Don't Forget This Writer

 

The summer edition for The Forgotten Writer has come out with two poems of mine in it. The first is How the Average Deals with the Skyscraper Craze and the second is The Tenacious All, which was inspired by my time in the "library" at Long Island University. 

The Show Me Poetry State

 

Page 91 of the current issue of Fireflies’ Light has a poem by me. Thanks to Missouri Baptist University for selecting the work.

Take a Break from Politics to Read about the Sunrise

 

Sage Cigarettes has published a poem of mine in their latest issue. It is page 28 in the issue, page 33 when you scroll in the reader. The title refers to a genre of writing from Byzantium that focuses on the intricaies and practicalities of siege warfare.

The Cup of Trembling

Thanks to Katie Winkler over at Teach. Write. for publishing my short story "The Cup of Trembling" on page 90 of the Spring 2023 issue. 

Kafka, Asbestos, & Prose

 

Image by Frank Jackdaw

Good news, I won a small writing contest. This one was held to promote the work of Robin Hemley's new novel Oblivion, an "after autobiography" where a recently deceased writer gets to encounter Franz Kafka in the afterlife. Read my entry and enjoy.

Come to Brooklyn this Friday, I'll read poems recently accepted to journals!

 

A Return to Prose Posts

 As some of you may know I am now studying for an MFA at Long Island University. Is studying the right word? I guess technically I'm a candidate. But not THE Candidate. That remains Robert Redford. Yes, the academic bug finally bit me. Who knows how far it will burrow inside. Classes have been good so far, lots of readings and such as you can imagine. I'm learning about the history of the novel and this little thing called "show don't tell." Oh damn. Did I just violate it? In one of my classes, Crossing Genres, we are exploring different forms of writing. One of our first lessons focused on flash fiction. I haven't written much of it, but since that class I've been trying out the form. It used to be easier for me to write 50,000 words than something restricted to a 1,000. Or at least to be proud of the result. Now I can say I'm making progress on this front. Or, show you with a link to one of the first prose pieces I've published in a while. It's called The Magic Palm and it's in the Bright Flash Literary Review. The picture below (not the one on the website) is what inspired it. For all you prose lovers out there, rejoice.

A Freshwater Space Opera

 

Click on the link below to see it more clearly

A new poem of mine called Space Opera is in the journal Freshwater. It's run by the fine people at (take a breath) Asnuntuck Community College. I think I got it right.

Alternate Routes to the Department of Education

 

And other poems. Thanks to Alternate Route for publishing them!

An Exquisitely Tasteful After School Special

Happy November, happy All Saint's Day, and happy Day of the Dead. Here's a poem of mine in the Ink Sac of Cephalopress for you to enjoy.

The Worst Monument in DC

In this age of statues coming down their plinths, and places being renamed, calling something the “Worst Monument in DC” brings to mind the usual culprits. However, this monument is not bad because it honors a Confederate, a slaveowner, or somebody who did medical experiments on enslaved women. It is also not problematic like the statues honoring the Emancipation Proclamation. You know the kind: they show a helpless and shirtless Black person in chains being uplifted by a very starch-shirted Abraham Lincoln.

No, this infamous title belongs to a monument because of its aesthetics, not its politics. At least with those other kinds of statues you know what they are supposed to represent. I don’t mean on a deeper level in terms of just dog whistles, but on a surface level as well. A statue of General Robert E. Lee on a horse shows General Robert E. Lee on a horse. You can get offended by it because you know who you are supposed to think of when you look at it. One could argue a monument that’s too abstract might even be worse, because it doesn’t even let you get angry.

One such monument exists in DC. It is little known, though hundreds of thousands of people drive past it every year. Most of them hardly get a glance of it, and even fewer know that it is legally in DC, despite being on the right bank of the Potomac (in case you didn’t know, Columbia Island, that strip of land next to the Pentagon is part of DC). It is near another monument which people might recognize, but it is a hundred times better than this one. That competent monument is the Navy – Merchant Marine Memorial. The bad one? It’s called the Lyndon Baines Johnson Memorial Grove on the Potomac.

