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A Classic
I was sitting in a dentist's chair
today, thinking that until everybody
on the planet can get their teeth
cleaned and fixed routinely--
everybody--then civilization's a
failure. Sure, fine, build bombs,
preach holy words, teach Plato,
paint canvases, create symphonies,
pour money into The Endowment, and
write long novels--snore, snore, snore.
All of this and more
doesn't square accounts, and,
goddamnit, you know it. Fix
everybody's teeth, after you
have fed and sheltered them.
These things are the classics
of civilization, to be shared by,
to accessible to, all.
Copyright 2010 Hans Ostrom
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
As If
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*
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As If
As if the buzzing, built-up hive
called the world were a fabricated
facade someone could unfasten and lift
to expose operational guts (the real
engineering), dreams sometimes seem
so right that in the midst of them,
you think, "Yes, it's a dream, and
I'm sleeping, but this is how things
are as they are," and the dream, a
low-budget movie of the highest
quality, has just shown you a thing
or two about how to interpret
a thing or two, but the dream itself
requires no interpretation, any more
than a sharpening stone needs sharpening.
Copyright 2010 Hans Ostrom
*
*
*
*
*
As If
As if the buzzing, built-up hive
called the world were a fabricated
facade someone could unfasten and lift
to expose operational guts (the real
engineering), dreams sometimes seem
so right that in the midst of them,
you think, "Yes, it's a dream, and
I'm sleeping, but this is how things
are as they are," and the dream, a
low-budget movie of the highest
quality, has just shown you a thing
or two about how to interpret
a thing or two, but the dream itself
requires no interpretation, any more
than a sharpening stone needs sharpening.
Copyright 2010 Hans Ostrom
Gray Weaver
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*
*
*
*
*
Gray Weaver
The gray weaver dated
the grim reaper for a while.
She liked the fabric
of his hooded cloak,
instructed him not
to bring the scythe
with him when they dined
out. The reaper admitted,
"All of this, this life-activity,
bores me. I love death." She
wove him a pale gray cloak. It
softened his image. He looked like
a cloud that held a harvest tool,
nothing to worry about--honest!
But he said he couldn't accept
the gift. They stopped seeing
one another. That was many
a reaping, many a gray rug ago.
Copyright 2010 Hans Ostrom
*
*
*
*
*
Gray Weaver
The gray weaver dated
the grim reaper for a while.
She liked the fabric
of his hooded cloak,
instructed him not
to bring the scythe
with him when they dined
out. The reaper admitted,
"All of this, this life-activity,
bores me. I love death." She
wove him a pale gray cloak. It
softened his image. He looked like
a cloud that held a harvest tool,
nothing to worry about--honest!
But he said he couldn't accept
the gift. They stopped seeing
one another. That was many
a reaping, many a gray rug ago.
Copyright 2010 Hans Ostrom
I'm Glad I Never
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*
*
*
*
*
I'm Glad I Never . . .
...Built missiles.
Ate whale meat.
Purchased a boat of any kind.
Went to law school (LSAT score: 666).
Shot myself with a nail-gun.
Killed a bear.
Played polo.
Became a dictator.
Climbed Mt. Everest.
Believed Plato.
Joined the Mob.
Skated naked.
Mined coal.
Dodged the draft.
Got drafted (draft number: 007, not kidding).
Mined coal.
Owned a coal mine.
Drank anti-freeze.
Started a riot.
Called anyone the N-word.
Joined the Navy.
Believed Reagan.
Lied about where I was from.
Shot heroin.
Became a pornographer.
Caved in.
Went to Idaho that one time.
Went to Berkeley that one time.
Copyright 2010
*
*
*
*
*
I'm Glad I Never . . .
...Built missiles.
Ate whale meat.
Purchased a boat of any kind.
Went to law school (LSAT score: 666).
Shot myself with a nail-gun.
Killed a bear.
Played polo.
Became a dictator.
Climbed Mt. Everest.
Believed Plato.
Joined the Mob.
Skated naked.
Mined coal.
Dodged the draft.
Got drafted (draft number: 007, not kidding).
Mined coal.
Owned a coal mine.
Drank anti-freeze.
Started a riot.
Called anyone the N-word.
Joined the Navy.
Believed Reagan.
Lied about where I was from.
Shot heroin.
Became a pornographer.
Caved in.
Went to Idaho that one time.
Went to Berkeley that one time.
Copyright 2010
Places We've Gone
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*
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*
Places We've Gone After We've Made Love
Nowhere.
Stockholm.
The movies.
Ephesus.
A restaurant.
A cafe.
A bar.
The city dump.
A supermarket.
Outside.
To sleep.
Inside.
The Post Office.
Florence.
Sacramento.
A beach.
A kitchen.
Mobile.
A bathroom.
A museum.
A roof.
A swimming pool.
An ocean.
Copyright 2010 Hans Ostrom
*
*
*
*
*
*
Places We've Gone After We've Made Love
Nowhere.
Stockholm.
The movies.
Ephesus.
A restaurant.
A cafe.
A bar.
The city dump.
A supermarket.
Outside.
To sleep.
Inside.
The Post Office.
Florence.
Sacramento.
A beach.
A kitchen.
Mobile.
A bathroom.
A museum.
A roof.
A swimming pool.
An ocean.
Copyright 2010 Hans Ostrom
Lombardy Poplar
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Lombardy Poplar
In a light breeze, the ease
with which branchings and leaves
of a single Lombardy poplar move,
each in a different direction
and way, and how the tree becomes
an infinitely syncopated whole that
later and clumsily we'll call tremble,
naturally defy math and digital
imitation because they won't hold still
for a binary moment or repeat itself,
so poplar fascinates beyond words but also
coaxes words, and there it is, the poplar,
the one poplar, the one, and there it goes,
and now a crow caws. Twice.
Copyright 2010 Hans Ostrom
*
*
*
*
*
*
Lombardy Poplar
In a light breeze, the ease
with which branchings and leaves
of a single Lombardy poplar move,
each in a different direction
and way, and how the tree becomes
an infinitely syncopated whole that
later and clumsily we'll call tremble,
naturally defy math and digital
imitation because they won't hold still
for a binary moment or repeat itself,
so poplar fascinates beyond words but also
coaxes words, and there it is, the poplar,
the one poplar, the one, and there it goes,
and now a crow caws. Twice.
Copyright 2010 Hans Ostrom
So Much For Experience
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*
So Much For Experience
Is experience too expensive?
In those days, I knew so little,
and now I know even less.
