Posts tagged ‘on poetry’

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August 10, 2010

post theft

by jhon baker

Lily Hoang posted these quotes on HTML Giant. I’ve been aware of them and in some form everyone has heard them or at least will have soon enough to make the statement as close to truth as need be.
I am stealing her post now and only hoping that she doesn’t mind too much.

Alexandre Dumas said: The man of genius does not steal, he conquers.
And Robert Schumann said: Talent works, genius creates.
And Oscar Wilde said: Talent borrows; genius steals
And Pablo Picasso said: Bad artists copy. Good artists steal.
Or maybe Pablo Picasso said: The bad artists imitate, the great artists steal.
And Igor Stravinsky said: Lesser artists borrow, great artists steal.
And T.S. Eliot said: One of the surest tests is the way in which a poet borrows. Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different. The good poet welds his theft into a whole of feeling which is unique, utterly different than that from which it is torn; the bad poet throws it into something which has no cohesion. A good poet will usually borrow from authors remote in time, or alien in language, or diverse in interest.

 My response is as follows and I am stealing it from the comments section of same said blog –

I can’t find a way to agree with the statements without saying that I believe I am a thief.

Am I great or merely good? I don’t truly know and think I may possibly be fooling myself and my readers into thinking I am greater than a dead fly – but I do know that I steal like a master thief. It is one of my few vices.

Vices:
coffee
theft
sport fucking
mental illness

I did not steal her found image though and for that you will have to follow this link.

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August 10, 2010

by jhon baker

some people say to leave them (readers) wanting more… bull shit – leave readers feeling like they are totally used up and can no longer function because of what you have done to them.

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July 27, 2010

Thankfully, it’s fatal

by jhon baker

I’ve not been present for the past two days.  I would ask, beg, plead for forgiveness but I do not believe anyone has been offended or should be if they were.

 there’s a painting. Acrylic and ink on four canvasses. 54.5″x43″

The inability to have been present was entirely within my scope of control and I simply chose to not be or rather I spun into a depression that I am still in the grips of but am now choosing to at least be productive to see if that lifts me from the mire I find myself in. This isn’t a good time for depression as I typically hate my poetry and prose when I am this down and this depression has chose to not set any new precedents in that vein. Posting may be a doorway out or into an abstract depression which would also be fine.

abstract depression being far more preferable to standard depression
So, here I am in mid post with two photographs that have little to do with anything, but what is this post about anyway? 
I long to write poetry about the beauty of flowers but I either pick them or they wither while the words lie in wait for the impressionistic moment when they will be most needed. So the flower dies and I write vignettes about soup, carpeting and the clean feeling teeth have after eating a fresh apple. 
who wants poetry about flowers? who wants photographs about flowers?
just in case you wanted a photograph of flowers
the sun hides
–    for Jackson

The sun hides
behind clouds &
cold wind
but
   wishes
        to
shine down on
my garden
for the flowers

 – Hoc Scripsi

just in case you wanted a poem about flowers – sort of.

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July 20, 2010

the dirty bookstore

by jhon baker

The therapist has urged me to start keeping a record of my dreams – I think to try and suss them out. This morning I awoke about five -thirty and recorded the two that were still screaming in my head; dreams, at least mine, are schizophrenic. Interesting to record when everything changes instantly, without segue.
I went to the bookstore to try to locate an appropriate dream journal and was unimpressed by the selection. I have a collection of unused notebooks that I keep on hand so I really didn’t need to buy anything and I left the store with books for my son and Mojo magazine edited by Tom Waits, no journal. I decided to simply use the one already bedside that I record my day in and to double it’s purpose, I’m sure it doesn’t mind. This particular bookstore was dirty and badly arranged but with no dirty books to make the scene complete. There was a section of art books that I am sure people could find obscene but that doesn’t make them porn and there were books that I found obscene but for reasons of how poorly written they were and not the content of imagery.

today in 1969 Buzz Aldrin did a two step on the moon – I don’t believe that I’ll do anything that interesting today.

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