Re: A Very Short Poetry Manifesto

1

is this about Kenneth Goldsmith?


Posted by: k-sky | Link to this comment | 03-18-15 3:11 PM
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I've never heard of him, so not consciously.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 03-18-15 3:13 PM
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I thought I hated hippie poetry about Nixon and Vietnam until I encountered reactionary poetry appreciators who won't shut up about Hopkins and Eliot.


Posted by: Flippanter | Link to this comment | 03-18-15 3:18 PM
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Hey, just like my poems!

Kenneth Goldsmith is in many ways an ass, but his reading of The Philosophical Investigations to the tune of The Rite of Spring is funny!


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 03-18-15 3:19 PM
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I caught this morning morning's minion, dapple-dawn-drawn Flippy, in his riding of the rolling level underneath him steady TWYRCL.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 03-18-15 3:19 PM
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Oh whoops I forgot that Flippy is, of course, kingdom of daylight's dauphin.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 03-18-15 3:20 PM
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I feel like not enough capital letters are used in the foregoing.


Posted by: Flippanter | Link to this comment | 03-18-15 3:22 PM
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"dapple-dawn-drawn FLIPPANTER"?


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 03-18-15 3:24 PM
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9

Can't people just stop writing poetry and move on? It had a good run and now we do prose and text messages.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 03-18-15 3:25 PM
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10

All of us learn to write in the second grade. Most of us go on to greater things.


Posted by: The General | Link to this comment | 03-18-15 3:32 PM
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11

OT: For comic book nerds only: That's not very good.


Posted by: Flippanter | Link to this comment | 03-18-15 3:34 PM
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12

I would just add that if you can work "Fuck you, clown" in there you're golden.


Posted by: Barry Freed | Link to this comment | 03-18-15 3:36 PM
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My knowledge of poetry is mostly limited to things my brother has recommended to me, but I would submit Paul Muldoon's, "The Stoic" as a contemporary poem which is neither funny nor rhymey and yet is clearly worthwhile.


Posted by: NickS | Link to this comment | 03-18-15 3:45 PM
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Flippy is, of course, kingdom of daylight's dauphin

Whereas Flipper is the kingdom of daylight's dolphin. ba-DUMP. FA LOVES PA.

Isn't it a little distasteful to write about Flippy riding TWYRCL on the blog?


Posted by: Jesus McQueen | Link to this comment | 03-18-15 3:52 PM
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Thanks for the poem, Nick, though I'll note, merely by the by, that YOU'RE TOTALLY FUCKING WRONG. Which is to say, it's both a little funny ("a very little brilliance") and rhymes throughout.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 03-18-15 3:55 PM
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The rhyming criterion is arguably met by defining rhyme broadly. Are not rhymes, not necessarily of phonemes but of rhythms or at least ideas, fundamental to most poetry? The funny thing I'd argue against. Is there some way in which, say, "The Idea of Order at Key West" is funny?


Posted by: Jesus McQueen | Link to this comment | 03-18-15 4:02 PM
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Haysoos, I don't care what Homer wrote in the Pleistocene; this is a manifesto for today.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 03-18-15 4:06 PM
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rhymes...of...ideas

On second thought, you might be an insufferable prick.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 03-18-15 4:07 PM
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Isn't it a little distasteful to write about Flippy riding TWYRCL on the blog?

Yes.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 03-18-15 4:08 PM
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20

"rhymes of rhythms" is pretty weird too.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 03-18-15 4:09 PM
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19 -- that goes on my alternate password protected blog for commenter hookup slash fiction.


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 03-18-15 4:15 PM
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Whoops.


Posted by: Tim "Ripper" Owens | Link to this comment | 03-18-15 4:15 PM
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23

Rhymes, resonances, whatever, bitches. As Leonard Cohen wrote in "That's no way to say goodbye", "I'm not looking for another as I wander in my time,/ walking to the corner, our steps will always rhyme." Cohen was a fucking poet.


Posted by: Jesus McQueen | Link to this comment | 03-18-15 4:16 PM
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24

Cohen started as an actual poet, didn't he?


