"I know where beauty lives
I've seen it once, I know the warmth she gives
The light that you could never see
It shines inside, you can't take that from me"
Yes, Madonna. You are so right.
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Dorothea Lasky and Laura Solomon reading this Friday
I am reading this Friday in NYC with Laura Solomon at 8 p.m. at The Burning Chair Reading Series. Hopefully, I will see you there!
Monday, September 24, 2007
Blog about Boston
I have never been good at actual blogging as as a child I was never good at actual diaries (all of my childhood diaries involve three weeks of intense writing with an abrupt “Good-bye!” at the end of each of them), but here I will attempt to do what so many do for the purpose of telling you of my travels to Boston. Still, I am not sure that my voice is so good at this art form. I like posting youtube videos on blogs.
I just got back from a reading at the Plough and Stars with Chris Tonelli and it was very wonderful to read with him and to see my Boston people (I used to live there), most specifically my two protectors Michael Carr and Aaron Tieger and my best friend Katie. Boston never looked so good to me as it did yesterday and I felt a surge of happiness at the possibilities of a city like Boston for poetry (a happiness I didn’t have much time for when I was living there as I was always obsessed with making my exorbitant rent.) I remember once my poetry professor in college told me that Boston is the spotlight of poetry. I moved to Boston because my professor said this, as I am an extreme nerd and always listen to my teachers.
At the reading, I got a pile of Bootstrap Press books from Derek Fenner (whose work with prison arts education literally makes me cry) and got again a copy of his recently published John Wieners collection called A Book of Prophecies (edited by my brilliant aforementioned co-editor Michael Carr) and on the bus back from Boston I was struck again at what an amazing collection this book is. If you haven’t already bought one, you need to buy one. The only excuse is that for some reason you don’t have fifteen dollars. If you have an extra fifteen dollars lying around then you need to be using it to buy this book. Here is a sample of why this book is amazing:
the affair is better
left right there
the matter over
the matter is better
left right there
jungle behavior
seems
the affair is better
left right there
unstated though enacted
over thoroughfare
Or if that doesn’t melt your icy heart, then how about a little mentally fare (this is an excerpt of a longer piece):
The problem of madness
has to be dealt with seriously, in our time for we have not advanced so greatly from days of the pit and Bedlam. There are problems in every human person and some take more advanced manifestation in individuals, with particular advantages and drawbacks.
There are men with genetic weaknesses, physical defects, aggressive attitudes and fearful displays of manner. In their own families, if they have them, and too many mental patients without kin of any sort, these faults are taken for granted and usually the result of a domineering mother.
Speak it, Wieners! Speak it! This is only the truth.
Buy this book. You seriously won’t be sorry. If you buy this book and you are sorry, then I will feel deeply sorry for you.
In summary: Go Wieners! Go Boston! I will always love you, Massachusetts!
I just got back from a reading at the Plough and Stars with Chris Tonelli and it was very wonderful to read with him and to see my Boston people (I used to live there), most specifically my two protectors Michael Carr and Aaron Tieger and my best friend Katie. Boston never looked so good to me as it did yesterday and I felt a surge of happiness at the possibilities of a city like Boston for poetry (a happiness I didn’t have much time for when I was living there as I was always obsessed with making my exorbitant rent.) I remember once my poetry professor in college told me that Boston is the spotlight of poetry. I moved to Boston because my professor said this, as I am an extreme nerd and always listen to my teachers.
