Tag Yeats

* an apologetic annotated anatomy of a reading

José Angel Araguz Leave a comment

This past Tuesday night I had the pleasure of taking part in Pretty Owl Poetry’s Online Reading Series.

The reading/interview was conducted through Google+ and was a blast despite a few technical difficulties. Because of the nature of the interview – specifically the part in which I am given permission to ramble and bumble in my own awkward way – I thought I’d share the link along with some of the highlights of the reading, so folks could navigate through my loquaciousness (as can be noted in the interview, the BIG words only come out in writing).

Follow along with the reading here.

HIGHLIGHTS

 from 3:49 – 10:45 = 3 poems!

Here is the “reading” portion of the reading. The pieces read are “Stream” (published by Pretty Owl Poetry here) as well as “Letter to Rainer Maria Rilke from NYC” (published in the Acentos Review here) and “Naos and the Spirit Picture” (published in a digital chapbook here).

from 11:08 – 14:24 = craft talk!

Here I respond to a question from editor Rose Huber about the piece “Stream” which has gone through several mutations since first being drafted in 2006.

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A little into the following question, I cut out both sound-wise and image-wise. Then I’m promptly replaced by this guy:

* oops *

* oops *

Despite his stern look and sudden goatee, I thank this gentleman for intervening for, because of him, folks are spared from having to deal with my teeth on camera which are HUGE.

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from 19:19 – 26:33 = blog! reading! astrology!

This stretch includes Kelly Andrews asking me both about the thinking behind this blog as well as reading.

Then, after mentioning the astrological underpinnings of the blog, Gordon Buchan jumps in and I totally geek out about astrology and writers.

Writers astrologically discussed:

– Kafka, Neruda (Cancer)
– Jack Gilbert (Aquarius)
– Rilke (Sagittarius)
– Charles Simic (Taurus)
– Yeats, Garrett Hongo (Gemini)
– Borges, Charles Wright, myself (Virgo)

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from 28:09 – 30:47 = mas craft talk!

Lastly, here Gordon jumps right back in and asks another question about craft which leads me to discuss ideas of lyricism and personal/generative distinctions between prose and poetry.

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Special thanks again to Rose, Kelly, & Gordon for inviting me to participate!

Between this reading and the release of “Naos: an introduction,” it’s been an unexpectedly big week.

Thank you to everyone who made it possible!

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Happy possibling!

Jose

* a more passionate saying with joel oppenheimer

José Angel Araguz Leave a comment

I don’t revise much these days…except in the interest of a more passionate syntax

(Yeats)

These words by Yeats were said later in his life to poet John Berryman on their one and only meeting. The idea in them is fascinating, the great poet having gotten to a point where the technical matters got down to phrasing, which is saying.

a more passionate saying

This is something I aspire to in my own writing, but also in my own reading. Weekly, I strive to find things that stop me for one reason or another.

In this week’s poem “Leave It To Me Blues” by Joel Oppenheimer, he goes about his particular saying through straightforward language and a lyric subtlety that disarms as much as surprises.

* blushing moon *

* this week’s round and round *

Leave It To Me Blues – Joel Oppenheimer

from the heart of a flower
a stalk emerges; in each fruit
there are seeds. we turn our
backs on each other so often,
we destroy any community of
interest. yet our hearts are
seeded with love and care sticks
out of our ears. but there is no
bridge unless it is the wind which
whistles our bare house, tearing
the slipcovers apart and constantly
removing the tablecloth covering
it (the table) like a shroud (the
shroud of what the table could mean,
if only we were hungry enough to
care), and we cut ourselves off
because we discovered each man is
an island, detached. man, the
mainland is flipped over the moon.
all i have to depend on is effort,
and the moon goes round and round
in the evening sky. my sons will
make it if they ever reach age,
but how to take care i dont know.
it doesn’t get better. on the other
hand, even with answers, where
would we be, out in the cold, with
an old torn blanket, and no one
around us to cry

***

Happy arounding!

Jose

*poem found in the anthology A Controversy of Poets.