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I’m checking out story contests as a way to jumpstart the writing. NYCMidnight.com has contests coming out the wazoo. I want the comradery of story swapping without having to tell whiny publishers that the story has appeared elsewhere. So I can’t promise how long the story(s) will stay up.
This one was harder than it looked and the length restrictions 1500 words or less really bit me in the ass. I had to include a trial and a CEO, written in the genre Horror. First draft was better moralizing about the evils of corporations and not genuinely scary. Beta reader suggested it was more likely CEO was cracking up than having a supernatural encounter. Reread some Lovecraft shorts to get in the zone. Rewrite is less commie rant against corps and more get your creep on but still basically unsatisfying in some ways. I think it might make a nice short script. Be perfect for one of those tales from the crypt style shows… are there any still in production? I also considered making it based on real tragedies like the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire and the fixed trial that exonerated all the greedy businessmen who profited by locking in seamstresses who either burned or jumped to their deaths. That’s another story for another day when I’m not burdened with a 3 day deadline and a word restriction. As of this posting there is no word yet if the story is juicy enough for me to go on to the next round.
I’m checking out story contests as a way to jumpstart the writing. NYCMidnight.com has contests coming out the wazoo. I want the comradery of story swapping without having to tell whiny publishers that the story has appeared elsewhere. So I can’t promise how long the story(s) will stay up. I already have serial novel ideas from this story and one of my beta readers has compared it to Philip K. Dick’s “Do androids dream of electric sheep.” That and getting first place in the first round is damn satisfying.
I was looking for inspiration for a Kafka poem I was writing and came across this blog.
http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/the_best_american_poetry/2008/07/what-would-kafk.html#
Here is the blog entry as it appeared. Let me answer the question before it was asked. Yes, I think this is “fair”, the editing makes it an extraordinary poem. Add too that the “letter” is translated from German. From a letter written nearly 90 years before Carver’s poem.
It can be argued that many hands went into making “Kafka’s Watch” a poem. I personally tend to err on the side of being derivative rather than found poetry but there is plenty of evidence for this tradition. Ancient and contemporary.
(Of course, I don’t recommend that others -PARTICULARLY NEWBIES- “find” poetry in other writers’ writing. But if you’re looking for how others do it check out Jorie Graham’s Materialism. Note, however, how scrupulously the quotes are attributed.) End of my rant. Beginning of someone else’s.
July 11, 2008
What Would Kafka Do?
On October 21, 1985, The New Yorker published this poem by Raymond Carver:
Kafka’s Watch
I have a job with a tiny salary of 80 crowns, and
an infinite eight to nine hours of work.
I devour the time outside of the office like a wild beast.
Someday I hope to sit in a chair in another
country, looking out the window at fields of sugarcane
or Mohammedan cemeteries.
I don’t complain about the work so much as about
the sluggishness of swampy time. The office hours
cannot be divided up! I feel the pressure
of the full eight or nine hours even in the last
half hour of the day. It’s like a train ride
lasting night and day. In the end you’re totally
crushed. You no longer thing about the straining
of the engine, or about the hills or
flat country, but ascribe all that’s happening
to your watch alone. The watch which you continually hold
in the palm of your hand. Then shake. And bring slowly
to your ear in disbelief.
To a devoted Carver fan, the poem seemed uncharacteristic: more lush than the spare style that tagged Carver as “minimalist.” I loved the poem, clipped it, and committed it to memory.
Ten years later while reading Kafka’s letters, I came across this passage, written in October 1907, when Kafka was 24 and had begun work for the Italian insurance company Assicuraziono Generali:
My life is completely chaotic now. At any rate, I have a job with a tiny salary of 80 crowns and an immense eight to nine hours of work; but I devour the hours outside the office like a wild beast. Since I was not previously accustomed to limiting my private life to six hours, and since I am also studying Italian and want to spend the evenings of these lovely days out of doors, I emerge from the crowdedness of my leisure hours scarcely rested . . .
I am in the Assicurazioni Generali and have some hopes of someday sitting in chairs in faraway countries, looking out of the office windows at fields of sugar cane or Mohammedan cemeteries; and the whole world of insurance itself interests me greatly, but my present work is dreary.
I don’t complain about the work so much as about the sluggisheness of swampy time. The office hours, you see, cannot be divided up; even in the last half hour I feel the pressure of the eight hours just as much as in the first. Often it is like a train ride lasting night and day, until in the end you’re totally crushed; you no longer think about the straining of the engine, or about the hilly or flat countryside but ascribe all that’s happening to your watch alone, which you continually hold in your palm . . .
My immediate reaction was dismay. Although I’m well acquainted with collage techniques and the practice of “sampling” — as Eliot remarked, “immature poets imitate, mature poets steal” — I wondered about the propriety of what RC had done. Did he take too many liberties? Does the title indicate that this is a “found” poem? When Carver later published Kafka’s Watch in a collection, he added the epigraph “from a letter.” Does that addition make it right?
Would Kafka approve? Do you?
– sdh
BeMuse Gala –Meet the Muses
May 4, 2011 7-9pm
Madison’s Grill (Banquet Room)
1109 Southeast Madison Street
Portland Oregon
Multimedia, multi-artist, cross-pollination, ongoing Art Project BEMUSE debuts! At this gala, Artists meet their muses. Audience meets artists. Performing artists perform. Poets wax poetic. Much fun and inspiration to be shared.
