Recapping the 4th Annual Contemporary Poetry White Elephant Gift Exchange

Twas the season for my annual Contemporary Poetry White Elephant Gift Exchange at Glendale Community College. This was our 4th year of spotlighting and sharing some of the worthwhile poetry that probably doesn't get stocked on the bookshelves of the national Barnes and Nobles (unlike copious copies of James Franco's newest book).

Sponsored by the supportive and generous GCC Writing Department, I get to select a handful of books to introduce and giveaway each December. We also invite people to bring any book they would like to share or exchange and there are opportunities to "steal" ones that catch your attention.

Ideally, people might walk away with a few new poets and/or books to watch out for and hopefully even order. Here are the books I selected this year:


Patricia Lockwood's Motherland Fatherland HomelandSexuals

Fantastic cover image, but Lockwood also has a knack for equally vivid titles:
"Is Your Country a He or a She in Your Mouth?"
“Last of the Late Great Gorilla-Suit Actors”
"The Fake Tears of Shirley Temple"
“The Father and Mother of American Tit-Pics” (Walt Whitman nude, in the forest, staring deep into a still pool — the only means of taking tit-pics available at that time)

But it was her poem Rape Joke that stopped me in my tracks to re-read as soon as I got to the end.




Gregory Robinson’s All Movies Love the Moon

 
I was lucky to have Robinson come to town earlier this year for one of the monthly readings I host. He's undeniably likeable in person, but his book is even better. From the backjacket description:

"Anyone who watches silent movies will notice how often crashes occur—trains, cars, and people constantly collide and drama or comedy ensues. Gregory Robinson’s All Movies Love the Moon is also a collision, a theater where prose, poetry, images, and history meet in an orchestrated accident. The result is a film textbook gone awry, a collection of linked prose poems and images tracing silent cinema’s relationship with words—the bygone age of title cards."

Here's a video trailer with one of these poems:

Claudia Rankine's Citizen: An American Lyric

Unfortunately, this book becomes more and more relevant, with every passing news cycle.
A collection of vignettes exploring varying degrees of racism embedded into daily experience.

I knew whatever was in front of me was happening and then the police vehicle came to a screeching halt in front of me like they were setting up a blockade. Everywhere were flashes, a siren sounding and a stretched-out roar. Get on the ground. Get on the ground now. Then I just knew.

And you are not the guy and still you fit the description because there is only one guy who is always the guy fitting the description.

The Poetry Foundation has a few more excerpts here:





Simone Meunch's The Air Lost In Breathing

I immediately hunted down this book after hearing her read the poem "Tom Waits I Hate You."
This book wasn't easy to find, because it appears to be out-of-print,
but I thought it was worth the search:

It was a little easier for me to find a copy of my own book that came out in August, so I also gave away a copy of The Existentialist Cookbook.

John Tottenham's Inertia Variations

Tottenham was one of the poets I read with at the recent Long Beach Poetry Festival and his commitment to bleak resignation struck a self-loathing chord in my soul. These poems are like the antidote to all of those uplifting self-help yoga-panted memes that your friends keep posting on Facebook.

A Richer Victory

Broke, bitter and alone.
What more could I possibly ask for?
I have failed, at last,
beyond my wildest expectations.
I don’t understand
why I’m still not satisfied.

Life Without Work

To do nothing
In this day and age,
When so much pointless work
Is being produced,
Could almost be considered an achievement.
It all compares most unfavorably
With my own imaginary
Body of work.

The Measure of a Man

A long time ago I made a decision
To become a failure. It wasn’t
As easy as I thought: browsing through life
From one distraction to the next, while waiting
For the last lost moment to become unseizable.
As if there were some fundamental honesty
To not striving: There wasn’t. –
I suspected it all along.

I'm already looking forward to selecting some books for next year.

Two Poems and a Balcony Review of ALL MOVIES LOVE THE MOON

 
We were lucky to have Gregory Robinson come to Phoenix with his brand new book All Movies Love The Moon. I remember seeing Rose Metal Press mentioned on some writer's list of presses that put together beautiful books and now I can see why:

I always intend to lavish a little Goodreads attention on some of the poetry books that make me happy, but I rarely follow through. So here is my latest attempt:

This book is as beautiful from the inside as it is from the cover. Conveniently condensing the entire Era of silent film into a wonderful collection of prose poems that accompany sample images of title cards. Robinson knows when to stick close enough to the subject to share his expertise, like with the infamous 1902 classic A Trip To The Moon:

"poof! Obliterated. A ball of smoke. The same cloud hovered over Star Film Studios when Melies, watching his fortunes fall, set every reel, every mask, every prop ablaze."

and when to depart and splice in tangential memories from his own private reels or pop culture references to Jennifer Love Hewitt TV shows or iPhone apps in order to help illuminate the flickering ideas, like in Hell ' Angels (1916):

"Satan is not all evil, just more of a jerk, always posting pictures with ironic captions on Hell ' Facebook."

In the end, this book is Robinson's eulogy for the Silents and he mourns them with the same selective reverence of any passed loved one:

"no use dying if you cannot be remembered as someone else, someone better." 

There aren't a whole lot of these poems available online, so I asked Rose Metal Press if I could post a couple that might make everyone order this book immediately. Here are two of my favorites:

UNDERWORLD (1927)

There is an esthetics to trespassing, a beauty in being where you should not.

Not old enough to know any better, I waded through a pool of boards and rusty nails to sneak into an abandoned hospital with narrow halls and holes in the floors. There were signs of recent life in the rooms--bedrolls and old magazines. Glass broke on the floor below and my flashlight flickered and died. Fumbling for a dim light of a window, the sound of glass settling turned to voices. 

Outside, a great city in the dead of night: streets lonely, moon-flooded. The bar was called Sneakers. After four a.m., it is a perfect void, filled with empty booths and denizens that turn the world into a film noir. Drink and smoke deliberately--the end of hope greeted with alacrity.

Easy, here, to get used to staring forward. There is a cemetery outside of town, unofficial and unmarked. People bury their pets there, fencing off tiny plots, visiting and bringing bones to set on their graves. If you are worthy, a white cat will follow you around. Her way of saying You shouldn't be here, but I am glad nevertheless.

 

DIARY OF A LOST GIRL (1929)

Day One

Gave up baby fathered by creepy German guy with huge hands and serial-killer smile. He is not what you call the marrying type.

Day Two

Dad has knocked up the housekeeper again. Her name is Meta, as if she is a housekeeper that comments on housekeepers. Made many friends after arrest and internment at all-girl reform school. Hello mother hello father greetings from camp getmethehelloutofhere.

Day Three

Escaped male porn fantasy of all-girl reform school. Another creepy guy: Yes Thymian, you're a lost girl now. Moved in with prostitutes, but fairly convinced I am not a prostitute and unsure of what prostitute position entails. May involve dancing or exercise.

Day Four

Adopted into high society, bonnets and furs. Reasons for adoption are unclear, but involve another man with questionable intentions. Unfortunately, baby dead and dirtbag father continues to live happy, unrepentant life.

Not to self: Rethink policy on male friends, and men in general.

I also love how title card images are included throughout the book. It's an intriguing aspect that ties everything together. I never fully appreciated this literary aspect of silent films and the best writers brought a haiku-like element to these cards.

Gregory Robinson is also an engaging reader and a delightful person, so we enjoyed having him stick around to chat and sign books for a little while at our Caffeine Corridor Poetry Series.

I hope some of you get your hands on a copy and let me know what you think.

This blog will fade out to his book trailer: