Poncho Peligroso’s “the romantic”

                Poncho Peligroso is a poet worth blogging about. Besides working tirelessly in his newly appointed position of 2011 Poet Laureate he managed to come out with a book called “the romantic”. At 10,000 words, this is the largest offering of Poncho I’ve ever seen, a gathering of some of Poncho’s previous poems. Usually I get smaller portions. But the main question should be: Is “the romantic” good? Having read this book a few times, I can answer with a resounding yes. 

                The book is structured in an emotional way. Besides his humorous poems you’re treated to some extremely personal, anxious and oftentimes sad poems dedicated to an unknown girl. Whoever this girl is must be someone the narrator cares deeply about and perhaps even loves, hence the title. Some of the saddest ones involve the pains of distance, of moving away, and of finding out exactly how to care about other people. Common themes running throughout the poetry book include paranoia, humorous violence (in absurd chaos fashions involving personal hygiene and boners, boner chaos if you will), death, geography, love, beauty, and the emotional attachment that comes with the internet. 

                My favorite poems are those which effectively create an implied space or story. In poems like “watching you type” you get the feeling of an entire story behind these few interactions. Little lines reference what may or may not be a relationship. By not explicitly stating it the reader can make their own inference into what the poem is trying to convey. Towards the end of “the romantic” the humor is stripped away to a large degree revealing its heart. Reading the final poem entitled “the romantic” I peered into Poncho’s past, not as a poet, but as a person. It chronicled his evolution into the poet, the same one I wrote about months ago, about how he was a person who had just discovered himself. Upon finishing this chapbook I stand by that earlier statement: he has found himself in this language.

                I laughed and had tears well up a little bit. This may be due how much of this applies to me: I’m leaving the state I grew up in, much like Poncho is leaving the house he lived in for most of his life. We’re both traveling to new places. Even the way he writes about love is how I would like to if I could. But I’m not sure if I could.

                You may not know this due to a lack of Podcasts but I’m an even-tempered sloth rare to show any glimpses of ‘genuine emotion’. Lately I’ve begun to experience this emotion commonly known as ‘love’. Actually I’m not certain if I’m doing it right: oftentimes I can’t speak, despite being perfectly articulate. I feel it is tough for me to say exactly what I mean, to cut through all these words to a few, simple direct phrases. Oftentimes I feel our language limits us by providing so many options. We skirt around the words we want to say rather than use those direct, easily definable ones. Sometimes I’m asked a question an extremely personal one and I can’t answer. My eyes dart, I don’t want her to see my tears welling up. My voice stays silent; I can’t have my voice crack. Staying silent allows me to retain the idea in my mind that I’m macho, something that I’m definitely not via reality. Finally, once I answer and have my voice nearly crack from the emotional pressure I immediately go in for a hug and press my face against her shoulder. I love that hug. I love that person. They can’t see my tears rolling down my face. Better they feel them on their shoulder. After they hug back I know they understand, like they said ‘yes’ but with a physical confirmation. 

                “the romantic” makes me realize I’m not alone in feeling this way. Poncho cuts through all the circular speaking we employ in our day to day lives. Often this direct language can be extremely powerful, ungarnished by superfluous words. It can be difficult to read, harder to write. When writing it is hard to be honest with oneself but Poncho is perhaps one of the most honest writers I’ve read in quite some time. It’s a beautiful book.

Cut your Hair

                People came from all over the world to see Stephen Tully Dierks get his hair cut on ustream. I hoped for the best. The audience worried a little bit. Most poets have to cut their hair on their own due to financial problems. By having friends cut your hair you save money, money which can be used for food, shelter, and two pairs of jeans. 

                “We will find a Way” by Poncho Peligroso got read by Stephen Tully Dierks. This was posted June 8^th. I consider this the fastest you can get your poetry read. Published in the morning and read late at night is a pretty quick turn-around. Most publishers couldn’t pull this off. Poncho is no ordinary poet; he is the 2011 Poet Laureate for a reason. Stephen began the reading strongly with Poncho’s hot-off-the-presses poem. 

                Steve Roggenbuck focused on Ron Silliman. Ron is a poet who has written twenty books which are part of a total poem called “Ketjak”. This has become his life work. Beginning in the 70s to today his life’s work is massive. You can’t really understand how massive it truly is to have so much material working with itself. I can see why Steve enjoys Ron’s work. The idea of a “Memeplex” where countless ideas are brought to work for one great purpose is something Steve’s mentioned on his blog before. I hope that Steve is able to create his ‘master work’ as he’s on something of a ‘roll’ lately. 

