Stream of Consciousness

In 2012, I'm determined to better learn how to read contemporary poetry. Really.

In spite of writing it myself, I often do not feel I know how to read it, especially the work of many contemporary poets. It remains an enigma, like the rotors of this machine. So I'm going to read some books and write my first impressions. If a book passes muster, maybe then I'll study it, read it again. All this in an attempt to articulate what is my aesthetic, what I like to read, learn from, what brings me joy. So here's my first little ditty on a book I read yesterday:

Olena Kalytiak Davis: Shattered Sonnets, Love Cards, and Other Off and Back Handed Importunities. Bloomsbury USA/Tin House 2003

 Took a look at this while cooking steel-cut oats on Sunday night. I could tell from the start that is was somehow paying homage to the work, obsessions, tics, and styles of other canonical poets—Emily Dickinson and Sylvia Plath were the two that jumped out to my untutored poetry-wise mind but then the sonnet shattering? So of course, Shakespeare had to figure in.  So it seems to me, if you haven’t studied all that in, let’s say, college, or aren’t currently part of the academic esoteric clique that currently deconstructs texts just for the fun of it and tenure/resume building, then why would these poems make any sense to you? Because I don’t get it (which then leads me to feeling that I’m somehow dumb), I then step back and ask myself why do I want to be in a place of feeling like that? I felt like this book is one of those that helps give contemporary poetry a bad rap in the “real world” and that maybe it should come with some instructions on how to read it for those of us too unschooled or lazy or dumb or uninterested to get it the first read through. Furthermore, why would I even waste my time reading it again?

What I got, somewhat enjoyed: The word play, the morphing of one syllable, sound fragment, homophone, word, phrase, cliché into another. Because I do/have done this in my own work.

What I didn’t get: The why of this book. What is Davis talking about? Why in my precious hours left on this earth do I want/need to read this book? What ongoing joy will it give me? Why should I work so hard to puzzle out her cleverness, or unravel her games? What conversation is this book adding to? What beauty or wisdom in the world?

 

2011, A Banner Year for Publications

 

It helps to finally start submitting The Work. Duh. Many start-up, fledgling publications run by the nicest folks who really, truly care about the written word -- even if is on a computer screen. Not sure how much of it actually gets read these overly distracted, too-much-going-on days...

Still, the running list is here -- forty-four individual poems (as of today) and another batch as a chapbook:

http://www.nancyflynn.com/publications.html

When we finally know we are dying, and all other sentient beings are dying with us, we start to have a burning, almost heartbreaking sense of the fragility and preciousness of each moment and each being, and from this can grow a deep, clear, limitless compassion for all beings.

- Sogyal Rinpoche

If it's the end tomorrow, then here I am: cats about seeking out their usual catnip toys, Neil singing about a dream, the table set for our writing anthology meeting in the morning, evening dinner a glimmer in the coal of a grill and a husband. It's a dream, it's only a dream. In this moment? That may have been enough.

An Eerie Place for Poetry Publication...

 

Phantom Kangaroo -- an eerie place to be published!