Grace Notes @ Snarkattack

Thanks to my housemate Frosty, I’m in possession of a ticket to go and see Ladytron in concert. Woo hoo! Thanks love! Even though he doesn’t read my blog.

A fair while back, I sent M two poems of mine and he sent me back some comments on them. I’m a bit stuck when it comes to what to do with the punctuation of both of them, but these are minor issues. He also seems to think the one on Agamemnon’s death is publishable (very nice of him to say so, personally and professionally his opinion means a lot to me). Initially, I didn’t like it so much when I wrote it, but returned to it a few months after and am warming to it a bit more.

It was actually the product of a writing exercise in Writing Poetry by Julia Casterton - she discussed the death of Agamemnon and then directed us, the reader, to write a poem about how he felt about his death (practically everything about the Ancient Greeks is tragic…).

The other poem is about four lines long. I recently read it to a newer friend of mine, JW, who remarked when I went to get my notebook “How come you don’t know your own poetry off by heart?” You know, I’ve no idea. Why don’t I? I created it, surely you’d think I should…maybe it’s because people never ask me about my stuff so I think it’s not worth memorising (I don’t, actually. Though I should, I’d probably recite it better). I did read it out to him, but was pretty nervous, and read it out quite badly.

I’ll need to work on that. I don’t want to be all Tim Burton and sound dumb when I talk (he interviews really badly - not because he’s stupid, I mean, it’s pretty freaking obvious the man is supernaturally talented. He’s just not confident) or recite my own work. Because then people won’t think it’s worth hearing, if I recite it in a manner that suggests I’m apologising for soiling your ears.

I wish I could be like Fat Cow Poet. She was plenty up herself for the both of us, maybe even a few more people.

Last night I went over to DH’s place and was treated to a fabulous spaghetti carbonara yet again. I didn’t go to work because I was still not…well. I did, however, make it to the first dress fitting for my brother’s wedding, which miraculously took no time at all. I think we spent more time travelling to and fro, and trying to get out of my brother’s future-in-laws’ house.

I was a good deal relieved when I finally made it to DH’s place. I told him about my week of epic fail last week, and then we got all excited over Mozart piano concertos (yes, I realise these two things are not related). He expressed some shock at the fact that I’ve not read The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. I know, I know, dreadful of me.

While we sipped our port, JM, DH’s housemate came home and we talked about psychoanalytic readings of Lord of the Rings (this is becoming something of a personal joke) and The Chronicles of Narnia - more so about Narnia because JM is studying theology and is very interested in C. S. Lewis. He asked me if I were coming to his 30th in a couple of weeks, for which the theme is the 1930s. I said yes, and that I even plan to come in costume. It then came up in conversation that I hadn’t yet read The Great Gatsby (well, I’ve read a graphic novel adaptation, but that’s hardly the same, I know, I know…).

I was looking quite the bad lit nerd.

Was a fantastic night, DH remarked that I looked like I’d lost more weight. What girl doesn’t want to hear those words?!?! I get a great dinner, sparkling dinner conversation, great grog, and that as an observation! Sweetness.

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A successful poem is, as Williams said, a machine made out of words; if it is properly constructed it cannot fail to perform its function, which is to control its reader, by its selective and stylized processional means, that the reader ‘cannot choose to hear.’

— Helen Vendler, Contemporary American Poetry (9th ed.), p. 9.

Haha, I feel smart. I already knew this.

Nah, I don’t feel that smart.

I wish I’d written this following poem.
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Not anyone specific, just generally. We’re so…destructive.

I was just talking to C before and now that she’s gone, I feel a bit sad. Probably because I can’t sleep again (though it’s cool, I spent most of the weekend sleeping - didn’t get to do anything fun, but at least I caught up on sleep before my working week starts again). I could be sad because I was listening to Feist. Dunno.

She did say some very nice things that, well, made me wish we didn’t live so far away.

