MEMO TO A LANGUAGE POET

dVerse Poets Pub

Poetry Potluck

To get the most out of this poem, one should be at least somewhat familiar with what is referred to as Language Poetry. Please take a moment to read some lines from Leslie Scalapino, and then come back.

I think Scalapino's poems are prime examples of what I'm referring to in "Memo To A Language Poet." By the way, I read "Memo To A Language Poet" in a literal den of Language Poets on one occasion, knowing what I was getting into, and somewhat apprehensive about how it would be received. When I finished, a young dude got up and read something that was just as disjointed as Scalapino's lines--glancing over at me in defiance a number of times. I applauded him at the end, because I think it's important for all poets to support other poets...no matter how their work strikes us.

MEMO TO A LANGUAGE POET

As a toddler you rejoiced not in stacking the blocks

but in knocking them down--

and it must have been difficult for you

when the teacher said to diagram a complete sentence

because you refused to write one.

And I understand that your favorite

game was DISCONNECT...the...dots.

Now, you say, the idea is to separate

language

from

meaning.

Life has no meaning,

so why should poetry?

Imbued with ambiguity,

it's not just a poem--

it's an adventure.

But your fits and starts

are starting to give me fits--

and it would surely give me pause

if I could find one independent clause.

And it must seem like a ball

and chain, this societal expectation

to make a little sense--

for to write with coherence

would be grave interference

with your disjunctive conjunctive experience.

Now I'll admit that I've enjoyed your work--

this Chinese food of the literary world,

for three or four seconds at a time.

But I find that I'm always hungry again

when I reach the next line...

and I keep thinking that if you'd

only hold that thought for a few

syllables longer, you might at least

come up with some haiku.

In your defense, I know a guy who was on

a step ladder one day,

and stuck his head a little too close to the ceiling fan...

now he has a short attention span

and he thinks you're a genius!

But you're forgetting one thing:

Language was invented

for the purpose of COMMUNICATION--

otherwise we'd still be sitting around

the fire saying UUGHH...

and beating each other over the head

with clubs, and eating with our fingers...

otherwise you are mentally masturbating

on my eyes, so put that pen back

in your pants and get a grip

on reality this time.

Don't get me wrong--

I like to play as much as the next poet,

and I can be as cryptic as an Egyptologist

sometimes

but to disconnect language

from meaning--

you might as well remove the ball and chain

from inside your toilet tank.

Either way you end up with shit.