Playlist: ch33rup

For when I want to go from bad mood to doing the robot through the use of somewhat grindy/gritty electronica and/or hip-hop. Also, I got my head back on my shoulders and am linking to Last.fm where available for all these songs.

Playlist title: ch33rup
Length: approximately 19 minutes

Artist - Song

Muse - Supermassive Black Hole (team9 remix)
Nikk Shifter - Trippin' on Acid Lines (write me for this mp3, which I got off mp3.com back in the days when it was a site for sampling the work of independent artists)
Micronaut - Northern Style Kung Fu
Daft Punk - Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger
The Beastie Boys - Intergalactic

Playlist: Turtlenecks and iPhones

Current playlist, which will expand over time

Playlist title: Turtlenecks and iPhones
Length: approximately 40 minutes

Artist - Song

The New Pornographers - Myriad Harbour
Feist - I Feel It All
Beck - Gamma Ray
Shirley Ellis - The Clapping Song
Duffy - Mercy
A Tribe Called Quest - Excursions
Us3 - Cantaloop (Flip Fantasia)
Fiona Apple - Criminal
Sara Bareilles - Come Round Soon
Beston - I Think I'm Falling In Love Again
Cat Power - New York

I'm a Queering Poet(?)

I recently popped in at Steve Fellner's blog, in which he says,

I like to think of [Alice Notley] as queer. In the broadest sense possible. Her rejection of PoBiz, her rejection of white, middle-class values; she refuses to be categorized, shifting her poetic project from narrative to the experimental and back to lyrical in a mere second.

This question of who is or is not a queer writer is recently in my mind due to conversations with a friend of mine who has been wondering whether or not to identify as a queer poet. She is bisexual, but her personal sexuality rarely arises in her writing. On the other hand, she does a lot to question norms both social and sexual in her work, leading me to suggest to her that she is a "queering poet." That is to say, the emphasis is on what she does rather than who she is. The emphasis is on the question rather than the answer. The emphasis is on mini-narratives, not a grand all-encompassing one. The emphasis is, to my joy, on guiding the reader through a process rather than presenting said reader with an object.

With that in mind, can I identify as a queering poet as well? I want to say yes, based on the nature of my work, but I think I need some friends and colleagues to weigh in, to argue against a straight male as being able to queer. Some devil's advocates, as it were (but play nice, please, in the process of doing so).

In which I play catchup

Round Top rocked.

Rather than do the more-organized yet more-obnoxious manner of posting (which would be to backdate individual posts for each of the days I was there), I'm tossing all posts in at once, accompanied by the date, separated by my usual three dashes.

---

Wed Apr 15

Flights felt long. Time with Carl and Elizabeth felt like not nearly enough. Boom Blox is awesome. There is a sketch of me/someone as a harried business traveler. The photo is shaky. The sketch is shaky, too, but not as shaky as my photo-taking arm in too little lighting.



ZzzZZzZZzzzzzzzzzz

---

Thurs Apr 16

I'd missed people. I missed some people. It was good to be on campus for a couple of hours.

That night got to meet Gwen, one of the caretakers at Round Top, who was nice enough to point me to my sleeping place when I got there past the time I should have and couldn't find anybody.

ZzzZZZZZzzzzzzzzzz

---

Fri Apr 17

Badgerdog! The buses were late by nearly two hours, thanks to a torrential downpour that covered Austin, Round Top, and any number of regional towns and cities Friday morning. The kids, however, were great.

I ran two workshops of about ten students each, middle and high schoolers. Each group had a couple of real wiseasses, which warmed my heart. May these kids not have the sense of intellectual adventures beat out of them by the TAKS tests. Here's the thing that really made me happy - it's not that they laughed at my jokes (which is ingratiating but something I can separate during my assessment of the workshop), kit's not that they asked some decent questions (even one good question in fifty minutes under the circumstances would have been pretty darn good, and they came through with more), it's that almost half of them got up to read/recite during the open mic following lunch. A huge part of my message for this age group has to do with confidence and identity, that it's OK to put yourself out there, to be somebody else or even pretend to be somebody. More than that, it's OK to put yourself out there as you, the you you want to be seen as. It's a chance to truly control others' perceptions of you. It's scary, but it's also empowering. So when the first student blanked out on a poem she had thought she had memorized, I made sure to have everyone clap a second time just for the guts it took to try. Some of them were playful, some serious, but all put themselves on the line. Sometimes twice. All of them came a little closer to being their own persons. So to Ashley, Andrea, Mac, Danielle, Daniella, Nayeli, Sarah, Roberta, Tiffany, Yvonne, India, Viany, Amelia, Perla, Ashley, Ariana, Trinidata, Tre', Amber, and Lisa: thank you.

Additional thanks to Jo, Wendy, and Tamam, my new poetry buddies and with whom I enjoyed much of the weekend.

---

Sat Apr 18

I read "Icarus cannot be a palindrome" and performed "Mother Earth," "Sign of the Turtle," "Wooden Boys and Deadlier Toys," and "ADD TV" at the 9am reading. Got to meet Abe Young, and she was a real pleasure to hear. Even with a 9am slot, performing on the Festival Hall concert stage was a blast. I could have gone off mic for all but the beatboxed static at the end of the last piece. Some day I want to do a full-length show there.

Three other highlights for the day:

One, Fady Joudah's commentary during the panel discussion. This guy's poetry is good - not that a Yale Younger Series winner needs my endorsement - but what impresses me most is how deliberately and thoroughly he considers his work, its relation to himself, its relations to the world, and the implications that arise. Case in point - a Palestinian-American poet with a major award behind him and time spent in Doctors Without Borders wondering to what degree he takes part in and even perpetuates a spectrum of suffering that results in aid only for certain groups who are eventually forgotten in favor of a new group that suffers "more." This is not blind liberal guilt. This is seeing the connectedness and brokenness of the world.

