Poetry, Meet Science

Science, you are poetry.

In Which I Play the Broken Record

Remind me to never, ever attempt to debate the stricture of gender roles on reality competition TV with anyone who loves reality competition TV ever again. I cannot help but get all didactic about it. And I really sort of hate reality TV of any stripe (although the competitive ones slightly less, as they at least seem to have a purpose behind their existence besides annoying the shit out of me). This is partially why I don't watch TV, aside from the news, and the typical liberal smorgasboard of The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, and Rachel Maddow. And cartoons. And anything sciencey that catches my fancy. So, naturally I indict myself as one of those people from square one.

But back to arguing things I shouldn't bother arguing. I still do and will continue to do so to my detriment, trust. I argue, if one is good at _____, engaging, skilful, what-have-you, it really shouldn't matter if s/he is effeminate or macho. I don't care what art form we're talking about. It just doesn't fucking matter. It doesn't matter if s/he likes ladies or gents or both in bed or if that "shows." When the response to this argument is "but it doesn't seem right/good/effective", I must must query from whence does this dismissive conception of right/good/effective come? Subvert the dominant paradigm!

Perhaps everyone should raise their children like these folks do.

POP!

I have to love this Poets Off Poetry essay/poem by Erin Belieu. Although, I felt a little sad thinking about poetry as the musically-inclined-but-not-musically-gifted person's pursuit. Poetry is a musical pursuit in itself and, as Belieu enacts in her deftly examined appreciation for the Broadway standards of yore, it takes aural precision. Bonus points for the Pinsky inclusion.

More from the advice mines

Written by Cary Tennis to a woman enabling her boyfriend to be a mooch:

Dear Enabler,

I dare you to let go of the rope.

You say you're at the end of your rope. So close your eyes and picture the rope. Where is the rope? Is it in your hands or around your neck, or around your waist? What kind of rope is it?

Follow the rope. How long is it? Where does it lead? Who's on the other end of it? Is it your boyfriend, dangling over the street? Is it that kind of rope? Or is it the kind of rope they keep dogs in yards with? Are you tied, straining against the rope? Who else might be at the end of the rope? Your mom?

I dare you to let go of the rope.

Handle the rope. Feel its texture. How old is it? Is it a rope you've had a long time or is it a new rope? How did you acquire it? Did you buy it after your fiancé died? Did someone give it to you?

Examine the rope. Feel its texture. Fee how taut it is. Then let it go.

You don't need it. You've reached the end of it. It's not your rope.

After all, you haven't reached the end of his rope. His rope is endless. You'll never reach the end of his rope. But your rope is only so long, and you're at the end of it. So just fucking let it go.

It's not a real rope. It's imaginary. You can't hurt anyone by letting go of it. So just let it go. Slip out of it and leave it behind.

Let go of the fucking rope.

Hairy flarf

Whatever your views on flarf (I haven't quite made up my mind yet), you cannot deny Sharon Mesmer's commitment. Readers of poetry note: audiences respond to commitment. And copious obscenities & pop culture references.

When should I just give up?

So, another of my somewhat secret, no longer so secret predilections: I love me some advice columns. Any old advice column will do - Dear Abby (though she frequently ruffles my feminist feathers), Dear Prudence (though she too gets under my skin with her frequent Emily Post referrals), Cary Tennis anachronistic Since You Asked column at Salon, Dan Savage and his delightful neologisms on Savage Love, hell, even Dear Margo at Wowowow (don't even get me started on my issues with that site). I think there's something about the image of the advice columnist as a sort of been-there-done-that paragon of worldliness that draws me in. You get the sense (especially with those more traditional, subtly brassy, on husband no. so-and-so ladies and their "don't ask me how I know" snark) that their current empathy and insight into any number of common and not-so-common problems were fired in a mighty hot kiln.

I've only recently gotten turned on to Cary Tennis' column, via a recent Jezebel post on the same subject, and I have to say that I've been mixed about it. Mostly because he writes a LOT and his readers write a LOT and when I'm blowing through my blogroll (er, that sounds kind of dirty), it's difficult to focus on such large chunks of prose (I should talk). But this letter just broke my heart and made me realize that the additional focused energy will pay off with this one.

