Enthusiastically so is the bite in the ribbon

New Website

2010-07-17T12:05:00.001-04:00

Kimberly Grey Moved

Check out my new website and blog over here: http://kimberlymgrey.com/

Poem by Bob Hicok

2010-07-06T19:51:00.005-04:00

re: incarnation

To you who say you've been here before, I say
I've not been here yet, I say
I'll be here soon, I say
what a mess you've made.

Next time, come back as an apology
or broom.

Next time, bring enough doughnuts
for everyone.

I would ask if there's a next time
to be the phrase, life is brutish and short.

I would have a child who is the phrase, life is supple
and vibratory.

She would have a child
who is the clamor behind the waterfall, twin of the child
who is the ruckus in front of a waterfall, sisters
to the child who is the screaming of the sun
against the dark.

The first atom bomb came back
as whispers, fallen eyelashes, dew.

Sometimes I hope I'm shitting out
Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot.

In those moments, I wished Americans believed
in bidets.

If Americans came back as Europeans, we would believe
in bidets.

And the carrier pigeon would come back
as the carrier pigeon, only this time,
it wouldn't be the fashion to shoot them.

It would be the fashion to say look, the carrier pigeons
are back.

Everyone would turn and wait for the buffalo.

Everyone would turn and wait for us
to honor our treaties with the Indians.

And while everyone was turned, all the interesting stuff
would happen up ahead: the bumper car
would come back as making love.

Advice as minding your own business.

Slivers as roots of jungle
under skin.

And there God would be
trying on all the slippers, hoping one pair
fit, hoping one pair got him from the ball
to happily ever after.

As if.

As if.

from Washington Square Summer/Fall 2010

Four years

2010-06-30T22:52:00.003-04:00

From Anne Carson's translation of Sappho:

"For the man who is beautiful is beautiful to see
but the good man will at once also beautiful be.

I feel so lucky.

New York Geometries

2010-06-23T00:28:00.002-04:00

Little Bite of Light

Little Jailed Sphere

Little Striped India

Little Gate to Go

Little Squares to Save

Little Circle of Noon

A View to Sing

2010-06-02T20:47:00.000-04:00

The poem is sad because it wants to be yours, and cannot

2010-05-13T13:29:00.001-04:00

Paradoxes and Oxymorons

By John Ashbery

This poem is concerned with language on a very plain level.
Look at it talking to you. You look out a window
Or pretend to fidget. You have it but you don’t have it.
You miss it, it misses you. You miss each other.

The poem is sad because it wants to be yours, and cannot.
What’s a plain level? It is that and other things,
Bringing a system of them into play. Play?
Well, actually, yes, but I consider play to be

A deeper outside thing, a dreamed role-pattern,
As in the division of grace these long August days
Without proof. Open-ended. And before you know
It gets lost in the steam and chatter of typewriters.

It has been played once more. I think you exist only
To tease me into doing it, on your level, and then you aren’t there
Or have adopted a different attitude. And the poem
Has set me softly down beside you. The poem is you.

From Poetry Magazine
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=181395

Poems

2010-05-11T01:14:00.000-04:00

I have two new poems in The Awl:

http://www.theawl.com/2010/05/the-poetry-section-kimberly-grey

Lower Manhattan

2010-04-30T01:21:00.001-04:00

It felt strange to walk around Battery Park tonight. I still feel like I should be silent, like I should be muttering some kind of elegy to the suffered buildings. Like I should walk with my head slightly toward the ground. Maybe it's because I still think of this part of Manhattan as bruised. Or maybe, it's just me that is still tender. But after hearing Anne Carson read tonight, one thing remains: Death makes us stingy. However immensely beautiful the buildings seemed, the Hudson, the sky, the poems; tonight I want to keep it all to myself.

from Ceiling Unlimited Series

2010-04-29T22:31:00.000-04:00

(magnet mine)

It isn't a question of what's quaint, what
hurts. If the telephone wires look like
an endless perch, the birds will avoid
the trees. The train's reflection in the water
can't help but glimmer more than the train.
As long as the local cathedral has an
unpronounceable name, people will come in
droves to sing their songs to the residual blue.
When the rain was wanted they used to shoot
cannonballs into the clouds. So prosaic. So pretty.
The planets couldn't be more so. Or if it's scale
that attracts you, come closer - there are seven
tiny piles of bright pigment in the sink. Lava-less-
lament, flimsy-attempt-to-draw-you-in-
call them what you want, but call them.

