Check it out on the Vanity Fair Website.

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The details

I spend a lot of time wondering how people arrive at images or metaphors. How the city in the evening is a patient etherized on the table for Eliot, to use a well-worn example. When I look back at my own writing (invariably when trying to recreate this moment of clicking) I have absolutely no idea where those lines with turns that remain unexpected to me came from. One of the ways to try and engineer an unexpected moment, though, is to take a moment/image/emotion and follow its thread through to the extreme. I always come back to Christopher Smart, the insane 17th century author of Jubilate Agno, with it’s most famous section considering the cat, Jeoffry. To watch a cat for 75-100 lines forces some unexpected leaps. It’s impossible to remain in the mundane description for that long. The mundane is there: “For first he looks upon his forepaws to see if they are clean.” but then it goes, as it must, beyond the mundane: “For by stroking of him I have found out electricity.” It is only through the consideration, naming, and dismissal of the cleaning of the forepaws that Smart can arrive at electricity.

Edouard Leve’s Autoportrait is a similar project. Though not a wholly unheard of endeavor (Joe Brainard’s I Remember is obviously an earlier, and possibly greater, example of this. Lyn Hejinian’s My Life is probably the pinnacle of this type of project (I call it the pinnacle because it is, in my opinion, greater than the sum of its efforts in a way almost impossible by these stricter, more formulaic books.) Autoportrait is Leve writing down everything he can think of about his life. By referring you to Scott Esposito’s review of the book for The Quarterly Conversation I won’t go into detail about the way the language is structured, beyond saying that these are short, declarative sentences, most often not following each other with any logic. This is a catalogue, a list of a life.

And, like Brainard’s book, a list of a life makes for a very compelling read, although not in the way a piece of fiction is compelling. It’s compelling for those moments it spills past the mundane and Leve arrives, like Smart, at the unexpected electricity. I could quote often and with abandon from the book, but two examples on facing pages seem to suffice: “I am hostile to the concept of the aperitif.” and “I hope some day my friends might come and sit under my vine and my fig trees.” These quotes are offered without supporting information, without expansion or explanation. They arrive as if lightning, and are gone just as quick.

I initially wondered if Leve’s book would have been greater if this had been the first draft of a poem, if he had trimmed away 99% of this and left us only with these moments of greatness. Ultimately, I think not. I think the rest of it is essential to the power of these lines—their mystery is aided by coming within this great glut of text. On it’s own “I am hostile to the concept of the aperitif” could be read as a trite line. A cute piece of randomness, which seems to afflict many poets these days. It’s the rest that makes this sing, and it’s the fact that I feel as if I could read this book again and again, each time finding a different constellation of lines intriguing, that makes the whole thing seem worthwhile.

I don’t know if the art of Leve’s book is accidental or not. I somehow think were nearly anyone to undertake this type of project they would arrive, in moments, at genuinely excellent lines. But that might be half the glory of it, the willingness to abandon form within the embracing of an incredibly strict form. To fight (I assume) the compulsion to shape or control this cascade of information. What’s successful in this book happens because Leve opened himself up to the accidental, which might be all good writing needs to be.

Much like, for example, Under the Volcano captures the sad end of a raging alcoholic, Coles’ novel captures the numbness of his main character, a contemporary immigrant. A man who lives on the margins of America, Europe, and Africa, both black and white America, and who has no real identity within the mass of people around him and feels no camaraderie with them. He is a stranger, but interestingly, it seems he’s as much a stranger to himself as to the reader. He intellectualizes, he describes, he pontificates, but he doesn’t self-reflect or emote.

