Stop To _____ ___ _____

Search under every veil
for the pale eyes, pale
lips of a sick child,
in each doorway glimpse
her reluctant limbs
for whom no kindness is,
to whom cares and kiss
come nightly more amiss,
whose hand no gentle hand
touches, whose eyes withstand
compassion. Say: Done, past
help, preordained waste.
Say: We know by the dead
they mourn, their bloodshed,
the maimed who are the free.
We willed it, we.
Say: Who am I to doubt?
But every vein cries out.

—Basil Bunting, no. 35 from the First Book of Odes

Exhausted yawp, or yawn

The poem longs to be exhausted
The poem longs to be compact and infinite
(The poem longs to be speared my treatment)
The poem is a filter of silences
The poem knows the transcendent cannot be signified
The poem knows the transcendent does not cross does not in fact transcend
The poem knows what is and what isn't
The poem knows it's easy to see this for nothing is hidden
The poem loves the hole that envelops the poem and devours the poet
The poem loves the hole the poet passes through to bring the poem to the world
The poem touches it lightly
The poem accounts for as much as ninety-five percent of universal mass
(That's a lot)
The poem abhors mirrors and cell phones
The poem injects itself into the earth around a termite home
The poem is a pesticide unnatural and potentially harmful when breathed
The poem abhors the word "death" in a poem
The poem abhors "God" and "soul" and "capital"
The poem has death wrapped around its voiceless vowels
The poem does not age but advances
The poem becomes its opposite before butchering both poles slabs of cow
The poem picks its moments from its monster nose
The poem is relentless
The poem could just as easily pass out of existence
The poem comes to a stop without stopping
The poem is a stop sign in halogen headlight brilliant red glazed with rain water the white letters shivering starry-night-like at the darkness
The poem stops the poet in his animal tracks
The poem bites back, ass, and ear
The poem touches it lightly
The poem splits its head to reveal a volcano
The poem never itself erupts it exists ever on the verge of eruption
The poem races the poem traces the poem displaces
The poem itself aces high will not judge the collateral damage of war
The poem puts "do or die" in quotes
The poet can't resist
The poet could slip and fall and break his neck rushing down the stairs to pen and pad
And the poem would not shudder the poem would not blink
The poem goes on
The poem longs to be exhausted
The poet is a flamethrower fueled of the sun
The poet is a two-dimensional figure a zero on the page
The poem downloads at its own furious nonchalant pace
The poet wants to burn the poem to disk
The poem couldn't care less

Last night's roasted

The poem doesn't fear the soft surrealism of American poetry that blunts the blue serrated edge jagging through alternating black and green landscapes
The safe surprises that tug with baby teeth at the French fell seams of the red parachute in the oblivion sky
The poem trusts what will endure or else it does not care
While the poet frets, warped guitar, and the poet stews, last night's roasted carrots and red potatoes.

Nobody in the books

As if I have enough attention (or time but who has that) to give to one blog, which is destined to be neglected for another long period of time, if not right after Dash finally comes sliding out into the world, due date was today now yesterday, then shortly thereafter, last week I went and produced a spin-off, Nobody in the books. It's nothing, really, but a gathering of links to online poems, but it has meant that much of whatever "free" computer time I have (of course, things in real life, hmm, are never quite stated that way, I'm supposed to be one of the adults in the household after all) has been spent, and will be spent assuming it's there to be spent, surfing through back issues and such. I'm not sure there's any point to it. I used to do stuff like this, photocopying or typing up poems, and collecting them in binders, but that fell wayside years ago. I suppose this is a kind of reconnecting with that impulse. It's times like this... who? what? huh? Shit.

I hate that "the sound of one hand clapping" has become a cliche. Because this is it.

