Ah... Surely I must have something to say.
This weekend has not been exactly what I hoped for so far. Aside from the San Francisco Giants posting their 100th win today, for which I am both elated and saddened, the times since I left work Friday has not exactly been productive or satisfying.
Friday's poetry reading was canceled by the local B&N. (sigh) No warning.. No discussion, they simply shut down. I'll have more to say about this when I'm more rational about it. (that could be weeks - Ha!)
Aside from the Friday night disappointment at B&N, it is not that the weekend has been bad, it just hasn't been anywhere close to the potentially productive and satisfying kind of weekend I enjoy. There is still tonight. (last ditch effort to taunt myself into a positive mood)
The end of the regular baseball season is always a downer for me. My family and friends joke that I supper from a seasonal adjustment disorder between the end of baseball season and the beginning of the next one. I'm not certain it isn't true. Anyway, there is post season play and the Giants will again be in the picture!
The Great genre debate continues to rage...
I've given a great deal of thought to the arguments that are being presented on several sites. Ron Silliman's and Chris Murray's Text files among others.
This has been a most interesting topic of discussion and I'm not sure I see any particular definitive answers yet myself. I see a lot of interesting energy generated on this topic. I'm hoping to see more give and take on it. I suppose for myself, I even vacillate on the value of the focus on genre at times. Right now, I see it as significant, sometimes though I catch myself feeling that it is burdensome and too distracting to consider it against the backdrop of the work itself. Sort of a schizophrenic view, no doubt.
Off to write! I have to make something of this weekend yet!
Sunday, September 28, 2003
Friday, September 26, 2003
Whyte In Review
David Whyte's reading and lecture last night was an evening well spent.
I found his overall presentation a positive plug for poetry as an intricate part of our lives. There was a soft sell of the spirituality of poetry. Not surprising in that he was brought in Unity Church. Still, his poetics is driven by a nourishment of the inner-self and that is hard to separate in at least some minute context from a spirituality of sorts.
He set about as defining poetry as the art of hearing yourself say something you didn't know that you knew. In that conceptual model - poetry is a searching and discovery vehicle. To this, I whole heartedly agree. This has been my own observation, at least to the extent of my experience.
Whyte's work emphasizes mans need to drop the shroud of protection we wrap ourselves in and push ourselves to the edge of who we are. Believing there is an important place for each of us the this universe, and it is only there that we have the courage and the qualities of engagement necessary to respond fully to life's call.
As a reader, Whyte was pleasing to listen to even as his English accent required attentiveness. His voice both quietly tranquil and robust enough to be heard. I found myself not wanting to miss a single word.
Most of his readings were completely from memory and his animation of hands were like an great conductor directing. He often repeated lines... with a slow precision to remind us what he just told us.
His work was perhaps not as metaphorical as much of today's poetry. There was plenty of vision and feel. Some metaphor, but his work tends to lead or pull you in a direction.
I plan to spend some time with more of his works. I'm hoping to order a book or two of this soon.
I'd be interested to hear from anyone who has spent any time with his works or heard him read in the past.
I found his overall presentation a positive plug for poetry as an intricate part of our lives. There was a soft sell of the spirituality of poetry. Not surprising in that he was brought in Unity Church. Still, his poetics is driven by a nourishment of the inner-self and that is hard to separate in at least some minute context from a spirituality of sorts.
He set about as defining poetry as the art of hearing yourself say something you didn't know that you knew. In that conceptual model - poetry is a searching and discovery vehicle. To this, I whole heartedly agree. This has been my own observation, at least to the extent of my experience.
Whyte's work emphasizes mans need to drop the shroud of protection we wrap ourselves in and push ourselves to the edge of who we are. Believing there is an important place for each of us the this universe, and it is only there that we have the courage and the qualities of engagement necessary to respond fully to life's call.