Two, Naomi Shihab Nye gives great readings of great breadth. I love that she reads from her own work (and reads it well), from the work of poets she enjoys and respects, and even tosses in poetic moments in overheard conversations. When Naomi reads, you realize that she finds poetry everywhere. And by this I don't mean she forces the issue by trying to rank her speciality above all others, comparing every art to her own. That's a small-minded trap, meant to further the ego of the artist involved. Rather, whether or not you like Naomi's style of poetry, you have to admit that she is always looking outside herself, always looking to channel the brilliance she believes surrounds her all the time.

Three, hearing W.S. Merwin read. I like Merwin. He's deep, he's pretty funny, and he's humble. Not bad for a (now) two-time Pulitzer winner.

---

Sun Apr 19

Two highlights:

One, Bruce Noll's Pure Grass that morning- better than trying to be Whitman, Bruce figured out how to embody joyously Whitman's poems in a recitation/performance that was unabashed and inspiring on both technical and emotional levels. If you ever get the chance to see him work, do it.

Two, improv tag team with Adam Mitchell, Mic Check's musical guest that night. I performed "Sign of the Turtle" and "ADD TV," read Shira Erlichman's "Daddy's Parking Lot Sermon," performed Glenn Phillips's "Ma'am. Please Put Those Jeans Down" and "Wooden Boys and Deadlier Toys," and then got Adam to hum a little gospel as I read "A Reading from the Book of Mendeleev." Crowd loved it. I like this guy's playing and would have bought a CD had any been available. Revolution Cafe remains a cultural force in the Brazos Valley.

---

Mon Apr 20

Marley & Me on the plane almost made me tear up, even without the sound.

Good timing, since I got to see my own pups again. Hello dogs!

It gets even better. Hello wife! I'm home!

---

Tues Apr 21

Shouldn't I be unpacked by now? Shouldn't I be blogging again by now?

---

Wed Apr 22

Oh no, I've entered a wormhole and am typing before I begin to type. Or typing after I type. Or something. Doing errands. Revising poems I wrote while at Round Top. Will post those tomorrow - the weather is beautiful, so screw my plan to post twice a day!

NaPoWriMo Bonus Post #11

While at Stone Pigeon last night, I heard Ryk McIntyre do a love poem from a chupacabra. I'd already planned to do my Monsterpocalypse haiku, but I was inspired to write a fourth one on the spot.

Relativity haiku #4
for Ryk McIntyre

Love is half monster,
and it's the part that looks like
us that frightens us.

Let's Do the Time Warp (just once)

No, I'm not putting up an image of either Tim Curry or Anthony Stewart Head here.

No.

I see you waiting, about to open your mouth.

The answer is still no.

OK, moving on.

Hey, I said no. I meant no.

All right, I'm going to be out of town for a while. I'm teaching a workshop in performance at the Poetry Festival at Round Top (see sidebar). I leave Wednesday (tomorrow), will be on Texas A&M's campus during the day Thursday, and will be in Round Top Thursday night through Sunday afternoon. I return to Bryan to feature at Mic Check at Revolution Cafe Sunday night. I'm on a plane early Monday morning to return to New Hampshire via Boston.

I will write interesting stuff about the festival. I will take photos. These will be posted upon my return and backdated to their appropriate days and times. If you check this blog daily, however, you'll be out of luck for a little while. I will have my iPod Touch with me and thus the ability to check email, but there's no way I'm writing extended monologues/conversations on that thing (hint hint to Apple - give us a physical keyboard accessory).

Oh, and one more thing:

NaPoWriMo Bonus Post #10

OK, I missed two or three of these, so you get three complete haiku from this morning, all sparked by meditations on Monsterpocalypse.

Relativity haiku #1

Monsterpocalypse:
massive urban destruction
one one-thousandth scale


Relativity haiku #2

Three heads? Check. Lasers?
Check. Tentacles? Check. Game night.
Everything's normal.


Relativity haiku #3

We all want power.
We pretend to grow out of
smashing block towers.

Do you want to play a game?

Greetings, Dr. Falken,

er, dear readers,

I like games. Actually, I'm fascinated by any situation in which people get together and behave irrationally within the boundaries of arbitrary rulesets. Soccer. Global Thermonuclear War. Starbucks. Poetry.

My wife and I also love playing board games. Not Monopoly or other largely-random games, but more strategic ones that involve an element of luck but place more emphasis on crafty play. Settlers of Catan. Citadels. Bohnanza. Ingenious. Scrabble.

There's one in particular that I've got my eye on lately, called Monsterpocalypse. From everything I've seen (positive and negative reviews, plus videos), it's a well-crafted set of rules meets pokemon collectibility (in the form of 3" miniatures) meets my inner child's love for Godzilla.









It's too expensive to go hog wild on purchases right now, but I'm expecting to order our first pieces in the next couple of days. With that on my mind, I wrote three haiku this morning. They'll mark my return to double-posting each day.

I wish I could end this post with another Wargames reference, but when it comes to poetry, to board games, to soccer, to Starbucks, (but not to Global Thermonuclear War), it's more fun to play.

Tardiness and Tone

OK, the tardiness one: I will respond to Karin and Mairi's comments tomorrow. Have little time on the internet today.

