It started as a poem every day for a year:
like a dance marathon crossed with a library sit-in.
Some poems are mine, many are not, all praise to the respective copyright holders.
I love haiku, I may have mentioned this before. But it's very easy to tell the difference between an actual haiku and some random thought jotted down in 17 syllables. Haiku is so Zen, in the strictest definition of the word: simple yet incomprehensible, an expression of the self which strives to overcome and negate the self, at its finest an image of living in a real moment in a real world.
senseless rules and gropes airlines safe at last for all people stop flying
That's just a thought, slightly humorous, slightly angry, put into haiku form. It doesn't have what old masters called "the stink of Zen." Real haiku packs a wallop, putting a pebble into your head that rattles around for days or weeks, popping up when you're not expecting to think of it.
As these demonstrate, they can be great one-liners, too, the setup and the punchline all in three quick phrases. But to get the full effect, I'll let the translator explain more fully in footage of a reading.
Selected Haiku
Issa, Trans. Robert Hass
Don’t worry, spiders, I keep house casually.
New Year’s Day— everything is in blossom! I feel about average.
It's 4:30 AM, I'm trying like crazy to keep finding things to post about, so I'm going to do something I promised myself I'd never do. Here's the very first draft of a new poem, warts and all. The subject matter is full of both mock-humility and actual arrogance, the meter is all over the place, but at least the rhyme is intentionally all over the place.
When I was in high school, I'd fall into this loping, irregular rhyme pattern where I'd do an internal rhyme whenever it felt right, do some end rhymes here or there for (what I guess passed for) emphasis. I've always liked that but never quite been able to get the hang of it again. This is an attempt to know as little about poetry as I did then.
To My Future Biographer
Matt Quarterman
If you could mythologize me, I'd appreciate it. As you scrutinize my juvenilia, Pore over everything I ever Scribbled you can see a pattern. I was so serious, I have always been So sober and clear-headed, even when I wasn't. And I keep returning to the myth of myself Hoping it would keep me pointed right And that insight would keep my bearings true.
But what matters to me means less to you And it's a fact I have to accept somehow, Let go of the idea that we could ever see
The same thing in looking at the reflection At the morning sink where I brush my teeth Now probably decayed and moldering Somewhere I didn't expect to be.
I'd like you to know I don't bear a grudge, That in that long slog through words and phrases I trudge along with you and can bow To whatever verdict you feel is fair. The air is light now, crisp and clear And I can hold lightly to all these things Unafraid of whatever brings You pleasure, revulsion, in whatever I've done.
I'm no open book but there's no fun in that. Prying open the covers is what you do. Take things for what they are or what they're not. My books can rot and I can, too. I don't mind you rooting around my bones For whatever is buried with me. I lie here quiet, give an eyeless wink And smile my long grin at whatever you think.
One of the first Google Image results for "biographer."
Wow, this book sounds awesomely bad!
I read this for the first time today. I love anything that can make something deep out of something shallow.
Elevator Music
Henry Taylor
A tune with no more substance than the air, performed on underwater instruments, is proper to this short lift from the earth. It hovers as we draw into ourselves and turn our reverent eyes toward the lights that count us to our various destinies. We’re all in this together, the song says, and later we’ll descend. The melody is like a name we don’t recall just now that still keeps on insisting it is there.
It kind of reminds me of this song, one of the tunes that was the most formative to my own songwriting.
Here's one from my childhood, I remember next to nothing about it. Mostly, I always pondered the names of the cities, they were so reminiscent of planets from Frank Herbert's "Dune" series or maybe Orson Scott Card's fantasy books. Yes, I was that nerdy.
How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix
Robert Browning
I I sprang to the stirrup, and Joris, and he; I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all three; "Good speed!" cried the watch, as the gate-bolts undrew; "Speed!" echoed the wall to us galloping through; Behind shut the postern, the lights sank to rest, And into the midnight we galloped abreast
II Not a word to each other; we kept the great pace Neck by neck, stride by stride, never changing our place; I turned in my saddle and made its girths tight, Then shortened each stirrup, and set the pique right, Rebuckled the cheek-strap, chained slacker the bit, Nor galloped less steadily Roland a whit.
III 'Twas moonset at starting; but while we drew near Lokeren, the cocks crew and twilight dawn'd clear; At Boom, a great yellow star came out to see; At Düffeld, 'twas morning as plain as could be; And from Mechelm church-steeple we heard the half chime, So, Joris broke silence with, "Yet there is time!"
