No Chaos, Damn It, poem by Michael Dwayne Smith (Celebrity Free Verse Poetry Series)

NO CHAOS, DAMN IT
by Michael Dwayne Smith

Because the painting has a life of its own,
he said,
I try to let it live. I glanced up
and watched the way in which Pollock was trying to do.
I think so, yes, in which he
wipes paint off
to begin again.
Pollock, a marvelous carpenter, built
several false starts before he hit this use
of foreign matter . . . not unusual in his work.

Would you
continue various objects?
I think so . . . possibilities,
it seems to me,
it seems to me
very much relate to contemporary painting.
I noticed over in the corner
something done.
Something about that?
He scattered onto the surface
mentions in his narration,
embedded very thick
wire mesh, glass pebbles, shells, string and plain glass.

A week to dry.
Squinting my eyes to Pollock’s house
and replied I wanted to show the artist at work
with his face in full view.
I sometimes lose a painting
but I have no fear of changes, because a painting
has a life of its own.
Yes.
I finally figured out
how to lie on my back and photograph him from below.

SOURCES (SEE BELOW)… 

Poem title: “A comment Pollock was known for—‘No chaos, damn it.’ He telegraphed Time magazine after they wrote some blurb about his ‘chaotic’ paintings.” Quoted from James Coddington, Chief Conservator, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, in online interview.

 Poem body: “Through a Glass Brightly: Jackson Pollock in His Own Words,” Helen A. Harrison, New York Times, November 15, 1998.  The Harrison interview includes excerpts from Hans Namuth’s essay, “Photographing Pollock,” in Pollock Painting (Agrinde Publications).

IMAGE: Jackson Pollock photographed by Hans Namuth.

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: Process is what fascinates me, always has—even a hundred years ago in high school when I painted canvas and murals—so it’s natural enough to be fascinated by Pollock, and Marianne Moore, Frank O’Hara, any artist who happily abandons a conventional approach to work. This piece allowed me again to try and get at some small part of the man while trying also to get at some part of the observer. In other work, I’ve spent some time trying to translate Pollock’s “action painting” techniques into my own use of language; the quotes I plucked for this piece point to my own struggle to teach myself this invented process.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Michael Dwayne Smith is publisher and editor of Mojave River Press & Review. Recipient of both the Hinderaker Prize for poetry and the Polonsky Prize for fiction, his work appears in excellent journals like The Cortland Review, burntdistrict, San Pedro River Review, Word Riot, Stone Highway Review, Monkeybicycle, decomP, and >kill author. His latest poetry collection, Happy Good Time News, is a collaboration with graphic novelist Evan R. Spears (forthcoming, Devils Hole Press). He lives near a ghost town in the Mojave Desert with his wife and rescued animals. Online he haunts MichaelDwayneSmith.com and MojaveRiverPress.com.

Jackson Pollock Speaks, poem by Daniel McGinn (Celebrity Free Verse Poetry Series)

JACKSON POLLOCK SPEAKS
by Daniel McGinn

The new needs need new techniques,
new ways and new means of making
the atom bomb, the radio, the culture,
the strangeness will wear off
and we discover
I think not look for
but look passively
and not bring what they are looking for

Paint it liquid,
the brush doesn’t touch the surface,
it’s just above
I don’t use the accident—
‘cause I deny the accident—
it hasn’t been created, you see
I have a notion of what I’m about
and what the results will be

SOURCE: Jackson Pollock interview with William Wright (1950).

IMAGE: Abstract expressionist painter Jackson Pollock (1912-1956) at work in his studio. Photo by Hans Namuth.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Daniel McGinn‘s work has appeared numerous anthologies and publications, his full length collection of poems, 1000 Black Umbrellas was released by Write Bloody Press. He recently earned an MFA in writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts. He and his wife, poet Lori McGinn, are natives of Southern California. They have 3 children, 6 grandchildren, two parakeets and a very good dog.