I feel like a door-to-door
salesman who sells doors,
knocking on locked examples
of what I try to sell.
Life's an elaborate experiment
with no hypothesis and with a
volatile concoction of methods.
Once you get the results, you
move on to Heaven, I gather,
and make your report--angels
roaring with laughter:
apparently this stuff never
gets old. . . .
I passed two women on the street.
The one smoking a cigarette was
saying to the other, "Well, if
it's one thing I've learned from
experience, it's . . .". I'd
walked too far past to hear the rest.
Copyright 2010 Hans Ostrom
*
*
*
*
*
So Much For Experience
Is experience too expensive?
In those days, I knew so little,
and now I know even less.
I feel like a door-to-door
salesman who sells doors,
knocking on locked examples
of what I try to sell.
Life's an elaborate experiment
with no hypothesis and with a
volatile concoction of methods.
Once you get the results, you
move on to Heaven, I gather,
and make your report--angels
roaring with laughter:
apparently this stuff never
gets old. . . .
I passed two women on the street.
The one smoking a cigarette was
saying to the other, "Well, if
it's one thing I've learned from
experience, it's . . .". I'd
walked too far past to hear the rest.
Copyright 2010 Hans Ostrom
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Saturday, September 11, 2010
Friday, September 10, 2010
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Four Women
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*
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Four Women
The young barista applies
eye-makeup with great care
each morning, early, before
the first coffee-drinker awakes.
The older cashier at the food store
has dyed her hair a bright blond.
She takes her cigarette-breaks
outside the cafe. She once said,
"It comes back around, you know,
if you're kind--it comes back
around to you."
From behind the machine,
the barista now watches the older
cashier. The realtor wears
nylons and high heels all day.
She must never appear to be
impatient or weary. There must
never be the smallest flaw
in her clothing. Her eyes
and mouth have hardened.
The blond cashier, smoking,
watches her get into
an expensive car, which
is red and freshly polished.
The high school student
with brown hair that was dyed
black but is now splashed
with green walks past the red
car talking to her phone. Her
clothes don't fit, aren't
meant to, and sunlight shines
on the small of her back
and the dimpled top of the crack
between her buttocks. The realtor
and the blond cashier notice
all of this in one glance.
The cigarette's snuffed out,
the red car's engine starts,
the barista's already preparing
a beverage for the talking girl--
something with a lot of sugar
and cream and chocolate and
caffeine--and the talking girl,
who is a woman, now notices,
maybe for the first time,
the subtlety of the barista's
eye-shade, and with one hand
now tries to pull up the tight,
low-waisted jeans, which slip
back down, and the barista, letting
some steam out of the machine,
says, "Here you go!"
Copyright 2010 Hans Ostrom
*
*
*
*
*
Four Women
The young barista applies
eye-makeup with great care
each morning, early, before
the first coffee-drinker awakes.
The older cashier at the food store
has dyed her hair a bright blond.
She takes her cigarette-breaks
outside the cafe. She once said,
"It comes back around, you know,
if you're kind--it comes back
around to you."
From behind the machine,
the barista now watches the older
cashier. The realtor wears
nylons and high heels all day.
She must never appear to be
impatient or weary. There must
never be the smallest flaw
in her clothing. Her eyes
and mouth have hardened.
The blond cashier, smoking,
watches her get into
an expensive car, which
is red and freshly polished.
The high school student
with brown hair that was dyed
black but is now splashed
with green walks past the red
car talking to her phone. Her
clothes don't fit, aren't
meant to, and sunlight shines
on the small of her back
and the dimpled top of the crack
between her buttocks. The realtor
and the blond cashier notice
all of this in one glance.
The cigarette's snuffed out,
the red car's engine starts,
the barista's already preparing
a beverage for the talking girl--
something with a lot of sugar
and cream and chocolate and
caffeine--and the talking girl,
who is a woman, now notices,
maybe for the first time,
the subtlety of the barista's
eye-shade, and with one hand
now tries to pull up the tight,
low-waisted jeans, which slip
back down, and the barista, letting
some steam out of the machine,
says, "Here you go!"
Copyright 2010 Hans Ostrom
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
More Advice to Poets from Tom O'Bedlam
Here is more advice to poets from Tom O'Bedlam of the Spoken Verse Youtube Channel; this time it's phrased as advice--or "stiff criticism"--to one poet but meant, of course, for poets in general:
"Your main problem is that nobody is going to read your stuff. A poem has about five seconds to arrest the reader, to provide motivation to read the remainder. I read scores of poems almost every day. You wouldn't have stopped me from quitting after the first few lines.
Be intelligible and/or arresting, amusing and/or diverting. There's no point in being abstruse. The reader says - to hell with this, it's gibberish. Provide something that piques curiosity, that makes them read on.
According to Ezra Pound, poetry consists of logopoeia, phanopoeia and melopoeia. You have to learn the trade, read everything that went before. The hallmark of genius is technical innovation - but you have to know what's been done to death before you can depart from it. If you write what you think looks like poetry then you stole it. Many people can sing like Al Jolson.
To start with you should learn to write in clear definitive sentences with some respect to spelling, grammar and syntax. (Okay I have occasional blind spots, but they're usually typos. I can spell most words in the language most days, I just have odd lapses of memory sometimes) You can take liberties once you're proved you know what you're doing. Look at the early work of Picasso for instance. He showed the world be could paint before bringing out the crazy stuff from the back of the closet. You'll gain neither respect nor readership if you appear illiterate. If you can't be bothered to learnt to write properly, then why should you expect people to forgive you? You're up against thousands of writers manquees, prepared to put in all that it takes in sweat-equity.
It's no use offer an explanation or an apology or whatever - nobody will read that either. The poet has only one language and the poem must be self-contained. Either give up or try a lot harder.
That's stiff criticism but it might put you on the right path. "
"It shows an excellence of character that you take it so well. Most of the stuff I'm asked to comment on isn't worth reading - but, then, most published poetry isn't worth reading. Once a poet has gained status then we have to accept whatever he or she turns out. I've read rubbish written by laureates."
"Your main problem is that nobody is going to read your stuff. A poem has about five seconds to arrest the reader, to provide motivation to read the remainder. I read scores of poems almost every day. You wouldn't have stopped me from quitting after the first few lines.
Be intelligible and/or arresting, amusing and/or diverting. There's no point in being abstruse. The reader says - to hell with this, it's gibberish. Provide something that piques curiosity, that makes them read on.
