Well, there wasn't any poetry at Acquired Taste. A.T. is a reading series meant to highlight literary food writing, which last night featured two fiction writers (including one who was supposed to be a poet, I thought, Mark Brazaitis) and a rock band performing a short rock opera. The rock opera was my favorite part, everyone's skill was tight and they distributed a libretto so you could follow along with the lyrics.
The Band was Tecumseh EQs and the opera was "Bonnie Wipes It All Clean" which was I think about some guy's psychic girlfriend causing the apocalypse. There were some rocking tracks and the lyrics were pretty excellent and dare I say poetic at times:
"I thought it was over. I thought she'd turn herself in.
But she put on her shoes, unplugged the toaster, and just started walking.
She doesn't get tired like me, glad I've got my bike bro.
We spent the night in the office of an ice cream cone factory.
Somehow the old credit card trick really worked. She was holding my hand.
You know how it goes."
-- from [That Tune], 4 tracks in. (Everything was sung faced paced and with varying pitches and levels of enunciation, the libretto helped.)
The set ended with a cover of "Moonage Daydream" which was sped up and lacked the guitar solo and was not as good as Bowie. The opera was cool because the lyrics were less psychadelic than Moonage Daydream, more narrative, but it still managed to capture Bowie's frenetic energy which was pushed through by the the band's hard-line musical effort.
///////
After Tecumseh EQ wound down me and the other Webb twin biked across half the city to get to Runaway Studios, which was featuring some art by Josh Lopata, in an exhibit titled "Nowhere Specific". "Nowhere Specific" was composed of a series of tribal-imagery, paintings, sculptures, and masks, which featured bright colors Lopata traces back to Doug Mahnke's The Mask. Everything was on sale and was reasonably priced for college students, $10-$40, including some large and ornate pieces. There were so many young and beautiful people there! I networked for an hour before heading to a bar and drinking half a yuengling while talking about girls. --poetryburgh@gmail.com
you should probably check out Lopata's vimeo of stop-motion even though this too is not poetry, poetry in motion maybe? not to stretch the term too thin... lord knows it's hardly credible as is
Saturday, May 30, 2015
Thursday, May 28, 2015
The Hour After Happy Hour
The workshop finished a couple minutes ago, Lot 17 has wifi so I'm still here. The Hour After Happy Hour is a Pittsburgh writing workshop, it started a few years back with a handful of grads who didn't wanna pay for grad school. There were 16 people this time, gender split was 3:1 men. Every week they workshop two writers, fiction or poetry or both, give an hour of analysis to each. Age group is Late 20's - Late 30's, the exception being myself, this time.
It's a friendly group, not without some tension, some people willing to argue and discuss points that are usually resolved with humor. Being here makes me think I have to bone up on my analysis and vocabulary, there was a good level of insight. "The true struggle here isn't the speaker's problems with traffic laws but rather his own judgement of himself" (heavily paraphrased).
I'm going next week... Have to put together 1hr's worth of material for these people... it'll be a nice little introduction. --poetryburgh@gmail.com
It's a friendly group, not without some tension, some people willing to argue and discuss points that are usually resolved with humor. Being here makes me think I have to bone up on my analysis and vocabulary, there was a good level of insight. "The true struggle here isn't the speaker's problems with traffic laws but rather his own judgement of himself" (heavily paraphrased).
I'm going next week... Have to put together 1hr's worth of material for these people... it'll be a nice little introduction. --poetryburgh@gmail.com
Wednesday, May 27, 2015
Drinking Too Much w/ Members of "The Haven"
I process alcohol slowly so I've woken up somewhat drunk... Writing this while sipping an 'herbal detox' tea over at the Staghorn Home & Garden Cafe... They have wifi and my friend Cameron works there, it turns out... also, they host occasional poetry events.
Talking with members of The Haven at Lou's Little Corner Bar last night. First we had some "Apples to Apples" writing prompts, wherein we'd write about the adjective/noun matches we'd get from playing the game. (Here's my personal favorite, of mine). Then we got way more drunk and talked about why and how Daniel Parme was going to become Dictator of America. Later we got even more drunk and talked about the Pittsburgh literary scene.
I talked about my anxieties re: the scene. I'm worried about there not being enough poetry in PGH, about getting in touch with "the right crowds", and with just talking/meeting people in general. The Haven people talked me down: "because it's Pittsburgh, no one's going to have a problem with you asking to get involved." They also critiqued my attitude to the scene: "You're trying to see what you can find in Pittsburgh, instead of asking what you can contribute."
