Friday, January 2, 2009
Books Seattle Poetry Chain 6: Crystal Curry
Posted by Paul Constant on Fri, Jan 2, 2009 at 12:00 PM
As you know, we've started a weekly poetry feature here on Slog. Last week's poet was Nico Vassilakis. For this week's poet, Nico has chosen Crystal Curry.
His reasons for choosing Curry are as follows:
when a behoover steps up to the dais there are dense shifts. and there are sinister schemas that curtail. the cocktail of dactylic tetrameter up on its upper bleacher. a distinct twang assault. humming her logic, her taunt of - poetry should do nothing. this is crystal curry, a found appetizer, drifting through sheets of emulsified paper.seattle poetry would do well to deny its unauthentic past and create a new vocabulary of itself.
bring it on, bring it here. i double dare you.
And she has. Curry's most recent book is titled Logotherapy Pant, and you can read more about it here. She also has poems here, here, and 5 more here. She's a graduate of the Iowa Writer's Workshop.
Here is Crystal Curry's poem:
Many thanks to (the delightfully named) Crystal Curry. Tune in next Friday at noon to see who she has chosen to be the next link in the Seattle Poetry Chain.
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2
Are all of Seattle's poets pseudointellectual nimrods, or are they really delightful people who just happen to write stupid crap?
6
I mean really, this is why nobody gives a shit about poetry any more. The spam that shows up in my email inbox is more readable and has better cadence as well.
7
The only way to be a successful poet is to become famous for something else and then they buy your poetry because you're famous.
Unless you count selling 500 books as "successful".
Unless you count selling 500 books as "successful".
9
Wow. Poetry in Seattle must be a circle jerk of awesome moronicness. Can't you just use some W.S. Merwin? (I know he's old school-he wrote poems a person could actually read, understand and like)
But this is incestuous "post deconstructionism" crap. Even as a life-long reader of poetry, modern as well as classic, this defies comprehension.
Meter, scansion, line breaks and meaning-the essential parts of a poem. Or of any good writing, actually.
But this is incestuous "post deconstructionism" crap. Even as a life-long reader of poetry, modern as well as classic, this defies comprehension.
Meter, scansion, line breaks and meaning-the essential parts of a poem. Or of any good writing, actually.
11
Awful. So, So Awful. I graduated with an MFA form UW in poetry and had a good experience in the sense that I viewed the whole thing as a sojourn I payed a lot of money for. Poetry is a hermetic, pretentious rotting corpse. Distinguished by supposedly different poetry like this, that's actually extremely homogenous, humorless drivel. And yes it is a circle jerk of the highest order combined with the sort of noxious hagiography for no name poets that makes you want to die. No I'm not bitter. Seriously. I love good poetry. Wallace Stevens, Niconar Parra etc. It's just all this shit is so fucking bad. And seeing these people read... Well that's another layer of hell to quote Parra.
12
tho comments seem to be a dime a dozen. even lesser currency with the ease at which theyre given. one wonders how something like The Stranger could create a venue for acrimony – when they rarely shed light on anything relating to Seattle literature. look into how many Seattle writers unconnected to the great New York publishing hub that they have given print to. a sad few, if not fewer than that, over the last 14 years. these comments you write defy logic. you are playing into their game. to retaliate against something different or something you are unfamiliar with, like writing in dactylic tetrameter, is to feed the ignorance The Stranger promotes. for instance, why do you think The Stranger started this poetry chain anyway? it’s because they wrote an article about how lame the poet populist is. and that aggravated a lot of you. so to ameliorate your negative response – they started a poetry chain on this blog. the stupidity of a poet populist, some crowned poet who garners the most votes they can muster reveals an inability. a lack of substance. a hats off to self promotional prowess. yet why arent there more magazines in Seattle, why don’t bookstores take our books, why doesn’t the library purchase Seattle’s literary resource. if you want audience for your work (unsatisfying as that is for the lowly art of poetry), you must make yourselves available. commenting on why you think reading one poem justifies it being called crap is just ridiculous. if you read crystal curry’s work further, by clicking her links, and have something intelligent to say, great. otherwise, you are not letting your ability to explore reach fruition, but are cajoling the dim authority of impulsive nature.
13
Dear megaphone: I'm sure Crystal is a wonderful person. But this one example is utter shit.
Thanks for playing,
Slog
Thanks for playing,
Slog
15
Jesus....well, megaphone, I decided that somewhere in the midst of your rambling you made a good point. You can't judge a poet by just one poem, even if it is completely unintelligible. So I followed the links, and read some more of her work (I'm having a slow day...). My goodness. This may be the worst "poetry" I've ever encountered. And I am a poetry lover. Have a Master's in English Lit., for what it's worth (that's why I train dogs for a living!). This is pure drivel. Just my opinion, of course, but it was bolstered a thousandfold after reading her other stuff.
16
This city has MANY, MANY great poets, but unfortunately, the Poetry Chain has only showcased one small sect of poets writing in Seattle, the experimental/language poetry, the type of poetry that, despite being a poet myself and a regular reader of poetry (Not dead motherfuckers like Wallace Stevens or near dead motherfuckers like WS, please!), I just don't get.
Crystal, since you are next in line, I beg you, like I begged Nico here last week, to pick one of the great poets in our city that is NOT writing poetry like yours. How about Karen Finneyfrock, Elizabeth Austen, Daemond Arrindel, Roberto Ascalon, Rebecca Hoogs, Jeremy Richards, Kary Wayson, Judith Roche, Jourdan Keith, Felicia Gonzalez, Ed Skoog-- to name just a few?
