tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5749059681475538860.post3800622303763506712..comments2023-06-01T12:02:03.935-04:00Comments on Poets.net: Christopher Woodman: "The chick that’s in him pecks the shell, 'twill soon be out."Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5749059681475538860.post-50974752465815877882008-05-29T12:49:00.000-04:002008-05-29T12:49:00.000-04:00The little Love-god lying once asleep,Laid by his ...The little Love-god lying once asleep,<BR/>Laid by his side his heart-inflaming brand,<BR/>Whilst many nymphs that vowed chaste life to keep<BR/>Came tripping by; but in her maiden hand<BR/>The fairest votary took up that fire<BR/>Which many legions of true hearts had warmed;<BR/>And so the General of hot desire<BR/>Was, sleeping, by a virgin hand disarmed.<BR/>This brand she quenched in a cool well by,<BR/>Which from Love's fire took heat perpetual,<BR/>Growing a bath and healthful remedy,<BR/>For men diseased; but I, my mistress' thrall,<BR/>Came there for cure and this by that I prove, <BR/>Love's fire heats water, water cools not love.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5749059681475538860.post-67928735117339393222008-05-28T23:52:00.000-04:002008-05-28T23:52:00.000-04:00Christopher,I get you, but why didn't you include ...Christopher,<BR/>I get you, but why didn't you include HIV?<BR/><BR/> The "clean" wife at home, so carefully schooled by her mother, is infected by some other mother's son who was equally carefully schooled in how to become a reckless man, and then disguised in silk pyjamas married her.<BR/><BR/>So in poetry all those young hopefuls in the schools, workshops and forums working and working to clean up their craft. They stay at home to be chosen like virgins while the men who really matter, male or female, are out there perfecting the disease.<BR/><BR/>Ouch!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5749059681475538860.post-42626360790302742512008-05-28T08:53:00.000-04:002008-05-28T08:53:00.000-04:00"The tenet of faith in American poetry is that the..."The tenet of faith in American poetry is that the true poet is the product of not just higher but higher and higher and higher education, and that the more a poet pays for it the more right he or she has to be truly successful." <BR/><BR/>Bingo.<BR/><BR/>Here's the whole crux of the matter in 46 words.<BR/><BR/>Well said, my friend.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5749059681475538860.post-19852680743658249622008-05-27T23:59:00.000-04:002008-05-27T23:59:00.000-04:00It's like all attacks on orthodoxy. If a criticism...It's like all attacks on orthodoxy. If a criticism contradicts a tenet of faith it's an invalid criticism.<BR/><BR/> If the tenet of faith is that guns make you free, then guns are a non-negotiable matter. If it's a tenet of faith that sex is bad then sex-education is a non-negotiable matter. If it's a tenet of faith that men have a much higher sex drive than women, as it is in a great many cultures in the world today, including where I live, and that true men are truly driven by sex, then you get boys taken by their fathers to brothels at 14 while the mothers wait at home with the daughters until they can be married--and the crowning irony of that absurd tenet of faith is that in addition to brothels on every street corner you get men who are butterflies and women who run the whole show!<BR/><BR/>The tenet of faith in American poetry is that the true poet is the product of not just higher but higher and higher and higher education, and that the more a poet pays for it the more right he or she has to be truly successful. <BR/><BR/>Anyone who suggests that the poets, critics, editors or publishers who are running this extravagant industry are self-interested, or even, God-forbid, in it for profit, is considered anti-intellectual. Indeed, I myself am mocked as a loser and an ignoramus all the time, and every word I speak is dismissed as, in a most memorable phrase I found in P&W Magazine, of all places, “the product of a willful misunderstanding of the process of editing and publishing poetry!”<BR/><BR/>So you think the son should wash the dishes before he goes out to the brothel at 14 with his father? Just ask the mother for an answer to that question. "You must be joking," she will reply. "Any true mother would keep her daughter carefully clean at home so she can attract a true man as a husband!"<BR/><BR/>And that's a monstrous problem, both for their sex and our poetry!<BR/><BR/>ChristopherAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5749059681475538860.post-18139732932290652262008-05-27T12:58:00.000-04:002008-05-27T12:58:00.000-04:00"Anyone writing any poetry here?I thought not."Thi..."Anyone writing any poetry here?<BR/><BR/>I thought not."<BR/><BR/>This sums up the stupidity of a certain kind of 'poet' offended by any machinations in the poetry world which don't boil down to 'writing poetry,' as if everything is OK as long there are great assembly lines 'writing poetry.' <BR/><BR/>According to this silliness, 'writing poetry,' is the only criterion necessary. <BR/><BR/>Thinking what it means to 'write poetry' in a wider context is a waste of time. We should just be 'writing poetry.' <BR/><BR/>There is indeed truth to the remark: "I thought not."<BR/><BR/>This opinion contains no thought.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5749059681475538860.post-66262453686908548292008-05-27T01:51:00.000-04:002008-05-27T01:51:00.000-04:00Thanks for that, Anonymous.Yes, that's exactly wha...Thanks for that, Anonymous.