The poems/poems in progress that are roughly being grouped together under the rubric of the Fugue State poems seem also to include several of my older works.

Since I’m thinking of turning this all into my next chap (and/or of using it as the basis for the CD project), I’m curious: how many of you have an aversion to re-publishing your poems from previous chapbooks/CDs in newer chapbooks/CDs?

I’ve never done it — it’s sort of a point of pride with me that every chap was brand spanking new work — and I know I’ve been disappointed when upon buying a “new” chap from someone, I found poems I already had in a previous chap in substantially unaltered form.

This is not the same to my mind as “jumping up a level”, by the way — putting poems that were previously self-published into a “book-book”, to use the technical term.

Am I just ridiculously persnickety?

So, I’ll be featuring at the Bowery Poetry Club a week from Thursday.

I’m really looking forward to this — originally, it was to be the start of an entire weekend in NYC, but now I have to be back here in MA for an appointment the next day. Which sucks a bit, but I’ll take any NYC I can get.

Figuring on getting into the city by 4:30 or so, with any luck; hope to be bringing my high school buddy Skip with me for the show; and still desperately figuring out what I want to do with my 20 odd minutes on stage.

I’m looking at a short mix of old and new stuff, balanced toward the new, with a de-emphasis on the more overtly political work (although if Lynne Procope is there, I suppose I’ll pull out “Political Art” for her…she requests it every time I see her, and I’ve not done it the last few times).

And I expect that the NY crowd will be there, yes?

More later.

I’m in the home stretch of waiting for the appointment with my new meds guy next week.

I already feel better, but shaky as hell; feel like the least blow will throw me off.

I’m also struck by the number of people who have told me to simply “cheer up”, or who have offered their own tips for how to not “feel blue”, or who have said, “well, we all get that way near the holidays…”

So, for the record, here are some things I’ve tried that don’t work for me, to save you some time…

— Full spectrum lighting
— The Bible
— Meditation
— Just making room for “me time”
— Journaling, or (alternately) “writing out my feelings in poetry” (I shit you not — from someone IN MY FAMILY last week!)
— A glass of wine after dinner
— Getting more sleep ( this to a chronic insomniac with severe sleep apnea)

Thank you.

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I’ve decided that the CD with Bob Jordan will likely be new work written for the project. Maybe even some of the Fugue State work would be appropriate…

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I really need to buy a new laptop. We’re down to a one computer household, and with my wife doing all her business stuff (she runs a marketing firm out of the house) on the existing desktop, we’re fighting for computer time left and right.

Her laptop died sometime ago, and my Powerbook is on longterm loan to my brother in law (an old model I hadn’t used much lately).

Come to think of it, SHE should buy the laptop for the business.

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How would you feel about submitting your work ahead of time to a panel of judges before slamming — in other words, having your writing juried before being allowed to perform it?

And — what size of purse would have to be on the line to get you to travel for this event? (Head to head — not team oriented.)

What else would have to be in place? Free rooms, workshops, etc?

Take these questions in the broadest possible sense — I’m being hypotehtical here, with an eye toward translating thought into action on a yet to be defined timeline.

After being off since Dec. 22, I’m back to work tomorrow.

I realize with mounting dread that I don’t want to go back, especially with the Fugue State poem on the cusp of a breakthrough.

I think I’m getting closer to admitting that I want to go into full-time writing, and I haven’t got a clue where to begin.

I also know I’m not making any rash decisions until I feel less shaky.

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I skipped the Worcester Indy competition tonight. I’m down right slam-free these days.

Next thing you know, I’ll be wearing tweed.

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Tweed Antidote: A musician I know, Bob Jordan,is bugging me bigtime to do a CD with him providing music for my poetry.

Jordan is a local lunatic, a hugely gifted musician who’s played guitar with all sorts of cult and fringe figures from Eugene Chadbourne to Michael Hurley and the Fugs.

We’re old buddies who occasionally haunt flea markets together looking for cheesy guitars (he’s a fan of ’60s Harmony Rockets, while I prefer Teisco Del Reys), and we also share a common interest in Portuguese fado music and its characteristic instrument, a mandolin-sized twelve-string guitar called the “guitarra de Lisboa”. (You prog-rock fans may know it as the instrument Steve Howe plays on several Yes albums. No, neither Bob nor I play any Yes songs.)

I’ve been putting this off for a year or so, but it promises to be big skronking fun, so I think it’s time. Bob’s solo work is a sort of cross between traditional folk music and the Butthole Surfers, so God knows what this will end up sounding like…especially if (as we’ve discussed) I decide to write specifically for the CD.

Stay tuned…

I’m working on a couple of projects right now, and am interested in your opinions.

1. Slam as a place to move performance poetry forward in terms of artistic merit seems broken right now. If you were in charge, what would you do to change that?

