Cornfields, or, a Lesson in Choice
“This field looks awfully barren”,
he said, looking out the windows.
“This field looks free”
I thought, leaning over his arm.
“It’s true”, he said, “they picked all the corn last week.”
“I know” I said.
They were storing it in the silo,
surrounded by crows pecking holes in the earth,
hoping to unearth a tight yellow seedling.
“I would like to be a farmer”, he told me.
“I’d like that”, I said,
“For then I’d till my own field,
and not keep it barren, but free”
I thought.
Monday, December 8, 2008
Monday, December 1, 2008
Decisions, or, the not quite a wedding planning
Emily cooking dinner, Bouillabaisse
(that is bull-ye-base)
lamented whether or not to sear the araignées de mer
or the gilt-head bream,
while Vincent, studying at the Nonconformist Mortuary Chapel
(now Crematorium)
sat perusing his texts.
"They have catafalques for 3,
for parents decided to cease their tedious lives
should their child succumb to marthambles.
And preposterous caskets
(purchased for 332.31 pence)
shaped like ballet pantofles or corkscrews.
A woman from Ottery St. Catchpole,
she did that a fortnight ago,
a cask where she's fixed in a grand jeté."
Emily, cooking dinner, Bouillabaisse
(that is bull-ye-base)
realised her lamenting over the searing of the araignées de mer
or the gilt-head bream,
instead seemed averagely monotonous.
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Cannolis (New Short Story)
We sat at the House of Naan and Curry off 7th in the Sunset not speaking. The night was dank, saturated with a surrealistic air as the fog rolled in off the ocean, it’s tendrils seeping into every crevice and creating a halo around the neon lights. It made them all look like cheap Mexican religious artwork, lo and behold thy corona around the “kingfisher” beer sign!
“I like this place” she said, spooning up her mulligatawny soup. Sarah, with her peroxide hair and red lips.
“Me too, I’ve been coming here for years”
We continued to eat in silence, the N Judah rattled by. We talked some more about politics, our friends’ gold digger girlfriend, and ended up arguing about G.G. Allins country music. I said it was different and can’t be compared to folk punk. She said it can, it sucks and country singers have always been singing about whores and whiskey. “He stuck bananas in his ass and shit them out on a spoken word, that’s fucking groundbreaking and I don’t care what you say”. She muttered something indecipherable, no doubt to get the last word in. The waiter brought the check, thanking us and giving us each a free refill on our masala tea with a wink. They’re nice here. Not the surly type you find all over the area who snots in your chowder and has a grating voice that can only belong to 24 hour diner waitresses, carnies, and prostitutes.
We’re now standing out in the fog, waiting for the train home and she turns to me. “Tom, I want cannolis.” “Cannolis?” I say, “Sarah we’re in the Asian part of town and it’s almost 10 at night. Where the hell are we going to get you some cannolis?” “Hm, I guess you’re right” she replies glumly, “but I really do want some.” “Well that’s too bad. I just bought you dinner and so let’s just catch the Muni and get home. We have ice cream there” “Dogass” she mutters kicking an empty cup. The Muni pulls up and we both hop on. It’s a slow ride home, crowded, and in typical public transport fashion, it smells like urine and artificial lighting. I count the people on the train and when they get off I count the empty seats they leave.
Finally we get off at our stop by the Haight and walk the 2 blocks to our apartment past the spanging homeless and, even more wretched, the rich kids who are homeless for the “experience”. UC Santa Cruz students on their year abroad, the locals call em. We walk up to our flat and let ourselves in. It’s not much to look at. It’s ripe with chintz and sleazy Americana. A TV without cable, an ugly orange loveseat that will be stylish once the 70s come back in vogue, a mish mash of animal skulls, and Halloween decorations that have become year round. It’s like stepping into an Edward Gorey book. Sarah goes to the kitchen and asks if I’d like the norm, a whiskey sour made with some rotgut booze. She brings out the drinks on a tray, hers a bloody Mary, which is more Tabasco than anything else.
“Tom. I really want some cannolis,” she says.
“Sarah, there’s Ben and Jerry’s in the freezer from last night. Eat that. We have tons of food and it always goes bad”
“I don’t want Ben and Jerry’s, if I did I’d say I want Ben and Jerry’s.”
“Sarah we’re broke. I already spent more than I should’ve on dinner, I love you, but I’m not going on a quest for cannolis. If you want em, you can go buy em”
“To-o-o-m” she whined, “You don’t understand. I want cannolis. I need them. I’m DYING without them,” she gasped, grapping her throat and falling to the ground.
“NO! Don’t die on the rug, I just vacuumed!” I said, kicking her softly. Laughing, she grabbed my ankle and pulled me down with her. She kissed me on the nose and said, “I’ll get those cannolis, you wait and see. But right now I could settle for some you.”
Later that night I woke up, trying to figure out where I was. The living room floor. Ah, yes. I looked around for Sarah but she was gone. I figured she must’ve gone to bed. But when I got to the bedroom no one was there except for our two rats, Rattus and Rattus. Original. I know. The bed looked unslept in. I think it was the site of those sterile crisp sheets that set me off. The situation I was in was not sterile or crisp. Quite the opposite. Messy and fetid. My fiancé is missing. I woke up naked on the living room floor in the middle of the night and my fiancé is missing.
“Okay Tommy boy, tomarooni, just breath” I told myself. I found my phone and dialed her number, my fingers shaking at such a frantic pitch, and yes! her voice! “Hi! This is Sarah leave a message, or not”. “FUCK!” I yelled slamming the phone down. Had she left me for someone else? Is it because I didn’t get her cannolis? Was she abducted and now falling prey to chromatic anal probes? Was our sex abysmal? Did the government come whisk her away? I knew she shouldn’t have liberated that mink fur farm. These thoughts whirled through my head while I pulled on my boots and decided to wander the streets, most likely in vain, and search for her. I heard sirens in the distance and then
The door slammed open and there it was. A banshee. Crazed hell-bent eyes and hair crazed with manic electricity, it stood there. “HELP ME TOM!” it shrieked, breaking glass with her fevered pitch. “Sarah what’s the matter?” I cried running towards her. “HELP!” she yelled again. “She’s cracked”, I thought. My fiancé is batshit insane. She began thrusting bags at me. White bakery bags reeking with a saccharine odor. Once they were all off the landing she slammed and dead bolted the door. Her peroxide hair was covered in sludge and her black pants were now a ghastly splatter paint of white and black.
“What the FUCK” I bellowed, “What the fuck were you thinking? What the hell is all this shit?”
She stood there, eyes growing wide as the sirens drew closer, “Cannollis. Quick. Hide them.”
“I like this place” she said, spooning up her mulligatawny soup. Sarah, with her peroxide hair and red lips.
“Me too, I’ve been coming here for years”
We continued to eat in silence, the N Judah rattled by. We talked some more about politics, our friends’ gold digger girlfriend, and ended up arguing about G.G. Allins country music. I said it was different and can’t be compared to folk punk. She said it can, it sucks and country singers have always been singing about whores and whiskey. “He stuck bananas in his ass and shit them out on a spoken word, that’s fucking groundbreaking and I don’t care what you say”. She muttered something indecipherable, no doubt to get the last word in. The waiter brought the check, thanking us and giving us each a free refill on our masala tea with a wink. They’re nice here. Not the surly type you find all over the area who snots in your chowder and has a grating voice that can only belong to 24 hour diner waitresses, carnies, and prostitutes.
