The General Commentary Thread

Nice to find another poet who loves Chet.

I think I finally convinced Angie that he's a great jazz musician, but she still seems to waver on that a bit.

Paid my respects in Amsterdam to where he fell out of a window and died.

I have spent a lot of time, of late, listening to Chet and Bill Evans. I am especially fond of Early Morning Mood, which sound good no matter the hour. I do think Chet is a great jazz musician, the type that Basie would call an original because you immediately know it's him (or her) from their sound.

But you know bottom line, I am a fool for that tenor saxophone sound. It's so sexy, so late night er I'll save it for a poem. :D
 
An excerpt from an interview with Tony Hoagland in Garrison Keillr's "Writer's Almanac" that resonates with me:

"Someone gave me a contemporary poetry anthology when I was 15, and reading it may have saved my life in high school. I felt like I was finally meeting the adults I needed, the ones who would tell me the real facts of life and human nature. But when I got to college I found myself surrounded by teachers and students and poets who were endlessly serious and dark and mysterious in their poetry. They wore black and looked perpetually unhappy. Depression was their dress code. This baffled me.

I think I decided then that if I was ever able to write real poems, they would be entertaining, and elastic, and full of a living, American conversational voice. I like the wild, mercurial quickness of a poetic speaker; I value the reckless directness of poetry. I also value clarity enormously — I hate that ordinary citizen-readers have been made to feel intimidated by poetry, when in fact it can be so much fun, and so lucid, insightful, and contemporary....."
 
An excerpt from an interview with Tony Hoagland in Garrison Keillr's "Writer's Almanac" that resonates with me:

"Someone gave me a contemporary poetry anthology when I was 15, and reading it may have saved my life in high school. I felt like I was finally meeting the adults I needed, the ones who would tell me the real facts of life and human nature. But when I got to college I found myself surrounded by teachers and students and poets who were endlessly serious and dark and mysterious in their poetry. They wore black and looked perpetually unhappy. Depression was their dress code. This baffled me.

I think I decided then that if I was ever able to write real poems, they would be entertaining, and elastic, and full of a living, American conversational voice. I like the wild, mercurial quickness of a poetic speaker; I value the reckless directness of poetry. I also value clarity enormously — I hate that ordinary citizen-readers have been made to feel intimidated by poetry, when in fact it can be so much fun, and so lucid, insightful, and contemporary....."

I'm punching the LIKE Button hard.
 
I have two comments:

1. butters, I love your latest ku poem. This grand adventure of yours and Harry's is great for poetry (among other things too numerous to mention :rose: ).

2. Tzara, your penultimate in your march to 30 poems is one hell of an exercise! That title is quite modest given the poem that follows.
 
Each time I read this powerfully sad poem by champ in "A Carrie Retrospectve" it touches something deep in me.

http://forum.literotica.com/showpost.php?p=85424595&postcount=235
I wept as I walked the mile around these few acres of Newfoundland soil in France. The Battle of the Somme (as was the entire Great War) was such a waste of a strong generation of men between the ages of 17 and 32 years. Perhaps this is why we are moved? I empathize first with the horror and terror of the soldiers, next with the agonizing loss of the lover, and finally with the heartbreak of a parent to know that you really did say goodbye to that dear face as he turned to join his brothers-in-arms. It was powerfully moving to stand and see the "Danger Tree" as it remains a stick in the soil at Beaumont-Hamel, and the only obvious landmark in the field where 962 of the Newfoundland Regiment died July 1, 1916.

Thank you for sharing the effect of my words GM.
 
"It's a sad fact about our culture that a poet can earn much more money writing or talking about his art than he can by practicing it."

W.H. Auden
 
Tzara's Aphrodite, Draped in Tubes

Oh, Tzara... I love this one. Soft edges wrapping a hard, harsh truth.
 
"It's a sad fact about our culture that a poet can earn much more money writing or talking about his art than he can by practicing it."

W.H. Auden

I'm going to make a general commentary on your general commentary which is in fact not your general commentary.

More power to anyone who can earn a dollar directly or indirectly from their own poetry.
 
Nice to see Eros in Everyday Erotica

Angie's Agitated brings to mind the laundromat scene in Atwood's The Edible Woman, definitely up there in my late adolescent fantasies.
 
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