Enjoyed this article over at PoFo. Who knew Elizabethan sonnets could be so fun, and modern?

An Elizabethan plays a Modernist language game

BY ANGE MLINKO
Sir Philip Sidney is a key figure of the Elizabethan era, the fountainhead of the modern poetic tradition. He was born in 1554 in Kent, England, around the same time that the first sonnets in English (by Sir Thomas Wyatt) were posthumously published. Sidney was the contemporary of Walter Raleigh, Edmund Spenser, Fulke Greville, and William Shakespeare, among others: poets who occupied the vanguard of Tudor society as courtiers, soldiers, diplomats, and explorers. Poetry was almost inextricable from song—most gentlemen-poets could play a passable lute, much the way learning guitar is a rite of passage today—and the language itself was still young: unstandardized, mongrelized, and versatile. It lent itself readily to creative uses, and the challenge was met by poets who lived in a sparkling societal milieu where games—tournaments, sports, theater, dance—flourished.

That is to say, the Renaissance poets played games with language. They did so from the baseline of the Petrarchan sonnet, and Sir Philip Sidney stands out because he both played and commented on the playing—imitated Petrarch and criticized Petrarch—while mastering the form. His prose treatise, A Defence of Poesy, still influences what we perceive as the finest poetry, that which Wallace Stevens called the supreme fiction. This alone justifies Sidney’s claim as the first major poet-critic in English; but what makes him particularly modern—or perhaps what makes us particularly Sidneyan—is that his landmark sonnet sequence, Astrophil and Stella, incorporates the conflict between the poet and the critic, the stylist and the chastiser of style, in the sequence itself. Detractors of the self-reflexive tendencies of contemporary poetry (epitomized by, say, John Ashbery) call it postmodernist, or deconstructive, and it has become common to deplore the artifice and playfulness of a poetry born from the premise that language is "slippery"—as likely to elude our meanings as give meaning to experience. But Sidney was one of our predecessors, and this is nowhere more evident than in Sonnet 63 of Astrophil and Stella.

The entire country is under a heat wave. But what do we have in Seattle? Cool, with showers. In July? Arrrrghhhh.

Here is what they say we have coming the next few days, read it and weep . . .

Tonight...Cloudy with light rain or drizzle at times...mainly north part. Lows in the 50s. Southwest wind 10 to 20 mph except becoming northwest 5 to 15 mph in the north part.

Wednesday...Cloudy with a chance of light rain or drizzle. Highs in the 60s. Southwest wind 10 to 15 mph.

Wednesday Night...Cloudy with an increasing chance of showers...becoming likely after midnight. Lows in the 50s. Southwest wind 5 to 15 mph.

Thursday...Showers likely in the morning. Partly sunny with a chance of showers in the afternoon. Highs in the 60s. Southwest wind to 10 mph becoming northwest.

Thursday Night...Mostly cloudy with a chance of showers. Lows in the upper 40s to mid 50s. Northwest wind to 10 mph.

Friday...Partly cloudy. Highs 65 to 70.

Friday Night Through Sunday...Mostly clear. Lows in the lower to mid 50s. Highs in the lower to mid 70s.

Sunday Night Through Monday...Mostly cloudy. Lows in the mid 50s. Highs in the lower 70s.

Monday Night And Tuesday...Mostly cloudy with a chance of showers. Lows in the 50s. Highs near 70.

Interesting NY Times Poetry Chronicle, with brief review by Jeff Gordinier of new books from Michael Dickman, C Dale Young, and others:

Frank O’Hara once wrote this, in a poem called “Poetry”: “The only way to be quiet / is to be quick, so I scare / you clumsily, or surprise / you with a stab.” It’s an instructive passage, not just because it moves with that conversational, come-bounce-along-with-me rhythm that became O’Hara’s signature, but because it’s a poem about the odd, lovely jolt we can get from an unexpected line. In a way, O’Hara was going straight at something that has become a core quandary of contemporary poetry: How, in a texting, tweeting age that finds us drowning in freshets of language, do you deliver that stab of surprise?

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Where is summer? I really want to know. When is it coming?

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Funny, dark poem from today's Poem a Day. It would do Brian Turner proud, I think:

Trip Hop
by Geoffrey Brock

I'll pack my toothbrush
and my cyanide molar
the iPhone the car-seats
and a tactical stroller

I'll pack a snack-bag
with the Kraft food groups
and white flags for me
and black for my troops

I'll pack a fresh pack
of Shark double-edge blades
my boy's Razr scooter
and my girl's blue shades

I'll pack doses of patience
and some Kevlar smiles
check our air and our fluids
our gauges and dials

and we'll hit I-40
in our old green Accord
there'll be collateral damage
and we might get bored

but we won't need TomTom
to know where we're headed
a theme park they dream of
a theme park I've dreaded

and if we ever get home
and if our home still stands
I'll unpack my dark heart
and Purell my hands.

I really enjoyed this poem from today's RealPoetik. For the ongoing "mid-life" crisis in all of us.


POEM CALLED NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD AND ZOMBIES
 
 
or Dawn of the Dead and Zombies—I don’t care.
“Department of Redundancy Department,”
 
I say in my most cheerful bitter phone voice,
though I’m not at work and my Blackberry’s off.
 
I lie—and it lays—on the couch, both of us
oddly perfect, like a pinball and a cloud.
 
I find I’m to bed on the late side these days
(television test patterns having vanished)
 
but I could always get there earlier
were there reason enough—say, one—to do so.
 
You say “tomato”; I say “Don’t tase me, bro!”
Have I got an obituary for me:
 
b. 1970; d. 19-something;
lives in California with his family.
 


Graham Foust lives in Oakland and works at Saint Mary's College of California.  His most recent book is A Mouth in California (Flood Editions, 2009).