A monument to Idaho

Just the length of the name should tip you off that something isn’t right. A good memorial is succinct and named for one person, group, or event. Think the Lincoln Memorial or the Washington Monument. The Emancipation Memorial is another one, so long as we’re talking names here and not set-up. The Lyndon Baines Johnson Memorial Grove on the Potomac is the opposite of all that. It contains too much, which the same might be said for old LBJ. I doubt that was the intention though. Instead we have a confusing mess that tells us what kind of memorial it is and the river it is on. Off the top of my head I don’t think any other monument in DC has that designation.

It's not the easiest memorial to get to either. You have to drive onto the island, park, and walk a bit until you hit the right grove. But that could be said of plenty of landmarks in the city, and I won’t count that against it. The memorial to Teddy Roosevelt requires quite a hike to the middle of his eponymous island. It doesn’t detract from the way it is set up and the possible educational value of the site. I know it’s not a textbook (what monument is?), but one can at least clearly meditate on and contemplate the subject.

This is not the case with the Lyndon Baines Johnson Memorial Grove on the Potomac. There is little in the design or the artwork chosen that conveys anything about LBJ and his achievements. Approaching the memorial, all one can see through the pine trees is a large hunk of pinkish granite. No, it isn’t a statue of our 36th President, as much of a hunk he was. The granite is simply a large rock, stuck in the ground. A prurient mind might say it’s a memorial to Johnson’s Johnson, the infamous “Jumbo.” How could they know any better? The rock is not shaped, cut, etched, or hewn into anything with a recognizable pattern. It isn’t even a menhir.

Johnson's Johnson, the Jumbo of the Capitol Hill Zoo

The area around the megalith isn’t any more informative or inspiring. There’s a small sign that gives a basic outline of the memorial and its function, along with a recording of Lady Bird Johnson that doesn’t work. When I pressed one of the buttons for it, I hoped that instead I would get to hear LBJ ordering pants from his tailor. It’s more Taylor though, but it doesn’t matter anyway. The device is broken, along with many of the paving stones near the central rock.

Adjacent to it are a handful of slabs of granite, made of the same exact shade as the central stone. On each of them are selections from speeches LBJ gave during his life. None of the selections are particularly memorable or illuminating. They say little about the man himself, his times, or the issues he was championing. I know the man wasn’t the most gifted speaker, but the designers could’ve chosen something more inspiring. He had Bill Moyers to work with. Something he said after JFK was shot perhaps? Or his speeches to Congress on Civil Rights? There’s another issue with the slabs too. They are difficult to read, thanks to using that foreskin-colored granite.

At the right angle, one can get a nice view of the Potomac and the other monuments that dot the skyline of DC. It only serves to remind the unlucky visitor, of how much worse Johnson’s memorial is compared to the ones for Lincoln, Jefferson, and Washington. It makes one wonder if this is actually a site dedicated to Andrew Johnson, and that this is all a sick joke to embarrass our 17th president for botching Reconstruction and buying Alaska.

Not pictured: wasp nests

In the same park is a monument that is much better and more interesting, the Navy – Merchant Marine Memorial. It honors those who have died at sea and rare for a war memorial, it doesn’t show the people lost. No names are etched on it and no human figures are depicted. There are waves and seagulls (along with wasp nests tucked inside the waves, but those are a later addition) made of metal, sitting on a small plinth. They depict the watery resting place of those lost, and remind us that many are gone forever with no recovered remains. It also has bubbles.

Perhaps the Lyndon Baines Johnson Memorial Grove on the Potomac represents the conclusion of the memorial as traditionally understood. Our presidents are too big and contain too many multitudes of contradictions to be reduced to a statue. Constant revision of their legacy and shifts in historical opinion also make it difficult to come to any final consensus about them. In that sense the giant rocks is fitting, as the reputation of LBJ has waxed and waned over the decades. Now it appears to be waxing, in part because we are nostalgic for a time Congress and the President could work together to pass major pieces of legislation. But it will wane again, when we reconsider the costs of Empire.

