In a previous post, I said that a series requires that “a piece as an individual is not as successful…as the pieces understood as a whole are successful.” I realize I could try to elaborate, especially on the vague term “successful.” What I am trying to say through this term “successful” is a capacity to […]
Word choices: “Series” vs. “Sequence”
January 27, 2014 by
While an undergraduate at Rice University, I went off campus one evening with some other peers interested in poetry. We listened to James Longenbach and followed along with handouts of poem selections. The point of his talk, as I recall, was to distinguish between a “series” and a “sequence.” While I cannot report what he […]
Brief Thoughts on the Prose Poem Form
December 30, 2013 by
I believe the prose poem can be an ideal form of expressing complexity: it exists as a “lump” of being, not spaced into digested piecemeal. While a sentence itself is a linear existence, other sentences function directly lateral to that sentence. I think the prose poem can express simultaneity, as there isn’t the overt sequential […]
When writing of Place, consider various meanings of the term “Location”
December 30, 2013 by
I think writing of place should explore location in as many senses of the word as possible. Geographic location: the urban, the landscape, with the entrance of wildlife and domestic animals if accurate. Location in time: beginnings, endings, in-betweens, and memory’s effect in urging recontextualizing. Location relative to another person: understandings and misperceptions, intimacies and […]
A Brief Statement on the Desire for Risk
December 30, 2013 by
Below is a “bias statement” written in the beginning of the Fall 2013 semester. … Dislikes. I dislike it when a poem does not seem to engage in any risks. That is, when it looks, smells, tastes, feels like what readers expect from typical poem-ness. When it uses phrases that sound like something easily said […]
Thoughts on Successful Puns
November 29, 2013 by
The pun seems to be something people tend to have strong, divisive emotions about: pun as fun or pun as repellent. I would like to make a point about successful puns: they are not “merely language play” (assuming “mere” language play is possible: if it is still language, then it is still conveying a meaning […]
Pareidolia and poetry
November 29, 2013 by
I thought I would share my thesis proposal, originally written in spring 2013. … The thesis shall be a poetry manuscript, titled “Pareidolia has landed.” The manuscript will contain various explorations into constraint-based poetry, including erasures and other author-created constraints. The emphasis, therefore, shall be that the methods of poetry-making are just as significant as […]
My MFA Poetry Thesis Defense
November 29, 2013 by
Back on Tuesday, November 5th, I had my thesis defense. My thesis was a manuscript of some of my early constraint-based erasures (a term I use to denote erasures created through specific methods/constraints, such as making use of every page from a source text), written during my second and third years of the program. As […]
What is space/silence/‘nothing’?
October 30, 2013 by
Back in February of 2012, I wrote the following “response paper” for a class on form and theory of poetry. I thought it might be worth sharing. Don’t worry if you are unfamiliar with whom I reference or the texts I reference; the point is sharing the thoughts. … On some notes last week, I […]
What is “authenticity,” especially in unconventional work? Part 2
October 30, 2013 by
In a previous post, I discussed “authenticity” versus “integrity,” saying that integrity is in reference to an internal assessment while authenticity is more of an external assessment/comparison. And now I look again at this question: if the work does not come directly from the self, what gives it its “justification,” what it can be measured […]