Rauan Klassnik
http://rauanklassnik.blogspot.com
author of three collections: Sky Rat (Spork, 2014), The Moon's Jaw (Black Ocean, 2013) and Holy Land (Black Ocean, 2008) ... ----- @klassnik ------
5 Points: Whittling a New Face in the Dark (by DJ Dolack)
1) As you can see the cover of DJ Dolack’s just-released, debut collection of poetry, Whittling a New Face in the Dark (Black Ocean), has no text on the front cover (or the back, for that matter) and this is something DJ fought hard for. And that’s one of the great things about publishing a book through Black Ocean: the back and forth between publisher and author involves friendly fighting.
Yes, I speak from experience when I say that Black Ocean dialogues with authors on things both big and small. And this leads to much improved books.
2) DJ’s wonderful book comes at you, easily, like a parade (or procession) of Edward Hopper paintings rusting in strange twilight. Or the scenes from a moody Western, a northern, winter Western, dark-pale trees, bleak ice—hard-bitten characters staring out from and through the insistent and persistent landscapes.
3) this is page 19
Grandfather is alone in the yellow house
with the flea market pistol. READ MORE >
1 Comment
October 25th, 2013 / 10:33 pm
October 25th, 2013 / 10:33 pm
Rauan Klassnik—
Over at a mock Poetry Foundation Jim Behrle’s chimed in about the Kill List: his being upset about it, among other things, as well as his attempts to contact the publisher(s) to see if they’d “comment on any efforts they made to fact check the poem?”
I mean, really? Really? And I’m with Mark Johnson 1000 literal (ha ha) % when he says that Behrle’s piece is “so embarrassing.”
And how embarrassing, also, the way in which so many others have reacted to this Kill List. And how embarrassing, also, that CAConrad’s heaped abuse on Mark for speaking up in the poem’s defense, comparing (after other insults) Mark’s “stupidity” to the “plaque on very filthy teeth.”
And how embarrassing (but not surprising) that Conrad’s little drones let him get away with shit like this.
This Kill List’s turned out to be a great litmus test, indeed. Blah, blah.
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Erin Lyndal Martin’s Response to the Anonymous Letter Addressed to Sandra Simonds in Response to Her Open Letter to The Poetry Foundation
Dear Buzz Poet,
This is an open letter in response to your letter addressing Sandra Simonds’ open letter to the Poetry Foundation.
One basic fact missing from your letter is that you seem to forget that poetry is work: “The difference between poets and the general public is that some of us, like you, Sandra, are fortunate enough to have an audience and a platform to reach them. In today’s rocky economic climate, one governed by debt and political deficit, I do not think it is in the best interest of your audience or the poetry community to model such irresponsible behavior in asking for a financial handout from the Poetry Foundation to support the poets you hold in such romanticized esteem.” Simonds has an audience and platform, mostly from within the literary community, because she has worked hard to build those connections through her work and social networking. Much of the work associated with poetry is thankless and unpaid; Simonds’ audience includes many of her peers who face her same financial reality. They may put in hours editing literary magazines that don’t make a profit, or they may write countless unpaid book reviews in an attempt to garner support and audiences for other poets. They publicize and promote poetry. Is it, indeed, a “handout” when one is asking to receive support from a foundation for forwarding the same work as that foundation? The Poetry Foundation’s website says that they are “committed to a vigorous presence for poetry in our culture.” Is Simonds, who writes, teaches, and reviews contemporary poetry not furthering the same agenda?
