The Tree of Life trailer is now up. The real thing. No bootleg.
Like many others have said already, I'm in agreement: this is my most anticipated film of all time.
There are others I had anticipated for months, all within the last 29 years, but nothing comes close to this.
And in my personal life, my academic life, my thoughts related to poetry and film, I keep thinking and asking myself, "Is there any poet who can come close to the beauty and genius of Terrence Malick?"
The only logical answer I think there is: Larry Levis.
Though we'll never be able to read anything beyond Elegy, if Malick continues, it's one of those kicked around thoughts, divinely related to art, that makes me legitimately say, "Life is worth living."
Showing posts with label larry levis. Show all posts
Showing posts with label larry levis. Show all posts
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
New Leaves
I'm currently taking a course on Rhetoric and Composition right now at BU.
The one with the-professor-who-shall-not-be-named I took at VCU five years ago was one of the most horrendous graduate experiences I've ever had. It's in the top three easily (though really there were only three horrendous experiences, which is good four a five-year stretch). Bad things happened. Things were misconstrued. I was pretty miserable. But I was also young and immature. The class did not instruct me how to teach. The class taught me absolutely nothing. That's what I think the whole class was mostly so upset about by the end.
That said, I do thank VCU and the English Department wholeheartedly for giving me the opportunity to teach so many composition courses while I was there. I still have a lot to learn, but I have so many questions just from the experience, that I think I'll get much more out of teaching at BU now.
Just having the experience and time in front of students these days is severely underrated. I know I'm not the best teacher, I admit, but improving on the past, learning new methods, and always asking and trying to answer my questions will be something to keep track of as I go. And all that experience can and does certainly translate from course to course.
In other words, had I come here with little or no teaching experience, I'd feel completely overwhelmed. I'm glad I got that out of the way at VCU as the earlier part of my education.
*
See Trouble the Water as soon as you get a chance.
It's one of those documentaries that's just a complete experience, like Capturing the Friedmans, Man on Wire, How to Draw a Bunny, and many more.
Plus you never stop thinking and questioning after it's over. I didn't at least. And that's what a documentary should do (unless it has the unparalleled greatness and originality of American Movie)
*
I should have the galleys soon enough for Ghost Lights. Because I'm such a stickler for the look and feel of how things are presented on the page, I really want to get the font and the font size right so it's not weird or disjointed for the readers.
Many of the poems in the book (and almost all of the poems in the second manuscript I'm working on) are not left justified. You can look at Tar-era C.K. Williams and The Widening Spell of the Leaves-era Larry Levis (which also happen to be two of my favorite poetry collections of all time), and you see that there are indentations if the lines spill over into the next, though it's meant to be one line without any kind of enjambment.
I was in Wojahn's office a few years ago, and he showed me an original, square-sized copy of Tar from the 80s. He was making a case for the energy of the lines and (false?) enjambments of the later printings being the ones that do justice to the poems. I agreed. If you look at the Selected and the Collected of C.K. Williams, you'll notice that the run-over lines, because the size of the actual pages are different, are indented in different places. Because the poems are "enjambed" according to the size of the page; the long line has to be broken up at some point...
Same thing with an original copy of The Widening Spell of the Leaves and the Selected Levis. The latter keeps the lines intact, keeping them from spilling over, while the former is indented all over the place with the longer-lined poems.
If I had a whole book of long-lined poems, that wouldn't be a big deal to do; I agree with Wojahn that the energy is a bit different, in a good way, as weird as it may sound, when the lines look like they're enjambed.
But, when considering the poems in Ghost Lights, many of my long-lined poems are not left-justified, so you'd have almost a double sense of enjambment, and then it just looks completely out of whack.
My last poem of the four appearing in 42opus this month is a good example. It will run this Friday the 11th, and I'll probably point to it in another blog post if you're confused at what I'm saying...
It looks fine in the .doc file of my new manuscript, but you can think of the right side of the 42opus page as the end of the page limits for a .doc file. I don't mind how it will appear there, but I would certainly not want it to look that way in a book.
