A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Market, 7:40 p.m. PST

Walking down the alley on the way to Little's Market, I spied my friend Jessica approaching, cradling a large brown paper bag.

"What's in the bag," asked I.

"Burr."

"Burr?"

"Burr," she said.

"What kind of burr?"

"Stoat."

Just then, her boyfriend Brian poked his head out of the apartment door (yes, they live in an alley) and said, "Jessica, what are you doing? I thought you were doing laundry," to which she replied:

"No. I was at the store. Buying beer."

I walked on, lonely as a cloud.

Sunday Morning

Okay, it's really Sunday afternoon. I've spent the past week attending AWP vicariously through Shanna Compton's (and others') blog. Damn. Everybody is WAY cooler than me. Shanna got to eat at Rick Bayless' restaurant AND she peeped the new Court Green, of which I don't yet have a copy.

Meanwhile, I'm hanging out in dark bars drinking pabst and bourbon and talking to strangers in distress. Good thing classes start again tomorrow.

Another Grid

Per Kent Johnson's suggestion that young poets "want to write the fractured lyric of intellectual, self-reflexive experience, or else some theory-inflected version of the cool, campy Frank O’Hara-like poem, or some hybrid version of these styles."


                   Maximalist
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Stein----------------------------O’Hara
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                   Minimalist

Where do blogger/poets we know and love fit onto this grid?

Today's Cookie

These are delicious. It's like eating pure butter. (Well, it IS...almost)

+ + +

Cream Wafers

Known as Pariserwafier in Sweden.
They are rich and flaky.

1 cup soft butter
1/3 cup cream (35% butterfat)
2 cups sifted GOLD MEDAL Flour

Mix well butter, cream, flour. Chill. Heat
oven to 375 degrees(quick mod.). Roll out dough
1/8” thick on floured board. Cut with 1 ½”
cutter. Roll only 1/3 of dough at a time; keep
rest refrigerated. Transfer rounds to waxed
paper heavily covered with granulated sugar.
Turn each round so that both sides are coated
with sugar. Place on ungreased baking sheet.
Prick with fork about 4 times. Bake 7 to 9 min.
Cool and put two cookies together with
Filling (recipe below). Makes about 5 doz.
double cookies.


Filling

6 tablespoons butter
2 ¼ cup powdered sugar sifted
2 small egg yolks
1 ½ teaspoon vanilla

Blend all together. Tint pink and green.

Poem

Vern Equine


Eferyugng

Ent ihs poam

Izm ispeled

Swut weak all

Sprung er sumry

Whetur: son, bries

flowres mykinang

smezle frum thuir

sty men. Pistol.

Peelep mooing grase

Pelpl smoingk greez,

Uhm ountn thet woe

Ntalk bak.

Some Questions

Is there one thing that all avant-garde art has in common? (besides opposition to the "mainstream")

What do we mean when we say "experimental" poetry?

I took one of those "What poet are you?" quizzes and it said I was Sharon Olds. Is it normal to want to kill myself now? Or should I reserve murderous thoughts for the obviously screwed-up inventor(s) of that quiz?

Is the avant-garde/experimental paradoxical in that it traditionally strikes an ultra-romantic pose but does so within the confines of a community (thus making it "classical" instead of "romantic")?

Am I a poseur if I read mostly avant-garde/experimental poetry but write very traditonal, mainstream poems? Am I simply a SOQ poet with Avant-envy?

Favorite Sentence In An Email Received Today

"Maybe Swayze's my eternal muse."

Poet D

is Arielle Greenberg. One responder guessed that Arielle was Poet C. Nobody guessed she was Poet D. A lot of folks thought this was written by an "older man" (sixties, white, suburban). Wrong. Age 31. She teaches at Columbia College in Chicago. She publishes as many poems as Lyn Lifshin. I only know that Arielle is a vegetarian. I haven't eaten with her. I thought I'd have the chance in St. Louis, but we didn't hook up for dinner. Good thing. I ate a heaping plate of steak on top of a heaping pile of Welsh Rabbit/Rarebit. I think that this particular poem is one of the strongest short pieces in her book, Given. Overall, response to this poem was favorable.

