Poem in Hoboeye

I have a chapbook-length poem in Hoboeye called Kayd. I hope you like it. If you don't, you should tell someone.

S4S4 and Idiolexicon Sedoka Contest!

big bIG BIG CONTEST CONTest contest

¡Hijole!

Let's say you're too broke or too cheap to buy S4S4. Or let's say that you really like rules and you really like contests.

Well, you're in luck!

You can write a Sedoka and win a copy of S4S4, thanks to Idiolexicon and me.

The rule for Sedoka is 5-7-7 5-7-7, the numbers being syllables. Like a haiku, Sedoka is a form of Waka poetry, but cooler and more obscure.

Wiki that shit and find out this: "In ancient times, it was a custom between two writers to exchange waka instead of letters in prose." I like to Wiki Waka.

So send your Waka Sedokas to Idiolexicon, and Idiolexicon will publish the best ones (10), and Jack Morgan will send you a free copy of S4S4.
Email Sedoka and Address to submissions@idiolexicon.com

Sex and the City

You won't believe it, and I don't believe it, but I pretty much totally loved the "Sex and the City" movie. I am cracking up right now that I actually liked it so much.

First, everything that sucked about the show is not there. Well, it is there, but the materialistic bullshit that pervades the show is shown as something that just might cost more than it's worth. That is, the Romanesque decadence the ladies of the series bask in, which is nothing of much more substance than the idea that acquiring more shit will make you happy, comes toppling down in favor of something sweeter and more important. It actually accomplishes what the fans and the makers of the show have been telling everyone was the point this whole time. This time around, you might even believe that the message of "Sex and the City" is that love and friendship are the only things worth anything, that love is the only label that doesn't go out of style.

Along the way, the film points at every fantasy you could reasonably have today while still managing to tug the strings attached to your, you know, emotions and stuff. In fact, every emotional response you could reasonably expect from a film is aptly evoked by Carrie Bradshaw and her ubiquitous GF's. There were some cynics in the theater with me, but I think that once you've accepted the parallel universe these characters inhabit, you owe it to yourself to go along with the fairy tale.

I laughed a lot, I damn near let a tear fall out of my head a couple times in the sad parts(!), and I feel like calling up every woman who made me watch that stupid show and thanking them.
=-=-=-==-=-=-=-

There is one part in the film that looks like it came out of Rome. If you have a rehearsal dinner like that, you might deserve very bad things.

I wish they edited out all the parts where she says "I am a writer."
I laughed every time she said anything about writing.

MIke Young and other cool things

Sara was looking for Mike. This is what she found. She sent me an email asking if I thought Mike would rollerskate with her. I think he would. The new Noö Journal is out. You should look at it and pretend to read it and tell other people that you read really great things in it but wish that Jack Morgan had work in it.


Michael Young
Last I heard he was a poet and living in Manhattan ... Mike lived across the street from Marta Weitz's parents. He was born on Christmas Day ... According to Marta, "He was really into Martial Arts, poetry and writing. He does live in New York and is doing a lot of writing." ... Before moving across the street from Marta's parents' house, Mike used to live about a block from MY house behind St. Catherine's. He and I spent a LOT of time together when we were very young listening to Kiss and Queen in our bedrooms, hiking around Neversink Mountain, flying balsa wood planes, racing Match-Box cars, playing kickball, going roller-skating and throwing a Frisbee back and forth.


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Speaking of roller skates, I found out last night that I will be reading at Adobe Books on June 26th in the Mission with Sophie Sills. It is going to be a very good reading.

June 7th is MAPP, where Joseph Lease and Elliot Harmon and others will be reading, and I will be MC-ing and co-curating. L's Caffe, I will update you on that one.

June 29th, Jack Morgan and Sara Mumolo will be reading at The Smell in L.A. for all you So Cal peeps looking for a fix.

June 6th is all about Trevor Calvert at Pegasus, but if you're stuck on the peninsula, you can always check out Leslie Scalapino and one of my favorite people/poets, Lyn Hejinian, at the De Young.

Sorry for Snake 4

Sorry for Snake 4!
S4S IV is David Michael Wolach, Della Watson, Richard Meier, Shannon Tharp, Del Ray Cross, Elliot Harmon, Cameron Jackson, Sharon Zetter, and Robin A. Schramm
only four dollars!

=====================================

We are now also offering subscriptions!
One year for only 24 dollars!