                “I worship Satan” was written by Sam Pink. As Stephen got his hair cut he multi-tasked with reading. Being a Satan worshiper allows you unlimited amounts of free blood. Sam Pink writes positive poetry about imagining his brutal death. Brutal death is funny according to Mr. Pink.  “Frowns Need Friends Too” is the name of his book filled with these life-affirming messages. “Goth Girls make me horny but also make me laugh” summarized my entire time in High School. Part of me still has a certain, near-grudging respect for the Goth subculture. Listening to the poem reminded me of how I used to be, like I was visiting old me. 

                Chicago Neo-Realism came into being as we shifted between watching Stephen’s hair get cut, reading tweets, and learning more about poetry. Due to the reading in the middle of the week it had a laid-back feel. Usually we see a bunch of readers come and go. Going between two of my favorite readers (Steve and Stephen, the Chicago Superhero duo) made me so happy. They were happy enough to record it too. 

                Expansion of the poetry selection helped considerably. Finding poems on Google made the reading much funnier. One poem, called “An Erotic Poem” by Romeo Della Valle came up. Had we not decided to search for new horizons it might have remained hidden. Sharing it with you I refuse to comment on it. Read it aloud and feel the passion Romeo felt for his long lost love. It breaks my heart to picture Romeo alone without his companion. Hopefully Romeo found someone else who shares his passion for life. 

                This ended up being a pretty amazing ustream. Besides doing the usual poetry readings, Steve talked about flarf criticism and criticism of the boykitten movement in general. I liked hearing it from other people’s perspectives. Obviously I’m very interested it this but I always wonder how people react to criticism. Since I’m basically a sloth I don’t really receive much criticism besides being named after a sin. Excluding that, I got nothing. We’re lucky though. Both members of the ustream plan on revolutionizing poetry for a long time. Just keep in mind that age old advice when people try to bring you down:

                Live your lief!

Poncho Peligroso’s Back!

                Many social media platforms missed Poncho during his vacation from the internet. Suddenly going from a tweet an hour to nothing is jarring to say the least. Writing a thesis paper isn’t the same as being the 2011 Poet Laureate. People expect to come to your presence on Facebook, on Twitter, on Tumblr, on Wordpress, or on Goodreads. 

                I remember where I was when I heard he was printing out his thesis. Everyone in the thread made specifically for online literary types grew excited. As we pictured his thesis, all hot and naked on the printer, unseemly images poured into our minds. We imagined his thesis as a being, a beautiful being with the gender we were attracted to, waiting for us. The thesis began discussing Frank Hinton’s poetry, it began discussing his poetry, and it began to subtly belittle critics of boykittens. Our eyes glazed over as his thesis did a little dance for us. Clearly that time spent practicing yoga paid off as it was infinitely flexible. 

                That time is over. We have him back to his rightful habitat not in some silly school learning things, but on here, on the internet, with us. A lot happened during his time away. First, in an attempt to garner him even more fame occurred in two deft swoops. We saw a Facebook fan page created in his honor, celebrating the 2011 Poet Laureate. Pictures were put up, celebrating him. Each time I saw an update I thought “Omar De Col, that macro fiend, is probably behind this page”. "Cutestboykitten" gave away the creator fairly quickly.  Of course this pales in comparison to the second, infinitely more epic leap to internet stardom.

                Google acknowledged Poncho’s status as the undisputed 2011 Poet Laureate. Wikipedia hadn’t gotten the memo. So we had to bring it to them. The first edit of his page proved to be effective. Eventually the article fell into some form of information anarchy. Reading the discussion page gave me the impression I was watching our gridlocked government decide how to screw people over by raising taxes or eliminating basic social services. After the article got deleted (though the supporters of Poncho’s Literary Activism were strong) the argument remains encased for all to remember in glossy internet amber. Perhaps one day we may extract that Wikipedia DNA to make a new page. 

                May 5^th officially announced Poncho had returned as the undisputed champion of the 2011 Poet Laureate Google bomb. For on that day, he released new poetry. It had been a while but finally I got new Poncho. “4 Bee Poems” is what I found on ‘AllWriteThen’ a twee name for a poetry blog. The poems themselves were great.