According to Ezra Pound, poetry consists of logopoeia, phanopoeia and melopoeia. You have to learn the trade, read everything that went before. The hallmark of genius is technical innovation - but you have to know what's been done to death before you can depart from it. If you write what you think looks like poetry then you stole it. Many people can sing like Al Jolson.
To start with you should learn to write in clear definitive sentences with some respect to spelling, grammar and syntax. (Okay I have occasional blind spots, but they're usually typos. I can spell most words in the language most days, I just have odd lapses of memory sometimes) You can take liberties once you're proved you know what you're doing. Look at the early work of Picasso for instance. He showed the world be could paint before bringing out the crazy stuff from the back of the closet. You'll gain neither respect nor readership if you appear illiterate. If you can't be bothered to learnt to write properly, then why should you expect people to forgive you? You're up against thousands of writers manquees, prepared to put in all that it takes in sweat-equity.
It's no use offer an explanation or an apology or whatever - nobody will read that either. The poet has only one language and the poem must be self-contained. Either give up or try a lot harder.
That's stiff criticism but it might put you on the right path. "
"It shows an excellence of character that you take it so well. Most of the stuff I'm asked to comment on isn't worth reading - but, then, most published poetry isn't worth reading. Once a poet has gained status then we have to accept whatever he or she turns out. I've read rubbish written by laureates."
Monday, September 6, 2010
Sunday, September 5, 2010
Saturday, September 4, 2010
Friday, September 3, 2010
Advice To Poets From Tom O'Bedlam
I was fortunate enough to discover the Youtube channel, Spoken Verse, some months ago. At about the same time, I decided to start recording poems (mostly those by others) for my own channel, langstonify, but Spoken Verse is not to be blamed for my foray into recording, which for me has featured a steep learning curve, to say almost the least. My recordings are improving--slowly.
If you haven't visited Spoken Verse's channel, which is operated by a person who goes by the pseudonym Tom O'Bedlam, please do. There is a link just to the right of this post.
It features some of the best readings of some of the best poems. Tom records all the poems at his desk and makes the videos with MovieMaker and other software, but the quality is superb. He has a great voice, but he also has a great sense of poetry--a better sense than that of some very professional recorders, who are certainly polished but may not quite have the feel of the individual poem. The recording-quality is enviably great.
I was also lucky enough to have some of Tom's advice to poets revealed to me, and I received permission to reprint it here. So here it is:
...advice to poets and would-be poets from "Tom O'Bedlam":
"The main fault is that would-be poets have nothing much to say. It is important to have some thing important to say. Why else would anybody want to read it?
Poetry is generally either truthful or uplifting. The two main motivations for writing poetry - or creating any art form for that matter - "to tell you what it's like to be me" or "to put the world to rights". The uplifting stuff makes the best pitch, like Kipling's "If", but it's all lies. Uplifting poetry is advertising for a Belief System - BS for short. BS needs the best advertising pitch there is and poetry fills the bill because it can be so well-crafted with such a catchy jingle and monolithic turn of phrase that it resists all arguments, bypassing the analytical mind and taking root in the subconscious.
Keats said "Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty - that is all ye know of earth and all ye need to know" Actually he was afraid that Fanny had been unfaithful: that Truth was Ugly and Beauty was False - which it so often the case. His advertising pitch for believing the opposite worked for him - and it has worked for others ever since and will continue to do so until the end of time. Most people don't want the truth. Happiness depends on believing beautiful lies in a state of unwarranted optimism. Songs, poems and visual arts create an artificial world which is preferable to this one. If it works for the artist then there's a good chance it will work for other people too.
The alternative is to tell the truth. That makes the poem important, too. Philip Larkin was a master at that kind of poetry - but he was also a master of the trade. If you're going to be that sort of poet then you have to learn everything that's gone before and how to use the tools, or nobody will take any notice. The Truth is an even harder sell than BS. Also you'll take a lot of flak for telling it.
Very little memorable poetry is created in any generation. It's possible to learn by heart virtually all the worthwhile poetry that has been created since the dawn of civilisation."
If you haven't visited Spoken Verse's channel, which is operated by a person who goes by the pseudonym Tom O'Bedlam, please do. There is a link just to the right of this post.
It features some of the best readings of some of the best poems. Tom records all the poems at his desk and makes the videos with MovieMaker and other software, but the quality is superb. He has a great voice, but he also has a great sense of poetry--a better sense than that of some very professional recorders, who are certainly polished but may not quite have the feel of the individual poem. The recording-quality is enviably great.
I was also lucky enough to have some of Tom's advice to poets revealed to me, and I received permission to reprint it here. So here it is:
...advice to poets and would-be poets from "Tom O'Bedlam":
"The main fault is that would-be poets have nothing much to say. It is important to have some thing important to say. Why else would anybody want to read it?
Poetry is generally either truthful or uplifting. The two main motivations for writing poetry - or creating any art form for that matter - "to tell you what it's like to be me" or "to put the world to rights". The uplifting stuff makes the best pitch, like Kipling's "If", but it's all lies. Uplifting poetry is advertising for a Belief System - BS for short. BS needs the best advertising pitch there is and poetry fills the bill because it can be so well-crafted with such a catchy jingle and monolithic turn of phrase that it resists all arguments, bypassing the analytical mind and taking root in the subconscious.
Keats said "Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty - that is all ye know of earth and all ye need to know" Actually he was afraid that Fanny had been unfaithful: that Truth was Ugly and Beauty was False - which it so often the case. His advertising pitch for believing the opposite worked for him - and it has worked for others ever since and will continue to do so until the end of time. Most people don't want the truth. Happiness depends on believing beautiful lies in a state of unwarranted optimism. Songs, poems and visual arts create an artificial world which is preferable to this one. If it works for the artist then there's a good chance it will work for other people too.
The alternative is to tell the truth. That makes the poem important, too. Philip Larkin was a master at that kind of poetry - but he was also a master of the trade. If you're going to be that sort of poet then you have to learn everything that's gone before and how to use the tools, or nobody will take any notice. The Truth is an even harder sell than BS. Also you'll take a lot of flak for telling it.
Very little memorable poetry is created in any generation. It's possible to learn by heart virtually all the worthwhile poetry that has been created since the dawn of civilisation."
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Short Love Poem
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Short Love Poem
What's there to say about
a love poem that insists
on being short, except
"Thank you"? Dearest, I
love you for what you
know, do, feel, and remember.
True, your body's not incidental
to you or to me. It is your
body. Still, love's metaphysical--
no, really; or it's not love.
