I am very excited to be teaching a Poetry Workshop at the University of Washington's Experimental College this Spring!

Poetry Workshop

Taught by: Jaimie Gusman

Location: Seattle, WA

Learn more:
http://www.teachstreet.com/seattle-wa/poetry/poetry-workshop/cl-24ylzg6bts

Description:

The poetry workshop is a 6-week course for beginning and intermediate writers seeking guidance, constructive feedback and community. This course will discuss what poetry is and isn’t through a postmodern perspective, support literary innovation and help students develop a critical eye for their own work and the work of their peers. The main idea for this course is to create an environment where writers are comfortable discussing their own work and feel encouraged to take poetic risks. On Campus.

Caroline Moir Poem

Just so those of you who read my last post know why I give Moir such praise for her unique voice and ability to make poetry exciting, here's a little taste:

Delicacy

Something fierce I wanna
stalk in on the two longest legs this town’s ever seen,
grab that no good by his fat-filled dome
and say,

listen here, baby,
you’re nothing but a hatless bastard.
No class. Strictly corpulent.
A badly-knit sweater
with a face that could make an onion cry,
let alone a gal.

After a handful of nooners
and a couple of upside-downers,
you don’t come round no more
you’re out on the town every night
billy-goating around,

and here I am all alone
fragile as Frida’s broken baby-maker.

So you’re out, buster,
out on your ear
You keep your chin up you hear?
Your chin up
and your crevices clean.

And the next time you unbuckle that mouth
to whet your whistle
or twist the truth to dip your pickle,

may the serpent,
that patron saint of liars,
spit upon you from unfathomable heights.

Slog, you should be ashamed.

So my dear friend, Caroline Moir, has just won the P-I poetry contest (http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/ae/361427_poetry02.html), which is huge, like front page layout huge or hot air balloon huge, and not only does she deserve congrats and congrats again, but she actually brings to the table a slappingly new and interesting voice to poetry.

With this in mind, I want to bring to attention SLOG, The Stranger's blog. I am actually new to this whole blog world (as you can tell by my personal blogging habits or lack there of), so I was surprised that SLOG is just a poor excuse for illiterate assholes to rag on an artist's success because they have no artistic successes of their own. Not to be harsh or anything--but is this head-bashing really necessary? For instance, on Moir's poem: "Typical MFA shit, sucking the last few drops out of the dying body of poetry with extremely self-conscious cleverness and narcissistic wordplay." This is just one of the comments that make me want to hurl, and then hurl again because I hurled. Let's see you actually win a contest because of your innovative work.

And this comment "This is the kind of B-side poem that makes people hate poetry. Here's Elizabeth Bishop, to cleanse your palate..." Give me a break. Bishop, as wonderful as she was, (she is certainly why people love poetry, myself included), is not our contemporary, anymore. So how to we get over that hump of clinging to the past if we reject new voices? If we want to prevent the "dying body of poetry" then we have to give our young poets an opportunity to change the current state of poetry.

So, to conclude, I wish I didn't feel compelled to write this blog because of another blog. But I did. It just makes me sad. It's sad when people talk out of their asses just to be asses. It's sad that reading poetry makes all these contemptuous prick heads come out of their holes and spread their disrespect for those of us actually trying to change the state of poetry. If there is anything to be thrilled about, it is that enough people are reading poetry and take time to bash it. Is this true passion or egoism? SLOGers, you should be ashamed of yourselves.

Caroline, I love your poem. Pomegranates and all.