Five Questions (and roughly the same number of answers) about Oulipost

So, I am super psyched to be participating in Oulipost this year. See here for details and an explanation. In short, it's an experimental form of poetry creation.




http://www.foundpoetryreview.com/oulipost/




April will be pretty busy on this blog, so be sure to check back often. The assignment is to respond every day in April to one of the prompts, so be prepared to be surprised and amazed and enthralled each day you read this blog.




In any case, on to the starting five questions about Oulipost






1. WHAT EXCITES YOU ABOUT OULIPOST?


My writing has always been pretty "traditional" which among other things means that it lacks some of the surprise and whimsy that I like in other people's writing. I very much like the idea that artificially imposed structures can actually free you up to be creative. And there's nothing more artificially imposed, I suspect, than Oulipost. This is kind of a cool chance for me to see how I respond to structure, with some public accountability attached that will ensure I stick with it.




2. WHAT, IF ANYTHING, SCARES YOU ABOUT OULIPOST?


The distinct possibility that on a given day I won't be able to produce anything that doesn't suck, and won't be able to do what I usually do in such cases, which is keep it to myself.




3. HAVE YOU WRITTEN EXPERIMENTAL OR FOUND POETRY BEFORE? IF
SO, TELL US ABOUT IT.


Never, ever, ever.



4. WHAT NEWSPAPER WILL SERVE AS YOUR SOURCE TEXT?


The Houston Chronicle, which I'll access and consume at my local starbucks and do my initial response there as well.




5. WHO’S YOUR SPIRIT OULIPIAN?


Ummm... Burt Reynolds?

Page and Spine, the long and the short

So, things have been humming along with my writing. I have kind of shifted into writing prose for a bit, but my backlog of poems is periodically getting accepted and published.


I feel the poetry coming back, but there's no particular reason to force it.


Here's a link to the latest pair that got published in an online venue, Page and Spine. They're both eclectic and voluminous, which is probably good for oddballs like me.


Here's the link to the poems


http://www.pagespineficshowcase.com/148/category/all/1.html


"amber of the moment' I started fiddling around with about a year ago, maybe a little less. The title is a line from Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five:


                  Billy licked his lips, thought a while, inquired at last: "Why me?"
                  "That is a very Earthling question to ask, Mr. Pilgrim. Why you? Why us for that matter? Why anything? Because this moment simply is. Have you ever seen bugs trapped in amber?"
                  "Yes." Billy, in fact, had a paperweight in his office which was a blob of polished amber    with three ladybugs embedded in it.
                  "Well, here we are, Mr. Pilgrim, trapped in the amber of this moment. There is no why."

The poem is kind of a short story, which speaks for itself, in broad contours. Sometimes people have very little in common other than their mutual obligations.


"the meaning of enough" is one I wrote a long time ago- it was one of the first poems I wrote when I started back into writing,  in the winter of 2007. It's also kind of a short story. The title comes from some online debate I witnessed about anti-natalism, where someone mangled the Martin Amis quote: "Weapons are like money; no one knows the meaning of enough."  I was thinking a lot at the time about how, in many ways, the lives of some mentally ill people are way more heroic than anything I could ever do. The link between those notions formed a story and it seemed to require a pretty tight structure.


It's my wife's favorite poem of mine, an opinion she seemed to be unique in, given responses of various editors over the years. But it has found its home.

Skive, or Wasting Time

As mentioned a while back, one of my poems came out in November in Skive Magazine, their final, farewell issue. The theme of the issue is "farewells" and my poem in it is called "amen; the faithful and the true."


Here is a link to where you can get the issue.


http://www.skivemagazine.com/sales_2013_11_November_Farewell.html


"skive" as it turns out, means "to avoid work or duty by staying away or leaving early." So that feels pretty fitting; I've done a lot of staying away AND leaving early.


Another poem of mine has been accepted. This seems to be kind of a slow burn in terms of when it comes out, and given my history, there's always a small chance the outfit will fold between now and when they send the check.


I lost a haiku contest.
Less said
Better


The writing continues to come back, bad haikus aside. Care and feeding are important.

Among the Families of the Earth... and transitions

I wrote my first new poem in a long time last week. It was good. It was a sign that I am starting to settle into the new routine. I still struggle with feeling guilty every time I write creatively or read for fun, because I should be working. But that seems to be subsiding.

