Sturgeon's Law

50% Off Draft

2009-07-02T17:23:00.002-05:00

The reading went very well on Tuesday. Writing has also been productive, and here's a draft. Apparently I'm in some sort of rhyming phase, because this one came together when I was messing aimlessly with the form and realized I had rhymed the first four lines much as they are now. The title I stole from "Binge and Purge" by Clutch.

Final Reminder

2009-06-29T23:37:00.001-05:00

Tuesday, June 30th at 6 PM, Poor Richard's Bookstore, 320 North Tejon Street in Colorado Springs. Come see me read from Torched Verse Ends and new poems!

Here I Am

2009-06-28T17:19:00.000-05:00

We're in Colorado now. More later.

Addendum/Errata

2009-06-26T09:40:00.003-05:00

Aaron wanted me to know Colin Frazer of the CC press designed the logo at the top of the poetry poster I posted yesterday, and the rest of it was adopted from Sonya Unrein's design. They should get the credit they're due.

Also, Jane Hilberry's Body Painting apparently won the Colorado Book Award the year Aaron's No Accident was eligible, so I guess I didn't remember the year right. Jane should get the credit she's due too, as my careless initial comment comes across as incredibly dickish. I didn't mean to insult her book, just say Aaron's was great. Sorry, Jane. Mea maxima culpa. Now I'm going to shut up before I make an ass of myself again.

Colorado Colorado Colorado

2009-06-25T17:09:00.005-05:00

First of all, congratulations to Jake Adam York on his win of the Colorado Book Award award for A Murmuration of Starlings, which is just fantastic.

Speaking of Colorado: in preparation for my trip out and my reading, here's a lovely poster that Aaron Anstett put together during National Poetry Month as part of his Pikes Peak Poet Laureate Poetry While You Wait project. The poem originally appeared in Natural Bridge.

Preparing for Colorado

2009-06-24T15:54:00.004-05:00

We're leaving St. Louis on Friday afternoon to drive back to Colorado. If you're in Colorado, come see me read Tuesday, June 30th at 6 PM, Poor Richard's Bookstore, 320 North Tejon Street in Colorado Springs.

Interview

2009-06-22T15:38:00.002-05:00

There's an interview of me up at Deborah's blog right now, along with interviews of Jeannine, Alexandra Teague, and Harvey Hix. You should definitely go read them!

Wrapup

2009-06-22T11:51:00.003-05:00

Interesting recaps of the Vargas silliness here and here. Thanks to Barbara Jane Reyes and Craig Santos Perez for raising substantive criticisms of the review. At this point, unless someone who's read Vargas' poems wants to engage the review, I plan on not talking about it anymore. "I haven't read him, but..." doesn't strike me as a viable starting point for a conversation, or as bringing much to the table at all.

Oh, and I really, really don't appreciate someone searching out my home address online so they can send me hate mail.

Moves

2009-06-18T23:19:00.003-05:00

I remember Elisa posting on the pshares blog about "moves" in poetry--those recognizable devices we see other poets pulling out repeatedly or that we use often in our own poetry--and now she's mentioned them again on her blog. In the interest of self-examination, here are some moves I notice myself using in my own poetry:

Portmanteau neologisms. I sprinkle these in a lot of my poems. Stipend + stupendous = "stipendous"; slur + certainly = "slurtainly"; disheveled + chivalry = "dishevelry."
The 180-degree syntax turnaround. You've probably seen a lot of poets make the sharp turn in syntax, often over a linebreak. I like to do that, but often that's not enough of a surprise for me, so before that second direction has a chance to get on its feet, I make another sharp turn. It's the poetic version of throwing off a tail. Example: "you’d rather do / the laundry, your taxes, a polka, time..." This one actually starts with "do" and then makes three (by my count) turns (laundry/taxes aren't enough different thematically for me to call a turn between them). It's a multi-zeugma.
Disguised end-rhyme. I've been playing with breaking stanzas up in a different pattern than the rhyme scheme when I use end-rhyme, as well as keeping the rhyme slant. I think I do this because I'm often pleased when I read a submission and it takes me partway through before I realize I'm reading a repeating form the author has done so skillfully that I didn't realize it was such.
The massive pileup of modifiers. There's a canard in poetry that you should avoid modifiers, so once in a while I like to dump several on a single word, like "pirate rebel rockstar fucking cool" or "plastic scholastic system adventure theme parks." All the better if you have to untangle the words a little and they have great sonics.
The illogical logical progression. Something that seems to be a logical or causal construct but is nothing of the sort. See here.
The misstated aphorism/quotation/joke/slogan/figure of speech. More of these than I can shake a steak at. "Cite your sources the Chicago way"; "Bo knows artificial hip"; etc.

What moves do you like, either in your own work or in other poets?

My birthday revisited

2009-06-17T16:01:00.005-05:00

I'm not big on receiving birthday gifts--I think there's not much need for it once you hit 21. However, I did get several nice things last Friday:

A Kindle--so far I've learned the basics, bought one book, and transferred a couple documents to it (before I learned that you get charged for e-mailing them instead of using the USB cable)
A Wii controller and Lego Star Wars Complete, which is a silly fun game Shawn and I played for several hours on Sunday.
A new pair of classic-style Converse sneakers

Also, I ate caramel birthday brownies.