                Bees were the focus of each one. Poncho paid close attention to their smallness and sweetness rather than the stinger. In the first one, the bee transfers knowledge over to other bees. Realizing its own weakness it still manages to help others. The consecutive three go into even more affectionate territory, even a certain longing for affection of wanting love. For being a bee is not something we normally associate with kindness. More often we think about the pain they close instead of the care they have for flowers, for pollination. They are responsible for so much in agriculture. If you want to be nice to them, it would be real swell if you didn’t shriek and scream hysterically if they want to drink your Sunkist beverage. Let them. They have earned it.

                Twitter is a big part of Poncho’s appeal. His twitter tweets at some unfathomably fast rate. Over 12,000 tweets is something to be proud of, I think. Especially considering how many of them are so weird, so interesting, devoid of links, just thoughts. A poem of his called “Show Your Horse The Internet. What have you done” on the knitcore blog displays his skill of re-configuring the tweets of horse_ebooks and Google searches into a poem. Meaningless phrases are woven together to form a total whole. It feels sad, playful, weird and, like much of Poncho’s work, somewhat funny. 

                Reading new stuff from Poncho is a real treat. He seems to be in touch with his surroundings and his perspective on house plants and bees makes me happy. Too often we ignore what’s around us for what is considered important or relevant to our daily lives. Poncho’s work reminds us to pay attention to the little details.

Ustream Team

Living their Lives.

                Cupcakes introduced the poetry reading. If you ever want to attract people to a reading, free food is usually a solid choice. Art exhibits are made better, freer, and more enjoyable with food offered. Unfortunately, I was online and unable to eat any of their food. Those there got some delicious baked goods. For those online, we had to make our own dinner and drink our own beers.

                “Dead Poets Society” got a shout-out. It makes sense for the Internet Poetry Society (aka BoyKittens) to read this out online. Steve Roggenbuck had part of it posted in real life as a form of inspiration. Robin Williams is an inspirational figure. His hairy arms make me feel better about myself. Unlike Robin Williams, I don’t need to shave my arms on a daily basis. 

                A few new faces were introduced. Cassandra Nguyen read Blake West on his tumblr. In fact, this was the second time this weekend I saw Cassandra, the first was the night prior at Ms. Troyan’s lovely abode. Since I had once encouraged her to meet Steve Roggenbuck, I feel that I helped push along this great meeting of the minds. 

                “Eat when you feel Sad” by Zachary German got some attention. Balloons got a lot of attention as well. As Brett Gallagher’s reading progressed of Richard Chiem’s work, they constantly tried to derail the proceeding. Richard Chiem was even there in the chat room, showing off his IPOD music skills.  It felt avant-garde. Constantly the reader tried to focus on the poetry but broke down into laughter. For other readings, Brett appeared to be treated as the “straight man” as they played volley ball with the balloons.

                The performance between Stephen Tully Dierks and Cassandra Nguyen went fantastic. Each one read a line. Slowly the action became hotter and hotter. A twist completely changed it up. Obviously energy drinks were put to good use for this performance. Perhaps it wasn’t the inappropriate amount of caffeine they consumed. Instead, it might have been the rowdy celebration of their cat’s birthday. Sunday, May 2^nd marked the celebration of their cat’s birth. 

                Poncho Peligroso (better known as the 2011 Poet Laureate) had one of his poems read during the broadcast. House plants were viciously tormented and abused during this time. I cried a little inside. Gardening happens to be a hobby of mine. So hearing about emotionally abused plants proved to be rather heavy for a Sunday evening. Thankfully, the ending of the poem made it worth everything. 

                Beach Sloth got read on ustream which was infinitely excellent. Cassandra Nguyen read my Lookbook post which felt great. Never before has anyone read one of my posts online before. In fact, I rarely even read them aloud in person. Hearing it read tempted me to do a potential PodCast at some indefinite point in the future. Right now, it is merely a thought. I’m curious to see how my delivery and inflection would change the reader’s perception of what I write. 

                After much coaxing, we got a reading of Brett Gallagher’s work Vessel. Vessel is something Brett has been working on for a while. It takes place in a Fjord in Scandinavia. Two main characters (whose names I can’t begin to spell) interact. Somehow I enjoy it; I like the delivery and the rhythm of it. Saturday night I heard a bit of it but I still wanted more. Brett’s stated it will be published at some point. Hopefully that will be sooner rather than later, and I’ll definitely have my eye out for it. 

