Chelsey Minnis is hot, plus I'm reading tonight

Soooo, if you've been reading my blog for a while, you know what a big fan I am of Chelsey Minnis's. I have only met her online, and I'm totally in love with her work. I didn't know she was so beautiful. Jeez. I wish she were in the bay area when I was there so that we could have hung out together and I could have posted pictures of us hanging out together and everyone would be like, wow, you're hanging out with hot, beautiful, talented poets. I wish I knew Chelsey Minnis better.

Tonight, I'm opening for my friend's book opening. That is, I'm going to read from my upcoming book, The Chris Hemsworth Sonnets before he reads from his book, George Washington Werewolf. It all goes down in about one hour. I can't believe it. It all is taking place at the Darjeeling Café in Staunton, VA.

If you have the chance to buy any of her books, you should. They are all magnificent. I should put a review of her last book on this blog. I think it's the only one I haven't written about. It's fantastic.

National Poetry Month and How I Quit Writing Poetry and Killed Osama Bin Laden

I always write something in April about National Poetry Month. I feel very conflicted about NPH, but this month has been a sort of return to poetry for me.

Sure, I still read and write poetry. I even publish from time to time. But since I've been in a band, writing songs and playing music and doing all the things you have to do to keep a band going has been taking precedence over all other modes of artistic expression and ambition.

This April, we had two poetry readings at the Darjeeling Cafe. I read at one of them. I read a short cycle that has been accepted for publication, and I read another short portion of a poetry book I've been working on. I'm pleased to report that poetry readings, no matter where you go, are the same as they ever were.

People still clap when they're not supposed to. There are still members of the audience that will say "hmm" rather loudly in order to tell others audience members that, yes, they are listening to poems that are affecting them on a level that pushes them to audible response. There are still those well-meaning poetry reading goers who will laugh mercifully at little jokes in poems. Kids still make noises and distract everyone in a charming way that only kids can. I've always loved it when people make noise at poetry readings (except for the hmm's), but there is still the one lady who will "shh" her fellow inhabitants of the temporary holy ground of poetry. There's still the poet who demands people participate by raising their hands or saying something when prompted. There's still wine and wine and wine and wine and purple tongues to prove it. There are poets who read too long and ones who are too nervous. There are poets who don't know what a poem is but have enough money to publish through vanity presses. There are still stacks of books that go unread attractively arranged on a table near the bar where you can buy them for a handsome fee, knowing you'll never read them because there are just too many poems in them, and they aren't organized in a way that makes you want to finish. The pretty people and the ugly people and the over-educated and the wannabes are all still there and make a hodgepodge of who's who that makes you realize everybody's a nobody in the end because the art you're performing fell out of favor long ago and doesn't matter to anyone outside of that room, so you love them all anyway.

Poetry is still dead except during National Poetry Month for most people who have ever read a poem or pretend to care about things like that.
Poetry is still the greatest form of artwork the human race has ever known, forcing it to the privileged few and fringes.

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Someone put together a poetry strike online. I thought it was funny, so I observed it. It happened on May 1. Poets were supposed to not do anything poetic except maybe look at flowers and faint. For the poet, this is very difficult.

One day of not writing poetry, and Osama Bin Laden dies. Coincidence?
Maybe poets should abstain from writing poetry more often.

Osama's death is a very strange thing. It caused many people to cry out in jubilation. I don't feel the way I am supposed to feel about it. I'm supposed to be happy, I guess. I'm supposed to be relieved. But I wonder how much information died with him, and I wonder if knowing more about him and how he became the way he was would be more valuable than his corpse. I've heard why he hates Americans, but I would like to know what made him hate Americans. I wish that that information were more public, and I wish more people would think about what makes a mass murderer. I learned almost nothing from his death, and that's why victory is often empty, and this one seems Pyrrhic if it is a victory at all.

Mike Young is in Glitter Pony

Mike Young is in Glitter Pony.

Sarah Louise Green at BRL

I like the first two poems in this collection of three. It's easier to say bad things about the third than it is to say good things about the first two. I really love the first poem, though, "Perch."

I like the sonic echos that thread the stanzas together. And the animals kind of mirroring each other.

Back Room Live used to be a live reading, and even though the navigation on the site is clumsy, I adore the BRL, and I'm proud to say that I was there from the beginning.

Sara Mumolo at Back Room Live

Sara Mumolo is always worth reading. You will like this when you read it.