With The Stranger finally publishing poetry, wouldn't it behoove us, as poets, to select ones that its readers will appreciate? Otherwise, we're only adding more fuel to the poetry-sucks-in-Seattle fire, one that Paul Constant, the Hitler of poetry, steadily douses with a light stream of piss and kerosene.
Crystal, since you are next in line, I beg you, like I begged Nico here last week, to pick one of the great poets in our city that is NOT writing poetry like yours. How about Karen Finneyfrock, Elizabeth Austen, Daemond Arrindel, Roberto Ascalon, Rebecca Hoogs, Jeremy Richards, Kary Wayson, Judith Roche, Jourdan Keith, Felicia Gonzalez, Ed Skoog-- to name just a few?
With The Stranger finally publishing poetry, wouldn't it behoove us, as poets, to select ones that its readers will appreciate? Otherwise, we're only adding more fuel to the poetry-sucks-in-Seattle fire, one that Paul Constant, the Hitler of poetry, steadily douses with a light stream of piss and kerosene.
17
If The Stranger and Mr. Constant are not going to take literature and poetry at least infinitesimally seriously, they should just shut down the Books Section altogether.
18
At first I thought it in poor taste to comment on my own poem, or to respond to the poor criticism of my work. I want you guys to know that I'm not defensive. If you like it, fine. If you don't, fine. I'm so over-confident, in fact, that the poem kicks ass that no matter what ANYONE says, it's not going to take me down a notch. That's the great thing about poetry. I can't imagine that any poet would put a poem out there unless he or she though, no KNEW, that it would find its place in the heads of people that are looking for it -- and that they would think it kicks ass. I hope that NO POET is putting poems out there that they themselves wouldn't defend -- whether through blind and sheer stubborness or a well-reasoned and well-cited attempt to explain why their poem is fucking wonderful. There's way too much poetry out there for poets to be writing poems that they don't think are absolutely smashing.
As convinced as some of the readers here are that "pseudo-intellectual" poems and "language poetry" have no place in the hearts and minds of readers, I am equally opposed to what I would also say is "drivel": slam-type monologue-ish poems, poems with a "story," poems that are sappily sentimental, poems that take the same tired emotional turn right before the end, poems that are cheap and easy and are for god's sake about someone's relative, poems about gramma's kitchen table, poems that wouldn't know "interesting" if it bit 'em on the cliche and ad fucking nauseum.
It's a well-known sentiment that those with "power" cannot be oppressed. It's the old religious right ploy -- you have the majority of everything, but you're still being crucified. Lame-ass poetry has the majority of presses, venues, universities, money, journals, anthologies, poetry books that sell etc., and is the darling of every slam-menstruation-kitchen-table-cowboy-nature-dog poet in this world -- and yet, the the fangs and claws show NO hesitation when those who consider themselves to be trying something different (and I agree that in most cases, even the avant-garde has just as many lame poets), dare peek their heads out of their hidey-holes of a clear lineage -- that's almost a century old now, and has been taken a brutal beating for that entire century -- and attempt to reserve a tiny portion of public space in which to do their thing.
It's a really old and really tired kind of argument -- and I'd expect nothing less from Seattle, a town that no poet in his or her right mind who went to a good school would pick to move to unless he or she had a history or family here or something. This town is KNOWN for lame poetry and therapy poetry and vagina monologue poetry and barn poetry (even though there aren't a lot of barns, which is puzzling).
And if anyone even really cares what I find to be the poetry that I enjoy -- I fawn over Wallace Stevens, Edward Arlington Robinson, John Donne, Emily Dickinson, Robert Browning, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Marianne Moore -- not exactly what people consider "language poets." I write almost exclusively in meter -- the aforementioned dactylic tetrameter (with heavy iambic and trochaic substitutions and a also a foot known as the "primus paeon," which I thought I invented and called the "tractyl," until I read that I didn't) -- not that anyone here could scan their way out of a paper bag, apparently. I think modern free verse is kind of dead. I actually hate most poetry and don't even really consider myself any kind of poet. I don't really care for the idea of "literature," and I think the very worst kind of poetry is the kind that really attempts to do anything. You can pretty much shoot and hit that fish with the "bullet of suck-ass" with a blindfold on. Or gramma piggy's tampon-shaped salt shaker...
The other thing is that I just don't really take all of this too seriously anymore. All poetry finds its place -- for me to concern myself with poetry that I don't give a rat's ass about would be to seek out misery -- and I'm just not that kind of person. I steer clear of Hallmark Cards, chain e-mails from great aunts, poetry slams, "Prairie Schooner" and "The Southern Review" and I'm golden.
The beauty of it all is, really, that we're not forced to co-exist, and since I'm cool (read: don't give a fuck) with being "oppressed" by a poetry establishment that's still stuck in W.S. Merwin's panties, then really -- there shouldn't be a problem, should there? Thanks for reading, anyways.
More...
As convinced as some of the readers here are that "pseudo-intellectual" poems and "language poetry" have no place in the hearts and minds of readers, I am equally opposed to what I would also say is "drivel": slam-type monologue-ish poems, poems with a "story," poems that are sappily sentimental, poems that take the same tired emotional turn right before the end, poems that are cheap and easy and are for god's sake about someone's relative, poems about gramma's kitchen table, poems that wouldn't know "interesting" if it bit 'em on the cliche and ad fucking nauseum.
