Some Similarities Between Osama bin Laden and Arthur Rimbaud
There is a boy who has captured a considerable amount of my heed lately, and that boy is called Osama bin Laden (or, if you’re in the CIA, UBL). Obviously, I, along with the rest of the world, was aware of this boy for quite a while. But it wasn’t until one of the most disgusting days in recent history (that is, the day when the Supreme Court repealed formidable features of DOMA) that I began to discern the details of his origins; for, on that disgusting day, girl-boy Judith Butler told me that Osama, by residing in the Middle East, was surrounded by ungreivable lives — lives that could be erased and encroached upon without any kind of fuss because they already “inhabit a lost and destroyed zone.”
The devil-may-care attitude affixed to Osama’s homeland and peoples made him murderously upset. After some further investigation, I found that Osama’s consternation correlated to that of Arthur Rimbaud’s. In the late 19th century, Arthur declared war on the Western world with his poem “What Do We Care, My Heart.” He wanted America to “vanish!” He screamed: “Power, Justice, History, fall!” A century later, Osama, too, declared war against the advance, civilized nations, telling them (though, really, just America): “You are not unaware of the injustice, repression, and aggression that have befallen Muslims through the alliance of Jews, Christians, and their agents, so much so that Muslims blood has become the cheapest blood and their money and wealth are plundered by enemies.”
Uh-huh, both of these boys have bellicose bones to pick with, what Judith Butler describes as, secular modern states. The traits these countries confer upon their subjects — ones that make their lives grievable — violently appall Arthur and Osama, as Arthur and Osama exhibit an affinity for behaviors that don’t comply with those of normative Western humans. What follows are a few of the ways in which both Arthur and Osama contrast with humans from democratic, Capitalistic societies.
READ MORE >
Skinned: An Interview With Antjie Krog
Skinned
*****
One of South Africa’s foremost contemporary poets, Antjie Krog has been described as the “Pablo Neruda of Afrikaans.” I stumbled on Antjie Krog’s work several years ago and was rewarded with the strange, passionate, tough and well-organized verses of Body Bereft (which contains, among other work, her strange and fiery Menopausal Sonnets). So, I was excited when, earlier this year, a Selected poems of Antjie Krog, Skinned, released from Seven Stories Press.
*****
And here, then, is the transcript of an email interview I did with South African poet Antjie Krog that touches on those Menopausal Sonnets, South African Politics, Afrikaans, Indigenous Literature Translations, etc, etc:
Antjie Krog
*****
Rauan: Many of the readers of this blog will be drawn to “Menopausal Sonnets” and other examples of frank, fiery and often crude writings about the changing (and failing) female body. In your Author’s Note you mention that “Skinned” contains “traces” of certain foreign writers, including Sharon Olds and Carolyn Forché. And it seems to me, besides, that you are naturally a fiery, direct and spicy personality. (How right and/or wrong am I?)
And can you elaborate on what, inside and outside, brought you to write such direct and sometimes graphic poems containing bits like
…you grab this death like a runt and plough its nose
right through your fleeced and drybaked cunt.
and
……the waist thickens and
the vagina wall thins and the colon crashes
through its own arse. how dare her toe
nails grow so riotous then…
Antjie: Poetry has taught me how to live. Everything of value I have found there. For me it therefore ought to be able to encompass one’s whole life. I am very aware what male poets have decided the Main Themes of Literature should be: Love, Death, God, Nature and War. This is fine, but it should also say menstruation, menopause and grandmother, READ MORE >
Two Works of Art by Carina Finn
Carina Finn is a girl, a poetess, a singer in a re-re folk trio, and many other things (all of which are sensationally too secretive to be showcased here).
Actually, one more thing that I must say is: Carina is an artist, kind of in the way that Georgia O’Keeffe was an artist and in the way that Lee Krasner was an artist, but not in the way that Jean-Michel Basquiat was an artist (though their aesthetics are somewhat similar, Jean-Michel is a boy, whereas Carina is a girl, obviously).
So… um… here are two examples of the artwork of Carina Finn:
Title: Portrait of My Lover, Crying
Materials Used (according to Carina): It’s half a cabinet and blue oilstick. the other side is acrylic, oilstick, my blood, and an empty aluminum paint tube.
