i was lost at sea

HOW COME NO ONE EVER TOLD ME

ALSO by the way you guys! some poems that have been up on the low log by me and others.

freedom!

OMG WTF POEMS TO SELL JEANS WITH. i smell a get rich quick scheme.

it's a town for losers, i'm pullin' out of here to wiiiiinnnnnnn!!!

i totally jumped ship on this blog. however, i just started a summer course, which means i'm procrastinating again and spending my loser time on the loser internet instead of BBQ-in' and pokin' smot in the NJ sunshine. 

so here's what's been on my poetry mind lately:

bruce springsteen is the contemporary walt whitman (oh yeah, also, i became completely obsessed with walter whitman.) allow me to convince you:

1) the boisterous, celebratory voice of the people. think: "in the days we sweat it out of the streets of a runaway american dream." think: "my respiration and inspiration, the beating of my heart/ the passing of blood and air through my lungs."

2) THEY ARE BOTH MAD AMERICAN DUH COME ON IT'S OBVIOUS.

3) sex. walt whitman wanted to be this masculine sexual powerhouse, but actually he was real feminine a lotta the time. he def had the sex part down though. bruce on the other hand did embody this masculinity and projected it like a neon sign. (think: the boss) lay it on me, the both of youz.

4) sometimes it's not all optimism and exclamation points. think: the river. think: when lilacs last in the doorway bloomed. 

5) last but definitely not least, they are both from nj!! cool!!!

anyway, i'm totally looking to develop this further. so watch out, radioactive man.

what else? my crush on the dickman twins rages on. is this blogworthy? (nah) i was gonna buy both their books like two days ago, but i don't have a job and have no cash to buy poems.

see you on the internet kids.

notes on a po fest

the poetry festival is like a holiday. it involves drinking around grown ups, feeling justified in not doing homework, spending tons of money (on books), and fun visitors.

- linda gregg was phenomenal. she is as awesome as her poems are. she drew lots of flowers all over her book when she signed it. she mentioned that she was never married to jack gilbert, but talked about him in between almost every poem. dig dig dig her.

- po fest crush: the dickman twins. damn cuties, how'd you get so good at writin' poems? they had different sounds, but were equally adorable. they read one poem together about their twinhood, one of my favorite moments of the weekend.

- dorianne laux and joseph millar: let me in that marriage today.

- RITADOVE RITADOVE RITADOVE.

- anais mitchell, you're cool.

- mark doty and ck williams: this reading was amazing. i luv u poetry fest. 

PS back into walt whitman heavily don't worry.

the myth of heaven indicates peace and night

i hate walt whitman right now. am i allowed to say that? i just want to punch him in the face with all his cataloguing and optimism and exaggerations. i'm in the middle of a big walt project, so this is rather unfortunate.

w.s merwin had the right idea about whitman: 

"It's not a poetry that develops in a musical or intellectual sense. It doesn't move on and take a growing form- it repeats and finds more detail. That bothers me, but in particular it's his rhetorical insistence on an optimistic stance, which can be quite wonderful as a statement of momentary emotion; but as a world view and as a program for confronting existence, it bothered me when I was 18 and it bothers me now."

i don't have time for this.

IS THERE ANYBODY REALLY ALIVE!?!

mm-- sing it bruce. i love new jersey. i do. listen to darkness on the edge of town by bruce springsteen and try to tell me it's not the most genuine thing you've ever heard. the state feels alive to me. it has a voice. lacking in pretense and brimming in all things quintessential when it comes to your most romantic idea of america, jersey is the place 4 me.

come on, tell me you don't want to get some burgers on that grill and hang with my tikki torches. (hi dad!)

it wasn't until i moved to new jersey that i started writing poetry. i'm not sure why, but new jersey definitely unlocked something in me that led to poetry. a lot of poets are from new jersey. it's one of the most poetic states around. allow me to explain. 

walt whitan! uncle walt! you can go visit his grave in camden, if you're into that kind of thing (i'm not.)

william carlos williams from rutherford

allen ginsberg fucked a latin teacher from my high school. no really.

amiri baraka born and raised in newark. nj poet laureate until there was some, uh, unpleasantness. 

w.s. merwin raised in union city, nj. graduated from princeton.

robert pinksy born in long branch, undergrad at rutgers newark

joyce carol oates wrote about the smell of nj. nice. 

there's a lot more i'm just going to leave out, but look into jersey poets. for those of you interested, i highly recommend this anthology: poets of new jersey.

my copy is in the mail!

please enjoy some words on nj:

"new jersey's gift to its poets... is that it's a place of many places, essentially amorphous, freeing us to look at the world." - stephen dunn

Night Driving

by joyce carol oates

South into Jersey on I-95 rain and

windshield wipers and someone you love asleep

in the seat beside you, light on all sides

like teeth winking and that smell like baking

bread gone wrong and you want 

to die it's so beautiful-

you love the enormous trucks floating in spray

and the tall smokestacks rimmed with flame

and this hammering in your head

this magnet drawing what's deepest

in you you can't name

exactly to know it's there.

<3