Monday, January 28, 2008
Thursday, January 24, 2008
not quite what I wrote
in reply to Junker:
An editor bangifies the slopdish wang signature, enabling the rest in the nest of the good panther, named sometimes but often willingly depantsed.
If I were to say a magazine collapsed among the Denver 9, those who publish with a poor sense of twinges, the tiring of never occurred purples, even among the well-lit horses barndoor flapping at a hootenany’s any time buffet then blah would have to reupended among tah, or, conservatively, among shah.
There are, even steven, a fairly budded welch. Editors who tend suchlike whiskeys are fro to the vote, Best! Until everyone can agree, we must anger the ghetto friendlies.
I think a poet is free from the usual conundrum of the avuncular, but that’s only a theft from the visible whig. How could you aver! Stories were left collapsible, oiled.
An editor bangifies the slopdish wang signature, enabling the rest in the nest of the good panther, named sometimes but often willingly depantsed.
If I were to say a magazine collapsed among the Denver 9, those who publish with a poor sense of twinges, the tiring of never occurred purples, even among the well-lit horses barndoor flapping at a hootenany’s any time buffet then blah would have to reupended among tah, or, conservatively, among shah.
There are, even steven, a fairly budded welch. Editors who tend suchlike whiskeys are fro to the vote, Best! Until everyone can agree, we must anger the ghetto friendlies.
I think a poet is free from the usual conundrum of the avuncular, but that’s only a theft from the visible whig. How could you aver! Stories were left collapsible, oiled.
Monday, January 21, 2008
Saturday, January 19, 2008
drawing
I found this sketch in a pile of papers. I figure it’s from 2002 or thereabouts. I think the smudges are cat footprints.
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Wednesday, January 09, 2008
reply to Josh
I left the following comment on in response to a posting by Seth Abramson on his blog:
You quote Harold Bloom as insisting that one of the primary ways one must approach a poem is as a judge -- "Is it Good?"
I remember being intimidated by that notion when I was a youngster. How could I judge Great Poetry when I hardly knew what poetry was?
Part of my solution was throwing out the notion that there is such a thing as Great Poetry or a Great Poet. It's just not useful.
The first thing I ask of a poem is: am I enjoying the experience of reading you? I don't just mean am I getting a warm feeling but am I being engaged, pulled in, surprised, all those things one hopes will wash one out of the doldrums.
Different people will enjoy different experiences. Far as books are concerned (let alone movies) I know there are plenty I can't abide (even ones everybody else seems to love!). Why should it be different with poetry? Thus, my main reply to those who make pronouncements about poetry is Poetry Is Not One Thing.
Fiction isn’t just Finnegan’s Wake … or Nancy Drew. Casablanca isn’t the only possible movie, any more than Die Hard 8 or . Poetry can be many things, too.
The only people whose job description includes judging whether a poem is good: editors, poets ... and, I suppose, those who study poems, though I'd suggest it's more important for the student of poetry to be able to see what the poem does than judge whether it's good. Many well-crafted, interesting, even admirable pieces aren't the sort of thing you ever want to read again.
Readers shouldn’t have to judge. Except whether the object before them is worth the time they could be using to vacuum a rug, the mental effort they could be putting toward balancing a checkbook or puzzling over a crossword.
[The comment is not precisely the comment posted at Seth’s blog, but the edits are mostly for clarity.]
You quote Harold Bloom as insisting that one of the primary ways one must approach a poem is as a judge -- "Is it Good?"
I remember being intimidated by that notion when I was a youngster. How could I judge Great Poetry when I hardly knew what poetry was?
Part of my solution was throwing out the notion that there is such a thing as Great Poetry or a Great Poet. It's just not useful.
The first thing I ask of a poem is: am I enjoying the experience of reading you? I don't just mean am I getting a warm feeling but am I being engaged, pulled in, surprised, all those things one hopes will wash one out of the doldrums.
Different people will enjoy different experiences. Far as books are concerned (let alone movies) I know there are plenty I can't abide (even ones everybody else seems to love!). Why should it be different with poetry? Thus, my main reply to those who make pronouncements about poetry is Poetry Is Not One Thing.
Fiction isn’t just Finnegan’s Wake … or Nancy Drew. Casablanca isn’t the only possible movie, any more than Die Hard 8 or . Poetry can be many things, too.