I feel confident enough in Cole’s writing to think that he made these decisions consciously, and the numbness of the character mirrors the numbness of post-9/11 New York in an admirable way. The portrait is right on, but there’s no moment in which that portrait is expanded, investigated. The book ultimately felt devoid of a challenge to the writer (okay, you’ve created this character, you’ve created this world, now what does it mean?) I don’t know if I’m right to think I deserve such an investigation as a reader, but I do think it’s the element that would have made this book great, rather than merely pleasing. I admire Cole’s deft handling of a myriad of topics, the melting pot of race, culture, even architecture, and above all a speaker that becomes less likable until he just may be a monster by the end. But the book feels as if it plays the game, if that makes sense. It has the requisite literary allusions, it has the complex racial and cultural touchstones, but it’s most intriguing dilemma, the question, “why have we come to a point where we lack passion/horror/outrage?” is asked by this book’s very bones, but never really wrestled with. This is a disarming book, a subtle yet difficult book, and at times a beautiful book, but I wonder, if in trying to capture a culture that has become numb through a cultural artifact that is itself merely numb, has Cole merely made something that’s just one more snowflake atop the blanket of snow?

As a writer of poetry and an editor of obscure journals and anthologies, I have a complicated relationship with the so-called “brick-and-mortars”, which I think almost mirrors fiction writers feelings about Amazon. I have had the lucky opportunity to live in cities that have amazing bookstores. In Seattle I spent a lot of time at Elliott Bay, then I moved to Portland where my world revolved around Powell’s, then I lived around the corner from St. Mark’s Bookshop in New York, and now in San Francisco I have too many great bookstores to count (City Lights, of course, but also Green Apple, Great Overland, the walkable-from-my-apartment Phoenix Books, etc. etc.). I love these stores, and patronize them often. The best thing about most of the stores on this list is they give a lot of shelf space to small press offerings and poetry, but that’s not often the case in bookstores. Chad Post has an interesting (if sometimes a bit hyperbolic and/or entertainingly hysterical) rant on Three Percent about all of this, and the thing I found most interesting in it is the idea that most of the stores affected by this offer will be “big-box stores”, your wall mart and the like. Honestly, my relationship with the majority of bookstores in the United States is not too far from most people’s with big-box stores (although to be totally candid, I’ve only been in a wall mart once.) The majority of bookstores stock small-press books as an afterthought (if at all), hidden on the dustier shelves, rarely, if ever, faced out, behind the tables stacked high with bestsellers. Amazon is a great resource for very small presses and poetry. It allows publishers who do not have major distribution deals an avenue to reach a wide audience. Does that make Amazon my ally and bookstores my enemy? Does that mean I expect bookstores to sacrifice profits to stock shelves with less productive titles?

In all of this discussion there’s been this back current that any bookseller is fundamentally “good”. Unfortunately, I don’t think that’s true. There are lots of bookstores out there that treat their employees like crap, stock shitty books, and are looking to make a profit (they made a bad business decision to get into book selling for profits, but that doesn’t mean that they are necessarily altruistic in their aims.) On the flip side, yes I think Amazon does a lot of things that are make life more difficult for booksellers, book buyers, and writers, but they also support small press publishers (a quick caveat: I work at one of the small press publishers they have supported with grants), they have given small presses and poetry presses a virtual bookshelf to sell the books they believe in when physical bookshelf space for those titles was dwindling, and they allow people who don’t live within a reasonable distance from good bookstores an opportunity to buy almost any book they can think of, perhaps sharing those books with friends who don’t read books, or reading them to their children. None of that is bad.

Amazon as an entity isn’t Darth Vader, it’s just a reality. People who value good bookstores should go out of their way to support good bookstores (but again, somebody should let me know why I should value a bookstore that doesn’t value poetry, doesn’t value me? Because it’s better than amazon? I understand the argument, but I’m not willing to put myself quite that far in the corner.) I like the fact that publishing (including the big six, bookstores, big-time-authors, etc.) are pushing back against Amazon, and I think it’s a shame that America has lost it’s “main street” identity. I love the fact that I live in a place where I have a locally owned bookstore, a locally owned coffeeshop, a locally owned toy store, a locally owned hardware store, etc. But I recognize that isn’t the norm in America. I hope that the tide is turning and Americans will rediscover the value of high-density living, but I’m a realist, so I don’t think that’s going to happen. Just like I hope America will rediscover the value of buying small-press poetry titles. You can laugh now.