S4S4

I can't believe we're on issue four! This is the cover. Justin Margitich did the back, and Jack Morgan did the front. It will be on sale tomorrow. It will be four dollars including shipping. It will have good poets in it.

My Memo Rail Day

I had a nice day today.
I put some finishing touches on Sorry for Snake 4. It's going to be awesome!
I played chess with Cameron. He won all but once. I have no ego when it comes to games, though, so we both a good time. Cameron likes to win, and I don't mind losing.
I read some poetry.
I got responses and responded to responses about MAPP, which is happening on June 7 and will be spectacular! As far as poets, we have Joseph Lease and Elliot Harmon, two poets I admire and respect. More on that later.
I went to a barbecue for Gillian's birthday.
I have such amazing friends that more than one brought vegan grill stuff for me. I was touched and moved by that. So many people want to give you shit for being vegan, but even my meat-eating friends are totally supportive, and I appreciate that. They don't have to think of me, but there they were checking labels for me making sure things were cool for me to eat. Friends like that are hard to come by.
I went home and watched 15 minutes of television (Antiques Roadshow). I love TV and never get to watch it.
Worked on some poetry and stuff.
Went to a show in Oakland (Hubba Hubba Revue) with Matt and Ryan.
Played Pinball at the Hut until they closed.
I didn't drink too much.


I think I like Memo Rail Day.

two things I like today

This Poem by Kathryn Regina.

Weak Week

1. I graduated. As one woman walked across the stage, I told my friend Gillian, "I have been infatuated with that woman since the day I met her, and now I'll never see her again."
2. My English thesis was trashed, but I got an A, which means nothing to me. I always get A's.
3. I finished my German thesis, thinking "I still have a lot of work on this."
4. I found out that, although beer prices have gone up, brewers looking to cut corners are using gelatin as a clarification agent. Gelatin is particularly disgusting. Even when I ate meat, I hated the idea of gelatin.
5. I found out that the gelatin they're using often comes from sturgeon swim bladders.
6. Every kind of sturgeon is endangered, protected, or threatened.
7. Sturgeon is the most highly poached fish in the world because of the value of their roe.
8. The only letter in my mailbox was notification for jury duty.
9. My landlord raised my rent.
10. I couldn't go to see Measure for Measure, and I really wanted to.
11. My German professor emailed me to tell me he couldn't open my thesis on his Mac.
12. "Indiana Jones 4" is about Aliens; it's a prequel to "Close Encounters of the Third Kind."
13. I went to one of the worst readings I have ever been to.
14. The woman who walked across the stage asked me to join her for drinks with friends. I went and she told me she was leaving for NYC and that I would never see her again. She hugged me and said goodbye.

Next week will just have to be better. That's all there is to it.

Ring Bleeder

Some people rip holes in their pajama pants
when they're sleeping alone;
some rip holes in their faces.

I once knew a woman who riped
her eyebrow ring from her head,
and she didn't cry.

And she didn't holler,
and she didn't whimper,
and she didn't even cry.

Bad Day , Good Weekend

Yesterday was a complete failure.

I grew up with people who called me stupid every day, and when I am made to feel stupid it upsets me. It is my weakest point. I always think that other people are smarter than I am.

You know how in Buddhism you're supposed to always imagine that everyone is enlightened except you? I don't really believe in enlightenment the way I did when thought I was a Buddhist, but usually I think that most people around me are more intelligent than I am.

What makes it worse is that I don't feel stupid. I feel like I should be smarter than other people; I work harder and people I respect call me genius when I'm not looking. But I can't escape what I always think is the reality: I am a phony who has duped everyone into thinking I'm smarter than I am.

I don't see what other people see in me. When someone compliments me I don't believe them until they've repeated it ten times or something. When someone insults me or makes me think they know something I don't, I totally believe it.

It's not absolute, but it's a feeling of constant self-doubt that is rather unpleasant. Yesterday, I felt like a moron all day and that my father was right all those times he called me "Polack" or "idiot." Like I don't belong where I am, and I conned my way into Berkeley, and I conned my way into a 4.0, and I conned my way into a degree. Like I conned my way into a blog readership, and I conned my way into friendships. Like a fake. I felt like that all day. It was a really bad day.

)()())()()()()()()(
I am going to a couple readings tonight. One is somewhere far away, where I will see Jessica Cox. The other is close by, where I will see Chad Sweeney at Pegasus in Berkeley at 2349 Shattuck at 7:30. I hope to be filled with wine by then.
Have a nice weekend everybody.

