this is not a pipe; nor might it be a post

So, I haven't written for a while. I've still been working like mad on my Beckett paper. Alas, the 'void.'

But for your viewing pleasure, may I present Rene Margritte's "Ceci n'est pas une pipe."

Enjoy.

poetry: in response, agreed.

should poetry be soft and warm and full of buttery hallmarky goodness? a fluffy pillow? a humorous stitch in your side, a curve of lip in amused whimsy?

or should it stick in your gut like too much greasy pizza hut pizza and warm fizzy soda on a hot day, heavy like a block of cheap cheddar left on the counter too long, sweaty and beaded?

like black fire ants crawling just beneath the skin?

how should poetry strike the reader? like a soothing massage, cucumbers laid green and moist on the eyes?

or a dull thump, a wedge of sorrow and guilt in the throat right above the lungs? a red handprint across the cheek? the moist lips of a lover no longer felt, the smell and fog of rain spreading wide like a hand, pushing the dry heat of the desert out and down like dough under a rolling pin?

an easy to digest, easy to distance from paper of somebody else’s words? or, an in-your-face-I-am-now-part-of-you-I-am-inside-of-you voice, a living thing breathing?

a color inside the lines Thomas Kincaid? or...

cures what ails you

This afternoon when I logged onto the net, I discovered, thanks to Yahoo, yet again another cure to what might in the future ail me; tangerine peels, my dear friends, could help us all in "the fight against cancer": "Tangerine peel could help in the fight against certain cancers, researchers said on Wednesday." (London, Reuters)

Awesome. I think a few weeks ago it was caffeine, and a while before that something green...spinach or avocado, and before that, chocolate. I don't know, but I find it funny this obsession. It's all good, it could be true, and part of what I find amusing is Yahoo's prominence as a "trustworthy newsource." But this might be a whole other rant.

But this is still sweet, I think this might be my whole new motto, I'll say it about everything. These beautiful windows full of sunlight...yes, you'll find happiness there, just don't absorb too much sun, though you'll get your healthy fill of vitamin D, those happy cells might freeze into a cancerous mess. but that's okay, drink a cup of coffee and eat a tangerine peel for good measure. Have a good dose of extra cocoa rich chocolate.

Or, read this book, it'll change your life, mmm...poetry, will save your soul. How about some delicious life on the side? Ah, yahoo, you wonderful beast of truth, I'll never need my sweet Blake, or Wordsworth, or Darjeling tea for my discontents. Oh, sweet magic eight-ball that is Yahoo, tell me what to think, what I should know.

and then there were eight

This should look familiar (eh, Clayton?). I find this image striking; their reverent bodies, shoulder bent to carry the weight, but so used to the weight are these eight that their bodies aren't strained so much as subsumed. Our eyes are probably (at least in their minds) supposed to float up the striking figure above, a king, our heads, though looking up, still below his awesome body; thus, though standing, we bodily are lower, bowed in upward stare. However, we notice the eight men first, their draped and worn cloaks, then their shoulders bent, then the heavy weight, and somewhere in between or after noticing they carry something and that something might be their sacred burden, their king, we notice their shields. Anonymous in their burden, in their combined subservience, yet a shield, a crest to distinguish who this wilted body is. Not a face, a symbol.

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I find this sculpture striking also because of writing and the weight of silence we often feel when confronting the page, canvas, or stone. I think it’s easy for us to assume the artist, poet, painter has a set plan; knows already the curves, the bend of body, the deep reds of oil brushstrokes. The whitespace is formidable. But I find it harder still when there is so much to be written, so much to say, but the words are not yet words. Not yet flesh.

beckett, mallarme, sartre

a living room

I've taken over the living room, as I expected.

a rock garden: in response

A possible rock garden; might it also have to do from which point we perceive the garden, the rocks strewn, whether so much more quicksand, or so much lined beach confined in black box (a rock or two centered, for easy meditation).

