Other Stuff, Too.

Hello. I will be reading at Philz tomorrow, Saturday the first of Decembre. Philz is in the Mission on the corner of 24th and Missions. Is practically the easiest place to get to ever. The event starts at seven, and I will read around eight. It would be nice if some people that I knew were there. Sometimes, when I am revealing my utter lack of talent, it is nice to have people I know there. They always tell me that I was good. I need that. I am weak. I am what Harold Bloom calls a "weak poet." But I'm trying, HAROLD!

Many things have been going on. It has been a very busy week. I haven't been doing some of the things I love to do, like blogging and reading National Geographic. I have been doing other things I love, though. I have been illustrating a Kleist novella called Der Findling, which I am also translating. Also, I have been putting a chapbook together. A couple of months ago, I felt that it went over quite well when I read it to a captive audience in the mission. The whole thing. It's called "Dearest Children of the Revolution, I am Pleased to Announce My Resignation." It will come out in one week. I hope you like it when it does.

Another thing happened that has been bothering me a great deal. I will write about it soon, when I have thought about it a bit more. It has to do with the most important person in poetry and a class it is teaching. It has to do with integrity. It has to do with censorship. It has to do with my utter lack of talent. It has to do with other stuff, too.

Jack Morgan Does Charity Work Because It Makes Him Feel Good

Here's a lesson: cmyk red does not translate well to the internet. You have to mess with it a bit in rgb and there's always a color shift. Then it gets fuzzy when you resize it. Red is a weird color. It takes a lot Yellow and Magenta to get to one color that your eye sees naturally. I have always been fascinated with color differences between light and pigment.

I did this for a a charity that teaches blind people how to ballroom dance. They are having a Christmas benefit gala and they decided to get the least Christmasy person they could find (me) to do this poster and an accompanying banner. It's getting me into the spirit, though, and it makes me feel kind of good about myself. Charity makes you feel good about yourself. Feeling good about yourself is very important around Christmastime.

I don't celebrate Christmas as a rule. I try to ignore it. America loves Christmas, and it likes to show it. It's impossible to ignore. It's like that fuzziness you get when you resize a red-heavy image on the internet. And you think, "this isn't made for the internet; it's made for print, silly. Just ignore it." But you can't ignore it. I mean, it's right there, glaring you in the face until you click on it to enlarge it. Like a boil on your elbow. And you scratch it and it makes you feel good. Feeling good is important around Christmastime.

Blake's Chimney

I have always had a weïrd affinity for William Blake's poems. He's pretty good. Last night I said "'weep! 'weep! 'weep!" and the person I was with thought I was trying to cry or doing an R2D2 impersonation.

I was, of course, referencing poetry, which is precisely the most pretentious thing you could possibly do in mixed company. But can you blame me for thinking everyone should read these two short poems?

I know that I will never be as good as William Blake, but I feel a connection with him because he is an illustrator, a poet, and a printmaker. I am all of those things. He made books in his basement and gave them to people for their birthdays and Christmas and other times when people traditionally give gifts to one another. He read them to captive audiences that were too nice to say that they didn't want to hear poetry. Thankfully, some of them liked the books and kept them.

Ginsberg sang some of the Blake "songs." I'm not convinced they were ever meant to be sung, but it is cool seeing the video of Ginsberg singing Blake songs. Kind of funny that someone like Ginsberg was interested in someone like Blake.

In Germany, people often give each other figurines resembling chimney sweepers on birthdays and Christmas and other days on which people traditionally exchange gifts. They're good luck. Sometimes people gave me such a figurine, and I have given many. Most people think of Dick VanDyke whcn they see a chimney sweeper. I think of William Blake and cry a little.

Perhaps some day I will have an affinity to Blake's work if I weep enough.

Updates for a Monday Morning

In the new Hoboeye journal, I like this a lot by BJ Buckley. Maybe you will, too.