Tao's New Book

Tao Lin and me when he read in Berkeley

Tao Lin's new book is phenomenal. My favorite poem in it is the Ugly Fish Poem.
I wanted to be critical and say something negative, but I cannot think of anything negative to say about Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, so I will say something negative about everyone who has a problem with Tao Lin.

A lot of people say a lot of things about Tao and his work. I just deleted a huge paragraph describing all the crap people say, but I figure if you want to know, you can run a search. The problem people have with Tao is really only that it appears that he might be having a good time. Much of his work has ostensibly to do with depression and loneliness, and some of it is "tongue-in-cheek" or "sarcastic" so that makes some people think it isn't "serious." Those people forget that, even though literature can often be depressing, it is only there to be enjoyed, sometimes because it is depressing.

Tao is not pretending. The people who act serious all the time are the people who are really pretending. Think about who we call pretentious. If Tao pretended to be serious all the time, he would be accepted more by the "industry" and the "main stream" but as it stands, he has a huge fan base of readers who are sick of disingenuous, stodgy writers. When you read Tao's work, you're having fun, and you get the feeling that maybe, maybe, maybe he's having fun, too. That's a hard connection to get in literature. And many pseudo-intellectuals, the ones who usually have the loudest voices, think that real intellectuals aren't allowed to have fun.

The other reason that idiots hate Tao Lin is that he is the closest thing we have nowadays to a literary prodigy. Prodigies are extremely rare in literature. We love them and we hate them. They make every writer feel lazy and slow. Most writers don't get to writing good stuff until they're older. The young ones are exciting and inspire pangs of jealousy. Basically, if you write a good novel or book of poetry before you're thirty and get it published and get people to read it and like it, you're a prodigy. Tao has two books of poetry, both of which are good, the second of which is genius; he has a good novel out; he has a fantastic book of short stories; he's 25. Doesn't that piss you off? Me too, a little. But to bash him for it is stupid.

Another pitfall of considering the author while reading.

You should never know anything about the author, or you should pretend like you know nothing about the author while reading his work. That is the only smart way to read. I try to forget that I like Tao Lin and count him as a friend when I read his work. When I read his work I am looking for things to hate and be critical about. With Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy, I can't find anything not to love.

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Sorry for Snake 4 will be coming out this weekend. It's going to be great.
We are going to offer subscriptions. And there is also a contest for free issues thanks to Idiolexicon.
More details on that this Friday.

Sorry IV Snake

Sorry for Snake 4 slinks forward.

The Costume and the Cherries

Kate Moss sports the poet's costume very convincingly.

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Last Friday night was a miracle reading.  It was one of the best I have ever been to.

I don't make it to SPT very often because I always thought it was a bitch to get to, but it wasn't really, and even if it were, a long hike would be worth the reading that happened at CCA last Friday night.

Everyone was absolutely wonderful.  I don't know how to write more enthusiastically.  People were looking at each other saying, I can't believe how fucking good this is.

These writers read in this order:

Stanford Chan

Lorelei Lee : Un-fucking-believable! Makes every other sex-writer look like naive, unpoetic prudes.

Cynthia Posillizo

Stephen Boyer

Ariel Goldberg

Paul Ebenkamp :  Happier now than ever that he moved to California.

I would go to any reading that involved any of these readers.

Epigrams prefaced two poems.  One of the epigrams was by Walt Whitman.  The other one was by Jack Morgan!  I was touched and giddy.  It really was the cherry atop the sunday for me.  I have been using that cliché a lot lately.  I like the way it sounds.  And there have been a lot of cherries lately.

Speaking of cherries,  here's one. There are photos of the Sunday reading here!

For those of you who don't know the story, I came back to the United States after about six years away from it.  I was 25 and knew that if I wanted to get a degree, a B.A., I would have to do it then.  I had an A.A. in computer graphics and advertising I wasn't really using anymore.  I had burned out on advertising and was teaching English in Germany.  My life was very different than it is today; living as an artist and traveller in the world is a lot different from a life as a scholar and a gentleman.

I came back to the US and earned a new A.A. in English Literature at Saddleback College.  I never really liked school, but I got a 4.0 and a bunch of awards, and I was published a few more times.  UC Berkeley wanted me.