All these questions, and a lot of these I'm constantly interested in, make me think I might want to eventually go into publishing, or have publishing be a part of my life somehow.
Has anyone else questioned these issues with their books? We want to be as pleased with our final products as we hope our readers will be, so I'm making a point to really get involved as much as I can in the process of how it's going to look on the page.
*
Speaking of the new manuscript, I decided to grow some balls and send it out at the end of September. Worst case scenario: I spend a little extra cash to see how it does in the world, and it doesn't do anything. No biggie. Otherwise it'll be sitting here, electronically collecting dust.
I have about fifteen contests and open reading periods I'm looking at right now. I'm being more judicious this time. I sent Ghost Lights to places (when it was also About Ravishment) that I had no business sending to.
The contest was for a more experimental press. The contest was getting manuscripts above the level where I was as a writer (though there should always be shown growth from book to book, hopefully, as the years go on). The prize consisted of screeners who also read and rejected my work for a journal. There are probably more...
Case in point for the last one: The Journal. When I was sending out poems for the first book, I always sent to The Journal for some reason. Maybe ten times or so. They always rejected my poems. Not only that, but I always got the same slip, sans ink. Rejections aren't a big deal, and all the poems were eventually published elsewhere, but considering all of that, why in the hell would I sent to The Journal / OSU Award in Poetry?
The answer: I shouldn't have. But I did. I was testing every depth. Now I know better, especially when the odds are almost 100% against you for whatever reason. You have to learn the particulars and the limits, in other words, about how your work is doing and has done in the outside world of editorship.
There are so many contests when you're sending out that it's hard to learn. Most of the time you suck it up and spend your cash. That's how I learned. That's how (mostly) everyone learns.
But I'm trying to be smarter time around. I think I'm doing a decent job of picking better contests and places to send for consideration. Not "better," necessarily, but more fitting, I would say. That's crucial.
*
I've always been a fan of Owen. He's always writing the same song, but they're always pleasing to listen to. The production's great on his new record, New Leaves. It's a more mature record. Every song sounds like it could be a single, which reminds me of the newest Phoenix record also. That should be a goal for every collection of any constructed artistic medium in my opinion. Give it a listen when it's officially out soon enough.
Other worth-it spins:
Lucine - A Great Distance
Jim O'Rourke - The Visitor
James Bradshaw - His Last Three Records. SEEK THEM OUT.
The Clientele - Bonfires on the Heath
Imogen Heap - Ellipse
Caspian - Tertia
Polvo - In Prism
Port-Royal - Dying in Time
Sleeping at Last - Storyboards
The one with the-professor-who-shall-not-be-named I took at VCU five years ago was one of the most horrendous graduate experiences I've ever had. It's in the top three easily (though really there were only three horrendous experiences, which is good four a five-year stretch). Bad things happened. Things were misconstrued. I was pretty miserable. But I was also young and immature. The class did not instruct me how to teach. The class taught me absolutely nothing. That's what I think the whole class was mostly so upset about by the end.
That said, I do thank VCU and the English Department wholeheartedly for giving me the opportunity to teach so many composition courses while I was there. I still have a lot to learn, but I have so many questions just from the experience, that I think I'll get much more out of teaching at BU now.
Just having the experience and time in front of students these days is severely underrated. I know I'm not the best teacher, I admit, but improving on the past, learning new methods, and always asking and trying to answer my questions will be something to keep track of as I go. And all that experience can and does certainly translate from course to course.
In other words, had I come here with little or no teaching experience, I'd feel completely overwhelmed. I'm glad I got that out of the way at VCU as the earlier part of my education.
*
See Trouble the Water as soon as you get a chance.
It's one of those documentaries that's just a complete experience, like Capturing the Friedmans, Man on Wire, How to Draw a Bunny, and many more.
Plus you never stop thinking and questioning after it's over. I didn't at least. And that's what a documentary should do (unless it has the unparalleled greatness and originality of American Movie)
*
I should have the galleys soon enough for Ghost Lights. Because I'm such a stickler for the look and feel of how things are presented on the page, I really want to get the font and the font size right so it's not weird or disjointed for the readers.
