Wednesday, November 27, 2013
Tuesday, November 26, 2013
ModPo'er Monica Saviron reviews New York Film Festival films with a poet's sensibility
Read her essay on the first nine films in Lumiere here. Check out how she masterfully weaves ModPo poets and their works into her review.
Read her essay on the next 14 films here. Same as above, but also check out how she riffs about the relationship between poetry and film.
Read her essay on the next 14 films here. Same as above, but also check out how she riffs about the relationship between poetry and film.
Wednesday, November 20, 2013
Poems by ModPo'ers: Mark Snyder
Let’s go dance (End of ModPo ’13)
after reading the first poem
my head went numb–
have I answered your question?
how do I get started?
a quick rough sketch, warts and all
I think you’re going to enjoy THIS–
when they were good they were incredible.
Most of us don’t sleep,
I’m pretty sure Al doesn’t.
Most of these poets would have been sent
to the Ministry of Love and vaporized,
bourgeois decadence–
degenerate art–
making sense is overrated.
What do you make of her use of windows and doors?
What else could she have meant by Paradise?
I hadn’t the slightest idea.
You’re only disqualified from the group
if you forget your towel. Don’t panic.
How would one avoid the “splinter”
that shunts the brain out of its groove?
What do you see?
Isn’t any creative work bullshit
if you look at it in a certain way?
What I assume you shall assume–
she leads her alien invasion
as Williams dances like a lunatic
and Kathleen and the baby sleeps downstairs.
I’m not a lit guy, so I don’t know.
It’s always a conversation between you and the poet
Experiment, see what works for you.
Let’s go dance in front of the mirror
but make sure you have at least
one post per week
in the poem-specific subforums.
after reading the first poem
my head went numb–
have I answered your question?
how do I get started?
a quick rough sketch, warts and all
I think you’re going to enjoy THIS–
when they were good they were incredible.
Most of us don’t sleep,
I’m pretty sure Al doesn’t.
Most of these poets would have been sent
to the Ministry of Love and vaporized,
bourgeois decadence–
degenerate art–
making sense is overrated.
What do you make of her use of windows and doors?
What else could she have meant by Paradise?
I hadn’t the slightest idea.
You’re only disqualified from the group
if you forget your towel. Don’t panic.
How would one avoid the “splinter”
that shunts the brain out of its groove?
What do you see?
Isn’t any creative work bullshit
if you look at it in a certain way?
What I assume you shall assume–
she leads her alien invasion
as Williams dances like a lunatic
and Kathleen and the baby sleeps downstairs.
I’m not a lit guy, so I don’t know.
It’s always a conversation between you and the poet
Experiment, see what works for you.
Let’s go dance in front of the mirror
but make sure you have at least
one post per week
in the poem-specific subforums.
My ModPo wrap-up poem: Goodbye but not farewell
Goodbye but not farewell.
We will continue our conversations
and social media chats –
with new friends,
with old friends.
And we will continue writing poems:
together in small groups,
and at home, alone,
in the midnight hour that is not
midnight, but that
floats between isha and fajr -
the darkest part of night -
when passions die,
and distractions fall to the side.
The songwriting teacher said all I needed
was a thesaurus and a rhyming dictionary –
but it hasn’t proven sufficient –
and there are no final words, anyway,
no bridge, no chorus, no refrain,
just a tight hug, a soft sigh, a tender kiss,
and a throw-away “see-you-tomorrow,”
maybe, if you’re lucky. And all my
countrymen are poets, and sailors.
No, goodbye is not farewell.
There is SloPo on Facebook,
and sudden spoon is resurrecting,
and the Breakfast Club opera is on track,
and KWH is always open,
and there are Sunday get-togethers in DC
whenever you are passing through.
And all our blogs and our websites are up,
and NaPoWriMo comes in April,
and Postcard Poetry Fest comes in August,
and before you know it, ModPo14!
We will continue our conversations
and social media chats –
with new friends,
with old friends.
And we will continue writing poems:
together in small groups,
and at home, alone,
in the midnight hour that is not
midnight, but that
floats between isha and fajr -
the darkest part of night -
when passions die,
and distractions fall to the side.
