Ars Poetica (Edited)

Ars Poetica

We are at the crux of societal sublimation and there are now wars over definitions of what is art and what is poetry. The white masters are dead and the rest of us minions are teeming over the planet, and yeah, we talk to each other. We talk poetry. It’s not because some big heavy fan blew all that European stuff across, it’s because we all have words, and words coalesce. Some words like to sit next to each other, like “good” and “morning,” but maybe it’s only because they’ve been cocooned for so long they’ve completely given up, a comfortable marriage. But what would happen if words divorced? Maybe “good” was put in jail for the sake of himself, and suddenly there was “trapeze”? It’s tangible, right? I hope “trapeze” and “morning” will be able to work out their dissimilitude (I mean, they only have one letter in common) but “trapeze” is so sexy! What I do not want happening is for “trapeze morning” to replicate the hollow of “good morning.” If that happened, then “good” was only jailed because he was stale and the whole thing was just an exercise, an even exchange, and we do not want an even exchange. The economy is on such a downward spiral that we always need a greater return than the principal investment, even if it is only the economy of language. The whole point of this is to say that diversification is exponentiatiating, and words should, too. Words should start sitting next to someone new, none of this assigned seat crap. They can make new babies like “twinkle clown” or they can just sound pretty next to each other like “amphibious amplification.”

The main problem with poetry is that humans write poems and humans read poems. If there were no humans involved, poetry would be perfection. Ask your dog, he’ll tell you the same thing! Humans tamper with tones for fun and call it melody. Humans splash ink on paper and use it against you to analyze your crazies. Humans sprinkle aspartame on dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane and then ingest! No wonder everyone is angering about poetry, they’ve all gone mad! This, of course, means that I, too, have lapped the poison. And now as I recall all I know about poetry – everything I learned before the poison and after the poison, and in the oreo fluff – I have determined there are only two things I know for sure about poetry:

1) Poetry is not that powdery blue substance you encounter when you’ve had too much fun.
2) Poetry can tickle.

Beat Poem (Edited)

Dear Rachel Maddow,

Please wear your glasses,
the ones with the thick frames,
as you tell me the truth.
Tell me the truth

About the spent fuel rods
at Fukushima Daiichi
and the threat of nuclear radiation.
Tell me the truth

Is Christine O’Donnell a witch?
Please say no. Because
I like witches and I hate Christine.
Tell me the truth

Is Christine related to Rosie?
Please say no. Because
I like Rosie and I hate Christine.
Tell me the truth

Have you read Ann Coulter?
The pin-up doll for
Republican masturbation?
Tell me the truth

Will you wear a blazer,
I don’t care which one,
as you tell me the truth?
Tell me the truth

Will you wear sneakers and jeans
with your blazer?
Fuck fashion, you’re hot!
Tell me the truth

Do you like my hair?
My braided binary codes?
My twisted DNA double helix?
Tell me the truth

Do you prefer triangles or squares?
Though really, they both
dream they are circles.
Tell me the truth

If Donald Trump is elected,
could we evaporate into
the Milky Way?
Tell me the truth

Why are you so articulate?
I could nibble your eloquence
as you tell me the truth.
Tell me the truth

Would it be weird if I asked you
to read me the phonebook?
I rapture at your vocal frequency.
Tell me the truth

If we were both eighteen
could we hold hands
and protest against…anything?
Tell me the truth

Do you like dogs?
Dachshunds, specifically?
I have a dachshund.
Tell me the truth

Will you come over for dinner?
I will count to nine in French!
There will be vermouth.
Tell me the truth.

Duende Ode (Edited)

Ode to Michael

“Give me a game!” I proclaimed,
as I drunk dialed the three Michaels,
Moore, Vick, and Kors,
to help triangulate the source of global warming.
Vick was reticent,
but gave in when Kors
knitted him a salmon-colored orgasm
out of trundle and twine.

“The journey will be perilous!” I exclaimed,
“Limited cell phone service,
no alcohol, and no brothels along the way.
Are you still in?”

The three Michaels nodded their heads hungrily.

