"We've always believed that humorless literature isn't literature at all"

Here's something that annoys me at some of the University-type poetry readings I've attended:
There will be a poet brandishing all of their MFA or Professorial glory, while doing everything they can to suck the life out of their own poetry, through monk-like devotion to robotic library-voiced monotone (as if injecting any vibrancy at a volume that people in the back row can hear somehow devalues what they've put onto the page).

Then they suddenly come to a line that is only slightly amusing and the audience bursts into guffaws, even though it wasn't funny enough to elicit more than half a smile under any other conditions or circumstances ("University funny"). Either the audience is not used to hearing anything remotely funny or so longing to enjoy themselves that they leap at the first hint of an opportunity.

I appreciate when poets like Denise Duhamel, Hal Sirowitz, Stephen Dobyns, and Jeffrey McDaniel utilize humor in ways that earn every laugh.

Which poets make you laugh?

In related news, I am thrilled to be one of the poets included in the upcoming HUMOR issue of Barrelhouse.
Their thoughts on the role of comedy in literature made me feel like I wasn't alone in this world:

We’ve always believed that humorless literature isn’t literature at all: life is weird, and funny, even absurd, and any attempt to capture or catalog that life through language has to at least acknowledge the funny bits. Otherwise you’re just being maudlin, sentimental, a Lifetime movie. You’re being dishonest about the human experience.
For this special issue, we’re looking for work that not only acknowledges the comedic but revels in it.

But a comic sensibility can be dark, even bleak. Often, comedy is what happens when we stare into the void and choose to laugh, rather than cry our eyes out, or give up completely.

I can't wait to see everything else that ends up in this issue.

Fast Food Psychology, Doves Murdered By Fastballs, and the rest of Thin Air Magazine

Inspiration comes from anywhere.
I'm always amused by the random phrases that my musician friend Doug Bale posts on facebook. One of those two-word status updates was "Kentucky Freud." It caught my imagination and I couldn't stop thinking about "Eleven Herbs and childhood traumas" until it grew into an entire poem.

Thin Air Magazine  published this "Kentucky Freud Chicken" poem in their latest issue, so I went on a little day-trip up to Flagstaff to read at the volume 19 launch party. I loved the cover art.

 

Of course I first had to wander around some of the bookstores and coffeeshops to get in a Flagstaff state of mind.

It was held at a cool billiards bar and I read for about 12-15 minutes, before the Thin Air staff shared some of the other pieces from contributors who weren't in town.

The entire issue is wonderfully eclectic.

It begins with two companion pieces from Michael Martone titled WOW and MOM.
Some of the other poems that immediately grabbed my attention include:


Kirk Schlueter   - 14 Ways Of Watching Randy Johnson Kill A Dove With A Fastball

Through a television's eye
a dove is a cloud of feathers
that glues itself together and flies.

*** If you're not familiar with this infamous incident, here is the spring training footage:

Caylin Capra-Thomas   - I Could Tell You Again

He lost his ears in the fire. Let me
tell you again how luck's reserved
for prom night & rented like tuxedos.

 Ross Losapio   - I Knew (after Malcolm Browne's photograph of the burning monk)

In the moments before, I knew
the quiet sigh of cushion on asphalt,
which is no comfort,
& the smell of gasoline

Chloe Warden   - To The Woman Who Died After Being Electrocuted While Crossing A Las Vegas Street

Maybe the moment before, you were happy --- maybe restless
thinking about how many times you'd thought to call the babysitter
but didn't.

Jia Oak Baker   - You Who Are Getting Obliterated In The Dancing Swarm Of Fireflies

and the next. Fireflies expand into stars. Who are we
to find in infinite spaces but ourselves?

*** the title is from my favorite instillation at the Phoenix Art Museum by artist Yayoi Kusama, where you wander through a dark mirrored room, alone except for all of the LED lights.

Kate Rosenberg   - All Night Architecture

My second death: when the last person who knows me dies.

There are also Mad-Libs For Politicians by Martin Ott, a Frida Kahlo poem cycle from Robin Silbergleid, and much much more.


So if you're at AWP, stop by and see Thin Air Magazine at table N21.