Live Nude Poems

From The Legendary : You'd never guess, gazing upon the cheerful monarch butterflies gracing the cover and many of the pages, that this is a treasure full of personal depths, mountain landscapes, and trapped moments. Rusty Barnes manages to surprise even us, and we were already fans . I'll have better, less self-promotional posts soon, I promise. It's the holidays, and I can barely keep up.

Redneck Poems reviewed by  Rene Schwiesow at Boston Area Small Press and Poetry Scene: Edge. Rusty Barnes work will walk you out to the edge, ask you to look over, and consider whether you feel your stomach drop or your eyes water as you read. This is the real thing. Barnes grew up in rural Appalachia and his words are shot through with those Appalachian roots. Barnes creates an image that arouses all the senses in the opening of “When the Wrong Words Get Said:" More :

I can't remember whether I posted this one or not. I generally hate dislike intensely poems that are so obvious. This one has something at the end that needs more exploration, I think, but it's tough to find energy to work on it because it's so obvious. It'll disappear in a few days. *poof

Paul Blackburn and Lee Byrd I'm officially and permanently obsessed.  Now I want to know where the criticism is. Shouldn't a poet of Blackburn's status and lifework have more written about him? If you, any of you reading, can give me links or info about articles of books, I'd really appreciate it. Blackburn at Wikipedia EPC/Blackburn Jacket 12/Blackburn Modern American Poetry Poets Path/Blackburn Burt Kimmelman on The Journals Blackburn papers UC San Diego Blackburn reading The Old Days Blackburn reading at Bard Google Books Poem of the Cid PennSound Blackburn Readings Joe Hall discusses The Journals

I found this on Facebook where Don Share linked to it. The author is Clayton Eshleman , the blogger is A.M.Bramhall . The essay goes to some trouble countering the established view that Blackburn is sexist in a way that immediately draws attention to itself, and overcomplicates reading the poems. I assumed Blackburn had been assigned minor figure status in the strange way that the canon adjusts itself to new or different criticism. I see from this essay that Blackburn seems to always have been minor status, and that's too bad. The defense (Eshleman) doesn't work hard enough to change that, but I stand here saying it needs changing. Eshleman brings out Freud in Blackburn's defense, with over-significant broken masts and purse-seine vaginas and what have you, and discusses what he calls the three modes of sexuality in the poems, a dirty joke variety which has become the standard text of discussion and includes the few poems anthologized, along with a 'turgid sexual d...

I don't recall reading Mather Schneider's work before this year, but that's apparently because I don't read widely enough, as he's published something like five hundred poems. I took him first for yet another Bukowski imitator (I suppose I could ask him straight out if he thinks he's influenced by the dirty old man but I don't really care all that much, and I suspect, neither does he)but found when I read a bit more discovered he had more going for him than the Buk, namely, some humility and compassion that leavens the (often tired) attitudes toward licker and wimmen and durgs, as well as a way with phrasing that renders his work a pleasure to read. More than mere narrative, these poems at their best evince a practiced and polished lyric and an attitude toward life that looks forward to better times instead of wallowing in the past. You can find plenty of evidence of his gifts on the 'nets, but my examples come from his most recent book, Drought Resista...