Talking Points
*Some givens:
The poem isn't the point, the poet is. [The poem isn't the point, your poem is the point.]
The poet is a reliable producer of the feeling that you are in on the poem. [The poet is a reliable producer of the feeling that you will use in your next poem.]
Poets have been fucking with branding since before the first empire. [Most poets would be a lot better off if there were less poets.]
As much of a fuckoff as the poet may be, as much as anybody wants to blow poetry off, deep down most people still consider poetry sacred (nyah-nyah-na-nyah-nyah). [The stuff we like is sacred and it makes us sanctimonious. All others get cast into suspicion.]
* Yeah, I've been watching "The Corporation." That's what some people are after! To be middle managers! Although do middle managers imagine they will be remembered in perpetuity? "What do we want / immortality / when do we want it / ugh?" Who is ever remembered forever? There is no forever. There is no memory. Light is also an illusion. And when you climb out of the cave, you realise its source: the Island of We're Still Fucking With You.
* Without books or the pursuit of books, what basis would poetry have to evaluate itself? How would we know it was any good? We pressure each other into publishing because that makes us more comfortable and makes the roles of others more understandable. When you pull up a chair at AWP you are interviewing for an assistant manager job at Target. Only it's worse: you're becoming part of a system that places vulnerable and overqualified people into debt and constant worry so that they will perpetuate the myth that you need to be put into debt and feel constantly afraid (tenure, publication, awards, grants) to even belong to a community of artists, to even participate. Whoa.
* So indoctrinated are we into thinking a certain way about art and life, we will someday peel away all firm beliefs because we're too tired to keep it up. It becomes too hard to resist. Ipods are cool. It would be nice to have kids and drive a Camaro. Why shouldn't we live comfortably even if it means _______ to ________. We believed we could be anything we wanted to be when we grew up (except women, I don't think women grow up believing that. I remember meeting woman's basketball superstar Rebecca Lobo at a bookstore I was working at. She had shook Red Auerbach's hand as a child and told him she was going to be the first woman to play for the Boston Celtics. I told her the Celtics could really use her (they were in last place again that year)) and then we come to understand that the obstacles are insurmountable. I took down Mohammad's visit with Horatio the Unicorn because my mother was worried that there would be dire consequences for *my family*.
* Cheney was drunk and shot a guy.
* The NSA is spying on millions.
* Good morning!
The poem isn't the point, the poet is. [The poem isn't the point, your poem is the point.]
The poet is a reliable producer of the feeling that you are in on the poem. [The poet is a reliable producer of the feeling that you will use in your next poem.]
Poets have been fucking with branding since before the first empire. [Most poets would be a lot better off if there were less poets.]
As much of a fuckoff as the poet may be, as much as anybody wants to blow poetry off, deep down most people still consider poetry sacred (nyah-nyah-na-nyah-nyah). [The stuff we like is sacred and it makes us sanctimonious. All others get cast into suspicion.]
* Yeah, I've been watching "The Corporation." That's what some people are after! To be middle managers! Although do middle managers imagine they will be remembered in perpetuity? "What do we want / immortality / when do we want it / ugh?" Who is ever remembered forever? There is no forever. There is no memory. Light is also an illusion. And when you climb out of the cave, you realise its source: the Island of We're Still Fucking With You.
* Without books or the pursuit of books, what basis would poetry have to evaluate itself? How would we know it was any good? We pressure each other into publishing because that makes us more comfortable and makes the roles of others more understandable. When you pull up a chair at AWP you are interviewing for an assistant manager job at Target. Only it's worse: you're becoming part of a system that places vulnerable and overqualified people into debt and constant worry so that they will perpetuate the myth that you need to be put into debt and feel constantly afraid (tenure, publication, awards, grants) to even belong to a community of artists, to even participate. Whoa.
* So indoctrinated are we into thinking a certain way about art and life, we will someday peel away all firm beliefs because we're too tired to keep it up. It becomes too hard to resist. Ipods are cool. It would be nice to have kids and drive a Camaro. Why shouldn't we live comfortably even if it means _______ to ________. We believed we could be anything we wanted to be when we grew up (except women, I don't think women grow up believing that. I remember meeting woman's basketball superstar Rebecca Lobo at a bookstore I was working at. She had shook Red Auerbach's hand as a child and told him she was going to be the first woman to play for the Boston Celtics. I told her the Celtics could really use her (they were in last place again that year)) and then we come to understand that the obstacles are insurmountable. I took down Mohammad's visit with Horatio the Unicorn because my mother was worried that there would be dire consequences for *my family*.
* Cheney was drunk and shot a guy.
* The NSA is spying on millions.
* Good morning!
posted by Jim Behrle at 06:27
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