good fun

 I'm having a delightful time writing iambic pentameter Shakespearean sonnets.

More Petrarchan Practice

Please give me some sugar laced through with fat:
Corn oil, butter, lard, whatever’s there;
And while you’re at it, let it be light as air,
As vault and loft as the tallest top-hat.
And then when you are finished doing that
You’ll squeeze yuzu on my tongue if you care
About my palate:  That way I can bare
To move my frame, be sprightly as a rat.

If yuzu is too hard to find, lime can
Do; so long as my buds are tartly dressed
My every taste will spell gratitude.
After all this, please let there be a man
Looks better than any bite, and he’s pressed
His hands round me—no more turn aside and brood.

Sestina Draft

Moonlit

When I                               strive                            to write the
Most pretentious                         poem
                                                  Possible                   I will
Fail and                              this skill                      turn
Marrow
Pearly                  but not pearl                nor purls.

Lamb bent over weir            blue iris                 redly purls
Its moraine those            kinds of the
Refuse                  all than          indefinite         as if marrow
                                                                              Meant poem
Could bleed                breaths of                  which turn
Flowers                 make malice free from will.

If this                   poem     bleeds              metaphor will
Render lapis blue                 unfathoms purls
Slip out some                    presiding       circumference            refuses turn
But the
Broke the                poem
I clomb fractally clambered          rehearsing pistons         limning marrow.  

When definite                             catches fire                    marrow
                                                                                              Will
                                             Burn poem  
And turn                        till internment                         purls
                                                                                         The
Tune within bird no flame can turn.

Seasons run                                 way      models                    turn
                                                   Marrow
Inside out           hot              pink velvet sleeves            unveil the
                                                              Will
Purls
Poem.

I want this poem
Hotly          but every              turn
                                                Taken              ossifies purls
Till pearls loop cold larynx                         taunts marrow
                                   Refracts jet’s will
Rescinds thee from the.

Not every poem              possesses marrow
But each                      turn       means                 affect will
Light subject via distances             like purls predicate the.     

Sublime

Emailed To My Dear Friend Cia

On twitter I see "progressives" using a rhetoric of dissociation from USA: not my president, not my country,  etc.  I am having the opposite impulse: I am American; I am a citizen of this country.  Well before this day, I've known to a great degree I am embodiment of various major social and/or environmental problems; and today is a concrete suggestion I was really onto something!  I mean the idea that you can neatly align Trump and white supremacist dynamics and then have a leftist intellectual antipode is such total bullshit insofar as it encourages the illusion that white supremacist
dynamics are not fractally embedded in every element of society.  I've probably written this to you before, but maybe not: for the past at-least three years, I have failed to come up with an argument that makes me fail to qualify as white supremacist; yes, I can list ways in which I darn near 24/7 resist/challenge this modality, but that is not the same as truly being exempt!  And for the time being I am far more invested in coming to full consciousness regarding my crud zones rather than
self-servingly emphasizing the good actions.  I think it's best to keep on with the good actions, but not highlight it and basically create a convenient brand for myself.  Interestingly, I would not argue I am male supremacist; I think a strong case can be made that I have and continually do
the work of resisting that.  And I think there's a crucial reason for this: my life, to a greater than lesser degree, de-facto aligns with segregation, whereas my life is not sex segregated.  I don't mean to make a one to one equation here, only suggest that it's very likely a major factor.  It's terrible how my reading and social media lives are not segregated, but my in-person one does not follow suit.
Note: I am not counting teaching--too much hierarchy involved for that interaction to be other than its own category.

Note: the "you" of prior email is intended as grammatical placeholder, not an address to your specific person!

Whoa

There are times when I am convinced there's no-one dumber than a poet--particularly when the poet is "talking" points that are economic.  I'll take an economist with a love for poetry anyday over a poet who styles themselves an economic theorist.  This, yes, means I have days when it'd be most excellent to swap out my dumb ass for Amartya Sen's stunningly wonderful noggin.

More On Kunin

"In my view, accusing Place of racism is intellectually irresponsible. The idea behind this accusation seems to be that any writing that uses racist language or imagery is itself racist, and, if the writer is white, white supremacist. By that logic, any representation of racism would be racist. The study of racism would become impossible. At best, the study of racism could proceed only by further inflicting or exploiting the pain of what it studies."