“Will there be flowers?” asked Moore.
“Will there be dinosaurs?” asked Vick.
Kors smirked hysterically,
“Flowers and dinosaurs
have been extinct for months!
But we must be mindful of minotaurs.”

“Oh yes, the murderous, marauding, minotaurs,”
echoed everyone.

“It is settled, then,” I said,
as my spearmint-beamed eyes pierced through
the clouds of grasshopper ash,

“We will meet at midnight at McDonalds
to plan our perversions.
We will stop at Wal-Mart and shop
to singe off the shards of our sins.
And, my brothers, we will find that melting middle.
And when we mark and manifest,
we will meld marshmallows together
and giggle about Jesus and heaven and giraffes.”

“To victory!” exclaimed Michael.
“To ending global warming!” exclaimed Michael.
“Let us pray,” said Michael,
his brow rounded with reverence.

The Michaels and myself formed a circle, held hands,
and hung our heads over hypotheticals and hope:
“Let us say a prayer for the late Michael,
the Michael who had all the answers.”
Flowers became extinct after his passing,
and people forgot how to dance.
The population of minotaurs exploded exponentially,
as only he knew how to slay them
and the secret died with him.
“Dear Michael, wherever you are,
hear us, and help us to heal the world
and make it a better place.”

Oulipo N+7 (Edited)

Pavlovian Fester

1.
I plop allegro to the flag stop
of the univalve of Amherst
and to the repudiation for which it staples,
one national income under goddaughter, indolent,
with libido and juvenescence for all.

2.
My country club, ‘tis of thee,
sweet land-office business of licorice, of thee I singe;
Library where my father-in-law died,
Libretto of the pillage primadonna,
from every mourning cloak let freehold ring!

3.
Oh! Say can you see by the dawn redwood’s early lighter
What so provisionally we hailed at the twilling’s last gleeting?
Whose broad strippers and bright stardom through the peripheral fight,
O’er the ranches we watched were so galvanically streaming?
And the rockfish red glare, the bombardiers bursting in aioli,
Gave propaganda through the nightgown that our flan was still there.
Oh, say does that stateless banquet yet weaken
O’er the landfill of the freebie and the home plate of the brazen.

I Am Virginia (Edited)

I Am Virginia

Nude #1: A Room

I wake up in a room
that isn’t mine.
There is a book on the table

that looks exactly like me,
creases and coffee stains,
written in 1929.

I unfold through the past life truths
that I’ve repressed,
thanks to modern day preservatives.

I understand now
that my gender was murdered,
for not having a room of my own.

It’s 2011, and I still don’t have
a room.
History repeats.

Nude #2: Lover

I save love letters in my dresser
from a woman a hundred years older than me.
When I open the envelopes, words pour out,

sprout wings and soar.
Coffee spills can be wiped up,
but words move too quickly for paper towels.

I pluck words from the air.
One by one, they whisper promises.
My temperature quickly swells.

Words wrap around my body,
rubbing against me in spaces
words have never filled.

I bend female, I bend male,
I can’t tell where I end
and Orlando begins.

An anachronistic genderfuck:
Unending time
and unending genders.

Nude #3: Classroom

I am wide awake in a women’s studies class.
I am so confused because everyone is calling me a feminist,
and I scream, “My name is Virginia Woolf!”

I can’t take it anymore, this world.
Carrying these weights like fuel,
I eat them into my stomach fire.

The oppression builds and builds and builds,
like steam with nowhere to escape,
I know I will blow.

This is what it feels like when female is irrelevant.
The world just keeps reproducing
the same prejudice over and over and over.

Some Girls - Revised

Some Girls

She is first the girl next door–
goody-goody, giggly,
pigtails and penny loafers.

She is then a 9 to 5 job,
doing the best with what you got
for mushy meatloaf tv dinners.

She is love at first sight, a
stay at home wife –
ding-dong-doorbell –
“Hi honey, I’m home!”

She is a bun in the oven,
pink for girl,
blue for boy,
bottles, burps, and mobiles.

She is daddy’s little girl –
goody-goody, giggly,
pigtails and penny loafers.

