Proposal

I would like to host and perform a reading. I need 3-4 people who want to do it. 7 readings each, no memorization. Should be able to perform not just read the reading. We would set up a program and do one big performance. It should be a free-form event with food. I have two on board, Charlie Rosenblume and myself.
We would probably need to this in a very open space with plenty of room for people to get up and move.
A couple sitting spots but it will be a standing event.
Some cookies, some juice, coffee
We will start advertising this week if we get our third person.

Freaking Weird

Quite the experience, I must say.
A little bit of shock, a tad bit of awe, and a whole lot of "what the F*&!".
Grace and I attended this reading and we both agreed that the overall performers were just terrible. I couldn't judge them too harshly and I tried to enjoy their stories and poems, however the darkly lit back room bar in Kieran's pub was an amazing venue. It was designed like Mr. Findlay's office, many volumes of books sat on shelves decorating the entire room in a warming ambiance. Plenty of tables and comfortable chairs so we wouldn't have to sit too close to anyone. I wanted to just sit down in a dimly lit corner and pretend that no one could see or hear me, instead Grace and I sat in the corners so performers wouldn't have to see our awkward faces when they told of their latest sex crusade. Sadly the evening swayed this direction and took terrible turns along the way. We ended up listening to the good pastor John whatever his name read about how much he hated police sticking their fingers up people's butt-holes. He wrote 5 pages mostly filled with profanity and poor grammar. If someone had came and picked him up and moved him to the street, he would have kept on blabbing and whining the entire time. He had no care for the audience, only for the sound of his voice. It wasn't even a poem, or even a story at that. It sounded more like a middle school boy wanting to sound cool in front of his friends. Well no one in that room was his friend, not me, or Grace, or the poet who wrote of the lesbian sex crusade in the form of Poe's Raven. It was actually kind of interesting, the way she incorporated her life into the form of a very famous poem. However her poem, like the good pastor John's, fell to the plague of profanity and her initially emphatic use of the f-word moved to an idiomatic form to give off a comfortable atmosphere with the word. This kind of toned down her overall piece and thus I toned out.
There was one exception to all the bad that the night had brought, the final performer, a story teller who told the story of an imaginary dog named fido... or maybe cupid, cosmo? Hell if I know, I was on my fourth lemonade and the night was growing old like my grandpa, who is also forgetting plenty of things at his age. Her story was a bit more descriptive however I thought it could have been much better. While more descriptive she did not go much further into each adjective. When she claimed something was blue, that's all that it was. I never thought I would find myself saying this, but she used far too many weak verbs. I forget plenty so my reaction derives from much contemplation on the night. It could have been the zing from the lemonade, the dust from the books, or the craziness of being in a new place. In any case, it was freaking weird.      

Poetry Magazine Podcast

This is not a journal, this is not a website or a blog, this is a podcast. In my opinion this is the way that poetry should be shared. Contemporary poetry especially deserves the voice of the writer. It's an amazing way to hear the dialect of the poem, the energy and purpose of the poem. In the podcast there is a fun element that gives to the poetry. The commentators of the podcast are able to catch meaning in the abstract poems without giving a solid conclusion or sense of strict purpose to it.
The commentators of the podcast show the energy of each poem through the words of the writers that are read aloud. They are able to grab points in a poem that they found pungent and they can use the authors voice to help push their points. It's like a harkness discussion but instead of looking in the reading for a quick passage, soundbites are used instead. I really think this pushes meaning in the poetry farther as tones that cannot be heard while reading simply can be expressed through the voice of the author.
There were two very nice poems that gave me strong meaning and purpose. First was Hannah Gambles "Growing a Bear" which speaks about the pains of a middle aged man who wants to regain what he has lost through the years. Hannah's drawn out voice gives every word purpose as it slowly pushes through every lingering stanza. But this allows the reader to really feel every word for its true purpose and catch a meaning that Gambles wants you to collect. The next is Nate Marshall's "Praise Song" which depicts a fight between him and his best friends. As a rapper, Nate already has strong presenting voice but he adds soulful rhythms that gives the feeling that you are listening to a preacher.
The podcast wraps up with a discussion with poet Peter Quartermain on "stubborn poetries." Quatermain says that poetry became so boring to him that he actually took leave from it. He learned as a child that every poem has a strict meaning and that you must dissect it until you find it. It wasn't until he had to teach a class on American Contemporary poetry that he realized that it could be so spontaneous and have multiple meanings for multiple readers.
Quatermain's ideologies summarize my points. I too believe that poetry can be spontaneous and exiting and that this spontaneity can give whole new meanings. I believe the voice of the author can give this spontaneity to help develop new meanings. 

