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Poem in Your Pocket

It’s April 26 and you know what that means (maybe). It’s the national Poem in Your Pocket Day! The idea is that you carry a poem in your pocket all day and spontaneous poem-ize people you love, people you don’t love, strangers, and even your boss!

If you’re shy said poem, why not use today’s poem featured in Ghost Ocean’s 30/30 issue for National Poetry Month? You can go here to read the poem, print it out, and carry it in your pocket! It’s nearly 11AM so use your printer at work and save your money for books full of poems. Or beer, because you hate your job!

MPR: Leaving the Atocha Station

Over at Minnesota Public Radio, poet Ben Lerner is interviewed about his debut novel, Leaving the Atocha Station, among other writerly things.

Here’s a brief highlight from the interview, part of Lerner’s response to why people hate and/or attack poetry and—more specifically, here—why people have a more tumultuous or love-hate relationship with poetry than other genres of creative writing:

That tension of celebration and disavowal is as old as poetry itself. I think part of it has to do with the fact that poetry is in some sense impossible. Poetry is a word we use to denote the perfect linguistic object. That’s the poem. It’s supposed to be better than prose, it’s supposed to be deeper and more precise and more beautiful.

And of course, you never get the perfect poem. There’s no such thing. So there’s this structure of frustration built into poetry.

At HTMLGIANT, Ben Mirov says listening to the interview is similar to obtaining an MFA in poetry. I’m not sure if Mirov is being snarky about the MFA or incredibly generous to Ben Lerner—maybe he’s doing both—but I certainly think there’s plenty to gain here for a poet any writer in or out of the MFA.

It’s a 30+ minute interview, so it’ll take a small chunk out of your busy day, but it’s good ‘til the last drop (where Ben actually reads from the novel!). Hit play and do the dishes or clean the house or re-alphabetize your bookshelf—whatever you decide to do, if you must mutli-task, please take time to listen to this insightful interview, fellow writer. Lerner has so many interesting ideas about art, poetry, impossibilities in writing, and our daily relationship with art—you will not regret it.

Meet My Jetblue Royal Sahara

Yesterday’s project: work out the kinks. Some jamming, some this-should-be-connected-to-that-ing. It took us a sizable chunk of the evening but thanks to steady hands, YouTube videos, and damn good guessing this little gal is one new ribbon away from functioning glory.

For the sake of not letting her go nameless for the rest of this post—and because I’ve never named a car I’ve owned and the last object I named is dead—let’s call her Joanie.

I’m desperately hoping to tap out a poem on Joanie’s spacious keys before National Poetry Month is over. But, the only typewriter repair/supply store I found in Chicago is out of business (glad I called before visiting!), so that means the aforementioned final-piece-of-the-puzzle ribbon is going to have to suffer through shipping and handling, which means possible cross-country traveling.

For now, an old poem will have to keep her company. It’s hard to tell without zooming in (and even then, probably) but the poem she’s holding is one of my own that Pear Noir! published in their Postcard Single Series (see #9 “How Quickly a Man Evaporates”).

Cross your fingers that the ribbon arrives before NPM’s end!