I Get Letters

2009-06-15T15:48:00.001-05:00

Anti- Issue #4

2009-06-14T09:51:00.001-05:00

Now up at Anti- is Issue #4!

22 poems by Sara Tracey, Larissa Szporluk, Kevin Simmonds, Peter Schwartz, W. F. Roby, Joe Plicka, Laura McCullough, John Loughlin, Jason Koo, Rose Kelleher, Jason Fraley, Brian Foley, Mark DeCarteret, Lisa Ciccarello, Travis Brown, Nicky Beer, and Brian Barker.

It's that time of year again

2009-06-12T07:58:00.000-05:00

Another year on the odometer. Happy birthday to me. Party at our place this evening!

Wild Wild Draft

2009-06-10T22:43:00.002-05:00

This is a title I used for one of my crappier drafts in April, plus a grand total of one line from said draft. The title, once again, is stolen from "Westward" by Timothy Liu.

A Few Things I'd Like to Point Out

2009-06-10T15:17:00.001-05:00

No one is actually using live dogs as bait for sharks. Really.
Oprah sells snake oil. Oprah only cares when something makes Oprah look stupid (see James Frey or that lady who decided she was actually going to use The Secret instead of healthcare to cure her cancer).
Robert Hass spells his last name H-A-S-S. I don't think I've seen any poet's name misspelled by poets more often, and it's a damn simple one.
Don't get huffy if someone "spoils" the ending of a movie or book for you more than a year after it's out.
"Recalling" your e-mail submission to me and then immediately sending a new one really does not put me in a good mood re: your poems.

Blog To-Do List

2009-06-08T17:03:00.002-05:00

Yes, it's time for that semi-regular feature in which I list things I want to accomplish in the near future. In this case, this is stuff I'm aiming for before I travel back to Colorado Springs at the end of this month.

Finish and post Issue #4 of Anti- (coming next weekend!)
Complete the poem draft I'm working on right now
Prepare a couple submissions for places that close to submissions at the end of June or sometime in July (I sent out 24 submissions in May, so not many more in the pipeline for now)
Come up with my mini-anthology of 13 poems for James Wright
Hopefully see a preliminary design for my new website
Sign and return the contract for my upcoming River Styx reading (in November)
Get my car tires rotated and get an oil change
Order new glasses for pickup when I get out to Colorado
Have a birthday party

How Online Journals Can Improve on Print

2009-06-06T18:34:00.003-05:00

"What literary journals come up on the first page? Iowa Review? AGNI? Anti-? Nope ." Tee hee, good to know that the editor of Rattle views Anti- as a big bad wolf like The Iowa Review or Agni.

Seriously, though, here are ways in which online journals (or the online sites of print journals) can do things that can't be done in print (aside from the inherent advantages of online publishing itself), and a few journals that are doing them.

Publish outside an "issue" schedule. Anti- does so with our regular poet features, review specials, etc. No Tell Motel and Linebreak do this well too.
A comprehensive archive/index of poets, sorted and linked. Done and done. Beloit Poetry Journal has a nice index too, though it was a little glitchy last I checked. Diagram has a really good one.
Taking advantage of blog-style posting without looking like a blog. Anti- is powered by WordPress software but doesn't look like we slapped a few changes on a template file, thanks to the good design by A. D. Thomas. 42opus and Thieves Jargon are other good journals for this.
More immediate feedback and interaction with readers. I like how Latino Poetry Review publishes "letters" from readers integrated into the issue they're talking about. Other places enable blog-esque comments, which I'm not as wild about at all.
Audio of poets. This is way down my list of priorities for Anti-, actually, for a number of reasons. MiPOesias and From the Fishouse (not quite a journal, but still) all do this well. Rattle too.
Flash, video, or other effects. This is even further down my list than audio. Drunken Boat and Born Magazine do this, though.

There are a lot more, I'm sure, but I'm tired and have a ton of stuff to get to this evening, sadly. I barely even touched on print journals with great website resources, from Rattle to Ploughshares and beyond. Sigh... If I missed other things journals can do, or other journals that do them, please alert me in comments.

Outsider Poets

2009-06-04T14:44:00.005-05:00

My review at Latino Poetry Review got some notice from Barbara Jane Reyes in the context of a post on that New Yorker article about MFA programs, and what it means to be an "outsider poet." I posted a short response that WordPress may have eaten because WordPress doesn't like the .info address. Similar thoughts are posted below. (NOTE: My comment on the post is now up too...)

I agree with a large portion of what she's saying--the only thing I see is that she may think I'm an "insider" using the term "outsider" as an inherent dismissal, neither of which is true. I'm sure many of you know I'm not one to push the MFA route as the best (or only) way to go, being a non-MFA non-teacher myself. There is of course a lot of slack junk that comes out of MFA programs, and plenty of good stuff from outside them. However, the MFA road clearly gets the bulk of the attention and the dollars, and not being part of the "establishment" is a major feature of any article published in the big press about a non-MFA (or non-teaching) poet (e.g. Frederick Seidel, August Kleinzahler, etc.).