It's a well-known sentiment that those with "power" cannot be oppressed. It's the old religious right ploy -- you have the majority of everything, but you're still being crucified. Lame-ass poetry has the majority of presses, venues, universities, money, journals, anthologies, poetry books that sell etc., and is the darling of every slam-menstruation-kitchen-table-cowboy-nature-dog poet in this world -- and yet, the the fangs and claws show NO hesitation when those who consider themselves to be trying something different (and I agree that in most cases, even the avant-garde has just as many lame poets), dare peek their heads out of their hidey-holes of a clear lineage -- that's almost a century old now, and has been taken a brutal beating for that entire century -- and attempt to reserve a tiny portion of public space in which to do their thing.
It's a really old and really tired kind of argument -- and I'd expect nothing less from Seattle, a town that no poet in his or her right mind who went to a good school would pick to move to unless he or she had a history or family here or something. This town is KNOWN for lame poetry and therapy poetry and vagina monologue poetry and barn poetry (even though there aren't a lot of barns, which is puzzling).
And if anyone even really cares what I find to be the poetry that I enjoy -- I fawn over Wallace Stevens, Edward Arlington Robinson, John Donne, Emily Dickinson, Robert Browning, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Marianne Moore -- not exactly what people consider "language poets." I write almost exclusively in meter -- the aforementioned dactylic tetrameter (with heavy iambic and trochaic substitutions and a also a foot known as the "primus paeon," which I thought I invented and called the "tractyl," until I read that I didn't) -- not that anyone here could scan their way out of a paper bag, apparently. I think modern free verse is kind of dead. I actually hate most poetry and don't even really consider myself any kind of poet. I don't really care for the idea of "literature," and I think the very worst kind of poetry is the kind that really attempts to do anything. You can pretty much shoot and hit that fish with the "bullet of suck-ass" with a blindfold on. Or gramma piggy's tampon-shaped salt shaker...
The other thing is that I just don't really take all of this too seriously anymore. All poetry finds its place -- for me to concern myself with poetry that I don't give a rat's ass about would be to seek out misery -- and I'm just not that kind of person. I steer clear of Hallmark Cards, chain e-mails from great aunts, poetry slams, "Prairie Schooner" and "The Southern Review" and I'm golden.
The beauty of it all is, really, that we're not forced to co-exist, and since I'm cool (read: don't give a fuck) with being "oppressed" by a poetry establishment that's still stuck in W.S. Merwin's panties, then really -- there shouldn't be a problem, should there? Thanks for reading, anyways.
19
thanks for the poem crystal
as far as "comments" on the stranger poetry SLOG
well you know what that old greek heraclitus said
don't you ?
" people speak much to show their knowledge
what people show when they speak is the ignorance of their own minds
if you desire something other
you may try the experiment i propose to you
you must come to speak of things & objects
in the world in the language of those objects themselves"
sometimes i think poems that "work" do what heraclitus proposed
as far as "comments" on the stranger poetry SLOG
well you know what that old greek heraclitus said
don't you ?
" people speak much to show their knowledge
what people show when they speak is the ignorance of their own minds
if you desire something other
you may try the experiment i propose to you
you must come to speak of things & objects
in the world in the language of those objects themselves"
sometimes i think poems that "work" do what heraclitus proposed
20
As the bulk of these comments testify, Seattle is a city of philistines. Neanderthals. Cry babies. Cretinous snots. This is a fine poem. What makes it a good poem? Words, dearies, words. Words freed from the banality of the everyday. Words lucid as thermometers and green as the crackle of oaks. Words arranged, syntactically, to maximize an open field of evocation. The people whose criticisms did not transcend even the most flatulent urp of a Woonsocket cow should at least try dilating the sphincter of their mind to get something a little more substantial than the above inarticulate drivel. A sad, sad day in Seattle. But kudos to Paul Constant and The Stranger for having the balls to feature a chain of bold, innovative work.
21
Crystal you rock! Loved your poem and loved even more your defense of your poem.
I would hope that these mamby-asses have heard of John Keats, here is his advice:
"...Negative capabitity, that is, when man is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact & reason." -John Keats
Wake up people he said this in 1817!
I would hope that these mamby-asses have heard of John Keats, here is his advice:
"...Negative capabitity, that is, when man is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact & reason." -John Keats
Wake up people he said this in 1817!
22
"As convinced as some of the readers here are that "pseudo-intellectual" poems and "language poetry" have no place in the hearts and minds of readers, I am equally opposed to what I would also say is "drivel": slam-type monologue-ish poems, poems with a "story," poems that are sappily sentimental, poems that take the same tired emotional turn right before the end, poems that are cheap and easy and are for god's sake about someone's relative, poems about gramma's kitchen table, poems that wouldn't know "interesting" if it bit 'em on the cliche and ad fucking nauseum."
Exactly my point. You're here defending poetry that you find "interesting", not talking about poetry where people can understand what you're trying to say. Why are you writing? What do you want to say/ show the world through your work? If no-one but your closest circle of friends can understand what you're doing, have you still succeeded? Am I just a philistine because I find your work pretentious crap? Looking at the list of poets whose work you like I'm surprised that you assemble such meaningless idiocy and then call it poetry.
But I guess that being able to say that you write poetry so elevated only the truly superior can even begin to understand the deeply embedded concepts now slantingly revealed in your daring new forms is worth it.
That no one else gives a shit about what you're doing, that poetry as a form of language is becoming a locked preserve in the public mind because they can't see what you did there-hope you like living on the pay outs from 100 copy print runs and NEH grants.