I just won a scholarship for outstanding work in the UC Berkeley English Department. The James Phelan award. So now I am officially a phelan. I knew it would happen eventually. If it happens two more times, the state of California will put me away forever. I am going to go to Virginia with the money in order to see some Shakespeare plays. I have never seen Antony & Cleopatra. I have always wanted to see that one. Thanks James Phelan and the UC Berkeley English Department. You'll make a trues scholar of me yet.

Sorry for Snake is in full effect right now. Working hard on it. We have a couple of my heroes in this issue and a couple of my friends. This thrills me. The whole point is to introduce heroes to friends. Even if you live in Chicago.

Through Hoboeye, for example, I met Meklit. Through Meklit, we did Mission Art and Performance Project (MAAP). The last MAPP we did was a huge success. It was really fun and awesome. This time, I will be reading at someone else's event. It is going to be great. I hope you come to see us. I didn''t even have to do the poster this time. Bonus!

Cricket Online Review is F-U-N!

William Moor is at Cricket Online. Check it out. I think you will like his stuff . It's fun. There are other fun things there, too, like Scott Bently.

Poetry should be fun.

If you are an exclusive poet, you should rethink the purpose of your existence.

Chicago, Be My Kind of Town

If you haven't bought a copy of Sorry for Snake yet, you should do so. What are you waiting for? There aren't many left. At the reading last Saturday, we almost sold out. Now there are only a few left for internet purchases and there are two or three left at Pegasus Downtown.

We have not sold any in Chicago for some reason. That bothers me because we have friends in Chicago. We also have a poet from Chicago in the journal. What's the deal, Chicago? New York bought some Sorry for Snake. Will Chicago let itself be outdone by New York? Does Chicago support its poets less than New York? Doesn't Chicago know that we want it to be a part of the national community of poets? Does Chicago want us to leave it alone to rot by itself? Oh, Chicago.

I think the Sinatra song about Chicago is better than his song about New York.

Fascist Island

This christmas, make sure your child is the best.

A Great Reading And an Urgent Appeal

The only thing missing.

Hello everyone. I am guest blogging today to say how the Pegasus reading last weekend went since Jack couldn't be there. The reading went great! Of course, I was in it so I would say that. However, those of us who frequented the Pegasus readings through the summer may have had something much more ominous on our minds altogether.

I am referring, of course, to the state of affairs regarding Clay Banes' well-known plunging v-neck t-shirt which I have not seen in some time. I fear that Clay Banes' well-known plunging v-neck t-shirt has been so cruelly cast aside that it may be languishing in a state almost akin to death. I think Clay Banes is saying he no longer believes in the bold fashion decision he made. And I think we all know what happens to bold fashion decisions when people stop believing in them. They get used for rags! They get thrown away! They just waste away to tatters and then there's nothing left! However, I think there might still be time for Clay Banes' well-known plunging v-neck t-shirt, because it spoke to me in a dream last night and told me so. Basically, if we all clap our hands and say "I believe in well-known plunging v-neck t-shirts," quietly at first, but then louder and louder, the well-known plunging v-neck t-shirt will come back to life. I am pretty sure this is how it worked for Tinkerbell. Maybe.

Thank you.

PG&E Needs More Poetry

Every month I send PG&E a poem. This month I sent them this one.


Even though Nala always Won
by Jack Morgan

Bartenders sick and broken
pacing in their cages
tawny leather long necks
looking over mountains
like mountain lions,
but they’re in the zoos.

The zoos where
things are
almost safe
and almost like
what you’ve always wanted:

Just enough

Money between hands.
Fingertips touch in small moments.

Etymology

From Latin praetensus 'false or hypocritial profession' (past participle of praetendō); via Middle French pretensse "putting forth a claim"

Pronunciation

• (RP) IPA: /pɹɪˈtɛnʃəs/^[1]

Adjective

pretentious (comparative more pretentious, superlative most pretentious)

Positive pretentious

Comparative more pretentious

Superlative most pretentious

1. Marked by an unwarranted claim to importance or distinction

   Their song titles are pretentious in the context of their basic lyrics.

2. Ostentatious; intended to impress others

   Her dress was obviously more pretentious than comfortable.

Sooo Avant-Garde!!!

A
g
e
n
t
G
4

SORRY4 SNAKE TONIGHT!!!

