cummings foreword

 ee cummings, foreword to is 5

On the assumption that my technique is either complicated or original or both, the publishers have politely requested me to write an introduction to this book.

At least my theory of technique, if I have one, is very far from original; nor is it complicated. I can express it in fifteen words, by quoting The Eternal Question And Immortal Answer. of burlesk, viz., 'Would you hit a woman with a child?-No, I'd hit her with a brick.' Like the burlesk comedian, I am abnormally fond of that precision which creates movement.

If a poet is anybody, he is somebody to whom things made matter very little-somebody who is obsessed by Making. Like all obsessions, the Making obsession has disadvantages; for instance, my only interest in making money would be to make it. Fortunately, however, I should prefer to make almost anything else, including locomotives and roses. It is with roses and locomotives (not to mention acrobats Spring electricity Coney Island the 4th of July the eyes of mice and Niagara Falls) that my 'poems' are competing.

They are also competing with each other, with elephants, and with El Greco.

Ineluctable preoccupation with The Verb gives a poet one priceless advantage: whereas nonmakers must content themselves with the merely undeniable fact that two times two is four, he rejoices in a purely irresistible truth (to be found, in abbreviated costume, upon the title page of the present volume).

so you want to be a writer

video

I started a poem.

 
 the:

deserted carousels, intestines
of video, wide ribboned eyes waiting for
an unravelling,
the spinning
hoo
     la hoo
              ps round&round
the garden like faded teddies memory attempted
to recreate

re
  creation
             al
               playground
to spin the image out&out


I broke this video with a blunt knife.

It bled on the sofa and now it's red.

Collect the drugged eyes of movies
 be
    for
         e they
                 we
                      ave
                           their pictures.

We don't come for the pictures.
Life for memory and ornament,
round&round death cutting straight on its motor-
bike:

 I finished a poem.

my window (!)

10 Rules For Writing Fiction--Margaret Atwood

1 Take a pencil to write with on aeroplanes. Pens leak. But if the pencil breaks, you can't sharpen it on the plane, because you can't take knives with you. Therefore: take two pencils.

2 If both pencils break, you can do a rough sharpening job with a nail file of the metal or glass type.

3 Take something to write on. Paper is good. In a pinch, pieces of wood or your arm will do.

4 If you're using a computer, always safeguard new text with a ­memory stick.

5 Do back exercises. Pain is distracting.

6 Hold the reader's attention. (This is likely to work better if you can hold your own.) But you don't know who the reader is, so it's like shooting fish with a slingshot in the dark. What ­fascinates A will bore the pants off B.

7 You most likely need a thesaurus, a rudimentary grammar book, and a grip on reality. This latter means: there's no free lunch. Writing is work. It's also gambling. You don't get a pension plan. Other people can help you a bit, but ­essentially you're on your own. ­Nobody is making you do this: you chose it, so don't whine.

8 You can never read your own book with the innocent anticipation that comes with that first delicious page of a new book, because you wrote the thing. You've been backstage. You've seen how the rabbits were smuggled into the hat. Therefore ask a reading friend or two to look at it before you give it to anyone in the publishing business. This friend should not be someone with whom you have a ­romantic relationship, unless you want to break up.

9 Don't sit down in the middle of the woods. If you're lost in the plot or blocked, retrace your steps to where you went wrong. Then take the other road. And/or change the person. Change the tense. Change the opening page.

10 Prayer might work. Or reading ­something else. Or a constant visual­isation of the holy grail that is the finished, published version of your resplendent book.

an interview to love

I must say, I've come to love this guy though I have read only two poems of his and didn't even like them that much. The interview is taken from poets.org. I admit I am addicted to that site.

Poets.org: How do you know when you've finished writing a poem?
Ben Mirov: I usually get a vertiginous feeling followed by nausea.
Poets.org: What word are you proud of sneaking into a poem? What word would you never put in a poem?
Mirov: I once used the word "exsaguinate" in a poem. That felt pretty good.
I can't think of a word I'd never put in a poem. Poetry has contexts and mutations for even the clunkiest of words. If I were to think of a word I'd never put in a poem, poetry would prove me wrong.
That being said, I kind of hate the word "heart."
Poets.org: What do you see as the role of the poet in today's culture?
Mirov: The role of the poet in today's culture is the same as it's always been: to be a huge transparent eyeball.
Poets.org: Which poet's work do you continually go back to?
Mirov: I don't have an appropriate answer for this question. I've always been inspired by deep sea organisms. Their anatomy and diversity is poetic. I love the proliferation of forms that can be found in the deep ocean.
Poets are great too.
Poets.org: Are you on Facebook, Twitter, or Tumblr? How does that fit into your writing life, if at all??
Mirov: I use facebook and twitter. I use them to share my work and other things. They exist outside of my writing life as mechanisms of self-destruction, reflection, and promotion.
I like to think my "writing life" resists their ephemerality. I'm sure it does. Poetry is an impenetrable black orb I carry inside me. Twitter and facebook exist in the world outside the orb, and ceaselessly try to quantify and measure it. But the orb exists in a kind of non-physical plane, beyond my own attempts to understand it, using my hands and brain to write things down.
Poets.org: What are you reading right now?
Mirov: I just started reading Shadow and Claw, by Gene Wolfe. It's the first book of a sci-fi tetralogy called Book of the New Sun. I'm also reading Works on Paper by Eliot Weinberger It's the last of his essay collections I haven't read, so I'm savoring it.