One question that lingers for many poets who founder without the support of the Poetry Foundation or similar arts organizations is what those organizations do with their money if not support poets. In President John Barr’s 2011 Year-in-Review letter posted on the foundation’s website (no similar letter for 2012 seems to be available), Barr is directly evasive: “Not all of the ‘hard metal’ that nurtures and contains the poetic energy at the Foundation is visible to the naked eye. The strategic plan, the annual forty-page operating budget, managing the endowment.” So why not make it visible to the naked eye? Why not publish the budget or the strategic plan? And why is the latest Audited Financial Statement READ MORE >
5 Points: POOR ME I HATE ME PUNISH ME COME TO MY FUNERAL—- (by Grant Maierhofer and Kil)
“He saw her standing near the creek, near the road, near the stoplight. A stoplight looks bright red when your eyes haven’t seen sun for months. A stoplight looks like your best friend when the wind hovers low and the night springs up like some old widow slashing wounds throughout your flesh. You wait for some quickness, some instance of recognition, and nothing comes. Nothing.”
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1) POOR ME I HATE ME PUNISH ME COME TO MY FUNERAL (PMIHMPMCTMF) is a collaboration of poems and images brilliantly paired by Grant Maierhofer and the artist Kil. Hard copies are available through EDEN CHAPBOOKS. Or you can check it all out on-line here.
2) These poems were (and are) a revelation for me. The only comparison that comes to mind is that I experienced something similar when, many years ago, I first encountered the prose poems of Max Jacob and Jean Follain in a 3-poet book titled “Dreaming The Miracle.” Maierhofer’s poems here in PMIHMPMCTMF glow wisely in the way Follian’s do. They also have, like Follain’s best efforts, a kind of sacred Sepia feel. They are, in short, quite wonderful.
3)) I’m all for religious bashing and I’m often guilty of being crude (badly crude) about it. Maierhofer though is extremely effective, wise, restrained and kind of off-handed about it. But, it’s sledgehammer wise and sledgehammer off-handed: “A perfect world if not for churches. If not for those hulking black tombs READ MORE >
2 Comments
October 21st, 2013 / 6:11 pm
October 21st, 2013 / 6:11 pm
Alexandra Naughton Has Kidnapped POETRY (Played By Herself) & Sent A Ransom Note To The Poetry Foundation
POETRY is Mine!
…………Crispin Best………….
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I am very pleased that Crispin Best is my 4th U.K. Spotlight. I’ve enjoyed just about everything I’ve seen or read of his. I am, simply put, a real fan. His tweets are a Ferrari. His website‘s a garage full of Lamborghini (samples of his excellent writing). And his Tumblr is one snazzy racing car after another. (what’s with all the sports car references?? — well, it’s between me and Crispin, eh!).
Crispin’s answers to my questions (my questions steeped in cutesy, showoff puffery and fluff) surprised me a bit like tender marble footsteps fit to baptize or decapitate a king and which knock (knock-knock) like a bronze Beowulf boat against his online personas which are so heroically abrasive (“hi, assholes“- etc), lovable, zany, magnetic, full of swagger and energy.
but, blah, blah, anyways,
.. here’s our interview, which you’d better enjoy! (assholes!)
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Rauan: which would you rather be called: a “digital Ashbery” or a “Tumblr Catullus” (nothing i’m guessing with “Larkin” in it)? and what truth would there be in either ? (and plz elaborate like we’re at a party in Brooklyn, leaning against a fridge. or between two trees on a summery day in Oxford. Or in a pit. Anything.).
Crispin: i do know an old story about don barthelme telling his writers-blocked student to drink a bottle of red wine and spend all night writing imitations of ashbery, phoning at 4am to check up on them, and how that helped the student. i feel a strong, sad warmth towards don barthelme at all times, but particularly when i think about that story. i like the sound of a tumblr catullus. that seems appealing. mostly i’m happy to be alive. it’s hard and it’s hell but it’s good.
[ the Senor Frogs T-Shirt, fyi, was a shrewd $2 purchase in Tokyo ]
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RK: beyond your excellent crude and funny persona(s) you seem able to find and show in your heart many beautiful READ MORE >
Rauan Klassnik—
organizers of the petition asking the Poetry Foundation to do more to help poets in need plan on visiting the Poetry Foundation in person soon to show the Foundation and its board how much community support they’ve got behind them.
and so they’re asking now for anyone sympathetic to the petition to please help spread the word by sharing on Facebook, tweeting, emailing, etc.
they have also created a Facebook Page which in less than 12 hours has received over 500 Likes !
