I'm traveling to the fine state of Wisconsin to give a reading tonight, which had me thinking about all the readings [David Trinidad, Mark Tardi, Brenda Cardenas, Antler, Raymond Bianchi, Kerri Sonnenberg, Paul Hoover, Ron Padgett, Eliot Weinberger, Brenda Iijima, Maxine Chernoff, Garin Cycholl, Daniel Borzutzky, Krista Franklin, Mary Margaret Sloan, Susie Timmons, Clayton Eshleman, Wanda Coleman, Gerald Stern, Philip Jenks, Simone Muench, Ira Cohen, Sheila E. Murphy, Gabriel Gudding, Joshua Beckman, Diane Wakoski, Tim Yu, Simon Pettet, Michael McClure, John Tipton, Roberto Harrison, Chris Glomski, Adam Fieled, Aaron Belz, Catherine Daly, Steve Halle, Robert Creeley, Vincent Katz, Duriel Harris, Daniel Nester, Douglas Rothschild, Kenneth Koch, Nathalie Stephens, Sterling Plumpp, Peter O’Leary, etc.] I've attended over the years. I've awarded these poets superlatives, but you can cast your own vote.

Most fashionable…Antler
Longest asides…Diane Wakoski, Robert Creeley
Most cryptic…Philip Jenks
Funniest…Ron Padgett, Aaron Belz
Sexiest…Gerald Stern (yes, kidding)
Most mathematical…Mark Tardi
Beastiest…Michael McClure
Grouchiest…Kenneth Koch
Most Likely to Succeed…Tim Yu
Psychedelic Award…Ira Cohen

Sal Paradise

For a mere $1,100 a month you can rent Jack Kerouac's birthplace and write your great American novel. At Superfight last night I had an interesting conversation with someone who noted that the gulf between art and anecdote is wide. At what point is a narrative taking on a life of its own? Kerouac, although faulted as being a "typewriter" by Truman Capote, excelled at turning his experiences into art. If objectivity is unattainable, wouldn't any attempt at writing prose be art? Not really, unless the craft involved pulls the reader in and immerses the reader in the experience. What causes immersion? Effective plot, believable dialogue, flashbacks, characterization, interesting description. The craft of writing brings a barebones story upward to another level. How effective the author was at his or her craft is another question. When critics disagree something new and important exists. Lowell, MA produced one of America's best storytellers.

Tonight I'll be at the Superfight. With all the events going on around Chicago, it's hard to pick sometimes. There's of course The Danny's reading series, the Discrete series, and the Red Rover series.

Last night it was good to go down to The Cafe to see my good friend, the inimitable Charlie Newman.



So my point is quit looking at Suicide Girls and do something constructive. Head down to Moxie and talk to Chris Gibson, publishing extraordinaire or take your pick. I was talking to Jessa the other night about how she doesn't have to work anymore. However, updating Book Slut probably requires a little bit of work.

Yes, this is an advertisement for Chicago. This city has made a Conscious Choice to clean up its act. Charles your magazine is looking good.

Oh, and there's the view at the Signature Room which is not bad.

Blogtopia

There are many poets out there still blogging, even though the phenomenon itself probably reached its high-water mark a few years ago. Belated congratulations to Amy King for winning the prize of poet laureate of the blogosphere. I check in on a regular basis, Amy. Maybe Ron Silliman will throw some more statistics out regarding the demographic. It seems most poet bloggers (and most poets) are professors, who use their blog to announce readings, new publications, and post photos.

Poets have to be self-promoting. Think of the two most famous examples. To whomever tunes in to read Me Tronome, thank you.

Have a look at Chicago Bloggers.

Here are some highly professional photos from the Borzutzky, Belz, McSweeney, Jameson, Gudding reading last Sunday. The power went out on the entire block halfway through the night, but it was impossible to not smile while these poets were reading.










The yeowling street musician who plays the keyboard at high volume on Milwaukee in front of Myopic even stayed home that night.

