Skip to main content

New Poem by Ben Mazer

Upon Waking with an Editorial Hangover
Some think that meter's had its bloody turn,
and that it should be buried in Keats' urn.
They feel that the experiments of Shelley
do nothing to assault the nerves to jelly.
They'd gladly give up struggling through Lord Byron,
prefer by far the simple prose of Styron.
Milton stops their blood and turns it cold,
while Wordsworth on his mountaintops seems old.
Even when it's roughened as in Ransom,
it is the New York Times that sets them dancin'.
While there are those who read the avant-garde,
excited that its formlessness is hard
for nearly everyone to understand;
like hungry wolves they travel in a band
and howl with vital passion at the moon,
finding in chaos beauty and a tune.
While I am neither for it or against it,
and call on language only as I've sensed it.
It seems I take my language as I find it;
mine is the more progressive form of blinded.
I am reborn -- unmetered -- lacking form;
I'll find my inspiration in a storm.



poem by Ben Mazer

Comments

dandiacal said…
"neither for it or against it, call on language only as I've sensed it."
Keep delivering the news that stays news!
Annemarie said…
I am passionate about sanguine sandwiches of well placed rhymes...

Popular posts from this blog

CLIVE WILMER'S THOM GUNN SELECTED POEMS IS A MUST-READ

THAT HANDSOME MAN  A PERSONAL BRIEF REVIEW BY TODD SWIFT I could lie and claim Larkin, Yeats , or Dylan Thomas most excited me as a young poet, or even Pound or FT Prince - but the truth be told, it was Thom Gunn I first and most loved when I was young. Precisely, I fell in love with his first two collections, written under a formalist, Elizabethan ( Fulke Greville mainly), Yvor Winters triad of influences - uniquely fused with an interest in homerotica, pop culture ( Brando, Elvis , motorcycles). His best poem 'On The Move' is oddly presented here without the quote that began it usually - Man, you gotta go - which I loved. Gunn was - and remains - so thrilling, to me at least, because so odd. His elegance, poise, and intelligence is all about display, about surface - but the surface of a panther, who ripples with strength beneath the skin. With Gunn, you dressed to have sex. Or so I thought.  Because I was queer (I maintain the right to lay claim to that

IQ AND THE POETS - ARE YOU SMART?

When you open your mouth to speak, are you smart?  A funny question from a great song, but also, a good one, when it comes to poets, and poetry. We tend to have a very ambiguous view of intelligence in poetry, one that I'd say is dysfunctional.  Basically, it goes like this: once you are safely dead, it no longer matters how smart you were.  For instance, Auden was smarter than Yeats , but most would still say Yeats is the finer poet; Eliot is clearly highly intelligent, but how much of Larkin 's work required a high IQ?  Meanwhile, poets while alive tend to be celebrated if they are deemed intelligent: Anne Carson, Geoffrey Hill , and Jorie Graham , are all, clearly, very intelligent people, aside from their work as poets.  But who reads Marianne Moore now, or Robert Lowell , smart poets? Or, Pound ?  How smart could Pound be with his madcap views? Less intelligent poets are often more popular.  John Betjeman was not a very smart poet, per se.  What do I mean by smart?

"I have crossed oceans of time to find you..."

In terms of great films about, and of, love, we have Vertigo, In The Mood for Love , and Casablanca , Doctor Zhivago , An Officer and a Gentleman , at the apex; as well as odder, more troubling versions, such as Sophie's Choice and  Silence of the Lambs .  I think my favourite remains Bram Stoker's Dracula , with the great immortal line "I have crossed oceans of time to find you...".