Today I am graduating from UC Berkeley.  That means I have been in the United States for four years.  I've lost a great deal by going this route, but I've gained a great deal, too. I am constantly thinking that I might be going the wrong way.  Some of what it means to be a scholar has felt entirely unnatural to me, and I don't think I've done one thing like I was supposed to my whole life.  I certainly haven't done this education thing the way other people do.  People think it's good to be different, but it's also quite lonely.

I am lucky to have friends.  Normal people have friends, but I know that I put my friends through a lot more than normal people do.  I know that it must seem weird to be friends with someone like me.  It's hard being friends with poets and artists for normal people.

It's hard for a poet and an artist to be a scholar and a gentleman.  Someone asked me why poetry.

And I answered, why do I do any of the things I do?  What else am I supposed to be doing?

A Poem, Some News, the Everlasting Sadness and Anger of Small Animals in the Summertime when It's too Hot to Think.

Genius Laser Star

I have so much hair on my head now

I look like I am a star

on Battlestar Glactica

the one where the Cylons

look like Chevrolets

and everyone smiles a lot

and everyone kind of loves each other.

I want to buy bellbottoms and a laser pistol 

or a ray gun.

The only letter in my mailbox

is addressed to smart consumer.

Inside are dozens of coupons

with pictures of people smiling.

Meat lovers pizza.

Checks with animals on them.

Dog food & free heartworm test.

Laser surgery.

================

I finished a big translation project right now.  Brecht's Jakob Apfelböck, oder die Lilie auf dem Felde.  It's pretty awesome.  I think it is some of my best work.  I wish I could post it here, but it is rather image heavy.  I've been working on a new translation theory that I think might change some things in translation or at least get people talking about changing things or at least make some old school translators really angry or at least dismissive. 

Tonight my friend Paul Ebenkamp is reading at CCA in SF around 7:00.  It would be great to see you there, whoever you are.  Please do not bring machine guns.

If you feel like a little torture, you can watch the video of Lunch Poems.  I am at 59:00. 

Zombie Strippers

Sometimes movies come out that are so ridiculous, they are fun to watch for their ridiculousness. Grindhouse tried to do it last year, but people go to Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino movies for highly stylized visions, not B-rated mayhem and comedy with big star cameos, which is why I think it failed so miserably to catch an audience despite being pretty cool.

I love seeing zombie movies at the Parkway in Oakland. I think Zombie Strippers might be my fifth. I dig the beer and pizza and lack of teenagers, and I love the fact that they have vegan pizza, and I enjoy the sense of community there. It seems like a small neighborhood theater where you meet your friends and run into people you didn't expect. The Parkway is definitely a place where people come for a movie-going experience, not just a movie. You aren't asked to be a critic or a box office number; just enjoy the show. It reminds me of drive-ins in a lot of ways.

Zombie Strippers was awesome. Such a movie was made to be experienced in a theater on a big screen with plenty of people to crack up at the ludicrous parts and shiver at the gross parts. Jenna Jameson makes a good zombie, and Robert Englund is always a pleasure.

A perfect movie for the Parkway.

Afterward we went to the dock at Jack London Square and looked at the moon with the ancient free telescope and listened to the thunderous containers.

Play

I missed Idiolexicon last night because when you never sleep, sleep has a way of catching up to you when you least expect it. I just fell asleep and didn't wake up until it was almost over, so I missed it.

Instead I went to Hubba Hubba Revue! I enjoy that show very much, and for five dollars, it's one of the best deals in town. Last night was particularly great. Tarzan and Casey came to the show for the first time and were happy they did.

We went to Van Kleef's afterward.

Good times

There are pictures of Jack Morgan at his last reading at Trevor Calvert's Blog.

Someone told me that I have an exciting life. That makes me happy. I guess I do have an exciting life. It doesn't always feel that way. Sometimes it's hard to think that people stay at home and watch television. Come out to play, people.

Last Night at Pegasus

Last night was pretty freaking great. A really good reading, I must say. People were gushing with enthusiasm for Jack Morgan. That's nice and makes me happy. Some people were taking pictures, so I hope that they post them soon or eventually. Everyone gave each other high-fives because I asked them to and because they were really excited to be alive and at a poetry reading.
The reading was to promote the Back Room Live book, which is rather wonderful; you should buy it.

Tonight I am going across the water to Idiolexicon partly because Joseph Lease is reading and partly because who can miss a woman named Charity Chan? and partly because Idiolexicon is awesome.