As a reader, Whyte was pleasing to listen to even as his English accent required attentiveness. His voice both quietly tranquil and robust enough to be heard. I found myself not wanting to miss a single word.
Most of his readings were completely from memory and his animation of hands were like an great conductor directing. He often repeated lines... with a slow precision to remind us what he just told us.
His work was perhaps not as metaphorical as much of today's poetry. There was plenty of vision and feel. Some metaphor, but his work tends to lead or pull you in a direction.
I plan to spend some time with more of his works. I'm hoping to order a book or two of this soon.
I'd be interested to hear from anyone who has spent any time with his works or heard him read in the past.
Thursday, September 25, 2003
Busy Time
Tonight I have and Evening with David Whyte. Tomorrow night - poetry reading at Barnes & Noble - Independence, MO.
Coming up on the 3rd and 4th - Maple Woods Writing Confrence.
Crystallyn is teasing us...
Coming up on the 3rd and 4th - Maple Woods Writing Confrence.
Crystallyn is teasing us...
Tuesday, September 23, 2003
Tuesday Blues....
I'm not talking music here...
I suppose it's all because yesterday was a really busy day and I feel like the week should be more than half over (big sigh) but it isn't. It's ONLY t-u-e-s-d-a-y grrrr...
Alas, there are I suppose things to look forward to. The President will address the UN today. Oh how I'd like to be a mouse setting on Kofi Annan desktop eating popcorn. You know (popcorn) it's "smartfood." When "W" is finished, if I had any left, I'd share some with him. Think it would help?
If the day gets a wee bit slow, you can always check and see if you are a metrosexual. The link silly, not the mirror.
I just adore Michaela's discourse on ABC Gum. It makes complete sense. Especially her remark:
"I love his (Bakhtin) notion of language as this thing that lies "on the borderline between oneself and the other" and as something we don't take fresh from the dictionary but rather from others' usage..."
Lime Tree gets two points for coming up with a "Stick Poet" graphic on their site. Damn, I've been trying to get one out of my kids for weeks now.
Every poem is a genre in itself
Ron Silliman gets two points deducted (anyone keeping score?) for keeping me awake last night thinking about his blog topic yesterday. My head hurts like a hangover.
I suppose it's all because yesterday was a really busy day and I feel like the week should be more than half over (big sigh) but it isn't. It's ONLY t-u-e-s-d-a-y grrrr...
Alas, there are I suppose things to look forward to. The President will address the UN today. Oh how I'd like to be a mouse setting on Kofi Annan desktop eating popcorn. You know (popcorn) it's "smartfood." When "W" is finished, if I had any left, I'd share some with him. Think it would help?
If the day gets a wee bit slow, you can always check and see if you are a metrosexual. The link silly, not the mirror.
I just adore Michaela's discourse on ABC Gum. It makes complete sense. Especially her remark:
"I love his (Bakhtin) notion of language as this thing that lies "on the borderline between oneself and the other" and as something we don't take fresh from the dictionary but rather from others' usage..."
Lime Tree gets two points for coming up with a "Stick Poet" graphic on their site. Damn, I've been trying to get one out of my kids for weeks now.
Every poem is a genre in itself
Ron Silliman gets two points deducted (anyone keeping score?) for keeping me awake last night thinking about his blog topic yesterday. My head hurts like a hangover.
Sunday, September 21, 2003
Power Up!
In a strange twist of fate, I actually came off sleep mode this morning. Wow, Sunday is a day too!
I made my own breakfast - proving self sufficiency of man.
I read for about an hour. (there were no pictures)
Made "strong" coffee and took the dogs (Klaus and Barry) out on the deck and did some writing. I experienced what I am sure must be a significant sign of the impending conclusion of summer... a wonderfully nice morning. It rained earlier, it was neither hot nor cold. The breeze gently kissed my cheeks (not those ones - gawd! I was outside...) with a soft pleasing sensation while the leaves sang in choirs perhaps one of their last few songs before they drop.
