Living Poetry, Living Poets
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
A key question in the first fantasies of Open Source three years ago was whether we could build a radio conversation in which techies would tune in to poets, and poets would tune in on techies.
So here we go — first time but not the last — with younger poets reading live in our studio from their own work and taking us inside this paradoxically burgeoning but often isolated world of contemporary poetry, on-line and in book form. The observation you hear a lot is that poets have become their own audience, but that their voices are heard more dimly in the general culture, published more rarely in places like The New Yorker and The Atlantic, and reviewed less and less commonly in, say, The New York Times Book Review. I’m not even sure the observation is true, but when I Google “poetry blogs” and scan the oceanic range and depth of public poetry just in the US these days, I think: the Web poets now must be as vast and lively an audience as new verse has ever had. And of course I want to crash the party.
A very relaxed Dan Chiasson in our studio (check here for more pictures from our studio) [Brendan Greeley]
The former US poet laureate Robert Pinsky is our tutor and guide here. In his Favorite Poem Project Pinsky found the living pulse of public poetry, from the street-corner to the White House — and, with it, vindicated the suspicion that poetry old and new is a roaring stream in the heads of ordinary people.
With us at our inaugural poetry party: Maggie Dietz, whose first book of poetry, Perennial Fall, just out from the University of Chicago Press, reminds me of the voice of the late Raymond Carver: acquainted with suffering and much longing, tough-minded, rigorous, and sometimes gorgeous in the flow of sounds and images. As in her poem “The Yellow House, 1978,” which seems to place the poet as a small child in her mother’s Wisconsin kitchen:
To be in that room must be what it was like to be the man
next to her at night, or the child who, at six o’clock had stood
close enough to smell the wool of her sweater through the steam,
and later, at the goodnight kiss, could breathe the flavor of her hair –codfish and broccoli — and taste the coffee, which was darkness
on her lips…
Maggie Dietz, “The Yellow House, 1978,” in Perennial Fall
Dan Chiasson is a sly wit and polymath who reminds me more of a very hip (in the sense of knowing) contemporary Emerson. In his new collection Natural History from Knopf, Chiasson sets a number of poems about poetry in the minds of ancient circus elephants, like this one:
… my friend saw
a man gouge out an elephant’s eyes with a shovel,
and the elephant cried, Oh, Murder, I am Murdered!
the way we do — wordless, comical, like a choir of kazoos:is that poetry? Or is poetry picking the scarcest word,
say, “charred” instead of “burned” –
as in “charred in a fire”? Real life is so raw,
all on its own; it hurts; words should perhaps
protect us from real life.
Perhaps words should be a shield, rather than
a mirror; and maybe poems should be
an ornamental shield, like the shieldsgods made for their favorite soldiers,
sons and lovers. Poems should be
like people’s faces by firelight:
a little true, for verification’s sake,
but primarily beautiful. Or like
pomegranates: hard to open at first
but, when you get them open, full of sweet granules
of meaning.Dan Chiasson, “Scared by the smallest shriek of a pig, and when wounded always give ground,” in Natural History
So, can we talk about poems, poets and what we expect from them in 2006? Feel free, please, to nominate your own candidates for the next round, and your favorite contemporary poems for our delectation immediately.
Robert Pinsky
-
US Poet Laureate, 1997 to 2000
Professor, Boston University
Author of six books of poetry, among them: Jersey Rain and The Figured Wheel: New and Collected Poems. Just out: First Things to Hand from Sarabande Press.
And weekly literary columnist in Poet’s Choice in The Washington Post.
Maggie Dietz
-
Author, Perennial Fall
Lecturer in Creative Writing, Boston University
Assistant Poetry Editor, Slate
Dan Chiasson
-
Author, The Afterlife of Objects and now Natural History
A contributor also of criticism in The New York Times and elsewhere, he teaches at Wellesley College.
