A River of Words

Want to check out one of the most beautiful books of all time? Find a “A River of Words: The Story of William Carlos Williams,” written by Jen Bryant with amazing, amazing illustrations by Melissa Sweet.

http://www.jenbryant.com/books/inprint/bk_river.html

For a WCW nut like yours truly this book is an absolute gem and the illustrations are gorgeous. A children’s book about WCW? Who knew?

If the first page and jacket doesn’t make your heart sing, well then, I am not sure you will ever understand how cold and delicious plums are.

I would guess we are still light years from a Jack Spicer children’s book, so enjoy the WCW. It is a delight.

I’m ****ing Matt Damon

Basically, my friends are all computer illiterate. This, of course, makes it difficult for them to read my blog. It also makes it nearly impossible for us to have a conversation.

Here is an example. I say, “You’ve seen ‘I’m ****ing Matt Damon,’ right?” Or, “What did you think of ‘I’m ****ing Ben Affleck?”

For someone who doesn’t know what you are talking about, these can be fairly awkward conversation starters. So, even though I thought everyone in the known universe had seen these movies, I am posting them here.

Further proof Matt Damon is an acting phenom. For the still unconvinced, please check his cameo in Euro Trip which is acting brilliance.

My current fav moment in the Mattie Damon vid is the tip of the hat to "I love LA," also borrowed in 2Pac's "To Live and Die in LA." But, the whole thing is a delight.

The Patron Saint of Liars and Fakes and The Poets Come to Life

What? It's normal to be a poet and an artist and constantly post Fall Out Boy and Yellowcard videos on your blog. Yes, even if you are middle-aged. Yes.

Reminds me of Adam Sandler in Happy Gilmore: "What? It's normal for friends to listen to Endless Love in the dark together."

Here are two videos from FOB: The Patron Saint of Liars and Fakes, from their still (calm down fans) best album "Take This To Your Grave," and a video for "Thriller," which fascinates me, if only for the mention of poets. Nah, that isn't the only reason. The thing is catchy.

If you want a great laugh, check out the misheard lyrics video on youtube.

The First Show

Wrote on The First Show for Examiner today... even mentioned David Silver in the process; no mean feat.

Anyhow, above see a shot of my work currently on display at 12 Farnsworth.

My Favorite Movie

I guess it was the blogging about my favorite actress that had me musing about my favorite movie: Better Off Dead? Old School? Confidence? Kicking and Screaming (Stoltz not Ferrell)? The Departed? Oceans 11? True Romance?

Nah. I was in Amrhein's for brunch this morning and my favorite movie came to mind from the brunch soundtrack. Plus, since I wrote on 90210 today for Examiner, it kind of fits with the general theme.

My Favorite Actress

My favorite actress? I suppose people would venture a number of wild guesses: Julia Roberts, even if only for her scene with Clooney in the restaurant in Ocean’s 11? What about Jenna Fischer for her tour de force in Blades of Glory? Parker Posey, of course more for her brilliance in Noah Baumbach’s Kicking and Screaming than her appearance in Tara Reid’s Josie and the Pussycats? Jessica Walter as Lucille Bluth on Arrested Development? Natalie Portman? Selma Blair? Jennifer Connelly? Charlize Theron?

All quality guesses—but no, no, no. My favorite actress is none other than my good friend Mayeti Gametchu who finally revealed her acting prowess to me a few days ago.

Above, see Mayeti play Sydney Marshall masterfully in the movie “Rubbers.”

In other news, I am listening to lots of New Found Glory and trying to write a poem titled “Impulsive Texts.”

Happy Friday.

Poets, Plums, and Airplanes

So, in the last few days there's been lots of talk of airplanes and poetry. Add to that my poetry buddy Azita and I talking about Yeats and my friend Paul and I discussing airplane poems, and here we are.

Came across this poem and figured I would post it. Not sure it is good, or done, or good and done, but it is something. Some attempt at fusing Teats, Smithson, and WCW.

Truth: I am sure I was thinking about WCW and "This is just to say" in "Resolutions" (see previous post) when I introduced the idea of all poems being an apology or an excuse for a resolution that had been broken.

Truth: WCW was, in fact, Smithson's pediatrician. Weird, huh?