Poet C

is Josh Edwards, Editor and Publisher of The Canary, and perhaps the easiest to peg. Everyone guessed this poet was male, and nearly everyone guessed his age (mid-twenties). Overall, people, were the harshest on this poem, and I'm not sure if it's one of Josh's least-likable poems, or if my taste is just off. Josh Corey's comment is fairly typical of the responses received: "Testosterone surrealism masking sentimentality." In fact, Corey also correctly guessed that Mr. Edwards is from Texas (but educated in Oregon and Alabama), and that he is a burger and fries sorta guy. Josh, for all the good work he does in poetry (publishing, editing, writing his own poems, and promoting like a madman), strikes me as a not-very-interesting eater. He's an "eat to live" guy, whereas I'm the other type. He detests mayonnaise or anything resembling mayonnaise. I've seen him eat gardenburgers a few too many times to be entirely trusting of his palate. Anyone who GOES OUT and then orders a gardenburger strikes me as immediately suspicious. He's also not fond of alimentary paste.

Poet B

is Kristin Kelly. She doesn't have a book, but I'd probably blurb it. Several people commented that they initially thought this was written by a male poet trying to write like a female. What I know about this poem: it and many others like it were written as part of a series--well, I'm not sure if that's the right word--of poems written mostly during the summer of 2002. Kristin and I wrote poems to each other and traded them via email for several months. These were mostly off-the-cuff unrevised "daily" sorts of poems. One thing we noticed at the end of our experiment is that we started sounding like each other--I can only guess that the "maleness" of this poem might be at least partially due to my influence at the time, or our trading of poetic identities.

Kristin would have been 22 or 23 when this was written. I've never eaten a meal with her--which just occurred to me and is strange. We've had only liquids together. Beer and coffee. She's currently at Iowa, but like many good poets, is originally from Kansas. She did her undergrad work (in Comparative Literature) at the University of Oregon in Eugene, where she wrote a very good poem about Dorothy Wordsworth.

Poem Test

The results are in.

Poet A is Robyn Schiff, as Josh Corey correctly guessed. All test-takers guessed that this poem was written by a woman except for one, but I imagine the one was being disingenuous for reasons I can't go into here. One disliked the title. The poem is from Robyn's book, Worth. It's blurbed by Mark Levine and Lyn Hejinian. A couple of people guessed that this poet was fond of sushi. I'm not sure. Every time I've dined with Robyn and her husband, she's eaten either meat (steak, chicken, etc.) or the same pasta dish--one with sausage. I haven't seen her eat sushi. Interestingly, many responses indicated that this poet was probably educated at Iowa. She was.

I've written one of Daniel Nester's poems for him:


FOCUS ON SAINTY

& discard the fanfare—each blast crowds slightly
In the shadow of a brightened face: a shanty.

Pick the lady on the flower barge. Shifty.
Readjust the crosshairs justly: sticky.

Your Oulippean pumps are just right shady.
I’m taking a schooner, a sloop, a sham.

Passably pasty and all in-between—foist
The fractured foible generator & focus on shellacking.

Fixate on shells—cheese and shells. You make us.
You make us shells. Shantih. Shantih. Cheyenne,

Wyoming.
Population Never.

World's Oldest Cat

Beyonce

did not coin the term "bootylicious." Snoop Dogg did. It originally meant "whack" or generally terrible.

"Your bark was loud but your bite wasn't vicious / And the rhymes you was kickin' were quite bootylicious."

Snoop Dogg (from "Fuck Wit' Dre Day")

Apt Self-Description Copped from a Pixies Song:

"Your Irish skin looks Mexican."

from Bone Machine.

Speaking of Yeats

One more reason I love Gabe Gudding. (Hey, Gabe--we have that gay marriage thing out here in Oregon...)

AFTER YEATS

When I am old and using Revlon hair dye
and am sucking up my pharmacopoeia,
and can drink but Sanka--
when I don't have too many friends anymore
and the bathroom is a place of loneliness--

Yes, when I am old and Revloned and hypnogogic
and nodding at the wheel,
take down this book
and read of one who phoned you less and less,
but who dug you and remembered
your elegant hand
and somewhat geeky look.

