a passing storm

1000 suns bend upon the sparkle of your eye, and swallow whole the river
of life bursting from singing sails. Windswept tears sway before the storm
starts its moaning, while the gleaming tides take flight in search of refuge
from our decadent carnage. The skies begin to boil in their acid-splitting
cries, melting through each and every person that I've been, till the wells
that feed my veins gargle in gasping rage. But now rising, floating, sailing on
the breath of dreams through violet seas of exploding stars; lost in
archipelagos long since swallowed by the deep; reaching across rainbows into
the eyes of children begging them to tell of their secrets.
Crying Life! Singing Light! Dancing to the rhythmic Destruction!
And it's here I shall sail, till our dreams have stopped breathing, till
the tides have fallen and the sails have torn, till once again the storm
has passed.


alex gale (Durham, NH, 1988)

American Poetry 101: Emily Dickinson

"I started Early -- Took my Dog --
And visited the Sea --
The Mermaids in the Basement
Came out to look at me --"

Poem 520, excerpt


"I'm nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there's a pair of us--don't tell!
They'd banish us, you know"

Poem 260, excerpt


Emily Dickinson (Amherst, MA, 1830-1886)



* * *

"The one power Dickinson trusted was the power of language, which she loved (...) By her own account she experienced an acute physical reaction to words, a euphoric shock. I know exactly what she meant, because her poetry has that effect. Ambush is its strategy. It knocks the breath out of you and leaves you giddy, like a nanosecond-long roller coaster ride."

Holland Cotter, excerpt from ‘My Hero, the Outlaw of Amherst’, published in the Arts Section, The New York Times, May 16, 2010


* * *


"Had I a mighty gun
I think I'd shoot the human race
And then to glory run!"

Poem 118, excerpt


Emily Dickinson (Amherst, MA, 1830-1886)



Further reading:

Emily Dickinson (Poets.org)

Emily Dickinson (Poetry Foundation)

Project Gutenberg: Emily Dickinson

Emily Dickinson. The Complete Poems (Bartleby.com)

Times Topics: Emily Dickinson (The New York Times)

Emily Dickinson (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)

Second Debut of Emily Dickinson (Virginia Quarterly Review)

Emily Dickinson Museum

Dickinson Electronic Archives

Emily Dickinson: The Poetry of Flowers (The New York Botanical Garden)

a few broken verses on the thinmoral grounds you stand on

Hitchin’ a ride with a demon inside
Pulling the lever and letting it all out
Have you ever been comfortable, baby
You said we’d reap the benefits together

No prophets and no promised land
Let alone fat research grants
I'll vomit if I hear the words
Endowment for the Arts

You said awful things about me
So we could reap together the profits
Parking lots and minimum wage
That's what I call moral turpitude


amanda santorini (Portland, ME, 1981)

love of commodore 64

Before Blogger
There was Blagger
Boulder Dash
Arkanoid
Entombed
Aztec Challenge

Giana and Maria
better known as
The Great Giana Sisters
Flip & Flop
Oil's Well
Super Pipeline

A whole universe
My entire childhood
In less than 64 kilobytes


thom peabody (Los Angeles, CA, 1976)

hepatic maelström

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Rae Armantrout, 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry

Rae Armantrout (Vallejo, CA, 1947), author of ten books of poetry and a professor of writing at the University of California, San Diego, won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for Versed, published by Wesleyan University Press.

The Pulitzer citation calls the book, which dwells on war and cancer themes, "striking for its wit and linguistic inventiveness, offering poems that are often little thought-bombs detonating in the mind long after the first reading."

Influenced by the likes of William Carlos Williams and Emily Dickinson, Armantrout is one of the founding members of the West Coast group of Language poets.

Finalists in the poetry category also included Tryst, by Angie Estes (Oberlin College Press) and Inseminating the Elephant, by Lucia Perillo (Copper Canyon Press).

* * *

"People who want to write should read. If they want to write poetry, they should find a poet who speaks to them, and they should read everything by that poet. And then they should find another one who speaks to them and they should read everything by that poet. I don't think people do that enough these days, somehow."

rae armantrout as quoted in a transcript from the Art Beat blog at PBS.org


Further reading:

Conversation: Pulitzer Prize Winner in Poetry, Rae Armantrout (PBS)

The 2010 Pulitzer Prize Winners. Poetry (Pulitzer.org)

Where Every Eye's a Guard. Rae Armantrout's poetry of suspicion, by Stephen Burt (Boston Review)

‘Versed’ by Rae Armantrout: California Poet, National Recognition (Paper Cuts, NY Times)

Versed, by Rae Armantrout, Wesleyan University Press, 2009 (UPNE.com)

Rae Armantrout at the Poetry Foundation, Poets.org, Electronic Poetry Center at SUNY Buffalo, UCSD Literature Department, The New Yorker

Audio

Rae Armantrout at PennSound

Video

Video from the 2009 National Book Awards Finalist Reading

Rae Armantrout reading from her Pulitzer Prize winning book Versed (92ndStreetY channel at YouTube)

endless possibilities

Since we broke up
Or better, since you left
I've been juggling with
Endless possibilities

Considering the odds
Scrutinizing different options
Probing the multiple paths
Unfolding before me

For you see, it all seems so blurry
and yet so clear to me now
That I'm walking the extra mile
Just to hear the sound it makes

I hung out with an ageing ex-model
Who bought me dinner at an upscale, fancy restaurant
And then took me to her apartment
Where we fornicated a few times

I dated fat chicks
With a college degree and boring jobs
Little or no self-esteem
Always eager to please

I flirted with men
And quite enjoyed the company
Of old ravenous guys
Looking for adventure

But even when I hit rock bottom
At some other not so pleasant times
I never considered being like you
That's the one gate I left unopened

I never ever want to be like you
Not even faintly resemble
The childish smile, freckles, bangs and polka dots
The artsy, cutesy, curvy, pushy type

Who turned me upside down, rocked my world
And left me considering, juggling, agonizing,
Probing the multiple paths that inevitably
Send me straight back to your door like a hungry stray dog


jon kutcsa (Corpus Christi, TX, 1971)