A HYBRID NOTEBOOK OF POETICS AND PORNOGRAPHIES
Pornography Disclaimer
This is a an imaginary diary of facts, confessions, or messages. This is a notebook of working but broken ideas, lines, images, notes on books I'm reading, writers I admire, and brief fantasies of language. Here unfiltered all mannerings pseudo-private, publicized, ur-. Here I am art and unrevealed: poetic, political and pop. These are my moonlit rough beginnings and should not be taken literally, directly, truthfully, reliably, and none of it is legally binding. These lies are all choreographed, but only haphazardly. Beware.
16.2.07
SLEEP AND DESPAIR OVER A BLAMELESS LIFE OF POEMS
. . . . .
The moon, likewise, returns
a blundering light not
to my bones but to
my bare breath. Body, I am Night.
I'm reading two manuscripts: one from a friend, the other
Jay Hopler's Green Squall. Struck
as ever with the green dart of envy. How is it
we are all writing this book
of the Self in the necessary
garden of predatory silences--
I'm struck by how difficult it is, the fact that we're mostly failing ourselves and our poems all the time.
How the work of being alone with oneself, trying to listen
is itself a serious enthusiasm. One we're not often rewarded for. Poetry,
I'm 32 and I'm poor. Too poor to see you at AWP.
And here I am on a Friday night alone
with a foolish attempt to listen instead to some distance
in the faltering waves, leaves
fixed and uncertain, the edges blown by a merciless
blurry
call,
lit up with my own luminous attention.
. . . . . .
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Poetry Disclaimer
My work has been awarded the Katherine C. Turner Prize from the Academy of American Poets, a Swarthout Award, and has twice been nominated and shortlisted for the Pushcart Prize. My first book, A Book Called Rats, was selected for the Blue Lynx Prize for Poetry (Eastern Washington University Press 2007). I'm curating editor for the online journal of poetry: PISTOLA and my poems and reviews most recently appear in Massachusetts Review, Beloit, Ploughshares and RAIN TAXI. I currently teach writing and literature at Santa Monica College in southern California.
2 comments:
Simply fantastic! I'm a new fan of your written work. Is the art from you as well? If so I'm a fan of it as well, if not nice choice of composition.
dear post valentine depression, who is this character at AWP that i have not heard about--who has your bottom lip fishhooked with longing. (at least next year's conference will be in new york and you'll be 33 then!)maybe you can call me from a pay phone and tell me how cold it is.
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