from Pity the Bathtub its Forced Embrace of the Human Form
By Matthea Harvey

The Awl

2010-04-26T16:13:00.000-04:00

Here's to taking chances. A few weeks ago I read two of Matthea Harvey's new poems in The Awl, a new New York magazine that is interested in politics, culture, and the arts. Harvey is easily my favorite poet writing today. I was quite enamored with her poems and other poems published in The Poetry Section. So I sent Mark Bibbins a couple poems on a whim and wish, not even sure if they take unsolicited submissions. And as it turns out, they don't. All the work has thus far been solicited. But, the lovely Mark liked my poems and has decided to publish them in The Awl in a few weeks. I am thrilled and can not help but think a little turtle that left this world and broke my heart, has something to do with all the great things that are happening to me.

Matthea Harvey's poems in The Awl: http://www.theawl.com/2010/04/the-poetry-section-two-poems-by-matthea-harvey

A View to Love and Slaughter

2010-04-21T01:36:00.000-04:00

A View to Love

2010-04-15T01:15:00.000-04:00

A View to Ride

2010-04-14T20:52:00.000-04:00

A View to Leave

2010-04-13T14:08:00.000-04:00

A View to Eat

2010-04-12T13:20:00.000-04:00

A View to Memorize

2010-04-08T14:08:00.000-04:00

A View to Write By

2010-04-07T16:18:00.000-04:00

Nox

2010-03-31T00:27:00.000-04:00

Today I received Anne Carson's latest book "Nox" almost two months earlier than I expected to. What a great surprise. The book is one of the most strange and beautifully constructed books I've ever seen. I haven't actually read it yet, just ogled over the pages and designs, but she never disappoints me. This is what it looks like:

In other news one of my poems was accepted into The Brooklyn Review. It was one of the nicest acceptance letters I've gotten. (It was addressed to "Dearest Kimberly"). I'm really excited for two reasons: it's my first print publication and it's a poem I wrote well after I graduated from my MFA program. It was never workshopped, never revised, and only one person read it before I submitted it out. It is one of my favorite poems I've written thus far and I'm excited to share it with The Brooklyn Review and the world.

Advice To The Busted Among Us

2010-03-12T10:23:00.000-05:00

By Ada Limon

But everyone is busted a little.

No consciousness of the breaking, just the history
of a dirty footprint—even the easy stuff,
the small conversations about our worth.

(To be an anonymous object,
the innocuous heart, the smallest part of flesh.)

On Withers Avenue, a rat circled the bottom of a trashcan,
it threw its body against the plastic green walls of its new world,
I heard it. I removed the top. I put the top back on.

(Small brilliant hole in the dark, let me out.)

Standing, in what seemed ridiculously human clothes,
I argued with the rat. I asked him,

Are you rabid?
Are you crazy?
Are you responsible for the plague?

He didn’t answer, he threw his body again.

Are you mean?
Did you hurt your children?
Did you hurt anyone?

I want to tell you that I let that rat out.

Kindness overwhelmed the tough pout of people-cleanliness.
I want to tell you I put him in a shoebox and
brought him to the country, fed him corn and taught him to read.

(Ungettable parallel time, fathomless choices.)

I say to a stranger, I am harmless.

But the word doesn’t seem right. I have been harmed,
but I do not wish to do harm, but I could do harm,
I am not without desire.

I want to tell you the rat moved in with me, made a good living.

But, I tell you, I let him be.

I think he might have managed to release himself,
he was not harmless. He had intent. Flirting with the world.

He’ll show up one day, long-wandered in the weather.

He just needed someone subversive to bend in
real close and say,

You can bristle all you want,
you can reinvent the shout,
but you got your rat-self in there,
now, get your cunning rat-self out.