We’re now standing out in the fog, waiting for the train home and she turns to me. “Tom, I want cannolis.” “Cannolis?” I say, “Sarah we’re in the Asian part of town and it’s almost 10 at night. Where the hell are we going to get you some cannolis?” “Hm, I guess you’re right” she replies glumly, “but I really do want some.” “Well that’s too bad. I just bought you dinner and so let’s just catch the Muni and get home. We have ice cream there” “Dogass” she mutters kicking an empty cup. The Muni pulls up and we both hop on. It’s a slow ride home, crowded, and in typical public transport fashion, it smells like urine and artificial lighting. I count the people on the train and when they get off I count the empty seats they leave.
Finally we get off at our stop by the Haight and walk the 2 blocks to our apartment past the spanging homeless and, even more wretched, the rich kids who are homeless for the “experience”. UC Santa Cruz students on their year abroad, the locals call em. We walk up to our flat and let ourselves in. It’s not much to look at. It’s ripe with chintz and sleazy Americana. A TV without cable, an ugly orange loveseat that will be stylish once the 70s come back in vogue, a mish mash of animal skulls, and Halloween decorations that have become year round. It’s like stepping into an Edward Gorey book. Sarah goes to the kitchen and asks if I’d like the norm, a whiskey sour made with some rotgut booze. She brings out the drinks on a tray, hers a bloody Mary, which is more Tabasco than anything else.
“Tom. I really want some cannolis,” she says.
“Sarah, there’s Ben and Jerry’s in the freezer from last night. Eat that. We have tons of food and it always goes bad”
“I don’t want Ben and Jerry’s, if I did I’d say I want Ben and Jerry’s.”
“Sarah we’re broke. I already spent more than I should’ve on dinner, I love you, but I’m not going on a quest for cannolis. If you want em, you can go buy em”
“To-o-o-m” she whined, “You don’t understand. I want cannolis. I need them. I’m DYING without them,” she gasped, grapping her throat and falling to the ground.
“NO! Don’t die on the rug, I just vacuumed!” I said, kicking her softly. Laughing, she grabbed my ankle and pulled me down with her. She kissed me on the nose and said, “I’ll get those cannolis, you wait and see. But right now I could settle for some you.”
Later that night I woke up, trying to figure out where I was. The living room floor. Ah, yes. I looked around for Sarah but she was gone. I figured she must’ve gone to bed. But when I got to the bedroom no one was there except for our two rats, Rattus and Rattus. Original. I know. The bed looked unslept in. I think it was the site of those sterile crisp sheets that set me off. The situation I was in was not sterile or crisp. Quite the opposite. Messy and fetid. My fiancé is missing. I woke up naked on the living room floor in the middle of the night and my fiancé is missing.
“Okay Tommy boy, tomarooni, just breath” I told myself. I found my phone and dialed her number, my fingers shaking at such a frantic pitch, and yes! her voice! “Hi! This is Sarah leave a message, or not”. “FUCK!” I yelled slamming the phone down. Had she left me for someone else? Is it because I didn’t get her cannolis? Was she abducted and now falling prey to chromatic anal probes? Was our sex abysmal? Did the government come whisk her away? I knew she shouldn’t have liberated that mink fur farm. These thoughts whirled through my head while I pulled on my boots and decided to wander the streets, most likely in vain, and search for her. I heard sirens in the distance and then
The door slammed open and there it was. A banshee. Crazed hell-bent eyes and hair crazed with manic electricity, it stood there. “HELP ME TOM!” it shrieked, breaking glass with her fevered pitch. “Sarah what’s the matter?” I cried running towards her. “HELP!” she yelled again. “She’s cracked”, I thought. My fiancé is batshit insane. She began thrusting bags at me. White bakery bags reeking with a saccharine odor. Once they were all off the landing she slammed and dead bolted the door. Her peroxide hair was covered in sludge and her black pants were now a ghastly splatter paint of white and black.
“What the FUCK” I bellowed, “What the fuck were you thinking? What the hell is all this shit?”
She stood there, eyes growing wide as the sirens drew closer, “Cannollis. Quick. Hide them.”
Saturday, November 8, 2008
Finishing up Chef’s House (Cont. from Raymond Carvers’ “Chef’s House”)
One afternoon Wes was in the yard pulling weeds when Chef drove up in front of the house. I stopped marinating the fish I had been preparing for supper and walked outside to greet him. Wiping my hands on my apron I said “Hey Chef, good to see you. Come on in.”
“Oh no Edna, it’s ok, I wanted to be quick.”
“Is there a problem?” asked Wes, who had given up his futile attempt at ridding the garden of weeds. Why put so much effort into a garden that isn’t even ours? I wondered. Never the less…
“Well, yes and no,” said Wes. “You see, this couples made an offer on the house and they want to move in by the end of July.”
“July!” I said, “Why it’s June now and we didn’t really plan on leaving this place.”
“Our marriage is finally working out” is what I wanted to shout.
“What about the lease?” said Wes, “It’s a 12 month lease!”
“Look, I gotta do what I gotta do, and I’m sorry. You can piss and moan over the broken lease but it’s gunna cost more than it’s worth. I’m sorry.”
“I think you’d better be going now,” said Wes, “you’ve given us plenty to think about.”
Chef walked back to his black Jetta and drove off, one taillight was out and the exhaust was dragging along the road causing sparks. “Maybe it’ll ignite his car,” said Wes. “Maybe” I said half heartedly, “maybe.”
Dinner that night was a sullen affair, it was as though we were at a wake and we were both the mourners and the corpse all at once. Between scraping forks and muttering about fishing and weather forecasts I said it: “Do you really think we can find a place so soon?” Wes, chewing his asparagus said, “Don’t worry. It will all work out”. It hasn’t all worked out though. Until moving here we both barely spoke, didn’t even live together. Under the guise of the soft summer light and fresh lakeside air we’d recharged. It was just us here, and there was hope here. Hope, ha.
That night we made love in the split log bed. It was silent. It was distant. There was no warmth. I could hear Wes’s breathing and I knew he was asleep. He had had his first drink that night in years. Michelob, not even Dom Perignon for an oxymoronic celebration for this “event” of falling off the wagon.
I wrapped myself up in a blanket, counted the stars, and looked at the lake. A black obsidian moorland, rich with the turbid unknown.
The thought of returning to it all, the cloister of suburbia, the liaison accusations, it was oppressive.
“I can’t do it.” I said. I walked over to the closet and reached far, far back. I took out a package, wrapped in dry, crinkly, parcel paper. My mermaid costume from when I was a child. I slowly opened it, determined not to make a sound. I walked out to the lakefront, and slipped on the skin I had just unwrapped. In my new skin I entered the abyss, swimming away into the cold depths of the future.
“Oh no Edna, it’s ok, I wanted to be quick.”
“Is there a problem?” asked Wes, who had given up his futile attempt at ridding the garden of weeds. Why put so much effort into a garden that isn’t even ours? I wondered. Never the less…
“Well, yes and no,” said Wes. “You see, this couples made an offer on the house and they want to move in by the end of July.”
“July!” I said, “Why it’s June now and we didn’t really plan on leaving this place.”