The tardiness two: just realized that I've missed posting poems (the bonus posts) twice now. Have been revising instead of writing new stuff for two days. Will try to resume that on Monday as well.

The tone: A question about Good Friday (which I'm tardy in noting): What's the appropriate tone to take for stories of Good Friday? Easter and Christmas are easy - celebratory. But Good Friday is a tough one. It's sad - somebody dies. But we all know that the death isn't going to last. It's not even the movie where you're pretty sure the hero's not actually dead. It's the movie where you got to read the spoilers that said the hero's not actually dead. Or at least coming back. I'm not trying to be flippant with the Christian faith here. I recently made a comment on Facebook to the effect that I'm often heretical but rarely blasphemous. My question is a serious one for writers, even if phrased a bit awkwardly due to limited time available to me at the moment. I wonder if GF should be more like Thanksgiving. Or at least, instead of being a sad day, one of quiet appreciation. Of course, then we'd have to write quiet appreciation instead of sadness, and the latter's far less subtle.

Other holidays, holy days, secular days, or times in general that are difficult to pin down an appropriate tone?

Space and Light (part 3)

In one old volume and two forthcoming (OcSerp, the Icarus project, and diluvium, respectively), I want(ed) white space. That white space is there for you, dear reader, and I recently came across someone else thinking similar thoughts about it.

In her essay "American Poetic Music at the Moment" in Coming After, Alice Notley refers to white space in poetry as a "non-narcissistic possibility." This is precisely what I was trying to achieve in OcSerp by having facing pages mirror each other, yet contain antithetical material. It sets up a spectrum, implies by its very nature something between the pages that is lost on one side or the other. The play with history, as some reviewers noted, suggests that there are poems extending out to either side as well.

In the upcoming Icarus chapbook containing a sequence by Crystal Boson and a sequence by myself, it's not just about putting two authors in one book. It's about putting together two sequences that take nearly opposite approaches to the same project, stylistically speaking. If we're lucky, readers will find space for Icarus poems of their own. That space will owe itself in part to the space created between us and the existing batch of Icarus poetry, nearly all of it a simple retread of the myth or a reaction to Breughel's painting.

In diluvium, literal space is crucial. On days when the main characters are particularly stressed, fragments and lyrics from the edges of the page creep in and obscure the reader's view of the conscious poetic utterances in the center. This opens up a space wherein the reader is forced to negotiate among sections of the page, to establish personal hierarchies of importance, not just interpret for a single answer.

Three sequences I'm researching for my dissertation take this tack in startling ways. I may include bits and pieces of what I'm thinking about them specifically in future posts. Those sequences, incidentally, are Tom Phillip's A Humument, Anne Carson's Plainwater (which I treat as an extended sequence, not just a book containing several sequences), and Ed Dorn's unfinished Languedoc Variorum: A Defense of Heresy and Heretics.

History, Research, Ethics

I just had a sequence titled The Boke of Maneres published in Bathhouse: A Hypermedia Journal. You'll need Adobe Reader (or some other PDF reader) installed to see it. I'd like to spin my wheels for a moment on the subject of history, research, and ethics.

There are few excuses these days to dumb down history in a poem. The presence of search engines like Google means that if you read a poem and have no idea whatsoever who Sulla was, and why his reaching across the pomoerium was a big deal (and applicable to the US today), just plug those two terms into a Google search and spend three to an infinite number of minutes doing some research. The connotations may not resonate fully for you until you really get into the subject, but with the work I consider my most important, that's part of the point. You don't get to treat the poem as the endpoint of history. You treat the poem as a process through which to enter/view history.

This is slightly different than the traditional/Modernist stance we're used to. I rarely take history at face value. OcSerp is in large part about how history is filled with gaps, or rather wounds left by conquerors. It's also different because our access to history is different. It's at our fingertips, along with variations on the same. Official versions, conspiracy theories, repressed realities, it's all right there. We don't have the same excuse of obscurity that a generation ago did. Though we may not have the historical training of our literary ancestors, we can rectify that problem with greater ease.

That being said, there remains an ethical issue. Is it easier to abuse history (in the sense that Mairi uses it, per Sokol and Bricmont, in a Plumbline School post) because we have such easy access to its surface? I could pick on some friends and colleagues whose poetry I love, but engages history only at the most superficial level, say a farcical piece about Freud's love of cigars that nevertheless shows no real understanding of Freud's contributions, crap and otherwise, in a historical context? Or a poem about Genghis Khan's love life that uses conquest as a trope, but doesn't reveal any knowledge that distinguishes Genghis from any other conqueror? I'm making these up so as to not actually embarrass the real friends and colleagues, but the comments section may be fair game so long as we're all civil.

Your thoughts, dear readers? Am I asking too much if I expect that you'll do research based on a poem? Am I going about poetry a wrong way (not "the" as there is surely more than one wrong and right way) in general here?

NB: I'm working up a more formal version of this post to submit to Poets & Writers or somesuch as an article. If anybody contributes a particularly good question or answer or critique, I'll be sure to note as such should you be willing.

NaPoWriMo Bonus Post #9

Middle and end portions of a reverse-sonnet titled "This one time I will tell you"

full of teeth and closing when
I recalled the mouse caught earlier
down in the basement,
felt it burst between my molars,
...........
everything to do with putting one
foot in front of the other, praying
the floor will not pull back like a tongue.

NaPoWriMo Elsewhere

I'm doing this two-post-per-day thing, but there are a handful of folks who I'm also checking out daily (usually thanks to the ease of an RSS feed, but I'll visit their blogs on my own regardless):

Oscar Bermeo has an ongoing series titled "Anything to Declare?" that is worth comparing and contrasting (I think his interesting subtitle for each piece - Version x - asks for a compare and contrast).