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Shame on Michelle Bachman and her closet case husband:

Truth Wins Out Infiltrates Marcus Bachmann's 'Ex-Gay' Clinic

There can no longer be any doubt that Marcus Bachmann’s state- and federally-funded clinic endorses and practices reparative therapy aimed at changing a gay person’s sexual orientation, despite the fact that such “therapy” is widely discredited by the scientific and medical communities.

It’s time for Michele and Marcus Bachmann to stop denying, dodging, and stonewalling. They owe it to all Americans to provide a full and honest explanation for their embrace of these dangerous and fraudulent practices.

Becker's report will surely put more media pressure on Michele and Marcus Bachmann, but it could also pose two serious problems for Mrs. Bachmann among the Republican voters she hopes to court.

One, it reminds right-wing voters that the husband of a candidate who opposes "big government" spending is receiving state and federal dollars for his business. And, two, it reiterates to more moderate Republicans that Mrs. Bachmann endorses a morally dubious practice that seeks an homogenous America, a concept that runs counter to what this nation represents. They can't seriously support such a candidate, can they?

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Wine, Poetry, Virtue

Be Drunk
by Charles Baudelaire
translated by Louis Simpson


You have to be always drunk. That's all there is to it—it's the only way. So as not to feel the horrible burden of time that breaks your back and bends you to the earth, you have to be continually drunk.

But on what? Wine, poetry or virtue, as you wish. But be drunk.

And if sometimes, on the steps of a palace or the green grass of a ditch, in the mournful solitude of your room, you wake again, drunkenness already diminishing or gone, ask the wind, the wave, the star, the bird, the clock, everything that is flying, everything that is groaning, everything that is rolling, everything that is singing, everything that is speaking. . .ask what time it is and wind, wave, star, bird, clock will answer you: "It is time to be drunk! So as not to be the martyred slaves of time, be drunk, be continually drunk! On wine, on poetry or on virtue as you wish."

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Gaga Taratata

Wow -- another amazing pared-down, voice-and-piano-only version of this great song, from the Taratata show in France.


EOG is, I hear, on its way to becoming a country hit as well.
Listen here to a few of the many country cover versions on you tube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLpMkBN68rg&playnext=1&list=PLC0765EF28B1838A4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhAZn4W1Ztk

I Heart NY!

Yay for Marriage Equality in NY! It's another step in the long and winding road. Keep your eyes on the prize! I don't mind at all the waivers for religious groups, who are allowed to refuse to host gay nuptials, based on religious grounds. In fact, I think marriage should be completely separate from religion: it should be a secular civil ceremony and equal for all, with full legal rights and responsibilities. A religious ceremony, if you want one, should be a completely separate (and optional) thing, with no legal bearing. And if your religion doesn't support gay marriage-- then leave the haters behind and find a new religion. :)

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And speaking of things gay -- check out the GLTBQ page up for Pride Month at The Academy site:

Celebrate pride and explore the rich tradition of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer poets and poetry through a showcase of audio, video, poetry, and prose—resources as exciting and diverse as the communities they represent.

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Check out this poem from Lee Robinson's book Hearsay (Fordham 2004), lent to me by a poet friend at one of our "poetry lunches" the other day. I love how Robinson takes the common language of trial law (she was an attorney for 20 years) and turns it upside down and inside out, making it new again. It's really terrific.


The Rules of Evidence

What you want to say most
is inadmissible.
Say it anyway.
Say it again.
What they tell you is irrelevant
can’t be denied and will
eventually be heard.
Every question
is a leading question.
Ask it anyway, then expect
what you won’t get.
There is no such thing
as the original
so you’ll have to make do
with a reasonable facsimile.
The history of the world
is hearsay. Hear it.
The whole truth
is unspeakable
and nothing but the truth
is a lie.
I swear this.
My oath is a kiss.
I swear
by everything
incredible.

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I confess I missed this book when it first came out. But I am happy to have been turned on to it by a friend -- sometimes that is the best way to "discover" a new voice.

For the Solstice

What better way to mark the longest day of the year than with poetry?

A Longing for the Light
June 21, 2011

Heather McHugh, Michael Dickman,
Alberto Rios, and Sarah Lindsay

ACT Theatre, Seattle
$25 general; $10 student; $100 reception

This event helps support Copper Canyon and all the fine work they do. Hope to see you there!

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Weiner-free Zone

The funniest headline today: "Boehner Reacts to Weiner Scandal" HAHAHAHA.

But seriously, can we *please* return to talking about the issues?

War is not Peace.
The Stock Market is not the Economy.
Insurance is not Health.
Wealth is not Prosperity.
Fundamentalism is not Liberty.


Think about it.

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Wonderful, thoughtful, ironic, insightful essay-review by Joel Brouwer over at Po-Fo: it makes me want to read each of these books. Check it out--

In Praise of Promiscuous Thinking
On Charles Bernstein’s Attack of the Difficult Poems and David Orr’s Beautiful and Pointless.

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Arty Iron Railing

Thank you to friend and fellow poet-doc Ted McMahon for building this wonderful whimsical arty iron railing for our front steps! Dean and I helped install it over the weekend. I think it is just fabulous! Don't you?

Does This Poem Make Me Look Gay?

Gay Poetry, Politics, Poetics. What does it all mean? Check out the new issue of Beloit Poetry Journal and the symposium/discussion featuring Jeff Crandall, Garth Greenwall, moi, and Brian Teare. There are also lots of cool poems in this issue, including "when your grandmother mistakes your girlfriend for a man" by Marty McConnell, and more. Then log on to the BPJ website and join the conversation, or a least leave a comment and/or love note and/or flame.

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