How to be alone

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I'm a guy who loves a bit of poetry. When I mention this to people, I get the occassional jab about my lack of manliness (apparently back hair only grows where poetry doesn't) but I feel pretty confident that real men appreciate beauty in the written and spoken word. I remember when I was in Cleveland attending med school and a friend was catching a ride from me after class and noticed a copy of the book "Poems That Make Grown Men Cry" sitting on my front seat. This discovery led to being offered a tampon which I graciously declined since I have a stash in my car in case my wife should need one.

I don't mind being teased about my love for poetry. There are times when it strikes me right in the heart muscles and grabs me tight. I'm not too macho to admit that I my face peed a bit while reading Ben Jonson's 'On My First Sonne':

Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy;My sin was too much hope of thee, lov'd boy.Seven years tho' wert lent to me, and I thee pay,Exacted by thy fate, on the just day.O, could I lose all father now! For whyWill man lament the state he should envy?To have so soon 'scap'd world's and flesh's rage,And if no other misery, yet age?Rest in soft peace, and, ask'd, say, "Here doth lieBen Jonson his best piece of poetry."For whose sake henceforth all his vows be such,As what he loves may never like too much.

If that doesn't get you, then there is something wrong with you.

Well, as much as I love poetry, I have to admit that there is a lot of it that I just don't get. A small bundle of it speaks to me while the rest bounces around my mind like random words thrown together on a page. But when a poem speaks to me, it often REALLY speaks to me. Such is one I found on YouTube of all places.

Many people automatically assume that I'm a natural extrovert because I get chatty with people quickly. On the contrary, I am quite introverted and get a bit of anxiety when I'm in crowds. I just hide it better than some. I actually enjoy doing things alone. I go to movies alone. I walk around the mall alone. I often sit up late alone. I do like people too but there are times when I just want to be by myself. So, Andrea Dorfman's poem 'How To Be Alone' really got me. Check it out:

Book Review: Useless Landscapes, or A Guide for Boys: Poems by D.A. Powell

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Useless Landscape, or A Guide for Boys: Poems by D.A. Powell
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

There is no doubt that D.A. Powell is a gifted poet. His verses are lyrical and beautiful and he creates vivid depictions of California landscapes in the early poems of this collection. At first I found myself in love with this collection until further in it because looser and more juvenile. Fantastic imagery was replaced by crude depictions of casual same-sex debauchery.

While it is undeniable that Powell has a way with words and can make any situation musical and witty, I personally didn't find the subject matter of several of the poems endearing or relatable. While other reviewers have called these poems 'homosexual love poems', they weren't even that. They were depictions of random vulgar sexual experiences. While I agree that these topics may have merit for poetry in the eyes of many people, I found myself uninterested and unimpressed during these specific poems which was unfortunate because the other stuff in this collection was quite good.

Overall this collection felt like a weird disjointed mix of a homosexual campfire poems and another side of beautifully scripted poetic landscapes. Not sure I can recommend this book overall to many people besides my LGBT friends but I may perhaps check out another selection by Powell.

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Book Review: Horoscopes for the Dead by Billy Collins

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Horoscopes for the Dead by Billy Collins
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

I've been on a poetry kick lately which has lead me to a discovery: I detest most modern poetry. While I admittedly prefer rhyming lyrical poetry to the conversational style that is currently popular, I enjoy it all in moderation.

What I don't like is that poetry such as this seems to have no point. It discusses very banal subjects in a very bland way. I felt like Billy Collins was simply collecting random thoughts in short bursts rather than waxing poetic. I guess this would be fine as well if those random thoughts had something interesting about them but overall I didn't feel a connection with anything in this collection of poetry.

If this book is meant to represent the best of modern American poetry, then I think I will stick with the classics. Of course I am being dramatic because there are some contemporary poets that create beautiful and fascinating work (I am currently enjoying Leigh Stein's collection 'Dispatch from the future' and Sarah Kay is quite incredible) but I can't appreciate the stuff in this book at all.