First is Not the Worst

New poems in the first edition of Flora Fiction.  Don't let the name fool you, there's plenty of poems in the journal. The second one is an older piece of work. I wrote it for a creative writing class at NYU. I don't remember what the specifics of the assignment were, but I used them to produced a work about the sights and sounds of Washington Square Park.

NYC POETRY FEST 2019

Come one, come all. Come to the New York City Poetry Festival. This year, as in years past, it's on Governor's Island. Unlike last year, this year I'll be reading with Quail Bell Magazine. Come hear us do LIVE readings at the Algonquin Stage at 5:30 on Saturday. The Festival will go on both Saturday and Sunday and it's FREE!

If You're Not Interested in Poetry, How About Philosophy?

My girlfriend Sara has just started a blog on philosophy: Notes on Real Clouds. Her specialty is Wittgenstein but she also digs Foucault. It also looks nicer than what I've got here. She's at least in 2010 using WordPress and I'm in 2005 here at Blogger.

Of course, I know the lyrics to the Philosophers' Drinking Song. So I don't know who the real expert is here.

Finds and Observations 6/24 to 6/26

I hope by making it small enough, it isn't obscene.

Room in Rome is a terrible fucking movie. Literally. I looked it up on Wikipedia and surprise, surprise, a movie about Lesbians that fails to stimulate, educate, or even titillate was made by a man. Not only that, the same man, wrote, produced, directed, and EDITED the film. So there was no one reining him in. He was probably the caterer too. It wasn't even filmed in Rome!

I found a few interesting things in the city yesterday. The first was a twenty year old syllabus for a film studies class at NYU. I came across it at a Goodwill. It was tucked inside of a tome on film criticism. It is interesting to read because it shows how just a few years ago everything was different for students. There was no internet, no DVDs, and no expectation of using a computer and printer. In one assignment, the professor, Joy Gould Boyum, tells the students to keep the carbons because they won't get their essay back until the end of the semester. Carbons! I could also tell the syllabus was originally typewritten then xeroxed. The smudges on the letters give it away. Since the class was in 1996, I imagine she got twenty papers on Pulp Fiction for the final.

Oh, so much progress we've made since then! On the other hand we still have a Clinton running for president.

I also found a ticket for Eastern Airlines tucked inside of a book the library was selling for a dollar. The book looked like a Dave Barry knockoff, a lament by one of the early baby-boomers about how Elvis was great and the Beatles ruined everything in a frothy over the top style that hides a serious bitter core. Anyway, the ticket was at least 25 years old since the airline went out of business in 1991. What I found fascinating was the lack of personal information on the ticket. There was no name, nothing. Anybody could've used it to board a plane.

Ah, the innocence that was pre-9/11 America. I'm starting to sound like the author...

And finally, the final find. A kid's book by Eugene Ionesco.

First Poem of 2014 Published

2014 is here and hopefully it will bring the change I need after nearly a decade of socioeconomic blue balls. I need a new everything. Sometimes I think about just burning my earthly possessions and walking off into the woods. Honey and locusts and sackcloth oh my! But then I look outside and see there's snow everywhere and the nearest woods are next to a school. They probably wouldn't like me staying overnight there. I've been slacking on the publishing front, so I've put out poems, seeing if anything sticks. Already there's one acceptance to report and link to, a poem of mine is up at Luciferous, a blog maintained by Craig Scott. No, it doesn't have anything to do with the Prince of Darkness. It's just a word which means "illuminating" both figuratively and literally.  