To Listen to the Podcast

Hannah Gamble's "Growing a Bear"

Nate Marshall's "Praise Song"

Louis Jenkins

Many people ask the most common question about poetry, "what's the poem about?". I would disagree with them and ask "who is the ending for?". Somewhere in the ending the poem's tone and style might shift and there will be a connection with the reader. I think Jenkins likes to connect with himself, before he connects with anyone else. He truly writes for himself.
Jenkins's poetry are like a collection of ideas that are put together in a poetic fashion, but he does not write for the people who read his poems. For instance in his poem "football" there is an obvious narrative voice, but it moves from story to self discovery. This movement excludes the reader from grabbing at the meaning of the poem before Jenkins does. Now the reader is not completely expelled from gaining any sort of purpose from the poem, but they have to apply Jenkins's experience to themselves. It's an open ended way to end a poem, where it allows the reader to take from it what they like.
Now this is very typical in poetry but before he ends his poetry, he just points out observations he has made and I don't think he cares if the audience has any sort of reaction. But he does not care for cliche or randomness, he just writes for the sake of poetry.

To Make Enemies

Cold air seeps into the deepening crevices of scab encrusted skin.
The constant ticking pecked holes into my leg that I eventually gnawed away with my finger nails.
Taking every gangrene scab and collecting until I had enough to make a scar.
Knee ache and cold sweat. I was hurting without being hit. 
My coat was my solitude, even though I was asked many times to take it off.
Three months passed like hours on a Sunday.
Guttural noises spewed hacks and hunks in the sink and the toilet. 
I recalled some lunch everyday and sometimes it was polite enough to keep it's place.
The cold found the cracks and I tried to push it out,
Drenching me in lukewarm tears.
I departed from all the comfortable and reached towards medicine. 
My friends turned to blurs and consequently into strangers.

I found
bandages,
Valium,
and wounds underneath my skin.

Relentless sting, drowning in my self inflicted acid.

Imaginable Wealth

My parents must have been rich

They color coordinated our furniture.

One chair, about three sheets, and a blanket

Stuffed with hoards of wool and quilted into unimaginable patterns.

They stretched across the sofa which had the texture of twenty camels.

The bumps made me queasy as I stretched across the sea of green.

It was the absurd taste of the wealthy.

We got rid of the sofa because of all of my pre-adolescent slobber stains.

The shirts, the pillows, the sheets all covered in my mouth liquid.

They found time from their busy lives to actually find a new home for it.

Two bedrooms and one bathroom is king’s palace.

Procrast in the Nation

Well time to get to work!
Let's check the good ol' fb for five.
Now's it's been 5, in which I mean 50.
Nice picture. Like like like. Hahaha. Like.
Meme.

Start this analysis you lazy-- this is an awesome song!
Who made this? Yo Alica check this out!
Fuckyfuckshit i need to get to work.
*I need to get to work.

Ok analysis give me your best shot
If you think that is even possible. 
Well an explanation can't physically give me a punch in the-- dammit!
Why am I talking to my paper? When I should be writing on it!
Ok, ok, ok Okay. Time to get to ESPN!

Fantasy Football is amazing and awesome and not my homework
Come on, get it together. Or don't.
I bet Grace has all her homework done.
I wonder what Grace is doing?
Does she even understand-- not the point!

Dubstep! Take me away!
(WUBWUBWUBWUB)
Ok that helped with... nothing.

What have I even accomplished?
I not going to college!
Yes I am, just write this goddamn analysis!

Experimental Education

All at once his hands, legs, and mind start to work simultaneously and he is frozen in place
Conflicted, scared, motivated. He wants to take on the world.

He wishes for a day to teach without using a text book, pushing beyond the classroom to a world that for many is the great unknown.

He travels in search of understanding, to understand a calling.

Worldly.

He takes a break, but he remains with what is familiar. He teaches.

The children that he meets have feelings, stories, and complex lives.

To them he is gold, and they gleam when they see him.

He wants to be revolutionary not statuesque

“What is my role? Why must I know?” His mind runs

Presenting now, he hopes to show his students a concept that he still does not fully understand.

But his students only see simple solutions to complex problems.

Most will see the word ‘poverty’ and think the only solution is ‘money’

Living in a state of being where Champagne replaces the water

Goose liver is an appetizer

And where we say fish, they ask from which region?