I do think they've got a point; I've been holding this imagined community of artists above the heads of everyone I meet here, trying to see if anyone matches up to it. It's a strange thing to do to people, comparing everyone to some made-up ideal; and if I care so much about the ideal, isn't it my responsibility to achieve it?
Communities are strange! Do you look for the right community, or do you create it? Perhaps similar to the difference and similarities between writing and reading... you may write the work you've always wanted to read, but you can also maybe find an approximation of this ideal somewhere... "There's nothing new under the sun."
One of my greatest social desires is to have people to share these kinds of discussions re: art, literature, with... the Haven people were interested, educated and invested in art, they give me a lot of hope/joy about these prospects.
[The Haven is a group established in 2012 that meets regularly every other Tuesday at Lou's and workshops "words" together, primarily fiction. They're looking sometime in the near/distant future to establish a coffee house/ writer's space in Pittsburgh which will offer workshops, classes, and provide an alternative to a creative-arts education from a university. To wit, all four of these people I saw last night had creative-arts educations and worked food service; "you shouldn't have to get a college degree to write" (paraphrased!). ]--poetryburgh@gmail.com
Talking with members of The Haven at Lou's Little Corner Bar last night. First we had some "Apples to Apples" writing prompts, wherein we'd write about the adjective/noun matches we'd get from playing the game. (Here's my personal favorite, of mine). Then we got way more drunk and talked about why and how Daniel Parme was going to become Dictator of America. Later we got even more drunk and talked about the Pittsburgh literary scene.
I talked about my anxieties re: the scene. I'm worried about there not being enough poetry in PGH, about getting in touch with "the right crowds", and with just talking/meeting people in general. The Haven people talked me down: "because it's Pittsburgh, no one's going to have a problem with you asking to get involved." They also critiqued my attitude to the scene: "You're trying to see what you can find in Pittsburgh, instead of asking what you can contribute."
I do think they've got a point; I've been holding this imagined community of artists above the heads of everyone I meet here, trying to see if anyone matches up to it. It's a strange thing to do to people, comparing everyone to some made-up ideal; and if I care so much about the ideal, isn't it my responsibility to achieve it?
Communities are strange! Do you look for the right community, or do you create it? Perhaps similar to the difference and similarities between writing and reading... you may write the work you've always wanted to read, but you can also maybe find an approximation of this ideal somewhere... "There's nothing new under the sun."
One of my greatest social desires is to have people to share these kinds of discussions re: art, literature, with... the Haven people were interested, educated and invested in art, they give me a lot of hope/joy about these prospects.
[The Haven is a group established in 2012 that meets regularly every other Tuesday at Lou's and workshops "words" together, primarily fiction. They're looking sometime in the near/distant future to establish a coffee house/ writer's space in Pittsburgh which will offer workshops, classes, and provide an alternative to a creative-arts education from a university. To wit, all four of these people I saw last night had creative-arts educations and worked food service; "you shouldn't have to get a college degree to write" (paraphrased!). ]--poetryburgh@gmail.com
Monday, May 25, 2015
Pressure Press Presents
Ron Androla is a poetry touchstone for one of the PGH poets I like, John Korn. He runs a facebook group where people post a lot of poems, "Pressure Press Presents", these poems often being along the lines of my taste: short, narrative, clipped form, have some sort of conflict in them, not so "airy" (not poems about flowers, frequently). The thing about the group is that you have to ask to join it. The other thing about the group is that anyone in the group can approve any new member request, and the the other thing is that I'm in the group.
I posted a poem in "Pressure Press Presents" and Ron himself graced to comment on it, mostly negatively. He said "my eyes & head can't work as fast as you write things", so you can see if you agree, I guess. --poetryburgh@gmail.com
I posted a poem in "Pressure Press Presents" and Ron himself graced to comment on it, mostly negatively. He said "my eyes & head can't work as fast as you write things", so you can see if you agree, I guess. --poetryburgh@gmail.com
Sunday, May 24, 2015
I Want Poetry To Be "Hot Mass"
WEll, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, I went to my first dance club experience last night, all on the lonesome, got there like two hours early and live tweeted the whole thing. Hot Mass, downtown off 11th and Penn, above a Bail Bonds storefront. One of those clubs where there's no sign for the front entrance just a bouncer. Everyone was really friendly though. "Hot Mass" is like "heterosexuals night" for the club, the place is above a bathhouse (Club Pittsburgh) and so it's, you know, an extension between one community to another.
