“The bike I was thinking of buying belonged to a friend. Before I could buy it, I crashed on it, riding as a passenger behind my friend, with a beautiful girl squeezed in between us, three on a bike, a Triumph, going far too fast, all of us drunk, around Place de la Concorde, and slipping out of control on the wet cobbles at 4:00 a.m. Pardner, don’t get on a motorcycle with drink in you.” Frederick Seidel
Y’all should get real intimate with this gem. It’s from “Claims for Poetry,” a dope book of essays edited by Donald Hall from 1982.
This short essay from 1955 is by a poet I had never heard of, David Ignatow. I googled him and discovered he was the kind of poet who found some success, but always had to maintain a day job: butcher, book binder, “hospital admitting clerk, vegetable market night clerk, and paper salesman.”
He was also “editor of American Poetry Review, Analytic, Beloit Poetry Journal, and Chelsea Magazine, and … poetry editor of The Nation.”
Anyway, biographical minutiae aside, this “impressionistic essay” is at times monastic — “I deal with words, I give myself the pleasure of being free with my feelings, my thoughts. I allow them to fall into any shape or color they desire in words.” — and at other times animalistic: “The freedom I write about is for cockroaches, ants, mice, and lice.”
Context 03102016
Context 1517
your wirelesss mouse can’t save your soul
Context 1623
no one laughed at my chun li joke. 🙁
Context 1938
Any of you nerds play The Division?
Context 2031
“Your laugh leaves laugh lines, your love leaves bright bruises” tHS
Context 03112016
Context 1144
When you’re selling, life was good
Context 1147
Context 1152
Close yr eyes and walk ; how do you see sounds? As exploding spheres? What bird is that drowned by the lawn mothers? The edgers a central American chortling peace? Close yr eyes and breathe.
Context 1158
Context 1203
Submission to the irrational
Context 1211
Context 1217
“There was indeed a little donkey” Houellebecq
Context 1218
As I type “Context” and look up at the world, there is a strange effect: something like the combination of skin sizzling from electrocution and the pleasant recoiling one feels when he finds a hundred dollar bill.
Context 1222
Context
one
is injured points
after united series
critical play night
considered points after
united online append
and the europa league
man who attended
sooners who advanced
plays who explosion
two
against old trafford
third-seeded club hands
and rebounds of
the westlake disciplinary
action cleveland chants
ryan swain stretching
and sixth-ranked oklahoma
beat no iowa staples
lakers who attended
three
at trump's rally
in state fire
park explosion america
against the investigation
new american greeting
between liverpool and disciplinary
actioned and chants
about the stretch
and manchester critical
one, again
plays the explosion
happened and finished
with assault discipline
injured points ryan
swain the hillsborough
it is waiting
between trafford investigation
with west virginia
in considered points
two, again
in north coronary
actioned sixth-ranked oklahoma
beat advanced support
in the face
buddy scored points
after or not
construction officials said
no one was injured
points the face
three, again
john mcgraw was
injured points beat
who advanced plays
hands play explosion
office in told
score points face
hands of injured
points hands disorderly
construction with points
Sources:
- Associated Press. No. 6 Sooners Beat No. 21 Iowa State in Big 12 Tourney.
CBS Media, 11 Mar. 2016. Web. 11 Mar. 2016.
- Guardian Sport. “Manchester United Condemn Fans’ Alleged Hillsborough Chants.”
The GuardianThe Guardian, 11 Mar. 2016. Web. 11 Mar. 2016.
- Diamond, Jeremy. “Trump Rally Attendee Charged with Assault.”
CNNCNN, 11 Mar. 2016. Web. 11 Mar. 2016.
- Steer, Jen, Jessica Dill, and Ed Gallek.
“No Injuries in Propane Tank Explosion at Crocker Park.”
Fox 8 Cleveland. fox8.com, 10 Mar. 2016. Web. 11 Mar. 2016.
- Schmidt, Matthew. “Cleveland Cavaliers vs. Los Angeles Lakers:
Live Score, Highlights and Reaction.” Bleacher Report.
