Awesome Machine Press: Say, Poem by Adam Robinson

How can poetry compete with error, in this economy of attention?
—Adam Robinson, from SAY, POEM

Say, Poem by Adam Robinson

Say, Poem is divided into two sections– the first, Say, Poem, is a larger, sort of stream of consciousness patter-type poem constructed around a series of other poems/prose pieces. The second section, Say, Joke, is a series of smaller poems in the form of ironic, off-center jokes.

The patter-type poem in Say, Poem takes the form of a poet’s monologue at a poetry reading– both interior and exterior, it seems, as in Say, Thank you–/Thank you–/Then say,/I’m not reading a single line/until I know how much/this is going to get me.

It’s an interesting concept, and got me thinking about context regarding poetry– how differently we see it depending on presentation, as at poetry readings, or what we may have heard beforehand about the poem or the poet. For instance, our appreciation of this particular poem can’t not be affected when it’s presented to us this way:

Barefaced varmints

Litany for Regifting
Reb Livingston

Your animus toward Her is judging
as you expound the soul who spellbound and hunted,
for you are the animal with the anvil and Her poorest choice.
Remedy Her for the sake of the Shepherd’s principle,
the face and master who is you.
For this apologia,
you are ordinary and loathsome.
Remember this, fourth-rate narrator:
Her gifts were debased,
displaced among white elephants,
barefaced varmints full of dicked offense.

No Tell Books: God Damsel, by Reb Livingston

You withstood distance, you cannot withstand bareness.
—Reb Livingston, from THE DEATH OF WOE-DODO

God Damsel, by Reb Livingston

God Damsel is a religion constructed, deconstructed, and then reconstructed by Reb Livingston in 121 Prophecies, Litanies, Spells, Hymns, Proverbs, Laments, Chronicles, and other poetics.  At Poetry Instigator last October, Reb described God Damsel as a collection of “translations of translations of religious texts,” defining her translation process as “whatever my mind churned out,” and her mind churns out some amazing and inventive butter– Reb Livingston does things to language that probably should not be discussed in polite conversation:

Lament for Forfeited Details

revealed . . .
. . . of slumscored . . . Gigolo . . . . . . . . mauled his
seebitty snout . . . yanked her buttery seabangs . . .
abdicate this fucktruce!

This is a collection in which structure matters; the book is constructed in such a way that the mythology develops and matures as figures such as Damsel, Woe-Dodo, Fishyman, Czarina, Apron, Gigolo,  Shepherd and GOURD are introduced, allowing the language, the humor, the pure lyricism and imagination of the individual works to carry the reader, as collectively they add up to  a complete, resonant mythology.

I am enthralled by and in awe of this work– God Damsel is innovative and utterly fearless in its treatment of language, yet completely accessible, and funny as hell. A superb accomplishment.

So

Why Are Your Poems So Dark?
Linda Pastan

Isn’t the moon dark too,
most of the time?

And doesn’t the white page
seem unfinished

without the dark stain
of alphabets?

When God demanded light,
he didn’t banish darkness.

Instead he invented
ebony and crows

and that small mole
on your left cheekbone.

Or did you mean to ask
“Why are you sad so often?”

Some strange gravity

For Elizabeth
Jim Carroll

It is winter ending on earth. The planets align tomorrow in March and grow more distant from the sun and each other like stray, worn soldiers retreating from an enemy that no longer exists. It is a mild spring in purgatory. In green limbo the children whose foreheads are dry, whose hands do not grow, are transformed themselves to seasons of birds circling an obelisk of shivering mercury. None are allowed prey, none are allowed heaven’s crooked beak. They are radiant swallows with thorns for tongues to feed on the shifting mercury from the mythology of God’s hand, which I cannot break, even now, under this tearful scrutiny. I’ve tried. I’ve tried. I am allowing to pass through me a statement of death. You, the catalyst of such distorted memory. In that limbo the children move in some strange gravity within and outside Grace. Their Lord is angry. They have died with their innocence untested. None knows what it has been or will be ~ each day it changes without changing ~ do you understand what I am saying? It is the life you chose on this Earth, the life of junk and lies. But that wasn’t You, I knew You ~ you had perfect lips, eyes like a true child, your breasts unformed, an incandescent mind. This place where I put you now, it is a cursed season, an awkward line, a flawed circle, a snake on fire devouring what tomorrow it will itself become.

Eric Thompson "Jim Carroll"

Did you ever want to make Buddha pears?

Maybe  you did.

Funny/Scary

There’s something dangerous about what’s funny. Jarring and disconcerting. There is a connection between funny and scary.  —Christopher Walken

God can be funny

Breaking my mind

jenszi, Bryan Shutmaat

Thank God for Hell

It inspires such great cartoons.