German Bus, American People

The recent indie film, nominated for a clutch of Oscars, Little Miss Sunshine, is the latest road-movie from an America that, from The Grapes of Wrath, to Easy Rider, on to Thelma & Louise, has forever pictured the bad-lands journey West ("to California") as both mythic and inherently doomed. Since The Day of the Locust, if not before, it's been de rigeur to note that people come to California to die, and this film is no different.

The family unit, united in tragedy, circles the (volks) wagons, and keeps out the Injuns, in this case, a majority of moral (or morally dubious) characters, from a perverted cop, to loud-mouth bereavement councillor to a cruel beauty pageant director. A late sublime moment ensues, when the failed Number One Proust Academic in America, lately suicidal, careens down a corridor, solely to reach the Little Miss Sunshine desk in time, his priorities realigned by the sense of the journey.

Like in all good quest narratives, the knights achieve their wisdom through their trials and tests as much as by what they locate at the end (of the rainbow, consider the empty promise of Oz). I am left with an ambiguous sense about the justness of the conclusion, which I won't reveal, except to say, it leaves an issue of sexual permissivity hanging in the air, that is most charitably resolved by saying, innocence cannot be corrupted by a tin man or cowardly lion, and perversity is, ultimately, in the eye of the beholder, not the dancer or the dance. This may surprise us all and beat The Departed for best film.

Acumen 57

Acumen literary journal is one of the best in the UK, in terms of content and design, including poems, themed sections, literary debates on issues of the day, interviews and reviews.

So it is I am glad to have a poem in issue 57 (January 2007) along with other poets I admire, such as Tim Dooley, John Burnside and Frank Dullaghan; there is also a delightful piece on favourite early books from Dannie Abse and poets on "Nature Poetry".

Burnside's interview zooms in on the enigmatic remarks he made in a recent Poetry Review, about a "highly-esteemed British poet" who has zero time for the work of Jorie Graham, or, one infers, almost any American poetry that doesn't scan. Burnside notes the "lack of generosity and openness" in much of the English poetry establishment, to outside influences, especially North American.

He notes the current great rift between the English and American traditions. It's very important for Burnside to be saying such things, however obliquely, and, hopefully, with time, a more receptive community of readers will develop, among the editors and publishers at large today (not that all are deaf to new tones and styles).

In the meantime, some of these same highly-esteemed poets visit North America on reading tours, or to mark events, happy to receive attention and support for their work, yet often deeply dismissive of the literary traditions and values operating in the new world. As poets we should aim to understand and appreciate various contexts, rather than fear or discard what does not immediately appeal to us, or our own sense of what tradition means - or so it seems to me.

Enough soap-boxing for one day!

To find out more about ordering this or future issues, see www.acumen-poetry.co.uk or email to PWOxley at aol dot com.

Radio Contact

As mentioned in an earlier post, I was featured on Pat Boran's RTE radio show, "The Poetry Program", on Saturday, along with Gery Murphy, an Irish poet from Cork City whose modus operandi is mainly satire, invective and the politcal epigram (some great stuff, check out his New and Selected, recently out).

Below is the link to listen to the show online. The theme was politics and poetry.

www.rte.ie/radio1/poetryprogramme

Poetry at The White House

This week-end is the 4th anniversary of the 100 poets against the war e-book, first launched end of January 2003 by Val Stevenson, of Nthposition, which was partly inspired by the refusal of American poets to read at the White House.

Meanwhile, I recently read at a different sort of White House, in Limerick. Here I am pictured with their witty and indefatigable Emcee, the bow-tied Barney Sheehan.

They have a clip of one of my poems performed - "The Man Who Killed Houdini" - at their blog. The White House series has become legendary in Ireland, and abroad, for the calibre of its guest poets, as well as open mic readers. They run every week, except for Christmas, without fail - this is their fourth year. Their patron saint is Ezra Pound's friend, Desmond O'Grady, who began poetry meetings their fifty years before, in the same pub.

http://whitehousepoets.blogspot.com/

Poem by Barbara DeCesare

Eyewear is very pleased to welcome Barbara DeCesare (pictued above) this wintry Friday. Her poems have appeared in Poetry, Alaska Quarterly Review, Gargoyle, and many others.

Dreamhouse, a musical based on her work, ran in Midtown International Theatre Festival in New York City.



Winter Mermaid

Stupid justice!
Love breaks the boundaries
of not just your ridiculous
punch-line of a heart
but truth and time,
washes up on shore and spills
her rusty hooks to you,
her mouth frothing over
with fish stories
or
maybe you get the flash
of a fin,
a glint of bead on the surface
when the surface is enough
to make you fall in.

I knew this girl,
this semiprofessional
three-season beauty

until winter fooled me,
took her back
when sea horses came
to the bedroom window.

by Barbara DeCesare

Northwest

In anticipation of the Oscar nominations, a poem inspired by one of the greatest directors of all time (Hitchcock), who never won an Oscar....

Northwest

Woke up in the house in North By Northwest
the one that flies out over the abyss.
What part of me is on microfilm?

When you were shot at the Grand Canyon
it was a fake bullet and fake blood
but you felt light as a lifeless glove in my arms.

It feels like disequilibrium to be walking here
amidst art from London, treachery from Russia.
Violent cultures produced my favourite authors.

Before the plane comes to take me away
in the forest of small pines, the light shooting
through, may I admit that my body loves you.

My mind is quite another subject, as you suspect.
This vase is like my dress, green, lifeless.
When I betrayed my nation I lost sleep.

Existence quickly becomes memorable, sadly.
In Vienna they taught me to ride horses,
speak with an American accent: Apple Pie!

poem by Todd Swift

Readings in Ireland

I'll be appearing in Ireland this week, at two of the West's best poetry venues, as well as on RTE's "The Poetry Program", interviewed by Pat Boran, to air Saturday night, 7 pm:

The White House Poetry Revival

The White House Bar, 52 O'Connell Street

Limerick City

Wednesday, January 24th, 9.00 pm

featuring Todd Swift

with open mic

Over The Edge fourth anniversary reading

Galway City Library

Thursday, January 25th, 6.30pm

featuring Todd Swift

Elaine Feeney & Mary Mullen

with open-mic