"I am an idealistic, naive, passionate, truth-seeking, spiritually motivated artist, unschooled in the science of law and finance." --Wesley Snipes

Thursday, August 11, 2005

At the Break of Day

Drinking summer coffee and listening to Bonnie "Prince" Billy. Not GPM, but "Ease Down the Road."

A girl I was in love with lent me a BPB record some years ago. It wasn't until some years later that I actually began to fall in love with Will Oldham.

Even though I'm newly undepressed, newly alive it seems, melancholy music always works better for me than the happy kind.

Erica wants me to write a poem about grammar. I want to write a poem about what kind of underwear certain poets wear. I know one thing for sure: Andy Mister wears orange underwear.

A woman I admire writes to tell me that I remind her of Press-N-Seal. That makes me want to kiss her.

I sent Andy a "lyric essay" for a project he's working on. Speaking of, our joint chapbook "Here's to You" will be finished soon. We are seeking a publisher of fine chapbooks. Suggestions? Reply backchannel or in comment boxes.

Another woman I admire made me cry a couple days back. I made her cry too. We made each other cry and now we will not speak again. I wrote a whole book of poems mostly about her. And the book ends with a new woman. And it's early summer at the end of the book.

David Shapiro said that he sometimes worries about poems with women as subjects, and I used to but I don't. I also write love poems for men. Like the poem "Morning" from "Wintered."

Josh Rouse on the iTunes now. My iTunes cannot distinguish between Kate Bush, Tom Petty, and Uncle Tupelo. It is a very strange thing.

I want to dissertate today--I need to write about violence in The Sonnets. Anybody with any suggestions, please give me them. Pronto.

I wish Kent and Jimmy wouldn't fight. I wish people would get along. And then I'm reminded about the subject of my dissertation: community formation and inter- and intra-community violence, the rhetoric of violence, actual violence in po-communities. Ha!

"Keats and Yeats are on your side, but you lose, because Wilde is on mine."

It occurs to me that the Morrissey of "The Queen is Dead" is a shallow aesthete.

Kasey Mohammad's posts are always really interesting, but I often feel dumb reading them.

I never know what Josh Corey is talking about.

I always know what Tony Tost is talking about and I always seem to disagree, except about GPM, which is a great album.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I think had the same Morrissey revelation earlier this week, Tony. I was thinking about the whole "don't plagiarize or take on loan" business and I realized that I do that all the time (the borrowing, not plagiarizing). I was forced to believe in myself rather than Morrissey.

But then I thought that that's part of the irony of it all, since Morrissey himself lifted so many lines and lyrics from so many places.

Confusing!

Anthony Robinson said...

Yes, and to add another level of complexity, Joe Massey, the New Sincerists' most frequent philosopher, generously peppers his statements about the NS with references to Moz's lyrics.

And Morrisey says "plagiarize" with a hard "g."