Empty Us Of Inspiration

With all this flarf talk, I’ve been paying extra attention to random sayings, lyrics, and Google search results and looking for poetic inspiration in each and every word. You know when you get a song stuck in your head and it just kinda stays there for a couple days? And it’s usually just a phrase or a line that sticks with you? Well, this song seems to play every time I’m in my car, and I just love it. The words make me feel and think and basically extract the same reaction from me that poetry does. I’ve been trying to find a way to turn this song into a flarf poem, but I’m just not there yet. Until I figure it out, I really just want to share it with you guys.

Here are the lyrics:

Mr. MTV by Nothing More

Free drugs, cheap sex

Fake tans, big breasts

High times, pimped rides

Lost days to blackout nights

I need this, I need that

I’m not complete with what I have

If I do this, if I buy that

I’ll get mine, I’ll get mine

I want, I want, I want…

Empty me, empty nation

Empty us of inspiration

Bastard sons and broken daughters

All bow down to our corporate father

In in iLife, in my iWorld

On my iPhone, with my iGirl

Just one bite to understand

Even Eve couldn’t live without the iPlan

I need it

Do this, buy that

Get my drugs and sex

More drugs, want sex, need sex

MTV, MT-nation

MT-us of inspiration

Bastard sons and broken daughters

All bow down to our corporate father

And here’s the music video:

I guess what adds more layers to this song, for me, is how it begins. It steals the line “I want my MTV” from Dire Straits Money for Nothing. When I was a kid, my dad must have played that song every time we were driving somewhere, whenever he was doing something around the house, and every time he took us camping. When I hear that song, I’m instantly taken back to when I sported scraped knees and tangled hair. And it seems to me that when that song was big, life seemed simpler. I was a kid and the livin’ was easy. Now, it’s taken on a whole new meaning. It highlights our society and everything that’s wrong with it, much like Sharon Mesmer’s Annoying Diabetic Bitch does. This song perfectly parallels my childhood with my adulthood. Things are much more complicated now, and life has a habit of getting messy. Is it worth it though? Absolutely.

Bitchiness - An Ode to Flarf by Sharon Mesmer

This week, I had the privilege of sitting down to Sharon Mesmer's Annoying Diabetic Bitch. The first poem actually made me laugh out loud. I quickly called my husband over and recited the poem to him, emphasizing the cruder words and making a real show of the kind of material I was assigned to read. After the initial shock of what I had before me wore off, I continued on to the next poem, and then the next. After that, I had to put the book down and take a walk. I found the poetry to be a little daunting and slightly offensive, which isn't something I'm used to finding. After my second attempt of choking down a few more poems, I decided to do a little research into the whole flarf poetry movement. Then, in an effort to mimic a flarf poem myself, I googled: "how to write flarf."

I stumbled across this article online: The Truth About Lies: How to Write Flarf.  It's a very interesting read, so if you have some time, take a peak! Basically, it delves into the world of Google sculpting (something I fully intend on trying), and other flarf-inspired exercises.

Also - I found this Youtube video, if you'd rather hear poetry than read it. It's mighty entertaining.

One of my less enjoyable bitch-reading experiences would be "Atomic Bitch Wax." The lines: "I wish you were Ronald McDonald and weighed three hundred pounds. Then I would rape you," "I'd like to rape him for making me be born white," and "I would like to rape her, though/me too" make my soul cringe. Although it's hard to delve into why exactly I found these lines and this poem really hard to digest, I'll try. I can handle the cuss words and ignorance against race, culture, and religion, but rape is just not something I can find humour in. Aside from this soul-wrenching poem, the rest I found tolerable.

I guess to sum up my bitch-reading experience, I would have to say that each poem sounds to me like a stress-relieving rant. It sounds like a conversation two friends would have over a glass of wine (or a cup o'bitch) while complaining about people, jobs, media, etc. Although it's humorous and carries a hefty shock value, I found this type of poetry could only be handled in small doses. I don't think I could find myself curling up on the couch for an evening with this book inches from my nose.

The Ends by Jen Currin - A Reflection

I have to admit, I was really excited to read this chapbook. It has all the things I like about poetry: short, organized, and packaged in a really simple but interesting enclosure. However, once I started reading the poetry, it seemed a little negative. I have nothing against negative poetry, but this poetry bummed me out a little.

In "October in Mirrors Burnt with Fur," the line "afternoon hurts -- I can't stop." really stopped me. Granted, it's the last line of the poem, but the words alone caused me to pause. After reading and re-reading this poem, I'm still trying to find the deeper meaning or the theme within. I love some of the imagery like comparing sorrow to velvet and licking a hallucination, but the poem as a whole entity let me feeling confused. None of the lines seem connected. I've seen this before in the excerpts from My Life by Lyn Hejinian. This type of disconnect really makes the reader work to try and make some sense of the lines.

Another poem that made me sit up and take notice was "The Comparisons." The lines:

"What is the point of writing a memoir

if you have no memory? 

A cat barking

where the east swings

west..."

made me laugh out loud. It might have been the image of a cat barking, but everything seems to contradict, much like a comparison. A lot of times in poetry, I really enjoy comparisons that I wouldn't have thought of on my own.

  

I found this interview with Jen Currin online. After reading poetry by a writer, I like to read interviews to get to know the writer better. Sometimes after reading some responses to questions asked, I can go back to the poetry and understand it a little better.

Poetry Drafts

Just after the Christmas holidays, I posed a question to my husband: "What if we knocked down this wall and this wall and then ripped up the carpet and repainted the walls in here? You know, make this space more liveable." As any happy newlywed husband would do, he knocked down some walls, ripped up some carpet, and filled up the empty space with sheets off drywall, tools, and other reno materials. Between our busy schedules, we're slowly chipping away at this massive overzealous project. I'm sure we'll have it completed soon, but it's definitely left the house looking like a mess.  

But since this blog is about writing, here's some thoughts on writing: For as long as I can remember, one of the most repeated (and cliched) sayings I have had tossed my way with respect to writing is 'write what you know.' In my writing career, I have taken this saying and turned it into my personal mantra. When writing poetry, no matter how hard I try to avoid it, the poem ends up turning into a reflection of my life and the circumstances I've found myself in.

My previous collection, written for a first year creative writing class, circulated around meeting my husband and falling in love (cheese ball, I know!), but I found a lot of inspiration for writing poetry through my personal experiences. The collection, in my extremely modest opinion, turned out really well. Maybe now that I'm pregnant, I'll find even more inspiration for a second collection.

For now, I'll just take advantage of my half demolished house and hectic life. Enjoy!

Draft #1

Empty Shell

The spoon

you tap

tap, tap, tap

across the table

you made

and we moved

so I could gut the room

we never used

with the stained

pink carpet

water-stained ceiling

yellow walls filled

with abandoned art

hung by someone

you used to know

Life Hack #1

Do the dishes nightly

Wipe the crumb-filled counters

Put away the left overs

in matching Tupperware

neatly

Consider doing the laundry,

attacking the dirty mound

growing outward

from the dark corner

in your empty bedroom

Pull out your laptop instead

Run your fingers over

the lit-up keys and glance

at the ring below your knuckle

bouncing light across the walls

Listen to the dishwasher churn

while it scrubs away

the remnants of another meal

another day, another dinner

Rinse and repeat

 

Welcome

Welcome to my little corner of the poetry world. Read, write, enjoy!

L