                Jackson Nieuwland had a great poem. The word ‘fuck’ got used more than I’ve heard from everyone in the entire week. Due to the strong language, it ended up being pretty funny. I try not to curse but fail most of the time. To err is to be human so the celebration of the exclamation point of words always is a bit relieving.  

                Finally the moment everyone was waiting for arrived. Cassandra Nguyen re-activated Facebook. A flood of friends came forth, after several added the incorrect Cassandra Nguyen (myself included, in my defense I only followed other people). Now she’s re-integrated into Facebook life. Things will be better for her, as countless online poets are there to ease her transition. As the UK went to sleep and New Zealand (UK-lite) woke up, one last poem remained.

                Stacey Teague got her poem “New Zealand Dinosaur” read by the collective group of four. The reading got passed off among each other. With each new line read by some with the prefix ‘popcorn’ they read it with as much gusto as you can muster on a Sunday night. 

                When they left, I remembered a New York Times article I read earlier on Sunday. It explained the allure of Soho in the late 70s/early 80s. Art movements are the most passionate in the beginning. They form tight-knit communities. Obviously the Boykittens have no geographic locale, but I feel closer to them, thousands of miles away, than I do with my coworkers. Boykittens have staked claim to their own friendly neighborhood on the internet. I guess it is the welcoming environment which has made itself a favorite bookmark on my browser.

                Have the Boykittens created the late 70s Soho of the internet? What do you think? I know my answer.

Poetry by Emily Dickinson

               Welcome to the Boykitten’s (or humanity's, take your pick) most collaborative effort ever! Poetry by Emily Dickinson is for all to partake in its many pleasures.  Steve Roggenbuck is the mastermind behind this deceptively simple concept. Multiple levels of collaboration are built into the concept. This allows people the ease to take part in the project in as big or as small of a role as they want. 

                Two roles are available to anyone interested.  You can work as a remix/editor of the material once it has all been compiled. Some material might be usable as-is, but other material might require forms of editing or rephrasing. While this may be wonderful work, going through the process of editing (and you can contact Steve at   steveroggenbuck[at]gmail.com for information on this) there’s a second role to play as well. 

                You can tag your tweets with #poetrybyemilydickinson. Any tweet with this tag will be considered as source material for this poetry project. So instead of using twitter for whatever you’re supposed to use twitter for, you can actually contribute something to literature and society in general. What Steve wants to do is show that Twitter and blogs are not useless for writers, but actually an important instrument in creating new bodies of work.

                Going through the tag, I’ve been introduced to countless new twitter friends and followers, including the 2011 Poet Laureate. I’m not sure if this is one of the desired results of Steve’s project, but it is an additional benefit. If you bother reading all the tweets under the hashtag, you’ll see a vast variety of people and ideas. Somehow, Steve’s managed to create an entire community of poets based off of a single phrase. These people have begun to follow and re-tweet each other. Already I have this as one of my saved searches, and I check up on it to see how people are doing. Personally, I don’t know how Steve is going to deal with re-tweets of the better ones (or more interesting ones).

                Part one involves the creation of this vast body of material. What I’d suggest is for you to do it, in order to create an even better project. The more participation this gets, the better it will be. Additionally, you might gain new followers and discover new online poets at the same time. Or you might become interested in poetry, which would accomplish another one of Steve’s goals. 

                Of course, Steve wants more people to get interested in this art form. Hopefully, by having such an easy way to encourage participation, he’ll be able to attract plenty of new people who otherwise might not have engaged or thought about poetry. That’s one result. Another will be the hope of Google-bombing the phrase “poetry by Emily Dickinson”. 

As I’m writing this, I notice the exact (un-spaced) phrase of ‘poetrybyemilydickinson’ is already the third result on Google search. So perhaps with a few more tweets, this can become the number one result. Steve’s calculations suggest this would hijack roughly 50,000 visitors per month. Instead of people simply finding out more about some dead person, they’ll find out more about an alive and kicking Steve Roggenbuck, a boykitten in the truest sense of the term.  Consider Steve the Santa Claus of online poetry, wrapping up gifts for your brain. 

                I encourage everyone to partake in this fun and interactive collaboration. Join the party. Participate today. Learn how to engage others through the power of poetry!

