninflected
heartbeat

pulsing from our chests into
stillness—from our fingers
beaming as they touch?

I just posted this at my family's blog

2006-11-22T18:38:00.000-08:00

where my cousins and I insult each other and talk shit about various moments of family history, but I thought I'd post it here as well.

A great poem and a thematically linked picture of me and Barach, who is chatting up a lady somewhere right now in Philadelphia on this, the biggest bar night of the year:

Louisiana Perch
by Ron Padgett

Certain words disappear from a language:
their meanings become attenuated,
grow antique, insanely remote or small,
vanish.

Or become something else:
transport. Mack
the truck driver falls for a waitress
where the water flows. The

great words are those without meaning:
from a their or
Or the for a the
The those

The rest are fragile, transitory
like the waitress, a

beautiful slender young girl!
I love her! Want to
marry her! Have hamburgers!
Have hamburgers! Have hamburgers!

Franz Wright, Irvinite

2006-11-18T17:32:00.000-08:00

"I did try to go to graduate school at UC Irvine with Charles Wright. Even that was too much reality for me. I couldn't stand the atmosphere in the academic world. I remember leaving graduate school after the first six months and thinking, this is the real fork in the road."

-Franz, in his interview in Image, which can be found on poetry daily news site: http://www.poems.com/essawrigf.htm

I always sort of thought he had the Irvine mark on him, which I picture as a sort of pathetic hangdoggedness with a glint in the eye.

Ohio State stinks.

Dialogue with Animal - VI

2006-11-16T18:14:00.000-08:00

Today these hands are mine.

I say it in a dream – a dismal haze.

Today I will do what is good and mindful.
I will do what is natural to the light.

I move, mistaken, on the inside.

Today I’ll writhe up from this hole
and take a bite from all the brightest golden apples.
Succulent -

But even as I say it, twisted with pleasure,
I rap against the inner notches of my ribs and wake
in the dark wet, where heat
of a distant noon sun seeps through
the outside of the skin pulled close around
this rotting cavity, this suffocating world,
and hear the sound of mine own voice, speaking,
above me -

Today I am animal.

A Poem I Think Is HOT HOT HOT

2006-11-11T21:36:00.000-08:00

Kitty in the Snow

Meanwhile I fuck this sculpture
In my mind until it melts, then stop.
Mmm, cold.
At the party I talk to everyone's honey
And sip poison and then go home,
Get shitfaced, and get it on with myself.
I'm so good, I give it to myself every bad way I know.
I whisper in my ear as I come:
Sarah Manguso, you're a damn fine lover.
Maybe someday we can be together, too.

Sarah Manguso

Not that anyone wants to hear my ramblings, but I'm having insomnia and I'm tired of playing solitaire so I will rant about stupid poetry crap

2006-10-30T01:37:00.000-08:00

Dudes, so I read Charles Wright's new one yesterday and I think it's good. It's weirdly accessible (in an inaccessible kind of way) and plus, he's just totally awesome. It's funny because I kept reading poems in it about things like "memory," things that should be hackneyed and over or whatever (although I think us poets will keep beating memory with a stick until the world blows up) and I didn't mind.

A while ago Devin passed this NYT thingy along to us. You should read it. Following the link I'm going to copy my response to the response to the review. Anyway, some people think old C.W. is getting old, but I think he's still got something major going on. As my friend N and I were discussing yesterday, we thought it was all over when he came out with the title "Buffalo Yoga" but I just don't think it is. Maybe I'm crazy. So, go out and buy the book, fuckers. Read it and tell me what you think. Then, if you disagree with me I'll probably get really upset and cry and maybe try to punch you in the leg.

Here's my response:

Huh. I love Franz Wright. And I also love Charles Wright. I also love the reviewer (you should read Exactly What Happened if you haven't) who wrote that damn review. In this situation I think he's wrong. I mean, I have a general distaste for "reviews" of any kind, really. They mostly make me feel like whoever is writing them should fucking Adopt-a-Highway or some shit instead of mumbling around and being mean. That said, I know we need reviews to spark conversation blah, blah, blah. Well, I don't know if we do actually, but I do acknowledge that I know and love many people who like to read them and some who even write them.

I think that the reviewer's insistence that poets need to insist on anything is very simply, ridiculous. And boneheaded. To make a claim like that is absurd and asking for trouble. I think I appreciate poets who insist that yes, I don't know shit, and yes, life probably doesn't have any real meaning, and yes, I'm going to put it all out there in a very confident way and admit that what I know is that I don't know anything at all. I have to quote one of my favorite essays by one of my favorite people:

"I write what bothers me. A phase drifts in, maybe a rhythm, a feeling or an image carries sufficient ballast and dangles a loose end. I suppose my poems come out of a desire for something and irrefutable coupled with a distrust of absolutes in just about every realm.
That there is for me no inherent purpose in life is not necessarily a frightening proposition. But it puts the burden on language--syntax, rhythm, images, architectures--" -Michele Glazer

Anyway, hooray for Franz Wright.