(Gabriel Gudding)

Poet Test & Stuff

I've had several responses so far to the Poetry Test below. I'm extending the deadline a bit.

I don't know if this will change the candidness of responses, but I will say this: all of the poets represented are people I know personally. The particular poems I posted were more or less random choices (pick up book, flip to page with short poem, google poet name on web, etc.)

*

It's raining here today after a week of gorgeous sunny summery weather. Bleah.

*

Last night I got drunk in a not-Irish bar and sang Clash songs loudly and offkey before spilling half a beer on one of my drinking companions. It wouldn't have been a big deal, but I hardly know the poor woman who ended up wearing most of my beer--so I did nothing but confirm her probable impression of me as a drunk asshole. A drunk asshole who knows most of the words to London Calling (the whole album).

*

Besides Irish Whiskey and green beer, the only thing I ate yesterday was a potato. That was very Irish of me. I cooked it in Extra Virgin olive oil (green) and sprinkled it with fresh sage (also green). I didn't wear any green clothes.

*

I tried to quote Yeats at the bar but I only managed one line.

God Hates Shrimp

"This is for the cat at my shows who always has prophetic opinions but can't remember where his drink is."
--Aesop Rock

*

I've added a couple of new blogs to the blogroll on your right.

*

Mad props to the three of you who have completed the poet/ry test. There's still time.

Tuesday More

Exams finished. One student managed to spell "houyhnhnm" correctly. If "houyhnhnm" is the correct spelling.

On the TV in the other room, Martha Stewart is arguing with a caller about the proper way to filet a chicken breast. She keeps saying "paillard" and the caller is confused. Caller explains that she's Korean. Martha says something condescending.

More to come. (Carson.)

Oh yeah, respond to the poem test. It's more fun than Ron's.

Tuesday Without Warning

Halfway through my stack of "Intro to the English Major (Part 2)" final exams.

I have learned that:

Aemelia Lanyer and Anne Bradstreet are one and the same.

A trochaic substitution in the first foot fails to "give the line the DA DA DA sound."

People with illegible handwriting make me testy.

Everyone could identify the Pope passage from "Essay on Criticism" except for the poor young lady who thought it was Benjamin Franklin and the fellow who claimed it was from Swift's "Gulliver's Travels."
The same exam-taker also incorrectly attributed a passage from "Paradise Lost" to John Donne.


*

I've had exactly one response to my poetry test below. Thanks Chris.

Everyone else (all three of you): please play.

*

Josh Corey has still not responded to my private invitation to have a Ronald Johnson cook-off. So I'm going public. It is necessary that you have or acquire a copy of RJ's "The American Table." We (I and whoever decides to take me up on the offer) will cook dishes from RJ's book on the same day or night, photograph the dish (if possible), eat the dish, and broadcast the results on our blogs. Or if you don't have a blog, I'll do all the posting here. Poet-Chefs unite!

All The Rage

Here's my test of poetry. No strict rules, but some suggestions:

1) Sex of poet, age of poet, geographical location of poet.
2) Poet's favorite type of cuisine.
3) Who blurbed poet's book (where applicable).
4) Why is this/is this not a "good" poem?

Email me by Wednesday, Mar 17, 6 p.m. PST: antrobin@clipper.net

Exhibit A:

House of Dior

Now we are on the chapter of pleats.
The impatience to fold, the joys of having folded,
the pleasures of folding them again.
Fabric enough in the sleeve to drape the dress,
in the skirt to drape a chest of drawers,
in the dress to drape the view of trees blacked-out
along the walk from here to the next
house. Walking in the dark inside the house
this is the black we black the windows with.
I have hung the last square of cloth.
Good-bye porch. Good-bye midnight postman
with your sack of envelopes. My love sings
to himself. Each pleat steps into the seam
with a pin in its mouth. Crease upon crease,
a fan on which an embroidered rowboat sits
at the far edge of a lake. The lake is deep enough.


