Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Monday, December 21, 2009
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Friday, October 23, 2009
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
350 Poems
For the next couple weeks, I'll be over at the 350 Poems site.
Check it out--- and contribute something!
And look for other 350.org-sponsored actions in your area, as we gear up for the 24th...
Check it out--- and contribute something!
And look for other 350.org-sponsored actions in your area, as we gear up for the 24th...
Friday, October 9, 2009
Obama, the world doesn't have time for you to be wasting time on a war in Afghanistan
New Climate Study reports 100% emissions cut needed in 10 years
It boggles my mind that this administration, facing massive national debt & an economic crisis, would continue to blow billions on an unpopular war started by a previous administration (tho it is quickly earning the title "Obama's War in Afghanistan"). In this perfect moment to start funneling some of our taxpayer money (which has largely gone toward the war) toward job creation in the green sector here at home, our Nobel Peace Prize winning president has just taken troop-reduction off the table.
Where do we live? How will we be looked at?
Robert Greenwald's new documentary, Rethink Afghanistan, makes a lucid & powerful case against the war, one that is worth spreading.
Meanwhile, what are the counter-mainstream mainstream poets doing about any of this?
Eliot Weinberger excoriated us for our complacency & insularity 6 1/2 years ago, in his "Poetry Is News." I was in my freshman year at Brown University back then, baffled by a newly begun war in Iraq-- and I do mean baffled. I didn't know what to think.
It feels like an increasingly untenable route to take--whatever this route I & we are taking-- and yet even now I can't see any good way out of it.
Weinberger provides three alternative models for action: 1) political poetry (of which he says 95% is bad, but, in effect, who cares); 2) Oppen (i.e. quit poetry altogether & organize); or 3) Vallejo (keep writing poetry, but also write vigorous political prose alongside).
And talking to my friend Melanie the other day it seemed clear that laughter was a way, woven into these.
It boggles my mind that this administration, facing massive national debt & an economic crisis, would continue to blow billions on an unpopular war started by a previous administration (tho it is quickly earning the title "Obama's War in Afghanistan"). In this perfect moment to start funneling some of our taxpayer money (which has largely gone toward the war) toward job creation in the green sector here at home, our Nobel Peace Prize winning president has just taken troop-reduction off the table.
Where do we live? How will we be looked at?
Robert Greenwald's new documentary, Rethink Afghanistan, makes a lucid & powerful case against the war, one that is worth spreading.
Meanwhile, what are the counter-mainstream mainstream poets doing about any of this?
Eliot Weinberger excoriated us for our complacency & insularity 6 1/2 years ago, in his "Poetry Is News." I was in my freshman year at Brown University back then, baffled by a newly begun war in Iraq-- and I do mean baffled. I didn't know what to think.
It feels like an increasingly untenable route to take--whatever this route I & we are taking-- and yet even now I can't see any good way out of it.
Weinberger provides three alternative models for action: 1) political poetry (of which he says 95% is bad, but, in effect, who cares); 2) Oppen (i.e. quit poetry altogether & organize); or 3) Vallejo (keep writing poetry, but also write vigorous political prose alongside).
And talking to my friend Melanie the other day it seemed clear that laughter was a way, woven into these.
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Works in Progress!!
The first annual Works in Progress Festival was a giant success-- many thanks to Richard and Andrew for putting together such a wonderful weekend.
Orlando White read on night one
Lake Erie was read to
a shape note singing workshop took place
Luke Fischbeck / Lucky Dragons closed
& there was a village of poems
(& much much more)
Orlando White read on night one
Lake Erie was read to
a shape note singing workshop took place
Luke Fischbeck / Lucky Dragons closed
& there was a village of poems
(& much much more)
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
This morning's notes toward a new poetry
I imagine much different poems than Andrew Joron’s
being surrounded by a much different essay.
These newborn poems will be filled with a wily imagination, primarily, though they will carry the bagged head of a sadness & lament (of mortality, & for political mistreatment). They will keep moving, & they may even be joyous & pleasurable & strangely accessible, carry non-poetry readers through them even as they make us feel & think
The essay will not be properly philosophical, but will be properly political, as it will expose in clear and critical language something specific that is happening & our place within it & a potential exit
That is, it will be fundamentally critical AND imaginative
But within a very basic language. It will be, perhaps, another absorbing narrative. But it will have a weight & insistence & explicitness that the poetry, perhaps, manages to carry only indirectly.
If it has the insistence & explicitness, then perhaps it does not even need the weight, & can move quickly
*in response to Andrew Joron's Fathom
** & Calvino's Six Memos for the New Millenium
being surrounded by a much different essay.
These newborn poems will be filled with a wily imagination, primarily, though they will carry the bagged head of a sadness & lament (of mortality, & for political mistreatment). They will keep moving, & they may even be joyous & pleasurable & strangely accessible, carry non-poetry readers through them even as they make us feel & think
The essay will not be properly philosophical, but will be properly political, as it will expose in clear and critical language something specific that is happening & our place within it & a potential exit
That is, it will be fundamentally critical AND imaginative
But within a very basic language. It will be, perhaps, another absorbing narrative. But it will have a weight & insistence & explicitness that the poetry, perhaps, manages to carry only indirectly.
If it has the insistence & explicitness, then perhaps it does not even need the weight, & can move quickly
*in response to Andrew Joron's Fathom
** & Calvino's Six Memos for the New Millenium
Friday, September 4, 2009
Time to step up & lead, Barack
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/barton-kunstler-phd/time-for-obama-to-fight-a_b_275332.html
President Obama is the boxer who came out with one big swing (the crowd roars-- Guantanomo closing!), settled into his more conservative game plan based on scouting reports, and then, after a couple bloody rounds, finds himself in worse shape than he thought---- but who still has the capacity to fight, and to get the crowd on his side---if he would just show a little life
CUBE SONG
for Eric
You put a cube in the desert.
It starts to melt.
It fills with water.
It makes the desert colder.
Leaves don’t really exist
The animals are drifting
A few still come to drink at the windows
*
I know I said that
I know I don’t remember
President Obama is the boxer who came out with one big swing (the crowd roars-- Guantanomo closing!), settled into his more conservative game plan based on scouting reports, and then, after a couple bloody rounds, finds himself in worse shape than he thought---- but who still has the capacity to fight, and to get the crowd on his side---if he would just show a little life
CUBE SONG
for Eric
You put a cube in the desert.
It starts to melt.
It fills with water.
It makes the desert colder.
Leaves don’t really exist
The animals are drifting
A few still come to drink at the windows
*
I know I said that
I know I don’t remember
Monday, August 31, 2009
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
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