It’s Monday Morning, Go Right Ahead (And Learn About Joseph Beuys!)
June 14th, 2010 / 1:31 pm
YouTubers for Clean Waters: There Will Be Bell
[via Ryan MacDonald]
“I FEEL THAT THE BEAUTY OF FORMS OBSCURES THE NULLITY THEY CHOREOGRAPH OR ENCHANT. I FEEL THAT THE NULLITY IS NOT THE SPACE AGAINST WHICH THE BEAUTY OF FORMS IS A FACT BUT THAT THE BEAUTY OF FORMS IS THE NULLITY ITSELF, TRANSMOGRIFIED, AND I FEAR THIS.”
“A photo of whales on your phone will not protect you”
Sampson Starkweather’s latest chapbook, The Heart Is Green From So Much Waiting (Immaculate Disciples Press), is a chapbook of “transcontemporations,” which, Starkweather explains, are to poems what Robocop is to normal police officers. Obviously, if we’re playing along at home, this is both a joke and not a joke. Like maybe it’s a battle cry and a cat call, maybe it’s a desire to be unremoved from the original feeling of seeing through the eyes of Robocop himself. If we’re playing along at home, The Heart Is Green From So Much Waiting feels some kind of gameshow hosted by a monk. READ MORE >
June 13th, 2010 / 10:55 am
Blunts
Emily Kendal Frey’s THE NEW PLANET is now available from Mindmade Books. Some of these poems recently leapt into Real Poetik
PITY
I feel sorry for people who fall in love with other people.
We wait on the boat’s deck to see a whale.
What we see are waves.
Dead-hearted tomatoes bobbing up and down.
Ocean of hearts.
Words about words
My mom thinks Alzheimer’s is “old timer’s” because that’s the demographic. When she says Blockbuster really quick it sounds like “black bastard,” though she rarely says it anymore because she’s given up on movies. The word “that” in Chinese Mandurin is “nigga.” Salmon does not carry salmonella. I used to think “croque-madame” (a french ham and cheese sandwich with a sunny side up egg on top) was named that way — as supposed to the sans egg “croque-monsieur” — because women have eggs and men don’t, or that the egg looked like a breast; turns out the egg resembles a women’s hat, that’s all. In Lost Boys of Sudan, the african dudes newly arrived to the United States made soup out of crackers because crackers don’t have intructions. I witnessed a therapist at a physiatric ward ask a bunch of suicidal paitents “If you had only 24 hours to live, what would you do?” She was trying to get them to think about the good things in life, though it was misphrased. She played “Everybody Hurts” by R.E.M and told us that is an example of how sad feelings are strong, and to be careful. (Don’t worry, I was not a patient there). Bastards are impossible, thanks to sperm. Asian massages are more than massages. Asian messages are more than messages. “Live as though you are already dead,” said some monk. I would, but I have to get groceries.
BROOKLYN BOY MAKES GOOD
Like a sermon described in the novel, the language in “Witz” is “scripted to sound,” designed to capture the verbal distortions of East Coast speech. We hear of “Mortal Beach” and “Soygens General.” But while the scale of the sentences comfortably exceeds the lung capacity of most readers (Cohen isn’t afraid to unfurl a five-page sentence), the prose constantly highlights language’s sonar qualities: “At lot’s edge, last scattered lungs of leaves still hang from the boughs, breathe uneasy.” Cohen’s sentences are fluid, living things: “This lulling, ship’s loll, . . . a remnant, a reminder of the darkness, . . . and, flying across that sky a fish lands on the deck, at the forecastle, the fallen castle.”
Read the full review. And kudos, l’chaim, and cheers.
June 12th, 2010 / 3:37 am