it was the kind of day
where eggs could fry in the shade
as I looked for a parking place
on crowded Ventura Boulevard
where Parking Inspection cars prowled hard,
looking for every conceivable
standing-still violation
to make L.A. deficit ink turn pink
instead of blood red
at least there was a slight breeze
in Sherman Oaks
no such luck
when I came home
to Canoga Park
Thursday, August 9, 2012
Monday, August 6, 2012
A poetry lesson I should learn.
The lesson is this: The world of poetry is huge, and it's best to seek out the tribes who appreciate you both as poet and as a person--and stop trying to please and/or redeem yourself with the poets who reject you.
I've been corresponding with someone in the LA/OC poetry community backchannel on Facebook. Yet again, I'm hearing that I'm bitter and awful because I don't like some of her friends in the tribe she belongs to. And yet again, I don't see myself as bitter--just hurt and disappointed by certain of these people's behavior towards me--people I started out having lots of respect for. I have been known to be indelicate and sometimes too callous with my choice of words--or merely guilty of saying things people don't want to hear. But the person on Facebook (like others in her tribe) chooses to believe that it's All My Fault and her friends are wonderful and beyond reproach. That's her opinion--which is likely to never change a bit.
I'm aware that her friends are likely great friends to the people they choose to show their best behavior to. But, at the same time, I'm puzzled that people who can write nuanced, sometimes technically complex poems can also harbor the belief that their friends are flawless Paragons that have to be defended as if they were gods walking the Earth. I can stick up for a friend, but at the same time, I'm aware that people can behave differently to others.
What I'm concerned about is the kind of poetry tribalhood in SoCal where shared aesthetic values of a tribe turn into both "I'm a better poet than you" and its corollary "I'm a better person than you--especially if you don't agree with me."
And maybe that's my problem as a poet--I don't think I'm better than anyone else. Just someone who knows he has a lot to learn in the years to come. Even if some folks persist in believing I've learned absolutely nothing as poet and person.
I've been corresponding with someone in the LA/OC poetry community backchannel on Facebook. Yet again, I'm hearing that I'm bitter and awful because I don't like some of her friends in the tribe she belongs to. And yet again, I don't see myself as bitter--just hurt and disappointed by certain of these people's behavior towards me--people I started out having lots of respect for. I have been known to be indelicate and sometimes too callous with my choice of words--or merely guilty of saying things people don't want to hear. But the person on Facebook (like others in her tribe) chooses to believe that it's All My Fault and her friends are wonderful and beyond reproach. That's her opinion--which is likely to never change a bit.
I'm aware that her friends are likely great friends to the people they choose to show their best behavior to. But, at the same time, I'm puzzled that people who can write nuanced, sometimes technically complex poems can also harbor the belief that their friends are flawless Paragons that have to be defended as if they were gods walking the Earth. I can stick up for a friend, but at the same time, I'm aware that people can behave differently to others.
What I'm concerned about is the kind of poetry tribalhood in SoCal where shared aesthetic values of a tribe turn into both "I'm a better poet than you" and its corollary "I'm a better person than you--especially if you don't agree with me."
And maybe that's my problem as a poet--I don't think I'm better than anyone else. Just someone who knows he has a lot to learn in the years to come. Even if some folks persist in believing I've learned absolutely nothing as poet and person.
Saturday, August 4, 2012
Here's what's really in the SoCal Poetry Pond (revised and edited).
Let's start this post with a haiku. I didn't write it, but someone who posts the TERRY McCARTY'S WAR AGAINST HUMANITY blog did:
bitter man banned from
bitter man banned from
club. LOBs yawns when his output
makes hyenas sleep
My first response is this: if I were truly bitter and envious (presumably from wanting to be "let back in"--something I gave up on about a year ago in terms of making peace with certain intersecting SoCal poetry circles that want me forever banished), I wouldn't be posting occasional critiques/observations on how certain poets choose to use the power much of the community gives them.
I've never truly absorbed the lesson that if you ask select
"craft-conscious poets" beyond your station in the poetry community to sit down with you and/or answer certain questions, the poet(s) refuse(s) and you're a gigantic Figure of Snarky Fun behind other people's backs.
