Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
Creatures Whose Backsides Glow
I’ve already sunk to scribbling
one line
at the top of the page.
fireflies- in canning jars
on muggy Midwest summers night.
headlamps leading us
backward
in on ourselves.
(like Miss Suzy with her acorn bowls and fire fly lanterns)
both of us rebuilding
what the scoundrels set asunder.
Home (less)
Home(less)
We smoke.
Nighttime.
Bridge line.
A man sleeping in the doorway offers his opinion
I listen carefully
He has only the truth to say
I go home to shelter
He wrestles cardboard on concrete
All meaning seems to splinter
The deep end always lingers.
by Israel Bayer
A new world— one that doesn’t need National Poetry Month
Is poetry dead in America? No, probably not. But you wouldn’t know that from the overhyped, mass produced public relations campaigns coming from places like the Poetry Foundation, and Poets.org— who rev their engine’s every April in hopes of offering an appeal for American poets who for most part have little to no effect on American society.
In 2008, esteemed poet and writer, Ange Mlinko wrote an excellent insiders look at what is behind National Poetry Month in the Nation.
In the article Mlinko writes, “De rigueur jokes about T.S. Eliot’s “cruelest month” notwithstanding, the National Poetry Month FAQ web page explains why April was chosen for the honor: “February is Black History Month and March is Women’s History Month, so April seemed a logical choice.” Let’s get this straight: logically, this would mean that poets are an oppressed group on a par with groups who have overcome the legal status of chattel. Needless to say, the ability of poets to interrogate their own earnest metaphors seems to have plunged in tandem with their prestige.
If, that is, one assumes that poetry’s prestige has plunged, because otherwise it wouldn’t need a national awareness campaign. But how does one square this lost prestige, this alarum, with the surge of new books every year? Or all the readings, podcasts, MFA graduates? A major publishing house’s poetry list used to function as a highbrow loss leader; but now that books are just another loss leader for big-box retail outlets, poetry–a loss leader of a loss leader–counterintuitively becomes the rallying point of a grassroots movement. Dozens if not hundreds of small presses and websites have sprung up in recent years…” Read the rest of this entry »
Scales Stick to My Skin— A series of haiku
by Cassandra Koslen
I smell like low tide
barnacles grow in my bath
a fishmonger’s life
perished halibut
we will fillet your carcass
overgrown flounder
seafood dead or live
I prefer your company
to the customers’
the cold chaps my hands
wet, amuck with fishes guts
I need a new job
Posted by Israel Bayer
A Little Shel is good for what ails ya
If you ever wandered to the end of the sidewalk you know where this guy is coming from.
Read and learn more about Shel Silverstein here.
Posted by Brian Feist
poMotion poetry 