Friday, April 29, 2005
Funniest thing I've read in weeks is halfway down Silliman's comments box: A recasting, by Simon DeDeo (who also reviews poems) of a Rae Armantrout poem into a form Billy Collins would find acceptable:
Here I am, sitting on my porch
looking out over the campus
the internet has begun to
streamline to instantaneous.
In the supermarket, I see a sign:
voucher in/voucher out
system.
I want to say, as I sip my dining hall coffee
and think about how I've read Henry James that
The plot
of my life
winnows.
I once read a book on Oedipus and it reminds me that
The Sphinx
wants me to guess.
Driving home in my old volvo, I wonder
Does a road
run its whole length
at once?
Swerving to avoid a deer, I ask myself
Does a creature
curve to meet
itself?
Ah, the sight of co-eds in tight T's:
Whirlette!
(See Silliman's post for the original, the opening of which was described as "inaccessible" by Collins in the introduction to a recent anthology. Yes, if you've never been near a supermarket or a computer in the last 10-15 years; remember that incident with Bush Sr. and the digitial checkout?) This is perhaps very slightly unfair to Collins, as I don't think as his everyday being the academic everyday, but the point is made. But it's interesting that this can even be done w/ a passage of RA -- hard to see how one would execute the same exercise with e.g. Coolidge or Scalapino. (And this bears in turn on my knee-jerk response to Silliman's Under Albany.)
I'm glad I found this discussion (RA intervenes politely, someone sets up a Collins:Kooser::JPII:Rotweiler analogy), but gee, reading the comments on poetry blogs is, by and large, one step above actually paying attention to spam, as far as edification goes. (On DeDeo's blog, one of the F=o=e=t=s aims his dick at Sara Manguso. Not worth a link.)
~~~
And quoting Weekly World News headlines is one step above linking to Onion articles, as far as blog-content goes, but the second-funniest thing I've read in weeks was: "Alien Bible Found! They Worship Oprah!"
~~~
Read Spahr's This Connection of Everyone With Lungs. Solemn, 'accesible' (cf. Mirakove's Occupied; sense that it was difficult for the author to 'allow' herself to write it. Am I a lunatic or worse to be reminded of Henry Reed?
~~~
Rented Demy's Lola, went to Sin City (= Road Runner), read Joy Williams Honored Guest, Renee Gladman's The Activist, Sennett and Cobb's The Hidden Injuries of Class. Saw strange between movie filler-bit on TCM, consisting of a passage from Max Weber (!!) read by Gabriel Byrne over a montage of city/factory-scapes. Don't think I listened to anything except Spring Hill Fair since last post.
Here I am, sitting on my porch
looking out over the campus
the internet has begun to
streamline to instantaneous.
In the supermarket, I see a sign:
voucher in/voucher out
system.
I want to say, as I sip my dining hall coffee
and think about how I've read Henry James that
The plot
of my life
winnows.
I once read a book on Oedipus and it reminds me that
The Sphinx
wants me to guess.
Driving home in my old volvo, I wonder
Does a road
run its whole length
at once?
Swerving to avoid a deer, I ask myself
Does a creature
curve to meet
itself?
Ah, the sight of co-eds in tight T's:
Whirlette!
(See Silliman's post for the original, the opening of which was described as "inaccessible" by Collins in the introduction to a recent anthology. Yes, if you've never been near a supermarket or a computer in the last 10-15 years; remember that incident with Bush Sr. and the digitial checkout?) This is perhaps very slightly unfair to Collins, as I don't think as his everyday being the academic everyday, but the point is made. But it's interesting that this can even be done w/ a passage of RA -- hard to see how one would execute the same exercise with e.g. Coolidge or Scalapino. (And this bears in turn on my knee-jerk response to Silliman's Under Albany.)
I'm glad I found this discussion (RA intervenes politely, someone sets up a Collins:Kooser::JPII:Rotweiler analogy), but gee, reading the comments on poetry blogs is, by and large, one step above actually paying attention to spam, as far as edification goes. (On DeDeo's blog, one of the F=o=e=t=s aims his dick at Sara Manguso. Not worth a link.)
~~~
And quoting Weekly World News headlines is one step above linking to Onion articles, as far as blog-content goes, but the second-funniest thing I've read in weeks was: "Alien Bible Found! They Worship Oprah!"
~~~
Read Spahr's This Connection of Everyone With Lungs. Solemn, 'accesible' (cf. Mirakove's Occupied; sense that it was difficult for the author to 'allow' herself to write it. Am I a lunatic or worse to be reminded of Henry Reed?
~~~
Rented Demy's Lola, went to Sin City (= Road Runner), read Joy Williams Honored Guest, Renee Gladman's The Activist, Sennett and Cobb's The Hidden Injuries of Class. Saw strange between movie filler-bit on TCM, consisting of a passage from Max Weber (!!) read by Gabriel Byrne over a montage of city/factory-scapes. Don't think I listened to anything except Spring Hill Fair since last post.
