Crg Hill's poetry scorecard

For Those in the N.Y. Area: “Norman Rockwell Killed my Father”

For those in the New York area, S.E.E. Theatre presents a new work by Sam Hunter:

“Norman Rockwell Killed My Father”

Monday, March 22nd
-arrival time: 7:30pm - readings begin: 8:00pm - reception to follow-

309 East 108th Street between First and Second Aves. - Apt. 5F

Everyone is invited!

S.E.E. Theatre hopes to create a forum in which:
New directors can get experience working on texts they are passionate about,
New writers can hear their work aloud, and
New actors can gain valuable experience.

We hope to inspire those who want to try directing, writing, or acting for the first time to participate in or take control of one of our informal nights of casual theatre. We hope the reading series will serve also as a great way to introduce ourselves to the community and begin to cultivate an audience for our work.

Kevin Hardy CBI Lighting
(917) 287-4220 Cell

Sam was hands-down the boldest young writer I've ever had the privelege to work with. I will never forget how floored I was by perhaps his first love poem, his coming out poem, the immense pain and yet love he felt for the young man who, seemingly straight, was stiff-arming their relationship. For all its sorrow that poem soared. I hope with all the playwriting he's done in his four years at NYU that he'll still keep his hand in poetry.

By the way, Norman Rockwell killed my mother. He wasn't too particular when it came to killing parents.
And, perhaps coincidentally, Norman Mailer killed my father. Norman Bates was my 6th grade teacher at Wright School in Beloit, Wisconsin, and I had a little lizard named Norman who was beheaded by the neighborhood bully named Norman. I died during the Norman Conquest.

No wonder I now avoid men or women or historical events named Norman.

George Bush’s Campaign 2

The
world is
a safer place?

In
Spain terrorists
usurp democratic elections

In
America they
manipulate political spin

A
bomb here
a bomb there

Trust
the lowest
common denominator, deceitful

as
it must
be to survive?

Every
day we
recruit more terrorists

Excerpts from Lyx Ish’s onanism curdles

You’ve got to love that title.

This chapbook (Xerox Sutra Editions, 1985) foregrounds Lyx’ linguistic inventiveness. Here’s the first two pages of the thirteen page poem:

cash reins.
smooth tail

hideaway.
fluv,
dairy sound.

the tell remain.

jiggle lap.
the prairie.

mannered acreings,

cellbinds flicker,
deeper rigor
wraw an undermined.

the log that quays
rejoinder.

wha phail.

ploog tid humiliflier.

grain tinkles.
water lingers.

dry. huge. foaming. air.

tomorrow eyes capulet.
expectator jewels
aforementioned alight

(I've got to figure out how Typepad will alow tabs so that the spacing in this blog matches the chapbook. When typing into the new post box, I can tab and space to my heart's delight. When it's published, however, it's all flush left. A school of quietude conspiracy at Typepad? Well, duh!

In actuality, only three stanzas return to the left margin: "hideaway....," "mannered....," and "dry....." Four other stanzas are approximately one tab to the right, and five other stanzas two tabs to the right. Suffice it to say, these lines curdle on the page.)

Shedding the Robe

It’s
March 15th
(well, it’s not

but
Tom Beckett’s
got time warp

as
tall as
he is, eating

squirrels
at night
with Boo Radley)

Time
to return
the ermine robe

and
pimp hat
(oh random acts

of
desperation don’t
sway Mr. Beckett

nor
my offer
to let him

select
from my
collection of hair

shirts
well-worn
these four years)

yet
Tom says
I can pass

them
on to
other fashionable poets

Who
among you
have the swagger

to
wear 'em
your life’s poetry

your
poetry’s life
never the same?

An Ongoing Online Collaboration Project

From: Trevor Joyce
Subject: New run of Offsets: online collaboration project

For anyone who's interested, there's a new run of Offsets, with
slightly modified rules, just started at:

http://www.soundeye.org/offsets

I love how the poems in the map of the first 193 nodes (to be accessed through the archive, though there may also be another way -- there's a lot to this SoundEye project worth exploring) are connected -- a candelabrum, a subway map, an electrical schematic...

Compass 4 & 5

Compass 4

Oak, holding last year’s leaves, desiccated hands folded over, rasping in the wind. Three foot tall Superman, faster than a spent shotgun shell, struggles up the slide. The sun’s arc bends more and more to the north each day. Grass dormant, a dozen maples, two with large nests now exposed on their crowns, muffle the north-south stream of traffic.