If you know what's good for you, you will come see two of my favorite poets, Jenny Drai and William Moor at Pegasus Downtown tonight at 7:30. Pegasus is at 2349 Shattuck Ave. in Berkeley, ummm, downtown Berkeley.

Poetry is good for you.

Your bones and muscles need poetry to stay strong.

Your teeth and gums are fortified by poetry.

Poetry is not for children.

If your children get into the poetry, call a physician immediately and flush with water.

Last night, I got a lot of compliments for my performance. I think everyone gets a lot of compliments, though. The one person from whom I really wanted a compliment did not give me one. It's probably going to be the thing that makes me want to be a full-time stage actor.

But, right after that, I went to the Holloway reading. Gillian Osborne and Rachel Levitsky were extremely nice, and they both said they loved the poster. I was elated. They were both so nice to me that I started to feel like I was somebody in the poetry scene. It's amazing what nice words from the right people can do for me. I think that I am turning into one of those people who will do anything for anybody as long as you say nice things about them.

I still don't care about people, in the general sense, liking me, but it makes me very happy when certain people do.

My friend, Salinger, didn't like my manuscript, THE HAUNTING OF NINJA TOWN. I really wanted him to like it, but he doesn't. And I am paranoid that he might not like me anymore, either.

Lyn Hejinian said she loved my manuscript. She said a lot of things about it, but I was too busy wetting myself to remember most of what she said. I told her that I would write the whole conversation on my blog and use everything she said as blurbs, and she said she would write me a real blurb. She kissed me on the cheek and I felt a little like crying.

I rode in an SUV to dinner. From the inside, I like SUV's more than from the outside. I hate them on the outside. I kind of like them on the inside. SUV's are like people that way.

There I sat with famous poets at a pizza parlor, stumbling over all of my words making myself look like an idiot. I get nervous around Lisa Robertson. It's like I develop a stutter or something. I try to say things, but they are all stupid. I am stupid.

So Much to Do. Mata Hari.

Exotic

I didn't get any emails about the exoticism. Either no one cares about it like I do, which is nothing new--I find myself caring about all sorts of things that others don't, or everyone agrees with me. Greta Garbo played Mata Hari in the movie. I haven't seen it.

Today, I will be in Macbeth all day. I can't believe how much time goes into this art called theater. Every art takes a lot of time, but this is pretty crazy. I spend a lot of time on poems and designing posters, so I am used to the hours, I guess, but with theater, it's 25 people in a room for three to seven hours at a time! I guess some workshops are like that. . . anyway, if you try to keep up more than one art, you are not going to sleep very often. If you go for a third, forget about it. Our first show is today at 3:30pm in 125 Morrison Hall. I am MacDuff, the Thane of Fife.

Tonight is also the last Holloway reading. So far there have been two language poets, Rae Armantrout and Ted Pearson, and a beat poet, Amiri Baraka. Tonight Rachel Levitsky will round out the season with contemporary experimental poetry. I have read a lot of her work and love it love it love it; therefore, I am extremely anxious to see her. I will be running off the stage to see her in the Maude Fife room, 316 Wheeler Hall at 6:30. I think that this reading will be well worth the jog.



This Saturday is the Sorry for Snake reading at 7:30 at Pegasus. It is gong to be an incredible reading. I can't wait for it. William Moor and Jenny Drai will be reading. They are two of my favorite poets. They are both my friends. I met them under very similar circumstances. After their readings, Jenny at 580 split, and William at New Yipes, I approached them to say how much I liked their reading.

One Woe Doth Tread Upon Antoher's Heel

Gertrude was right. You should believe anything anyone named Gertrude tells you.
I haven't written any personal things for a while. So, here we go.

My dog died.
My father went in for surgery. He had intubation issues.
My mother had to put her dog in the freezer because my father was in the hospital. I don't know why she couldn't dig a hole.
The dog stayed there awhile.
My mother took the frozen dog to the incinerator people. . . crematorium? Do they call it that for dogs?
She fell down and broke her arm.
There is no way I will finish anything I am trying to get done. I realize this now.
I am double booked on Saturday.
I don't know what I'm doing next year, so every dollar I spend feels like a twenty.
Z?Z?Z?Z?Z?Z?Z?Z?Z?Z?Z?Z?Z?
It starts to sound like whining.
I hope the Hamlet reference saves this post.

