artiste – Page 2 – panache, perhaps

Landscapes (little farmy poem) (mine).

Published on 07/02/201307/17/2013 by taylor mardis katzLeave a comment

Landscapes

Last year I met garlic scapes

and I loved them on impact

and incorrectly called them snapes

for almost a year. Then I learned

their name and learned their twisting

goose-necked beauty and cut them

thinly into dishes. Now they grow

in rows outside our kitchen

and they grow in rows at the farm

where I work in the kitchen

and they’re filling the crisper drawer

and they’re all over our salads

and they’re harvested in baskets

and they’re not a food to sustain a nation

or even a main meal ingredient

but they’re one of our first little harvests

and for that I am grateful.

(Photo by my partner & co-farmer & longtime love Misha, whose blog is titled Microcosmic DreamSCAPES. Coincidence? I think yes.)

(For more of Misha’s farm photos, click here.)

(We are Free Verse Farm!)

Love & friends & verklempt (something in prose).

Published on 06/27/2013 by taylor mardis katzLeave a comment

I don’t think I’m a poet of the atrocities, or even of the victories. I think I’m a poet of the people I love. I’m trying to make sense of how much there is to love in the world. I’m trying to put into words the moment when someone reaches out to touch someone else’s face, but then doesn’t, and then that person never knows that that other person wanted to touch them. And so that touch will never be in the history books. But I might just get it into a poem.

Do you have any famous friends? Friends who people know because of something they did or wrote? I have a couple of great friends in a band and it makes me insanely proud and insanely baffled to know them and to see them progressing in the music world and to know that they are an entity outside of the dudes that I got to know in college. And to think that I knew them in a dorm hallway, with their morning hair and their late night gaits. How I’d leave the coed bathroom when I’d see one of them with their sneakers facing outward in a stall (pooping!).

I have a lot of friends who really impress me. Not just because of their jobs, but sometimes because of their jobs. I have some friends who were born knowing how to be great friends. A lot of my friends aren’t the same as each other. A couple of my friends are attempting similar back-to-the-land plans as I am, but most of them aren’t. I’m here as a human and as a girl and as a poet and as a farmer-in-training to say: my friends, I love the shit out of you. I know you know it already, maybe because I told you recently in an email or textual exclamation or maybe I sent you something recently or maybe you read a poem here that reminded you of it. Either way, I might as well say it often, because life is short and fast (especially in summer).

So here’s a music video that really impresses me featuring some dudes I know. For some reason this video is making me want to hug people (BAD), probably because I’ve been drinking wine and I live with a man I adore and because it’s summer and there’s quite nearly enough sunlight to provide for all the words I want to write and say each day. Amen.

Love & violence & beauty in The New Yorker (poem) (Jericho Brown).

Published on 06/10/2013 by taylor mardis katzLeave a comment

How many amazing poets have you met? How many people have you met that have hypnotized you–literally hypnotized, the world swimming away–by reading one of their poems? Jericho Brown is an amazing poet and a skilled teacher and also an elegant creature. I took some workshops with him, and he came to a birthday party of mine once, and I wrote him a poem about his favorite color, orange, after he came to speak in one of my classes. I hope he liked it. He was in the New Yorker recently, and that, my friends, is a victory. For The New Yorker. And for all of us who know him. And for all of us who get to read The New Yorker because our mothers-in-laws give us their finished issues. The end.

“Mingus at the Showplace” (poem) (William Matthews).

Published on 04/10/2013 by taylor mardis katz1 Comment

To think that I was alive when this was written. To think that Mingus was alive. And William Matthews, too. Happy National Poetry Month; may your day be filled with the digestion of experience!

(Poem scanned from “The Open Door: 100 Poems, 100 Years of Poetry Magazine,” edited by Don Share and Christian Wiman.)

A literary recap and also some beautiful things.

Published on 03/12/2013 by taylor mardis katz2 Comments

I went to AWP last week, for what felt like a week. For you nonwriters, AWP is the biggest literary conference of the year. Workshops, lectures, readings, a bookfair big enough to kill any sane person’s love of books, famous writers all around, lots of glasses, lots of beards, lots of notebook scribbling, lots of beers. I schlepped apricots, trail mix, water, my phone, notebooks, and about ten pounds of books around the city of Boston for three days straight. Other things that occurred: lattes, reunions, inspiration, Anne Carson, free chocolate, free pens, free buttons, literary journals, poet swoons (see: Anne Carson), and I met my pen pal for the first time, with whom I have been corresponding for a year. Magic! Below are some tidbits from the weekend too good (read: weird &/or awesome) not to share.

