i consider poetry to be a kind of bomb shelter. i could explain more if anybody cares. i don't consider myself to be radioactive, although i would admit to havign a fair quotient of electricity
for those who wonder about my avatar
- Thread starter growing beard
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Black Swan
Abord the Yorikke!
Shoot!
don't make us wait too long...
the anticipation is killing me...
i can barely work i'm so distracted...
there's just so much noise. like any creative act poetry can be a way to transmute the noise, 'get it out of your system.' but it can also be a good reminder, like saying 'don't let the noise turn you around, this stuff is from the soul, it's more reliable.' soulful, from-the-heart, true-to-nature poetry protects people from symbolic noise i guess, gives them an umbrella or a shield to hide behind when society tries to bombard them (often even through the people most near to them) with unnatural and soulless nonsense. writing from nature and the soul is like exhaling deeply after having been forced to hold your breath. reading stuff from nature and the soul of others is like breathing in a deep breath of fresh air after having been taking only small abbreviated breaths as a defense mechanism to having been stuck for so long in a polluted environment.
sharing your work is the ultimate test, it's like asking other people: did i do it? did i manage to filter out the noise, or did i just put the noise on a plate and try to hang it on the wall of your living room? can you breathe deeply of this and, though it may seem wild and piercing at first, do you find that it sustains you better than say reading the new york times or memorizing various formulas or being confronted with distorted sounds and images?
sharing your work is the ultimate test, it's like asking other people: did i do it? did i manage to filter out the noise, or did i just put the noise on a plate and try to hang it on the wall of your living room? can you breathe deeply of this and, though it may seem wild and piercing at first, do you find that it sustains you better than say reading the new york times or memorizing various formulas or being confronted with distorted sounds and images?
after reading your post i realized my language is pretty pretentious. blame my upbringing. i try to weed it out but it's not easy. what i'm putting out there isn't meant to be an explanation it's just something that makes sense to me at this time
this from the man responsible for still no sign of o.b.l. don't be modest man it's not me, it's you. you who break new ground that the people may be freed of the shackles of thinking that the media and politics are authentic forms of human experience! you who carry the answers to the riddles of the ages in your back pocket like so many candy canes to hand out to the kiddies as you stroll the avenue, sunshine forever at your back and wind forever beneath your outstretched cherubs wings! you who use lines like "all we have to do is look at recent history to get an idea of what's going on" and then print them on fancy paper and sign them with the flourish of your dancing and bewitching ink pen!
tell you what i'll create special link with a little gold star on my blog to mjpbooks.com
mjp
Founding member
No! Please don't! I don't think my server could withstand the massive influx of traffic from your blog!
You wanted attention (why else would you start this thread) and now you're getting it. I don't know why you're so cranky.
see, I read that as: "it's not my fault i'm smarter than all you clods. it's my parents fault. they were smarter than you idiots also. i'll dumb it down, really i will, but dumbing it down for you imbeciles will take a lot of effort, and really, are you poor hillbilly folk worth all that effort? side note: i use a lower case "i" when talking about myself to give an appearance of humility."
but I could be wrong.
ha, your stuff cracks me up man i don't laugh out loud much any more so i think you got something.
i'm over it. don't mind me i'll just unroll my sleeping bag over in the corner and babble about this and that. i'm amazed how sophisticated the functionality of this forum is. kudos. i started this thread to introduce myself i guess. i learned about bukowski from a friend who was studying poetry in college. he went on to get an mfa but his work si too academic i think too measured and lacks vigor (effete and bloodless were the words somebody used and i thought those were pretty good). i never studied art or poetry and i think that's the only thing that kept my creative fire from being extinguished by long years in academia. i went to madison, dropped out, went back, finished, moved to a hippy farm in missouri, left, moved to paris for three years on my parents nickle, left, seattle, chicago, austria, minneapolis health problems blah blah. it's a long story. i've had a few bukowski books over the years and moved so many times and given away so many books that i'm always having to start over. i had a pretty close relationship with the one that crumb illustrated, something about the captain is gone and the sailors have taken over the ship. wish i still had it. i'll find it again i guess but now i'm starting to find that if i got 20 bucks to buy books maybe i should start to read yalls stuff instead of ordering more bukowski. mjp your stuff looks good i had to really dig into your page to find something to complain about. and i'm a critical sunofagun so thats saying something. i was going to tear apart your ink drawings and then i realized that they actually were talking to me.
i told my aunt who's pretty scholarly that i can't stop going back to bukowski and she's like geez that seems like an odd choice for a mentor wasn't he a drunk and a womanizer and a fighter and i said i don't see it as a mentorship. he's just out there, he's been running his ass off and he's ready to pass the baton and once in a while somebody comes along but nobody can keep up and i feel like i have a moral obligation to take teh baton and not let the fire die. that's what i told her, she's retired now but before she was the dean of social work in a big university. not sure whether she caught my drift, but i can run like the wind so that's me./
i thought this subsection was supposed to be for new people to express themselves and become familiar to all you night watchmen and flame keepers. but yes i am a child inside who needs attention and the last woman i dated recently threatened to call the cops on me so take that into consideration.
Hooch believe me when i say that i have always had mixed feelings about my family and intellectual background. i'm all brains and passion, no substance or sustainability. it doesn't do any good to wish i had been raised differently, but i certainly don't seek out phd types for my busom buddies.
if i'm out of line and anybody feels like explaining that to me here or in a message i'm all ears.