Pics above are from spiraljetty.org and cwru.edu. Forgive me, they were delicious and so cold:

FLIGHT PATH
Delta Airlines Flight 3865 from Salt Lake City to Boston

From DIA Center for the Arts’ website: “Robert Smithson's monumental earthwork Spiral Jetty (1970) is located on the Great Salt Lake in Utah. Using black basalt rocks and earth from the site, the artist created a coil 1500 feet long and 15 feet wide that stretches out counterclockwise into the translucent red water.”

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold
—William Carlos Williams, This is Just to Say

Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold
—William Butler Yeats, The Second Coming

Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty
is reflecting back our flight path—
those careful rocks bathing
in winter water and crystal salt.

Depending on the snowfall
and the impact of last summer’s melt,
his work is high above the waterline
or sinking into blue. Depending on the snowfall,
our reflected flight is soaring,
or buried with the weight of rock
fragmented in a poor excuse for sea.

Robert Smithson died in a plane crash on July 20, 1973.

If you squint down at the Great Salt Lake
before February’s gone,
one can make out words
assembled in those spiral rocks. One can watch
a crystal forming.

Smithson’s pediatrician was William Carlos Williams,
who was especially greedy for plums
and lived in Paterson, New Jersey. Smithson
died in an airplane crash. I am falling half-asleep.

The words below are circling. There’s too many people
sleeping on this plane to die, especially
from the premonitions of WCW’s
most famous patient.

Williams was especially greedy
for blondes. He broke this plane
into three sharp sounds, skipping
off the water, rocks, and sky.

The captain began reciting his 8th grade Algebra homework.
His doctor diagnosed him with the mumps.

On the way-far side
of the Great Salt Lake
there’s a mound of rocks,
some water, the surface of the air
becoming shards of airplane glass.

I always dreamt of meeting you
on the cold steel of a doctor’s table.
The flat cold burning
at the fragile opening
at the exit of my gown.

There’s a mound of rocks
sinking in the Great Salt Lake.

There’s a great big mound of rocks down there,
resurrected from the dead.

There’s a great big mound of rocks down there
assembled into triadic lines;
a great big Spiral Jetty
setting in the great big
Great Salt Lake.

There’s a diagram below us.
A picture Smithson stole from Williams
that Williams stole from Yeats.

The stewardess is wearing perfume
that smells like the greedy drool of a poet
gobbling up his lover’s coldish plums—
rosy from the refrigerator slats.

We are a collection of stolen images. The airplane
steals the sky, greedily pushing blue and drooling
long white washes, visible to the ground.

Williams turning Smithson’s rocks, examining
their bruises. Turning and turning around their half-
naked forms, his words transcribed to notepads.

The airplane rising, reflected
back below us, but sinking
beneath the picture of our flight path
written out in stone.

Smithson turning Williams’ words
to rocks, the air and sky his muses.

A collection of words in rocks.
A collection of people in the airplane.

A collection of people reflecting under water.
A collection of people
staring at the sky
now staring at the ground.

Martha Collins at Brockton Library and Self-Portrait After Hopper

In my Examiner article on Jess Barnett last night, I said that “staring at a Franz Kline could knock your right over if you don’t have your footing right to begin with.” I’m not sure there is a more accurate description of Martha Collins and her poetry.

I count Martha as one of the top ten or twenty living American poets. The funny thing is, she is the living embodiment of the phrase “looks can be deceiving.” Martha is a small woman who looks somewhat gentle. Get her in front of one of her poems, and it is like being in the ring with Tyson. Bam, bam, bam. Relentless. Unwavering. Hearing her read on Saturday, there were moments when the audience let out audible sighs—as if hit in the gut, the chin. Combine that with her ability to bring unflinching truth and inventive strategies for creating new poems, and seeing Martha Collins read is always a treat.

She read from her new chapbook “Sheer,” and her latest book, “Blue Front,” as well as a new series of poems in progress, “White Papers.” All great.

I was in the process of jotting down ideas for a new poem, largely spawned by this idea of appearance and sound and the conspiracies of the two of them together. Above, see the first seeds of something new. I am not sure that William Carlos Williams or O’Hara made messy yellow-pad notes before starting lines, but I certainly do sometimes.