The event was sort of fun, not great, not even that exciting as I had imagined: the space is about as big as a modest dining room, and there's some bathrooms and like, glory-hole confessionals off to the right and a guy with a bucket of ice and some drink mixers. Things heated up about two and a half hours in but the DJ just kept playing four-to-the-floor beats where he would like give three or four extra bars before each drop so you couldn't predict it or anything. I was kind of just doing a shuffle thing all night, I got a beer from some guy who brought in a backpack, drinks were only $1.
Do I want Poetry to be "Hot Mass?" What would that even look like? Dancing as opposed to poetry. Maybe.
Ferinstance, I can't be so easily deluded by the idea of a more perfect scene. Whoever was on the floor was on the floor and that was it. There was some astringently beautiful people, of course, but there were a bunch of other folx who were willing to dance with me. I felt that welcoming vibe even there, which was important because I couldn't convince any of my "friends" to come. And yes,
There was that sense that we were all taking part of something, that could possibly have been greater or elevated our lives to some different place, or, rather, that we were willing to dance in a place for an hour or two. I didn't see anything that particularly shocked me. There's a sense of this being someone's hobby, and the DJ being someone's tentative job, a sharing of resources culminating in what, a space of some kind, an activity, a community.
Here's some questions going forward for the blog, and for the poetry scene in pittsburgh as I understand it.
1) Is it viable? Is the kind of life that I've been predicting, have predicated most of my oestensible interest in poetry, is that there? Can I make it happen?
2) What does poetry do in the context of other people? How is it useful, how can it be at least loosely understood so that we can do things with it.
3) Where should I be, if not here? What should I be doing?
I went to Hot Mass because I bought a particularly good fit shirt that was purple and I thought looked fresh. For the first time I felt I had the time money and opportunity to attend a club, to have that kind of experience. I had a fresh haircut too, and I think I got along with the crowd pretty well, even stag. It just didn't end up being all that of an important or interesting experience; the real hard and spiritual part even was before it, convincing myself to do it, all that interior psychological stuff, seeing the opportunity and deciding to take it. -- poetryburgh@gmail.com
The event was sort of fun, not great, not even that exciting as I had imagined: the space is about as big as a modest dining room, and there's some bathrooms and like, glory-hole confessionals off to the right and a guy with a bucket of ice and some drink mixers. Things heated up about two and a half hours in but the DJ just kept playing four-to-the-floor beats where he would like give three or four extra bars before each drop so you couldn't predict it or anything. I was kind of just doing a shuffle thing all night, I got a beer from some guy who brought in a backpack, drinks were only $1.
Do I want Poetry to be "Hot Mass?" What would that even look like? Dancing as opposed to poetry. Maybe.
Ferinstance, I can't be so easily deluded by the idea of a more perfect scene. Whoever was on the floor was on the floor and that was it. There was some astringently beautiful people, of course, but there were a bunch of other folx who were willing to dance with me. I felt that welcoming vibe even there, which was important because I couldn't convince any of my "friends" to come. And yes,
There was that sense that we were all taking part of something, that could possibly have been greater or elevated our lives to some different place, or, rather, that we were willing to dance in a place for an hour or two. I didn't see anything that particularly shocked me. There's a sense of this being someone's hobby, and the DJ being someone's tentative job, a sharing of resources culminating in what, a space of some kind, an activity, a community.
Here's some questions going forward for the blog, and for the poetry scene in pittsburgh as I understand it.
1) Is it viable? Is the kind of life that I've been predicting, have predicated most of my oestensible interest in poetry, is that there? Can I make it happen?
2) What does poetry do in the context of other people? How is it useful, how can it be at least loosely understood so that we can do things with it.
3) Where should I be, if not here? What should I be doing?
I went to Hot Mass because I bought a particularly good fit shirt that was purple and I thought looked fresh. For the first time I felt I had the time money and opportunity to attend a club, to have that kind of experience. I had a fresh haircut too, and I think I got along with the crowd pretty well, even stag. It just didn't end up being all that of an important or interesting experience; the real hard and spiritual part even was before it, convincing myself to do it, all that interior psychological stuff, seeing the opportunity and deciding to take it. -- poetryburgh@gmail.com
Saturday, May 23, 2015
Hungoverish
http://www.eileenmyles.com/infernoexc.php
I'm just going to post this... talk about this.
Sexuality as the basis for poetry, for different kinds
of encounters with the literary scene. The arts scene,
more broadly, but how to describe
that kind of rush or feel you get from good art?
Is there a point? In thinking about this,
I find most commonly that I reach down
to an absolute zero. No one is interested in poetry,
no one is interested in punk,
there's just a series of social incentives
sex, loneliness, fitting into
"a right vision of yourself"
that keep us coming to shows, readings.