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 03-18-15 4:18 PM
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Yes.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 03-18-15 4:19 PM
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Does Bunting's "Villon" pass muster, oggedeluh? How about this guy?


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 03-18-15 4:21 PM
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YOU'RE TOTALLY FUCKING WRONG. Which is to say, it's both a little funny ("a very little brilliance") and rhymes throughout.

Yeah, okay, I'm not going to argue with that.


Posted by: NickS | Link to this comment | 03-18-15 4:21 PM
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4 Goldsmith is indeed frequently an ass* but IMHO should be cut a lot of slack for the wonderful richness that is UbuWeb.

*Latest asshattery of his was the recitation of Mike Brown's autopsy report as poetry.**

**OK, make that "cut some slack."


Posted by: Barry Freed | Link to this comment | 03-18-15 4:22 PM
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Who am I to judge, Neb Nosflow? I'm only trying to help.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 03-18-15 4:32 PM
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24: To be clear, Cohen was a poet who wrote poetry not accompanied by music and continued to do so while writing poetry accompanied by music.


Posted by: Jesus McQueen | Link to this comment | 03-18-15 5:06 PM
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Wait, whoa. Cohen's daughter had a kid with Rufus Wainwright? As my daughters like to say while making explodey gestures next to their craniums, Mind. Blown.


Posted by: Jesus McQueen | Link to this comment | 03-18-15 5:15 PM
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32

Kenneth Goldsmith is a a fucking shum-bubble of the sort that readily outs himself when faced with any ethically difficult or demanding situation. The fact that a guy like that is big in avant-garde poetry even now is one of the big reasons I'm no longer working in avant-garde poetry.


Posted by: Lord Castock |
Link to this comment | 03-18-15 5:25 PM
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33

Rufus "The Unlistenable" Wainwright. As they say, fixed that for you.


Posted by: dairy queen | Link to this comment | 03-18-15 5:26 PM
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34

Close-tag fail.


Posted by: Lord Castock | Link to this comment | 03-18-15 5:26 PM
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35

21/22 - Hot Robert Halford on Tim "Ripper" Owens action!


Posted by: snarkout | Link to this comment | 03-18-15 5:27 PM
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Trying the link to example of Goldsmith shum-bubblery again.


Posted by: Lord Castock | Link to this comment | 03-18-15 5:27 PM
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I'm not really surprised at all by that. Beyond being an ass he's tended to strike me as a pretty weak thinker.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 03-18-15 5:31 PM
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38

Also, hi LC!


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 03-18-15 5:33 PM
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39

pssssst! unfoggedtarians! If you could all hop over here: http://www.peoplesmomentumaward.org/vote.php?o=600&s=pplmomentum_tw&utm_content=buffer3c8e1&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

and vote for Women's Audio Mission that would be super grand and would help out a great organization doing lots of cool stuff with remarkably few resources. Thanks in advance!


Posted by: dairy queen | Link to this comment | 03-18-15 5:36 PM
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33: His popularity mystifies me. I'm still surprised at the revelation, because a) gay, and b) major confluence of singer-songwriter family streams.


Posted by: Jesus McQueen | Link to this comment | 03-18-15 5:41 PM
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41

Wow. You guys are awfully judgmental. Some things are nice I guess.


Posted by: OutOfTheBlue | Link to this comment | 03-18-15 5:41 PM
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42

37: so apparently not a German.


Posted by: dairy queen | Link to this comment | 03-18-15 5:46 PM
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43

Actually, I rather like Gerard Manley Hopkins


Posted by: OutOfTheBlue | Link to this comment | 03-18-15 5:59 PM
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44

41: It's not like the people we're being judgmental about ever show up to read the judgments very often.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 03-18-15 6:10 PM
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45

I would not at all be bothered if Kenny G showed up here.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 03-18-15 6:14 PM
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46

44: Only when I email them, generally.


Posted by: Natilo Paennim | Link to this comment | 03-18-15 6:22 PM
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47

How would you feel if Gerald McManleyHopkins showed up?


Posted by: snarkout | Link to this comment | 03-18-15 6:22 PM
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48

Robust.


