Tuesday, July 27, 2010

one of my goddamn poems published in NYQ #66



One of my poems (The Geometry Of Truth) is in the current issue of New York Quarterly






This issue also has an interesting craft interview with Bruce Weigl.
He admits that his impatience attracted him to poetry. He "liked how you could
cause a huge ruckus and then settle things up in a matter of lines."

He was also asked about the idea that nothing new can be said. "My response
would be so what...what's wrong with saying the old stuff again, hopefully in a way
that contemporizes the old ideas and makes them relevant again in our lives."

Reading that was comforting, because I often feel that its far easier to stumble
onto something "new." I am usually more impressed by instances
where something old is re-imagined or approached in an inventive manner.


There's another craft interview with Steve Cannon, who talks about his tendency to yell
"Read the goddamn poem" whenever poets preface their poems with background info
or explanations at live readings. "I'm a strong believer, if it ain't in the poem,
it ain't happening."


I considered writing in this blog about where my Geometry Of Truth poem came from,
but Cannon's words still echo in my head.


So here is an audio clip of me reading the damn poem at a local coffeehouse:


4 comments:

  1. Congrats on the publication. I'm glad to hear Steve Cannon's still around - he heckled me at the Nuyorican in March 1993. Hal Sirowitz introduced me to him, and I thought he was very cool.

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  2. I would have loved to eavesdrop on that heckling!
    Too bad I only recently stumbled onto Hal's Mother Said collection. It would have been nice to see him, back when he took that out on the road.

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  3. That was damned good. I'm going to be thinking about scalene triangles all day now.

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  4. Scalene is the type of word that unexpectedly becomes one of your favorites to say, when you are reading out loud.

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