The Amazing Technicolor Dream Poem and the current issue of Canyon Voices

I used to avoid group writing prompts, because I cherish the option of trashing poems that no one else should ever see. I hated feeling obligated to share something that I would likely be completely embarrassed about, the following week. Might as well go on a drunk-texting binge.

But getting involved in some of the recent Encyclopedia Shows has given me a new appreciation for outside influence. I have had fun with some topics that I would have never chosen to explore.

Earlier this year, I was part of The Encyclopedia Show for "The Vivid Spectrum Of Color" and Scott Boras started assigning our topics. He gave other writers subjects like Blue, Red, and Mustard. When he gave me my assignment, I had no idea what to do with it and wondered if I was allowed to trade it away. But then I ended up with this piece called "The Amazing Technicolor Dream Poem" that ended up going over pretty well. So thanks for pushing me out of my comfort laze, Scott.


It even ended up in the current issue of Canyon Voices, so you can read it here.


Behind The Poem: 

The Canyon Voices editors also requested an audio file. Instead of making a horrible quality recording on my clunker of a computer, I went to my musician friend's studio to get a cleaner track. Forty-seven takes later, he was still unwilling to let go of his George Martin ambitions. Here's a video glimpse of our recording session:

I don't know if they plan to use that audio track, anymore.
If they don't, I will post it on this blog sometime in the future.

musician interviews make great found poems

I'm excited to go see Chris Cornell play a solo acoustic show in a few days. His music may have been the soundtrack to my life, especially during all of those deleted scenes that no one will ever see.

Speaking of whom, I was playing around with some "found poems" for a recent reading and this first one was originally posted over at Mark Young's Fishbones Poetry Review, but I thought I would also post it here to include some background context.





No Different Than Putting Lyrics Over A Soft Song




So loud. Like a little kid
spreading aggression with a really big toy.
So loud all over. Stage lights
coming from God. Is noise the wrong word?
So constantly loud.

I’ve tried. I wish I could. But musically,
I don’t think I learned anything
from anyone else. Except
there is one similarity
between a little kid from Seattle
spreading aggression with a really big toy
and Mr. Jimi Hendrix: his parents
live in Seattle and so
do mine. But it’s so loud.

The audience is wet. The weather is awful.
Thunder and lightning. Just try
to make sounds people might not
hear the rest of the day.
The lightning was kind of cool.
But does it have to be so loud? Noise
is the perfect word.





This was "found" and manipulated from one of my all-time favorite television interviews with Chris Cornell, as Soundgarden left the stage at the 1992 PinkPop Festival in the Netherlands. Try to watch this exchange and not think of Spinal Tap.

Cornell is no stranger to found texts, by the way. Back when Soundgarden was recording it's major label debut, their bass player Hiro Yamamoto wrote lyrics for a song he wanted Cornell to sing, but when Cornell turned the page over, he found a note that Hiro's girlfriend had left him and decided that it would be much more interesting to sing that over the song. If you look at the liner notes for that Louder Than Love album, the girlfriend even got a songwriting credit out of it. Here's the song:

The other found poem that I read that night was from a J Mascis interview and I will also post that one, sooner or later.

Preview of some poetry books I will be handing out at tomorrow's gift exchange/reading

as Basho would say:


ho ho ho ho ho
ho ho ho ho ho ho ho
ho ho ho ho ho


I'm making my lists and checking them twice for tomorrow night's White Elephant Contemporary Poetry Gift Exchange reading at Glendale Community College.

I ordered several books to giveaway throughout the night (by way of Johnnie Clemens May's generosity) and I was going to preview some of them here, but I will wait until after the event, for those who like surprises.


In the meantime, I must thank a few other people for contributing their work.

Cathy Capozzoli was a featured poet for one of our earliest events. She now lives in New Mexico, but she sent me some copies of her new chapbook Solstice Windows from Blue Light Press. It's a collection of Ghazals and here is my favorite:


     Too Close For Comfort



     The cat curves her back in four directions
     before dawn. Geckos leave the outdoors.

     Venus follows the moon. I take breakfast
     from sweets. My throat is full of dreams.

     This morning's fleas will die before dusk.
     Turn off the fan; the day has November on its breath.




She also included copies of her husband Sherman Souther's chapbook Surgical Bru-Ez from Tinfish Press. I am glad they are still able to participate across state-lines.


Another big thanks to New York Quarterly Editor Raymond Hammond. I ordered a wonderful book that he published in his NYQ Books series (I will post about that one, in a few days) and he donated three other NYQ titles to giveaway, along with it. So I will also be handing out copies of Grace Zabriskie's Poems, Monique Ferrell's Unsteady, and Amanda J. Bradley's Hints and Allegations.
It's important to show people that there are still presses out there in this Kindled world that are publishing actual poetry books with interesting cover art that can be held in your hands, while thumbing through the pages and smelling the ink of each word.

I look forward to seeing what everyone else brings tomorrow.
I will make sure to post a follow-up report and elaborate on which books I chose to disseminate.

until,