M SARKI

These two old guys drove twelve miles into the city to attend a special poetry reading, hoping to eventually read publicly a few of their own poems in the ordered process of each signing into the listed queue holding court on the official table of the local coffee house. These two gray-haired gentlemen suffered through the chief poet, the headliner, the star, who had earlier sashayed into the coffee house wearing his poet’s garb, looking like the great poet he claimed to his university students to be because he had published books and because, in the course of things, his peers themselves also said he was a great poet. He was there to be seen as the great poet he believed he was and to premiere new poems about his cat. On and on he droned in verse so boring it was hard to tell anymore what the old men had come to partake in and where they thought they might be headed to if they knew. And then, like that, the poet was done. Finished.  And off he went, this handsome poet in his great coat and hat, out the same door he came in, not stopping to listen to any of the waiting novice or amateur readers to come, some of them surely his current students, but the important poet had other more pressing matters to attend to. The eager readers then shuffled up to the same podium one after another until finally, seemingly hours later, the old friends cried uncle and put their own poems away.

I hate poetry simply because of all the poor poetry that stands with others of their ilk as good poetry when in fact it is not. And all the bad poets praise each other’s work and more bad work is propagated because of it. Some of the propagators are teachers, or become teachers, and on and on it goes. When the teacher gets to a kid like me (of course that was many years ago) and tells me how great something being taught is that I inherently already know isn’t, it makes a kid like me not trust adults beginning at a very early age. It is sort of like religion being taught to an atheist as something real and factual. It just doesn’t hold water. But when one comes upon a great poem read correctly you know it in every fiber of your being, teacher or not. The body knows. Something happens to you physically. Sometimes that type of reading has to be taught. You have to be taught how to read a poem. But you can’t teach a bad poem to anyone but a poor reader or a terribly bad listener. All you can do is teach your morals, politics, or gender issues and hope for some sentimental support for what you are saying. Why not instead have an experience unexampled in its feeling? Something novel, new, fascinating, and even a bit disruptive. 

*From Genesis West, number one Interview With Jack Gilbert, conducted by Gordon Lish Poetry Is The Art Of Prejudice, page 86

Jack Gilbert- …But usually my poems are caused by an impulse to communicate some part of my life rather than to please.  I don’t want the reader to finish the poem and say how lovely it was.  I want him to be disturbed. Even miserable.

Gordon Lish- Do you think people who are involved in poetry to further their careers or who make mild poems out of trivial material are dangerous to the reader?

Jack Gilbert- Mostly in being dangerous to themselves and other poets — in that they reduce poetry to something toilet-trained and comfortable…

“…Poetry is almost the only way we can escape from the vicious constipation of moral relativism. Because poetry is the art of prejudice. If prejudice is the inability to discuss a conviction calmly, then poetry is prejudice…(Poetry) doesn’t argue, it demonstrates…Poetry isn’t fair…Poetry is one-sided, and being one-sided, it can say what truth is.”

I think it is pathetic, searching here and there, through the endless articles about poetry and the writing of it, and have to sift through the drivel most of us call good. But I am not in the crowd of “most of us”. They are simply bad. And the conversations about them are bad. It seems to me to always be a community of like-minded citizens who like crappy poetry and the crappy writing of it. Well I don’t. I am insulted by the work and I think it adds more to the general claim that maintains poetry is boring and even stupid.  

*From 19 New American Poets Of The Golden Gate (on believing a poem) page 6

…A lot of Elytus and the others feels like lazy language-mongering. A pretend-surrealism with no need behind it. The mediterranean delight in the dance of the mind over a subject without trying to get anywhere. The subject being merely an occasion for the performance. Like poets giving birth without getting pregnant.

(on less being more) page 7

…One of the special pleasures in poetry for me is accomplishing a lot with the least means possible…and a pleasure in the scantness of means…the use of a few words with utmost effect.

We have far too many learning institutions from which to spread more bad poetry and the writing of it.  Teachers throughout history have taught the same old stuff, boring the hell out of most young minds, and sealing the fate of a vast majority of students never to have seen or heard a very good poem. I know I didn’t. Of course, there are Shakespeare’s words available to us all to use as he did, but with no teacher capable of explaining anything meaningful about his work the typical student could not gain much of anything from his poems except perhaps a headache. Perhaps there is the random teacher who cares so much for the words that the teaching is meaningful. But I never met one until much later in life.  

Poetry was ruined for me from a very early age. I did like nursery rhymes my mother read to me as a young child, but these were later dismissed in school as poetry for younger children and they were not used to teach us how poetry can work. Then we had Dr. Seuss who was also dismissed by most as some eccentric fellow writing silly stuff for young kids. The Doctor actually wrote some very brilliant poems that tend to stretch reality into something unmanageable and therefore unsavory to most palettes.  

*From Wikipedia:  

Though Seuss made a point of not beginning the writing of his stories with a moral in mind, stating that “kids can see a moral coming a mile off”, he was not against writing about issues; he said “there’s an inherent moral in any story” and remarked that he was “subversive as hell”.

