Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Assimilation/New Hastings Book/Mayer's Unsung&Unknown/Greg Fuchs

Assimilation

Eat your eyes for breakfast every morning.

This differs from Dali and Buñuel

slicing the eyeball to see differently.

This is ingesting the tools of vision,

eyes ceasing their work as portals,

begin to labor subject to digestion’s churning.

Fully mixed with urgent acids,

eyes transformed to soup

release nutrition into blood which, rising to the brain,

resumes its seeing newly

charged with matter from assimilation.

(Ed Coletti in Bay Area Poets Seasonal Review)

New From Katherine Hastings

Updraft (Finishing Line Press - order at www.finishinglinepress.com)

Katherine Hastings is one of the most impressive poets writing in America today. Her poetry astonishes by the metaphysical clarity of the images from daily life and the intellectual power of her wit. Her affection for the living and her compassion for the dead vividly depict the world as it is while allowing her to project the freedom of transforming love. The language shimmers; the endings shine; the book announces a brilliant talent.

F.D Reeve, Author of The Toy Soldier and Other Poems and The Blue Cat Walks the Earth.

Here is a brief selection from Katherine Hastings' Updraft:

White Horse


Through the woods of Annadel,
past trees gently arched,
trunks and stones moss-matted --
comes the fair stallion steady on the trail

One angel on a treetop sings
one note, repeated,
repeatedMilky surface of stream,
little wall of water
falling into it,
and the white horse
coming nearer
with a steady sound
beating under the boughs
in the darkness of woods
as if by magic
moving towards
to where, upon the ribbed edge,
he passes
trails a veil of light
that shakes us
as though wind
as though ecstasy

Comment Here on any of the above or below and read the comments of others too. Log in under "Name" or "Anonymous" if you like, but please be sure to sign some facsimile of your name. Actual name is best, but use what you like. Or email me at edcoletti@sbcglobal.net if you have difficulty.

Following the back and forth we've had recently about methods of "judging" poems and who, among the critics and publishers are discovering the truly great poems,(see below Inviting Readers to Comment on "The New Math of Poetry" by David Alpaugh) it was my good fortune to come upon Andrew Mayer's take on this subject and others in the following poem.

In Praise of the Great Unsung Unknown Poets

by Andrew Mayer

Imagine you’re there when Rumi dances to the Friend,
spinning poem after poem not yet written down,
words formed by a Great Unsung Unknown Poet
dancing into verse the air you breathe.

Enjoy the inspirations, observations, visions, and revelations,
insights and beauty exquisite in compositions
of Great Unsung Unknown Poets.

Living on in the spirit of Frank O’Hara’s great poems
scribbled on napkins, discovered after death in his drawers and cabinets,
Unsung Unknown Poets writing great verses,
awesome discoveries and powerful rants kept under wraps in handmade gift books
to a few friends, or scribbled in notebooks unseen
for personal art filled with tremendous talent
or self-published in cheap chapbooks or limited edition printings of paperbacks,
or revealed at open readings and spurious slams.

Unknown poets preoccupied with day jobs driving taxis
or teaching toddlers to sing, or driving semi trucks full of frozen foods
to Tonapah, Red Wing, Tehachapi, Reno, Truckee and Tahoe while reciting poetry
on the road late at night to stay awake. Poets on the night shift
nursing at the hospital or security guarding garbage trucks at the dump,
waiting tables at all night diners, or changing diapers and soothing baby’s tears
in the middle of the night and the heart of day.

Pay attention to the great poems of Unsung Unknown Poets,
victims of unfair economics, or overwhelming life responsibilities,
of shyness, social phobias, fear of failure or success,
distaste for business, disorganization, or just plain lack of motivation,
depression, exhaustion, children and family demands, or addictions,

unkown poets with terrific sonnets,
haikus, raps, villanelles and quiet reflections all written better
than the anthologies that shun them, publishing circles of friends
in cliques and clubhouses of certain styles and academic territorial turf war protectors.

So drop your judgmental inner critics
and external egos of accomplishments
and just listen to the great poems
by unsung unknown poets unpublished by prominent distributors.
and support their efforts with a donation, buy their chapbook, visit their website,
share kind words and give them hugs to show your appreciation.