“Our marriage is finally working out” is what I wanted to shout.
“What about the lease?” said Wes, “It’s a 12 month lease!”
“Look, I gotta do what I gotta do, and I’m sorry. You can piss and moan over the broken lease but it’s gunna cost more than it’s worth. I’m sorry.”
“I think you’d better be going now,” said Wes, “you’ve given us plenty to think about.”
Chef walked back to his black Jetta and drove off, one taillight was out and the exhaust was dragging along the road causing sparks. “Maybe it’ll ignite his car,” said Wes. “Maybe” I said half heartedly, “maybe.”
Dinner that night was a sullen affair, it was as though we were at a wake and we were both the mourners and the corpse all at once. Between scraping forks and muttering about fishing and weather forecasts I said it: “Do you really think we can find a place so soon?” Wes, chewing his asparagus said, “Don’t worry. It will all work out”. It hasn’t all worked out though. Until moving here we both barely spoke, didn’t even live together. Under the guise of the soft summer light and fresh lakeside air we’d recharged. It was just us here, and there was hope here. Hope, ha.
That night we made love in the split log bed. It was silent. It was distant. There was no warmth. I could hear Wes’s breathing and I knew he was asleep. He had had his first drink that night in years. Michelob, not even Dom Perignon for an oxymoronic celebration for this “event” of falling off the wagon.
I wrapped myself up in a blanket, counted the stars, and looked at the lake. A black obsidian moorland, rich with the turbid unknown.
The thought of returning to it all, the cloister of suburbia, the liaison accusations, it was oppressive.
“I can’t do it.” I said. I walked over to the closet and reached far, far back. I took out a package, wrapped in dry, crinkly, parcel paper. My mermaid costume from when I was a child. I slowly opened it, determined not to make a sound. I walked out to the lakefront, and slipped on the skin I had just unwrapped. In my new skin I entered the abyss, swimming away into the cold depths of the future.
Sunday, November 2, 2008
Blasphemy
If thou art devotedly religious and easily take offense, thou best not take it out on me. Ye hath been forewarned.
Hanks old sea foam green Studebaker, not that the denizens of Rabbit Hash had ever seen the sea, rattled down the hard pressed dirt road. The heat was oppressive; it weighed heavy on the souls of everyone around. Even the farm hands sat under the wide leaves of the southern trees too hot to light their cigarettes. “Bad Moon Rising” crackled through the trucks old radio with a tinny sound. It was then that Hank noticed the woman.
It was her clothes that he noticed first. It wasn’t the frayed denim shorts or plaid shirt, but it was the way she wore it. Shorts cut so high the pockets peeked out the bottoms and shirt tied so high, “Looooordy” whistled Hank. He figured she was one of the whiskey bent ladies down at Miss Mays Bordello by the river until she thumbed him down.
“Hey” she crooned in a raspy voice that’s only found in sideshow carnies, “you got room for another? Headin' to town? I need a lift to church.” Hank took one look at her weathered face, broken Lucky Strike hanging from her lips, figured she could use the Lord, and said “Heck why not. Hop on in”. She offered him a drink and declared “Names Mary. You may know me as the Virgin Mother ha ha. Say want a drink? I don’t drink wine on the account of it bein’ kinda incestuous or some shit, blood of my son har har” she coughed out. Now, since Hank was such a church going man, and while he wasn’t one to offend this self proclaimed patron saint, he wasn’t one to stand for such heresy. “I really think it’d be best if I dropped you off now. I-I-I ain’t about to let no dime store hussy speak this way in front of me, no sir no never,” stammered Hank. “Ah I figured. Look I’ll make your hands bleed” she sighed as though she was accustomed to disbelief.
Hank gasped as stigmata appeared and quickly disappeared. He began to say something but she cut him off. “Ha-ha you think I’m crazy don’t you? Hell people have been seeing me on goddamn windows, burnt toast, and shit, yeah shit, for years and you think I’m crazy? Say I checked that e-bay site the other day and you can even buy my face on a potato chip. A fuckin po-tay-to CHIP!”
The truck rolled along on the dirt road passing a sign, “Rabbit Hash Center, 5 Miles”. “Yep” said Hank, “You’re the virgin mother, Mary, you ought to be proud of what you’ve done. You—“
“VIRGIN?” she interjected. “VIRGIN? Shit Joseph just had a small dick!”
“Now you listen here, I don’t care what you say you are you best need to shape up, I don’t know if you are the virgin Mary or if you made my hands bleed on a stigmatism on account of some witch craft but you best shut your mouth you crazy ol’ coot if you don’t want a hide full of buckshot, devil woman”.
“Crazy ha-ha now that’s one I haven’t heard before. Do you know the toll having a zombie son takes on you? Do you? Shit, my husband had a small dick, my son was delusional, and my insurance doesn’t cover mental healthcare. Shit! Pass Mary the tankard yo ho and a bottle of rum!”
They drove along in silence after this outburst. Mary, or whoever she was, smoking her cigarette and Hank staring at the road confused as hell. They rolled into a stopped infront of the town church, empty and sleepy in the summer heat, and Hank began to speak “Now looky here, I’m sorry for anything I said but you…” before he could say another word she hopped out of the truck, walked by the statue of herself, and instantly it started to cry blood. “Oh, they always do that when they see what I’ve become. Miracle my ass” she cackled, and walked on up the road.
Hanks old sea foam green Studebaker, not that the denizens of Rabbit Hash had ever seen the sea, rattled down the hard pressed dirt road. The heat was oppressive; it weighed heavy on the souls of everyone around. Even the farm hands sat under the wide leaves of the southern trees too hot to light their cigarettes. “Bad Moon Rising” crackled through the trucks old radio with a tinny sound. It was then that Hank noticed the woman.
It was her clothes that he noticed first. It wasn’t the frayed denim shorts or plaid shirt, but it was the way she wore it. Shorts cut so high the pockets peeked out the bottoms and shirt tied so high, “Looooordy” whistled Hank. He figured she was one of the whiskey bent ladies down at Miss Mays Bordello by the river until she thumbed him down.
“Hey” she crooned in a raspy voice that’s only found in sideshow carnies, “you got room for another? Headin' to town? I need a lift to church.” Hank took one look at her weathered face, broken Lucky Strike hanging from her lips, figured she could use the Lord, and said “Heck why not. Hop on in”. She offered him a drink and declared “Names Mary. You may know me as the Virgin Mother ha ha. Say want a drink? I don’t drink wine on the account of it bein’ kinda incestuous or some shit, blood of my son har har” she coughed out. Now, since Hank was such a church going man, and while he wasn’t one to offend this self proclaimed patron saint, he wasn’t one to stand for such heresy. “I really think it’d be best if I dropped you off now. I-I-I ain’t about to let no dime store hussy speak this way in front of me, no sir no never,” stammered Hank. “Ah I figured. Look I’ll make your hands bleed” she sighed as though she was accustomed to disbelief.
Hank gasped as stigmata appeared and quickly disappeared. He began to say something but she cut him off. “Ha-ha you think I’m crazy don’t you? Hell people have been seeing me on goddamn windows, burnt toast, and shit, yeah shit, for years and you think I’m crazy? Say I checked that e-bay site the other day and you can even buy my face on a potato chip. A fuckin po-tay-to CHIP!”