The only people whose job description includes judging whether a poem is good: editors, poets ... and, I suppose, those who study poems, though I'd suggest it's more important for the student of poetry to be able to see what the poem does than judge whether it's good. Many well-crafted, interesting, even admirable pieces aren't the sort of thing you ever want to read again.
Readers shouldn’t have to judge. Except whether the object before them is worth the time they could be using to vacuum a rug, the mental effort they could be putting toward balancing a checkbook or puzzling over a crossword.
[The comment is not precisely the comment posted at Seth’s blog, but the edits are mostly for clarity.]
Saturday, January 05, 2008
Nene
In Feb 1976 I was ten. I was in 6th grade? That would make this the first Hawaii visit. My dad sent my brother & me tickets and we met him and his Alaska family on one of the islands. I remember being ushered to a connecting flight across the breezy muggy tarmac by a flight attendant.
We went again the following year. I’m sure I got sunburned on both trips. I know I got burnt badly on one of them, such that I felt like I was being tortured all night.
Dad had remarried after the marriage between him & my mother broke up. He gained two new sons about the ages of David & me, and, shortly after, a second daughter, who was, I believe, six years old on our first Hawaii trip. I bonded with her by animating her Pooh puppet. Her brothers had little tolerance for their bouncy tag-along kid sister.
Peanuts was the cat we left in California with Mom.
Wednesday, January 02, 2008
I get lonely
I like to imagine I have a big readership. You’re just quiet. It’s not like I say anything controversial – what’s to argue with? And everybody knows how tiresome chirpy DITTO!s get.
Since I added the stats service to the blog I can’t delude myself as much. I see that few people are visiting and most of those who do are popping by to find a picture of Hagrid (it’s just a link!) or cat pee solutions (go here).
I’ve been keeping this blog since December 2002, which means it slipped past the five year mark last month. Currently I get about ten visitors a day. There are maybe 3 people who subscribe to the RSS feed. LuvSet ain’t burnin’ up the web.
I don’t obsess about these numbers. Like the poetry I write the blogging I do is primarily for me, to keep the me of me alive. I’m not, in other words, writing for an audience. So not getting what I’m not working for is no great surprise?
There are things one can do to improve a blog’s visibility, I know. But marketing bores me; it takes an energy I tend to have little of. I would rather put the energy into the writing. What I write I write carefully. I strive to be clear in my prose, to burnish the poems until they reflect light. I don’t bother to say the same thing everybody else has said already, unless it’s got a Glenn Ingersoll variation.
I imagine a larger, talkier audience would raise my enthusiasm. I would feel seen rather than overlooked. I would be able to earn money with blog ads! But perhaps I’m wrong. A thousand and two more of you rummaging through my daily (semi-daily?) thoughts would be NO GOOD? Well, whatever. I imagine myself developing strategies to cope. At worst one could wait out that excess, right? I’m sure you’d be able to swing with it, my core ten, of all the millions those who truly care what Glenn thinks about hahoo.
Since I added the stats service to the blog I can’t delude myself as much. I see that few people are visiting and most of those who do are popping by to find a picture of Hagrid (it’s just a link!) or cat pee solutions (go here).
I’ve been keeping this blog since December 2002, which means it slipped past the five year mark last month. Currently I get about ten visitors a day. There are maybe 3 people who subscribe to the RSS feed. LuvSet ain’t burnin’ up the web.
I don’t obsess about these numbers. Like the poetry I write the blogging I do is primarily for me, to keep the me of me alive. I’m not, in other words, writing for an audience. So not getting what I’m not working for is no great surprise?
There are things one can do to improve a blog’s visibility, I know. But marketing bores me; it takes an energy I tend to have little of. I would rather put the energy into the writing. What I write I write carefully. I strive to be clear in my prose, to burnish the poems until they reflect light. I don’t bother to say the same thing everybody else has said already, unless it’s got a Glenn Ingersoll variation.
I imagine a larger, talkier audience would raise my enthusiasm. I would feel seen rather than overlooked. I would be able to earn money with blog ads! But perhaps I’m wrong. A thousand and two more of you rummaging through my daily (semi-daily?) thoughts would be NO GOOD? Well, whatever. I imagine myself developing strategies to cope. At worst one could wait out that excess, right? I’m sure you’d be able to swing with it, my core ten, of all the millions those who truly care what Glenn thinks about hahoo.
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