So many forgotten voices of unknown great poets
lost out of posterity,
but their great poems
live on in the minds
of readers and listeners
and the surprised hearts of browsers, perusers,
and poetry loving passers-by.

So listen to the great poetry around you,
uncredentialed, uncertified, even unrefined
but powerfully true and beautiful,
by Great Unsung Unknown Poets.

Notice intricate innovations and true to life stories
by Great Unsung Unknown Poets
whose poems live long in your mind,
move your heart throughout time
transforming your life,

that poetry you love in the moment
with potential unlimited
from the Great Unsung Unknown Poets.

Mother's Day
by Greg Fuchs

From the Venus of Willendorf to Kiki Smith

You are totally now, even if others seem more now,

Now is inclusive: the center & the margin

The profitable & the not, the sublime, ridiculous, & grotesque

In the golden house beneath the clouds lives mother nature

From which all beings spring holding within all feelings

Of creation & annihilation like Chauvet-Pont-d’Arc Cave

Holds abstraction & representation in the beginning

I fall in love with you over & over again through time

Like when you casually describe speleology in France

Amidst Uncle Baby’s thrift store art collection

Simply without pretension, totally natural

Your beautiful son is a reflection of you

Even when he loves the sun by frowning upon the moon

Greg Fuchs who wrote this intelligently beautiful poem is a NYC poet and friend.

Wednesday, March 03, 2010

Gil Fagiani/Jim Carroll/Poetry Azul/The New Math of Poetry/

Here's the long-awaited collection of his early works from that great poetic voice of the barrio, my cousin, Gil Fagiani

"Out of the squishy swamp of dead personal lyrics that is contemporary American poetry, Gil Fagiani's hard-boned zombies rise out of his poetry collection, A Blanquito in El Barrio. His poems of a white junkie in East Harlem are crafty narratives that sing the music of sex, compassion, friendship justice, mercy, comedy, betrayal, dope and more dope. Fagiani is a poet of unusual power. These poems have strong heart and deep soul. A Blanquito in El Barrio is that rare good thing name— a necessary good book."

— Angelo Verga, poet, author of A Hurricane Is, 33 NYC Poems, and Praise For What Remains

CUCHIFRITOS

by Gil Fagiani

I had the sizzle in my chisel for Nilsa,
dug her big eyes, moist, meaty lips,
color and curves like sculpted teakwood.
One night I took her to Papo's Cuchifritos.
She'd been playing hard to get all summer long
and I figured a belly full of spicy pig parts and fritters
might open her up to other bodily pleasures.

I'd eaten cuchifritos once before
after a night of blowing weed
and tossing down Bacardi with Manny and Count
the former president and warlord of a local street gang
--"We even had our own social worker "--Count boasted.
We'd finished harmonizing such doo wop classics
as "Deserie," "Wind" and "Gloria,"
under the archway of the Park Avenue El
when Count pulled out a wad of bills
--birthday money, he claimed--and said,
"let's grit at Papo's," a cuchifrito joint on 116th Street.

Beneath blazing light bulbs over front window metal bins,
Count pointed to orejas, rabitos, morcillas,
acapurias, pastelillos, rellenos de papa.
Juggling white cardboard boxes dripping cooking oil,
we sat on car fenders and ate pig's ears, pig tails,
blood sausages, fritters and meat-filled potato balls.

The swagger of that night stayed with me
as Nilsa and I walked into Papo's
and copped squats on steel shiny stools.
I pointed to half a dozen bins
and soon cuchifritos were piled high in front of us.
Before I could pick up my fork
Nilsa grabbed a fire-red bottle
and bathed a bacalaito--codfishfritter--
with Louisiana hot sauce devouring it in three bites.
Then she picked up the tip of an oreja
and began to chew on the rubbery cartilage,
her teeth making loud crunching sounds.

Next she chowed down on two blood sausages
thick and black as a policeman's club.
Then she picked up a fried pig's tail
and ate it like an ice cream cone,
strips of pork sticking out the side of her mouth,
lips a blaze of yellow grease.
I sat quietly nibbling on a potato ball.
"What's the matter, no tiene hambre —
you're not hungry?
I smiled as a drum roll by Tito Puente
blasted from the jukebox,
Nilsa keeping time by tapping
her knife against the side of her water glass.

