Month: October 2009

how many pull quotes can you possible use to answer whether poetry is poetry, or prose?

Samuel Taylor Coleridge:

The definition of good prose is – proper words in their proper places; of good verse – the most proper words in their proper places. The words in prose ought to express their intended meaning, and no more… But in verse, you must do more; there the words [are] the media…

Housman:

Poetry is not the thing said but the way of saying it.

Frost:

poetry is what’s lost in translation.

Auden:

A poem must be a closed system.

(via)

this reminds me that i need to finish writing my book reviews for spr…

What I always say to creative writing students when I talk about book reviewing is that they’re entering a landscape vastly different from the one I entered, and I only entered a few years ago.  Obviously, the Internet has rapidly and irrevocably changed the way  books—and anything—are talked about.  We now live in an age where some large segment of “professional” book criticism takes place in a medium somewhere between the customer comment and the fancy print book review.  Literally, everyone’s a critic, if they want to be and can type. (via)

if you had $2000 to spend on publishing your poetry manuscript, why give that money to 76 publishers?

from the book of kells:

So in total, 76 presses had the opportunity to consider it over 5 years (plus 9 that ALMOST got to consider it…) Don’t do the math on how much it cost me in postage, paper, and contest fees (I’m estimating about $30 a shot) or you’ll end up with about $400 a year on submissions (I’d guess about $2000 total). This makes me a little ill as that’s a lot of money. Thankfully, it was over 5 years, so my family still ate well and was fully clothed while I tried my best to be published. (via)

this is a really good argument for self-publishing your own poetry manuscript… imho… i’m just saying, if i had $2000 to spend on my own book, i’d hire a professional editor, art director, & spend the rest on printing, ad/marketing & distribution.

sometimes you just have to take a stand… pick up your junk & walk away…

tonight: Natasha Tretheway and Katherine Soniat to read at Posana Cafe at 8 pm.

does ‘jack of all trades’ = ‘jack ass?’

tonight is poetry writing workshop at the flood gallery fine arts center… it’s raining… a prefect evening to soak in poetry & conversation…

not sure if it was the two advil, reading zen poetry, drinking herbal tea or taking a hot bath… but the horrible pain of monday is gone…

went for a walk into a lovely autumn afternoon & did not take a digital camera to record the fact of what i did…

watching a teaching on wisdom from mars hill…

to run along the river on a lovely fall morning seems such a simple desire, yet unattainable this morning.

i’m not sure if it’s seasonally allergies or maybe i finally succumbed to the virus the rest of the household has been dealing with all week, but i don’t have the energy to run a few miles on such a beautiful day.

the album, the film, the book, & other collectible junk…

remembering the death of jack kerouac…

Bloated, reactionary and guileless, his was a painful and undignified death, brought on my too much drink and dissolute living, played out in the presence of the mother whose apron strings he couldn’t seem to cut, and the wife who didn’t understand him. Venerated by his fans and dismissed by many critics… Kerouac has divided opinion as to his literary merit since his ungainly demise. But has his time finally come round again? (via)

been thinking a lot about jack kerouac recently… his life… his work…

wordjournal:

adjective • /ˈvædʒɪl/ • wandering; vagrant; free to move about.

the only remedy for the loneliness of this job is taking lunch at the fiddlin pig… soon as i walk in the door she has a booth ready for me and he’s got a tall glass of coke waiting at the table… makes me think maybe i should wait table instead of working from this dark cave of an audio bunker…

finished producing 120 minutes of audio capture (with various quality issues) in four days… in context, for every 2 minutes of final audio at least 1 hour of production goes into those 2 minutes… it’s been a long week in the audio bunker…