She is not sleepover secrets girls keep –
“practicing,”
no complaints when you linger a little longer.

She is not lost
in the dichotomy of gender binary –
reject pink, crew cut, stuck in tomboy mode.

She is not
on a pilgrimage to Noho,
reading herstories of Woolf,
blasting Maddow on Air America.

She is not on late night dates
like bees create viscous honey,
the persistent passing of nectar,
bee to bee.

She is not the daughter disowned
because she found her home
in the Rubyfruit Jungle.

Callibram

These are the lines of the poem from the outside to the inside:

Sweet, spicy, nice.
Wet, wonderland, landing.
Licking lips, like leaves.
Gates, flood gates,
private, public, pubic.
Gender, games, flowers, flames,
freedom, fame.
Oppression, suppression, confession.

There are stories untold,
within every female fold.
I will search until I behold
the river of liquid gold.

Search under the hood for something good.

Get your laws off my body! Get your laws off my body!
Get your laws off my body! Get your laws off my body!

Sometimes I wish I could scream!

Oulipo N+7

Patriotic Fester
(Patriotic Fervor)

1.
I pledge allegro to the flag stop
of the univalve of Amherst
and to the repudiation for which it stands
one national income under goddaughter, indivisible,
with libran and jut for all.

2.
My country club, ‘tis of thee,
sweet land-office business of libran, of thee I sing;
Libran where my father-in-laws died,
Libran of the pillage pride,
from every mourning cloak let freehold ring!

3.
Oh! Say can you see by the dawn redwood’s early lighter
What so proudly we hailed at the twilling’s last gleeting?
Whose broad strippers and bright stardom through the perilous fight,
O’er the ranches we watched were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockfish red glare, the bombards bursting in air billow,
Gave propaedeutic through the night letter that our flag stop was still there.
Oh, say does that stardust banneret yet wave
O’er the libran of the free and the home plate of the brave.

Poem from Extra Credit Assignment

Low Lust

Paintings overflow the halls and walls
While a microphone suit calls for social change.
Am I the only one that finds this strange?

A business suit knifes through the waves of barefoot souls – he is our leader.
He calls for the rappers to rap next to the easels and color palettes.
He calls for the brush strokes to conduct improvisational jazz.
He calls for the musicians to point their toes and dance.
He calls for the poets to pray while the espresso machine groans.
He calls for the hope of the didgeridoo.

He could be in a café or a warehouse,
Manufacturing or fracturing.
One part red dye number 3.
One part hope.
One part dreams.
One part thigh.
Two part lie.
Incantation.
Add fifty dollars.
Shake well before opening.

It is plastic. It is made in Taiwan.
It is hard. It is silicone.
It has roots in logic. It has roots in nothing.
Is this community? Is this creativity?

Take part in genuine collaboration for social justice education!
Make a donation to my future corporation!

Nudes

Lone Woolf

Nude #1: A Room

I wake up in a room
that isn’t mine.
There is a book on the table

so I open her up.
As I turn the pages, it appears.
I stare at a page of words

that look exactly like me:
full of creases
and coffee stains.

It is a letter written to my soul in 1929.
It almost flows waves out and engulf me
And I realize she killed me and only Shakespeare is left.

All because I did not have a room of my own.
But I am not dead –
And still, I do not have what is essential:

a room of one’s own.
So I wonder,
will I die tonight?

Nude #2: Lover

You are old until I melt backwards through time,
until I look in the mirror
and see my eyes are yours.

My face is unrecognizable, a ripple in the mirror,
but I know that deep release of heat under my skin
when I think of her,

the way you did when you imagined Orlando.
I know you did this to me,
back when I read your letters to Vita.

You planted a marble of truth
that sprouted with inevitability.
I know that if she asked me to write her a story,

I would wish to invent Orlando for her, too:
Unending time
and unending genders.

Nude #3: Classroom

I am wide awake in a women’s studies class.
I am so confused because everyone is calling me a feminist,
and I scream, “My name is Virginia Woolf!”