IV At Aershot, up leap'd of a sudden the sun, And against him the cattle stood black every one, To state thro' the mist at us galloping past, And I saw my stout galloper Roland at last, With resolute shoulders, each butting away The haze, as some bluff river headland its spray:
V And his low head and crest, just one sharp ear bent back For my voice, and the other prick'd out on his track; And one eye's black intelligence,—ever that glance O'er its white edge at me, his own master, askance! And the thick heavy spume-flakes which aye and anon His fierce lips shook upwards in galloping on.
VI By Hasselt, Dirck groan'd; and cried Joris "Stay spur! Your Roos gallop'd bravely, the fault's not in her, We'll remember at Aix"—for one heard the quick wheeze Of her chest, saw the stretch'd neck and staggering knees, And sunk tail, and horrible heave of the flank, As down on her haunches she shudder'd and sank.
VII So, we were left galloping, Joris and I, Past Looz and past Tongres, no cloud in the sky; The broad sun above laugh'd a pitiless laugh, 'Neath our feet broke the brittle bright stubble like chaff; Till over by Dalhem a dome-spire sprang white, And "Gallop," gasped Joris, "for Aix is in sight!
VIII "How they'll greet us!"—and all in a moment his roan Roll'd neck and croup over, lay dead as a stone; And there was my Roland to bear the whole weight Of the news which alone could save Aix from her fate, With his nostrils like pits full of blood to the brim, And with circles of red for his eye-sockets' rim.
IX Then I cast loose my buffcoast, each holster let fall, Shook off both my jack-boots, let go belt and all, Stood up in the stirrup, lean'd, patted his ear, Call'd my Roland his pet name, my horse without peer; Clapp'd my hands, laugh'd and sang, any noise, bad or good, Till at length into Aix Roland gallop'd and stood.
X And all I remember is, friends flocking round As I sat with his head 'twixt my knees on the ground; And no voice but was praising this Roland of mine, As I pour'd down his throat our last measure of wine, Which (the burgesses voted by common consent) Was no more than his due who brought good news from Ghent.
It's about time for another embarrassing confession about an almost-hetero-but-not-quite man-crush. This one goes back, though: I've nurtured it for, oh, 23 years or so.
Yes, that's Ethan Hawke and yes, I am suitably mortified.
Don't get me wrong - dude's good-looking, can't deny the man that. He's also, from what I understand of behind-the-scenes gossip and veiled DVD commentary references, something of a gallon-sized pompous jug of douche. I just can't wash that man right out of my hair or the scruffy goatee that every few months I attempt to grow as a tribute.
And if you think that's embarrassing, most embarrassing of all is how unsuperficial this infatuation is. If this were just, "Oh Ethan, rub your downy stubble all over me!" I would actually be less uncomfortable with it.
He's always playing a guy too intelligent and too smug for his own good. Somebody who could be a person of substance if he had more than half a clue. He's like a smart guy in a world that doesn't reward smart guys, so flip 'em the bird.
And the film that truly sold me is the most gauche and pretentious of them all:
As I Walked Out One Evening
W. H. Auden
As I walked out one evening, Walking down Bristol Street, The crowds upon the pavement Were fields of harvest wheat. And down by the brimming river I heard a lover sing Under an arch of the railway: 'Love has no ending. 'I'll love you, dear, I'll love you Till China and Africa meet, And the river jumps over the mountain And the salmon sing in the street, 'I'll love you till the ocean Is folded and hung up to dry And the seven stars go squawking Like geese about the sky. 'The years shall run like rabbits, For in my arms I hold The Flower of the Ages, And the first love of the world.' But all the clocks in the city Began to whirr and chime: 'O let not Time deceive you, You cannot conquer Time. 'In the burrows of the Nightmare Where Justice naked is, Time watches from the shadow And coughs when you would kiss. 'In headaches and in worry Vaguely life leaks away, And Time will have his fancy To-morrow or to-day. 'Into many a green valley Drifts the appalling snow; Time breaks the threaded dances And the diver's brilliant bow. 'O plunge your hands in water, Plunge them in up to the wrist; Stare, stare in the basin And wonder what you've missed. 'The glacier knocks in the cupboard, The desert sighs in the bed, And the crack in the tea-cup opens A lane to the land of the dead. 'Where the beggars raffle the banknotes And the Giant is enchanting to Jack, And the Lily-white Boy is a Roarer, And Jill goes down on her back. 'O look, look in the mirror, O look in your distress: Life remains a blessing Although you cannot bless. 'O stand, stand at the window As the tears scald and start; You shall love your crooked neighbour With your crooked heart.' It was late, late in the evening, The lovers they were gone; The clocks had ceased their chiming, And the deep river ran on.