Anyway me being sad = well, you should know by now.
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(you might not want to read this if easily offended by things of a sexual/explicit nature. You’ve been warned…)
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Ooh, I’ve written ten poems this year.

That’s not very good. Even if we count the two-and-a-half months I was out of action, that still leaves me with four months in which to write. I think I like three of the poems I’ve written, but I feel guilty that two of them are so short. I’ve sent two of them to M to see what he thinks of them (sigh, it’ll be a while before he reads them, being out on the coast for a week or so. I always feel slightly lost when M goes away)

Despite not writing as many poems as I’d like, I’ve been reading maybe 3-4 poems a day for the last two months or so.

I was reading Philip Larkin’s poem ‘Aubade’ the other day (aubades are beautiful. Larkin’s is…interesting…). The first few lines are just amazing:
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I’m sad again, so you know what that means…

…post a poem! I’m really hoping that a couple of my overseas pals will hop online so they can tell me I’m not going mad…(I am really, but friends are generally good at telling you that you’re not all the bad things you think you are).

This one I also read on one of the LiveJournal communities I’m subscribed to and, in all honesty, it has to be admitted, this is probably the one that convinced me I had to read all of e. e. cummings’ work.

Here we go.
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Found out about it on Neil Gaiman’s blog, as usual. It is published on the Entertainment Weekly website, and is listed as ‘The New Classics’.

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Read more cool stuff on Neil Gaiman’s blog (where else, really?). When I read this, I thought especially of M. Then I thought of M, me and that dratted bottle of whisky by my bedside.

Writers are people who write. By and large, they are not happy people. They’re not good at relationships. Often they’re drunks. And writing — good writing — does not get easier and easier with practice. It gets harder and harder — so eventually the writer must stall out into silence.The silence that waits for every writer and that, inevitably, if only with death (if we’re lucky the two may happen at the same time: but they are still two, and their coincidence is rare), the writer must fall into is angst-ridden and terrifying - and often drives us mad. (In a letter to Allen Tate, the poet Hart Crane once described writing as “dancing on dynamite.”) So if you’re not a writer, consider yourself fortunate.

The quote is taken from Samuel R. Delany’s About Writing. I think I may need to read it.

(*whispers* are we really not happy people? If I’m only a would-be writer, then is my unhappiness ‘Diet Coke’ unhappiness?)

I read a very, very, very long Kenneth Koch poem today the other day - ‘To Marina’ - I absolutely hated it at first, but grew to like some of it. I still overall dislike it, it seems too…indulgent. Is something wrong with me that I don’t like it? I know M would say not at all but still…

Found it on a LiveJournal poetry community.

I’m actually revelling in the fact that I have nothing to do on a Saturday night and just spent most of the day in bed being lulled to sleep by Anner Bylsma’s recording of the complete Bach cello suites…oh my god, can you spell bliss? I need to add more of my classical music to our home server. I specifically ripped the cello suites for Rob (he’s a cellist) as we were having a discussion about the different recordings available (he likes Pablo Casals’ version which I’ve only heard bits and pieces of).
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I’m having an awful time trying to sleep, even though I had an awesome evening - some workmates came over and lots of beer was drunk and junk food consumed.

At present, the neighbour’s cat is lying on my bed, curled up and very happy. He has gradually become a quite pleasant cat, not at all hissy and nasty like he first used to be when I met him nearly a year ago. I’d rather like to think I’ve won him over.

Over the last month, it’s become obvious to me that I am totally in love with the poetry of e.e. cummings and Pablo Neruda. When I was younger, I used to think cummings affected and…don’t know, but something about it made me think he tried too hard. I was just an idiot. His stuff is sheer genius.

Neruda I can’t read in the original (well, I could struggle with the Spanish I guess, what with my French/Tagalog…) but in translation…wow. God to be able to write poems that leave a sweet, lingering taste in one’s mouth. That’s what Neruda does for me.

Must hunt down complete poetic works of cummings and Neruda.