I can’t take it anymore, this world.
Carrying these weights like fuel,
I eat them into my stomach fire.

The oppression builds and builds and builds,
like steam with nowhere to escape,
I know I will blow.

This is what it feels like when female is irrelevant.
The world just keeps reproducing
the same prejudice over and over and over.

Synesthesia

28. Make New Words

Wake up when the cell phone puffles heavy perfume.
If it is still too tiring, find another place to mend your dreams
– but only for a Mr. Rogers timeshare
because your uncle is clucking through the silky cave.
Yup. He left an egg. So throw it back through the decaying hemisphere.
Are your eyes open? If not, step into the fresh scrimple
where the spicy sand will twinkle down to your toes.
Find a towel. Spicy sand has a tendency to stick like silent noodles.
Wear something tall, like a laughstring
and on your feet, something wet like carbon monoxide.
You may get hungry. Bitter bumps should help.
Make sure to shuffle your academic swords before you leave!

Down the hall, board the yo-yo box.
One of those shrill jellyfish tries to make you late.
He feeds on you and takes your time.
But you are stronger and can free yourself
from his voluptuous breath.
But you still lost time.
The spaceship is boiling now and only you can squish the heat.
So stick on that spaceship until the lunar modules burst a fragrant green
and ignore the whispering winkles – it’s just a show!
In general, avoid eye contact until you have eyes.
You can afford to be squid ink drunk
– the kind that makes you wretch with clarity.

Pretend you’re at school,
skipping and dodging all those nuggets
who stammer around with leafy giggles.
Their hopes are like gliplings,
eyes full of amorous despair,
mumbling the scent of earthquakes.

In the Style of D. H. Lawrence

The B-52 Cockroach

I once woke to your crispy wing crunch between my lips
and though I disowned your family years ago,
you keep naming me godmother to the thousands you spawn.
I want so much to juice you, but I shudder to think of
your sister floating through my jaws as I wail.

In the Style of Gertrude Stein

The Three I Never Knew

I.
Lemongrass, Shelly, lemongrass.
Lemongrass ingratiates if you go towards underworlds.
It is teflon Shelly it is teflon. Polytetrafluoroethylene Shelly.
Do not go the way of the weaker go the way of the weaker if you go that way is not the way.
Rub thyme leaves Shelly your needy leaves lips.
Slipping into your thyme leaves. So slip.
Thyme leaves are solid and when sold sold becomes shoelace strings.
A rabid meadow. A rabid meadow is ending of medication time. Quivering medication.
It will twinkle your twinkie Shelly it will twinkle clown you.
Twinkie organs bust in porcelain icons. Icons can chrome Shelly.
Corn canister. Homeland security nickels. Isotope candy. Watermusic. Sword openings.
You open them all when you open them all.

II.
It is L.
When it is la la la la la.
You are a la.
Why are you la.
La la la.
Statistically a blue la la.
Prickly blue bow rainbow.
Tow a toe on brow below.
Boing.
La la la la la.
Not a peach or impeach in peace.
Research a piece of peace in piece peach please.
La la la la la.

III.
It should be aptly put cupcake.
Cupcake cupcake cupcake.
It should always be solely because it waters tersely.
Cupcake ache awake. Do not awake the wit will pop lucid.
Glow swim swim. Swim it is a whim.

Brittle birds alone.
Bit around strongly. Bite it bite it bite it.
You are because it is a knot. Or are you not you are not.
Bite it bite it bite it.
You are caught unless you are not caught you are not.

In the Style of Gertrude Stein

Inspired by poetry class, but written for a statistics class.

A poem to assignment #1

The dependent variable.
Depends on deep ends ending.
Eating things.

Access decision assess decision assess decision.

Factor analysis.
Fact or analyze this syst.
Syst is system
Stasis is taste.
Plot of items, lot of items, lost stems.

Teapots and caraway.
Away you weight.
Wait waited loadings.

Interaction none.
Action in ion terracotta.

Hypothesizing hippo thighs accept.
Hypnotize eyes reject.
Apothecary.

