xxxxxxx
PROLOGUE, THANKS (TO KEN) AND PITCH TO PUBLISHERS
When I write lyrics, I strive to say as much as I can in as few words as possible. I write poetry the same way - and I write for the reader, not just for “myself”. These poems are personal but also universal. My writing can be funny, angry, sly, ironic, erotic, poignant, silly, sometimes simultaneously, but it’s not elitist or esoteric. It’s accessible, but it’s not greeting card verse and it won’t give you diabetes. Even when it rhymes. Maybe there is a market for this kind of short, wry, pithy poetry.
I’ve thought long and hard about how these poems could be presented. So far, I’ve come up with a few ideas, two themes in particular, which could be combined: 1) What I call (forgive the pun) “unre-qwerty-ed love”, i.e. writing incessantly and desperately to a man who professes love but rejects flesh and blood relationships, refuses to meet face to face and eventually stops corresponding and 2) “The Great American Songbook”, which is chock full of sunny, platitudinous references to eternal love and happy endings. I’m writing to a prize-winning and once celebrated poet/playwright who worked at the Copa, knew Sinatra and Dean Martin, wrote screenplays in Hollywood and tended bar at a fabled jazz club in Greenwich Village. He now lives in Brooklyn and delivers pizzas. These old standards are the soundtrack of his life. He listens to and talks about these wonderful tunes constantly. The wistful nostalgia for a bygone era that pop music instantly creates is in sharp contrast to my laconic, Zen-like “in the moment” personal observations, so for anyone familiar with the old standards, there is an added element of irony. But the poems must stand on their own. I’m hoping they are interesting and readable without the backstory, but the cybersaga of bellecurve and playwrightnovelist is itself worthy of a novel or a screenplay, both of which are beyond me. Ironically, “Play” is the one who should be telling the story. Maybe someday he will. His version would be mostly fiction, but it would be a great read. The man’s a hell of a writer.
When I write lyrics, I strive to say as much as I can in as few words as possible. I write poetry the same way - and I write for the reader, not just for “myself”. These poems are personal but also universal. My writing can be funny, angry, sly, ironic, erotic, poignant, silly, sometimes simultaneously, but it’s not elitist or esoteric. It’s accessible, but it’s not greeting card verse and it won’t give you diabetes. Even when it rhymes. Maybe there is a market for this kind of short, wry, pithy poetry.
I’ve thought long and hard about how these poems could be presented. So far, I’ve come up with a few ideas, two themes in particular, which could be combined: 1) What I call (forgive the pun) “unre-qwerty-ed love”, i.e. writing incessantly and desperately to a man who professes love but rejects flesh and blood relationships, refuses to meet face to face and eventually stops corresponding and 2) “The Great American Songbook”, which is chock full of sunny, platitudinous references to eternal love and happy endings. I’m writing to a prize-winning and once celebrated poet/playwright who worked at the Copa, knew Sinatra and Dean Martin, wrote screenplays in Hollywood and tended bar at a fabled jazz club in Greenwich Village. He now lives in Brooklyn and delivers pizzas. These old standards are the soundtrack of his life. He listens to and talks about these wonderful tunes constantly. The wistful nostalgia for a bygone era that pop music instantly creates is in sharp contrast to my laconic, Zen-like “in the moment” personal observations, so for anyone familiar with the old standards, there is an added element of irony. But the poems must stand on their own. I’m hoping they are interesting and readable without the backstory, but the cybersaga of bellecurve and playwrightnovelist is itself worthy of a novel or a screenplay, both of which are beyond me. Ironically, “Play” is the one who should be telling the story. Maybe someday he will. His version would be mostly fiction, but it would be a great read. The man’s a hell of a writer.
posted by Deeplip at 6:06 PM
<< Home