PS:

 If you would prefer to have poems of over 140 characters, there is another option as well. The fantastic concept is you ask to be added onto the author list. After that, you’ll be approved to publish a poem on there, full-length. Double-posting is not allowed, meaning if you’re the most recent poet, you need to wait until there’s a new submission. Go here "Let People Poems" to learn more about this wonderful site. Thank you.  

Neo-Dadaist Trends in the 21st Century – A Response

        On Thursday, March 10^th 2011, Kat Dixon wrote a piece discussing a group of writers and poets. Usually this would not merit much attention, but these writers and poets happen to be people I’ve actually covered in this blog, people such as Tao Lin, Steve Roggenbuck, and Poncho Peligroso. Having some familiarity with Dadaism, as it is a favorite art form of mine, I figured “Why not give Kat Dixon some attention. And, at the same time, focus more attention on the writers she disagrees with”. Why do this? Simple: I just want to see exactly how they measure up to the original Dadaists. Personally, I’m not convinced the two sets of writers have many things in common.

                Dadaists were anti in nature. Anti-establishment, anti-art, they were a true collection of brothers working internationally to change our perception of art forever. Or so they tried. The fact that people still argue whether or not their creations are art, nearly a century later, is a testament to their truly great work. 

                These poets don’t possess the biting, often visceral, anger of the Dadaists. Dadaists were upset at the vast awfulness of their world, for good reason (World War I). Similarities may exist between the two groups but they possess dramatically different goals.  Yes, re-uses of online posts are abundant in their work, it isn’t negative. Most of their poems may be sad or focused on the self, but they aren’t anti. Rather than have these works as a specific arguments or a rebellion, their work is more a celebration. Dada wanted to destroy institutions. What this group wants to do is change the way people approach and interact with poetry. Being against poetry institutions and creating your own isn’t the same as being against everything. 

Honestly, I enjoy both Dadaism and the work of these young poets but their work doesn’t really correspond well to each other. I’m not sure why this was offered as a point of comparison. In her opening, she even shows how controversial the Dada movement was by quoting her art teacher’s question “Is it art?” Using Kurt Schwitters’ poetry, she then shows how Dadaism exhausted itself but influenced Surrealism. Personally, I see Surrealism as an evolution from the younger, brasher impulses of the youthfulness of Dada into something more positive and romantic. Surrealism to Kat Dixon appears to be a more proper art form than Dadaism, which she seems to believe is a ‘plague’. 

Kat’s definition of the Neo-Dadaists is a bit off as well. Tao Lin appears to be to the Neo-Dadaists what Tristan Tzara (Romanian émigré) was to the Dadaists. She calls their work primitive, irrational, and over-dependent on shallow introspection. Yeah, what the hell? Poetry should be purely rational. I don’t understand that part of her argument to be honest, and she never exactly explains what she means by irrational. Focusing on the self is the exact opposite of what the Dadaists did, the Dadaist reacted against things. They didn’t explain their emotions, even if they had them. Neo-Dadaism already applies to multiple art movements from the 1960s, such as the Fluxus art movement, so I’m not sure how this group fits into that definition anyway. 

Anonymity appears to be another sticking point she has with these young group of poets. Regarding this, I might not be the best person to discuss openness regarding the internet, as I write as a sloth, but I disagree on this point as well. Nearly all of the writers infuse a lot of their writing with their personalities, perhaps more so than the average poets. They write under their own names, as opposed to some false identity. Whenever you go to Steve Roggenbuck’s or Poncho Peligroso’s websites, you see countless images of their pictures in various degrees of shock/apathy. 

 “Neutral facial expression” gets a mention in here, so I’m happy that she’s clearly done her research, either that or she’s absolutely sick with getting confronted by it. Her reference to the poets being emo kids who didn’t grow up at all feels a bit harsh. Considering how later in comments she accuses some of the poets of being personally affronted, it feels a bit hypocritical considering her more personal than objective criticism. This might be the worst part of her article to me and felt oddly petty to simply state “Oh they never grew up, poor emo kids. Guess they’re going to cry about it”.

Besides, emotional detachment isn’t exactly a hallmark of emo kids, usually the opposite. Besides, I thought the emo thing had sort of ended, and the emo kids grew up into hipsters. Or maybe I’m wrong. Please let me know.

Finally, she discusses Poncho’s manifesto, which I’ll republish below:

Language is language.

Words are words.

Poems are poems.

Words are language.

Poems are words.

Poetry is language.

