EKSwitaj's blog

Violent Mother, Saintly Son

2008-10-11T15:36:03-05:00

The roles assigned to mother and son in Seth Michelson's Fragments
trouble me. He gives us a saintly son who clings to his mother's legs
"even when kicked and cursed and kicked . . . knowing only to forgive"
and a terribly violent mother who screams to a degree unwarranted by
the child's (probably) accidental dropping of a gravy boat and then
kicks him when she is really raging against something else, some idea
of mortality and Malthusian evolution that the poet evokes (not
entirely successfully) rather specifying.

Were it just one son and one violent mother, I would take no issue with this.

Poetry as Therapy

2008-10-10T15:48:41-05:00

Despite great differences in our poetic styles, I strongly identify with Barbara Crooker’s conclusion at the end of her thoughts on poetry as therapy presented on the Crab Creek Review blog as part of their Writer’s Notebook series:

So while I don’t think poetry is therapy; ie, I’m not
writing to heal myself, but rather, to craft an object, the best way
that I can, I think that many times it ends up functioning as therapy,
in spite of itself. And surely, there’s nothing wrong with that.

When I write about traumatic life events, I do not do so with the
intent of engaging in a therapeutic act. Rather, I create poems from
whatever holds my attention. Trauma, unfortunately, has a way of doing
that. In the end, the process of writing does help: it gives me
control, if only slantwise, over the otherwise uncontrollable and
unchangeable.

The Reversed Transitions of Destruction

2008-10-09T17:08:31-05:00

In Guernica, Robert Thomas’s visceral poem Plague
presents a series of changes that portray the progress of destruction
as a reversal of time. The girl who first catches the plague shows it
with a sun that seems to age in reverse—from a white-haired tonsured
monk to a younger monk with the same hairstyle. Then the plague spreads
“like a fire” moving backwards through a book—The Book—from
“Revelations to Genesis.”

Deathmatch: Novel vs. Short Story

2008-10-07T13:06:17-05:00

In the New York Times Sunday Book Review, Steven Millhauser presents a defense of the short story's worth and ambition
that unfortunately illustrates one of the most common pitfalls of
defending an underappreciated art form: doing so at the expense of
another. From a purely practical point of view, this might be excusable
if the status of the attacked form were unassailable. Why not take
advantage of comparison if it will help one form and not really hurt
the other?

Learn the answer at Daughter of the Ring of Fire.

The Line Breaks of On a Light Ground: Eye Dance

2008-10-03T17:23:52-05:00

The artist-craftsperson side of me is intrigued by the line breaks in the first of Maurice Scully's three "dances" in The Fifteen Project's current issue.
One of the more basic pieces of advice given to poets is to make the
final word of a line count; experienced workshoppers who find
themselves with little to say about presented work pounce upon
concluding articles, prepositions, and conjunctions. The first verse of
Scully's "On a Light Ground: Eye Dance", however, includes two lines that end in articles.

Read more at Daughter of the Ring of Fire

Tim Botta in absent magazine

2008-10-01T15:09:14-05:00

Tim Botta's poems in the current issue of absent magazine,
with the exception of Grid with its mythological figure, present us
with people impossible to know. He gives the reader a nameless he, she,
and we. "I" is more problematic in this sense because though the name
of the voice is never stated, readers who have been insufficiently
lectured on the incorrectness of doing so are likely to associate that
pronoun with the poet.

One-Poem Review: Mia Yun’s Brooklyn, First Spring

2008-09-27T17:14:36-05:00

Mia Yun's "Brooklyn, First Spring" in The Evergreen Review #116 could use some pruning to bring out the beauty of the dogwood and magnolia.

Update on the Subprime Poetry Crisis

2008-09-27T15:22:57-05:00

At the launch of the 2008 Best American Poetry anthology, Charles Bernstein announced an unprecedented bailout of poetry.
You would think this would good news for someone as heavily invested in
the poetry market as myself, but I want to know what’s going to be done
with those most responsible for the glut in subprime poems.

Nicole Cartwright Denison's Purview to Undoing

2008-09-26T16:52:59-05:00

Nicole Cartwright Denison's Purview to Undoing
presents a strange textbook, a course in idiosyncrasy and imagination.
The titles of the poems suggest a botanical guidebook with Latin and
common names of plants followed by a brief parenthetical description,
though the poems themselves do not remain bound to the world of plants
(which is, in itself, a violation of textbook conventions).

Why I Don't Like Definitive Statements of Poetics

2008-09-24T15:26:18-05:00

One of the basics of fiction writing, especially in the speculative
genres, is world-building. More apparently realistic genres involve
world-building as well, since no book can simply present reality, but
the conscious act is less obvious. Poets, too, create worlds in their
poems, but especially when it comes to the lyric, these worlds are
presented more through the use of language and music than through
content.

Rachel Mallino's ANTI

2008-09-23T17:04:22-05:00

The five poems from Rachel Mallino's ANTI published by Gold Wake Press
as an echap take the names of anti-depressants as their titles. More
difficult than identifying the meaning of these titles is describing
the relationships of the poems' lush contents to their titles.

Mabon

2008-09-22T17:20:29-05:00

Enough clouds have left the sky to leave it largely blue in time for the equinox. A transitional time always involves steps forward and back, yes, this blue is not like the blue of just a few days ago. That shade, against the various breeds of tree that stay green all year, seemed oversaturated. This seems subtly faded even where light clouds do not tear through it. The light from it still carries heat but not enough to penetrate shadows.

Two New Poems Online

2008-09-20T16:12:54-05:00

Would Not Be Like God and Love Growth Poem soar among the clouds in the current issue of Listenlight.

Equinox Approaches

2008-09-20T16:08:41-05:00

The very term equinox suggests balance, the evenness and certainty of mathematical equations. Equity. Equality. Equidistant. A night that equals day (at least in theory). Any state of balance, however, is charged with the potential of transition. No real stasis can exist.

Buffy as Poet, Poet as Slayer

2008-09-18T18:33:00-05:00

Buffy is a young woman with an occult calling; it may be her destiny, but she has to work at it. She trains; she fights; she probably spends more time on it than any of the athletes at her school spend on their sports. The athletes, however, perform by daylight or under lights. Her skill, her avocation, by necessity takes her into the shadows. In this respect, her situation resembles that of a high-school poet. A high-school poet scribbles poems furtively in class and gets a chance for in-school recognition once-a-year when the school literary magazine is printed.

Read more at Daughter of the Ring of Fire.