I Am Retarded (grad school woes)

i typed this in an aim conversation a few years ago

i don’t want to view poetry the same way a business man views making progress reports

i was thinking too

(i think a lot about the theory of poetry, but i never write it down…i think maybe because i don’t want to commit to it…i want it to be susceptible to change)

anyway

in study of lit

we talked about literature (or all of art) adapting the jargon structure of science

as in

the same way we talk about science we must talk about art

but i think that’s wrong

because art, no matter what art you want to talk about, never created the atomic bomb, or biological warfare

i do not think art should be discussed like science in any manner

because art’s purpose is to defend us against all that terrible garbage humanity has lined up for us

and i think, no matter what artist, they have some understanding of this

because…the rest of the world is moving one way, and the artist is moving counter to that

though the art itself may not reflect it in any way

the artist however is always a revolutionary figure

thoughts like that…are why i don’t write every day…because having a thought like that is just as good as writing a poem

Kendra Grant Malone’s Everything is Quiet

After reading KGM’s Everything is Quiet I instantly thought of a Dylan lyric “Till she sees finally that she’s like all the rest, with her fog, her amphetamine and her pearls”. Malone’s book is unapologetic, she isn’t fishing for sympathy or pity for her actions/observations that readers may not agree with. Malone, a confessional 20-something is just that, there is no pretense, or difficulty, or technical show-boating. And this is what makes this book as good as it is. Malone’s poems, like her, do not try to be something they’re not.

Everything is Quiet is captivating because we get Malone herself, how she places herself in the world, her actions, her guilt, her inquiry. Descartes would call her a ‘thinking thing’ and St. Vincent Millay would be proud. She describes her existence honestly, bare boned and brutal. Malone shows us how horrible it is to exist, and how easy it is to be indifferent towards others, while trying so hard to be good to herself and others. Many people might have problem with Malone’s character, but that’s what makes the book engaging. It is REAL. And by real I mean believable. Even if her poems are complete lies we still want to believe them because we, as readers, know this is generally how people exist in the world around them.

Everything is Quiet is a book for the staunch existentialist, young rebellious women (though who says they have to be young?), or an avid Bukowski fan (who would notice the similarities in style). When I finished this book I couldn’t judge Malone; It’s possible to take a shot at her and say she doesn’t understand or care about the consequences, but she has to. The title of the collection alludes to this. These poems could’ve come out of the solitude she experienced following the experiences behind the poems. These poems are subtly guilt-ridden though they might not always speak to it directly. Everything is Quiet is Kendra Grant Malone coming to terms with herself and the world. This is a book that spits in the face of the technical or intellectual or multicultural or classical or academic or didactic, it is all that it is without trying to be anything else. There needs to be more poets and more books of poems like this, because a poet being honest and relatable is probably the biggest risk one can take.

Recently Received (video edition)

Grad School

So I’m applying to grad schools for a creative writing MFA, and the process is so horrible. It wouldn’t be so bad if there was some kind of uniform to schools’ websites so you could find everything in one location. I’ve already spent 20 minutes on one site looking for GRE school codes.

Somebody has to say this directly

Seth Abramson is a con-man in plainclothes. I’m not going to explain who he is, so just look him up if you don’t know.

Basically if a person cannot decide where they want to go to grad school to pursue an MFA in Creative Writing they shouldn’t be consulting some one else to tell them where they should apply.  Abramson is charging $230-ish (I don’t know the exact figure) to look over a person’s manuscript, judge it, and point them in a direction of schools to apply to. (Is it just me, or is this something that should’ve happened with you and your professors in an undergraduate institution?)

Let me just say this, because it’s important. If you need somebody’s advice on where you should to go grad school, you should probably reconsider. Especially if that person is being paid by you and has no other connection with you (ex. if you talk to a professor you have classes with them, conferences…you get to establish a relationship with another human being that may give you better advice than some manuscript consultant.)

Honestly, if you’re dumb enough to give this clown money, then you deserve to be taken advantage of. It’s called Trial and Error, you might learn something.

To tell you the truth, I’m just bitter that I didn’t think of it first.

So I’ve given up (at least for the time being)

No one doubts that writing poems is hard. At least, people that try and write a “good” poem and continuously fail. I have been trying for quite some time now (years) and have little to show in terms of creation. I have poems, but I know what is wrong with them, and they are not worth attempting to fix.