Title: I Feel Constant Torment
Materials Used (according to Carina): The top of a table I found outside of a restaurant, paint, pastels, and a duct tape bow my cousin made me.
Seattle Author Spotlight (6) — Shin Yu Pai
Seattle Author Spotlight
This is the 6th Seattle Author Spotlight (previous ones were Richard Chiem, Maged Zaher, Deborah Woodard and Matthew Simmons) and I plan on running quite a few more because AWP’s coming and Seattle has plenty of talented and interesting writers.
Shin Yu Pai:
Shin Yu Pai is an ambitious, bright and engaging poet, photographer and C.O.O. of the National Asian Pacific Center on Aging: “the nation’s leading advocacy and service organization committed to the dignity, well-being, and quality of life of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPIs) as they age.” Shin Yu’s most recent book, Aux Arcs, has just released from La Alameda Press and is rooted, for the most part, in her experience, and situation, of being in a small town near Little Rock, Arkansas.
I thoroughly enjoying chatting with Shin Yu at Elliott Bay books (this is where I’ve met and spoken, thus far, to all featured Seattle Authors). We spoke some about the form and content of Aux Arcs and this branched us off into other chatting about assimilation, the way different people treat each other, etc. There were other things I’d planned on talking about but the time kind of flew by. And that’s always a good sign. Shin Yu has a kind of spark, presence and good sharp energy that just makes you want to be around her.
Aux Arcs — by Shin Yu Pai (Cover Art by Seattle Artist Whiting Tennis)
Brief Bio:
Shin Yu Pai is the author of several poetry collections including Adamantine (White Pine, 2010), Sightings (1913 Press, 2007) and Equivalence (La Alameda, 2003). She has been a writer-in-residence for the Seattle Art Museum and has received grants for her work from 4Culture and the City of Seattle. For more information, visit her website
Brief Interview:
Rauan: you’ve lived as an adult (and a writer) in Seattle, Texas and Arkansas (among other places)– can you tell us a bit about the differences in living in these places and how these cities impacted yr thinking (and therefore yr writing)? READ MORE >
Author Spotlight & Random / Comments Off on Seattle Author Spotlight (6) — Shin Yu Pai
August 2nd, 2013 / 12:30 pm
August 2nd, 2013 / 12:30 pm
Interview with Lindsay Hunter
Lindsay Hunter, author of the brilliant and beautiful collection Don’t Kiss Me (buy it here, or, you know, wherever) was kind enough to talk with me about the book and her writing generally. We did it over Google’s hangout software, which apparently mirrors your own image as you’re chatting, which led me to believe that the book would be flipped horizontally when I showed it to you, the viewer. So that’s what that’s about. I’m also super awkward in real time, so that’s what that’s about. I hope Lindsay enjoyed the conversation, and I hope you will find and read her awesome book.
Normally I suggest just plugging in the headphones for these, as they are not designed to be visual feasts, but Lindsay does some incredible camera work, and we get to meet both her dog and dog walker. So that’s something worth seeing.
Seattle Author Spotlight (5) — Matthew Simmons
Seattle Author Spotlight
This is the 5th Seattle Author Spotlight (previous ones were Richard Chiem, Maged Zaher, and Deborah Woodard) and I plan on running new Spotlights every 10-14 days because Seattle has plenty of talented and interesting writers.
Matthew Simmons:
When I first emerged a little from my cave in Kirkland (not far but really far from Seattle) it was to see Matthew Simmons read from “A Jello Horse.” Later on as I started attending more events I ran into Matthew over and over (at a Patricia Lockwood reading, at a CAConrad reading, at APRIL, etc) and enjoyed many little chats with him. Recently I was glad to be part of the big crowd at the Hugo House for the release party and reading of Matthew’s new book “Happy Rock” at which Matthew read with great confidence the story about the exploding mothers–read it, in fact, in front of his mother, his father and, as Matthew said, “all the people (he) loves.”
Introducing Matthew that night Brian McGuigan quoted from Paul Constant’s excellent review that had just come out in The Stranger:
Matthew Simmons has never misused a word in his life, or at least that’s how it feels. His prose manages to be economical and exact, while at the same time suggesting a broader universe that ripples out from every sentence. It’s like handing someone a few Lego bricks, bending down for a second to tie your shoes, and then looking back up to discover they’ve built a palace. READ MORE >
STARK WEEK INTERLUDE: SLampson at the Beast Forest
This is what happens when a poet quotes his poetry to a weird worm-looking thing in Second Life, a 3D world that announced a ban on in-world gambling on July 28, 2007, in fear that new regulations on Internet gambling would affect the privately held American Internet company if it was permitted to continue.