There is a lot going on lately. Everything is moving quickly. I feel younger.
================+++
Have you ever done Peyote? I have not. I am mildly apprehensive when it comes to hallucinogens. I have never eaten acid or walked in the woods after eating acid. The woods are a little scary at night. I am more afraid of the woods than the city street. I am more afraid of Acid than Peyote. I am also quite frightened by scarecrows. I think scarecrows are extremely frightening. You only find them in the country, though. In the cities they are scarce. Scarcer even than good bars or people who know there is a revolution going on.

Some Stuff

I know that I am missing something. There's no need to remind me. I see the way other people are and the way they look at each other when the sun is shining and they're eating ice cream on College Ave. with their dogs who wag their tails at each other. How they call each other on the telephone and smile at each other through the ether.

On Friday, Robert Hass, Brenda Hillman, Bill Berkson, and Maxine Chernoff read poems at the De Young Museum in SF Golden Gate Park. It was very good. Bill Berkson gave the reading of his life. . . or at least he gave the best reading I have seen him do and one of the best I have seen anyone give. I crashed Robert Hass's party, and I walked around the museum with him and one of his classes while he spoke about certain paintings that he knew about or liked. It was a pretty great experience, and I am lucky to have friends like Cameron, and I am lucky that someone like Robert Hass seems to not hate me.
I used to think he hated me because of the dean thing and because of all the police stuff and the BPR stuff, which is all the same stuff, and now I feel stupid about it because he never hated me.

Tonight I am reading at Pegasus Books Downtown, 2349 Shattuck Ave, in Berkeley.

Janet Hardy
Sara Mumolo
Lukas Champagne
Jack Morgan
V.E. Grenier

Thats who's reading. It starts at 7:30.
Should be magical.

I almost didn't get out of bed today, but then I remembered this reading. So now I am up and excited. Won't you get excited and get out of bed and come to the show?

Going Back?

Someone asked me tonight if I wanted to go back to Europe after I graduated.
I had just met the guy, and he asked one of the most poignant questions I have heard in a while.

I know I will be here for at least another year. But what about after that? Will I stay in the states? The economy is circling the drain. UC's are facing huge budget cuts that will affect the way grad programs are funded. I won't have health care again. Why stay here?

I love the poetry scene. I love many of the people I have met here. But what a question! I haven't thought about that in years. Odd.
––––––––––––––––––––––––––------===
I like this poem very much. Someone named Jenna sent it to me because something I said about R&J reminded her of it. I like it.

Triumphant

So this is a good week after all the good news winning awards and stuff.

I am happy to announce that I have finished one of my theses. It's nice to have it done. I now have a 47-page paper on Romeo and Juliet, and that's nice. I think it is a good thesis, and I don't think that anyone has talked about the stuff that I am talking about or done the things I am doing. I'm really just happy its' done though.

I feel like all the sacrifice, and there has been a lot coming back to the states to finish an education. is finally really paying off, and I can start to be happy about it. I still have my German honors thesis to finish, but my English honors is done, and I am going to graduate for sure, and that's a bit of a relief I guess. . . or something.

I am rubbing my eyes trying to think about how I should articulate the way I feel about graduating from UC Berkeley as the first generation of my family who will graduate from a university of any kind. But I have to give myself some more time I guess. I am still adjusting to the fact that I will 100% be finished in a week. A week.

I won Buygreen.com's Prize for Being Green or Something!

Check this out! I am a winner!
I am also using exclamation points more often!
All of my poems will have exclamation points at the end of every line today!

Buygreen.com

Jack Morgan: Googlewhacked

Yesterday, I Googlewhacked myself. I am lucky that way, and it feels good. It's hard enough to googlewhack period, but to do it to yourself is pretty awesome. Apparently, if you search "pantagruelianly Jack" without the quotes, you only get one result: me. That's nice. It's also nice to think that I am the only person alive who has used his own adverbial form of pantagruelian, a word spell check says is wrong even though it isn't. The real adverbial form is "pantagruelically," but I think that mine is much better and will call it my own and will use it until all of the people I know cry out and are silenced at once.

A couple days ago I brought Amanda Nadelberg's book to my German poetry seminar and forced them all to stay after and listen to me read "Feivel," and everyone loved it and was happy I made them stay.

I also finished Joseph Massey's book. It's pretty good. I can't think much about it critically right now, though, because I have to think about William Shakeshaft right now.

Thesis-writing is not the hardest thing I have done. All you whiners. Come on.

