oh nothing much, just hanging around
what - i'm in that huuuuuuuuge anthology issue 1 and i didn't even have to write the poem or - gulp - submit to it!? oh boy, over at silliman's blog some of the poets are all riled up. i'm with ernesto priego on this one and i got a charge when a couple days ago he quoted dj spooky on connectivity of art in our century. the words i use in english are the same language, even if they be in french or italian, as yours. as thom gunn wrote 'we are the same in different ways / we are different in the same way'. i'll say in my own crude way fuck yeah i've got an ego too - i think all writers do - but i'm not one for copyrights and i'd encourage anyone to republish or make bootlegs of my work in any fashion they wish. the only condition is that - because i'm a big dumb poet with an ego - my name be attached to my work. that's it. plus, it's only poetry after all, so get a fucking sense of humor.
as for anthologies, please do please submit to dj senor priego's tattoo poetics. ernesto and i are working on a piece for the anthology and i know a few of you who stop by here are tattooed. i love the subject of tattoos in our culture in general and in writing culture[s] in particular. i want to read about your tattoos and see pics of them. so contribute a text or two and some pics, goddamit.
oh yeah, i also support the candidacy of eileen tabios/michelle bautista. quite a ticket, indeed. but, ms chatelaine, since i've neither read your poem nor mine in that huuuuuuuuuge anthology, i'll say i wrote the BEST poem. why not. it's just words after all.
5 Comments:
What I like about Issue 1 is that it's one long poem, after all. As you say, "it's just words after all."
And thanks so much for the shout-out, man.
I've no problem with Issue 1, as I noted at my Slim Windows. But I don't believe words are just words. No, I've never believed that.
"copyright" as seen by d.a. levy was "copyrot."
tom: the last paragraph is meant to be tongue-in-cheek in the same way eileen's boast of having the best poem in the artificial anthology. words do matter, tremendously. i am not a career poet, nor a hobbyist, but a writer who advocates poetry to become a life. i've got no cv, nor do i have any interest in teaching, or participating in panels. but a live in writing, with that sort of seriousness should be leavened by a heavy dose of humor and detachment, and the humor can be the refined, cerebral early woody allen movies sort, but also the crude south park sort too. that's why i loved being in the fake anthology. it is funny as hell, like cartman farting the star-spangled banner.
alex: i know levy's 'copyrot' and that certainly influenced my own thinking about copyright, but i'm very serious about it. individuals matter, names matter, and i read for difference as well as sameness. what i want as a reader from writing is the words but also to know that there is a person behind them as well. but i love the mixed-tape as ernesto calls it and frankly i'd be very honored to know that someone bootlegged my work in pirated editions. sort of like having a bootleg grateful dead concert on tape. but i know that it is the dead and i want the readers to know that the poet behind the poems is me. but that's it.
ernesto: yes, they are only words. my words and your words too. and everyone as well. but as the comic stephen wright once observed that the person who wrote the alphabet wrote everything too.
Tom, I have to say that by "just words" I did not mean that words were innocent, or that they had no power. Had they "appropriated" my name to sign a fascist manifesto, that would be another story. Words do create realities, and affect lives. They can cause sickness, pain, and death. By "just words" I meant something like Lautreamont's "poetry should be made by all".
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