“I believe that the future of poetry belongs to dead poets.” -Valzhyna Mort (poet)

“I prefer myself to Charles Simic.” -James Meetze (poet)

“You’re some kind of something and I like it.” -Dara Wier (poet)

“They will try to make you choose between the things you love but you do not have to choose.” Muriel Rukeyser, as quoted by another passionate woman

THEY WILL TRY TO MAKE YOU CHOOSE BETWEEN THE THINGS YOU LOVE BUT YOU DO NOT HAVE TO CHOOSE.

“For nonconformity, the world whips you with displeasure.” -Emerson, as quoted by a college professor dude

“I am just another person in all normal regards except for my love of lemurs.” -James Tate (poet), as quoted by another poet

“Lanyards are a great way to humble people.” -Jacob Otting (poet & comedian)

“This wig is terrific.” -Terrance Hayes, reading one of his poems (SWOON)

And here are some patterns I am loving this week, by Phoebe Wahl.

And that is all for now. Besides for the joy of another friend engaged, the speed of a new (old) car, the sound of the rain (rain! not snow! woah!), the crunch of breadcrust littered with seeds, and the feel of a hot mug in my hands.

Calling All Typesetters in the Universe! Hear ye, hear ye!

Published on 02/13/201302/13/2013 by taylor mardis katz2 Comments

This is a call, a calling-out, an offer, a request, a hopeful question posed to the wind (to the internet):

* Do you know how to use a letterpress with agility?

* Do you live in the Northeast?

* Are you interested in the woods? Do you like cabins?

* Are you willing to work for free?

The last question is the ugliest, this I know. This is really a call for a friend with letterpress skills. Are you interested in being my friend? I have a frequently-updated blog and a really cool boyfriend! I have a lot of eggs to give away! I enjoy dancing even outside of dancehalls! I am short but can jump high! I don’t care if you have a weird haircut, in fact I like it! Do you want to embark on a literary project together?

Here’s the deal: I had a letterpress dude, Sean, who was going to be Head Typesetter but now he has to move back to Arizona. Sean’s a poet, we took a book arts class together in grad school, he excelled at it (big time), whereas I just hammered along, finishing with some pretty but unskilled books. I don’t have the real letterpress abilities that would allow me make books I’m proud to sell. That’s where YOU come in.

This is a project in its early stages. The state of Vermont has given me their seal of approval: the company is Press House Press. The vision for the press goes something like this:

Envision a small cabin where, in previous times, a family may have pressed their apple cider during autumn. Envision inside it: good lighting, a cider press, a letterpress. Perhaps a chair or two, or a small bed. No big equipment. Just enough to make some cider to quench our thirst (and the thirst of visitors) and a small letterpress to make pamphlets, chapbooks, cards, mini-broadsides.

Please note: the press house does not yet exist. The letterpress has not yet been purchased. This is a project on the road to actuality. If you help me build it, it will come.

If this wild, insanely human, deliciously rural and thoroughly unpaid position interests you, we should meet up at AWP and talk. If you’re not going to AWP, we can meet up on the internet. Either way, you should email me. I can tell you a little more about myself and a lot more about how this press is going to happen. Maybe you’re just the person to collaborate with me. Maybe we’re going to make some gorgeous and inspired little papergoods together. Goodness, I hope so.

With hope and a prayer,

Taylor Mardis Katz

February collage (illustration; photography; Frank Ocean).

Published on 02/13/2013 by taylor mardis katzLeave a comment

Some people feel negatively about February, including, possibly, Maira Kalman. Or maybe she just picks up on everybody’s February blues. It’s hard to love February in the city, this I understand.

This February, I’m all about Patti Smith (again). Maybe I’ll make February my Patti Smith month. Why not?

But guys….remember those other times, those other seasons? Remember flowers?

Remember how it’s going to be Valentine’s day soon? Let’s not bring up our consumer culture rants again, we do that every year & even the truth gets stale. This year, lets just do some good lovin’. Let’s share what we got, or give ourselves a little bit more. I mean, Phoebe Wahl is doing it! And why not.

