Some remarks about some things
notes, investigations, digressions galore
Ted Burke
- Location
- San Diego, California,
- Birthday
- July 15
- Title
- Bookseller, writer, musician
- Bio
- Bookseller, musician, writer and poet living and working in San Diego, California. His writing has appeared in the San Diego Reader, Kicks, San Diego Door, Roadwork, Revolt in Style,and City Works.His poems have been included in the anthologies Small Rain: 8 poets from San Diego (1996,DG Wills Books),Ocean Hiway: eight poets in San Diego (1981,Wild Mustard Press) , and is the author of many chapbooks, including Hand Grenade, Open Every Window,No One Home and City Times,limited editions published by his own Old House Press.
MY RECENT POSTS
- Dolly wants to kill you
May 29, 2012 11:15PM - Fuhgeddaboutit - Oy vey! -
Salon.com
May 28, 2012 06:29PM - You can say that again, but
louder
May 27, 2012 10:35AM - On Longwindness
May 25, 2012 10:07PM - A poem about baseball in
Detroit, yay!
May 25, 2012 10:39AM
MY RECENT COMMENTS
- “Rand was smitten by
Monroe's persona no less than
any other
star struck kid and
p…”
March 08, 2012 06:46PM - “@George Hoffman:
Actually, Mailer didn't refer
to himself
as
"Aquarius"…”
January 01, 2012 07:12PM - “Mailer's meditation on
violence and evil will not be
every
one's idea of a good
n…”
January 01, 2012 07:07PM - “@Miguella: His
contradictions were what made
his brilliance
exasperating; I
sup…”
December 17, 2011 10:40AM - “Thanks wendy. It's not
that I'm against subjecting a
work to
critical
examination…”
August 14, 2011 06:44PM
Ted Burke's Links
- New list
- Salon
- New York Times
- Slate.com
- The Nation
- Like it or not
DECEMBER 16, 2008 1:21AM
Memoirs of an Amnesiac
Cultural Amnesia
by Clive James
(Picador)
The estimable James, novelist, poet, and critic, has an opinion on everything having to do with culture and the arts, and with Cultural Amnesia , an alphabetized collection of essays on the artists, poets, musicians, writers and film makers he feels we should
… Read full post »by Clive James
(Picador)
The estimable James, novelist, poet, and critic, has an opinion on everything having to do with culture and the arts, and with Cultural Amnesia , an alphabetized collection of essays on the artists, poets, musicians, writers and film makers he feels we should
DECEMBER 15, 2008 6:51PM
Bob Dylan Is Not A Poet
An old peeve, this: Bob Dylan is not a poet.He is a
songwriter. What he does is significantly different than what a
poet does. In any relevant sense, the best of what poetry offers is
read off the page, sans melody from accompanying guitar or piano
and a convincingly evocative
… Read full post »
DECEMBER 15, 2008 4:16PM
"Odalisque" by Mark Salerno
Odalisque
Mark Salerno
(Salt Publishing)
Mark Salerno offers a selection of noir-inspired sonnets that tell a tale of cop and a hooker who start up a relationship that takes us on a tour of a mythical, distant, black and white Los Angeles of contemporary time. Shifting voices, locations, pres/…
DECEMBER 14, 2008 10:37AM
In The Valley of Elah: rent this DVD!