Never learn too well the works of a poet,

for, somehow, the works of the masters have

infiltrated the systems of those who are

dangerous and covert. They have turned lines of

beauty and love into codes of identification.

Security is maintained in the detection of

a flawed meter, and messages of coercion and betrayal are delivered in iambics.

- Jim Carroll - "Homage to Gerard Manley Hopkins"

Inviting Readers to Comment on "The New Math of Poetry" by David Alpaugh

A good friend sent me this thought-provoking article from The Chronicle (of higher education) Review, February 21, 2010. Alpaugh's essay continues a theme that has been discussed here in No Money In Poetry, not only by myself but by such luminaries as Richard Silberg, Michael Rothenberg, and David Madgalene. Additonally, many readers have commented on the theme and its issues. I invite all readers to take a look and express your own comments on the basic question of whether or not there can ever be too much poetry published and also what might be done about the world not losing hidden gems. Here's a link to the full article followed by several excerpts.

"...Those in charge of undergraduate and MFA programs have cast themselves in the role of poetry-writing cheerleaders who are busy assuring tens of thousands of students that they are talented poets who should expect their work not only to be published but to win awards as well." (Ed: "There are worse problems.")

"...More than 100,000 poems will be published in 2010." (Ed: "OK")

"...Scribner's Best American Poetry...The notion that a guest editor or team of screeners would read 100,000 poems is absurd. A look at the journals BAP routinely draws from gives a good clue as to methodology.In BAP 2008 , for example, just 10 of 2,000-plus journals and magazines available for consideration accounted for 37 of the 75 poems selected --49 percent....The probability that such a sliver of journals would continue to yield the lion's share of the "best" American poetry year after year were objectivity in play is unlikely.

"Given that guest editors are faced with the impossibility of reading even a fraction of the poetry being published, it should not shock us if they favor the work of students, friends, and colleagues. (Ed: Now Alpaugh is on to something and continues the theme.)

"...Of course, many literary journals and presses don't bother to nominate -- especially if they've noticed this zinger at the end of Pushcart's dexcription of its modus operandi: 'We also accept nominations from our staff of distinguished Contributing Editors.' There are a whopping 232 of them listed for 2009, most employed by college writing programs.

"No surprise that 28 of the 30 poets in the 2009 edition chosen by the creative-writing professors Phillis Levin and Thomas Lux are college teachers or retirees, in most cases from writing departments...One 'winner' boasts a nomination by his wife (she uses her maiden name).

"Keep in mind that, when it comes to the new math of poetry, we can see only the tip of the iceberg. Unfathomable are the countless self-published chapbooks and collections printed each year, to say nothing of the millions of personal Web sites, blogs, and Facebook pages where self-published poetry appears. (Ed: Don't worry, Alpaugh is not going for snobbery here. I like what follows.) I remind readers who believe that such poetry can be dismissed unread that William Blake self-published his Songs of Innocence and Experience, Walt Whitman his Leaves of Grass, A.E. Houseman his A Shropshire Lad, and that many of the poets who appear in prestigious journals today routinely self-publish their chapbooks." (Ed: And why not? Lot of exciting stuff in those pages!)

"The most common rebuttal to this critique can best be summed up as 'The more the merrier.' Instead of complaining about an embarrassment of trinkets, we should shout, 'hallelujah!' Doesn't the test of time always separate the silver and gold from the dross so that great poetry can emerge, if not for current readers, then for future ones?"

"My answer is that time has never been asked to test the astounding number of poems being published today, let alone what promises to be published in the future." (Ed: Well the article is about "math" after all.)

"...Perhaps the most sinister fact about the new math of poetry is that it allows the academic oligarchy that controls poetry to impose a non aesthetic, self-serving scoring system without attracting notice or raising indignation. (Ed: I am becoming indignant!) Since no one can possibly read the vast number of poems being published, professionals can ignore independent poets and reserve the goodies -- premiere readings, publications, honors, financial support -- for those fortunate enough to be housed inside the professional poetry bubble." (Ed: As I was transcribing this, I had to look back, did Alpaugh write "bubble" or "brothel"?)

