A series of poems started in August 2015, each one written after a poem in Joanne Kyger’s book On Time: Poems 2005-2014. Each of her poems was used as a prompt, with a tone, format, content and/or trope taken from the original to create a new poem of my own. For example, she write a poem entitled: Easter and the nearest holiday to me that would spark any real energy was the Winter Solstice. Her poem pokes fun at religion and since I am not a religious person, I could relate. But the fun-poking in my poem was more at the long gray periods in Seattle at this time of year, so the tone is transferred somewhat. There are many more examples I could point out, but hopefully either you get the idea, or this book gets published (or both) and you can see for yourself the choices made in the moment.
And I’ve read some of these poems at venues in Seattle, most notably EasySpeak Seattle, which continues to be the best open mic in town and the closest thing since 2005 to Red Sky Poetry Theater.
The series at this writing is finished.
1. Sunday
2. “We are encouraged to think, however, that such commonality is a socially constructed fiction.”
3. Happy Summer
4. All Night
5. What the Heat Does
6. The Apartment
7. Fighting Terrorism
8. White Chickens
9. For a Moment
10. So Still
11. Another Record
12. Bastille Day & Subduction Zone Comedy
13. “Are You One of Those Postcard Poets?”
14. Maple Syrup
15. Obligation
16. Killing Time
17. Essential
18. Morning Train
19. Directed Surrender
20. Tuesday’s Belief
21. Late for Lammas Again
22. Sex Dream
23. South of MLK & Cherry
24. Splendid and Horrible
25. Monday Night Football in Seattle
26. The Art of Living Slowly
27. Hanging Leaves
28. Fact Checking in America (For Richard Brautigan)
29. Body Count (For San Bernardino)
30. Poetic Purification
31. Goodbye 2015
32. Preparing for the Solstice 2015
33. Eighty-Seven Remarkable (or Fun) Things about Paul E Nelson Sr. &/Or Charles Olson on What Would’ve Been their 87th &/or 105th Birthdays Dec 27, 2015.
34. Winter Solstice
35. The Ecosystem’s Dictator
36. January 3, 2016
37. January 4, 2016
38. A Cosmological Undertaking
39. Trying to Find Certainty
40. 2016 Year of the Fire Monkey
42. I’ve Sixteen Minutes Now to Try and Concoct a Response to All The Poets “Traffic[ing] in Polyvocality” and “Reinscribing Listening With… Somatic Impact and Ethical Response.”
43. There Are Those Subud Members
44. Mansplaining to Witch Hazel
45. A Son of a Pimp & Reality TV Star Married to a Woman with Silicone Breasts will be Elected President
46. Mocking Justice
47. Grandfather Hummingbird
48. Self of the Mild Addictions
49. Love is Metaphysical Gravity
50. All Antagonisms are Complementary
51. Screen Saver
52. Cloudy Windy Sunny Cloudy
53. GPS Activity
54. WTF Just Happened?!?
55. Prince
56. “Write Something About Poetics”
57. Prihatin Dream Diary Cascadia Winter/Spring 2016
58. Hey Thanks
59. Poem Beginning with a Line by Philip Lamantia
60. Rock Roses Make a Good Cover Photo
61. Try to Breathe
62. Late Squirrel Breakfast for Crow
63. Everything I Knew About God Is Wrong
64. Can You Believe
65. Annular Solar Eclipse
66. “Nobody Told Me Grief Felt So Much Like Fear”
67. Romantic
68. Make Yourself at Home in the Exciting Typhoon
69. The Epic of Radicalized Weather
70. “God” as the Quantified Self
71. Goodbye 2016
72. It’s the Big Rip
73. Day 948
74. Stoutly Maintains Find the Failing Thought Pattern
75. The Galley Bay Bird Feeder’s an Altar
76. After Throwing Another Log on the Fire
77. A Quiet Bay
78. “Postcard Sunset”
79. Better Get Slow Again
80. Post-Democracy