Karin Gottshall runs Cafe Babblecat, which remains one of my favorite blogs to pop in at. I like the combination of poetry bits (the mouse poems in particular are great), little memoirish notes, crazy games, and photography experimental and traditional.

Lindsay Penelope Illich has a number of "Evening Poems," most dealing with motherhood. She's got some polls up asking for opinions on possible titles for 14 of them right now. A good read - take the time.

Of course you can look at my profile to see whose blogs I follow, but these are three folks I wanted to highlight briefly for poetry or otherwise creative writing that I've been enjoying on a daily basis.

NaPoWriMo Bonus Post #8

Someday I'd like to work on a video game. A few things that I'd incorporate (not all the ideas I have, since these ideas are more likely to be stolen than ones for poems):

1. Have an avatar creator that is incorporated into the storyline. If the game is to be dreamlike or surreal, have a voiceover talking about a dream s/he had in which s/he was molding his/her own face, like clay. If it's more realistic, perhaps use backstory questions as a way to semi-randomly assign features (e.g. "Are you a tough guy?" Affirmative answer gives the avatar a scar).

2. A game that involves dimensional travel through mirrors. If you fix a problem in one world, another problem arises in the other world. You can never fix all of them. Insert plenty of revelations for the player, such as realizing that the [highest government official] of the current world must be corrupt, because the other one is a saint.

3. Offering players the chance to play as three different characters who will ultimately come into conflict. Don't tell the player this until the conflict is immanent, at which point imbalances will already have arisen. The player cannot "lose" this situation, but it may turn out differently than s/he would have planned.

The Inside of My Head

The first draft(s) of "Icarus the Young," the final text of which I posted yesterday.


Things are always moving in there. Sometimes loping, like a butterfly.


Sometimes I really have to grind away at an idea, like it's not even mine.

NaPoWriMo Bonus Post #7

Lucky #7. Rather than give you something new, here's two poems of mine that will appear in the joint Crystal-JeFF Icarus production:

Icarus the Young

Schematic embryo. Star-crossed fetus.
Small as a period, a cluster of cells could not stop
Growing, could not but motion slowly
In the unnamed womb; were molded
By flesh-electric waves, programmed
With illusions of a user, else we might
Say these cells would soon be tricked
Into the light, as though any had choice
In the face of the atomic.

(first published in the 2008 Poetry at Round Top Anthology)


Icarus Interviews Orville

I: Were you close?
O: Wilbur and me? Closer than any brothers you’d ever meet. We even married sisters.
I: I mean to the sun.
O: Well, I was only ten feet off the ground that first time.
I: Did you feel the heat?
O: It was December.
I: ...
O: Wilbur had the most controlled flight – 853 feet.
I: ...
O: Of course, it wasn’t our only attempt.
I: ...
O: ...
[Interviewer leaves]
O: Yes, in all my veins, I felt it.

(never published in any journal, though several places asked for a copy of the chapbook when it comes out based on this poem)

A Tiny Compendium

Some time ago my manuscript The Icarus Sketches was picked up by Seven Kitchens Press. I've seen some of the chapbooks Seven Kitchens has put out and been impressed, so I was quite excited to see Icarus in the light (bad pun, sorry).

The poems I devised are a sequence, beginning with Icarus the Young, taking him through various childhood issues, then letting him live (he's offered the chance to live so long as he serves as a symbol of the long journey not taken), but each poem mimics the structure of the original myth, the rise and fall. So whether he's applying for a grant from the DoD or acting as a snarky docent, he's Icarus. I think the sequence stands as a damn good chapbook.

Then I saw the sequence my friend Crystal Boson was writing. It, too, took Icarus as a subject. It, too, reinvented him in a way few writers have bothered to try. But where my individual poems are fairly simple, hers are Ashbery-dense. Where her poems are fairly similar in style and voice, mine have a great deal of variety. The two sequences do really interesting things next to each other, effectively creating a space wherein the reader can imagine a whole spectrum of new Icarus material.

And here's the happy news / kicker. Ron Mohring at 7KP is going to publish both sequences in one chabpook. We haven't worked out all the details yet, but this will be a tiny compendium, containing two distinct works by two authors. Given my love for The Scarlet Compendium by Alice Notley and Douglass Oliver, I'm doubly excited.

Details will come over the summer. Anybody who wants to pre-order and/or review and/or would like to see Crystal and me reading side-by-side, drop me a line.

NaPoWriMo Bonus Post #6

Opening and closing (in this draft anyway) to a poem tentatively titled "The Tangible Inn":

At the Tangible Inn, M. Abstract takes a vacation...

...The hundredth door is made of warnings, and the lock
is made of fear. But behind the door is a black horse
M. Abstract wants to ride, so he will enter, he will ride
across the dome of Ymir's skull, he will be thrown.
Come lunes, M. Abstract will return to work missing
an eye. We all know the story by now. We do not ask anymore.