From Octopus Magazine
http://www.octopusmagazine.com/issue10/main.html

Morning Dialogue A

2010-03-08T17:53:00.000-05:00

8:31 a.m

J - Good morning sleepy darling.
K- Throw a shoe at the ceiling.
J- A shoe?
K- They are making so much noise
J- I am not going to throw a shoe at the ceiling
K- Just throw a shoe (falls back asleep)

What I want for my birthday...

2010-03-03T15:39:00.000-05:00

Good Ole Galway

2010-02-27T07:41:00.000-05:00

Why Regret

By Galway Kinnell

Didn't you like the way the ants help
the peony globes open by eating the glue off?
Weren't you cheered to see the ironworkers
sitting on an I-beam dangling from a cable,
in a row, like starlings, eating lunch, maybe
baloney on white with fluorescent mustard?
Wasn't it a revelation to waggle
from the estuary all the way up the river,
the kill, the pirle, the run, the rent, the beck,
the sike barely trickling, to the shock of a spring?
Didn't you almost shiver, hearing book lice
clicking their sexual dissonance inside an old
Webster's New International, perhaps having just
eaten out of it izle, xyster, and thalassacon?
What did you imagine lies in wait anyway
at the end of a world whose sub-substance
is glaim, gleet, birdlime, slime, mucus, muck?
Forget about becoming emaciated. Think of the wren
and how little flesh is needed to make a song.
Didn't it seem somehow familiar when the nymph
split open and the mayfly struggled free
and flew and perched and then its own back
broke open and the imago, the true adult,
somersaulted out and took flight, seeking
the swarm, mouth-parts vestigial,
alimentary canal come to a stop,
a day or hour left to find the desired one?
Or when Casanova took up the platter
of linguine in squid's ink and slid the stuff
out the window, telling his startled companion,
"The perfected lover does not eat."
As a child, didn't you find it calming to imagine
pinworms as some kind of tiny batons
giving cadence to the squeezes and releases
around the downward march of debris?
Didn't you glimpse in the monarchs
what seemed your own inner blazonry
flapping and gliding, in desire, in the middle air?
Weren't you reassured to think these flimsy
hinged beings, and then their offspring,
and then their offspring's offspring, could
navigate, working in shifts, all the way to Mexico,
to the exact plot, perhaps the very tree,
by tracing the flair of the bodies of ancestors
who fell in this same migration a year ago?
Doesn't it outdo the pleasures of the brilliant concert
to wake in the night and find ourselves
holding hands in our sleep?

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/19553

Still Full of Ness. The Sad Kind.

2010-02-25T02:03:00.000-05:00

I keep going back to this passage from Anne Carson's book Decreation:

Between grief and nothing
I'd take grief (jean Seberg)
I'd take nothing (Jean-Paul Belmando)

Earlier she says The tough wound plucks itself

It does. And between grief and nothing, I don't know which to take.

I heart Tony Hoagland

2010-02-17T20:12:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I bought this:

And I am in love with this:

Love

The middle-aged man
who cannot make love to his wife
with the erectile authority of yesteryear
must lower his head and suck her breasts
with the tenderness and acumen of Walt Whitman.

And if the woman has lost her breasts
to the surgeon and his silver knife,
she must hump the man's leg in the dark bedroom
like a rodeo bronco rider.

Let them be hard and wet again, respectively.
Let them convince, and be convinced.

It is the kind of heroic performance
that no one will ever mention.
It is the part of the journey where the staircase gets narrow
and you must turn sideways to pass.

Over the earth the clouds mutate and roll.
The trees catch their breaths for another try.
Wind rips through the dried-out grass
with a threshing sound.

The man going under the covers.
The woman letting him.
Both of them refusing
to be stopped by shame.

All that talk about love, and this
is what the word was pointing at.

His poem "Poor Britney Spears" was a close second.

SHMO DAY

2010-02-11T00:18:00.000-05:00

So, being snowed-in in New York is less exciting than it sounds. But I did get some useful things done today, including watching Inglorious Basterds, eating Thai food (yes they delivered in the snow!), completing another poem, finishing "Eros- The Bittersweet" by Anne Carson, and getting a poem accepted in Opium Magazine. I am very excited that they will be publishing the title poem of my first-book manuscript, which I expect to have completely done by August. It will appear online sometime in the near future.