I think there's some food for thought here, but also question the opening sentence.  I question this, too--"At best, the study of racism could proceed only by further inflicting or exploiting the pain of what it studies"--but simultaneously think this is precisely where the fodder for more thinking lies.

"From a position of seeming powerlessness, Place’s accusers leveraged the cancellation of most of her appearances in May, June, and July. I call that power. In fact, I call it an abuse of power."

Without more, I'm not clear on why this would qualify as an "abuse of power."

"To be perfectly clear, I am saying that great poetry might not only use racist language and imagery, but also might express racist attitudes."

This, for me, needs a lot of elaboration.  I would argue that, often, impressive works of art/writing which contain racist/white supremacist language and/or content would often be even stronger without it: Path's Ariel would be a star example: "Nigger-eye berries" are not what makes that poem as strong as it is.  I can see, though, how this could apply to Flannery O'Connor, whose A Good Man Is Hard To Find grandmother is disarmingly (for this contemporary reader) casual in her use of the word nigger, but whose use is not obviously horrifyingly racist: she actually uses the word in a moment of social-consciousness, telling her grand-daughter to be mindful that people shouldn't be judged negatively just because they are economically impoverished.  I think a key difference between MCAG and Kunin may be how they conceive of white supremacy. I suspect MCAG uses my definition--that it's a baseline state of whiteness that can safely be assumed and which whiteness can never be innocent of--whereas I am guessing Kunin sees it as a far less total phenomenon, that he does not view it as a foundational state, but rather one which may pertain to discrete acts.  He does, admitedly, acknowledge early on in his essay that this is a way some do understand the term; but even with this acknowledgment it's not clear he does concord.

"Place’s accusers have miscalculated: By attacking her personal liberty, they have given additional power to her writing." 

The conclusion that this scenario grants additional power to the writing in question strikes me as rather pat/to work from a warrant which needs explicit acknowledgment and, more importantly, questioning.  I'm also not wholly on board with the "personal liberty" bit.  By invoking this concept, Kunin seems to be working with the assumption that Place's project is indeed art--and yet it's not clear he thinks this is the case.  As Place acknowledges, and as Kunin seems to agree, she in fact is not within the domain of personal liberty with her project: it violates "fair use"; she supposedly wants her endeavor to be sued, etc.  But more than this, I don't think it's sufficient to seemingly unquestioningly take a stance that personal liberty trumps darn near all other stances.  It is an important concept--yes, I am not disputing that/this--but it's worth thinking about its limits, and the limits already built into its legal definitions/contours.    

Comment that may or may not end up posted here--http://nonsite.org/editorial/would-vanessa-place-be-a-better-poet-if-she-had-better-opinions: This essay impresses me; and in some ways reminds me very much of Harold Bloom except he often elides the work of carefully explaining his reasoning.  It is nice to read a fully developed argument, not merely a series of declarations.

Homage Julie Carr, Lisa Robertson, Susan Tichy

Grows in gutter.  Grows gutter.  Grosses where one can
Flip page.  Sometimes forgotten.  Called spine.

This is to be totally.  Separate but so closely.  Soil from
Margin blown here.  Tug of utter.  Crocus gut.

Spine aligns runoff.  Offal mottles frontispiece dug
Out fosse gender flowers.  Unprovable taxonomy.

Economy axes.  Sparks fly.  Land.  Discipline.  And rescinds
When conjunction gluts.  Centrifugal convexly mirrored.

Stated again as styptic.  Poise.  Porous.  Lapse bells its

Broken law.  Haw firth howks.  Talons volts blanch.

I don't get, given the context of the primary point made, the logic of the "particularly white male privilege bit" of this Tweet-‏@lemonhound  Jan 25 We need to make young people aware of white, particularly white male privilege, way early on. Take it to the outdoor ice rinks.

