I had to review a poetics blog this week. It didn't go well. Essentially, if this is a poetics blog, it sucks ass. I don't think I have the time to really put together a good poetics blog. That makes me sad. Here is the blog I reviewed:
poetsvegananarchistpacifist.blogspot.com
It's not really a poetics blog, but that's because th e others that I randomly clicked on from a link were disjointed, uninteresting, inconsistent and ultimately self-serving.
Whoops.
If I really want this to be anything more than my personal bitch sheet, I have to make a considerate effort. I don't think I can do that right now, or do I actually know how. So... I think this will remain a roll of toilet paper for now. No one is making you read this.
If you are a poet, I would encourage you to submit your work to the Columbia Poetry Review. It's a very good, student edited publication and I believe that if I know you and you are a poet, I like you and your work. For the most part. I can only think of a couple of people I would like to personally solicit (and I think I will do just that), but that doesn't mean I wouldn't like anything you, Reader, might send in. It's a huge board with a lot of differing opinions and you never really know what's going to get in. And you're a kick ass poet anyway, so do it. I promise I'll speak up loud and clear when we check out your work.
http://english.colum.edu/cpr/submissions.htm
Please. I'd really like to see a name I know pop up.
Other than that, I had a minor set back the other week, but my other poems have gone over pretty well. I'm getting more and more motivated. Hopefully I can produce something worth something. How capitalist is that?
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Thursday, September 17, 2009
big trouble in little me
a poem that needs work is simply a poem that needs work. different perspectives, different motivators, different tenses, whatever it needs can usually be identified and utilized, especially within a workshop perspective. common protocol is to preface your critique with something positive in order to basically encourage encouragement and lay your beef out as articulately and objectively as possible.
that's a poem that needs work. a shitty poem is a poem that is finished. it can't be helped. a bad poem is done before you even start and the finished product is what slid out your ass. you can't take a pile of shit and make it beautiful. you recreate the god damned venus demilo or david, but guess what creep, it's still a pile of your own shit. now instead of just dumping it in the toilet and flushing it away, you've been playing with it for an afternoon and need 18 showers and have ruined a pair of jeans. also, you're that guy everyone knows to play with his own poop.
i wrote a shitty poem for class today. worst part is, i liked it. i was happy with it. i was excited to share it and hear what others thought. i was glad that this was the first poem i was bringing to this association of colleagues that i have been thrown into. now, i'm disgustingly embarrassed and ashamed and questioning why the fuck i'm here. is it because some undergrad press published a chapbook? is it because of my letters of recommendation? is it because i sent a fruit basket into the grad office to thank them for their help?
i'm terrified now. i'm embarrassed. i'm completely paranoid that everyone who i thought was my new friend now thinks i'm a fucking joke. i want to quit.
i'm also a giant fucking baby. it's the allen way. you'd think i'd grasp that idea by now. with 25 years of destroying myself over and over and over again in any venue of skill and then rebuilding and reconstructing to at least a relative mastery, you'd think i'd be able to restrain these feelings of inadequacy and shame when failing so miserably. but i guess that's all a part of it; where the motivation to bring myself above is born from. vengeance, basically. revenge against myself for this injustice i have brought on the nation of jeff. if i quit, the terrorist jeff allen, wins. i really am my own shit-fiddlin' worst enemy.
i miss some people. there was always this awkward and eager respect within my past poetry communities. i haven't been involved in a circle of writers in a long time. i know that i've effectively destroyed every bridge to everyone who's ever known anything about me as a writer in the past, and i can accept that, and maybe i don't even deserve the right to even say that i miss them, but i do. i know every one of us is a completely different person now and whatever we used to have is very incontrovertibly past tense, but i think that makes my missing that much more... poignant? effective? useful?
probably just pathetic.
i don't know. it's the only thing i really miss about the educational institution of millikin. and maybe that's how i need to look at it so i don't take this hulking failure and turn it into sobbing. jesus christ i'm terrified.
that's a poem that needs work. a shitty poem is a poem that is finished. it can't be helped. a bad poem is done before you even start and the finished product is what slid out your ass. you can't take a pile of shit and make it beautiful. you recreate the god damned venus demilo or david, but guess what creep, it's still a pile of your own shit. now instead of just dumping it in the toilet and flushing it away, you've been playing with it for an afternoon and need 18 showers and have ruined a pair of jeans. also, you're that guy everyone knows to play with his own poop.
i wrote a shitty poem for class today. worst part is, i liked it. i was happy with it. i was excited to share it and hear what others thought. i was glad that this was the first poem i was bringing to this association of colleagues that i have been thrown into. now, i'm disgustingly embarrassed and ashamed and questioning why the fuck i'm here. is it because some undergrad press published a chapbook? is it because of my letters of recommendation? is it because i sent a fruit basket into the grad office to thank them for their help?