I started a blog about the environment and veganism and stuff like that over at Viropop so that my peeps who like this blog and want to hear more Jack Morgan adventures and poetry ramblings and less environment and veg stuff won't be bothered, and the person who started Viropop liked my blog and gave me kudos and a prize. Pretty awesome.

I have also been reading the Colorado Review, which I only got a little bit ago. I like it.
I can't read Tao Lin's book yet. I really want to, but there just isn't time yet. I won't be able to read any just-for-pleasure stuff until I am finished with one more thesis. Then I will be all graduated and ready for more readin' . . . word!

Disco Lies from moby on Vimeo.
I like Moby's new video.

Translation Station

So, a lot of you don't know this, but I am very much very into translation. It is extremely interesting to me. I have been studying translation theory for some time now, and I like it. German is the language I translate most. My German honors thesis is translation of Brecht using visual illustration techniques. It's pretty great.

Last night I went to a reading of other people who like to translate. They were all in a Robert Hass translation workshop, and it was a pretty good reading. It was a little longer than I had bargained for, but that happens sometimes.

Cameron Jackson read from his French translations of Baudelaire, which were quite good. A young woman who wore a tail read Russian translations, which were fantastic. I don't know everyone's name. Sorry. But there was a guy there, whose name I really wish I had written down, who translated poems into songs, and they were pantagruelianly good.

Rules

Someone said this to me yesterday:

"As an artist, if I know that someone doesn't know the rules, I just can't respect their work."

There are no rules. There is only theory. If you choose to apply that theory, that's up to you. In any art, the theory is only there as something to consider if you want to. Theory is fun sometimes. But it is not a rule. People who say "wow, that guy breaks all the rules" are not really saying anything. They are making sounds with their mouths that don't make any sense.

People who have studied theory like to talk about rules. But people who study theory come dangerously close to being critics only. It's hard to be a critic and an artist at the same time. If you believe in rules in art, you probably are not an artist. If you start sentences with "as an artist" with any degree of seriousness, you probably aren't an artist.

Sometimes the application of theory can help hide artifice and sometimes it calls attention to itself. The application of theory is standing on the shoulders of critics. Sometimes that's useful. Much of theory is bull shit. It might be why much of art is bull shit.

But fuck your rules.

What a Wonderful World

Epiphany is an iron woman so hot her heart lights her on fire when it beats at the sky.

I missed Art Murmur on Friday because my friend Gillian Hamel was in a dance revue on campus at UCB.  She was great, and we all were very proud of little Gillian.  About midway through the show, an act came on called "At Least I spelled Your Name Right (Ballet 2), which was a ballet choreographed to The Postal Service's "Natural Anthem."  When the lights went out I leaned over to my friend Casey and said "that was fucking genius."  I could not believe how good it was.  I thought, we must have an amazingly talented instructor in the department.  Who knew UCB could be so good at dance?  I mean, I am not the biggest fan of ballet, and I don't know the terms or anything about it really, but this act was touching and exciting and elegant and beautiful.  It was also the biggest number with the greatest number of people.  When the show was all over, I grabbed a program to see what was what.  And the choreographer for the Postal Service number was none other than Pam Krayenbuhl.  Pam is a poet, too, and I count her as one of my friends.  She was one of the founding members of the Trainwreck Union, and I always knew she was talented, but I didn't know that her talent was so far-reaching and multi-faceted.  I was and am thoroughly and utterly impressed.

Then we saw Iron Man, which is a fantastic movie.  I am hyper-critical when it comes to film adaptations of comic books, but this one was perfect. Yesterday I tried to think of something to hate about Iron Man, and I just don't like a teeny tiny continuity problem and one place where they used CGI when it wasn't necessary.  But all in all, I give it an A.  And the cast was incredible and the dialog was well-written.  Another lovely surprise.

On Saturday, I got Tao Lin's new book in the mail, and then we all went to the Maker Faire.  I just stared at the screen trying to think of how to describe the Maker Faire.  I will just say that I think that it might be one of the coolest things I have been to all year.  There is so much to see and do there, and there are so many things to learn about and touch and play with and scream at and listen to and eat.  At night the fires keep you warm, and the steam punk band keeps you moving.  R2 D2 says hello during the day and robots perform tricks for you.  Boats have battles and bicycles power everything from buses to carnival rides.  Unbelievable.  I will be there next year, no doubt! I can't wait to read Tao's book.