free viagra
buy viagra online
generic viagra
how does viagra work
cheap viagra
buy viagra
buy viagra online inurl
viagra 6 free samples
viagra online
viagra for women
viagra side effects
female viagra
natural viagra
online viagra
cheapest viagra prices
herbal viagra
alternative to viagra
buy generic viagra
purchase viagra online
free viagra without prescription
viagra attorneys
free viagra samples before buying
buy generic viagra cheap
viagra uk
generic viagra online
try viagra for free
generic viagra from india
fda approves viagra
free viagra sample
what is better viagra or levitra
discount generic viagra online
viagra cialis levitra
viagra dosage
viagra cheap
viagra on line
best price for viagra
free sample pack of viagra
viagra generic
viagra without prescription
discount viagra
gay viagra
mail order viagra
viagra inurl
generic viagra online paypal
generic viagra overnight
generic viagra online pharmacy
generic viagra uk
buy cheap viagra online uk
suppliers of viagra
how long does viagra last
viagra sex
generic viagra soft tabs
generic viagra 100mg
buy viagra onli
generic viagra online without prescription
viagra energy drink
cheapest uk supplier viagra
viagra cialis
generic viagra safe
viagra professional
viagra sales
viagra free trial pack
viagra lawyers
over the counter viagra
best price for generic viagra
viagra jokes
buying viagra
viagra samples
viagra sample
cialis
generic cialis
cheapest cialis
buy cialis online
buying generic cialis
cialis for order
what are the side effects of cialis
buy generic cialis
what is the generic name for cialis
cheap cialis
cialis online
buy cialis
cialis side effects
how long does cialis last
cialis forum
cialis lawyer ohio
cialis attorneys
cialis attorney columbus
cialis injury lawyer ohio
cialis injury attorney ohio
cialis injury lawyer columbus
prices cialis
cialis lawyers
viagra cialis levitra
cialis lawyer columbus
online generic cialis
daily cialis
cialis injury attorney columbus
cialis attorney ohio
cialis cost
cialis professional
cialis super active
how does cialis work
what does cialis look like
cialis drug
viagra cialis
cialis to buy new zealand
cialis without prescription
free cialis
cialis soft tabs
discount cialis
cialis generic
generic cialis from india
cheap cialis sale online
cialis daily
cialis reviews
cialis generico
how can i take cialis
cheap cialis si
cialis vs viagra
levitra
generic levitra
levitra attorneys
what is better viagra or levitra
viagra cialis levitra
levitra side effects
buy levitra
levitra online
levitra dangers
how does levitra work
levitra lawyers
what is the difference between levitra and viagra
levitra versus viagra
which works better viagra or levitra
buy levitra and overnight shipping
levitra vs viagra
canidan pharmacies levitra
how long does levitra last
viagra cialis levitra
levitra acheter
comprare levitra
levitra ohne rezept
levitra 20mg
levitra senza ricetta
cheapest generic levitra
levitra compra
cheap levitra
levitra overnight
levitra generika
levitra kaufen
May 15th, 2006 at 8:57 pm
Stanley Kunitz, who died at age 100 yesterday, is my choice. In his last book, Kunitz says, “The universe is a continuous web. Touch it at any point and the whole web quivers.” To me, that thought puts it all in perspective: we are equally responsible for this earth, and indeed, for each other. We are all interconnected and interdependent–six degrees of separation, and so on.
Anyway, here’s one of Stanley Kunitz’s poems. Thank you Stanley Kunitz: You touched me deeply and made my life richer.
The Layers
I have walked through many lives,
some of them my own,
and I am not who I was,
though some principle of being
abides, from which I struggle
not to stray.
When I look behind,
as I am compelled to look
before I can gather strength
to proceed on my journey,
I see the milestones dwindling
toward the horizon
and the slow fires trailing
from the abandoned camp-sites,
over which scavenger angels
wheel on heavy wings.
Oh, I have made myself a tribe
out of my true affections,
and my tribe is scattered!
How shall the heart be reconciled
to its feast of losses?
In a rising wind
the manic dust of my friends,
those who fell along the way,
bitterly stings my face.
Yet I turn, I turn,
exulting somewhat,
with my will intact to go
wherever I need to go,
and every stone on the road
previous to me.
In my darkest night,
when the moon was covered
and I roamed through wreckage,
a nimbus-clouded voice directed me:
“Live in the layers,
not on the litter.”
Though I lack the art
to decipher it,
no doubt the next chapter
in my book of transformations
is already written.
I am not done with my changes.
May 15th, 2006 at 11:56 pm
When will this show air?
May 16th, 2006 at 6:51 am
Wordbuzz, your idea of Stanley Kunitz is such a good one and would be an appropriate tribute to him by OpenSource. My suggestion would be for Wendell Berry who has so much to teach us about living authentic lives. He is also passionately against computer technology so the irony of him as a choice for OpenSource could be dynamic and interesting. I am including a link I found re:his ideas about computers and also a couple of short poems.
The Peace of Wild Things
When despair grows in me
and I wake in the middle of the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting for their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
A Warning To My Readers
Do not think me gentle
because I speak in praise
of gentleness, or elegant
because I honor the grace
that keeps this world. I am
a man crude as any,
gross of speech, intolerant,
stubborn, angry, full
of fits and furies. That I
may have spoken well
at times, is not natural.
