I'M AN ASHTRAY
Kathleen J. Kramer
I'M OKAY. I'M CALM. I'M FINE AND CONTENT IN THE MIDST OF A WORLD FULL
OF REASONABLE PEOPLE AND NUCLEAR ARMS. WATCH WHAT NORTH KOREA DOES.
SCARY.
people that haven't suffered greatly, whether from a disease or abuse or
poverty or whatever, they just don't seem to have understanding. I"m
sorry. you even say they don't understand our rage in a message
emblematic of the fact that you don't understand my rage.
and you sound very sweet but i still am mad at you for saying my
experiences are late 80s early '90s and not very interesting. I mean
how dare you?! Do you think women like I write about of have any voice?
It may not be interesting how little angels are turned into dirty
whores but it is to me. Escpecially because we're treated like scum for
things others have done to us. and usually we don't have the heart to
hate back. that may not be interesting to you, but looking at what
makes men act like brutal assholes who kill and rape interests me. they
are born angels, too.
and of course i revert to cliche to enrage the mediocre. all i'm saying
about engineers writing poetry is that they claim to know as much as
people who have studied nothing but poetry for years but since anyone
can pick up a pen . . . not everyone can just design a bridge a put it
up to see if anyone likes it. It's different. I"m not saying it means
they don't have talent. a lot of people make those decisions when they
aren't even aware of the abilities they have. And when I refer to white
european men, I'm talking about the ideas from the enlightment, the use
of reason usurping that of emotion.
yes, those who have suffered can understand if they are aware of the
consequenses of what happened to them. it really pisses me off that I
know that people don't understand those consequenses when I see how they
act, how they impart judgement expecting me to be relaxed and calm.
and how dare you all say no one needs poetry because they don't buy it.
no body reads poetry BECAUSE IT SUCKS! WE SEE SURREAL BULLSHIT OR
DIDACTIC DRIBBLE! and we can thank academia for it and this is the shit
I see reiterrated on this bboard. even the lowest people i've met know
one poem off by heart or have written one. we have rap music and people
singing lyrics but people say people don't want poetry. they do. but
who wants to read things that intimadate and overwhelm? that make them
feel even more ignorant? why do we talk down to the less fortunate and
expect them to learn a million words to say the same things? why can't
we talk to them on their level?
Well why the fuck should we? If they were as splendid as we, they could
stop worrying about how to pay the bills and learn new words. Because
we don't understand them, we expect them to be able to function like we
do. But we have advantages we are stupid to see as that. We just think
we're great. It kills me to hear people say "if I were her" and this
shit. If any of you were me, you'd be here screaming as well. And I'd
be telling me to settle down. I'm asking that we all recognize this.
christ. i feel like i'm in prison and the warden keeps telling me to
settle down and quit my bitching. I see a relevance and a hope for
poetry beyond these little discussions. this is the basis for my whole
problem with it. it has the potential to change the world, to speak to
the hearts.
And yes, I "like" myself but deep inside those little voices never
disappear. It's exhausting. I will never be normal and this is what
people don't understand. What was taken was taken for ever. Oh yeah,
be quick to disagree. But I know. This doesn't mean I can't be happy
but just that I"ve had to accept that so I could let go of that all
while understanding how it's formed part of what I am.
and ferlinghetti did get out there, didn't he? but his poems didn't
"move" me, either. there have been very few. i spent a long time
blaming myself for that but no more. yes, society is visual but there
is something about using words to provoke those images in a way to make
the reader make those his own, to inspire the images that are their own
but shared in language. Everyone has their own image of a blue lamp.
Words let people have that while understanding some basic things a blue
lamp will mean to all of us. blake said the only way in was through the
five senses and i believe him.
so i get so pissed when people say "chill" like I'm arguing over a
baseball game. yeah, sit back and do nothing. the classic inertia in
the name of self-control. i feel like I'm screaming "the building's on
fire!" while people hush me so they can see the second act of a play
they've seen a thousand times already.
and grace. grace is the ability to recognize one's own fortune to the
extent that he can then look at other's who haven't been so lucky and
realize that he doesn't really understand, that he should listen before
expecting everyone to be like him. Sure, i hear these stories about
people "pulling themselves up by their own bootstrings" but how can we
claim deserving the motivation that moves us, who can claim the hope and
strength? It never occurs to some people to change their lives becasue
they feel so beat, like it will never happen so why try. it hasn't
nothing to do with them being stupid or lazy.
normally i am much more laid back, but all this kills me.
