9.14.14

Much like dialects of a language have high and low aspects, poetry often fulfills the "high" end of cultural verse. The continuum would run from high (courtly love, artistic themes, nature, self-actualization) to low (folk celebrations of the seasons, "regular" love, family ties, etc). Today this is not really an issue, as poetry is appropriate for any theme, but I still like to see the different lects represented.

While it may not focus on a "high" theme, The Trailer Park Papers by Danielle Vantress does focus on people's journeys, whether or not they go anywhere. Her introduction begins:

Somehow, introducing The Trailer Park Papers is like shoving an uneducated, socially awkward, embarrassed adolescent in front of a crowd of hip teens and asking her to say something cool. The Trailer Park Papers are not cool. They are not necessarily even poetic--at least not in the sense that they display a profound love for the language they beg to speak their heart with. There is not a single counting of beats here. No attention given to iambs. No guided rhymes or carefully crafted couplets. There is in actuality perhaps no craft here at all--save in the unreasonable survival of the "I". The Trailer Park Papers are an experiment in survival. They are an experiment in the tracking of a people who, in the process of writing their own stories, erase themselves. Who in the act of "living" destroy themselves. They are an experiment in the dubbing over of the screams, the wails, the outrages and, ultimately, the pleas of a people who, in efforts to survive the sick belligerence with which drug addiction, alcoholism, abuse, and insanity consumes the human spirit, have sold their voices for a momentary reprieve from the real. 

Woah. This is heavy but I appreciate the lack of punches pulled. Also, this is what we can expect from the  chapbook. Many of the poems are named for people, some of which reoccur as the pages go.

Shiner

What broke was my heart--
not my chin     or how you pushed it
with your first through my face
     until it seemed I had no lips to pout with.
It was my heart that dropped--
not me    onto the stairs' cement
where, kicking, you towered over
    with all of your bulk
        with which once you had loved me.
my teeth wanted a knocking.
Give me two black eyes.
"It's what you're not that I can't stand"
what I could never be     and myself.
I still think of you always
    still love.
Think only of before
   I found myself crumpled on steps
heaving heaps of disbelief and
     forgiving with what is small of me.
Years love tumultuously.


While the content is raw, I disagree with the introduction in that these are not carefully crafted. It may not be care in the form of metric precision, but I believe the voice present is made to be true to the subject matter. It is certainly not contrived. The spaces between phrase fragments indicate pausing, perhaps heaving sighs. There is a certain breathless resignation of the speaker to their life, ready to go through with the motions rather than agitate against the inevitable.


Maple Syrup

Been back just a little over a week
    and already he's "missing" since last night.
The city crawl'll get him every time--
thinkin' he's over it.
But how do you "get over" total painlessness
    and the humm?
I can smell the burning tinfoil through just the thought of it.
That brown snaildrip trail and the bubbling bitter.
Then there's the puke--
unless you're used to it,
Wonder if he puked today,
that would be good--
how getting sick borrows time from the "Flu".
You ask what it's like
   and all I can think of
      is a big green couch:
         a weightless arm raised above my head for hours--
          wheat waving in a field of sun--
          contentment within a fearless dream and floating...
That, and the nickel-sized cigarette burns
scarring my body like worms.

Weekend Words

Some words for you.

9/24/12

I am ill-suited for this type of fare.

I prefer the digestible reality

of fiction that presumes,

and this

is not conforming.

now I must remold,

and the surface is unforgiving.

I open a lunchbox of bombs.



That feels like not enough, so here is one more:

1/1/13

The first in motion was a moth,

a ghostly falling feather,

and where it lit,

dust covered the earth.

The land aged instantly,

and still the slow wings moved up

and down,

antennae circled in the empty morning,

blotting out signs of the sun.

9.10.14

I wanted to talk about a chapbook I've had for a while but never really explored. I bought it for a poetry course in college and I know I read it at least cursorily because there are some annotations, but I didn't remember doing so. The text is called The Weather by Lisa Robertson. It has an introduction leaflet put in after the fact, and it almost seemed like part of the work rather than explaining it, so I'll omit that, but I did like the introductory quote:

"Architecture, fashion--yes, even the weather-- are, in the interior of the collective, what the sensoria of organs, the feeling of sickness or health, are in the individual ---They stand in the cycle of eternally selfsame, until the collective seizes upon them in politics and history emerges" --Walter Benjamin

The weather is a background to a lot of other things, but ranks among the unchanging, despite its many moods. Think about that old saying when you meet someone, that you should talk about your health and the weather to avoid being controversial/too personal. So that platform was something I was looking for as I read.