Besides that, I haven't been blogging much of late because I lost my beautiful beautiful grandmother a few weeks. She was far too young and far too healthy to have left us. But, such is life. I will miss her incredibly. And I have gotten a turtle tattooed on my foot to remember her by. She was my biggest fan. Little did she know, I was hers.

The Lovely Gertrude Stein

2010-01-19T15:35:00.000-05:00

My most favorite moments of Tender Buttons:

from A PLATE

A sad size a size that is not sad is blue as every bit of blue is precocious. A kind of green a game in green and nothing flat nothing quite flat and more round, nothing a particular color strangely, nothing breaking the losing of no little piece.

from A LONG DRESS

What is the current that makes machinery, that makes it crackle, what is the current that presents a long line and a necessary waist. What is this current.

What is the wind, what is it.

from A CHAIR

Actually not aching, actually not aching, a stubborn bloom is so artificial and even more than that, it is a spectacle, it is a binding accident, it is animosity and accentuation.

from A NEW SAUCER AND CUP

Enthusiastically hurting a clouded yellow bud and saucer, enthusiastically so is the bite in the ribbon.

from A SOUND

Elephant beaten with candy and little pops and chews all bolts and reckless reckless rats, this is this.

from ROASTBEEF

Cloudiness what is cloudiness, is it a lining, is it a roll, is it melting.

from MUTTON

Student, students are merciful and recognised they chew something

from BREAKFAST

A hurt mended stick, a hurt mended cup, a hurt mended article of exceptional relaxation and annoyance, a hurt mended, hurt and mended is so necessary that no mistake is intended.

from DINNER

Only a moon to soup her, only that in the sell never never be the cocups nice be, shatter it they lay.

From ROOMS

Startling a starving husband is not disagreeable. The reason that nothing is hidden is that there is no suggestion of silence. No song is sad. A lesson is of consequence.

Giving it away, not giving it away, is there any difference. Giving it away. Not giving it away.

Star-light, what is star-light, star-light is a little light that is not always mentioned with the sun, it is mentioned with the moon and the sun, it is mixed up with the rest of the time.

Sugar any sugar, anger every anger, lover sermon lover, centre no distractor, all order is in a measure.

A pecking which is petting and no worse than in the same morning is not the only way to be continuous often.
A light in the moon the only light is on Sunday. What was the sensible decision. The sensible decision was that notwithstanding many declarations and more music, not even notwithstanding the choice and a torch and a collection, notwithstanding the celebrating hat and a vacation and even more noise than cutting, notwithstanding Europe and Asia and being overbearing, not even notwithstanding an elephant and a strict occasion, not even withstanding more cultivation and some seasoning, not even with drowning and with the ocean being encircling, not even with more likeness and any cloud, not even with terrific sacrifice of pedestrianism and a special resolution, not even more likely to be pleasing. The care with which the rain is wrong and the green is wrong and the white is wrong, the care with which there is a chair and plenty of breathing. The care with which there is incredible justice and likeness, all this makes a magnificent asparagus, and also a fountain.

DIAGRAM

2010-01-15T23:25:00.000-05:00

I am thrilled that DIAGRAM has accepted two of my poems! It is certainly one of my top five favorite online literary magazines. There is some brilliant, brilliant work to be found there. Make sure you check it out.

http://thediagram.com/

In other news I've taken up origami. So far I've mastered the crane. I've made about 50 so far. What I am doing with them is to be determined.

Sneak peek:

That is all.

and

WhaZam

The Year of the Lost Man

2010-01-06T17:00:00.000-05:00

Is it just me or did 2009 seem like the year of men, interminably lost and confused? I mean, look at the movies: The Wrestler, Gran Torino, Up in the Air, Crazyheart, A Single Man - cowboys, washed up vets, gay men, business men, Mickey Rourke? It seems so many movies are focusing on the struggle of the male in everyday life with prejudice, alcoholism, women and sex, self-acceptance, peer-acceptance . Is it a statement of the times? That this world we have today is a hard world for men to live in? It is easy to believe. And I am nothing near a feminist. But what about the woman? This concerns me because of the most recent criticism of my writing. I was told that I write like a man, that the speakers of my poems are most often genderless. That I am uncelebratory of the woman, of being a woman. Because I don't write the expected "woman" or "mother" poems? I see my struggles and concerns in life and in writing as human struggle and concerns, not merely related to women or gender stereotypes, but to all beings. And, however important or unimportant audience is, hopefully my audience will always contain both men and woman. So I will continue to write poems that speak to both genders. And however much I did enjoy Clint Eastwood and Jeff Bridges, I look forward to movies that more deeply explore the situation of the woman, beyond (and hopefully less repugnant than) Sex and the City and He's just not that into you. WhhhaaZAMM