A wonder is what it is
http://www.tipiglen.dircon.co.uk/berrynot.html
May 16th, 2006 at 11:28 am
A Poem
Escape from it all
behind the deafening white noise of the waterfall
through the refreshing torrent
see a bit of life
focus
there is a truth
whether pain or beauty
on the other side of the veil
focus
part the waters
they part you
make you laugh or wail
you knew this truth
it was always there
the fall of the water
just laid it bare
May 16th, 2006 at 5:10 pm
One of my favorite blogs 3 Quarks Daily regulary includes poetry.
Last week this poem from Wislawa Szymborska was featured:
Consolation, by Wislawa Szymborska
Darwin.
They say he read novels to relax,
But only certain kinds:
nothing that ended unhappily.
If anything like that turned up,
enraged, he flung the book into the fire.
True or not,
I’m ready to believe it.
Scanning in his mind so many times and places,
he’d had enough of dying species,
the triumphs of the strong over the weak,
the endless struggles to survive,
all doomed sooner or later.
He’d earned the right to happy endings,
at least in fiction
with its diminutions.
Hence the indispensable
silver lining,
the lovers reunited, the families reconciled,
the doubts dispelled, fidelity rewarded,
fortunes regained, treasures uncovered,
stiff-necked neighbors mending their ways,
good names restored, greed daunted,
old maids married off to worthy parsons,
troublemakers banished to other hemispheres,
forgers of documents tossed down the stairs,
seducers scurrying to the altar,
orphans sheltered, widows comforted,
pride humbled, wounds healed over,
prodigal sons summoned home,
cups of sorrow thrown into the ocean,
hankies drenched with tears of reconciliation,
general merriment and celebration,
and the dog Fido,
gone astray in the first chapter,
turns up barking gladly
in the last.
May 16th, 2006 at 5:50 pm
the only thing out of my head
to make these forums well-read:
for a nightly show
to take it slow
and have a poetry-only thread.
I try.
but hey!
wait! up in the sky!
could it be? out West, beyond the clouds?
that old rebel Sol,
the Sun!
May 16th, 2006 at 6:03 pm
I would add, in prose, that I wonder if the web can help us reach a time when poetry is no longer cordoned off from public discourse into its own carrels; I, for one, try to dedicate a piece to wordplay (poetry and other mischief) when I write. Do any of the top political/tech/cultural bloggers do so? I’m not aware of any.
May 16th, 2006 at 6:19 pm
Here’s my favorite poem:
Your poetry disturbs me
like a toaster in the sand
I grasp my throbbing temples
like a toaster in the sand
I hope your mother isn’t listening
like a toaster in the sand
Give me Keats and Frost and Silverstein
like a toaster in the sand
New voices strain to entertain
like a toaster in the sand
More monolog sans talent
like a toaster in the sand
You’re about as intertaining
as a toaster in the sand
May 16th, 2006 at 6:26 pm
ward, that’s more my style: who’s the author?
just to explain my posts above, bear in mind that the undercurrent ethos of the blogs is that anyone can become a writer, or journalist; and, even, it’s been figured, that any average person can “commit an act of journalism,” why can’t someone commit an “act of poetry” as well?
I like the elephant poems.
May 16th, 2006 at 6:43 pm
That would be me Jon. I wrote it while listening to the new poets. Most of what they write, in my opinion, is monolog and just too conversational. I like the old stuff. This “poetry” reminds me of the “deep” poetry teenagers write. This self- conscious blithering should be read by the author at midnight in the bathroom.
May 16th, 2006 at 6:48 pm
This, I hate to call it poetry, reminds me of the “art” that falls under the umbrella of “art for arts sake.” Could this be “poetry for poetrys sake?”
May 16th, 2006 at 7:42 pm
Jon G –
Mine was in the same vein as yours – “an act of poetry.” I like the concept. Perhaps we could have thread for “Random Acts of Poetry”
May 16th, 2006 at 11:26 pm
Caught the second half of the show just now. Chris quoted wordbuzz’s quote of Kunitz.
But I guess the three of us are on our own here. We’re writing verses, because of the groundswell of “citizen’s media” movements.
Many years hence, people looking for the Great Flood of 2006 will have many ‘reader photos’ from Boston.com to look through. But how many observations will they have of the sun finally emerging after the first time in almost a week?
That’s why I interjected that little Dickinsonian verse above. And also that’s why why Adam Gaffin at Universal Hub gamely found a couple of local blog posts of the moment– though neither of them aimed to be poetic.
May 17th, 2006 at 7:12 am
I just donwloaded the show as a podcast–sorry I didn’t hear it live.
The amount of poetry being written and published online is simply amazing. What I respect about the Internet is that it allows people like me, a wife and mother with a full-time career, to keep up with some of the best contemporary writing today. Poetry is like ivy, it can thrive almost anywhere.
