Incendiary Lit

Many out there have never heard of a rhaptzung poem, which is a loose formal poem with many variations. Here’s the official definition:

Rhaptzung– An urban-influenced poetry form that involves heavy concentration on musicality, generally in multi-syllabic rhyming (often slant) couplets with internal rhyme and assonance. The form originated in the late ’90s among hip hop listening poets frustrated with the sparseness and lack of depth in the music they loved. They took the sonic density of the better rap music and gave it quality content.

Those whose work is selected for publication in Rhaptzung will receive three complimentary copies of the magazine, and a small stipend yet to be determined. To submit send emails to Rhaptzung@gmail.com

Here’s an example, though maybe not the perfect example, but an example nonetheless of a Rhaptzung I’d written a number of years back, We Are Apache which was published in Acorn Review.
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Well, if you’ve ever been curious about minimalist poetry, this article’s for you: You call that poetry?. It’s about Aram Saroyan, and his poem Lighght which caused a stir about wasteful government spending after Saroyan was paid $750 for the inclusion of Lighght in a NEA funded journal. Is it enough for a poem, as Archibald MacLeish puts it, to be, as in to exist? Other of Saroyan’s poems are Aaple, and Blod, or eyeye. I’ll open the question up, though personally, I think it’s more conceptual art than poetry. Anyone care to chime in?

Here’s another link to Ron Silliman’s wonderful blog about Saroyan.

Warning: Poet Laureate Loitering!

That’s right, earlier in this month Charles Simic was named US Poet Laureate. If you keep up on the poetry news you already knew that, but on the odd chance that you weren’t, just thought I’d mention it. Simic’s a wonderful poet born in Yugoslavia, who immigrated to the US at 16, and has been producing wonderful poems since. He specializes in short, somewhat abstract imagistic poems… I know what you’re thinking… but sometimes you’re just in the mood to read a Simic poem, or book. I read Walking the Black Cat and Hotel Insomnia each in just one sitting, and have revisited both many times. Anyway, here’s the slightly fuller story from www.pw.org which I highly recommend browsing, as well as joining their message board at the speakeasy. There are some very knowledgeable, and helpful writers/editors who post there. And here’s a link to www.poets.org which has a great biography as well as some of Charles Simic’s poetry. He currently works as poetry editor for the Paris Review, and if you’re really on a knowledge/insight kick, here’s a link to his Paris Review interview titled “The Art of Poetry.” Below this line is one of my favorite Simic poems. If he happens upon this and would like me to remove it, at but a whisper it will be gone.
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This intriguing essay on Alexander Pope is written so that it doesn’t feel like you’re taking a piece of sandpaper, and rubbing it against your eyes hoping to absorb the information through osmosis like so many essays about poetry do. As soon as I saw him list Nas and Atmosphere as his hip-hop examples I knew the author had spent a bit of time in Minneapolis, and sure enough, he had. And with a smart url like poetryfoundation.org this is a perfect source for a poetry paper, should you need to write a paper on a poet pauper, or any other Pope-r related subject. Click here for poetry essay goodness.

Is William McGonagall the world’s worst poet? I’ve read some awfully awful poetry, yet this guy’s fans claim he is the worst poet. I guess I’m just lucky that no one says anything about my poetry, because if I ever earned the honor of having my fans lobby heavily, for my status as the world’s worst poet, only then would I be truly honoring my family name. Anyway, the samples they show are very typical bad syntax, forced rhyme, archaic language that can be found in high schooler’s notebooks nationwide. Just an odd little beat I found on AOLNews that I figured might interest someone.

A finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, DORIANNE LAUX’s fourth book of poems, Facts about the Moon (W.W. Norton), is the recipient of the Oregon Book Award, chosen by Ai. It was also short-listed for the 2006 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize for the most outstanding book of poems published in the United States in the previous year and chosen by the Kansas City Star as one of the ten best books of poetry published in 2005. Laux is also author of three collections of poetry from BOA Editions, Awake (1990) introduced by Philip Levine, reprinted this year by Eastern Washington University Press, What We Carry (1994) and Smoke (2000). Red Dragonfly Press will release Superman: The Chapbook, later this year. Co-author of The Poet’s Companion, she’s the recipient of two Best American Poetry Prizes, a Best American Erotic Poems Prize, a Pushcart Prize, two fellowships from The National Endowment for the Arts and a Guggenheim Fellowship. Her work has appeared in the Best of the American Poetry Review, The Norton Anthology of Contemporary Poetry, and she’s a frequent contributor to Orion and Ms. Magazine. Laux has waited tables and written poems in San Diego, Los Angeles, Berkeley, Petaluma, California and Juneau, Alaska. In 1994 she moved to Eugene where she’s now a Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Oregon. She lives with her husband, the poet Joseph Millar.

Dorianne Laux’s poems Dust and Sunday Radio, and Joseph Millar’s Love Pirates and Telephone Repairman are set to music by singer Paula Sinclair on her new album Uncle Tumbleweed.

Zebulon Huset: What was the last book or poem you’ve read that you absolutely loved?
Dorianne Laux:The last book I read that I loved was the Wild Trees by Richard Preston.
The last poem I read that I loved was Beetle Orgy by Benjamin Grossberg.

ZH: Are there any writers you just don’t get the attraction to?
DL: Yeah, some, though I don’t like to say as I may read them tomorrow and
suddenly get them. I didn’t get Dickinson for a long time, then one day
I read “There is a pain– so utter– it swallows substance up–” I got that.

ZH: What is your position on the semi-colon?
DL: Well, the late Kurt Vonnegut has said that semi-colons are “transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you’ve been to college.” I’m not fond of them, especially in poetry. I think they look messy to me. I enjoy the simplicity and clarity of the comma and the period.

ZH: What is your favorite two-word color?
DL: I have a soft spot in my child’s heart for Crayola Inc’s burnt sienna. I read somewhere that the Japanese don’t have a specific word for brown and so use more descriptive names such as “tea-color,” “fox-color,” and “fallen-leaf.” In Sri Lankan, brown would be husked-coconut-color, bed-tea-color, water-buffalo-color, cinnamon-bark-color. I like those, too. I also like shit-brown, rust-brown, tobacco-brown, Fallen-down-been-around-for-a-long-time-redwood-fence-brown and peanut-butter-brown. Any brown in a shit storm works for me.

ZH: Do you have any guilty pleasure movies?
DL: For a poet, all movies are guilty pleasure movies. I can often get off on a Lifetime
made for TV movie, though I just heard The Channel for Women is going to change
over to a channel for men and young boys. There goes that guilty pleasure.

ZH: If you were stranded on a desert island with three books, what would they be?
DL: Shakespeare, Sappho, and How to Build an Elastic Raft with your Underpants.

ZH: Is there any particular popular songs that just irk you for some reason?
DL: Oops I’ve Done It Again? I assume that’s the title. I love Metaphors by Sparks.

ZH: Do you have a favorite presidential candidate for ‘08?
DL: Not yet. I like saying Obamarama.

ZH: If they made a movie of any period of your life, who would you want to portray you?
DL: Tom Waits. And if they couldn’t get him, Cher. Seriously? Lili Taylor.

ZH: What is the best title you’ve ever come across (the actual work notwithstanding)
DL: Another Bullshit Night in Suck City by Nick Flynn.

Links for tons of more about and by Dorianne Laux
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Yeah, this isn’t entirely new news, but if you don’t follow poetry news too closely, and I don’t see how you couldn’t, Lucille Clifton has won the prestigious Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, which brings one of the largest paychecks a poet can hope for, $100,000. Woot Woot! Congratulations Ms. Clifton. Full article here