Older Poem: SHAKEN

Originally published in a 2016 issue of POETIC DIVERSITY.

SHAKEN

sitting at sixth grade desk

but shoulders and back

at too low an angle

so the homeroom teacher

came up to me

and fiercely expelled

the physical demons

she thought I possessed

punctuating this with shouts

about my bad bad behavior

as other students looked 

and did nothing

for fear of teacher

striding to the closet

and pulling big wooden paddle

off its hook

  

this was recorded for posterity

by nondigitized memory

and may never be erased

TRIBUTE TO JACK SHAFER #3--BLUES FOR A STREET POET

New poem: A BRIEF HISTORY OF LOS ANGELES POETRY

A BRIEF HISTORY OF LOS ANGELES POETRY AS I KNEW IT


When there was an El Nino storm,




people still went out to poetry readings.



That was 1998.



NEXT magazine was the beacon



telling you where to find the word banquets.







And the first place I went



was the Midnight Special Bookstore



on Santa Monica's Third Street Promenade



because it was listed in NEXT.







Politics in the air at Poetic License.



Poems with "Free Mumia" messages.



Lots of fingersnaps for a line or even a word.



People filled with strong notions



of what was right and wrong.







Just about every reading



was filled to capacity.



And it was easy



to find readings



every night of the week.



It was also possible



to make acquaintances



and real friends.







In those days,



people weren't always worried



about being Published.



You could go to Kinkos



and print your own DIY chapbook--



breaking even by selling it to other poets



at readings.







Went to the Rose Cafe



and was exposed to poetry as Disciplined Art.



Long introductions for features



and open readers told to return



next week when time ran out.



(Eventually, the Rose Cafe



became the template



for most readings in Los Angeles and Orange County today.)







Those were the days



before venues and readings closed,



gasoline prices climbed,



popular poets and hosts moved out of state



or left the Earth entirely,



remaining poets began feuding



and a quiet movement began



to encourage uniform standards of quality.



raise the bar for booking features



and discourage the kind of open mikes



that attracted musicians and comics.



For some, this was a great notion







Oracles said that it was good for poetry.



I heard phrases like "layers of meaning"



used ad nauseum.







And other poets said not to complain



about changes in the scene--



or other poets themselves.



For it was perceived as



causing the entire scene



to suffer grievously



from intemperate words.







And today, there are fewer venues.



And just a few poets with power--



some of them use it more generously



than others.







Recently, there was a rainstorm



in Santa Monica.



It wasn't as strong as an El Nino.



And people did come to the reading--



but not nearly as many



as on a torrential night



thirteen years before.

When poets are treated too much like royalty.

http://poeticdiversity.org/main/columns.php?recordID=1565&date=2010-08-01

Part of the purpose of my writing this blog is to expose nonpoets to how poetry communities (or at least the ones in Los Angeles and Orange County) carry out their tribal business.

Rick Lupert is a much-lauded poet from Los Angeles.  And, for better or worse, his every book is wildly praised (whether the book in question happens to merit it or not).  And, also for better or worse, he's hosted a reading for quite a long time in Canoga Park (plus the almost-as-long-running Poetry SuperHighway site), giving him Important Person status.

Regarding Rick as a poet, I think his best books (I'M A JEW, ARE YOU?, LIZARD KING OF THE LAUNDROMAT, MOWING FARGO, FEEDING HOLY CATS) are pretty much behind him.  But, admittedly, a great "selected poems" volume could be compiled of his best post-FARGO work.

But one is not supposed to say these things about Rick Lupert in public because 98% of the poetry community thinks of him as a lovable, funny I-riff-on-myself-and-those-around-me poet, a Nice Guy and as someone whose favor is courted by poets.
Unlike some, I can have two minds about certain people.  As a poet-entertainer, Rick's to be admired for quick wit and great timing and delivery.  I'm a bit more dubious about the merits of kissing his feet, though.

And, between Marie Lecrivain and G. Murray Thomas' recent bouquets of rapture for Rick's WE PUT THINGS IN OUR MOUTHS, I'm cynical enough to think at least part of this praise is motivated by poetry politics and wanting to be "in" with the Nice Important Guy.

In closing, I know it's an occupational hazard for poets to review the books of their friends.  I just wish that, if they refuse to recuse themselves, they can at least maintain some respectful distance (praising what's good and being tactfully analytical of what doesn't quite work).

Trying to wrap my mind around this poetry paradox.

Trying to wrap my mind around the spectacle of a poet whose best poem was about literary rejection (with a "then I wrote a poem about it" closer) now taking the stances he does (essentially wanting to ditch his previous strengths to chase a concept of "acceptance" by others). And most of the community cheers him on for doing so.

Currently, the POETIC DIVERSITY webzine is (I guess) on hiatus; in the current environment, it would suit it well to resurface with the new title POETIC UNIFORMITY.

New poem: POETRY POLICE from my upcoming chapbook IMPERFECTIONIST.