Many of the poems in the book (and almost all of the poems in the second manuscript I'm working on) are not left justified. You can look at Tar-era C.K. Williams and The Widening Spell of the Leaves-era Larry Levis (which also happen to be two of my favorite poetry collections of all time), and you see that there are indentations if the lines spill over into the next, though it's meant to be one line without any kind of enjambment.
I was in Wojahn's office a few years ago, and he showed me an original, square-sized copy of Tar from the 80s. He was making a case for the energy of the lines and (false?) enjambments of the later printings being the ones that do justice to the poems. I agreed. If you look at the Selected and the Collected of C.K. Williams, you'll notice that the run-over lines, because the size of the actual pages are different, are indented in different places. Because the poems are "enjambed" according to the size of the page; the long line has to be broken up at some point...
Same thing with an original copy of The Widening Spell of the Leaves and the Selected Levis. The latter keeps the lines intact, keeping them from spilling over, while the former is indented all over the place with the longer-lined poems.
If I had a whole book of long-lined poems, that wouldn't be a big deal to do; I agree with Wojahn that the energy is a bit different, in a good way, as weird as it may sound, when the lines look like they're enjambed.
But, when considering the poems in Ghost Lights, many of my long-lined poems are not left-justified, so you'd have almost a double sense of enjambment, and then it just looks completely out of whack.
My last poem of the four appearing in 42opus this month is a good example. It will run this Friday the 11th, and I'll probably point to it in another blog post if you're confused at what I'm saying...
It looks fine in the .doc file of my new manuscript, but you can think of the right side of the 42opus page as the end of the page limits for a .doc file. I don't mind how it will appear there, but I would certainly not want it to look that way in a book.
All these questions, and a lot of these I'm constantly interested in, make me think I might want to eventually go into publishing, or have publishing be a part of my life somehow.
Has anyone else questioned these issues with their books? We want to be as pleased with our final products as we hope our readers will be, so I'm making a point to really get involved as much as I can in the process of how it's going to look on the page.
*
Speaking of the new manuscript, I decided to grow some balls and send it out at the end of September. Worst case scenario: I spend a little extra cash to see how it does in the world, and it doesn't do anything. No biggie. Otherwise it'll be sitting here, electronically collecting dust.
I have about fifteen contests and open reading periods I'm looking at right now. I'm being more judicious this time. I sent Ghost Lights to places (when it was also About Ravishment) that I had no business sending to.
The contest was for a more experimental press. The contest was getting manuscripts above the level where I was as a writer (though there should always be shown growth from book to book, hopefully, as the years go on). The prize consisted of screeners who also read and rejected my work for a journal. There are probably more...
Case in point for the last one: The Journal. When I was sending out poems for the first book, I always sent to The Journal for some reason. Maybe ten times or so. They always rejected my poems. Not only that, but I always got the same slip, sans ink. Rejections aren't a big deal, and all the poems were eventually published elsewhere, but considering all of that, why in the hell would I sent to The Journal / OSU Award in Poetry?
The answer: I shouldn't have. But I did. I was testing every depth. Now I know better, especially when the odds are almost 100% against you for whatever reason. You have to learn the particulars and the limits, in other words, about how your work is doing and has done in the outside world of editorship.
There are so many contests when you're sending out that it's hard to learn. Most of the time you suck it up and spend your cash. That's how I learned. That's how (mostly) everyone learns.
But I'm trying to be smarter time around. I think I'm doing a decent job of picking better contests and places to send for consideration. Not "better," necessarily, but more fitting, I would say. That's crucial.
*
I've always been a fan of Owen. He's always writing the same song, but they're always pleasing to listen to. The production's great on his new record, New Leaves. It's a more mature record. Every song sounds like it could be a single, which reminds me of the newest Phoenix record also. That should be a goal for every collection of any constructed artistic medium in my opinion. Give it a listen when it's officially out soon enough.
Other worth-it spins:
Lucine - A Great Distance
Jim O'Rourke - The Visitor
James Bradshaw - His Last Three Records. SEEK THEM OUT.
