A poet is a lazy philosopher - K. Choi, lazy poet
Reading: Eating Poetry by Mark Strand
This poem by prominent American poet Mark Strand (1934-2014) was just delicious in its simplicity. I quote from the website of Poetry Foundation: Eating Poetry Ink runs from the corners of my mouth. There is no happiness like mine. I have been eating poetry. The librarian does not believe what she sees. Her eyes are ...
Profession: poet
I am a poet. Where do I work? In a bank. In a bakery. At a gas station. At a convenient store Or in a flower shop. The people just need me around While they go about their business, I sit in silence I don't say a word but the people know they know a ...
Reading: Verwandlung by Georg Trakl
Today I read a poem by my famous German expressionist, Georg Trakl (1887-1914). I couldn't find a translation of die Verwandlung online, so I created one myself. There is a website where you can contribute poetry translations, and I added this one. This is what the great German, who died at 27 (sounds familiar) from ...
Reading: White Lie by Abbas Beydoun
Today I read the poem White Lie by the Lebanese poet Abbas Beydoun, born in 1945. As usual, I write freely why I think this poem is a good one. The truth is also blood. And it might be a piece of tongue or someting severed from us. We might find it in semen or ...
Reading: Forlorn (忧 郁) by Bei Dao
Emboldened by my anthologizing habit, today I discover the Chinese poet Bei Dao (a pseudonym that means "northern island"). As usual, I'll say what I like about this poem. I take the elevator from an underground parking lot up to sea level deep thoughts continuing up, through blue color like doctors you can't stop them, ...
Toothache :)
I want to write an ugly poem about it that is fully artificial a temporary edifice in broken verse I want to reinvent every word to prey and rape the makers of my pain I want to kill the little man who reads the pain to me turn off his sound and wait and see ...
Incitement
I hear the frequency of my kitchen the deafening sound of appliances that killed the wind, the quiet murmur of the grass and the cicadas and the death throes of little animals I try to remember the smell of the earth her dirt, her ashes, her streams, her stones her forests, her oceans, the long ...
Plastic Jesus
Among the finalists of the yearly Dutch 'Turing' poetry competition was a small notable poem by Raph de Haas, that should have won the first prize. I suggested to have it translated into a number of languages, so I contacted the relevant literature funding programs, who put me in touch with publishers, who in due ...