New poem: POEM INSPIRED BY AMBER TAMBLYN'S QUENTIN DEAN.

[Poem inspired by an Amber Tamblyn poem I liked in the anthology WIDE AWAKE.]

I remember Quentin Dean

from IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT

where she placed herself

in a front window

of a small-town house

in hopes that someone 

happening to pass by

could stop the car

and come inside

for mutual breaking 

of nightly monotony

in stifling-in-many-ways

Southern United States

>

from her brief biography

on the Internet Movie Database,

Quentin Dean wanted more from life

than to be a mere object of desire

in Hollywood studio films and TV

in the days before

the counterculture briefly made

old-fashioned gloss

(that even permeated movies

with a Social Conscience)

almost obsolete

>

so she left Show Business

and lived until 2003

and likely didn't give a damn

about people who went on the Internet

to find out Where Is She Now?

>

Quentin Dean knew

who she was,

where she was

and, I'm guessing, was happy

to not have to care anymore

about all that nonsense

regarding photo shoots, publicity

and the Male Gaze

that can be a curse

more often than not

Victor Infante tells you to be careful what you say.

http://www.telegram.com/article/20120316/POPCULTURENOTEBOOK/120319641/1011/features

I'm aware I'm eating a sort-of-rhetorical Lay's Potato Chip again by writing this post, but sometimes Mr. Infante can be a good columnist/blogger when talking about the wider world beyond the velvet-rope poetry/slam universe he inhabits.

The above column does manage to somehow work in a plug for sometimes-poetry colleague Amber Tamblyn, plus it contains this priceless passage:
"And you know what? I get it. There is something really cathartic about shouting someone down online. There really is."

Coda: Regarding the poetic world as seen uniformly by Victor Infante, Derrick Brown and others.

For the sake of inclusion, here's a link to Victor Infante's public rifle-butting of me--as included on my Facebook page/wall: http://www.facebook.com/#!/note.php?note_id=10150115147426192

And now, I'll go ahead and mention some inconsistencies/behavioral quirks shared by the good, think-alike people that Victor namechecks:
1. I've been told in the past that it's not good to self-publish.  This doesn't stop Rick Lupert from putting out his own books under the Ain't Got No Press moniker (mitigating factor: Rick occasionally does anthologies like the recommended-by-me POETS HAGGADAH).

2. I am not supposed to criticize Amber Tamblyn's poetry books (apparently because she's smart, hip and successful)--but it's okay for, say, G. Murray Thomas to use his review column on Poetix.net to knock Billy Collins' recent BALLISTICS.  Yes, Murray thought Collins' work in BALLISTICS was subpar.  But it was hard not to smell the jealousy on Murray's part--Oh, why oh why doesn't my print-on-demand volume COWS ON THE FREEWAY get at least one-tenth the attention Billy Collins does?

3. I'm certainly not supposed to criticize anyone who "hasn't done anything" to me.  By that logic, if Victor Infante was an HBO executive, he'd be telling Bill Maher to stop being "mean" on REAL TIME.

And, of course, if I say anything about the self-described wonderful people of LA/LBC/OC that is not wonderful, then I'm blessed with accusations of mental illness and--in one ugly case--a false accusation that I might be a wife-beater.

I'm just puzzled that all these self-described wonderful-and-successful poets of LA/LBC/OC are so insecure that they feel the need to take me so deadly-serious that they engage in shut-him-up-no-matter-what-it-takes reactions rather than having some sense of nuanced thought and perspective about their actual place and impact in both the real and literary worlds.

Reacting to the small amount of Amber Tamblyn's BANG DITTO I read.

In an earlier post, I mentioned that I saw Amber Tamblyn read poems at a Newer Poets Reading at the Downtown Los Angeles Public Library two or three years ago. She wasn't bad at all (I especially liked a piece about a teenage love affair of hers), but I wasn't moved to purchase any of her writings afterwards.

[At this point, I realize that I live in a glass house where criticism is concerned. So I'll try to avoid unnecessary roughness toward's Ms. Tamblyn's work.]

Last night, I read a little of Ms. Tamblyn's latest book of poetry BANG DITTO at a Barnes and Noble in Santa Monica--and thought of those sanitized expressions that Meredith Willson included in THE MUSIC MAN, i.e. "Great Honk!" and "Ye Gods!"

My tiny sampling of her poetry, a few years on, struck me as somewhat turbocharged in its pretension and aspirations to Greatness.

And perhaps Ms. Tamblyn wants to pursue Art and Beauty and Truth (she's been praised by poet Jack Hirschman and is now in a relationship with Smart Comic David Cross) to make up for any disappointments in her acting career (her critically-praised indie film STEPHANIE DALEY didn't break through even to an arthouse audience and the quirky-cop series she did for Disney/ABC last spring is now history).

I just hope she won't try so hard to Impress in her next book.

Amber Tamblyn at Ugly Mug in Orange 10/28--time to see poetry community celeb worship in action.

Tomorrow night, if you happen to be in Orange, CA, you have the opportunity to see actress Amber Tamblyn display her skill as a poet/writer (saw her years ago at a Newer Poets Reading in downtown Los Angeles) at the coffeehouse The Ugly Mug near Chapman University. The reading will begin at 8:00 p.m. and it will be a prime opportunity to watch major league fawning from the hosts/other poets/students from Chapman.

No disrespect meant to Ms. Tamblyn and her art, but I wrote a poem about poetry community celeb worship a few years back--she's namechecked in the piece:
POETISTA

I hate bad art.
Unfortunately, I live in Los Angeles
and work in the Motion Picture Industry.
So, I help to produce and market
bad art every workday for fifty weeks a year.

But there’s a secret life I lead.
My partner and I host a poetry reading
at the most comfortable cybercafe in Los Feliz.
Due to my work commitments, the reading is
only for one day a month.

And it’s a very special reading.
To be a truly successful host, one has to book
the best and most literate poets in the city
so there will be an audience of sophisticated,
cutting-edge people-not just the usual coterie of
mediocre coffeehouse poets
wanting to read in the open
and harboring thoughts of featuring
at our elevated venue one day.

We have a special way of discouraging mediocrity.
If a bad poet comes too often, we make him or her
feel as if he or she is taking a spot belonging to
someone far more deserving.
It may take a few weeks, but eventually he or she
gets the message and never returns.

And need I add that our reading draws a large crowd
of successful poets and influential audience members?
One time, we had an audience of almost 50 people.
Fortunately, we didn’t have to deal with the Fire Marshall
ordering people to leave.

I wish you could have been at our most recent reading.
We had a glittering bill of four features-meaning no
open readers!!!! (yay)
There was a comedienne who used to write jokes for Sandra Tsing-Loh,
a Santa Ana poet who bills himself as The Last Liberal in Orange County,
a poet from Westchester who holds $1,000-per-person workshops
and our very special guest: actress AMBER TAMBLYN!!!

Truly a fabulous evening of poetry-all the right people were there.

Who could ask for anything more?