Turner Broadcasting System, 10 Mar. 2016. Web. 11 Mar. 2016.
and readers quiet books
context as right pull'er vocabulary a
smaller
vocabulary:
big-city
newspapers,
this
disenter? iced
coffee, should
i
give
up being a dog
context 1201
fullsizerender the newspaper or
bush? outrage world slept, this disinterest
context 1142
03102016
i’m going to shut up?
context 1349
lifter puller vocabulary: big-city
newspapers of
confirmationers
context
1917
have all
find
context
1349
lifter agape why do I
fast or
playground
kids are righter of culture and practitioner journey to
point
the nations with wide circulation a
small drink
more coffee, should
i give up
Context 1142
03092016
Context 1150
they’ve all been in my mouth my favorite books
Context 1153
a great fighter against the official verse culture marjoram perloff
Context 1156
the playground kids are right: to shriek is righteous
Context 1201
Context 1208
Bernstein : not enough poetry gets reviews in publications with wide circular: big-city newspapers, the news weeklies, and the National journals of culture and opinions.
Context 1215
Bernstein: the oxygen of publicity matters quite a bit. Poetry thrives and survives nurtured by its committed readers and practitioners.
Context 1224
Master of Confirmation Bias
Confirmation Bias King
Fiefdom of Seek and Ye Shall Find
Context 1231
aid or foment this disinterest
Context 1232
I can’t believe my SwiftKey dictionary has a smaller vocabulary than me
Context 1237
the great zeitgeist assassination trump
Context 1245
do I fast or drink more coffee, should I give up being sober? Iced coffee sounds nice. I can hear the cubes calling out. Is another drug really the answer? More questions? Paper or plastic? hitler or pol pot or bush? Outrage or indifference? Iced coffee or red bull or nothing shut up?
Context 1349
Lifter Puller doing 80 down the turnpike, sunroof agape. Why do I tolerate the winter? I want the nice-nice up in blazes.
Context 1426
While his parents slept, this 7-year-old boy’s life was saved by Jedi, his diabetes-sniffing dog
Context 1917
have any of you seen this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeanne_Dielman,_23_quai_du_Commerce,_1080_Bruxelles is it any good?
or
Note to self: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeanne_Dielman,_23_quai_du_Commerce,_1080_Bruxelles
Context 1919
bogus hed alert: Nancy Reagan begins final journey to husband’s side
Context 2122
Holy shit what beauty
Context 0112
03102016
I’m going to point toward everything and render the garbage world to sleep; to sleep
— at the end of
the sentence I prefer
no punctuation. Yet here I am
God amongst grammarians
rationalizing with botany
seems to stand
some
modified by into
appears parting dimension
effect
thereby bulbous distortion
while it appears
face
distortion effects suzuki
modified by limit
deviate
another photograph aplomb
greatest investigating dimension
arting
opposite difficulty volume
parting faces basic
paradigm
faces conjunction effect
volume distortion effect
supplement
and model remarks
slowly shape study
set
aligned by inspection
effects form remarks
face
eye-aligned outliers
revised flashed facially
challenge
exposed remarks evident
predicting conjunction parting
effect
a single providence
each flat theoretical
face
face another must
steady rate faces
revised
face natures two-pool
neural nature computer
remarks
one faces fast
neuter the must
happy
predicting through others
in our flashed
orthogonally
databased debased pointy
see movie times
contrast
effect lessens person
a steady rate
etc
causes new sequences
Sources: - Lewis, Thomas, Fari Amini, and Richard Lannon. A General Theory of Love. New York: Vintage Books, 2001. Print. - Tangen, Jason M, Sean C Murphy, and Matthew B Thompson. “Flashed Face Distortion Effect: Grotesque Faces from Relative Spaces.” Perception 40.5 (May 2011): 628–630. Web. 6 Mar. 2016.
culminations
as
a guiding
mood from the 1960s
which
witnessed Commodus
serving as
a summation of Mary
of the
final
panel despite the
Cuban Missile Crisis agonizing a much more somber and culminate the painting
wounds and in the final panoply of chaos their
composition
of
congealed
anxious
bleeding marks
1962 bleeding the line the
cycle of nine the
darkening of historical sequences of the bloody whirls
of President John F Kennedy producing
bloody whirls of historical sequences
of
historical
sequences often articulating mood President
John F Kennedy produced insanity
and tension
Source: - Sylvester, David. “Interview / Cy Twombly / Rome.” cytwombly.info. 2000. Web. 6 Mar. 2016. - Twombly, Cy. Fifty Days at Iliam. 1978. Oil, oil crayon, and graphite on canvas. Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia.