sound poem

Eric:

So I made a recording for that website emma was talking about. The recording is here. It is a poem called "The Next Generation." The text of that poem is below:

We are not the next generation.
We never were.
We never will be.
We place stones on stones placed by those now living in Boca Raton
and we are building nothing.
And they were never the next generation.

There is no line,
is no progress,
no regress.

They were. They were not.
We are. We are not.
They will be. They will not be.
And this is it. This is not a cycle.
This is not order. This is not planned.
We are. We are not.

Does this depress you?
It shouldn't. So what if there is no zenith
we are aching towards?
Once I rambled with an Indian taxi driver about life and we didn't talk about the coming inauguration or the recession or the recent plane crash that left all its passengers alive; he talked about why he came to America and I talked about college and we chattered on about the nature of jobs and I honestly loved him; I was sitting in the back, but I wasn't. I was next to him. We were in a coffee shop. We were at a hookah bar. We were best friends, brothers, lovers. And I knew him and he knew me and it was all okay
because transience is freeing,
because I am making a web that will never collapse,
because I matter to him, he to me,
because we can't really connect but we try to and that is tragically beautiful,
and worth running up the hill with this stone for for infinity.

You are not the next generation.
You never were.
You never will be.
But you matter, are matter; you do see an angelic nose-pierced ticketing woman with a strand of blue hair trailing from her hat on a train and you talk to her and you make a web and the web catches everything and everything lives.

Elive (Edit I Haven't)

Jordan Kaye

In and out walk the people,
scurrying from the El platform,
Faces brandished without hesitation.

It’s fun to pretend that you’ve seen
these beings thousands of times,
peering into each commuter’s, each straggler’s
Open book kind of existence.

I’ve been there, oh,
even if in my midday musings.
I think I can feel the tightness
that makes hurt- wrinkles, that
explains the appeal of solemn slumber.

Try and frame the paper so it
becomes the print wall
of the mind’s silly fortress-
a classified ad back hand
stings silence into whom, we hope,
are the spectators.

Fallen back to a typical deduction,
a reduction of my now lost Big breath-
When you look around and it’s hard
to imagine a wall between you,
and it- the screeching, murmuring
accumulated from the wheels and wise men.

Am I the only one still conditioned to
hide inside when from outside,
people pour, pour, pour-
vegetable soup demographic.

De- mo-gra-phic-cracy,
The 1 train’s a salad bowl?
Perhaps pre-steamed, pre-boiled,
all and all and everything
in one, closed container.

mimicking, aren’t we,
the peacock’s innate treasure-
split peacock soup in a melt-ing pot.
Spoons for our own taste (s)
that could be used to,
Smack some Big breath sense
into every little worry withered wo (_man_).

Big breath air.
SMACK SOME SENSE INTO MYSELF.
UNdermine the
colors, fit snugly in
a crayon box world of different-iation.

?

Emma:
I found this picture while cleaning out snapshots taken between 7th and 12th grade, so forgive the lack of artistic merit. You have probably seen this streetlight, or one like it. I was thinking it could be interesting to post intriguing questions and see if anybody answered them, then recollect them after a week or two. Perhaps the answers, or questions, would lead to poems. Perhaps they would be poems.

Thoughts?

Also, would you?

Finally, odd little rhyming poem that I don't know what to make of, if anybody has opinions. Fear it may be overly...simplistic? Trite? Sing-song? But would like to see what you all think. I'll link it for the sake of post length: distress cry of some small flying thing

Bookmarks!

Yeah, that idea sounds fantastic! True wordsmiths infiltration of our lovely academic sanctuary Ha.

a poem i just wrote without any edits

Eric:


well i just wrote this and thought i would put it up without any editing and ask for some suggestions. well. go ahead!

An Idea For Wordsmiths

Eric:

Two nights ago, I had an idea for Wordsmiths. It was late, and I was at a friend's house for a pool party, and for some reason I had an idea for Wordsmiths. I wrote it down in my iPhone. The next day I checked my phone and in it was a note that said: Wordsmiths bookmarks in the library. Bam. I remembered the idea. It was:

Make wordsmiths bookmarks. Put on them a quote from a book, a cool and interesting image, a poem--something exciting and eye-catching and maybe witty or funny. Put them all throughout the library. On the bottom of them (or, if--this would be hard--we made them double sided, on their backs), we could put Wordsmiths, some info about us, and the web address. Maybe we could have a bunch of different bookmarks, so we can have one with a quote, one with an image, etc.