This all helped by the fact that it's extraordinarily
easy to be a punk, a poet. This also why
some people are bent on keeping those scenes/
terms exclusionary. BUT
All of this on top of the fact that it's actually possible
to write good poems/poetry. And you can have
some excellent punk music, too. I see it sometimes,
I'll admit the music more frequently,
but poems that are really good,
really performative, memorable
keep you alerted to things.
Do things inside of you that you're not that aware of.
That it's hard to track or summarize
and even trying to do so seems
futile, childish. Even acknowledging
that something deeper is happening...
But if you're Eileen Myles! Sure,
you can do it.
----Moral of the Story:----
Sex isn't the only thing keeping me coming
to punk shows/readings. [[I actually don't
get to have sex because of punk shows, well,
except one time <3 <3]]
I'm just going to post this... talk about this.
Sexuality as the basis for poetry, for different kinds
of encounters with the literary scene. The arts scene,
more broadly, but how to describe
that kind of rush or feel you get from good art?
Is there a point? In thinking about this,
I find most commonly that I reach down
to an absolute zero. No one is interested in poetry,
no one is interested in punk,
there's just a series of social incentives
sex, loneliness, fitting into
"a right vision of yourself"
that keep us coming to shows, readings.
This all helped by the fact that it's extraordinarily
easy to be a punk, a poet. This also why
some people are bent on keeping those scenes/
terms exclusionary. BUT
All of this on top of the fact that it's actually possible
to write good poems/poetry. And you can have
some excellent punk music, too. I see it sometimes,
I'll admit the music more frequently,
but poems that are really good,
really performative, memorable
keep you alerted to things.
Do things inside of you that you're not that aware of.
That it's hard to track or summarize
and even trying to do so seems
futile, childish. Even acknowledging
that something deeper is happening...
But if you're Eileen Myles! Sure,
you can do it.
----Moral of the Story:----
Sex isn't the only thing keeping me coming
to punk shows/readings. [[I actually don't
get to have sex because of punk shows, well,
except one time <3 <3]]
Friday, May 22, 2015
The New Yinzer Presents... @ Modern Formations
Dan McCloskey wears a wig, hunches over, dictates a letter to himself describing the infestation of maine lobsters in his house and the 32 corgis he buys to root them out, as part of his "Little Known Predators" short story series. Caitlin Bender has lengthy poems about experiencing diseases, from an up-close and not impersonal or overstructured vibe, at one point turns her body away from the mike and kind of speaks out of the corner of her mouth. Adrienne Jouver has a long and notable poem about being a Patient Escort at an abortion clinic. Raiona Gaydos reads in the stead of Laura Warman, a piece re: body images for women, being used only for sex, working out at the gym, in an obsessive, close-cropped composition I originally interpreted as a performance-art interpretation of an identity "Laura Warman", but Laura turned out to be a real person who just couldn't be there tonight. Nils Balls projected some of his graphic art and read it aloud to us, which was (not surprisingly, for Nils) enjoyable.
I wore a big white sweater and went with my twin. I drank two beers and had to pee bad for most of the last act (Dan's). Caitlin Bender thought I was waving at her when I was really waving at my twin brother.
Bender's poetry was really enjoyable and good and in that "contemporary" style I like so much. Literary in the sense that it's free verse and complex and goes a bunch of different places and innovates and makes jokes but not in the sense that it's inscrutable or boring. She doesn't do other poetry though! She's a musician, normally she doesn't read. "If it doesn't turn into a song--".
links:
nils balls comics: http://www.skeletonballs.com/
dan mccloskey comix: http://danielmccloskey.com/
caitlin bender's punk band: https://calyxpgh.bandcamp.com/
--poetryburgh@gmail.com
I wore a big white sweater and went with my twin. I drank two beers and had to pee bad for most of the last act (Dan's). Caitlin Bender thought I was waving at her when I was really waving at my twin brother.
Bender's poetry was really enjoyable and good and in that "contemporary" style I like so much. Literary in the sense that it's free verse and complex and goes a bunch of different places and innovates and makes jokes but not in the sense that it's inscrutable or boring. She doesn't do other poetry though! She's a musician, normally she doesn't read. "If it doesn't turn into a song--".
links:
nils balls comics: http://www.skeletonballs.com/
dan mccloskey comix: http://danielmccloskey.com/
caitlin bender's punk band: https://calyxpgh.bandcamp.com/
--poetryburgh@gmail.com
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