Posted by: Natilo Paennim | Link to this comment | 03-18-15 6:38 PM
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49

Surprised.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 03-18-15 6:39 PM
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50

McManleyHopkins

That would explain the "Pay with Love" thing.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 03-18-15 6:44 PM
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51

The Windhover is, in fact, the greatest poem written in English. There, I said it.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 03-18-15 6:59 PM
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52

It would be even better with the synonym for "windhover" I mentioned the other day.


Posted by: Jesus McQueen | Link to this comment | 03-18-15 7:03 PM
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53

That was a pretty good poem, but I still like a more regular meter.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 03-18-15 7:04 PM
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54

Moby likes iambs and he cannot lie
All you other readers can't deny
That poems show up whose beauty is past change
All things counter, original, spare, and strange
You get sprung


Posted by: snarkout | Link to this comment | 03-18-15 7:37 PM
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51 is mostly right (depending on my mood)


Posted by: OutOfTheBlue | Link to this comment | 03-18-15 7:38 PM
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54 Yousa!


Posted by: OutOfTheBlue | Link to this comment | 03-18-15 7:39 PM
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11: Thanks for sharing that. I'm probably on the record a decade ago being fuck-you,-clown-ish to both of them, but that's marginally interesting. How to make room for possibly repenting misogynist assholes is going to be an interesting question.


Posted by: Thorn | Link to this comment | 03-18-15 7:51 PM
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33. Hang on, his version of Cohen's "Everybody knows" is great. Solo stuff doesn't do much for me, but he's a good stylist.


Posted by: lw | Link to this comment | 03-18-15 7:54 PM
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54: Heh.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 03-18-15 8:00 PM
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I approve of 54.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 03-18-15 8:01 PM
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I can't find a single memory of Leonard Cohen or Rufus Wainwright singing anything. I will probably remember the song referenced in 54 until I die.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 03-18-15 8:02 PM
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Here's Rufus Wainwright singing a song written by Leonard Cohen. Wheel within wheels.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 03-18-15 8:21 PM
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I've already brushed and flossed. I can't listen to music now.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 03-18-15 8:23 PM
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64

Maybe tomorrow, then.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 03-18-15 8:24 PM
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65

No, no, by then it'll be too late.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 03-18-15 8:26 PM
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66

What Work Is

We stand in the rain in a long line
waiting at Ford Highland Park. For work.
You know what work is--if you're
old enough to read this you know what
work is, although you may not do it.
Forget you. This is about waiting,
shifting from one foot to another.
Feeling the light rain falling like mist
into your hair, blurring your vision
until you think you see your own brother
ahead of you, maybe ten places.
You rub your glasses with your fingers,
and of course it's someone else's brother,
narrower across the shoulders than
yours but with the same sad slouch, the grin
that does not hide the stubbornness,
the sad refusal to give in to
rain, to the hours of wasted waiting,
to the knowledge that somewhere ahead
a man is waiting who will say, "No,
we're not hiring today," for any
reason he wants. You love your brother,
now suddenly you can hardly stand
the love flooding you for your brother,
who's not beside you or behind or
ahead because he's home trying to
sleep off a miserable night shift
at Cadillac so he can get up
before noon to study his German.
Works eight hours a night so he can sing
Wagner, the opera you hate most,
the worst music ever invented.
How long has it been since you told him
you loved him, held his wide shoulders,
opened your eyes wide and said those words,
and maybe kissed his cheek? You've never
done something so simple, so obvious,
not because you're too young or too dumb,
not because you're jealous or even mean
or incapable of crying in
the presence of another man, no,
just because you don't know what work is.


Posted by: Philip Levine | Link to this comment | 03-19-15 12:09 AM
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|| Did you know you can be non-consentually added to a group on Facebook? And when you leave, it gives you a checkbox if you want to prevent people in the group from adding you back. |>


Posted by: dalriata | Link to this comment | 03-19-15 7:39 AM
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68

That's exactly what happened to me.


Posted by: Opinionated Penn State Frat Bro | Link to this comment | 03-19-15 7:40 AM
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