Cassandra Smith at Glitter Pony

Check out Cassandra Smith at Glitter Pony. Quite good.

Poetry Lately

Many interesting and/or fun things happened in poetry last week.

First, I got some poems published at Back Room Live, which used to be a monthly reading series in Oakland and now is an awesome online poetry journal.

Then, a poet named Jeremy Czerw wrote me an email and told me he loved The Berenstain Bears Go to Church, a chapbook that Wheelhouse published.

Finally, someone freaked out about my "How to Join a Motorcycle Gang" poem on this blog. I'd kind of forgotten about that piece. I like it very much.
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• I've been writing more, too.
• I am going to start posting here five days a week again.
• How sexy is that motorcycle picture?
• I still do not have a motorcycle.
• I only have a Subaru, and it's leased.
• I would like to be the first asthmatic to ride across the country on a motorcycle.
• Che famously did a lot of north/south biking.
• I am the white Che Guevara.
• When I read a lot of Allen Ginsberg, I thought I was a communist.
• Today, I just have strong feelings about equality and motorcycles.

Glitter Pony

Glitter Pony came out a little while ago. I like Glitter Pony. This issue has one of my favorite poets in it, CA Conrad. I've always wanted to meet Mr. Conrad. In his Youtube video in a bathtub in I think Dottie Lasky's house, he looks like a very interesting person. We have emailed.

I once tried to illustrate his chapbook version of the Frank Poems. I only got to the page where Frank was picking out his father's gold fillings.

A long time ago, Sara Mumolo and I wanted to make a play out of the Frank Poems. We never did it.

I have never submitted to Glitter Pony. At least, I don't think I ever have. I would like to be in Glitter Pony some day.

Economy

This week, MBH and I decided to go on a money fast. A money fast is what happens when you refuse to spend any money at all for a predetermined amount of time. I've never heard of anyone else doing it, but I got the idea from Buy Nothing Day, which I usually celebrate. This is only the second day of our week-long fast, and I accidentally broke it last night when I was stranded at a bar and ordered a Tanqueray and Tonic, my signature cocktail. But it isn't a contest, it's a trial, and one misstep is not the end of the world.

I think that next week, in order to pay a penance for my transgression, I will not drink coffee or alcohol.

See, the economy's hurting everyone, and we can't afford to just keep on buying stuff. We can't buy our way out of our problems, can we? Of course not! Can we save our way out? Probably not. It's always a good idea to save money, though.

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Poetry:
I have been writing more poetry lately. It's hard to get time to do it since I've been pimping English and Shakespeare with Yourdictionary.com and ASC. I am extremely lucky to have two jobs that I enjoy. I was hoping to write less poetry for a while anyway. My work is looking different these days. I'd like to say more "musical," but I hate it when people say that.

Poetry as Religion, Masturbation, and Science

The Oakland Fuel Dock is more important than any poem ever written, and it demands more respect. The container cranes stand with more majesty and pride over the gulls cracking mussels on the cement sides of slips because poetry, like all art, has no dignity.

It's easy to think of poetry as a religion. We experience poetry alone with a book or with a reverend-like reader in a group. and the more sinister boors of us will always try to make poetry a religion. Boors see a place where they can impose their own beliefs on others who love the art, and they will strive to turn those beliefs into dogma. Every religion has the arrogance to think that their set of rules are the right ones for anyone who loves God; of such stuff are proselytizers made. People who call poetry a religion are arrogant in the same way. When you refuse their dogma, they shake their heads and call you uninformed, like Martin Luther did when he said the Jews of Germany only refused Christ because Catholics had gotten all the rules wrong.

Rules assume that getting to heaven is a contest. They have holy men and saints, whose names act as place markers for ideas that reinforce those rules. These names have the mystical power of convincing people to believe what they know to be untrue.

The zealots of poetry as religion find saints in old critics. They chant their names in a mantra designed to feign an understanding of the ideas behind them. But reading criticism is analogous to watching the muscles of a very intelligent orangutan as he masturbates. Interesting? Yes. Fun? Maybe. But certainly not important or dignified. Poetry zealots watch to find new techniques so that they too can join the circle jerk of criticism, but they will never admit to having fun with it, and they expect you to stay quiet and reverent. Soon they will learn how to tell other would-be masturbators how it "should" done.

