[lit-ideas] Re: The Love Poem Project
- From: "Erin Holder" <erin.holder@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 24 Sep 2005 00:52:03 -0400
For the record, I never said I was worried about your mental stability. Lord
knows you never had any of that. I said I was worried that other people might
worry about your mental instability. Look here, he's manipulating my words.
"Poetic licence", he calls it. I have that on file.
Erin
----- Original Message -----
From: Mike Geary
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Friday, September 23, 2005 11:56 PM
Subject: [lit-ideas] The Love Poem Project
Following my last love poem post: Love Poem # 325, a Lit-Ider wrote me off
list worried about my mental stability. I was flattered to learn that someone
thought I might have been mentally stable at some point in my life. I
celebrate my insanity as God's blessing. But let's not go into that right now.
My conviction that God is a raving maniac would scandalize many and I don't
want a millstone tied around my neck, not until I've finished this Love Poem
Project. It's inspired by Kenneth Koch whom I've admired for many years,
especially his "The Art of Love" -- a brief selection will show how wonderful
it is if you're not familiar with it:
"Tie your girl's hands behind her back and encourage her
To attempt to get loose. This will make her breasts look
Especially pretty, like the Parthenon at night. Sometimes those
illuminations
Are very beautiful, though sometimes the words
Are too expected, too French, too banal. Ain't youse a cracker,
Though? And other poems. Or Freemasonry Revisited. Anyway.
Tie her up. In this fashion, she will be like Minnie Mouse, will look
Like starlight over the sensuous Aegean. She will be the greatest thing
you ever saw.
However, a word of advice, for cold September evenings,
And in spring, summer, winter too, and later in the fall:
Be sure she likes it. Or only at first dislikes it a little bit. Otherwise
You are liable to lose your chances for other kinds of experiments...."
This is true love poetry. Unfortunately it goes on for 27 pages. And
although I love it absolutely, I confess I've never read it straight through,
not in one sitting. My project is to write much shorter love poems -- 1001 of
them to be exact -- poems that busy important people like us can read in one
toilet sitting. I require of myself two uncompromisable principles: first,
that the tropes, language and prosody be surprising and highly inappropriate
for any poem -- much less a love poem; and secondly, that inspite of the
inherently unpoetic nature of the poem, at it's heart (or somewhere) there's a
moment of aha! about what we call "love." Which might be very different for
different people. Now anyone who knows me knows that I could never write 1001
poems, not even about myself, so I invite everyone to submit their own wretched
love poems . We'll combine them all together. We'll make Julie K. collect
them and get them published. She's the only one too busy to do anything.
Sincerely (yeah, right),
Mike Geary
Memphis
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