[21:11] Slampson Slarkweather: this forest is unusually horny.
[21:13] Namadisi: it is a romantic forest on the sky hahahhaha
[21:13] Namadisi: :)
[21:15] Slampson Slarkweather: They sky has no clouds here. Just a ridiculous blue.
[21:16] Namadisi: maybe is your viewer?
[21:16] Namadisi: i see clothes
[21:19] Namadisi: lol
[21:19] Namadisi: clouds
[21:20] Namadisi: hahahahhhahaa
[21:22] Namadisi: and clothes or course
[21:23] Slampson Slarkweather: Anyone who dances with their shirt on is dead to me.
[21:23] Namadisi: hahahahahahahahaa
[21:24] Namadisi: we ae near the lake who wear shirt near a lake???
[21:26] Slampson Slarkweather: Fracking laws and loopholes taught us water is winning.
[21:27] Namadisi: hhahahahaha the water does look nice
[21:27] Namadisi: you should go take a dip
[20:28] Slampson Slarkweather: You should really come see what it’s like down here, to be me.
[20:30] Namadisi: where r you?
[20:33] Namadisi: hahahhaa now i know what you mean hahahahhaa
[21:35] Slampson Slarkweather: I want to go home, find you have been living beneath my bed, take off all our clothes, lie back and talk and talk until it’s ruined the stars.
[21:38] Namadisi: wow
[21:38] Namadisi: nice words poet?
[21:38] Slampson Slarkweather: i’m not a poet i just crush a lot.
[21:39] Namadisi: hahhaha
[21:39] Namadisi: you fo that well
[21:40] Slampson Slarkweather: My friend thinks poetry has nothing to do with words.
[21:42] Namadisi: well thats silly poetry has eferything to do with words
[21:02] Namadisi: :=))
[21:42] Slampson Slarkweather: Poetry is exactly like sexual harassment. Don’t ask.
[21:43] Namadisi: no i think i understand =P
[21:44] Slampson Slarkweather: Your exercises in empathy are encouraging, but is it really possible for two people to ever understand each other?
[21:45] Namadisi: hmmmmm good question
[21:45] Namadisi: i think so
[21:46] Namadisi: if you get 2 kno someone well enough and spend alott of time listening to each other then yea
[21:47] Namadisi: thats true love =D
[21:49] Slampson Slarkweather: I have love like a headache.
[21:49] Slampson Slarkweather: Sure you can cut a hole in a sheet but good luck trying to fuck a ghost.
[21:51] Namadisi: O-o what do u mean
[21:51] Slampson Slarkweather: Hello plasma. It’s me, fellow fake state of matter.
[21:54] Namadisi: is this a joke or somethin’
[21:55] Slampson Slarkweather: the secret to life is being tan.
[21:56] Slampson Slarkweather: Give me your wallet.
[21:56] Slampson Slarkweather: Did you think this poem was going to end by itself?
[Note: This dumb thing was inspired by this broadside from Rye House Press.]
U.K. Author Spotlight (1) – Gary J Shipley
Realizing that they speak and read English in the U.K. and that they write in it too (and because I’m originally from South Africa a kind of diamond and veldt version of the U.K. with much better weather and beaches), I’ve decided to start a new feature that follows kind of in the vein of the Seattle Author Spotlight series. So, periodically, now, I will be featuring a U.K. author.
And the first UK Author Spotlight’s of Gary J Shipley. Gary and I recently became email and Facebook “chums” (see how easy this is?) and then he did a nice write-up on my new book and I blurbed his forthcoming book of poetry. Gary and I swap quite a lot of emails and Facebook “Likes” (these, hint-hint, make me feel really, really great.)
Gary’s smarter than me, much more philosophical and is able to write a Godless sort of language and landscape that I envy tremendously. When I saw the movie Pina I thought about Gary’s poetry. Gary is also an Artist. Kind of like Michaux. But different. I look very much to one day meeting Gary in person.