To-Do List

windows to the else
convertible conversations
four corners of maps
glimpsed shadows
naps
forgotten explanations
lawn mowers
lore of elders
lightning autumns
tabloid galaxies
card games involving dogs
magic lanterns
love songs
documentaries
muscle cars
barbeques
punctuation

Tonight at Myopic Books/Comedic Poetry

If you are in the Chicago area be sure to come down to Myopic books tonight at 6 pm. The bookstore in located at 1564 N. Milwaukee in Wicker Park.

We'll be featuring comedic poetry with a 2-hour reading by these poets:

Daniel Borzutzky, Joyelle McSweeney, Gabriel Gudding, A.D. Jameson, and Aaron Belz.

I'll keep bashing my head against the wall called "poetry." I mean I can't stop writing it.

Charles Simic has been one of my favorite writers. This quote works for me. "Poetry is no longer a matter of choice with me...as far back as I can remember there was a kind of dumbness in me, a need that sought expression. How it eventually materialized in the act of writing a poem, belongs to a biography which I have only been able to recount in a few successful poems."

Here's one ...


WAR

The trembling finger of a woman
Goes down the long list of casualties.

The list is long.

All our names are included.





James Tate's work has always been something I turn to ...


LATE HARVEST

I look up and see
a white buffalo
emerging from the
enormous red gates
of a cattle truck
lumbering into
the mouth of the sun.
The prairie chickens
do not seem to fear
me; neither do the
girls in cellophane
fields, near me, hear me
changing the flat tire
on my black tractor.
I consider screaming
to them; then, night comes.

Rhinoceros Confetti

As if there was a man who wore the
mask of a man and that man
noticed behind the mask that there
were shadows covering the earth
like semesters. The man realized he
had a lot to learn. So he studied the
tongues of the shadows as they
spoke a language he'd never heard.
At night they sang the most
intricately embroidered songs.

Perhaps there was a refrigerator in the
sky that he rode to forget himself,
this man who exhaled librarians.
Day and night he read the
silence, cutting his throat with
syllogisms. Butterflies burst forth from his
calamari as he ate it. He noted these
details lazily and continued with his
reverent stroking of the sun.

Geez

Egyptologists enact effluent entrances
grease easing the deceased eventually
mummies entombed even when leaping
knead evil December deals, festering clever
lackluster cities, expanding exhausting possibilities
each evening Eros escapes elegantly
ephedrine escapades erode extracted elegies
escrow grantees evidently evict elephants
excellent exceptions being inevitable
elliptical epigrams either erode ecstatic earnings
else economize eager edgy egged effects
ether escaping electromagnetic elements
entering embarrassing emerald embedded
emporiums emitting empty encyclopedias
engaging sneezing engineers en route
elsewhere entrusting entire epochs
en masse equally ere equivalent equations
erupt erotically exploiting exotic exile
excavating eventually, expect extinction

It's good to hear that the City Visible is now available from Cracked Slab Books. I'm glad to be included. Peter Gizzi writes "When Carl Sandburg asked in his Chicago Poems, close to a hundred years ago, for "a voice to speak to me in the day end, / A hand to touch me in the dark room / Breaking the long loneliness," little did he know his city would be so fully and livingly answered and so honored. Chicago is again transformed by poetry. Here in these myriad acts of imagination, the poets of The City Visible give to it again, in Shakespeare's terms, a local habitation and a name."

Tim Yu was kind enough to send a few photos from the last couple of readings at Myopic. Don't miss the reading this Sunday, if you're in the Cheecago area--Aaron Belz, Gabriel Gudding, Joyelle McSweeney, Daniel Borzutzky, & AD Jameson. It will be good time.