Nah-vant Garde

1. I flippantly used this term after AWP.
2. I re-used it over at John Gallaher's blog recently.
3. What the hell do I mean by it?
4. First of all, I'm not trying to pull either a Silliman or an Abramson. This is not a new category I want to invent. See #1 regarding flippancy.
5. That being said, I do mean something by it.
6. I'm getting to the point, really.
7. If the avant garde is by definition the new, then we our first problem is establishing a timeline of the new.
8. Time being the key factor?
9. See, already there's a problem before the first problem.
10. Hence this idiotic numbering system.
11. I would first like to note that in order for something to be new, said newness has to occur faster than it used to. Much like processor speeds and fads, creativity is apparently given an ever-shorter shelf life.
12. When poetry goes bad, it smells worse than old socks. This is one reason we try to weed it out.
13. Of course, the metaphor is now hopelessly tangled, so let's get back to the new.
14. Advertising wants newness. Products want newness. Ezra Pound's dictum has been grasped by the anti-poetry of the world. Why in the name of all that is (un)holy do we want to blindly follow that path?
14a. The Italian Futurists went after the New. They also thought Fascism a pretty good idea. Newness =/= automatically good.
14b. Whitman went after the New. Dreams of peace and prosperity and gender-friendly erotica. Newness =/= automatically bad.
15. Newness for the sake of newness = planned obsolescence = Windows Vista poetry.
16. Oldnes for the sake of oldness = planned obsolescence = Windows Vista poetry in some number of years.
17. Read #12 again, just because it was vaguely humorous, and I'm getting on my soapbox about now.
18. The nah-vant garde is that which demands newness because what is old must be bad (see 14a and 14b). The nah-vant garde does not admit to itself that it in fact holds power and/or has existed long enough to no longer be avant. It is in, perhaps even behind, the garde.
19. I write a lot of different types of poetry. I read a lot of different types of poetry. Screw the garde.
20. Give me the garden. With Whitman and Futurists. And Anne Carson and Mary Oliver. And Lisa Jarnot and Tom Phillips. And Shakespeare and Aristophanes. And lots of glass walls, because some of these folks would smack the shit out of each other trying to weed out perceived problems.
21. We can train them like sharks in an aquarium.
22. Oh wait, too late.

NaPoWriMo Bonus Post #5

One section from a short sequence I started writing this morning. The working title is "Lives of the Immortals," as in the general concept of one who lives forever as well as the specific concept of elite warriors in the ancient Persian Empire.

2

consumed by birds we were
rebirthed mid-air and useless
falling then falling no correction
possible in the amorphous
wind

Sick as a Norwich?

Dear readers,

When you get sick, do your powers of imagination improve? Does the world unhinge a bit? Do you still manage to write during your illness? Are you able to remember things as you perceived them later, when you've recovered? Do you ever wish yourself in this state? Do you try to recreate this state through the use of alcohol or other drugs? Have you ever done yourself mental harm, even as light as staying up for multiple days at a time, in pursuit of a line or image? Have you considered that all these things - the illness, the lack of sleep, the drugs - are ultimately ways to reduce consciousness?

Consider consciousness not as an additive but subtractive process. Your unconscious mind takes in vast amounts of data every second, so much that your conscious mind would overload attempting to keep track of it all (e.g. learning to walk is in other words the process of making walking an unconscious action - you can't concentrate on anything else until you transfer responsibility for walking away from your consciousness). Consider poetry as a type of verse that taps into the unconscious - whether using imagery, rhythm, or other elements, poetry works on more levels than the conscious mind can handle at once. Thus the power. Thus the separation from the popular world.

Reading assignments if you find yourself interested: Revelations of Divine Love by Julian of Norwich. The User Illusion by Tor Nørretranders.

NaPoWriMo Bonus Post #4

[sandbagging: this is more (stereo)typically "slammish" than I usually write, but you have to have variety - and with any luck, there's some nuance in the position presented here]

A reading from the book of Mendeleev

I don't know any snakes looking skyward

for explanations of their vestigial legs

Nor any whales who, surfacing,

blowhole prayers regarding their horselike hips

And while I know a few primates

who crack brachiating arms across their chests

and insist they are not related to apes

My appendix remains confused

by hymnals

and my full set of ribs

resonates soundly with this verse

My brothers and sisters,

My god, if such exists, did not make me in his image

Because if I am in the image of God,

then God is a more ideal version of me

and based on humanity's track record,

my god, my God is the scariest motherfucker in existence

My god, if such exists, does not lie

in the sterility of dogma,

did not create and is not interested in

perfection

My god, if such exists, is not

in the insoluble words of a book

but in the decaying of its pages,

the echo of voices not reciting

but renewing

My god, if such exists, did not plan

the oak tree, but thrives in photosynthesis

My god, if such exists, rides the spectrum

which includes male and female,

knowing it's not just frogs and fish

who sometimes need to change sex

My god, if such exists, is the blooming

but not the bloom,

the exploding

but not the explosion

My god, if such exists, is all verb,

ill-defined, beyond boxes

textual or ideological,

is perhaps only in my head,

is perhaps everywhere,

meaning nowhere,

meaning everywhere,

is paradoxical,

unowned,

not beautiful

but beautifying,

not dead

but dying,

not risen

but rising

Is quantum, knowing everything

you could possibly do at any instant

but leaving the choice up to you

and so does not wonder

why anyone would reject history, knowledge,

a chance to improve

In some version of this world,

we don't

In some, we do

Will I always wonder?

Competed at Slam Free or Die last night. It was the last qualifier for the semis, which in turn lead to the finals, which in turn determine the team that Manchester will send to the National Poetry Slam in August. I like the poets here, so I was actually quite interested in making the team. Not so interested that I didn't be my contrary self - I have a couple of poems that would have worked the judges a little more directly, but that's not my game. I'm not cut out for slam because I still want to stretch all the boundaries instead of playing them to my advantage.

In any event, I went first. For those of you not familiar with slams, pole position is not a good thing to have. As the audience and judges warm up over the course of the evening, scores tend to rise - an effect called score creep. When we're only slamming for two rounds, and only five of eight poets will go on to the second round, you don't want to be the guy/gal who doesn't benefit from score creep. However, I ran with "ADD TV" because the sacrifice poet was fairly ADD in her own performance - I'm still not sure how much of it was actually planned - and was in fourth place at the end of the round.