Also, fyi, this is what Brian Evenson has to say about Gary’s “Dreams of Amputation“:
Dreams of Amputation reads like the nightmares Derek Raymond might have experienced if he’d written cyberpunk. An exceptionally strange work, but a smart and thoughtful one as well. Disturbing, haunting, and inimitably weird, this is a book like no other.
So, anyways, Gary J Shipley’s Author Spotlight consists of a brief interview, Bio photo and Art.
Brief Bio:
Gary J Shipley is the author of eight books of various sizes. His latest is forthcoming from Blue Square Press. He has published in Gargoyle, The Black Herald, Paragraphiti, elimae, >kill author, nthposition, 3:AM, and others. More details can be found at Thek Prosthetics.
Brief Interview:
Rauan: Does the British Bulldog have any teeth left? (ie, can you tell us a bit about the state of British Literature, fiction, poetry, whatever)
Gary J: Yes. It has a single brown stump that bends when it bites you. READ MORE >
STARK WEEK INTERLUDE: SLampson at the Goth Club
This is what happens when a poet quotes his poetry to a lonely girl in Second Life, a 3D world where you can discover your artistic talents and share them instantly with friends.
[2013/06/24 20:49] Dibblez Doobie (busy response): If All You Are Going To Do Is Send Some Lame, Overused, DumbAss Line, Just Stop And I’m Someone Else. Be Creative Man .FFS Thanks Have A Nice Day
[2013/06/24 20:50] Slampson Slarkweather: I should just dance my face off for the next 20 seconds.
[2013/06/24 20:50] Dibblez Doobie: lol
[2013/06/24 20:50] Slampson Slarkweather: would that be weird?
[2013/06/24 20:51] Slampson Slarkweather: or good weird?
[2013/06/24 20:51] Dibblez Doobie: lol
[2013/06/24 20:51] Dibblez Doobie: im not even sure what ur talking about but u made me laugh
[2013/06/24 20:51] Dibblez Doobie: so good wierd i guess
[2013/06/24 20:52] Dibblez Doobie: r u 3 weeks old or an alt ?
[2013/06/24 20:53] Slampson Slarkweather: I’m 33.
[2013/06/24 20:54] Slampson Slarkweather: and I still don’t understand the bird and the bees.
[2013/06/24 20:55] Dibblez Doobie: lol
[2013/06/24 20:55] Slampson Slarkweather: and I’m a black belt in pussying out.
[2013/06/24 20:55] Slampson Slarkweather: :)
[2013/06/24 20:56] Dibblez Doobie: lol something to bwe proud of i suppose lol
[2013/06/24 20:57] Dibblez Doobie: r u sober ?
[2013/06/24 20:58] Slampson Slarkweather: I’m telling you, the squirrels are up to something.
[2013/06/24 20:58] Dibblez Doobie: duide
[2013/06/24 20:58] Dibblez Doobie: dude u know i have no idea what ui are talking bout right
[2013/06/24 20:59] Slampson Slarkweather: when you say “coffee” all people hear is “liquid turkey.”
[2013/06/24 21:01] Dibblez Doobie: im very used to men not making sence .. ;)
[2013/06/24 21:02] Slampson Slarkweather: I can hear the sound of your sadness, a small bird flailing in the grass, one wing making a useless music, and sometimes circumstance is the victim.
[2013/06/24 21:03] Dibblez Doobie: lol not the adjative i woulda used lol but ok
[2013/06/24 21:03] Slampson Slarkweather: what army hides inside you?
[2013/06/24 21:04] Dibblez Doobie: sorry im basing it on experince not
[2013/06/24 21:04] Dibblez Doobie: lol
[2013/06/24 21:05] Dibblez Doobie: lol no army silly
[2013/06/24 21:06] Slampson Slarkweather: Remember when Bill Murray was the right answer over Captain Kirk and you didn’t flinch?
[2013/06/24 21:07] Dibblez Doobie: lol wat the fuk are u talking abt
[2013/06/24 21:09] Slampson Slarkweather: I used to wonder what would happen if a plane flew through a rainbow.
[2013/06/24 21:10] Slampson Slarkweather: don’t you just love love?
[2013/06/24 21:10] Dibblez Doobie: i did once
[2013/06/24 21:10] Dibblez Doobie: n my friends adore me
[2013/06/24 21:11] Slampson Slarkweather: turns out this life is super fucking hard.
[2013/06/24 21:11] Slampson Slarkweather: you know?
