How to Look Cool Sitting in a Car

If only I could convince her to wear a cowboy hat...

So for those that don't know, I'm moving out of Chicago in two weeks (TWO WEEKS, SHIT!) and into my in-laws house for a month or so. This is happening for two reasons; one, because Iowa City is a college town, no apartments worth moving into open up until August and two, because the University of Chicago is a giant piece of crap and terminated our lease two whole days after my wife graduates (tip: the University of Chicago is the place where dreams go to die, don't ever come here). This means that all my books will be packed in a box for the summer and so I've spent the last week sitting in front of my book shelf looking over every title and putting books aside. Last night, in a moment of drunken clarity I finalized what will be my "Summer Reading List." It is as follows:

1. Take It, Joshua Beckman (because I haven't gotten around to it yet)
2. The Glass Age, Cole Swensen (because I haven't read too much new Swensen, and I thought it might be a good thing to do before I try to study with her)
3. Lining, Lisa Fishman (I bought it awhile ago, but lost it in a shuffle of papers and have recently rediscovered it)
4. Hallelujah Blackout, Alex Lemon (he's been responsible for some of my favorite poems over the last year)
5. My Vocabulary Did This to Me, Jack Spicer (because I can't imagine a week without it)
6. The Ghost Soldiers, James Tate (it recently came out in paperback and was thus recently affordable to me)
7. The two Letter Machine chap books (Veglahn and Berrigan)
8. This Nest, Swift Passerine, Dan Beachy-Quick (he's "visiting" the workshop this fall and I want to have my bases covered)
9. Ours, Cole Swensen (same as the other Swensen book)
10. The Battlefield Where the Moon Says I Love You, Frank Stanford (I'm teaching it this fall and need to read it a few more times before that happens. Basically, if a student mentions a section of the book, I want to be able to envision its place in the whole text and to be able to turn to that page in the book)

and that's it.

Weather men are always wrong, especially in Chicago. In fact, if the weather man mentions rain, there is a better chance that it won't at all. Which makes me wonder if it's possible to be both critic and artist. Is it? Can you create the model and then take it apart to see why it works? In my own experience, the answer is no...at least, not simultaneously.
I don't know much about brain halves, outside of the fact that they exist and that one is creative and the other analytical, but I'm pretty sure that my brains work together like brothers; begrudgingly, and only then because they were told they couldn't play until the job was done. My best critiques usually come in times of drought, in the poetry sense, and conversely, when I'm writing poems almost everyday the only thing I see in the stuff I read is more poems, or ways I would make the poem better if it were mine (which, in itself is a critique, but never a sort of academic reading). But I can never seem to function in both modes at the same time, or even switch from one to the other very quickly, or even when I want to.
I've been thinking about this lately because I have to go back to school soon and I'd like to do better than I did last time, which means being able to pass all my examinations. I've always done well on course work, but you can usually choose when that gets done, it's those exams that worry me, especially as I move towards a career in academia.

It scares me, I think is what I'm really trying to say...

Happy Memorial Day. I mean that.

I'm getting a chapbook ready to send off to a few places by the end of the week. It's mostly made up of poems I've written to my friend Aaron McNally on his facebook page over the last few weeks. Is that cheating? Does that count as "already published poetry." Anyway, if you're friends with both Aaron and I, you've read every first draft.

Writing poems that way has been freeing for me. I don't know if it's having an exact idea of audience, or if it's the instant "publishing," or if it's simply the challenge of trying to write a poem for him everyday in the free seconds I have at work, or if it's all these things combined, but it has been great fun. And there's something about having to write everyday that makes your place in the world a little more interesting.

It's full on Spring here in Chicago...just in time for Summer.

I'm moving in 3 weeks and have hardly packed a thing.

I think the greatest discovery I've made in the last few weeks is the Goose Island Pub Pack; you get 3 bottles each of the Honker's Ale, 312, their IPA and the Summerland.

Last Friday I sat up until 4 am talking to a bald guy in a ladies wig about his divorce and drank 3 bottles each of Honker's Ale, 312, IPA and Summerland.

I got all my training materials to teach at the Workshop next Fall...this shit just got real, but I am really excited to be able to have an answer I'm proud of to the question, "What are you doing now?"

My wife got me a new pork pie hat yesterday. I hate hipsters, but occasionally they do some good things, like making pork pie hats trendy and easy to find again.

What the Heck Elk!

1. Last Friday I bought Bob Dylan's new record, watched Bob Dylan: No Direction Home and then when that was over turned on PBS only to find Bob Dylan's Newport performances.
2. All three of those things led to me talking like Bob Dylan for two whole days...
3. Bob Dylan's, "Together Through Life," is an okay Bob Dylan record, but a great anyone else record. It reminds me of state fairs, or old theme parks in September...it's dirty, stinky and falling apart, but you're totally glad you came.
4. Today I started packing, I packed up Further Adventures...all of it. I have two books left, so if you wanted one, buy it now.
5. When I was home for my grandpa's funeral, it was like a summer vacation appetizer; we grilled, drank beer and let the dog run free. It was hard to come back to work, especially for the dog.
   