In the second round, I performed "Sign of the Turtle" and, due to another poet going over time, pulled into overall third place. Only the top two would advance to the semis. But hark, my ears detect a clamour! The second place poet can't attend the semis, so I get to advance! Oh frabjous day! Oh wait. You're telling me that instead of a month from now, when the next slam would normally take place, the semis are on April 17? When I'll be in Texas at the Poetry at Round Top Festival? OK, fourth place poet, back-patting time!

Will I always wonder what might have been? Would I have given in and performed crowd-pleasers in the semis, and perhaps even at the finals, attempting to get on this team? Unlikely. I really like the Manchester poets and would love to work with them. But I'll just have to arrange that on the side. In the meantime, you get an entire draft of something I've been tweaking - found it in an old journal and am making changes to it for potential performance.

NaPoWriMo Bonus Post #3

a freewrite to David Bowie's "Hallo Spaceboy (PSB Remix)" from the Best of Bowie album:

government pyramid masonic sonic explosion starfield improvewaves flucutate zeus with eyelids drooping lightning in a nebula nubular lar lar lar lar flock above daydreams as in trutledoves shells unflolding moondust trickles down economic relapse of the internior monologue say adios say hasta luego and lie burning burning tra la rome tra la travail avail hail hale hearty nevermind here we go again picking up speed spicking up leeds up reeds up feeeling feeds feeling ash buries pompeii and in the mirror of bronze convex vex aggravating feelings again feedings again the sluggoth my dear boy the sluggoth dreaming again below the sea the sea of stars the stars of the stars of the fish the fingers the legs the arms my god it's growing the arms wriggling like octopi the gnarling universe too large and grinding gaxes ashes axes yggdrasil flipside hello hello hello do you tell you willliam you lancelot and fell lancelot and golden lancelot and the knight green swinging like a galaxy [and the music player just crashed]

Go, Iowa!

Now that it's not just on the coasts, perhaps the legality of gay marriage will move beyond straw-man arguments comparing it to incest, bestiality, and polygamy. Probably not, but if things continue to go well in Iowa, it could just happen.

There's a peculiar Midwest version of "progressive" vis-a-vis homosexuality. It basically goes like this: "We ain't too fond of what them folks is doin', but so long as they're doin' it in their own house, who cares? I don't want nobody comin' into my house and tellin' me what I can do. Besides, I got to know a couple of those fellas, and they ain't like the ones always up on FOX News." It's not exactly welcoming the gay community with open arms, but this attitude is more prevalent than you might think. It often only pops out when the speaker isn't around too many other people. In fact, it goes hand in hand with that idea - so long as you're not too loud about whatever it is you're doing, it'll slide. You don't make change in Iowa by making waves. You make it by getting to know one person at a time, conversing, even arguing, but actually getting to know an individual. That's one reason change takes so long in the Midwest.

This is in many ways a disappointing reality for my gay friends and for myself. It would be great if things moved at a faster pace. On the other hand, things do change there.

Every once in a while I'm asked (seriously or rhetorically) why gay rights even show up on my radar. I'm straight. I've been married for nearly six years. Not my fight, etc. I have a number of gay/lesbian/bi friends, which is personally reason enough. I want them to be happy, and if marriage (and more specifically the rights accorded by marriage) increase their happiness, then I want them to be able to get married. The personal reason isn't quite enough, though, for an extended defense. So here's the most basic level by which I justify gay marriage: I don't like hypocrisy.

If the reason for marriage is the production of children, then childless couples should no longer be considered married. If the reason for marriage is love, then anyone who loves regardless of age or sex should be able to get married. If the reason for marriage is legal rights, then we should treat marriage as a business partnership consisting of any number of consenting adults. I'm only half-facetious about all this. The serious part - marriage as we treat it in the US (and many other countries) is equal parts religion, social standing, and business transaction. We get married because we are brought up in communities that teach marriage as an ideal representation of love (love being the highest gift of the divine). We get married because we are brought in communities consisting of couples. We get married because it affords us legal and economic opportunities. These three categories are not mutually exclusive, and that's part of the problem.

There are two paths that I see as the least hypocritical approaches to marriage. I know that one of these will never, ever work out. The other one simply allows two consenting adults, regardless of race, sex, or gender, to be married.

If you've reached this point wondering what all this has to do with poetry, since I ostensibly put this blog out there as a (piecemeal) poetics - politics can be poetic (see notes on hypocrisy), and poems can be political (anything from Yeats to the Beats). Gender concerns crop up in my poems for a number of reason. But again, the big one is that I don't like hypocrisy in my poetry, either. I was one of the few spoken word poets to never issue a poetic call for revolution while at Revolution Cafe. It's not my style, and I don't think a real revolution is the way to go. So I'm not going to insert that kind of languge into my poems merely because the audience will agree with it. I'm going to pick at holes, point out bits of history, and slowly develop a relationship. Then I'm in your house, and you're perhaps in mine. Then we can really talk.

NaPoWriMo Bonus Post #2

The closing lines of a spoken-word piece I began today:

There is no rim, so
He bounces the ball, throws it, and chases.
Bounces the ball, throws it, and chases.
The ball. The boy. The ghetto. The world.
Until one or another goes flat.