Here is a link to my blog, Poet Mom and my new current favorite, Poetry Thursday. Both sites are attempts to continue the poetry conversation beyond the classroom.
One of my favorite poems is by Tess Gallagher:
I Stop Writing the Poem
to fold the clothes. No matter who lives
or who dies, I’m still a woman.
I’ll always have plenty to do.
I bring the arms of his shirt
together. Nothing can stop
our tenderness. I’ll get back
to the poem. I’ll get back to being
a woman. But for now
there’s a shirt, a giant shirt
in my hands, and somewhere a small girl
standing next to her mother
watching to see how it’s done.
May 17th, 2006 at 7:59 am
As interesting as last ight’s poetry show wa i had hoped one of the guests would have been a non-professional poet to give courage and encouragement to other people for whom poetry is just part of living and interpreting life…maybe next time.One of the strongest parts was Chris’ immediate visceral reasponse to teach poem read– such a good model for so many who may be timid to react to poetry from the inside of one’s soul. I like allison’s idea of random Acts of Poetry. Jon Garfunkel., I am sorry you think there are only ‘three of you on your own here”…..I must have misinterpreted what you wrote…instead,just enjoy ..January O’Neilpost…or Mary ’s post..I think our individual lives and perceptions of those lives are as important to the collective humanity as is the sound of the sun rising after eight days of rain…and here is a poem for today
Listen
stepping through wet meadow grasses before light this earliest morning without rainfall
you hear hedgerow rustlings
louder than the mourning dove’s reminder
and then there it is
sliding upward in a fury of song
the sun
you can hear the sun rise, you know,
as easily as the moon tonight
will croon its roundest melody
All day and forever these sounds will stay in your day and night.
you won’t hear the world otherwise
you never have.
..
May 17th, 2006 at 8:03 am
Please excuse my typos—annoying to read I know–sorry.-
May 17th, 2006 at 8:14 am
spacebo — forgive me, it didn’t jump out at me that you were the author of the poem you submitted, I thought it was Wendell Berry. The “Three of us are on our own” was referring to people their own verses.
I was also looking for poems “of the moment”, this being a *live* medium, after all. Thank you for yours.
May 17th, 2006 at 10:56 am
Isn’t it fabulous the interest poetry is getting these days? I have been so inspired by the talent I see, not just among those who have been fortunate enough to publish, but the people who show up at local open mic readings. The number of teenagers I see showing up at these, rather than “hanging out” or getting into trouble, has lifted my spirits. I leave you with one of my own:
We Write
“…to taste life twice”, Anais said
and surely she would know
who tasted much, chose her
morsels with gutsy grace
in times when one had space,
time to chew on elegance,
dip crust into mulligan
stockingless for a taste
of bittersweet truth.
Love amidst the ruins,
feasts in silken gowns,
creative conspiracies,
typed regurgitatons
more flavorful than ever,
fed to those more hungry
than small birds for life
they’d savor if only
it were on their menu
or in tin lunch boxes.
Mary Curro
May 17th, 2006 at 11:20 am
jon–the poems of my May 16th post are indeed by Wendell Berry—sorry for the misunderstanding—(today’s is my own)—and thank you for explaining ‘Three of us….”and for the for the link to “wordplay” with your Whitman essay and your conversation with Robert Pinsky about Walt Whitman on Open Source. You seem very interested in the role of the blogger in society beyond what you call a monolog–you have provoked my thinking about this too–and makes me wonder if blogging in its present nascent state has not yet evolved into being “ART” where the making of the commonplace universal endures. Robert Pinsky’s response about the importance of the physicality of Whitman’s writing startles us in its truth and simplicity. Truth lies in our behaviors, our actions; words are cheap after all. You would make a great “live” guest on the next poetry show.
May 17th, 2006 at 4:08 pm
A Poem:
the night was dark
the sky was blue
and through the sky
a toilet flew
a man was hit!
a scream was heard!
a man was killed by a flying
turd.
- thank you
May 17th, 2006 at 8:07 pm
Wonderful show–had the chance to listen to it on my long commute home. I’m familiar with Pinsky’s work but had not heard Dietz or Chiasson before, and was pleasantly surprised with their poems. Loved the elephant poems!
May 30th, 2006 at 3:00 pm
Check it out: The New York Times did a piece yesterday on a website called QuickMuse (http://quickmuse.com) that invites poets to improvise on a topic for fifteen minutes. The results are stored and can be played back as they originally unfolded. You have to take a look to fully understand, but it’s pretty neat, and the poets are top-notch — Paul Muldoon and Thylias Moss were recent participants; Robert Pinsky and Julianna Baggott are due up tonight.