In the case of Vargas, he has the odd background, the small presses that fly below the radar of what gets reviewed or wins awards, and his work that sets him up as opposed to a certain brand of poetry stuffiness. "Outsider poet" may be shorthand, but I certainly think it's justified with a simple explanation. I didn't like his books all the way through, but saying "outsider" isn't a value judgment on the work--I cover my thoughts on the content of the poems elsewhere in the review.

It's certainly also worthwhile to specify just what we mean and don't mean using terms like these. If someone were to refer to me as an "outsider poet" sociologically, I wouldn't argue or be offended, though I think my work isn't set as much in opposition to a poetic other, so it might be a fuzzier label for me.

Art & Reviews wanted for Anti-

2009-06-02T14:28:00.003-05:00

Are you a visual artist, or do you know any visual artists/photographers? Anti- is always looking for new cover art. Please spread the word.

We're also looking for more good reviews of poetry books. Please peruse our list of available titles to see if anything interests you.

And yes, of course we're always reading new poetry, so do send that too..

Reading Announcement

2009-06-01T18:29:00.001-05:00

Hey hey, I'm going to be back in Colorado Springs this summer, and I'll be doing a reading for Torched Verse Ends! The reading will be Tuesday, June 30, 6 PM (tentatively) at Poor Richard's Bookstore, 320 N. Tejon Street in Colorado Springs. I hope all you Colorado folks will come out and see me, and I'll have more information for you as this develops.

Poetry Personally

2009-05-31T19:09:00.002-05:00

Why do we have such a cultural preoccupation with what our artists/entertainers/athletes are like as people? As soon as we like a song or a movie or a home run or a poem, we want to know the person behind it. We're only going to be disappointed. You don't get to those upper echelons without a sizable ego, and even good people have times when they're lousy. Beyond how a person acts in the public sphere of their art, I don't want to know more about them.

Conversely, why do we leap to the personal defense of people doing things that are obviously wrong on the grounds that those people are great artists/entertainers/athletes/whatever? Do they really not realize the fallacy of saying "But he/she writes great songs" as a defense against bigotry or sexual harassment or cheating or general douchebaggery? It's possible to have a little Venn diagram where "Art/entertainment I like" intersects with "People who suck as people," or vice versa.

If you and I are friends, I hope it's because you like to hang out with me and I'm mostly a decent person, not an asshole too often, and I make things right when I am. If you're a reader, do you really judge my poems based on the times I'm good and/or the times I'm awful? If you know me personally and I do something wrong, should you hesitate to call me on it based on good writing? In conclusion, po-biz po-biz po-biz.

Anybody remember Dan and Dave?

2009-05-29T17:50:00.005-05:00

In 1992, in advance of the Summer Olympics, Reebok ran a series of ads about "Dan and Dave": Dan O'Brien and Dave Johnson, the two leading decathletes in the United States. The commercials showed them competing in their events and posited that their (manufactured) rivalry would be settled in Barcelona. But...

The ads also aired in advance of the US Olympic Trials. At the trials, Dan O'Brien completely failed to make the Olympic Team. Dave Johnson made the team, but went on to an uninspired bronze medal finish. The campaign served as a warning about hanging your promotional hopes on an event that was anything but assured.

Advertisers don't always take heed, of course. This year, basketball fans have been inundated with commercials from Vitamin Water, Nike, and the NBA itself playing up the LeBron James vs. Kobe Bryant debate/rivalry/whatever, to be settled in the NBA Finals, as if the Lakers and Cavaliers were destined to meet there. But...

Orlando is up 3-2 on the Cavaliers in the Eastern Conference Finals and only needs to win game 6 on their home court to ruin it all. The Denver Nuggets still have a chance of ruining the Lakers' party as well, and I'm rooting for that due to home-state team interest in addition to the massive dose of Schadenfreude it would give me. Now that I think about it, Schadenfreude drives a lot of my rooting decisions when I don't already have a horse in the race.

You published where?

2009-05-27T14:50:00.004-05:00

The new Latino Poetry Review is up. There's a review by me in it. Also reviews by Heather Treseler, Peter Ramos, Carmen Giménez Smith, Craig Santos Perez, Jeff Sirkin, Barbara Jane Reyes, Todd Thorpe, and Emily Pérez of a wide array of Latino/a authors.

NOTE: Typos seem to have appeared in my review somewhere during the editorial/posting process. If you see one, know I'm trying to get it corrected.

ALSO NOTE: The poet currently up at Poetry Daily is the other Steven Schroeder, in case you couldn't tell from context.

Drafto de Mayo

2009-05-26T21:09:00.002-05:00

Here's my first new draft post 30-in-30. Feels good to get this going again. I stole the title from Maximus in Gladiator.

Anti- Featured Poet #26

2009-05-24T12:08:00.001-05:00

The latest poet feature at Anti- is Karyna McGlynn. Come see what I like to think of as Anti- thesis poetry. And since she brings it up, I think the opposite of a monkey wearing a tuxedo is Queen Elizabeth I in a gunnysack.