New Majors

Read a new poem of mine in the August issue of The Socrates

Sharkopedia: A Book Review

            Some of you might be looking at the title of the blog post and think I’m reviewing a book of ironically titled poems which is trying to cash in/mock the current obsession (a sharknado of interest as it were) with sharks in our country. Rest assured, this is one book you can judge by its title. However, if you want to read shark-themed poetry, you can do so here. Anyway, back to the basics. Sharkopedia is 192 pages long with over 400 photos of dozens of different species of sharks. In case you were wondering, it is published in connection with Shark Week by Time Home Entertainment. Thankfully the book only makes a small mention of the program in the credits section. Its main link to the Discovery Channel’s offering is the inclusion of tidbits from shark expert Andy Dehart, who has appeared on the show.

            Now, this Sharkopedia is meant for readers ages 8 and up, so in this review, I had to consider the full range of people the book is intended for. I would not recommend it for anyone younger, unless they understand that most sharks cannot live in freshwater and that none can live in a chlorinated swimming pool. Otherwise, the pictures would give them unfounded nightmares of being attacked.  I remember when I was young and I thought it was possible for a great white to wiggle its way up a drain and start chomping away at me in the wave pool at Cameron Run. For some reason, I assumed it would only attack me right as I was leaving the water. Hey, that’s sounds a good idea for a TV movie. Get on it Hollywood. Sharks in sinks! Sharks in tubs! Sharks in baptismal fonts!

            Of course, a kid 8 years or older might have similar fears after reading this book. However, they will be easier to reason with. For instance, they will learn that bull sharks are the only shark to worry about when they are in freshwater. More importantly, they will learn that shark attacks are few and far between and they are rarely fatal. Only about 5,000 shark attacks have been reported in the whole world since the 1500s, resulting in roughly 500 deaths. In turn, half of these shark bites were provoked by humans. More people have probably been killed in hippopotamus attacks. While Sharkopedia does do a good job of stressing these facts, it tends to focus too much on anecdotes of shark-on-man violence, which makes it hard for the mind to accept sharks as nothing more than an ever-present threat lurking in the ocean, hungry for human flesh and thirsty for our blood.

            The bulk of book is colorful and informative. All the major sharks are heavily featured: the infamous great whites, megamouths, hammerheads, nurses, makos, and tiger sharks. In addition, there are dozens of other species pictured and hundreds more listed by name. Sharkopedia does a good job showing the great variety and diversity of all eight orders of sharks. There are small sharks, giant sharks, colorful sharks, sharks that look like carpets, sharks smacking into seals, and sharks basking for zooplankton. However, there is precious little information on sharks loaning money at prohibitively high rates of interest and breaking legs in lieu of seizing collateral.  

            I admit, when I started to read the book, I was put off by looking at these creatures up close. I am not sure what it was exactly. Sharks do seem to be a strange mixture of other animals, a chimera of the seas. In a stereotypical species one sees the body of fish, the fins of dolphins, and the wide toothy mouths of lions or tigers. The dark eyes are reminiscent of what one finds on a massive cephalopod or one Allie Brosh’s characters from Hyperbole and a Half. Gradually, I warmed up to these creatures, aided by the discovery that some of them are capable of thermoregulation. It was also difficult to feel threatened by the pictures of blue, sharpnose, or goblin sharks. If schools of sharks were capable of dances, they would be the perpetual wallflowers unable to land a date or a partner for a song.

            Sharkopedia passed an important test expected of any book meant for a younger audience. It kept me up past my bedtime, albeit one which I have set in accordance with the dictates of health and reason and not school or parental controls. Whenever I finished one page, I immediately wanted to go to the next one, eager to look at more pictures and learn more about this collection of animals so misunderstood by the general public. No matter what section of the book I turned to, there was plenty to learn. While any of these facts might be found online, nothing beats the way a book like this can appeal to the curious reader in all of us. It also provides an enlightening and entertaining reading experience for a parent looking to take a dry and safe dive together into the world of sharks with a child. 

Is It Prose? Is It Poetry?

Actually it's a prose poem up at the Prose Poem Project. In case you are wondering what prose poems are, here's the Wikipedia article on them. If you're still confused, well, then you might be a poet.

Celebrate the New Year with Experimental Literature

Experiential Experimental Literature to be exact.