NOTE OR THREE.

Here is a chapbook operation. More on this in a few.

Also, bring 7 - 12 poems next week!! With copies. Make the
copies before you come to class (don't do it on the machine
outside the classroom). We will look at these poems, alphabet-
ically, starting on 2/25.

Next week, for one thing, we will look at mss up in Wiekamp.

A good set of links to mags.

Another one here.

And this one here.

And the links here, too.



*

1. We'll look at poems, by, in this order, Tom, Chris, Courtney,
then break.

2. Then I will talk a bit about Submittable, possible places to
send poems, cover letters, chapbooks, etc.

3. Also, so how does Kasischke's work compare to Ruefle's?
Sure, be a literary critic, but also, how does the word help
(or not help) you move forward in your own writing. For
instance, what does this (an any poetry / poet) give you
permission to do (more about this idea in class). How about
subject matter? Kasischke's work is very decidedly elegiac,
poems about leaving early adulthood (after leaving girlhood
in earlier books) and finding oneself as mother and daughter,
in the face of mortality. Kasischke is visited by ghosts of
the past, and these all bombard her in the present, so that she
becomes confused: Is she the daughter or the mother? Is
it her mother who just died or is Kasischke herself suddenly
on her deathbed. Is the little boy wandering the woods her
deceased father from long ago, or her son now? I think of
E. B. White's "Once More to the Lake." Can you make that
connection? Kasaschke's language is much more "poetic"
than Ruefle's (or is it?). It spirals out from some central
axis of fear and love very seamlessly, in irregular stanzas,
lines often growing short as the tension increases (so the
speed of the poem lets us rush past the specter of death).
But she also writes prose poems. Why does she do that? Or,
as James Harms says, is she just writing lined poems in
prose, as he says "Goodtime Jesus" is. Harms claims Hass's
prose poems ("Story of the Body," "My Mother's Nipples")
exist in such a way that we understand that each poem in
prose MUST be in prose. Why? Obviously, in "My Mother's
Nipples" we have verse and prose combined. Why? How
is Patricia Lockwood's poem working? Is this prose or
line or some combination of the two? Could Hicok's poem
be in prose? What about Dickman's? What about Szybist's?

*

Everyone's blogged up. Links below.

*

Very first thing, on Wednesday, for a change, we will
look at the poems by Chris, Tom J., and Courtney. Let's
finish these up. All interesting . . .

**

Sorry I've not posted anything or answered any
emails--busy busy busy Thursday-Friday. Reminder
to read THROUGH page 45 in Kasischke's book
of poems . . . and remember, we're doing the final sets
of poems. Btw, mark on your calendar that Kathleen
Rooney will visit our class on March 25. She will
then do a reading. It will be great. She edits/
publishes Rose Metal Press (that's who published
our prose poetry book). She also published Kelcey
Parker's (now Evrick) last book. More on that later.

**

Here is a dictionary sonnet (I've been playing around
the last few nights (late). I believe Niall has been writing
some of these as well . . .

BENZENE

 

Give a woman the kindness
Of fireworks, a furnished red jungle, determined;
A curved past participle. Remarkable and
Bereaved Medusa, emit a bent member.
A leaning or bias, state of being wiry
(And creepy) of mind—benumbed by being
Kerosene; imitation of a citron iceberg . . .
Love, bequeath to do good in imitation of a striped
Sea nymph [a goose]. Be destitute or manufactured.
Thin fabric of daughters—the flower having texture
Scattered over height and features—is a woman’s
Utmost resin. Beneficence. As texture   and manner.
A dialect; a medicinal tree. A shroud in darkness:
Bending, Being, Bergamot, Berried.

 

 

                                                          a “B” dictionary sonnet