I Like Waifs

I think that people are beautiful. It's rare that I would consider someone ugly. But the women who catch my eye are very thin. Most men I know don't think that thin women are attractive, but I think they are, and I am sick of being made to feel guilty about it by the women I know. Women are always judging each other on their appearance. I don't understand it.

I don't criticize women's taste. It's weird to me that there are webites dedicated to trash-talking male celebrities for liking certain "types." I have never heard or seen criticism regarding the "type" a female celebrity goes for.

Just because I like waifs does not mean I don't like other "types" or am subscribing to some kind of ideal image perpetrated by the worldwide media conspiracy to oppress women. So stop oppressing me for having certain preferences.

I also like tattoos.

What Happened May 1

I am operating a few days slow at the moment.
On May 1, Jack Morgan read at Lunch Poems, curated by Robert Hass. It was a pretty wonderful reading. I think the best were Jack Morgan and Cameron Jackson, but I am a little biased. There were some other good readers/poets, but mostly the ones I liked I had heard before, and there were so many of them, that I can't list them all on this blog. I talked a little about my problems with the Dean of Students, Poulard, which happened almost precisely a year ago. The whole thing will be on Youtube soon, and I will link it here when it does.

That night, Lytle Shaw gave one of the best readings I have ever been to. It was certainly one of the best Holloways, if not the best, that I have been to. I bought two of his books, which I never, never, never do. I don't want to talk about why it was so wonderful because I don't think it would do his performance work any justice, but I was so thoroughly pleased that I was giddy. Many academics looked at each other wondering how someone interesting got into the room. I have no idea how he got past them and their henchmen. An utter delight. And the academics didn't get it or something. While everyone was having fun for the first time ever at a reading, they were freaking out because it wasn't serious enough for them. Someone I gave directions to before the reading found me and asked me if it was always so fun. I had to answer no. I have no idea how they let this happen. Lytle Shaw is a genius. He makes being a genius look easy. And I hear through the rumor mill that many faculty members hate him and will be happy to see him go, but how wrong they are! I wish there were more Lytle Shaws around, and I am embarrassed to have let my prejudice get the better of me. I thought that there was no way he could be good because he was the Holloway lecturer, but I couldn't have been more wrong.

My friend Casey had a birthday party after that; that was fun. I wrote after that.

Anyway, that was Thursday. And I am running behind schedule. Thursday was incredible. I couldn't believe how many people I met who hated me. Also, I would like to say that Geoffrey G. O'Brien, no matter what I say about him, is a class act. He is admirable in many ways, and I don't want to get too into it, but even though we are diametrically opposed on some key issues, he never gives me the snub or acts like a dick around me. I have a great deal of respect for him for that.

I saw some people who I like, too. David Larsen was around for the first time in a long time. And others, too. Anyway, that's the long and short of the poetry stuff that's been gong on with me lately. I hope that all of you have also been going to some kick ass readings and give each other high fives when you see each other. I love high fives at poetry readings.

If Mrs. Rabbit Were Real

This guy makes cartoons real pictures.

A Fig for Thee, Oh! Dean

A Fig for Thee, Oh! Dean
By Jack Morgan

I don’t write poems
about the Harlem Renaissance.
Because everyone knows,
that the renaissance,
like the word itself,
was French.
And the French,
like the world itself,
hate me for my freedom.

The shackles of oppression,
are applied,
like asps to the breasts,
of Egypt and her maids,
by those beneath the boot
of Italian kings,
to themselves.

You, who study pickled pigs
in pickled jars
and call yourselves poets,
curtail my fair proportion
from here to Tennessee,
and my freedom,
like a bell in a box,

children cry every night in Bethlehem,
sweeter than the letters
from twenty-six soldiers,
because everyone knows,
that race,
like the word itself,
is a lie,
because everyone knows
that every race poem
is a hate poem,

Political poets,
most of all
‘weep, ‘weep, ‘weep, ‘weep!
until I finally sleep,
monsters telling me what poems mean,
and I’ll only be born once.

who killed your passion
and your sense of dark adventure,
those places we go when we’re still awake
and we’re still alone
and the stars look like gutters in the rain.

You who lurk in daytime hours
unaware of the garish sun
who love Apollo but not the night,
that place I have to be to know I live
and that I have no will
to be poetic.
I envy you.
I hate you,
like poetry itself,
for my oppression.

New Bethlehem
looks more and more
like old Berlin,
with its wall in its center,
every day,
whose apple core boils,
but things fall apart.