James, you were very nice but we all have our imperfections. I'm sick
of having to act like I don't. you bet I have my prejudices, especially
against those who are in my opinion, holding others down.
oh. how dramatic. and they are dying around me everyday. oh please.
no one's starving in america. we're all very happy. people don't want
to see what the fuck is happening so you all tell me to settle down.
no, some will say to settle down because it's ineffective because no one
will listen to me. maybe so. but those afraid of a loud voice wouldn't
listen anyway, their ears being so tender, so fine and delicate and
cultured.
as far as me still having some gentleness, i'll send my poems which
speak of that. I can be a raving madwoman but still a little angel.
Without the madwoman to protect her, she'd be gone. But she's not. but
she is well protected and for very, very good reason. MY POEMS DON'T
SCREAM AND THAT'S WHY I DO.
well thanks.
kathy jo
AND DANIEL OLSHOVE, HOW DARE YOU NOT RESPOND TO MY LAST POST AND ALL THE
BRUTAL SHIT YOU SAID? why do i scream?
oh yeah, funny bastards, i was never a topless dancer. funny. the
character "mazzie starr" is all from my imagination. think of it.
these are not "confessionals" in that sense. but that persona is my
emotional self, but the quieter one. i'll send more of her. i have
almost the whole book done. It's called "go-go girl" and the last poem
sums up my life with men, "sadly enough"
the poems aren't "finished" as i am a filthy whore who believes in the
magic of revision but I don't thrive on it. I know it takes a long time
to say exactly what it is that you want. and form is only a crutch to
get you there, helps you fight through your own bullshit and adhere to
its.
funny. and you know, i do think you all are cool, even that wretched
marek. daniel olshove makes me mad and men make me mad in general. but
thanks anyway you all.
kathy jo
and more pomes are coming. pomes. joetry. arrogant bitch of a jo.
Adrian Preston
: TO JAMES SMOLENS WHO WAS NICE BUT STILL MAKES ME A LITTLE ANGRY. BUT
Why don't you post to _him_ then.
It's not difficult.
So then, we wouldn't have to read all this.
Or do you enjoy the attention too much?
<deletia....etc....>
: AND DANIEL OLSHOVE, HOW DARE YOU NOT RESPOND TO MY LAST POST AND ALL THE
: BRUTAL SHIT YOU SAID? why do i scream?
Same again.
<more deletia.....>
ObPoem
--------
keeping the big O
happy,
dancing,
si! si!
--
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
Adi |
Faculty of Technology | Ummmmm.......Er..Ah.
Kingston University |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
smo...@hal.hahnemann.edu
funny, i knew you were lying about the titty bar thing before you came
forward with your confession. i mean i did say you were an artist, did i
not? yes, i did. perhaps the largest contradiction in an artist's repetoire
is her/his ability to get at the truth through incredible lies. however, i
still don't understand your obsession with "mainstreaming" poetry, especially
with HIStory right in our fucking faces. i am not interested in changing the
world. i am interested in art. that is it. however, since you mention the
idea of "not talking down" to those who don't understand. why the fuck should
i? i mean i worked goddamn hard to get where i am in my study of what poetry
may be and what it definitely isn't. i didn't even read books until i was
twenty-one. i started keeping a journal the year before that, and i am
twenty-five now. i haven't had the formal training you have had, because i can't
go any deeper into debt than i already am. i met my mentor at a poetry reading
and since then i have stopped going to them because a) they are not as trendy
as they were a couple of years ago, and b) most of the poetry sucked.
kathy jo, figure out who your audience is and then check your raving tongue
at the door. raving tongues rave on and that is it. frankly, everything you
have said to us, i have heard before. you mentioned ai, cruelty and the
killing floor is one of the most devastating collections of poetry i have
ever read in my life. i gave it away to an ex-whore dying of aids. figured
she might want to read something before she goes. she is a friend, but who
else has read ai and who knows ai as city from the bible?
everybody has a voice, i believe that entirely, don't ever think otherwise
of me. however, not everybody's voice will be heard, no matter how hard
you try. look on me, as your reality check, your devil's advocate
(incidentally, i was born into the position). if you make your duty to change
the world, then so be it, i am telling you art won't do that no matter how much
you bring it down "to their level." those people who you describe as being
in need of poetry, who can't understand the SURREALISTIC BULLSHIT AND DIDACTIC
DRIBBLE would rather read the newspaper. i am certain of this because i am
these people you are talking about. i just happen to have educated myself.