-mike
i'm over it. don't mind me i'll just unroll my sleeping bag over in the corner and babble about this and that. i'm amazed how sophisticated the functionality of this forum is. kudos. i started this thread to introduce myself i guess. i learned about bukowski from a friend who was studying poetry in college. he went on to get an mfa but his work si too academic i think too measured and lacks vigor (effete and bloodless were the words somebody used and i thought those were pretty good). i never studied art or poetry and i think that's the only thing that kept my creative fire from being extinguished by long years in academia. i went to madison, dropped out, went back, finished, moved to a hippy farm in missouri, left, moved to paris for three years on my parents nickle, left, seattle, chicago, austria, minneapolis health problems blah blah. it's a long story. i've had a few bukowski books over the years and moved so many times and given away so many books that i'm always having to start over. i had a pretty close relationship with the one that crumb illustrated, something about the captain is gone and the sailors have taken over the ship. wish i still had it. i'll find it again i guess but now i'm starting to find that if i got 20 bucks to buy books maybe i should start to read yalls stuff instead of ordering more bukowski. mjp your stuff looks good i had to really dig into your page to find something to complain about. and i'm a critical sunofagun so thats saying something. i was going to tear apart your ink drawings and then i realized that they actually were talking to me.
i told my aunt who's pretty scholarly that i can't stop going back to bukowski and she's like geez that seems like an odd choice for a mentor wasn't he a drunk and a womanizer and a fighter and i said i don't see it as a mentorship. he's just out there, he's been running his ass off and he's ready to pass the baton and once in a while somebody comes along but nobody can keep up and i feel like i have a moral obligation to take teh baton and not let the fire die. that's what i told her, she's retired now but before she was the dean of social work in a big university. not sure whether she caught my drift, but i can run like the wind so that's me./
i thought this subsection was supposed to be for new people to express themselves and become familiar to all you night watchmen and flame keepers. but yes i am a child inside who needs attention and the last woman i dated recently threatened to call the cops on me so take that into consideration.
Hooch believe me when i say that i have always had mixed feelings about my family and intellectual background. i'm all brains and passion, no substance or sustainability. it doesn't do any good to wish i had been raised differently, but i certainly don't seek out phd types for my busom buddies.
if i'm out of line and anybody feels like explaining that to me here or in a message i'm all ears.
-mike
Ah, kids today and their ennui...
mjp
Founding member
It's a tragic level of ennui, ain't it.
Right, that's what you're experiencing sweetheart, becoming familiar. Forgive me, I don't know the French word or phrase for it.
Black Swan
Abord the Yorikke!
I used to wear a button with a bomb shelter logo on it, that read: MUTATE NOW, AVOID THE RUSH!
another one read BE ALERT! THE WORLD NEEDS MORE LERTS!
That's what your avatar reminded me of.
another one read BE ALERT! THE WORLD NEEDS MORE LERTS!
That's what your avatar reminded me of.
mjp
Founding member
How did I miss that the first time around (probably because when I see a big block of text from a kook I don't read it)? Well, I didn't know you were taking the baton. Why didn't you say so earlier. I would recommend that everyone get out of Mike's way, he's got important work to do.
wow you guys did your best to take over my little thread of internet heaven didn't you. full contact poetry is right!
but for the record i was diagnosed with a terminal liver disease and ulcerative colitis when i was ten years old. told that by 30 i'd be dead, or at the very least my liver would have failed. now i'm 32 and my ambitions are lively and my power is livelier. even so, i've got time to saunter through my new blood thread every now and again and make sure nobody thinks that they can coopt it.
i see that the german guys want a piece of me too aber es gehts nid. auch im deutsch kenn ich kick your asses
and no for the record i'm not even remotely down with the pagan devil worshiping scene
for anybody else who doesn't bother to read blocks of texts from a kook, i'll cut and paste the important part:
"wish i still had it. i'll find it again i guess but now i'm starting to find that if i got 20 bucks to buy books maybe i should start to read yalls stuff instead of ordering more bukowski. mjp your stuff looks good i had to really dig into your page to find something to complain about."
Townes van zandt once lamented that the poets all do push-ups. So I don't do push ups, except when i'm dressed in a badger suit.
and now on top of everything mjp called me a kook. I was waiting for somebody to elevate the level of game around here, and mjp, i think you might be on my level. en garde, i'll let you try my wu tang style and as for this guy,
your art really speaks for itself man, i don't know why you bother using words at all.
but for the record i was diagnosed with a terminal liver disease and ulcerative colitis when i was ten years old. told that by 30 i'd be dead, or at the very least my liver would have failed. now i'm 32 and my ambitions are lively and my power is livelier. even so, i've got time to saunter through my new blood thread every now and again and make sure nobody thinks that they can coopt it.
i see that the german guys want a piece of me too aber es gehts nid. auch im deutsch kenn ich kick your asses
and no for the record i'm not even remotely down with the pagan devil worshiping scene
is ennui a canadian slang term for "lightning bolts"? otherwise i doubt that it applies to me.
for anybody else who doesn't bother to read blocks of texts from a kook, i'll cut and paste the important part:
"wish i still had it. i'll find it again i guess but now i'm starting to find that if i got 20 bucks to buy books maybe i should start to read yalls stuff instead of ordering more bukowski. mjp your stuff looks good i had to really dig into your page to find something to complain about."
this is me:Is that you?
Townes van zandt once lamented that the poets all do push-ups. So I don't do push ups, except when i'm dressed in a badger suit.