<BR/><BR/>Yes, that's exactly what I meant. And if you look carefully at what I say you will see I didn't suggest there had been any illegal activity in all the self-serving locking, deleting and banning I experienced while at Pw.org and Poets.org. I also make it clear that I haven't a clue who was influenced by whom in the P&W chain of command from Jason Chapman, IT Director at Poets & Writers, down to Motet, the moderator with the buttons, but somebody did listen to somebody else, and somebody did dirt. The same applies to The Academy of American Poets. The fact that Robin Beth Schaer, the Chief On-line Editor at Poets.org, is in line for a prize at Tupelo is proof of nothing, though it does put her under suspicion, and in some more sensitive positions that would be considered an indiscretion. But certainly it wouldn't have required Robin's intervention because the Site Administrator, Christine Klocek-Lim, certainly could have 'moderated' everything that happened all by herself, as could virtually any of the moderators. Also, there were certainly moments when it was obvious the wagons were being circled tightly around the whole forum, and that all the moderators were trying, at least, to hold the enemy at bay in unison.<BR/><BR/>Didn't work but it was certainly a show of unison.<BR/><BR/>So what does it take to influence public opinion in the world of poetry, that's the real question. If, as I suspect, it's just a celebrity voice on the phone, then poetry has already become Hollywood, and is likely to produce about the same percentage of junk too. Yes, and let's be very clear about that too. I love Hollywood personally, but Indies even more so. Poetry, on the other hand, is my last resort when I think I'll just shuffle off this mortal coil, and when I think that the two individuals I've not been naming in this essay have so much influence over poetry, it makes me feel sorry for myself as a person as well as a poet!<BR/><BR/>Think about that.<BR/><BR/>(I'd love to know who you are, Anonymous--but I'm thrilled to be on board with you.)<BR/>ChristopherAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5749059681475538860.post-78516033384976861562008-05-27T00:40:00.000-04:002008-05-27T00:40:00.000-04:00And what if the publisher in question had also: (1...And what if the publisher in question had also:<BR/> <BR/>(1.) published the poetry of his own publisher,<BR/> <BR/>(2.) published the poetry of his business partner in the organization of poetry conferences for poets who couldn't get published and would pay to meet publishers,<BR/><BR/>(3.) published the first book of poetry of the director of the first poetry graduate institute to offer MFA credits taught by that very same publisher in how to write a first book of poetry and then get that first book of poetry published,<BR/><BR/>(4.) published the first book of poetry of a young Stanford law student who as yet had only two poetry credentials, her mother as the Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory at Harvard and her father as a well-published (sort of like "hung!") poet at Iowa,<BR/><BR/>(5.) and not only published that unpublished law student, but gave her a contract to begin writing her <B>first book of poetry</B> while she was still an undergraduate at Harvard?<BR/><BR/>Nice?<BR/><BR/>But hey, all of this is so well-known and has been out there in the public record for ages--that's why it's a yawn for people who want to think it doesn't matter. <BR/><BR/>The difference in what Christopher has done here is not to mention any names at all--because what I think he's trying to say now is that it matters far more than those names, which indeed are in reality getting boring.<BR/><BR/>In fact it matters because of what it's doing to American poetry, and the symptoms are dire!<BR/><BR/>And me? I'm someone who is in in fact in a position to do a little bit anyway about it, so I can't tell you.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5749059681475538860.post-82739022014767268442008-05-26T20:52:00.000-04:002008-05-26T20:52:00.000-04:00If you were a poet looking for life insurance and ...If you were a poet looking for life insurance and you decided to go for a policy that had been written by a poet, do you think you could have spotted Wallace Stevens at Hartford?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5749059681475538860.post-20116487076265609872008-05-26T20:29:00.000-04:002008-05-26T20:29:00.000-04:00Huh?Anyone writing any poetry here?I thought not.Huh?<BR/><BR/>Anyone writing any poetry here?<BR/><BR/>I thought not.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5749059681475538860.post-10492622256203459422008-05-26T16:57:00.000-04:002008-05-26T16:57:00.000-04:00And what if one or both of two poetry personalitie...And what if one or both of two poetry personalities were so incensed that they tried to interfere with the employment of someone who rightfully shined a light on their arrogant, symbiotic ways? Would that be tortuous interference? You'd think that if one of the personalities was once a lawyer that he'd know better.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5749059681475538860.post-21506886238921203532008-05-26T16:49:00.000-04:002008-05-26T16:49:00.000-04:00"Twinkies were invented by James Dewan, an employe..."Twinkies were invented by James Dewan, an employee of the Chicago based Continental Baking Company, in 1933. The name came from the expression "twinkle toes," which, at one time was a brand of shoes. During World War II, Twinkies were redesigned with a banana flavored filling. The banana filling allowed Continental Baking to market their product as a nutritional substitute for real bananas which were in short supply during the war (Yes, we have no bananas?). Apparently, in 1999, a package of Twinkies was one of the items chosen by the White House to be included in their See, Twinkies, apparently have an unnaturally long shelf life. Oh, and maybe it was all those preservatives that kept James Dewan (the Twinkie inventor) alive till his 80th birthday in 1981 (he claimed to eat two Twinkies every day of his life)."<BR/><BR/>From "Birthday Boy" on Wall to Wall Carpet website<BR/><BR/>http://home.earthlink.net/~mosnyder/id15.htmlJenniferhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02948542374699674802noreply@blogger.com