look, touch,
blue eye
green eye
brown hair
kiss, contain,
swing around
to the limits of arms
and in again
salt, warmth,
lip turns
eye curves
hip turns
sound, taste,
pushing parts
in all directions
and in again
bodies, shapes,
feeling
sound
time
be everywhere
stop forever
and in again
silence, flesh.
one mind asleep,
one body awake.
1 comment:
hey,
i thought i'd respond to your comment from Abramson's post here, as to avoid continuing that nonsense thread. i just wrote that rebuke comment cause that guy Bill Knott is such a dick. most of em are just old wonks that like to bichor on blogs. dont sweat it tho.
i'm a young poet myself, some years older than you though- and a teacher. dont worry about all that school of quietude vs. post-avant stuff, dude. its not totaly useless, but its not important to you right now.
if you havent noticed, the poetry blogosphere is a sloppy mess of people who are already prone to write every little word in their heads, nevermind encouraged by the interaction between the dif blogs. theres great stuff out there on various blogs, but also a lot of garbage, and a lot of squabling, petty little back-and-forths. it aint worth it to keep up with all the current dramas.
theres a lot of information on blogs like these, but dont get overwhelmed. just try to take a look around and follow your interests where they take you. Silliman's blog is a great way to get ur feet wet, to lead you to other blogs, poets, and posts you'll enjoy. and from time to time he writes insightful posts. His blog is top of the food chain in readers in the poetry blog world, but small potatoes to popular non-poetry blogs. dont buy all the hype about him. try to learn about him through his writing, and consider his blog secondarily- just a nice tool where someone knowledgable posts interesting things on. he's one of the best poets working, has accomplished a lot, and he and the other Language Poets have been a huge influence on modern poetry over the last 40 years or so.
post-avant really just means poets working now that are inspired by the aesthetics of Language Poetry (LangPo) but have combined it with any number of other strategies: lyric, narrative, confessional, etc. its a vague title that some use, some ignore. not realy a congealed school.
school of quietude is a condescending little term silliman popularized for the mainstream poetry world- basicaly more formalist, traditional poets- most the kind you'll find in bookstores (aside from dead ones and beat poets). they put more emphasis on traditional types of craft and not on concept. (think Whitman, Frost)
there are many on blogs like this who argue SoQ are simply bad staid poets who refuse to progress. they are also mad that 'SoQ' gets all the popularity and large publications because their work is more accessable. 'SoQ' poets sometimes look down on post-avant/conceptual/flarf poetry as silly, and ultimately regard them as small press, and irrelevent to the broader culture- which, as the avant garde, they are.
there are wonderful, talented poets in both groups- and many who defy classification, because the world is not black and white. but thats the gyst of the poetry blogosphere gripes. dont take it all too seriously.
in poking around your blog i can see you've got a passion and talent, and are still searching for voice and style. best advice i can give you is stay openminded. you're young, dont assume the type of work you're doing now will be what you'll be doing in 1 year or 5 years. read every type of poetry u can find, and you'll slowly start to find where you're interets are and who you like, and who you hate, and who you're ambivalent towards. dont be put off by poetry you dont understand. sometimes you just have to trudge through and read something and not understand it all, and then after reading other things, and time passing and you growing in your understanding, come back to a book u had trouble with and you might find it makes more sense. dont avoid the tough ones until you're "ready", is my point- just go for all of it, and see what sticks. Also, if you dont like it, dont read it- regardless of whether someone tells you its an important book- maybe you'll come back to it one day. maybe not.
you mentioned poet reccomendations,
if you havent heard of them try: The Beats, Ezra Pound, Charles Olson, TS Elliot, Louis Zukofsky, The Language Poets, Ted Berrigan, Alice Notely, Joseph Ceravalo, Lisa Jarnot, New York School Poets, Second New York School Poets, Tomaz Saluman, The Flarf Collective, Kenneth Goldsmith, Robert Fitterman, Christian Bok, Cathy Park Hong, Juliana Spahr, John Olson, Peter Gizzi, Geoffrey Hill, Zachary Schomburg, Gertrude Stein, Jack Spicer, John Ashberry, Christopher Logue
Thats a wide range of diferent styles and movements from mostly the latter half of the 19th century.
I remember when I first came to the poetry blog world some years ago- it can be overwhelming, and i wished i had a bit of direction for poets to check out to get me started. theres a lot out there, take your time and you'll find your place in it all.
hope any of this was helpful,
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