I have a new poem that has been accepted. And the outlet for my last poem has gone out of business.

Empirical Magazine seemed really cool and I was really excited that they printed my poem. But then they went more or less out of business, so the issue my poem appeared in was the last one. you can get the e-book version of the issue here and it has some cool stuff:

http://empiricalmag.blogspot.com/

Here is the poem, as I wrote it. It's largely fictional, and I think the point is the biblical quote that is alluded to: "You only have I chosen of all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you for all your sins." Amos 3:2. There are a bunch of ways of reading this and I am not sure the way the character reads it. I wonder if there are some down-sides to so-called righteousness, if it creates barriers. Certainly, it's easy for the devout to be judgmental and unforgiving, and everything I read in the new testament suggests that these are every bit as bad as what is judged or unforgiven. This old testament fire and brimstone prophet can be read that way as well.

Here it is.

among the families of the earth

your father wakes; it’s five and cold,

steam; his breath, his head as it
is shaved. his wife, your mother,
stirs. the door clicks closed. the snow;
the shoveling, the salt; the half
mile to the bus on the Express.
its empty seats, he reads from
Amos, prays. but not for you.
 
perhaps not for his wife. the
listener, himself alone
and drifting through the morning
shards, will never tell.

the work is dirty, rodent eyes

from cages gleam. their foreign
ordered thoughts. the sawdust
always stinking. they breed;
mechanical and hostile. he records

his duty done, the bus again
the lights flick on as night
descends, the drifted sidewalk
(shovel, salt); the silent dinner
prayer; and living with
the consequences; sleep.

the best way out is always through

This one was published a while ago, and it's a print journal. The editors were very nice and encouraging, which always feels good. It's probably the publication I am happiest with, but I still have yet to find a home for some of what I think is my best work, and some of what Sherise thinks is my best work. Lately, I am getting rejection letters, either impersonal or mildly encouraging.

Given that this year has been pretty brutal in terms of time and energy to be creative, I'll take it.

Here it is, as it appeared in scissors and spackle.

http://www.scissorsandspackle.com/read/equino/current-issue-provate/poetry/richard-thompson/

the best way out is always through

the unpatched roof, the slip of ice on walking crossbeam, slick.
they found you thirty feet below; a steer had torn its stanchion
free and dragged it to the road, half-mad with thirst. They caught it
first then set about the feeding of the rest; and then they turned
to you: stiff in your soaked and frozen clothes. the balinghooks
that broke your fall had wedged themselves into your
chest, protruding, curved impossibly and complicating the work
they had. after an hour you became an unexpected
chore, a slab of frozen meat. they pried in vain and pulled
while younger Pierce was sent to fetch hot water, they sat
gathering breath and sweating from the work, drew lots for who
would bring your wife the news.

                                                  even my father, having loved
you more than anything he would before or since, felt nothing
but relief that it was someone else; already wishing you would
hurry up and melt enough to be pried free. Already thinking darkly
of his own: the long-cold breakfast, his own wife, her belly full,
his snow-snapped fences, night; the long cold days ahead of him

the nurse hung up the phone; restraints

As I mentioned earlier, this was published in Halfway Down the Stairs last winter. See here:

http://www.halfwaydownthestairs.net/index.php?action=view&id=329

I wasn't exactly sure I was happy with the decision about the line set up. Now that the moritorium has passed, here is the poem in the original form. I am pretty happy with it, but it was written a long time ago. It was one of the first ones I wrote back in 2007 when I first started writing again. It was originally more than twice the current length. I am glad I got it published before it disappeared entirely.

the nurse hung up the phone; restraints

until then chemical imbalance simply hid

a multitude of unforgiven sins we both
believed that it did not excuse the midnight
calls the smell the teeth the rotten shoes

when last we spoke I knew what loose
associations were you called me by my
fathers name and told me how to save
the world I felt every fraying strand of
thread rotating thoughts that dragged
and skipped and then unwound went dead.

Then there were two

If anyone asks, I can now say my creative writing hasn't just been published once.

The latest issue of Halfway Down the Stairs came out and "the nurse hung up the phone; restraints" is in it. HDTS is a nice online journal and every issue has a particular theme. This one is on "Farewell" and they took my poem.

I wrote it a while back.

They have first electronic rights, so here is a link to the poem, on their site:

http://www.halfwaydownthestairs.net/index.php?action=view&id=329