The poem in her bed pulling her stuffed animals toward her
The poem is out of the crib and into the twin
The poem needs the animals to sleep
The poem does not fear dreams the poem is afraid of
The poem pulls the covers up to her nose
The poem is mandatory at a certain point of the night
The poem is the sleep more than the sleeper
The sleeper cannot be separated for the poem is a siamese twin
The poem steps off a short yellow bus with the help of the driver
The poem does not fear the driver only the drive
The poem walks into the arms of its mother
Snaps out of its dream for the poem cannot walk
The poem is helped into the wheelchair
The poem's mother smiles to the driver and steps behind the chair
The poem's mother will push
The poem up the ramp through the brown brown row of public housing
The poem sleeps above my computer nook
The poem keeps me typing
The poem is the severed limbs of Little Bear
The poem bleeds when you scratch it
The puppet called Monster dances on the limbs of Little Bear
The poem can't control the puppet
The driver of the bus has driven the animals into darkness
The computer nook palpitates with a palpable starkness
The poem delivers the words on a slate gray vibration ruffling under the yellow walls
The poem opens and disappears
The poem beats the head of Little Bear against the bathroom wall
The poem is not potty trained
The poem breathes deeply hugging her stuffed animals
The poem rolls to the floor
Wakes and cries and mommy and daddy rush to her surprise
The poem needs to be soothed and told Tomorrow will be a good day

Poem Cube Poem

Finally visited Jason Nelson's Poem Cube last week. Improvised a poem for the Bridgewater Fair, which was an exciting day for Vaughn. Here's a slightly revised version of what I posted there.

At the Bridgewater Fair
Goats are lions
The quiet roads are Mia Farrow
When the clouds cattle over
We milk the day
Bees will chase us
My daughter my wife and me
Where there is no bridge
And the only water is rain
The sky pulled tight as Joan Rivers
Ah Connecticut decay
Bees sting our cattle hearts
We are the goats my daughter feeds
From her hands—to our quiet fair wells
The rain means a chance to milk
The wells we lion and chase ourselves through.

Last Stop

Stop 14: Last Stop, originally uploaded by nobodyintherain.

Stop 13

Stop 13, originally uploaded by nobodyintherain.

Stop 12

Stop 12, originally uploaded by nobodyintherain.

Stop 11

Stop 11, originally uploaded by nobodyintherain.

Stop 10

Stop 10, originally uploaded by nobodyintherain.

Stop 9

Stop 9, originally uploaded by nobodyintherain.

Stop 8

Stop 8, originally uploaded by nobodyintherain.

Stop 7

Stop 7, originally uploaded by nobodyintherain.

Stop 6

Stop 6, originally uploaded by nobodyintherain.

Stop 4

Stop 4, originally uploaded by nobodyintherain.

Stop 5

Stop 5, originally uploaded by nobodyintherain.

Stop 3

Stop 3, originally uploaded by nobodyintherain.

Stop 2

STOP 2, originally uploaded by nobodyintherain.

Stop

Stop 1, originally uploaded by nobodyintherain.

On the New Design

It might not be pretty, but it's at least homemade. I hope to be making some small improvements in the near future. But with Dashiell set to be born in the next few weeks, and two bedrooms needing painting, I'll probably just stop paying attention to the blog altogether for another two years.

On a Review of Pieces of Air in the Epic

How is writing a volume of poetry based on a concept tricky business? How often do contemporary American poets do this? How often has it been done in the past? What is the success rate? Is writing a single poem not tricky business? What makes Hillman's hands so adept? What is the pitfall she is avoiding? How is tricky business a pitfall? If air can change and is therefore a master of disguise, what is the missing premise? How is an affected trope distinguished exactly in a work which self-consciously draws attention to its artifice? What is negative about an affected trope in such a context? Is it the definition of "affected?" What does it mean to call wind, space, and breath different guises of air? Is the difference between them supposed to be vast? Is the difference even moderate? Why don't we always recognize whether the poem is about air in general, or about air in detail, or about air doing something? Does Hillman place extra space between words and phrases? Are such spaces just to provide pauses and enticements to pondering possibilities? Is such intention as simple as opening a window, "to let in some air," or is there a deeper, more specific reason?

