Buggeryville

I read Juliana Spahr's Fuck You-Aloha-I Love You yesterday. The first two poems in it are terrific, and develop a method of using language; the remaining poems use that method to talk about various topics, and that is fine, it is a fine way to talk about various topics, and it is not that those topics aren't interesting, but who goes to poetry for topics? Though we do like our topical writing to be informed by poetry, perhaps. So there is a method and some examples. It is, in this way, a resource.

But then I tried to find a copy of the first poem, "localism or t/here", online, and all I came up with here hits to an mp3 of her reading the poem. And I have not yet listened to the reading of the poem, but it seems like this poem cannot be read aloud. But to explain this, I would have to have you read the poem, as a text. Eventually I found that the preview on Google Books allowed you to read that first poem. So, go read it, it is short. (Those of you who were at the Borders reading and remember my poem to Bryan might think that I was influenced by this poem then, but I had not read it, and I suspect, instead, that Juliana Spahr and I share a few influences.)

It is odd that it is much easier to find an audio recording of a poet reading a poem than it is to find the text of the poem online, though. (See also the other day's link to a recording rather than a text. Although now that I look again, I found the poem on Google Books as well. Hurrah to Wesleyan University Press, I guess!) Is this a good thing? Are poets (or publishers) stingy with their texts?