5 + 2 Performances =

Oscar Bermeo blogged the best list of influential works that I've yet seen. He went beyond the typical confines of the meme that made its rounds a while back, choosing not only influential poetry books, but nonfiction, recorded performances, and live performances. I won't try to one-up him here, but I would like to present 7 performances, live or recorded, that resulted in the version of me that gets up on the stage.

These first five occurred while I was an undergraduate. They set the stage (har har) for the style I developed in earnest later on at Revolution Cafe.

1. John Firefly. Open mic at the Underground at Illinois Wesleyan University. Various poems. John was/is a local homeless poet in Bloomington, IL. He was also the first person I saw really invest himself in a performance, really give life to the words on the page. I have a few poems of his that he mailed to me, including the one that got him banned from campus (let's just say he really, really insulted the then-head of the English Department). But it was that first open mic at which he cut loose that made me go, "Hmmm. Sound." What I most got from John was a sense that he was channeling words, even if reading them off the page, and using himself as an amplifier. It was a far cry from the staid readings I'd encountered before.

2. John O'Leary. Walking around IWU campus. Various poems of his own, plus passages from Milton and Shakespeare. Whereas John Firefly opened up the possibility of sound to me, John O'Leary brought home the concepts of memory and tradition. He wrote these fractured sonnets, as he called them, and revised them in his head. They worked on the page. They also worked out loud. Not only did he know his own work, however, but you could walk up to O'Leary, say "Paradise Lost, Book IV," and John would begin reciting it from memory. It was impressive, not gimmicky at all. I still haven't memorized as much work as I now know I ought to. You can listen to an interview with John on Cross Cultural Poetics #60.

3. John Firefly. Barnes & Noble Bloomington, IL. I invited both of the Johns to read at the Barnes & Noble at which I worked part-time during my undergraduate years. They arm wrestled to see who would go first, which drew a crowd. One poet, homeless, and another, looking homeless, about to burst blood vessels in the Starbucks. Firefly ended up going first, and proceeded to lead off with a poem about watching himself in the mirror as he had sex. Little old lady gets up and leaves. Followed by another. Followed by another. We had more complaints that night than any other in the history of the store. Lesson learned: words have power. Not always that lovey-dovey, power-to-move-you-positively power. But people will react even to poems.

4. Taylor Mali. Poems from the Like-Free Zone. "The the Impotence of Proofreading" and "What Teachers Make." Playful and smart, in the way that a young George Carlin was. Combine this with his attention to teaching stories (by which I mean both stories about teaching and stories that teach), and this wannabe-teacher was hooked on phonics. Or at least the presentation of potentially arcane material in such a way that the audience accepts and even appreciates it.

5. muMs da Schemer. Def Jam Poets at IWU. Everything he did (just kidding about the last of those three links - there was no classical music at the performance in question). muMs was a revelation. His theatrical style, use of persona, and the smartest sound poetry I'd heard to that point all made this guy my #1 influence when I started developing seriously as a performance poet. I don't give him enough credit on Arts & Crafts, and for that I'm genuinely sorry. He did one piece, whose title I can't recall, that ended with him miming an eagle, screeching, and slowly the screeching became beeping and the eagle an EKG meter flatlining. It was amazing, and "ADD TV"'s ending owes a lot to the ending of that piece. Actually, all of the four or five pieces I do that specifically explore opening and/or closing poems owe a lot to that piece.

These last two are performances that struck me not only for their incredible quality, but for the inspiration they gave me to create two of my most well-received poems.

6. Flying Words. Slope. "Language" (to see/hear it, check for the judges in the Slope issue). The first American Sign Language poem I'd ever seen that wasn't an interpretation of written/spoken words, but actually devised from the start to work with both spoken and signed language. Peter Cook and Kenny Lerner stand one in front of the other (Cook, the deaf member, in front) and co-sign a poem, while Lerner speaks from the back (his head is covered). Everything about this poem was intentional, from the way Lerner's and Cook's hands formed the sign for language (because you need two people to have communication), to the banter with the audience (at one point, three hands are engaged in playfully signing "poetry" over and over - while this is going on, Cook uses his free hand to point at someone in the audience and ask whether that person wants to get a drink later). It was kinesthetic, or better yet, kinaesthetic. "Sign of the Turtle" owes its specifics to Genelle and KellyLynn, but the manner in which I deliver it comes from Flying Words. I have a three-person ASL piece I want to perform some time that was inspired by "Language" as well. Some day...

7. Shira Erlichman. Famecast.com season 2. "Daddy's Parking Lot Sermon." I'll keep this one short, simply because I bring this poem up so often. The first time I saw it, I was checking out my competition in Famecast.com's Spoken Word contest (incidentally, I came in 10th out of 80 poets, but learned to seriously dislike Famecast's model - I recommend never, ever competing at that site). I immediately reacted to not just the delivery, but the poetry, calling fellow graduate students to come watch. I remember Roger Reeves pursing his lips and going, "Ohhh she's a real poet." This poem inspired "There will be no reinvention of the wheel." The bad male figure is the obvious link, but here's the real connection, the epiphany that I had that made Shira's poem more than just a good-creepy persona piece. You ready for this? Listen to the poem again, and realize that the "daddy" is using the exactly same kind of langauge as the son. Perhaps even more poetic language. There will be no reinvention of the wheel, indeed.

If you can find any of these people, live or in recordings, you owe it to yourself to listen.

NaPoWriMo Bonus Post #1

So here's my pledge, which I will assuredly break: That I will write a blog post each day in April on some variable topic. Furthermore, I shall make a bonus post containing the kernel of some creative endeavor - lines from a poem, a concept for an extended series, a nice title, the first sentence of a story (which, since this is National Poetry Month, we'll pretend is the first sentence in a narrative poem).