We are still talking about how bittersweet and haggard Tommy Lee Jones was in the Coen Brother's remarkable adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's novel "No Country for Old Men", understandable enough, but most of us have all but forgotten another amazing film he made that same year, "In the Valley o… Read full post »
DECEMBER 13, 2008 11:54PM
on David Foster Wallace
Infinite Jest is perhaps the most exasperating novel I've ever read, along with being the most chronically overrated in contemporary fiction. It may be argued that he novel is about the digressions he favors, and that such digressions place him in line as being the latest "systems novelist", taking u/… Read full post »
DECEMBER 13, 2008 8:25PM
Speechless as Trains
Posted here because it's one of my favorite poems.-tb
__________________
In the drift of the words you are speaking,
wrapped in steam
that unfolds in vapors that vanish
in the cold snap of wind
that blows against
brick houses
that remain beautiful
despite neglect and graffiti,
a half-century of weather,
I a…
__________________
In the drift of the words you are speaking,
wrapped in steam
that unfolds in vapors that vanish
in the cold snap of wind
that blows against
brick houses
that remain beautiful
despite neglect and graffiti,
a half-century of weather,
I a…
DECEMBER 13, 2008 10:12AM
Ugly Buildings: THE GIFT THAT KEEPS ON TAKING
Architecture is an art form, but of course, but the crucial distinction between this art and other mediums is what the consumer, the perceived, the witness to the art work can do when confronted with works that are, say, unsatisfying. One can walk out of a movie they dislike, they can… Read full post »
DECEMBER 11, 2008 7:35PM
Smoking on the corner
You strike a match
and cup it against the breeze,
flame to cigarette tip,
a deep inhale,
your knees ache in the chill
when nothing else fills the bill,
the choking burn slides
up and down the throat,
the lungs are harsh words
said in in flaming briar patch,
soon enough your cup
will filled with enough
nickles…
and cup it against the breeze,
flame to cigarette tip,
a deep inhale,
your knees ache in the chill
when nothing else fills the bill,
the choking burn slides
up and down the throat,
the lungs are harsh words
said in in flaming briar patch,
soon enough your cup
will filled with enough
nickles…
DECEMBER 11, 2008 10:14AM
Let's Keep Sylvia Plath Buried
Has anyone said that they are exhausted by the relentless attention accorded the late and legendary Sylvia Plath?Am I the only one who thinks that we ought to stop digging up Sylvia Plath's body so we may once again gawk at her bony remains through a lens of deferred yearning? Generation/…
DECEMBER 10, 2008 1:39PM
Brief and banal
Obviousness is not an attractive feature in a poem; you come to the
poet wanting something more from words than headlines, cliches, the
hackneyed like, and get instead a groady fish tossed in your face.
Rachel Hadas, someone whom I've liked reading before, gives me
a cold dish. It
tastes awful.
Conven…
Conven…
DECEMBER 6, 2008 9:56AM
On Smoking
Advertising is the great media technology with which corporations persuades us to buy things we don't need , and one can get a fine example of how succesful these geniuses have been with an online exibit of cigarette advertising here, on a Stanford University web site. It's enough to make one… Read full post »
DECEMBER 6, 2008 9:51AM
On Smoking
Advertising is the great media technology with which corporations persuades us to buy things we don't need , and one can get a fine example of how succesful these geniuses have been with an online exibit of cigarette advertising here, on a Stanford University web site. It's enough to make one/…
DECEMBER 5, 2008 11:33AM
Rita Dove Gives Hayden a Lift
"Hayden Leaves London" has more the feel of an historical novel rather than that of a poem, and a smart choice by Rita Dove to emphasise poetic prose instead of prosaic stanzas; the latitude allows a resemblance of an interior monologue, not unlike that we find in Faulkner or Woolf, that/…
DECEMBER 4, 2008 7:38AM
Emphatic Mumbling:John Ashbery's Glorious Diffusion
I've thought for years that the best way to read John Ashbery's poetry is to first throw the instruction manual away and then go for a fishing trip in his various lakes of opaque meanings. Literally, imagine yourself in a boat in the center of a large body of water and/…
DECEMBER 4, 2008 12:58AM