i'm terrified now. i'm embarrassed. i'm completely paranoid that everyone who i thought was my new friend now thinks i'm a fucking joke. i want to quit.
i'm also a giant fucking baby. it's the allen way. you'd think i'd grasp that idea by now. with 25 years of destroying myself over and over and over again in any venue of skill and then rebuilding and reconstructing to at least a relative mastery, you'd think i'd be able to restrain these feelings of inadequacy and shame when failing so miserably. but i guess that's all a part of it; where the motivation to bring myself above is born from. vengeance, basically. revenge against myself for this injustice i have brought on the nation of jeff. if i quit, the terrorist jeff allen, wins. i really am my own shit-fiddlin' worst enemy.
i miss some people. there was always this awkward and eager respect within my past poetry communities. i haven't been involved in a circle of writers in a long time. i know that i've effectively destroyed every bridge to everyone who's ever known anything about me as a writer in the past, and i can accept that, and maybe i don't even deserve the right to even say that i miss them, but i do. i know every one of us is a completely different person now and whatever we used to have is very incontrovertibly past tense, but i think that makes my missing that much more... poignant? effective? useful?
probably just pathetic.
i don't know. it's the only thing i really miss about the educational institution of millikin. and maybe that's how i need to look at it so i don't take this hulking failure and turn it into sobbing. jesus christ i'm terrified.
Slamdunk
by Yusef Komunyaka
Fast breaks. Lay ups. With Mercury's
Insignia on our sneakers,
We outmaneuvered the footwork
Of bad angels. Nothing but a hot
Swish of strings like silk
Ten feet out. In the roundhouse
Labyrinth our bodies
Created, we could almost
Last forever, poised in midair
Like storybook sea monsters.
A high note hung there
A long second. Off
The rim. We'd corkscrew
Up & dunk balls that exploded
The skullcap of hope & good
Intention. Bug-eyed, lanky,
All hands & feet . . . sprung rhythm.
We were metaphysical when girls
Cheered on the sidelines.
Tangled up in a falling,
Muscles were a bright motor
Double-flashing to the metal hoop
Nailed to our oak.
When Sonny Boy's mama died
He played nonstop all day, so hard
Our backboard splintered.
Glistening with sweat, we jibed
& rolled the ball off our
Fingertips. Trouble
Was there slapping a blackjack
Against an open palm.
Dribble, drive to the inside, feint,
& glide like a sparrow hawk.
Lay ups. Fast breaks.
We had moves we didn't know
We had. Our bodies spun
On swivels of bone & faith,
Through a lyric slipknot
Of joy, & we knew we were
Beautiful & dangerous.
I wish I could write a poem like that about sports. God damn.
Fast breaks. Lay ups. With Mercury's
Insignia on our sneakers,
We outmaneuvered the footwork
Of bad angels. Nothing but a hot
Swish of strings like silk
Ten feet out. In the roundhouse
Labyrinth our bodies
Created, we could almost
Last forever, poised in midair
Like storybook sea monsters.
A high note hung there
A long second. Off
The rim. We'd corkscrew
Up & dunk balls that exploded
The skullcap of hope & good
Intention. Bug-eyed, lanky,
All hands & feet . . . sprung rhythm.
We were metaphysical when girls
Cheered on the sidelines.
Tangled up in a falling,
Muscles were a bright motor
Double-flashing to the metal hoop
Nailed to our oak.
When Sonny Boy's mama died
He played nonstop all day, so hard
Our backboard splintered.
Glistening with sweat, we jibed
& rolled the ball off our
Fingertips. Trouble
Was there slapping a blackjack
Against an open palm.
Dribble, drive to the inside, feint,
& glide like a sparrow hawk.
Lay ups. Fast breaks.
We had moves we didn't know
We had. Our bodies spun
On swivels of bone & faith,
Through a lyric slipknot
Of joy, & we knew we were
Beautiful & dangerous.
I wish I could write a poem like that about sports. God damn.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
I guess August sucked?
That's a lie. August was wonderful. So wonderful, that I forgot this thing existed. I don't want to bore you with the personal aspirations and successes or failures that the waning summer sent my way, just rest assured, faithful reader, little was done that afforded me the courtesy of a blog update. Funny how now as I sit in the wake of three of my four graduate classes and am completely winded by the extent of the work expected of me, I find the time to write down some rather meaningless dribble for the internet communities that might come across this. The seven or eight people who live at the center of the earth with their planet-core powered laptops just clicking away to the ends of the internet, they are my biggest fans.
So, Morlocks, what the fuck is up? I started school. It's more than I could have imagined. Last night we had our first workshop, just an introductory thing of course, no one had any work to shop, but still I was sitting there grinning my stupid face off all evening. We are a class of nine and we are awesome. I can't wait to read what these people write. Of us, there is another marathoner, an ex-Decaturian, a Pittsburgh native who says "Stillers" instead of "Steelers", and a baby Chicagoan fresh out of southern Cali who already claims this city as her home without experiencing a winter. Maybe presumptuous, but definitely admirable.