Compass 5

Given a choice, his eye avoids the front of the Eddie Bauer outlet – 20-60% off – to rub up against the buds on the small maple, to slide with the curves of the central branches, to fall in to the webs of branch tips. He knows the cars are parked, unmoving, but when he stares at them in their rows, they seem poised to spring, passive-aggressive, ready to plow into each other. He squints, sun’s glare off corrugated tin roof creating pillars of fire. The mountains dwarf the strip mall, reminding him they’re here, they’ll stay long after the Fashion Bug is dust.

Spring is the Cruelest Month

I love spring.

I hate spring.

I love spring.

I hate spring: Father’s cancer, student’s suicide, Columbine, my mother’s sudden death by cirrhosis, my broken ankles, invasion of Iraq, Lyx’s death (unseasonable spring-like weather that day), today four month old kitten put down, and now, tonight, Cid Corman’s death.

Spring sucks.

Spring shoots.

Spring sucks.

Spring shoots. Bullets and blossoms. Which comes first?

What did T. S. Eliot know anyway but his own wasteland, his own garden? What do any of us know but?

I loved Cid Corman’s work as a young writer. I’ll always love Corman’s work as a writer and reader: Writing can be as clear as this. I can do this. Who can’t see this? Who can’t do this? It’s not as easy as it seems to do this this this this but I've got to do this this this...

In his own words, four poems from Root Song, Potes & Poets Press, 1986:

Ask me when
I am dead
the meaning

of this. Then
each word will
answer you.

*

I could go out at dawn
and milk the grass of dew
and bring a cup to you

morning cool and clear,
but indolently don’t.
I feel I have no use,

like smoke twisting nothing
around a strand of air.
I kneel – but as a root?

I yearn – but as a bough?
I die – but what flower
have I to offer night?

*

The way through the temple
never takes one to it -
but never to be there

is always to be here
under the bending pines
lending shadow shadow.

*

It is not enough
to die - or to live.
But to live and die

together - at once -
and in every
moment each breath gives.

Compass 2 & 3

Compass 2

What does a hollow door mean? The mirror reflects back over the writer’s shoulder (out of the frame): dying light against the neighbor’s siding. A rough white wall scratches the eyes, scrapes off his fingerprints. Monet’s garden: the impression of the flowers is more vibrant than the impression of the human figure, the blooms vibrating around the faceless woman.

Compass 3

More façade than window, institutionalized, so it’s no wonder the eye grabs the military green structure on top of the building, corrugated green complimenting blue sky. “EXIT,” arrow pointing south. Metallic green shelves, packed with bound periodicals, appear to diminish to one-fifth their size as the eye shoots to the end of the rows. In view, probably tons of information at the ready, if anyone is ever ready for this information; one shelf appears to mock, “HA.”

Two Mail Art Invitations

First, from Tiziana Baracchi:

The Beatles Forever

Postcard 10x15 cm.

The Tree of Poetry
Tiziana Baracchi
via Cavallotti 83b
I-30171 Venezia Mestre
ITALIA

Second, from Zlatko Krstevski:

Datum dogodka: MAY 15, 2004
Vizant- Visual Arts Center
SPARK GENERATORS
INTERNATIONAL PHOTO EXPOSITION
curated by Zlatko Krstevski- MULTIMEDIA ARTIST
THEME: FREE
SIZE: A5 MAX.A4
TECHNIQUE- PHOTOGRAPHY
PUBLISHED INTERNATIONAL PHOTO ANTHOLOGY AND SEND TO
ALL ARTISTS PARTICIPANTS
NO RETURN OF WORK (PHOTO)

PLEASE SEND WORK TO THE ADDRESS
BELOW.

Rok prijave: 30/04/04

Kontakt:
VIZANT- VISUAL ARTS CENTER
Aleksandar Biserkoski
"D. NAREDNIKOT" 58
7500 Prilep
Macedonia
tel: +389 48 430 365, +389 70 611 265 (mobile)
aleks_mk@hotmail.com
http://www.vizant.org.mk/

Compass 1

Whitewall, white space under the basement window, between the t.v. cabinet and the book shelves, a respite, today, or, tomorrow, a target, a canvas for a rage of spit. The cat, the oversized kitten, curls up on the back of the couch. Two picture frames askew, a print from the Montana Agricultural Center & Museum, a fabric picture, cloth woman waving or reaching to pull down the cloth shade. Going After Cacciato sandwiched between Excellent Women and Wanderings.