The chapbook is a concept, rather than a collection, with an entry for each day of a week. Each day opens with a prose poem-type of text, with very clipped phrases and heavy verbal and structural repetition that seeks to set a pattern or mood. I didn't quite know what to do with these segments, since I have so little experience with this type of verse. After the blockier prose segments there were some more structurally-familiar poems. Here's one:


Give me hackneyed words because
they are good. Brocade me the whole body
of terrestrial air. Say spongy ground
with its soft weeds. Say self because it can.
Say arts of happiness. Say you have just died.
Say sequin because the word just
appeared. Say weather take this adult
from its box. Memorize being sequined
to something, water. Everything you forget
inserts love into the silent money.
memorize huge things of girders greased. Say
the water parting about the particular
animal. Say what happens to the face
as it gala tings my simple cut
vicious this afternoon the beautiful
light on the cash is human to guzzle
with--go away wild feelings, there you go
as the robin as the songsparrow go
the system shines with uninterrupted
light. It's petal caked. Leaves shoot up. Each
leaf's a runnel. Far into the night a
sweetness. Marvelous. Spectacular. Brilliant.
Clouded towards the south. It translates
Lucretius. Say cup of your heart rush
sluice is yellow sluice Kate Moss is Rosseau
have my arms. Say impasto of
atmosphere for her fur. Halo open
her face. Misplace the death. All the truth
under the tree has two pinky oozy
names. Say trying to possess or not. Say
if you thought love was ironical. If
pleasure emancipiates, why aren't you some-
where. Sincerity.


The sense of this at first is very blocky as well, and its tempting to receive each little fragment as a separate thing, which is too many little things all at once at equal value. I do like that the repetition of "say" makes some passive phrases more active, or changes the activity that is going on. Here's another:


Sometimes I want a corset like
to harden me or garnish. I
think of this stricture--rain
language, building--as a corset: an
outer ideal mould, I feel
the ideal moulding me the ideal
is now my surface just so very
perfect I know where to buy it and I
take it off. I take it off. If all things fall
and we are just emperors, serious
and accurate and fugitive
in such dormant lines of gorgeousness
the day is a locksmith
dew lies long on the grass
and I a rustic ask: what is
a surface--and respond
only omniscience, the crumpling face
as the domestic emotions elucidate
themselves a sea of mist
exists so strangely side by side
the potent mould of anarchy and scorn.

This one returns me to the introductory quote, finding a base point in something, and basing a structure around it. The very real constriction of a corset helps, and consequently the idea that it can make or unmake what it touches/relates to. The repetition of that and "mould" literally shape things (I also like that mould could have two different noun meanings and one verb in this piece).

In the notes in the end of the book, Robertson offers some context for the work, saying it was an "intense yet eccentric research in the rhetorical structure of English meteorological description" during a 6-month stay in Cambridge.

Something I like about doing this exercise is that I am exposed to things that I don't normally seek out, and I'm learning a ton as a result. This is not a book I would say is a favorite, but it is good mental exercise.

9.9.14

Since poetry is great at defining and crossing/bridging boundaries, I wanted to bring up rap. I know a lot of traditionalists would not hesitate to say they are nothing alike, and for the most part I agree. However, since there is a strong presence of performance and slam poets, I would say they do share attributes. I would be hard-pressed to define poetry by what it is (or what it isn't), and since the ceiling between the formerly "high art" of poetry and folk expression is mostly destroyed, I want to name rap as a lect of poetry. Maybe a lower one, but that's okay. 

Some artists rap more in a sing-song manner, some are more spoken/"spit", and the lyrical content of the songs makes a difference in whether or not they can be read as poetry. Similarly to the read/spoken debate, I'm going to present this as something to be read first, then listened to. 

