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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
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
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
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*
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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
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