You know how much praise I can
raise, but here the poem ends.
Copyright 2010 Hans Ostrom
*
*
*
*
*
Short Love Poem
What's there to say about
a love poem that insists
on being short, except
"Thank you"? Dearest, I
love you for what you
know, do, feel, and remember.
True, your body's not incidental
to you or to me. It is your
body. Still, love's metaphysical--
no, really; or it's not love.
You know how much praise I can
raise, but here the poem ends.
Copyright 2010 Hans Ostrom
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
"September 1, 1939," by W.H. Auden
On the precipice of another September 1, I thought of W.H. Auden's famous poem--one he later disavowed, in a way, by choosing not to include it in collections over which he had editorial control. His argument was that the line "we must love each other or die" was illogical insofar as we will die whether we love each other or not, but of course, few if any readers read the line that literally, and I doubt if Auden meant it that way. He was also a notorious reviser of poems after they had been published (as was Wordsworth): the sort of thing that causes arguments amongst scholars and critics.
One of the best recorded readings of the poem is by "Tom O'Bedlam" on Youtube. It really is terrific:
September 1, 1939
One of the best recorded readings of the poem is by "Tom O'Bedlam" on Youtube. It really is terrific:
September 1, 1939
Monday, August 30, 2010
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Saturday, August 28, 2010
Friday, August 27, 2010
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Concerning Failure
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*
*
*
*
Concerning Failure
All right, if it makes you feel
worse or, somehow, honest,
say it. Say, "I've failed."
There. Surprised by how you feel?
Liberating, isn't it? You may
even go further, go all operatic,
and say, "I'm a failure." Woe
is you, etc. Splendid. Now
you may enter the zone
that transcends success and
failure. It lies beyond
soccer fields, board-rooms,
high-school football stadiums,
televised awards-shows, and
academic journals with a
circulation of 15 and
a readership of 0. Not
that we're keeping score,
or anything.
Guess who else lives in
that zone? Everyone who
ever mattered. In that place,
fame's considered a rash,
and there's even an
ointment available.
Copyright 2010 Hans Ostrom
*
*
*
*
Concerning Failure
All right, if it makes you feel
worse or, somehow, honest,
say it. Say, "I've failed."
There. Surprised by how you feel?
Liberating, isn't it? You may
even go further, go all operatic,
and say, "I'm a failure." Woe
is you, etc. Splendid. Now
you may enter the zone
that transcends success and
failure. It lies beyond
soccer fields, board-rooms,
high-school football stadiums,
televised awards-shows, and
academic journals with a
circulation of 15 and
a readership of 0. Not
that we're keeping score,
or anything.
Guess who else lives in
that zone? Everyone who
ever mattered. In that place,
fame's considered a rash,
and there's even an
ointment available.
Copyright 2010 Hans Ostrom
This and That
My friend Charles Whitley, Jr., (sometimes known as Carter Monroe, the name under which he publishes), legendary poet and editor and the sage of North Carolina (and beyond) sent me two excellent links, the first to an essay about 19th century American writers, the second to a wonderful resource for online literary publishing:
http://www.theamericanscholar.org/voices-of-a-nation/
Another poet friend of mine, Kevin Clark, recently had lunch at Pacific Lutheran University, where each summer Kevin teaches in the low-residency M.F.A. there: the Rainier Writers Workshop. Kevin regularly teaches at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and has a new book out: Self Portrait With Expletives.
We chatted about L-A-N-G-U-A-G-E poetry, some of which I like more than he, perhaps. His notion is that L-A-N-G-U-A-G-E poets share a fundamental epistemology/ontology--namely, a materialist one, where no transcendent meaning exists. I wonder if in fact all such poets embrace a materialist philosophy.
To the extent they do, there might be a slight problem, not insofar as they are presenting their language, their poetry, as a material artifact but insofar as they are implicitly presenting themselves as arrangers if not interpreters of the material thing, language, for if language is merely a flow--one creek--of material, why do we, why does culture, need any particular poet to present it to us. If there's no transcendent meaning, then do we require any particular trans-lator?
Nonetheless, one great thing about poetry is that it's . . . poetry and may misbehave in relation to its creator's philosophy. I mean, if you judged Yeats strictly by his gyre-theory, you wouldn't be much interested in reading the poetry, but when you go to the poetry, there's some good stuff here and there.
But I must consult with Charles about this. I'm in need of a sage--at least!
http://www.theamericanscholar.org/voices-of-a-nation/
Another poet friend of mine, Kevin Clark, recently had lunch at Pacific Lutheran University, where each summer Kevin teaches in the low-residency M.F.A. there: the Rainier Writers Workshop. Kevin regularly teaches at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and has a new book out: Self Portrait With Expletives.
We chatted about L-A-N-G-U-A-G-E poetry, some of which I like more than he, perhaps. His notion is that L-A-N-G-U-A-G-E poets share a fundamental epistemology/ontology--namely, a materialist one, where no transcendent meaning exists. I wonder if in fact all such poets embrace a materialist philosophy.
To the extent they do, there might be a slight problem, not insofar as they are presenting their language, their poetry, as a material artifact but insofar as they are implicitly presenting themselves as arrangers if not interpreters of the material thing, language, for if language is merely a flow--one creek--of material, why do we, why does culture, need any particular poet to present it to us. If there's no transcendent meaning, then do we require any particular trans-lator?
Nonetheless, one great thing about poetry is that it's . . . poetry and may misbehave in relation to its creator's philosophy. I mean, if you judged Yeats strictly by his gyre-theory, you wouldn't be much interested in reading the poetry, but when you go to the poetry, there's some good stuff here and there.
But I must consult with Charles about this. I'm in need of a sage--at least!
Monday, August 23, 2010
Saturday, August 21, 2010
Exercise
Exercise
1. Scramble the letters of your name; include a middle name if think you'd like those letters.
2. Make words out of the scrambled letters.
3. Using only these words, write the first line and the last line of a ten-line poem. The lines might well be short ones.
4. Optional. Make it a rhyming poem of some kind. I repeat: optional.
5. Optional. Now take the 10th line, make it the first line of a new poem and make the 9th line the second line, and so on. You may of course make adjustments in syntax, etc., to make the poem flow in reverse, so to speak.
6. Don't take too long. Have fun. Drink lots of water.
1. Scramble the letters of your name; include a middle name if think you'd like those letters.
2. Make words out of the scrambled letters.
3. Using only these words, write the first line and the last line of a ten-line poem. The lines might well be short ones.
