Olstein/David

     The most striking difference between David and Olstein, I think, made the night most magical.  Poetry is a celebration - Olstein's selections, of nature, and David's of culture.  As a spectator, of any performance, I look for joy.  I was at the first show of the Pixies' reunion tour in 2006.  It was a summer night in Atlanta, hot, muggy as hell, and when they took the stage - all of them grinning ear to ear - it just started pouring.  It was this perfect moment.  Everybody there was completely elated.  That's what I felt at their reading.  Both of them completely enamored of life.
     This was the first I'd ever heard of David but I will most certainly explore his work.  I loved the way he wove cultural relics into his own experience.  As for Olstein, I was most struck by the veneration with which she vocalized her work.  The tie that binds them is this innate thing - this internal voice that compels beautiful creation.
     I think poetry is an inclination, confessional, and impossible to successfully contrive.  Both readers embody that idea.  They both seemed a little uncomfortable with the idea of an particular process.  They love poetry.  They read.  They listen.  It just comes from them.  When it works, it's awestriking.  

 

Autonomous - A Poetic Contemplation

“Autonomous”

Autonomous:  Uh-taw-no-mus.     

Autonomous, there is no us!  Only me!  

Autonomous:  Well, really, it depends what you’re going for, you see.  

Autonomous, I’ve got it better.  Without "us" I’m single, free.

Autonomous:  Come on.  You’ve got to be kidding, Autonomy.  We’re one and the same.  Don't you agree?  Form is merely a formality.    

*Notes on Adjective Exercise

This was inspired, loosely, by Darwish.  Though infrequently, he used textuality in a way that reminded me of e.e. cummings.  In cummings’ “la”, the spatial allocation of the words is important and the written poem is more complex than its spoken counterpart.  For my poem, the scripted dialogue enabled me to begin each line with the adjective, as either speaker, or addressee.  

on Er

     Most immediately striking about Er is her relationship with nature.  She speaks to her reader as an ambassador, in a sense, as a mother might explain a father's actions to their children.  She and nature are old friends, but she never interpolates herself into the text.  She is merely a voice, and though humans and nature are one and the same, she is careful, conscious of her place, of who is speaking and, so, her function.  She has an imperative tone but a humility one cannot deny.  The only agent here is nature.  She just has a better seat.  She transcribes the language of nature onto the page as she is compelled.  The text flows in whichever direction nature intends.
     I've never really considered myself a poet.  I'm more of a Hemingway, tip of the iceberg, kind of girl.  This requires trust, on the writer's part of his/her own effectivity, and of the reader's competence to "get it".  Er does not seem to care if anyone "gets it".  Hers is a different mission.  Nature speaks for itself - Er just writes what she hears.  

darwish

I poured my morning coffee and sat down to start reading Darwish.  I ended up spending my entire morning with him and reading his book cover to cover.  Darwish was a pacifist, an ambassador speaking out from the violence riddled cradle of humanity.  In "A metaphor" on page 54, he captured the delicate balance of the universe, the cosmos, the necessity of coexistence, and the necessity, difficulty, and precariousness with which man must maintain his place within.  "We will become a people when..." he promises his reader on page 54, when we learn to undo centuries of inclination and view our fellow humans as something other than enemies.

He is attractive, sexually even, because of his contemplative sensuality.  Life, to him, is an illusion, a perception at best.  But humans share, across space and time, experiences and consequent desires and philosophies.  This is where I find Darwish most appealing.  There is something universal about Darwish, something that simultaneously evokes and satisfies the primal.  His writing is woven with props, if you will, from his own world that remind the West that if we were to live slower that life might be richer.   Amidst the clutter of conflict is where the beauty of simplicity shines most brightly.

Darwish makes me lament the East and the past.  My only regret is that I cannot understand Arabic, because I'm sure that much is lost in translation.