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!