Reading at OSU Urban Arts Space

My thanks to Hannah Stephenson for putting together a terrific reading at the OSU Urban Arts Space that featured her, Maggie Smith, Jen Town, and myself. It's a wonderful space for art and for readings, and worth a visit if you find yourself in town. Audio from the reading is available over on the right.

Also worth a visit is Hannah's blog, The Storialist, where she posts a new poem every weekday.

Readings

New readings have been scheduled:


Philadelphia, Oct. 19th, 7.30 pm.
WineO Reading Series
447 Poplar St.


Portland, Nov. 11th, 7 pm.
Rough Copy Reading Series
The Canvas Art Bar and Bistro
1800 NW Upshur St.


Come by and say hello.

Kathy Fagan on "Ox" and "Craic"

This is a wonderful piece about the Irish term "craic" and how we deal with suffering.
http://aboutaword.blogspot.com/2010/09/kathy-fagan-ox.html

Well done, Mr. Abramson

Seth Abramson on Ron Silliman's unfortunate epithet, "school of quietude":

part 1

part 2

Mr. Silliman is a smart guy, but his continual use of this term is so laughable that I hope this helps him put it aside, because it makes him appear unable to read any kind of poetry that isn't very much like his own, which I would doubt to be true.

Sandra Beasley, I Was the Jukebox

I Was the Jukebox is an excellent act of imagination. Beasley’s poems aren't showy, they adhere to a standard contemporary versification, but they evoke worlds, make the language shiver—they are not fancy, but fanciful to be sure.

I’m hard-pressed to describe how charmed I am by the opening poem, “The Sand Speaks” (one of several “[ ] Speaks” poems):

I’m fluid and omnivorous, the casual
Kiss. I’ll knock up your oysters.

Sand as Lothario sneaking inside the cleft shell and leaving a grain of sand behind to worry the oyster into creating a pearl. A thing of beauty made out of such casual stuff. What a smart opening salvo for the book. Wonderfully metaphoric, and funny.

It continues:

I’ll eat your diamonds. I’m a mutt, no
One thing at all, just the size that counts

and if you’re animal small enough, come;
if you’re vegetable small enough, come;
if you’re mineral small enough, come.
Mothers, brush me from the hands

of your children. Lovers, shake me
from the cuffs of your pants. Draw
a line, make it my mouth: I’ll name
your country. I’m a Yes-man at heart.

Let's play Hide and Go Drown. Let's play
Pearls for His Eyes. When the men fall
I like the way their arms touch, their legs
touch. There are always more men, men

who bring bags big enough to hold
each other. A man who kneels down
with a smaller bag, cups and pours, cups
and pours, as if I could prove anything.

(A bit of praise for knowing sand is a measure of particle size, not necessarily a particular thing [salt is a sand—see this terrific book]).

The technique that Beasley deploys here works on an incantatory level, but does not get overbearing. Look at the anaphora—you get a phrasal or structural repetition, but then it switches to another, which will be repeated once or twice, and then another. "I'm..." / "I'll..." / "I'll..." / "I'm..." / "If you're..." (x3) / "Mothers, brush..." / "Lovers, shake..." / "Let's play..." / "Let's play..." And you can see it go 1st person, 2nd person, 3rd person, thus keeping the sand from being a very bad date. I'm impressed by the ear that can handle these shifts in syntax.

Beasley is a fine poet and I Was the Jukebox, which won the Barnard Women Poets Prize, is definitely a keeper—go out and find what's on page 2.

Also see Sandra Beasley's first book, Theories of Falling.

New poems on Kenyon Review Online

A pair of poems posted by Kenyon Review. Many thanks to them.

Alex Long on The Offending Adam

Nice essay on poetry and photography and Larry Levis by Alex Long on The Offending Adam.