Almost Found Poem for Christian Bale on Jennifer Lawrence by Stephanie Barbé Hammer (Celebrity Free Verse Poetry Series)

ALMOST FOUND POEM FOR CHRISTIAN BALE ON JENNIFER LAWRENCE
by Stephanie Barbé Hammer

“Absolutely it’s frustrating
“In his own house no hope:
“He’s a con man she’s the con man
“You buy it manipulative
“I’m 40 she’s 22
“What’s that going to
“mean when
“She almost got him scripted
“and by the end he thanks her?
“She’s a lot of fun?
“She conveys that ”’Not what I want–
“’I’m not interested in that
“Any more/Any longer’ leverage then
“We sat for 10 minutes
“In a different room
“What would we say
“What would we do?
“Go for the toxic father”
He explained further.

SOURCE: “Christian Bale Spills on His Chemistry with Jennifer Lawrence” by Shanee Edwards, sheknows.com.

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: Christian Bale can be both arresting and repulsive, and the film American Hustle reminded me of my summers working part-time in the Plaza Hotel in the mid-70s, where women did indeed wear clothes like that, and I had a friend with a particularly heinous comb-over like Bale’s character. I like how the emptiness of the interview can get turned on its head with the right amount of exquisite corpse word-shuffling, and I like how desperate the words become – linking the poem with the subject matter and tone of the film.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Stephanie Barbé Hammer is a four-time nominee for the Pushcart Prize in fiction and nonfiction. Her poetry collection How Formal? was published in 2014 with Spout Hill Press. Her novel The Puppet Turners of Narrow Interior is forthcoming with Urban Farmhouse Press, and she is always working on stories, poems, and the ever-elusive perfect tweet. She divides her time between Los Angeles and Coupeville, Washington, and lives with her husband Larry Behrendt. Visit her at stephaniebarbehammer.net.

Goal, poem by Karen Massey (Celebrity Free Verse Poetry Series)

GOAL
by Karen Massey

I want to be
on a cover
expanding my
success, the ultimate
magazine
I want this
so pretty
take a
picture
take a
picture of me
take a picture
ok that’s my personality
ok can anyone hear me?

SOURCE: “What Will The Fashion World Do Without Kim Kardashian?” by Benjamin Wallace, New York Magazine.  Erasure poem carved from several consecutive Kim Kardashian quotations extracted from the  article.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Karen Massey writes in Ottawa, Canada. She has an MA, has published one chapbook, and her work has won local and regional prizes and appeared in a range of literary journals and anthologies. Recent online publication includes Bywords.ca, and one of her poems was featured on the Chaudiere Press blog during National Poetry Month 2014.

Look: Secrets and Now, poem by E. Kristin Anderson (Celebrity Free Verse Poetry Series)

LOOK: SECRETS AND NOW
by E. Kristin Anderson

While it’s damp, look on the morning –
it’s subtle.
          I’m fading between photos,
               adding the hourglass, a big palette
               dark, that haunts skin and water.
                                 It’s temporary.

In a weekend, I wouldn’t ever steal magic –
her faux flush (clean, fresh, marvelous).
          I have to find a subtle shadow, under covers –
          a little sheen. Now. I stay,
          comfortable in a rush,
                                soft and tried.

SOURCE: “Steal Lauren Conrad’s Beauty Secrets” by Lauren Conrad & Lauren Bernstein. Glamour (June 2014, page 66).

IMAGE: Cover of Lauren Conrad Beauty.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: E. Kristin Anderson‘s first nonfiction anthology, Dear Teen Me, based on the popular website of the same name, was published in October of 2012 by Zest Books (distributed by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt). She’s worked at The New Yorker magazine, has a B.A. in Classics from Connecticut College, and is currently an online editor for the YA & Children’s section of VCFA’s literary journal Hunger Mountain and a contributing editor at Found Poetry Review. She’s published poetry in many magazines worldwide, including Post Road, the Cimarron Review, [PANK], Asimov’s Science Fiction and forthcoming work in Cicada. She also has poems forthcoming in the Silver Birch Press Great Gatsby Anthology. Her first chapbook, A Guide for the Practical Abductee,  was just released by Red Bird Chapbooks, and her next chapbook, A Jab of Deep Urgency, is forthcoming in October from Finishing Line Press. Her work also appears in Futuredaze, an anthology of YA fiction and poetry, and in Coin Opera 2, an anthology of poetry about video games. She blogs at EKristinAnderson.com.