The truck rolled along on the dirt road passing a sign, “Rabbit Hash Center, 5 Miles”. “Yep” said Hank, “You’re the virgin mother, Mary, you ought to be proud of what you’ve done. You—“
“VIRGIN?” she interjected. “VIRGIN? Shit Joseph just had a small dick!”
“Now you listen here, I don’t care what you say you are you best need to shape up, I don’t know if you are the virgin Mary or if you made my hands bleed on a stigmatism on account of some witch craft but you best shut your mouth you crazy ol’ coot if you don’t want a hide full of buckshot, devil woman”.
“Crazy ha-ha now that’s one I haven’t heard before. Do you know the toll having a zombie son takes on you? Do you? Shit, my husband had a small dick, my son was delusional, and my insurance doesn’t cover mental healthcare. Shit! Pass Mary the tankard yo ho and a bottle of rum!”
They drove along in silence after this outburst. Mary, or whoever she was, smoking her cigarette and Hank staring at the road confused as hell. They rolled into a stopped infront of the town church, empty and sleepy in the summer heat, and Hank began to speak “Now looky here, I’m sorry for anything I said but you…” before he could say another word she hopped out of the truck, walked by the statue of herself, and instantly it started to cry blood. “Oh, they always do that when they see what I’ve become. Miracle my ass” she cackled, and walked on up the road.
Monday, October 27, 2008
The Beast
one wednesday afternoon in the midst of june, a beast wandered into our abode.
put him outside! shrieked the maître d'
meanwhile lady ella lamented as she flailed her broken statuette about
thumped down by the beast in his vernacular.
the uninvited guest had a sulky babyface and bug eyes like clementines
(his jaundiced orange complexion could also be compared to a clementine)
on peculiar sorts of days the beast would sleep, but never for long.
often awakening to engage in the wretched game of cat chase mouse.
tearing up the ballet shoes and upholstery laying round the house
he would return to his lair with large eyes, and a monstrous air
waiting for the feeble minded or brave who dared to lure him from his cave
and that's the problem with this house
there's just too many lost souls and too little manners.
Clementines and Lost Child Flier/Coffee Shop Assignment
She ate her clementine and wondered if they had put up a lost child flier yet.
The girl on the lost child flier happened to be named Clementine.
They hoped when they found the girl on the lost child flier that she would not be peeled like a clementine orange.
Clementine oranges have a taste unlike any other said the man standing in front of the lost child flier.
Lost children on fliers have a taste unlike clementine oranges said the other man.
The delivery truck pasted with missing children fliers carried clementines and a few invasive species.
That's the problem, said the lady with thighs like the skin of a clementine, there's too many lost souls and too little lost child fliers.
Aren't you sweet like a clementine said the shady man in the trench coat as he created another lost child flier.
The font on the lost child flier was not orange like a clementine. It was black.
He packed up the lost child flier in clementine boxes and stuck them in his attic.
Where is my Clementine? Lamented Lady Ella as she flailed her lost child flier about.
The uninvited guest had a sulky baby face, like that found on a lost child flier, and bug eyes like clementines.
His jaundiced complexion could also be compared to a clementine, or a yellowing lost child flier found in the postal office.
The girl on the lost child flier happened to be named Clementine.
They hoped when they found the girl on the lost child flier that she would not be peeled like a clementine orange.
Clementine oranges have a taste unlike any other said the man standing in front of the lost child flier.
Lost children on fliers have a taste unlike clementine oranges said the other man.
The delivery truck pasted with missing children fliers carried clementines and a few invasive species.
That's the problem, said the lady with thighs like the skin of a clementine, there's too many lost souls and too little lost child fliers.
Aren't you sweet like a clementine said the shady man in the trench coat as he created another lost child flier.
The font on the lost child flier was not orange like a clementine. It was black.
He packed up the lost child flier in clementine boxes and stuck them in his attic.
Where is my Clementine? Lamented Lady Ella as she flailed her lost child flier about.
The uninvited guest had a sulky baby face, like that found on a lost child flier, and bug eyes like clementines.
His jaundiced complexion could also be compared to a clementine, or a yellowing lost child flier found in the postal office.
Poetry is not/Manifesta
1. poetry is not akhkhetaksgjkslg?klhgs.
2. poetry is not dead white guys in oddball wigs fermenting in European cemeteries
3. poetry is not all women who pop their heads in ovens on a Saturday afternoon instead of the turkey
4. poetry is not html
5. poetry is not a pas de bourree pas de chat petit allegro with counts of 8
6. poetry is not mathematics
7. poetry is definitely not mathematics
8. poetry is not not
poetry is
9. poetry could be the dew on the grass or her eyes blue like the sky if I’m in a rush
10. poetry is a fucking pain in my ass
11. that is to say poetry is a well placed fuck
12. poetry is usually melodramatic
13. poetry should instead speak about the baby in the freezer or
14. poetry should be the underbelly of ?
15. poetry is the bone dry whispers of the leaves
16. poetry is the s the vicious sea
17. poetry, amongst other things, easily leaks out after 40oz of malt liquor
18. poetry written doesn’t read as well after the 40oz night
19. poetry is sometimes nauseating
20. poetry is beginning to look like a fake word from being typed so much
21. poetry is funny
22. poetry is serious
23. poetry is the bastard child of heavy drinking and occasional pills
24. poetry is every autumn
25. poetry is scalding your hand making candy apples like your mother did as well
26. poetry is uncomfortable
27. poetry is not symbolism
28. poetry is it is what it is
29. poetry is my cat like a Martian in my house
30. poetry is dancing free of counts of 8
31. poetry is if you choose it
2. poetry is not dead white guys in oddball wigs fermenting in European cemeteries
3. poetry is not all women who pop their heads in ovens on a Saturday afternoon instead of the turkey
4. poetry is not html
5. poetry is not a pas de bourree pas de chat petit allegro with counts of 8
6. poetry is not mathematics
7. poetry is definitely not mathematics
8. poetry is not not
poetry is
9. poetry could be the dew on the grass or her eyes blue like the sky if I’m in a rush
10. poetry is a fucking pain in my ass
11. that is to say poetry is a well placed fuck
12. poetry is usually melodramatic
13. poetry should instead speak about the baby in the freezer or
14. poetry should be the underbelly of ?
15. poetry is the bone dry whispers of the leaves
16. poetry is the s the vicious sea
17. poetry, amongst other things, easily leaks out after 40oz of malt liquor
18. poetry written doesn’t read as well after the 40oz night
19. poetry is sometimes nauseating
20. poetry is beginning to look like a fake word from being typed so much
21. poetry is funny
22. poetry is serious
23. poetry is the bastard child of heavy drinking and occasional pills
24. poetry is every autumn
25. poetry is scalding your hand making candy apples like your mother did as well
26. poetry is uncomfortable
27. poetry is not symbolism
28. poetry is it is what it is
29. poetry is my cat like a Martian in my house
30. poetry is dancing free of counts of 8
31. poetry is if you choose it
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
An Aristocratic Scalding, or, a Cape Cod dinner
An Aristocratic Scalding
Just bind his hands and scald the infant,
oh that histrionic shrieking?
It’s just the steam leaving.
Have you no saltines for the brain?
What tasty swimmerets!