What is Hillman's approach? And what does it have in common with "language poetry?" Is all opaque writing influenced by the L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E movement? Why not replace transition with transformation? What is the line being tip-toed here? Is the import such that we could not bring ourselves to make the edit completely? If something is cryptic what does it matter whether it's intentional or not? What is the skill required? Syntax is torqued, pronouns shift, and a griffin appears: why a griffin? Why did Hillman choose the tired techniques of the post-avant over the tired techniques of the traditional lyric? Are materials themselves "a little bit of [meaning]"? Why not explicate the little bit of meaning that is there? Or is all meaning made in the mind of a reader? Was this an interesting thought in 1968? Is it an interesting thought in 2006? Were such a thought laid bare and broken into five relatively wordy lines would the result be recognized as "absolutely dazzling" by the post-avant activist? What is it about Hillman's lines that should make readers want to "put [the materials] together" themselves? Does every response of "What the fuck? This is nonsense?" mean the reader is confused or alienated? Why would such a response be inaccurate here? Should the reader feel bad that little epics have hurt feelings because they're not big epics? Is "little epic" French for orgasm? What would Shakespeare do with this material? What about Whitman? What about Tu Fu? If those aren't fair questions, what if we make adjustments for inflation? What are the people who find "exactly what they are looking for" in Hillman's work looking for? What is the freedom her poems achieve? Is it the freedom of a former slave? Could a reader be something other than liberated by this freedom? Could the freedom lead to a kind of oppression? Or is it really, truly a complete freedom? Is it possible? Is a former slave ever anything else?

It may be true that "we must trust" Hillman, but should we? What hints are there that it will be worth our time? What good is it if only "she knows the way through her poems?" What if I get distracted in the middle of a poem, how will I find my way back into it? Is the path different every time? Most of the time? Some of the time? If only she knows the way, but the reader is making the meaning, then who is in control? What if I'm the reader and I don't feel like engaging in this tug-of-war? Am I included in the "we" of this review? Do we ever get the feeling that we're in a not-for-profit version of The Matrix? Is this how we want to spend our days before we die? If avoiding order is a worthy goal why make poems and not bombs? How can we tell that Hillman is "willful" in her violent treatment of sense? If a great disorder is an order, is the poet back where she started? If a great disorder isn't an order, why not make every poem out of random words plucked out of a hat? How will readers piece together meanings when they can't even acquire expectations? I could have the expectation that something unexpected will constantly be happening, can't I? When one expects something unexpected is the unexpected very interesting? Even if it's possible, could it possibly be likely? How would one figure? What is significant about Hillman's "fractured, refracted, dispersed by space" vision? How is this not an affected trope?

What does the injection of "pure lyricism" into a non-lyric poem do for the poem? How about to the reader? Is it beautiful? The "intersection of abstraction and the real world" may be "a fair description of what we encounter in subsequent poems," but isn't it also a fair description of what we encounter in the poems of any number of post-Modern poets? Why not the periwinkle noise of sparrows? Or the pepper spray noise of sparrows? Would "someone else's dream" be stranger than mine? Do dreams bleed off the trim or do they cry? Are moments of clarity and precision always this dizzy and vague? Have we, perhaps, reached a point of agreement?

Are lyrical threads and narrative lines necessarily non-associative? What is the form Hillman takes away from her poems? How does association help her get to the heart of her poems exactly? Could there be an ordering of words, random or otherwise, in which the words don't accumulate in sense, here broadly defined, and sound? How does "often whimsical" language lead to an "intentionally cryptic" approach? Would being willfully whimsical in the course of being "deliberately opaque" imply that the whimsy is just affect? Is the incomprehensibility of the world an accomplished fact? The existence of meaning is arguably meaningless, but is there really no order in the world? If Hillman's work is like holding up a mirror to the world, why not hold up a mirror to the world and forget the words? What is gained by holding up an opaque mirror? Why not a self-portrait in a convex mirror?