"Marginalizing independent poets and the diversity of life experience they bring to poetry may help bolster MFA - teaching careers; but how healthy is it for the art? Almost all of the world's great poetry has been written by independents, and most of the poets writing today (myself included) remain unaffiliated with any institution. Still, when it comes to the major awards and premier publication essential for wide readership, there seems to be little room at the top for independents. Apparently 'Where does this poet teach?' is an easier question for committees to answer that 'How good is his or her poetry?' (Kay Ryan, poet laureate of the United States, is the exception who proves the rule.) (Ed: Absolutely! And, when Kay was appointed, I wondered how they had found her who we knew so very well here in the North Bay and how justice actually had been done.)

(Ed: Here comes the best part!)

"If Robert Frost's 'The Road Not Taken' were published next week by The New Formalist, Alan Ginsberg's 'Howl' by Gnome: the online journal of underground writing, and Sylvia Plath's 'Daddy' by Women Writers: A Zine, but none of those three poets held teaching posts in creative-writing departments, I'd wager that their poems would not appear in The Best American Poetry 2010 or The Pushcart Prize XXXIV or make it into a Norton anthology. Three of America's most widely read, genuinely loved poems would be published -- but the event would be more like a funeral than a birth.

"...Every now and then someone asks me, 'Who are the best poets writing today?' My answer? 'I have no idea.' Nor do I believe that anyone else does. I do have an uneasy feeling that a Blake and a Dickinson may be buried in the overgrowth, and I fear that neither current nor future readers may get to enjoy their art. That would be the most devastating result of the new math of poetry. The loss would be incalculable.

Thursday, January 28, 2010

Ed's Jazz Gods/Henry Miller/Ideas For Readings/

A couple of poems from
the most recent book from
Round Barn Press

Jazz Gods by Ed Coletti (January 2010)

Now available at
the San Francisco Beat Museum

or

by sending $9. (includes return postage) to

Jazz Gods, 2134 Vintage Circle, Santa Rosa, CA 95404. I'll immediately send an autographed cy.

Comment Here on any of the above or below and read the comments of others too. Log in under "Name" or "Anonymous" if you like, but please be sure to sign some facsimile of your name. Actual name is best, but use what you like. Or email me at edcoletti@sbcglobal.net if you have difficulty.

just one of those things
(for charlie parker)


simply another

thing

just one of
those crazy

things

purely one more of
those crazy
gossamer
wing-thing
bells-ring

things

you keep on
blowing out there,

bird!

Ornette #3 R.P.D.D.


knife blade shine
                 scratching meat off bone

riffing riffing
all round that bone
                white and pink with bone meat
                    separating from solidity

switch blade of a saxophone
slashing  sculpting
round and round
                     all round that bone


Some Previous Round Barn Press Chapbooks

Richard Krech - Some Global Positioning Dharma
Rychard Denner - Calendar of the Moon
Ed Coletti - Peace Planters & Family Matters
David Madgalene (photo) - Kali
Justin Adkins - Dream Climber
Bill Vartnaw - Postcards

...I revisited an old friend of mine, a painter in Paris.
He is definitely not what one would call a successful artist.
He is still painting in the same miserable
garret as of yore; his studio looks more like a rat's net than the workshop of an artist.
His style of painting hasn't changed appreciably since the days
when I first knew him - thirty or more years ago. All he needs by way of subject matter,
according to his own words, are a few animals - horse, dog, cow -
a few peasants, trees, sky, and water. Rarely does he sell a painting. Rarely does he have an exhibition
of his work. Is he unhappy? Is he filled with spite and envy?
Not in the least. On the contrary, he is so imbued with his mission
on earth - just to paint! - that he has taken to sleeping in his studio instead of going home to join
his family. He can't wait till morning comes and begin painting afresh. He loves what he does,
and he does it over and over again, like the variations of Bach.
In my opinion this is a successful artist, whether the world
acclaims him as such or not.

