Shuffling Poets: lustre defined and questioned

As in fiction so in poetry readings. The consumer wants to trust the the narrator, in this case poet, who is protagonist of her or his reading.

It's not that poet -or narrator- must be entirely honorable a human or kind to the masses. If he or she is either, that becomes clear and adds to the lustre. But drunkenness and sleeping with students are also part of the chemical formulation of a poet's -or narrator's- lustre.

Fine and good but lustre's composition does become questionable, thin and plastery, when a poet stands at the podium and shuffles through her or his work, not just looking for a poem but trying to decide which poem to read next.

Of course I merely have one collection out (have I mentioned that in the last five minutes?), not ten books and twice as many uncollected poems. It's really not so hard for me. For me it takes a few stickies in my book (it's published, by the way) (The Future Is Happy) (go to Small Press Distribution or Amazon) and another eight to ten "new" poems (enough, already, the audience will get the idea). "New work" has at most been published in journals.

Some poets will announce, "this poem was accepted by Farmer's Snotrag Review of Southern Illinois Agricultural and Combine Academy and then wait, as if honoring a line break, for gasps of admiration. But the audience never reacts. I wonder if there'd be a stir for a poem kissed by dewy lips of the New Yorker or Poetry's poetry editors?

My disdain is barely concealed when a poet does that, piles it on a poem. Isn't the poor poem itself worth our time? I fear my disdain means I will any day now do the same. What Sarah Sarai disdains barely she soon does.

So who cares what I have to say about readings?

I do and I'll tell you why: I am reading tomorrow night, Tues., April 27, at Bluestockings Bookstore at 7 p.m. Details below. I must make selections tonight then spend the day at the seashore with pebbles in my mouth, practicing, rehearsing, emoting.

Fat chance. But I am always thrilled anyone wants me to read and am thinking about the saucy audience at this activist bookstore and center. I will make my choices tonight and decide which one or two poems I'll do something extra with--I warbled a poem recently and am pushing myself for more.

The right people and the right number of people always show up at readings. I taught myself that years ago. People are showing up for poetry? What could be wrong with that scenario? Nothing. Nothing at all. Not even a shuffling poet.

Join us: Tuesday, April 27th @ 7p.m.
Women’s / Bi / Trans & co. Poetry Jam & Open Mike (All welcome)
Featuring Sarah Sarai & Adrienne Baldassano
Bluestockings Bookstore
173 Allen Street
$5 or best offer--Vittoria passes a hat
(lower east side, 1 block so. of Houston, btwn. Stanton/Rivington)
train: 1 block south of the F’s 2nd Ave stop; 5 blocks from the JMZ's Essex/Delancey stop
Hosted by Vittoria Repetto, the hardest working guinea butch dyke on the lower east side

Mark Strand (reminds me of Anwar Sadat). Part II on slam & performance poetry reviews

A few years ago I went to see Mark Strand read at the Cornelia Street Cafe. I would be happy to observe Mark Strand pouring over a train schedule or working through one of Pound's Cantos, but, in fact, Mark Strand was to read aloud his poetry.


Of which I am a great fan, or at least a fan, how great am I, after all, well, not very. I was not disappointed. As Octavio Paz has written, “Mark Strand has chosen the negative path, with loss as the first step towards fullness: it is also the opening to a transparent verbal perfection.”


Prepared though I was to be charmed by verse, I was unprepared to be charmed by Strand. I'd never seen him in person. When the saucy, yes saucy, cocktail waitress drew near him—he was onstage at this point—he gave her a look, the like of which I have not seen since that photo with Anwar Sadat and Richard M. Nixon.


Sometime in the early seventies, Nixon went to Egypt. Sadat, Egypt's president and a great man, offered entertainment worthy of visiting dignitaries. Belly dancing. The photograph, from Life or Time, revealed a remarkably uncomfortable, even for him, Nixon, while the look on Sadat's face was, hmmmmm, appreciative


In our touchy times, and I'm okay with touchy, I am called to emphasize that in no way am I saying the visionary Sadat, later tragically assassinated, was improper. He was, however, human, and clearly able to enjoy what was before him.


Strand's face when the waitress approached to see if he wanted a refill. It was a, Send her to my room look. Sometime this Spring I went to see Strand read, alongside other poets, at the Bowery Poetry Club in an evening designed to mix writers of his ilk, i.e., Poetry Society of America members, however they're elected, etc., with high school performance poets. It was a great evening.


What impressed me most that night was the quality of performance poetry. Not all the young poets had me reevaluating the form, just as not all poets at an open mic are a call to reevaluate poetry. (Just as not all prizewinners . . . ) But there were two young women, both about to head off to college, I believe, who were extremely gifted. Images, rhythms, timing. Performance.


I didn't remember those two until after I posted my blog last night, about performance poetry and its reviewers. I gotta say, reviewers, step up. It's a new world (or a constantly self-reinventing one). Thoughtful reviewers will be rewarded with images of Strand, Sadat or belly dancers.

Slam poetry and the reviewing thereof

Poet Victor Infante wrote this, elsewhere:

So here's what I think the world of poetry needs: A regular column or space in a high-end, respected and decently distributed mainstream literary journal dedicated strictly to the discussion and critique of slam and related non-establishment poetry: why and how it works, what does and does not deserve to survive from the canon, what deserves more attention. It's mission would be to explore what fromt he alternative has been sublimated into the maisntream, and to look past the standard arguments for what's new and important.

He mentioned this was part of an ongoing dialog between himself and friends, as it is an ongoing dialog in the poetry world (big world, lots of poetry, lots of poets).

Every form of art and art maker deserves attention. Music in its constant rebirth, from drumming to chant to weird Chinese opera (sorry) to Mozart to Ali Akbar Khan to Stevie Wonder (well named) to native American flute.... I note that in The Onion,  reviews are more of popular music, whereas The N. Y. Times or The New Yorker review pop, jazz, classical, "world" (a word meaning not made in America, as "regional theater" means not produced in New York City).

Here's my question. Is being reviewed the goal? What is the value of a review? To create buzz, get attention?

Here's my other question which I hope serves as example. It's about music, not poetry. Can a music reviewer write as much about a Pete Seeger folk song as she could write about Schubert lieder (or weird Chinese opera). Even with the Beach Boys' sophisticated harmonies or Laura Nyro's rhythms, are either as rich for mining by a critic as a song by Billy Strayhorn or Satie?

By which I mean: Is it plausible (and this is a question) that some forms of poetry and other of the arts have more reviewable type components. NO WAY am I saying one form of music (and by extrapolation, poetry) is "higher" on the food chain than the other. I was smothered in classical in my childhood (though, oddly, rock, jazz, soul, funk were not disallowed). Sometime in my late thirties I had a huge realization: Classical was not top of the food chain.

That was a big moment for me, especially as I hadn't been able to listen to much classical (short of chant, chamber music, art songs and some relatively modern French composers) for years. You'd have thought my parents waterboarded myself and my sisters while singing (Mom was a soprano) praises of the old boys.

(I realize you might not have thought waterboarded back then, but you could have considered a drip water torture or electric shock or the like.)

A review or critical analysis can open something up. Last Friday I mentioned on this here blog that I was going to hear local poet Michael Graves give a lecture on James Wright's  Shall We Gather at the River. It was a completely worthwhile evening and much in the book opened up (that phrase again).

A jump rather than a conclusion: I would like performance poetry to be opened, more. Go ahead, critics. Teach.