For the curious:
I got stuck in Vienna overnight when I was in college so OF COURSE I had to find all the landmarks from the movie: the Ferris wheel, the bridge, the statue. Doesn't matter, though: I'll defend the movie and the actor long past the point of ridiculousness, way past the point where any rational person would just shrug and say, "Agree to disagree, I guess."
Because really, what I'm arguing for is the part of myself I value the most and which is therefore the most easily wounded: the super-literate, hyper-articulate sensitive guy. Happy now? I've been broken down into the lowest common stereotype: Ethan Hawke wannabe. Also known as this guy -
It's been a little bit since I've put on my professor corduroy jacket with elbow patches, so here's a chance to put something in my pipe and smoke it. Writing a while back about T.S. Eliot got me interested again in his critical writings, basically how he would pontificate at length on his poetics and act like he's speaking as the Voice of Literature Itself instead of just some jerk who writes a lot. (By the way, thanks a lot for the whole Yankee-Goes-Limey act that paved the way for Madonna's atrocious Brit accent.)
One of his major tentpole theories was something called the Objective Correlative. Here's the idea, in my own irreverent SparkNotes understanding: poetry is not personal expression. In fact, it's the opposite. In a famous phrase, Eliot said, "Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion but an escape from emotion." It's not about how YOU feel about a subject, it's about how the poem can free you from your own emotional attachments like a library nerd Buddha, allowing you to explore and communicate outside yourself.
How can this be accomplished? By following Uncle Tommy's Noble Truth: every emotion has a formula. There are certain things, ideas, images, places that will automatically and inevitably generate a desired emotional response in the listener. As the man himself puts it, "The only way of expressing emotion in the form of art is by finding an 'objective correlative'; in other words, a set of objects, a situation, a chain of events which shall be the formula of that particular emotion; such that when the external facts, which must terminate in sensory experience, are given, the emotion is immediately evoked."
It's a terrible phrase, really - it sounds like a programming language or a neurological disorder instead of what it is: a totally b.s. way to beg the question of how poetry relates to emotion for both author and audience. That's right: I'm calling the man out.
I question the very idea that there can be any singular set of ideas or formulations which will evoke a desired response, like you're ringing a dinner bell and waiting for your dogs to start drooling. As one of the most singularly self-involved and onanistic poets (and I say this with the utmost respect and adoration), OF COURSE he thinks that there is a magic equation that will make all of his readers feel the same way he does. His one true audience is himself: as the acme and exemplar of intellectual achievement in his era, how else could an intelligent reading audience respond but in the identical manner as he himself?
I call shenanigans.
Before I give an example, I should make clear that I don't in any way liken myself to my beautiful, misguided idol of a poet laureate. But a while back I wrote a song mentioning, "The saddest thing I've ever seen is a closed-down Burger King." And it was an honest statement: seeing boarded-up windows, crappy motel art on the walls, broken-down drive-through signs... It was like the total failure of Western civilization to even keep up the jovial, artificial pretense our culture is based upon.
Ditto for one of the other saddest things: Wal-Mart auto aisles at night. Seeing all the tires, toolboxes, pressure gauges, jugs of wiper fluid, floormats, mirror-mounted air fresheners... It's all so miserable seeing these items lined up expectantly, waiting like foster children for parents who will probably never come or abuse them if they do.
But just in my circle of acquaintances I've discussed this and found widely disparate views. One friend found the abandoned Burger King hysterically funny, like ripping off a clown mask to find Groucho Marx glasses underneath. Another thinks the sexiest smell in the world is an empty automotive aisle at any time of the day or night.
If there is a magic spell you can cast with words which will immediately and unswervingly manipulate your audience into your desired psycho-emotional state, I'm still waiting to find it. I don't think Eliot got there, either. And po-mo intelligentsia like Baudrillard would find the whole enterprise quixotically and hilariously unattainable.