The only way to make criticism important is to change its purpose to that of science. Science's only goal is merely to know. Critics have spent so much time telling us things, eared seals barking orders at pelicans, that the pelicans have swallowed too much sea water and have started to believe that poetry and all other art is a religion. Only in religion do people subject themselves to being told so much. But poetry is not a burning bush and will not tell you anything. Moses was a liar, and so are most critics. They cannot ever tell you what poetry is really saying because it isn't saying anything. When art tries to say something, it fails because it has nothing to offer as a reward for your listening to Metatron. In religion, there's, you know, eternal salvation.

If you think that poetry and all other art is more than a form of entertainment, you suffer from arrogance. Art does not mean more than football. It seems like the more people know, the more they enjoy "fine arts," but who knows why that is? And that why is what's important. Why do we value the arts? Why do we enjoy ink on paper and paint on canvas or the sound wet breath makes through pounded brass? If you allow the educated and educators to stop you from laughing and having fun with the arts, you have been duped in the cathedral into thinking masturbation is evil and unhealthy.

But Art, Entertainment, Criticism, they all are very fun and healthy. The only question is how and why we enjoy the sticky mess they get us in.

Scientists are almost always more fun to be around than priests.

Things that Happened while You were Looking Someplace Else

Hoboeye.com, a journal who has graciously published me twice, came out with a new issue! I love Hoboeye.

ForGodot.com decided to publish me and like 3000 other poets without permission! I love ForGodot. I'm on page 1305.

Did You Make the Who's Who of Poetry Cut? Christoper Cox Got Fired.

The geniuses at ForGodot.com google-bombed the poetic community yesterday. They posted a list of anyone in poetry they thought was important enough to include, which was almost everyone who has ever written a poem. "Geniuses" in that first sentence should not be read with any tinge of sarcasm. I laughed pretty hard and spent too much time on their blog/site/artistic showcase.

I never liked Christopher Cox. I lived in his district for a while, and I wrote him probably a dozen emails when he and the FCC were trying to sell the internet to Disney. He probably deserved firing way back then, but I don't know if he needed firing this time. Does firing the SEC guy help me get health care? I sure would like some health care. This is the first time I have ever been without health care, and I wonder if I should even bother. Surely, I will. I have not had to worry about health care. In Europe, you kind of just have it, and since I have been in the United States, I have been taken care of by the university. If I trip and fall and crack my crown, like off of a hill or something, I will be left for dead by doctors. I mostly hate doctors because they are even scummier than most lawyers. At least lawyers don't get all self-righteous about fleecing you. A doctor is a glorified mechanic of the biological machine. I trust the ex-con at Jiffy-lube more than I trust the average physician.

I trust Milani Rose more than I trust the average physician standing in the way of 45 million Americans and and the right to medicine if they are sick. I found out about her by googling something with "sexy" and "poetry" in the search line. Milani Rose is curvy. She wants us to vote for her because "from my poetry to my sexy pics." Her favorite color is "Rainbow." I hope that everyone who hated me for posting pictures of lingerie models who were "too skinny" or "too close to the ideal of beauty perpetrated by misogynistic piggish men" and Suze Stein will stop hating me now. Suze Stein did not make the ForGodot.com list. Neither did Milani Rose. I think that Milani Rose's poetry is better than Suze Stein's.

A Poem Closes the Yankee Stadium

I didn't know that Bob Sheppard was a poet. And even though I have never seen a game in Yankee Stadium, and although I am not a huge fan of baseball, it was touched to read in the NY Times this morning that a poem closed the park.

I hope a poem opens the new stadium across the street in April.

And though it is not what 99% of poetry people would call "good" poetry, I think it is the best kind of poetry in that it captures and calcifies in memory the sentiments of a huge group of people.

Farewell old Yankee Stadium, farewell
What a wonderful story you can tell
DiMaggio, Mantle, Gehrig and Ruth
A baseball cathedral in truth
Farewell

I really love how the person hearing the story changes from line 2 to 3. At first it's we who would hear the stadium's story, but then it's baseball's brightest stars in the afterlife. Thus, the spirit of the thing tells stories instead of the stadium itself, making Yankee Stadium one of the stars of baseball, whose passing is mourned and whose spirit is praised. And where do we praise spirits? Cathedrals. So the poem says farewell to all of them and an era that, no matter how little interest you have in baseball, is quaintly nostalgic and seemingly more virtuous and innocent. It's a very elegant little poem, really. Bob Sheppard, who has been the voice of the baseball cathedral for 57 of his 97 years, deserves an equally elegant eulogy when he joins his fellow icons of a better age.