The Brockton Public Library has this poetry program once a month. It features a poetry workshop, an open mic, and a few feature poets reading. I read a draft of “Surf Girls Are Easy,” that went over pretty well.

The photo above is one of some random self-portrait series I have been working on. Took it during a poetry workshop at the Brockton Library. It looked so much like a self-portrait against Hopper’s “Sun in an Empty Room” from 1963, I couldn’t resist.

Copley's Palette and The Hancock

I was walking downtown last week amidst all this snow and spied the statue of John Singleton Copley in Copley Square. Thought it was kind of great that due to the snow it looked like he had a palette filled with white paint. Copley, on the verge of painting over a canvas. Copley, starting over. Copley, palettes filled with white paint.

For those not familiar with Copley's work... he is likely the first great American painter (or darned close). Forgive any blasphemy to the Abstract Expressionists and the notion that all American art pre-1940 was derivative of Eurpoean art... while this could be true, Copley was pretty serious business. Anyhow, look him up. You will likely recognize many images, including the famous portrait or Paul Revere.

The other pic is just a shot of the Hancock and the square.

No. Not the Will Smith superhero pic featuring that dreamy Bateman. The John Hancock Tower.

And yes, I did use the word "darned." Who could believe it?

Birds of a Feather; Peas in a Pod

So the other day I got an email from my good friend and fellow artist, Emmerline Smy, telling me about her blog, her new work, what is going on in London, etc. It is pretty fun to be talking and collaborating with artists across the big drink. See, the Internet is good for things besides pornography, sports betting and celebrity gossip. I knew it.

Anyhow, Em and I have been swapping ideas on art for years, and ideas on gossip for even longer. Even so, I was a bit surprised when I saw Em’s new work (above). I had just written in my visual art journal a month or so ago that I was going to do a whole series of photos through windows… making the windows part of the subject itself. Art and photography through the mediation of glass. Or, raising the question of what exactly is the subject— the image out the window? The setting inside? The glass? The impression? The architecture you can’t see?

Who knows, but it sounded like a cool idea for a series of photos. Then I open up Em’s blog and see these new works. Basically, the psychic bond continues.

Check her blog out at:

emmerlines.blogspot.com

When I think of contemporary surrealism, art linked to subconscious, or dreams leaking their way onto canvas, I always think of Em. Her work is stellar and always interesting to behold.

But Hemingways? Hemingways Abound.

So, Ernest Hemingway has been everywhere lately. Not literally, as he’s dead. Or, maybe literally, as now that he is dead physically he is everywhere? Some sort of spiritual energy surrounding us?

That is far too philosophical for a Friday. Besides, if he was everywhere we would know it by now. The place would smell like booze and we’d all have a vicious beard burn.

No. When I say Hem has been everywhere lately, I mean in my consciousness. I mean he is haunting me. For instance, in the past two days he has come up in David Kirby’s poems, and now on Examiner.com in terms of his papers.

In Kirby’s poem The Hand of Fatima, he references Hemingway killing himself:

Here I refer to the story that Hemingway tells
of how upset his son was when the matador died
because the matador was small, as are all matadors,
and so was the boy small, as are all boys.
And the boy kept saying,
“I don’t like it that he was dead,” and his papa

i.e., Pap, said, “Don’t think about it,”
and the boy said, “I don’t try to think about it,
but I wish you hadn’t told me because every time
I shut my eyes I see it,”
and at that time Hemingway’s wife
was reading aloud The Dane Curse by Dashiell Hammett,

and every time somebody got killed off,
she’d substitute the expression “umpty-umped,”
and the little boy got caught up in the silliness of the words,
and one day he said to his pap,
“You know the one who was umpty-umped
because he was so small? I don’t think about him now.”

Poor Hemingway: he umpty-umped himself
one July morning in Ketchum, Idaho.


For the record, the lining of the above quote is off; my apologies to David Kirby. Go buy the book to see it in all its splendor. But anyhow, as any blog readers likely know, Hemingway has been known to make guest appearances in my poetry and my art.

