2013 Poem a week comment thread

[HarryHill]

Jazz Mollusks, anyone?

I'm going to initiate a twelve step program. This is getting out of hand.
speaking of 12, can you imagine the comments?

 

[Angeline]

I'm going to initiate a twelve step program. This is getting out of hand.
speaking of 12, can you imagine the comments?

Oh yes. I wonder where he is. I'm sure he'll show up soon--think he was going into a busy work period.

I'm actually eager to see what everyone does with the title. It wasn't my pick but a good choice, I think. Lotsa different ways to go with it.

 

[hmmnmm]

okay I sort of skirted on the first one - it is not brand new - but I really like this 1 per week idea of Tzara's. Wanted to get in but got distracted. Want to try now, even though half the year is gone... already. Maybe stay with it til around this time next year? Long haul.

Great thread and challenge idea.

 

[hmmnmm]

jazz mollusks?

mollusks on jazz?

?????

 

[Angeline]

okay I sort of skirted on the first one - it is not brand new - but I really like this 1 per week idea of Tzara's. Wanted to get in but got distracted. Want to try now, even though half the year is gone... already. Maybe stay with it til around this time next year? Long haul.

Great thread and challenge idea.

Tihmmmmmmm you lovely mofo! Great to see you in the thread with your playful meandering poetry. Love what you just posted, even if your mind seems unwavering on hmmnmm not sure.

jazz mollusks?

mollusks on jazz?

?????

There's precedent.

 

[hmmnmm]

Tihmmmmmmm you lovely mofo! Great to see you in the thread with your playful meandering poetry. Love what you just posted, even if your mind seems unwavering on hmmnmm not sure.



There's precedent.

the mollusk's line about it being better where it is wetter... see he got right to the point. Then he throws out the jamming clams and slugs cutting rugs. And very colorfully.

 

[Angeline]

Bogus your fine offering today made me recall this poem by Neruda (which I love). Well done!

Sonnet XI
Pablo Neruda

I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair.
Silent and starving, I prowl through the streets.
Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me, all day
I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps.

I hunger for your sleek laugh,
your hands the color of a savage harvest,
hunger for the pale stones of your fingernails,
I want to eat your skin like a whole almond.

I want to eat the sunbeam flaring in your lovely body,
the sovereign nose of your arrogant face,
I want to eat the fleeting shade of your lashes,

and I pace around hungry, sniffing the twilight,
hunting for you, for your hot heart,
like a puma in the barrens of Quitratue.

 

[Angeline]

Beautiful work, Tess.

Clustered tiny mussel-squatters
shouldering on an empty shell
that suddenly declares another lodger
scrambling, claws first, into view.
Whelks and winkles, clammy cousins
bearing very different armour,
bustle slowly barnacle-bound.


That's just beautiful writing! You channel molluscs well.

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

Beautiful work, Tess.

Clustered tiny mussel-squatters
shouldering on an empty shell
that suddenly declares another lodger
scrambling, claws first, into view.
Whelks and winkles, clammy cousins
bearing very different armour,
bustle slowly barnacle-bound.


That's just beautiful writing! You channel molluscs well.

Thanks, I put it here by mistake, edited it out but I suppose it can go back in.

Yours is a doozy, great idea channeling Carroll!

 

[Angeline]

Thanks, I put it here by mistake, edited it out but I suppose it can go back in.

Yours is a doozy, great idea channeling Carroll!

Why not put it there as well? You wrote it this week, right?

The Carroll thing came to me while casting about for a way into the topic. I was listening to this song, which has a reference to The Walrus and the Carpenter in it and there was the inspiration. It was a bit like constructing a sestina. Oy.

 

[hmmnmm]

bogus says it damn well

love all things said by Tess...

 

[HarryHill]

Hey Bogus, who is Buk? Bing shows no writers by that name. Got a link?

 

[bogusagain]

Hey Bogus, who is Buk? Bing shows no writers by that name. Got a link?

Charles Bukowski Surely you have heard of him?

 

[Angeline]

Hey Bogus, who is Buk? Bing shows no writers by that name. Got a link?

Charles Bukowski

 

[HarryHill]

Charles Bukowski

Thanks

 

[Angeline]

Thanks

Welcome HH.

 

[HarryHill]

Charles Bukowski Surely you have heard of him?

I have now. Strange style but very addictive?

 

[Angeline]

I have now. Strange style but very addictive?

He's something of an icon in American poetry, kind of the bastard brother of the Beats, Ginsberg and Ferlinghetti. He was a wholly unrepentant alkie who wrote honest (very pure imo) poems.

eagleyez saw him read in San Francisco years ago. Said the poetry was amazing and Buk read with an ice bucket of tall boys next to him. When the beer was gone he left the stage. I think Buk, like Kerouac, was a real dharma bum.

 

[HarryHill]

Hot week in 2013 challenge

If you haven't read the poems posted during the memorial day cusp, be sure to read Bogus, Gm, Angie, and Tristesse. and If you have not been here yet > http://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?t=877125 < you owe it to yourself to take a look.

 

[greenmountaineer]

The immigrant experience

"rag and pickle selling, argue/then negotiate" and "news a day late/fishy" from Angeline's "7th Story 2nd Avenue" (great title BTW) landed me smack dab in NYC's garment district. I alluded to the same in "Considerations," although much less so.