So, with all respect due a giant of letters, I must disagree. You can find common points where a striking majority find an image or phrase which resonates across a broad spectrum of humanity. (Mostly you find it in crappy romantic comedies or big-budget action flicks, although there are exceptions.)
But we're a pretty diverse species, and we tend to resist being quantified, formulated and algebraically converted into equivalent terms of an equation. So there you have it - objective correlative. Big word, bad idea.
Now shut up and have a cookie. Or a poem. How does this make you feel?
Secretary
Ted Hughes
If I should touch her she would shriek and weeping Crawl off to nurse the terrible wound: all Day like a starling under the bellies of bulls She hurries among men, ducking, peeping,
Off in a whirl at the first move of a horn At dusk she scuttles down the gauntlet of lust Like a clockwork mouse. Safe home at last She mends socks with holes, shirts that are torn,
For father and brother, and a delicate supper cooks: Goes to bed early, shuts out with the light Her thirty years, and lies with buttocks tight, Hiding her lovely eyes until day break.
Yeah, another Eden poem. So sue me - YOU try writing one of these every day for a year, see how easy it is to keep things fresh and surprising. At least this one is all nature-y and there's a minimum of sermonizing.
Have You Eaten of the Tree?
Paul Hoover
And the fourth river is the Euphrates The first day was a long day and the first night nearly eternal. No thing existed, and only One was present to perceive what wasn’t there. No meaning as we know it; difference was bound in the All. On the first day, water, on the second day, land, on the third day, two kinds of light, one of them night. On the fourth day, laughter, and darkness saw it was good. But when God laughed, a crack ran through creation. On the fourth night, sorrow, staring away from heaven, torn in its ownness. No evidence then of nothing, but worlds upon worlds, underwritten, overflowing: the worlds of fear and of longing, lacking in belief, and the pitiful world of love, forever granting its own wishes. Out of dust, like golems, God created man and woman, and cast them into chance. And man was subdued in those days. All that could leap, leapt; all that could weep, wept. First of all places, Eden; last of all places, Cleveland; and a river flowed out of Eden, inspiring in the dry land a panic of growth and harvest season. The newly formed creation took from flesh its beast and from each word its sentence. And early loves and hatreds blew from thistle to thorn. Each thing that God created, he placed before man so that he may name it: cloudbank, hawk’s eye, lambkin, and for each thing that man made, God provided the name: andiron, Nietzsche, corporation. All speak of pain subtle in its clamor, as when the child, dying, sinks into its skin as under public snow. Heartrending, each termination; God-shaken, each beginning. At the dawn of smoke, pungent as creation, the long chaos rises over these trees. For we opened our eyes in Eden, with the taste of fruit on our lips.
This is one of John Donne's epigrams, basically a short, usually witty comment kind of like a pre-electricity Twitter post. Only with less advertising for your half-hour Comedy Central special or whatever project you're hawking this month. (I'm looking at you, Sarah Silverman.)
A Burnt Ship
John Donne
Out of a fired ship, which by no way But drowning could be rescued from the flame, Some men leap'd forth, and ever as they came Near the foes' ships, did by their shot decay ; So all were lost, which in the ship were found, They in the sea being burnt, they in the burnt ship drowned.
Also, knowing this period of Donne's work, there's probably, about seven layers deep, a really gross and explicit sexual metaphor that he and his buddies could snicker at over a warm one down at the alehouse. He's kind of the smart jock everybody in school hates because his grades are a-okay but he also gets plenty of play with the ladies.
He was found by the Bureau of Statistics to be One against whom there was no official complaint, And all the reports on his conduct agree That, in the modern sense of an old-fashioned word, he was a saint, For in everything he did he served the Greater Community. Except for the War till the day he retired He worked in a factory and never got fired, But satisfied his employers, Fudge Motors Inc. Yet he wasn't a scab or odd in his views, For his Union reports that he paid his dues, (Our report on his Union shows it was sound) And our Social Psychology workers found That he was popular with his mates and liked a drink. The Press are convinced that he bought a paper every day And that his reactions to advertisements were normal in every way. Policies taken out in his name prove that he was fully insured, And his Health-card shows he was once in hospital but left it cured. Both Producers Research and High-Grade Living declare He was fully sensible to the advantages of the Instalment Plan And had everything necessary to the Modern Man, A phonograph, a radio, a car and a frigidaire. Our researchers into Public Opinion are content That he held the proper opinions for the time of year; When there was peace, he was for peace: when there was war, he went. He was married and added five children to the population, Which our Eugenist says was the right number for a parent of his generation. And our teachers report that he never interfered with their education. Was he free? Was he happy? The question is absurd: Had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard.