For instance, I may even have a painting titled “Ketchum, Idaho.” Or, for instance, I may have even written lines like:

And all of this was heightened by verbal abuse
and alcohol. And books about verbal abuse and alcohol. And repetition.
Which is the best companion, because it can be so dependable. Depending
on how you look at it all. Except none of this is to memorialize anything,
except myself. I’m remembering what Hemingway said; “I die.
In the rain” and you knew it had to be true. I die in the rain.
The weatherman has ruined my life.

(from Memorial Day)

or, lines like:

All of your heroes are buried
beneath uncountable fathoms
of soil in Ketchum, Idaho. In everything
you see there are trees swaying
like fishing rods caught
in a wind that has never felt the unspeakable
atrocities of the ocean. All of your
heroes are finding their way
toward a shotgun. They are drinking
too much

and making their way to a four-drink
buzz, some 8-drink
paranoia. The horror of the shakes
in any morning you are supposed to be
writing in the light of, not piecing
together the long length of your rifle.

All of your heroes are involved
in some decisions they may not understand.
In some ideas scattering across their minds
like pellets. Shiny stars on velvet black.
The meaning of being caught between two
things, which is the inescapable part of getting
lost in the middle of living. They are plotting
a scheme to uncover the bottom of their hearts,

so far below the blue-green Caribbean waves,
so far away from home. All of your heroes
were floating their souls on the principle
of the iceberg. They pushed long metal
against themselves until every mystery
was gone. All your heroes are buried

beneath the misunderstandings
of mounds of dirt and rocky ground
in Ketchum, Idaho, and the last boat to Cuba
has sunk beneath the sea.

(from Ketchum, Idaho)

What is the point of all this Hemingway rambling?

Simple: Kirby kicks my ass.

In other Hemingway news, I was reading the Examiner today and the story: Ernest Hemingway archives opened to scholars caught my eye. Basically, I was pouring through Kirby’s poems last night and he, and Papa, were kicking my ass. Then I woke up to Hemingway’s ghost.

Hemingway? Hemingway abounds.

Pic above is from http://fla-keys.com/newsletter/200505/

Ahh Ketchum, Idaho.

In other news, I got some good response today on my Examiner piece on Kara Walker, which is cool.

Happy Friday.

Pandora Resolutions

I was talking with my friend Pandora last night and we agreed that the poem draft below required some accompaniment; a theme song, a score, if you will. No, not like on a scale of one to ten. Although the time that Steve Sanders and his fraternity buddies did that outside the house to passing coeds it was a delightful 90210 moment.

Rather, the song “Who I am hates who I’ve been,” by Relient K seemed like the perfect theme song for a poem about Resolutions. Even if the resolutions referred to seeing things more clearly as well as making promises or something. Regardless, enjoy the youtube video.

Speaking of Youtube. If you get bored, browse my poetic and artistic efforts alongside various Eidsvig haircuts here:

YouTube.com

Resolutions

So, January plods along in Beantown. Wintry mix sounds like it could be a good underground album from DJ Green Lantern featuring tracks from Dr. Dre and members of the G-Unit, but alas it is not. Wintry mix is the weather Boston seems to be stuck in. Rainy-snow; snowy-rain; ice. The kind of weather that gives you the sniffles. Half of Boston looks like they spent too much time in a bathroom stall with Robert Downey Jr. in the movie Less Than Zero. Red noses and sniffling.

I’ve been putting in my articles for Examiner.com which is a lot of fun, the show at 12 Farnsworth is still going strong, I’m wrestling with a canvas (think me versus The Rock—the canvas is winning), and I’m even working on some poems. What more can you ask from January?

Also came across an artist who is new to me today. Guy named Dean Styers—stumbled across his website and was very, very impressed. It’s one thing when Lichtenstein is kicking your ass from the grave, but the live ones are even worse. Check his site. Great stuff there.

As for the poem I’m working on…. It is crazy to say, but I think it is partially inspired by the graphic novel Batman: Dark Victory, as well as a poem-a-day calendar I wish I never bought. Plus, I have this thing about technology and poetry lately, so the digital cameras, etc., make sense.