Rauan Klassnik—
in a recent Open Letter to the Poetry Foundation the poet Sandra Simonds states:
Last year the Poetry Foundation’s income was over seven million dollars and the foundation’s total assets are well above 150 million dollars. I was disappointed to learn that the Poetry Foundation gives only around $7,500 annually to poets in need.
A petition to The Poetry Foundation that you can sign if you want has been set up at Change.org
(It currently has 177 signatures)
Writing That Makes You Feel Like You’re Being Groomed
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When John Ebersole reads work he terms “Grocery Store Poetry” (GSP – which includes also, for John, Linda Pastan, Billy Collins and, most immediately, present-day Thomas Lux) he says “I also get the sick feeling like I’m being groomed.” This quote comes from a little Q and A I recently did with John because when I read his review of the new Thomas Lux book (you can read it here on HTMLGIANT) I was struck by (hello, Paul Cunningham) how upset, how disturbed John seemed to be. And this reminded me of how I feel when I read certain people. Disturbed. And sometimes, for sure also, like I’m being groomed. (shiver, shiver).
This is particularly the case when I read Whitman and experience not just the great POETRY but also the feeling of a clammy arm slipping around me over and over in a cheap movie theater, of a pale tongue in my ear, of a breathy voice trying to massage my entire being into submission. Nice, easy and compliant. And that’s creepy, yeah. And creepy, also, to think (and know) that while I’m reading Whitman and experiencing the tremendous virtuosity of imagination and spirit that a part of him’s masturbating in the row behind me.
But, you know what, it’s ok, because it’s Whitman and I accept the fact that he’s grooming me. That he wants and needs me to surrender to his voice, his work, his divine right (yeah, he thought he was a new Jesus for America). But, for Christ’s Sake, we’re talking now about writing like late-career Thomas Lux!
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Rauan: I believe you’re suggesting that “Grocery Store Poetry” written by Lux, Pastan, Collins, etc, isn’t attractive and vital because even though the world’s always been in turmoil “the way we apprehend that turmoil has changed and changed dramatically.” And you’re suggesting then I think that we need more a riskier, stronger sort of poetry (a poetry of derangement?) because “globalization and the relentless whiplashes of information rearrange us.” Your thoughts on this please?
“Wttgenstein once wrote” — don’t worry, we’re just fucking kidding
John: Wittgenstein once wrote – I’m fucking kidding. I’m less READ MORE >
Behind the Scenes & Mean & Random / Comments Off on Writing That Makes You Feel Like You’re Being Groomed
October 12th, 2013 / 1:12 pm
October 12th, 2013 / 1:12 pm
……No More Sentence(s)……
Sentence — (2003-2013)
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The forthcoming, and 10th, issue of “Sentence: A Journal of Prose Poetics” will be the last. Yes, of course, just like people are born and die, journals come and go:
And yet— And yet—
Sentence is where I discovered poems and poets that changed the way I wrote: poems and poets (dead and alive, American and otherwise) that changed the way I thought about Poetry and its possibilities. Furthermore, Brian Clements, one of the founders and long-time editor of Sentence, was my first and best mentor when I began writing again (and for real) in Dallas in the late 1990’s.
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So, to follow is a little Q & A that I just did with Brian which, among other things, looks back a bit over Sentence’s excellent 10 year run :
(note: back issues, except 1 and 2, are still available)
And yet— And yet—
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Rauan: The Prose Poem seems to be in a much better place than it was when you started Sentence in 2003? I mean that now it seems Prose Poems are welcome and present just about anywhere. Is this part of the reason you’ve decided to stop?
Brian: I don’t know if the prose poem is in a better place; it’s in a different place READ MORE >