Comments for PassionTask Blog

Comment on "Identity" by chris

chris — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 21:12:26 +0000

I appreciate this suggestion. I think I’ll go with a dash; the colon does seem a bit too formal and also, for a reason I can’t pinpoint because it feels illogical, strikes me as too much of a stop.

But that makes it a better poem.

I just wish that this poem wasn’t almost 20 years old…

Comment on "Identity" by Jared Stein

Jared Stein — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 17:06:28 +0000

As I re-read this I did come up with one suggestion to try. See if this works:

Replace “that” on ln 9 with a colon, or, if that’s too formal, a dash. This alters the rhythm to produce what I /feel/ would be an articulate little space before the concluding antithesis. It also would seem to push these lines toward the function of a question more than the definitive “that” might allow.

How’s that for overthinking one punctuation?

Comment on "Identity" by Jared Stein

Jared Stein — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 16:56:12 +0000

I hadn’t read this before, but stumbled upon it while looking for a candidate to subjugate for napomo.

Honestly, this is not a candidate: it’s already Just Right. It is So Just Right that now I question my ability to offer anything to any other poem I may find…

Comment on BAP12.5: “Nineteen Thirty-Eight” (Charles Simic) by Chris Lott

Chris Lott — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 00:34:55 +0000

I can’t buy what you’re selling, perhaps in part because I don’t buy that the 30s were the most important decade of the 20th century–even if Simic was born that decade–and because even granting that, Simic’s technique here seems like an easy way of trying to achieve profundity without really putting his shoulder to the yoke.

I stand by my reading as this basically being a bright high school student poem with the newspaper microfiche unspooling before him or her until the final lines. What you quoted just seems to me like more easy juxtaposition, no more meaningful to me than Stalin and Dairy Queen. But maybe I’m holding Simic to too high a Simic-ian standard.

I won’t call it kitschy, but easy prey… that sounds about right

Comment on BAP12.5: “Nineteen Thirty-Eight” (Charles Simic) by Jared stein

Jared stein — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 00:04:12 +0000

Against some initial prejudice, I liked this poem, too. You describe it as “light”, but I don’t think it is. Rather, I found it to be just beyond my ability to understand it fully, and a lot of my certainty of it’s potency arose in this passage:

There was a hurricane that September causing a movie theater
At Westhampton Beach to be lifted out to sea.
People worried the world was about to end.
A fish believed to have been extinct for seventy million years
Came up in a fishing net off the coast of South Africa.

This passage could have been lifted from the rest of the poem, decontextualized from the period, and still speak volumes. This is why I think the specific setting of the baby midstream in perhaps the most important decade of the 20c works, and doesn’t come off as easy prey, let alone kitschy.

Comment on BAP12.1: “Lighthead” (Terrance Hayes) by Tangled Rope » NaPoMo12; BAP11 Musings

Tangled Rope » NaPoMo12; BAP11 Musings — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 01:08:08 +0000

[...] In his BAP11/12 kick-off post, Chris mentioned how odd it is to read poetry from 2010 in a “Best of 2011″ anthology in the year 2012. It doesn’t really matter, I guess, since the date range itself is not typically meaningful or significant, but I actually recognized one of the poems in BAP11 this time around. [...]

Comment on Reading Montaigne 1.30: Of moderation by michel

michel — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 02:43:55 +0000

I haven’t reached this essay yet but was surprised to find Montaigne talking so openly of sex in this essay

http://essaysbymontaigne.blogspot.co.uk/

Let me know what you think, of the blog in general. From one Montaigne fan to another

Comment on 12×12 in 2012 by Lynne

Lynne — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 00:59:55 +0000

I think you’re amazing in so many ways. I wish you could see yourself through my eyes more often.

Comment on BAP 2009: “A House is Not a Home” (Terrance Hayes) by Pete

Pete — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 05:37:53 +0000

I just love the “how to transcribe church fires” image, especially juxtaposed as it is with the image of a woman flashing two eighth graders. The thought of church fires as sound…brilliant.

Comment on 12×12 in 2012 by Jared Stein

Jared Stein — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 18:11:49 +0000

Inspiring as always. Love the zodiac origami challenge–you had better post photos.