Gosh, it’s so nice to feel so…normal (read: on less psychotropic shit). Granted the insomnia’s not, but eh.

A friend (thanks T - I might be dumb but I did get them working) gave me some computer speakers and christ, listening to minimal tech is so fecking good now. I love it (Vladislav Delay’s Multila and Jan Jelinek avec les exposures’ La nouvelle pauvrete [yeah yeah, kill me, I left out my accents. Baise-toi]) - fantastic music for insomnia.

Holy feck, edited to add - how could I forget to mention the American contemporary poet Richard Siken?! I would kill/perform various sex acts for a copy of his Crush which I guess I’ll just have to order as no one on e(vil)Bay is selling one…boo-urns (yes, Z, that was for you).

At least three boys I know have told me they don’t believe love exists. One on good authority.

I’m starting to believe them, too.

Perhaps it’s just some fictional construct we make up to erase people’s limitless flaws. Or some convenient ‘intellectual’ explanation for the throbbings in nether regions.

Then, of course, I read a poem. Actually, two. One by Pablo Neruda which I’ve read before (I think this link will work).

And another by Mary Oliver. Guess what, it’s not about love between two humans at all. Surprise, surprise.

‘Little Dog’s Rhapsody in the Night (Percy Three)’ by Mary Oliver

He puts his cheek against mine
and makes small, expressive sounds.
And when I’m awake, or awake enough

he turns upside down, his four paws
in the air
and his eyes dark and fervent.

Tell me you love me, he says.

Tell me again.

Could there be a sweeter arrangement?
Over and over
he gets to ask it.
I get to tell.

With what I’ve read by Oliver, I either hate it, or love it. This I most definitely love. The last four lines are just sublime.

I miss my pussycat very much all of a sudden. I’ve got one right next to me at present but he doesn’t give out hugs very often. We very much have the Petrarchan dynamic going (I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but Wikipedia is failing me when I look for something to explain the dynamic of Petrarchan love…but the above Neruda poem with its discussion of fire/ice etc. owes a lot to Petrarch).

I’m feeling a little sad tonight, and I can’t sleep, though at least for once I know why.

So I decided to post one of my favourite poems of all time. I’ve been watching the series The Tudors and the last episode I just (I have already seen it) Sir Thomas Wyatt, a Henrican poet is discussing lines he is writing to a composer called Thomas Tallis. Now, none of the actual encounter is historically accurate at all, but it makes me gleeful just to hear Wyatt say those glorious lines…
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What a suck-arse day. I locked myself out of my flat (and the spare key wasn’t where it was supposed to be Rob!), forgot to take my daytime meds, bled all over the place and had to talk to at least one hundred people who still don’t know what the internet is (I’m not exaggerating either - it would be about that many).

Thank christ for poetry. Apols in advance, my ‘read on’ tag is still not working.

As a once budding modernist lit scholar, the following poem appeals to me so much. I think my friend M will like this too, because it’s by Charles Bukowski, and because it features a writer swigging whisky (gasp! never!). I like it because the idea of a bunch of modernist literary greats nattering like a group of gossiping schoolboys (don’t deny it - I’m sure schoolboys have engaged in gossip before. I know boys do because one told me so the other day).

them and us

they were all out on the front porch
talking:
Hemingway, Faulkner, T.S. Eliot,
Ezra Pound, Hamsun, Wally Stevens,
e.e. cummings and a few others.

“listen,” said my mother, “can’t you
ask them to stop talking?”

“no,” I said.

“they are talking garbage,” said my
father, “they ought to get
jobs.”

“they have jobs,” I
said.

“like hell,” said my
father.

“exactly,” I
said.

just then Faulkner came
staggering in.
he found the whiskey in the
cupboard and went outside with
it.

“a terrible person,”
said my mother.

then she got up and peeked out
on the porch.

“they’ve got a woman with them,”
she said, “only she looks like a
man.”

“that’s Gertrude,” I
said.