You are what you think you're eating
A knife , fork and
a cracked plate
don’t constitute a meal ,
though all three items
are handy for show,
as are empty frames
on the wall when
there is any kind
of company visiting ,
who demand our attention,
taxes, documents of your legal rights,
you just say
it’s the wall you
wanted to highlight,
the frame i…
a cracked plate
don’t constitute a meal ,
though all three items
are handy for show,
as are empty frames
on the wall when
there is any kind
of company visiting ,
who demand our attention,
taxes, documents of your legal rights,
you just say
it’s the wall you
wanted to highlight,
the frame i…
NOVEMBER 26, 2008 10:20PM
SOME POEMS NEED TO BE TARRED AND FEATHERED
By Ted Burke
There are some poems I read that put me in a bad mood and keep me there; the insidious thing about that experience is that the mood isn't bad, it's mean, and a host of my anti-social impulses awaken and demand their satisfaction. "The White Skunk" by the lead-footed/…
NOVEMBER 26, 2008 9:34PM
Paul Dresman
Full disclosure: Paul Dresman was a teacher of mine at the
University of California, San Diego, and he was the nearest thing I
had to a poetry mentor. He has a genius for the unexpected phrase
to describe what would go unnoticed in situations and encounters,
and he has one of… Read full post »
NOVEMBER 24, 2008 1:48PM
The choice cynicism of Jack Spicer
By Ted Burke
Jack Spicer was an odd and inspired contrarian in place during the San Francisco Renaissance, who conceived poetry as "dictation" of a sort. He had gone so far as to refer to the poet as a "radio", a living device able to intercept transmissions from an other wise invisible/…
NOVEMBER 24, 2008 10:03AM
Lessons from the Seventies
It’s love that breaks
against the rocks
and not foam nor water of any kind,
it’s a baptism of irrigated contempt
that makes the horizon
burn in black static p1umes.
Stained cotton from
every beach front window.
We smoked joints
in the guts of the canyons,
the mired trails
to the sea kissed shale.
All the blu…
against the rocks
and not foam nor water of any kind,
it’s a baptism of irrigated contempt
that makes the horizon
burn in black static p1umes.
Stained cotton from
every beach front window.
We smoked joints
in the guts of the canyons,
the mired trails
to the sea kissed shale.
All the blu…
NOVEMBER 24, 2008 12:03AM
More Pith than Poetry
I do enjoy apples, savor them, dice and slice them, eat them enthusiastically and wallow a bit in the crisp and sweet delight that . "Apple Economics", though, is enough to kill my taste for the prized fruit. Edison Jenning's writing misses the the whole savor experience and produces instead a/…
NOVEMBER 22, 2008 4:01PM
November 22nd
By Ted Burke
It seemed for years that we were caught in a loop of empty testimonials and evocations each time November 22nd happened upon the calendar page, an increasingly hallow chorus of platitudes and crumbling cliches centering around the promise of the late John F.Kennedy's administration/…
NOVEMBER 22, 2008 10:19AM
November 22
It seemed for years that we were caught in a loop of empty testimonials and evocations each time November 22nd happened upon the calendar page, an increasingly hallow chorus of platitudes and crumbling cliches centering around the promise of the late John F.Kennedy's administration and how that road… Read full post »
NOVEMBER 21, 2008 10:38PM
History : a lost beach ball among smashed bottles
By Ted Burke
A poem describing an ambivalent response to a tepid commemoration of an important WW2 Omaha Beach by By Piotr Florczyk , is the sort of poem that almost succeeds too well towards the author's intended end. It's one thing to find yourself skipping pop cultural references you grew up…
A poem describing an ambivalent response to a tepid commemoration of an important WW2 Omaha Beach by By Piotr Florczyk , is the sort of poem that almost succeeds too well towards the author's intended end. It's one thing to find yourself skipping pop cultural references you grew up…
NOVEMBER 18, 2008 7:06PM
Daydreaming among the paper mache
By Ted Burke
Peter Everwine's poem, Aubade in Autumn, published in the New Yorker in 2007, caught my notice last night when I was recycling magazines that had stacked up over the last couple of years. I chanced on it when I paused during the chore and flipped through a random dog/…
Verbal Remedy AKA Denise
John Hughes
Dorinda D.
Paul Levinson
Joan Walsh
Karen Templer
Salon.com