New poem out today at tinfoildresses. A poem for Cricket who I love because he won't read it but will still complain that he doesn't understand exactly what I meant by it. Actually a poem for everyone else.
Miss Kristy Bowen has released the list of Dancing Girl Press's 2010 titles, and it promises to be an unforgettable year. Planetary Mass is slated to debut in the fall.
Meanwhile, February splinters by.
Saturday, February 6, 2010
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
midweek interruption
I don't bitch nearly as much in my daily life as I do in my blogging life. Not even fractionally. This occurred to me today as I was waiting for my passport appointment. Of course they were behind. Of course my 3:10 appointment was moved back and moved back and all I could think about was all of the reading I had yet to finish for my morning classes.
And then it all came down. The fury.
In actuality, it was more of a sigh while I leaned against an ugly set of medicinally pink cabinets.
Really I'm a patient thing. A passive thing. I've got loud, bitchy genes, but for the most part I prefer to listen. Currently, my [imagined] rage is entirely directed at my poetry class. [I hope this will be my last complaint.]
I have no intention of being terrible but IF I HAVE TO SPEND ANOTHER ENTIRE CLASS PERIOD LISTENING TO PEOPLE GO ON AND ON PRAISING THE MOST AWFUL POEMS I'VE EVER READ I MAY POSSIBLY COME APART AT THE JOINTS or spontaneously break out into tentacles.
This is not a highly subjective critique. Most of these poems suck. As objectively as anything can suck.
---> Now there are some good ones. Please do not let me forget them. Some are quite good. Or fantastic. Or at least workable. <---
It's not the suckiness that bothers me. That I expected. It's an undergraduate poetry class. All you have to do is sign up. Some of these kids have never written a poem in their lives.
It's the endless praise that bothers me. On the first round of poems, I made a polite attempt to mask my ruthless criticism. I sat quietly in class. I wrote back-handed compliments on papers. This round my restraints are at their thinnest. I've really had to try not to write THIS REALLY REALLY REALLY SUCKS PLEASE DROP THIS CLASS AND END OUR MUTUAL MISERY all across neatly typed poems.
And these people are giving themselves and their classmates false hopes. And then there's Ralph, who offers the coveted praise: This is very close to a publishable poem. And I want to scream out ARE YOU KIDDING and double dog dare him to find one place that would willingly publish a line of it.
And then I want to hand him a copy of Viktor Shklovsky's Art as Technique with all of the good lines bolded and in caps so that he can't miss the idea of "POETRY AS ATTENUATED, TORTUOUS SPEECH" --- and maybe he'll have a revelation and realize that he's been spreading this 'poem bubble' philosophywithnobrain crap to hundreds of students since the beginning of time. And maybe he'll repent and live on a mountain and write anarchy through poetry and garden herbs and teach kindergarten or something very Wittgensteinian.
Maybe.
And all of this makes me feel so snobby. I've somehow become a literary snob. How did this happen, I wonder? I consider my own work with the utmost humility. This is not a[n imagined] rage based on superiority. It stems from lies. And bubbles.
This is a cleansing. So that I am not the picture of perfect nastiness in class tomorrow. Thank you. Next time we'll do this over hot tea.
And then it all came down. The fury.
In actuality, it was more of a sigh while I leaned against an ugly set of medicinally pink cabinets.
Really I'm a patient thing. A passive thing. I've got loud, bitchy genes, but for the most part I prefer to listen. Currently, my [imagined] rage is entirely directed at my poetry class. [I hope this will be my last complaint.]
I have no intention of being terrible but IF I HAVE TO SPEND ANOTHER ENTIRE CLASS PERIOD LISTENING TO PEOPLE GO ON AND ON PRAISING THE MOST AWFUL POEMS I'VE EVER READ I MAY POSSIBLY COME APART AT THE JOINTS or spontaneously break out into tentacles.
This is not a highly subjective critique. Most of these poems suck. As objectively as anything can suck.
---> Now there are some good ones. Please do not let me forget them. Some are quite good. Or fantastic. Or at least workable. <---
It's not the suckiness that bothers me. That I expected. It's an undergraduate poetry class. All you have to do is sign up. Some of these kids have never written a poem in their lives.
It's the endless praise that bothers me. On the first round of poems, I made a polite attempt to mask my ruthless criticism. I sat quietly in class. I wrote back-handed compliments on papers. This round my restraints are at their thinnest. I've really had to try not to write THIS REALLY REALLY REALLY SUCKS PLEASE DROP THIS CLASS AND END OUR MUTUAL MISERY all across neatly typed poems.
And these people are giving themselves and their classmates false hopes. And then there's Ralph, who offers the coveted praise: This is very close to a publishable poem. And I want to scream out ARE YOU KIDDING and double dog dare him to find one place that would willingly publish a line of it.
And then I want to hand him a copy of Viktor Shklovsky's Art as Technique with all of the good lines bolded and in caps so that he can't miss the idea of "POETRY AS ATTENUATED, TORTUOUS SPEECH" --- and maybe he'll have a revelation and realize that he's been spreading this 'poem bubble' philosophywithnobrain crap to hundreds of students since the beginning of time. And maybe he'll repent and live on a mountain and write anarchy through poetry and garden herbs and teach kindergarten or something very Wittgensteinian.
Maybe.
And all of this makes me feel so snobby. I've somehow become a literary snob. How did this happen, I wonder? I consider my own work with the utmost humility. This is not a[n imagined] rage based on superiority. It stems from lies. And bubbles.
This is a cleansing. So that I am not the picture of perfect nastiness in class tomorrow. Thank you. Next time we'll do this over hot tea.
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