One musing (on average) a day On Poems from Love Is... (1 Viewer)

Well - i'll start with Tonight as that's what i was reading when I had this threadia..

Tonight - for me shows a distancing between talent and agent. Editor calls them the girls and Buk differentiates between the girls and a woman.

"The girls are gone already" he says to show that you can't really compare his poems longetivity with the shimmering din of the girls.

but a woman, one woman trumps the girls and trumps the longevity of his poems. for that he'll give up everything.

it's clear that the editor doesn't get this difference as he says 'i know what you mean' to two very different things i.e longevity of poems and the girls vs 'one truly alive woman tonight' who would absolve any notions of longevity, legacy and reputation.

I'd be tempted to say that his immediate lust for a woman that leaves him ready to give up everything is more than just lust but the fact that he says 'tonight' means to me that this is a deep lust and tomorrow ... he might care about his legacy and what not.
 
An interesting musing, Nev UK - particularly suitable for me, since English is not my first language,
and I sometimes struggle with the meaning of words and phrases.

There's a nice poem on page 97, Alone with Everybody, reflecting about the futility of trying to find 'the one'.
 
Thanks Andreas, and although English is my first language - I can definitely say I'm in the same boat as you when it comes to mastering it's varied rules,tones,prose,grammer and actual words.

For instance I learnt today that Pulchritudinous despite sounding like a manifestation of Evolution and AIDS actually means of extremely physically attractive. Of course, it will take a braver man than me to use it in a Bar.

In any case, I'm looking forward to getting up to page 97 and musing on that Poem you recommended.
 
Nev - glad to see you've caught the fever, so to speak. Buk's poetry is really the gateway to who he was (well, the poems published while he was alive, but let's not go there yet). The novels are somewhat fanciful and generally based on some events that happened, but I wouldn't take them too seriously (but they are generally both funny and well-written). The short stories are mostly pure fantasy (but All the Assholes in the World and Mine, Confessions of a Man Insane Enough to Live with Beasts, and Life and Death in the Charity Ward are some notable exceptions that are more in the mini-novella/not complete BS category). But the poems are where it's at for me, even though I have trouble reading much other poetry (but not all).

Love is a Dog... is a great place to start, and it's generally considered to be among his best books of poetry. But no worries, there are several phases of Buk's poetry and several other volumes that well-represent these phases. All are excellent. The four others that check these boxes are (in my order of preference):
  1. Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame (1974; includes early poems, poems from the Loujon publications ('63-'65), poems from At Terror St./Agony Way and some material from '73);
  2. The Last Night of the Earth Poems (1991; represents a culmination of all his styles and his acceptance of mortality);
  3. The Roominghouse Madrigals (1988; all early material - I don't know the cut-off, however; likely around '65 or '67); and
  4. You Get So Alone That it Just Makes Sense (1986; this is his most terse period - not my favorite style of his, but still some great material).
These are the big players, in my book. The good news is, there are still several other volumes of poetry, including The Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over the Hills, Mockingbird Wish Me Luck, Play the Piano Drunk..., Dangling in the Tournefortia, War All the Time, and Septuagenarian Stew (poems and stories). Of these, The Days Run Away... is probably the most essential, and many would put it as #1 in my top four list above.

I know you didn't ask for this, but you need to know this.
 
Wow...many thanks for this and the best knowledge in life is that which you didn't know that you needed to know.

In the meantime, i've read a few more from Love is...

Is the 6 foot goddess (p18) the same woman as texan (p39)?
 
Bees 5th

My musing on this poem before researching it.

Is he high and talking about his fifth line? unlikely as that's nothing like an 'ant in a breakfast nook full of...'

Is talking about some American Sport (which 5th could be down as in american football or goal or something.) Bee being the well know player at the time or somesuch. This theory has more legs to it.

If correct then 'Biggest Box in Scranton' has a double meaning and it also means big-ass TV.
If correct 'stems of granpops' forefingers' is a great line because we all get nervous when watching great sport and bite our nails and drink some beer.

I'm not sure if he actually ate the bottletops or not but the lucidity of talking to cats and hookers suggests that he may have been high out of boredom from watching sports and that he literally ate bottletops to try and get rid of the pain of watching sports with the pain of eating bottletops and potentially bee's 5th could mean buks 5th bottletop eating. this might kill him. 'or it could be the tenth bottletop.'

If correct - there may be symbolism in her sitting on a green chair and him on a red one as this may represent the teams that are playing at the time. I hope im right..


Just googled it. Way way off - Beethoven. Come on!
 
If you poke around here a bit, you'll see a few threads about Buk's love of classical music. The three Bs: Bach, Beethoven and Brahms, were among his favorites.
 
A lovely couple (p.223) is about a couple that isn't lovely at all. The man comes across like someone
who is locked in a life he never meant to live:

he started grinding
as if he really didn't
want to.

I like the end of the poem:

sometimes you need
people like that.


Are we better off than Ralph, "an old swine in a flowered shirt and size 6 shoes"?
We tend to think so, but maybe this is just an illusion.
 
I've recently read about a dozen of poems from LDH for the first time and Social (pg.115) was kind of outstanding. It's a poem most of us can relate to, I guess. An "insane" woman sitting next to you in a car, complaining.
...
and people in yellow and
white
campers
block your way
a frantic
time

as you listen
guilty of this and
guilty of that
...

Some lines of this poem are pretty poetical, at least I found them poetical, and I like that a lot because here it is combined with everyday situations. The reason for the title (Social) becomes clear at the very end.
There are some strong poems in part two of Love is a Dog from Hell, The Crunch is not the only one.


 
There are two poems with the same title: trapped (pg.35) and trapped (pg.144).
The ending of the latter trapped:

I hang my head against the white
refrigerator and want to scream like
the last weeping of life forever but
I am bigger than the mountains.
 

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