I said clean up boy,
his skull is still spewing
that nefarious discharge upon her linen
and it’s already half past nine
Have you no butter for antennules?
spatters of whiskey and
sperm receptacles dot the beards and
vilify the entre-doux
upon which was served the feast
Just bind his hands and scald the infant,
oh that histrionic shrieking?
It’s just the steam leaving.
Have you no saltines for the brain?
What tasty swimmerets!
I said clean up boy,
his skull is still spewing
that nefarious discharge upon her linen
and it’s already half past nine
Have you no butter for antennules?
spatters of whiskey and
sperm receptacles dot the beards and
vilify the entre-doux
upon which was served the feast
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
John Berryman
John Berryman ( Born John Allyn Smith)
Born in born in McAlester, Oklahoma October 25, 1914 – January 7, 1972
Active 1942-1972
Founder of the confessional school of poetry
Biogr
aphy
John Allyn Smith was born in 1914 in Oklahoma to John Allyn Smith Senior and Martha Little Smith. When he was 12, his father shot himself outside of John’s window. His mother moved to Florida where she remarried and John Allyn Smith became John Berryman. Berryman attended the South Kent boarding school, and eventually went to Columbia University for an English degree. While at Columbia he accomplished two things, becoming an alcoholic and writing for literary journals. After attending Columbia he went to Clare University in Cambridge on a scholarship he received.
After this year, he became diagnosed with epilepsy and depression.
He taught at several colleges such as Harvard and Princeton.
He married Eileen Patricia Mulligan in the 1940s.
His wife eventually left him and he turned even more to alcohol, now spending nights in jail and failing to show up for the writers’ workshops he taught at the University of Iowa. The university eventually forced him to resign. Allan Tate offered him a position at the University of Minnesota where he taught until his untimely death. It was here where he remarried, twice. To Anne Levine, then Kate Donahue. All together he had 2 daughters and a son.
Like his life, his poetry was also tormented and brilliant, taking great liberties with syntax and rich with inner angst. His most notable work is “The Dream Songs” where he writes what most believe to be an autobiography of sorts with him being represented by the main character Henry. Henry, like Berryman, has to deal with alcoholism and paternal suicide.
In his later years his alcoholism and depression made him unable to speak at readings and even write poems. Eventually from all this he killed himself by jumping off the Washington Avenue Bridge in Minnesota.
Throughout his life he won the following awards: Oldham Shakespeare Prize, Poetry Society of America’s Shelley Memorial award (1948), American Academy award for poetry (1950), National Institute of Arts and Letters Award (1950), the Levinson Prize (1950), the Guggenheim Fellowship (1952, 1966), Academy of American Poets, The Pulitzer Prize (1964), National Endowment for the Arts award (1967), National Book Award (1969), and the Bollingen Award (1969).
Works consulted:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Berryman
http://project1.caryacademy.org/echoes/03-04/John_Berryman/DefaultJohn_Berryman.htm
http://www.answers.com/topic/john-berryman
Modern Critical Views- John Berryman, by Harold Bloom
Works
Poems (Norfolk, Ct.: New Directions Press, 1942)
The Dispossessed (New York: William Sloan Associates, 1948)
Homage to Mistress Bradstreet (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1956)
77 Dream Songs (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1964)
Berryman's Sonnets (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1967)
The Dream Songs (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1969)
His Toy, His Dream His Rest (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1969)
Love & Fame (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1970)
Delusions, Etc. (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1972)
Moods
Autumnal- “I am outside/incredible panic rules. /People are blowing and beating each other without mercy”
Depressed- “Bright eyed and bushy tailed woke not Henry up/…Alone. They all abandoned Henry.”
Eerie- “A fortnight later, sense a single man/upon the trampled scene at 2 a.m./insomnia plagued with a shovel/digging like mad, Lazarus with a plan” (about digging up a corpse).
Morbid- “The iron pear which rammed into his mouth/swells up to four times ordinary size/slowly cracking his skull open”
Reflective- “My mother was scared almost to death, he was going to swim out with me, forevers” (His father had threatened to drown himself and John), and on his fathers suicide “Never see my son/easy be not to see anyone/combers out to see/know they’re goin somewhere but not me/got a little poison, got a little gun.”
Wry- “I am so wise I had my mouth sewn shut…I am teenage cancer, with a plan”
Style
Confessional- Confessional poetry began in the 1950s and 1960s by poets such as John Berryman, Sylvia Plath, Allen Ginsberg, Anne Sexton, and Robert Lowell. In this genre poets exposed themselves and their emotions rather than using the poem as a mask. The poetry explored details about the writers’ life with out holding back. The results were sometimes ugly, always candid with confessions about sex, life, depression, and haunting memories. This may be why the genre is considered a way for the writer to “out their demons”. Many poets in this genre had great private distress, and it is notable that most of the great founders of it killed themselves (Plath, Berryman, and Sexton). That is why this genre is so well read; it combines private pity and torment with public poetic form and art.
Berrymans whole book “The Dream Songs” is an example of this genre, discussing his fathers’ death, and feelings of alienation in real life. Berryman makes the main character in the book, Henry represent him. Henry feels and goes through many of the things that happened to Berryman if one looks up a biography about Berryman. Berryman lost his rigid syntax in this book and instead adapted a chaotic blend of syntax, tone, diction, humor, and wrenching sorrow as he plunged deeper into his psyche in this book.
Similar Artists
Followers-
Marie Howe- Marie Howe is a current poet, who writes books about real issues in her life. Her book “What the Living Do” reflects upon her brothers’ death from AIDS in a series of poems and essays. It is said to be “a haunting lament for her brother with the plain-spoken last line: ‘I am living, I remember you.’” She, like Berryman, explores relationships and attachment in personal terms in their poetry.
Influenced by-
Allen Tate- Allen Tate influenced Berryman. Tate, one of the founders of modern poetry, was a mentor to Berryman. He also was a professor at the University of Minnesota. His poems were extremely personal, filled with reflection upon himself. He often focused on ideas such as death, spiritual rebirth, and alienation. These themes and reflection are present in Berryman’s work.
Yeats- Berryman once said, “I didn't want to be like Yeats; I wanted to be Yeats.” And “Then came Yeats, who I didn’t so much wish to resemble as to be”. What more proof is needed that Berryman emulated Yeats? One of the most common examples is comparing Yeats’ “Crazy Jane” to Berryman’s poem “Young Woman’s Song”. His most notable work, “The Dream Songs” takes it’s stanza layout from Yeats, said Berryman in an interview. And, like Yeats, Berryman used great technical control in poems.
Born in born in McAlester, Oklahoma October 25, 1914 – January 7, 1972
Active 1942-1972
Founder of the confessional school of poetry
Biogr
aphyJohn Allyn Smith was born in 1914 in Oklahoma to John Allyn Smith Senior and Martha Little Smith. When he was 12, his father shot himself outside of John’s window. His mother moved to Florida where she remarried and John Allyn Smith became John Berryman. Berryman attended the South Kent boarding school, and eventually went to Columbia University for an English degree. While at Columbia he accomplished two things, becoming an alcoholic and writing for literary journals. After attending Columbia he went to Clare University in Cambridge on a scholarship he received.
After this year, he became diagnosed with epilepsy and depression.
He taught at several colleges such as Harvard and Princeton.