The Clientele - Bonfires on the Heath
Imogen Heap - Ellipse
Caspian - Tertia
Polvo - In Prism
Port-Royal - Dying in Time
Sleeping at Last - Storyboards
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Please Be Great, Bowtie Cinemas
I had the pleasure of seeing some pretty inspiring movies in the last few days: Following Sean, Billy the Kid, and Local Color.
FOLLOWING SEAN is one of those documentaries that felt like a Jóhann Jóhannson composition, slowly building and becoming louder and more complex, until it suddenly ends and you're kind of overwhelmed by this hugeness in front of you. Maybe not all his works, but the best. I didn't know what I was watching at first or where I was going. There are tons of momentum shifts, time shifts, but everything feels right. It's linear a way, but you don't really know how it us or why it is until the end. It's really a film that creeps up from under you. I found it to be ultimately... filmed by someone with a beating heart, for one. A friend who was describing a poet recently said, "It doesn't feel like a human's behind the words; it feels like ghosts." So many poems feel like that, and some on purpose I suppose, but this was the complete opposite. It reminded me a bit of STONE READER in the sense of the quest, and of CAPTURING THE FRIEDMANS for its use of older footage, not originally sought out for use in the film. I felt I was a better person after seeing it. It sounds saccharine but it's true. It's a film that feels silly to even begin to describe, and if you don't get it you may turn it off. But it clicked for me. There's so much I could say about it, but I won't try. See it. Not only that, but I didn't know who Lori McKenna was, and her amazingly beautiful song, "Never Die Young," runs with the credits. Her voice reminds me a bit of Sally Ellyson from Hem, who also has one of the most amazing voices I've ever heard.
BILLY THE KID was a movie I'd seen a trailer for, and it didn't disappoint. It's basically about a kid who's a sophomore in high school and gets followed around by a camera. Again, the reviews were mixed, and I can see why, but ultimately I found it to be completely interesting. You can tell he's borderline genius with the things he says, and there were moments I wanted to be that age again. I think it's essentially a movie about young love, but through some alternate sense of anything most of us have ever known. He's not your average high school sophomore, and you can tell he's something special. It's another oddly inspiring movie by the end. I'm having a lot of trouble making any semblance of a connection with my own words, which is another reason it just needs to be viewed.
LOCAL COLOR, like SNOW ANGELS, is a script that could've been made into a shitty Lifetime movie in the wrong hands, and you may say it is, in fact, pretty much a Lifetime movie. I think despite the possibly maudlin and predictable nature, I found it all to be enjoyable because I seem naturally to compare all art to poetry: painting, music, fiction, everything. I think most poets are biased toward the notion that poetry can be found in everything, but no other art can singularly claim that as far as I'm concerned. I find myself relating to Trevor Morgan's character (who I saw something in in OFF THE BLACK, even though the movie was a watered-down -- with more narrative -- David Gordon Green flick, complete with stolen cinematographer Tim Orr): wanting to learn and knowing it may take a while to realize why I'm doing what I do. The script is predictable, but there's something I like about it so much, for all the reasons I won't be able to explain.
I don't know if this post makes any sense.
But I still feel like I not only have so much to learn, but there's so much I want to learn, before I get older and jaded and bad shit happens to the point where I don't want to think about art in the least. I hope that never happens, but unfortunately it does for some.
I've probably written about it before, but when Phil Levine was here my first semester at VCU a few years ago, he said, about Larry Levis, and I'm paraphrasing: "Even when he was going through awful things in life, he never stopped writing." I remember so much about that moment, even where people were sitting, people who I haven't seen since that hour in that room with no windows open.
I can't say anything else right now without sounding like someone who can't even tell you what time it is.
