August 2010
30 posts
Morning Tide
fuckyeahpoetry:
Life is short
and pleasures few
and holed the ship
and drowned the crew
But O! But O!
how very blue
the sea is
-Clive Barker
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DEAR SUGAR, The Rumpus Advice Column #48: Write... →
You need to do the same, dear sweet arrogant beautiful crazy talented tortured rising star glowbug. That you’re so bound up about writing tells me that writing is what you’re here to do. And when people are here to do that they almost always tell us something we need to hear. I want to know what you have inside you. I want to see the contours of your second beating heart.
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poetic notions on Wordnik →
Long list of different poetic forms.
“The more horrible this world (as today, for instance), the more abstract our...”
– Paul Klee
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An Easy Way to Increase Creativity: Scientific... →
Increase psychological distance between you and the problem/issue. Physical distance, distance in time, different person’s perspective, thinking that the question is “unreal and unlikely.”
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Poetry Writing Tips →
Change of scenery
Personalize writing space
Write without editing
Write frequently!
Share, share, share some more
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The Treachery of Dreams by Samuel Peralta
Ceci n’est pas une - This is not a poem. Still green, the apple contemplates the man. Le fils de l’homme, il contemple la pomme. Les hommes en chapeaux fall like summer rain. Still green, the apple contemplates the man. The artist paints a portrait of an egg. Les hommes en chapeaux fall like summer rain. Across a grove of leaves, a rider’s fled. The artist paints a portrait of an...
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McSweeney's Internet Tendency: After a Thorough... →
The most obvious advantage of The Newspaper was the size of its display, which outclassed its rivals both in terms of size and elasticity. The Newspaper display could be read at full size or, when flipped open, twice its normal width. We also had no trouble reading copy when the display was flipped to half or even quarter size. One of our engineers even figured out how to make a hat.
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n+1: This Will Kill That →
Pragmatically, for intellectuals to stake a claim on such things as “attention” or “concentration” is an abdication of our best ground: content. There is no valid reason to think that War and Peace teaches deep attention any better than a first-person shooter game. There are plenty of reasons, enduring ones, to think that War and Peace aerates and nourishes our daily lives more fruitfully, and...
McSweeney's Internet Tendency: After a Thorough... →
(via newspaperblackout)
The most obvious advantage of The Newspaper was the size of its display, which outclassed its rivals both in terms of size and elasticity. The Newspaper display could be read at full size or, when flipped open, twice its normal width. We also had no trouble reading copy when the display was flipped to half or even quarter size. One of our engineers even figured out...
"Teaching The Ape To Write Poems" by James Tate →
austinkleon:
They didn’t have much trouble teaching the ape to write poems: first they strapped him into the chair, then tied the pencil around his hand (the paper had already been nailed down). Then Dr. Bluespire leaned over his shoulder and whispered into his ear: “You look like a god sitting there. Why don’t you try writing something?”
From Tate’s Selected Poems
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The Poet's Obligation
To whoever is not listening to the sea this Friday morning, to whoever is cooped up in house or office, factory or woman or street or mine or dry prison cell, to him I come, and without speaking or looking I arrive and open the door of his prison, and a vibration starts up, vague and insistent, a long rumble of thunder adds itself to the weight of the planet and the foam, the groaning rivers of...
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“Don’t get it right, just get it written.”
– James Thurber
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“The soul is a verb.” He impales a lit candle on a spike. “Not a noun.”
– Dr. Marinus, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell (via readhard)
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Who Is Alex Trebek? : The New Yorker →
Last month, Alex Trebek, the host of “Jeopardy!,” celebrated his seventieth birthday. It didn’t get much acknowledgment, and I’m worried that his feelings were a little hurt. Here are some clues that he read on last night’s show.
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The Crowds Cheered as Gloom Galloped Away
Everyone was happier. But where did the sadness go? People wanted to know. They didn’t want it collecting in their elbows or knees then popping up later. The girl who thought of the ponies made a lot of money. Now a month’s supply of pills came in a hard blue case with a handle. You opened it & found the usual vial plus six tiny ponies of assorted shapes & sizes, softly breathing in the...
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Word Park
Proper nouns are legible in any light and like to stay near their cages. They’re the saunterers and the preeners, the peacocks who walk up to you and unfurl their fan of feathers hello. To see a shy one, position yourself between two trees; eventually it’ll get whisked into a sentence and will have to come out from the shadows. We stock the park with packs of verbs and ands, so the odds are...
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Child Molestation
I remember nothing from eight to ten except a sensation like someone showing old vampire movies on my body.
— Cindy Goff (from Cindy Goff’s Appalachian Flood : Jeffrey McDaniel : Harriet the Blog : The Poetry Foundation)
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Flavorwire » 25 Pickup Lines to Use on New... →
I love the way you fill out an Amazon wishlist.
I’m looking for a Malcolm Gladwell fan who can get me over the tipping point in the blink of an eye.
Forget the New Yorker. You’d make my 20 Under 40 list any day.
For use on Alikewise.
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The Year You Thought You Were Dying
was a really great year.
You ate licorice on the beach in January, swam rum sauced in the icy Pacific wearing only blue rubber flippers and your grandfather’s dog tags and for the first time, it felt good to be cold, it felt good to be so cold it hurt.
You doted on pigeons and stray cats. You ate honey peanuts in the park and re-watched every movie that ever made you cry, including Steve...
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The Believer - Interview with Lydia Davis →
BLVR: How is [a story] rhythmically different [from a poem]? And by “elliptical,” do you mean “economical” or “deliberately obscure”?
Lydia Davis: If I consider only poems with line breaks, then there’s an obvious rhythmical difference—the suspension at the end of each line, as opposed to the pause at the end of the sentence. But beyond that, I see each word or phrase in a true poem as being...
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fromUKtoUSwithlove: POSTSECRET August 6, 2010 →
Blog post from the mail carrier who delivered all the PostSecrets. She’s retired and moving to England! Fascinating to hear what she says about her part in the project and how it’s affected her life.
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Drink 'Til He's Witty: The Reader's Drinking Game →
David Foster Wallace: Drink every time a sentence has three or more conjunctions.
Joyce Carol Oates: Drink every time there is a home invasion.
Stephenie Meyer: Drink every time someone drinks blood.
Great suggestions in the comments!
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“Times change and forms and their meanings alter. Thus new poems are necessary....”
– William Carlos Williams
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The Living Language of Spoken Word | Poetry Is... →
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[Interview with] Ray Hsu | Poetry Is Dead →
I don’t think poetry (or any other kind of writing) can help but respond to the form of its circulation. What counted as “poetry” seemed quite different written in illuminated manuscripts than when it was circulated in printed form. Scholar Michael Warner talks about how, in the 18th century with the mass circulation of literary periodicals, writers began to play with the...
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“Some people say a great poem can make you cut yourself while shaving, or make...”
– Doug Holder, from I Called Richard Yates.. - Seven CirclePress
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The Curse
Cedars and the westward sun. The darkening sky. A man alone Watches beside the fallen wall The evening multitudes of sin Crowd in upon us all. For when the light fails they begin Nocturnal sabotage among The outcast and the loose of tongue, The lax in walk, the murderers: Our twilight universal curse. Children are faultless in the wood, Untouched. If they are later made Scandal and index to their...
