Saturday, March 13, 2010

Why I can't write




Maybe a slightly mystifying capable
little verse to love,
downwinging,
rhapsodizing,
heart-sized and
red.

Ah, the fabulous lies, words having to
reinvent you,
eye you, love,
embrace. Why try
at all.

A cringing sonnet won't do: its note isn't
heard in pauses,
or down rhymes
or at the churr.

Something lyrical, over easy, freed from
suns sublime,
poetry to stop birds dead: well,
I'm no Leopardi.

And all that tension, energy, devotion
at my window:
a view of clouds,
locusts off the lake, and
then a line,

always painfully inscrutably slow.

Writing's like poring vinegar over hot rocks,
watching it crumble,
& forcing a pass
thru the Alps.

And for what?

Elephants, Rome. And Franks who don't read.
Fingers in their beard.
No Issa here.

9 comments:

Ed Baker said...

hey say Conrad:

sending you a pdf of RATULA via a less public way).. ending of yer piece IS where the poem resides and reminds me of my 1969 run-at-it:

"Writing's like poring vinegar over hot rocks,
watching it crumble,
& forcing a pass
thru the Alps.

And for what?

Elephants, Rome. And Franks who don't read.
Fingers in their mouth.
No haiku either."


would change this a bit but you "got it"... the 'stuff' that makes poets/poems/ break-out...

you know, I confuse commenting on various blogs with one-on-one letter writing...

'taint

and I know better...



yuh gotta get a sense in here of YOUR own particular breathing/rhythm...

lines, empty spaces, holes between words, marginations: (images on a page punctuate any other meanings that follow its (a) game!

well yuh got the "tone"
here int his one..

I gonna work a bit on that ending... as a translation from Canada Lang to 'merican Land...


first thought is to drop the (...) and move the (...) change "vinegar" to "coffee" (black, no sugar, cold and stale)

anyway
is
right way

another "thing"...

you got any idea what the hell a Language Poet is? or what Language Poetry is? and, what "language" DO THEY 'poet' to?
maybe I be asking of this of
Carlo Parcelli?

Conrad DiDiodato said...

Thanks, Ed!

I wrote a purposely self-deprecating piece to show the slow sloggin' that most writing is: hopefully, as you say, the kind that "breaks-out". Not easy to do. It's why I stand in awe of people like Eigner, Oppen, Berryman, etc who all had their own "breathing/rhythm". Sometimes I think it must be genetic or something.

Thanks for suggestion to change ending ("coffee" sounds tantalizing). I was watching a show on how Hannibal dug his way thru the Alps to get to Rome by poring vinegar on heated rocks and making them brittle enough to dig through!What a metaphor for the way I write. I guess the Masters don't need to make anything brittle: they just plough thru.

Kind of like StoneGirl: both metaphor, art and minimalist writing that's always 'there'.

LangPo, as I understand, is more theory than poetic practice: which is why Silliman is a damn good theorist of his work but really isn't that skilful a poet.

Ed Baker said...

hey Conrad so I went to The Ultimate Resource
WikiPEEdia to "pin down" exactly the "what-of" is thos

Language Poetry, here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_poets


here is the close-ing part of the essay:

"Some poets, such as Norman Finkelstein in a conversation with Mark Scroggins, have stressed their own ambiguous relationship, even after decades of fruitful engagement, to "Language poetry". Finkelstein, referencing specifically The Grand Piano, points to a "risk" (if foregrounded) when previously marginalized poets attempt to write their own literary histories, "not the least of which is a self-regard bordering on narcissism".[9]"

heck I have two questions:

- What "language" do these Lang Poets The Lang Gang" speak in or is it that they just write words on a page willi-nilly?

and
seems like from Gert-rude Stein on THEY claim everyboddhi as a Language Poet ?...


and, it also seems to me that they are "forcing" some kind of a Theoreticality on all og this, maybe to justify there own self-worth and narcissistic wayze/waves?

from here on out, I think,
that I will only read/imitate poetry written by Horses, Ducks, and Jack-asses....

and learn how to bray and winnie a "happy" song/tune/tone...

just, must, be very careful
NOT to step
into the horse-shit
but, rather
o=v=e=r/i=t

etc

Ed Baker said...

pee est

and not to kick a dead-horse

here is a list of ALL of the schools and clubs of Poetry one can join up w/:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_poetry_groups_and_movements

Conrad DiDiodato said...

Ed,

your greatest 'poetry/language' innovator (the ultimate LangPo)was Gertrude Stein: guys like Silliman, Bernstein, Perloff and their myriad imitators are Stein wannabe's.

Not a single great American literary writer was an ACADEMIC. I wish they'd stay the hell away from poetry: they've done enough damage!

vazambam (Vassilis Zambaras) said...

Nice

illuminating ex-
change here, wonder what

the wunderkids would make
of it but perhaps that

would stretch their language far
beyond the borders

of the humanly
possible?

Conrad DiDiodato said...

Thanks, Vassilis!

Perhaps poem is a critique of anyone's ability to write in today's postmodern mess. It seems these days the lyrical voice has been "put to silence". And glad you picked up on the 'inner dialogue' I also tried for.

Pearl said...

he actually vinegared his way thru stone. any hyperbole one can imagine, it seems someone has done.

if you write with heart and breath, can you omit intellect and rest of body? must heart have the exclusive dibs on speaking?

Conrad DiDiodato said...

Pearl,

I imagine the poet heaving into stone with shoulder, too: or, at least, that's what writing the next line feels like.

And what intellect would ever sanction vinegaring through stone, even as a metaphor?