Pure Poetry Week(s):

#1 – 2/23/2011 – Intro & Def Poetry Jam, by Riese

#2 – 2/23/2011 – Eileen Myles, by Carmen

#3 – 2/23/2011 – Anis Mojgani, by Crystal

#4 – 2/24/2011 – Andrea Gibson, by Carmen & Katrina/KC Danger

#5 – 2/25/2011 – Leonard Cohen, by Crystal

#6 – 2/25/2011 – Staceyann Chin, by Carmen

#7 – 2/25/2011 – e.e. cummings, by Intern Emily

#8 – 2/27/2011 – Louise Glück, by Lindsay

#9 – 2/28/2011 – Shel Silverstein, by Intern Lily & Guest

#10 – 2/28/2011 – Michelle Tea, by Laneia

#11 – 2/28/2011 – Saul Williams, by Katrina Chicklett Danger

#12 – 3/2/2011 – Maya Angelou, by Laneia

#13 – 3/4/2011 – Jack Spicer, by Riese

#14 – 3/5/2011 – Diane DiPrima, by Sady Doyle

#15 – 3/6/2011 – Pablo Neruda, by Intern Laura

#16 – 3/7/2011 – Vanessa Hidary, by Lindsay

#17 – 3/7/2011 – Adrienne Rich, by Taylor

#18 – 3/8/2011 – Raymond Carver, by Riese

#19 – 3/9/2011 – Rock WILK, by Gabrielle

#20 – 3/9/2011 – Veronica Franco, by Queerie Bradshaw

#22 – 3/12/2011 – William Carlos Williams & Robert Creeley, by Becky



IT’S STILL POETRY WEEK EVERYBODY. And today I’ve decided to bring you an all-sorts-of-modern-American triumvirate of William Carlos Williams, Robert Creeley, and Gareth Lee.

A high-school favorite, William Carlos Williams has a knack for saying so much with so little. While some of his most popular poems are short and charmingly accessible–

Red Wheelbarrow

So much depends

upon

a red wheel

barrow

glazed with rain

water

beside the white

chickens

–that does not stop them from sparking the figments in our imaginations and the kind of thoughts that cause us to think and rethink.

There are benefits to this of course, and the succinct succulence of his poems has been known to turn people on to the art of reciting poetry — being able to quote things can be stylish, too. Sometimes having something visual to say can be nice to hear.

All this is to say, really, that if you have not already memorized William Carlos Williams’ “This Is Just To Say”, I recommend you take the time to do so now:

This Is Just To Say

I have eaten

the plums

that were in

the icebox

and which

you were probably

saving

for breakfast

Forgive me

they were delicious

so sweet

and so cold

It comes in handy, if, like me, you need to write your roommate an apology note freshman year of college because you ate all of the ‘community’ gummy bears one painfully unsober night:

Don’t expect it to always work, though. Especially if you misspell delicious.

I want to eat poems when I am hungry, don’t you? I bet they’d taste like Earl Grey tea and fried chicken. And plums. All in all, it’s generally a good idea 1) not to eat other people’s food and 2) to read William Carlos Williams poems.

He was also friends with cool people like Ezra Pound

Green arsenic smeared on an egg-white cloth,

Crushed strawberries! Come, let us feast our eyes.

–L’Art

and Charles Olson.

(L to R; WCW, Pound, Olson)

And corresponded with a young Robert Creeley:

And even though Robert Creeley would lose in a google fight to Pound and Olson, I’m going to throw him some love. He wrote this:

A Warning

For love-I would

split open your head and put

a candle in

behind the eyes.

Love is dead in us

if we forget

the virtues of an amulet

and quick surprise.

and this poem called Yesterdays where he name drops a whole bunch of people with twinges of existential and transcendental goodness.

Robert Creeley passed away not too long ago in 2005, inspiring a young Gareth Lee to introduce Creeley’s work to his English class. A mentor of sorts to me, Lee composed poems I enjoyed more or less ‘hot off the press.’

PARANOIA IN THE N.

Suddenly the broadcast voice on the radio inflects a Southern accent. In this

context, we go out. It is morning on the hill. On the hill, there is a lucid incline. And a

freeze has cleared the atmosphere, and the light has cleaned us up, and we

abstract our general statement, brace the lucid incline, and slide.

The weather, with its breeze, is anesthesia. The weather excavates some snow off

the ground and invites us like ice. And so we go back in, where the broadcast

voices on the radio inflect Southern accents, where we lunch. Thus, with guacamole

dye, my shirt is stained. I am the slide, anesthetized, now dirtied

with guacamole dye. Now I never can be that lay male innocent with no need for

priestly help. Now I am done for. On the broadcast radio, the right wing invites the

left wing in for a clap. It is simple. It is symbolic. Over cards, I see your sloe gin and

meet it with tequila. We get drunk early. We listen intently.

We shut the caller up and determine our combat mode. We wave the Union flag

and napkins, our napkins, are stained with guacamole. The caller maintains his

broken household. The caller keeps the native base intact. I want to shut the caller

up and give the bastard his papa. I want to join him in singing a duet.

Lee has a way with words I will always appreciate. He moves them around and they move him around and I like reading them. Anyway, what’s your favorite William Carlos Williams poem from high-school? Is it this one?

To a Poor Old Woman

munching a plum on

the street a paper bag

of them in her hand

They taste good to her

They taste good

to her. They taste

good to her

You can see it by

the way she gives herself

to the one half

sucked out in her hand

Comforted

a solace of ripe plums

seeming to fill the air

They taste good to her