What's happening in modern poetry

I wish to say I was more versed (pun intended) in the vast underbelly of independent poetry happening throughout the western world, but the fact is the sheer weight of those serving the poetic muse is deep as it is broad. And I have to small boys, and they take precedence over poetry. However, over the last week I have the pleasure of reading Glenn Sheldon (allegory smashed up with surrealistic language), Nick Martlatt (trippy long lines and short zen koans with a dark edge), among others, and what I find I generally enjoy. I admit I don't get some of it. Sheldon's Biogrpahy o the Boy who prayed to the god of foreheads perplexed me for most of the read, while Martlatt's How We Fall Apart lulled me times until he picked up the axe again.

I'm not really sure what my point is here, only to say I am encouraged by the depth of those who follow the poetic.

And poetry seems to me, a great medium for the internet age, where we take our reads and news in short form, rather than long form.

Twitter makes us more economical, Tumblr bends the blogger toward image, and Facebook allows us to be long-winded or brief.

Maybe the written word isn't so dead.

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Summer Poetry Reading in Rehoboth

If anyone's interested in a mid-summer run to Rehoboth's outlet malls, consider Tuesday, July 27th, and stop by the Rehoboth Beach Librar y for the summer poetry series. Besides moi, Denise Clemmons, poet and food critic for the Cape Gazette, and Sherry Chapplle, poet and professor. Excellent company. Books will be for sale afterwards. It's a quality series, and full of surprises. Garry Hanna has done a bang-up job organizing the summer series. Bring a few quarters to ward off the meter maid. Reading starts at 7:00 PM.

Out this week: Thirty Days: Best of the 30/30 Project. Featuring my poem "Love in Reverse"

Marie Gauthier of Tupelo Press selected one of my poems, "Love in Reverse" for Thirty Days : The best of the 30/30 Project Year One. It's one of a few anthologies to feature my work (cue haughty accent, spotlight, espresso, and French cigarettes). Hopefully you'll be hearing more from me over the next few months as projects near completion. Thanks for the support.

Vittorio Carli's work is punk rock #poetry

A Passion for Apathy: The Collected and Rejected Poems of Vittorio Carl i, a small press gem of punk rock poetry, carries poetic traditions in its teeth. Punk rock because of the in-your-face-anti-establishment irony and earnestness in Carli's presentation of his verse, traditional in the homage and muse tradition of poetry. He writes to and for those and that which enlarges his voice. Carli's work reads like a cross between cultural commentary/homage to persons as varied as Lawrence Welk to Woody Allen, to snapshots of socio-political unrest, which are flags of protest. My favorite is the “The Trouble with Librarians (for Andrea)” where Librarians are cast as the progenitors of closed information; they are “all closed books/with a couple of pages missing.” He's a poet, and I imagine him in some stacked room typing madly, or in transit, to and fro Chicago, scribbling on the back of brown paper bags. He works it. He's out there living poetry. Proof. My copy of t...

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