First off, I’m no fan of the Poetry Foundation, I do really wish that “they” (whoever received the bequest from Ruth Lilly and set up the foundation initially) had realized that holding onto a sum of money that large wasn’t the best use of it, and becoming a grant-making organization for poetic endeavors would have a wider-ranging effect than big building in Chicago. I think there are a bunch of really amazing models that could have come from that money, but the one they chose is the least interesting (and the least imaginative) precisely because it does all of its programming in-house . I’ve never met John Barr, but I’ll admit to being neverendingly annoyed by his tone of “populism in poetry” which always sounds like code for poems about dogs in sunbeams, but that’s kind of neither here nor there.

All of that aside, though, the “protest” on the poetry foundation seemed downright stupid, and is kind of making me question all sorts of things, and making me take a moment and realize why so many movements are marginalized even when they may have a pretty legitimate beef.

The story that’s coming from the non-poetry-foundation side is that Stephanie Dunn broke a (plastic) glass, then, upon hearing it remarked that the floors of the building cost $300K began to make out with some guy and then they both began to take their clothes off. Somehow, this was supposed to make the poetry foundation open workshop spaces in some impoverished area of Chicago.

Then, when Dunn was tackled by an usher and then carted off by police, the Poetry Foundation supposedly (and I only say supposedly because I have only read one actual side of this story) pursued prosecution (although I think, if Chicago is anything like where I’ve ever lived, the Assistant District Attorney actually makes the final decision on whether charges are brought, the PF could have dissuaded them and it would have gone away, I assume.)

First off, if this is the actual events, it all sounds fairly harmless, and besides for Dunn and her disrobing partner hopefully feeling foolish, the PF should, in my opinion, chalked the whole thing up to fools being fools and we could have all moved on without writing blog posts. But I’ve been (again, lackadasically) following the updates on Montevidayo and while the posts themselves are a wee bit shrill, the comments are downright stupid. It’s possible that a lot of these folks know Stephanie and don’t think her actions deserve prosecution, and this may be valid, but to an outside observer (me) they come across poorly:*

1) the Poetry Foundation is not your enemy. Should they do something more/other with the money they have? Yes, I think so. But do they have to? No. And they’re not quashing poetry. They’re not taking over magazines to control what poetry gets out in the world. They’re bringing cool poets like Raul Zurita to Chicago. That’s not so shabby. They are not your enemy, the indifference of the majority of America is your enemy. Do something PRO-active, not reactive. If you want a poetry workshop someplace, start one, don’t bitch that somebody else didn’t do it. That’s just silly.

2) I sincerely hope that the Occupy movement isn’t an actual correllative to this. I really, really do. But in reading all of this I must admit to being a bit scared that, at least, other people see the Occupy movements in the way I see this. Which makes me sad on like six fronts.

3) This isn’t some weird collusion between the poetry foundation and the Chicago police department. Stephanie Dunn committed a crime. If she thinks she didn’t she should go to trial, but you can’t commit a crime and then bitch about being caught for it. As the old saying goes, “if you can’t do the time…”

4) I hope by “abolishing the US Prison system” Micah Robbins actually means radically reforming (in the strictest sense of breaking down and then reforming). Because I can get behind a radical reformation of the prison system, which I agree is broken. Abolishing the prison system seems somewhat dangerous to me. I have known a lot of people in prison in my life, and a lot of those people REALLY deserved to be in prison.

5) I think boycotting the Poetry Foundation if you’re not into what they do is a great idea. Get a petition going, get poets to sign on. We are a small community, if you get enough people in the poetry world to boycott Poetry then they will change their goals. You do have power, if you want to do the legwork to wield it.

6) When you start with a person getting arrested and possibly being jailed for 8 days and arrive at the Arab Spring in one sentence you have gone too far. Way too far. Those aren’t even…you can’t…just, don’t.