4. Optional. Make it a rhyming poem of some kind. I repeat: optional.
5. Optional. Now take the 10th line, make it the first line of a new poem and make the 9th line the second line, and so on. You may of course make adjustments in syntax, etc., to make the poem flow in reverse, so to speak.
6. Don't take too long. Have fun. Drink lots of water.
Sticky Words
*
*
*
*
*
Stuck With Words
Touch a word, your finger
might stick to it, as if
the word is saying you.
Jack Spicer advised wearing
gloves. Or did he? He advised
a lot. Those blasted words,
they want you working for them,
not the other way around. They'll
find you on a street in Istanbul
where you stopped to rest
and drink some tea. They'll
show up in North Carolina just
when you went out on the porch
to get away from chatter.
You want them working for you.
What if you stopped wanting that?
But how would that? Let it. Photo
of a toe. Toe photo, tofu, o future
once and present perfect queen
of Fubaro. Plant corn flakes.
Unless otherwise specified, this
is it. What's the context? I'd
have to know the contest. Hear
the filibuster in a country
church. If the preacher talks
long enough, God can't bring
a piece of legislation to the floor.
But he can knock down the door,
and that's for starters. "For
starters": see, see how those
two words stuck like something
from grass on your socks, after
you sought something in a meadow?
Copyright 2010
*
*
*
*
Stuck With Words
Touch a word, your finger
might stick to it, as if
the word is saying you.
Jack Spicer advised wearing
gloves. Or did he? He advised
a lot. Those blasted words,
they want you working for them,
not the other way around. They'll
find you on a street in Istanbul
where you stopped to rest
and drink some tea. They'll
show up in North Carolina just
when you went out on the porch
to get away from chatter.
You want them working for you.
What if you stopped wanting that?
But how would that? Let it. Photo
of a toe. Toe photo, tofu, o future
once and present perfect queen
of Fubaro. Plant corn flakes.
Unless otherwise specified, this
is it. What's the context? I'd
have to know the contest. Hear
the filibuster in a country
church. If the preacher talks
long enough, God can't bring
a piece of legislation to the floor.
But he can knock down the door,
and that's for starters. "For
starters": see, see how those
two words stuck like something
from grass on your socks, after
you sought something in a meadow?
Copyright 2010
Friday, August 20, 2010
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Monday, August 16, 2010
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Saturday, August 14, 2010
Friday, August 13, 2010
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Time Squall
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*
*
*
*
Time Squall
A cloud of time came over
and rained minutes. I
watched them come down,
generate rivulets, create
puddles. Wonderful to see.
I went out into it
and stood beside an hour-sized
puddle, observing its
ad hoc intricacies. The cloud
moved on, the downpour
of minutes stopped, and
the sun went to work.
Copyright Hans Ostrom 2010
*
*
*
*
Time Squall
A cloud of time came over
and rained minutes. I
watched them come down,
generate rivulets, create
puddles. Wonderful to see.
I went out into it
and stood beside an hour-sized
puddle, observing its
ad hoc intricacies. The cloud
moved on, the downpour
of minutes stopped, and
the sun went to work.
Copyright Hans Ostrom 2010
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Repairing
*
*
*
*
*
*
Repairing
Have you ever been trying
to fix something when you
realize you've made it worse
and pushed it past the point
of reparation? I took a pair
of spectacles to an optometrist's
shop. They looked like a Cubist's
sculpture of a bird--glue-smeared,
bits of tape hanging, sad bandages.
The woman behind the desk said,
"I see you tried to fix them."
She said it warmly, without
irony, like an aunt sipping
a gin-and-tonic who has no
interest in parenting you.
She looked closely at the
stupendous failure of my
project. Her whole young
life, she had already seen
many men pursue the male
dream of fixing it themselves.
"Let's get you a new pair,"
shall we?" she said. When
I signed the form, I couldn't
see. Writing had become like
stabbing the fog with a
pen. I enjoyed it.
I hope Heaven has assistant
angels like the optometrist's
front-desk person--there to
check you in, get you registered
for pre-Judgement events. I
hear one saying, "I see you
tried to fix your life."
Copyright 2010 Hans Ostrom
*
*
*
*
*
Repairing
Have you ever been trying
to fix something when you
realize you've made it worse
and pushed it past the point
of reparation? I took a pair
of spectacles to an optometrist's
shop. They looked like a Cubist's
sculpture of a bird--glue-smeared,
bits of tape hanging, sad bandages.
The woman behind the desk said,
"I see you tried to fix them."
She said it warmly, without
irony, like an aunt sipping
a gin-and-tonic who has no
interest in parenting you.
She looked closely at the
stupendous failure of my
project. Her whole young
life, she had already seen
many men pursue the male
dream of fixing it themselves.
"Let's get you a new pair,"
shall we?" she said. When
I signed the form, I couldn't
see. Writing had become like
stabbing the fog with a
pen. I enjoyed it.
I hope Heaven has assistant
angels like the optometrist's
front-desk person--there to
check you in, get you registered
for pre-Judgement events. I
hear one saying, "I see you
tried to fix your life."
Copyright 2010 Hans Ostrom
Sunday, August 8, 2010
Writing in the Dark in Vancouver, Canada
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*
*
*
*
*
Writing in the Dark in Vancouver, Canada
the surface of the world,
as sorted by senses,
ripples, stinks, attracts,
abrades, confuses, salts, scorns,
and so off we go.
we live not in the world but
only in its epidermis, our vibrations
and toil adding only infinitesimally
to the shifting product, adding
nothing to underneath. what's
beneath this roiling Heraclitan
surface? Emptiness, chant the
Buddhists--sacred silence.
Particles, sing
the scientists. God, pray
Godly ones. Nothing, say
the confidently righteous--
nothing at all, of course: what
you see is . . . .oh, but
nobody really listens to them
because they're not as interesting
as the others. I mean, what's
less imaginative and more boring
than nihilism? Nothing.
Copyright 2010 Hans Ostrom
*
*
*
*
*
Writing in the Dark in Vancouver, Canada
the surface of the world,
as sorted by senses,
ripples, stinks, attracts,
abrades, confuses, salts, scorns,
and so off we go.
we live not in the world but
only in its epidermis, our vibrations
and toil adding only infinitesimally
to the shifting product, adding
nothing to underneath. what's
beneath this roiling Heraclitan
surface? Emptiness, chant the
Buddhists--sacred silence.