There's something uniquely poetic about the immigrant experience, at least to me: the hope, the reality, the struggle, the triumph, and the unintended consequences. I think it has some universal appeal but am not sure if others feel the same, particularly Lit friends across the pond, given their lengthy history. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I realize that "7th Story 2nd Avenue" took me on a journey beyond the words in Angie's poem, but isn't that what poetry should do?

Off the top of my head, I can't think of a well-known poem specifically about the immigrant experience, although there must be some. The closest I can come is the Neil Diamond song "America." If anyone remembers such a poem, please mention it. I'd enjoy reading it if I can find it on the Internet.

 

[Angeline]

"rag and pickle selling, argue/then negotiate" and "news a day late/fishy" from Angeline's "7th Story 2nd Avenue" (great title BTW) landed me smack dab in NYC's garment district. I alluded to the same in "Considerations," although much less so.

There's something uniquely poetic about the immigrant experience, at least to me: the hope, the reality, the struggle, the triumph, and the unintended consequences. I think it has some universal appeal but am not sure if others feel the same, particularly Lit friends across the pond, given their lengthy history. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I realize that "7th Story 2nd Avenue" took me on a journey beyond the words in Angie's poem, but isn't that what poetry should do?

Off the top of my head, I can't think of a well-known poem specifically about the immigrant experience, although there must be some. The closest I can come is the Neil Diamond song "America." If anyone remembers such a poem, please mention it. I'd enjoy reading it if I can find it on the Internet.

Well I feel that way (obviously ). I've been writing about that experience, which is my family's experience, for years now. Your poem, which I like very much, is more subtle, but the images (the pipe cleaner cat and the pushcart, the Catskills camp) all took me to the same place.

Maybe it is only the children or grandchildren of immigrants that feel this way, but we are a nation of those people so you'd think there would be more poetry out there. There's poetry that's pretty recent from Latino and Asian immigrants. There's also a lot of poetry about Angel Island and the Chinese men (mostly) who came to California in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

And of course there's lots of African American poetry about forced immigration.

For some reason I keep thinking Simon Perchik wrote on this theme, but I can't find or remember the poem. Have you heard of the Tenement Museum in NYC? It's on Orchard Street and the website is great. I bet someone there would know about poems.

 

[greenmountaineer]

Well I feel that way (obviously ). I've been writing about that experience, which is my family's experience, for years now. Your poem, which I like very much, is more subtle, but the images (the pipe cleaner cat and the pushcart, the Catskills camp) all took me to the same place.

Maybe it is only the children or grandchildren of immigrants that feel this way, but we are a nation of those people so you'd think there would be more poetry out there. There's poetry that's pretty recent from Latino and Asian immigrants. There's also a lot of poetry about Angel Island and the Chinese men (mostly) who came to California in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

And of course there's lots of African American poetry about forced immigration.

For some reason I keep thinking Simon Perchik wrote on this theme, but I can't find or remember the poem. Have you heard of the Tenement Museum in NYC? It's on Orchard Street and the website is great. I bet someone there would know about poems.

I haven't, but I'll look into it. My wife's grandmother, as a 16 year old Irish American girl, started work at the Triangle Shirtwaist factory 3 or 4 days before infamous fire that took the lives of so many young women, most of whom, as I'm sure you know, were Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. She never went back after the first day because, according to her, the place was filthy. That may have been an embellishment. I don't know because I never met the woman, but the story was part of my wife's growing up and had been told a number of times.

I wrote a poem about it and posted it on Lit, but it didn't get much attention. Of course, it's not the kind of poem one usually sees here.

 

[Angeline]

I found the poem you are too modest to link. It's very good and I'm glad I got to read it.

My mother worked across the street from the Empire State Building when a small plane crashed into it, in the late 1940s I think. If you have family from the NYC metro area you have stories about iconic places and events. Lucky us. And it explains why we both love O'Hara, eh?

 

[greenmountaineer]

I found the poem you are too modest to link. It's very good and I'm glad I got to read it.

My mother worked across the street from the Empire State Building when a small plane crashed into it, in the late 1940s I think. If you have family from the NYC metro area you have stories about iconic places and events. Lucky us. And it explains why we both love O'Hara, eh?

It took me awhile, but the more I read the more I liked.

 

[bogusagain]

Bizarre but wonderfully surreal, the mind boggles! What will you Americans come up with next?

"Look love, take a good look, do I need the treatment?"

"They've worked fine for years as they are, why bother?"

"Well maybe I should let nurse Jamie take a look at them, she is a looker after all!"

"???"

Tighten the Tackle*

Nurse Jamie has your back
and your front for only five
hundred seventy-five dollars

the blonde beautician will
erase wrinkles, hair, discoloration
from your scrotum. She'll restore

that smooth youthful sheen
which overuse, mistreatment
or even simple neglect may have

stolen thereby reducing manly
pride to a sad and begrizzled
state of shame. Fear not!

She'll laser you to perfection.
"Men like their gardens well-kept.
They want to be ready for the Emmys."

Nurse Jamie and her laser compel
me to consider that most uncomfortable
of all Red Carpet Questions:

Who are your balls wearing tonight?

Made me laugh. With a tear or two thinking about it. Lazer fried balls.