POETRY POLICE

the poetry police
is traveling through
my neighborhood
in a big squad car
with sirens
and a giant loudspeaker
on top

the loudspeaker shouts:
IF YOU DON’T WANT YOUR POETRY EDITED,
DON’T SUBMIT TO US!
WE’RE TIRED OF RECEIVING PROSE
IN VERSE FORM!!
WE’RE NOT A VANITY PRESS!!!!
WE DON’T PUBLISH EVERYTHING WE GET!!!!!
IF YOU’RE TALENTED AND WANT TO PUBLISH
SOMETHING BAD ON PURPOSE,
SEND IT TO WERGLE FLOMP INSTEAD!!!!!!

the poetry police
stops its big squad car
at a free verse house
to round up dissenters
and haul them off to poetry jail
where they’ll be detained indefinitely
without trial
to keep my neighborhood
safe and content
so we can avoid
this changing world
and not have to be soiled by
the disgusting degrading decline
in literary standards

When you feel like someone has stepped on your face as that someone climbs the literary ladder.

Recently, a local litizine which operates online released its latest e-issue.

I submitted poems to it. My work wasn't chosen.

Normally, I don't waste space on this blog complaining about rejection re submitting poetry to publications/other poets (with the recent exception of revisiting my years-ago treatment by Name Omitted). Rejection is a fact of the writing life.

But I'll run through another red light and make an exception here.

Years back, when the editor was building her litizine, I was able to submit work and be accepted. And I was able to offer a chapbook of mine for review--and the review appeared.

On top of the above, the editor once asked me to guest-edit one of the issues. I took the assignment quite seriously, read the poems and selected my choices. And I did get a nice thank-you letter.

Now, I'm finding that the litizine won't accept my poetry or make room for reviewing a recent chapbook I offered to submit

Maybe there's too many submissions now (not exactly the case during the litizine's early phase). Maybe the poems I submitted were judged as lacking in quality and standards.

And, maybe, just maybe, I'm not Prestigious enough and the editor (plus her assistant) want to chase Literary Prestige like greyhounds after a mechanical rabbit at the dog track. The chasing of Literary Prestige happens a lot in Los Angeles and, as I've noticed in the past, can lead to poets contorting themselves into pretzels or reinventing themselves to create distance from too-populist coffeehouse pasts.

Click this link and judge for yourself as to the quality of the litizine's standards: http://www.poeticdiversity.org/

Los Angeles poet E.C. "Carlye" Archibeque explains "definable" poetry for you.

Though currently inactive on the scene, veteran L.A. poet Carlye Archibeque speaks for a fair portion of today's Los Angeles poetry "community."
Here's a portion of an essay she wrote for POETIC DIVERSITY a few years back:
It is my opinion that poetry is definable and that good poetry is not created in a void. I think there are good poets and bad poets. I know this can be an unpopular opinion, but anyone who knows me knows I really don’t care about being popular. If it’s any consolation to those who find my opinion harsh, I am guilty of writing bad poetry and things I consider “not poetry” too, I just have the good sense not to send it away to publishers or read it to my audience because poetry you read for an audience and seek to have published should not be about your therapy issues, unless of course you have crafted your issues into poetry. Poetry is two-fold for me: on one hand it is a way to put your feelings and thoughts into words that sound good to you or may help you work thorough a difficult time in your life; on the other it is a carefully thought out and constructed set of words that relate your thoughts and feelings on a universal level and while one is for public consumption, the other is certainly not. Just my opinion. So the $64 poetry question is why do you write poetry? Do you write because you have things you want to say and are looking for an audience and poetry is generally free to read and write? Or, do you write because you consider it a craft in which you strive discuss feelings, thoughts and opinions in a way that transcends self-indulgence and becomes something universal? Are you a poet or a poet wanna be? I’m not saying that journaling thoughts and feelings is bad or that a little self-indulgence isn’t called for sometimes. I do believe that the state of poetry is threatened on a daily basis by mediocrity. By that I don’t mean threatened by styles of poetry like slam, page, performance and the like, I mean by works within these styles that are not striving to be the best they can be made by poets who don’t have enough respect for the craft of poetry. I wish more people would start believing that poetry matters, that it is an art form and that it needs skill to create.

If you want to read the essay in its entirety, here's the link:
http://www.poeticdiversity.org/main/columns.php?recordID=401&date=2005-02-01

My take on the above is that certain poets in Los Angeles desire at the very least to be arbiters/gatekeepers of notions of "quality" that tend to be received from others (workshopping, MFA programs) rather than thought-out for themselves. It's a valuable balm that salves the egowounds resulting from local, state or national rejection and/or underrecognition.

Sometimes, these self-appointed arbiters get some local attention and a few followers. Then, for one reason or another, they fade from the scene.

And there will always be someone to replace them. And there will always be people who will follow them like sheep, with little thought as to testing or questioning the soundness of the arbiters' holy opinions.