Big Bang Poetry

Reinventing the Life of a Poet in the Modern World

Category: Poets in Action (Page 12 of 14)

Stuff in the Mail: Totes, Journals, Funnies

October 27, 2013 / / 0 Comments


WhitmanWalt Whitman Tote

Did Walt Whitman think one day he's be the inspiration for so many tote bags? What would he make of it if he had known?

I re-subscribed to the Academy of American Poets (mostly for their journal) but since then, I've received three more letters from them (September 19, October 4 and October 11). One is asking me to renew (this must have gone out before I renewed online), one thanking me for renewing, and one offering me a "small commemorative Walt Whitman canvas tote" for an additional $35. I was highly interested in this tote and now have one. I went online today to see if I could find a picture of it (so I wouldn't have to take one) and I found a quite amazing bouty of Walt Whitman tote bags which have been created for some purpose or other.

I guess the idea of a tote bag and Walt Whitman go together like ramma lamma lamma, ka dinga da dinga dong. View the plethora of Walt Whitman totes out there in the world!

The Poetry Society also sent me a post card (Poetry, I too, write it.) letting me know that I can enter their annual contest for free because I'm a member. But I don't think I'm still a member.

Journals

PlFor my birthday I asked for a one-year subscription to Poetry London, four issues a year. My parents ended up getting me a two-year subscription (which was a bit pricey considering the trans-atlantic mailing costs). I haven't yet made up my mind about this journal. Maybe after 8 issues I will.

This Autumn issue to the left sat on our coffee table for two weeks while I was reading it. My husband, Monsieur Big Bang, kindly asked me to remove it a few days ago because he was tired of looking at that poet's bemused mug.

In the two issues I have, about 22 pages are devoted to poems and the last 30 pages are devoted to a huge amount of book reviews sprinkled with an interview or two.

I really enjoy the international selection of writers (which is why I also like Scottish Poetry Library newsletter), and I admire how many book reviews this journal tackles, including published "pamphlets." Since there are so many, they could be shorter but then again I admire the journal for giving new books so much space and attention (and organized in small  thematic groups) and I do find I learn new perspectives from these longer reviews. The poems are varied in style (from forms to experimentals) although I tend to like American Poetry Reviews varied selection better for some reason. What I'm not sure I like is the journal format. It's a huge journal and both the cover and inside paper are very thick. One thing that most irks me about AWP's The Chronicle magazine is their use of wide margins between unjustified column text. Reading that magazine is headache inducing. But Poetry London gets the multiple-column, unjustified text layout just right, thankfully.

The autumn issue has a good opening essay about risk taking, some poems I liked by Timothy Donnelly, Crissy Williams, Penelopy Shuttle, David Lehman, Jason Schneiderman, Nuar Alsadir, and Greg Delanty, an interview with Glyn Maxwell. The Autumn issue has poems I liked from Christopher Middleton and Mathew Dickman and an interview with Daljit Nagra on his recent reinterpretation of the Ramayana.

Email Funnies

Graphic
My fiction-writing friend Julie also emailed me this very funny link to 30 Awkward Moments From Your Creative Writing MFA from BuzzFeed. The list was all very true and funny, but I absolutely loved the re-creation of the rejection letter: Charlie Bucket opening his golden ticket that says, "HA! REJECTED  GO FUCK YOURSELF Thanks for the App Money $" There's a version two of this graphic later on that is just as funny.

I also loved the puppy dog pic attached to "When feted, laureled, Pulitzer-anointed visiting authors tell you
that publication’s not important, and you should write as if no one’s
reading." If you're part of the Creative Writing MFA army, definitely check it out.

 

Poetry Podcast Checkup

September 22, 2013 / / 0 Comments

While I was driving out to Phoenix in August to meet the writing group, I listened to hours of interesting podcasts. I've been meaning to list them here (but the big-bad move got in the way).

PbsI started early in the morning with PBS News Hour poetry podcasts, both current episodes and ones from last year.

— HIGHLY RECOMMENDED: A podcast on the book Facing the Wave: A Journey in the Wake of the Tsunami by Gretel Ehrlich, a book about the Japanese tsunami survivors. She quotes William Stafford who said, a "poem is an emergency of the spirit." She talks about "beauty framed by impermanence" and how "you have to be alive to die."