The thing is, I don't think that it's any less meaningful/truthful/honest/sincere to "insist on not insisting" than to "insist." If it is not in my nature to insist then I'm not going to (I know I am insistent, especially when belligerently drunk). But I don't want to be expected to come out with grand pronouncements, or say something and stick with it. I think the reviewer is getting dangerously close to saying that a poet has to take some kind of a stance. I believe that it appears that lots of artists take "a stance" but I think it's because we look at the work that gets them famous. The groundbreaking work. We look at Guernica or whatever and we don't look at many of the sketches. Well, I know YOU guys look at everything, but probably most people don't. Yeah, an artist takes a stance, but how many different stances does he or she take in a lifetime? And there are so many different stances to take. Isn't refusing to insist a stance in a way? I think it's dangerous to ask that all work be cymbals crashing. Consistency isn't a human trait (I stole that). And it's boring too.

I don't like people with good memories because it means I have to tell the truth all the time. I have a friend who has such a good memory that she always catches me in lies. I know I shouldn't lie, but I don't lie about really important things. At least most of the time I don't. When I do, I feel really bad. As a result of her stinkin' memory I spend all my time around her trying to get my story straight. Snore. I don't really like hanging out with her very much because it means I always have to be linear. That probably doesn't make any sense, but somehow this is what I always think about when I hear Joel Brouwer-ish people saying that poetry should be this or that. I'm sure she would love to hear it.

I think there are innumerable ways of getting at the meat of the problem (the poetry problem which is certainly blurry and undefinable). I just don't want people telling me that I have to be one or the other. That automatically narrows down everything I'm going to be able to accomplish (which at this point in my life is getting drunk and sleeping on the couch all day). I'm not suggesting that poetry should do without that certain "human element" although I am skeptical of saying that it always has to have that traditional "human element" and if perhaps, we are leaving it to the wrong group of people to define what a "human element" is.

I need to get a life, stop procrastinating, and do what I'm actually supposed to be doing.

Sorry about going off.

Landscape

2006-10-27T09:43:00.000-07:00

We wanted to get out and walk around.
It looked solid enough - austere moonlight
was being lathed away in strips by bright
jutting crusts. It looked like any ground
at high elevation: pitted & snow-crowned.
Of course, they weren't letting us go out tonight.
A voice said: "Please remain seated while the light
above your head is lit. Please don't move around.
Please don't breathe - don't speak - keep limbs
locked tight against your chests, hushed, and eyes
glued fast to the frosty pane that keeps
the black & brilliant world from rushing in."
She stopped. We, silent now, held hands and gazed
down at the sparkling world, through gaps, beneath.

The Hidden Thing, Revealed

2006-10-25T08:31:00.000-07:00

I was going to submit this poem to workshop this week, but didn't ... feel free to critique it here.

The Hidden Thing, Revealed

I always knew that it was there
so that when I stumbled upon it
in the middle of the sidewalk
I nearly tripped and broke my teeth all out.
Nearly bit my tongue in half.

Nearly tipped my head back
to release all the laughs
I’d been holding hostage.

“Is this the ransom I’ve requested?”
I posed to the air above the spot, and
the laughs all crowded up to teeth
to peer through with me down to see
if indeed we’d found the thing
we always knew was there, and hiding.

“Is this the hidden thing, now in view?”
I flung the question out finely, like a philosopher,
like Demosthenes with his mouth chock full of
crystallized and quivering marbles
of pure joy, all trembling before the anticipated hatch.

“Shall we hatch then, damnit?!” I cried out for my comrades
rolling madly in their cage.

Then, all the laughter in my mouth
got real quiet. I closed my eyes and lips as tight as clamshells,
keeping precious pearls safe - avoiding, if possible,
unrequited humor. Then craned my neck downward.
Then focused to my inner core. Then
with a planned and pregnant gesture of near Shakespearian melodrama

opened slowly to see the sidewalk,
and nothing more.

Naturally, I gaped,
shocked to find I had not found
the thing I’d planned on finding all along,

and naturally, when I gaped wide
the orbs sprung out in concert from inside my head
and bounced around the sidewalk
like brilliant rubber balls - red, green, violet -
each one the word,
each one the hidden song.

