A Poem a Day (read, that is)

Last April I wrote a "poem" a day. This April, I'm doing well to read a poem a day. Which makes me think that maybe that's the way it should be. I mean, if we want to talk about slow poetry, let's talk consumption. How many times do you actually spend a sizeable chunk of time with only one poem (or section of a long poem)? I think most of us who even bother with such things typically breeze through multiple books, journals, reviews, blogs, etc. a week, or even a day. For those of us who are in the academic or publishing industries (or wanna be), it's something akin to literary speed-up. At the same time, however, the only occasions on which I've really "sat" with a poem lately have been in class.

What the hell is the point of speed-reading poetry? Or said another way, if the point is to speed read poetry, then what the hell good is it?

I'm not talking well-wrought-urn crap. Even if it's poetry that's flip and jokey, timing is everything.

Perhaps, as we continue to transition into a post-literatre society, school study of "literature" will take the form of memorization, coupled with performance (as it has at most times in most cultures). Now that would slow us down, alright.

Obama v. Roosevelt

The comparison is inevitable. So how does Bo stack up against FDR? Here is Daniel Schorr's analysis (Schorr was reporting during both administrations). Also, compare Bo's press conference and "internet address" to Roosevelt's inveighing against "malefactors of great wealth" and "economic royalists" (the latter includes a downloadable MP3 recording).

Poor folks trusted Roosevelt - even though his accent was kinda funny-sounding, he exuded reassurance. Not only did he "feel their pain," he gave them jobs. And he really did tax the rich and spread the wealth. People wrote him letters fully believing he would personally read them (and he did, some of them).

Nowadays, I feel like "my voice" "counts for more" on a blog than in a "letter to my elected representatives." It seems as though politicians are more afraid of this amorphous force called the "blogosphere" than they are of the rather more (statistically) tangible entity called the "elecorate." It's Growing Bigger Every Day, after all - and "blog" sounds a little like "Blob," don't you think?

Moreover ("moreover"?), I've about come to the conclusion that corporations are more sensitive to political pressure than are politicians. For the former, it's a matter of dollar and cents. For the latter, well, their dollars and cents come from the former. Yelling at a politician to change things makes about as much sense as yelling at the receptionist to give you your job back.

The Rejection of Rejection Slips

Is it just my imagination, or is the Rejection Slip an institution that is going by the boards? There are journals who send them out, of course – and some of them are e-slips. With those automated submission systems, one wonders if one’s work isn’t being evaluated by a computer. But at least you get a response from the machine.

Back in The Day, I don’t recall as many editors just blowing one off. Nowadays, you can query after six months, not get any response, and then wait another year, and never receive a rejection slip. Or get an acceptance after two years – never having heard a peep in the interim! (true story)

How come the lack of rejection slips? Well, Carol Novak at Mad Hatters Review is gracious enough to explain (in paradigmatic Carol N. fashion):

“. . . we hate sending rejection emails and refuse to do so. So please -- if
you haven't heard from us within 120 days of your submission, presume
that ‘while we enjoyed your submission, it didn't suit our current
needs.’ This has got to be the dumbest, most over-used rejection letter
language both of us editors and you have had the misfortune to read.
Lots of chi-chi journals send out letters like that. We've surmised that
lots of chi-chi editors lack imagination.”

So, in some cases, it may be a rejection of the rejection slip as a genre. In other cases, it may just be that the crush of submissions are simply overwhelming, and the editors give up trying to respond to all of them. With 10-50K publishing poets in the US alone, who can blame them??

In other cases, the editors may simply be too cool to interact with the creators of work they disdain. I suspect that may have been the case with Narrativity – which prompted this hilarious and brilliant piece by Paul VanDeCarr - which they couldn't help but publish.

And thank heavens for journals like Abraham Lincoln, which promises to laugh at unsolicited submissions. That’s incredibly refreshing – like a post-dated rejection slip, first thing in the mornin’!

Anyway, I’d be interested in other people’s experiences, rejection-slip-wise, in recent years. Is the silent “Whatever” replacing the written response to submissions?

"It may be that the continuity of tradition is mere semblance. But then precisely the persistence of this semblance of persistence provides it with continuity."
- Walter Benjamin, Arcades Project, N 19,1

think about that, next time you listen to the news; the effects will be striking.