He married Eileen Patricia Mulligan in the 1940s.
His wife eventually left him and he turned even more to alcohol, now spending nights in jail and failing to show up for the writers’ workshops he taught at the University of Iowa. The university eventually forced him to resign. Allan Tate offered him a position at the University of Minnesota where he taught until his untimely death. It was here where he remarried, twice. To Anne Levine, then Kate Donahue. All together he had 2 daughters and a son.
Like his life, his poetry was also tormented and brilliant, taking great liberties with syntax and rich with inner angst. His most notable work is “The Dream Songs” where he writes what most believe to be an autobiography of sorts with him being represented by the main character Henry. Henry, like Berryman, has to deal with alcoholism and paternal suicide.
In his later years his alcoholism and depression made him unable to speak at readings and even write poems. Eventually from all this he killed himself by jumping off the Washington Avenue Bridge in Minnesota.
Throughout his life he won the following awards: Oldham Shakespeare Prize, Poetry Society of America’s Shelley Memorial award (1948), American Academy award for poetry (1950), National Institute of Arts and Letters Award (1950), the Levinson Prize (1950), the Guggenheim Fellowship (1952, 1966), Academy of American Poets, The Pulitzer Prize (1964), National Endowment for the Arts award (1967), National Book Award (1969), and the Bollingen Award (1969).
Works consulted:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Berryman
http://project1.caryacademy.org/echoes/03-04/John_Berryman/DefaultJohn_Berryman.htm
http://www.answers.com/topic/john-berryman
Modern Critical Views- John Berryman, by Harold Bloom
Works
Poems (Norfolk, Ct.: New Directions Press, 1942)
The Dispossessed (New York: William Sloan Associates, 1948)
Homage to Mistress Bradstreet (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1956)
77 Dream Songs (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1964)
Berryman's Sonnets (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1967)
The Dream Songs (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1969)
His Toy, His Dream His Rest (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1969)
Love & Fame (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1970)
Delusions, Etc. (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1972)
Moods
Autumnal- “I am outside/incredible panic rules. /People are blowing and beating each other without mercy”
Depressed- “Bright eyed and bushy tailed woke not Henry up/…Alone. They all abandoned Henry.”
Eerie- “A fortnight later, sense a single man/upon the trampled scene at 2 a.m./insomnia plagued with a shovel/digging like mad, Lazarus with a plan” (about digging up a corpse).
Morbid- “The iron pear which rammed into his mouth/swells up to four times ordinary size/slowly cracking his skull open”
Reflective- “My mother was scared almost to death, he was going to swim out with me, forevers” (His father had threatened to drown himself and John), and on his fathers suicide “Never see my son/easy be not to see anyone/combers out to see/know they’re goin somewhere but not me/got a little poison, got a little gun.”
Wry- “I am so wise I had my mouth sewn shut…I am teenage cancer, with a plan”
Style
Confessional- Confessional poetry began in the 1950s and 1960s by poets such as John Berryman, Sylvia Plath, Allen Ginsberg, Anne Sexton, and Robert Lowell. In this genre poets exposed themselves and their emotions rather than using the poem as a mask. The poetry explored details about the writers’ life with out holding back. The results were sometimes ugly, always candid with confessions about sex, life, depression, and haunting memories. This may be why the genre is considered a way for the writer to “out their demons”. Many poets in this genre had great private distress, and it is notable that most of the great founders of it killed themselves (Plath, Berryman, and Sexton). That is why this genre is so well read; it combines private pity and torment with public poetic form and art.
Berrymans whole book “The Dream Songs” is an example of this genre, discussing his fathers’ death, and feelings of alienation in real life. Berryman makes the main character in the book, Henry represent him. Henry feels and goes through many of the things that happened to Berryman if one looks up a biography about Berryman. Berryman lost his rigid syntax in this book and instead adapted a chaotic blend of syntax, tone, diction, humor, and wrenching sorrow as he plunged deeper into his psyche in this book.
Similar Artists
Followers-
Marie Howe- Marie Howe is a current poet, who writes books about real issues in her life. Her book “What the Living Do” reflects upon her brothers’ death from AIDS in a series of poems and essays. It is said to be “a haunting lament for her brother with the plain-spoken last line: ‘I am living, I remember you.’” She, like Berryman, explores relationships and attachment in personal terms in their poetry.
Influenced by-
Allen Tate- Allen Tate influenced Berryman. Tate, one of the founders of modern poetry, was a mentor to Berryman. He also was a professor at the University of Minnesota. His poems were extremely personal, filled with reflection upon himself. He often focused on ideas such as death, spiritual rebirth, and alienation. These themes and reflection are present in Berryman’s work.
Yeats- Berryman once said, “I didn't want to be like Yeats; I wanted to be Yeats.” And “Then came Yeats, who I didn’t so much wish to resemble as to be”. What more proof is needed that Berryman emulated Yeats? One of the most common examples is comparing Yeats’ “Crazy Jane” to Berryman’s poem “Young Woman’s Song”. His most notable work, “The Dream Songs” takes it’s stanza layout from Yeats, said Berryman in an interview. And, like Yeats, Berryman used great technical control in poems.
Joshua Beckman
Joshua Beckman
Born in New Haven CT, year unknown-Current
Active 1998-Current
American Poet
Biography
Not much is available on Joshua Beckman, probably because he is still alive and young and one only becomes noticed posthumously or certainly once one attains grey hair. Beckman was born in New Haven, Connecticut, and he attended Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts, where he was the editor of a literary magazine called “Object Lesson”.
He currently lives on Staten Island and is an editor at “Wave Books” where he also translates literary works. He has won a NYFA fellowship, Pushcart Prize, first annual Honickman / APR book award
Beckmans work is said to “mourn the depravity of American urban life while celebrating (sometimes with a bit of irony) the fleeting transcendence of love, sex and fun” and he is known for his sardonic wit and sad humor. He writes using few words, sometimes with snippets of meta-poetry, and creates landscapes, scenes, and brief moments. His poems are distinct in their brevity and dryness, and they convert everything to almost an existential plane.
Works Consulted:
http://www.biographybase.com/biography/Beckman_Joshua.html
http://www.wavepoetry.com/authors/31
http://www.amazon.com/Shake-Joshua-Beckman/dp/193351700X/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1223995342&sr=8-1
Works
“Things Are Happening” (1998)
“Something I Expected to Be Different” (2001)
“Nice Hat. Thanks.” (With Matthew Rohrer, 2002)
“Your Time Has Come” (2004)
“Shake” (2006)
Beckman has also claimed to be the author of 3,000 other books but they are a secret.
Moods
Bitter- “Those people were like ants/waiting for me to say something stupid/they could drag back home with them.”
Bleak- “Too tired to write/and this hot apartment/keeps me awake.”
Cynical/Sarcastic- “It felt so good/to get my sunburn/but now I’ve got it.”
Detatched- “If a tree falls/in the wodds etc./and so too with friends.”
Melancholy- “The flat world of borrowed things”
Nihilistic- ““All will reach an age and die at that age.”
Wry- “wrapped in a blissful dream/the moonlight shines down/brightly—/but I don’t really know that/I just read it in a book.”