Exactly my point. You're here defending poetry that you find "interesting", not talking about poetry where people can understand what you're trying to say. Why are you writing? What do you want to say/ show the world through your work? If no-one but your closest circle of friends can understand what you're doing, have you still succeeded? Am I just a philistine because I find your work pretentious crap? Looking at the list of poets whose work you like I'm surprised that you assemble such meaningless idiocy and then call it poetry.
But I guess that being able to say that you write poetry so elevated only the truly superior can even begin to understand the deeply embedded concepts now slantingly revealed in your daring new forms is worth it.
That no one else gives a shit about what you're doing, that poetry as a form of language is becoming a locked preserve in the public mind because they can't see what you did there-hope you like living on the pay outs from 100 copy print runs and NEH grants.
23
When interviewing Allen Ginsberg in 1994, he quoted William Blake: ‘Generalization and abstraction are the plea of the hypocrite, knave and scoundrel.’
The feedback here, for the most part, is general and abstract. When it is specific it is a plea for the poster's friends or acquaintances to be given space in this forum, or it is a defense of the work and an accurate attack on the dominant aesthetic (an aesthetic in which timidity and convention are rewarded,) or it is in Mickey's case an effort to expand the aesthetic of those who would criticize the poem and poet. You'll have to widen your field to appreciate the Subtext folks.
The Stranger gets kudos for realizing that the Poet Popularity contest does nothing to push the art ahead, and this is evidenced by the level of dialog here. Unfortunately The Stranger seems incapable of providing light, only heat. Can that change?
Crystal's critique is spot-on, the fangs only come out when the dominant aesthetic is threatened while the work remains sin duende. I wonder if Seattle deserves a more intelligent dialog, but for those afraid of anything innovative in poetry that will not happen, lest they re-evaluate their whole reason for writing, which remains socializing and reinforcement. This is why these Subtext poems scare them so. The need for socializing and reinforcement in art are two very weak attractor fields, not the kind which create lasting literature.
The feedback here, for the most part, is general and abstract. When it is specific it is a plea for the poster's friends or acquaintances to be given space in this forum, or it is a defense of the work and an accurate attack on the dominant aesthetic (an aesthetic in which timidity and convention are rewarded,) or it is in Mickey's case an effort to expand the aesthetic of those who would criticize the poem and poet. You'll have to widen your field to appreciate the Subtext folks.
The Stranger gets kudos for realizing that the Poet Popularity contest does nothing to push the art ahead, and this is evidenced by the level of dialog here. Unfortunately The Stranger seems incapable of providing light, only heat. Can that change?
Crystal's critique is spot-on, the fangs only come out when the dominant aesthetic is threatened while the work remains sin duende. I wonder if Seattle deserves a more intelligent dialog, but for those afraid of anything innovative in poetry that will not happen, lest they re-evaluate their whole reason for writing, which remains socializing and reinforcement. This is why these Subtext poems scare them so. The need for socializing and reinforcement in art are two very weak attractor fields, not the kind which create lasting literature.
24
what im hearing here, from the negative response crowd, is that The Stranger is not putting whom they want and what they think good poetry is on this poetry chain.
be patient.
no worries, it will reach you in due time. don’t forget this is a weekly feature. many many weeks to go.
what the Seattle poetry community needs is some cross-pollinating.
ive been to slams – even was a judge at last years wildcard slot at Tost.
ive been to readings at cheap wine and poetry, it’s about time, poetswest, open books, elliott bay books, arundel books, gallery 1412, rendezvous readings, library readings, some other stuff at the hug-o-house, etc - anywhere they happen – even go to readings where i know no one.
and that’s just in the last year. 20 years ago there were perhaps 3 places to hear readings in town.
i try to go to every new reading series that pops up.
why?
because I enjoy pain? yes & no.
it’s because I like hearing what Seattle poets are up to. i am both rewarded and frustrated by this. i look out for new poets doing something different.
at subtext, we rarely get young poets venturing out to explore what we’re doing. that’s too bad. tho not unexpected.
here’s something coming up on jan. 7th at subtext you could come to that you probably wont see/hear anywhere else. http://subtextreadingseries.blogspot.com…
i think that’s as moderate minded as I can get –
nico
be patient.
no worries, it will reach you in due time. don’t forget this is a weekly feature. many many weeks to go.
what the Seattle poetry community needs is some cross-pollinating.
ive been to slams – even was a judge at last years wildcard slot at Tost.
ive been to readings at cheap wine and poetry, it’s about time, poetswest, open books, elliott bay books, arundel books, gallery 1412, rendezvous readings, library readings, some other stuff at the hug-o-house, etc - anywhere they happen – even go to readings where i know no one.
and that’s just in the last year. 20 years ago there were perhaps 3 places to hear readings in town.
i try to go to every new reading series that pops up.
why?
because I enjoy pain? yes & no.
it’s because I like hearing what Seattle poets are up to. i am both rewarded and frustrated by this. i look out for new poets doing something different.
at subtext, we rarely get young poets venturing out to explore what we’re doing. that’s too bad. tho not unexpected.
here’s something coming up on jan. 7th at subtext you could come to that you probably wont see/hear anywhere else. http://subtextreadingseries.blogspot.com…
i think that’s as moderate minded as I can get –
nico
25
Nice work, Crystal. I've read it again each time I come back to check in on these here comments, and I have to say I like it more and more. Dense, slippery, and really quite funny. Have to admit that I was a bit skeptical of this here Chain at first. Hard to get a feel for a poet on just one poem. Like going to a bookstore, opening a book to any random page. Reading one paragraph. And making a judgment. These things take time. But the discussion has turned me around. Good job, Poetry Chain!
