OCCUPY POETRY
For decades poet, small press innovator, and critic Eric Grienke has been working in poetry and with poetry, that is to say writing, publishing it, and probably most importantly, questioning the aesthetics that makes up the craft of verse, free or no.
Poetry is everywhere. It happens. The internet has given the micro presses the ability to challenge the traditional university publishing house stranglehold on words. Art is thriving in the world, and very little of it resembles what the industry deems is quality poetry. Before his essays, I had not read Grienke before, which is part of problem Grienke discusses in the essays The Potential of Poetry. Part of modern poetry's problem is distribution and publication. If you are a self published poet the industry (the university system) assumes you are a hack, and if one doesn't write the cookie cutter creative writing workshop poem...then well, sorry Charlie, you're out of luck, you don't win our annual press open competition. Poets exist in small galaxies of small town academia, writing groups, coffee house gangs, and yes, universities. To score a national book contract and/or a reading tour is equivalent to joining the industry, which for better or for worse, is the face of quality, or what passes for quality in poetry. Grienke argues that the very nature of these houses and institutions narrow the scope of poetry . It all grows in on itself, and like a rat king, its hard for one beast to escape the knots of the others. And the internet has exploded the self publishing and micro specialty publishers, where Grienke argues, is probably where the next visionary will come from; a loner working with words, words, words. You see, Grienke champions the poetic challenge, defying critics who look for “accessibility” in poetry, willing and wanting to play with language. The potential is there.
For Grienke, poetry is spiritual, and he aptly describes what happens with good poetry “a poem doesn't happen on a page. The reader is the poet” and based on the consciousness of the audience the poem happens.
Grienke's been around for a while, knocking back poetry and promoting the self published anti-establishmentnt poetry movement (many of the essays share an anti-McPoem snarl, and a stick-it to the English teachers of academia rhetoric) and he's seen it all, and the essays here serve to open Grienke's life long dialogue with poetry to his audience.
Grienke's politics are on display in his newest volume of poetry, Traveling Music, which is aptly named, for the poetry Grienke's writes is like a well worn country blues record; quiet natural moments, and lightning snarls of foot stomping passion. Grienke balances his voice between working class and old man mystic, perhaps evoked by the nature he captures, or the haiku inspired poems “Lunar Fog,” “Japanese Bones,” and “Deep Moorings,” among others.
Grienke's knowledge of quiet natural scenes is honed, such as in “Shadows” where “Blueberries/Grow in cedar swamps/Favored by the bears.” The poet is at home in nature, and in the prose poem “Kayak Lessons” passes down lessons of living with the natural world, how to live, and of course how to paddle a kayak. “Direction,/ concentration, perception. You become the paddle...”
His voice is comfortable with many tropes, not just natural ones. The section “Mild Violence” uses the metaphors of movie house monsters to address the monsters of our modern day. Media junkies become the snatched bodies of alien pods, and the bride of Frankenstein is a spoiled bridezilla princess, the Vampires are all the crooked and corrupt that run the world's machinations.
The final section, Persona, is elegiac and sparse, a world of roadkill, “ancient/pockmocked battlefield” and “Galaxies/Hearts of light/Years away.” Grienke's world is imprinted with a touch of surrealism; a bit of absurdity poking out like a clown's nose at stark reality.
In his essay “The Potential of Poetry” Grienke lays out ten concepts he sees more potential for in our collective poetic future, which include, but are not limited to, the use of multiple personae, real time reportage, and non-linear sequencing, areas Grienke explores, practicing what he preaches.
And that's the real message Grienke brings to his work. Live your art. Exercise it. Go outside and play.
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