[Miya Ko]

My Advice To Youth



Friendly Advice to a Lot of Young Men

By Charles Bukowski

Go to Tibet
Ride a camel.
Read the bible.
Dye your shoes blue.
Grow a beard.
Circle the world in a paper canoe.
Subscribe to The Saturday Evening Post.
Chew on the left side of your mouth only.
Marry a woman with one leg and shave with a straight razor.
And carve your name in her arm.

Brush your teeth with gasoline.
Sleep all day and climb trees at night.
Be a monk and drink buckshot and beer.
Hold your head under water and play the violin.
Do a belly dance before pink candles.
Kill your dog.
Run for mayor.
Live in a barrel.
Break your head with a hatchet.
Plant tulips in the rain.

But don’t write poetry.


PS Curtis, if this is unacceptable, I'll delete it. I call it "Strikethrough Poetry", which is more respectful to/of authors.

[R.A. Briggs]

That erasures site is great, actually. I used their translation of Kant's Critique of Practical Reason. I think it sums up how I feel about Kant.

negative feeling is pathological
like every feeling
consciousness
is humiliation
the law is There is no
feeling
the moral law reasons together a moral

[Janice D. Soderling]

Well, I don't think it is "indecent", and though I can appreciate its attraction to professional philosophers, I don't think it is poetry.

Philosophy seldom, if ever, is poetry though the two are possibly kin, having, in some distant past, the same Lucy-mother who had a notion that one can do more with language than inform and ask questions like "pass the salt".

[R.A. Briggs]

indecent attraction
poetry

Philosophy is possibly
more than questions


(Yeah, I'm too tired to argue about what counts as what genre.)

[Janice D. Soderling]

That is a clever eraser you have there, gal!

[Steve Bucknell]

From the Wave text The Critique of Practical Reasoning, with 'Feelings' by Gasté /Albert intervened.


The Critique of Pure Feeling

The effect on feeling is pathological—
--Feelings, nothing more than feelings—
Every influence on feeling and every feeling—
--Trying to forget my feelings of love—
Of consciousness and cause, namely—
--Teardrops rolling down on my face—
Being affected by inclinations is called—
--Trying to forget my feelings of love—
The positive source.

There is a feeling for this as it removes—
--Feelings, for all my life I’ll feel it—
Resistance out of the way, this is a help—
--I wish I’d never met you girl—
Therefore this feeling may be called---
--You’ll Never Come Again—
A feeling of feeling.
--Feelings, whoa-whoa-whoa feelings.

Kant/ Gasté /Albert/Bucknell.

[Curtis Gale Weeks]

Miya,

We had a similar example earlier, of a very simplistic erasure. All it takes is finding one two-word phrase one wants to be the message—and erase all else! I don't know what great value such a procedure may have, other than a quick-hit expostulation of a polemic value.

Themselves Alone

Euclid alone has looked on Beauty bare.
Let all who prate of Beauty hold their peace,
And lay them prone upon the earth and cease
To ponder on themselves, the while they stare
At nothing, intricately drawn nowhere
In shapes of shifting lineage; let geese
Gabble and hiss, but heroes seek release
From dusty bondage into luminous air.
O blinding hour, O holy, terrible day,
When first the shaft into his vision shone
Of light anatomized! Euclid alone
Has looked on Beauty bare. Fortunate they
Who, though once only and then but far away,
Have heard her massive sandal set on stone.

Euclid alone has looked on Beauty bare.
Let all who prate of Beauty hold their peace,
And lay them prone upon the earth and cease
To ponder on themselves, the while they stare
At nothing, intricately drawn nowhere
In shapes of shifting lineage; let geese
Gabble and hiss, but heroes seek release
From dusty bondage into luminous air.
O blinding hour, O holy, terrible day,
When first the shaft into his vision shone
Of light anatomized! Euclid alone
Has looked on Beauty bare. Fortunate they
Who, though once only and then but far away,
Have heard her massive sandal set on stone.

Euclid alone has looked on Beauty bare.
Let all who prate of Beauty hold their peace,
And lay them prone upon the earth and cease
To ponder on themselves, the while they stare
At nothing, intricately drawn nowhere
In shapes of shifting lineage; let geese
Gabble and hiss, but heroes seek release
From dusty bondage into luminous air.
O blinding hour, O holy, terrible day,
When first the shaft into his vision shone
Of light anatomized! Euclid alone
Has looked on Beauty bare. Fortunate they
Who, though once only and then but far away,
Have heard her massive sandal set on stone.

[Miya Ko]

Curtis, I like the new poem to be related to the existing poem. It may contradict or support the existing one. Only using a poet's vocabulary to create a new text, I think, is easy. One can do that with a cookie recipe. The idea is also to expose the existing poem for reading and the new poem as the profound reaction of the second poet to the existing poem. I'm all for respecting poets. The most difficult part of this poetic exercise is finding the right poem.