Styles
Beat Generation- Beat generation poetry arose in the 50s and 60s. Beat poetry sprang up in New York and San Francisco with poets such as Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, and William S. Burroughs. Beat poetry had a rejection of typical American values, new takes on sexuality, collaboration between those in the movement, and creativity. Poems were characterized by their open emotion, “gritty” style, and an undirected spiritual need. The poems were often controversial in their non-conformity and brazen porn/erotica passages at times (ie “Naked Lunch”).
Beckman fits into this style because he writes in a non-traditional format, sparse and almost lyrical. He writes about drugs, “Those drugs don’t have anything/to do with our happiness./Now I really sound like a junky” which were prevalent in beat poetry and deviate from American values. He lives in New York, a region where beat poetry started and remained strong (along with San Francisco). In true beat style, Beckman collaborated a book of poems with Matthew Rohrer in a non-traditional way. They would alternate saying a word, punctuation, or part of a word in the writing of “Nice Hat. Thanks.”
Martian Poetry- Martian poetry became a genre in the 1970s and 1980s. It’s the surrealism of poetry. It is characterized by “describing familiar things in unfamiliar ways”. Ordinary scenarios or objects are written about in a detached manner (through the eyes of a Martian, hence the name). It’s a derivative of the experimental poetry of the 1960s, but also ties in older traditional English schools such as meta-poetry and “nonsense” poetry.
Beckmans detached way of writing about the every day makes him fit into this genre. He writes without much emotion, as though he is merely a dry observer. And he writes about the every day, a key element in Martian Poetry. An example of this his book “Your Time Has Come”. He writes about mice in his apartment, “Mice in walls. Better there than in here” and of everyday events “Flying a kite off his roof. I’m worried he’ll fall”.
Similar Artists
Followers: Beckman is still a new writer so anyone who emulates him hasn’t had time to become established yet. Follow up on some current clove-smoking college students in a few years to find followers.
Influenced by:
Charles Bukowksi- Charles Bukowski, like Beckman, writes about the every day. Bukowksis writing “often featured a depraved metropolitan environment, downtrodden members of American society, direct language, violence, and sexual imagery (poets.org)”. Beckman does the same thing. Both write in a dry tone, calloused and offensive at points. Bukowksi has a non-traditional approach to poetry, as does Beckman.
Matthea Harvey- Since the year of Beckmans birth seems to be well hidden, I don’t know if he was influenced by Matthea Harvey or not, but the writing style between the two has it’s similarities. Matthea collects dialogue she hears on the street, like ““I got everybody saying it like they'd been saying it for years”. This seems similar to Beckman because he write stuff from being an observer on the street like: “I was early and watched the people rushing”. Both write about New York City, and things like the view from their window.
Born in New Haven CT, year unknown-Current
Active 1998-Current
American Poet
Biography
Not much is available on Joshua Beckman, probably because he is still alive and young and one only becomes noticed posthumously or certainly once one attains grey hair. Beckman was born in New Haven, Connecticut, and he attended Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts, where he was the editor of a literary magazine called “Object Lesson”.
He currently lives on Staten Island and is an editor at “Wave Books” where he also translates literary works. He has won a NYFA fellowship, Pushcart Prize, first annual Honickman / APR book award
Beckmans work is said to “mourn the depravity of American urban life while celebrating (sometimes with a bit of irony) the fleeting transcendence of love, sex and fun” and he is known for his sardonic wit and sad humor. He writes using few words, sometimes with snippets of meta-poetry, and creates landscapes, scenes, and brief moments. His poems are distinct in their brevity and dryness, and they convert everything to almost an existential plane.
Works Consulted:
http://www.biographybase.com/biography/Beckman_Joshua.html
http://www.wavepoetry.com/authors/31
http://www.amazon.com/Shake-Joshua-Beckman/dp/193351700X/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1223995342&sr=8-1
Works
“Things Are Happening” (1998)
“Something I Expected to Be Different” (2001)
“Nice Hat. Thanks.” (With Matthew Rohrer, 2002)
“Your Time Has Come” (2004)
“Shake” (2006)
Beckman has also claimed to be the author of 3,000 other books but they are a secret.
Moods
Bitter- “Those people were like ants/waiting for me to say something stupid/they could drag back home with them.”
Bleak- “Too tired to write/and this hot apartment/keeps me awake.”
Cynical/Sarcastic- “It felt so good/to get my sunburn/but now I’ve got it.”
Detatched- “If a tree falls/in the wodds etc./and so too with friends.”
Melancholy- “The flat world of borrowed things”
Nihilistic- ““All will reach an age and die at that age.”
Wry- “wrapped in a blissful dream/the moonlight shines down/brightly—/but I don’t really know that/I just read it in a book.”
Styles
Beat Generation- Beat generation poetry arose in the 50s and 60s. Beat poetry sprang up in New York and San Francisco with poets such as Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, and William S. Burroughs. Beat poetry had a rejection of typical American values, new takes on sexuality, collaboration between those in the movement, and creativity. Poems were characterized by their open emotion, “gritty” style, and an undirected spiritual need. The poems were often controversial in their non-conformity and brazen porn/erotica passages at times (ie “Naked Lunch”).
Beckman fits into this style because he writes in a non-traditional format, sparse and almost lyrical. He writes about drugs, “Those drugs don’t have anything/to do with our happiness./Now I really sound like a junky” which were prevalent in beat poetry and deviate from American values. He lives in New York, a region where beat poetry started and remained strong (along with San Francisco). In true beat style, Beckman collaborated a book of poems with Matthew Rohrer in a non-traditional way. They would alternate saying a word, punctuation, or part of a word in the writing of “Nice Hat. Thanks.”
Martian Poetry- Martian poetry became a genre in the 1970s and 1980s. It’s the surrealism of poetry. It is characterized by “describing familiar things in unfamiliar ways”. Ordinary scenarios or objects are written about in a detached manner (through the eyes of a Martian, hence the name). It’s a derivative of the experimental poetry of the 1960s, but also ties in older traditional English schools such as meta-poetry and “nonsense” poetry.
Beckmans detached way of writing about the every day makes him fit into this genre. He writes without much emotion, as though he is merely a dry observer. And he writes about the every day, a key element in Martian Poetry. An example of this his book “Your Time Has Come”. He writes about mice in his apartment, “Mice in walls. Better there than in here” and of everyday events “Flying a kite off his roof. I’m worried he’ll fall”.
Similar Artists
Followers: Beckman is still a new writer so anyone who emulates him hasn’t had time to become established yet. Follow up on some current clove-smoking college students in a few years to find followers.
Influenced by:
Charles Bukowksi- Charles Bukowski, like Beckman, writes about the every day. Bukowksis writing “often featured a depraved metropolitan environment, downtrodden members of American society, direct language, violence, and sexual imagery (poets.org)”. Beckman does the same thing. Both write in a dry tone, calloused and offensive at points. Bukowksi has a non-traditional approach to poetry, as does Beckman.
Matthea Harvey- Since the year of Beckmans birth seems to be well hidden, I don’t know if he was influenced by Matthea Harvey or not, but the writing style between the two has it’s similarities. Matthea collects dialogue she hears on the street, like ““I got everybody saying it like they'd been saying it for years”. This seems similar to Beckman because he write stuff from being an observer on the street like: “I was early and watched the people rushing”. Both write about New York City, and things like the view from their window.
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Poem that makes me want to write more...