In the Batman graphic novel, there are murders on each holiday with the killer leaving clues with a bloody game of hangman. In the Eidsvig graphic novel called poetry, I referenced Arshile Gorky—who killed himself by hanging—and then it turned into a question of mixing words and pictures, and seemed a bit like Batman after I was halfway through. The pic above is a famous one of Gorky, and is what I am referencing with pleated pants and arms extended, dancing at a party. It's borrowed here from slideprojector.com.

As for the poem itself? As most of you know, I don’t usually post poems here. Especially poems that are in progress. And this is definitely in progress still. Thought today of adding a section about my optometrist, who was my soccer coach, adjusting lenses… this one, no this one…. and me quitting the team since I hated running laps. It reminded me too much of George Michael getting the wrong glasses on Arrested Development since he is so indecisive, so I didn’t put it here yet.

And, so, even though I don’t usually post poems, I feel I need to earn my keep on this blog. So, here goes. Oh, and the Robert Downey Jr. photo above is from American Movie Classics, AMCTV.com.

RESOLUTIONS

For Christmas this year I bought myself
the poem-a-day calendar. Like my mother
always says, When shopping it’s one for you
two for me and so on. And squinting
to make black words sharp I was already
disappointed by January 3rd. This one, this one,
and this one: There were none for me.

Turning to the photos for Valentine’s
you sent me, with you wearing the coal-
black corset. I adjusted tint and saturation,
sharpened up your curvy edges
over and over again. My mouse against
chromatic flesh; first pink, then green,
then black and white (to match my memories),
all the contrasts changed to protect
the innocent. This year I’ll buy
my girlfriends better cameras.

Flipping through the calendar; the words
a blur. Different speeds helped nothing
so I stopped
at a few exclusive dates: Our first kiss,
The Ides of March, Groundhog Day, Eddie
Van Halen’s birthday. The words,
a blur. I stared at certain lines, how they said
nothing else at all. A whole year. Like that.

Click, click, click, Claude controlled
remotely his latest flat-panel TV. See
the difference? This is regular; this
is HD. You could read the plays
on Tom Brady’s wrist as easily as picking off
Gisele’s engagement ring from a mile
away. And when you watch porn, he said,
you can smell the cheap perfume soaked
through glass, as vivid as anything else
you’re afraid to admit.

Turn the knob against resolve; adjust
the resolution, click, click, click.

All my lovers look better with their eyes
closed. I say, Imagine it’s an umbrella
or someplace else you feel protected.
They smile when looking, as if paintings
were cameras or mirrors, something
to be captured in. That’s right, I say,
Give your hair a shake, a flip, the camera
clicks. This year I’ll paint one hundred
better paintings, each the model of insecurity
and sex. Impressionism and pop: Blurred edges
and nostalgic time-stops. The obituary
of our handholding. The memory of you and me
in bedrooms in the morning. Look now
I say, and of course, each word understands it,
flipping through our sheets.

Think flashbulbs flashing, popping soundlessly,
as we all know that light can crush teeth
into bottles cast out empty at the end of any
lonesome pier. Think Memorial Day, beach glass
and waves, these are days that glance out
toward open sea, wave tops sliced and creased
by light and wind. Think taking pictures
to mean something else: A coal-black corset;
A group of words against canvas; Wordless;
Worthless. Broken and crushed against the shore,
shore yourself for every day and stretch phrases
soundlessly through the weeks. Seeking solace,
I rubbed my face against your neck, wished
I bought a razor as opposed to poems for this year’s
Father’s Day. Look what you created: These
places the two of us meet: The seams of
this bed, the stapled crease of bent pages. The sun,
through blinds, resolving itself to become the day.

A whole year like that? The bartender was all
questions while my ATM card was working.
We broke up for St Paddy’s and were back
by April Fool’s. A whole year like that? I choked
down another glass. Listen, I said, and read
another day. Neither of us could believe it
by the end, we couldn’t tell what we were
looking forward to anymore. The two of us. Another
one. And another one. They were all
for someone else. By then it was getting blurry
everywhere. This year I’ll buy myself
contact lenses, and cleaner glasses. Lift your glass
against resolve; adjust the resolution.

The best I could do was make the calendar
into a flipbook. It was far too late to re-gift it,
I’d already thrown out half of January. I looked
and looked for running, somersaulting stick figures
doing calisthenics or jumping jacks. Anything.
The poems were no one person doing anything
at all, the year flying through my hands, pages
flipping toward something else. Try again. Try
again and again. The year just flew right by.

