To Imagine Evil

     "Poetry's function is not to oppose evil, but to imagine it. What if Shakespeare had opposed Iago, or Dostoevsky opposed Raskolnikov - the vital thing is that they created Iago and Raskolnikov, so that we begin to see betrayal and murder and theft in a new light."
     -Robert Duncan to Denise Levertov

McCaffery Verse

     "...an experience in language rather than a representation by it."
     - Steve McCaffery on an (un)certain kind of post-free verse poetry. Indeterminate as opposed to strictly referential. If that isn't clear enough, then refer to this by Marjorie Perloff:
     "I have no name for this new form of sounding and perhaps its namelessness goes with the territory: the new exploratory poetry (which is, after all, frequently prose) does not want to be labeled or categorized. What can be said, however, is that the 'free verse' aesthetic, which dominated the 20th century, is no longer operative."

Elevator Music XVIII

Ocean View Semi-tarry


stone used with zest, devoid of
vital pipe clay and pulverized

I want to write about you but
you are chairly and organ
     molten metal flows
     broken zinnia flowers
     strewn across the lawn

a cross says less than the lack of one
     it is nice to see a church
     but nicer not to

the grave is up, heartfelt
uncivilized
considered as a group
the cemetery lacks concupiscence
though is a kind of concubinage
     we come together
bring into one main body
     less dilute
and rise, we rise
take wing and coiffure
a frazzle of starlings
one's thoughts or attention
out over the Straight
     and into books

Douglas Miller New Works

I Thought of You When I Wrote This

    Are you kidding me? Check out this and other new works by Douglas Miller.

PageBoy Now at Left Bank Books

     That's right, you heard it here wrist! First but not least, PageBoy Magazine is now single-handedly keeping another independent bookstore/magazine seller afloat. How do we do it?.. Well, by your generous support of course. So next time you're reaching for Nit House, Sween Mickies, or DUNCE, just think to yourself: "PageBoy Magazine makes me happy, it really does."

Who Said That?

     "You don't listen to a symphony and ask, 'what did they mean by that?' You ask, 'did I have a meaningful experience, was I moved?' A poem is the same."

     I found this quote on one of my notebooks, I Magritte to say that it had no source written beneath it. It must be regret, though. It's consistent with the quote by him listed in this blog under the heading Rene Magritte Pipe Song. I can't be sure, though. When I google searched "you don't listen to a symphony and ask, 'what did they mean by that?'" I came up with How Do I Get My Wife to Listen to My Needs? (poor bloke) Perhaps he's going about it the wrong way. Perhaps instead of asking her to listen to his needs he should ask, "Honey, are you moved?" or maybe "Honey, do you need to move out?" Either way the quote above is neither his nor his wife's, pretty sure of that.