At the reading, I got a pile of Bootstrap Press books from Derek Fenner (whose work with prison arts education literally makes me cry) and got again a copy of his recently published John Wieners collection called A Book of Prophecies (edited by my brilliant aforementioned co-editor Michael Carr) and on the bus back from Boston I was struck again at what an amazing collection this book is. If you haven’t already bought one, you need to buy one. The only excuse is that for some reason you don’t have fifteen dollars. If you have an extra fifteen dollars lying around then you need to be using it to buy this book. Here is a sample of why this book is amazing:
the affair is better
left right there
the matter over
the matter is better
left right there
jungle behavior
seems
the affair is better
left right there
unstated though enacted
over thoroughfare
Or if that doesn’t melt your icy heart, then how about a little mentally fare (this is an excerpt of a longer piece):
The problem of madness
has to be dealt with seriously, in our time for we have not advanced so greatly from days of the pit and Bedlam. There are problems in every human person and some take more advanced manifestation in individuals, with particular advantages and drawbacks.
There are men with genetic weaknesses, physical defects, aggressive attitudes and fearful displays of manner. In their own families, if they have them, and too many mental patients without kin of any sort, these faults are taken for granted and usually the result of a domineering mother.
Speak it, Wieners! Speak it! This is only the truth.
Buy this book. You seriously won’t be sorry. If you buy this book and you are sorry, then I will feel deeply sorry for you.
In summary: Go Wieners! Go Boston! I will always love you, Massachusetts!
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Joni Mitchell, "All I Want"
I am on a lonely road and I am traveling
Traveling, traveling, traveling
Looking for something, what can it be
Oh I hate you some, I hate you some
I love you some
Oh I love you when I forget about me
I want to be strong I want to laugh along
I want to belong to the living
Alive, alive, I want to get up and jive
I want to wreck my stockings in some juke box dive
Do you want - do you want - do you want
To dance with me baby
Do you want to take a chance
On maybe finding some sweet romance with me baby
Well, come on
All I really really want our love to do
Is to bring out the best in me and in you too
All I really really want our love to do
Is to bring out the best in me and in you
I want to talk to you, I want to shampoo you
I want to renew you again and again
Applause, applause - life is our cause
When I think of your kisses
My mind see-saws
Do you see - do you see - do you see
How you hurt me baby
So I hurt you too
Then we both get so blue
I am on a lonely road and I am traveling
Looking for the key to set me free
Oh the jealousy, the greed is the unraveling
Its the unraveling
And it undoes all the joy that could be
I want to have fun, I want to shine like the sun
I want to be the one that you want to see
I want to knit you a sweater
Want to write you a love letter
I want to make you feel better
I want to make you feel free
Hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm,
Want to make you feel free
I want to make you feel free
Traveling, traveling, traveling
Looking for something, what can it be
Oh I hate you some, I hate you some
I love you some
Oh I love you when I forget about me
I want to be strong I want to laugh along
I want to belong to the living
Alive, alive, I want to get up and jive
I want to wreck my stockings in some juke box dive
Do you want - do you want - do you want
To dance with me baby
Do you want to take a chance
On maybe finding some sweet romance with me baby
Well, come on
All I really really want our love to do
Is to bring out the best in me and in you too
All I really really want our love to do
Is to bring out the best in me and in you
I want to talk to you, I want to shampoo you
I want to renew you again and again
Applause, applause - life is our cause
When I think of your kisses
My mind see-saws
Do you see - do you see - do you see
How you hurt me baby
So I hurt you too
Then we both get so blue
I am on a lonely road and I am traveling
Looking for the key to set me free
Oh the jealousy, the greed is the unraveling
Its the unraveling
And it undoes all the joy that could be
I want to have fun, I want to shine like the sun
I want to be the one that you want to see
I want to knit you a sweater
Want to write you a love letter
I want to make you feel better
I want to make you feel free
Hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm,
Want to make you feel free
I want to make you feel free
