On Prose Poems

In A Poetry Handbook, Mary Oliver writes this about prose poems:

"What you see on the page is a fairly short block of type--a paragraph or two, rarely more than a page. It looks like prose. Perhaps it has characters, perhaps not. Often, it is pure description. It usually does have the same sense of difference from worldly or sequential time that one feels in a poem. And it does certainly ask to be read with the same concentration, and allowance for the fanciful and experimental, that we give the poem.

"Because the prose poem is brief--or perhaps just because it is something other than a poem--it seems more often than not to have at its center a situation rather than a narrative. Nothing much happens, that is, except this: through particularly fresh and intense writing, something happens to the reader--one's felt response to the 'situation' of the prose poem grows fresh and intense also."

I wish I'd had Oliver's definition at hand during my thesis defense. The only question that I had trouble answering was from a prof who didn't like prose poems. All I could tell him was my process--that when line breaks feel stilted or unnatural, I write in prose. Or, on the other hand, when the ideas and images are coming too fast to worry about line breaks. Either way, the primary quality of prose poems (I think) is immediacy.

Which is why I had so much trouble with Michael Fried's prose poems in The Next Bend in the Road. Here's an excerpt from a poem called "The Wound":

"The following is based on a prose poem by Picasso's friend Max
Jacob. In the first decade of the twentieth century, a Japanese youth with
a talent for drawing, who had recently lost an adorable younger sister to an
obsure illness, left home to seek his artistic fortune in France."

Frankly, I don't see any similarities between Oliver's definition and what I just quoted here. I don't get it. (And in case you're wondering, it just goes on like that for another half a page.) It seems that paragraphs like these are what give critics the ability to say prose poems are not really poetry.

But then there's this (from "John Montiere answer to question three" by A. Van Jordan):

"I see my son pulled from between MacNolia's legs. I see my son's legs
kicking from between her legs. Blood paints the skin of the midwife's
hands and arms up to her elbows. Blood paints my son's legs up to his
waist; all i can see is his kicking. He is grounded, feet first. His
head emerges and he sings his song."

So different! The language isn't unusual, the description not overdone, and yet, I can clearly identify this as poetry, where I can't in the Fried example. And I'm certainly striving for something more like A. Van Jordan's prose than Fried's.

What I'm Reading #2/3 - The Lightning Round

I'm a bit busier than I'd expected this semester (isn't that always the case?) and this little project keeps getting bumped to the bottom of the list. I still think keeping an annotated bibliography is a good idea, I'm just not sure how good. So today, I'm setting a timer for 10 minutes. Whatever I can do in that amount of time, great. Here goes:

For Class:

Fried, Michael. The Next Bend in the Road. University of Chicago Press, 2004.

Fried is a poet and an art historian, and (as expected) many of his poems are ekphrastic. While I think these poems do what they set out to do, it's not a project I'm terribly interested in pursuing. I do wonder, though, how Fried defines "prose poem," as many of his read more like museum plaques than poems.

Kleinzahler, August. The Strange Hours Travelers Keep. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003.

If you followed my link the other day, you would have found Kleinzahler's interview at bookslut. I linked it because I think it's amusing, but also because his irreverence is one of my favorite qualities of his poetry. I imagine Kleinzahler to be the middle-aged guy at the party who drinks too much scotch, hits on 25 year old women, and tells stories about French hookers while smoking a giant, nasty-smelling cigar. And usually, I love that guy (although yes, sometimes he can be creepy). At any rate, I liked the book.

*

Uh-oh. Ten minutes are up. I don't get many points for that performance.

Here's what I didn't have time to mention:
David Shipler, The Working Poor (the primary text for my freshman comp classes)
Mary Oliver, A Poetry Handbook
Miscellaneous texts on rhetoric/rhetorical theory

Updates

Oops. No "What I'm Reading" this week. #2 and #3 will be posted together on Tuesday. Blame it on Obama. Anyway, here's a teaser:


Q: Your prose seems to demonstrate a healthy loathing for dullness. Poetry readings these days often tend to be shockingly dull events. What would be your idea of a truly entertaining poetry reading?

