Tag Archives: Poetry

Poetry

Can Social Media And Apps Upgrade The Poem?

Instagram Chart Hits

So, while I have had small success with my Haiku Mixtape project on actual Tumblr, I found a curious change of events somewhere else. A few weeks ago I decided “why not post things about it on my Instagram account?” So I gave it a shot, starting with a post to the first mixtape:

Since then, I’ve gotten more likes on the latest haiku I’ve put up on my Instagram. The latest, which is inspired by The Knife’s “Silent Shout,” got more likes – the numbers are getting better.

Granted, some are music related given that the haiku are based on music, A lot of the attention comes from finding from good poets on Instagram. That is something that I found genuinely intriguing, this medium of visual poetry right at my hand whenever I wanted. Good examples are people like J.R. Williams, K.Towne Jr., and others.

Hooked me up to HaikuJAM

The best Instagram like I’ve received – the most important one, honestly – was from HaikuJAM. Now, HaikuJAM is an app that completely disrupts the idea of poetry writing with a simple idea. Each user is allowed one line of text for the stanza. That means three poets work on one haiku.

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This is the most popular haiku I’ve been involved on so far (I’m the second stanza)

I’ve been big fan of user-generated content since I worked for a company that’s entire idea worked on it. Using that in conjunction with something I love is amazing to say the least. As of this writing I have been involved with 164 haiku, meaning I’ve written the equivalent of 54 haiku since I started last week.

And crowd-sourced poems

A lot of once-a-day haiku bloggers may have serious writer’s block, or quality output that veers towards the subpar. HaikuJAM gives any writer an addictive and creative sensation that easily breaks those obstacles in your poetic writing. If you have an idea for longer-form poem, perhaps the work you are developing with others on these jams can serve as an engine in their creation?

I’m considering this idea with previous long-form poem from long ago – not take the stanzas people and call them my own, mind you, but as new points of view that I hadn’t considered. I’m curious in the depths of knowledge I’ll gain from these people from around the world.

 

 

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Links

Decomposition of the 5-7-5s: A Breakdown of Haiku Mixtape

I briefly mentioned my Haiku Mixtape project in September. It came from an old pastime I’d do when something I’d listen would spring concepts in my head. Haikus by traditon are pastoral, although modern poets are expanding the subject matter. One interesting example of this is the Times Haiku Tumblr blog that posts haikus taken from the New York Times.

Why I decided to go into the details of my mixtape, I have no idea – pobably for future reference. The blog’s background comes from a Detroit Times article, if I recall correctly. The fonts I use are all free, most from 1001 Free Fonts. As for the haikus, I have them saved in two locations: an Evernote note and a Word document file. The Evernote is for when I’m listening to something outside of home and need to jot it down somewhere with no internet access. The Word doc is the primary file where I play around with fonts before I paste them in the Photoshop files. I have a master Evernote page for mixtape images that serve as backgrounds.

Here’s the latest haiku:

I loosely used the first line in the song lyrics – the word “napalm” – and then based it from that. Then I based this image of a very angry punk. I went through about three edits before I decided on this one. I almost considered switching to another Iggy Pop song after I heard it at a bar on a memorable night. I may still consider writing a haiku from it so I won’t divulge the song title.

I also post the haikus in my deviantArt account just as an excuse to update to old thing – I haven’t in such a long time and since I’m making some semblance of new content I figured it made sense to. You’ll see a new one sometime tonight or tomorrow. Happy listening.

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Links, My Work

Weekly Tumblr Dump 4/18/14

Source: http://fkaraboa.tumblr.com/

Cien años de soledad  is one of my favorite books from the magic realism style he created. While I don’t think it’s apparent, my writing DNA has a considerable amount of Gabo in it. Que descanses en paz.

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Source: http://elizabum.tumblr.com

Rod McKuen, from Listen to the Warm, 1967

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Source: http://warrenellis.tumblr.com/

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Via Laughing Squid is a great 8-Bit Cinema of The Fifth Element,  including the taxi chase scene and Zorg ZF-1 test demo.

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St. Vincent at the State Theatre in Minneapolis. Photos by Nate Ryan. Her new album is really good, I recommend “Rattlesnake” and “Prince Johnny”.

