New Blog Chronicling My Trip to NZ

Internet, Internet, Internet…

You know I’m going to New Zealand in two days, I’ve told you that repeatedly. I know that in Auckland I’ll have to pay for you but New Zealanders use fake money anyway so it’s cool. I’ll miss you in the meantime. I’ll miss having you on my phone – hoopdie pay-as-you-go NZ phones won’t support you.

Honestly, who could take this seriously?

Good news though. I’ve created a separate (but equal) blog to chronicle my events overseas and to help me keep in touch with those interested. The new blog is JerryGoesKiwi.wordpress.com. Check it out if you’re interested, posts on this blog should be slow for the next few months. I know Internet, nothing new. I’ve added the blog to my blogroll for convenience just in case this post gets pushed down by new ones.

Oh shit I’m leaving soon.

Stay warm (New Zealand is 75 and sunny now so I will),
erry

Bukowski: Reach for the Sun

It’s a new year, Internet.

It’s that point where everyone makes those little, insincere promises to themselves without ever intending to keep them or, with good intentions and simply poor execution. Myself, I made a commitment to reading more. After putting down Joyce’s “The Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man” last summer and leaving it sit, I was determined to get back on my hop and digest some good literature. Afterall, as an aspiring novelist I need to appreciate the art before I can imitate it.

So I went to Raven Used Books – real quaint used place in Cambridge, smelled richly of pages – and grabbed a few. I have already finished Kerouac’s novella “The Subteranneans” (which was awe-inspiring) and have since moved on to what I thought  was a book of poetry by Charles Bukowski. The book is, in actuality, a collection of his letters, many of which talk about the craft of writing (since the bulk of the correspondence is with other writers) and its many quirks, pitfalls, and pleasures.

It provides an excellent frame of mind for Bukowski. The man, all wonderful, was a habitual gambler and wino but a prolific poet nonetheless. He had some keen – albeit wry – observations on the writer (perhaps the artist Joyce attempted to discuss with me) that I’d like to share:

 It has always been the popular concept for the writer to starve, go mad, suffer, suicide.

Pity the poor writer, he not only attracts madwomen, he not only destroys his liver with drinking, he also has no Union…and few working rights and/or benefits.

 

Hm. Beautiful in a way. Definitely working itself into my novel.

Stay warm,
Jerry

New Loyola Blog: The Stairs that Lead Nowhere

Hey Internet,

Exciting news! My cohort and fellow future New Zealand immigrant Dan Koster (known henceforth as DK) has started a new wiki-inspired blog titles “The Stairs that Lead Nowhere.”

It’s an open blog, one that invites eager members of the Loyola University student body to contribute freely. Right now there’s a solid core but DK is always looking for uplifting additions to the blog. There are 12 posts a of this writing, so feel free to explore at www.tstln.blogspot.com.

Stay fresh Internet, there’s a lot of interesting things going on out there.

Jerry

And the boy drifted, all wonderful, into a dream called poetry

Hey Internet,

It’s been a while since I came around, I know, but I’ve got something I’d like to share with you.

About eighteen months ago, I began reading a lot of ee cummings. While on a vacation in Rockport, MA, I picked up a copy of his collected works to entertain myself with. Having encountered anyone lived in a pretty how town in high school, I was fairly familiar (and, subsequently, enchanted) by cummings’s erratic style and diction.

Soon after my then-girlfriend bought me a more extensive collection which included not only poetry of his I had not previously encountered but prose (read:  “Eimi”) which employed a similiar style.

Inspired by this, I wrote the following conversation between a young ee cummings and his mother entitled the Earth Laughs in Flowers. Enjoy, internet.

12:19AM; September 21, 1895-
A young Edward Estlin Cummings noisily jerks out of nightmare on a cold autumn night. The boy’s mother, Rebecca Haswell Clark, is awakened by his yelp and rushes to his bedroom.

“Estlin, are you alright? You nearly gave me a heart attack!”

“i’ve been visited by a bad dream,not a nightmare (per se,but a blackandwhite
dreambreath where atonce! everything was Night-but-still-Day and the pitterpa tterpe ople (in my dream)made no surprise,no awkward observation;just smiled unConCEivinGly”

“Dear boy, is that all? You look so frazzled.”

“and i strolled patternedly leftrightleftright through a beautiful park,where the
oncesocoloured trees were suddenly suckedIn grey and the lilac pods sPlit u.n.s.e.a.m.i.n.g.l.y (like lips) sPitTingly notsopurple petals, the grass still felt earthy like grassdoes,the birds still sang their somethingofasong &a man named someone still kissed a girl named anything on the park bench but her cheeks(muted blushed a dull rose. even my livingveins had lost their (gentle)blue and the wonderfull was empty.”