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Geeky Poetry: Week 3

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Feeling Sorry for Myself While Standing Before the Stegosaurus at the Natural History Museum in London

by Michael Derrick Hudson

Oh yes my friend, I've been there: the insects battering at
the armored lids of your yellowish eyes

the moment you pecked your way out of that rotten shell
and dug out from your sandpit nest.....

And I've experienced the thud thud thud of your days,
the indigestible monotony

of everything's spiny orangy-green husk. How the sun
gets daily whiter and hotter and just

a little bit closer. The week spent gobbling down your

own weight's worth of whatever. One stumpy
footprint after another, tracking the trackless, squelching

across last night's marsh into a volcano-spattered today
hip-deep in ash and yawning

a muzzleful of sulfur. Swishing through stiff fronds,

we drag an unbearable load of tombstones on our back
and a fat lugubrious tail, shit-smutched and

spiked. The flattening of the razor grass. The forgotten
clutch of eggs. Our shrill yaps

and groans. That tiny gray walnut
for a brain and the fat black tongue tough as a bootsole.....

They've explained us away a dozen times: some passing
meteorite or another, the rat-like mammals

eating our pitiful young, all kinds
of new weather. Issueless, but far too stupid to be forlorn,

we trundle along the pink quartz shore
to sip at the lukewarm edge of yet another evaporating sea. 

Geeky Poetry: Week 2

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The Sciences Sing a Lullabye

by Albert Goldbarth

Physics says: go to sleep. Of course
you're tired. Every atom in you
has been dancing the shimmy in silver shoes
nonstop from mitosis to now.
Quit tapping your feet. They'll dance
inside themselves without you. Go to sleep.

Geology says: it will be all right. Slow inch
by inch America is giving itself
to the ocean. Go to sleep. Let darkness
lap at your sides. Give darkness an inch.
You aren't alone. All of the continents used to be
one body. You aren't alone. Go to sleep.

Astronomy says: the sun will rise tomorrow,
Zoology says: on rainbow-fish and lithe gazelle,
Psychology says: but first it has to be night, so
Biology says: the body-clocks are stopped all over town
and
History says: here are the blankets, layer on layer, down and down.

Geeky Poetry: Week 1 (a second helping)

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The nutritional value of brains

stooped behind a guarded wall
I watch the world devoured
and consider the nutritional value
and taste of brains
modified by the stuff
packed inside

that kid I’m watching there:
his head ripped off
had brains so sweet
(lobes of confectioners sugar)
filled with cartoons or video games
Nothing good is contained inside

so the undead search on
with his saccharine taste
dripping from their lips

my voyeuristic glances
unearth a fantasy draft interrupted
by flesh-eating hordes
in search of tonight’s fix
They end up disappointed
by lack of sustenance and flavor

suddenly it dawns on me
that the apocalypse will
be short-lived
since those brains filled
with Mieville and Le Guin
number few among the living

Far more are the brains
filled with rubbish
and artificial sweetener
They will never sustain a
starving mass plagued
with decomposition

so I plan to wait it out
For if zombies survive
on the nutritional value of brains
it won’t be long before they
expire of malnutrition

Geeky poem of the week

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How I saved Planet Earth 

by Raj Arumugam

in the deserted streets last night
the Aliens pointed their laser
and equipment at me
and one of them said:
“Take me to your Leader.”
And hoping to pocket
all the presents
they might have brought
I said:
“Well, I am the Leader
of all Planet Earth.”
And the Aliens
conferred awhile
(as I waited in anticipation
of the presents they might pull out for me)
and one of them turned to me
and the gender-negative Creature said:
“Hail, Leader of All Planet Earth!
Our Intelligence Measurement Devices
give a Low Life Form reading on you;
and so we can deduce
what even Lower Life Forms you must lead” –
and then this gender-negative Creature
turned to the other Aliens and declared:
“Lets’ go. This planet’s not worth our time.”
And thus did I save the Earth
though I wish, at least, those Aliens
had left me some presents for my trouble…