Sure the numbers changed but the promises
were as empty as this glass. Gesturing, posturing—
more than permanence—those type of words. Like,
when I realized I had your home, your office,
and your mobile numbers waffle-pressed on the insides
of my eyelids. An elegy to homemade breakfasts
and broken-down communication. Those numbers
whizzing by; First time, second time, anniversaries
and deaths: an odometer of the used car we couldn’t
trade-in for anything, even during the Washington’s
Birthday Sales Event. Turn the wheel against resolve;
adjust the resolution.


What happened when she came back? My shrink
asked the questions she knew the answers to. I flipped
the calendar back and forth. Somersaulting,
jumping jacks and calisthenics. Can we talk about
something else? Her eyebrows agree to everything. Me,
I wonder who these poems were invented for? I stole their
answers; gifts—their everything. Turn the question
back against itself, and promise, agree, deny.
When will I arrive at Thanksgiving for the Christmas
gifts delivered every day? Even through this
fantastic flip-book, every day is the same;
Groundhog Day again and again, emerging from a hole.

Turn the pages faster now; adjust
the resolution, turn pages into numbers repeating,
days to weeks, to a stack of empty sheets.

These are quotes from a conversation in the future
that we haven’t had yet: I’m sorry, I’ll try, Never, No—
not again, I miss you; Only on Saturdays, After church,
Before dinner, During Lent, or On a full stomach. Hell,
all these poems are excuses: Tennyson bailing my ass out
with Circumstance on my birthday: “So runs the round of life
from hour to hour,” or on your birthday Joy Harjo
easing my way into your pants: “My mystery seeks to comprehend
your mystery.” And on Frank O’Hara’s birthday? All hell
breaks loose. Jack Spicer’s birthday? Forget about it.
For National Poetry Month the pages turn to cinnamon,
a sunset made of cookies before the oven opens. You’re
really cooking with oil now, Sam Walker would have said
and hell, he’s gone now too, like 300 some-odd poems.

Personally, I think I’d even prefer Monet’s water lilies
turned to placemats for our old coffee table. If I had a bird
I’d have the lining to a birdcage. Or could easily wrap a fish.
If I’d thought of it, I would have wrapped my gifts
with tiny paper squares this year, works like ocean waves
stretching mercilessly across the page. Here, I folded you
a bikini. Learned poetic origami. Watch the paper cuts. Fold
here, crease here, moan here. Here Here! Cheers!
and drowning in excess. If only Frank O’Hara had read
Edwin Markham’s Preparedness on his birthday, he’d have
been ready for the dune buggy. The first day we met? Wordsworth.
Our first fight? Something called Cradle. When de Kooning died,
Octavio Paz was mumbling in March, something about the marvel
of poetry. The flight to Iowa? Robert Graves. And of course,
of course, I miss you. Every poem is someone else’s excuse
for a resolution they wish they’d never broken.

Sam Walker clicking the control, turning the projector
lens to focus, and Arshile Gorky slides seeping into classroom
wall. Watch how he uses bodies to become the smudge
of eye shadow. A woman in hysterics as seen through
a glass of scotch and rocks—light as drunken contortionist,
somersaulting through the melting edges of ice cubes and unfiltered
cigarette smoke. Stay still for the entire year, a flipbook
through my hands. The ice cubes and scotch resolving
themselves to become figurative people’s promises. Let me get
my Sharpie to trace black lines, hold still, hold still. Check
the pose, check the pleated pants. Hold Me; Hold Still. I will
never melt again. Talks with missing letters like losing
in a game of hangman, the labels mismatched underneath
each day, body parts thicker and thinner than they should be,
all of us frayed at the edges and connected imperfectly: An apology
after scotch, after this year of flipping pages, after all
our anniversaries—every one for me. Every day turned
until there was nothing left of weeks and months but a stack
of discarded paper, collected in my hands. This year I’ll live
like poetry was never invented.

2-0-0-9

Happy New Year!

What does 2009 hold? Well, for me it apparently includes detoxification and a 12-Step program for recovery from a newfangled device called internet radio as found on the site Pandora.com.