The songwriting teacher said all I needed
was a thesaurus and a rhyming dictionary –
but it hasn’t proven sufficient –
and there are no final words, anyway,
no bridge, no chorus, no refrain,
just a tight hug, a soft sigh, a tender kiss,
and a throw-away “see-you-tomorrow,”
maybe, if you’re lucky. And all my
countrymen are poets, and sailors.
No, goodbye is not farewell.
There is SloPo on Facebook,
and sudden spoon is resurrecting,
and the Breakfast Club opera is on track,
and KWH is always open,
and there are Sunday get-togethers in DC
whenever you are passing through.
And all our blogs and our websites are up,
and NaPoWriMo comes in April,
and Postcard Poetry Fest comes in August,
and before you know it, ModPo14!
Poems by ModPo'ers: Therese Pope
Mothers of Poetry
Who is this mother?
She sits and waits by a window
Tears streaming down her cheeks
With bratty babe sniffling at her sleeve
Is she Jane Austen's melancholy, forlorn side-kick
The kind who reads too much weepy Shakespeare
By candlelight, on a stormy night?
A hopeful Romantic
Now withered by form
Is her blood noble
Or is she strong and brazen
Stein-like, contemplating sentences?
A wild vixen who shushes grammar
Sinister, slinking
Sneaking up behind you
To scare the daylights out of rhyme
Look how she poses
Dabbing at her cheek
Who are these mothers?
Dancing around silky syllables
Accenting hazy lines
Plying us with
Diatribes that never really speak
These mothers of poetry
Sit,
Slumping in overstuffed chairs
That never fade with time
Forcing a half-smile
And with a woeful wink,
They wait for us
Words pressed to silent lips.Tuesday, November 19, 2013
Poems by ModPo'ers: Megan Worrell-Lupton
MODPO
Modern & Contemporary American Poetry
MODPO MODPOPENN MODPOLIVE
MODPOPENPOLIVE
Modern
Anti Modern
Green glass
Spreading
We are the grass
Mending the Wall
Cut up into pieces
and scattered on the floor
on the Page
In my hand
13 Ways to connect with Toronto, Ecuador, Hawaii, Sydney,
Israel, San Fran, South Carolina, Connecticut, Philadelphia-
Etc
etc etc etc etc Etc etc
MODPOPENNPO
In wild room dancing to 12 tones
and in this moment
this is the moment
THIS
is
the Poem...
To lift Kelly's cup
and sip together-to another year of
Dwelling
And Let the Splinter
Swerve
From the beautiful mountains of North Carolina,
Love and Many Blessings,
I'll see you in the forums
and again next year. Until we re-open the present....
Modern & Contemporary American Poetry
MODPO MODPOPENN MODPOLIVE
MODPOPENPOLIVE
Modern
Anti Modern
Green glass
Spreading
We are the grass
Mending the Wall
Cut up into pieces
and scattered on the floor
on the Page
In my hand
13 Ways to connect with Toronto, Ecuador, Hawaii, Sydney,
Israel, San Fran, South Carolina, Connecticut, Philadelphia-
Etc
etc etc etc etc Etc etc
MODPOPENNPO
In wild room dancing to 12 tones
and in this moment
this is the moment
THIS
is
the Poem...
To lift Kelly's cup
and sip together-to another year of
Dwelling
And Let the Splinter
Swerve
From the beautiful mountains of North Carolina,
Love and Many Blessings,
I'll see you in the forums
and again next year. Until we re-open the present....
-Megan L. Worrell-Lupton
Poems by ModPo'ers: Sara P. Dias
Ciao without a Vuvu
(to Wallace Stevens, after ‘Farewell without a Guitar’)
Spring’s bright promise has come to this.
So the thousand-dreamed home fails to show.
Ciao, those days.
The thousand-dreamed home
Speaks to this trumpet of lies
At its most venal culmination –
A Cape Flats gale,
A vast, stark corrugation,
In which a cab drives home without its riders,
Shades down. The recurrence of recounting,
The shunt and shuttles of raw senses
Of the riders that were,
Are ticking constructions,
Of zinc and sun, of state banality
And of those others and their desires.
(to Wallace Stevens, after ‘Farewell without a Guitar’)
Spring’s bright promise has come to this.
So the thousand-dreamed home fails to show.
Ciao, those days.
