Skip to main content

Vittorio Carli's work is punk rock #poetry

A Passion for Apathy: The Collected and Rejected Poems of Vittorio Carli, 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 the book included his hand-written edits, which reminds me that poetry isn't confined to slick, glossy, university backed volumes, but pops and sizzles in small presses. Still. Technology has infiltrated poetry so that the most cash strapped starving artist/small press can create copy that appears in design and aesthetics as if it came from a cash rich publishing house. The Press of the 3rd Mind,  a Chicago based indie, bound and printed Carli's book, which means people touched, and handled, and cared for the book.  For someone who is isolated from a local poetry rich community (the region is dripping with it, mind you, if you care a two hour drive through farmland and small towns) it is evidence that poetry is alive and kicking.




Comments

Popular posts from this blog

#PresidentBannon, feudal #America. Dugin's influence on the White House

Op Ed. Ramble. Steve Bannon is often described as a Neo-Nazi, or just a Nazi. He really isn’t. That’s way too simple.  He knows his Nazi imagery and iconography, evident from the “America First” inauguration speech, the lingo of the campaign, plus the regime’s early policy. Bannon claims to be a Nationalist, one with an originalist view of the Constitution, much like Neil Gorsuch, Trump’s pick for SCOTUS.  So what do you get when you thread a Fascism fetish, Old-School Constitutional thinking, and capitalism?   American feudalism. A loose federal government, controlled by a strong military, the oligarchy ruling class lording over the spoils of the states which would possibly be recombined, even, into loose nations, pooling resources, and trade leverage. Dystopia schmopia.  And how would that even happen?   We’ll have to go through Russia to get there. If you’re just catching onto Steve Bannon, and Stephen Miller for that matter, two power hungry conservatives ru

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.

Common Core Standards and Urban Decay Inspire First Poem for 30/30 May

This May I will be giving my time to write 30 new poems for Tupelo Press, which is in the throes of raising money via crowd-sourcing for new projects. They are non profit. Grants remain at recession lows. So, this morning as I met with my graduating seniors during their one on one conference (we discuss plans for success, grades, papers, attendance, etc) I pulled up Common Core Apps while waiting for a senior to fetch his book for his book report. The app is Common Curriculum , a cool lesson plan and web posting service. For some reason the idea struck to adopt some of the standards for a United States of Poetry--which sounded dystopian and Orwellian to my ears. So I mashed up some made up standards with some urban decay riffs. The urban decay riffs will need tweaking as they don't really strike any new visual ground, but rather cull standard tropes together. The made-up Common Core riffs are meta, and will also need to be made consistent. There is obvious commentary about CC