That’s not their fault; the clouds are just too close to their ears

It is pure, raw, and unadulterated isolation.

His gilded cover cracks and he picks up his pencil

His curriculum, his action plan, and his blueprint all churn in his cranium.

Unfrozen.

Fred Sleeps In

There once was a boy named Fred.

Who never got himself out of bed.

His mother and father both tried and cried, but they slowly realized he was dead.

Now Fred was from Nantucket.

Where everyone was kicking the bucket.

The people moaned and groaned when they found out Fred was not so lucky.

They had a funeral in two days.

When Fred was laid down in his grave.

There was no hope for a wish or a joke to bring back Fred’s happy ways.

Fred lived for the people of the world,

And he was never afraid to express his views.

When the president heard of his tragic death he made a statement just because he could.

Then they had to tell Justine.

They thought Fred and her were friends.

Turns out Justine had feelings to grand but she never had the chance to tell him.

So Justine lays awake at night.

Because the thought of Fred gives her the frights.

And she will never get him out of her head again until the next Friday the 13^th.

So she will wait with a heavy head,

And slowly wake and arise from her bed .

Soon after her chants and rituals are done, that’s when she will be reunited with Fred.

If My Eyes Were Microscopes

Joyce Sutphen writes about how normal things that do not affect us grandiose manners actually do change us. She depicts some very mundane events, yet she is able to write about them through and alternative lens that grants her the ability to see on a smaller scale. She shows that even the smallest things in life have great significance. In her poem “The Day” she writes that many great things have happened on particular days, however your birth is significant because of the work that you have put in. She writes, “On this day in nineteen forty-nine, you were born, and though it took you many years to do good work and keep in touch, you did”. On an even smaller scale, Sutphen analyzes how her behavior changes when people say the Alphabet in her poem “Semi Literate”. She writes, “Q-r-s was curious, that was certain, t-u-v I liked because it reminded me of a little cabin by a lake where waves crashed on rocks all night”. The significance of the way of how the alphabet is spoken causes her to reflect on memories that she is fond of. She finds that in the faintest of ideas; significance can cause oneself to reflect on fond moments. “The Things You Did Not Write On Your Resume” drives these ideas home as Sutphen reflects on her abilities as a mother. She points out her importance as mother as though not seen by society as normal. She writes, “How often you got up in the middle of the night when one of your children had a bad dream, and sometimes you woke because you thought you heard a cry but they were all sleeping”. In essence she claims that her skill set as a mother is just as significant as her working skill set. In conclusion, Stuphen uses her words to depict importance however mundane. She shows that all things can lead to behaviors that can even cause nostalgia. Her poetry shines on areas already thought to be discovered and reanalyzes them.

Ideas from reading

When writing "Closed System" I thought of a persona that I wanted to be. This persona happened to be me, but I wanted to sound more like a story teller. My voice and style in this poem is very different from the poem "[Untitled]". The poem was originally was supposed to be about my eagerness when learning about new people; mainly girls I was interested in. I decided to step back from that and realize why I am so eager to learn about the "real" person. 

Revision of Poem

[Untitled]

I feel like I want it.

Excuse, me I need it.

Give me you. Don’t hold back.

You are amazing, I am guessing.

A bird does not hold back its passion.

He awakes early and sings with all its might

He voices an opinion everyone hears but no one listens too.

Then I grab the .22 and drop the sucker out of the tree.

His passion means nothing to me, he is just noise.

So what about my passion?

Does she really hear me? Or does she grab her gun?

REVISION

Closed System

 

The world gave me knowledge and in return I gave my service

I served the knowledge and it granted me happiness

The world granted me knowledge.

Many of friends were granted the knowledge as well, and they were happy.

However, the world was not fair.

The knowledge was given to the unwise and they abused its power.

Or at least that is what I thought.

With the knowledge came envy

The world gave me the gift of jealousy

The knowledge soon became unclear and I misunderstood the world.

I wanted to misuse the knowledge and still remain happy.  

 But I could not disobey the knowledge.

Nature became my teacher.

I learned of the world before knowledge.

The birds who did not hold back their passion taught me how to live.

I wanted to be one with their teachings but I could not disobey the knowledge.

My friends with the knowledge seem unhappy now.

I recognize their sadness.

I see their pain.

I can never disobey the knowledge.

I have tried to disobey the knowledge and that only sends me running back.

The knowledge controls me.

I am one with the knowledge.

I can never be without the knowledge.

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