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Personal

The Long Update

I hate doing the “oh I’ve been away” part of this entry. Makes me feel like a chump, but I haven’t been. I dropped a new issue of Cram, got a poem published, found employment, and in a sense regained the part of myself I had been missing for a while. Vagueness of that last part aside, I feel and think clearer now than I have in a long time. Now, for the details.

Cram

Things did slow down a bit, mainly because both Cindy was busy with her new gig and I was in a state of flux for a good chunk of 2012. I’m still really grateful that we have been able to pull this off as much as we can, but I’m still hungry. I’ve been researching to write an essay for the blog, seeing as we need more content than the weekly Crams. Also trying to make moves with other ideas stirring in my head. also doing a project with Phil and Cindy with me on, of course, story duty.

I’m Going Going, Back Back, To Jersey Jersey

In I’m officially back in the mother country of New Jerusalem. The best way to describe my feelings is this: picture an archaeologist trying find his oldest tomb. Then picture that person now trying to ship ancient relics to a mausoleum, only to return and find out no matter how much you can move, the haul is endless and makes it a  Sisyphean nightmare. That was just in the second week alone. I’m lucky I have a place to stand in my old room.

However, it has its moment of greatness. Holding my sister’s and her husband’s wedding rings as my part as her witness to her civil wedding was something worth being home for. That was a while back now, after reunions with old friends and abusing my ability at reconnecting with the newer ones, and blacking out for a good portion of the summer due to helping preparing for the (happy) clusterfuck that was my sister’s wedding party. I actually got back into the swing of writing because of this. and made up a magic realism story about a pilgrim coming home to a family of gods. A the moment there’s only one entry, but I’m cleaning up the next part which is an epic poem about the family dog.

The Job, Or How How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Become A Woman on the Internet


I finally found employment after a year of not having any. It’s not at all like what I was doing in SF. I’m still staring at Excel sheets, of course, but that’s interspersed with a crap-load of comments I put up under the pseudonym of Jamie. To date, Jamie is a mother, dancer, crafts and superbike enthusiast, nurse, customer sales rep, and recently Portuguese. I’ve had the opportunity to write blog posts, which is great. There’s a serious difficulty with the distractions of working from a home office however. I’m sure I’ll get it down right.

Badass and Published

That’s what I said I’ll be a few years back. Out of a lark it finally happened, thanks to Saul Williams and his Chorus book. Of the 97 poems in the book I’m number 21. To see a poem that I wrote in my sleep-deprived night owl phase back in 05 come to light in 2012 is crazy. I’ve been dabbling in poetry again, to see if I still have it. I probably don’t but you never know.

That’s it for now. you can find me on Twitter (@TheJesusGaray) and Tumblr (jesusgaray.tumblr.com), fyi. I’ll put up some of the content I put up there here.

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Culture, Film, Music, Poetry, Sci Fi, Science, Writing

What I Really Want To Do On My Birthday ( A Self-Indulgent Wikipedia Facts Poem)

Saludo al coraje de los hombres de Puebla en esta dia,

But what I really want to do today

is go to Saint Helena  and throw a party in Napoleon’s cell,

and just to piss his spirit off,

 fly back to the States,

  and throw an original Memorial Day in our Waterloo.

When I get tired, I’ll make the trip international,

go to Ethiopia, see the second coming of  Haile Selassie,

have him lend me a few minutes to sit on his throne

  as he puts Kublai Khan’s crown on my head

while Marx takes my oath of office with my hand over On the Origins of Species,

before I throw it at William Jennings Bryan’s head before his opening statement.

Once I become a one-day king,

I’ll send a package of loaded Iranian guns to Oliver North’s house

snitch on his ass and laugh with my friends

as  the ATF arrests him on Fox News.

After the antics, go bar-hopping with Kierkegaard

 in a free West Germany,

get arrested with Sacco and Vanzetti after too many drinks,

and if I get too rowdy, take a caning on the ass by Singaporean dancers.

I want to start a one-man riot in Greece

just to get an article written by Nellie Bly and Bryan Williams.

I want to rock out to a band with me on guitar,

 Ian McCulloch and Adele on vocals,

 Bill Ward on drums,

and have the album produced by Delia Derbyshire.

I want to take acting lessons from Roger Rees,

 John Rhys-Davies, and Lance Henriksen

just so I can kick Henry Cavill out of his Superman gig.