Mantra, poem by Wm. Todd King (Celebrity Free Verse Poetry Series)

MANTRA
by Wm. Todd King

Reality
is never going to be
stick-skinny
under pressure perfect
curvy cellulite.

SOURCE: Kim Kardashian at brainyquote.com.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Wm. Todd King is a poet and Regulatory Compliance Supervisor living in Kentucky. He is the recent finalist in the Found Poetry Review’s Dog Ear Poetry Contest, and a participant in 2013’s Pulitzer Remix project. His works have appeared in STILL, the Silver Birch Press NOIR Erasure Poetry Anthology, Life’s Vivid Creations, and Found Poetry Review.

Had a Window, poem by A. Garnett Weiss (Celebrity Free Verse Poetry Series)

HAD A WINDOW
by A. Garnett Weiss

There’s always a certain awareness,
a limited amount of changes you can make.
Can’t get away from your actual identity
as that cross-eyed Canadian.

Too easily consumed by the wave,
I’d seen all the pitfalls.
All those sandtraps of entitlement
you think you suddenly deserve
in this funny business.

Overeager,
still searching for
that kind of roadside attraction,
crushing
so much for the role
I just left.

Young enough, dumb enough, feel
like this kid sitting on the bench
in the life-threatening cold:
It was real when the camera rolled.

SOURCE: Richard  Ouzounian’s “The Big Interview: Ryan Reynolds” (Toronto Star,  August 23, 2014).

IMAGE: Ryan Reynolds 

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: I read the source material, extract phrases or words of interest, then live with them until a sequence emerges and until the poem clicks.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Poems by JC Sulzenko, now writing poetry as A. Garnett Weiss, have been featured on local and national radio and television, on-line and in anthologies and chapbooks. Her centos have won a number of recent awards. Various newspapers have carried her creative non-fiction. “In the third person” was featured in Silver Birch Press’s self-portrait poetry series. She has appeared often on behalf of The Ottawa International Writers Festival, which hosted the premiere of her play about Alzheimer’s disease, What My Grandma Means to Say, and launched her sixth book for children adapted from the play. In 2012, she served as poet-mentor for The Gryphon Trio’s Listen Up! Ottawa music and poetry project. She also received the Ottawa Public Library’s Order of Friendship for her “outstanding volunteer” service. Visit her at www.jcsulzenko.com

We Real Privileged, poem by Karen Massey (Celebrity Free Verse Poetry Series)

WE REAL PRIVILEGED
by Karen Massey

We real privileged. We
full face fashion. We

OMG. We
glitz and glam. We

tweet lifestyle. We
all this stuff. We

TV family. We
Givenchy. We

carry a tune. We
do what we do.

SOURCE:  The Kim Kardashian Interview: Cleopatra With A “K” by Laura Brown (Harper’s Bazaar, Feb. 9, 2011).

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Karen Massey writes in Ottawa, Canada. She has an MA, has published one chapbook, and her work has won local and regional prizes and appeared in a range of literary journals and anthologies. Recent online publication includes Bywords.ca, and one of her poems was featured on the Chaudiere Press blog during National Poetry Month 2014.

Dylan on Dylan, poem by Daniel McGinn (Celebrity Free Verse Poetry Series)

DYLAN ON DYLAN
by Daniel McGinn

I know at least a dozen women who tell me
they were the Queen of Sheba. And I know
a few Napoleons and two Joan of Arcs
and one Einstein. I mean, who’s a person anymore,
everything’s done for media. Everything’s a business.
Love, truth, beauty. Conversation is a business.

I needed to forget about things, myself included,
and I’d get so far away, and turn on the radio,
and there I am, but it’s not me.

My-life-is-an-open-book sort of thing
and I choose to be involved with the people
I’m involved with. They don’t choose me.

A lot of guys say stuff like:
Well he changed our lives before,
how come he can’t do it now?
Their expectations are so high,
nobody can fulfill them.
I don’t mind being put down,
but intense personal hatred is another thing.