Miya


Like this:



My Wish For My Eulogy


Death & Fame

By Allen Ginsberg

When I die
I don't care what happens to my body
throw ashes in the air, scatter 'em in East River
bury an urn in Elizabeth New Jersey, B'nai Israel Cemetery
But l want a big funeral
St. Patrick's Cathedral, St. Mark's Church, the largest synagogue in
Manhattan
First, there's family, brother, nephews, spry aged Edith stepmother
96, Aunt Honey from old Newark,
Doctor Joel, cousin Mindy, brother Gene one eyed one ear'd, sister-
in-law blonde Connie, five nephews, stepbrothers & sisters
their grandchildren,
companion Peter Orlovsky, caretakers Rosenthal & Hale, Bill Morgan--
Next, teacher Trungpa Vajracharya's ghost mind, Gelek Rinpoche,
there Sakyong Mipham, Dalai Lama alert, chance visiting
America, Satchitananda Swami
Shivananda, Dehorahava Baba, Karmapa XVI, Dudjom Rinpoche,
Katagiri & Suzuki Roshi's phantoms
Baker, Whalen, Daido Loorie, Qwong, Frail White-haired Kapleau
Roshis, Lama Tarchen --
Then, most important, lovers over half-century
Dozens, a hundred, more, older fellows bald & rich
young boys met naked recently in bed, crowds surprised to see each
other, innumerable, intimate, exchanging memories
"He taught me to meditate, now I'm an old veteran of the thousand
day retreat --"
"I played music on subway platforms, I'm straight but loved him he
loved me"
"I felt more love from him at 19 than ever from anyone"
"We'd lie under covers gossip, read my poetry, hug & kiss belly to belly
arms round each other"
"I'd always get into his bed with underwear on & by morning my
skivvies would be on the floor"
"Japanese, always wanted take it up my bum with a master"
"We'd talk all night about Kerouac & Cassady sit Buddhalike then
sleep in his captain's bed."
"He seemed to need so much affection, a shame not to make him happy"
"I was lonely never in bed nude with anyone before, he was so gentle my
stomach
shuddered when he traced his finger along my abdomen nipple to hips-- "
"All I did was lay back eyes closed, he'd bring me to come with mouth
& fingers along my waist"
"He gave great head"
So there be gossip from loves of 1948, ghost of Neal Cassady commin-
gling with flesh and youthful blood of 1997
and surprise -- "You too? But I thought you were straight!"
"I am but Ginsberg an exception, for some reason he pleased me."
"I forgot whether I was straight gay queer or funny, was myself, tender
and affectionate to be kissed on the top of my head,
my forehead throat heart & solar plexus, mid-belly. on my prick,
tickled with his tongue my behind"
"I loved the way he'd recite 'But at my back allways hear/ time's winged
chariot hurrying near,' heads together, eye to eye, on a
pillow --"
Among lovers one handsome youth straggling the rear
"I studied his poetry class, 17 year-old kid, ran some errands to his
walk-up flat,
seduced me didn't want to, made me come, went home, never saw him
again never wanted to... "
"He couldn't get it up but loved me," "A clean old man." "He made
sure I came first"
This the crowd most surprised proud at ceremonial place of honor--
Then poets & musicians -- college boys' grunge bands -- age-old rock
star Beatles, faithful guitar accompanists, gay classical con-
ductors, unknown high Jazz music composers, funky trum-
peters, bowed bass & french horn black geniuses, folksinger
fiddlers with dobro tamborine harmonica mandolin auto-
harp pennywhistles & kazoos
Next, artist Italian romantic realists schooled in mystic 60's India,
Late fauve Tuscan painter-poets, Classic draftsman Massa-
chusets surreal jackanapes with continental wives, poverty
sketchbook gesso oil watercolor masters from American
provinces
Then highschool teachers, lonely Irish librarians, delicate biblio-
philes, sex liberation troops nay armies, ladies of either sex
"I met him dozens of times he never remembered my name I loved
him anyway, true artist"
"Nervous breakdown after menopause, his poetry humor saved me
from suicide hospitals"
"Charmant, genius with modest manners, washed sink, dishes my
studio guest a week in Budapest"
Thousands of readers, "Howl changed my life in Libertyville Illinois"
"I saw him read Montclair State Teachers College decided be a poet-- "
"He turned me on, I started with garage rock sang my songs in Kansas
City"
"Kaddish made me weep for myself & father alive in Nevada City"
"Father Death comforted me when my sister died Boston l982"
"I read what he said in a newsmagazine, blew my mind, realized
others like me out there"
Deaf & Dumb bards with hand signing quick brilliant gestures
Then Journalists, editors's secretaries, agents, portraitists & photo-
graphy aficionados, rock critics, cultured laborors, cultural
historians come to witness the historic funeral
Super-fans, poetasters, aging Beatnicks & Deadheads, autograph-
hunters, distinguished paparazzi, intelligent gawkers
Everyone knew they were part of 'History" except the deceased
who never knew exactly what was happening even when I was alive.

[Brian Allgar]

Originally Posted by Miya Ko

The most difficult part of this poetic exercise is finding the right poem.

I think you should keep looking, Miya.

[Curtis Gale Weeks]

Originally Posted by Miya Ko

Curtis, I like the new poem to be related to the existing poem. It may contradict or support the existing one.

Miya,

I think that's certainly one way to go about it. Even non-erasure and non-strike-out poems can be conversations w/ past works, past poets. The type of erasure poem that leaves what has been "erased" visible, for instance in a lighter-colored font, or that is easily discerned as an erasure poem (perhaps of a familiar work; see the Shakespeare above), is another way of showing that conversation between the past work and the present.

But I'm not at all convinced that is the only way to do it or the only good goal.

Originally Posted by Miya Ko

Only using a poet's vocabulary to create a new text, I think, is easy. One can do that with a cookie recipe.

Miya, when you write in English, you are using my vocabulary; and vice versa.

It is terribly "easy" to write English words down and call the new text a poem—much more difficult to do so well. I think this is true whether the process used is erasure or the normal mode of picking out vocabulary from one's own memory.

One point of this exercise may be merely to learn a process for shaking up our normal use of vocabulary, our normal thinking patterns. E.g., one could go back and "erase" one's own prose, perhaps—the process isn't reserved for erasing the works of others. Then all these gold-hearted comments about "respect" would be moot, right?

Curtis.