Live Nude Poems

If you ever want to know how to properly end a poem, read this . And then admire his beard. Emergency Haying Coming home with the last load I ride standing on the wagon tongue, behind the tractor in hot exhaust, lank with sweat, my arms strung awkwardly along the hayrack, cruciform. Almost 500 bales we've put up this afternoon, Marshall and I. And of course I think of another who hung like this on another cross. My hands are torn by baling twine, not nails, and my side is pierced by my ulcer, not a lance. The acid in my throat is only hayseed. Yet exhaustion and the way my body hangs from twisted shoulders, suspended on two points of pain in the rising monoxide, recall that greater suffering. Well, I change grip and the image fades. It's been an unlucky summer. Heavy rains brought on the grass tremendously, a monster crop, but wet, always wet. Haying was long delayed. Now is our last chance to bring in the winter's feed, and Marshall needs

Oh no, the gargoyle sez, not dis too? Elisa Gabbert brought this to my attention first, with a list of tricks (many/some/all) poets use in writing their masterpieces. At first I thought it was funny, then I looked in my poems folder. Urgh. Most of these quoted gaffes are actually pretty usable, I think, if you know what you're doing, which is after all how it's done: if you can get away with it, it works. Full list at HTMLGiant . Be sure to check it out, but in case you don't, here's a few to strop your razor with. Mike Young is writing-- Well, I thought that sounded like a terrific idea. So here it is, our stab at cataloging 41 popular moves in “contemporary poetry,” an exercise that’s fraught with peril, what with the competing definitions, camps, roles, and processes of “contemporary poetry,” the nebulousness of calling something a “move,” the inevitable non-definitiveness of such a list, and so on, but hey: dancing is fraught with peril too, and no one’s mana

I'm so motivated by this I might even write something new. From Stacy Lynn Brown : The editors, Stacey Lynn Brown and Oliver de la Paz, are pleased to announce a call for submissions for A Face to Meet the Faces: An Anthology of Contemporary Persona Poetry . We are seeking poems that work within the literary tradition of persona poetry: poems written as dramatic monologues, whose speakers employ masks, or whose character and voice are different from the poet's own. Please submit up to 5 unpublished poems. We will also consider poems whose rights have reverted back to the author. All submissions will be accepted electronically. Please send an email to the editors at facesanthology@gmail.com with the poet's name and "Submission for Persona Anthology" as the subject line, with the poems as an attachment. The submission deadline has been extended to February 15th. We look forward to reading your work! Reading Basil Bunting and Karl Shapiro today. B

My my my. I found this in Absent recently, through someone's linkage, sorry I can't recall whose. Well worth a read if you've ever tried to ride ol' Poetry into the sunset. If ever you wanted to have hot hairy sex with a satyr, this piece is as close as you'll probably get. Hooraw. 1) Poetry invited you in earnest. Poetry sent you reams of sonnets, ballads, epics, soliloquies, each lingering on every word, drawing you out of yourself and in to another one, pulling you in, tempting you to hover over every syllable, first concealing and then revealing the whole of its nakedness from angry epiphany to epiphany. Poetry is very fuckable, and poetry wants badly to be fucked. 2) Poetry is tired of being confined by the society of those who are paid to do poetry. English professors, high-school English teachers, poetry librarians, and poets at writing workshops all do their best to define a canon of poetry. As paid lovers of poetry, they set a few of