This week has been eye-opening. I don't want to discredit any friendships or conversations that I've ever had, but the things that I've said this week in discussion are things I have barely even thought about in years. It was so god damned refreshing to talk about poetry and education theory with other people who honestly just have the patience for that shit. I love Daniel and Robert, don't get me wrong, but they have barely read any of my poetry, much less engaged me in conversation about it. After workshop last night where we discussed an article on difficulty in poetry by Reginald Shepherd and a defense of MFA poetry programs by one of Columbia's faculty, my roommates and I dissected the word 'successfully' and turned it into 'suck-sex-fucking' in reference to how Daniel's recording session with one of our female friends went.
Who the fuck am I, really?
I feel like I'm betraying someone or something. Maybe it's really poetic and I'm just fooling myself. In reality I'm probably some Vegas diva hopped up on goofballs giving footjobs for stem cells in the back alley of an abortion clinic. Whatever. People have balanced more contradicting lifestyles before. My last relationship existed between two people who didn't even really exist and knew it. Everyone fools themselves constantly.
On that same note, in all these classes you go around and do your introductions and for some reason, I can never actually say anything interesting about myself. It's always after I mutter something about movies and video games that I realize I actually have some unique and intriguing things to say. All my classmates probably think I'm some turdy shade of gray at this point. I just don't get where my head goes when put on the spot like that. I can't say I'm a runner or a vegan or a musician or even a writer, and here I am stuck dead in an MFA program. Anyway, I just feel like a douche. I'm sure everyone will get to know me to a frustrating extent and all of this first-week goosebump bullshit will be far behind us.
I should hopefully be writing more. At least getting the shit I've been shitting shit on by other shits in an effort to make cleaner shit. Here's my prompt for this week:
"For next week, write a poem in which all events occur simultaneously. ("Events" may be internal as well as external; may be antidramatic as well as dramatic; may be thoughts instead of actions; and so on.)
The poem should include your 10 favorite words from Tender Buttons. Write these words at the top of the page so that we can re-experience them in your poem."
So many semi-colons.
So, Morlocks, what the fuck is up? I started school. It's more than I could have imagined. Last night we had our first workshop, just an introductory thing of course, no one had any work to shop, but still I was sitting there grinning my stupid face off all evening. We are a class of nine and we are awesome. I can't wait to read what these people write. Of us, there is another marathoner, an ex-Decaturian, a Pittsburgh native who says "Stillers" instead of "Steelers", and a baby Chicagoan fresh out of southern Cali who already claims this city as her home without experiencing a winter. Maybe presumptuous, but definitely admirable.
This week has been eye-opening. I don't want to discredit any friendships or conversations that I've ever had, but the things that I've said this week in discussion are things I have barely even thought about in years. It was so god damned refreshing to talk about poetry and education theory with other people who honestly just have the patience for that shit. I love Daniel and Robert, don't get me wrong, but they have barely read any of my poetry, much less engaged me in conversation about it. After workshop last night where we discussed an article on difficulty in poetry by Reginald Shepherd and a defense of MFA poetry programs by one of Columbia's faculty, my roommates and I dissected the word 'successfully' and turned it into 'suck-sex-fucking' in reference to how Daniel's recording session with one of our female friends went.
Who the fuck am I, really?
I feel like I'm betraying someone or something. Maybe it's really poetic and I'm just fooling myself. In reality I'm probably some Vegas diva hopped up on goofballs giving footjobs for stem cells in the back alley of an abortion clinic. Whatever. People have balanced more contradicting lifestyles before. My last relationship existed between two people who didn't even really exist and knew it. Everyone fools themselves constantly.
On that same note, in all these classes you go around and do your introductions and for some reason, I can never actually say anything interesting about myself. It's always after I mutter something about movies and video games that I realize I actually have some unique and intriguing things to say. All my classmates probably think I'm some turdy shade of gray at this point. I just don't get where my head goes when put on the spot like that. I can't say I'm a runner or a vegan or a musician or even a writer, and here I am stuck dead in an MFA program. Anyway, I just feel like a douche. I'm sure everyone will get to know me to a frustrating extent and all of this first-week goosebump bullshit will be far behind us.
I should hopefully be writing more. At least getting the shit I've been shitting shit on by other shits in an effort to make cleaner shit. Here's my prompt for this week:
"For next week, write a poem in which all events occur simultaneously. ("Events" may be internal as well as external; may be antidramatic as well as dramatic; may be thoughts instead of actions; and so on.)
The poem should include your 10 favorite words from Tender Buttons. Write these words at the top of the page so that we can re-experience them in your poem."
So many semi-colons.
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