My mind actually functions on Sunday...
afterwards, I went inside and did some cleaning in my home office. Ah-ha! I do have a desk. The experience was about what I envision an archeological dig to be like.
Did my own lunch, which around here on Sunday is called "snatch & grab" because only one formal meal is cooked on Sunday. Occasionally I will refer to this as "grab your snatch" - hey, it's revisionist!
So by now you can tell my body has been functioning. What is more unique, my mind appears to be working in unison with the rest of me.
I've actually considered a great many things today. Acknowledging the depth of my thought, I have considered several things. Not the least of which are:
1. Why Catherine expects a stadium like the old Oakland coliseum to be worthy of anything but a terrible name. It was never a great ballpark and once retrofitted for football, they had to move home plate further out from the vortex because people up high behind home could not even see a batter bat. You want a "real ballpark" - go to Pacific Bell Ballpark! As for the restoration of faith in the east bay, do the A's really do that. East bay is gorgeous (south of Oakland) and the A's have nothing to do with that. I love the San Ramon area - at the foot of Mt. Diablo.
2. And why, Emily Dickinson became such a prominent American poetic figure of the 19th century. Or more adeptly I suppose, how she came to such prominence. She was such an introvert and while her poetic style powerful, especially in the reflection of personal feelings, she was barely published in her time. True, she wrote ferociously; penning by some accounts 1,800+ poems in her lifetime. She did not have the exposure of say Walt Whitman. Of course this causes me to wonder additionally how many prolific writers today, with limited publication, would be viewed as having the impact on the 21st century that she represents to her time.
3. And once again Michaela causes me to stop and think. How is it that I can lose my keys in the house and yet scientists can find the genitals -- belonging to 400 million-year-old insects -- in ancient rocks in Scotland?
I made my own breakfast - proving self sufficiency of man.
I read for about an hour. (there were no pictures)
Made "strong" coffee and took the dogs (Klaus and Barry) out on the deck and did some writing. I experienced what I am sure must be a significant sign of the impending conclusion of summer... a wonderfully nice morning. It rained earlier, it was neither hot nor cold. The breeze gently kissed my cheeks (not those ones - gawd! I was outside...) with a soft pleasing sensation while the leaves sang in choirs perhaps one of their last few songs before they drop.
My mind actually functions on Sunday...
afterwards, I went inside and did some cleaning in my home office. Ah-ha! I do have a desk. The experience was about what I envision an archeological dig to be like.
Did my own lunch, which around here on Sunday is called "snatch & grab" because only one formal meal is cooked on Sunday. Occasionally I will refer to this as "grab your snatch" - hey, it's revisionist!
So by now you can tell my body has been functioning. What is more unique, my mind appears to be working in unison with the rest of me.
I've actually considered a great many things today. Acknowledging the depth of my thought, I have considered several things. Not the least of which are:
1. Why Catherine expects a stadium like the old Oakland coliseum to be worthy of anything but a terrible name. It was never a great ballpark and once retrofitted for football, they had to move home plate further out from the vortex because people up high behind home could not even see a batter bat. You want a "real ballpark" - go to Pacific Bell Ballpark! As for the restoration of faith in the east bay, do the A's really do that. East bay is gorgeous (south of Oakland) and the A's have nothing to do with that. I love the San Ramon area - at the foot of Mt. Diablo.
2. And why, Emily Dickinson became such a prominent American poetic figure of the 19th century. Or more adeptly I suppose, how she came to such prominence. She was such an introvert and while her poetic style powerful, especially in the reflection of personal feelings, she was barely published in her time. True, she wrote ferociously; penning by some accounts 1,800+ poems in her lifetime. She did not have the exposure of say Walt Whitman. Of course this causes me to wonder additionally how many prolific writers today, with limited publication, would be viewed as having the impact on the 21st century that she represents to her time.