Poetry (and fiction, too, for that matter) is about words (I totally agree, Pixelwizard--if that is your real name). Words arraigned. (Ahem.) But also one word following another, in this way creating a sort of chronology. I think poems do tell stories, they can't help it. The "plot" occurs as your eyes move from left to right, down, left to right, as the words get strung together. So I disagree about that part of CC's critique (telling stories), tho not the spirit of her critique, which I agree with. So the question becomes what kind of journey does the poem take you on? What kind of experience does it generate? How comfortable is it in taking this sort of action? Is it like a game? Is it attempting to push the conscious? Is it trying to amuse?
I suppose we all like a different signal to noise ratio. But what really gets my knickers in a twist is the fact that all the other art forms seem to not only be allowed but are expected to go in different directions. Rock bands do not just please but fuck with their audience. (Eg Sonic Youth.) Jazz went Free. Classical has gone abstract. That Cellist from the Seattle Symphony (forgive me for forgetting his name) has been lauded for his challenging programming, including Messiaen. The visual arts are commended for tampering with our consciousness. So why not the written word? That, my friends, is the real crime.
Poems (and all the arts, really) need to be judged on what they're trying to do. Sometimes they should be judged harshly. But not because they don't fit into a pre-prescribed paradigm. So, folks, give the work a shot before embarrassing yourselves. Do you really think CC's only motive is to show how smart she is? There's not a word in the poem that forces you to rush to the OED, or bone up on the Frankfurt School, or understand by what Derrida refers to as the difference between difference and differance. Nor does anyone need to drink any kool aid. If there's difficulty in this poem is relational between the words. And between the words and the reader. And the poem really does have some nice humor.
Finally, I nominate Nico for Poet Populist. Do I have a second?
More...
Poetry (and fiction, too, for that matter) is about words (I totally agree, Pixelwizard--if that is your real name). Words arraigned. (Ahem.) But also one word following another, in this way creating a sort of chronology. I think poems do tell stories, they can't help it. The "plot" occurs as your eyes move from left to right, down, left to right, as the words get strung together. So I disagree about that part of CC's critique (telling stories), tho not the spirit of her critique, which I agree with. So the question becomes what kind of journey does the poem take you on? What kind of experience does it generate? How comfortable is it in taking this sort of action? Is it like a game? Is it attempting to push the conscious? Is it trying to amuse?
I suppose we all like a different signal to noise ratio. But what really gets my knickers in a twist is the fact that all the other art forms seem to not only be allowed but are expected to go in different directions. Rock bands do not just please but fuck with their audience. (Eg Sonic Youth.) Jazz went Free. Classical has gone abstract. That Cellist from the Seattle Symphony (forgive me for forgetting his name) has been lauded for his challenging programming, including Messiaen. The visual arts are commended for tampering with our consciousness. So why not the written word? That, my friends, is the real crime.
Poems (and all the arts, really) need to be judged on what they're trying to do. Sometimes they should be judged harshly. But not because they don't fit into a pre-prescribed paradigm. So, folks, give the work a shot before embarrassing yourselves. Do you really think CC's only motive is to show how smart she is? There's not a word in the poem that forces you to rush to the OED, or bone up on the Frankfurt School, or understand by what Derrida refers to as the difference between difference and differance. Nor does anyone need to drink any kool aid. If there's difficulty in this poem is relational between the words. And between the words and the reader. And the poem really does have some nice humor.
Finally, I nominate Nico for Poet Populist. Do I have a second?
27
But I think there's something that you L=A=N=G=A=G=E people just don't understand here. I wasn't able to understand what this poet was talking about. I even red it twice and I still don't think there was even a identifiable subject in this poem. Everybody who said this poems is bad, they were right. This is a bad poem. BAD POEM. GO AWAY YOU BAD BAQD POEM I HATE YOU!!!!!!1
28
Yo P Lockdown -- it's as if you were writing this 20 years ago! Rejecting something because it's not transparent and seems foreign?
L= spelled incorrect. There isnt a correct way to read. Or maybe there isn't really an incorrect way to read. Calm down and try to enjoy the world around you. We're all equals...
ps//I nominate Nico for the poet unpopulist??
What is wrong with y'all? The whole point is that Nick Licata & Frank Video's PP thing makes no sense -- or is that too much cents.
L= spelled incorrect. There isnt a correct way to read. Or maybe there isn't really an incorrect way to read. Calm down and try to enjoy the world around you. We're all equals...
ps//I nominate Nico for the poet unpopulist??
What is wrong with y'all? The whole point is that Nick Licata & Frank Video's PP thing makes no sense -- or is that too much cents.
29
and I a superfluous third.
You are doing good work, Mr. Constant!
You are a wonderful poet, Ms. Curry!
Sloggers with graduate degrees in poetry, we wipe our butts with your diplomas!
You are doing good work, Mr. Constant!
You are a wonderful poet, Ms. Curry!
Sloggers with graduate degrees in poetry, we wipe our butts with your diplomas!
30
I don't understand how some people really dig originality and yet give kudos to Mr. Constant for a] ripping an idea off of McSweeney's, and b] putting a poem on the internet. A Poem on the Internet? Wowee!!
31
I just wanted to thank everyone for reading and commenting -- good and bad. And a very big thanks to those who said anything remotely sweet about me. Rainbows to you. I feel like I sounded a little mean in my critique. But I'm not mean-spirited, just spirited. I think all camps will swoon to my next choice in the chain -- who I picked, by the way, long before there were any comments in these little boxes. Tune in Friday!
