I hope you enjoyed reading them as much as I enjoyed writing them. I'll write them as a bonus poem once in a while, but they are no longer going to be a daily staple.
Don't worry, I'm still going to do the News Poem for the foreseeable future.
-KW
9:47pm PST: Let me know if you'd like to be a guest contributor for #twitterfoundpoem.
Nazi Architecture [Today's News Poem, November 17, 2010]
While swimming in soot, near erections of towers—
Or barrels that seem to be pointed to heaven
But aim at the ground, you might notice the pillars
Are cracking: designed for the failure that's coming.
For nature abhors the incompetence gathered,
And quakes with its rage. While indulgence is stunning,
While fumes are unpleasant, consumption is monarch
Or Fuhrer of desire—while carts sell the breakfasts
And stores sell prescriptions, and monitors promise
That war ends in victory; crabs in a bucket
Are stymied by architects, thwarted by surface
And claws, as the mutiny pinches escape routes;
Until they are steamed and are cracked and then eaten.
"The Food and Drug Administration sent warning letters to four manufacturers of alcoholic energy drinks on Wednesday, saying that it was unsafe to include caffeine in the beverages."
—ABBY GOODNOUGH, The New York Times, Published: November 17, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/18/us/18drinks.html
"Would-be traveler John Tyner of Oceanside, California, wasn't too happy about the new "enhanced" pat-downs the agency rolled out nationally on November 1. The new guidelines let TSA officers feel passenger's genitals with their hands if they refuse to go through the high-tech body scanner."
—Jen Phillips, Mother Jones, Tue Nov. 16, 2010 1:24 PM PST
http://motherjones.com/mojo/2010/11/TSA-scan-complaints-grope-tyner
"After a brief delay, the first Dungeness crab cakes of the season should be on Bay Area dinner tables by Thursday."
—Kelly Zito, Chronicle Staff Writer, San Francisco Chronicle November 17, 2010 04:00 AM
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/11/17/MNER1GD43V.DTL
I hate this kind of book review. Plot summary does NOT equal a close reading. One would think this is a movie review, given its emphasis on the superficial. How is the symbolism? The prose? Is it funny, flat, or quirky?
What an incompetent review. Did you pay some professional paper writer to write it? Because that's what it looks like: undergraduate twaddle.
Example: If you are expecting the reader to know what 'metafictional pastiche' means, then such a reader will be interested in the WAYS it's a metafictional pastiche. By writing a review which vacillates between targeting an educated audience & a layperson, you fail to do both.
Also, you fall for the marketing ploy of this book & waste too much time glossing over Fred Exley... and then do a TERRIBLE job of summarizing him. Oh, and then the lit tropes, the lit tropes! 'Metafiction,' 'Murakami,' & an unforgivable non-sequitur in the 1st paragraph w/ "Fforde." Relevant HOW? You can't even engage the prose so you cite references.
You spend so much time defending Clarke's pedigree, one wonders if you are even CAPABLE of reading. I personally doubt you read the book. YOU are part of the poison that has destroyed mainstream 'high' literature and you treat craft as if it were a Google algorithm that measures quality by the number of times the content is cited--RATHER than the actual quality of the content.
And after reading reviews for this book all over the lit-mag network (blog is a dirty word), I STILL have yet to see a review that actually engages the text; rather than the social context of the author. So in that regard, this book review is a failure. If you were in my class, I'd flunk you. Dismiss this as jealousy, or a bad mood--you KNOW I'm correct.
-KW
ps: Chron, I challenge you to hire someone who actually knows how to read AND write. My crit of McAlpin's incompetent review is better written AND I did it in minutes.
The Second Cumming [#twitterfoundpoem, November 17, 2010] Tweets+Edits=#twitterfoundpoem
Turning and turning in the widening trick:
the hoe cannot hear the pimp.
trick ass Things fall apart; self indulgence cannot hold.
Mere prostitutes induced my whiskey grogginess,
my whiskey Semen, my whiskey screams; all loosed upon this world.
You can never Turn a Trick to a Treat
though you can turn a housewife into a hoe;
but it takes Real Conviction
and the center cannot hold your balls as She can.
Subscribe in a reader