[2013/06/24 21:12] Dibblez Doobie: that i know
[2013/06/24 21:13] Slampson Slarkweather: ever think the god that put us here forgot to punch holes in the jar?
[2013/06/24 21:13] Dibblez Doobie: every day
[2013/06/24 21:14] Dibblez Doobie: funny we are having this convo cause im watching titantic
[2013/06/24 21:15] Slampson Slarkweather: Depression is the fog that settles over the swamp you call your life.
[2013/06/24 21:15] Dibblez Doobie: ya tell me about it
[2013/06/24 21:16] Dibblez Doobie: i used to be happy
[2013/06/24 21:17] Slampson Slarkweather: I feel like my insides are about to explode.
[2013/06/24 21:19] Slampson Slarkweather: I want to help you, I want to open you up and fix all the black and bloody shit in there.
[2013/06/24 21:20] Dibblez Doobie: omg you sure are somethin
[2013/06/24 21:20] Dibblez Doobie: this party is lame, do you wana come hang out in my place
[2013/06/24 21:21] Slampson Slarkweather: I want to go where emails go, brave as the tiny birds stuck inside JFK airport chirping like a ringtone.
[2013/06/24 21:21] Slampson Slarkweather: Google Earth knows dick about my birthmarks.
[2013/06/24 21:21] Slampson Slarkweather: Dear Mom—you don’t know shit about poetry. If you were a think tank, we’d all be making cartoon balloons.
[2013/06/24 21:24] Dibblez Doobie: mom?
[2013/06/24 21:24] Dibblez Doobie: I ain’t your momma boy.
[2013/06/24 21:25] Slampson Slarkweather: It’s like Russia. Nobody realizes it size, the way you can die out there.
[2013/06/24 21:25] Slampson Slarkweather: We edit into existence.
[2013/06/24 21:25] Slampson Slarkweather: A girl’s leg disappearing.
[2013/06/24 21:26] Slampson Slarkweather: A hallway of possibility.
[2013/06/24 21:26] Dibblez Doobie: OMG.
[2013/06/24 21:26] Slampson Slarkweather: A new Eurydice.
[2013/06/24 21:26] Slampson Slarkweather: A green dress stitched with light.
[2013/06/24 21:26] Slampson Slarkweather: On her shoulders by thin electricity.
[2013/06/24 21:27] Slampson Slarkweather: Pulled the plug.
[2013/06/24 21:27] Slampson Slarkweather: The leg is flesh, which doesn’t make it real.
[21:27] User not online – message will be stored and delivered later.
circa 28 Points: A Basic Guide by Nick Sturm
- I saw Nick Sturm once in a dive bar, I think. He had a ponytail. I thought, “I like guys with ponytails.”
- The cover of A Basic Guide is either a yarn mobile, the meanderings of a dragonfly when stimulated by a drop of sugar, or a rough sketch of a sailing frigate. It’s by Amy Borezo, who has a history of time and motion, intersections of paper, interactions of words…It seems an apt choice for a book cover, this artist.
- I have a ponytail. My enjoyment of ponytails is entirely self-serving. It makes me feel less alone.
- A guide is an appropriated form. The world is potential structure. Lorrie Moore wrote a guide. Ander Monson wrote a guide. Here’s a cool one by Melanie Rae Thon. A guide seems to imply an alembic of knowledge, this idea possibly used as ironic, as conceit, or as straight up earnest.
- It is not light that we need, but fire; it is not gentle shower, but thunder. We need Sturm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake.
- There is a wistful nostalgia here that kindles of Richard Brautigan. This longing is transferred through an accumulation, not through explicit yearning, so then A Basic Guide becomes a sort of kitchen drawer or curio cigar box—it shows, but yet stores away, creates a poetic idyll, a space: horses, petticoat, jubilee, levee, these types of wonderful that might be leaking away, might be in need of storage, little mysteries to keep in a Mason jar.
- “The way the kiss stays locked in the machine.”
- “…but the past was like a bleached coral reef.”
- Once my ponytail was “He’s sort of a cute hippie.” Now my ponytail is all, “age-inappropriate/flaky/I bet he has a ‘writer satchel’/guy you see at AWP” sort of thing. But that’s OK. Things change. Like can be hard, but there are beautiful things, too, you know. READ MORE >