Particles, sing
the scientists. God, pray
Godly ones. Nothing, say
the confidently righteous--
nothing at all, of course: what
you see is . . . .oh, but
nobody really listens to them
because they're not as interesting
as the others. I mean, what's
less imaginative and more boring
than nihilism? Nothing.
Copyright 2010 Hans Ostrom
Friday, August 6, 2010
Pound It
*
*
*
*
Pound It
H.D., Pound, and Richard
Aldington wrote:
"To use absolutely no word
that does not contribute
to the presentation." They
could have cut "absolutely,"
as it didn't contribute to
the presentation of the rule,
but I like that word there.
The rule itself is strict--
like Pound, so American, bossy,
anxious, wanting to regulate--
as long as no one regulated him.
His last name suited him. Eerily:
an extra word. As both noun and
verb: a humorless weight, a unit
of measurement; and an obsessive
striking. --Oh, and before I
forget, define "contribute"
and "presentation." And if
you're a poet, and you receive
a rule, what's the first thing
you'll want to do? That's right.
Pound it. 'Til it breaks.
Copyright 2010 Hans Ostrom
*
*
*
Pound It
H.D., Pound, and Richard
Aldington wrote:
"To use absolutely no word
that does not contribute
to the presentation." They
could have cut "absolutely,"
as it didn't contribute to
the presentation of the rule,
but I like that word there.
The rule itself is strict--
like Pound, so American, bossy,
anxious, wanting to regulate--
as long as no one regulated him.
His last name suited him. Eerily:
an extra word. As both noun and
verb: a humorless weight, a unit
of measurement; and an obsessive
striking. --Oh, and before I
forget, define "contribute"
and "presentation." And if
you're a poet, and you receive
a rule, what's the first thing
you'll want to do? That's right.
Pound it. 'Til it breaks.
Copyright 2010 Hans Ostrom
Not Quiet But Spare
*
*
*
*
*
A Shorter Distance
(in the midst of the "Quietude" debate)
Not quiet, no, but spare:
there--pithy, tough,
not much more than enough,
as if spoken while working,
or during love, or in hiding.
Utterance reduced--not
primitive or shy, just
taciturn, in that one
kind of American grain.
--Dickinson, whom the Beat
Boys ignored or belittled.
Not Walt, the loud guy
in a bar, and bless his
bearded heart for that.
We needed that as well.
--Thought through, pondered
on, then let go, not heavy
on the rhetorical gravy. That's
how some people talk and
some write. It's a quantity
of language showing up after
thought. Not shy, not quiet.
Just brief, one of those
short jabs no one sees
because they're watching
the guy fall down. A
straighter distance.
Copyright 2010 Hans Ostrom
*
*
*
*
A Shorter Distance
(in the midst of the "Quietude" debate)
Not quiet, no, but spare:
there--pithy, tough,
not much more than enough,
as if spoken while working,
or during love, or in hiding.
Utterance reduced--not
primitive or shy, just
taciturn, in that one
kind of American grain.
--Dickinson, whom the Beat
Boys ignored or belittled.
Not Walt, the loud guy
in a bar, and bless his
bearded heart for that.
We needed that as well.
--Thought through, pondered
on, then let go, not heavy
on the rhetorical gravy. That's
how some people talk and
some write. It's a quantity
of language showing up after
thought. Not shy, not quiet.
Just brief, one of those
short jabs no one sees
because they're watching
the guy fall down. A
straighter distance.
Copyright 2010 Hans Ostrom
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Monday, August 2, 2010
Editors of Small Magazines
Ever since printing presses got up and running, the editors of small magazines have been crucial to all nations' literature. "Small" refers to the circulation but often also to the format. People who, say, look at the modest poetry shelf at Borders or Barnes and Noble see "culture" from the other end of the telescope, after fame (to the extent poets can be famous) has been established, earned, manufactured, or some combination thereof. You will find Frost, Eliot, Plath, Yeats. The reasons you find them are often more complicated than you would imagine.
Meanwhile, new poetry keeps getting written, and if poets want their poetry read by people other than themselves, their friends, or their local colleagues (in school or in a local poetry "scene"), they will send their poems off to small magazines. That first acceptance from a magazine outside one's circle/region/school is crucial. It brings validation. It gets the poet in a wider game, for better and worse, but mostly for better.
The first such acceptance I had, as far as I can remember, was from the oddly titled but venerable WIND: Literary Journal in Pikeville, Kentucky. It was edited solely by Quentin Howard. I'd used Len Fulton's International Directory of Small Magazines and Little Presses to look for places to send my stuff, and I'd picked Howard's magazine out for reasons I forget. The acceptance came in Winter, scrawled on the margin of a hand-printed flyer, with a guestimate of when the poem might appear. I went on to publish other poems and one story in the magazine over the years, but I never met Mr. Howard. He died, and I think some of his associates tried to keep the magazine going, but it soon folded. Many of these magazines are the product of one or two person's virtually unrewarded dedication to seeing literature into print--tough, grassroots stuff, completely hidden from mass-culture.
Now many magazines have migrated online, or started there, but their purpose is largely the same. So, a tip of the cap to editors of small magazines and little presses, where the real work gets done.
The poem Mr. Howard accepted was "Sea Monster," oddly enough. I can't trust my own memory of how the poem came to be, but I know I was taking a course, as a first-year graduate student, in transformational (or "deep") grammar; and I was most interested in the interior and dramatic monologues of Robert Browning and Randall Jarrell--chiefly for the "move" in which one inhabits a decidedly different persona from one's own; and I was still enthralled with Gerard Manley Hopkins' poetry, as I suppose I still am, because of its achievement in the poetic equivalent of jazz.
Hence, I suppose, the mention of grammar, the interior monologue spoken by a sea monster, and the ubiquity of alliteration and words with Anglo-Saxon roots.
Anyway, a link to a reading of the poem, with thanks again to the late Quentin Howard:
sea monster
Meanwhile, new poetry keeps getting written, and if poets want their poetry read by people other than themselves, their friends, or their local colleagues (in school or in a local poetry "scene"), they will send their poems off to small magazines. That first acceptance from a magazine outside one's circle/region/school is crucial. It brings validation. It gets the poet in a wider game, for better and worse, but mostly for better.
