Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Monday, June 21, 2010
Carter Monroe Reads a Poem
Here is a link to a reading by Carter Monroe of one of his poems, good one--nice details, and a wonderful "turn" at the end:
Carter Monroe
Carter Monroe
Rank Stranger Press
Here is a link to Rank Stranger Press, presided over by Carter Monroe and Jim Chandler; the press publishes a wide variety of poetry and short fiction in both chapbook and "big" book formats. And here is a link to a performance of the song that gave the press its name:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_vtOd_d40o
Bob Dylan recorded it, too, in his inimitable style:
http://s0.ilike.com/play#Bob+Dylan:Rank+Strangers+To+Me:166494:m652663
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_vtOd_d40o
Bob Dylan recorded it, too, in his inimitable style:
http://s0.ilike.com/play#Bob+Dylan:Rank+Strangers+To+Me:166494:m652663
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Carter Monroe's THE NEW LOST BLUES
I just finished reading Carter Monroe's The New Lost Blues: Selected Poems 1999-2005, and it's splendid. It's a book well known in the small-press community but should be even more widely known and, one hopes, headed for a second printing. The influence of the Beats and the Black Mountain School is here, but that's not saying much as Monroe has obviously absorbed that influence and moved on to forge his own style. Many poems in the early part of the book are narrative in different ways, personal but never insular, and all guided by a firm but flexible, funny but also often coldly incisive voice.
These poems represent much from the author's world in North Carolina and elsewhere but just as much about the U.S. in the early 21st century. Other poems are more palpably jazz-influenced, and Monroe clearly knows the music and musicians there, and is no dabbler. A third kind of poem is shorter, more experimental, such as the Ra Postcards. Through it all runs a disciplined but highly inventive maturity, always a strong voice, a keen eye for detail, falsehood, self-deception, absurdity, and despair, and always a fine sense of form and line. This really is a substantial achievement, a book for readers of poetry to savor, and a book for poets to learn from and, if they're not careful, envy.
The New Lost Blues Selected Poems 1999-2005
These poems represent much from the author's world in North Carolina and elsewhere but just as much about the U.S. in the early 21st century. Other poems are more palpably jazz-influenced, and Monroe clearly knows the music and musicians there, and is no dabbler. A third kind of poem is shorter, more experimental, such as the Ra Postcards. Through it all runs a disciplined but highly inventive maturity, always a strong voice, a keen eye for detail, falsehood, self-deception, absurdity, and despair, and always a fine sense of form and line. This really is a substantial achievement, a book for readers of poetry to savor, and a book for poets to learn from and, if they're not careful, envy.
The New Lost Blues Selected Poems 1999-2005
Friday, June 18, 2010
Jim Chandler, Poet, Fiction-Writer, Essayist
I'm waiting for Jim Chandler's book of poems, Smoke and Thunder, to arrive from amazon.com, but I've already read several of his narrative poems, and they're terrific. Jim lives in Tennessee and has collaborated on many literary projects with the inimitable Carter Monroe. A link to Jim's site:
Jim Chandler
Smoke and Thunder
Jim Chandler
Smoke and Thunder
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Bad-Boyfriend Poem Redux
Last year sometime I posted a video of Thadra Sheridan's reading her poem, "Bad Boyfriend," and apparently the post was popular. To be clear this is not a bad "boyfriend poem"; it is a good poem, and a good reading of it, about a bad boyfriend.
Link to Sheridan
Anyone out there know of any good "bad-girlfriend" poems--that aren't reflexively and predictably misogynist? Gotta be a good poem.
Link to Sheridan
Anyone out there know of any good "bad-girlfriend" poems--that aren't reflexively and predictably misogynist? Gotta be a good poem.
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Carter Monroe's Spicer Series
Thanks to a blog called 9th Street Laboratories, I recently read Carter Monroe's "Spicer Series," a group of poems for and, in multiple ways, inspired by Jack Spicer, who was affiliated with the Beat Movement. For more on Spicer (1925-1965), please see . . .
http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/1656
Carter Monroe is a poet, essayist, and editor who lives in eastern North Carolina. His knowledge of 20th and 21st century American poetry is vast and incisive, the product of inquisitive, disciplined eclecticism. I think the Spicer series is terrific, a deft fusion of lyricism, imagery, and philosophy. I hope you like it, too; here is a link to it as well as to a photo of Mr. Monroe:
Spicer Series by Carter Monroe
Writers on the Storm: Stories, Observations, and Essays
The New Lost Blues Selected Poems 1999-2005
http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/1656
Carter Monroe is a poet, essayist, and editor who lives in eastern North Carolina. His knowledge of 20th and 21st century American poetry is vast and incisive, the product of inquisitive, disciplined eclecticism. I think the Spicer series is terrific, a deft fusion of lyricism, imagery, and philosophy. I hope you like it, too; here is a link to it as well as to a photo of Mr. Monroe:
Spicer Series by Carter Monroe
Writers on the Storm: Stories, Observations, and Essays
The New Lost Blues Selected Poems 1999-2005
Monday, June 14, 2010
Jellyfish (poem)
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Jellyfish, Commencement Bay
(for K.W.)
At an edge of Commencement Bay,
an array of jellyfish has patterned
its position near charcoal stumps
of old pilings. We could look at
sailboats, tankers, a para-glider,
a volcano, an island, two mountain-
ranges, or each other—no:
jellyfish transfix. At first they
look like ladled dollops of brown
butter floating atop bay-soup.
Then they suggest small veils
cast off by tiny mermaid brides
now on honeymoons. We lean
over a deck-railing, large mammals
with heavy heads that pretend
to know; who mumble things
about jellyfish-stings. Fascination
defeats knowledge easily.
They’re neither fish nor jelly. Do
they swim or float? Yes. Strings
that originate inside them orient
languidly toward land as if to tune
in to a broadcast from sand. Do
jellyfish communicate? Doubtful—
probably too evolved for that.
Everything’s composed of water,
light, oxygen, and byproducts:
what else is there to know?
Simple and surreal, jellyfish are
beautiful mucous, buoyant
membrane. Comatosely alert
and illumined, their shifting
forms respond to smallest
liquid undulations at an edge
of Commencement Bay.
Copyright 2010 Hans Ostrom
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Jellyfish, Commencement Bay
(for K.W.)
At an edge of Commencement Bay,
an array of jellyfish has patterned
its position near charcoal stumps
of old pilings. We could look at
sailboats, tankers, a para-glider,
a volcano, an island, two mountain-
ranges, or each other—no:
jellyfish transfix. At first they
look like ladled dollops of brown
butter floating atop bay-soup.
Then they suggest small veils
cast off by tiny mermaid brides
now on honeymoons. We lean
over a deck-railing, large mammals
with heavy heads that pretend
to know; who mumble things
about jellyfish-stings. Fascination
defeats knowledge easily.
They’re neither fish nor jelly. Do
they swim or float? Yes. Strings
that originate inside them orient
languidly toward land as if to tune
in to a broadcast from sand. Do
jellyfish communicate? Doubtful—
probably too evolved for that.
Everything’s composed of water,
light, oxygen, and byproducts:
what else is there to know?
Simple and surreal, jellyfish are
beautiful mucous, buoyant
membrane. Comatosely alert
and illumined, their shifting
forms respond to smallest
liquid undulations at an edge
of Commencement Bay.
Copyright 2010 Hans Ostrom
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