“Yertle the Turtle” has variously been described as “autocratic rule overturned” …”a reaction against the fascism of World War II”… and “subversive of authoritarian rule”.

Okay, folks. So. Tumblr’s jumped the shark in a big way, and I’m not even just talking about indiscriminately blocking all “adult” content on a platform that IS, in fact, primarily 18+.

Many blogs, like the wonderful @blackkatmagic , that are not especially NSFW have vanished.

(And I for one LIKE being able to go to curated porn blogs run by actual people and have a chance of finding stuff to my taste, it was one of the things that kept me on this hellsite, but that’s another issue entirely.)

I know lots of people are talking about migrating, but none of us are sure to where yet. Pillowfort seems to be an option, some people are talking about Twitter. But for now, it’s a mess, and even if we knew where we were going, it’s often a huge process, and a lot of us have stuff on tumblr that ONLY exists there. One possible quick solution to save your blogs, both NSFW and personal, is to import it to WordPress. I found this solution through from frantic googling on how to save an entire blog, text posts an all. There are several apps for downloading all the pictures from a tumblr, (Plently for Windows, but only a few paid ones for mac, of which Tumbelog Picture Downloader is working for me so far) but this is the only solution I’ve seen so far that allows you to save EVERYTHING. I downloaded my NSFW blog in like 10 min. My regular blog, which is significantly larger, is in the process of importing, but I don’t anticipate any problems. I will, of course, update you if I have any.  

This tutorial I found worked really easily. http://quickguide (.) tumblr (.) com/post/39780378703/backing-up-your-tumblr-blog-to-wordpress

I put parenthesis around the .’s like we’re back in FF-Hell, just in case tumblr’s new thing about outgoing links kicks in. You know what to do.  To break it down, just in case:

 Sign up for a WordPress.com account at wordpress (.) com/start You’ll have to create an account, with your email, a username, and a password. They should send you a confirmation email immediately, check it, activate it, and you’re good to go. On the site, it will ask you for a site name. That page asks you a bunch of other information too, but you only have to fill out the site name.

Then you have to give your site a URL. If you’re lucky, your tumblr URL is still available, if not you’ll have to come up with another one, sorry.

It will tell you if that option is still available for free.

Then it will ask you to pick a plan. Free is really good enough, I swear.

Now you’re set up! You can import your tumblr! The only differences from the linked tutorial are that the Import button is now on the first level menu, not in tools.

Hit Import, then you have to follow the link for “other importers”  at the bottom, to find the option for Tumblr.

Then you’ll have to sign in with tumblr, using your normal tumblr credentials. You’ll be redirected there automatically. You’ll have to allow Wordpress permissions on your blog.

Then your blogs, including all your sideblogs, will show up in wordpress.

Hit import, wait a WHILE depending on the size of your blog, and you’re done!

ALSO!!

I made my NSFW blog private for now, since I don’t know WP’s policy on NSFW.

This means that to access it, someone has to have an account and request access. But hey, part of our problem on this hellsite has been people going places they aren’t wanted, so I don’t personally see this as a bad thing. They can send a request from the landing site on your blog, you get an email, click a link in the email, and PRESTO, they have access. To make it private, go to Settings > Reading > Site Visibility. Go back and check, it took me changing the setting twice for it to actually stick. tl;dr, you can import your entire blog to wordpress in just a few steps.  I’m going to tag the hell out of this, in no particular order. PLEASE reblog this and spread the word so people know it’s an option. If you’re having trouble, PM me, and I’m happy to help.

@gallusrostromegalus @kaciart @lena221bee @deadcatwithaflamethrower

@norcumi @deandraws @morn-art, @thebisexualmandalorian @kristsune @marloviandevil @punsbulletsandpointythings @protagonistically @cris-art @elfda @fish-ghost @godtierwonder @heartslogos @haekass @iesika @incogneat-oh @itispossibleihaveissues @jaegervega @jhaernyl @the-last-hair-bender @kleine-aster @latenightcornerstore @lectorel @medievalpoc @mgnemesi @me-ya-ri @myurbandream @peskylilcritter @cywscross ,@cheshiresense @varevare @victoriousscarf @whatsmeantobe @swpromptsandasks @gabriel4sam @stonefreeak @brighteyedbadwolf @pumpkin-lith @puzzleshipper @suzukiblu @myurbandream @lacefedora @jademerien

…Lighten up—that’s what enlightenment means: that you’ve lightened up.__Leonard Cohen

Thanksgiving 2018 was spent in this seaside town. The streets are a bit steep for an oldster with bad legs. But the views are astounding. The homes are interesting and well-maintained. Being wealthy is one requirement for keeping any kind of home here. The town itself is for tourists. Not exactly my cup of tea.

…I’ve been lucky. Kids come to me and ask me for advice. Usually I say I’ve got good advice but it’s one word: duck!__Leonard Cohen