The first such acceptance I had, as far as I can remember, was from the oddly titled but venerable WIND: Literary Journal in Pikeville, Kentucky. It was edited solely by Quentin Howard. I'd used Len Fulton's International Directory of Small Magazines and Little Presses to look for places to send my stuff, and I'd picked Howard's magazine out for reasons I forget. The acceptance came in Winter, scrawled on the margin of a hand-printed flyer, with a guestimate of when the poem might appear. I went on to publish other poems and one story in the magazine over the years, but I never met Mr. Howard. He died, and I think some of his associates tried to keep the magazine going, but it soon folded. Many of these magazines are the product of one or two person's virtually unrewarded dedication to seeing literature into print--tough, grassroots stuff, completely hidden from mass-culture.
Now many magazines have migrated online, or started there, but their purpose is largely the same. So, a tip of the cap to editors of small magazines and little presses, where the real work gets done.
The poem Mr. Howard accepted was "Sea Monster," oddly enough. I can't trust my own memory of how the poem came to be, but I know I was taking a course, as a first-year graduate student, in transformational (or "deep") grammar; and I was most interested in the interior and dramatic monologues of Robert Browning and Randall Jarrell--chiefly for the "move" in which one inhabits a decidedly different persona from one's own; and I was still enthralled with Gerard Manley Hopkins' poetry, as I suppose I still am, because of its achievement in the poetic equivalent of jazz.
Hence, I suppose, the mention of grammar, the interior monologue spoken by a sea monster, and the ubiquity of alliteration and words with Anglo-Saxon roots.
Anyway, a link to a reading of the poem, with thanks again to the late Quentin Howard:
sea monster
Sunday, August 1, 2010
Friday, July 30, 2010
Color of a Hungry Shadow
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*
*
*
*
Color of a Hungry Shadow
for C.M.
The man asked, "What color is a hungry
shadow?"--intending to leave it at that,
a question. I answered, "Green." What
color is the sound of people turning
away, as if you were a frayed edge
of something cheap? Some in that crowd
once rejected me personally. That's
about as intimate as failure gets.
"Gray." See them now congealed
into a sluggish coil, gray raincoats
on their backs. They walk away back
to their task of arbitration. They
determine who among us shall be
heard, and they never listen: that's
the way it works. Kafka smelled
their souls. Dickinson ignored them,
returning cold fire. What's the color
of succeeding on your own terms?
Name it. You get to name it.
Copyright 2010 Hans Ostrom
*
*
*
*
Color of a Hungry Shadow
for C.M.
The man asked, "What color is a hungry
shadow?"--intending to leave it at that,
a question. I answered, "Green." What
color is the sound of people turning
away, as if you were a frayed edge
of something cheap? Some in that crowd
once rejected me personally. That's
about as intimate as failure gets.
"Gray." See them now congealed
into a sluggish coil, gray raincoats
on their backs. They walk away back
to their task of arbitration. They
determine who among us shall be
heard, and they never listen: that's
the way it works. Kafka smelled
their souls. Dickinson ignored them,
returning cold fire. What's the color
of succeeding on your own terms?
Name it. You get to name it.
Copyright 2010 Hans Ostrom
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Celebrity Author
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*
*
*
Celebrity Author
I think I know what the celebrity-author was
thinking: Get me out of here. He wore
fame like a hair-shirt. The thing is, the money
is great, adulation's like liquor, and it's nice
to be thought a genius. So there he was, and
there we were. . . .
He squirms and fidgets. He goes on too long
and comments on his commenting like a daft
monarch. He doesn't like other people's wit
because it shows everybody's witty and fame
is as arbitrary than not. Of course,
we'd all trade places with him in the Land
of Hypothetica, especially because we'll never
have to. He won the lottery, he's a good writer,
and there's a wider justice in his fame. Still,
he itches and scratches, poses and opines,
tries to say shocking things, grins guiltily,
reminds us of his fame and wit and money
at paced intervals, and suspects what he
knows to be true: that we, too, can't wait
for the evening to be over.
Copyright 2010 Hans Ostrom
*
*
*
Celebrity Author
I think I know what the celebrity-author was
thinking: Get me out of here. He wore
fame like a hair-shirt. The thing is, the money
is great, adulation's like liquor, and it's nice
to be thought a genius. So there he was, and
there we were. . . .
He squirms and fidgets. He goes on too long
and comments on his commenting like a daft
monarch. He doesn't like other people's wit
because it shows everybody's witty and fame
is as arbitrary than not. Of course,
we'd all trade places with him in the Land
of Hypothetica, especially because we'll never
have to. He won the lottery, he's a good writer,
and there's a wider justice in his fame. Still,
he itches and scratches, poses and opines,
tries to say shocking things, grins guiltily,
reminds us of his fame and wit and money
at paced intervals, and suspects what he
knows to be true: that we, too, can't wait
for the evening to be over.
Copyright 2010 Hans Ostrom
Friday, July 23, 2010
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Schools of Poetry
I'm indebted to Carter Monroe for re-engaging me in an ongoing debate among poets--namely, why the so-called School of Quietude, dubbed so by Ron Silliman, won't acknowledge its own existence or its own tacit (so to not speak) dominance, still, of American poetry. A waggish answer: because it's quiet. Shhhh!
I'm further indebted to Seth Abramson for finally identifying Silliman's question as bait (my word, not Abramson's) and cheerfully taking the bait, partly, I sense, so that others wouldn't have to do so, having better things to do. Actually, I think Silliman's question is more fair than the sarcasm in the last sentence suggested. At any rate, here is part of Abramson's answer:
The belief, as exhibited in and by certain contemporary poems, that the near-totality of words in an individual poem should be employed in such a way as to utilize exclusively their transcendent rather than immanent meaning. To the extent this proclivity, as to word usage, commonly generates a poem whose individual on-the-page "marks" constitute merely an "echo" of the visualizable universe of matter the poem evokes, the actual words of the poem may be considered Quiet. They are Quiet in the sense that they are not permitted their full expression as "words-qua-words," but instead remain merely signifiers of a series of referents whose acknowledgment, comprehension, and internalization is the most important work of the poem.
And it's a good answer, one that follows the assertion that what Silliman calls the School of Quietude is really a family, not a genus or a species; a big tent, in other words.
Abramson also takes pains to establish his bona fides. I guess I should, too: publishing poetry in magazines since @1978, some prizes (whatever), Ph.D. in English literature (British romantics, with an exam area in Modern British and American poetry); have taught poetry-writing and poetry as literature since 1980; have written articles and books about poets and poetry; have co-written a textbook on writing poetry and fiction; have also published fiction. Yadda yadda.
