From today’s The Writer’s Almanac, an excerpt from “Midwest” by Stephen Dunn:
The church
always was smaller
than the grain elevator,
though we pretended otherwise.
As a child, the largest structures I ever saw included farm silos and grain elevators. They were the closest thing to a cathedral the Heartland has to offer a child.
I love these lines from Rachel Zucker’s poem:
With my minutes, I chip away at the idiom,
an unmarked pebble in a fast current.
Deborah offered a challenge to write 30 poems in 30 days. I took up the challenge and so far I’m on schedule with one poem a day. Maybe after the challenge I’ll translate the poems from handwritten form to digital, but for me the urgency is to get it all down first. It’s kind of like catching butterflies or lightening bugs.
One interesting item is that the poems have developed a theme. When I accepted the challenge I wasn’t planning on writing 30 theme-based poems, but somewhere under the surface it appears in each page of the poems I’m composing. I guess I’ll find out if it changes course by the end of the challenge.
I could swim in these lines from “Inland” by Chase Twichell for days:
Above the blond prairies,
the sky is all color and water.
It’s as if the poet read the pages of my mind and wrote a poem based on the reading.
I love painting more than poetry.
The spare details used created such enduring images that’s hard for me to let go of the poem.
love is folded away in a drawer
like something newly washed
In spite of a very crazy week I’m still on track with the 30 poems in 30 days challenge. The rain delays on Monday afforded me time to compose a page-length poem. It’s no where near the ideal of composing 75 lines of poetry per day, but it’s a much needed discipline just to fill a page in my moleskine notebook.
Ray Gonzalez’s prose poem “Beginning with Two Lines from Rexroth” begins with the opening line:
I see the unwritten books, the unrecorded experiments, the unpainted pictures, the interrupted lives, a staircase leading to a guarantee, the glowing frame of wisdom protecting me from harm after I escape the questions of a lifetime.
There’s an urgency to these lines that remind me of Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl.” Also, there is a strong collision of abstract ideas and images as in the following line:
There is no agony and waste, only the steps into the frontier where it is easy to hide.
There’s an interview with Ray Gonzalez on Bombsite where he discussed who he crafts line and prose poems.
If my voice is not reaching you
add to it the echo—
echo of ancient epics
Afzal Ahmed Syed‘s poem “If My Voice Is Not Reaching You” offers such a great opening stanza. A poet can go almost anywhere with those opening lines and a reader will follow with intrigue.
Deborah (of 32 Poems) invites interested persons to write a poem a day for the next 30 days. The invite was sent out on Sunday (and I didn’t read it until today… so, I’m a bit late), but I think I’m up for the challenge. Anyone else?
Read more details about the challenge here: 30 Poems in 30 Days.
In one corner Billy Collins. In the other corner CA Conrad for a dispute over Emily Dickinson’s sexual preference. This should be a great fisticuff battle… except it’s taking place in the American poetry scene which will be mostly ignored by the general public.
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:
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.
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.
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.
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.
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…
Here’s a video of Pasckie Pascua from last week’s Traveling Bonfires poetry reading at Malaprop’s Bookstore/Café.
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.
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.
“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.
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.
“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.)
Asheville Tumblrs & Tweeps are cordially invited to a poetry reading Monday, March 8, 2010, 7:00pm at Malaprop’s Bookstore/Café, downtown Asheville, NC.
Samara Scheckler is one of the featured poets for Monday’s reading and plans to read selections from a new chapbook A Body Turning.
Other poets include Barbie Angell, Donna Ensor, and myself with host and international poet Pasckie Pascua.
You are invited to a poetry reading featuring local poets: Barbie Angell, Donna Ensor, Samara Scheckler and Matthew Mulder, and hosted by Pasckie Pascua.
8 MARCH, Monday, 7pm-8pm.
Malaprop’s Bookstore/Cafe, downtown Asheville, NC.
(828) 254-6734
I was surprised to look up during the reading & find the cafe full & with people standing in the back!
Tonight’s one-hour poetry reading at Malaprop’s Bookstore (55 Haywood St., Asheville, NC) begins at 7 p.m.
I’ll read from 7:00 to 7:30. Here is my set list:
This list is subject to change.
Coffeehouse Junkie 