Postmodern Poetry

Okay.

Is it just me, or is junk email starting to get really...beautiful?

From an item in my junk mail the other day, attached to an advertisment for various penis-enhancing drugs:
"Then he slowly rolled over on his side and began the terrible job of getting to his knees again.
The next clipping was from page one of the Bakersfield Journal.
Or at the end of Chapter 9, Fiery Doom, he'd be tied to a chair in a burning warehouse."

What?

Sort of awesome and evocative, right?

Now, I know that they just have to attach text to get through junk filters, but that's really pretty.

I sort of half-remember a story from the '30s or so, maybe even earlier, when "Modern" poetry was starting to be a real movement, and there was this whole debate amongst the critics about whether or not some of these poets were expressing themselves legitimately and artistically, or if the whole movement was more or less a gimmick, and just crap. Some critic wrote a poem with words pulled at random out of the dictionary, and submitted it anonymously to a literary journal that specialized in modern poetry- it was, of course, accepted and published and recieved quite a warm review, and then the critic who submitted the poem unveiled his trick and then there was more debate, etc...

Well, what if there is a poet somewhere out in the world who is in an opposite position: a legitimate poet who is sending out junk emails to pay the bills, but in place of the gibberish that usually is tacked on to those things, he or she is putting exquisite little poems into the emails, in the hope that someone out there actually reads them?

I've also noticed that all of these drug-related junk emails I get have the words "Tora! Tora! Tora!" across the top of the page, which is kind of weird, too.

Is it all some big literary conspiracy? Are there poets and history buffs in Asia trying to improve our sex lives through illegal Viagra? What's up with that?

Navel-gazing

I've been spending a lot of time on my computer recently: I finally got a MySpace account, (for reasons much too pathetic to get into), have been emailing like a motherfucker for my day job, and dealing with evites, and this and that and whatever, and blah blah blah in cyberland, and I don't think, despite my definite web presence, that I have really joined the e-revolution.

Here's the problem: I don't understand the acronyms, I can't type incomplete sentences, I can't even send a text message without proper grammar and punctuation. I tend to get really wordy. If brevity is the soul of wit, I have neither. Or am neither. Whatever.

But is it just me? Doesn't anyone else write too much? (Women Who Write Too Much?) Am I an email email laughingstock?
When I write people, I just get carried away. And I sometimes get a little annoyed with people who dash off cryptic, one-line replies to my carefully thought-out missives. I like to write. I do. I like to write TO people. And I want to engage in some kind of thoughtful/funny/sentimental exchange with people. Think of those hard covers in the New Yorker book reviews: "The Letters of Satre and Camus". "The Correspondence of Henry Miller and Anais Nin." What will the boutique presses publish in the next century? The email exchanges of me and some guy?

Despite my Freinsdter, MySpace, Evite, and Blogger accounts, I'm a Luddite at heart. And a little pretentious. Let's be honest.

I finally gave in...come on up and see me sometime...on MySpace.

No, Really.

Okay.
No one will believe me, but this is absolutely a true anecdote:

My friend Todd and I were walking from the Lower East Side to West 4th Street the other night, and when we approached 7th Ave, we saw a cavalcade of emergency vehicles blocking the street and an army of cops- some of them in riot gear, with body armor and the works. They'd blocked off the Christopher station of the 1/9, and there was a big crowd of people around. Todd and I kind of sidled into the crowd to see what was going on, and a woman next to us tapped a cop on the shoulder and asked what was going on. "Alligator.", he said. "No, really.", the woman said. "Alligator in the subway.", the cop said again.

What's next? The proverbial 300 lb goldfish in the sewer?

Only in New York, kids.

One of the most profound things I've ever seen....I was drunk at the time, but it still never fails to move me in some way, drunk or sober.

Tonight: 1st Avenue and 4th Street

A Youngish Woman walks down the street. She is carrying several bags, at least one of which seems really heavy. Light, misty rain.

A VERY OLD WOMAN: HHHHHAAAAAAAA-aaaaaaaaAAAAAAYYYYYY!!!!!!
(She is leaning heavily against a fence. She has a cane.)

Youngish Woman: (stops; looks around) Yes?

Very Old Woman: Excuse me, could you help me cross the street?

Youngish Woman: (This is really too cliched for words.) Sure. Yeah, of course. (Not knowing what, precisely, to do.)

Very Old Woman: C'mere. (Gestures with cane, rather awkwardly.)