7) The Poetry Foundation’s reaction does seem to be overkill, but leaping from that to them trying to stifle “all” poetry that isn’t “well-behaved” is an odd leap. I’m happy for people to read whatever poetry they want, and I’m more than happy for people to disrobe at my readings, but if you come to my reading and try to read your poetry I’m going to be annoyed. Wouldn’t you be annoyed if Kay Ryan came to your reading and started reading her own poems? That shit would be annoying.

eight) Putting this in a list with poets who actually risked something is borderline offensive to me. Poets have stood up, written, and died speaking out against tyranny and oppression (check some of the ones who are still struggling or in exile at PEN.) To say that this poet was doing the same thing is ridiculous. And then to be astounded that she would be put in jail for a week is even more ridiculous. James Bliss says it better than me. (via wewhoareabouttodie)

9) Making the Poetry Foundation culpable for the faults of the Lilly Pharmaceutical company seems a bit of a stretch, too. If that money had been split up and recirculated would it still have had the taint on it? Should it have been burned? I’m just not sure how that’s applicable. Horrible, yes, but not applicable.

10) Sure, rules of decorum should be questioned and maybe be broken, but YET AGAIN, don’t be surprised when people get annoyed at you. And if you do it in their house, don’t be surprised when they call the cops on you, and finally, don’t bitch about how you ended up in jail as if it were no fault of your own.

All right, I’m going to stop, since it gets redundant from here on out. I’ll leave with this: if you don’t like the Poetry Foundation, boycott them. Or stage a sit-in. Or do something radical. But, as James Bliss said better than me (really, go read his take, it’s funny and it’s right) don’t complain if you get hooked for it. If you truly believe that the Poetry Foundation is evil put something on the line and live with the consequences. I don’t think that will happen, because I don’t think anybody actually thinks the Poetry Foundation is a real “enemy”. It’s fun to bitch about, and it’s fun to blog about, but they aren’t stifling you. They aren’t disappearing your friends and family. They aren’t exiling you. And if you can’t stand 8 days in jail, plead guilty and get out (which is what happened). But don’t act as if the entire system is fixed against you. There are a lot of people in jail right now for doing less, who were wrongly accused and live through abuse and degredation every day. And the reason this makes me so angry is it feels like we’re putting Stephanie Dunn in the same category as them. And that is truly fucked up and ignores real injustice.

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* All of these were randomly generated by one annoyed reading of the comments on this post. I apologize for not linking directly to everyone’s posts and citing everything, but a curious reader can find the correspondances, and I, honestly, just don’t want to do that much linking.

That said, I’d like to return to the Occupy Wall Street movement’s lack of demands and how it’s driving people nuts for a moment. I already spoke about how the movement’s lack of demands is a better representation of their anger at the whole system than a list of demands which had the goal of inching the system toward their world-view would be. It’s funny to me that people keep trying to force the OWS movement into some pre-approved movement trope, often with good intentions.

I’d make the argument that every major social political movement in the United States, besides for the actual creation of the United States, has been, on some level, a failure. Yes, Blacks received “equal treatment” but it’s obvious to anyone who gives more than a cursory glance at any economic and social inequality metrics that Blacks do not receive fully equal treatment. They receive much better treatment than they did before the Civil Rights movement, but to say that movement was an unqualified success maginalizes all of the black community leaders and citizens who still fight for actual equality today. The same can be said for the Women’s Rights movement. Women took the right to vote, but I’d be curious to hear the cogent argument that women actually receive equal opportunity and treatment in our society as men. (And here I would note that I often hear retorts to this that cite anecdotes of single women or blacks who “beat the system” and became unqualified successes. I’m in no way arguing that women and blacks can be just as successful as white men, I’m just saying the system is set up in a way that makes that a whole lot harder and less likely.) The Gay rights movement is in the process of all of this now: equal protection under the law is not the same as equality. It might be the best we, as a society, can hope for, but it’s important to remember it’s not the same.