Does anyone know who Cynthia Kimball is?
Yesterday, I was walking by Lyn Hejinian's office and noticed stacks of books of poetry across the hall from it. One of the things I picked up (stole?) was broadside called Omen for a birthday: unravelled poems, published by Leave Books in Buffalo, NY. I always love it when I can find a broadside. It was the kind of poetry I usually don't like, but it was a broadside, so I took (stole?) it.

I read it last night and liked it, but I thought I was just too tired to know better. I spent some more time with it today, and realize that I am really in love with it.
It is a collection of poems that run into each other so that you are reading all of them separately but can't help reading them simultaneously. This usually just looks like a mess, and this looks like a mess at first glance, but it is actually a very well-organized, well-made group of poems.

The cover has a star map on it; constellations. The poems read like constellations of stars, and then they make connections with the reader. A lot of "experimental" poets and poems fail at making an emotional connection with readers. Cynthia Kimball's Omen for a birthday does not fail in any way.

unfortunately, there isn't much of her on line. Only a very funny picture here.

I like these poems Stephanie Young wrote.

Dancing with Exoticism

For a little while now, exoticism has bothered me. The practice of it does not bother me so much as the label itself. Some poets and artists I know are wary of the appellation and try to avoid any reference to cultures not their own, like an unleashed pit bull. This disturbs me on many levels.

Wikipedia says this:

Exoticism, by definition, is "the charm of the unfamiliar." Scholar Alden Jones defines exoticism in art and literature as the representation of one culture for consumption by another. An archetypical example is the artist and writer Paul Gauguin and his representations of Tahitian people and landscapes for a French audience.

This doesn't sound bad at all. Foreign lands have always been the topic of great works of art. Even Beowulf deals with the mysteries and charms of travel. We all want to see things yet unseen. Rumi writes about venturing into the void. Hamlet is enamored with the undiscovered country. We want something from these places. What artist has not reached into the darkness to extract something for their audiences? Isn't it precisely that which we love about artists? They go places we haven't; they have things we don't.

If Mata Hari were just another European dancer, she might have escaped the firing squad. Inspiration from afar became the very thing that people feared in her. She had unearthly powers to seduce men of rank, the charm of the foreign, supposedly. She defined exotic dancing, something considered taboo even now in the west. Her execution is tragic. It is the only good reason I can think of to fear Exoticism. When you're different, stupid people tend to fear and hate you.

But as an artist, you already run the risk; the hounds may turn on you at any moment.

Language itself is foreign. This external thing we use to describe and define our internal machinations is a star we can only study at a distance. Every story is forbidden, every word is an ember, every sentence a prominence. The star-dogged moon is a disastrous omen, but it is beautiful, and everyone loves stars.

Language is the closest star. When we make art from language, we are skirting the scorching periphery .

I can't tell you who the poets and writers are who are afraid of exoticism. They asked me not to mention their names. But they're fairly famous and very smart. I think they are afraid of becoming Victorians who appropriate, quantify, and quaintify culture. They seem to think that exoticism is akin to racism. But celebrating the beauty and charm of the foreign is not sinister. And i don't think anyone will ever mistake them for Victorians.

Perhaps exoticism is one of those words that gets barked and howled into the night sky so often that it loses its meaning. But if you are going to be afraid of the night or the sounds therein, stay indoors.

I'd rather my work be exotic than domestic.

Life as We Know It.

Unfortunately, I was unable to attend last night's New Yipes. This week I am taking a break from Bay Area poetics and travelling back in time and over the water.

First, there's Shakespeare, whose howl's his watch, my first love. It isn't just the Macbeth production I'm in; I read Shakespeare often and gladly. I am finding that being in a Shakespearean tragedy, memorizing lines and watching others interpret theirs in ways I don't expect, germinates my reading of other plays. I dig into the Riverside and troll out new ideas about plays I thought I understood. The return to Shakespeare is nothing new, but it is always exhilarating, and time-consuming, to approach a familiar destination from a new direction.

