Friday, July 16, 2010

Make You Stomp So Hard the Earth Shakes

Lots of blogging, these days. Things to say:

Loving Anthony Doerr's new book. Sentences from it:

"This wind, Luvo realizes, right now careering around Alma's garden, has come to Cape Town every November that he can remember, and every November Alma can remember, and it will come next November, too, and the next, and on and on, for centuries to come, until everyone they have ever known and everyone they ever will know is gone."

Lots of erasure here, with Doerr...

Not as thrilled with my poem for the day today. Matter of fact, still working on it, will post it later this afternoon....

Attended a great birthday party for Matt Nienow last night. Hanging with poets, they all said that they'd memorized a chunk of their own poems, if not all of them. I couldn't believe it. I could barely recite one from memory (I tried and botched). Is this a common thing? Do you poets have all your poems memorized (just like Jay-Z!!)? Makes me think of this project (see, I do have a Fred Chappell poem memorized...).

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Killer first line of the moment:

"When he called me to help him from the tub that he had somehow,"

from Alan Shapiro's "The Bath"
(The Dead Alive and Busy, University of Chicago Press, 2000)

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One of the first things I did when I moved to Seattle was attend these guys CD release party. Strange seeming, because I just left the head and heart (ignore me, please) of Appalachia (pronounce it right, Yankee: App-a-latch-a) to discover a bluegrass band from Virginia on the other side of the country. Watch the video. You'll dig it, I bet. Buy the CD, too.

2 comments:

Lisa Fay Coutley said...

Just now seeing this...I can recite almost all of the poems I've written, but that's because I work SO many drafts that by the time I'm done I know it whole.

Lovin' reading your poems each day, sir. Keep it up!

S.H. Lohmann said...

Definitely not memorized, though I usually begin with one line that knocks at my head until I put it into a poem.. so that's usually on hand I guess.

I always wanted to be the drunk guy who begins reciting poetry at random while everyone either nods somberly or cheers bawdily. Sadly, all I've got when the time comes seems to be "yankee doodle."