A couple weeks I go I offered up part one in a series on poetry vs. lyrics, noting from firsthand experience the differences between the two. In brief, I’ve always felt like it was wrong to call rock stars poets – even if their words are fantastic, as they often are, the very nature of bending words to suit a
Read moreLast night we watched the Final Cut of Blade Runner again, and if you don’t have this package I can’t recommend it highly enough. 25 years on, Ridley Scott was able to finally re-craft the film as he wanted it originally, and the result is a stunning achievement. Scott has been one of our greatest directors for a very long
Read moreReach out and touch me now Aphrodite said You aren’t the only one with armies in your head We’re fond of calling our great rock stars poets. Dylan is a poet. Springsteen is a poet. John Lennon was a poet. Jim Morrison (*gag*) was a poet. And so on. Certainly the first three (have) produced some marvelous words, but as
Read moreIt’s a totally new literary genre! Well, sorta. You may have noticed that mobile is getting to be a really big deal, and you may have noticed that Them Danged Kids® are texting until their thumbs fall off. You probably didn’t realize, though, the magnitude of mobile and the SMS phenomenon. There are now over 3 billion mobile phones in
Read moreI’ve long been convinced of two truths regarding poetry: 1: The easiest thing in the world to write is a love poem. 2: The hardest thing in the world to write is a good love poem. Accordingly, I admire the hell out of a writer who can produce a tribute to his/her eternal love without making me a little sick
Read moreAccording to the BBC, “Thomas Edison sent his agents round to the Poet Laureate’s home to record his voice on wax cylinders in 1890.” That poet laureate turns out to be none other than Alfred, Lord Tennyson. No, the voice quality isn’t great (as you’d expect), but what a marvelous revelation – to be able to hear one of the
Read moreNot long ago I was bitching about how utterly banal I think a lot of contemporary poetry is. Shortly thereafter I got a note from scrogue JS O’Brien saying he thought I might appreciate a poet he knew a little about, Brigit Pegeen Kelly. So I hit my Internets and tracked her down. The first poem of hers that I
Read moreWe live in an unfortunate age artistically. There is more freedom than ever, more tools for creation, more outlets to publish and display, but we have largely used this freedom to fetishize banality. The great leveling, as it were – everybody is an artist, everything is poetry. When I entered my Master’s program at Iowa State the prof who would
Read moreWe are the New World’s 13th generation, first citizens of the Next World: whiners, malcontents, slackers, bitching at the taste of boot; blind-stepping teledonnas, our avatars more human than human. Dark little rooms, catatonic terminal glow. We’re vagabonds, rummaging through the machinery of our parents’ high towers, ruthless tribes of marionettes jacked in the trance, the cult of computerized dance,
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lullaby pit 