FOLLOWING SEAN is one of those documentaries that felt like a Jóhann Jóhannson composition, slowly building and becoming louder and more complex, until it suddenly ends and you're kind of overwhelmed by this hugeness in front of you. Maybe not all his works, but the best. I didn't know what I was watching at first or where I was going. There are tons of momentum shifts, time shifts, but everything feels right. It's linear a way, but you don't really know how it us or why it is until the end. It's really a film that creeps up from under you. I found it to be ultimately... filmed by someone with a beating heart, for one. A friend who was describing a poet recently said, "It doesn't feel like a human's behind the words; it feels like ghosts." So many poems feel like that, and some on purpose I suppose, but this was the complete opposite. It reminded me a bit of STONE READER in the sense of the quest, and of CAPTURING THE FRIEDMANS for its use of older footage, not originally sought out for use in the film. I felt I was a better person after seeing it. It sounds saccharine but it's true. It's a film that feels silly to even begin to describe, and if you don't get it you may turn it off. But it clicked for me. There's so much I could say about it, but I won't try. See it. Not only that, but I didn't know who Lori McKenna was, and her amazingly beautiful song, "Never Die Young," runs with the credits. Her voice reminds me a bit of Sally Ellyson from Hem, who also has one of the most amazing voices I've ever heard.
BILLY THE KID was a movie I'd seen a trailer for, and it didn't disappoint. It's basically about a kid who's a sophomore in high school and gets followed around by a camera. Again, the reviews were mixed, and I can see why, but ultimately I found it to be completely interesting. You can tell he's borderline genius with the things he says, and there were moments I wanted to be that age again. I think it's essentially a movie about young love, but through some alternate sense of anything most of us have ever known. He's not your average high school sophomore, and you can tell he's something special. It's another oddly inspiring movie by the end. I'm having a lot of trouble making any semblance of a connection with my own words, which is another reason it just needs to be viewed.
LOCAL COLOR, like SNOW ANGELS, is a script that could've been made into a shitty Lifetime movie in the wrong hands, and you may say it is, in fact, pretty much a Lifetime movie. I think despite the possibly maudlin and predictable nature, I found it all to be enjoyable because I seem naturally to compare all art to poetry: painting, music, fiction, everything. I think most poets are biased toward the notion that poetry can be found in everything, but no other art can singularly claim that as far as I'm concerned. I find myself relating to Trevor Morgan's character (who I saw something in in OFF THE BLACK, even though the movie was a watered-down -- with more narrative -- David Gordon Green flick, complete with stolen cinematographer Tim Orr): wanting to learn and knowing it may take a while to realize why I'm doing what I do. The script is predictable, but there's something I like about it so much, for all the reasons I won't be able to explain.
I don't know if this post makes any sense.
But I still feel like I not only have so much to learn, but there's so much I want to learn, before I get older and jaded and bad shit happens to the point where I don't want to think about art in the least. I hope that never happens, but unfortunately it does for some.
I've probably written about it before, but when Phil Levine was here my first semester at VCU a few years ago, he said, about Larry Levis, and I'm paraphrasing: "Even when he was going through awful things in life, he never stopped writing." I remember so much about that moment, even where people were sitting, people who I haven't seen since that hour in that room with no windows open.
I can't say anything else right now without sounding like someone who can't even tell you what time it is.
Monday, August 11, 2008
Catching Up
The cat is almost officially out of the bag, meaning I've proposed to Jess, and she has said yes. I want her to pick out the ring, which everyone in my family has done, so we're probably going to start looking tonight. She's the one who has to wear it on her finger, after all, so I want her to be happy with it. I can't afford anything too crazy, but she can always upgrade it if she wants to I suppose. So, soon, amidst Ph.D applications and hopefully writing new poems and these first book interviews will be all the planning. It'll be in Pittsburgh, so we'll have to do a lot of it long distance, but that's fine. I hate the Steelers and their fans with a passion, but I do love Pittsburgh as a city, so I think it'll be nice, and I'm very much looking forward to everything.
*
I hilariously found out that my chapbook was a Finalist for the 2007 Poetry West Chapbook Contest. I say hilariously because I threw it together pretty quickly, its title is "About Ravishment," the old title of my first full length manuscript, and since I sent it to them about a year and a half ago, I thought the contest was dead, as I didn't hear this until a few days ago. I didn't even know if I still had a copy lying around since I changed to a Mac, but I did find it, and was happy to see almost every poem still in the current "Ghost Lights" -- only two of them have since been cut, and that's it.