Here's my argument/response-sketch (which is not at Twitter):

A compelling argument can be made that when it comes to White Supremacist dynamics, that white women and men do get to share this shit-show equitably. I totes agree that it's good to get little male nippers aware of the privileges maleness often carries--but as far as whiteness being racially clueless, the maleness bit strikes me as more than less a red herring/mistaking female identity for a totality which because it often entails disenfranchisement can therefore not be maximally part of white supremacist dynamics, which is ultra questionable--though has obvious white feminist appeal.

Dear Adam strauss, 

Thank you for participating in the 2015 Les Figues Press NOS Contest. We are pleased to announce the winner as chosen by contest guest judge lê thi diem thúy: 

irradiated cities 
by Mariko Nagai 

We are also pleased to announce that the editors have selected The Getty Fiend by Ken White as the NOS editors' selection. 

We specifically would like to congratulate you, Adam, as your work was picked as a finalist among a phenomenal collection of works including: 

Tree Talks: Southern Arizona | Wendy Burk 
GALL | E.G. Cunningham 
DEUS ABSCONDITUS AND LOVE LETTERS FROM OUTER SPACE | Brandi George 
Assumptions We Might Make About the Postworld | Katharine Haake 
Reading Nana | Sharon Kivland 
Field Poetics | Kristen Kreider 
It Was Human | Jenn Marie Nunes 
Ifenne | Jill Okpalugo-Nwajiaku 
Braided Sand Country | Adam Strauss 
kochanie i bought bread | Uljana Wolf, translated by Greg Nissan 

We will be making the official announcement tomorrow. 

By now, you should have received your Les Figues Press title of choice. If you chose 100 Chinese Silences, please allow another three weeks for delivery. If otherwise you have not received your book, please contact us at info@lesfigues.com. 

Again, thank you for entrusting us with your exceptional writing. 

Sincerely, 
Teresa Carmody 
Les Figues Press

Here's my response to this in many ways terrific review:
http://www.lambdaliterary.org/features/oped/01/16/a-queer-take-on-james-francos-straight-james-gay-james/

Adam Strauss 19 January 2016 at 9:54 PM #

I enjoy this review. A question I have is this: I’m unclear on the relationship between gay and queer in this piece; are they synonyms? They largely seem to be, but then it’s gay men not queers who are cited as annoyed–suggesting differentiation. Based on this review, JF is seeming, to me, quite queer, but not gay. Everything quoted strikes me as consonant queerness. (I do see the two terms as signifying quite different topos). Once again–thank you for this…I love how it doesn’t merely revel in LOLing/dissing JF, but doesn’t shy away from cutting words.
OH, one more bit: I agree (though don’t remotely believe) that it’s a truism that sexuality is fluid, but this doesn’t seem to gel with the gay male anger refrain, which seems to be marking a clear, more stable than not subject position; can fluidity articulate anger, and have a moniker?

Livre Sucre

I like the way in the start of this trailer the scene had me thinking prepping cocaine for freebase, and then it turns out apricots are being cooked:

http://johannesgoransson.com/books/sugar-book/

Aero                                  die                       anima pumpkin

Dug drought                          archive                         so lute         solo lint

Genius                                 dooms me                    meadow           sweet

I candle                                  eructates ax                      omnivore and ipecac

Aero                   dug drought        genius I                          candle                                    

Eructates ax                          dooms me                    archive            die

Anima pumpkin so           lute solo lint          meadowsweet omnivore and ipecac

Gap                  closure                      loose eye                       ordinal threat

Does this                        through ewe                     parallax               riparian

Make twee                       larynx sews scree                incipit              stone tang glows

Crotch pine nepenthe                cross spine limps         sump                mustard foison

Mustard foison                           gap                           ordinal threat               make twee

Through ewe             stone tang glows                  crotch pine nepenthe      loose eye                       

Incipit                 does                  this cross limps spine                     sump sews

Riparian threat                   scree parallax                 ordinal closure                gap parallax

Lucas d Lima

Except for the last three lines, I really like “all i wanna say is that they don’t really care about us” up at the PEN website.  It's the most engaging poetry I've yet read by de Lima, whose penchant for all-caps lettering has never sparked my interest.  These poems are not stylized in that manner; rhetoric, rhythm, and image do their do--work--carry through.  All-caps, often, appears like a voice yelling from a stage and it's not strong enough to carry to the back-row--aka opera singer who lacks sufficient skill.  It's lovely to see timbre both delicate and possessed heft.  Hear-here--here-hears; cheers!

