G. Murray Thomas, at one time in his Southern California poetic career, edited a magazine called NEXT. NEXT was how I found out there was a local "scene" in Southern California.
Prior to that, all I knew about SoCal poetry was that luminaries like Drew Barrymore and Charlie Sheen tried their hand at the written word at the now-defunct Cafe Largo on Fairfax and all this was chronicled by scenester Eve Babitz in the old MOVIELINE magazine.
After NEXT ended as a hard-copy publication, Murray kept compiling a monthly calendar of local poetry events, both on the net and in print.
And he also contributes periodic poetry reviews to Poetix.net.
Take a look at this excerpt from a review of Murray's (regarding a chapbook by Radomir Luza called 7TH LIFE). In a nutshell, Murray's given a lot of local poets a "that's the way I expect you to do it" moment where the Secret of how to "fit in" with those who write "true" poetry is revealed; remember to dig deep, be ultrathoughtul and always be "elevating"--which, at worst, can be self-conscious in the wrong way:
Poetry as art takes a lot more effort, and focus. If Luza wants his poetry taken as art (and the fact that he has published these chapbooks indicates that he does), he needs to put in that effort and focus. Some of these poems already stand as art, but many more need the extra work.
Luza’s poetry obviously means a lot to him. There’s a poem called “Poetry Is All I Have.” Another one (“Little Phone”) describes almost losing his journal, and what a tragedy that would have been. Unluckily, it doesn’t say much more than that. It’s a journal entry about losing his journal.
That’s one of the problems with this book. Many of the poems read like journal entries. While I believe there is poetry in every moment, I do not believe that recording every moment makes it a poem. There are poems about buying a car, sitting in the Social Services office, sitting in the Social Security Office (a very different office), hanging out in Carmel, and so on, and they all feel like they were transcribed directly from his journal to the chapbook. There isn’t that extra push that would make them poems. If Luza aspires to poetry as art, he needs to make his poetry mean something to us, not just to him.
The thing is, Luza has a definite poetic talent. There are pieces here I consider fully formed poems, such as “If I Can Make It Back Home by Noon” (p. 14), “43rd St.” (p. 20), “The That” (p. 24) and “Out Here” (p, 29). And there is only a shade of difference between these poems and the weaker pieces. These poems also take a specific occurrence (a journal entry), but they work with it, find its deeper meaning, or at least find original language to express it in. The starting point is the same, the end result is elevated.
I feel that sometimes a "journal entry" poem can be greater art than poems that painfully strive to be "elevated" and "profound"--but that puts me in a minority.
When I began in 1998, there was a scene that would accomodate different types of poetry and poetic styles. Not now--the "standards" have contracted and the poets who believe themselves to be more talented and discerning than average folk (often considered stupider-than-thou) are still intent on keeping poetry as an underground subculture that must not be diluted by "wrong" popular interest.
Here's a poem I wrote about this mentality. Perhaps Murray might consider this a "journal entry."
it’s not just you
I read the news today, oh boy
about the lucky poetry venues
that made the grade
it made me kind of sad
to know you ushered me in
ten years ago
and are now letting me and others know
about the poetry venues
that are too highfalutin
for cheap entertainers like me
I remember a lot of poets
no longer active on the scene
(or in some cases not on the scene at all)
who were mainstays ten years ago
now even if a few of them came back
they probably wouldn’t be accepted
in the new poetic order
it’s not just you that’s making things clear to me
I’ve been told to get educated
and upgrade my craft to be taken seriously
but I like being a cheap entertainer
and committing the sin of being easy to understand
so it’s time for me to go quietly
into that gentle night
reserved for sig rumanns and margaret dumonts
declaiming into microphones
about their hot new pantoums
as the audiences go
mmm, mmm, mmmm
in approval
if it doesn’t make most hosts
and some audiences go
mmm, mmm, mmmm
it just isn’t poetry anymore
No comments:
Post a Comment