My main problem results from: I want to go back to writing without thinking about it so much, just write from impulse. However, I was writing like that when I was 17, in a hugely imitative Ginsberg/Whitman phase (yes, I even used the “O” in my poems). So in a way I don’t want it back. I blame school for taking that away from me. I learned how to think about writing in a different way, and I can’t say that it’s the best way because I’ve constantly faltered creatively because of it. Intellectually though, I know I have spread out my area of reading (though I still have found 20th Century American Poetry pre-1980, not just The Beats, to be my favorite). So schooling was a double-edged sword for me. But what is most important, is getting back to that early ideology behind creation while bringing along the things that I have learned throughout the years.

The Spicer lectures jarred me in a manner that I didn’t expect. Spicer’s metaphor of radio for poetic composition really got me thinking about where poems come from. Spicer argues that they come from the “Outside”, from what he antagonistically dubs “Martians”, and the poet is merely a receptor of these signals and attempts to interpret them as best as humanly possible. I’ve always liked to think that poems come from me, and even if i’m on some kind of automatic writing, it’s still me. However the fact that I am not in control is an appealing idea. One that might fit well into Spicer’s model, and more importantly, with my recent confusion.

And this is where I get to thinking about it too much.

And this is where I tell you that I am taking a break from writing poems. Though, what I might do is try to write fragments of things I’m telling myself not-to-do or what I shouldn’t do. Of course this still is a bit too mental for me, and yet again, therein lies the problem.

Another problem that comes in is that I can’t actually stop writing poems. Spicer says in one of his lectures that a person that wants to become a junky or a poet is a fool. The implications of this statement are far-reaching. Poems are addicting. Withdrawl from poems for too long makes me irritable. Poems are junk. I don’t think I’ll ever completely stop writing them because it’s what I’ve chosen to do, or maybe they chose me.

I think the best thing for poets to do, especially those going or graduating from school, is to not think about it so much, train yourself not to think about it. This is advice that comes  from Spicer rather than myself, but in this context it applies tenfold.

AS IN EVERY DEAFNESS – Graham Foust

AS IN EVERY DEAFNESS
Graham Foust
Flood Editions, 2003

Something about the short poem makes me want to stab myself in the eye. With that said, Graham Foust really tries to make it work, and he doesn’t totally fail, if anything he is guilty of “That something desperate was to be attempted was,/ however, quite plain” (#20, “Europe”, Ashbery). Although, Foust has total, and I mean TOTAL, control of the language in his poems. Like any great short poem writer the attention to detail is present right down to the minutest, well, detail. Foust has some great lines in As in Every Deafness, not just content oriented either, think syllable play like Rae Armantrout.

Narcissus

A whole bright
ocean’s out

of cadence,
in place.

Knives
from a child

are not as beautiful
to pull.

The language of “Narcissus” just works. In case it might not be obvious for certain readers, follow: “whole” to “pull” not the same sound but close, an interesting way to link beginning to end, follow: “ocean’s out” basic alliteration with a quasi-jarring enjambment, follow: “cadence” “place”, follow: “Knives” contextual “from a child” and only other capitalized word in the poem, also on a line by itself, heavily emphasized, this is where the poem turns, follow: “beautiful” “pull”. The title also works well for this poem. For me it brings up the image of the Narcissus Flower myth, most likely from the child and ocean reference.

Even though I was ripping on the short poem form it certainly has some positives. Wittgenstein once said what was really important in his Philosophical Investigations was what wasn’t there. This is one of the greatest assets of the short (or condensed) poem. Foust never gives us too much. As readers we are thirsty and he gives us just a sip. This can be a good or bad thing. As in Every Deafness works in both ways. Sometimes the poems border on banal and are too plain. While others, like “Narcissus”, stand out.  Foust’s biggest issue is worrying too much about the language and not enough about what he is saying.

One aspect of the book that also bothered me was separate sections. The book is split into three sections, the first “Forcing House” and third “Told Apart” have names while the second is untitled. But the separation just doesn’t really work. The content from section to section varies, but only slightly, not nearly enough to justify breaking the book up into three parts. Although, “As in Every Deafness” makes sense as a title for the entire book, given that the poetic form is a hollow one (by hollow I mean, one that creates a lot of empty space on the page).

Foust was a pretty quick read and I’d recommend the book if short poetry is something you’re into. Even if short poetry isn’t your aesthetic choice, there are a few things Foust’s poems can demonstrate in terms of syllable and sound arrangement. It’s definitely something to pickup if you are a poet, especially if you want to gain a better understanding of how to emphasize language.