I was thinking of maybe trying to get a new version of a chapbook together to send to some contests, but at this point I'd honestly rather continue sending out "Ghost Lights" and working on new poems, hopefully for a distant full length manuscript number two.
*
Eric and Jenn were here over the weekend from Savannah, and then Craig and Sam stopped by on their way back from the beach on Friday. We had a good time, though every time folks visit we always end up staying within the museum district and on our balcony. But I don't think there were any complaints.
I saw The Pineapple Express again with Eric on Saturday night, and I liked it a lot better the second time. I'm looking forward to the DVD, as the bonus stuff should be amazing. I hope David Gordon Green does a commentary and there's a cast commentary also. Maybe a "smoked up" commentary? Not sure how legal that would be. There should be some good shit on it at any rate.
Then, yesterday, when we were headed to the Watermelon Festival in Carytown, I told Jess to hold on while I grabbed my keys. But alas, my keys were nowhere to be found. We even looked in the over, the garbage disposal, and the freezer. I thought they grew legs and got the fuck out of dodge.
I kept calling Eric, though I knew his phone was probably going to be off. After we tore apart the apartment for about two hours, we came to the conclusion that Eric and Jenn had accidentally snagged my keys somehow.
Either way, they were gone.
So I called AAA, and they called a local locksmith. He was here in about thirty minutes, and with a buddy of his, in an hour made a key that opened the door, trunk, and started the ignition, all from just a metal key mold. I, at least, was pretty fascinated. It's all numbers and fractions of an inch and trial and error and codes. Then they said they were going to do shots of Sailor Jerry, which I had never heard of. And Sam told me that Belvedere Vodka with Sheetz peach icea tea -- since he found out that I was from western Pennsylvania -- is amazing, and of course it can only be mixed with the Sheetz brand peach iced tea. They were cool guys, they worked fast, and they amazed me.
Turns out Jenn accidentally grabbed my keys thinking they were Eric's. No worries, though. Things happen. Got an extra key for the car. And Eric mailed my keys back earlier today.
Now I know to have a spare, since I didn't, and that if you're really in a pinch like that, a key can be made to start your car.
Maybe everyone knew that. I didn't. I like being fascinated. I was fascinated.
*
It was weird and kind of surreal walking through Carytown for the Watermelon Festival, when we finally got there. Tons of people. There was a woman probably in her late 30s playing the spoons, and right next to her was a sign that said, "Need money for BB gun." And there's the heady amalgam of body odor, funnel cakes, seafood, charred ribs, candles from vendors, stale beer, sewer, and sweat. And that was when we got there at the end. I'm really going to miss Richmond.
I feel like this second "manuscript" I'm hopefully working on is going to be a kind of Richmond manuscript, involving nocturnes and the weirdness of the city, usually from a weird poetic distance, maybe out of fear. A book about the city. With lots of weirdness of course. And another chunk may be a weird project of photographic ekphrastic poems I'm excited to work on, though I'd rather reveal it once I have some solid poems written. We'll see.
*
First Book Interviews will soon be on their way to some poets. I think I'm past thirty willing folks now, so that's great. I want to keep the list going, so poets with first books, email me, and if you know interested parties, tell them to contact me.
I won't reveal any names, but I did encounter a few poets who didn't want to participate. Granted, their books were released a few years ago, and I can see why they don't want to participate, but I always found that kind of thing fascinating, the distance.
You dedicate so many years to completing this piece of art, whether it's three or thirty-three, and then you kind of disown it, or you feel so distant from it that it wasn't even written by you. I hope to never feel like that with mine, once and if it's ever published, but it may happen. If it does, though, I guess that's why you go on. I do hope these said poets have new books in the works, though, because their first books are amazing.
*
I don't like Phil Levine really as a person, as much as I can know him as a person. My bad run-in my first MFA year soured me kind of forever. His work's a different thing, even though half of it, at this point in my life, I'm not raving about. I'm sure that'll change in the future. But when he was here talking about Larry Levis, he said Larry, even at an early age, worked harder than any poet he knew. And that even when he was going through awful things like divorce and deaths in the family and affairs, he was always writing.