Run wild.

Regarding this, the 2011 Poet Laureate does explain on his tumblr how he meant “All language has the potential to be poetry if we want it to”. Is this necessarily a bad thing? Discovery of new forms of expression is a good thing, as is an embrace of the ‘primitive’ vernacular language we use on the internet. Remember how John Cage stated “Everything we do is music”. Basically, it is the same idea with poetry. Whether or not you find their work to be poetry or not, they simply explore language in a more direct and forceful way than most people do. Her discussion of their work criticizes it for the simple language. Flowery or sophisticated language isn’t the hallmark of a great writer. A lot of great writers used simple language to great effect. Would Hemingway have been the same writer with an ornate approach? I doubt it. 

Finally, the ending reveals her true feelings towards the movement. Kat hopes the movement will ‘yawn itself out’, a clever way of saying it will exhaust itself. Though she might not enjoy the poetry it creates, it might be the beginning of something better. All of their poetry is still new, they’ve just found themselves, to hope for a movement to just get a hint and die off is harsh. Even her not particularly beloved Dada evolved into Surrealism, an art form she clearly has warmer feelings for. Perhaps if she doesn’t like what they are doing now, who knows how their work will change. Later on it might morph into something she appreciates or enjoys. 

Overall though, I’m glad she wrote this piece. I hope she continues exploring and analyzing poetry (visit her blogspot here)since she clearly enjoys it. Perhaps her next article might elaborate further on poetry she enjoys. While I might not agree with her article, she clearly did research on the poets involved. Though she didn’t like it, she did continue to give it additional coverage. By giving the internet poets attention, she inadvertently promotes them and their goals. To see an extremely spirited debate, I’d suggest reading the comments at the bottom to see various people’s reactions. 

Art’s purpose is to provoke. If these poets’ work provoked Kat Dixon, whether good or bad, that means they clearly serve a purpose. 

PS: I’d like to not call this group of people Neo Dadaists. Whenever a group first gets labeled, it is hard to shake a label off. Kat might not have realized this, but she may have given them a name which could stick. Since I’m not fond of this label I asked Poncho via Twitter what label he’d prefer for his literary movement. 

As per Poncho:

                CALL US BOYKITTENS

Internet Poetry

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Poncho Peligroso: 2011 Poet Laureate

               I think I’m starting to get sucked into the world of online (or maybe Real Life) poetry. Poncho Peligroso may be one of those people who might help get me more into poetry. Reading his tumblr explaining how he became interested in poetry sort of resonated with me. Rather than coming about as something forced, it happened almost by pure chance, due to a technological limitation.

                Now he’s become something else, something far greater than his humble Texan origins might have suggested: he is in the running to become the 2011 Poet Laureate. This honored position offers a great deal of prestige and money. As the Poet Laureate, he’ll be able to offer the President sound advice in both economic and military spheres through the power of poetry. In case this boon wasn’t enough, the $35,000 offers him the ability to life the high life, in places as diverse as Bozeman, MT, Buffalo, NY, and Colfax, WA. These places are fully American according to the 2010 US census, since Congress had determined a requirement of all Poet Laureates is to ‘live off the land’ like a true American.

                Archer M. Huntington originally funded the project as a gift. Seeing the despair going around during the Great Depression, he thought of what America really needed to get itself out of the doldrums. Looking around at all the unemployed poets eating out of his trash cans, he created a $35,000 stipend to allow them to explore their art and eat. 

                Why do I think Poncho Peligroso has a chance at winning this prestigious award? To you, I simply direct you to the 2011 Poet Laureate. Having read his work, I can assure you it is only of the highest quality not only on the internet, but anywhere. Single-handedly he’s been able to create a vast outpouring of work unrivaled in the underground poetry scene. His tumblr exudes the confidence of a man who has just found himself.

                He states how he hadn’t voluntarily written poetry until 2010. The long, circuitous route he traveled to get there speaks to the failing of twenty-somethings: the constant problems, financial, professional, and otherwise. Our parents had it easier. All they had to worry about was some foreign power launching an Atomic Bomb against the United States. You know, simpler times.

                The 2011 Poet Laureate knows these are trickier times, know what needs to be said and also unsaid. For a lot of poetry derives its power for the implied spaces, people and places it never states explicitly. Please take a moment to discover this true literary icon doing something he truly loves. Maybe someday all of us will find our true calling, until then, we can watch others.