Choices

Bright Star isn't playing near me. I'm going to see Avatar instead. From Ebert.com: "There is still at least one man in Hollywood who knows how to spend $250 million..." And Freeman's review is here.

Happy Birthday to the Blog

ABOPABOW was a month old last week. I think this is a good sign. Here are two "Best of 2009" lists that I'm looking forward to getting a crack at. The first was published in the San Fransisco Chronicle and updated here, at Dean Rader's blog. This second list is one of dozens posted over at the No Tells (associated with the poetry website NoTell Motel).

I've also added Five Points (great journal) to the list of links.

Lynn Wagner

just won the Slapering Hol Press Chapbook Competition for 2009 with her chapbook No Blues This Racous Song. Excerpts aren't available yet, but I've read other work by her (here's a sample. . .and another), and I'm ordering this.

Check this out

Sandy Tseng's "Sediment" was just published in October. "Sediment" is a Stahlecker Series Selection from Four Way Books. Lynn Emanuel reviews it here.

River Styx

This journal has just been added to the link list on the right. It's as old as me. I think that's cool. Is that weird to say about a journal? So sue me. Anyway, issue 79 has a poem by David Wagoner. Issue 76-77 features recipes. Jim Daniels's beans. Diane Wakowski's tart. Mmmm--but you have to order it.

All I Want for Christmas. . .

Best New Poets 2009 is the new guy in town (2009 is only its fifth year), and BNP publishes poets who don't have books yet. This series should become a powerful annual event.

Best American Poetry 2009, Editor David Lehman's annual look at American poetry. The classic series. This year's guest editor is David Wagoner.

Reading...

Just before the weekend began, I re-read Lynn Emanuel's Then, Suddenly-- (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1999) and I have been thinking about it all weekend. What Emanuel does here is create a collection of poems that feels like a lyrical story about the making of a book. And while that might generate a few eye rolls from the "Can-we-please-avoid-meta?" crowd, it's not what they think. Then, Suddenly-- may be a book about a book, but it's not about game-playing, and the book doesn't trade emotion for insight. In the poems I meet the "things" of a book: the writer, the reader (myself?), the title; I meet many of the concepts without which the idea of "book" becomes empty. And, in the midst of these meetings, I feel present in the creation of what I hold. It's a feeling I've not encountered in poetry before. I enjoy it. What I am trying to say is that when I first read Then, Suddenly--, soon after it came out, all I allowed myself to see was Emanuel's wit at handling the writing about writing (here "wit" can stand for intelligence or intelligent humor). Now, after re-reading Then, Suddenly-- I realize that her book is not just full of wit, but also of purpose and risk. It is these three elements that make the book so successful. It is risky to write about writing. But Emanuel takes that risk. And what's purposeful here? Well, it's not that Emanuel is purposeful, or that the book is purposeful; it's the way in which the book is purposefully elaborate. As I read, I realize I am not just reading a book of poetry that sets out to be a book about a book. I am reading a book that sets out to help me--poem by poem--construct the book, construct the author, construct myself, and to construct (at least for me) construction itself. Perhaps that's why Walt Whitman and Getrude Stein appear in here. These days, as I work on my own collection, I will pay attention to that triad operating so smoothly in Emanuel's book: wit, risk, and purpose.

Henri Cole (an interview with Christopher Lydon)

Speaking of Merrill... "When I write a poem, I hope to be in conversation with Merrill, who hopes to be in conversation with Cavafy or Whitman, and it goes back and back to Horace. But I guess I am also aware of the need to push all of that out of my head and just write the poem that I want to write."

And, as for qualities in a poem..."There has to be a commitment to emotional truth, and there has to be a little concerto of consonants and vowels. Most people do one or the other. Getting them together is essential."
-from the interview

Thanks to Christopher Lydon and the Huffington Post, I just listened to this delicious interview with Henri Cole. Lydon asks good questions and allows Cole to share much. Throughout the interview, Cole reads from his latest collection, Blackbird and Wolf (2007). Here are some of Cole's poems "My Weed" at 8:05, "Oil and Steel" at 10:10, "Embers at 13:30, "Dune" at the 18:50 mark, "Pig" at 29:09, and "Asleep in Jesus at Rest" at 31:30.

The World, the Weirdness, the Wonder, the Wow.

Oh, this poem is joy to read. There's something creepy and beautiful about it's vivid, imagistic declarations. I am partial to the images of french toast as prepared with an eye dropper (an influence from Jhonen Vasquez's _Invader Zim_?) and to that moment of clarity that can hit one while in the back seat of a car driving around Pittsburgh--but that's me. Each sentence creates a world. Go forth. Enjoy.
Mathias Svalina's "Creation Myth."

Poetry News

The Poetry Foundation and Poetry Daily both have news sections. I've added them to the blog's link sections. They're updated frequently--enjoy. The headlines are pulled from small and large sources and sometimes I discover some interesting things: here's an article about Cate Marvin and her residency at James Merrill's home.

God Bless

How nice it must be to see the world so clearly--so sharply--especially around Christmas.

An email forwarded to me recently suggested that I (and I guess my family and friends) should cripple the ACLU by sending them massive amounts of Christmas Cards.

Get it?

It's because the ACLU hates Christmas, or as the end of the email claims, perhaps it's because: "the ACLU, (the American Civil Liberties Union) is the one suing the U.S. Government to take God, Christmas or anything Christian away from us. They represent the atheists and others in this war. Help put Christ back in Christmas!"

The truth is things are more complicated. While the ACLU works to maintain a separation of Church and State, the ACLU also protects the rights of Christians to worship. Thanks to the ACLU, this Christian can now preach in prison.

Why do I teach writing? Is it possible to even the score against this flood of simplistic , us-vs-them thinking in our populace these days?