Tears for the Sheep*

by Atmosphere

A city of fools
I wanna bash whoever's responsible for this incomprehensible lack of passion
The sucker's been seduced down to the stick
And the peasants fill their bellies with the poisons you omit
I've come to separate the heads and shoulders
Of these tracing paper soldiers
That have been designated to take it over
I'ma roll a couple of boulders off the cliff
On the road below (look out below)
'Cause I don't know what I'ma hit (yo)

I live by the word until I die by your sword
Even when I'm dead my head will live inside your RCA cords
I wait for the right time, but it resembled now-a-days
Descended on the Earth to put an end to all your holidays
The assassin covered in plain clothes
Smothered the sunlight and set flame to your rainbows
And then came the storm (and then came the storm)
Bewildered those that didn't contemplate
Fake disguised as the norm (as the norm)
And when the smoke evaporated and the damage was assessed
The causalities were counted as they looked upon the mess
As they focused they eyes on the horizon, who'da guessed?
All that stood atop the hill was number seven silhouette

And with this head splitting tears, cement breaking
weeping for these people walking in their sleep
(these people walking in their sleep)
My talk is not as cheap
And my thoughts are not as deep
As the day I woke up to discover I lost my sheep
head splitting tears, cement breaking
Leaping for these people walking in their sleep
(these people walking in their sleep)
My talk is not as cheap
And my thoughts are not as deep
As the day I woke up to discover I lost my sheep

They say a picture's worth a thousand words
Well I beg a thousand pardons for each word I've used for personal gains
But the letters that float through my head, demote my sentences,
Could never be contained by your simple picture frames
For every intoxicated moment I hate life

I strive to balance my aura by dancing with the light
And sometimes it's difficult to stay quiet
I fight it, each time I find myself walking across your eyelids
Wishing the malnutrition, the imagination of yours
Could see the truth you breathe through each one of your pores
And now the days are drastic, the nights last forever
Wanna tear this motherfucker up and put it back together
I'd like to ask the cats that act like they my peers
If you spent the energy I've spit, trying to count the tears
One of these days you're gonna climb the tallest building of all
Give a warning to those below and let the tears fall

(And with the) all the head splitting tears, cement breaking
weeping for these people walking in their sleep
(these people walking in their sleep)
My talk is not as cheap
And my thoughts are not as deep
As the day I woke up to discover I lost my sheep
head splitting tears, cement breaking
Leaping for these people walking in their sleep
(these people walking in their sleep)
My talk is not as cheap
And my thoughts are not as deep
As the day I woke up to discover I lost my sheep

Nobodies here except my mirror on the wall

The damage...overseen by anyone that comprehends
The anguish...felt only by the ones that invest
The language...was primitive, the listener complex
And everybody was trying to define success
All the self-proclaimed prophets dressed up to look like poets
Pretending to be martyrs that they're not
You can learn all their names
And engrave them on your brains
Memories so you can spout them off the top (spout them off the top)
Yo kill 'em all, and let God give 'em handcuffs
The flood has begun, and no one has been paired up
So I'ma take a second to beckon the downfall
of your so called civilized nation
(Yo yo yo yo yo) stop the sound now!

Reading it like a poem has some downfalls, namely (in my opinion) the lack of punctuation. I also would have moved some line breaks around. The speaker is also more confined within the rhythm, so some syllables have been sacrificed and others elided to make it work. The sonic stresses are still very clear, and if this were solely a poem, critical reviewers may suggest a freer attitude towards such a strict rhyme. 

Here is the song courtesy of youtube. 

* I have taken the liberty of inserting stanza breaks between verses and chorus since they exist in the musical version. 

9.5.14

Big things are afoot this weekend. Here's something for your Weekend Words:

1/25/13

I like the way you fit me

like the worn square on the pocket of my jeans,

like the pen in the smooth groove of my finger.

We are scuffed in all the right places

and together we know all the words.

The thoughtless motions, gears of habit

(I always have things just the way I mean)

adjusted me to such a frequency,

and before I knew it was different,

I was pleased.

The coins go in the jar, and the phone

must be with the chapstick on the night stand

before I can sleep.

We lay out our days in each other’s hands.

9.4.14

Something simple to go against the wildness out there today. From Gwendolyn Brooks:

my dreams, my works, must wait till after hell

I hold my honey and I store my bread   

In little jars and cabinets of my will.   

I label clearly, and each latch and lid   

I bid, Be firm till I return from hell.   

