Searching online for Robert Creeley's homage poem to Robert Bly and Federico García Lorca (which I could not find) I came across this Lorca poem

Malagueña

Death
enters, and leaves,
the tavern.

Black horses
and sinister people
travel the deep roads
of the guitar.

And there’s a smell of salt
and of female blood
in the fevered tuberoses
of the shore.

Death
enters and leaves,
and leaves and enters
the death
of the tavern.

Filler Post

This post is, merely, a place-holder post so October 2011 isn't in sole possession of least blogged month. Thanks again, Trud & Jerf, for doing so very little.

Tattoo by Wally Stevens

The light is like a spider.
It crawls over the water.
It crawls over the edges of the snow.
It crawls under your eyelids
And spreads its webs there--
Its two webs.

The webs of your eyes
Are fastened
To the flesh and bones of you
As to rafters or grass.

There are filaments of your eyes
On the surface of the water
And in the edges of the snow.

KFC Hammer Time

This commercial reinforces so many negative cultural stereotypes that I shouldn't like it as much as I do:

Finally, Some Relevant Material!

When Shawn Kemp blew up, and other warning stories

I mean, you've been waiting for this, right?

Q & A with Chris McCreary

There is a Q & A with Chris McCreary regarding his collection Undone: A Fakebook posted on my course blog. Check it out.

Work

Today, I've been jamming to Vampire Weekend's self-titled album, circa 2008, on repeat while working on my field list essay.

Below is borntofolk93's rendition of one of the album's catchier tunes, "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa." If you're curious, on his YouTube channel borntofolk93 also covers Animal Collective, Grizzly Bear, and Wolf Parade, among others.

I'm sort of done writing for the day.

751 Magazine

I have some more new work in the new issue of 751 Magazine. These pieces are from the same manuscript (i.e. Imaginary You) as the recent poems that appear in the new issue of diode. In addition to my work, there's some solid prose poems, etc. in there.

Poem-A-Day

Poets.org, which is the website for The American Academy of Poets, runs a series called "Poem-A-Day." As you might guess, they published one poem everyday. On October 20th, they published an awesome poem by Tina Brown Celona titled "Potentially Interesting & Secretly Devastating." You can check out the "poem flow" and other entries in the series here, but below you can read the text of the poem in full:

Potentially Interesting & Secretly Devastating

is never to give away your secrets

though people will guess

and say you write like the following poets

e.e. cummings Wallace Stevens Richard Brautigan

Ted Berrigan Frank O'Hara

though you'd prefer to be compared to

the Old Possum

and to me you sound a bit like Robert Creeley

who once was embarrassed by me at a party

he died a few years later.

It's easier to talk to you on the phone

after Nebraska which sounds

wonderful when you say it

even with loathing

and "formally innovative"

and "hybrid forms"

and the human being you are looking for

in my poem

because what are we but our words

in the end and what

are poems but perceptions

and who do YOU want to fuck

and how much do you want it

and what are you willing to do

to get what you want and how can you be satisfied

with what you have. Utterly sufficient

to be apart and how you will never say love

before October and I don't mind

or even know what I mean when I say it

whether what defines it is intensity or duration

of feeling or preordained by fate

which pushes us together and draws us apart

the one human voice speaking in all of our poems

what it felt like to be alive

and being in love is most alive

whether it's with the world or you or

poetry. In every aspect

no one resembles anyone

and can you become a poet just by trying

or do you have to go to an impressive school

and how poems are dangerous

when there are real people in them

and nothing is really new but only to you

and you are the most powerful pronoun

The poetry of Joshua Ware (Fall 2011)

Imaginary Portrait

You paint a vase of roses
one hundred times over, each one
a representation of the previous painting.
Roses look less like roses
with each subsequent attempt
yet you capture the idea
of roses more thoroughly
with every new permutation
enabling the viewer to understand
what it means to be a rose
in the illimitable imagination.



More to be found in the latest issue of diode:
http://www.diodepoetry.com/v5n1/index.html

Jeff Alessandrelli Tastes Like Mother's Milk

My boy Jeff Alessandrelli's book Erik Satie Watusies His Way into Sound was just released by Ravenna Press. This is gonna be the feel-good poetry pamphlet of the winter; kind of like Jason Alexander's (as Jason Alexander) book pamphlet Acting without Acting.

Two paintings by Helen Frankenthaler (click for magnification)

As Do I

Kathleen Peirce

Since you don't have tumblr, Jorsh: I posted a link to this review of Peirce's The Ardors over on early morning corn, where I also included a poem from the book. Check it out!

Joshua Ware on YouTube

I did a search on YouTube for "Joshua Ware" and I must say there were a few "interesting" results. Take, for instance, the first video; apparently there is a Joshua Ware out there that likes to participate in amateur dance competitions. Check out the wicked action-roll at the 1:00 minute-mark Joshua does when his buddy Miles begins to get his groove on:



This next Joshua Ware really brings it, as the kids say nowadays. Outside of the fact that this version of Joshua Ware has a rad hair-do, I wonder what compels him to wear oven-mitts in the opening sequence. There are some real gems in this 11-minute-plus sequence:

Q & A with Tina Brown Celona

There is a Q & A post on my ENGL 253: Introduction to Writing Poetry class blog with Tina Brown Celona wherein she discusses her first collection The Real Moon of Poetry. Check it out.

On Broken Bones & Glory

During his career as a professional daredevil Evel Knievel broke 433 bones, a Guinness World Record.