Exhibit B:

The Carpentry Of

Slouching. Well that’s just relative to the sky.
Our furniture was uninformed, unmastered. The chair
broke before cedar sanded down. Too far into and under,
the roof and pilfered wood collapsed. We threw it off
the ledge and yelled “four.” No one heard us, but the story
was good. The legs, O the Legs, bent and spread
like inebriated apologies—for love, for life, for never sleeping
with—in the form of sling-shotting things off.
What meant us we rented out. Lost keys,
sniffing glue, a poem in the pocket of a shirt so dirty
I wore it to bed. So I didn’t come. So I ill-confessed my love.
So you were uncircumcised. We’re in the art of covering up.
My arms were taped to the ceiling. Just the paper
version of me. The postcard with the woman—
blouse all nippled through—sipping brandy on a couch,
and the fancy-socked man who begs at her knees
was sent back two times. My stamps, insufficiently wet,
did not stick. Your address kept moving out. Sorry became an epidemic
moved from China to Canada and the rest of the sky. Saris
unwrapped. Sharp objects were thrown. I touched myself ten times
before noon. My back went out due to poor posturing. I woke, I could not
walk or sit. Pillows insulted my body. Things too soft. You shaved,
you must be stubbled, drawing stick figures with thin straight
spines. We’re in this, the splinters. Now when I lean, you know
what towards.


Exhibit C:

Albion

The woman sitting beside me
is so beautiful that I can

smell my girlfriend, and she
lives in Australia. Whole days

go by without a single sin:
days of dogsigns, pigeon shit,

husks of the corn islands
lining my worn pockets. If

love were a question, I’d do
my homework, but it’s a plant

and not all of us are born with
green thumbs. In fact, I’m

told, most of us are born beneath
heat-lamps: screaming, resisting,

hoping that the doctor will
do something with that knife

other than cut the cord that
binds us to our mother’s belly.


Exhibit D:

The Third Man

Dear passport. Dear orphan-with-ball.
Dear balloon man. Dear Sewer.
When we die, we carry ourselves across our own streets.
We have lost the address.
Mortality is the business of the window-washer,
the men with long sticks (for getting) the job done.
Dear shadow.
We keep our hands in the pockets of our trench coats,
the play--a little shovel of dirt.
A little violin music for the woman eating soup.
Dear dilution.
Europe is down around the mouth,
and a barbershop quartet of policemen in costume
follow the cats to the shoes of their lovers,
the gum of night.
Dear posies. Dear landlady. Dear scandal.
We open the box to show you our fingers.
We open the streets to show you our spine.

Books/Music Acquired

Kenneth Koch: A Possible World, Sun Out
      Snagged these from the Northwest Review office. I paid Witte 10 bucks for the both of them. I also eyed a Terry Eagleton book, hefted it, replaced it on the shelf.

Neelam Batra: 1000 Indian Recipes
      Batra has almost as many Indian Recipes as Jordan Davis has poems. A couple dozen potato treatments here, which I appreciate. The other night I prepared Bhunae Aalu aur Moong-Phalli (Crispy Fork-Mashed Potatoes with Roasted Peanuts) for dinner and ate them with Paula Abdul. (Well, she was in the room, sort of...on the TV with a lot of bad singers.) The best thing about this book though is not the recipes but the blurbage, specifically the following:

"To savor a proper curry is to feel your palate awakened with an explosion of flavor. Neelam's recipes simmer with the fire of life." MICHAEL JACKSON, AWARD WINNING ENTERTAINER AND INDIAN FOOD LOVER.

Swami (formerly known as l'Bourgeoizine) #8--early 2004
      Guh sent me this but the actual editorship is unclear. Lots of good stuff here though. The Metallica cover of "Last Caress" really is much better than Danzig's Misfits original.

Mixed CD with no title.
      One of my students burned this for me. I guess I look and/or act old enough (but not too old, as the burning wouldn't have occurred at all, then) or unhip enough to require help or guidance with what the young kids are listening to nowadays. To tell the truth, much of this stuff is not new to me (Built to Spill and Modest Mouse, bands I still don't care for), some bootlegged Wilco tracks. A couple new discoveries, too--notably the Decemberists.