AIGony

You don't think this has anything to do with it, do you?

Obama to US: "I Feel Your Rage"

If Pres. O is so upset about the big bonuses being paid to the execs who ran A.I.G. into the ground, then why doesn't he direct the Secy. of Treasury to suspend bailout payments until either the company renegotiates the contracts or the Congress renegotiates the bailout?

Or better yet, why doesn't he finish nationalizing the m***********s, then fire the execs?

That's a rhetorical question. If you didn't think so, please please check out opensecrets.org

Personally, I think Mr. O has taken a page from the playbook of Gentleman Bill. Clinton realized that, if people feel like they are "heard," then you can pretty much go ahead and do what you were going to do anyway - even if it manifestly screws them over - and they won't kick. I'll let the brain physiologists figure out why, but it seemed to work for Bill.

And I think Bo figures that empathizing by joining in might be just as good as emphatizing by listening. "Hey - he's outraged, just like us!" "Yeah; he gets it." Maybe. Or maybe we don't.

Langston Hughes on the Limits of Poetic Speech and the Obduracy of the Physical

Johannesburg Mines

In the Johannesburg mines
There are 240,000 natives working.

What kind of poem
Would you make out of that?

240,000 natives working
In the Johannesburg mines.

(1928)

The thing I like about this short poem is that it is a poem about when poets and poetry readers might be well-advised to silently pause and suck in their breath. Is this despair? A "social sublime"? Maybe. But it would be easy, in fact, to write about the mines and other injustices (as Hughes would do, at length, in the 30s), and it would be easy to pass over in silence. But Hughes does neither; here he simply takes a snapshot of the poet at a loss - or the poet framing the image by writing a poem about not writing a poem. And that's perhaps the most eloquent thing one could say. It's what George Oppen "said," in the 1930s, in a different way.

Quotations and Destruction, Curiosity and Despair

"This discovery of the modern function of quotations, according to Benjamin . . . was born of despair . . . despair of the present and the desire to destroy it; hence their power is 'not the strength to preserve but to cleanse, to tear out of context, to destroy'"
- Hannah Arendt, introduction to Illuminations (38-39)

"The contemporary who learns from books of history to recognize how long his present misery has been in preparation . . . [learns that which] does not cause him sorrow, but arms him. Nor does such a history arise from sorrow, unlike that which Flaubert had in mind when he penned the confession: 'Few will suspect how depressed one had to be to undertake the resuscitation of Carthage.' It is pure curiosité that arises from and deepens sorrow."
- Walter Benjamin, Arcades Project, N 15, 3.

maxims

1. It's true that you become a parody of yourself, sooner or later. If you're a writer, sooner.

2. Nothing makes poetry happen.

*Perk UP?!*

This is part of a recent e-mail to me from a PhD who is currently working as an adjunct in my department:

'This year I applied for 15 tenure-track positions in my field, of which over half were later canceled due to the present economic “crisis.” Not counting the hours I spent preparing application materials, I spent $150 on printing and postage—about 30% of one of my bi-weekly paychecks. I have also pursued work outside of academe, only to discover that my PhD is a greater liability than an asset. I am regarded with open skepticism and suspicion by prospective employers; I’ve been told time and again that I’m “overqualified,” a “flight risk.” I have even had interviews with area businesses canceled when they learned of my academic background. I am competing for these jobs against others who have professional degrees from an increasing number of smartly marketed trade schools and community colleges, and bachelor’s degrees from any one of several area universities. Simply put, there are more qualified, degree-holding people than our regional economy can afford to absorb, and having a PhD has left me way behind the competition. Short of flipping Whoppers or waving to Walmart shoppers, I have no choice but to continue in what I’m doing to earn a living. The university should be ashamed—mortified—to have so many of its teachers living at or below poverty level. It’s ironic that as KU undergraduate enrollment goes up year after year, my job prospects continue to go down. To be honest, I’ve all but given up on publishing and scraping together funds to attend big conferences. What’s the point? I’m going to “perish” anyway. Besides, I’ve got papers to grade, papers to grade, and more papers to grade.'