Jack Morgan; One Percenter

99% of poets are sycophants who see poetry not as a way of life, but as a hobby or a trade. They have no passion for the craft or for an existence founded on beauty and honesty and adventure. They have neither loyalty nor honor nor courage.

1% of poets adhere to a sense of justice and truth like masked vigilantes from comic books, leading an ostensibly normal life while chasing something more elusive and noble through words and experiences. They believe in the intensity and importance of a raindrop and the way people walk in pairs down sidewalks. They struggle with the power and inadequacy of words. They adore the smell of ink and the movements lips make when they whisper. They don't write because they want to. They don't need deadlines or assignments. They write because it's who they are.

I don't hate the 99 percenters. I've had many friends who are 99ers. Sometimes I even wish I were one of them, but it's always been clear that I'm not.

Poetic Life

I think of my life as a work of art.
I think it is important to keep living like this.
When I die, I want people to say that I had an interesting and exciting life.
I would rather be ash than dust.




Last night my team, "Come On, EZRA, Pound Me in the WASTELAND!" won the quiz at Ben and Nick's. Ryan, Jeff, Jeanine, and Jack Morgan were very proud, victorious, but never sacrificed magnanimity. The team who had the lowest score, a team of only two, had been clairvoyant enough to name their team "Coming in Last." We gave them our free pitcher in a gesture of unparalleled generosity, making Angelina Jolie look like a green-washer or something.

Ben and Nick's has a really good Portabello sandwich that can come vegan. Tasty pub grub for yours truly. It's rare that pubs care enough about little vegans like me.

I got called back for Faustus. I'll be reading some lines tonight. I am looking forward to taking the stage again. It gives me a break from doing poetry readings. I still look forward to poetry readings, but I need a break, I think, from reading at them. I feel like my work is suffering under the pressure of performance.

Food Day

I went to the Mission to see one of my very bestest friends, poet Jarrod Roland. Everyone knows "Rod" in the Mission. We went into Needles and Pens, and the dude in there knew his name. People stop him in the street and say hello. He is definitely a fixture in that part of the city. He is vegetarian and works at a butcher shop, which I give him a hard time about because I don't see how you can rationalize that. But Jarrod is very good at organizing thoughts; he helps me organize mine, anyway. He has the uncanny ability of articulating my thoughts so that I'm able to understand them.
We went to have granola, but they put yogurt in it, even though I asked for soy/vegan. Bastards. I ate it anyway and felt gross.

In Oakland, near Jack London Square, there is a new place that has had a "Coming Soon" sign for almost a year. Tonight was their soft opening. It's called "Oh My Dawg." Oh My Dawg is a sausage and frittes restaurant run by a German named Ami (sic?). Germans know a few things about kicking ass, and they definitely kick ass at sausage and pommes. They have vegan dogs and curry dogs with sauce and marinated onions they make in-house. They also have a beer license and outdoor tables. Ami lived in Montreal for a while, so he offers the kind of fries they make there; delishhh. I want to go again. He and his partner, whom I assume is his wife, are super nice, and I hope that you will go to their store. It's on Broadway and 3rd or 4th right by Jack London theaters. They don't have a Yelp or a website yet because they are really brand freakin new. Their grand opening is this Thursday. You should go to it.

Some low-life subscribed me to a low-life magazine. I don't know who it is, but they must read this blog. My new friend in Virginia guessed what the trash-a-zine is, can you? That's right, MAXIM. I dislike MAXIM very much. I would say that it's written for retards, but retards are smarter than that. It's not all bad. They say that Zachary's, right down the street, in Oakland, thought they say it's Berkeley, is declared by the crack team of experts over at MAXIM HQ, has one of the best slices of pizza in America. Some of the car stuff is OK I guess. But the girlie stuff is a bit lame and tame, supplemented by semi-offensive captions that are presumably supposed to make 14-year-olds say ooh-la-la or something equally insincere to their friends because that's what they're supposed to say when they see starlets half naked. I've read that many women read MAXIM. I hope it isn't true. I also hope that grown men don't read it, but they must. National Guard guys? Anyway, I don't know who it's most offensive to, but I know I'm offended. Crap always offends me, especially coprolite.

Somewhere in there, I wrote a lot and took a boat across the bay and thought about life and Saturn and how I want to go on one big adventure very soon.