The thousand-dreamed home
Speaks to this trumpet of lies
At its most venal culmination –
A Cape Flats gale,
A vast, stark corrugation,
In which a cab drives home without its riders,
Shades down. The recurrence of recounting,
The shunt and shuttles of raw senses
Of the riders that were,
Are ticking constructions,
Of zinc and sun, of state banality
And of those others and their desires.
Sunday, November 17, 2013
Poems by ModPo'ers: Maria Milonaki
Who said that shelters are there to protect?
Who said that words mean promises?
Who told you that love is forever?
I know almost nothing. Just time and distance.
I hide, forget and seek. The name of the game is oblivion.
I rest in peace. I fly in dreams.
I was once crucified. Where is my martyrdom.
How many times have you closed your eyes to your death.
Is shadow to shade, what loneliness is to solitude.
Has love always been an enigma and life a mystery?
Where do you plan to raise your voice.
In darkness or in light?
How to do you plan to raise it?
In a song or in a box?
When do you plan to raise your voice?
In life or after death?
Count to three and you will rise, my resurrection.
Did you rehearse your today-self yesterday?
Is your suit suitable?
Did you put on your smile or your grave facade
on the morning mirror reflection?
Is the mirror reflecting you or
are you reflecting the mirror image?
Did you have your first sip of coffee,
before or after praying to your god?
Will you sharpen your knife before
killing your desires or will you offer them slow,
painful death (the name of the death is waiver).
Did they teach you how to follow that path
or did you lose track of yourself on your own?
Did you tie your laces standing or sitting?
That has always been a fateful choice.
Which of the two do you prefer, a life or life?
Who said that words mean promises?
Who told you that love is forever?
I know almost nothing. Just time and distance.
I hide, forget and seek. The name of the game is oblivion.
I rest in peace. I fly in dreams.
I was once crucified. Where is my martyrdom.
How many times have you closed your eyes to your death.
Is shadow to shade, what loneliness is to solitude.
Has love always been an enigma and life a mystery?
Where do you plan to raise your voice.
In darkness or in light?
How to do you plan to raise it?
In a song or in a box?
When do you plan to raise your voice?
In life or after death?
Count to three and you will rise, my resurrection.
Did you rehearse your today-self yesterday?
Is your suit suitable?
Did you put on your smile or your grave facade
on the morning mirror reflection?
Is the mirror reflecting you or
are you reflecting the mirror image?
Did you have your first sip of coffee,
before or after praying to your god?
Will you sharpen your knife before
killing your desires or will you offer them slow,
painful death (the name of the death is waiver).
Did they teach you how to follow that path
or did you lose track of yourself on your own?
Did you tie your laces standing or sitting?
That has always been a fateful choice.
Which of the two do you prefer, a life or life?
Wednesday, November 13, 2013
Poems by ModPo'ers: De Cesare Patrizia - And I Die
And I die.
And I die
The Giants I hold up the umbrella
of misbehaviour
and turn the square axle
my dark sky
clouds and storms that befit me
savory nights
the regalia of my Opera
where no glittered stars.
So wild a den I
to complain in my hair disease incurable.
My syllables in its leghold trap.
Here's the Hunter
It was spring, a day!
And I die
The Giants I hold up the umbrella
of misbehaviour
and turn the square axle
my dark sky
clouds and storms that befit me
savory nights
the regalia of my Opera
where no glittered stars.
So wild a den I
to complain in my hair disease incurable.
My syllables in its leghold trap.
Here's the Hunter
It was spring, a day!
(reprinted here with the author's permission)
Tuesday, November 12, 2013
Wednesday, November 6, 2013
Tuesday, November 5, 2013
Experimentation in standard time
Autumn
urban afternoons
get
shorter and sweeter -
standing
in the middle of I street
I await a
very specific angle on the bow
as my ship
called Earth comes about:
a unique
perspective on how time passes –
in the
distance you can see Virginia:
but how many
beats per measure
are there
in Standard time?
the future
is reaching back to join us,
to warn
us, to help us alter course
to
starboard so we can pass port to port –
the
present and the future,
like two
ships, passing in
a storm.
We post to
a blog or sing a song:
we write
some non-rhyming words
we call
poetry –
and time
is a social construct
a
contractual agreement we accept
from fear
of things we don’t know –
dawn to
dusk, high noon
to the
darkest part of night –
a 24
second shot clock.
We sink a
three pointer
that
leaves a vacuum in its wake –
the chain
nets echo its refrain.
11/05/2013
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