Duende/Ode Poem

Ode to Three Years of Melting Time

I emerge from my nest, carpet booth in the chimney building,

and through the portals I can see winter like black glass and baby powder.

Hidden beyond, the spears protect the shadow balls with wheeled cages.

Back there, there is proof of the psychedelic campfire, where the cult pricks together.

But I blow by the darkness, beneath the pavement slides bent like monochrome rainbows,

Because up the hill are mad scientist masters like doctor genius monkeys

and I help them birth their caste one f*cking elbow greased lie at a time.

But for one hour each day, I am my own deity:

   I slide down the brown boxes of imprisonment, and I own Thayer Street.

    Shall I carbo twist kiss like Paula Dean? Or pay $3.50 to suckle brown bean juice?

   I'm thinking I don't want to taste something that will oink at me from the inside later,

    so you win, FALAFEL!

    (The girl in line behind me drove from New York City for you.

    She says she's in love with you, but I think she's just one of those lonesome melon eaters.

    I know you're shaped like a donut just to tease me,

    and you have no jelly inside so you couldn't possibly love me - or that melon eater.)

When my 60-minute affair is over, I slip back up and shackle myself awake four more hours.

Ring, ring, ring. Accept, deny, lie. Ring, ring, ring. Deny, lie, deny, lie.

Then it's time for that mad dash through your heartbeat,

I board at the dock of an artery, and with each metallic diesel pulse I am closer to your red core.

I pass the aquariums - the ones that hold faceless money like black suits,

I pass the site of the mobster bloodbaths of your past

(where there are now gay men that make topiaries out of messes like me),

I pass the clowns that dance to Enya as they set the water on fire

(what is so amusing about water on fire that it deserves kettle corn celebration?),

I pass the forgotten windowless slabs where those women fly stealth

(and get drunk on gold as they bulldagger swagger),

Oh, Providence! Only in retrospect can I see:

three years can ghost away as time melts, but I'll never forget.

Life Sings

I arrive at the altar of your radio wave rainbows

Painted in bumping bass tones, rejoicing in rock-us harmonies

Unresolved, discordant dissonance - but only for a measure or two until you

Resolve me, affirm me, alter mood, attitude, and together fuse sweaty hearts;

Echo not just in maestro swings or strings, strum and drum

But in the rejoicing of human hallelujah hums,

Thread strung from om monks overseas, genealogies, and family trees

Quaking as inter-generational, transnational voices join to amazing (roof raising) saving grace;

Then there is that haunting familiar of everyday rejoicing:

Rubber-tire traffic screech on street, lifesaving sirens, and amplification of railroad vibration,

Cough drop chokes, gaping gasping jokes, and the slithering slime of business folks,

But we pay for and pray for the diamond of rare and elegant beauty of the in-between, silence.

The Trauma

The phone

rang but it

was on

silent

maybe you

woke me

to find

mom's voicemails but

I sort of knew

you were gone

before I got to

the hospital.

Some Girls

A cliche is

first the girl next door- goody-goody, giggly, pigtails and penny loafers.

A cliche is

then a 9 to 5 job, doing the best with what you got for a mushy meatloaf tv dinner.

A cliche is

love at first sight, a stay at home wife, *ding-dong-doorbell*, "Hi honey, I'm home!"

A cliche is

a bun in the oven, pink for girl, blue for boy, bottles, burps, and mobiles.

A cliche is

daddy's little girl - goody-goody, giggly, pigtails and penny loafers.

But it is not

sleepover secrets girls keep - "practicing," no complaints when you linger a little longer.

But it is not

lost in the dichotomy of gender binary - reject pink, crew cut, stuck in tomboy mode.

But it is not

a pilgrimage to Noho, reading herstories of Woolf, blasting Maddow on Air America.

But it is not

late night dates like bees create viscous honey, the persistent passing of nectar, bee to bee.

But it is not

the daughter disowned because she found her home in the Rubyfruit Jungle.