– HIGHLY RECOMMENDED: A podcast with Eliza Griswold who visits Afghanistan to learn how an ancient Afghan oral folk poetry form has adapted to tell the story of the modern life for Afghani women.These anonymous poems are highly subversive and cover comments about penis size, sex and rage at the Taliban in a protected, collective poetry form without authorship. Afghani women are not allowed to write poems and could be put to death for attempting to. You can read more about Griswold's project at Poetry Foundation: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/media/landays.html.

As a contrast to all the poets I've been reading who deal with identity
and language struggles, these first two podcasts reminded me how meaningful and useful a
simple witness poem, all arguments aside, can be.

—RECOMMENDED: A podcast interviewing Richard Blanco and some behind-the-scenes information about how an inaugural poem comes to be, about starting with a theme, trying to tap into a universal question, how an inauguration committee picks one poem from several that a poet submits. It's interesting to learn Blanco is a whiz at math, which is why he started out as an engineer.

—RECOMMENDED: A podcast interviewing
editor Charles Henry Rowell about underappreciated African-American poets for a new anthology called "Angles of Ascent." Rowell quotes work I want to explore more, including Rita Dove (although I've been a fan of hers for years), Terrance Hayes and Natasha Trethewey.

–A podcast interviewing David Ferry

–A podcast catching up with Gerald Stern. They discuss how he views his old poetry against his new poetry and how there was not a single book he can remember in his parents' house growing up, only  issues of  Look Magazine.

—HIGHLY RECOMMENDED: A podcast covering the new anthology The Hungry Ear. Joy Harjo reads a poem called "Perhaps the World Ends Here" about life around the kitchen table. I crave this book! Just added it to my wish list.

SplThen I moved over to some Scottish Poetry Library podcasts. These are longer in form and never disappoint. As I started to listen to them I found myself lost in a shortcut I was taking through rual Arizona, between Holbrook and Phoenix. I almost had a panic attack but found these podcasts very calming. How bad can things be happening when you're listening to someone talk about poetry?

— RECOMMENDED: A podcast about poet George Szirtes and his positive thoughts on modern technology like blogging and twitter ("energy makes energy; the more you do, the more you can do; things grow out of things; technology changes the terms; imagination flows into available spaces. Why not [try and] see what else you are?"). They also discuss 1960s pop music and his poems based on Alfred Hitchcock and the song "Mony Mony."

–A podcast with Polish poet Tadeusz Dąbrowski and his war against post-modernism and empty allusions. To him language is reality. Hey says poets don't admit it but they write to be liked and accepted. He feels poetry should not be only for specialists. Although he often forgoes adding titles to his poems because he feels titles can explain too much. 

—RECOMMENDED: A podcast with Australian poet Kona MacPhee and all her various career experiences, her interest in science fiction, and how "poems rub up against biorphgaical symbols." Like Richard Blanco, MacPhee had an interest in math and music before poetry and is interested in how we can "pack info into a small space" like a poem or computer code and how she's interested in the intersection of disciplines.

—HIGHLY RECOMMENDED: Tracey S. Rosenberg runs a podcast round table on the art of dealing with rejection letters and why "nobody feels comfortable talking about it." This was a great little podcast on working through submissions as they have an affect on your self-esteem, time and energy levels.  Are you being rejected? Is your work being rejected? Or are you often just rejected by timing and all the factors over which you have no control. Also, they discuss how far you can edit yourself in service of finding acceptance in journals. "You can't edit what you don't know."

—RECOMMENDED: The last podcast I listened to on this trip covered language identity with Singapore poet Alvin Pang. I didn't get to finish this one but I was intrigued by his discussion of how how alienated Mandarin, Malaysian and Tamil-speaking writers are from each other due to their language differences, even though they share such a small space geographically. Pang also talks about using whimsy in resistance poetry, saying sometimes the "fool is the only one who [is allowed] to laugh at the King and get away with it." Pang says to just be a poet today is political because you're not doing what society expects of you. He also talks about the influence nursery rhymes had on his poetry.

