|
|
|
Daisy Fried
American Classics
Despite the fact that he was a leftie (cf. various Marxist analyses of Horton Hears a Who), I’m hating Dr. Seuss more and more each day, even as Maisie likes him more and more. All those damned monosyllables. But I’ve discovered that, while Jim is reading One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish to Maisie out loud, it is possible to read certain adult poems to myself in the same room without being too distracted. One is Allen Ginsberg’s “America,� his best poem, one of the best poems of the last century, and now officially awarded Honorary Mommypoem status. “Bump, Bump, Bump, Did you ever ride a Wump?� Jim will read.
CommentsHi Daisy, Lullabye wept as asia One for indigenous, Fly away mecca, Once the iguanodon, Well then, Daisy, you will love any of Arnold Lobel's Frog and Toad books read together with Philip Schultz's new book, Failure. The joie de vivre of Lobel mingling with the schadenfreunde of Schultz...
Never thought of mixing a little Seussian sutra with some Ginsbergian green eggs & ham, Daisy, but what a great juxtaposition! "Would you like it in a box? Would you like it with a fox?" I'm not sure you're being fair to Theodore Seuss Geisel here. Yes, One Fish Two Fish drove Jessie up a tree fast, and me up a tree rather slowly, before our little guy got tired of it, but Fox in Socks is (among other things) an exploration of the way that sound can dominate meaning, signifiers dominate signifieds, all the way down the chain of discourse... or, if you like, an inquiry into the origins of poetic language. I am not entirely kidding. I've been reading Dr. Seuss to my daughter since she turned 1 (she's now almost 17 months old) and she loves it. SHe'll sit and make me read a dozen books. Even though I have read "Marvin K. Mooney" every day for 3 months now, I'm still loving it. I suppose I do for a few reasons. 1) The rhythms pattern well onto the brain's rhythms, which 2) Will make it easier for my daughter to learn to read. I also love that she loves it. Rhythmic poetry is a lovely thing -- it's also a redundancy, since there is no poetry without some sort of rhythm (otherwise it's just prose -- I've read prose with line breaks, which is still prose, no matter how you break it up). Monosyllables are fine -- first words for the baby. Hello Daisy, Today (august 28) I read your letter in the July 13 NYT Book Review, and searched for you on the web. I've never been moved to do so before, but your letter was so good -- in part because of the "work as a whole is a great city" about O'Hara. I like putting small and large things together. I especially enjoyed this post with the conjoined Seuss & Ginsberg lines. Very effective. I've been experimenting on my gobbledeGoogle.blogspot blog with found lines. I'm not sure this is a very original thing, but it sure is fun. And it's not without value as an exercise for writers. |
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
Wanda ColemanOlena Kalytiak Davis Forrest Gander Lavinia Greenlaw Javier Huerta Travis Nichols STAFF WRITERS
Michael MarcinkowskiFred Sasaki Don Share Elizabeth Stigler Nick Twemlow Emily Warn PREVIOUS WRITERS
Christian BökStephen Burt Kwame Dawes Linh Dinh Daisy Fried Alan Gilbert Kenneth Goldsmith Rigoberto González Major Jackson Ada Limón Jeffrey McDaniel Ange Mlinko Mark Nowak Lucia Perillo D.A. Powell Reginald Shepherd Patricia Smith A.E. Stallings Rachel Zucker RECENT COMMENTS
Political Poetry: An Epistolary Conversation (5)Hayden Carruth (1921-2008) (3) Empire in Funkville (5) ¡Maldición! (3) Read the foreign and the dead (3) RECENT POSTS
Hayden Carruth (1921-2008) (Emily Warn)Read the foreign and the dead (Lavinia Greenlaw) O LITERATI, GET UP! (Olena Kalytiak Davis) POETRY + MUSIC = INSPIRATION? (Wanda Coleman) Into the Mouths of Volcanoes (Forrest Gander) CATEGORY ARCHIVE
Poetry magazineAWP Arts Awards Biography Books Criticism Distribution Education Film International Language Music News Obituaries Outrageous Photographs Poems Poetry Out Loud Poetry and the Internet Politics Readings TV Translation poetryfoundation.org AUTHOR ARCHIVES
Christian BökStephen Burt Wanda Coleman Olena Kalytiak Davis Kwame Dawes Linh Dinh Daisy Fried Forrest Gander Alan Gilbert Kenneth Goldsmith Rigoberto González Lavinia Greenlaw Javier Huerta Major Jackson Ada Limón Jeffrey McDaniel Ange Mlinko Travis Nichols Mark Nowak Ed Park Lucia Perillo D.A. Powell Fred Sasaki Don Share Reginald Shepherd Patricia Smith A.E. Stallings Elizabeth Stigler Nick Twemlow Emily Warn Rachel Zucker Subscribe to the RSS feed. ![]() What is RSS? |

54th Annual Poetry Day: Louise Glück