The Lovely Matthea Harvey

2010-01-06T15:26:00.000-05:00

MyTop Ten Favorite Movies of the Decade

2009-12-30T18:34:00.000-05:00

The Dirty Napkin

2009-12-21T02:04:00.001-05:00

Today the Winter 2010 Issue of The Dirty Napkin was published and I am thrilled to see I've been published along side J.P Dancing Bear, a poet of great merit. The issue seems to have been a very selective one, which also makes me proud. The two poems that appear are older poems of mine, written in my Stephen Dunn Stockton years. So a great thank you to him and my Stockton pals.

A link to read and listen to the poems appears to your left. Enjoy!

I would give all metaphors in return for one word drawn out of my breast like a rib

2009-12-14T13:20:00.000-05:00

So tonight I have a telepho-etry date with the editor of The Dirty Napkin to record two poems that will appear next week in the Winter 2010 Issue. I find this process excitingly strange, but I am looking forward to having the recording next to the text. WhaaZAM.

Aside from that, my favorite poem today is "I Would Like to Describe" by Zbigniew Herbert

Read it here: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=179869

New Typewriter

2009-12-04T17:28:00.000-05:00

I just bought my first typewriter. Isn't it pretty?

Guest Speaking

2009-12-02T14:08:00.000-05:00

Today I visited my friend Madeline's Intro to Creative Writing class at Adelphi University as a Guest Speaker of Poetry. It was pretty interesting. I read some of my published poems and then answered their questions for the duration of the class period. Since most of them are freshman and I think only one or two of them were English Majors, I wasn't expecting much of a response. But I was mistaken. Many of them had interesting and insightful questions and seemed to be truly interested in the process of writing poetry, my process in particular, and many of them were very curious about publishing. My favorite question was "How much money does it cost to get published?" I couldn't help but laugh and tell the poor kid that if you are paying to be published you're getting taken for a ride. Overall it was an extremely enjoyable experience and I hope to do it again in the future.

Thankfully: Cinq

2009-11-26T17:00:00.001-05:00

LBI Sunsets, like this.

Thankfully: Quatre

2009-11-26T15:11:00.000-05:00

I am utterly grateful, thankfully, for the so many amazing poems that I have the pleasure of reading. There are many obscure poets out there who are truly truly brilliant. And most days of the week, their work inspires far more than my more famous contemporaries. Here is an amazing poem by Jaimee Hills. When you find a poem that you wish you had written first, well those are the best finds.

http://www.blackbird.vcu.edu/v7n1/poetry/hills_j/lesson.htm

Thankfully: Trois

2009-11-26T13:00:00.000-05:00

Today 4 years ago I met this man. I don't care about cliches, I fell in love with immediately. Then two hours later I crashed my car horribly, almost hurting us both. Today, I am thankful I didn't kill him, and that he still chose to talk to me, even though the cops searched him for drugs. Love you so much Bub Bub!

Thankfully: Deux

2009-11-25T22:32:00.000-05:00

Not for the burning animal. Not for the removable chest. Not for the cerulean sky. Not for the grief of figures. Not for the head-less, heart-less, waist-ful-ness. But for beauty that is not easy. For beauty that is difficult. For Dali, thankfully.

Thankfully

2009-11-25T15:54:00.000-05:00

Over the next 24 hours I will post numerous images/things/texts/videos of things that I have in my life, thankfully. They all, in some way or anyother, instill joy in me. Here is a picture of the greatest pup in the world. Lollipop, aka LP, is pit/shepard mix that my brother's girlfriend rescued and fostered. Over the last year, she has become a steady member of our family. She is the sweetest, most affectionate dog I have ever met. I love her.