(Henry Miller, "Paint As You Like and Die Happy - 1965)

Rosemary Quinn

HOW TO READ A POEM

First:
From a point of stillness,
Breathe. . .
Feel your feet.
Look out and see your audience. See, and feel again.

Second:
Caress!
You chose these words (or they chose you!),
So caress each one… They are your children.
Give them space. Respect.
Give them what they need.

Some want speed. Some, volume…
Each is unique.
Do not be steady and relentless (unless you want).

Third:
W o r d s are S o u n d s… and each has (and must have) a pitch…

Which pitch
will drop that word deep
in the listener’s ear?

Fourth:
Before you read:
Read your poem again and again,
over and over,
always aloud.
Poems are meant to be spoken.
We are in the oral tradition of storytellers,
ten thousand years around the fire.

Fifth:
Lay your poem on the page.
Adjust your line lengths, type size, punctuation.
Give yourself a road map to follow.

Six:
Let each reading be new.
You have your road map now. The directions are clearly written.
You can follow on the fly.
Now…Let go!

Depending on who is in the room…
and whether or not you had coffee
or a nap
or a good night’s sleep
or a fight with someone on the way over…

depending on whether your feet hurt or are comfortable in your shoes,
your waistband too tight or your slip too loose

depending on whether you are sure
you picked the right poems, or
whether the person before you was just too damn good

depending on the espresso squeal,
who just walked in,
the baby’s cry
the coughing …

FLY! ENJOY !
This is your moment! Breathe! Don’t miss it!

Seven:
Never lift your finger from the page—to do so is to court disaster.

Instead, slide it gently down the margin.
Lift your eyes to make contact,
and return, safely, to the proper line.

Eight:
DO NOT STEP ON THE LAUGHTER.
As the laughter dies,
Raise your voice and continue.

Nine:
Say Thank you . . .

Step back . . .
Take your applause.

Enjoy. . .
You do this for love.


October 2009 Chico, CA


Ed Coletti's Recent Instructions to Himself at Readings

I will repeat the initials SDS to myself at my readings:

S  Smile.  People will be more into me and my work.

D Read Dramatically to emphasize the importance of my words.

S  Stare or look at my audience at the end of each poem
in order to let the full import Sink in.
(don't just shuffle through papers)

Thursday, January 07, 2010

Mum Halo/Blake's Motto/Jonathan Penton/

My Son

John Coletti's

Latest Book

from Rust Buckle Books

John Coletti is the author of Physical Kind (Yo-Yo-Labs, 2005), Same Enemy Rainbow (fewer & further, 2008), and now Mum Halo (Rust Buckle Books, 2010) which is available in pre-release at http://rustbucklebooks.blogspot.com/lebooks.blogspot.com/. He recently finished serving as editor of The Poetry Project Newsletter.

Mum Halo
John Coletti

ISBN 13: 978-0-9843468-0-6

102 pages, cover and interior art by Zachary Wollard

~~$15~~
$12 with free shipping

http://rustbucklebooks.blogspot.com/

Comment Here on any of the above or below and read the comments of others too. Log in under "Name" or "Anonymous" if you like, but please be sure to sign some facsimile of your name. Actual name is best, but use what you like. Or email me at edcoletti@sbcglobal.net if you have difficulty.

William Blake's Motto

I must Create a System or be enlav'd by another
Man's.

I will not Reason & Compare: my business is to Create."

Jonathan Penton's Motto

Never forget that beauty is destructive,

and poetry is its most destructive form.

Poets do not ask permission.

When you sing Ave Maria in the library, sing it loud.

“Deep Throat Nihilism” was first published on kagablog and later in the anthology poem, home (An Anthology of Ars Poetica) Paper Kite Press ed by Jennifer Hill and Dan Waber

Check out my two poems in Jonathan Penton's quirky journal Unlikely Stories.

Ed Coletti

Sunday, September 27, 2009

7-Poem Dad Suite/Teknologee/Wendell Berry/

Ed Coletti 9-9-09 edcoletti@sbcglobal.net

7-Poem Suite For Dad

So Many Poems
(for John J. Coletti)

My father lies dying
(so many poems)
His chest rises and doesn’t
(so many poems)
then rises again
(This is our moment)
My beacon now phoenix
(so many poems)
I draw him,
soothe him
(so many poems)
I sponge his lips with cranberry
He sucks on it
(honey bee)
So many poems
he’ll never read —
has never read —
so many.

