Report from the Bunker
Mood:
zoned from long nights
Sitting at the desk, listening to Spinner.com (Industrial station), trying to recover from the MaDMAn experiences of last night. What is not helping is trying to read a poet Ann Lauterbach's book "If in Time." I've been ranting about the lackluster performances of the avant-garde in recent days, but now my attention shifts to another facet of poetry. My comments won't be too hrash as I am too mellow and zoned to be harsh.
Ann Lauterbach�s poetry is over-sentimentalized, luke-warmishness "other" academic poetry. Lauterbach repeates words and tropes that put me to sleep:
night
moon
boys swimming
gardens
roses
women walking down stone staircases through swinging gates into courtyards
young girls playing with dolls
quilts
fields of heather (urrrrrrrrrrrrrgh)
If I had a nickel for every time someone walked, looked at, remembered or shut a barn door, I�d be rich! But how cruel can I be to such a wistful, melodramatic poet? I�m trying to be tolerant of the aesthetic since the heavy-handed metaphor is a tradition that has existed long before I�ve been around. Let�s imagine her as one of the last holdouts of that tradition, a lonely stone bastion overlooking cold fields of moss and squirrels. She shook the dew from the lilies.
Her words and methods are valid, but she doesn't have much to show me. Ann is one of those poets who only mention alcohol in either wine or (at best) absinthe or some anachronistic concoction. Sex is only expressed in metaphor of "strawberries blooming in winter." Ah, so wistful and careful are these words. What makes it all so much worse is that she is reading at Temple University on Feb. 14. How tragic, on Valentine's Day my girlfriend will be enroute to Los Angeles and I'll be sitting with glazed eyes while my left foot falls asleep listening to Ann Lauterbach ramble about "Those who are told can't tell." Thanks Ann! Thanks Missy! Thanks ex-girlfriends! Thanks Universe! I'm going to watch porn and drink absinthe.
BY TURNS ELEGAIC, FIERCE, AND SENSUOUS
Ann Lauterbach�s poetry is over-sentimentalized, luke-warmishness "other" academic poetry. Lauterbach repeates words and tropes that put me to sleep:
night
moon
boys swimming
gardens
roses
women walking down stone staircases through swinging gates into courtyards
young girls playing with dolls
quilts
fields of heather (urrrrrrrrrrrrrgh)
If I had a nickel for every time someone walked, looked at, remembered or shut a barn door, I�d be rich! But how cruel can I be to such a wistful, melodramatic poet? I�m trying to be tolerant of the aesthetic since the heavy-handed metaphor is a tradition that has existed long before I�ve been around. Let�s imagine her as one of the last holdouts of that tradition, a lonely stone bastion overlooking cold fields of moss and squirrels. She shook the dew from the lilies.
Her words and methods are valid, but she doesn't have much to show me. Ann is one of those poets who only mention alcohol in either wine or (at best) absinthe or some anachronistic concoction. Sex is only expressed in metaphor of "strawberries blooming in winter." Ah, so wistful and careful are these words. What makes it all so much worse is that she is reading at Temple University on Feb. 14. How tragic, on Valentine's Day my girlfriend will be enroute to Los Angeles and I'll be sitting with glazed eyes while my left foot falls asleep listening to Ann Lauterbach ramble about "Those who are told can't tell." Thanks Ann! Thanks Missy! Thanks ex-girlfriends! Thanks Universe! I'm going to watch porn and drink absinthe.
BY TURNS ELEGAIC, FIERCE, AND SENSUOUS
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