For Guillaume Apollinaire

Fins of an ancient world, a burger
beneath the Eiffel tower a troupe of matadors
assess the lives of antique grocers
Romain lettuce peering out from automobiles
religion is resting still nude upon the grass
Europe of the soul, Christianity smells
of modern equations, Pope with your robes
reticent observer walking these streets
confessor of eggs and wallpaper
the prospect of these catalogs in the rain
25 cents for the adventures of policemen
divers beneath the shadows, your portrait
lends joy an obsolete moon, clarion of sun
director of beautiful dinosaurs, flesh trumpets
resound beneath the mural on the wall
JAMES INDUSTRY TONIGHT BULLFIGHT LONELINESS
streets of Paris resound in your mighty charms.

Violins of June, an encore of strange beautiful infants
white habits dancing in the glass
ancient friends among the pews, stained glass
pompadour of love and you there with your hours
blue casements of forgotten collage
amethyst profundity pronounces torch-lit red vents
gas creeping silently along the skin
eternity is honored among six branches
seven if you count resuscitation
Christ was an aviator to birds
landing on a record playing venerable hymns.

Oceans of Africa, fountains of mercurial blood,
forgive us of our sins this immaculate night of panthers
dripping instants, a siren awakes and calls your name
Paris dances, a foul maintenance man
roulette wheels spinning monasteries and short piers
dropping off into nothing but blackness.

Sad music of presidents regard the women beautiful
you are an orange or else the moon
a house, a table, the lips of a rose
you resemble a song, familiar as yourself
brilliant son of lost waters.

Here's most everything I've published on this blog recently under one title--The Dim Schizophrenia of Owls. For a limited time only, you get an all-access pass to my inner monologue, gratis.

You may have to wait a few seconds after clicking on the link, then double click "Download File" at the top left-hand corner of the page.

I hope you can make it up to Milwaukee for my reading at Woodland Pattern on May 18 at 7 pm. Here's an interesting article on the bookstore I found online.

_________________________________

Karl Gartung and Anne Kingsbury met when she was a teacher and he was her student. They moved to Milwaukee and in 1980 opened the Woodland Pattern Book Center. "We've always wanted not necessarily to be the biggest, just the best," she said. "I think what makes us a little different from other literary centers is that we've presented different art forms where it intersects with text or literature."

"I guess literature and the world where it crosses into other things—that's what we want to celebrate. We want to get past the idea that people are creative only in one thing. . . The poet Derek Walcott, for instance, is also a very accomplished painter."

So, the center, which stocks around 27,000 books for sale, has also curated art shows, hosted jazz musicians, held poetry readings, taught neighborhood children how to tell stories, given lessons in making books, invited major writers to read, invited obscure writers to read, and even reserved a section of its shelves for Wisconsin writers who have self-published their work.

While many smaller bookstores across the country have fallen victim to competition from mega chains such as Barnes & Noble, Woodland Pattern has survived—or "managed" as Kingsbury says—for three reasons.

First, it has never strayed from its niche; it remains a powerhouse of poetry and small presses. Second, as a long-time non-profit center that actively takes its programs to the community, it has been fortunate enough to find some support from arts boards and private foundations each year. And third, because Kingsbury and her husband, Karl Gartung, both passionate book and art lovers, doggedly refuse to let the tiny store they turned into a non-profit book center founder.

"We started with less than a thousand books," Kingsbury said. "One thing that really helped us was that Truck Distribution, which distributed small press literature, let us take books on consignment. For quite a few years we were able to build our inventory with that. It allowed us to build with books we hadn't heard about.

In 1980, Paul Metcalf gave the store's first poetry reading, Tom Palazzolo was the first visiting filmmaker, Laurie Anderson was the first performance artist, and Milwaukeean Jill Sebastian was the first exhibiting visual artist.

Since then, the center has brought in a host of artists and writers, among them such exiles as Chinese poet Bei Dao, and in 1995 it organized its first poetry marathon with 90 Milwaukee writers participating.

Its work has been noticed; the center is now considered one of the foremost stores for poetry, especially new poetry, in the nation.