Sailing Towards My Father Dying

My beacon
a faint flicker
will sputter
extinguish
leave me utterly
beyond vision
stranded.

No Bullshit

Think you’ll make it
to your 95th birthday
next week?

I’ll try

Do you want to, Dad?

I don’t care

You okay with that,
no fears?

Nope, When you’re dead, you’re dead!”

our father

my younger sister
tendering farewell
one last time

the dying

day primeval
progenitor’s flame
failing bed beside
me writing something
of a forbearer nearest
then and now
no more always
this day tomorrow

Becoming Friends

As with death himself
I too sit close
to my father —
death all too close
I breathe hot to his cold
jealous we must share
my father, me exhaling,
death inhaling
No contest,
just a rhythm

My Own True Father Passing

I watched my father die
unencumbered by the Catholic hell
he provided me. He meant well.
I doubt he ever fully
swallowed communion
or my school named
American Martyrs
for Jesuit missionaries
(eyes boiled away by Huron Indians
who did not understand
this other hell)
and for an Indian maiden —
Katherine Tekawitha —
protecting her sacred virginity,
saved but for her life.

So as I prepare for my own death,
I recall my father,
both eyes open
to his past and future
unafraid
unexpectant
fearless.

What lesson can I,
exposed to childhood myths,
horrid legends disguised as truth,
learn?
How do I wager all eternity
upon the premise of integrity?

Just being here informs me
that I know my own open
blissfulness far outweighs
that remotest hell.

Why would I ever want to spend eternity
with a vengeful monster
whose idea of a relationship with mankind
includes narcissism, sado-masochism?
He ain’t no father

Why pretend to choose
to believe a fiction,
over my own true father passing?

Comment Here on any of the above or below and read the comments of others too. Log in under "Name" or "Anonymous" if you like, but please be sure to sign some facsimile of your name. Actual name is best, but use what you like. Or email me at edcoletti@sbcglobal.net if you have difficulty.

For a list of all the ways technology has failed to improve the quality of life, please press three. Alice Kahn

How To Be a Poet

(to remind myself)

i

Make a place to sit down.
Sit down. Be quiet.
You must depend upon
affection, reading, knowledge,
skill—more of each
than you have—inspiration,
work, growing older, patience,
for patience joins time
to eternity. Any readers
who like your poems,
doubt their judgment.

ii

Breathe with unconditional breath
the unconditioned air.
Shun electric wire.
Communicate slowly. Live
a three-dimensioned life;
stay away from screens.
Stay away from anything
that obscures the place it is in.
There are no unsacred places;
there are only sacred places
and desecrated places.

iii

Accept what comes from silence.
Make the best you can of it.
Of the little words that come
out of the silence, like prayers
prayed back to the one who prays,
make a poem that does not disturb
the silence from which it came.

- Wendell Berry

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

David Bromige 1933-2009

(Ed Coletti & David Bromige Petaluma Poetry Walk September 2007)

Just a Very Few of My Favorite David Bromige Passages

Step out of that frame
Tear free of that backing
It's your only chance
To start establishing your big mistake

(from " 'Then he was led, blindfold, into the predicate' ")

3 Ways with the Same Sentence

I've been looking for perfection
but still am permitted to sleep
on our mattress with its
broken spring next to the
completion of your body.

Not so much lately since
circumstance has seduced me
away from the initial fervor but
in youth as with a mission
invited debauchery & remember
incidents of tenderness &
sanity that baffled me.

Godknows—god of my fathers
I have questioned all I could
yet still found means to live
when I woke up this morning nor
hold much hope things won't
once I am gone continue.

I Read This Someplace

The lyre bird
amid the eucalyptus
listening for every sound he hears
to trip him into sound he makes.
He has no call or song
his own. He imitates. Each time
he utters something chances are
it is his soul that speaks.