If you’re still not feeling good about February yet, then, here! Have this gift! It’s a free Frank Ocean mixtape! Also did you know he has a tumblr?! Fuck yeah, America! You know?

Alright February!! Allllllllright!

Snowstorm chitchat (plus images).

Published on 02/08/2013 by taylor mardis katz3 Comments

Today I bought blood oranges. Like the ones below painted by Emily Proud, an artist I discovered through another artist, Lisa Congdon. I don’t know either of them personally but maybe someday they’ll come over to the farm and eat citrus with me.

I bought them in preparation for The Storm. I also bought bacon, of course. And, as usual, kale. Also milk. And a knobby three-knuckle piece of fresh ginger.

Meanwhile, down at the coop, the chickens are all, “Where is the grass? Why can’t I have it? Why aren’t babies coming out of these eggs I’m sitting on? I’m cold!” They’re huddled on their roosts underneath their red-bulbed headlamps as I write this. If I make a ruckus the rooster Claude will crow & crow until he lets me know that he heard me do it. Having a rooster really gets one thinking about the term “cocky.” That dude walks around like he’s the king of something awesome. Because he is, I guess.

Farm & fairy art (Phoebe Wahl).

Published on 01/22/2013 by taylor mardis katz1 Comment

There’s been a *lot* of farmplanning going on in this household, lemme tell you. So many facets are being organized that yesterday I had to call Misha into the bathroom while I was showering so he could write down some ideas I’d thought of while shampooing my hair. The artworks below, by an art student at RISDE whose blog I stumbled upon while tumblr-ing, are the sorts of pieces that relay what I love about a farmy life: patterns, brightgreen and brightpink vegetables, fresh flowers in jars, herbs hanging from string, sitting in the dirt in a dress, handkerchiefs for sweat and color, fairies. Once this farm gets going ,it’s going to be a beauty. It’s going to be a beautiful, colorful, scentful, and shareful thing.

Check out more of Phoebe’s work here.

“There has to be a libidinous delight in finding things and stuffing them in your pockets” (writing advice from W.G. Sebald).

Published on 01/17/2013 by taylor mardis katzLeave a comment

Since W.G. Sebald’s death, there has been much talk of W.G. Sebald. I have heard this talk and pondered through it, though I’ve never set foot into one of his books. This happens to me a lot: I hear about and read about and sometimes even discuss a piece of art without having actually seen or read or watched it. Because sometimes the discussion is more interesting than the art itself. Because I can’t get to everything. Because knowledge can be gleaned off the peripheral as well as the focal.

Below is part of a list of writing tips from W.G. Sebald, compiled by a couple of his students after his death. There are many more where these came from, but they’re more about fiction, and if you haven’t noticed, I’m allllll about poems. I like the list below because it’s a little wry, and because it emphasizes thievery. And also because it encourages me to do some things that I’m already doing, and a little positive reinforcement never hurts.

On Reading & Intertextuality

Read books that have nothing to do with literature.
Get off the main thoroughfares; you’ll see nothing there. For example, Kant’s Critique is a yawn but his incidental writings are fascinating.
There has to be a libidinous delight in finding things and stuffing them in your pockets.
You must get the servants to work for you. You mustn’t do all the work yourself. That is, you should ask other people for information, and steal ruthlessly from what they provide.
None of the things you make up will be as hair-raising as the things people tell you.
I can only encourage you to steal as much as you can. No one will ever notice. You should keep a notebook of tidbits, but don’t write down the attributions, and then after a couple of years you can come back to the notebook and treat the stuff as your own without guilt.
Don’t be afraid to bring in strange, eloquent quotations and graft them into your story. It enriches the prose. Quotations are like yeast or some ingredient one adds.
Look in older encyclopaedias. They have a different eye. They attempt to be complete and structured but in fact are completely random collected things that are supposed to represent our world.
It’s very good that you write through another text, a foil, so that you write out of it and make your work a palimpsest. You don’t have to declare it or tell where it’s from.
A tight structural form opens possibilities. Take a pattern, an established model or sub-genre, and write to it. In writing, limitation gives freedom.
If you look carefully you can find problems in all writers. And that should give you great hope. And the better you get at identifying these problems, the better you will be at avoiding them.

***

Photo from here. Read the full list here.