“there’s another guy flexing his
muscles,” she said, “he claims he
can whip any three of
them.”

“that’s Ernie,” I said.

“and he,” my father pointed to me,
“wants to be like them!”

“is that true?” my mother asked.

“not like them,” I said, “but of
them.”

“you get a god-damned job,”
said my father.

“shut up,” I said.

“what?”

“I said, ’shut up,’ I am listening to
these men.”

my father looked at his wife:
“this is no son of
mine!”

“I hope not,” I said.

Faulkner came staggering into the room
again.

“where’s the telephone?” he
asked.

“what the hell for?” my father
asked.

“Ernie’s just blown his brains
out,” he said.

“you see what happens to men like
that?” screamed my father.

I got up
slowly
and helped Bill find
the
telephone.

Had a doctor’s appointment today. It was…hard. And it was payday.

That meant…BOOKS.

The prize find for today was a graphic work by John Coulthart - H. P. Lovecraft’s The Haunter of the Dark and other Grotesque Visions. It has an introduction by Alan Moore but even cooler, it has a listed soundtrack! As follows…

Coil, How To Destroy Angels
Brian Eno, On Land
Jon Hassell, Aka-Darbari-Java / Magic Realism
Thomas Köner, Teimo
Alan Lamb, Night Passage
Lustmord, Where the Black Stars Hang
Main, Hz
Paul Schütze, New Maps of Hell I & II
Tangerine Dream, Zeit

Other books were:
Angela Carter, The Bloody Chamber (reinterpretations of fairytales)
Tom Stoppard, Arcadia (theatre/play)
Carol Ann Duffy, Rapture (contemporary poetry - started reading it straightaway)

Alas, the bookstore in question apparently misplaced my copy of Tom Stoppard’s Travesties that I’d ordered…

No more book-buying for the rest of the month for me.

Finally, the whole reading like hell thing is paying off. Now that I’m feeling much better (though the insomnia persists, will talk to my doctor about that) I’ve decided to give a project I tried a few years ago another shot.

I’m adapting a verse novel into a screenplay.
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Yea, I get to post a positive post for a change!

(Oh christ, I’ve forgotten how to use the ‘unordered list’ html tag, zomg nerd embarrassment…)

- Rome is being repeated on pay TV - am trying to catch it whenever I’m at my parents’ place
- found a Killdozer album that my ex once lent to me (Uncompromising War on Art Under the Dictatorship of the Proletariat in particular, which I recall being hilarious)
- I ordered some xkcd tee shirts
- I also ordered some cool comics by a guy called Jamie McKelvie (whom Warren Ellis waxes lyrical over)
- read a funny poem by Shanna Compton
- I ordered two plays by Tom Stoppard and they’re waiting to be picked up already! They are Travesties and Arcadia
- tried kangaroo meat for the first time this week at a steakhouse
- got some Keep Calm and Carry On apparel
- am on a new antidepressant (paroxetine) which seems to be loads better than the previous one (in that I’m not throwing up nearly every morning, w00t!)
- got some lovely BPAL in the mail - after ordering a month ago! sheesh
- Neil Gaiman is in Melbourne-town!
- I have the love of not one, but two cats!
- I finally have an idea for a poem, but it requires me to do some research/reading on the poet Thomas Chatterton

Or ‘glitch’ for short is what the most recent xkcd cartoon calls ‘broken hard drive techno’. According to the xkcd forum.

I happen to love glitch. In fact, I recently started listening to it again.

Life is slowly starting to improve. I’m socialising, losing weight, and reading an awful lot. On my day off on Tuesday I finished reading Neil Gaiman’s Sandman volume 8, Jasper Fforde’s Lost In A Good Book, and read two plays by Tom Stoppard (Professional Foul and Every Good Boy Deserves Favour) - both of which were highly political. I got all inspired after watching Stoppard dir. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (based on his play of the same name).

The Sandman series is coming to an end for me, which is sad…only three more volumes to go.