I had so many more podcasts dowloaded to enjoy on the way home to Santa Fe but I think I was a little burned out by writing-chat because I played my iPod all the way home.

 

New Poetry Stuff I Get in the Mail: American Poetry Review

September 22, 2013 / / 0 Comments

AprI received a new issue of American Poetry Review in the mail while I was moving. I started reading it last week and am half-way through. 

I've had the magazine for a full year now it's time to decide whether or not to resubscribe. I subscribed as a benefit to joining the Poetry Society of America for a year at $45. PSA offered 20% off the subscription price of APR or a handful of other literary journals.

I think I'll continue another year. I like the essays and the variety of poetry styles in every issue, although I do see a recurring batch of authors appearing over and over, which is an odd thing to notice in only six issues.

I am rethinking rejoining PSA. Aside from the bookmarks they send me, most of the benefits involve events in New York City. A subscription to APR is only $25 a year. I might instead just subscribe to another journal on their list, like The Boston Review, which is quite affordable as well. Both of these subscriptions would be less in total than a yearly PSA membership. It's a good organization. I loved the subway posters they did when I lived in New York City area in the 1990s; but I'm not able to make good use of my membership being here in New Mexico.

JamesfrancoAnyway, in the current issue of APR, I enjoyed Lucie Brock-Broido's riffs on fame in the poems "Fame Rabies" and "Dove, Abiding." There's an interesting overview of Denise Levertov in honor of a new collected book coming out. I liked Robin Becker's "In Montefiore Cemetery," the end of "Wearing Mother's High School Ring" and the "Late June Owl" poem.  The essay "Judging Eichmann" is one of those essays in APR like that one about Americans and their obsessions with cars…you know it has something to do with conceptualizing ideas as a poet but they refrain from overtly giving you the connection. So for a moment the essay feels like a non sequitur.

I've just finished the Kazim Ali poems and interview (which goes into language poetry's ideas and how that served or didn't serve his coming out as a gay Muslim man). This interview was followed by two poems by actor James Franco about Hollywood and LA…which were very good and I resisted the urge to hate him because he's famous, randomly well-paid, and has written at least two good poems for a forthcoming book on Graywolf Press.

 

Poets Starting Presses

September 22, 2013 / / 0 Comments

PoemgiftsAn entrepreneurial poet from my alma matter, University of Missouri-St. Louis, has started a business printing off poems in a business-model similar to iTunes, selling them one poem at a time.

Jennifer Tappenden started Architrave Press which sells poems individually printed on cardstock or sold as part of a subscription.

I've been thinking about subscribing to this for a while. These poems would be great to frame and cover office walls with or as items to include in snail-mail letters.

Find more about the press at: http://www.architravepress.com/

Or visit her online store at: http://architravepress.storenvy.com/

I read about her in my alumni magazine. I love hearing about poets who are thinking outside the book…in truly productive and community-affirming ways.

Sometimes I get the feeling the state of poetry isn't so far from the state of the 2013 Video Music Awards, with Miley Cirus writhing around in a bra and panties, with her tongue hanging out, waving a big foam finger. Then some reporter on CBS interviews Cher (because her new album drops on Tuesday) and goads her into saying a bunch of negative things about how soulless and cynical and artless Miley's performance was. Then the next day Cher has bitch-slayers-regret and apologizes for allowing herself to be encouraged to be so harsh about a fellow female performer all for the  drama of some network ratings.

Meanwhile, nobody's reading poetry because, although it's full of all the same drama, bitchiness and narcisism, it doesn't involve wigs and near-nudity.

 

Monsieur Big Bang’s Long Lost Poem

September 22, 2013 / / 0 Comments

PascalFor some reason, all my imaginings of a "monsieur" look like this…a painting of Louis Pascal.

Anyway, after we moved, Monsieur Big Bang dug through some of his old boxes and came upon a poem in his oeuvre, this little gem he sent to some Overland Park-area newspaper in Kansas when he was a little kid. According to the clipping, he was living at 8489 Farley.

Here is the poem in its entirety:

To my Valentine for a start.
To my Valentine with all my heart.
To my Valentine I love you so.
To my Valentine you're not my foe.
To my Valentine I wish you were mine.
To my love please be my Valentine.

