Flarf Collective goes public

This captured my attention today...

Just last week, the Flarf Collective made its long-exclusive listserv public, welcoming poets who use material from people's Facebook status, search histories and chat room discourse, techniques that have also become known as flarf. [Story here]

Retreat of sorts

Dog sitting for my son this weekend. It’s become a mini writing retreat of sorts.  I’ve stayed off TV – so I’ve not had that distraction. Also worked on some “office work” and in-between took our sick car to the shop for which the issue remains unresolved. 

In terms of writing, I’ve done some on my laptop and some in my journal. It helped to brake up things to give my eyes a change of focus. By late last night my eyes were pretty fuzzy and my head spinning. I did ultimately unwind listening to some music from Yusef Islam a.k.a. Cat Stevens. Some of his music is especially comforting like the denim jeans he sings of in Oh Very Young.

One of the neat things about writing this weekend is that I started with an epigraph from Anne Sexton and was able to write for a while and hit a wall.  I stopped for a while and read some of her work just to get my mind to move beyond where I was.  Later I was able to go back and successfully write more. Not from the original draft but with a new slant from the epigraph. Again I hit a wall, but I have parts of the two different drafts that have portions that show promise and will at some point I am confident prove useful. Then later this morning – another whole draft – this one the process has reached conclusion. It’s very workable and I already know some changes I will make; tighten it up and work on line breaks and toy with the stanzas trying to get the best flow from it and improve it lyrically. This one has a broadly political / philosophical tone and these are so hard to do without preaching. This will not be preachy.

That is my roundup for the weekend. I’m going to stop now and write a bit longer and head to bed. Morning comes soon.

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A Little Saturday Mischief

 

A Few Poetry Workshops You May Have Missed

• Feline Elegies - or nine chances to get it right.
• Potato Poetry - Mashed, fried, baked and other poetic devices.
• Would you, could you with Hamlet? Exploring similarities of Seuss and Shakespeare.

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Wright Markets Poetry For the Consumer Mind

 

Wright Markets Poetry For the Consumer Mind

Award-winning poet CD Wright visits Columbia to deliver a lecture on the place of poetry in the public discourse.

By Laura Oseland

Published Tuesday 10 November 2009 07:13pm EST.

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How does poetry keep on keeping on?

This is what award-winning poet CD Wright will discuss for the Creative Writing Lecture Series at the School of the Arts on Thursday. Her lecture, “Concerning Why Poetry Offers a Better Deal than the World’s Biggest Retailer,” explores the position of poetry within the public discourse, as an artistic force in the commercial and social environment in which we now live.

Wright Markets Poetry For the Consumer Mind

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What Does it Say About FOX News when Comedy Central is More A More Accurate Source for News?

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Sean Hannity Uses Glenn Beck's Protest Footage
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

Sean Hannity and Rep. Michele Bachmann(R-MN) two peas in a pod!

Technorati Tags: Jon Stewart,Michele,Sean Hannity,FOX News,anit-health care reform rally

Hold on I’m Not Unnerved by Women’s Poetry

I occasionally read the Books Blog at guardian.co.uk and today Jo Shapcott caught my attention with the title Do women write ‘female’ poetry? 

I suppose my interest was principally raised because I’ve given a fair amount of consideration to the realization that my list of poetry reading as well as my favorite poets to read is weighted significantly in favor of female poets. I’ve not quite figured out for sure why though the exploration of this will likely make for a later post.

I don’t think Sharpcott really ever quite adequately defines what makes female poetry. I think I expected more of the blog post but it did come away with a couple of interesting thoughts. Sharpcott comes to this conversation by way of a panel discussion at the Aldeburgh poetry festival. I was somewhat taken back by the fact that she reported  that the women on the panel decided  it was important not to let gender dominate their writing ( at least initially ) in order that the language can lead it in unanticipated directions, BUT it was pretty clear that such thoughts are not expected of men, their poetry is set as a kind of default mode. I have trouble seeing this “default mode” she speaks of.

The second thing that bugged me about this piece was the the statement that women are happy to devour anything that is good (I hate the subjectivism of good here) male readers are sometimes nervous of poetry books by women. I suppose I was put here to be the counterbalance among men and I tend not be be unnerved by poetry written by woman.

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Mary Biddinger has Done It Again or Defibrillating Your Poem While You Can

First it was How to kill a poem (before it even starts) and now she gives us How to defibrillate a poem (before it's too late).  Biddinger is cracking me up. But seriously I’m glad to know that "Just Me Being a Shithead” constitutes a poetic device.

Technorati Tags: just for poetic fun