Does one ever really stop reading Hamlet?

Second, there's Kleist, who has seen horses vomiting before the pharmacy doors, a newer frenemy. How many times must the beast push me away before I stop slouching back to him? I have never read him in English, but I presume that it's even more excruciatingly challenging and confusing and worth the effort. I have decided to translate Der Findling, with a new theory of translation I have been working on. I haven't thought of a name for it yet, but it involves exploring the images of poetry, and I am calling Kleist's work poetry, by visual means, i.e., drawing out the images that text forces a reader's brain to generate. The drawings/paintings, will reflect the original text and help steer a reflection in the target text. The goal is to provide a second perspective to govern the translation in the hopes of creating a broader understanding of the original work.

A little brain-numbing to think about, but it is rather exciting and exhausting to execute.

So, life as I know it has to be put on pause this week. I am still writing, but I am not reading contemporaries for a few days. I will miss them.

Tonight a bunch of dudes are reading at New Yipes.

The Time You May So Hoodwink

People ask me when I sleep. I say, "when I can." People ask me when I work or read. I say, "when I can."

For many people, sleepless nights are romantic. They think that every hour you spend awake is productive. People think people like me sty up on purpose to get things done. This is not remotely true.

The truth is I stay awake reading and writing things that have nothing to do with course work. I also try to spend my free time with the smartest people I can find.

Recently a smart person asked me about the way I allot my time. She was spending the day with me. She saw me mark off things on my white board to-do list . She saw how many emails I have to deal with. She saw how much time a poster takes to finally finish and how long I anguish over poems.

Spending time with smart people is more valuable than anything you will get in lecture. Reading what you want is more valuable than reading anything others want you to.

I don't go to class if I have nothing to contribute. In fact, I seldom go any place where I can't contribute anything. If I haven't done the reading, I don't go to class. If I am not useful, I feel worthless. This standard effects everything I do. Thus, I make time. When do I read? Night. In order to better myself and to better my ability to contribute.

When do you write?
I am always writing. Pay attention, and you'll see me writing ideas in little books and napkins everywhere I go.
I read them later.

Time.

Holloway: Rachel Levitsky and Gillian Osborne

Rachel Levitsky and Gillian Osborne are reading at UCB this week. I love Levitsky's work. I always say that I am looking forward to Holloway because I always am, but I can't wait to see Levitsky. I am actually totally busy on the 15th, but I am going to run, literally run, to get to this reading.

Sorry 4 Snake Reading!

Jenny Drai and William Moor are reading at Pegasus Downtown next Saturday, November 17 as part of the unveiling of Sorry for Snake, a poetic journal put out by Stormy Petrel Press.

This event will be very cool; you should come. If you can't come, you should still buy the journal. It is the best way to support poetry that I can think of off the top of my head.

The Importance of Art

What I mean is that we look for the same things, and we enjoy the same things in all forms of entertainment. It bothers me that people think that poetry is more important than lacrosse.

I enjoy poetry more.

I find the lives of poets more interesting than the lives of rock stars, but rock stars and poets are equally important, and that isn't very.

The calculations that fly through David Beckham's brain as he estimates the wind's effect on the ball as he twists his foot to launch it into a spiraling curve for a spectacular goal probably rival those that light up Robert Hass's grey matter as he puts words together on a page to construct a spectacular poem.

People idolize Michael Jordan for the same reason people cherish Shakespeare. We enjoy seeing them play the game. I mean, I don't even like basketball, but I think that Michael Jordan flying through the air is pretty remarkable.

Shakespeare and Michael Jordan are equally important; neither are very.

People who think that they don't enjoy poetry love Robert Frost.
People who think they don't like theater love Hamlet.
People who think they don't like television comedy love Lucy.

That's important: how certain pieces of art can convince you to like things you didn't know you liked. That's what I want my work to do.

