Category Archives: Poetry

William Blake: Songs of Innocence

by Editor | 2 Comments

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Piping down the valleys wild,
Piping songs of pleasant glee,
On a cloud I saw a child,
And he laughing said to me:

‘Pipe a song about a Lamb!’
So I piped with merry cheer.
‘Piper, pipe that song again.’
So I piped: he wept to hear.

‘Drop thy pipe, thy happy pipe;
Sing thy songs of happy cheer!’
So I sung the same again,
While he wept with joy to hear.

‘Piper, sit thee down and write
In a book, that all may read.’
So he vanished from my sight;
And I plucked a hollow reed,

And I made a rural pen,
And I stained the water clear,
And I wrote my happy songs
Every child may joy to hear.

Songs of Innocence and of Experience was written and illustrated by English poet, painter and printmaker, William Blake in 1794.  This poem is the introduction to the book.  Seems pretty simple when you read it.  But if you stare at it long enough, it gets really interesting.

I’m Gonna Beat You With My Poem

by Editor | 2 Comments

I’m about to show you why I have so few friends.  It’s because I don’t put up with ‘team mentality.’  Hey kids, come over here and join my poetry team!  Yeah dudes!  Get with it!  Get hip to my dang poetry team, bro!  We could win!  We could take the whole prize, sista!  Yeah, baaaaaaby!

I’m the kid eating the Twinkies, picking my nose, twirling the Frisbee on my finger and looking at you like you’ve got a gun.  That’s me.  You scare me, poetry dude.

For some reason, in our young national culture, we enjoy teaching our children to compete via talent shows of all stripes.  Since it’s National Poetry Month, the Louder Than a Bomb demo video caught my somewhat jaundiced eye.  I put up with it all the way through even though it made me squirm.  Poetry as in your face talent competition doesn’t fit my world view.

Right away the video starts out with total obnoxiousness.  The guy says, ‘We de-emphasize the competition, but you want to win!’  A-hole.  What an idiot.  Kids, remember, always run from a guy that says something like that.  Run and don’t look back.

I feel the same way about film festivals, American Idol, Dancing with the Stars and the Academy Awards.  I even feel the same way about online writing contests, though I’ve hosted them myself.  They are intended to boost traffic on a web site.  They serve no real purpose and offer no true value at all.  Contests are held to make mediocrities feel like they can hand out prizes.  A kid who is going to be a poet is going to leave by the back door every time.

National Poetry Month – April 2010

by Editor

It’s almost here.  April will be National Poetry Month, during which we celebrate the placement of words into various shapes, patterns and meanings that only a select few can decipher.  Don’t worry, if you saw the poetry reading at the most recent Presidential Inauguration, she was only placed at the podium to intercept bullets.  That has nothing to do with poetry.

For those of us fortunate and intelligent enough to avoid the study of poetry in a university, the month of April can be a strangely rewarding treat.  It’s an awkward and sort of a lame month of celebration, but it works.  Don’t ask me why.  Just think of yourself as being in the National Poetry Month and walk into a good bookstore and go to the poetry shelf to see what happens.  If you’re a total dumbass, nothing will happen of course.  But if you can read, you might start wondering why words make you want to have a coffee, or a piece of bread, or some wine, or cheese, or wear a hat, or some old boots.

I think I am going to celebrate Poetry Month by posting parts of my unfinished new video.  It mixes images, music, and words to make something that can really only be explained in terms of poetry anyway.  So I claim the right, during National Poetry Month, to be somewhat mysterious, cryptic, unfinished, insulting, fuzzy, indulgent, and unintelligible.

Film: Typography

by Editor

In Ronnie Bruce’s short film Typography, poet Taylor Mali lets it all hang out about how people talk today. Hipsters. Kids. Cooliodoolios who don’t want to sound too committal about anything. Every utterance is just a little fart with a question mark at the end. ‘You know?’

I don’t happen to have this problem with sounding non-committal and all like you know laid back. I get in trouble because I talk too much like a guy who’s swinging a baseball bat. But, uh, you know, in an era of fake Bush wars and a ‘liberal’ president who tells me I’m going to have to buy insurance from a murderous private company or else… well, hmmm, like, dude, I’m swingin’ my verbal bat just as hard as I want and I’m hoping to hit someone in authority. The Tea Party folks are idiots, but there’s one thing they’ve got right. Obama is so over, he’s, like, you know… done.  Obama reminds me of a school principal.  Never says anything worth listening to.  He’s got the dullest eyes I’ve ever seen on a president.  Notice that?  Blank.  Even Bush had expression.  Always terror.  Sheer stark raving terror radiated out of Bush’s little monkey eyes.  Obama radiates the pause between pre-planned comments – the ‘umm’ moment.

Of course, when people suddenly get very clear, direct, self-assured and forceful in their statements you know what happens, right?  You get Hitler.

CAConrad – Wicked Philadelphia Poet on a Roof

by Editor | 4 Comments

Mature Poetic Content: If you think this shouldn’t exist here in this site, well… sorry, but this site switched tracks long ago. You just didn’t know it.

When I see a recitation
from a poet
I want to intervene
Drag him into a street fight
Crack a crutch
across his head
It’s attempted
resuscitation

~Editor

Well, I think I’ve just been punched in the mouth. Wouldn’t have it any other way. I keep looking for mean mad poets. This guy’s one I think. He’s doing his Beatles impersonation on a frozen roof in Philadelphia and he’s wearing purple. He seems to be someone who could knock me down and I’d know I’d been treated gently. This guy’s poetry sounds wicked and mad and full of love at the same time. It’s the kind of thing I’d read over and over again. His poetry is like something he’d say in a room without thinking much about it. I love the thing about Poe and his bones and Frank answering in a different voice at the 10:50 mark. Ha ha! Love that. That’s what it’s all about isn’t it? Saying it back as if you’re the guy. It’s how you travel in time and make magic happen. It’s the hidden art. I know a lot about that poem. So, okay, there’s a poet in Philadelphia who’s not afraid of the snow and keeps a fur hat on top of his head. I’ll be looking for this guy and reading his books.  He’s CAConrad.  You can buy his The Book of Frank here.

I found this via the ever-pernicious Silliman’s Blog.

Poetry Is? It’s a Stupid Question, That’s What.

by Editor

In my poetic web adventures I went and found this big long movie by George Quasha about poets trying to tell everybody what poetry is. What is poetry? It’s not an unanswerable question. It’s a stupid question. But these poets do try to answer it. It’s a rather long movie and I always look for a bad guy in every movie. Without a bad guy, a movie just makes me hungry and I get up to go to the bathroom a lot. These poets are all so nice and content looking. So friendly and comfortable. I can’t find out which one is the bad one. Someone once asked me a really stupid question and I ran away with his camera and threw it in the river. Why aren’t any of these poets nasty and depressed? What makes them so pleasant? They all sound like their favorite piece of furniture is a podium.

Here’s a guy who if you ask him what poetry is will very likely give you a good reason to never ask that question again:

Get what I mean?