“Longing for paradise crowded the beliefs of reasonable people. / Reasonable people longing for experimentation.” – Bob Sykora, “Various American Utopias, Abridged Version”
Hey, it’s the 11th. For the record, my preferred number in any sport is 11. Ayo Dosunmu currently wears #11 for the Bulls, and he’s a really cool player. Last year and the two years before, DeMar DeRozan wore #11 for the Bulls, and he’s one of the coolest players to ever exist in the NBA. I’ve thought this since his Toronto days, don’t accuse me of Kendrick Lamar front-running. This intro paragraph has gotten out of hand, hasn’t it? Anyway, I think this is just my latent fear of death rising, because I want it known that my basketball number is 11.
What I’ve Been Reading This Week:
Two books that really made me consider a strange version of a younger USian landscape. One explicitly dealing with settlers looking at “new” land and trying to make paradise out of it. Another set in Arkansas, one of the more dire outcomes of the USian project. I’m talking, of course, about Utopians In Love by Bob Sykora and pages 102-201 (lines 4041-8040) of The Battlefield Where The Moon Says I Love You by Frank Stanford.
Utopians In Love by Bob Sykora: it’s impossible to be objective about this book. Shall I refer to my comrade-in-podcasting-not-to-mention-the-screen-and-roll as a book reviewer would, casually referring to him as “Sykora?” When I really mean my BELOVED BOB??! FINE, let’s be objective. Bob writes poetry on an emotional level that I can’t emulate. Like, when I read You Were Talking About Love, I Was Talking About Geography, it resonated on such an emotional level that it changed the way I approach my writing. “Howevah,” I thought, possibly as a self-defense mechanism, “what happens when Bob gets outside his feelings?” The answer, of course, is a decade-long research dive into utopia. The end result is a book with resonance for both the current political moment (some of these utopian communities are, like, Shakers, and some are the predecessors to any cult you’d hear about on a Behind The Bastards episode) and for anyone who has just wanted life to be a little bit easier, to build something better than your current circumstances for your partner, your family, or just yourself. There’s a wandering spirit here, a theme of obsessive searching for something in both Big Questions and everyday micro-concerns. I adore research poetry books like this very much, and every time I try to think of a way to describe how cool it is that my wonderful friend wrote one, there’s a catch in my throat.
The Battlefield Where The Moon Says I Love You by Frank Stanford, pages 102-201, lines 4041-8040): definitely entered a stage with this poem where I am trying to understand a little less and am clinging to the sides of the roller coaster. My life is divided into two universes: everything else, and the chunks of time when I hop into Battlefield. The endless stream of lines, like a river of streaming shoals of alligator gar, mean that I’m reading at least two pages at a time, starting on the left side. If you’re wondering, I read some of this under the moon on one of the warm nights. I’ve read some while on my stationary bike. I’ve set timers for 10 and 15 minutes and read continuously until the timers go off. So many strange things happen in this poem, made all the stranger by how you can hardly ever tell who is talking, if they’re telling the truth, if they’re drunk or recently hit their head. It’s really funny every time he talks about some ancient hero like Unferth or a knight of the Round Table and then starts cussing.
BONUS FRANK EPIGRAPH
but colder than that since it ain’t summer yet by golly you can get
lonesome when it’s cold when you look way off and the only light
you see is in a house of folks for some reason you not allowed to mix with
it is something strange where you are cause you don’t know how you got there
LINKS!
Something to listen to while you browse? We had some great podcasts this week. One The Line Break, Bob and I go live in a hotel room (apologies for the weird audio) and talk our experiences at AWP and Bob’s experience with his book coming out (Apple | Spotty | SoundCloud). Over on The Lazy & Entitled Podcast, I was lucky enough to talk to the artist Julian Edward Williams about how he paints while also holding down a 9-5. Plus, Brendan and I talk about art restorers and preservationists (Apple | Spotty | SoundCloud). For music, how about a little LA-Chicago connection, with the Los Angeles League Of Musicians (LA LOM) jamming in Thalia Hall?
Hey, I had to write about beef this week for The Daily Meal. That led me to this wonderful Slate article by Benjamin Turley that talks about two of my favorite things: smashburgers and horror movies. Sometimes you gotta play the hits.
Some poetry, for National Poetry Month? Here’s “A Stirring Outside My Window Nine Stories Up” by Maya Klauber in The Sunlight Press.
Flash fiction: the fiction that’s almost poetry. Here’s “Pulelehua” by Melissa Llanes Brownlee in The Sunlight Press.
Back to poetry, here’s “Anniversary Day at Mount Jerome” by Jonny Voorheis in The Sunlight Press.
Not sure why I had this Atlas Obscura tab open on my phone—it’s been open for months—but it was an interesting read about immigrants from Cornwall, UK, to Hidalgo, Mexico, in this article by Mictlān Tēcutli.
What’re you still doing here? Don’t you know that Micah and Brendan have a show?
If you work in the service industry, may you clean up in tips this weekend. You and I know utopia lies in the daily joys—how lucky we are to enjoy art, how lucky we are that we get to eat good food. The leaves in the river must be so happy.
Sorry you got an email,
Chris