Death, Reading, Literary Feeding and Dogged Divinity
Just some random notes:
You may recall my 5 January blog celebrating Pulitzer Prize winning poet W.D. Snodgrass' 83rd birthday. When I wrote it, I was unaware that De (as the poet is familiarly known) was battling lung cancer. Yesterday morning, he lost that battle. May he rest in peace.
Tonight Mac's Backs bookstore in Cleveland Heights (1802 Coventry Rd.) is having their monthly poetry reading at 7 p.m. It's being billed as guys' night, though guys and gals are enthusiastically invited, and the featured poets will be C.Allen Rearick, Jason Floyd Williams, Mike Goldstein, and me. Even if I suck, it'll be well worth going to hear the others. Plus, poetry reading aside, the store rocks.
This past week, additions to the Crisis Chronicles Online Library have included Cleveland: The Rectal Eye Visions [#4 & 5] (by d.a. levy), Manifestation of a Buddha (by Cheryl Lynn Moyer), We Wear the Mask (by Paul Laurence Dunbar), Magnetic Notes from a Refrigerator (by Kevin Eberhardt & Co.), Sonnet to Sleep (by John Keats), Fucking Cruel (by Mister Eeee), Ode: Intimations of Immortality (by William Wordsworth), Moon in the Window (by Dorianne Laux), A Man Adrift on a Slim Spar (by Stephen Crane), Bhagavad-Gita (Chapter 6), Las Palomas (by Steve Goldberg), How the End Begins (by Will Northerner), Praise for an Urn (by Hart Crane), Handguns (by Willie Smith), Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening (by Robert Frost), I Just Noticed (by Chocolate Waters), Eveline (by James Joyce), Ars Poetica (by Michael Grover), and Hélas! (by Oscar Wilde). Click any title in this paragraph to see that entry.
Finally, here's a new poem I'll be reading tonight.
Rough Love
front to back
back to front
right to left
left to right
poopy to licky
licky to poopy
snoopy is snoopy
snoopy is snoopy
dog is dog
god is god is
dog is god
love ruff
You may recall my 5 January blog celebrating Pulitzer Prize winning poet W.D. Snodgrass' 83rd birthday. When I wrote it, I was unaware that De (as the poet is familiarly known) was battling lung cancer. Yesterday morning, he lost that battle. May he rest in peace.
Tonight Mac's Backs bookstore in Cleveland Heights (1802 Coventry Rd.) is having their monthly poetry reading at 7 p.m. It's being billed as guys' night, though guys and gals are enthusiastically invited, and the featured poets will be C.Allen Rearick, Jason Floyd Williams, Mike Goldstein, and me. Even if I suck, it'll be well worth going to hear the others. Plus, poetry reading aside, the store rocks.
This past week, additions to the Crisis Chronicles Online Library have included Cleveland: The Rectal Eye Visions [#4 & 5] (by d.a. levy), Manifestation of a Buddha (by Cheryl Lynn Moyer), We Wear the Mask (by Paul Laurence Dunbar), Magnetic Notes from a Refrigerator (by Kevin Eberhardt & Co.), Sonnet to Sleep (by John Keats), Fucking Cruel (by Mister Eeee), Ode: Intimations of Immortality (by William Wordsworth), Moon in the Window (by Dorianne Laux), A Man Adrift on a Slim Spar (by Stephen Crane), Bhagavad-Gita (Chapter 6), Las Palomas (by Steve Goldberg), How the End Begins (by Will Northerner), Praise for an Urn (by Hart Crane), Handguns (by Willie Smith), Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening (by Robert Frost), I Just Noticed (by Chocolate Waters), Eveline (by James Joyce), Ars Poetica (by Michael Grover), and Hélas! (by Oscar Wilde). Click any title in this paragraph to see that entry.
Finally, here's a new poem I'll be reading tonight.