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Some people do it
Some people do it but they don’t do what they can’t done
Some people do it but they can’t
They can’t do it They can’t do it
They want to do it
But they don’t know the score
They don’t know the way to form
What it is that is inside
They hide that side
Because that side makes no table
Makes no face of flesh to hide the table with
I sit at the table with those who can’t done
You are the table of those who can’t did
I can’t did I can’t did
Make what was in me shine and see
What it was I once was that was worth seeing
I see lots of things I can’t know
I can’t do what I can’t did, the flame did
The flame does go, out of your mouth, it is a red fire
Into the red fire, the mouth does go
When we are together, it is hot between us, a mouth did
The heat is what we once were, what we could do
I could do it I could do it
Feel what we once were
I felt it what we once did:
The birds chirping in the moon
I am not what I once was
Oh that I was once was
What we all were
Oh that I once did
What we all did
Just for the sake
Of what we do
I know what we do
We do did, we did come
To see what we all did
That was worth seeing
I did did, take the ribbon do
I took the red ribbon, put it in my mouth
My mouth knew the ribbon
Saw what it once was
Ribbon gone once were
What we all come
That it once was
What we all knew
Oh what I did
For you to do
Is take the ribbon out
Put it in my mouth
Some people do it but they can’t
They can’t do it They can’t do it
They want to do it
But they don’t know the score
They don’t know the way to form
What it is that is inside
They hide that side
Because that side makes no table
Makes no face of flesh to hide the table with
I sit at the table with those who can’t done
You are the table of those who can’t did
I can’t did I can’t did
Make what was in me shine and see
What it was I once was that was worth seeing
I see lots of things I can’t know
I can’t do what I can’t did, the flame did
The flame does go, out of your mouth, it is a red fire
Into the red fire, the mouth does go
When we are together, it is hot between us, a mouth did
The heat is what we once were, what we could do
I could do it I could do it
Feel what we once were
I felt it what we once did:
The birds chirping in the moon
I am not what I once was
Oh that I was once was
What we all were
Oh that I once did
What we all did
Just for the sake
Of what we do
I know what we do
We do did, we did come
To see what we all did
That was worth seeing
I did did, take the ribbon do
I took the red ribbon, put it in my mouth
My mouth knew the ribbon
Saw what it once was
Ribbon gone once were
What we all come
That it once was
What we all knew
Oh what I did
For you to do
Is take the ribbon out
Put it in my mouth
Sunday, September 09, 2007
Friday, September 07, 2007
Wednesday, September 05, 2007
We shall not escape Hell
We shall not escape Hell, my passionate
sisters, we shall drink black resins––
we who sang our praises to the Lord
with every one of our sinews, even the finest,
we did not lean over cradles or
spinning wheels at night, and now we are
carried off by an unsteady boat
under the skirts of a sleeveless cloak,
we dressed every morning in
fine Chinese silk, and we would
sing our paradisal songs at
the fire of the robbers'camp,
slovenly needlewomen, (all
our sewing came apart), dancers,
players upon pipes: we have been
the queens of the whole world!
first scarcely covered by rags,
then with constellations in our hair, in
gaol and at feasts we have
bartered away heaven,
in starry nights, in the apple
orchards of Paradise
––Gentle girls, my beloved sisters,
we shall certainly find ourselves in Hell!
––Marina Tsvetaeva (1915)
sisters, we shall drink black resins––
we who sang our praises to the Lord
with every one of our sinews, even the finest,
we did not lean over cradles or
spinning wheels at night, and now we are
carried off by an unsteady boat
under the skirts of a sleeveless cloak,
we dressed every morning in
fine Chinese silk, and we would
sing our paradisal songs at
the fire of the robbers'camp,
slovenly needlewomen, (all
our sewing came apart), dancers,
players upon pipes: we have been
the queens of the whole world!
first scarcely covered by rags,
then with constellations in our hair, in
gaol and at feasts we have
bartered away heaven,
in starry nights, in the apple
orchards of Paradise
––Gentle girls, my beloved sisters,
we shall certainly find ourselves in Hell!
––Marina Tsvetaeva (1915)
Tuesday, September 04, 2007
Great Project Zero Study Featured in Boston Globe
Because art teaches you how to look. Because art gives purpose for looking: http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2007/09/02/art_for_our_sake?mode=PF
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