2. Anyone know anything about the psychological phenomenon known as a “fugue state”? Anecdotes, etc.? I know the definition.

Thanks in advance.

I’m trying to figure out what that spot is on my arm in my user-pic.

That was taken in Seattle at the Hurricane, during one of my various open mike appearances…It was probably dirt, or maybe it wasn’t.

Any thoughts? (Silly, I know; but I’m trying to get trivial here just to keep away from dwelling on things…)

and don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.

I just want to hurt someone when I’m in this mood…

Usually, that means me. But not always.

Went to Bill’s feature at the Hut tonight; got there late and left early. It was good, and his new chapbook is very good.

Could barely speak to anyone, feeling quite anti-social in the most strict sociological sense of the word (read: criminal).

People were kind enough, or my friends were, anyway…I think I was giving off that “edge of the cliff” kind of vibe.

There’s one regular at the Hut I always know I’m one wrong word away from blowing up at. He was there, but he steered clear tonight…it’s not his fault, really; he just embodies things I dislike, and I should be more tolerant of those things. Seriously.

January 16th…the new meds manager appointment. Too much to lay on one day, I know, but hope hangs where it can.

Say it with me, people; say it with me. Hope hangs where it can.

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I’m looking back at this, and I don’t like what I see.

I’m gonna chill out on the blogging for a bit. Need to refocus on health.

Hit me via e-mail if it’s critical– please, no calls for those who do call me from time to time.

I will be better. I have to be.

— The Eve: good food at mother-in-law’s place as is traditional.

— The Day : early to rise, drive to the nieces to watch the festivities; then to my folks for unwrapping and food; then, Annie went off to see a recently widowed friend while I made the scene at thisrabbit‘s and Bill’s annual open house, along with aurorabell and Taylor (and the lovely Apollo), ocvictor, myainsel, thephotofairy, mstegosaurus, and a host of the locals. Good food, good times. I actually played guitar and sang in public for strangers! (Sou did too, but she’s good at that). Home early, early to bed.

— Today: down with the beginnings of the flu, which I’m trying to shake and drug off.

Amazing how working on a poem or two helps. I swear it’s my version of religion; this is how I talk my way back to God.

Struck by how, um, CHRISTIAN this stuff is of late –“Frontier”, “Suicide Notes” both have strong Biblical motifs.

And I can’t think of too many poets less Xian than me…just working the myths that I know best, I think.

Thanks for comments. Closer to the meaning I wanted now; still working on the music…

SUICIDE NOTES {take two}

SUICIDE NOTES

the Worcester semi final slam tonight. First one I’ve missed in years.

I wasn’t feeling all that well, but mostly I was bored. I’m bored in general by a lot of things right now. I think I hate poetry and poets a lot…

I did get to sit with Morris, which helped me a bit with maintaining a modicum of interest in things for a while; nonetheless, I am missing something…

I read “The Frontier” tonight, and have been working on it since I got home; the last lines aren’t working at all. The immediate solution is to cut them, but I think it’s too easy that way.

But why bother?

I feel like I can’t read poetry any more the way I have always tried to read it — as if it were the last thing I would ever do, and so needed to be invested in it to that level for the sake of excellence and legacy and passion…Know why?

Because I did it tonight, as I always do; said those words to myself before I started…and all I could think of was, “So what? So what if it is the last thing you’lll ever do? Who here will care? Who will recall that? It’s just another stupid poem by just another stupid poet, just another idiot masturbation.”

We’d be better off as ghosts. We’d haunt people longer.

I copied this from Wanda Coleman’s recent article in the LA Weekly concerning the furor over her criticism of Maya Angelou’s most recent book.

I posted this to the slam list as well…I think it’s a good encapsulation of one of the key issues regarding slam/performance poetry today: the apparent unwillingness to honestly critique each other’s work.

Would love your thoughts…

“ALL LITERARY CRITICISM, AT ROOT, IS BIASED because each reviewer
must bring to the act his or her individual world-view and aesthetic
sensibility.

Each must decide if the social values of a text as a political record
are more important than its literary values…

But fostering an illusion of excellence where none exists, regardless
of the writer or subject matter, is to do a democratic readership the
ultimate disservice.

Saying amen to the going cultural directives, minus a true analysis,
is as morally suspect as any bigoted criticism — whether done out of
guilt, fear, or the desire to compensate the author for the social
ills that shaped his or her existence.”

— Wanda Coleman

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12:00:

And within minutes, I had been told that my posting this “as a white man” was dangerous because I resembled those white Republicans who claimed to understand how Martin Luther King would react because they’ve taken individual comments out of context.

Y’know, I really ought to let my dad know that I’ve been promoted to “white”.