Sassy Gay Friend: Eve

I think these videos are funny. I am getting ready to move on Sunday. I don't live in a van down by the river; I live in a motel down on Colfax, but it's just a temporary thing until a place opens up for me.


Someone I admire recently asked for my opinion about Contemporary American Poetry, so I'm going to reflect on that a bit before I answer. My initial reaction was of course crepe paper black hanger negative in that it's a mess and unfair, but the reality is that it is alive and vibrant and very diverse. I do think sometimes marketing comes into play a bit too much like over at the Poetry Foundation, but I suppose that's what bureaucracies have to rely on, marketing, hustlers etc. I wish the presentation of poetry was less lopsided, and should I get into why I believe this is the case or not? I don't know. It seems the self-appointed avant garde is the new cool thing, but there's lots of good poetry out there that can't be classified in a narrow definition of that slant of poetics. And that doesn't make everything else confessional old hat etc. or elite "school of quietude," but I can sit around and blame the injustices of the po-biz world and not write or I can get busy and try to write again. My confidence has taken some major hits the last few years, but I am trying to get myself back together again and get back into writing more positively, where the process itself is enough. After all, that's all we really have in the end, the journey, the recovery, the healing poetry offers. I've decided the best path is to start writing again and be ambitious in the face of what seems overwhelming socioeconomic dynamics that leave my work in a limited place, but audience or perceived audience isn't everything. The pleasure we get from the process has to be our main endeavor.