A new poem over at My Gorgeous Somewhere

I’m working on a poem with Dana Guthrie Martin over at her site, My Gorgeous Somewhere. It’s called “And I drank the water I poured yesterday.” Click on the excerpt to read the whole thing so far.

and bit the mango I left in the car and should be able to make it to the end of the block if I untie my ankles and steal a bike and just this once can I locate the leash without a struggle and please Jesus listen to me when I ask for help and purr in my ear your distant support and whose boot print stains my floor and when did the lamp strike the wall and how can I decorate around the mark and if I hung your pashmina there as camouflage would I stop to smell it every morning and would I embrace it and in embracing it would I scratch the wall with my chewed nails and would I weep tears the shape of our last argument and would those tears nourish the cat and would the cat find its way back to its real home across the street

Our work is up at elimae.

A poem from the series, “Pavement,” written with Dana Guthrie Martin is up at elimae. Take a look!

The first issue of Mutating the Signature is done!

The first issue of Mutating the Signature, an online magazine that Dana Guthrie Martin and I publish, is finished. Dana worked so hard on the issue’s layout. I’m totally grateful for her dedication to the project. The issue is filled with art, poetry, prose and conversation that Dana and I made with and for each other.

(Note: Click on the image above to see the document over at issuu.)

Issue two will be created by Emily Van Duyne and W.F. Roby beginning Dec. 1. I can’t wait to see what they do with it.

I am lying

Somewhere in a busy market there is a scramble to escape a sudden fire. There’s no limit to national interests. An IV tube gets stuck to the PICC Line cap. Pliers will loosen the point of insertion. Every word swells and shatters against the one beside it. “Fleet” becomes “purchase” becomes “pet” — remarkable and annoying at the same time. The acquisition of language goes both ways — each has hands around the other’s throat.

*

Someone looks at a pay stub and thinks “the price of existence is suffering.” Someone hides a photograph in a book. Someone spills coffee — it pools in their navel. Someone craves judgment. A weak leg buckles. Knot-tying can only be communicated through models. Someone shops with stolen credit. Someone is confronted with proof. Someone in the audience loses a tooth during the third act. Someone says “welcome” and lies.

* * *
Process Notes
This was a response to a game about truth and lies over at Read Write Poem.

Ed Skoog’s ‘Mister Skylight’

This is a review written for Read Write Poem’s Virtual Book Tour. Ed Skoog’s new collection, Mister Skylight, from Copper Canyon Press, is a major achievement.
Skoog’s use of language is disorientating, vivid and surprising, all the things I love about great poetry. In a recent interview with Dave Jarecki, Skoog said “The people in the poems are real people, the family and friends, but they become imaginary through the process of poetry.” One of the wonderful things this book does is give us insight into this process and in doing so, into the primacy of the poetic imagination even in spite of, or hand-in-hand with a skepticism about this primacy.
The ability of poetic language to surprise is evident on every page. Take this image from “Home at Thirty”

Even low clouds’ dark stucco seems
applied by the drowsiest journeyman.

The poem’s slow movement of hesitant return, the connotations of the household, of covering implied by “stucco” so much is communicated here.
Often the poems explore loss or the inability to communicate while at the same time communicating this through incredible imagery. As the speaker in “Recent Changes at Canter’s Deli” states

Who I am
and what I feel are irrelevant enough to be central
to the project of Contemporary American Poetry.

Here the poet and by extension the process of poetry, is caught between importance and marginalization. The tension of this position is captured by wild imagery, by imagery of wildness caught, as these lines from the same poem

Up in the haze some undiscovered animal
watches us, its plan mapped out, fire
swinging up the canyons, unfolding
until flame may flicker tip of sabertooth fang
in the museum where rare finds are hidden.
I, too, am a dinosaur.