there was a time when there was no newspapers, and perhaps that is when poetry
might have been heard in the taverns and on the street corners. but in this
world there are too many mediums that people enjoy more than poetry.
i have a degree in history from james madison university and a strong
background in psychology and psychoanalysis from shelving books at this medical
facility's library, in the heart of philadelphia, where i am currently
employed. there will be no poetic revolutions. the only revolution left is
the revolution of the individual and self-awareness, of which will happen with
or without poetry/art. you want to make people think about things, talk to
them on trains and buses, in gas stations, on barstools, in their back yards,
on the steps of family court, at the hot dog stand, at the ball-park,
elevators, inside large refrigerators, cornfields, mine fields, but please
don't recite them poetry from a book or your memory; they'll think you're
a fucking nut and they'll make funny faces, look at you strange, and say
wow when your done. big fucking deal. you want change the world, start
having a few conversations and don't muck them up with art. ask somebody
how they're doing and really fucking mean it. give them pieces of yourself,
real pieces, not poetry/art and eventually they'll open up to you. once
they open up to you, then maybe they'll turn around and pull the same rotten
trick on somebody else and before you know it, we're all talking to each other
and telling the truth, and then there would be no fucking need for art. but
until that happens, don't try to put the burden on me, as a goddamn artist,
to save the fucking world. i never wanted to be one, but as it turns out, it
is all i am qualified to do. this world was shit when i came into it, and
it will be shit when i am tossed out of it. i don't want that responsibility
and i don't have to have it. i'm living check to check and trying to have a
fucking life worth living. get it. you want to change the world, bring back
conversations, real talk, not poems, cultured or not, with conversation there
is no such boundaries if you know how to do it. life is not art, art is not
life. don't confuse the issue. the only art that is dead and has been dead
for a long time, is conversation. and what does that take? it takes a voice
and least one ear and not much experience or learning, although that does make
things more interesting.
sincerely,
james.
p.s. and don't bullshit me anymore. you want to be famous and that is it.
you want everybody to read joetry. you want to prove something to yourself
and all the people who fucked with you. i say good luck and mean it entirely.
i am in it for the same reasons.
Mike Finley
It is interesting that we are all so terrifically ambivalent about poetry.
t seems like our salvation one moment, and our punishment the next.
If we love it, what about it do we love? Individual poems? Writers? A feeling you sometimes get?
I think there have been poets in every category who have been great. Rene Char was a surrealist, but he suffered unspeakably in concentration camp, and came back to write about it.
The -- one -- terrible thing is, we even mistrust the instinct for truth. Kathleen is trying very energetically to tell her truth. And I suspect it is the very effort that makes some of us draw back. So much hunger and passion -- how trustworthy is it?
Could it be that we are all strangers and must earn one another's respect the old fashioned way -- by learning about one another slowly, giving each other the benefit ofthe doubt?
:x
Kathleen J. Kramer (kk...@andrew.cmu.edu) wrote:
: TO JAMES SMOLENS WHO WAS NICE BUT STILL MAKES ME A LITTLE ANGRY. BUT
: well thanks.
: kathy jo
: kathy jo
--
- mike finley
mfi...@skypoint.com
Anemone of the People
smo...@hal.hahnemann.edu
saying, yeah, i'll revise my poems as soon as i get this straw out of
my nose, james you're a filthy junkie, why don't you revise some poems
today. bravado, i believe is what its called and it would be nice if
we were an audience that needed bravado, but unfortunately we are not.
know your fucking audience, didn't they teach you that in that writing
program. everybody here is just about sick of bravado. once again,
i only know this from experience. post your poems and we will read them.
alrice? rice. let the marriage begin.
jrs.
Michael Knauf
: Kathleen J. Kramer (kk...@andrew.cmu.edu) wrote:
All sorts of hartfelt stuff. (deleted)
Kathy Jo, (can I call you that?)
Amen.
Keep your right up. I started writing out of pain too. I won't even
pretend to have delt with the shit you have. Keep fighting. Even better,
Keep writing and keep posting poems. I wont say I like everything about
them, I didnt respond to the first one because of mixed feelings, but
keep posting.
To the rest of you:
You can critique a poem without attacking the poet. Some poet's are more
sensitive than others. Kathy Jo seems to have more invested then most,
and if all she's doing is venting steem, I say fine.
But, I think theres more than that in her poetry. Let's encourage her
and see more of what's she's offering.
