Category: poetry

5 notes from the lecture “The Excess of Poetry”

James Longenbach presented a lecture titled “The Excess of Poetry” at the Warren Wilson College MFA program for writers this morning. Here’s a few of the notes I wrote:

  1. The act of writing is itself an excess.
  2. What matters in the Pisan Cantos is not the information provided but the tone.
  3. Our minds are strategically selective. We manage excess by focusing on some things while ignoring others.
  4. The Pisan Cantos are organized by tone: elegiac, colloquial, haranguing and reverence.
  5. What writer does not compose him/herself out of nothing?

There are more notes I wrote, but they are a bit scramble. Longenbach presented poems by Keats, Dickinson and Pound as way to explore the “fine excess” of poetry.

A grasshopper as philosopher (or how to unfold a poem)

GermanHeit is an excellent resource for those interested in learning to read German (or learn in better) or those desiring to know more about life in contemporary Germany. Recently, GermanHeit published a post about the German author Herta Müller — winner of the Nobel Prize for literature — regarding her novel “Atemschaukel” (link: GermanHeit). I inquired if there is a reliable bilingual or an English edition and GermanHeit replied with a link to an excerpt (link: “Everything I Own I Carry With Me” – an excerpt). A link to zeitgenössische Dichter (link: Die Deutsche Gedichte-Bibliothek) was also provided after I mentioned I enjoyed reading Durs Grunbein’s poetry. In one of his collections, Grunbein portrays a grasshopper as a Stoic philosopher in the poem “In der Provinz 3.” One of the qualities of Grunbein’s poetry I enjoy is the way he unfolds a poem and an image or thought is revealed in an arresting manner that catches the reader slightly off balance.

Poetry; “the passionate pursuit of the Real”

Czeslaw Milosz’s birthday is today. Just in case you wanted to know.

To believe you are magnificent. And gradually to discover that you are not magnificent. Enough labor for one human life.

“Last Night at the New French Bar” to be published

My poem “Last Night at the New French Bar” has been accepted for publication in an upcoming issue of Crab Creek Review — a distinguished literary publication from the Northwest.

A good poem is like a good film — haunting

The past few weeks I’ve returned to a few poems that capture my imagination and thoughts. I tend to read poems the way some people view great film dramas — something like Big Night— enjoying all the subtle nuances, characters and texture. One such poem is from Vera Pavlova, titled “If There Is Something to Desire, 9, 17, 18”. Here’s a few lines:

Why is the word yes so brief?
It should be
the longest,
the hardest,
so that you could not decide in an instant to say it…

(Link: If There Is Something to Desire, 9, 17, 18)

Khaled Mattawa poem “Ecclesiastes” needs to be read a couple times to enjoy it. I particularly enjoy this stanza:

The rule is everyone is a gypsy now.
Everyone is searching for his tribe.

(Link: Ecclesiastes)

And final, from an English Romantic poet John Keats, a few lines from “On the Grasshopper and the Cricket”:

The poetry of earth is never dead:
When all the birds are faint with the hot sun,
And hide in cooling trees…

(Link: On the Grasshopper and the Cricket)

Video: Traveling Bonfires poetry reading at Malaprop’s

Here’s a video of Pasckie Pascua from last week’s Traveling Bonfires poetry reading at Malaprop’s Bookstore/Café.

Always be prepared to read your poems

When I mentioned earlier today that you should join the Traveling Bonfires tonight at Malaprop’s, you really were invited to join the reading. Two of the three poets were unable to show up for tonight’s reading. The emcee of the poetry reading and founder of the Traveling Bonfires invited anyone in the audience to read poems. He asked me to read my poems as well.

I wasn’t prepared to read; only to listen. But no one else came prepared to read. So, I frantically dug into my old messenger bag and found two poetry chapbook manuscripts by other poets. For a brief moment I thought I would read from their manuscripts, but I didn’t want to read poems that weren’t ready for the public. Sandwiched between loose papers and a copy of Selected Cantos of Ezra Pound and Narrow Road to the Interior was my red notebook containing poem sketches and revisions. I had half of a thought to read selections from Pound and Basho, but in my notebook I found six poem sketches and revisions to test in front of an audience.

The moral of the story is this: always be prepared to read your poems and if you’re a poet in the Asheville area (or if you’re a poet traveling near the Asheville area) contact me or the Traveling Bonfires (travelingbonfires@yahoo.com) and we’ll find a space and a mic and a crowd of listeners.

Poetry reading: Traveling Bonfires at Malaprop’s

Join the Traveling Bonfires tonight — Monday, May 17th — at Malaprop’s from 7 to 8pm for a poetry reading featuring poets Pam Israel, Dave Rowe and special guest. Emcee: Pasckie Pascua.

Poem: Appalachian omens

“Appalachian omens” by Matthew Mulder

Anticipation
of rain and Sunday dinner,
we see a groundhog
resting on a rock near the
restaurant entrance.

And on the way home,
above the road we see a
hawk gripping a snake
while evading two large crows.

If I were the priest
Kalchas, I might proclaim that
I see the war-like
sons of Atreus, or some
other such omens.

No more Free Lunch

This weekend I received a letter in the post informing me that Free Lunch is closing shop. The news really disappointed me for two reasons. One, I was hoping to have some poems published. Two, I reviewed an issue of Free Lunch for Small Press Review and really enjoyed the publication. Some literary/poetry publications are dense with inaccessible poetry and my work doesn’t seem to fit. But Free Lunch felt like a good fit. Here’s an abridged version of the review I submitted to Small Press Review:

Free Lunch presents an engaging 20th Anniversary issue. Unlike many poetry magazines that contain a smattering of good poems and a couple great poems, the Spring 2009 issue of Free Lunch collects stellar work by Billy Collins, Stephen Dunn and many others. It is my habit as a reader to dog-ear pages in books or magazines that elicit some sort of physical response; like smacking a book on my knee and saying “yeah” to the amusement of fellow bus riders. Lyn Lifshin writes, “I love the sense/ of her contentment/ feel it moving/ inside me the/ way when a/ poem works…” in her poem “Writing a poem is like why and when a cat purs.” In “Advice from a Pro,” X. J. Kennedy writes, “I vowed to make my work intensley sober.” There are many great poems by poets Roger Aplon, Denise Duhamel, and others. And, in short, my copy of the 20th Anniversary of Free Lunch has almost every page dog-eared with praise.