Howdy

Here's a description of a manuscript I very much want to get published:

Hello, it's Adam Strauss. I am submitting an 81 page (title, acknowledgements, and section pages excluded) poetry manuscript titled Braided Sand Country. Both sections of this collection--Braided Sand and Country respectively--primarily consist of sequences, but these strands are not ordered sequentially and instead constantly interrupt and/or twine one another. This dynamic has been chosen in order that relation be emphasized but not simplified, turned step-by-step--elegantly straightforward--rather than web, matrix, field of lapses, overlaps, integers, gaps that turn into rungs, ladders for lungs to scale and set circulation free. The content of these poems works to define as fully as possible what country means: how the term compasses the "natural world," fields, mountains, streams, coastlines; designates the small-scale, the local, the "provincial," and the large stage that is the nation-state; how geography turns into geopolitics and framing for culture. In the pleated reality of this term, mountains are no longer solely mountains: they are zones for extracting product for export, for GDP growth; they are contested territories--shadows cast by their peaks are themselves shadowed by ongoing eructations constituting nation-states' (or, sigh, perhaps only states') identities.

I'm Unsure

if it's Lowe or Low; I've read it both ways--but am guessing it's Low?  Purposefully unfixed?
I don't want to disrespect her through incorrect spelling.

T Low

 I like her Hunting Season performance that I just watched at Jacket2.  I don't think I would
want to read it, but it's delicious to watch.  The only bit that fell flat for me is the end--which
makes perfect sense: it's in many ways very much a continuous present mode, so any ending
is bound to ring dully.  It's very artifice-laden, but it does what performance modes almost
never achieve--to register as actual event/eructation, sans script; I didn't know the start was
the start: I thought it was her introductory remarks!  Too often, when I see people read writing,
they seem to act like they're following how they think performance should come off and what one
gets, for me, seems like an imitation of performance rather than performance; hmm, or am I
just detailing how shitty acting ends up?  Anyways, Low's performance doesn't follow this
dynamic.  And Yah, I seem to be privileging reading performance which actually seems like
someone speaking in a way that could even remotely plausibly occur outside that particular
stage scenario.

What I Have Read This Past Hour or So

Frequently, I find author/artist's statements/explanations of their creations tedious/grandiose/self-serving, obfuscating/misleading and, most devastatingly---boring! This is not the case with Monica Youn's essay which regards her poem "Blackacre" which I read a few months ago while at the Barnes and Noble on US 1 in Fort Lauderdale, FL (I love going there for coffee so I can read magazines while I wake up).  I immediately felt/thought the poem terrific: I love thinking of Milton as a poet who makes other major poets look comically minor (in other words, I love thinking of him in rather cartoonish figurations) and "Blackacre" writes not through nor over  but rather with Milton's sonnet "On His Blindness," a poem I'm not even an idolater of.  And now having just read Youn's exegesis, I know what Blackacre means, and that the poem stems/circles around the fact that she was infertile.  This makes amazing sense once she's written to me, but I totally never imagined that subject when I was happily going through/with it at B and N.

I also read #Actual Asian Poets, a collocation of homages up at Literary Hub.  I find this to be exciting in terms of the general cultural contours it creates, but not (with a few exceptions) cognitively engaging in any specific way: mostly it reads to me like an anthology of blurbs.  Perhaps quite contradictorily, I ADORE blurbs, so don't mean to cast undue aspersion.

Finally, I read Mia You's essay-at the Poetry Foundation blog--regarding her pregnancy and specifically her attempt to establish what constitutes being in labor--what timeline most accurately contours the experience.  I love this piece.  Most notable, for me, is that it is--though ultimately the work documents markedly difficult realities--quite funny in places, and I sense that I as reader have been led to carry this response due to You's fully intended effort.

Quoting a Plum--or Perhaps Chestnut--by Joshua Corey

Here's a funny allusion to F O'Hara by Joshua Corey in his poem "The Barons":

"I think I’ll buy a malted for the writers in Ghana these days"

--New World Writing indeed, lol.