Mmmm, dig that sweet High Modernism goodness. I may have touched on this before, but one of the most intriguing aspects of Modernism in literature is how thoroughly disgusted it is with everything modern. There's this kneejerk reaction to everything from the clean, antiseptic lines of architecture embodied in skyscrapers to the near-obsession with statistics and the scientific method. It's like you scratch a Modernist writer and never fail to find somebody born 250 years too late for the Enlightenment.
Auden, especially, had some choice words for bureaucracies and paperwork, for everything safe and tidy and quantifiable. I can't say he was wrong, but I also can't say he was on the money. Sure, there's plenty of things in 20th-century life that degrade the soul, from choosing insurance providers (haha, take THAT Wallace Stevens!) to paying late fees at your local video rental store (in "American Psycho" Bret Easton Ellis got that much right, at least).
Look at these pretentious douchebags here...
But there was still something solid and real in the pre-pastiche era before every eyebrow became ironically arched and every sentiment perfectly detached. You used to be able to come out with a statement and be reasonably sure you didn't need to check back every ten minutes or so to see who had posted, "liked" or retweeted you. An opinion could just be an opinion, without an endless process of retextualization and deconstruction that has its ultimate end in that most entertaining of trivial nothings, the meme.
Can I get some "don't touch my junk" in the house? No? How about some "Bed Intruder"? Okay then, "Don't tase me bro!"? Man, these things have the half-life of a peach from Trader Joe's: by the time it goes from the scanner to your recyclable canvas tote it's already rotted into community-supported compost.
So what I'm saying is, things can always be worse. (Unless you leave your wallet at home, your phone in the charger and your keys in the car at the same time. That is THE. WORST.) Hate high seriousness? You could be on "Cash Cab" or reading US Weekly. Hate lowest-common denominator pandering? You could be watching "Booknotes" on C-SPAN at 3:45 on a Tuesday afternoon.
Cheer up, Charlie: it only gets worse from here. MOST. DISAPPOINTING. BLOG POST. EVER!
This is a little more traditional, in the sense that American contemporary poetry is traditional. It doesn't have classical rhyme or meter, but there's a sense of when the line should stop. You could say it's a nature poem, but it's really about the speaker's memories and sense of identity as a product of his past and biography. It's supposed to be "real" and somewhat cynical, but it really ends up being pretty full of sentiment despite its protestations.
Normally, I don't know I would recommend it. The end, especially, is a little precious and self-consciously deep. But it somehow manages to become more than the sum of its parts.
Not Yet
Michael Schmidt
My father said he'd have to cut the tree down, It was so high and broad at the top, and it leaned In towards the house so that in wind it brushed The roof slates, gables and the chimney stone Leaving its marks there as if it intended to.
We said, don't cut it yet, because the tree was so full Of big and little nests, of stippled fruit. In spring and summer it spoke in a thousand voices, The chicks upturned for love, the birds like fishes Swimming among the boughs, and always talking.
And then a day came when the chicks woke up. Love was all over, they tumbled from their nests Into the air, ricocheted from a leaf, a branch, Almost hit the ground, then found their wings And soared up crying, brothers, sisters, crying.
Then the nests were vacant. Now we must cut the tree, My father said. Again we begged, not yet, Because with autumn the freckled fruit began To turn to red, to gold, like glowing lamps Fuelled with sweetness filtered from the soil
And scent that was musk and orange, peach and rose. And when they dropped (they grew on the topmost branches, Could not be picked, we took when it was offered) We wiped them clean and sliced out the darkening bruise Where they'd bounced on the yellow lawn, by then quite hard
With winter coming. The fruit were so much more than sweet, Eve fell for such fruit and took Adam with her: No serpent whispered, no god patrolled the garden. Only my father. Again, not yet, we said, remembering What winter had to do with our huge bent tree,
Once it had got the leaves off. We knew the hoar-frost Tracery and the three-foot icicles And how it simply was, the December moon Lighted upon it and hung in its arms like a child. Not yet, we said, not yet. And my father died,
And the tree swept the slates clean with its wings. The birds were back and nesting, it was spring, And nothing had altered much, not yet, not yet.