The difficulty all of these movements (and countless others like them) have run into is, once you list a set of demands and engage with the opposing party (the government filling in as the representation of the country as a whole) you are at the bargaining table. You are going to have to make concessions on some things to achieve the larger good. And achieving the larger good, in these types of cases, is incredibly important, but it means the other side is going to only give you what they feel they have to. It’s the nature of negotiating. The Gay rights movement is a perfect example. The government has tried to see if they would be happy with civil unions rather than marriage. If that would be enough to make them happy. And if Gay couple get the universal right to marry, they will have to give up other concessions, many of which won’t be visible to us for years to come.

Change in society comes in one of two ways: generationally or immediately. The actual equal treatment of women, blacks, and gays will happen as generations continue to mingle and mix and cast off the prejudices of previous generations. For Muslims, and even more oddly, Mexicans, its moving in the other direction. The problem for the Occupy Wall Street movement is as soon as they come to the bargaining table they’ll be giving something up. They’ll be casting aside some of the movement’s legitimate gripes to focus on a couple of key points. And say they get a ban on derivative trading, or a new law banning corporate donations to campaigns? The problem is that isn’t going to fix a system that has been sliding against the interests of the many for so long.

A major confusion about the OWS movement, in my opinion, is that they want to demonize the 1% because they are jealous. Because they want things to be easy. I, at least, don’t want to be part of the 1%. It’s not a goal of mine to run a media empire, or an oil conglomerate, or any of those things. I have lived my whole life striving for other things than being rich. I don’t want to be one of the “haves” and leave all these other suckers behind. I want us all to have enough. I just want to return to a society that prizes the middle class. Enough to prize a wide swath of different life paths but still give individuals the confidence that they are going to be okay. That one illness or job loss isn’t going to slide them and their family into poverty. And there are a whole lot of us who worry about this, and it’s ridiculous that we would in the richest country on earth. Of course we’re better off than poor people in Somalia, but for god’s sake, is that really even a bar we want to set?

I think we have enough financiers in the world. I don’t want to think we will be raising a generation of financiers with the hope that they’ll break through to the top. We need as many people as possible to be able to live modestly, but without constant worry. I don’t think that’s too much to ask, but I think it’s an almost impossible thing to attain through a set of demands. An because of that, I hope the OWS movement stays, and stays angry, but stays away from the negotiating table, because they’ll be given just enough, which won’t be nearly enough.

Jericho Brown
Stacie Cassarino
Keith Ekiss
Judy Halebsky
Jeff Hoffman

All wonderful New Issues Press poets. Swing on by…more details here:

http://litcrawl.org/sf/events/event/new-issues-poetry-prose/

This was a movement that didn’t set out to isolate and identify specific action steps towards change, but just to express dissatisfaction. It feels almost like negative capability, people willing to inhabit the world of the unrest without having to know where the unrest will lead.

This is, of course, driving the media fucking bonkers. They want to be able to distill the movement into a thirty second clip. To encompass and blurt out the “reason” so that they can begin talking about what they think about that reason. It’s a lot of fun to watch. Both left- and right- leaning media, both “mainstream” and not, have either dismissed or (more and more) are taking the protest to task for not having a list of demands. I love that they don’t have a list of demands. If they were to have demands they would necessarily be too small. How do you wedge the loss of hope in the advancement of a generation into a list of demands? How do you wedge the very real concern that America is on the decline into a list of demands? The outrage is itself important. Demands should come from somewhere else. They should be left up to politicians and media and smaller, more concise groups. But encapsulating the “Other 99%” in a list of demands is impossible. The only thing demands would do is alienate the people involved and make other people (media, politicians, bankers) more comfortable. Which is the antithesis of what this movement is about. And, a fact that makes me really love the lack of demands: the undefinable is frightening. I think “The Other 99%” should continue protesting and occupying and expressing only outrage but not demands until they begin to just give us stuff to see if it will stop. Perhaps the best demand is no demand at all.