Youngish Woman: Um...kay. (Walks towards her.)

Very Old Woman: You'll have to put your bags on that side, so I can hold on.

Youngish Woman: Oh, yeah, okay. (Painfully shifts bags.) How's that?

Very Old Woman: Hold your arm stiffer, so's I can hold on. C'mon.

Youngish Woman: Oh. Like this?

(The Youngish Woman has to hunch over a bit- the Very Old Woman is much smaller than she is. This hunching, coupled with the very heavy bags gives her a curious, shuffling gait much closer to that of the Very Old Woman. They walk.)

Very Old Woman: Great. I have to go to seventh street.

(This is bad news. The Youngish Woman was only in this for the street crossing, and now she's committed to several blocks with this aged stranger leaning on her arm.)

VOW: Do you live in the neighborhood?

YW: No, I, uh, live in Brooklyn.

VOW: Oh. Which train do you take?

YW: The L. At fourteenth street.

VOW: Oh. Where do you live in Brooklyn?

YW: In Williamsburg.

VOW: That's a Polish neighborhood.

YW: Parts, yes.

VOW: Well, that's nice. Polish. Safe, huh? And you like it?

YW: I do.

VOW: Lots of Polish.

YW: And pierogis.

VOW: Oh! Yes. You like those too.

YW: Yeah...

VOW: Where are you from?

YW: Iowa.

VOW: Ireland?

YW: No...IOWA. Although, well, kind of Ireland. A few generations ago. (lame joke.)

VOW: Oh. The sweaters. They make beautiful sweaters.

YW: They do. The Aran sweaters. That's...do you knit?

VOW: The cables.

YW: Yeah.

VOW: I...I have a balcony. I live over there on fourth. I used to live on St. Marks, after I got married, in '47...we had a room, and do you know how much we paid for rent?

YW: Oh, don't...

VOW:(Stops. Looks at YW.) Seventeen dollars.

YW: OH. Wow. That's amazing.

VOW: Yes. We were on the top floor. I made sure to carry things down or up when I went, you know, so's I wasn't going up and down all day...

YW: Yeah.

VOW: And we shared a bathroom down the hall with the neighbors. But then the law changed. And you had to have your own bathroom.

YW: Hmmm....I...(Thinking of a place she looked at in the East Village not too long ago..)

VOW: Now I have a balcony. AND THE PIGEONS.

YW: Pigeons?

VOW: (in a whisper.) They SHIT all over the balcony.

YW: Oh?

VOW: All over. (Nods, bangs her cane on sidewalk for emphasis.)

YW: Are they noisy?

VOW: Yes. Very annoying. I filled a bucket the other day with water and Clor-Ax, and I scrubbed so hard at all of their SHIT. Some of the water got on the neighbor's balcony. She's Chinese. Her balcony is covered in shit, too. But now mine's clean. Hers is covered in SHIT. (Gives the YW a meaningful look which the YW cannot decipher.)

YW: Oh.

VOW: I scrubbed and scrubbed.

YW: Uh-huh.

VOW: I'm going to meet my friend at MacDonald's. I heard it was supposed to rain later.

YW: I heard that too. It's getting...

VOW: I'm Rose, by the way.

YW: Oh. Nice to meet you Rose. I'm Jordan.

Rose: Nice to meet you too. Thanks for helping me. I shout and yell, and so many people just run away.

Jordan: Oh...

Rose: It's like they think they'll never get old.

Jordan: (forced laugh, thinking of mortality.)

Rose: (stops. Another meaningful look.) I'm eighty-four.

Jordan: Well, you....

Rose: Maaaaaaaarrrrrriiiiieeeeeeee! There's my friend. Maaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrriiiiiiiieeeeeee!!!!

Jordan: Oh...

Rose: Where are you going?

Woman across the street: (Unintelligible)

Rose: Hang on! (to jordan) That's my friend. She's a holy-roller. You can't imagine. Maaarrriiiieee! Stay there! We're coming over!

(The two women shuffle across the street to meet Marie and another woman.)

Marie: Oh, God bless you, young lady.

Jordan: Oh, it's fine- no problem...

Other woman: God bless, God bless...

Rose: (gives another meaningful look to Jordan) Thank you, very much. No one else stopped...

Jordan: (shifting bags off of her very sore shoulder) It's fine. Really, no problem. Have a good night....

(Jordan walks away amidst repeated thank you and God blesses, feeling proud of herself.)