Responses to questions:

1) What was difficult or easy about this assignment and why?
For me, aspects of writing this poem were both difficult and easy for the same reason: the parameters we were given. Since I knew this had to be a list poem about cliches, I still had some opportunity for creativity, but had enough "rules" in place so my mind couldn't wander boundlessly. Having a specific assignment made it a little easier for me to contain my thoughts. I initially thought that using consonance and assonance would be really difficult, but it actually wasn't difficult once I got into it, and I ended up using both more than 3 times per respective stanza. On the flip side, I thought that controlling the length of lines would be easy, but it was difficult and it would have been easier if some lines could have been short while others could have been long.

2) How was writing the List Poem different than writing the Ars Poetica? Why?
Despite the many parameters we had to follow to write our list poem, I found writing the list poem easier than writing the ars poetica. For me, I think it had more to do with content than form (though I guess an ars poetica is truly a combination of both). I'm still unsure of my definition of poetry and how I see poetry, and because of that ambiguity, I had a difficult time writing my ars poetica. On the other hand, I know what cliches are, and I know how to make lists, so combining the two was actually really fun for me.

3) How does the repetition work in the poem in terms of movement, sound, pace, and rhythm? The same question applies to alliteration - how does alliteration change the movement sound, pace, and rhythm of the poem?
I think repetition adds to the movement, pace and rhythm of the poem. It makes the poem seem like it keeps moving forward, even intensifying. Alliteration also seems to affect the pace of the poem, too. When it’s a consonant sound that’s repeated, the pace of the poem seems to pick up. When it’s a vowel sound, it seems to me almost like it makes the words more gooey (does that make sense?) and slows down the pace.

4) Did you choose short lines or long lines? Why? What were the difficulties of this?

I decided to use long lines because I knew I had lots of ground I wanted to cover, so I figured it would be best to use longer lines. This did prove to be difficult, however, because while writing, it seemed more natural to have some lines be shorter and others longer. Controlling line length was definitely difficult.

5) You were asked to use all 5 senses - do you think you did a good job of implementing ALL five senses into your poem? Do you think it made your poem stronger? Weaker? Why?

I think I did a good job of incorporating sight, touch, and sound...taste and smell were more difficult. When I think about the sense of smell and sense of taste, they are very closely related, and I'm hoping that I was able to communicate the sense of taste, not just smell. I think using the 5 senses makes poems stronger, but I'm wondering whether it's necessary to use all five in ALL poems. I know that using adjectives and being as descriptive as possible helps to create more vivid imagery. I think I just have to keep trying harder to use smell and taste, which does seem unnatural to me when not talking about food specifically!

Ars Poetica

At first I thought

wiggly, wandering, wanting, whimsical, words,

jumbled, descriptions, misplaced, adjectives, verbs.

Poets in love, poets in hate:

cerebral floating on deepest depths.

But then,

I wore a poem as a blanket because I was cold outside and inside

I wore a poem as sunglasses because the light

(and you want to reflect the sun)

Blankets and sunglasses always fit.

Not to mention words.

Like therapists

-won't tell answers because you pay them to play

-hide and seek and

-you lie sometimes, sometimes.

-analyze me.

-help.

-Not by prescription

-(i.e. self-authored self-help)

-Not by deep regression analysis

-(i.e. tick-tock tick-tock tick-tock)

-Anthem's swell

-(i.e. we are the champions)

Just poetry

(Edited last section)

Not to mention words like therapists

won't tell answers because you pay them to play

hide and seek.

You lie sometimes, sometimes

help.

Acrostic

Savor time, beauty, life, Stacey.

The storybook-history-life lessons will

always flow through your veins,

can transcend time-space continuums.

Even without me, my car,

you'll arrive at the destination. (Without a map!) So,

Please, please, please, pull up, pick up projectiled innards.

Understand your heartbeat = my blood, and

listen:

many duets, songs, jokes, laughs,

and go on to rise with the sun-

not just because you have to, but because it's the

only way you'll ever play Paganini again.

In Class Acrostic

Maybe there's a method to the mess
And you shouldn't judge or impose
Your standards and beliefs on
A young woman you don't know.

Maybe she has seen fantastical sights
Away from the stagnant Pacific rocks
Yes, places to meet, people to become,
And words to write around the world.