What I\u2019ve Been Reading This Week: <\/strong><\/p> It\u2019s National Poetry Month! What a thing, to have AWP right before National Poetry Month. You know, I make a reading schedule in advance. Thanks to AWP, there are all these new books on my shelf, and they\u2019re all junkball relievers, tossing screwballs and knucklers and 68-m.p.h. changeups at my schedule. First up, though, is friends\u2019 books, and this one actually came in the mail a few days before the conference. Gotta have something to read on the plane, right? I didn\u2019t want to lug around the other book I\u2019m reading, because I can\u2019t seem to do National Poetry Month without taking big swings. Anyway, this week, I was overjoyed to read Larks<\/em> by Han VanderHart and plunge into the first 101 pages (first 4040 lines) of The Battlefield Where The Moon Says I Love You<\/em> by Frank Stanford. <\/p> Larks<\/strong><\/em> by Han VanderHart<\/strong>: Han\u2019s poems agree with me very much. Most of these are as concise as a honeysuckle. There\u2019s something ineffably Southern in not just landscape and subject matter, but diction and syntax. That said, heads up for some heavy subject material here, including child sexual abuse and incest. What Southern literature exists without some heavy, uncomfortable subject matter, though, right? Read these poems out loud. I mean, always do that. But read these out loud.<\/p> The Battlefield Where The Moon Says I Love You<\/strong><\/em> by Frank Stanford, pages 1-101, lines 1-4040 : <\/strong>what a thrill to dive into this poem with the intention of actually finishing it. I\u2019ve feinted into these lines three or four times, but never gotten even this far. I\u2019ve also picked the book up and read 1-2 pages out loud when I was stuck or needed inspiration (that\u2019s happened way more often). One thing I\u2019ve never done is read the forward by C.D. Wright, a phenomenal poet in her own right and St. Francis\u2019s friend. Exciting to learn the whole thing is self-consciously trying to emulate epics of old (kinda feels obvious, after having it pointed out to me) and that the self-styled \u201cSt. Francis\u201d hero of the poem is an enthusiastic anti-segregation crusader who just wants to put a knife through every racists\u2019 eye. <\/p> What has always attracted me to the poem still holds up after 100 pages: Frank\u2019s ecstatic, thrillingly unpunctuated language, the righteous Southern anger and dialect, the Tom Waitsian cast of misfit characters and alternating beautiful and desolate landscapes. Talk about lines to read out loud. To call this poem maximalist is underselling it. This poem is an explosion, it\u2019s trying to wring as much use out of language as can be wrung. It wants to be read quickly, and yeah, sometimes it\u2019s fun to take your hands off the wheel and holler. Slow down, though. <\/p> I will note that you sort of have to keep in mind that this poem was written in the late 1970s. There are some terms we no longer use in here, as well as some transphobia from an early character in a traveling circus. <\/p> BONUS FRANK EPIGRAPH: <\/p> I know the rich are the only ones that had any good old days <\/p> I know the black swan <\/p> I know the pas de deux <\/p> I know drunk women shooting their husbands on Saturday night<\/p><\/blockquote> LINKS!<\/strong><\/p> Something to listen to while you browse? Why not check out Cola, a band I\u2019m almost certain has been recommended to me, but I just started listening to now. Here\u2019s \u201cTracing Hallmarks.\u201d<\/p>![\"Larks](\"https:\/\/substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com\/public\/images\/4a9e79e8-dc48-4cae-bfa3-9821360c94c6_4032x3024.heic\")
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