The Death of Poetry

The bad news came.
You got thinner with each day
and less substantial.
The end in sight,
painful breathing from the next room
came and went throughout the night,
and with morning
much to our surprise
you were standing in the doorway
wearing a headdress of duckfeathers
and an oversize pair of British Wellys.
Your were off to compete in the triathlon.
We said, "That's poetry for you!"

2 Brief Passages from Spade

In these pictures of Cambridge
They'll say, 200 years from now,
"Look at that old bridge—& Bromige,
There, next to that wall...Now
This guy here I don't know what
He's on, he cd talk very well w/o
Slipping up, but it never meant
Anything, a phantom language"...

I wish I shared my co-author's
Faith in afterlife upon afterlife.
We will never see, hear you
Again, dear Thom (ed: Gunn).
Never write this poem again.
And you will never read it—
Lucky you!

The Crux

We assume
what we can leave unsaid,
What can we assume —
one day we'll be dead.

Add Your Own Favorites (or Simply Comment) and read the comments of others too. Log in under "Name" or "Anonymous" if you like, but please be sure to sign some facsimile of your name. Actual name is best, but use what you like. Or email me at edcoletti@sbcglobal.net if you have difficulty.

Rockpile Michael Rothenberg (also see below) reminds us of his wonderful world tour with David Meltzer. Check out this link.

Friday, May 22, 2009

Henry Miller Died Happy//Poets' Forum/Swede&Haiku/DiPrima (scroll down to see everything)

Flash: Congratulations to our good friend Amy Trussell selected as a finalist in the Crazyhorse Linda Hull Memorial Poetry Prize competition.

Henry Miller On Painting

The more I paint, the more I appreciate Henry Miller and his philosophy of painting. These are 3 of his. What follows are some of his remarks and those of others in his great essay "Paint As You Like and Die Happy."

"Usually what is taught in school must be unlearned...life is the teacher, and one of the first questions thrown at one is 'Who influenced you? That one looks like a Chagall.'....another looking at the same painting says 'I see that you have been influenced by Paul Klee' (Ed: I've gotten both of these)...certainly I (Miller) have, but there are hundreds of painters who have influenced me."

And Lawrence Durrell in his preface says "If you wished to draw the arm of a chair or an airplane, you closed your eyes and wished for it to form under your brush. Also you used whatever resources you had of memory or drawing... but the main effort was just to will the image...this image would form itself...without all the effort of building it by rule or precept but taking it as one...not a life class...one had short circuited all the drudgery of practice by this immoral and low down procedure...but I must not pretend that it was infallible...it did not always fall out as you might wish...sometimes obstinacy set in, and, instead of what you wanted, you got an unwanted Japanese umbrella or a runaway horse or a forest fire...in this instance, nothing could be done but to have good humor and fall in with the inevitable ...you entitled the work "Fire At Night" and people praised your 'savage realism'...but what's to be done, you just nodded gratefully and walked away. Henry and I consoled ourselves with the realization that many of the masterpieces of this world were accidents or at least semi accidents and that even the expectations of the great artists did not match their works...Sometimes too, haphazard work deviated into sense dropping the original intention....

"I never had formal training, and the lessons I took from artist friends convinced me that I am incapable of learning through instruction, that I must find out for myself through trial and error. In other words, I learn as I go along, absorbing only what I need for the time being. I alwaysread with glee that certain painters I adore were failures at the academy -- sometimes pronounced "hopeless" by their instructors. And who were their instructors? Their names are unknown or forgotten. One thing is certain: they never became great painters (Even a great painter like Gaugin, who was also a great teacher, could get nowhere with Van Gogh.) Usually what is taught in school must be unlearned, life is the teacher.

"Naturally in the work of self taught artists there occur what might be called "monstrosities" -- monstrosities that are accidental, not willed-- in such paintings, all the canons of art seem to be violated (Now, David, you understand why I shrink a bit from you and Harris attempting to emulate the "canon" something like Harold Bloom, who, by the way, is a valuable critic) One might imagine that such products are the work of an insane person but if one is really familiar with the work of the insane, one would not make such a mistake.

