Test Reel #2 on Flickr

Same as Test Reel #1, but with a different poem at the end, and set to some of my own music so I don’t get sued by the Pixies…

Just a little experiment. Nothing to be taken seriously.

Test Reel #2

some words / for the creator of the universe / who makes it rain / on the baseball game

a big / wide-open space / and a cowboy hat / but / what matters most is / the swagger

Speaking of cowboy hats: this morning at a construction site, Meg spotted a cowboy hard hat:

Also, scanned this out of an old scrapbook:

And, to finish off the theme, let’s not forget one of my first blackout poems:

I’m not so much a fan of the hats, but I definitely need some boots.

partners / that / have an intense choreography / which is demonstrated / on a bicycle / in the most marvelous summer light

“a very old / and well-versed / buccaneer / with an eyepatch / bought the house next door / and reflects / on a liftime / of adventures / if we pour / the wine”

It seems to me that the language of poetry is very dependant on setting up images and juxtaposing them against each other. A poet will create an image in the first two lines of his poem and then he will create another in the next two lines, and so on. I do find this jumping from image to image in poetry to be a very interesting, comic-like element. Many poems are almost like word comics.—The cartoonist Seth on poetry and comics

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this recently, but in the beginning, I called my poems “Newspaper Blackout Comics.” The first batch I ever did explicitly juxtaposed image and text:

Other examples: here and here.

My old creative writing teacher used to tell me that a poet “thinks in images” and a fiction writer thinks in terms of “character and plot.” I’m not sure it’s that cut and dry, but I think it sheds a lot of light on why I find traditional prose fiction so incredibly hard, and poetry and comics so incredibly fun.

And speaking of poetry and comics, one of the main characters in Chris Harding’s excellent WE THE ROBOTS webcomic has started a poetry website:

So hilarious, and so true. Be sure to visit his site for even more.

And speaking of mean comments, here’s a new phenomenon for me: mean-spirited spam.

As if it wasn’t hard enough for me to get up in the morning!

in the near future on an assassination mission / a kung fu master / whose wedding is spoiled / by a posse of gangsters / falls in love / and gets sidetracked / the problem is / that his heart / requires violence

Another goofy one.

A goofy one.

What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whitman, for I walked down the sidestreets under the trees with a headache self-conscious looking at the full moon.

In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images, I went into the neon fruit supermarket, dreaming of your enumerations!

—Allen Ginsberg, “A Supermarket in California“

This weekend I was flying home from Cleveland, looked down at my New Yorker, and had a mini-revelation:

Underlining. Highlighting. Circling. When we read interactively, when we “alter” texts, we’re isolating little bits of writing that speak to us. Fire our imaginations. Illuminate something.

It’s the same thing when we hyperlink: we’re pointing to something that speaks to us.

And it’s the same thing when I make a blackout poem.

When the CIA redacts a document:

It’s the same practice done in the opposite spirit: they’re isolating text that speaks to no one!