Wouldn't the "I" have to feel less like a narrator in a non-narrative poem? Why use "I" to enter into self-referentiality? Why not a greater disordering of pronouns? Is this a case of being trapped in a tank? Where is the air here? If air is invisible why are there words in the poems at all? Why not an epic composed of blank pages? Why write lines that "create and keep a certain distance" when the reader must trust the writer to blaze a path through the poems? Is this supposed to introduce air into the text, as if it's merely an affected trope? What does it mean to write an existential riff and include it in a book of poems, to publish it and wait for it to be quoted in a review and recognized as such? Would any reader have thought it more heartfelt question than intellectual musing? More question period than musing? Why bother? What is the greater sensibility behind these poems? Greater than who? Greater than what? If a question is a rhetorical question, to the point that the question mark is left out in favor of a period, why not say: this is a rhetorical question? Who could argue that idle questions aren't the devil's balls?

Wouldn't it be better to be whimsically political or cryptically political than forthrightly political? Why the change of heart? How long ago did we reach the point where it became a cliche to state that being political in a poem is "risky?" Crossing the street is risky and it's a cliche, too, but why should the reader care? If Hillman's language gains force when being forthright, why not be forthright all of the time? Most of the time? More of the time? Has she achieved the perfect one-part-this / five-parts-that balance? How can we tell? Why are the moments of unmistakable meaning interesting when contrasted with the abstract wording surrounding them? Is bluntly referencing the president more political than opaquely referencing the world in which he lives that has no order? What would an American poem of epic sweep be without Greek references? Am I included in the "we" of this review? So she's saying we're all side stories? Is this the news Williams was referring to? Why only include "the gods, men and women of classical mythology?" What about the rest? What about the breath of all the people in all of the cultures of all history? Shouldn't that breath be joining ours, too, in this affected trope we call a world?

Equanimity Today

A sign of the times with multiple prongs of irony.

Sketches Comment

With Book of Sketches, Kerouac's main problem is being saddled with Penguin as the publisher, which is no longer in the habit of producing fine books. The best example of their decline in quality is the cheap paper on which they choose to print most of their Penguin Poets titles. They didn't really give Sketches much design attention, basically using a template: the typical Penguin Classics these days is set in Sabon 10.25/12.25; Sketches is set in Sabon 10/12.5. It's clear that, for Penguin, poetry is primarily seen as a money loser and hence something not to be taken seriously. From what I could tell, the attitude is not just shared by the higher ups, but by the design and production staff as well. The result is a kind of shabbiness, a McBook not much removed, as an object, from a mass market romance novel, but with a nicer cover (though the kerning has been adjusted nicely throughout Sketches which wouldn't happen with a mass market).

That said, matching the spacing and indentations to the manuscript present a moderate typesetting challenge which has been carried through about as well as it could within the constraints of Penguin's requirements. I don't have the book on hand, but as I recall there are at least a handful of instances where space breaks occur mid sentence. They belong there. It's too bad Penguin didn't elect to scan and include, say, at least a half dozen pages of the manuscript, so that readers could get a feel for the source document and judge for themselves whether the translation is successful.

An insightful introduction by someone like Clark Coolidge, or any number of other contemporary poets (Tom Clark or Dale Smith spring to mind), would have been a fine improvement, but the important thing is that the work, in all of its unevenness, is at least available.

Melancholia's Tremulous Dreadlocks

The first issue of Andrew Lundwall's new poetry Webzine, Melancholia's Tremulous Dreadlocks is up. Some fine poems by Chris Toll and Eileen Tabios, among others. Ambitiously, Andrew is looking to update/publish MTD bi-weekly. If I had any readers, I might suggest they send some good work along to him to help get this project rolling.