New free poetry chapbook AMERICA 2021: CHANGE WITHOUT CHANGING

 Here’s a roundup of some recent poems (with occasional revisions) that have appeared on my blog:

 https://www.scribd.com/document/510102209/America-2021-Change-Without-Changing

Newly recorded poem Not Quite Reconciled

From my 2015 chapbook One Corner of the Sky, on Amazon Kindle.

New poem: GALVESTON 1966

everything's big when you're small:
the Jack Tar Motor Hotel restaurant
with the window view onto the swimming pool
Stewart Beach where my grandfather
and I took a rented float
out onto the waves
and I swallowed salt water
for the first time
and spit it out fast
the apocalyptic argument
my older brother had
with everyone else in the car
because he was forced to vacation
with the rest of the family
at the age of sixteen
instead of seeing his girlfriend back home
and, on the beach,
my dad pointed to
the pillbox installed
to protect the island
during World War II

all over the outside
of the pillbox
one could see
the words SENIORS 67
and GHS
spray-painted in red and black

Explaining poetry-as-literature to outsiders: one person's definition of the Pushcart Prize.

"It’s difficult to articulate just how important the Pushcart Prize has become to poets today. One doesn’t even have to win it. Just being nominated can be a huge boost for a writer, at least in the short term. In discussing the prospect of Radius ceasing to submit to the Pushcart, I’ve had writers tell me how much the nomination gave them fuel for their next project, or how receiving their first nomination helped give them the confidence to move on with their work. That’s no small thing. If the Pushcart can have that sort of impact on talented writers even by its proximity, then there must be something to it. Even if pursuing the Prize is Quixotic. There’s something indelible in that moment, and that’s something worthy of respect".--Victor Infante, from his RADIUS article about continuing to forward poets for Pushcart Prize nominations even in the face of a Pushcart majordomo looking down on online poetry zine submissions

Victor Infante will not climb off the Pushcart.

Apparently, the Pushcart Prize people are a bit huffy about online poetry publications highlighting "instant" poems and--as a pushback--reaffirming their belief that good writing takes "time."  Consequently, some of these online poetry zines aren't willing to submit entries for Pushcart honors.

Yielding the floor to Victor Infante (ex-OC, current New England) articulating where he stands on the issue (hint: read my post title): http://ocvictor.livejournal.com/931484.html

SALON's Laura Miller interviews NYT poetry critic David Orr.

http://www.salon.com/books/poetry/index.html?story=/books/laura_miller/2011/04/05/david_orr

Here's a fascinating passage from the interview:

You have a fascinating chapter, titled "In the Fishbowl," about the social and economic situation that professional poets work in. I have to say, the poetry world in itself can be daunting to the nonspecialist. You might tentatively mention a poet you like to an expert or a member of the poetry world, and they'll look at you as if you just gushed over a greeting card. You don't even want to admit to having any kind of taste because you're afraid it'll be the wrong taste.

I've been that kind of person before, and I'm ashamed of it.

I often write about the sociology of the poetry world, and some readers like it and some don't. I think that it's important to do because people don't know where poems come from. I find that when people do get a sense that poetry is written by human beings and that these human beings are under various pressures through the world that they inhabit, just like everyone else, usually people are much more sympathetic to poetry.

Really? Because my impression is that there is a lot of knee-jerk complaining about the poetry establishment, and that the people who make those complaints are not very sympathetic to the communal pressures of the poetry world. You hear a lot of gripes about how everybody knows everybody else and that there's a lot of log rolling.

Well, one of the things I want to show in that chapter is that the kind of behavior that those people complain about has been going on for a long, long time. A lot of really good poetry has arisen either in spite of or maybe because of that kind of behavior.

Poets (including great poets) have always been cliquish and have always fought with other poets.

Yes. I think it's useful for general readers to see that so that they see poetry as a human art, not as something that just arrives on a lightning bolt from the clouds.

There are people who don't like this, and who really cling to the idea that poetry should never talk about the dirty underside. But I find that a little familiarity with the dirty underside actually makes everyone more comfortable because otherwise you just sit around denying the reality.

Here's a review of Orr's book:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/anis-shivani/beautiful-and-pointless-poetry_b_847197.html?ref=fb&src=sp#sb=607664,b=facebook

Another great moment in the history of pre-emptive poetry reading censorship.

The story goes like this: A respected veteran poet I know (who now lives in Oregon) had a co-feature at a Florence, Oregon reading (inside a restaurant). He opened with an a cappella cover of John Prine's "Sam Stone" and read Charles Bukowski's famous poem about the act of writing. Then he read a poem of his own which condemned the murder of Dr. George Tiller last week. Then the plug was pulled on him by the restaurant owner, who pronounced his poetry as not being "uplifting."

And variations of this story will take place again whenever venue owners and/or poetry hosts let the angry words "IT'S MYYYYYYYYYY PLACE (or HOUSE or READING)!!!!!!" ring out instead of using their brains (an increasingly lost practice as this first decade of the 21st Century comes to a close) and realizing that poetry can and often must be something besides soothing platitudes and homilies meant to do nothing but keep diners undisturbed in the Great Pacific Northwest.

Time for the Wergle Flomp deliberately-bad-poetry contest to die.

http://www.winningwriters.com/contests/wergle/we_guidelines.php

Like a lot of poets, I'm aware that some poetry contests are little more than con jobs that will publish your poem--in hopes you'll buy a pricey book that it is anthologized in. And the contests are designed to separate people from their money instead of being a measure of true poetic worth.

But the idea of the Wergle Flomp contest--write something deliberately "bad" to send to a con-job contest and then send it to winningwriters.com--is more snide and asinine than good for the craft of poetry. Unfortunately, a lot of people enjoy the stick-pins-in sadism of Wergle Flomp because of the "I'm SO superior to you" virus in certain poets--particularly those with pretensions to literary worthiness.

If you go onto the Winning Writers website, take a look at their links regarding poetry contests. And refuse to go the Wergle Flomp route--so both the "con"tests and Winning Writers will get the message.

[UPDATE 3/29/09: Here's my response to the comment made by Adam of Winning Writers: Thanks for your letter, but I stand by my original post. Winning Writers' information on dubious contests should stand on its own without the throwing-of-literary-feces represented by Wergle Flomp.]