6. This is a big month for open manuscript readings. Do you have one ready? Send it off...
7. One of the things I love about Bob Dylan is the fact that he used to buy people leather jackets to convince them to do stuff he wanted he wanted to do.
   

My gramps died the other day. He was a pretty tough dude, but then, who doesn't say that about their gramps. You spend an entire life building a family, how can the fruits of that labor not think their tree is the best their ever was? I love my gramps and think I'll miss him, once I hit the point where I realize I haven't seen him for awhile.
The question, I guess, is, what does a poet do in these situations? Well, for me, he gets asked to write the chincy poem inside the "remembrance folder." I've done it, and I think I like it (it covers the middle ground between what I do and what was expected...i.e. greeting card bullshit), but I'm going to sleep on it, do one more round of drafting tomorrow morning and hopefully send it off to be printed in the morning.
A part of me wishes I hadn't been asked to do that...to be that voice, but I also realize that as a writer (a practice that is weird and abstract to most honest, hard-working people), there was really nothing else I could offer and nothing else they could have asked of me and, ultimately, I'm happy to do it. To have your family flipping through all the "verses," and coming to the conclusion that they have a son/nephew/grandson that could do better, is humbling and for a guy as popular as my grandpa, quite an honor.
Anyway, the point is, I'm really not into occasional poetry and the pressure of writing a poem that may be the only poem a person ever reads is daunting, but the reward (for both me and my family) will hopefully be worthwhile.

Check you later Gramps, I guess it's my turn to buy the Mountain Dew.

Nate Slawson is bad motherfucker. Not only does he do this, but he also writes these. Nate's a friend of a friend whom I've only met a couple of times, but he can grow a wicked mustache and write totally rad poems. The odd for me about reading Slawson's poems, though, is that our styles are oddly familiar. He uses a bit more curse words than I do, but the phrasing is almost exact (i.e. long run-on sentences that take advantage of time-buying verbage to create space where there technically is none), and the things he chooses to write about isn't necessarily what I choose to write about, but the loose yet logical flow of ideas is also quite similar.

Appetizers are my favorite part of the meal and its a joy to share them with you...

you are a pharmacy

you have a hundred secret names & I am the world’s worst shoplifter.
you know what I mean? it’s like it’s 1992 & we’re so happy for cigarettes
& de la soul & lightning bugs & shit like that. sometimes I wish you knew
someone exactly like me who wasn’t so obsessed with your knuckles.
they make me hurt like alligator teeth. I want you to be all fists & bruises like
tiny sparrows on my face. I want you to be a handgun muzzled into my gut

I've always thought that I made more sense on paper, that my best ways of saying things aloud confused people and I get that same feeling from Slawson's poems...that, you can imagine hearing someone speaking this poem, but if spoken to you outside the context of poetry, you'd be pretty feaked out.

Something unrelated, I've totally fallen for the XYZ Affair.

Topic at hand...go read Nate Slawson's poetry and then go buy his books, his beautiful books and do what I did and wear the free pin everywhere.

Be inspired to whisper in your own projection booth

Joshua Marie Wilkinson has had a shit-ton of books released this year; this one, this one, this one, and not the least of which is this one, out on a little press close to my heart called further adventures. But now comes his third full-length, from Tupelo, The Book of Whispering in the Projection Booth.

I have a tendency to gush on JMW quite often and have been forcing his books on my friends and co-workers for years, but I can say with complete seriousness that I have never met anyone who is as willing to give to the community as much as he is willing to take from it. The guy runs a lit mag, two small presses and a reading series, and let us not forget he teaches as well. If you love poetry at all, this is the kind of life you should aspire to...and to help Josh live his version of it, buy this book.

Accountability and Defensiveness

There has been talk all over the e-poetry community lately having to do with the odd defensiveness that older poetry teachers seem to hold against their younger counterparts. I find this to be totally wicked, but not unlike other strains of academe or any other profession, really. Those on top fight tooth and nail to stay there, even if it means having a total disregard for everyone below you. However, where I see these two fork away from each other is accountability.

If you fuck up almost anywhere else, you get sacked. Politics, business, newspapers, military, whatever; the fact is, you are held responsible for the shit that goes down on your watch. However, in poetry, what we have seen is a group that has watched it readership dwindle to almost nil, and yet still expect to hold on to their titles, their prestige and most importantly, their pay checks. They're allowed all this AND feel that they need to squash any and all poetry that deters from their own (thus keeping them the masters of the house).

The most unfortunate aspect is, though, that in order to come even remotely qualified to take their positions, we must first go through their classes...earn their degrees. It occurs to me that the only real way to buck the system is to allow a total collapse, just like the auto industry.