MFA Program Rankings

Poets and Writers has generously shared Seth Abramson's article, "The Top Fifty MFA Programs in the United States: A Comprehensive Guide" at its site. This four page article is actually just an excerpt--the full text appears in the Nov/Dec 2009 newsstand issue. I feel that rankings can make artists and academics uncomfortable, but there's enough reason and humility to this project that I respect what Abramson executed here.

"By and large, students find that their experiences are circumscribed by entirely unforeseeable circumstances: They befriend a fellow writer; they unexpectedly discover a mentor; they come to live in a town or city that, previously foreign, becomes as dear to them as home. No ranking ought to pretend to establish the absolute truth about program quality, and in keeping with that maxim the rankings that follow have no such pretensions."

Of course, with that said, here are the rankings:
1-50 (three programs at spot #50) 53-132.

For explanations, background, and general wisdom, again, read the article.

Robin Ekiss

I've been considering these poems all morning. Poetry Daily posted "Android Clarinetist," and from Ekiss's site: "The Past is Another Country" and a link to "The Question of My Mother" at the Poetry website. Her first book, The Mansion of Happiness, is out from VQR press.

Two Poems by Gerald Stern

There are two beautiful poems by Gerald Stern over at Poetry Daily this morning. I enjoy the way these poems pull a sentence across several line breaks and commas. The endings are so much more cathartic after that breathless tension.

This Morning at Poetry Daily

There's a well-crafted poem over at poetry daily this morning--Sherman Alexie's "The Father and Son Road Show." Alexie's latest book, Face, was published this year by Hanging Loose press.

Happy Thanksgiving

I realize it was yesterday, but I'm still feeling thankful. And stuffed. But apparently the group I'm in--the stuffed group--is shrinking. And not in the good way. The number of Americans who can't rely on full cupbaords and leftovers in the fridge is increasing. "Food insecurity" is on the rise.

If you feel like sharing some of your caloric good fortune, consider Philabundance or Feeding America. I give to Philabundance because they're local for me. Feeding America (formerly Second Harvest) is a national organization that helps local food banks. Here's how they operate: How Feeding America Works (from their website). If you know someone in need, Feeding America also has a foodbank locator on their front page (while a google search might also do, this might be a bit more organized).

Weekend in New York

I was in my friends' apartment this weekend trying to explain how much Tony Hoagland means to me. He profoundly changed the way I thought about my poetry. Here's what I couldn't articulate properly on Sunday. I came into grad school writing safe, pseudo-confessional jibba-jabba. These were poems that felt "deep," but actually just skimmed the surface of deeper issues. They were fun to read to a group of a strangers--it felt risky. It wasn't. Hoagland sat me down, and we had a meeting that I think about almost every time I work on a poem. At the meeting, Hoagland read one poem to me. One poem. W.S. Merwin's "Yesterday" touched my ears and I began to weep. It was the poem. It was the sound of Hoagland's voice, reading.

It was that I realized just how far off-course I was going.

To this day, I think Hoagland knew exactly what would happen. We talked a bit more, and I left the meeting almost shaken. What I took away from that meeting is difficult to express, but I have thought about it like this: Don't go the edge of the fire. Step into it.

I will be disoriented, on fire: that's fine. I can worry about line breaks and rhythm later--after I'm sure that I've found the center of the fire. And, even if I don't find the center, it's at least productive for me to stumble around with honest sentences and diction trying to find that point of heat where things matter.

A Poem for a November Morning in the Northeast

It's not cold enough yet to regret the press of my feet against the floor in the morning, but it's getting there. What I don't regret this morning--what I can actually take pleasure in--is the poem over at Poetry Daily, a.k.a. poems.com. Go read Andrea Blevins's "First Winter in Maine,"and savor those last few lines.

If you want the main page of the site--to see a new poem every day--click www.poems.com. Remember that this is poems.com.
There are several websites with poetry in the URL that exist solely to waste your time and money. Avoid them unless you want to laugh or cry.

A Friend Gives Me An Important Book of Poetry, and I Only Like the Inside Cover

Years ago, while I was away at a summer arts camp, my best friend sent me a book of poetry. In the front, my friend wrote about our friendship--it's value to him. The book? Debt by Mark Levine. I was young and stupid, and I didn't realize the debt I owed my friend. I focused less on Levine's words and more on my friend's words, his handwriting. Like I said, I was away from home. I was young and stupid.

What joy, the other morning, when I discovered this column by Stephen Burt:
http://bostonreview.net/BR34.3/burt.php
The journey went something like this: poems.org / November 13, 2009 / Angie Estes and her book Tryst / Oberlin College Press / A review by Burt / Googling Stephen Burt / Boston Review.
Hey, I'm not as well read as I should be, and I won't pretend. Basically, I get curious. Then I go read. I wasn't moved by Estes work, but it's form made me curious. Off I went.

Thanks to Burt, I now have this other context for the book, for the gift. I didn't realize it's place in language poetry. Today, I think that I'll re-read (and re-consider) Debt. If you haven't read Burt's column, get to it. Ever wonder what's going on in poetry? Here's one answer. Yes, to some degree what he's bringing to our attention has always been an important element in poetry. However, the way he suggests that the new thing stems in a way from words used by Tony Hoagland--the idea of "inscription"--feels, at least to me, sharp. Is that where things are? Where they're headed? Hey, why not? I mean, what meant more to me? The book, or what my friend inscribed the book?

As for my friend, I will never question his tastes again. Star Wars? Pro Wrestling? Forget it. He gave me a gift of contemporary poetry history. I'm curious again. I owe him.



So, go see his play.
http://bricktheater.com/exposition
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Welcome

No grand claims, let's just see how this goes.