Spenser, Corey, and the Comic

Josh Corey clears up my confusion admirably. The whole "serious/comic" thing being about tone makes sense to me. The poetry I find myself most often immediately drawn to is that which employs "comic" means to achieve "serious" ends. Or maybe I'm just drawn to the cheap laugh.

Last fall I was teaching the Fairie Queene (+x, +y), and I noticed that while its tone is primarily serious, the effects it produces on the modern (post-/?), or shall we say 21st Century, reader are often comic. I found that Ashbery's characterization of FQ as like a comic book (I'm paraphrasing third-hand or so here) especially fitting. Spenser's mechanical management of plot and character almost seems cinematic, though I'd be hard pressed right now (my Spenser back at my office) to provide concrete examples. But the Dwarf is funny. He's pushed on or pulled off stage as necessary--providing, it seems to me, mostly comic relief. And then, too, it's fun to laugh at Red Crosse for his naivete (or stupidity).

Corey's Cartesian Grid

Joshua Corey's classification grid for contemporary poetry interests me but raises a few questions:

1) Is this sytem only suitable for contemporary poetry, or can we place, say, Chaucer on the grid as well?

2) If we place Chaucer on the grid, where does he belong on the X axis? How about Kenneth Koch?

3) If it's not obvious yet, I'm beating the dead horse (is it dead?) about the "difference" between "funny" and "serious"--something I see as almost always a false distinction, though, it must be said, a very convenient one.

4) Why is this classification system useful? Will/should/does it help one decide which books to read? ("Hey, Tony, you'll really dig Twemlow's new book--it's very x+, but slightly y-.")

I'm not in any way making fun or bashing--I'm just interested.

Absence

Wow. I haven't blogged in quite some time. I keep meaning to, but then the essays pour in, and this week the final exam, and then I have to catch up on reality TV. Simon Cowell is like crack. And then the kitchen's a mess and laundry piles up. But I'm back. The prospectus was turned in, fully signed-off yesterday. Huzzah.

*

Over on Fishblog, Aaron posts about Neil Young, specifically, "After the Goldrush." Carter and Larissa and I were discussing Neil over beer the other weekend, and Carter mentioned, proudly, that he had just purchased "Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere," to which I replied, "You have to get 'After the Goldrush'." The song and album are at the top of my Neil list.

And so, to answer Aaron, I think that even if Neil is imprecise, and "lie" stands in for "wrong," you still have a compelling song lyric. I imagine the imprecision Tieger notes is grounded in making the distinction that a lie is intentional, and if it's not intentional, it's simply a mistake. I'm not sure I totally buy that distinction. One can lie and not be aware of, right?

I'm trying to imagine such a situation.

BUT the verse Aaron quoted (my favorite, too) is not the whole song. Let's look at the rest of it:

Well, I dreamed I saw the knights in armor coming
Sayin' something about a queen
There were peasants singin' and drummers drumming
And the archer split the tree
There was a fanfare blowin' to the sun
That floated on the breeze
Look at mother nature on the run in the nineteen seventies
Look at mother nature on the run in the nineteen seventies

I was lyin' in a burned out basement
With a full moon in my eyes
I was hopin' for a replacement
When the sun burst through the skies
There was a band playin' in my head
And I felt like getting high
Thinkin' about what a friend had said,
I was hopin' it was a lie
Thinkin' about what a friend had said,
I was hopin' it was a lie

Well, I dreamed I saw the silver spaceships flying
In the yellow haze of the sun
There were children crying and colors flying
All around the chosen ones
All in a dream, all in a dream
The loading had begun
Flyin' mother nature's silver seed
To a new home in the sun
Flyin' mother nature's silver seed
To a new home in the sun

Obviously, there's an environmental angle here. I should ask some of my eco-critic colleagues. The middle verse does seem a bit out of place. I always imagined that the friend had predicted some sort of environmental crisis that would entail leaving Earth. However, to be precise, he wouldn't really be lying...or would he? Dammit, Aaron. I'm confused.

When I saw Neil perform this tune back in, was it '92? It was late summer, before the release of "Harvest Moon," he replaced "nineteen seventies" with "twentieth century."

I finally figured out how to add links. Kindly look to your right.