A: A beautiful, naked 25 year old woman reading "Tintern Abbey" exquisitely well and in a Northumbrian accent.


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I'm on a mission to eat more fruits and vegetables. For some reason, I never manage to buy the right amount of fresh versus frozen/canned. Something always goes bad. This week--about 1/3 a crate of clementines.

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I'm very glad we're finally going to learn why Izzy can see/talk to/sleep with her dead ex-fiance. Jeffrey Dean Morgan is a beautiful man and a pretty good actor, but I'm not a fan of characters coming back from the dead. Unless the show is called Supernatural, in which case, people coming back from the dead is perfectly understandable. Which reminds me--how did this guy get such a bum deal? Two parts on two networks on the same night at the same time and both characters get killed? He should fire his agent.

*

I'm getting very excited about AWP. I need to buy some shoes.

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I'm about to watch The Holiday. I hope it's good. Which reminds me. I am dying to see Revolutionary Road. Or maybe I should just read it.

Love them!

Oh Happy Day

What a bunch of lucky people. I can only imagine...

Notes on Layering

Start with two pairs of socks, add leggings or tights (the thicker, the better), and jeans. This is just the basics. Add long sleeved tee-shirts, sweaters, wool coat, scarf, hat, & gloves. Remember that your bottom layer should be presentable so that when you start sweating under your wool coat and sweater, you can strip down. Make sure your hair is all the way dry. Put tissues (or toilet paper when you run out) in all your pockets, so your scarf doesn't have to double as a hanky--your nose will run, even if you're healthy as a horse--and wear waterproof mascara. If not, your tears will freeze to your eyelashes, and when you get on the train they will thaw into a gloppy mess all over your face.

When staying home, I recommend pjs + bathrobe or hooded sweatshirts. Oh, and don't try to blowdry your hair while the space heater is plugged in. You might blow something up.

P.S. The temp. has gone up nearly 30 degrees from when I went to bed last night, and it's still only 16!

Hopeful

I know I've been quite the downer around blogland the last few months, but things may be turning around a bit. I know it's only week one, but Spring 09 is shaping up to be 1000 times better than Fall 08. Here's why:

1. Instead of taking Teaching College Writing, I'm teaching college writing. Teaching isn't my #1 calling, but I think I'm getting better, more comfortable, and because UIC requires the second semester of comp to be theme-based, I'm teaching a subject I like (instead of straight-up argumentation). The topic: work and class identity. Sound familiar?
2. I'm taking a class on politics and rhetoric (instead of politics and aesthetics like last semester) and while I still hate talking about politics, I think this class is going to be bearable because a) we're reading about political economy, which could, theoretically, have an impact on my poetry--or at least my exam lists, and b) the prof this semester is much more interested in TEACHING than the prof was last semester. He seems totally okay with the fact that I start to twitch when I hear names like Foucault and Derrida, and wants to know if it takes me too long to do the homework.
3. The Past Decade. This is my contemporary poetry class and there's zero overlap of anything I've read before, on my own or for another class. Shows how much poetry is getting published these days... But more importantly, the prof here focuses much more on poetic movements than I'm used to, and this is good because I don't know crap about them. Also, there are some 4th and 5th year PhD students auditing the class and they are so smart! I feel a little like I did when I was an 8th grader in high school marching band. The seniors were so grown up, so cool, and I just couldn't wait to be like them.
4. Although I would, much to my dismay, still rather be in Akron, I don't hate Chicago anymore. Although I would prefer to see my boyfriend and my family more than once a month or every six weeks, I have people here that I can count on now. And there's so much to do, instead of crying I can just distract myself with annotated bibliographies and color coding my files! Plus, in just a couple of weeks, practically everyone I know is coming to Chicago for AWP. It'll be like transplanting Akron.

