"
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
"Fortunately art is a community effort --a small but select community living in a spiritualized world endeavoring to interpret the wars and the solitudes of the flesh."Ginsberg, Allen
I met Allen Ginsberg. I spent a week attending lectures by him when I was 17. I was just beginning to become aware of my own ability to write. I had an inkling we were of the same kind. But I was a high school student and shy. Every day for a week, my English class went to see him lecture in the Rare Books room of the undergraduate library at the University of Buffalo. The room was packed and I sat with my friend Joe, only friend from high school I speak to.
I don't recall anything he said, just being there. I read last night he declined speaking fees for years,but if the institution insisted he told them to give it to the library for the purchase of poetry books. He gave my friend Joe $10 and told him to give it to our library to buy a replacement for the book of Ginsberg's Joe had taken from the school library and asked him to sign. Ginsberg knew Joe would never return it now that it was signed; hysterically- years later his mother gave it back to our high school library.
The last night of Ginsberg visit he gave a reading at the Albright Knox ( most amazing Art gallery for a small city). We arrived late and prepared to line the walls. An usher saw us and asked a high society lady to remove her fur from two front-row-center seats so that we could sit down.
If I am honest, I like to think our meeting was like the photo of Clinton meeting JFK.
Monday, June 25, 2007
Poets (and others), The Bathroompoetry Project is looking for some sites. We have a willing participant who is looking for a few colleagues to help get the project up and running. Please take a look at the website and contact me if you're interested. http://bathroompoet.net/
I love this idea, probably because I love Jenny Holzer's work.
Recent poem:
what change from a dollar can get you
amusement and novelty
everything is available from a vending machine
anonymous boxes
slots for the obscene
plastic wrap for penises
and faux cotton
dummies
phalluses
to absorb
what the polyurethane screen deducted
proving life
doesn't come in a box
only the dead
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
psychophagic:soul eater
I believe in Good and Evil. Psychophagic means soul eating, I learned that term when I was reading about narcissism. If you are spiritual, acknowledge a soul, you know what I mean if it has happened to you. I have been insulted before, hurt like everyone, heartbroken and scared. Those experiences were all different, than this. It's as if I am a pawn in a game, involuntarily I am someones amusement. They don't bore of me when I ignore them, they up the stakes. They want a response, a reaction.That's all I am to them, a reaction. Good or bad, and they want their fix like any drug fiend.This is what it feels like to objectified and mutilated. But I keep dodging their pins, I refuse to be their specimen. No fucking way.
courting a tsunami
there's a space between my brows
where the wrinkles started
and my eyes meet
when i formulate a thought
and get into poeticspace/ speak
I furrow like farmers till
and I remember my only impressive ability is (skill?)
skipping stones until I see I've made ripples too
and courted a tsunami
been stoning myself
and the salty/guilty spray
is man-made
Labels: art, evil, good, luba, narcissism, narcissistic, poem, poetry, prose, psychophagic, self-potrait