Perhaps only in the rubble of failure can we build a better poetry.

Robin Blaser 1925-2009

I've had a few conversations with Joshua Marie Wilkinson over the years. "Until the Lantern's Shaky Song," might just be the least strained and easy of them all (my fault, not his). This new chapbook, just out from cinematheque press, is made up of 26 poems/love letters written for Wilkinson's friends, lovers and confidants, and could just be the most intimate self-portrait this poet has ever released into the world.

Each poem in the book is essentially made up of two equal parts (1 part friend, 1 part Josh), giving us the equivalent of Wilkinson climbing inside the skin of each of these other writers (almost every poem, in my estimation, is "for" a fellow poet), and finding them to be, not ill-fitting, but like store bought Halloween costumes, you can always tell who's underneath. Thus, what we are left with is a collection of poems that really does play out a like a party; lots of voices, a little music and enough stories to keep you entertained for hours and hours. "Iowa is full of/ those water towers I can smell/ the grass & wake up I don't/ know where & I think of that Myles/ poem about being president & my phone/ is dead..."
I love "Poem for Joshua Beckman" for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is that I was there in Iowa City when those two rolled through town on the Poetry Bus. That does, however, lead to the one issue I foresee with this book...I wonder if it's possible to be lured to all the places Wilkinson would like to pull you to without knowing him, or the character's that dance all over these poems. In short, are these just "poems for my friends," or can they be for everyone?

That said, this is an amazing set of poems in an equally amazing package. It's really fun to see JMW try on all these different outfits and still overwhelm you with his atmospheric prowess, not to mention that every single line has the ability to teach you what adoration and love really are, and, much like the sketches Van Gogh would scribble into his letters, even if they are for someone else, it still feels good to imagine them being for you.

And, like sprinkles on top of a promise, the book comes with a cd of Wilkinson reading a selction of the poems...which is awesome, becuase it has always been live that JMW's poems expose themselves for what they really are...the master ramblings of one of the smartest poets working today.

Yesterday, I read this. I thought it was good. The concept is this: all games reflect, in someway, life skills that are, or were required as we age. Hide and go seek teaches us to hunt, Duck, duck, goose teaches us to understand the "abilities" pyramid and our place in it, and Capture the flag teaches us casualty, victory and other war-related topics. It's within this dynamic that Svalina crafts a whole series of games meant to teach the reader/player the skills they will need to survive in contemporary culture. Skills like how to alienate the classes, worship celebrities, be afraid, and deal with abandonment the moment you fail.
Most of the instructions are surprising in the best ways. A few never quite fully come together, but even in those rare instances, there is always a rule or two that you are happy to have read. There are also one or two games that stretch for something just out of reach, but keeps stretching nontheless. Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of this book, though, is just how many of these games seem completely viable...how many of them I wanted to go outside and play, how many of them inspired real, visceral reactions in me.
I'm a sucker for rules (much like Ralphie in "A Christmas Story," "but the bell rang...") and I'm also a sucker for Mathias Svalina. You should be too...

Swap Meet Saturday

Yesterday, Anne and I bought a completely unnecessary antique card catalogue, then we went for a walk up the lake into tourist country. We bought ice cream and pretended that we were just here for the weekend...we even had somebody take a picture of us in front of the lake (it didn't turn out so well, meaning I looked pale and squinty). Then we came home and grilled turkey brats and burgers. Then we watched Live Free or Die Hard, which is the only movie I've ever ditched a wedding reception for, so far. Then we went to bed because yesterday was a big day.

I wind up giving almost all my art away; drawings, poems, photographs (if you would be kind enough to allow me the belief that my pictures are in someway artistic). I'm able to do this for two reasons, one, I like not buying things for people and two, once I'm done with something, for better or worse, I'm pretty much done. I've been thinking about this lately because for the last week I've been writing and posting poems on my friend, Aaron McNally's facebook wall, and that is the sole reason they exist...as a method of redefining the purposes of that space. The poems themselves are statements, but their very being is a statement unto itself...
Anyway, this got me thinking about how seriously a lot of poets take themselves and their work, treating it like some kind of commodity that ultimately belongs in a type of showcase (be that book or journal). This is a bag of worms and I know it, but since nobody in America, well, 8% of America, reads poetry on a regular basis, who gives a shit. Odds are, more people will read those posted poems than will ever read a book I might someday have. What's the point then in acting like our work deserves some kind of higher honor than being self-published on facebook.
This idea is a few days late, but perhaps to keep the spirit of NaPoMo going, make all your facebook/blogging/e-mail dealings poetic, take advantage of the character limitations, space limitations, self-importance limitations. Write poems just for that person, just for that moment. You might be surprised.

This weekend I'm going to this:
















and then I'm going to watch this about 500 more times (I can't speak for the song, as I haven't yet watched it with the sound on, I hope it doesn't suck):