I really, really hope I keep feeling good about this, because doubting major life decisions is no fun.

What I'm Reading - #1

As promised, here's a brief look at what I'm reading this week.

Just Because:

Pink, Daniel H., A Whole New Mind, Riverhead Books, 2005.

Pink claims that “Right-brainers” will be the most sought-after and successful employees in what he calls the Conceptual Age (which follows the information age). MFAs will be the new MBAs, he says, and empathy, creativity, and “joyfulness” are some of the key skills we all need to brush up on to stay competitive. I'm only about 60 pages in--I'll let you know if he comes up with anything useful.

For Class:

Moxley, Jennifer, The Sense Record, Edge, 2002.

My first impression of The Sense Record was that despite some really powerful, beautiful poems, the collection as a whole wasn’t for me. Many poems seemed to be overly expository, others too theoretical for my taste. After class discussion last night though, I realized that I missed a lot of what Moxley was setting out to do because my background in poetry just isn’t strong enough. Some of the criticism was helpful (see below), but I will be coming back to this collection after I’ve brushed up on my American poetry pre-1980.* Moxley makes allusions to Wordsworth and Whitman that flew right over my head, and now that I know they’re there, I may be able to take a little more away from what I’ve read. Also in this collection: ars poetica, feminism, critique of the academy, etc., Language poetry meets lyric poetry (?)... I'm feeling terribly inarticulate here, and know I'm not giving this book a fair shake. I'll be reading it again and revising my notes, hopefully before the end of the semester.

Bartlett, Lee, "What is 'Language Poetry'?" Critical Inquiry 12, 1986.

Language poetry is a reaction to/critique of "the workshop poem" and the "organizing I" in confessional poetry, yadda, yadda, yadda. Here's what I don't get: why can't we all just write the kind of poetry we want to write?

To be fair, what I did find interesting/instructive is the emphasis on deconstruction, text "as a play of subtexts," and the importance of signification and sound.

Also interesting: what I thought was Language Poetry is not Language Poetry, although I'm still not sure what is.

Burt, Stephen, “The Elliptical Poets,” American Letters and Commentary, 1999 (?).

In this short essay, Burt identifies a school of poetry that follows Language poetry and is characterized by “Fragmentation, jumpiness, audacity, performance, grammatical oddity, rebellion, voice, [and] some measure of closure.” Some poets he names to this school are Ann Carson, C.D. Wright, Liam Rector, Mark Levine, Lucie Brock-Broido, among others. Rather than paraphrasing, I’ll just quote his conclusion, which ties things up nicely:

[Elliptical poets] want to convey both metaphysical challenge and recognizable, seen and tasted, detail. Ellipticists reject: poems written in order to demonstrate theories; scene-painting, and prettiness as its own end; slogans; authenticity and wholeheartedness; mysticism; straight-up narrative; and extended abstraction […]. Elliptical poets are uneasy about (less often, hostile to) inherited elites and privileges, but they are not populists, and won’t write down to, or connect the dots for, their readers; their difficulty conveys respect.

I also read, but won't bore you with summaries of:

• Oren Izenberg's "Language Poetry and Collective Life"
• Marjorie Perloff's "After Language Poetry: Innovation and its Theoretical Discontents"
• OEI's special "After Language Poetry" issue, with short essays by poets including Moxley, Peter Gizzi, Kenneth Goldsmith, and others

*Yes, I know. It's shameful that I am only well versed in contemporary poetry. I focused heavily on fiction as an undergrad and am trying to make up for it little-by-little. That's why I'm getting a PhD.

Spring Semester Eve

John is on a plane back to Cleveland, I've finished some proofing on Barn Owl Review #2 and there's nothing more I can put between myself and day one of Spring 09.

I don't have butterflies in my stomach...they're buzzards.