I Feel Like I'm Having a Poetry Forum With Myself

2006-10-23T23:41:00.000-07:00

The other saddest poem ever. Love, HenHen

Ars Poetica

It is almost polio season. The girls

From the cigarette factories in Massachusetts
Are still visiting the northern beaches.
At midnight, the milky rubbers
In the breakers are like a familiar invasion.

Of sea life.
Sitting on the rocks we watch a runner:
Weight shifted, some tick, tick,
Almost of intelligence—
The bone catching of balance…

From behind, a red-haired girl appears—
Missing a thumb on her left hand,
Breathless, she asks for a light:
A crumpled pack of Lucky Strikes
At the top of a nylon stocking;
The other leg bare, her abdomen
And breasts plastered with white sand.
Drunk, she says, “He just swam out
Past the jetty—that was twenty minutes
Ago. You think I give a damn?”

We lit the cigarette for her. Her hands
Shaking.

No moon, it took an hour
To find all her clothing,
Dropped as they ran
Down the rock shelf through dunes…

He hadn’t drowned. He swam around the jetty,
Crawled to the grasses and over the granite shelf.
Gathering his clothes, he left
Her there as a joke.

Her hair was colored
That second chaste coat of red on the pomegranate.
We were eating sandwiches on the rocks.
She frightened my mother and me. My little
Sister just thought she was funny.
In thirty years I have dremt of her twice, once
With fear and once without. I’ve written
This for her, and because

Twice is too often
Considering how beautiful she was.

Norman Dubie

Chuffing...

2006-10-22T17:38:00.000-07:00

should be voted off the poetry island, I think.

It Might Be The Most Heartbreaking Poem Ever

2006-10-19T23:29:00.000-07:00

To the Muse
by James Wright

It is all right. All they do
Is go in by dividing
One rib from another. I wouldn't
Lie to you. It hurts
Like nothing I know. All they do
Is burn their way in with a wire.
It forks in and out a little like the tongue
Of that frightened garter snake we caught
At Cloverfield, you and me, Jenny
So long ago.

I would lie to you
If I could.
But the only way I can get you to come up
Out of the suckhole, the south face
Of the Powhatan pit, is to tell you
What you know:

You come up after dark, you poise alone
With me on the shore.
I lead you back to this world.

Three lady doctors in Wheeling open
Their offices at night.
I don't have to call them, they are always there.
But they only have to put the knife once
Under your breast.
Then they hang their contraption.
And you bear it.

It's awkward a while. Still, it lets you
Walk about on tiptoe if you don't
Jiggle the needle.
It might stab your heart, you see.
The blade hangs in your lung and the tube
Keeps it draining.
That way they only have to stab you
Once. Oh Jenny.

I wish to God I had made this world, this scurvy
And disastrous place. I
Didn't, I can't bear it
Either, I don't blame you, sleeping down there
Face down in the unbelievable silk of spring,
Muse of black sand,
Alone.

I don't blame you, I know
The place where you lie.
I admit everything. But look at me.
How can I live without you?
Come up to me, love,
Out of the river, or I will
Come down to you.

2006-10-18T10:33:00.000-07:00

Little Mary Ruefle

2006-10-17T01:37:00.000-07:00

Um, because she's fucking awesome and weird and cute. Mary Ruefle. Click on the purple "Mary Ruefle."

Vernon doesn't like this poem

2006-10-16T21:52:00.000-07:00

but I think it's very funny. If you haven't read Robinson Crusoe, I highly reccomend it. This poem below is by Peter Streckfus, whose book The Cuckoo won the Yale Younger prize. It was Louise Gluck's first choice as editor of that series.

(Also, despite a valiant effort, the poets lost their second soccer match tonight, a shitload to 2.)

The English

Crusoe: A bee.

Friday: Bee?

C: Aye, a bee.

F: Bee . . .

C: Aye.

later . . .

C: City.

F: Cee Dee

C: City.

Radio, Radio

2006-10-15T21:51:00.000-07:00

I'm listening to this radio program right now about music that's fascinating. http://www.wnyc.org/shows/radiolab/

They have different shows on different 'big ideas.' And it's a little irreverent too, which helps.

Does Anybody

2006-10-13T23:59:00.000-07:00

besides me think Franz Wright should have done something else with the last "wolves" line of this poem? Not that this one word is the complete source of my problem with the line, but I vote "amythyst" off the poetry island.

OD HEARING

There are people I know in the room, but
what they have to say
is strange:

If we were wolves
we'd turn on you
without a second thought

without
a first thought
and move on...

I quit.

Let the other
five billion perceive
the universe into existing for one more day.

Kiss me
an easy death whispers: I want you to
come in my mouth--

Wolves
with bright amythyst teeth smiling.

