Saturday, February 05, 2005

For a Duck May be Somebody's Mother

So, speaking of postmodern poetry, you know what I’d like. I’d like somebody to tell me why this isn’t a good postmodern poem (and not just a bad poem period).
Postmodern Poem 2

Jazz is dripping from the ceiling
wheeling abstract keyboards
falling faster miles an hour
but roadrunner no it’s not.

Second verse stickier than
the first amendment and the voices,
the visiting extraterrestrials
listen: wherever the river veers
sliding dice-like along the long
gutter earnestly and nicely
in lawns and liver spots but not
tennis elbows beset with better
homes and garden apartments
mint breath breezy sleepy
and priceless by a third:

there comes the quiet cornerstone.
But after that easy chore is accomplished, you know what I would like better than Josh Corey’s series of Grood poets or Mayhew's unindicted co-conspiracies and unnamed sources. I’ll tell you what. I’d like some avant pomo poet to criticize (constructively of course, or is that deconstructively) an avant pomo poem’s shortcomings (and not mine, that is). Just once.

Maybe then I could begin to tell the difference myself.


5 comments:

Loren said...

I think one of the greatest advantages of not teaching anymore is that I get to buy exactly what I want to buy and read exactly what I want to read.

I don't have to care whether it's "poetry" or not; all I have to worry about is whether it enriches my life or not by leading me to new insights into life.

For me, getting stuck in these kinds of debates brings back my worst memories of academia.

son rivers said...

Loren, you misunderstand me. This is not a debate on my part. I'm trying to learn a different side of things. I can stand here, as I have, and write this poetry off as incomprehensible. And who knows? I may just end up doing that. But these are intelligent people, and I presume honest as well. But I know you, who have been through so much health-wise, would agree with Mr. Dylan: "he not busy being born is busy dying."

Geofhuth said...

Maybe it isn't a good pomo poem because Jonathan Richman wouldn't allow it.

(This may not be a serious response.)

Geof

son rivers said...

Geof

I'm in love with the modern world.

And I'm not sure that's a serious response either. But thanks for the possible answer.

~Greg

mark young said...

kept reading it as avant porno poets & got quite excited. would have commented but i had to go & take a cold shower.