I really like a lot of Edward Gorey books, but I don't have the patience required to type out those poems, so:
T.S. Eliot, Whispers of Immortality
T.S. Eliot, Whispers of Immortality
WEBSTER was much possessed by death
And saw the skull beneath the skin;
And breastless creatures under ground
Leaned backward with a lipless grin.
Daffodil bulbs instead of balls
Stared from the sockets of the eyes!
He knew that thought clings round dead limbs
Tightening its lusts and luxuries.
Donne, I suppose, was such another
Who found no substitute for sense,
To seize and clutch and penetrate;
Expert beyond experience,
He knew the anguish of the marrow
The ague of the skeleton;
No contact possible to flesh
Allayed the fever of the bone.
. . . . .
Grishkin is nice: her Russian eye
Is underlined for emphasis;
Uncorseted, her friendly bust
Gives promise of pneumatic bliss.
The couched Brazilian jaguar
Compels the scampering marmoset
With subtle effluence of cat;
Grishkin has a maisonette;
The sleek Brazilian jaguar
Does not in its arboreal gloom
Distil so rank a feline smell
As Grishkin in a drawing-room.
And even the Abstract Entities
Circumambulate her charm;
But our lot crawls between dry ribs
To keep our metaphysics warm.
Sestina, Horrid.
The trees look like spines after the leaves
have fallen down around the feet of the girl
on her way back to the house
that won’t really feel like home until the fire
is going and the glass planes separate the night.
The din of the television
keeps going and the glow from the television
turns their faces blue until her dad leaves
to go somewhere for the night.
Just the mother and girl
now adding kindling to the fire
listen to the car move away from the house.
Her father looks in the rearview at the house
and sees the blue television light
and hopes they don’t forget about the fire.
He still cares, even though he leaves
And goes off to waste money on a girl
who probably doesn’t care, but can pretend for 100$ a night.
The TV turns to a rerun of Saturday Night
Live and canned laughter fills the house.
Realizing it’s getting late the girl
stops her nighttime heart to heart with the television
says goodnight and leaves
the family room, the TV room, and puts another log on the fire.
Where there’s smoke there’s fire
Thinks the mother, not wife, as she thinks of the nights
and what started these leaves.
She looks around the house
and turns of the television
just as Chris Farley and some girl
begin a skit. She wonders about the other girl
as she begins to put out the fire.
She sits back down in front of the television,
her date for the night
Whose laughter fills the house
which has become just a home during these leaves
I hate the leaves, says the girl,
On the way to the house, and when it’s just us by the fire
On all these one-sided nights making love to the television
have fallen down around the feet of the girl
on her way back to the house
that won’t really feel like home until the fire
is going and the glass planes separate the night.
The din of the television
keeps going and the glow from the television
turns their faces blue until her dad leaves
to go somewhere for the night.
Just the mother and girl
now adding kindling to the fire
listen to the car move away from the house.
Her father looks in the rearview at the house
and sees the blue television light
and hopes they don’t forget about the fire.
He still cares, even though he leaves
And goes off to waste money on a girl
who probably doesn’t care, but can pretend for 100$ a night.
The TV turns to a rerun of Saturday Night
Live and canned laughter fills the house.
Realizing it’s getting late the girl
stops her nighttime heart to heart with the television
says goodnight and leaves
the family room, the TV room, and puts another log on the fire.
Where there’s smoke there’s fire
Thinks the mother, not wife, as she thinks of the nights
and what started these leaves.
She looks around the house
and turns of the television
just as Chris Farley and some girl
begin a skit. She wonders about the other girl
as she begins to put out the fire.
She sits back down in front of the television,
her date for the night
Whose laughter fills the house
which has become just a home during these leaves
I hate the leaves, says the girl,
On the way to the house, and when it’s just us by the fire
On all these one-sided nights making love to the television
Friday, September 19, 2008
Reading Response Shelley/Wenderoth
According to Shelley, Wenderoth simply went beyond reason and applied imagination to his personification of Wendy. When I read the book "Letters to Wendy's" I was bombarded with thoughts that had never crossed my mind, and Shelley writes that "[imagination is] mind acting upon those thoughts so as to colour them with it's own light". As reason has it, Wendoroth and I have both seen the neon lit sign of Dave Thomas's grandaughter and know that it stands for biggies, food, and 99 cent baked potatoes. But that is where our perception of the sign ends, unless by come chance we have the same imagination. Seeing as I've never dreamed of licking Wendy's asshole that scenario is null and void. Wenderoth colors the sign with his own experience and desires, and me my own. It is like when Shelley wrote "man is an instrument over which a series of external and internal impressions are driven, like the wind over an Aeolian lyre". The instrument, man, is physically the same, yet the sounds that come out of it and perceptions of what goes into it are drastically different.
Black Bears
Black Bears
I carry a cigarette burn
From the ride to Vermont one night
The driver flicked it back
And it became trapped in my dress
We were looking for a black bear
We saw one, huge, man eating,
And made out of wood at the “Welcome” center
One time I thought I saw one
But it was just a boy in costume
And he was running and growling through the yard
While his parents sat on the steps laughing
Sometimes I want to smother myself in honey
And lie down under a bird feeder
Or maybe leave the garbage on the porch
I carry a cigarette burn
From the ride to Vermont one night
The driver flicked it back
And it became trapped in my dress
We were looking for a black bear
We saw one, huge, man eating,
And made out of wood at the “Welcome” center
One time I thought I saw one
But it was just a boy in costume
And he was running and growling through the yard
While his parents sat on the steps laughing
Sometimes I want to smother myself in honey
And lie down under a bird feeder
Or maybe leave the garbage on the porch
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Assignment 1
George,
How’s Martha? To quell her fears about my giving out granola bars on playgrounds, people were beginning to think that I was rather two-dimensional so I had to step out of the box. What a gossip. As you know yourself George, I cannot tell a lie.
But I can tell you I was speaking with Aunt Jemima about your dollar bill audition and it is in God we trust that you will get the part. Remember that George. In God we trust. Tri-corner hats and white wigs beckon to the role of founding father, be it for hot breakfast mush or a nations currency.
Speaking of this trusting in God, I wanted to talk to you about something. I often think of your new “Pledge of Allegiance”. It is with heavy heart that I write this to you: as a Quaker man, I will always be under God, not just one nation. Granted it’s with no thanks to Him that I am forever destined to stare at oats. How absurd. My life is absurd.
Fuck, George. I’m having an existential crisis.
-Mr. Quaker Oats
How’s Martha? To quell her fears about my giving out granola bars on playgrounds, people were beginning to think that I was rather two-dimensional so I had to step out of the box. What a gossip. As you know yourself George, I cannot tell a lie.
But I can tell you I was speaking with Aunt Jemima about your dollar bill audition and it is in God we trust that you will get the part. Remember that George. In God we trust. Tri-corner hats and white wigs beckon to the role of founding father, be it for hot breakfast mush or a nations currency.
Speaking of this trusting in God, I wanted to talk to you about something. I often think of your new “Pledge of Allegiance”. It is with heavy heart that I write this to you: as a Quaker man, I will always be under God, not just one nation. Granted it’s with no thanks to Him that I am forever destined to stare at oats. How absurd. My life is absurd.
Fuck, George. I’m having an existential crisis.
-Mr. Quaker Oats
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