Incidentally, I have serious issues with National Poetry Month as a concept, similar to the objections to Black History Month and so forth. I can, however, have fun with this, and so I shall.

Today's bonus: The two sentences to a story:

From the age of four through the age of ten, Jonathan William Bradford was convinced that his middle name was actually Fucking, an appelation not completely undeserved. Little Jonathan Fucking Bradford had certain habits and inclinations that rendered past nomenclatures (e.g. "The Menace") insufficient.

In which I geek out...

If I say that I use Linux, I believe that I've reduced my targeted readership (meaning poets who don't use either Windows or Mac) to, um, about 1. You don't meet many Linux users at all, even when it comes to the dead-simple Linux Mint, which is my poison of choice. You meet even fewer poets/writers who want to deal with managing their operating system. They love Apple products, which "just work," leaving them to concentrate on the writing itself. I like to tinker, both with my poetry and my computer. I like having some clue about the plumbing and wiring in my house, even if I have to call an expert to fix major problems. I like to do some gardening, even if I buy most of my produce at the store (though we did sign up for a local CSA beginning this summer). One of these days, with proper ventilation, I hope to make some of my own furniture. This is not to say I'm a programmer of any sort. Rather, if you're the sort who has one thing you tinker with excessively (poetry) and are interested in controlling a few more aspects of your computer (for free), Linux Mint might be the way to go.

What follows are four screenshots with various features. Not so much a review as a view.


Wide-open view just to establish a few things. My old monitor crapped out on me. Got a new one, 20" Asus, for $120 and free shipping from NewEgg. The screen real estate is pleasant. On the lefthand side is a chat client called Pidgin. I have it set up so that I can chat to people signed into either GMail or Facebook - each chat will appear in its own window, but you can have one tabbed window if you want. That's Firefox for my web browser - the default in Linux Mint. Both of these programs come loaded right away. That's a good thing. A very cool addition that I don't recommend to new users is in the upper right. You see the clock and date? OK, that's normal. You can sync your calendar so that by clicking on the clock, a drop down month appears with the day's events. Unfortunately, you can't get a list view. I like the list, and have been talking with a great guy in Austria named Florian Dorn. His gnome-agenda program/applet gives me that list, which you see in the screenshot. It isn't actually all that tough to install, but let yourself become a bit familiar with your desktop before trying to install it. I'll happily help out if you're interested.


This screenshot will look vaguely familiar if you've been reading lately. I really like this desktop wallpaper. Incidentally, if anybody wants to know where to get any of the themes I'm showing off here (be it wallpaper, cursor image, or window borders), just ask in the comments. Two new geekeries here. One is Mail Notification. When I get a new message in GMail, even if I don't have Firefox open, a note pops up in the corner of the screen with basic information - sender, subject line, time. If I mouse over the icon, that large list appears of my 10 latest unread emails. In the upper left, my music player, Exaile, embeds the cover art for the album I'm listening to on the desktop. By embed, I mean I could put an icon or a window or whatever over it. Exaile does not come with Linux Mint by default. If you decide to take the plunge, though, it'll take all of five minutes (or less) to install.


This is what the Ubuntu wallpaper should have been. Final Exaile note - every time a song changes, I get a semitransparent popup with the song info. This info also appears if I mouse over the Exaile icon in the taskbar in the upper right.


Since I've written about composition a lot, here's my new composition setup. Yes, Pidgin is still open. Yes, Firefox is still open. But I keep everything off the desktop except my dissertation. I'm using a program called the GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program), which is horribly named, a little more awkward to use than Photoshop, but totally free. Linux Mint comes with this installed. Reason #1 to use GIMP: it's free. Reason #2: There are legal issues surrounding dissertations. If you create one using, ahem, borrowed software, you get in trouble. I'm doing my dissertation in absentia, away from campus, away from free access to Photoshop, Illustrator, etc. I'm not going to fork over $600 for the program(s) that will best let me write this thing. That was one of the major reasons for starting the switch to Linux about a year ago - preparation for a time when I might need it.

I've gotten used to most things in Linux. There are two major bothers, at least with this distribution*. One, Adobe Flash is often wonky. I wanted to look at John Gallaher's Guidebook today, but it won't load properly. YouTube is fine, though sometimes I get a big gray rectangle with sound instead of whatever video should load. IGN.com is fine today as well. But John's e-chapbook? I've got nothing. Two, my iPod Touch. This is squarely on Apple's shoulders, actually. I can sync Kate's iPod Nano using any number of programs in Linux. There are two music players I highly recommend, and a good four or five others that would serve you just fine. But the encryption on the iPhone and iPod Touch is different, and I can't sync unless I boot back into Windows to use iTunes. There are ways around this, but they're very, very ugly. Besides that, I'm pretty happy with the switch.

Your thoughts? Too geeky? As if being a poet wasn't pigeonholed enough?

*Linux comes in a number of "flavors" referred to as distributions. One of the most popular is Ubuntu. Linux Mint is based on Ubuntu, but has certain codices (read: what allows you to play an mp3 or DVD) already installed. Ubuntu lets you get the codices, but doesn't come with them pre-installed for practical and ideological reasons. There are many other (valid) distributions. Visit DistroWatch.com and poke around for a while if you want to see the variety. I'm not saying Linux Mint is the hands-down best of these. I am saying that for someone who likes to tinker but A) wants to / has to concentrate on something else and B) is OS-pagan but not precisely computer-literate, this is the way to go.

EDIT: On April 2, fixed Florian's nationality from German to Austrian. Sorry about that, Florian!