January 29, 2004

terror in a tiny template

Bad day, bad day. Enlivened slightly, in a horrible-funny way, by this. Also by this wonderful band. And by Wally Wood's 22 panels that always work.

Figured I'd blow off some steam by stopping by La Palabra's all-night poetry shindig. Didn't bring anything I'd written, but brought the Kalevala (from which I read the chapter about the drowned girl), and was pleased to see that a few others brought other people's poems too. But there always has to be one drunk jerk--dude, announcing "You said it!" and "Ain't that the truth!" at the end of every fourth line someone else reads barely plays at a full-on spoken-word slam, much less ten people sitting around a cafe with some grapes and chocolate. There was a European guy whose poem, I swear, contained the passage (you must read this with a Euro-accent for full effect): "Even if I could be with Meg Ryan/I'd still be sleepless in Seattle/the home of Starbucks/the international corporation." ("Tell it, brother!") When one of the more timid guys started reading the third in his series of 26 "experimental" (read: free-associative, low-meaning, clearly unedited, long) prose poems (each of which was, he haltingly explained, inspired by a picture, a number and a letter of the alphabet), I figured maybe I should get home to the spouse.

Posted by Douglas at January 29, 2004 1:12 AM
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