"The reputation of Woodland Pattern is itself national in scope, and I know of no other center—anywhere in the U.S.—that has carried on a more intricate and demanding program in the literary arts," wrote writer Jerome Rothenberg in 1989.

Deflated Parade

I.


How many pesos make a sparrow?

Attention shoppers
my mind’s oven bakes excuses.

I love these ingredients
gathered before me:
there’s no junta quite like it.

Doo wap groups mock me:
enough charm to persuade perspective
to give up and collapse.

The earth is slowing down.

Each moment is a coin,
a coyote in the belly.




II.

Sprouting spring jackets of
cashmere

replete with suede lapels
look so perfect on the cattle

plowing the boulevard.

There is also the oft-told tale of "Ern Malley," a poet who was invented by James McAuley and Harold Stewart who spent an afternoon in 1943 synthesizing quotations and extracts from various sources in order to perpetrate a hoax on Max Harris, the editor of a literary magazine they scoffed at. When Harris found out he'd been the butt of their creative joke, he was understandably upset but also bemused. He realized that what they'd done was remarkable. A few passages in the "Ern Malley" poem (titled "The Darkening Ecliptic") are unintentionally brilliant. This is one of the more famous, from their poem "Durer: Innsbruck, 1495"

I had often, cowled in the slumbrous heavy air,
Closed my inanimate lids to find it real,
As I knew it would be, the colourful spires
And painted roofs, the high snows glimpsed at the back,
All reversed in the quiet reflecting waters—
Not knowing then that Durer perceived it too.
Now I find that once more I have shrunk
To an interloper, robber of dead men’s dream,
I had read in books that art is not easy
But no one warned that the mind repeats
In its ignorance the vision of others. I am still
The black swan of trespass on alien waters.


However great poems are written it seems unavoidable that there must be some element, conceptual or otherwise, that provides a glimpse of something unique. Even if it was entirely accidental that the experiments of McAuley and Stewart that afternoon proved successful beyond their dreams, the fact remains that their efforts were not only noticed, but that their creation (not only the poem but the fictional poet) will be remembered forever. In a very post-modern way "Ern Malley" launched the literary world headlong into the future.

Disassembled Shadow

Sans attitude these delicious American cities, like
herds of clinics scampering over the plains,
shove revolutionary nostalgia up in my grill.
The furniture inside your head, Scandinavian cool,
won’t keep the jagged peanut of the abyss, however,
from calling you collect at some wee hour.

You may need some saucin' up. Jazz does it. The last show I saw, at the Green Mill, was David Liebman I believe. I love the Green Mill, but they will shush you repeatedly. What's so wrong with a little conversation?

Anyway, I've started another blog, called Environs, where I'll jot down my thoughts on jazz.

I'll never win the Robert Fitzgerald Prosody Award because I'm not writing metered poetry. I have written a few sestinas, sonnets, and a villanelle or two and don't find that those particular forms are all that annoying. What is it about the word experiments of the Oulipo that is so interesting, while the adherence to strict form of the neo-Formalists is so boring? It must be the fact that innovators in art lead us forward. Beginning any new piece of writing is an ascent into the unknown, but those who rely on form and meter to the degree of absurdity seem to misunderstand what art is. Some of the best poems have an organic nature that is undefinable. Many poets today are indebted to Jules Laforgue, who invented free verse, or vers libre. A main influence on Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot, Laforgue, along with Arthur Rimbaud, blazed a new trail with his writing and took poetry in a new direction entirely. Paul Verlaine said, "Take eloquence and wring its neck." That sounds a little extreme, but the goal is not always harmony. Writing that veers too far from the rhythms of the coversational comes off as sounding too stilted--forced. Poetry is the deep conversation.

ORBITING PLANET YOU

If I could fondle your anesthetic, and

tell the forest leaves to quit their labors

then among autumn clocks I would quince.

Question: Are there enough thieves in

your ocean to echo twelve years?

And my shimmering voices wonder

about the quality of your amber.

But here in my studio of dreams

your heart is a candelabra of dice.