My old Manifesto Assignment

READ THIS AS FAST AS YOU CAN WITHOUT SPITTING
that's how I wrote it...

Go-

Can I just say sometthing like, "This is a Manifesto, take one?"

Go faster-

Sure, poetry is cool. But what makes it cool? Are you cool enough to say to the person next to you, “hey you, here is what makes this here poem cool?” A sonnet about a guy who loves his iPod, a villanelle about a reality show fanatic’s feelings toward a competitor; a sestina about a six-pack of Pabst; a quick haiku about how Ukiah is Haiku spelled backwards written by some kid with an Amish beard; what makes those poems cool? DO you know they are cool before reading them based on their titles (if any) or the reputation of the poet, or because the kid beside you pointed to them? Maybe they were in some new hip magazine published by the friends of some coffee shop or local bar… Are poems supposed to be cool, or funny, or moving? Hey, read my poetry. I mix it up better than that last guy. I don’t just read my poems; I yell them at people from the crosswalk. My poems are all about weed and purple haze and mythological comic book dudes. “I only read the Beats or the New York Schoolers or the classic romantics or whatever doesn’t make sense.” It’s safer to read poems that don’t make sense and poems I can relate to. The poetry I read doesn’t have to make sense, and I don’t know why. Line breaks and stanzas- I consider those arbitrary when I read and write poetry. I like it that way; it makes poetry fresh, unpredictable, and spontaneous, and most of all safe.

[cut out iPod Poem]

But for me, writing poetry is like taking down the feelings and thoughts at any given moment. If I’m pissed at my sister I can write a poem about how she doesn’t get me. I write it in such a way that she won’t get it when I read it to her. That way I can tell her how I feel and she will never get it. She says, “it’s cool,” and doesn’t get it. She just said that the pissed off stuff I wrote about her was cool.
Poems record, for me, the instant connections and feelings of moments. It’s the sensation of linking word descriptions to the feelings and hearings recorded for the purpose of sharing with hopes preservation and appreciation. A kind of “here is how I see the world” Why is Brandy such a fine girl of a song? Is it the tune, the lyrics, or the associations one makes with the song? Perhaps it can be all, or one, or a combination of all the ones.
Read it like you hear it. Forget the line breaks unless you can’t breathe. Add the breaks to make it look like you have thought about them. If they don’t think your poem is cool they may have heard it before. It might just be better if they heard it before. They can say, “Hey, I didn’t know that dude listened to The Violent Femmes and Eagle Eye Cherry. He likes American Music too,” and “I didn’t know music was in his soul.” I like all kinds of music. It reminds me of me, and I like myself best.
Poems come from associations, for me. Words create paths to others words cataloged in my memory. Usually, my poems come from the most beautiful (not pretty, ugly, or cool specifically) experiences and observances in my recollection, or my idea of what might be beautiful. I like to think of my poems as mix-tapes dedicated to those moments, sceneries, etc…
I won’t lie today. I have only a slight clue about form and its role in my poetry. I mix the form up because I think I have to, unless I decide to write in a traditional form, even then I get mixed up. I feel strange copying someone’s form. It feels like I’m using someone else’s eyes to see and their mouth to speak. I’ll use parts of their words, but something feels un-cool about writing a sonnet. I just can’t see a sonnet that way. I can appreciate the challenge as exercise, but when I look at it I feel like it’s not authentic. Sounds like an excuse for not sticking to a form doesn’t it. I hate that in poetry— people who use excuses to not try or to back up some crap they wrote that wasn’t considered cool, not even by the dude who wrote the iPod connection poem.
Some manifesto this is. It’s like an inconsiderate speed manifesto. The best thing to come out of this will be the poem about iPods. I hope this won’t go down on my permanent record.