Poetry Koan

PRAYER

Every day I want to speak with you. And every day something more important

-Marie Howe

In this episode, I explore through the above koan the challenges of living with our fidgety and distractible minds. Why are our minds like this, and is there anything we can do to bring ourselves more into flow? 

Joining me on this journey: Melville's Bartleby and his I-would-prefer-not-to mantra; Nir Eyal and his book Indistractible; a couple of philosophers (Bentham and Epicurus), as well as a few more poets (Kim Addonizio, Carlos Drummond Andrade, Sarah Lindsay, and Robert Burns writing a poem to a homeless mouse). 

The physicist Jim Al-Khalili muses on universal entropy; psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (me-high cheek-sent-me-high) and William James muse on psychic entropy, and Jenny Odell does "nothing". 

Transcript and shownote: http://stevewasserman.co.uk/and-every-day-something-more-important-calls-for-my-attention-marie-howes-prayer/

Some reflections on Chio Nakamura's Wild Strawberries via The Book of Job, Hansel & Gretel, 22 year-old Amy in Madison Wisconsin struggling with Covid-19, Bergman's Seventh Seal, and a brief (but very effective) psychological grounding practice called 3-2-1. 

WILD STRAWBERRIES

You’re having a bad day.

But now there’s another one prowling below,

You take a deep breath,

What else can you do now but reach for a berry?

-Chio Nakamura

Transcript: http://stevewasserman.co.uk/what-else-can-you-do-now-but-reach-for-a-berry/

Some reflections on Caedmon's hymn via Beckett, Barthes, Foucault, Dracula, Corona, poem-twittery as identity politics, and why poetry koans are (maybe?) more important than the poets who wrote them.

“Someone speaks, someone hears: no need to go any further. It is not he, it is not she, it’s I. (Or another, or others – what does it matter?) The case is clear: it is not he, she, they who I know I am (that’s all I know), who I cannot say I am. (I can’t say anything – I’ve tried, I’m trying.) We know nothing, know of nothing: neither what it is to speak, nor what it is to hear.”

SAMUEL BECKETT (from The Unnameable)

Text version of this episode here: http://stevewasserman.co.uk/ttm-3-the-joys-delights-of-being-nobody-everybody-caedmons-hymn/

Seventy One Kilograms

My arse is growing fatter.

Monday, 6 April 2020

THE WAREHOUSE

Text version of this episode here: http://stevewasserman.co.uk/4184-2/

In which I talk to myself about Mary Ruefle’s sadness, social media, our inner interlocutors, and the decision to deliver electric shocks to one's own gonads rather than sit in a room quietly listening to the mind’s chatter.

“Gray sadness is the sadness of paper clips and rubber bands, of rain and squirrels and chewing gum, ointments and unguents and movie theaters. Gray sadness is the most common of all sadnesses, it is the sadness of sand in the desert and sand on the beach, the sadness of keys in a pocket, cans on a shelf, hair in a comb, dry-cleaning, and raisins. Gray sadness is beautiful, but not to be confused with the beauty of blue sadness, which is irreplaceable. Sad to say, gray sadness is replaceable, it can be replaced daily, it is the sadness of a melting snowman in a snowstorm.”

(Mary Ruefle, from My Private Property)

Text version of this episode here: http://stevewasserman.co.uk/ttm-1-mary-ruefles-sadness/

In this episode of Poetry Koan, Richard Scott prescribes Practising by Marie Howe which you can read here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/54778/practicing. 

RICHARD SCOTT was born in London in 1981. His poems have appeared widely in magazines and anthologies including Poetry Review, Poetry London, PN Review, Swimmers, The Poetry of Sex (Penguin) and Butt Magazine. He has been a winner of the Wasafiri New Writing Prize, a Jerwood/Arvon Poetry Mentee and a member of the Aldeburgh 8. His pamphlet ‘Wound’ (Rialto) won the Michael Marks Poetry Award 2016 and his poem ‘crocodile’ won the 2017 Poetry London Competition. Soho (Faber & Faber) is his first book. Richard is on Twitter @iamrichardscott.

This week in the pharmacy we have the poet SANDRA SIMONDS!

Sandra Simonds is the author of six books of poetry: Orlando, (Wave Books, 2018), Further Problems with Pleasure, winner of the 2015 Akron Poetry Prize from the University of Akron Press, Steal It Back (Saturnalia Books, 2015), The Sonnets (Bloof Books, 2014), Mother Was a Tragic Girl (Cleveland State University Poetry Center, 2012), and Warsaw Bikini (Bloof Books, 2009). Her poems have been published in the New York Times, the Best American Poetry 2015 and 2014 and have appeared in many literary journals, including Poetry, the American Poetry Review, the Chicago Review, Granta, Boston Review, Ploughshares, Fence, Court Green, and Lana Turner. In 2013, she won a Readers’ Choice Award for her sonnet “Red Wand,” which was published on Poets.org, the Academy of American Poets website. She lives in Tallahassee, Florida and is an Associate professor of English and Humanities at Thomas University in Thomasville, Georgia.

Here are the poems we discuss in the episode:

I Know a Man by Robert Creeley

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/42839/i-know-a-man

Sonnet by Bernadette Mayer

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49729/sonnet-you-jerk-you-didnt-call-me-up

This week in the pharmacy we have the poet RONNA BLOOM prescribing poems for ONLINE DATING BLUES!

Ronna is a poet, speaker, psychotherapist, and author of six books. Her poems have been broadcast on the CBC, displayed in public spaces, recorded by the CNIB, and translated into Spanish and Bengali.

Ronna speaks and writes at corporate events, leads organizational retreats, runs workshops, and does poetry and writing coaching. She brings twenty years of psychotherapy practice to her work as a poet and facilitator.

She is currently Poet in Community at the University of Toronto and Poet in Residence at Mount Sinai Hospital.

Ronna has performed with Juno award-winning musician Jayme Stone. A one minute film based on the poem “Grief Without Fantasy” was made by filmmaker Midi Onodera and screened in the Official Selection at the Toronto Urban Film Festival.

Ronna has written 5 books of poetry, which some people really liked. Several of these have been shortlisted for Canadian literary prizes. Her sixth book, The More, was released October 12, 2017.