This Pandora? She is something all right. Best relationship of my life. She just knows me. When I am out and about, I can’t stop thinking of what songs she might recommend for me and I am like 6 albums deep into stuff I need to buy now. It is truly something. Of course, having Pandora recommend bands I made fun of ex-girlfriends for is a bit humbling, but Pandora gets me through it. If this sounds like a commercial, call the Pandora people and tell them. What a concept: A poetry/painting blog with endorsements. Tiger Woods here I come.

BOOKS:
So, I got a crazy stomach bug right after Christmas which was brutal. But if there was a bright side in having my life pass before my eyes, along with some things I ate in grade school, it was having time to tear through my Christmas haul of books.

Jonathan Lethem’s “You Don’t Love Me Yet,” was amazing, and Tom Perrotta’s “the Abstinence Teacher,” was pretty great. So was Elmore Leonard’s “City Primeval,” and “Batman: Dark Victory.” I think I would recommend the book on tape version of “You Don’t Love Me Yet,” as read by the author. Either way it is a winner, but there is something great about Lethem making it into poetry as he reads. I laughed out loud and was awestruck a bunch.

POETRY:
Also part of the Christmas haul was the score of David Kirby’s book of poetry, The House on Boulevard Street. There are reminders of Kenneth Koch in the humor, some hints of my love for Alexie in the pop references. And, as far as pop is concerned, he quotes Roy Lichtenstein in a poem which, of course, had me swooning.

In other news, I have been collecting rejection slips: Harper’s, Poetry, and Third Coast. Should these begin appreciating like baseball cards in the early 80’s, I will be sitting on a gold mine. Trade you two Mississippi Review rejection notes for my near-mint “no” from the Yale Series of Younger Poets. Yes, I am well aware I am beginning to hit the cusp of entry requirements for the Yale Younger. Ouch.

In other, other news, I have been working on some new poems, which is always a good thing. Until Tin House gets a hold of them. Then it’s heartbreak.

MUSIC:
So, I have introduced my new mistress Pandora. Thought it was funny that she recommended a song titled “Poetically Pathetic,” by a band named Amber Pacific to me last night. Maybe all poets should heed the warning of this poppy EMO jam. Soon, they will play it at commencement addresses for MFA programs. Poetically Pathetic. I laughed and laughed.

EXAMINER.COM:
Have my first two articles written for Examiner.com and it’s a lot of fun. As most 617Midway blog readers know, there are few things I enjoy as much as making visual art accessible and contemporary. Examiner.com gives me some good leeway to combine references to Adam Sandler movies, Wu-Tang Clan members, 80’s trivia and the happenings on the Boston art scene.

You can check my articles out at:

Examiner.com

And subscribe to my regular pieces there as well. Pass the word.

AND, OF COURSE, CEZANNE:
One of the books I just wrapped up was “The Judgment of Paris” by Ross King, which was a great, great book. Great writing and good insight on my favorite cast of characters since Dawson’s Creek: from Manet to Courbet, Monet to Cezanne. Filled me in a lot more on Manet (I was more comfortable with Courbet and Monet beforehand) and did a great job of illustrating the parallel between a rising art movement and cultural/societal changes. Long story short: A great read if you want to know more about Manet especially—and Impressionism as well.

My favorite parts of the book came when Cezanne made a guest appearance. He is always dejected and surly. Maybe my fav quote from the book is the following:

Cezanne had been persistent, going to the Palais des Champs-Elysees each March, as another friend wryly observed, “Carrying his canvases on his back like Jesus with his cross”—and then bearing them, stamped with a red R, back to his grubby studio. Such martyrdom began to grate. Cezanne’s constant rejection made him even more bitter and cantankerous than usual on the rare occasions when he could be tempted to join the company in the café Guerbois. Asked by Manet on one such circumstance whether he intended to submit anything to the Salon, Cezanne had retorted: “Yes, a pot of shit!”
(The Judgement of Paris, Ross King, p. 228)

Ahh, a pot of shit from Cezanne. What better way to start 2009?

Image above is from Harley.com, Cezanne "Apples, Peaches, Pears and Grapes" [1879-1880]