He said, based upon the address, he was in fourth grade, age nine. Isn't that cute?

 

A Book About Neighbors

September 15, 2013 / / 0 Comments


GoneI've just posted a recent interview with Gwendolen Gross, novelist and author of When She Was Gone, as well as many other books. Wendy (and Ann Cefola) and I graduated from the same MFA class at Sarah Lawrence College (back in the olde pre-Internet days).

We discuss the border between our personal lives and our sense of our neighborhood,
how to assemble a novel with a "gravitational" central character who
drives the story, the motives of characters and opportunities of plot,
pacing and point of view.

Interview with Gwendolen Gross, author of When She Was Gone

Poets on Stamps

September 9, 2013 / / 0 Comments

Modernists

While we were at our local post office trying to get our
mailbox key (attempt failed), Monsieur Bang Bang picked up a catalog of
collectors stamps available now. He was looking to see what the Georgia
O’Keeffe stamp looked like in the American Modernists set. He pointed out that
many of the modernists included in the set were from O’Keeffe’s modernist
circle of friends (although she never gets credit for being a modernist).

On page 20 of the catalog, I found there was a collection of
Twentieth-Century Poets. It’s on the same page as the O’Henry stamp and the
Bugs Life stamp. A fantastic juxtaposition. Anyway, the poets included
are not necessarily American-born and include in this order:

  • Joseph Brodsky
  • Gwendolyn Brooks
  • William Carlos Williams
  • Robert Hayden
  • Sylvia Plath
  • Elizabeth Bishop
  • Wallace Stevens
  • Denise Levertov
  • E.E. Cummings
  • Theodore Rothke

Poets

From the post office you can buy the stamps themselves in a
panel, or purchaser a ceremony program, a notecard set or a commemorative
panel  poster:  https://store.usps.com/store/browse/uspsProductDetailMultiSkuDropDown.jsp?productId=S_468808&categoryId=subcatS_S_Commemorative

Something nice to frame for your office wall.

 

Post Writing Sequester Wrap-Up

August 11, 2013 / / 0 Comments

PhotoJust got back from a great four days of workshopping with three of my writing friends. I did a post a few weeks ago about the benefits of a DIY writing gathering. We had two poets, a fiction writer and a non-fiction (primarily) writer. At left, we all wore orange one day to visit a St. Louis-style eatery in Phoenix. We had toasted ravioli, cracker-crust pizza and ooey-gooey butter cake.

A writer friend of mine posted a comment about conferences on Facebook saying the main benefit she found was the networking and deal-making. As for networking, you do meet new writing friends at big conferences sometimes (if you're both having an outgoing moment). Some you actually keep in touch with, although my CherCon friends have been more reliable over the years. As for deal-making at a conference, this never happened at my lowly level. I'm equating that kind of conference activity with one I would do for Web Content Specialists (my day job). The only differences being for those there are only a handful to choose from a year (not the massive amount available to poets), they aren't as expensive and you can often get your office to pay for it. You'd think the sheer number of writing conferences would bring the cost down, by supply and demand. But then there are so many writers, so few web content specialists.

In any case, having our own was informative. Our biggest problem was not having enough time to do all we wanted to do. Being friends, we spent a good deal of time catching up and chatting (in the pool, no less).

On the positive side, you're happier at a DIY with your friends (and a pool). On the negative side, you're too happy.

Also, half of our group didn't finish their readings ahead of time. So a majority of the time was spent reading for them. However, the workshopping was really high quality. Pre-select is good stuff in this case.

We selected some short stories from The Art of the Story  by Daniel Halpern. And although we all agreed we didn't much like the four stories we selected (or the layout of the book), the more we discussed the stories, the more I came to appreciate them and something unique in them relating to our projects. We also read The Art of Description by Mark Doty from the World into Word series on Graywolf Press. I'll talk about that more later (probably after my move). Two of us read the same book and make our own marginalia…it will be interesting to see where our "likes" intersected.

We all agreed we wanted to keep doing these things yearly. Notes for future events:

  1. Build in time for reading
  2. Build in time for chatting
  3. Focus less on writing time (too much chatting and reading to do)
  4. Keep in the workshop sessions

    

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