Bad Poetry Unearthed While Cleaning
Written byPosted on November 19, 2005
Filed Under Poetry
The following poem was found while reorganizing some papers. It was written by me circa 2002, it is bad and silly, clearly a desperate effort to imitate Ginsberg, and, most importantly, it saves me from actually having to compose a blog entry. As more bad poetry crops up, I will be post it here. However, to get the full effect of its awfulness, I have recorded an audio version (MP3).
Crystal droplets collide beneath interminable recesses
Ruby flowing ‘gainst untouched crack vials
Amphetamine fury dappling touching his hard physique
Fortified by the Almighty Dollar, corrupt Christian sentiments
The narcotic sting of empathy abandoned
His soul left in a shoebox, his heart sutured sewn sayonara
Bleeding after thirty he an’t be trusted
Encapsulated Capulet, entranced traitor
Sense of the commons, house whored away by ambition
He weeps, reaching for a sole bottle of Walker
Enmeshed engorged obliterated mirrored by the declivity
Corroding his bedside manner
He hopes his character will migrate to a milk carton
Lost in a cubicle farm, loved solely by cardboard
Cunctating coasting before the fllint struck forty
Then She entered. He didn’t ask for a save
Her etioliated skin sucked moonlight like second hand smoke
He asked her questions long short tricky
But her ghostly lips stayed crisp sounding invitations
Beckoning him to a graveyard of lust pulses
The Juliet abandoned held his dainty hand
[NOTE: Thankfully, at this point, it appears that I abandoned the poem, perhaps because of the ridiculous deus ex machina at the end.]
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Beyond Heaving Bosoms by Sarah Wendell and Candy Tan. The famed writers behind
Alice Fantastic by Maggie Estep. This wild and highly enjoyable narrative involves two sisters (presumably, the third one was still being rented out by Chekhov), a hippie ex-junkie mother who lives with seventeen dogs, a murder, gambling, and libidinous Hollywood actresses who live in Woodstock. But this is the wonderful Maggie Estep we're talking here. And what seems at first like a quirky yarn becomes something unexpectedly moving about connectivity. What I love about Estep's work is the way that she'll juxtapose an extremely astute observation (now that you mention it, why do cab drivers always have somebody to talk with on the phone past midnight?) with an often outrageous story development.
Generosity by Richard Powers. It doesn't come out until September 29th, but Richard Powers's latest will have anyone committed to books reconsidering their literary fervor. I foresee some animosity from the vanilla critics hostile to idea-driven novels, but book bloggers, YouTube chroniclers, and MFAs would do well to plunge into this chance-taking narrative, which introduces vital questions about what the reader's relationship is with media, scientific dissection, and "creative nonfiction." Are we rats fleeing to happy cities? Or can we find the humanism within the purported plague?
Pieces for the Left Hand by J. Robert Lennon. Lennon is one of the most underrated fiction writers working today. Much as On the Night Plain proved that Lennon had a lot more in the toolbox than heartfelt (and often very funny) suburban satire, this slim but fascinating volume juxtaposes 100 small-town anecdotes -- arranged by category -- in a manner that reads, at times, like Nicholson Baker's passions for minutiae and, at other times, Stewart O'Nan's concern for psychological detail. The result is fiction that makes us wonder about whether one person's subjective view of particulars can entirely be trusted. This book never found a publisher in 2005. But thankfully, Graywolf has released it in the United States, along with Lennon's latest novel, The Castle.
Wonderful World by Javier Calvo. This wonderfully raucous volume has been completely ignored by the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times. But it's probably one of the most delightful reading experiences I've had this year. Calvo cavalierly mashes up multiple genres and manages to mix up familial subtext with larger-than-life, almost cartoonish characters. (Indeed, one might argue that one mobster's penis is a character of its own in this sprawling novel.). This is not an easy thing to pull off, but Calvo makes it work. And it's helped immeasurably by Mara Faye Lethem's idiom-specific translation. (
The Means of Reproduction, Michelle Goldberg This thoughtful book tackles the complicated (and little discussed) subject of reproductive rights from numerous angles, which includes a number of unpleasant but necessary ones. The upshot is that there isn't a quick fix solution for declining birth rates and fundamentalist abuses. Just about every political faction has contributed to the friction. But you'll want to read this book anyway to refamiliarize yourself with the topic, but also to understand just what's occurred during the past several decades to get us where we are today. (
Oh, the humanity!
This is funny, Ed. You’re bold.