Anti-Laureate of the United States
Or: Why Billy Collins Sucks
In reaction to Billy Collins being named Poet Laureate, Anselm Hollo was elected the indefinite Anti-Laureate by a group of poets and critics on the POETICS list back in 2001.
This was done because...well, because Billy Collins writes trite, simplistic, stupid poetry in the vein of William Carlos Williams. (I'll admit, I myself used to write poetry that was suspiciously like Ezra Pound, but I was 19 and fairly ignorant.) Now, I'm not saying that Collins's poetry is bad on its own as I am that we don't live in the early 20th century but in the early 21st. And one-hundred years of extreme change in the way people use language calls for a drastic change in poetics. But I think even if Billy Collins was writing in the 1920s, he would still be über-cheesy. As Paul Stephens wrote about him:
Billy Collins is to good poetry what Kenny G is to Charlie Parker; what sunset paintings at the mall are to Jackson Pollock; what Rod McKuen is to Walt Whitman; what Tori Spelling is to Lana Turner; what the burkha is to lingerie; what the Backstreet Boys are to the Beatles; what George W. Bush is to the art of extemporaneous speech; what Osama bin Laden is to women’s liberation; what Dan Quayle is to spelling; Billy Collins is to poetry what the New Age/Mysticism section in the bookstore is to the Philosophy section, assuming that those two sections haven’t been conflated yet down at your local Barnes and Noble.
If you want proof for yourself that Billy Collins sucks, check out any one of these Action Poems, which are obviously animated really well, but just try to listen to the poetry itself. There's nothing there, I'm telling you. And look at his stupid hat. It's not nearly as cool as Anselm Hollo's (above).
Needless to say, Anselm Hollo does not suck. Not at all. I recently picked up his Guests of Space, his most recent book of poetry; it is easily my favorite book of contemporary poetry since Thom Thompson in Purgatory. (OMG, I've started self-linking.)
Hollo looks a little like Jack Nicholson, which is obviously awesome in its own way. He's also a really talented translator and distinguished professor at Naropa University's Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics, which, by the by, has a huge database of recorded lectures by all sorts of people, especially the Beats.
Anyway, this is one of his poems. You can also read several others at poets.org and another in Samizdat Issue #3.
Message by anselm hollo
hello!
i'm one of Your molecules!
i started from Crab Nebula, but i move about. i've moved about for millions of years.
i entered Your body, perhaps as a factor in some edible vegetable, or else i passed into Your lungs as part of the air.
now, what intrigues me is this:
at what exact point, as i entered the mouth, or was absorbed by the skin, was i part of the body?
at what exact moment (later on) do i cease to be part of the body (i.e., You)?
let me know what You think.
Yrs,
Does art-metal sound stupid? Trailer park glitter-punk? No wave glam-grunge? Whatever you want to call it, this mikks is all sort of metal-ish, but in the best way.
So, there's this musical phenomenon called Teezar. No one but Joe Stumble seems to know for sure if it's real or fake, but he claims to have visited them once years ago; either way, it's really bad ass. You can download all known Teezar trakks through that link.
The reason I like this band so much is not that they are great, but that they wanted to be great so very badly. And I love that. I imagine them being like a real life Spinal Tap, living the glam lifestyle to whatever excess it could be taken, living the dream despite reality's way of smacking you in the face.
These are some of the best, along with some appropriate context.
Happy birthday, Eric. This is my present. Rokk the fukk out.
1. Magik Markers // Body Rot
2. Hella // Brown Metal
3. Celtic Frost // Progeny
4. Teezar // Livin Easy on the Street of Dreams
5. Iron Maiden // Run to the Hills
6. Bad Brains // Big Take Over
7. The Homosexuals // Walk Before Imitate
8. Christian Death // Romeo's Distress
9. Black Sabbath // After Forever
10. Jesus Lizard // Slave Ship
11. Teezar // Written Word of Rokk
12. Brian Eno // Third Uncle
13. Boris // Buzz-In
14. An Albatross // Behold the Light
15. Teezar // Rokkin On
16. White Suburban Youth // It's Really Hard to Skateboard
17. Lightning Bolt // Dracula Mountain
18. Bum Kon // This is Art
19. Teezar // After the Show
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