I noticed that Christian Wiman, the current editor of Poetry magazine, has a new book out in stores. How fun would it be to type in all of the poems in that book, and then run a full concordance on the text to extract the complete vocabulary used in it, and then write a few new poems that use only the re-arranged language contained in that book, and then submit those poems to Poetry for consideration.
Was at a reading in an art gallery last night and while checking out their lighting set-up I had an idea for a way to do an art show. Hang the work like normal, but, instead of the normal lighting, the gallery should be as near to total dark as possible. When visitors arrive to view the work, they are given miner’s helmets with forehead flashlights on them. I can picture the beams moving about the gallery, the pieces with more than one viewer lighting up with more light, the show’s overall visibility shifting and changing with the way the viewer’s line of sight changes.
A black t-shirt with white printing, in that all too familiar font from the ridiculously regularly ripped-off slogan Got Milk that reads simply: Got It.
With the ubiquitousness of camera phones these days the time is ripe for a photoblog that consists of documentation of bathroom graffiti. I know there’s blogs out there documenting street art (Wooster Collective is my favorite), but this more behind-closed-stall-doors work is in need of the same treatment.
In literacy training I learned a technique to help new writers overcome their reluctance to write, or their discomfort with writing (it differs from speaking or reading because it’s a commitment to the action that is not so easy to retract–if you say or read something wrong you can always backpeddle with “Oh right, that’s what I meant to say.” but if you write it down, it’s there in print and much more difficult to gloss over as anything other than a mistake), and I thought it could be a good method for beating writer’s block for some people (though, I don’t know for sure, I’ve never actually experienced writer’s block myself, and can’t even imagine what it would be like…I need a writer’s cork most of the time) because it gets the brain into the writing state of mind in a way that’s completely non-threatening. It gets the engine started without the worry of where are we going. The technique (like all good techniques) is very simple. Fill a page with writing. Write anything at all. Write your name, write the letter “m”, write blah blah blah, write words you see around you, copy out of a book within reach, write anything until you fill a single page. Then throw it away.
I don’t get the fascination with ever longer pepper mills when the total output of each grind is largely unaffected. A product I would buy if it were available would be a pepper mill that had a dinner plate sized dispenser part–it would need to have several concentric and simultaneously operating grinding elements to work properly, but, there are definitely times when I’d like to make a single half-twist of a mill and end up with complete coverage of a plate with an even layer of freshly ground pepper.
I’d like to assemble a manuscript by theft. Take one poem each from a range of modern poetry books of the type that strike me as interchangeably blah. Truly interchange them by taking this random sampling and randomizing the order of the poems within a manuscript that I’d then send out (with its previously published credits intact, because you know nobody’s double-checking those) under a pseudonym to various publishers to see if I could get it accepted. Withdraw it every time its accepted and just keep score.
Organizing readings here locally we’re always talking about what we can do to make it more than just an open mic, to give people a good solid reason for coming out. Having a feature + an open mic is a good combination. Having a theme seems to work, too. Combining with music or dance or some other art form also helps put butts in the chairs. Anyway, as we were brainstorming event ideas we came up with one good idea.
Everybody has at least one poem that drops the F-bomb. Performers will often express a concern over whether it’s appropriate or not to read that poem at any given event.
We’re thinking it could work (and be a heckuva fun evening, and a decent crowd draw) to host an evening of nothing but poems that have the word “fuck” in them. If the poem doesn’t drop the F-bomb, it can’t be read. No exceptions. So, that’s part one of the idea: an evening devoted to dropping the F-bomb. Everyone walking in knows what to expect, everyone reading knows what they can uncork, and a good time is had by all.
Here’s where it gets better.
I think so many people have great poems that drop the F-bomb that the evening could be structured NOT as a “show up with your F-bomb poem” and sign up to read, but, instead, submit your F-bomb poem to an editor who could hand select the best ones so it’s an event that has some fucking standards!
It gets better still.
If this event were to occur, say, once a month or so, then at the end of the year, all the poems selected by the editor could appear in a print anthology.
And finally…
One thing that’s sure to happen if you remove the “open mic” aspect and go with a straight platform of preselected readers is a decrease in audience. So to address that fact, the evening gets structured as
only mostly preselected readers and then there’s an open mic to follow. The best poem from the open mic (as judged by audience response) earns a wildcard entry into the anthology.
Maybe you’ve seen a poet performing a poem while an interpretive dancer performs alongside them, interpreting the words into motion. Now picture two interpretive dancers who are also poets. Each person voices their own poem while interpretive dancing the other person’s poem. Like rubbing your belly and patting your head at the same time, only much, much harder. Makes my brain hurt just thinking about it.
You know those gel packs you can get that go in the freezer to get cold but they never actually freeze hard but say softish so you can mold them to the sore spot? I’d love to see gel pack gloves that I could slip my hands into so that I could get soothing relief on my fingers, hands, and wrists all at once.
People Pointing Here