WR39B Sonnets

2006-10-13T17:06:00.000-07:00

Ode to My Professional Goals
Damien Pearson, WR39B, in response to Blog Prompt

I'm burdened with a deep creative mind
The type that never seems to want to stop
And any given day I leave behind
A thousand random ideas a pop
So I must seek to write, or at least say
These elements of contemplative bliss
I need to find a medium, a way
To keep them here, when I'm to the abyss
A natural gift for dialogue will lead
To following the morbid playwright's path
However, bitter doubt has gotten seed
Could 'povrished sorrow be the aftermath
It festers in my stomach like a cyst
And yet I have no choice but to persist

2006-10-13T15:44:00.000-07:00

Ashbery?

2006-10-12T17:44:00.000-07:00

Anticipated Stranger,

the bruise will stop by later.
For now, pain pauses in its round,
notes the time of day, the patient's temperature,
leaves a memo for the surrogate: what the hell
did you think you were doing? I mean...
Oh well, less said the better, they all say.
I'll post this at the desk.

God will find the pattern and break it.

--John Ashbery

A Christine Garren poem

2006-10-12T15:46:00.000-07:00

Birthday

It was halfway
and not enough for God
when the balloons, lifting like the newly born,
collapsed into a horizontal glide—
and moving westward, flatly through the atmosphere
disappeared so gradually
we couldn’t help but be dismayed.
We had wanted to see a sudden disappearance,
an upward northern lift, rising
with a soul’s readiness—
when those spheres, on tides of air,
reminded us more of our own breath
sealed off, retiring the climb,
moving too evenly out of existence.

-- Christine Garren

2006-10-12T13:02:00.000-07:00

No such bird

2006-10-12T12:32:00.000-07:00

A smudge of light, hole
in the leaf layers 50 feet away,
moved across the glass pane
as he pushed open the door.

Bells accompanied his coming
and the lady, bent over
at a mouse cage but alert,
leaned up and straightened
her shirt and smiled at him.

"Hello" she said, mouth pinched
into an arc.

"Hello" he replied, and shifted
his eyes around the busy room.
The smell he liked and so passed over
for the sound of crickets burrowing
into the sawdust.
Mice broke kernels apart.
Something licked its chops. A parrot
squawked obnoxiously, inches from his ear,

and he winced, drew back, and said "Do you have
a small-boned bird, chestnut-red,
with a bright golden beak?"

She paused long enough for the reflected light
of the passing car outside the glass to move
across her face.

"There is no such bird."

Big Prizes

2006-10-11T21:19:00.000-07:00

Fucking National Book Award Nomination? That's pretty hot. Here's a quote I love:

"It would be impossible for me not to say. And so I became a poet. And so my poetry is fused with sorrow." --Cynthia Cruz

2006-10-10T23:03:00.000-07:00

Um, So

2006-10-10T18:11:00.000-07:00

Here are some poems from this badass motherfucker Mike Topp:

MY PET

I don't have a pet. If I could have one, I would
like a troll. I would name my troll Kevin. The
thing I would most enjoy doing with Kevin is
watching him have sex with other trolls.

IDEA FOR A POEM

I think a good poem would be where a man and
a horse stop in the woods and watch it snow.
They watch and watch, but you know what? It
gets dark out. And you know why it gets dark
out? It doesn't say. The poem leaves it up to you,
the reader, to decide.

Then, at the very end, there's a part where the
horse bites the man on the ass.

LETTERWRITING ASSIGNMENT 1

Tell Somebody Something You've Always
Wanted to Tell Them

Dear Karen Carpenter,

I saw you on the street yesterday. Yo're look-
ing a little porky.

Sincerely,

Mike Topp

CARP

My brother raised some carp in a fishpond in our
back yard. One time, as a joke, my friend and I
were really high and we leaned out my bedroom
window and shot all the carp with a rifle. Then
we threw the fish in teh street and my brother
ran over them in his car when pulling into the
driveway. The thing was he failed to see the hu-
mor in the situation. Hey, Randy, loosen up!

2006-10-10T17:29:00.000-07:00

Doing Poetry

2006-10-10T16:22:00.000-07:00

Poem, you sonofabitch, it’s bad enough
that I embarrass myself working so hard
to get it right even a little,
and that little grudging and awkward.
But it’s afterwards I resent, when
the sweet sure should hold me like
a trout in the bright summer stream.
There should be at least briefly
access to your glamour and tenderness.
But there’s always this same old
dissatisfaction instead.

–Jack Gilbert

dysprosody

2006-10-10T16:12:00.000-07:00

A speech disorder affecting inflexion, stress, and rhythm, sometimes found in aphasic conditions.