New Apartment

2009-11-23T23:41:00.001-05:00

So me and my bub are moving into our new apartment a week from today. This will be our third apartment together. Not because we've been in a relationship for all that long, but because we tend to move quit often because someone (moi) has a tendency to not adapt to new things or give them a chance. I am particularly excited about it for a few reasons. But also, nervous for other reasons:

Pros: We are two blocks from the subway and a 10 min ride to 42nd St.
It's a beautiful pre-war building in a very hip little residential area
We have a brand new kitchen.
The apartment IS NOT, I repeat, NOT IN OR NEAR LONG ISLAND
We are in the same building as my good friend Sara. I smell some good times

Cons: Parking will be atmost an atrocious nightmare every single day.
It is the city, which has city noises 24/7
I always have trouble in new places
It's still kind of far from my family

Oh well. I hope it works out because I can't afford to break anymore leases!

Bite my face and I be yr dove for all time

2009-11-20T21:25:00.000-05:00

Todays brilliant writer is Nate Slawson I give you three poems from Diagram. His poems are short, striking, and effective. I love his starkness, his cheekiness, his torque of syntax, and his Creeley-like lack of vowels. Enjoy!

http://thediagram.com/9_5/slawson.html

No Forgiveness Ode

2009-11-17T21:08:00.001-05:00

There has been a question running through my mind that has been keeping me awake at night. And that question is: How does a man lose absolutely everything he has, and still continue on. Of course, I could make this personal, but I won't. I could say this man is my father, but I won't. Somewhere in the world there is a man who has lost absolutely everything: his family, his houses, his dignity, his mind. Without a care, it seems. I'm thinking, a man in this situation can't understand his loss. Not can't. But must not understand it. There must be some kind of internal denial that rescues you from understanding the literal loss of everything, the ultimate feeling of loneliness. Just you and a full world of emptiness. May God help a man like this. But what allows me to sleep when this question finally settles is Dean Young's poem "No Forgiveness Ode." It beings:

The husband wants to be taken back into the family after behaving terribly

And then all those little, important reminders:

1. but nothing can be taken back

2. some shrapnel remains in the wound, some mud.

3. The heart needs its thorns

4. Just because you've had enough doesn't mean you wanted too much

And the greatest reminder of all:

5. No Forgiveness Owed

Read the poem in its entirety here: http://www.poetry365.com/2008/12.html

Thank you Dean Young, for a brilliant, brilliant poem and for allowing me to get some sleep.

Tolstoy was right

2009-11-16T22:57:00.000-05:00

"All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."

- first line from Anna Karenina

I lose you to the fiction of beginnings

2009-11-12T12:48:00.000-05:00

Today's brilliant but obscure writer is Sandra Huber. Sandra is the curator of the online literary magazine Dear Sir, (www.dearsir.org). She was gracious enough to include me in the second issue. What I love most about Dear Sir, is that it's one of the few magazines that publishes work in multiple languages ie: English, German, and French. And not just English translations. There is something very worldly and sophisticated being published next to a poem you know is beautiful, but unreadable. So you read it in that language, as if you knew that language, sounding out the words, making them something known to you. Such poetica! Sandra's poem "Himmel säumend" or "Sive Sky" appears in the first issue of Dear Sir, in German. There is also an english translation published in Ditch,. I will attach both versions. Brilliance. Enjoy!

http://www.dearsir.org/sites_current_issue_writers_1/huber_runge.html

http://www.ditchpoetry.com/sandrahuber.htm

I think the stomach means we cannot love one another properly

2009-11-11T20:23:00.000-05:00

So I am in the process of starting an online literary magazine for poetry. And by starting, I mean learning the web basics because I'm completely computer dumb. So I wouldn't expect it until maybe this time next year. But in the meanwhile, I've starting blogging because I really want to share some poets i've found that are published online who are somewhat obscure, but extremely brilliant. I'll try to do a poem a day. Today I give you Catie Rosemurgy and 3 poems she has published in Diagram. She's brilliant. Enjoy!

http://thediagram.com/9_5/rosemurgy.html

I've decided to erase you, almost as a lark

2009-11-11T19:45:00.000-05:00

Clementine: This is it, Joel. It's going to be gone soon.

Joel: I know.