My answer to this woman's question would obviously have to be NEVER. Never give up! Never surrender! Why do so many people - women in particular - shove their dreams aside to fulfill the status quo of spouse, kids, house, career? And why oh why do the two have to be mutually exclusive (it seems like hubby isn't pulling his weight, and surely kids can fend for themselves on a lot of things after a certain age)? Obviously, this woman isn't going to be the next Joan Jett, but she missed a lot of years of physical dexterity and schedule flexbility only to find that learning is that much more difficult as she enters middle age. Not to say that learning something later on is impossible, or even undesirable (I'd like to think that I will continue learning until well into old age!), not at all! But I've heard too many people say, "once I do [X], then I will [pick up the guitar, start writing, painting, &c.] again". Those people at once break my heart and remind me of myself. Such is the appeal of the advice column. It's like a big ole empathy group hug.

LOLcat Wasteland

Corprew Reed, via my po-friend, Steph, exactly what it sounds like.

I know I shouldn't, but I kind of want to memorize it.

Memory and Mimesis, Fear of

Yesterday, I was reading a few essays out of Radiant Lyre, a book of essays on lyric poetry that I've had lingering on my desk for some time, having every intention of reading it asap until I got derailed by some NY school poets. It happens. In any case, one essay on rhetoric in erotic poetry (think Shakespeare and Donne) touched on one of the first and few poems I have memorized - namely, Sonnet 116 (Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments...)

I confess that I memorized the sonnet almost entirely because of its use in Ang Lee's take on Sense and Sensibility and thus have absolutely no remaining credibility. But really, I had none to begin with, because reader, this poem is one of THREE total that I've managed to memorize, from 6th grade till age 27. From a non-poet perspective, this might seem rather odd, contradictory - that I should love an art so much and be so disinclined (at best) or unable (at worst) to commit bits of it to memory. However! Many poets, especially contemporaries, will know that it is not uncommon to run across a poet with an equally abysmal repertoire (they may even *gasp* have such a repertoire themselves.)

I can still recite sonnet 116 quite handily and do a nice dramatic reading of Poe's "El Dorado" (it's uncharacteristically buoyant for Poe, which is I think what drew me to it as a 6th grader...that and the rhymes make for easy memorization.) Later in grad school, at the (wise) behest of one Joan Larkin, I memorized Sexton's "The Truth the Dead Know" after hearing a poignant recording of Sexton herself reading the piece. Unfortunately, I can't say as I remember more than the first couple of lines now.

I don't think that it is sheer laziness that keeps me from memorizing, I think it is:

1) my aversion to rote learning and the attendent (and false) assumption that memorizing a poem is indeed a form of rote learning;

2) my somewhat irrational fear that my own voice will be reduced to a mimetic rebroadcast of all the things I've memorized. With this fear comes another false assumption that my voice is now completely my own and at least not directly informed by everything I've heretofore read; and

3) dammit, I AM lazy. I need to kick myself into gear. People once memorized the Illiad and the Odyssey. Entire epics - the equivalent of thousands of pages - rolled off the tongues of many a troubadour. To musical accompaniment, no less. The least I can do is memorize a little poem every once in a while. It would do me good.

SO, In the interest of amending my once secret shame of rarely committing anything to memory and, perhaps more importantly, in the interest of SLOWING myself and my consumption of poetry, for better intellectual digestion, I mean to memorize a poem a week. For as long as I can keep up with it, I suppose. Short of making videos of myself reciting these poems blindfolded (a cute idea, actually, though I don't fully trust myself to go to that much trouble and would not want to disappoint my legion of fans), you'll just have to take my word for it. Or if you're in the neighborhood and would like a performance, I will be happy to indulge.

I will try to speak to how memorizing certain poems has affected my writing (or not writing) as well. And, as we're already nearly midway through the week, I'm going to cheat a little and re-memorize that Sexton poem as my first assignment.

New (to you) Poem!

At DIAGRAM. Just reading the rest of the issue over my lunch break, but I can already see I'm in good company.

It's good to have a home for that one. I feel like its publication brings even more solid, public closure to the chapter it represents for me. And it was definitely a cathartic piece to write in the first place. Like a gift from my psyche, reassurance - though far from therapy. I rarely get good poems out of writing therapy (which is why I journal to feel better). I think of it more an assertion of selfhood and of toiling against the cultural assumption that being alone, isolated and vulnerable is a bad place and that those moments of aloneness should be sped through with haste. Lest we forget, poems can and should come out of any moment.

I couldn't say it much better

Than this. Or this. Or this.

Body-snarking is a form of hate speech. It is dehumanizing, and thus unacceptable. Ad hominem attacks are nothing new. Boycotting and shaming the perpetuators of these kind of attacks obviously will not stop them...in fact, it will probably garner this troll more hits, which is exactly his intent in causing this kerfuffle (also why I am not directly linking to any of his sites.  If you like me, please don't go to them).