3. And once again Michaela causes me to stop and think. How is it that I can lose my keys in the house and yet scientists can find the genitals -- belonging to 400 million-year-old insects -- in ancient rocks in Scotland?
Friday, September 19, 2003
Thoughts on closure
Crag Hill's poetry scorecard takes a look at the end of poems. When I saw this, I was immediately drawn into it, because I once had a poem critiqued by someone who told me that poems should end in single syllable words. Of course there may be legitimate reasons for this, but the rebellious person inside directing my life really isn't found of being told things in absolutes. Particularly when it comes to art and other expressive things. That is so limiting.
In Crag Hill's blog, he expresses a liking to ends of poems that assert. This certainly has it's place and I'm with Crag totally when he talks about an ending that leaves him with "one chunk of thought or image." This can be quite effective, but not always desirable.
I've written poems that contrastingly end abruptly. Intentionally so. One such poem was Cerebral Cobwebs. The final stanza of this poem I wrote sometime back reads...
Has my mind become fragmented...
Is my memory obsolete?
Are there cobwebs in this mind of mine...
What was I thinking?
The poem ends as if I totally lost my train of thought. Crag Hill supports this idea too.
Hill points out that our lives are absent of closure and so it is befitting that our poetry should often reflect this. I'm all for flexibility in how we end our poems. Meaty thoughts are at time warranted. Something we can sink our teeth into and feel or see. Sometimes that one syllable work is perfect. Sometimes not. The expressive nature this art dictates that we flow with the message and not rigidly adhere to some stock ending.
In Crag Hill's blog, he expresses a liking to ends of poems that assert. This certainly has it's place and I'm with Crag totally when he talks about an ending that leaves him with "one chunk of thought or image." This can be quite effective, but not always desirable.
I've written poems that contrastingly end abruptly. Intentionally so. One such poem was Cerebral Cobwebs. The final stanza of this poem I wrote sometime back reads...
Has my mind become fragmented...
Is my memory obsolete?
Are there cobwebs in this mind of mine...
What was I thinking?
The poem ends as if I totally lost my train of thought. Crag Hill supports this idea too.
Hill points out that our lives are absent of closure and so it is befitting that our poetry should often reflect this. I'm all for flexibility in how we end our poems. Meaty thoughts are at time warranted. Something we can sink our teeth into and feel or see. Sometimes that one syllable work is perfect. Sometimes not. The expressive nature this art dictates that we flow with the message and not rigidly adhere to some stock ending.
Thursday, September 18, 2003
Choose your weapon... but write
On occasion
so moved by the spirit within
poetry becomes my devise
and complexities
sometimes
are rendered simple
while the simple become at times
more burdensome than ought.
Much the same
a pen and journal page is fine at times
but the pc seems a vehicle preferred
at others.
So much alike
are the life within
and the life of this world that
poetry so fittingly defines.
Lunar forces
and sweeping tides connect
to pull our senses in vast
mood swings that defy even a modern day
Freud.
Ha!
strangely it seems all folly.
What difference matters the blood type
of the penned poem
anyway. Equally is the ink of pens and
printers that gives flight to the ideas
of it's originator. Otherwise,
no one knows and the poet
may not recall tomorrow
the simplest
or the most complex. Lost,
and to others
never was.
so moved by the spirit within
poetry becomes my devise
and complexities
sometimes
are rendered simple
while the simple become at times
more burdensome than ought.
Much the same
a pen and journal page is fine at times
but the pc seems a vehicle preferred
at others.
So much alike
are the life within
and the life of this world that
poetry so fittingly defines.
Lunar forces
and sweeping tides connect
to pull our senses in vast
mood swings that defy even a modern day
Freud.
Ha!
strangely it seems all folly.
What difference matters the blood type
of the penned poem
anyway. Equally is the ink of pens and
printers that gives flight to the ideas
of it's originator. Otherwise,
no one knows and the poet
may not recall tomorrow
the simplest
or the most complex. Lost,
and to others
never was.
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