To Abramson's apt definition above--which emphasizes language as a referential medium (roll over, Jacques) and thus its image-making quality, I would add that it is still a sound-making medium--lyric, that is. Too quietly for Silliman's tastes, apparently, but I'd still argue that the spine of Anglo-North-American poetry is in the "lyre," and that in this regard Auden is the dominant influence, even for people who haven't heard of him.
That is, I don't think this is an either/or question: quietude vs. noise. It is both/and, as is often the case in debates. Maybe the debate is about volume, the kind of argument that takes place in automobiles: "Turn down the bass!"
I do get what Abramson is asserting, and I do get Silliman's point that a certain way of writing squats at the center of American poetry and dominates the poetic/literary establishment: Folks from the Black Arts Movement made this point almost five decades ago.
Finally, I think it must be said that such a squabble, to the rest of the world, must sound like A Little Gnat Music, as it does even to many of us inside the family of poetry (not the taxonomical family to which Abramson refers).
As Carter Monroe has noted, "Schools" of poetry usually arise, like ghosts, after the body is buried (my analogy, not his); they are named after the fact. This reminds me of when I published my only detective novel. I was reading a review of it, and the reviewer called my novel a "procedural." I turned to my wife and said, "Honey, I wrote a procedural!" Who knew? It was a procedural because the detective was a county sheriff, thus a "police-person," a civic, not private, pro; and thus the novel, to some degree, followed his "procedure" for solving the crime. By the way, many poets, including Auden, are attracted to detective fiction because of the stricture of form and the opportunity to bend them. It's like messing with the sonnet form.
And/or, I would add, they take on far greater cache, prestige, and leverage after the fact, so much so that the young writers of this or that generation desperately yearn to be Imagists, Modernists, Black Mountain Schoolchildren, Beats, New York Schoolchildren, and so son. These schools generate what passes for glamor in the sad wee world of poetry. And what Silliman calls the S of Q seems to own a lot of the glamor still, if the Poet Laureate position generates glamor. I do wish someone would appoint Silliman.
Luckily, I grew up in the High Sierra in a town of 200, went to school in the West, have lived and taught in the West--although I have gotten around, teaching in Sweden and Germany. This squabble does carry a whiff of one more argument from East of the Mississippi; --although, again, I will take pains to acknowledge that Silliman asks some fair questions and that Abramson goes out of his way to provide a fair answer--more than fair: enlightening. Such dust-ups are good for the system of poetry; maybe. But mainly, poets should not go out of their way, if their way is to write poetry. What you want to be doing if you are a writer is to be writing the main thing you write, not writing about Schools. School is out.
I'm further indebted to Seth Abramson for finally identifying Silliman's question as bait (my word, not Abramson's) and cheerfully taking the bait, partly, I sense, so that others wouldn't have to do so, having better things to do. Actually, I think Silliman's question is more fair than the sarcasm in the last sentence suggested. At any rate, here is part of Abramson's answer:
The belief, as exhibited in and by certain contemporary poems, that the near-totality of words in an individual poem should be employed in such a way as to utilize exclusively their transcendent rather than immanent meaning. To the extent this proclivity, as to word usage, commonly generates a poem whose individual on-the-page "marks" constitute merely an "echo" of the visualizable universe of matter the poem evokes, the actual words of the poem may be considered Quiet. They are Quiet in the sense that they are not permitted their full expression as "words-qua-words," but instead remain merely signifiers of a series of referents whose acknowledgment, comprehension, and internalization is the most important work of the poem.
And it's a good answer, one that follows the assertion that what Silliman calls the School of Quietude is really a family, not a genus or a species; a big tent, in other words.
Abramson also takes pains to establish his bona fides. I guess I should, too: publishing poetry in magazines since @1978, some prizes (whatever), Ph.D. in English literature (British romantics, with an exam area in Modern British and American poetry); have taught poetry-writing and poetry as literature since 1980; have written articles and books about poets and poetry; have co-written a textbook on writing poetry and fiction; have also published fiction. Yadda yadda.
To Abramson's apt definition above--which emphasizes language as a referential medium (roll over, Jacques) and thus its image-making quality, I would add that it is still a sound-making medium--lyric, that is. Too quietly for Silliman's tastes, apparently, but I'd still argue that the spine of Anglo-North-American poetry is in the "lyre," and that in this regard Auden is the dominant influence, even for people who haven't heard of him.
That is, I don't think this is an either/or question: quietude vs. noise. It is both/and, as is often the case in debates. Maybe the debate is about volume, the kind of argument that takes place in automobiles: "Turn down the bass!"
I do get what Abramson is asserting, and I do get Silliman's point that a certain way of writing squats at the center of American poetry and dominates the poetic/literary establishment: Folks from the Black Arts Movement made this point almost five decades ago.
Finally, I think it must be said that such a squabble, to the rest of the world, must sound like A Little Gnat Music, as it does even to many of us inside the family of poetry (not the taxonomical family to which Abramson refers).
As Carter Monroe has noted, "Schools" of poetry usually arise, like ghosts, after the body is buried (my analogy, not his); they are named after the fact. This reminds me of when I published my only detective novel. I was reading a review of it, and the reviewer called my novel a "procedural." I turned to my wife and said, "Honey, I wrote a procedural!" Who knew? It was a procedural because the detective was a county sheriff, thus a "police-person," a civic, not private, pro; and thus the novel, to some degree, followed his "procedure" for solving the crime. By the way, many poets, including Auden, are attracted to detective fiction because of the stricture of form and the opportunity to bend them. It's like messing with the sonnet form.
And/or, I would add, they take on far greater cache, prestige, and leverage after the fact, so much so that the young writers of this or that generation desperately yearn to be Imagists, Modernists, Black Mountain Schoolchildren, Beats, New York Schoolchildren, and so son. These schools generate what passes for glamor in the sad wee world of poetry. And what Silliman calls the S of Q seems to own a lot of the glamor still, if the Poet Laureate position generates glamor. I do wish someone would appoint Silliman.
Luckily, I grew up in the High Sierra in a town of 200, went to school in the West, have lived and taught in the West--although I have gotten around, teaching in Sweden and Germany. This squabble does carry a whiff of one more argument from East of the Mississippi; --although, again, I will take pains to acknowledge that Silliman asks some fair questions and that Abramson goes out of his way to provide a fair answer--more than fair: enlightening. Such dust-ups are good for the system of poetry; maybe. But mainly, poets should not go out of their way, if their way is to write poetry. What you want to be doing if you are a writer is to be writing the main thing you write, not writing about Schools. School is out.
Monday, July 19, 2010
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