BUT, as Daniela and others have pointed out, supporting those who are truly working to bring positivity to the arts community is the best course of action we can take in such a situation. So support Kristy! In fact, I'm sending her my chapbook mss. post haste! 

Cheers! (And I promise to come out of the woodwork in a slightly more substantive way very soon.)

Feminism...didn't we already do that?

Honor Moore just contributed an excellent article to Slate's new feministish blog Double X (whose name is not a little...um...lame? Nevertheless!):

Poems have been integral to the women’s movement from the beginning—no surprise given that feminism has always understood language to be instrumental in maintaining oppressive power relations.

I read this and thought, well put and roundly acknowledged by every woman poet (though I know but a few poets in general) I know. This is, perhaps, why it's rarely spoken of. Something so tacitly understood does not bear repeating, right? But when I read just a few short paragraphs later, Moore's story of her first encounter with the term "Women's Liberation," well! I wanted to be there, in just such a pristine, revelatory moment of epiphany.

BUT, if there's one thing that writing and reading poetry has taught me, it is that turning over and over a page does not mean that its contents have been fully read; neither have they been realized. In fact, if I ever wrote a poem that could be fully read OR fully realized, I would never write again. What's the point?

This misconception that feminism has been fully realized is why so many women I've met - not just poets, mind - are so damned ambivalent about it. There's no more glass in our hair, let's move on, they imply. Feminism is for women who don't groom their pubes and who grow tumors on their funnybones. No one wants to be that bitch who defriended that loser from high school because he made a patently misogynist facebook wall post and made another patently misogynist response when confronted, amiright (Er, not that I have done this...)? Besides, what's not to like about Seth Rogen or Dane Cook?! Lighten up! they parrot. They are afraid, obviously, of becoming cultural pariahs. But in poetry, as Moore so deftly quotes, a woman's power need not be vanquished by those who disbelieve her. Besides, being a social pariah in the eyes of some douchetastic idiot machine is not exactly a BAD thing, ambivalent anti-feminist ladies.

Well, Double X was off to a rocky start a few weeks ago, but perhaps they can redeem themselves with more of the like? Please!

Happy Memorial Day!

I hope this warms the COCKLES of your heart as it did mine.

Backcountry, Frontcountry, Maybe a Little Sidecountry

Of note:

I'm happy to say I've been Requited on these here interwebs. Thanks to Danielle for encouraging me to hook myself up there - it looks like some pretty things will be happening, and I'm pleased as punch to be one of the pretty things (if I say so myself).

This week is looking to be the longest in the history of ever, in spite of its slight brevity (half day on Friday), because M. and I are making a whirlwind hiking trip to Kentucky. I'm all geared up (literally and figuratively). It will be a welcome respite from the sharp angles and crowded spaces of the city.

This creation is quite possibly the best thing I've seen today. Masterfully done.

Looking forward to pogroup this evening at Cafe Ennui. It'll be nice to meet on the far northside for a change, and I've always had a soft spot for Ennui.

I've been taking guitar lessons for a while now at Evanston's venerable Guitar Works and have noticed that there are particular keys I prefer to sing in. Naturally, they are not the same keys I prefer to play in. As a trained vocalist, one might have suspected I would have come to this conclusion - oh - YEARS ago, maybe? Not so. Because I use my capo like a true cavalier (were cavaliers to use capos, come with me on this one, you'll be rewarded) and because I only play for myself really and thus have not developed the transposition abilities required to collaborate on such pieces as I've jacked up to the fifth fret or so in order to continue playing in "G major", I am at an impasse of sorts. Not insurmountable, by any means, but meaning that I must suck it up and learn to play reasonably well in keys other than "G major" or learn to transpose or relent that I will never be able to write any songs with other humans. Yeah, that last one isn't really an option. I don't like giving up, even though it is easy! Also, like everyone else in the world, I hate the F chord and think it is HIGHLY appropriate that it is F. As in, mother-F'r, I hate playing this chord, I'm going to capo 2 so I can play an "E" instead!

AHEM. Pardon the guitar goobledeegook. If this were BoingBoing, I would lend you a unicorn chaser. You'll just have to watch that video instead.

Pregnant Women ARE Smug

Pregnant Women are Smug from Erika Lindhome on Vimeo.

This has been floating around for a while, but I just now got around to taking a listen and I have to say - I kind of love these ladies.