CC
CC
32
Hey Chris @ 30: Poetry chains are much older than McSweeney's, although I do acknowledge them in the first post on this series. I agree with you on Nico for Poet Populist, though.
And Crystal @ 31: You weren't mean-spirited at all; you were just right. Thanks.
And Crystal @ 31: You weren't mean-spirited at all; you were just right. Thanks.
33
Mr. Constant, I wasn't addressing you. But now I guess I will. Your comment only reinforces my complaint that Poetry Chains are old, tried, tired, ancient and Boring.
While I am here, I will ask where this poem rates on your Laugh-o-Meter? Would you and your hiptard friends make fun of it?
And what will you do when a Bus Poetry person gets ahold of the chain and passes it on to other Bus Poets? Will you then only be promoting "dumb, bad poetry"? I assume at that point you will not take any responsibility. Just asking.
And why are you determined to bring my name into this? That's my choice; not yours. You know who I am and I know who you are. Leave it at that. Or is this how these comments work?
While I am here, I will ask where this poem rates on your Laugh-o-Meter? Would you and your hiptard friends make fun of it?
And what will you do when a Bus Poetry person gets ahold of the chain and passes it on to other Bus Poets? Will you then only be promoting "dumb, bad poetry"? I assume at that point you will not take any responsibility. Just asking.
And why are you determined to bring my name into this? That's my choice; not yours. You know who I am and I know who you are. Leave it at that. Or is this how these comments work?
34
Hey guys, we're on Silliman's most recent link-athon:
http://ronsilliman.blogspot.com/2009/01/…
Some work by Crystal Curry
with a comments stream
that has broken out into warfare
right before his post about real warfare breaking out in Gaza...
The nobel secretary who just lost their job for commenting on the ongoing provincial obsession of American poetry is relevant to this here conflict:
"Of course there is powerful literature in all big cultures, but you can’t get away from the fact that Europe still is the center of the literary world," Engdahl said. "The U.S. is too isolated, too insular. They don’t translate enough and don’t really participate in the big dialogue of literature."
The American Poetry that follows you to Stockholm is not W. S. Merwin, and it sure as hell has nothing to do with Judith Roche's terrible salmon poems (Gary Snyder's a footnote to the more interesting New American poets, and no one anywhere has heard of Roethke outside of the UW English department - he's crap, the only people that read his poems knew him personally)
Actually, no Seattle poetry carries across borders - unless you count Vancouver (which you should, all the way back to the early sixties, the first major conference dealing with New American poetry was in Canada in 63 - also the Kootenay School's week-long Language Poetry festival in 85 was the first time those writers were ever offered major academic funding - most of them had never even met one another), in which case Robert Mittenthal and Nico are all there is to Seattle Poetry, just about.
My point, which I suppose I've spent too much time in making already, is that writing is something that stays with you, it doesn't start and end in some marginal place that you can consume/understand/experience/master ephemerally (I think this problem extends to Wallace Stevens myself - not a bad writer, but not a poet. "Stevens is the favorite poet of people who hate poetry" -Spicer "the more property you own, the more you write like Wallace Stevens" -Brian Kim Stefans).
Poems have more to do with visual works or architecture than any other form of writing - you pass through and around them more them watch them as in film, listen as in music, or even read them as you would a novel - the words only have order as an arbitrary (perhaps musical, but only superficial) rule, sense goes everywhere always.
(your Swedish pink slip is here: http://www.pw.org/content/nobel_secretar…
More...
http://ronsilliman.blogspot.com/2009/01/…
Some work by Crystal Curry
with a comments stream
that has broken out into warfare
right before his post about real warfare breaking out in Gaza...
The nobel secretary who just lost their job for commenting on the ongoing provincial obsession of American poetry is relevant to this here conflict:
"Of course there is powerful literature in all big cultures, but you can’t get away from the fact that Europe still is the center of the literary world," Engdahl said. "The U.S. is too isolated, too insular. They don’t translate enough and don’t really participate in the big dialogue of literature."
The American Poetry that follows you to Stockholm is not W. S. Merwin, and it sure as hell has nothing to do with Judith Roche's terrible salmon poems (Gary Snyder's a footnote to the more interesting New American poets, and no one anywhere has heard of Roethke outside of the UW English department - he's crap, the only people that read his poems knew him personally)
Actually, no Seattle poetry carries across borders - unless you count Vancouver (which you should, all the way back to the early sixties, the first major conference dealing with New American poetry was in Canada in 63 - also the Kootenay School's week-long Language Poetry festival in 85 was the first time those writers were ever offered major academic funding - most of them had never even met one another), in which case Robert Mittenthal and Nico are all there is to Seattle Poetry, just about.
My point, which I suppose I've spent too much time in making already, is that writing is something that stays with you, it doesn't start and end in some marginal place that you can consume/understand/experience/master ephemerally (I think this problem extends to Wallace Stevens myself - not a bad writer, but not a poet. "Stevens is the favorite poet of people who hate poetry" -Spicer "the more property you own, the more you write like Wallace Stevens" -Brian Kim Stefans).
Poems have more to do with visual works or architecture than any other form of writing - you pass through and around them more them watch them as in film, listen as in music, or even read them as you would a novel - the words only have order as an arbitrary (perhaps musical, but only superficial) rule, sense goes everywhere always.
(your Swedish pink slip is here: http://www.pw.org/content/nobel_secretar…
35
wallace stevens is not a poet ?
wallace stevens was a poet
you might not like his poems
but he was a poet
i.e. he MADE poems
wallace stevens was a poet
you might not like his poems
but he was a poet
i.e. he MADE poems
36
Chris @ 33: I know your name, I feel more comfortable referring to you by your name than by a mask of anonymity. Don't worry, I won't promote your chapbooks or anything.
