Poets Live

[PrinceMyshkin]

Poets live in the interstices
between poem and poem, or at least
the shell of them lives there.
Between the last poem
--which was never as good as it
was meant to be–and the next,
which might never come,
there is nothing very much.

Love, of course, which might give birth
to a poem if or when love
goes sour; blinding
business success, sure
- why not? That’d give one
a hard-on or two...a trip
overseas? Yawwwwwn!

A new drug? Yes! Yes!
Especially if it might lead
to some killer
new opening line!






Jerry Newman © Aug 6, 2007

[firefangled]

Poets live in the interstices
between poem and poem, or at least
the shell of them lives there.
Between the last poem
--which was never as good as it
was meant to be–and the next,
which might never come,
there is nothing very much.

Love, of course, which might give birth
to a poem if or when love
goes sour; blinding
business success, sure
- why not? That’d give one
a hard-on or two...a trip
overseas? Yawwwwwn!

A new drug? Yes! Yes!
Especially if it might lead
to some killer
new opening line!






Jerry Newman © Aug 6, 2007



Isn't it true, everything for the poem. When it comes you cannot help yourself, you have to write it down.

I love the central stanza. All else is subverted.

[PrinceMyshkin]

Female, you thought stumble
and there would be arms
to steady you and a voice
to say, "Peek a boo--
love!"

Male, I thought maps
could be read down
as well as along
the heart's cross-walk.



J. Newman Sudden Proclamations © 1992

[AuntShecky]

Decades ago, a college professor quoted another academic who had shut the book on Wallace Stevens. He exclaimed,
"His poetry does not live!
Of course, we would emphatically disagree with that assessment. Wallace Stevens's poetry does in fact "live,"
especially in the sense that it has lasted and we still read it. It's like the graffiti that appeared in Greenwich Village right after Charlie Parker died: "Bird lives!"
If we put or try to put a sense of immediacy, urgency in our speaker's "voices" the poems we write can live also.
I liked the light-heartedness of your poem; the irony about writing poetry about love, and loss of same (how in heaven's name can anyone say anything NEW about it?);
and the very sly line about "business success" in which your speaker remarks "why not?"
By the bye, speaking of business (the antithesis of art) the aforementioned Mr. Stevens lived a double life. By night he was a poet; by day he was an insurance company executive in Hartford, Connecticut. Like Superman and Clark Kent, never the twain did meet. Wallace Stevens:
Superhero!

[firefangled]

Decades ago, a college professor quoted another academic who had shut the book on Wallace Stevens. He exclaimed,
"His poetry does not live!
Of course, we would emphatically disagree with that assessment. Wallace Stevens's poetry does in fact "live,"
especially in the sense that it has lasted and we still read it. It's like the graffiti that appeared in Greenwich Village right after Charlie Parker died: "Bird lives!"
If we put or try to put a sense of immediacy, urgency in our speaker's "voices" the poems we write can live also.
I liked the light-heartedness of your poem; the irony about writing poetry about love, and loss of same (how in heaven's name can anyone say anything NEW about it?);
and the very sly line about "business success" in which your speaker remarks "why not?"
By the bye, speaking of business (the antithesis of art) the aforementioned Mr. Stevens lived a double life. By night he was a poet; by day he was an insurance company executive in Hartford, Connecticut. Like Superman and Clark Kent, never the twain did meet. Wallace Stevens:
Superhero!

Thank you, Aunty for these kudos for Stevens. He was indeed a poetic Superhero.

It was Steven's syntax and immense vocabulary and access to allusion that often made him seem inaccessible. For me, Stevens was the first signature poet of the 21st century.

[AuntShecky]

Well, yeah, but the 20th c. also had Robert Frost, William Carlos Williams, Carl Sandburg, et al.
I know we're not supposed to discusss politics, but the way that former U.S. Sec. of Defense Rumsfeld used to fracture syntax gave satirists an opportunity to compare his prose unfavorably with the oblique lines of Mr.
Stevens.

[Virgil]

Poets live in the interstices
between poem and poem, or at least
the shell of them lives there.
Between the last poem
--which was never as good as it
was meant to be–and the next,
which might never come,
there is nothing very much.

Love, of course, which might give birth
to a poem if or when love
goes sour; blinding
business success, sure
- why not? That’d give one
a hard-on or two...a trip
overseas? Yawwwwwn!

A new drug? Yes! Yes!
Especially if it might lead
to some killer
new opening line!






Jerry Newman © Aug 6, 2007

I really liked the openning stanza on this one. The idea seems like a really good one, but the examples you give seem a little trite. It's kind of been said before.





Female, you thought stumble
and there would be arms
to steady you and a voice
to say, "Peek a boo--
love!"

Male, I thought maps
could be read down
as well as along
the heart's cross-walk.



J. Newman Sudden Proclamations © 1992

Wow, I really like this one Prince. Perhaps close to perfection. :thumbs_up


Decades ago, a college professor quoted another academic who had shut the book on Wallace Stevens. He exclaimed,
"His poetry does not live!
Of course, we would emphatically disagree with that assessment. Wallace Stevens's poetry does in fact "live,"
especially in the sense that it has lasted and we still read it. It's like the graffiti that appeared in Greenwich Village right after Charlie Parker died: "Bird lives!"
If we put or try to put a sense of immediacy, urgency in our speaker's "voices" the poems we write can live also.
I liked the light-heartedness of your poem; the irony about writing poetry about love, and loss of same (how in heaven's name can anyone say anything NEW about it?);
and the very sly line about "business success" in which your speaker remarks "why not?"
By the bye, speaking of business (the antithesis of art) the aforementioned Mr. Stevens lived a double life. By night he was a poet; by day he was an insurance company executive in Hartford, Connecticut. Like Superman and Clark Kent, never the twain did meet. Wallace Stevens:
Superhero!

Are you a Wallace Stevens fan Aunty? I started a Wallace Stevens thread here: http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?t=27067&highlight=stevens. Perhaps you can comment on some of the poems I posted there.

[PrinceMyshkin]

Let’s abolish romance
in favour of plain,
common, garden-variety
kindness.

Let’s make love
without poetry
but with frank
Anglo-saxon speech.





Jerry Newman © 22Sep07