My quarter,
Michael
Michael Knauf
: kathy jo
,
i am interested in art. that is it. however, since you mention the
: idea of "not talking down" to those who don't understand. why the fuck should
: i? i mean i worked goddamn hard to get where i am in my study of what poetry
: may be and what it definitely isn't. i didn't even read books until i was
: twenty-one. i started keeping a journal the year before that, and i am
: twenty-five now.
I have the same problem you have, I also tend to speak as with the voice
of authority, but in 5 years of reading, maybe 6 years of writing, you
claim an awful lot of authority. Let's start a discusion on what poetry
is, and where it belongs, I think Poetry for me is a bigger thing
than it may br for you, but I'd like to see more discussion of
poetry - serious discussion, not ranting and raving. You said a
few things is this post I have to comment on. Maybe it'll start
a healthy exercise of this art of conversation.
i am telling you art won't do that no matter how much
: you bring it down "to their level." those people who you describe as being
: in need of poetry, who can't understand the SURREALISTIC BULLSHIT AND DIDACTIC
: DRIBBLE would rather read the newspaper. i am certain of this because i am
: these people you are talking about. i just happen to have educated myself.
: there was a time when there was no newspapers, and perhaps that is when poetry
: might have been heard in the taverns and on the street corners. but in this
: world there are too many mediums that people enjoy more than poetry.
Check out the stats for newspaper readership. Go to the library and pick
up a newspaper from 50 years ago, try anything, the sports section is
good for this example, and read a few columns. Now go to your corner
store, read the same kind of stories and compare the quality of writing.
The problem is education. The solution is education. Here in Miami they
started posting poetry in the bus stops, old stuff, new stuff, and the
people liked it. Many people do not choose to ignore poetry, they
never are exposed to it. Poetry is fundamental to language, language
is fundamental to communication, communication is fundamental to
peace.
: i have a degree in history from james madison university and a strong
: background in psychology and psychoanalysis from shelving books at this medical
: facility's library, in the heart of philadelphia, where i am currently
: employed. there will be no poetic revolutions. the only revolution left is
: the revolution of the individual and self-awareness, of which will happen with
: or without poetry/art.
I have a degree in English/Creative Writing - Poetry/Philosophy from the
University of Miami. The revolution of the individual is a poetic
revolution and cannot take place without art.
.
you want to make people think about things, talk to
: them on trains and buses, in gas stations, on barstools, in their back yards,
: on the steps of family court, at the hot dog stand, at the ball-park,
: elevators, inside large refrigerators, cornfields, mine fields, but please
: don't recite them poetry from a book or your memory; they'll think you're
: a fucking nut and they'll make funny faces, look at you strange, and say
: wow when your done. big fucking deal. you want change the world, start
: having a few conversations and don't muck them up with art.
I want to change the world. I always bring art into my conversations. For
a poet, you have lot's of hostility towards poetry. I guess thats not all
that uncommon, but don't disparage your own self-proclaimed path to the
top.
ask somebody
: how they're doing and really fucking mean it. give them pieces of yourself,
: real pieces,
Give them poetry.
I deleted quite a few more lines here, because the self-righteous self-pity
was too much for me. How can you have civilization without culture. I think
you only see culture in the poses of the wannabees, how about those of us
who save their pennies to see the ballet? or buy books of poetry? A group
of my friends since high school have gotten together, lit candles, spread
the massage oil around and Read Poetry aloud to each other for. Stuff
we write, stuff we read, rap lyrics, anything. We are not all educated,
we are not all cultured, we are poor and rich, we are middle class,
we want to change the world we couldnt give a shit.
We find common groung in art.
I have yet to find someone who
Can't understand art,
Has no place for poetry,
Who,
If you just once, show art,
read poetry.
Try it and see,
Give them bread with understanding
Give them water with words
Educate the masses,
if you would be free.
Let's talk. This is an open invitation for discussion. E-mail or in
public. Practice what you preach.
Michael
Gary Spencer
send them via mail so I can index 'em.
Run like the wind, fields of gold
Fire pulsing in veins, trying to behold
The meaning of it all, what you've been told
God of war, who cannot save
Peaceful people, for peace did crave
Like the ancestors, retreat to the cave
Will never believe, our culture dies
The spirits abandon us, the greywolf cries
Watching village smoke, ascension into the skies ..
Dreadnought [Assault] '94
Infiniti
~~~~~~~~
Crouching low on desert floor, crisp breeze blowing
Hair standing on end, rhythmic thumping growing
Standing up slowly, quiver at the ready, time to face the horsemen
Circling around your position, they dismount, there is no stopping them.
Dreadnought [Assault] '94