“Don’t be silly, there are many sorts of colors inside of you. They run all through you from your fingertips to your heart and back again; just like they run through the trees and the flowers and the sky.”

“i remembered colours,though i couldn’t find wOrds todescribe colours &everyoneelse seemed to forget.there was an orchid, redbrightred on thehi ghestt reebranch,above in verdant softness,beckoningly rare –the familiar flower of what my blOOd wasonce.i reeeeaaaaached for it,extending my fingerslikeroads forking&parting,seeking.but I couldnot grasp,my chest heaved nowhere,held back by littlefingersofnothing,pulli ngmeto wardsbla ckagain.i called for SPring! and her manycoloured touch,but her face was turned.”

“Now now Estlin, it was just a dream. The colors never left, they’re all around you. Your hunter green fleece, the perky red ball on your floor – even your calm brown eyes; they’re all here. Lay your head back down; it’s much too late to be up worrying about fading, don’t you think? Sometimes your vibrant little imagination gets the best of you, but it’s nothing a little sleep can’t fix.”

“MOTHER,once the lights cutoff i’m afraid the coming-to-stain nothing will swallow& never sPitbacKout the colours i love.please,(maybe)if you sit there at the end of my bed until i drift-off-to-sleep,all will sink bac kinand (perhaps)openUP.”

And the boy drifted, all wonderful, into a dream called poetry.

In which I ask a tired cliche

Ain’t it funny, Internet?

Things happen really quickly in college: your roommates become your closest cohorts in a few months, before you know it you’re backpedaling out of an overwhelming Philosophy class, and the girls…oh, the girls.

Contact is so easy here at Loyola. The student body is roughly 4,000 students and campus is cross-navigable in less that fifteen minutes. Because of this, relationships born here tend to escalate quickly. We’re quick to turn drunk hook-ups into lunch dates and even quicker to turn lunch dates into weeknight sleepovers. Two weeks later, its Facebook official.

Earlier this year, my good friend Percy (no, Internet, that’s not his real name) broke up with his girlfriend from home whom he had been dating for the first two years of college. Unsurprisingly, he was depressed and coped with this by giving it “the old college try” – a.k.a. filling himself with cheap beer and finding the closest thing in high heels. This was two months ago.

He met Dorothy. Dorothy lives in our building and she is a sweetheart. Immediately, we began to bust Percy’s balls for cuddling up with her on our couch and taking her to dinner (also, for having a ridiculous name). We would mockingly refer to her as his “girlfriend” to which he would respond with an indignant, “fuck you.” Within a few weeks, the sleepovers were commonplace, she was rarely seen without him, and they were holding hands across the quad. As of yesterday, they’re officially dating - a fact which makes him feel quote “weird.”

I’ve stopped making fun of him though. Not because I felt bad or because I have a newfound respect for comical names, but because I see the logic. College is a strange atmosphere. Sometimes, love gets lost in the shuffle or is cast aside for lust instead. He’s a romantic, and I can’t knock him for that.

Sure, things happened fast – but does that make it less sincere? Perhaps inhesitance is a sign of comfort, or sheer will, or (fuck it) destiny. At least give the kids credit for not being afraid to try. Truth be told, I’m seeing a lot of myself in that.

I’m a lifer, that’s for sure, and I’m a poet – both of which mean I’m pretty much down for the count once a pretty girl pays me any attention. Such is the case (more on that later, Internet).

Let’s just say I owe cupid an ass kicking for being so damn accurate all the time.

Stay warm,
Jerry

Amber Tamblyn – “Gene Diamonds”

Hey Internet,

Just though I’d share this one with you – it’s a beat poem by actress Amber Tamblyn (of Joan of Arcadia and General Hospital fame) titled “Gene Diamonds”. The footage is taken from the upcoming DVD “The Drums Inside Your Chest” which also features prominent poets Jeffrey McDaniel, Derrick Brown, and Buddy Wakefield.

This video is just something I can’t seem to shake – I keep returning to it over and over. I hope you enjoy it as much.

For more from Amber, check out http://www.amtam.com/

Stay warm,
Jerry

…So this is the blogosphere

“And your very flesh shall be a great poem. “
- Walt Whitman

As a poet, the world comes to me in details. Every aspect is digested both with deft appreciation and stark criticism. To me, there is poetry in everything.

This blog will be an exercise in mind mapping. At times, I will be verbose and overly romantic. Other times, I will dismissive and cynical. Both instances will be a reflection of my poetic worldview.

For now, it’s just me and you, Internet. I’ll consider this a private discourse between the two of us if you promise to do the same. I will share all I have to share with you and only you. I hope you enjoy my quirky disposition and can come to appreciate the world as Whitman does – as we both do.

Stay warm,
Jerry