Clementine: What do we do?

Joel: Enjoy it.

Here is a piece of a second during which a jet is not flying nor is it on the ground

2009-11-10T23:00:00.000-05:00

I've been a fan of Bob Hicok for a long time. Ever since I stumbled across his poem "Other Lives and Dimensions and Finally a Love Poem." And I've followed him throughout my growth as a writer. I love many of his poems. Hell, I love many poems for so many different reasons. But lately, the poetry i've been studying and reading has been the kind of poetry that raises a mental desire in me. Meaning, something happens in the poem that pleases my mind, not my heart. Whether it be something intellectual, something enigmatic, something illogical. Think Carson. Think Hejinian. Think Stein. I've been swimming in their work. But recently, I stumbled across Bob Hicok's poem "Her my body." It was the first time in a long time, a poem has done something to me both mentally and emotionally, simultaneously. This poem is a snake, wrapped around my mind and, at the same time, squeezing the hell out of my heart.

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=179252

Rough Zippers

2009-11-08T20:32:00.000-05:00

My reading has gone from A to B in the last year, with the distance between A and B being the largest distance imaginable, like mole, my favorite distance. So I guess the distance between A and B is 6.29 times 10 to the 23 power. And though I love the writers at Point A, the writers at Point B are so challenging and intellectual it is taking my work into a level beyond the realm of normal and anything I could have expected from myself. In the past the name "Gertrude Stein" embodied many things. GS is complex. GS is puzzle. GS is nonsensical. GS is ridiculous. GS is fear. At first try, GS is so strange and offputing, an immediate reaction could be to disregard her work altogether. But because I have faith in myself as an intellectual and a poet, wanting to tackle her work was always a goal of mine through graduate school. For me, reading Stein was never uncomfortable, but intensely logical. And in poetry, the logical is not always present. I started with Tender Buttons, an experiment in meaning and syntax divided into three sections: Objects, Rooms, and Food. I began to think of her work as an equation, began to think of myself as a mathematician. Word A plus word B plus word C plus word D equals something with meaning that has nothing to do with the actual connotation of words A through D. So you look at the words differently and you connect them through sound. Sometimes this link equals meaning. Sometimes not. Sometimes it is the lack of meaning that means something. But you will begin to become startled by the preciseness of each image, the obscurity of each change in syntax. You learn how to pay attention to words in different ways you've ever learned. If a word has properties, most of us have been taught only two of them: connotation and denotation. So Stein's work in a way is the deconstruction of these properties. Words are shaken free of their meaning. Words are detached individuals, containing no definable defintion or name. You must look at what surrounds each word, how each word and the next work as bricks to construct something altogether new to language. And after you do all this, you are just beginning to make sense and understand her desire for meaning. It's challenging but rewarding. My latest project includes dialogues, monologues, and tryptychs involving this sort of deconstruction, adopting Stein and Lyn Hejinian's strange syntax, love of adverbs, and intense description. It is my greatest undertaking so far in my career as a writer and my first book manuscript is hundreds of times better for having studied this type of work. I thinking of having T-shirts made: "Je t'aime Gertrude Stein." Pretentious? Probably. Oh well. Read Stein and you will understand.

Yankees!

2009-11-05T00:37:00.000-05:00

The yankees won their 27th world championship tonight!

Thank you Mariano. Thank you Hideki. Thank you Jeter. Thank you A-ROD. Thank you Teixeira. Thank you Damon. Thank you Posada. Thank you CC. Thank you Burnett. Thank you Swisher. Thank you Joba. Thank you Cano. Thank you Melky. Thank you Hughes. Thank you Marte. Thank you Giradi! Thank you Pettitte!

I love the Yankees and I love New York.

Even though I prefer Tuesdays...

2009-11-04T21:02:00.001-05:00

Wonderful poem by Sandra Beasley:

Love Poem for Wednesday

http://www.bu.edu/agni/poetry/online/2008/beasley1.html

Don't go, I'll eat you up

2009-11-04T20:34:00.000-05:00

There are so many reasons this movie was amazing, but mostly it's because Carol really really closely resembles my boyfriend. Also, they both make growling noises. Aso, they are both a bit tempermental. And also, I love them so.