My previous post--putting up the Rick Lupert/Brendan Constantine "What's In The Pond" video--seems to have triggered the haiku outburst above. I thought the video might be instructive to poets and nonpoets alike to see something with the musky odor of clubbiness and two talented practitioners of writing/working a crowd wasting five minutes doing stupid, lazy crap they were assured to get away with because of their Name Value in the community. If two newcomers had read something like "What's In The Pond", it's highly doubtful that they would have gathered the laughter and applause rolling in appreciative waves towards the Brand Names at the mike.
Your chance to see two L.A. poets self-indulge.
Two guys who have done better work on other occasions; here essentially having lazy fun with their peers in the clubhouse. This is what SoCal poetry can be like at times.
Friday, August 3, 2012
An open letter to poet/musician Matthew Mars aka Matthew Niblock.
Dear Matthew, A famous quote attributed to you is "I hate bad art.". Recently on the Facebook wall of G. Murray Thomas (poet and NEXT... founder), you made a remark about how my poetry doesn't qualify (in your assumed opinion). Though we don't really know each other, I've seen a couple of your features (one in Laguna Beach, one in Hollywood) during the period when you were most active in L.A. poetry. I know a little of your work, and you have talent--but I'm curious as to whether or not you've read enough of my poems between 1998 and this year for you to pass an open-and-shut verdict on my work. Really, I don't care if you don't like me personally. But I'm offering you the opportunity to use this blog's comment section to tell me (and other readers) exactly what you think about my poetry. And please offer quotations of lines/verses where necessary. Awaiting your response--which will stand without any further reply from me. Sincerely, Terry McCarty
Thursday, August 2, 2012
Welles is out, Hitchcock is in--SIGHT AND SOUND's new Greatest Films list.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2012/aug/01/vertigo-hitchcock-bfi-greatest-film?CMP=twt_gu
Here's Nick James, editor of the UK film magazine SIGHT AND SOUND, to explain the dethroning of CITIZEN KANE (long a Number One choice for Greatest Film of All Time) in favor of VERTIGO, panned on its original release for apparently being (like THE WRONG MAN) too much of a departure from the glossy, Technicolor, often-shot-on-exotic-locations films more typical of 50s Alfred Hitchcock:
"Cinephilia has changed in that there's less of a massive respect for the all-singing, all-dancing, every technological achievement in one film kind of film, like Citizen Kane.
People are moving towards more personal films, ones that they can react to personally in their own lives, and Vertigo is that kind of film, especially if you watch it more than once. It is a film that grows and grows on you.
It feels like a much more contemporary film than Citizen Kane, which is a lot of bombast and is very theatrical and slightly hammy by modern acting standards. Vertigo is about our inner life."
Here's Nick James, editor of the UK film magazine SIGHT AND SOUND, to explain the dethroning of CITIZEN KANE (long a Number One choice for Greatest Film of All Time) in favor of VERTIGO, panned on its original release for apparently being (like THE WRONG MAN) too much of a departure from the glossy, Technicolor, often-shot-on-exotic-locations films more typical of 50s Alfred Hitchcock:
"Cinephilia has changed in that there's less of a massive respect for the all-singing, all-dancing, every technological achievement in one film kind of film, like Citizen Kane.
People are moving towards more personal films, ones that they can react to personally in their own lives, and Vertigo is that kind of film, especially if you watch it more than once. It is a film that grows and grows on you.
It feels like a much more contemporary film than Citizen Kane, which is a lot of bombast and is very theatrical and slightly hammy by modern acting standards. Vertigo is about our inner life."
Louise Brooks-BEGGARS OF LIFE (1928) Restoration Trailer
William Wellman's BEGGARS OF LIFE isn't as well-known today as his World War I epic WINGS (which received a Blu-ray release from Paramount earlier this year), but it's quite good overall--marred by some racial stereotyping all too typical of its era. Along with Howard Hawks' A GIRL IN EVERY PORT, it's a key film in Louise Brooks' career, coming before the masterpieces she made in Europe with G.W. Pabst (PANDORA'S BOX, DIARY OF A LOST GIRL). The hoboes-riding-rails storyline was partially reworked by Wellman into the excellent WILD BOYS OF THE ROAD (1933), with Wellman's wife-to-be Dorothy Coonan playing a variation of Brooks' girl-disguised-as-boy role in BEGGARS.
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