I think sometimes people forget how powerful poetry can be. Yes, you can write sestinas and sonnets to gain some poetical muscle (and of course they can be as powerful as any other poem, but I'm talking about using those forms to get words on the page), and you can write funny poems to entertain (even though some folks have said that all writing is entertainment, and that's a broadly defined word in the first place), but those words of Levine's have never left my head.
I remember my heart kind of stopped when he said it, and I remember who was there and where everyone was sitting and what the air smelled like around that table in Hibbs. It was a moment I knew I'd remember forever. We can always write, maybe not write through things, maybe not write to always ease pain or suffering, but always writing, no matter what's going on, seems to be something that defines a true sense of someone who writes poetry seriously (and no, there aren't enough, even though many would take offense to that, and even I sometimes think I'm not serious enough, actually often I think I'm not serious enough), especially since I hate that word "poet" and will never use that term in accordance with my name probably as long as I live.
*
I hilariously found out that my chapbook was a Finalist for the 2007 Poetry West Chapbook Contest. I say hilariously because I threw it together pretty quickly, its title is "About Ravishment," the old title of my first full length manuscript, and since I sent it to them about a year and a half ago, I thought the contest was dead, as I didn't hear this until a few days ago. I didn't even know if I still had a copy lying around since I changed to a Mac, but I did find it, and was happy to see almost every poem still in the current "Ghost Lights" -- only two of them have since been cut, and that's it.
I was thinking of maybe trying to get a new version of a chapbook together to send to some contests, but at this point I'd honestly rather continue sending out "Ghost Lights" and working on new poems, hopefully for a distant full length manuscript number two.
*
Eric and Jenn were here over the weekend from Savannah, and then Craig and Sam stopped by on their way back from the beach on Friday. We had a good time, though every time folks visit we always end up staying within the museum district and on our balcony. But I don't think there were any complaints.
I saw The Pineapple Express again with Eric on Saturday night, and I liked it a lot better the second time. I'm looking forward to the DVD, as the bonus stuff should be amazing. I hope David Gordon Green does a commentary and there's a cast commentary also. Maybe a "smoked up" commentary? Not sure how legal that would be. There should be some good shit on it at any rate.
Then, yesterday, when we were headed to the Watermelon Festival in Carytown, I told Jess to hold on while I grabbed my keys. But alas, my keys were nowhere to be found. We even looked in the over, the garbage disposal, and the freezer. I thought they grew legs and got the fuck out of dodge.
I kept calling Eric, though I knew his phone was probably going to be off. After we tore apart the apartment for about two hours, we came to the conclusion that Eric and Jenn had accidentally snagged my keys somehow.
Either way, they were gone.
So I called AAA, and they called a local locksmith. He was here in about thirty minutes, and with a buddy of his, in an hour made a key that opened the door, trunk, and started the ignition, all from just a metal key mold. I, at least, was pretty fascinated. It's all numbers and fractions of an inch and trial and error and codes. Then they said they were going to do shots of Sailor Jerry, which I had never heard of. And Sam told me that Belvedere Vodka with Sheetz peach icea tea -- since he found out that I was from western Pennsylvania -- is amazing, and of course it can only be mixed with the Sheetz brand peach iced tea. They were cool guys, they worked fast, and they amazed me.
Turns out Jenn accidentally grabbed my keys thinking they were Eric's. No worries, though. Things happen. Got an extra key for the car. And Eric mailed my keys back earlier today.
Now I know to have a spare, since I didn't, and that if you're really in a pinch like that, a key can be made to start your car.
Maybe everyone knew that. I didn't. I like being fascinated. I was fascinated.
*
It was weird and kind of surreal walking through Carytown for the Watermelon Festival, when we finally got there. Tons of people. There was a woman probably in her late 30s playing the spoons, and right next to her was a sign that said, "Need money for BB gun." And there's the heady amalgam of body odor, funnel cakes, seafood, charred ribs, candles from vendors, stale beer, sewer, and sweat. And that was when we got there at the end. I'm really going to miss Richmond.
