poetry

Anonymous Grocer 2/30: [Body the only take]

~ Cameron ~ Leave a comment
Hello friend! 
 
Welcome back to Anonymous Grocer, a 30-day audio adventure in backwards poetry. Each day: a new poem, a new collection of words in unfamiliar and spiraling patterns, a new audio message to ease you into your day. 
 
Today, Day 2, we continue the series with Lauren K. Alleyne, whose poems bear witness to many troublesome and achingly vulnerable bodily experiences on Earth, while also leaving room for the illumination of the hopeful, resilient, transcendent human spirit — a poetic swiveling that is both seamless and wants you to look, name, rub your finger over the seams.
 
Discover more about this poet here.
Need to study up on what a ghazal is? I’ve got you covered! 
Do you have requests for poems or poets you’d like to see featured in future Anonymous Grocer episodes? I’d love to hear from you!
Peace and love,
Cam
—

Anonymous Grocer 1/30: [Impossibilities? No.]

~ Cameron ~ 1 Comment

Hello friend! 
 
Happy Poetry Month and welcome to Anonymous Grocer, a 30-day audio adventure in backwards poetry. Each day: a new poem, a new collection of words in unfamiliar and spiraling patterns, a new audio message to ease you into your day. 
 
Today, we kick off the series with the ebullient, open hearted poetry of Frank O’Hara, patron saint of modern art and NYC hot dogs. 
 
Discover more about this poet here.
Do you have requests for poems or poets you’d like to see featured in future Anonymous Grocer episodes? I’d love to hear from you!
Peace and love,
Cam
—

Welcome to Anonymous Grocer!

~ Cameron ~ 30 Comments

Hi friends! April is National Poetry Month, and this year I’m embarking on something new: Anonymous Grocer, an audio adventure in backwards poetry.
Anonymous Grocer is a 30-day experiment in sound poetry. Each day of National Poetry Month, a hand-picked published poem, many of which you will know quite well, will be read by yours truly, word-for-word in a backwards sequence.
Along this monthlong ride, we’re gonna majorly queer up word order, deconstruct syntax, and experience some new and old favorite poems like never before. Unscrew your head one or two times, and prepare to create space for the unexpected, the dissonant, the oracular.
If you’re interested in receiving the daily Grocer poem (audio and transcription) delivered to your email, let me know in the comments or DM me, and I’ll add you to the daily email list!
Otherwise, you can always check out every episode here on ccfinch.com (I’ll be weekly updating the website with the episodes.)
—
[And now for some fun monologues:]
Why Grocery? Easy. Words are food – I mean, I could surely mush them around and around in my mouth for hours, days, jovial lifetimes. Words — the sound, the feel of them — provide nourishment and pleasure and curiosity – just rolling around, experimenting.
The Anonymous bit is for the hunger pang (pain?) of the unknown. From the backwards recitation, you may experience nonsensical language, comprehension difficulty, utter weirdness and surprise. I encourage you to embrace it all – like tasting a new food for the first time or releasing yourself from quotidian labels – let the sounds of the poems-in-reverse slide onto your ear tongues, sound melting into you.
Release yourself from the need to understand. Just eat, just trust, just open yourself to the fullness of our strange concert.
Happy Poetry Month, y’all!

Wisdom from Writers: A Conversation with Jihyun Yun

~ Cameron ~ Leave a comment

In the collection, the mouths of the three main speakers struggle to articulate a kinder world still unfathomable to them, in efforts to forge a path there. Articulation is conjuring. I believe it’s the realest magic our bodies are capable of.

I recently talked with poet Jihyun Yun about her prize-winning debut poetry collection, Some are Always Hungry; the mouth as metaphor; a few favorite Korean fairy tales; and the ways in which language connects food, women, and violence. You can read the full interview here on The Rumpus.

I do find it very troubling in itself that it’s easier to imagine the female body as food, as something hunted, as prey, but I think it’s also speaking to a truth of how language, too, can be a knife, and how it is often brandished.

*

Find out more about Jihyun Yun on jihyunyun.com. Jihyun’s book Some are Always Hungry (September 2020) is available from University of Nebraska Press.

Wisdom from Writers: A Conversation with Oliver de la Paz

~ Cameron ~ Leave a comment

If you’re looking for ways to “fix” something that isn’t “broken,” then you’re really doomed to go on searching for answers that aren’t there. And really what needs adjusting are the kinds of questions we ask. There’s a parallel, of course, to how we think about neurodiversity—so much of the obsession is with “fixing” something. But shouldn’t we be in the business of listening instead?”

I recently talked with poet Oliver de la Paz, author of the outstanding poetry collection,The Boy in the Labyrinth, about mythic metaphors, the problem with story problems, empathy in the digital era, and the role of poetry in the endless exploration of ourselves. You can read the full interview here in The Common.

There’s something beautiful in the attempt to reach beyond ourselves, yes? Beautiful but also a kind of reaching into the void. You’re never sure the vehicle your tenor is riding on will get you where you need to go.

*

Find out more about Oliver de la Paz at oliverdelapaz.com. Oliver’s book The Boy in the Labyrinth (July 2019) is available from University of Akron Press.

Wisdom from Writers: A Conversation with Brandon Amico

~ Cameron ~ Leave a comment

We have the choice to either give in to inevitability or to scream something back into the void.

I recently talked with poet Brandon Amico about many of the central themes in his poetry collection, Disappearing, Inc.: social media, obsessions, politicized violence, climate change, and the role of poets & writers today. You can read the full interview here in The Adroit Journal.

“We create, in part, to fill the gaps that have opened in our lives, or that will open one day, because everything is on a limited basis.”

*

Find out more about Brandon Amico at brandonamico.com. Brandon’s book Disappearing, Inc. (March 2019) is available from Gold Wake Press. Brandon is also a freelance copywriter who helps other authors with their book marketing. See his freelance website here.