or, a wet black expanse of sea pulled back, the few remainder stones with skirts of wet sand pulled up thickly to their round thighs.

or, the craggy downward curved stone cliffs; so small we see them as forever stones; we wade but we drown easily; we sit in wide boats but sink more small the larger their scale up close.

but we write, we piece together and order and reorder our stones, these scars, these things we bury in sand, in depths as great, as muddy. we collect, even the broken shells the sea gulls puncture with their hard beaks and leave as so much scrap of white husk; these shells we live in. these skins of stone.

blog = resume: the peacock self

I learned tonight that some faculty look heavily at blogs to determine good candidates for teaching posts; whether these blogs are considered a valuable investment or a detriment was not clear. I find this odd and a bit disconcerting for a few reasons. Namely, should blogs be considered as though they were resumes? and worse, should blogs be considered evidence of reasons to hire or not hire someone? I guess I say "worse" because of the, what seems to me, problematic validity of a blog space.

I guess there could be clear examples of questionable blog content; however, I am concerned not about these cases specifically, though a doctored or fabricated blog claiming to be created by a specific person could be possible (though perhaps an incredible waste of time).

However, as with poetry (at least to the extent I'm hoping this, and the blogs the 305 posse create) there's an extension of authenticity in the creation of these "posts" that does not fit as a "background check." Let me try to explain more clearly what I mean...and maybe this is also my problem with some contemporary poets utilizing this medium for their self-aggrandizement. A blog, or web space in general, is easily a forum, not of communication, but self-promotion and self-marketing. This is fine, in so much as the medium is comfortably and easily already used for this purpose: think pop-up adds, spam e-mail, etc, etc, in terms of unwanted advertisement. But, there's an extent to which this puffing up of self is ridiculous and...well...frustrating.

We've all been to poetry readings where clearly the poetry reading became more of a show of ego, a dance of peacocks strutting and fluttering about; to me, this is not poetry. This is what I mean by “performance” in a pejorative sense. This is not what I want to...or rather, this not, for me, what poetry is supposed to be, or what poetry is called to be.

(Or at least this is true of what I seek to achieve in my work.) Thus, there's a weirdness in somehow attempting to prove worth, in terms of employment value, through a blog; especially considering how poorly paper in general (resume, diploma, etc) really goes in encapsulating the body of a person's worth, achievements, ambitions, etc.

And it does, further, beg the question, what is the current interest by contemporary poets to utilize this medium? What is the fundamental purpose of this medium anyway? Can this be used as something more than ego, as resume, as postured self?

the experiment

So, this blog-thing experiment will hopefully work...while writing (or rather) when I think about writing in this space I find myself concerned about my audience. I explained this to my 305 class on the first day...my over-obsession (and therefore denial) of audience. It makes me wonder about self-censure; how, not only here but in our poetry, do we censure what needs to be written?

For example, here I wonder whether I should write my initial responses about Olson's Maximus; the answer undoubtedly would be "why the hell not?" But there's a weirdness to it. Part of me, arrogantly postures, "But I don't want to ruin it for the others; or, I don't want them to think just as I" because that would be less fun and less interesting. As though I have some sort of end-all, definitive and perfect understanding of Olson's opus. But, part of me wants the risk: why not put what I think and therefore challenge others to either agree or come up with something different. This is what I gather...this is the agreement I hold to you who are in English 305 and are forced to read this Maximus (because you took section blank from me and not another)...I write what I encounter and feel forced or enticed to write here, and we ponder it together. You tell me what you think, what you feel, what you see and understand; and I'll attempt to do likewise...this thing that is the blog, being likewise and perhaps more so, a foreign body...an alien thing I like not but feel might stretch me further. I encounter this thing, perhaps, to better understand it. To reckon what this obsession and interest is in the electronic journal, especially considering the number of contemporary poets utilizing this type of space.

Anyway, regarding Maximus...