Poetry can be cool.
Book covers and posters can be art.
A blog can be artistic expression.

I just have to figure out how.

Why We Value Literature

And we like them all for the same reasons.

I Love Lucy

Football

King Lear

Lisa Robertson Mollifies Existence

Such a great reading last night at Peagsus for the EYEBALL HATRED reading series, which are more frequent in the fall than any other time of year, methinks.

I like a lot of what I've read of Joseph Lease, and his show at 21 Grand last month was brilliant. But the way he reads is just excellent. It is the first time I have seen/heard him, and I was rather enthralled through his whole set. I think I might be a fan now. I was really totally impressed. I am going to buy his book when I have money. I can't wait to read it.

Lisa Robertson wrote The Men and The Weather. Both are good. I truly love The Weather. You probably know that I have had a thing for Lisa Robertson. Last year, everyone I knew was reading Lisa Robertson. She is a rather splendid poet. Last night she read one the best sets of poetry I have ever listened to. All newer stuff and things I haven't heard before, a few I hadn't read before. There is something about her work that is absolutely enchanting. And she is a fascinating person.

I don't want to compare poets, but I feel the same way around Lisa Robertson as I do around Norma Cole. I feel like no matter what I say around them, I will sound stupid, so I try not to say anything. I am so nervous around Norma Cole that I have never officially met her. I would never have met Lisa Robertson if I didn't hang around my betters. My betters introduce me to people sometimes.

It doesn't get much better than Lisa Robertson.
ªªªªªªªªªººººººººººººººº
At my first reading in the Bay Area, this guy named Clay came to me afterward and said that he liked my work. I didn't know who he was, but we ended up talking about poetry, Catholicism and other horrible things. Clay Banes became a good friend of mine and also sort of a guide when it comes to local and national poetics. I owe a great deal to him. He has helped me make this place my home. But I am getting sentimental now.

I wanted to point out that when I first got here, the EYEBALL HATRED reading series had this funny tag: Infrequent but Frequently Good. Something like that.

I think it should be Frequent and Frequently Fucking Fantastic now.
Or perhaps Phrequent and Phrequently Phucking Phantastic to get past the censors like Eazy-E used to do.
ªªªªººººªªºªºªºªªºªªººªªº
I have been hearing, with greater frequency, about the poetic community.
The people who complain about the community are usually the ones who are on the peripheral.
Scornful petty people who are better at pointing fingers than producing anything.
The people who complain about being poets and how hard it is are kind of funny to me.
It is often torturous and ruinous being a poet, and it pays peanuts, but it is also a very beautiful life.
I never wish for anything else.

But I would like someone to introduce me to Norma Cole.

Fair Air
by Jack Morgan

a fresh breath
hair soft in breezes

puffs of mangoes
and chile pepper

paint my greyest mountain
my shrillest peel

one shade short of black
missing my solemnest pauper

Down? Don't Be!

Downy
by Jack Morgan

But don't look so glum. Things are going to be OK!
It didn't go so well for Gelsomina.
Go and get your portrait painted.
Go and get your picture painted.

Go make friends with matrons of the arts,
who clown around with you in winter.
Smile into black coat collars.
Smile into black coat collars.

Go run round town making pictures
with your favorite favorite friend,
and it'll be OK. Fall's fallen.



So last night I got my portrait painted. It's still unfinished, but I like it very much.

Seriously, if you're feeling down, you should hang out with a girl who dresses up like Gelsomina and sit for a portrait with your best friend and at least four bottles of cheap wine. Then write poetry about it.
Fall is over, really, as far as can see today. And there are so many lovely people in the world, including Elizabeth Howe, who is the cupcake princess who is painting us into immortality. Why be a mopey dopey poet?
This is my recipe to a better life in the arts.

Do you know how many great bottles of Cabernet Sauvignon they have at Trader Joe's for under five bucks?
At least 4.

Lisa Robertson and Jospeh Lease

If you're going to be near Berkeley, you might want to stop by Pegasus Downtown around 7:30 to see Joseph Lease and Lisa Robertson. They are good. You should come early, too, because it's going to be a packed venue methinks.

