[New-Poetry] Capps' crazed ars poetica

[JforJames at aol.com]

I think you're taking this a bit too seriously. Can one poem represent all  
that is failing in US poesy?
It's a Billy Collinseque romp, with plenty sound play and wink&nod  
references going on, while working in
the confessional with a lite touch. It's a bit  of fun, by someone whom 
methinks has been there, as they say.
 
It's not the death knell resounding across the Atlantic and the  Pacific.
Finnegan
 
In a message dated 8/26/2007 1:29:56 PM Eastern Daylight Time,  
jorgensen_a at yahoo.com writes:

I don't mean to be crass, but this poem SH**S. This  is precisely what is 
wrong with poetry Stateside - and I know y'all got  something invested in it. I 
just returned from Kolkata, talks and interviews  with "Ginsberg's boys" - and 
Creeley was my mentor and dear friend. As Egon  Schiele said: Secession! Ya, I 
think I can say as much -  especially if you are offering such cultural 
pollution!!! - and what is  SLACK.

AGJ

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Today's Topics:

1. Re:  From Haiku To Lyriku (Bob Grumman)
2. Re: To poetry (Anny  Ballardini)


----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message:  1
Date: Sat, 25 Aug 2007 13:37:58 -0500
From: Bob Grumman  <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] From Haiku To  Lyriku
To: "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &  Views"
<new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Message-ID:  <46D07706.40707 at nut-n-but.net>
Content-Type: text/plain;  charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed


Robin Hamilton wrote:
>  Bob,
>
> What's the composite price, including p&p to the  UK, of both this 
> anthology and your Shakespeare book? (I can do a  cheque in US $$$, 
> which would be easiest for you, I  guess.)
>
> Robin
Yikes, I hate to say, Robin, but . . . I  should think $50 would cover  it.

--Bob



------------------------------

Message:  2
Date: Sat, 25 Aug 2007 23:09:22 +0200
From: "Anny Ballardini"  <anny.ballardini at tin.it>
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] To poetry
To:  "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &  Views"
<new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Message-ID:  <002f01c7e75c$364a1260$9aa83852 at ANNY>
Content-Type: text/plain;  charset="iso-8859-1"

what a lucky guy, I tell you.
----- Original  Message ----- 
From: David Graham 
To: NewPoetry & Views 
Sent:  Saturday, August 25, 2007 5:17 PM
Subject: [New-Poetry] To  poetry


The Nearest Simile Is Respiration


To  poetry


I was boozed I was doped I was maybe
a floozy before  you knew me, loose
leafed like autumn and most of the books
of the Old  Testament that fell out
of my father's Bible. I had a body.


I  had a habit of hauling my telescope
into the outskirts, ransacking  all
the toothsome blackness for what: a reason
not to do me in. Proof  I was more
than the seasonal ragbag detritus
choking the rooftop  gutters, more
than a piece of the cosmic dust
in some ruined  philosophy.


I could not be consoled by the universal
Sisyphus  in us all, the dung beetle
nuzzling its putrid globe.


I could  not hitch my wagon. The stars
and stars abrade my notions of my  Self;
tricuspid Eros chewed me raw; Jesus
Christ rubbed mud in my  eyes, and I saw
not. I did not see.


But with you! my  sweetheart hairshirt,
my syntactic gondolier, ruffian for hire,  befoolable
irresolute Chanticleer: with you, I back-float
the massy  and heretofore unnavigable childhood
algal blooms, where no fish swam. No  fish
have swum that Mississippi.
With you, I forgive my father's  notes
to NASA, the self-inflicted swastika tattoo,
my sister's  coked-up juggernaut cannonball
into the afterlife.


I forgive  the afterlife,
resurrect John Lennon and the jukebox
at the Quik 'N'  Hot, infect myself
with a rare strain of tarantism. With you, I  dance
the summum bonum. With you, I am greater
than or equal to the  lack, and luck is weather
that permits my red  begonias.


--Ashley Capps. Mistaking the Sea for Green Fields.  University of Akron 
Press,  2006.











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