And then, right before I go to sleep,

wave at Alan Shepard along con mi familia

as Mercury-Redstone 1 blinks its way  across the night.

– Note: I just wrote this and cleaned it up five minutes before midnight West coast time while  sober. Go me.

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Art, Links, Literature, Poetry, Sci Fi, Science

Afrocyberpunk to Genocide

It’s really cool to see sci-fi writers from other parts of the world getting some press, so let’s all give  Jonathan Dotse props for actively trying to bring the cyberpunk genre to Africa. Sci-fi fans should check it out regularly to see a different take on what has become a rather played-out genre.

Turing it back to just regular science (if you can call it that), a group of British scientists have found a way to transfer all the genetic material of one egg  without mitochondria. The reason this is interesting is in how this could save many people in the future from diseases caused by mitochondrial defects.

Here’s an eye-opener: approximately 600,000 workers in China die a year making the parts for the computer or mobile phone you’re reading this from. They even have a name for it: guolaosi, which is Mandarin for “worked to death”.  The Consumerist article got its info from this Johann Hari article. Hari also wrote the amazingly good article on horrible work conditions in Dubai that I mentioned a while back.

For all you conspiracy theorists, reading up on the mysterious mass poisoning at  Pont-Saint-Esprit has a pretty interesting theory: instead of the ergot poisoning that has mainly been seen as the main cause of the psychosis people felt, one Hank P. Albarelli Jr wrote a book claiming that the CIA used Pont-Saint-Esprit as a LSD testing groundLSD as part of that tin-foil hat favorite,  MKULTRA . Add Rennes-le-Château to it and you can start making a pretty weird road trip in southeast France.

Comic artist Cameron Stewart, who happens to have a blog for all his artwork, has won a Shuster and Eisner Award for his own webcomic,   Sin Titulo. It’s a good noir fantasy story about one man’s descent into some dangerous people and some of his own personal demons as well.

I just got into reading the poems written by Jeremy Prynne, and I seriously don’t know what to make of it. There’s this odd lyricism that exists in his almost stream-of-consciousness poems that works somehow. Check out this introduction into the man and his work, and here is a link for one of his pieces, ‘Rich in Vitamin C’ to learn more.

To cap it all off, here’s a video of  Carlos Andrés Gómez’s amazing spoken word poem, “What’s Genocide?” (here’s a link to the written version):

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Poetry

Derailed While On The Hunt for Modern Latino Poets

While trying to ramp up my Spanish poetry writing, I decided to get my hands on some more contemporary Latino poetry.  I found some great work from Francisco X. Alarcon which can be found here. There is also the enigmatically named aguijonmagico who, despite not really being that lyrically astute, is pretty adventurous with his references to Sarte and Birdman  (more of his stuff here). If you really want to go for a poetic name drop, however, look no further than Luis Chaves, who wrote a book a poems and titled it under Cat Power’s real name. He even went so far as to write a poem whose title translates to “Free Translation of an Unreleased Track by Chan Marshall”. There are more poets here in case you’re interested, I’m probably going to be referencing some of the cooler ones as I go through them.

What really got me off the path was when I found the work of Sergio Badilla. He started the poetic transrealism movement, which is vastly different than this manifesto that I found for its literary counterpart. If you’re a sci-fi fan, you should read it, it’s a pretty interesting take on how stories can be written.

To top off my complete derailment, here’s a link to Calexico’s beautiful cover of Goldfrapp’s Human, en español:

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Comics, Poetry

Ferlinghetti and Beaton

Normally I’m not a big fan of the Beat poets. Most of them just ramble in some metaphysical arrogance and people eat them up, but Lawerence Ferlinghetti had that right mix of art and cool to him to not be completely full of himself. In lieu of that I present to you Junkman’s Obbligato. here’s an excerpt:

I am a social climber

climbing downward

And the descent is difficult.

The Upper Middle Class Ideal

is for the birds

but the birds have no use for it

having their own kind of pecking order

based upon birdsong.

On a similar train of thought, I’m a huge fan of Kate Beaton’s work on her webcomic Hark! A Vagrant. One of her more recent strips pokes fun at hipsters of different eras, and it definitely gave me a laugh.

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