Cold Machines

Last night I had a conversation with the smartest person I know. He thinks that my uneasiness regarding the idea of computers generating poems famounts to sentimentality. Maybe he's right. After all, cars are better now that robots make them, medicine is better with the help of robots, and no one complains about that. It's the product that matters. If an iPod could give you a good poem at the push of a button, what difference does it make that a human being isn't behind it?

Machines weave rugs. The machine-woven rugs are undeniably symmetrical. Some people like the perfectly symmetrical rugs. But I think most people like the tiny mistakes that one finds in asymmetry of the human-woven rug. No matter how good a rug-maker is, there will be inconsistencies in the fiber's color and the shape and pattern. Even if they are minuscule, our eyes pick them up. So mistakes make them good. Mistakes make poems good, too, I think. Especially older poems we still cherish, whose language has been helped with the evolution of our own.

And if a computer could mimic mistakes? Would that not yield the same effects? Yes. So why not let a computer write your poetry?

I might be sentimental.

Mia You: Objective Practice

Mia You is coming out with a chapbook. It is a very good chapbook. There was a poem in particular that I liked very much that had a sparrow in it. A poem has to be pretty good to make me believe sparrows more colorful than they actually are.



Cover design: Jack Morgan

Monica Meza

I like Monica Meza. She was at Mama Buzz a little while ago. I like her artwork.

Jack Morgan is in Macbeth

Did I mention I was going to be in a play?

Rat Whisper

Rat Whisper
by Jack Morgan

Rat arrow sleek
whispers across
sidewalk
another of God's creatures
hating mourning
wants tomorrow
in ratholes
no one smiles
in foxholes
there's no pacifists
in poetry
there's no atheists
in reality

no doors
no sidewalks
no whispers
no owls in years
who knows who
wanted rats to live longer
by murdering owls
rats run the night
with cold woman fingers
groping for God's gifts
we love nets
in the deep

Poets and Artists this Wicked Week

Indeed, a great week for readings and events.

Found Magazine's thing was awesome.
Amiri Baraka was fantastic.
The Joshua Clover reading was spectacular.

Baraka is a performer. I wish that I could do what he does. I often try to keep politics out of my poetry, but he can't keep it out. It works for him, and he can sing and keep a beat on a podium

D.A. Powell: Why didn't anyone ever tell me how cool D.A. Powell is? I don't think I would get away with writing an ode to a crab louse, but he does. His poems were good, and he was a good reader, too.

Joshua Clover: Everyone already knows that I think Joshua Clover is one of the coolest poets out there. His new work is self-consciously intelligent and informed without sacrificing humor. Clover somehow inhabits that tiny space between pompousness and self-loathing. Some people think his poetry is elitist, but come on.

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Last night was Art Murmur in Oakland.
Everyone's favorite little bookseller, Isla Prieto, was displaying her artistic prowess at Mama Buzz Cafe with Kofie One, David P. Madson, Brooke Reidt, and the Duke of Windsor at a show called Jigsaw paws. It was a cool little show and one of two highlights.

The second highlight was a new place called Oakopolis. There was a show there that was all crafty and fibery and I liked the space so much I was green with envy, and I wish I could have a place like that to hang out and make art in.
I met one of the people who run it, Cory Gunter-Brown, and she was a really nice and happy person who showed us the stuff that she made and let us write on her typewriter. I think that place has a lot of promise, and it will be a permanent stop on our Art Murmur excursions from now on.

And happy Hallowe'en, All Saint's, and Day of the Dead.

A quick note

I just want to say quickly that there is a new person in my life who seems to like me. This is a person who I used to think hated me. It's nice to have a new friend.

Also, I wanted to say that there have been two phenomenal readings this week. I will write about them tomorrow.

It occurs to me that I am known as an illustrator, a blogger, and a poet. I would like to be known as those things, but I would like them to be listed in the opposite order. Poet, blogger, illustrator. It has nothing to do with love, but I am a poet first and foremost.

A lot of cool things to talk about tomorrow. Well, today, really. A long post is coming then.