I feel like this second "manuscript" I'm hopefully working on is going to be a kind of Richmond manuscript, involving nocturnes and the weirdness of the city, usually from a weird poetic distance, maybe out of fear. A book about the city. With lots of weirdness of course. And another chunk may be a weird project of photographic ekphrastic poems I'm excited to work on, though I'd rather reveal it once I have some solid poems written. We'll see.
*
First Book Interviews will soon be on their way to some poets. I think I'm past thirty willing folks now, so that's great. I want to keep the list going, so poets with first books, email me, and if you know interested parties, tell them to contact me.
I won't reveal any names, but I did encounter a few poets who didn't want to participate. Granted, their books were released a few years ago, and I can see why they don't want to participate, but I always found that kind of thing fascinating, the distance.
You dedicate so many years to completing this piece of art, whether it's three or thirty-three, and then you kind of disown it, or you feel so distant from it that it wasn't even written by you. I hope to never feel like that with mine, once and if it's ever published, but it may happen. If it does, though, I guess that's why you go on. I do hope these said poets have new books in the works, though, because their first books are amazing.
*
I don't like Phil Levine really as a person, as much as I can know him as a person. My bad run-in my first MFA year soured me kind of forever. His work's a different thing, even though half of it, at this point in my life, I'm not raving about. I'm sure that'll change in the future. But when he was here talking about Larry Levis, he said Larry, even at an early age, worked harder than any poet he knew. And that even when he was going through awful things like divorce and deaths in the family and affairs, he was always writing.
I think sometimes people forget how powerful poetry can be. Yes, you can write sestinas and sonnets to gain some poetical muscle (and of course they can be as powerful as any other poem, but I'm talking about using those forms to get words on the page), and you can write funny poems to entertain (even though some folks have said that all writing is entertainment, and that's a broadly defined word in the first place), but those words of Levine's have never left my head.
I remember my heart kind of stopped when he said it, and I remember who was there and where everyone was sitting and what the air smelled like around that table in Hibbs. It was a moment I knew I'd remember forever. We can always write, maybe not write through things, maybe not write to always ease pain or suffering, but always writing, no matter what's going on, seems to be something that defines a true sense of someone who writes poetry seriously (and no, there aren't enough, even though many would take offense to that, and even I sometimes think I'm not serious enough, actually often I think I'm not serious enough), especially since I hate that word "poet" and will never use that term in accordance with my name probably as long as I live.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Signs
I don't know how long this guy (or, as Joshua Poteat says, "or girl") has been doing this around Richmond, but there are these small canvases (though as Blackbird says, it's painted plywood) tacked to the poles of street signs, screwed in with bolts, all around the city.
They're really beautiful, and apparently the guy ("or girl") could be arrested for some silly reason. Why have beautiful art around that people can look at? Gotta love smashing creativity.
But it's the kind of stuff I'd love to have all over my apartment. Screw framed paintings.
Yesterday after class I saw what may be a bit of Josh Poteat's work on a pole near the Hibbs building. If I ever get a digital camera I'm going to be driving around one day documenting where they are all over the city.
Here's an image from Blackbird (original link) of perhaps the most stunning I've seen this far. A drawing of Larry Levis with snippets from "Boy in Video Arcade" surrounding him.
If you're in Richmond, keep an eye out. They're pretty incredible.
They're really beautiful, and apparently the guy ("or girl") could be arrested for some silly reason. Why have beautiful art around that people can look at? Gotta love smashing creativity.
But it's the kind of stuff I'd love to have all over my apartment. Screw framed paintings.
Yesterday after class I saw what may be a bit of Josh Poteat's work on a pole near the Hibbs building. If I ever get a digital camera I'm going to be driving around one day documenting where they are all over the city.
Here's an image from Blackbird (original link) of perhaps the most stunning I've seen this far. A drawing of Larry Levis with snippets from "Boy in Video Arcade" surrounding him.
If you're in Richmond, keep an eye out. They're pretty incredible.
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