You guys like it?

not quite like the hamlet scene (a draft)

Emma:
i hate these dreams
within dreams,

like double shelled
eggs, or potatoes

that you peel and slice
open to find
a second skin

cradled in bone
colored root. there is

a safety in saying
to yourself, "that may
have been only a dream,

but everything before
and after
was real and right,"

that makes the aching
slip into waking
so much sharper

as your fingers tear
at second skins
and yolk dribbles
out of the sun--

freud, i think,
was wrong
about the wish

but not so wrong
about its
existence.

I'm sorry that I didn't have my name on this before. My internet went haywire while I was posting it; I meant to go back and fix it but things got hectic. I'm looking for general suggestions, especially about whether to cut or leave the last two stanzas, because I've looked at it so many times it may as well be a blender manual at this point. Thanks.

Saul Williams and Rives

Eric:

Since we are a spoken word poetry group, I thought I should (re)mention two great poets: Saul Williams and Rives. Saul Williams is the reigning king of spoken word. I find that individually his pieces are incredible. Taken as a whole, his work seems too focused for me. He is always talking about race, it seems. But he is an incredible performer.

Saul Williams doing Coded Language

Saul Williams in the film Slam doing Amethyst Rock

Rives is full of wit, wordplay, and humor. His delivery is perfect; gestures, rising and falling speeds, conversational. The conversational element works surprising well; he feels like a friend. The only negative thing I would have to say is that his poems are bit shallow, but that suits spoken word.

Rives' website

Rives doing Dirty Talk

Rives doing If I Controlled The Internet

He gave did a great piece that isn't really a poem but that you should watch: Rives on 4am
And a cool piece on emoticons that turns into a story: Rives on Emoticons

The website those last two pieces are on is called TED. It has hundreds of free lectures on it that vary from funny to informational to tragic. TED is a conference on Technology, Entertainment, and Design. An award is given by them each year. Check out their website. It's fuel for poems. Great stuff.

Eric out.

Blank Screen Blues

Jordan Kaye


Paula Abdul lives in a glass house.
In it, she breathes plexi-oxygen through a straw-
this way, her vitality doesn't smudge
the lipstick that carpets her coloring book lips.

Glass house woman
breathes through a straw,
The woman with three
equidistantly cropped chin hairs,
drinks dust through a sippy cup.

Dust that took only a week or two
to collect at the
four corners of my tube.

Dust that confirms
how utterly impossible
it is,
To bear witness:
That Charcoal Reflective Reality Rager

"... To Be Continued"














(Not actually to be continued)

The Pedestal Magazine and a poem

Emma:

For the more verbal among us: at one point I mentioned seeing a reputable e-zine that took spoken word in the form of mp3 files. With some digging, I found it again. It is called The Pedestal Magazine. There is more information in the submission guidelines. I can't say I've listened to everything in the archives, but from what I remember, you all could add an energy that's lacking. So, if anyone is looking for another outlet this summer...

Also, critiques on this poem: the albums
are welcome and appreciated.

First Post: Blog Points and Bob Hicok

Eric:

Blog points:

• Post as much as you can
• Post anything relating to poetry: your poetry, other poetry, a song that sound like poetry, a video of a bowerbird that inspired you to write a poem or that you think could inspire someone else to write a poem, etc.
• Within the text of your post, at the top, put your name, as I have done. Have it bolded and in italics.
• Please put in labels to refer to the work itself (poem, youtube clip, etc) as well as to who wrote it (do: first name last intial, e.g. eric s.)
  

Over with that now, let's go onto a link of a few poems by Bob Hicok. The second or third book of poetry I ever read was his Animal Soul. I think it was the first book of contemporary poetry I ever read. Anyway, I really loved his poems and have been reading his books since. The poems in Animal Soul have this discursive, stream-of-consciousness, energetic style that I haven't found in any of his other collections. The poem "Consideration of Song" in the group of poems on the linked-to website has the same verve as those in Animal Soul.

Well that's all for now.