Poets and poetry – Page 46

December 12, 2012December 12, 2012 by Dave Bonta

I’m kind of a big deal on the web

Poets take note! There’s another critter out there even more adept than we are at hiding behind an enormous effigy of itself made entirely of garbage:

New Species of ‘Decoy’ Spider Likely Discovered At Tambopata Research Center

From afar, it appears to be a medium sized spider about an inch across, possibly dead and dried out, hanging in the center of a spider web along the side of the trail. Nothing too out of the ordinary for the Amazon. As you approach, the spider starts to wobble quickly forward and back, letting you know this spider is, in fact, alive.

Step in even closer and things start to get weird— that spider form you were looking at is actually made up of tiny bits of leaf, debris, and dead insects. The confusion sets in. How can something be constructed to look like a spider, how is it moving, and what kind of creature made this!?

It turns out the master designer behind this somewhat creepy form is in fact a tiny spider, only about 5mm in body length, that is hiding behind or above that false, bigger spider made up of debris.

November 21, 2012 by Dave Bonta

Two years of a poem a day

The Official Website of Poet Luisa A. Igloria:

As these things usually go, I hadn’t intended to do a daily poem “project” when I first wrote this poem in response to Dave Bonta’s Morning Porch post on November 20, 2010. But the experience of making a clearing, right then, right there, and dropping everything in order to sharply focus on nothing else but the immediate goal of writing a poem within a brief window of time, proved to be exhilarating. I kept coming back, and the rest, as they say, is history.

[…]

Two of most important things I’ve learned from my daily writing practice over the last two years have included the following (and the learning, if I might stress, continues): letting go (of the fear of the blank page, of the ego, of opinion, of criticism— Who do you think you are and why are you writing? Who do you think you’re writing to or for? Why do you think others will want to read your crap?); and just using that brief, blessed time to find a way to tune out whatever noise there is, outside or inside, so you can drop quickly down into that part where the you might find the poem and the poem might find you.

Two years of writing (at least) one poem every single day is a remarkable achievement. Congratulations are very much in order… as well as my heartfelt thanks. Via Negativa is much the better blog for Luisa’s daily contributions, and I’m honored to have been able to supply so many useful writing prompts over the past two years.

October 6, 2012September 30, 2012 by Dave Bonta

In the voice of Cortez’ mistress

I’m taking a break and highlighting some classic posts from my first full year of blogging, 2004. Here’s a poem in the dramatic monologue mode, written under the influence of Ai with some imagery borrowed from translations of classic Aztec poetry. (Please click through to read the whole poem.)

Malinche, A.D. 1522:

No rain of flowers marked my entry into the world.
I wasn’t born onto a shield or draped
in a robe of feathers. My own mother
sold me in secret & celebrated my funeral
with the substituted corpse of a slave.
I ended up serving the lords of Yucatán,
on the eastern shore.

Four years ago, when Hernán Cortez came back
from setting fire to his ships, slipping
like a thief into camp, I was waiting in
his tent. We understood each other
from the first, before I could speak
one phrase of Castillian. We had
the same hungers.

October 5, 2012September 30, 2012 by Dave Bonta

Imagining an Iraqi imagining us

I’m taking a break and highlighting some classic posts from my first full year of blogging, 2004. Though a note on the post says it’s a rough, first draft, I ultimately decided it didn’t need further revision. (Please click through and read the whole poem.)

From a Distance:

God knows how many times
I have stood frozen in the hot street
with rifles pointing at my crotch

& watched myself – small
& impossibly thin – in the oil-black
mirrors of their sunglasses.

They never take them off, not even
to enter a mosque. God knows
they are easy to hate.

September 12, 2012 by Dave Bonta

Why poets need experimental filmmakers

Peter Wullen:

Poets are egotistical and selfish creatures. They don’t like others to play with their words. But in these videopoems the ego is finally abolished. The words stay visible and primary but somehow they disappear inside the videopoem. The viewer or reader has to look very carefully to find them. The meaning of the videopoem is the perfect integration of word, sound and image.

September 7, 2012 by Dave Bonta

September day

The Rain in My Purse:

The day was September, cool oozing from the dying wildflowers.

Cease beeping, we said to just about everyone.

We put up a sign outside the church: Park your car, forget your anger.

The leaves clattered, practically metallic, the café tables round as coins.

September 3, 2012September 3, 2012 by Dave Bonta

Moving Poems profiled in Connotation Press

Back in early August, I had a very enjoyable, rambling discussion via Skype with California-based poet Erica Goss, who wanted to interview me for her new monthly column on videopoetry at the online journal Connotation Press. That interview is now up, and it’s coupled with an interview with Motionpoems founder Todd Boss (whose blog I just linked to here yesterday). Check it out.

I especially liked the closing quote from Todd: “To see your poem through the lens of film is to learn a new language about your poem. What could be more instructive than that?” I think this holds equally true for poets who envideo their own poems — or, as often happens, derive poems ekphrastically from film footage, their own or others’: it’s a form of translation. And just like traditional translating, it requires a reading so slow and so close as to amount to reinvention.

I also had a couple thoughts over at the Moving Poems forum, reacting to something Erica wrote: Are poets who make films of their poems self-publishing? And if so, are we risking loss of prestige (versus getting others to envideo our works)? Please go over there to comment on that, if you wish. But first, of course, read Erica’s column.

September 2, 2012 by Dave Bonta

Thirty-five rings in the river

Todd Boss:

We poets are used to solitude, and when we publish our work, it’s hardly an event that attracts attention. But this project would be seen by everyone on the riverfront in my home city of Minneapolis, for a whole month. I admit I had more than one sleepless night about this project. Would victims of the collapse be offended? Would the project get criticized in the media? Who was I to speak for my community this way?

August 23, 2012August 23, 2012 by Dave Bonta

Marly Youmans on why she left academia

The Palace at 2:00 a.m.:

Ten books and three forthcoming books later—poetry, novels, and several fantasies for children—I can say that I do not regret my decision. I lost a good deal of security and salary, and I fell from the academic realm of writers, but I gained freedom to do exactly as I liked in words. No book I wrote would be needed for promotion or merit pay. I could strive as I liked, and could spend months in a way that might seem wasteful to others but was the path forward for me. I had no need to throw myself into print. As a young poet, and later as a poet and writer of stories and novels, I had no need to think better of my work than it deserved at the time.

August 21, 2012 by Dave Bonta

Charles Simic on poets and money

NYRblog:

In a country that now regards money as the highest good, doing something for the love of it is not just odd, but downright perverse. Imagine the horror and anger felt by parents of a son or daughter who was destined for the Harvard Business School and a career in finance but discovered an interest in poetry instead. Imagine their enticing descriptions of the future riches and power awaiting their child while trying to make him or her reconsider the decision. “Who has recognized you as a poet? Who has enrolled you in the ranks of poets?,” the trial judge shouted at the Russian poet Josef Brodsky, before sentencing him to five years of hard labor. “No one,” Brodsky replied. He could have been speaking for all the sons and daughters who had to face their parents’ wrath.