I am very hungry. I am incomplete.

And none can tell when I may dine again.   

No man can give me any word but Wait,   

The puny light. I keep eyes pointed in;   

Hoping that, when the devil days of my hurt   

Drag out to their last dregs and I resume   

On such legs as are left me, in such heart   

As I can manage, remember to go home,

My taste will not have turned insensitive   

To honey and bread old purity could love.

9.2.14

I never finished this yesterday. Truthfully, I barely started it. I wanted to share something for Labor day, particularly part of the tradition of labor poetry. I even had a poet in mind, Philip Levine, the former Poet Laureate of the US, who has a good body of work about Work. (He writes in many other themes, including beautifully transcendent nature poetry, but this theme does stand out among his poems).

In a short essay of his titled Overhand the Hammers Swing: the Poems of Work, Levine differentiates between those who see work being done, and those who do it. The main differences being, the first group tends to see work as beautiful and as an element of community, and the second sees it as a destructive necessity.

Sarah Ehlers writes in a review of the book Hog Butchers, Beggars, and Busboys by John Marsh, that the borth of the labor movement and the birth of modern American poetry coincided. A snippet:

In Marsh’s narrative, during the early part of the twentieth century, writing about workers and the poor provided a means for U.S. poets to buck 19th-century genteel verse traditions. Those traditions emphasized poetry’s role as a wellspring of beauty and held that the art transcended, rather than reflected, the clamors of modern life. Poems portraying the gritty realities of modernity were antithetical to poems written by genteel versifiers.

I can see why labor poetry would be a strong tradition in the US. There is a ton on this topic, and I feel like I'd need to break it up to do it justice. I'm going to stick with a Levine for now and we'll see where it takes us.


What work is

We stand in the rain in a long line
waiting at Ford Highland Park. For work.
You know what work is--if you're
old enough to read this you know what
work is, although you may not do it.
Forget you. This is about waiting,
shifting from one foot to another.
Feeling the light rain falling like mist
into your hair, blurring your vision
until you think you see your own brother
ahead of you, maybe ten places.
You rub your glasses with your fingers,
and of course it's someone else's brother,
narrower across the shoulders than
yours but with the same sad slouch, the grin
that does not hide the stubbornness,
the sad refusal to give in to
rain, to the hours wasted waiting,
to the knowledge that somewhere ahead
a man is waiting who will say, "No,
we're not hiring today," for any
reason he wants. You love your brother,
now suddenly you can hardly stand
the love flooding you for your brother,
who's not beside you or behind or
ahead because he's home trying to
sleep off a miserable night shift
at Cadillac so he can get up
before noon to study his German.
Works eight hours a night so he can sing
Wagner, the opera you hate most,
the worst music ever invented.
How long has it been since you told him
you loved him, held his wide shoulders,
opened your eyes wide and said those words,
and maybe kissed his cheek? You've never
done something so simple, so obvious,
not because you're too young or too dumb,
not because you're jealous or even mean
or incapable of crying in
the presence of another man, no,just because you don't know what work is.  


I enjoy the contrast between the speaker and the brother. Even though the brother works, it is done as a means to an end for his art, whereas the speaker doesn't seem to have any aim other than to find work. I find this poem terrifically sad, partly due to the bleakness of the visual elements and pace, and partly due to the speaker's desperation. The pace of Levine's poems are something I really enjoy, because they move forward calmly, despite the turmoil of the content. (I wish I had this skill)

One more for good measure:


Detroit Grease Shop Poem

Four bright steel crosses,
universal joints, plucked
out of the burlap sack --
"the heart of the drive train,"
the book says. Stars
on Lemon's wooden palm,
stars that must be capped,
rolled, and anointed,
that have their orders
and their commands as he
has his.

Under the blue
hesitant light another day
at Automotive
in the city of dreams.
We're all here to count
and be counted, Lemon,
Rosie, Eugene, Luis,
and me, too young to know
this is for keeps, pinning
on my apron, rolling up
my sleeves.

The roof leaks
from yesterday's rain,
the waters gather above us
waiting for one mistake.
When a drop falls on Lemon's
corded arm, he looks at it
as though it were something
rare or mysterious
like a drop of water or
a single lucid meteor
fallen slowly from
nowhere and burning on
his skin like a tear.