- Bemuse! Like Strangers on a Train… without murder! (or trains)
Oddly enough someone was making conversation at this adult toy review community with I play at (since its connected to this site that actually pays me or at least used to but now the editor seems to have fallen asleep at the wheel or I don’t know what but whatever and also because sex toys are expensive and are you really gonna pay a hundred dollars for that and then find out you hate it?) so this guy is chatting and trying to get people to chat back… in a non-troll way. And wants to know if anyone believes in Bogfoot. Um Bigfoot. But now due to a typo, a whole new species of urban legend is born. Bogfoot. I’ll have to think about that awhile. So here’s what I said to the guy, the guy who said the thing.
I have two Bigfoot stories. When I was 14, my crazy abusive stepfather (may he spin a little faster on a spit in hell every time I think of him) brought home a 23yr old hitchhiker by the name of Reno Gene Kennedy. He was the prettiest man I’d ever seen. Gorgeous. And he could make a noise like a cougar. Heady stuff for a hormone-addled, romance novel junkie teen. He was also insane and not very bright. He insisted he knew Bigfoot personally. Other things he knew: you couldn’t get pregnant unless the man and woman orgasmed simultaneously, being of mixed native descent he was the messiah meant to reunite all the North American Tribes to be one ruled of course by him, etc. Yes, I knew that just contemplating kissing him shaved ten points off my IQ. But I was 14. In yet another one of his bizarre punishments, my stepfather took my family but not me out of state the day before my birthday, leaving me alone with the sexy stranger. I rang in my new year with date rape that I thought was love.
My second Bigfoot story is when I was looking for work shortly after moving to Oregon. I applied for a position as a seasonal caretaker and editorial assistant for a youth hostel in Cave Junction, Oregon. The hostel was a renovated house and xmas tree farm way off the beaten track. It featured Bigfoot tours and had a hiking trail where visitors might catch a glimpse of the shy hirisute legend. The editorial assisting was basically making the memoirs (Bigfoot sightings, garden tips and rants) of the primary caretaker readable. Before my official interview, the caretaker insisted he needed a nap and suggested I take one as well. Although the hostel was empty and filled with beds and sofas, he insisted we should share a single bed. I declined and politely offered to look at his manuscript while he slept. After his nap, which he said was not at all peaceful because of my rudeness, he told me he was saving the job for a woman willing to sleep with him. Not me. He did offer to give me the Bigfoot tour for free. No thanks.
So if I did believe in Bigfoot, I’d have to conclude he was a pervert. And not the good kind.
Welcome Artist & Muse,
Thank you for your interest in BeMuse, a cross-disciplinary collaboration project for artists, musicians, writers and more!
In order to pair you with another participant, we would like you to forward the following information to poetrymaven@gmail.com on or before April 22: *artist’s name, email address and phone number
*a brief bio or artist statement
*the title of your work, its size, medium and style
*any special requirements or notes of which the curator should be aware
BeMuse will commence with the unveiling of the initial pairings at the launch of a preliminary month-long show starting May 1st and the results of the collaboration will constitute the second show opening on June 1st. Both will be public events including poetry reading, music and other performance.
Each participant will have 20+ days to complete a new and original work inspired by the Muse with whom you are paired. The new work should be delivered to (or arranged with) the curator by May 25th. If you wish to participate but are unable to attend the May 1st launch party, please let BeMuse organizers know. (We will be unable to pair you with a performance artist, musician or dancer –as their performance would be your inspiration.)
If you have additional questions, please feel free to ask. We’re excited about this new endeavor and thank you in advance for your interest and participation. With your help as an artist and muse, we hope to make this BeMuse, the first of many.
Yours,
G.L. Morrison
poetrymaven@gmail.com
G.L. Morrison and Donna Gagnon
G.L. Morrison
Voices
Created using Donna Gagnon’s story (below) as inspiration
Con te partirò
(Time to Say Goodbye)
By Donna Gagnon
Just sit there. Yes. Like that. Like you always do. Passive. Waiting. When I am ready, I will open my mouth as if to scream, move an arm carefully … like this [slash] … you will momentarily be blinded by the stage lights glaring off sharp metal and the action will begin.
As my blood drips, staining the boards, I will hear your breath held so stupidly in check. Trust me. I know, better than you, what needs to happen next.
My mouth will open wider, my vocal chords will tighten in the way they’ve been trained and a sound will issue forth, filling this space with pain, heartbreak, regret and tears will flow freely tonight.
You call me Divina. In your pedestrian memory, I am the exhilarating, brown-eyed Tosca and my heart nests in yours alone. You dream at night about my Elvira, hearing that clear, high E when you ejaculate under the sheets. You know fuck all about me. My real name, my true being, has been lost beneath all of your adulation. I have spent my life trying to please all of you out there. And I’m damned if I understand why.
I can be everyone but never myself. My life onstage is the only real thing, all else is artifice.
I could blame Jackie for my lingering depression. For bringing me to this final performance. That savage way she moved in on Ari when I needed him most. But it wasn’t her fault. He would have turned to anyone after I lost our first child and then couldn’t manage to successfully brew any more of them with him. I deserted my husband and gave myself up to another. Completely and oh so foolishly. Battista? I know you are out there and love me still. With my final breath, I will beg your forgiveness.
Yes, dear audience, this is only the first act in tonight’s opera. But it is my last. Mea culpa. Refunds may be requested at the box office.
I am feeling very weak and must now make my final exit, stage left, whispering my real name. The one none of you could ever pronounce. I am Mary Anna Kalogeropoulos.
Sogni d’oro. Good night.
THE END
——————————————————-
G.L. Morrison
Inspiration piece provided to Donna Gagnon
rose-heart koimoon
By Donna Gagnon
whale
flies
on the
smooth edged
full moon, singing jazz
melodies, syncopated rhyme
for
her
blue mood
witchingly
back-lit by midnight
reflective terns; by memory
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