One of the people already on my sidebar, Daniel Nester of Unpleasant Event, has a new book out from Soft Skull Press called God Save My Queen, an afficionado's ode to the work of Queen, written in the interstices of prose, poetry, and drooling fannishness. You can order it from the website, or I saw they had copies at Bowery Poetry Club yesterday.
Art knows no subject-matter limitations. (Speaking of which, Nester criticizes Ron Silliman for using business terms to describe poetry and then acting like he's using some new, unique language. What happens if I start describing poetry using legal terminology? What would Wallace Stevens do? Note to self, etc, etc.)
Moreover, Unpleasant Events notes this collection of sestinas at McSweeney's. Who knew? I wrote a sestina a few months ago. I think you should only make the attempt if you have a poem that keeps coming to you in your dreams and begging you to make it a sestina. And even then, you should make unreasonable demands of it in order to determine whether it's just pulling your leg.
Nester also lists books received, so I thought I'd do the same, just in case any of you had an opinion on authors/titles . . . On my recent trip to Charlottesville, I entered the Nirvana which is Heartwood Books and got the following:
Diane Wakoski: The Magellanic Clouds
Richard Brautigan: The Pill vs. The Spring Hill Mine Disaster
Thom Gunn: Boss Cupid
Fanny Howe: Gone
Charles Wright: Black Zodiac
Also swiped Mark's copy of Christopher Logue's All Day Permanent Red, which I'm about half way through. Eagerly awaiting the arrival of the horse, although I suspect that may be in the next volume.
Anyway, today will see me schlepping around frozen Manhattan, and hopefully going through the mad scribblings I got out of yesterday's readings. Readings are always good for reminding you that poetry can be heard as well as read. Began thinking about what among my oeuvre does better out loud than on the page.
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