The image is wild with movement and beautiful sound as the power of the poem to perceive the unnoticed threat is coupled at the same time with a sense of futility in communicating that threat. There is, throughout the book this exploration of the tension between of a kind of Wordsworthian idea of the power of poetry and the poet and the undercutting of this power.
One of my favorite poems in Mister Skylight, “Memory Loss,” offers a kind of object lesson on poetic language. There are a series of moments in which the speaker offers up an instance of poetic language and then provides a kind of explanation, as in

So when I write “starved tigers devour us
with an uncomfortable vitality”
I am thinking about all the people I’ve lost,
those torn, shredded, fouled, and swallowed
by the eagerness of car crash, cancer, stroke, old age, youth,
    money, anger, love,
distance, madness.

Here you get the origin of poetic language and a view of its status an an attempt — an attempt to encapsulate in language what can’t be fully said. The loss is circled over and over until what we see is the importance of the attempt. The poem in a sense can never say it all yet the attempt is of utmost importance. This is the work and power of the imagination.
The next scheduled stop on the book tour is Jill Crammond Wickham on Nov. 8.

Take a look at this

Dave Bonta has posted something I wrote with Dana Guthrie Martin at his blog, Via Negativa. It’s called “Poetry-Blogging, a Primer.” Take a look when you get a minute.

A sample from Mutating the Signature

Today is a collection of commemorative plates. The hours today are engraved pewter and painted enamel to dangle on wooden racks or be displayed on glass shelves. For this reason, those who take a moment to pause over the careful arrangement of minutes will want to number them in awe. This way, “collectors” will be able to savor their encounter with time. You have a date with a clock. You may need to protect yourself from the minute hand. This afternoon there is a buffet of schedules and a platter of appointments. Enjoy the sensation of waiting in line. In the rush of traffic think of each second’s hot touch. Use an egg timer and imagine the pleasure you might have. This is a day to fondle your chronology.

*

Today is a business suit made of stone. My pants today are granite, carved to resemble office buildings. For this reason, I take an hour to walk to the fax machine. My clients will be able to stare at my legs with impunity. Slacks have a crucial role to play in financial agreements. Casual trousers may need to be replaced by something stronger. This afternoon there are reports to be filed and pleats to be polished. I enjoy maintaining the gleam of a marble crotch. What could I wear through all my negotiations that could be more architecturally protective? I use a flashlight and stepladder in the morning. At night I might have to sleep in my coat.

* * *
Process Notes
These were made from a skeleton Dana Guthrie Martin posted on Mutating the Signature, the new online journal we started. We’re acting as curators of the first issue — a kind of test run.

We’re making things!

I’ve been busy curating the first issue of Mutating the Signature with Dana Guthrie Martin. You just have to see what she’s doing over there — it’s fantastic work.

We’re trying something new!

Dana Guthrie Martin and I have transformed our collaborative blog into a creative workspace and online journal. Take a look at the new Mutating the Signature. It promises to be an interesting experiment.

What we’re watching now

1.
A camera catches an act of theft. A hand
slides into a purse. A purse is held under
a slot machine. Someone wants a machine
to protect commercial interests. Someone
lies frozen on the couch during a commercial.
Frozen hope leads to lapsed expectations.
Lapsed logic gets lost in a file. A lost voice
won’t return. The senator is screaming
about the return of the steam engine.
The street steams: we need antennae to find
our hotel. Our ancient antennae are useless.
We just stare at each other.

2.
For details on corporate corruption we milk
the book. For us, books are bricks, though some argue
flames or wings. Under the wing of a 747 our house
looks tiny. This house is full of anger over the point
-count of antlers. The senator points to the birth
rate as a sign of his decline. We aren’t convinced.
Convinced our obsolete machines are suicidal,
his followers push typewriters from bridges.
The bridge buckles as an acrobat balances on a wire
above an earthquake. During the ground-breaking
the senator kisses a constituent’s neck.
We aren’t having fun.

* * *

This is the beginning of what I hope will be a series of poems.