Poem: Saturday Night, Coffee House

“Saturday Night, Coffee House” by Matthew Mulder

The awkwardness is complete—
strangers sitting side by side
with nothing to offer but body heat
on this cold winter night;
and the only thing that
connects us is my brother’s wife
and the wooden bench we sit upon.

Conversation is embarrassingly
fumbled with references to
the chai we sip;
and at long silences we sip
more chai and look
around the coffee house
for more material to
discuss,
or some distraction
to fascinate our senses.

(Originally published in Rapid River Magazine, April 2004.)

Thanks to all for joining me at Malaprops…

I was surprised to look up during the reading & find the cafe full & with people standing in the back!

Coffeehouse Junkie Podcast – Episode 014

This episode features an essay titled “The Hunger.” Listen to episode 14 here.

I AM NOT YOUR PRINCESS

Sandpaper between two cultures which tear one another apart

I’m not a means by which you can reach spiritual understanding

Or even learn to do beadwork
I’m only willing to tell you how to make fry bread
1 cup flour, spoon of salt, spoon of baking powder
Stir, add milk or water or beer until it holds together
Slap each piece into rounds -let rest
Fry in hot grease until golden
This is Indian food
Only if you know that Indian is a government word
Which has nothing to do with our names for ourselves
I won’t chant for you
I admit no spirituality to you
I will not sweat with you or ease your guilt with fine turtle tales
I will not wear dancing clothes to read poetry Or explain hardly anything at all
I don’t think your attempts to understand us are going to work so
I’d rather you left us in whatever peace we can still
Scramble up- after all you continue to do
If you send me one more damn flyer about how to heal myself
For $300 with special feminist counseling
I’ll probably set fire to something
If you tell me one more time that I’m wise

I’ll throw up on you
Look at me
See my confusion, loneliness, fear, worrying about all our
Struggles to keep what little is left for us
Look at my heart

Not your fantasies

Please don’t ever again tell me about your Cherokee great-great grandmother
don’t assume I know every other Native Activist
In the world personally

That I even know names of all the tribes
or can pronounce names I’ve never heard
or that I’m expert at the peyote stitch
If you ever again tell me
How strong I am
I’ll lay down on the ground & moan so you’ll see
at last my human weakness

Like your own
I’m not strong, I’m scraped
I’m blessed with life while so many I’ve known are dead
I have work to do dishes, to wash a house to clean
There is no magic
See my simple cracked hands which

Have washed the same things you wash

See my eyes dark with fear in a house by myself late at night

See that to pity me or to adore me are the same
1 cup flour, spoon of salt, spoon of baking powder, liquid to hold
Remember this is only my recipe

There are many others
Let me rest
Here
At least

– Chrystos, Menominee

(via deltafoxtrot)1

NOTES:
1) Delta Foxtrot, “I am not your princess,” January 8, 2010, Deltafoxtrot, accessed January 8, 2010, https://deltafoxtrot.tumblr.com/post/323784465/i-am-not-your-princess

Coffeehouse Junkie Podcast – Episode 013

This episode was recorded the week after the River Arts District studio stroll weekend. It features an essay about writing titled “The Field.” Also, I read two poems, “Dead Italians” by Jennifer L. Knox and “asunder” by Craig Arnold. Listen to episode 13 here: http://www.coffeehousejunkie.com/podcast.html

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Coffeehouse Junkie Podcast: An excerpt from Gregory Orr’s essay “Four Temperaments and the Forms of Poetry” will be read on today’s podcast plus an short poem.

“Go to the pine to learn of the pine,” Basho

“A haiku is far more than a concrete image of something ‘out there.’ It is very much about the cognitive awareness ‘in here.’” (via Roadrunner Journal)1

NOTES:
1) William M. Ramsey, “How One Writes in the Haiku Moment: Mythos vs. Logos,” May, 2009, Roadrunner Haiku Journal, Issue IX:2, accessed May 23, 2009, https://thehaikufoundation.org/omeka/items/show/1301

// i woke up from a dream in which coleman barks & i read sufi poetry in translation together…

// & now, a hafiz moment… ‘ever since happiness heard your name, it has been running through the streets trying to find you.’

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the sixth Coffeehouse Junkie Podcast… a poem from the book Calenture and a poem from patricia smith will be read on this podcast episode…

// love the pejorative tone many bourgeois have toward the idea of poetry readings…

“[Khalil] Gibran’s ‘masterpiece’… turns not so much upon poetry as upon the genre of wisdom literature and its subgenre, the aphorism, which holds a particularly valued place in Arab culture. Like all good aphorists, he uses language that is both plain and metaphorical; it invites understanding yet in a way that brushes against the mysteries of being alive. There’s no doubt that the style occasionally ascends into comical elevations, and that its high tone seems lost in the ironies and specificities of American life. But that sort of spiritual homelessness pretty much describes a large swath of immigrant life.” (via poetry & popular culture)

// oh, insomnia, thanks for putting the recent issue of the american poetry review in my mailbox today-gives me something to read at 1am…

// i’d rather be reading hafiz; ‘we should make all spiritual talk simple today’ (http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-9780143037811-0)