A lot of times it’s you talking to you.
The I, like in: I in I, also changes.
It could be I or it could be the I who created me.
It could be another person who’s saying I.
When I say I right now, I don’t know who
I’m talking about.

The you in my songs is me talking to me.
Other times I can be talking to someone else.
If I’m talking to me in a song I’m not going
to drop everything and say, alright,
now I’m talking to you.

I began writing because I was singing.
Things were changing and a certain song
needed to be written. I started writing
because I wanted to sing them.
If they had been written I wouldn’t have
started to write them. I stumbled into it,
it was nothing I had prepared myself for,
but I did sing a lot of songs before
I wrote my own. I think that’s important.

I can try to answer these questions.
I’m supposed to be somebody
who knows something about writing
but I don’t know much about it.

The best songs are songs you don’t know
anything about. Put yourself in a place
where all you can do is imagine
something you haven’t experienced.
Someone else has, and will identify
with it. Like: Here I am stuck in the job
and I can’t get out of it. I’m working
as a civil servant, what am I going
to do next? I hate this existence.

Why do I want somebody
thinking about what I’m thinking about,
especially if it’s not to their benefit.

My life takes priority over people
dealing with my life. I don’t have
any answers to questions they would print.
You know, like: How come you don’t eat fish?

A lot of people from the press want to talk to me,
but they never do. It really has nothing to do
with me, personally. When I think of mystery,
I don’t think about myself. I stay out of sight, if I can.

SOURCE: Scott Cohen interview with Bob Dylan (Rolling Stone, December 1985).

IMAGE: Self-Portrait by Bob Dylan (1970).

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Daniel McGinn‘s work has appeared numerous anthologies and publications, his full length collection of poems, 1000 Black Umbrellas was released by Write Bloody Press. He recently earned an MFA in writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts. He and his wife, poet Lori McGinn, are natives of Southern California. They have 3 children, 6 grandchildren, two parakeets and a very good dog.

Thank you, Mrs. Flowers, poem by Debra B. Hori (Celebrity Free Verse Poetry Series)

THANK YOU, MRS. FLOWERS
by Debra B. Hori

Here are words,
words I found
this August morning,
words that tell
how my heroine,
poet, inspiration,
sage,
how she found
her voice:

Mrs. Flowers,
a lady in my town,
a black lady,
had started me
to reading
when I was about eight.
When I was about eleven
and a half,
she said to me
one day,
“Do you love poetry?”
I never spoke.
I used to carry
a tablet
around on which
I wrote answers.
She asked me,
“Do you love poetry?”
I wrote, “Yes.”
She told me,
“You do not love poetry.
You will never love it until
you speak it.
Until it comes across your tongue,
through your teeth,
over your lips,
you will never love poetry.”
And I ran out of her house.
I thought:
I’ll never go back there again.
She was trying to take my friend.
I’d run away,
and every time she’d see me
she would just threaten
to take my friend.
Finally, I did take a book,
a book of poetry,
and I went
under the house,
and I tried
to speak,
and I could.

Now I say,
Thank you,
Thank you, Mrs. Flowers,
for saying,
“You will never love poetry.”
to that silent,
frightened,
little girl,
Maya Angelou.

SOURCE: Terry Gross interview with Maya Angelou on Fresh Air (National Public Radio, 1986).

IMAGE: Maya Angelou (1928-2014) as a child in Stamps, Arkansas.

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: Maya Angelou spoke in poetry. It is particularly poignant that she, who had such a resounding, beautiful voice, did not speak when she was a child. She had her reasons. As a memorial to Maya Angelo, I wanted to find some of her words and format them as a poem. This is how we experienced her spoken words. That was easy to do, for whenever Maya Angelo opened her mouth, out came poetry! Maya Angelo should have credit for this poem, not I. I simply found it and brought it home.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:  Debra B. Hori writes about the normal, everyday-ness of grief, love, nature, and other exquisitely ordinary things. Her work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, This I Believe.org, and For Readers Edification & Debauchery (FRE&D). She lives in Pasadena with her two cats and her son. Visit her at debrahori.com.