"In the case of my own work I must confess that these monstrosities often grow on me, that I get to like them and appreciate them more than the more successful ones. (Success, of course, as judged by my own standards of realization.) I have friends who request me to save my 'failures' for them. Months later, when I see these failures framed and hanging on their walls, I realize that they have qualities that I never dreamed of when I tossed them aside. What I regarded as the bad elements in them suddenly acquire charm and distinction. No real artist could make such mistakes, such meaningless forms or patterns, as these failures reveal. The very wrongness adds spice to the painting, it would seem. After one has acquired some mastery over the medium it is obviously difficult to do the wrong thing. To my amazement it has often happened that another artist, a good artist, looking at one of my failures has spoken warmly of it. Sometimes I have even heard them murmur, 'I wish I had the courage to do one like that!' Which makes me think about why we are so often bored with so-called good people, or with artists who are perfectionists. Or why, sometimes, we have to admit to ourselves that a touch of evil in an individual lends him a magnetic quality....

"...What I am trying to point out is that these failures, or monstrosities, are a result of my faith in the virtue of letting things happen. When looking at these products many individuals think that I am expressing my sociological views. They look for ideas, for signs of protest, for rebelliousness. They do not want to believe that the painting in question just happened. Or, if they concede this, then they begin to talk about the subconscious or such-like twaddle. There must be a reason for everything, even the accidental, they think. Perhaps there is; perhaps the spectator is capable of telling things about one's work that the creator himself does not know. But my quarrel with these analytical individuals is, why can't they accept what they see without trying to explain it? After all, the truest thing one can say about creative work, in whatever field, is that there is an element of magic in it. Pure reason leads nowhere, unless it be to the analyst's couch. The necessity to analyze, to understand, to categorize, answers to some basic need in the onlooker. He cannot rest suspended in thin air. He must know,know the reason why, and in doing so he kills what he sees. How much more interesting and instructive it is to ask a child what he thinks of one's work. Often, after a session with intellectual individuals I feel like saying, 'It's your problem. Don't ask me what it means."

Now try this on from Jean Dubuffet as quoted by Miller:

This much is sure, a picture interests me to the degree I succeed in kindling in it a kind of flame -- the flame of life of presence, or existence, or reality, depending on what we take these words to mean. To be sure, it often happens with me that my picture lacks this quality...In any case, I go on working, I add and I take away, I change, I revise (notice that I work empirically, like a blind man, experimenting with every kind of means), until a certain extraordinary release occurs in the picture, and from then on it seems to me endowed with this very life -- excuse me, reality. How can this be accounted for ? I have no idea. I never know how I produced it, or how to repeat the same effect. It is a mysterious happening, and because of its very mysteriousness it drives me again and again to renew the experience each time I make a picture....

Comment Here on any of the above or below and read the comments of others too. Log in under "Name" or "Anonymous" if you like, but please be sure to sign some facsimile of your name. Actual name is best, but use what you like. Or email me at edcoletti@sbcglobal.net if you have difficulty.

Poets' Forum (water color by Ed Coletti)

If you're a poet and missing, take comfort that so are Geoffrey Chaucer and John Milton.

fyi - Diane DiPrima is San Francisco's New Poet Laureate

Comment Here on any of the above or below and read the comments of others too. Log in under "Name" or "Anonymous" if you like, but please be sure to sign some facsimile of your name. Actual name is best, but use what you like. Or email me at edcoletti@sbcglobal.net if you have difficulty.

George Swede's Guidelines for haiku:

Swede makes it abundantly clear what he thinks constitutes a good haiku. In the Global Haiku intro, he outlines eight commonly used haiku guidelines, then eliminates a few to come up with his five ultimate rules of good haiku.

1. haiku must be brief: one breath long

2. haiku must express sense of awe or insight

3. haiku must involve some aspect of nature other than human nature

4. haiku must possess sense images, not generalizations

5. haiku must present an event as happening presently, not past or future

As long as the haiku gives the reader short yet sensual images, a haiku can be effective.

A few examples of Swede's work:

on the face
that last night called me names—
morning sunbeam

almost unseen
among the tangled driftwood
naked lovers

Young widow
Asks for another
fortune cookie

first warm spring day
I take my shadow
for a walk

(Ed Coletti's) NO MONEY IN POETRY