I am adding Matt Walker's POTATO to my collection of favorite poems

Poet Matt Walker has a really delightful blog that I like to frequent. Yesterday I was browsing around and came across this poem:

POTATO

Sitting in the dark
With a potato
Or without a potato
Is scary

If you are afraid
Of the dark
Or potatoes
Or sitting

Nevertheless
I enjoy it
As do my relatives
As do my confidants

Once I mistook a
Potato for a bullet
A large bullet
Where'd this bullet

Come from I wondered
I was so glad
And relieved when
The Tooth Fairy

Emerged from her van
And entered my face
And ate the potato
I wish I could say

That all is well
I've lost my potato
The room is scary
More is coming


I love this poem. Walker wins me over when he goes from the line "As do my relatives" to "As do my confidants." That's the twist that separates a poem from just another thing. Because then the potato can become a large bullet. Because then the poem can do anything.

I do not have any better way to explain this separation other than a twist. Or to see it when it happens. I know when poems or other pieces of art do not have this necessary twist. All beautiful things have it. It is when the beauty is so great that it has entered the sublime realm and is likewise capable of hurting you. When something is capable of hurting you, it has twisted.

James Tate has a poem in his Selected which describes this twist perfectly, but unfortunately I can't find that book right now. It would be a shame for me to describe it, so I will just save it for another time and post it when I find the book.

(If you have his Selected, I think the poem is on page 43?)

I wanted also to take this opportunity to mention that Tate's Dreams of a Robot Dancing Bee is a great new book. You should buy it when you get a chance.

Also, here is the story of a particular instance of carrot corruption: Aaron's Carrots: Disintegration is Told Best in Images

SOFA gallery

This is really super: Katie Geha's SOFA gallery

ON: Contemporary Practice

Finding literary journals that rise above the same old schtick is pretty hard these days, but I am happy to tell you about an amazing new journal called ON: Contemporary Practice (edited by Michael Cross, Thom Donovan, and Kyle Schlesinger). It features the work of contemporary poets writing about each other's poetics through original means. The editors define the project as such:

ON Contemporary Practice gathers writing about the practices or poetics of one’s contemporaries. While these writings may be highly anti-categorical or “hybrid,” they are ultimately for the cultivation and extension of critical discourse.

Looking at the first issue of ON, I have been delighted to see my contemporaries engaged in actual discourse (as opposed to the fluffy/vicious ways we usually talk about each other). It is quite an amazing endeavor these editors have undertaken and I am excited to devour this first issue and all other issues thereafter.

The first issue of ON features work by:

Taylor Brady, Brandon Brown, CAConrad, Jason Christie, Michael Cross, Thom Donovan, Eli Drabman, Rob Halpern, Jen Hofer, Alan Gilbert, Brenda Iijima, Andrew Levy, Edric Mesmer, Sawako Nakayasu, Tenney Nathanson, Richard Owens, Tim Peterson, Andrew Rippeon, Kyle Schlesinger, Jonathan Skinner, Dale Smith, Suzanne Stein, Ali Warren, Katie Yeats

Writing on:

Arakawa/Gins, Taylor Brady, CAConrad, Michael Cross, Beverly Dahlen, Michael deBeyer, Mark Dickinson, kari edwards, DJ/Rupture, Thom Donovan, Belle Gironda, Brenda Iijima, CJ Martin, Emily McVarish, Yedda Morrison, Hoa Nguyen, Sawako Nakayasu, Julie Patton, Lauren Shufran, Suzanne Stein, Dana Ward, Ali Warren

To buy the first issue on SPD, please follow this link: ON on SPD

You can also purchase ON through Cuneiform Press through the following means:

Cuneiform Press
214 N. Henry Street
Brooklyn, NY 11222
www.cuneiformpress.com

Copies are available for $12.00. Free shipping in the US for all orders placed through the publisher. Send checks to Kyle Schlesinger at the address above.

You can find out more information about ON (such as submission guidelines for their next issue) on their website.

Lonely Poems/Black Life

Love

"Stop telling me what U want me 2 hear
Stop telling me what U want me 2 fear
Stop trippin' on something U overheard
Love is winning without a word
Stop giving me Ur "wish list"
Love is free from all this

Like a bird flyin' over the hilltops
Love is like the sky, U know it never stops
From the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks
Love is whatever... whatever... U want it 2 b

Love is not a game U can play on the floor
U gotta stop keepin' score
If U wanna, If U want 2 play me like U did b4
U better stop and walk out the door
U can skate around the issue if U like
But who's gonna get U high in the middle of the night?

Like a bird flyin' over the hilltops
Love is like the sky, U know it never stops
From the abudance of the heart the mouth speaks
Love is whatever... whatever... U want it 2 b

I c U standing with Ur back on the wall
U better, better get Ur hands up and clap if that's all
and uh, if U don't wanna get Urs, then let me get mine
See, ain't gonna b no drama 'cause we have a good time

What's the point of giving me ultimatums?
Smiling at my friends when U really hate 'em
Trying 2 convince me that eye should 2...
what's the point?

Stop worryin' about what people say
When it ain't gonna stop them anyway
Love can do anything if U try
Come on... Spread Ur wings... Let's fly, fly so high

flyin' over the hilltops
Love is like the sky, U know it never stops
From the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks
Love is whatever... whatever... whatever...

Like a bird flyin' over the hilltops
Love is like the sky, U know it never stops
From the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks
Love is whatever... whatever... U want it 2 b

Whatever U want it 2 B
alright
let's skate

I c U standing with Ur back on the wall
Better get Ur hands up and clap if that's all
If U don't wanna get Urs, then let me get mine
See, ain't gonna b no drama 'cause we have a good time

Bounce
aww, shake that thing, c'mon
ahh, bounce it baby
aww, shake that thing c'mon
good god"

--"Love," Prince



Good-bye sweet chair!

Some new poems

I have some new poems in some super journals:

DL's poems in Womb Poetry

DL's poem in Absent Magazine

Check them out.

"We are a see through love
Seeing through sun and haze
I see through to the totally clear end

If you appear within the seconds of
the word imagination
If you appear the word allows a man to
see to those appearance
If you appear what's airy
sends a friend to my imagination
The kind of town where it's a sin
to be inside and outside for them
Around the side of the house where
the side that you can get up on it
When every inter-call decides awell
that's up to go off

We are a see through love
Seeing through sun and haze
I see through to the totally clear end

It's well to know that since it gives a name
you get to grow up with him
I finish all supposed where it's a good time
floating where so much up
The Kind of love that I can only find in my imagination
The Kind of heart that I can only have in my imagination

We are see through love
Seeing through sun and haze"

-Arthur Russell, "See Through Love"