So, let me get this straight: I was ripping off McSweeney's before, but now that I've pointed out they have a past before McSweeney's, poetry chains are "old, tried, tired, ancient and Boring"? Why don't you just admit that you hate everything I do because it's me doing it and leave Ms. Curry out of it? Stop being so fucking bitter. But thanks for driving the number of comments on my posts up!
So, let me get this straight: I was ripping off McSweeney's before, but now that I've pointed out they have a past before McSweeney's, poetry chains are "old, tried, tired, ancient and Boring"? Why don't you just admit that you hate everything I do because it's me doing it and leave Ms. Curry out of it? Stop being so fucking bitter. But thanks for driving the number of comments on my posts up!
37
You feel more comfortable? It's about you? Well, I'll have to sign off and never post again. I appreciate your power-tripping tho. Or is that regret?
I will say this and be gone. Poetry Chains, whether they began with McSweeney's or before, are tired either way. It has nothing to do with Ms. Curry. I never said anything about her. I was asking you something. You see? YOU.
About promoting,... well, never mind.
I will say this and be gone. Poetry Chains, whether they began with McSweeney's or before, are tired either way. It has nothing to do with Ms. Curry. I never said anything about her. I was asking you something. You see? YOU.
About promoting,... well, never mind.
38
Dear W (comment #34):
Some of your observations are so egregiously misguided I cannot let them go by while the comment section here continues to have some pertinence. 1, Ask any poet, they will tell you Wallace Stevens is a tremendous poet. Cognitively rich, linguistically exquisite, fiercely imaginative. His influence is immeasurable. You may not respond to him. Fine. But to say he is "not a poet?" Get real. As much as I also like Spicer, he is not the Pope of Poetry. Much of what he said comes from Mars.
2., John Olson's work has been translated into Spanish and Dutch and his novel about Rimbaud is being considered for translation into French by a French publisher. I would not call that provincial. And guess what, he also lives in Seattle. So much for your "no Seattle poetry carries across borders." I am sure there are more Seattle poets with a connection to Europe. Donna Stonecipher comes to mind. Maybe someone else can provide more names.
3. As for the U.S. being insular, would you consider Ezra Pound or T.S. Eliot insular? Bob Dylan? Allen Ginsberg? Edgar Allan Poe? Walt Whitman? Gertrude Stein? Gertrude Stein spent almost her entire life living in France.
4. It sounds like you have a very rich mind and a great receptivity to poetry. My guess is that you are also relatively young. There is a certain stuffed-shirt quality to Steven's writing, I will admit, but just under the surface, is a raging sensuality. And so much poetry it is on the verge of boiling over.
Some of your observations are so egregiously misguided I cannot let them go by while the comment section here continues to have some pertinence. 1, Ask any poet, they will tell you Wallace Stevens is a tremendous poet. Cognitively rich, linguistically exquisite, fiercely imaginative. His influence is immeasurable. You may not respond to him. Fine. But to say he is "not a poet?" Get real. As much as I also like Spicer, he is not the Pope of Poetry. Much of what he said comes from Mars.
2., John Olson's work has been translated into Spanish and Dutch and his novel about Rimbaud is being considered for translation into French by a French publisher. I would not call that provincial. And guess what, he also lives in Seattle. So much for your "no Seattle poetry carries across borders." I am sure there are more Seattle poets with a connection to Europe. Donna Stonecipher comes to mind. Maybe someone else can provide more names.
3. As for the U.S. being insular, would you consider Ezra Pound or T.S. Eliot insular? Bob Dylan? Allen Ginsberg? Edgar Allan Poe? Walt Whitman? Gertrude Stein? Gertrude Stein spent almost her entire life living in France.
4. It sounds like you have a very rich mind and a great receptivity to poetry. My guess is that you are also relatively young. There is a certain stuffed-shirt quality to Steven's writing, I will admit, but just under the surface, is a raging sensuality. And so much poetry it is on the verge of boiling over.
41
Yeah! BAD! BAD poem. Punish the BAD poem. Punhish this poem for its EVIL badness that is KILLING POETRY!!!!!!!!11!!!1!!!111!!!!! Poetry is dead now because of this poem. This poem makes it impossible for me to write a poem that is alive. It is this poem's fault. THIS POEM IS CUTTING OFF MY OPTIONS!!!!!11!one!!!!!1
42
Crystal and all, no controversy here I hope:
Just a reminder that we're accepting submissions to the 2009 Floating Bridge Press Chapbook Competition until February 15. Please help us spread the word to all Washington State poets.
The winner receives $500 and 15 copies of the winning book, published in Fall 2009, along with a Seattle reading. Finalists receive $50 and a reading. All entrants receive a copy of the winning chapbook.
Individual poems will be considered for inclusion in the next issue of Floating Bridge Review, to be published in Summer 2009. Part 1 of the next FBR will be edited by John Olsen and will contain work by Subtext writers. Part 2, "Pontoon," will contain only poems submitted to the chapbook contest. You'll find no better mix of WA state work in 2009: popular, populist, and, hell yeah, at times abstruse.
Find our submission guidelines at http://www.scn.org/floatingbridge/submit…. (Ignore the incorrect competition year in the header.) The entry fee is $12.