I'm not ready to teach tomorrow. I don't have a solid class plan, I don't have copies, and (more importantly) I don't know what I'm going to wear. I can't wear power heels because there's a foot of snow on the ground, and I don't think my ugly-ass hiking boots (the only water proof shoes I own) are going to inspire anyone. But seriously. The copies are my biggest worry. Do I go to staples and pay, or do I try to wake up early enough to get to school an hour or so before class starts so that I can get my copy code and do them for free? And why, oh why, do I have to do my own copies? At UA, you just fill out a little form and the student assistants do it for you. I like it a lot better that way. (Item #817 on the list of things I like better about UA.)

Okay, so I procrastinated. But does that really surprise you? I always wait until the last minute, and with John visiting for the last week, I wasn't about to spend all my time in University Hall putting the finishing touches on my syllabus and handouts. So I'm down to the wire. It'll get done and this time tomorrow I'll be one down, 44 to go.

*

Since the beginning of my grad student career, I've been meaning to start an annotated bibliography. A prof suggested it once, and it seemed like something only the most anal retentive people would actually do, but now it seems almost essential to keeping everything straight. I haven't even started putting together my exam committee yet, but I'm fairly sure of the topics I'll choose (contemporary poetry, working class lit, etc., etc.), so it couldn't hurt. Anyway, the point is I am going to try to start my annotated bib this semester, and I'm going to use this blog to keep myself honest. So, starting Tuesday, I'll be posting a list of what I'm reading, with short summaries/reviews each week. You have my permission to poke, prod, and torment me if I miss any of the next 15 weeks.

*

Well, I've officially procrastinated longer than I planned. Sigh. Back to the plans...

Snowbound, part 2

Snowbound

It's an icky, slushy mess out there, and John's flight got canceled, so he's stuck until tomorrow. I think we'll brave the snow for Fornello for dinner tonight...maybe.

P.S. Have I told you lately how much I hate public transportation?
P.P.S. I would rather use public transportation than drive in this sh*t, though. So I guess I should just shut up.

A new leaf?

I woke today at 7:30 for no apparent reason, and couldn't fall back to sleep. This is, in essence, a good thing because starting Monday, I have to be out my door at 8:30 every day. I know that for those of you with day jobs or children this is no big deal, but for me, it is. I like to sleep in or at least wake up slowly and stay in my pjs for a couple of hours before I have to go out into the real world. Alas, this semester I have to learn how to be a morning person.

One of the stranger adjustments I've had to make here in Chicagoland is the time difference. It's only an hour, but you'd be amazed how much difference that makes. I noticed right away that the summer sunset was happening earlier than I wanted it to, and after DST ended...ugh! It's dark at 4pm. Stranger still is that late night TV starts at 11--and this in a city where some bars are open until 4am. What could possibly be "late night" about 11?

I don't know if it's a pavlovian response or what, but when I watch the evening news (which should be on at 11 but is on at 10), I start getting sleepy. So--Chicago is turning me into a morning person, because I'm hardly ever up past 11. I guess this is a good thing. Except that I don't know, without my late nights, what my best time of day for writing/thinking is.

That's why I'm here at 8:30 am. Because I can't jump right into working, and blogging seems like an easy transition. Now let's see if I'm ready to work on that syllabus...

Back in Chicago

After a few days of tourist-y revelry with my bf and a couple of friends, I'm sitting in my apartment enjoying a rare moment of solitude. John (he's decided not to be annonymous anymore) is walking to Jewel because he's stir crazy, even though the peapod guy should be here any minute, and I'm trying to wake up and start getting something done. Back to school next Monday, and I have some pre-Week 1 homework to do and some class prep as well. Unfortunately, I'm thoroughly in vacation mode and having trouble switching gears.

So, instead of answering emails and doing work, I'm going to post some pics.

Me & John at Tweet, the best place for breakfast ever.

The lox platter. I'm not a fan of salmon, but it sure looked pretty.

These bloody marys are amazing. They use Stoli Pepper and wasabi! Yum.

I was so busy taking pictures of our food and drink that I forgot to take pictures of people. Here's Little Eric showing off his scotch flight at Bar on Buena.