Good News and Bad News

These are the winners of The Sorry for Snake/Idiolexicon Sedoka Contest:

David Morini
Lucas M. Rivera
J. Bradley
Kat Cornelius
Matthew Melnicki
Matt Mason
Jessica Wickens
Adam Rubinstein
Stanford Chen
Andy Nicholson

Isn't exciting? They will all receive a free copy of Sorry for Snake and be published in Idiolexicon! Woo-Hoo!
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Russian tanks rolled into Georgia today.
So much going on with war and blood, and I am beginning to feel guilty about spending my time in artistic pursuits rather than something more useful. My whole life, big countries have invaded small countries while the big countries pretend to hate each other, holding one another in stalemate by mutual fear and respect. I don't want it to be that way for the rest of my life, but it would seem that that is inevitable.

Another surge in Afghanistan means more blood on the sand and more coffins and flags.

Everything in the news today depresses me and makes me feel worthless as I plan my trip across the bay to see a play tonight, thinking about how great it is that I am going to hang out with some of the poets I love this weekend.

What cheer, Hypolita?

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.
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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.

Jack Morgan Honored at Berkeley Tonight

It's early, and I am sure you all have reasons not to make it, but they are honoring me at the English lounge, 330 Wheeler, where I will read poetry and someone will read fiction, and there will be free wine and cheese and other stuff. You should come, but I understand if you don't.

Afterward, I am going to see Ariana Reines at the Holloway reading at Maude Fife at 315 Wheeler. Should be good.

A Longish Post about National Poetry Month and Hack Poets; You Fuckers Make Me Want to Puke on Babies

National Poetry Month is here again.  That means that you should go to readings.  It isn't one of those months in which you just think about things that happened or watch a special on television about how things once were.  It isn't a time when you find a person and tell them that you're sorry you've ignored/marginalized them.

Poets don't need your fucking pity.  OK, we need your pity a little.  But check this out: you can buy a book of poetry at Pegasus Downtown in Berkeley and get ten percent. (10%) (!) off.  That isn't bad.  I wish I could get ten per cent. off all the time.  I for one will be buying a butt load of poetry books.

There are some of you who hate national poetry month.  I can understand it.  Charles Bernstein, in his hilarious essay (please read until the end,,, or just the end) on the month-long holiday very nearly convinces me to hate national poetry month.   But I love it.  10%!!!  If I had as much money as Charles Bernstein, I wouldn't need the 10% off, but I do.  Sorry Chuck.

The way I see it is that most poetry, like most of all art and music and food and almost everything else, sucks, blows, and bores.  So if I take the conservative estimate of 10% being worthwhile, I dramatically increase my chances of finding something good during national poetry month.  There are more readings and more books, and everything's cheaper.  Yes, it's lame that the masses are told to like poetry one month out of the year, but mostly everyone doesn't even know it's poetry month. Maybe some teachers tell their students, and then they teach them mainstream shit, but that's what they were going to do anyway.

I think it's kind of a joke for the avant-garde poets to cry about not being included in the festivities.  They don't really want anything to do with the public libraries or Junior High Schools.  The established mainstreamers have their place, and we have ours. That's all right.  I don't want to be mainstream when it comes to poetry.  I don't want to be a National Poet Laureate.  Such outward things dwell not in my desires.  If I wanted that, I would write du jour poetry about African Americans during the Harlem Renaissance or something.  Or I would write long, pretentious poems about colors that seem high-brow because the colors I pick are green and grey and I use big words.

See, there are poets who make me sick all the time. I am fucking sick of all the hack poets who mess up the sport.  Shall I list them? Nooo.  But neither will Charles Bernstein.  It's already awkward enough to walk into parties and have people there who know who I am and what I say about them.  They can't take criticism.  You're an instant enemy as soon as you say something out loud about their poetry.  Maybe people at the top who care so vehemently about non-streamers should be meaner to the people who are garbage poets and politicians and networkers.  Maybe if they were throwing enough stones, someone would notice, and the world of poetry would be more interesting to the people outside it.

And all you homework poets.  All you poets who sit where you sit because of who you know.  All you impostors and charlatans.  All of you who claim right to your laurels without having earned them.  You, who have put me to sleep at readings and blamed the audience for not understanding your garbage.  You, whose fans are other poets who only like you because of who you know. . . you make me nauseous all year long.  I don't have to wait on April for that.

There will be rain tonight.

Let it come down. 

That being said, their poster makes me want to barf and watch you dogs lap it up.  Especially, you, crap poet who writes tripe about race to win awards.