Former winners include Nancy Pagh, Holly Hughes, Annette Spaulding-Convy, Timothy Kelly, Michael Bonacci, Kelli Russell Agodon, Joseph Green, Chris Forhan, Molly Tenenbaum, Nance Van Winckel, Bart Baxter, Donna Waidtlow, and Joannie Kervran. Some of these books are still available via our website.
Paul, thanks for the poetry chain.
Just a reminder that we're accepting submissions to the 2009 Floating Bridge Press Chapbook Competition until February 15. Please help us spread the word to all Washington State poets.
The winner receives $500 and 15 copies of the winning book, published in Fall 2009, along with a Seattle reading. Finalists receive $50 and a reading. All entrants receive a copy of the winning chapbook.
Individual poems will be considered for inclusion in the next issue of Floating Bridge Review, to be published in Summer 2009. Part 1 of the next FBR will be edited by John Olsen and will contain work by Subtext writers. Part 2, "Pontoon," will contain only poems submitted to the chapbook contest. You'll find no better mix of WA state work in 2009: popular, populist, and, hell yeah, at times abstruse.
Find our submission guidelines at http://www.scn.org/floatingbridge/submit…. (Ignore the incorrect competition year in the header.) The entry fee is $12.
Former winners include Nancy Pagh, Holly Hughes, Annette Spaulding-Convy, Timothy Kelly, Michael Bonacci, Kelli Russell Agodon, Joseph Green, Chris Forhan, Molly Tenenbaum, Nance Van Winckel, Bart Baxter, Donna Waidtlow, and Joannie Kervran. Some of these books are still available via our website.
Paul, thanks for the poetry chain.
43
wow i asked for a 8 line poem not a frekin 76543 line poem come on a kid cant even get some answers for his homework... wow some one out there should make a web page that guvs answers to kids that need help on there homeworkk i am pretty shore you ppl no how to make that stuff soo you should make one and when you doo but the url on this paige and illl go to it ight thanksss.. o and put like every thin on that page ight i am pcein out
44
DAMN! I read the first 20 minutes of all Yawl fuckwad, anti-abstract HATERS and could read no longer. I CANNOT believe how utterly RUDE and OBNOXIOUS some of you HATERS (read: Could Not Write Your Own Foul Ass Out Of A Flimsy Cardboard Box) are - It's ridiculous that most of you have only left mono-syllabic responses to the poem. One of you assholes said "I mean really, this is why nobody gives a shit about poetry any more." -- I think that was the worst disrespect since it seems to me that noone would dare write a fuckin word to begin with had he encountered such horrid critics as you all!
What's funny is that most of you Assholes are the type who no-doubt would spend hours at your neighborhood art gallery "ooo"ing and "aaah"ing over "how fabulous" a painting of an angry red square on puce linoleum dotted with rotting pigmy orchids painted in black is. So much for appreciation of abstract eh...
Anyway - I thought the poem read deliciously furious. Not much internal rhyme or meter that your everyday structured piece would have, no doubt it was meant as a harsh assessment of today's reality perhaps... Ha! Perhaps the Poet was being a bit tounge-in-cheek, reading all of you CRITICs' tarot cards, expecting your horrid response to her piece as if an out-of-body de ja vu... The piece is reading you! Perhaps she is calling the lot of you Unkempt Haters SWINE, after having gazed deeply in to a crystal ball, lingering a laugh as she blows smoke in your face...
I absolutely hate to be presumptuous in thinking I understand this abstract poem --- Some of you apparently could never open your mind wide enough to appreciate it --- But I for one appreciate the Artist having at least taken a step from the mundane tedium of structured UGH that most of you Swine have embraced as "normal" poetry.
Would that I could spit on the lot of you, stepping off my pulpit only long enough to tell you that your disrespect is abominable. In order to respect the very essence of poetry, you must first start by respecting the Artist who dares share her interpretation reality with us.
Jacquii.
http://jpicforum.info/miscellaneous/i-kn…
More...
What's funny is that most of you Assholes are the type who no-doubt would spend hours at your neighborhood art gallery "ooo"ing and "aaah"ing over "how fabulous" a painting of an angry red square on puce linoleum dotted with rotting pigmy orchids painted in black is. So much for appreciation of abstract eh...
Anyway - I thought the poem read deliciously furious. Not much internal rhyme or meter that your everyday structured piece would have, no doubt it was meant as a harsh assessment of today's reality perhaps... Ha! Perhaps the Poet was being a bit tounge-in-cheek, reading all of you CRITICs' tarot cards, expecting your horrid response to her piece as if an out-of-body de ja vu... The piece is reading you! Perhaps she is calling the lot of you Unkempt Haters SWINE, after having gazed deeply in to a crystal ball, lingering a laugh as she blows smoke in your face...
I absolutely hate to be presumptuous in thinking I understand this abstract poem --- Some of you apparently could never open your mind wide enough to appreciate it --- But I for one appreciate the Artist having at least taken a step from the mundane tedium of structured UGH that most of you Swine have embraced as "normal" poetry.
Would that I could spit on the lot of you, stepping off my pulpit only long enough to tell you that your disrespect is abominable. In order to respect the very essence of poetry, you must first start by respecting the Artist who dares share her interpretation reality with us.
Jacquii.
http://jpicforum.info/miscellaneous/i-kn…
45
Hello friends,
I am new to this forum and I'm wondering if there is any non-chain poems published here?
I think the idea of chain poetry is interesting but I work on my own. Any suggestions?
Thank you,
RPWH
Hello friends,
I am new to this forum and I'm wondering if there is any non-chain poems published here?
I think the idea of chain poetry is interesting but I work on my own. Any suggestions?
Thank you,
RPWH
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