Rough Love
front to back
back to front
right to left
left to right
poopy to licky
licky to poopy
snoopy is snoopy
snoopy is snoopy
dog is dog
god is god is
dog is god
love ruff
Posted by Jesus Crisis at 1/14/2009 10:42 AM 
Categories: Poetry Events, Poetry by JC, Online Library
Categories: Poetry Events, Poetry by JC, Online Library
Cool.... on all counts. Have read the Levy will comment on it later once the coffee starts to work... I had a late night last night.
You really need to do Toledo they would love you there they are as wild as you are... and your adult material as well as the rest would be well received there.
I thought Mac's Backs was one of the places that was censoring adult content poems.. will you be able to read your new poem there unimpeded??
Hope so.. or are you testing limits tonight... ??
Anyway.. sorry I can't make tonight.. I try to hit Toledo when they have their feature once a month.. and usually something in Cleveland once a month. And from the looks of your great line up, that's probably where I'l be the next few months is L & K. You two have done a great job of lining up some super talent..
Best of luck tonight Mr.B....
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Thanks, Chris! I'd love to hit the Toledo/Collingwood reading sometime soon.
You're thinking of Madison Rose bookstore - they're the ones who stopped having "adult" readings after we outraged some of the customers with our all-too-human poetry. You can't use certain language at Borders either. Conversely, I've never known Mac's Backs to censor poets. They're very supportive of art - black, white, academic, underground, male, female - doesn't matter. It's a great place!
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Good luck tonight and have a safe trip to the east side. I feel like Elyria's been transported to the snow belt--or the North Pole!
Absolutely love all of the places on Coventry Road but especially the bookstores (Though Big Fun is neat and Coventry Cats is cool...)
... and I'm sure you won't suck either
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Thanks, Pinky! I haven't been able to get my Mustang out of our steep icy driveway for a week - finally gave up trying. But the SUV (which I usually try to avoid driving) is home today, so I should be fine. City Buddha (my former employer), Tommy's restaurant and Passport to Peru are some of my other favorites on that block or two.
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Ha ha ha! Very nice poem, JC. I love the progression from "Rough Love" to "love ruff"; didn't see it coming from the title! Can't wait to hear you read it tonight....
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Thanks, Dianne!
When bite is worse than bark
We call it dog
When bark is worse than bite
We call it God
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going back to your themes with a humor lilt
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Sorry I had to miss the reading last night. Looking forward to reading about how it went.
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Thanks, T.M.! I was surprised anyone came at all - and would not have been hurt if no one did. The roads (especially I-90 on the way there) were treacherous - if I wasn't a featured reader, I wouldn't have gone. I plan to blog about it today or tomorrow.
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i tried to read goldberg's poem, discovered it was youtube and i can never under any circumstances get sound with youtube whether it's embedded or on youtube's own site - which is weird cuz i usta could. tried to research why and it looks like it's a big problem to lots of people but none of the suggested remedies work so far.
on our may feature at kixlix, i'm going to read the poems of mine you have online - give us both a pr pat on the back.
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The only thing I can think of is it might be an issue with your Flash player - but I really don't have a clue. I very much like the Goldberg poem ("Las Palomas," about pigeons he encountered on a trip to Mexico) - too bad you couldn't hear it. I still have lots of video to post on the library (including a bunch of Goldberg), as time and timing permit.
I'm very much looking forward to your reading! Appreciate the PR and especially the fact that you're letting me include your work in the library - still have more of your poems to post (I think you sent me 13, all of which I want to include), but am trying to space them out a bit, keep reminding folks of Smith over a longer period of time.
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interesting variety of additions to your library.
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I really enjoy your poetry and I often wonder if you put down some notes when you write a new poem about what inspired your words, where you came up with your idea. When I first read a poem or a book or view any type of art I like to draw my own conclusions, but I often go back and see if I can find the artist's interpretation to see how it compares to my own. I also wonder how long it takes you to write these poems. I know some of them take a long time and are subject to many revisions, but do you also write some and leave them in their original state? Does one poem ever inspire a flurry of others?
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