http://www.levelerpoetry.com Sun, 25 Jul 2010 06:52:52 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en levelheaded: PostcardLike most "postcards," Daniel Marsteller's presents a snapshot of a memorable place and attempts to transmit through words the predominately inexplicable experience of being there. From the outset though, the poem instructs us to expect more than banalities like "Having a great time. Wish you were here." Take, for ... http://www.levelerpoetry.com/postcard-levelheaded/ Postcard Earlier lying around the yard  We had just begun to feel being eaten  When Tyrus chanced  Upon the decomposing owl.  He held it up in the sun:  More beautiful than words! we agreed.  But this before us other two  Had embarked on that mundane but fatal errand—  The rusted station wagon pausing  Aside the sandy highway,  Its chancy crew,  The baby ... http://www.levelerpoetry.com/postcard/ levelheaded: Cemetery Cars The boundary between prose-poetry and flash-fiction is blurry at best; it’s just so hard to tell the difference. Even when considering prose-poetry by itself, it’s hard to say whether it is better classified as prose for its narrative style, or rather belongs to the genre of poetry for ... http://www.levelerpoetry.com/cemetery-cars-levelheaded/ Cemetery Cars At night, some skell was punching in the windows of the cars parked along the gates of the cemetery and I could hear it from my apartment, more wary of the silence afterwards. I don’t know what he was looking for or what he thought he’d find. But he ... http://www.levelerpoetry.com/cemetery-cars/ levelheaded: Upon a Line by Michael Cunningham   The best directive for how to read Doug Paul Case’s “Upon a Line by Michael Cunningham” is the line by which it is inspired. Let’s begin with the introductory clause, “A bee thumps heavily.” There are a lot of things bees are known for—their ... http://www.levelerpoetry.com/upon-a-line-by-michael-cunningham-levelheaded/ Upon a Line by Michael Cunningham A bee thumps heavily, insistently, against a windowpane. Watching from the counter, I wonder what it will do when it crashes through, finding itself in my kitchen. Will it construct a colander nest? Try to pollinate the freshly-cut roses, resting in cool water? Perhaps it will drown amidst the thorns, ... http://www.levelerpoetry.com/upon-a-line-by-michael-cunningham/ levelheaded: Epiphenomenal Epithalamium There is something at once off-putting and enticing about this poem’s densely Latinate title. It is essentially a kind of technical, academic jargon, but it also rolls off the tongue (the two words are both six syllables and the “ph” and “th” of their respective words lend an ... http://www.levelerpoetry.com/epiphenomenal-epithalamium-levelheaded/ Epiphenomenal Epithalamium the path of least resistance is resonance : for example : as if in a playback loop : the sound of our elongated echoes eloping http://www.levelerpoetry.com/epiphenomenal-epithalamium/ levelheaded: Chautauqua: Nights On The Beach In his essay, "Yeats, Eliot, Pound - The Symbolist Inheritance," C.K. Stead writes of "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock": "It forces us to recognize that a poem is a verbal machine far more complex in its operations than any meaning it may ... http://www.levelerpoetry.com/chautauqua-nights-on-the-beach-levelheaded/ Chautauqua:  Nights On The Beach I. Chautauqua’s tiny hills, stone steps; branches arch over.  A child’s chapel keeps meditative exploration sacred in me, my small figure carrying a raft towards a big clock on the beach. I like when night starts in, makes views hard; my parents squint to see me scamper over grass in distance.  Always, I submit, ... http://www.levelerpoetry.com/chautauqua-nights-on-the-beach/