I want to hear Ezra Klein reading a poem by Ezra Pound to the tune of a Better Than Ezra song.
SUBJECT: EZRA
POUND BETTER THAN EZRA KLEIN: BOTTLE ONLY $19.99
1: In the L'Enfant Plaza station, holding a wet tree branch, with a camera watching to see if anyone from the crowd stops to listen.
Is mispronouncing "Alighieri" part of the shtick?
I'll consent to the poem's awesomeness, but I found the reading grating.
Silly. Obviously that must be the correct way to pronounce Alighieri.
Puts me in mind of Cohen's how to speak poetry. Just want to say to the poor bastard, "The age demands no expression, Ezra. Relax."
The only problem with 2 is that it leaves no room for improvement.
I recommend listening to a recording of George Oppen reading "Of Being Numerous". Something so boring on the page becomes intensely and compellingly boring.
6: People who talk about butterflies without referring explicitly to everyday insects, without understanding what is subversive about flowers and what is positive in the refusal of dragonflies, such people have a moth in their mouth.
Just want to say to the poor bastard, "The age demands no expression, Ezra. Relax."
But then you couldn't tell it was POETRY.
God, sestinas are so tiresome.
Do not act out words. Never act out words.
Cohen produced miracles of flatness. You cannot accuse him of not following his own precepts/
8: That's one my favourite books. A hundred times more thrills than The Deathy Hallows, though admittedly that's not saying much...
The "do not act out words" advice is one of the best parts of that piece. If more people followed it, I'd've been spared countless "please spoon out my eyeballs" moments at poetry slams.
The Cohen's excellent. As is this:
Some people read poetry, which I think we can all agree, is a form of torture we should really be employing on enemy combatants. Remember when we were trying to get Noriega out of his compound and we blasted heavy metal as an enticement for him to give up -- and let me tell you, you want me out of my compound, all you need to do is get some White Lion on the loudspeaker and my shit will be making time for the exit like it was my job -- and yet inside he stayed? I'm telling you, get some black clad-clove-smoking-Tori Amos fan out there reading his free verse in poet voice and we could solve the Gaza Strip issue in five lines:
And the WORDS were like a RASH upon my FECES
AND the feces were like a burning BUSH and Bush was like my FECES
Upon the alter of OIL and THE MAN and the Man was like A RASH
And I am a TOOL of LIFE and LIFE is a TOOL that smells of my fetid waste
WASTE. WASTE. I am a waste. A BURNING BUSH. The hypodermic push of my...Oh, sorry, looks like the Palestinians and the Israelies have figured it all out. I'm off to the hooka lounge...
13: A three hour long reading?! Jesus God...
Gaudier-Brzeska was very excited about this poem (I think Kenner tells the story) when he heard Pound read it for a crowd of aesthetes in a restaurant. But, apparently, it was only because the Frenchman misheard the opening line, and thought Pound had declaimed:
DAMN it all ! all this our South stinks piss.