New Poem by Maurice Oliver

Atmospheric Pressure: A Work-Week Planner

Monday

Exercise, then add polka-dots to my raisin bran thighs.
Later, bake a strawberry ocean of onions chiseled from
tiny birdseed. Remember to flatter each page.

Tuesday

Organize a fight club. Put some fickle in my forensic
kinship then spit polish it. Take the eye glass back to
to mall and exchange it for an Albanian bee hive. One
I can easily recognize.

Wednesday

Do a quick inventory of every bruised locksmith using
a zip gun. Leave my galoshes at home. Pretend the
previous spelling bee has derailed and wakes up in
solitary confinement. And do it in the dark.

Thursday

Call-off the impromptu hailstorm and replace it with a
photographer’s darkroom instead. Before dinner, mix
vermillion devilment into the Vatican wine.

Friday

Take a shower with a fresh bar o Norte Dame then quietly
die in the petting zoo just before a parenthesis cuts its way
through the barbed wire around a hero’s welcome of size
twelve sandals.

After almost a decade of working as a freelance photographer in Europe, Portland-based private tutor and poet Maurice Oliver returned to America in 1990. His poetry has appeared in numerous national and international publications and literary websites. His fourth chapbook is One Remedy Is Travel (Origami Condom). He edits the literary ezine Concelebratory Shoehorn Review.

Comments

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...".

THE SWIFT REPORT 2023

I am writing this post without much enthusiasm, but with a sense of duty. This blog will be 20 years old soon, and though I rarely post here anymore, I owe it some attention. Of course in 2023, "Swift" now means one thing only, Taylor Swift, the billionaire musician. Gone are the days when I was asked if I was related to Jonathan Swift. The pre-eminent cultural Swift is now alive and TIME PERSON OF THE YEAR. There is no point in belabouring the obvious with delay: 2023 was a low-point in the low annals of human history - war, invasion, murder, in too many nations. Hate, division, the collapse of what truth is, exacerbated by advances in AI that may or may not prove apocalyptic, while global warming still seems to threaten the near-future safety of humanity. It's been deeply depressing. The world lost some wonderful poets, actors, musicians, and writers this year, as it often does. Two people I knew and admired greatly, Ian Ferrier and Kevin Higgins, poets and organise

E Y E W E A R, THE BLOG - FREEDOM MEANS BEING UNAFRAID TO WRITE WHAT YOU THINK

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