Talk @ Penny

Talk here was posted in city scapes at Champaign-Urbana, Stillwater, OK and the North LaSalle St. Chicago bridge. Part appeared in Poets For Living Waters, (2010) before Trainwreck put it in Recon, then Talk went up at Frigg. Now all parts get their best airing at Penny 24 July, where this discussion ensued, all justified from such points of view. I have been asked about these critical exchanges so reproduce them here.

George J. Dance

Jul 24, 2022, 9:58:14 AM

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Today's poem on Penny's Poetry Blog:
Talk, by AE Reiff
[...]
Breath inspires talk,
language, expression, thought,
suddenness of wings,
a base of wind, of dust and sun
[...] 

 

 

PPB: Talk / AE Reiff

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George J. Dance

Jul 24, 2022, 9:58:14 AM

to

Today's poem on Penny's Poetry Blog:
Talk, by AE Reiff
[...]
Breath inspires talk,
language, expression, thought,
suddenness of wings,
a base of wind, of dust and sun
[...]

https://gdancesbetty.blogspot.com/2022/07/talk-ae-reiff.html

Will Dockery

Jul 24, 2022, 12:57:32 PM

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This is a PPB exclusive, I think?

George J. Dance

Jul 24, 2022, 1:18:17 PM

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He's also selling all his poems in an ebook -

https://gdancesbetty.blogspot.com/2020/11/new-chapbook-from-poet-aereiff.html

- but I'm pretty sure that PPB is the only place on the web to find his
poetry. Not that we asked for anything like that, just for a one-time
publication right. But he likes how Penny treats his poetry, and he's
sent us a lot of readers over the years. 

Will Dockery

Jul 24, 2022, 1:24:50 PM

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Yes, I thought I remembered him. 

Ash Wurthing

Jul 24, 2022, 1:32:49 PM

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On Sunday, July 24, 2022 at 4:18:17 PM UTC-4, george...@yahoo.ca wrote:

I will have to commend you for offering a place for poets, it's too easy to get lost in the throng of social media and popular poetry web sites. 

George J. Dance

Jul 24, 2022, 1:49:17 PM

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Thank you. I had high hopes along those lines at one time -- 2010 to be
precise, when I'd blogged Penny (the reason for PPB in the first place),
and was trying to figure out what to do next. I had plans to use it to
promote all the aapc poets, starting with an annual anthology that ran
for a couple of years. (That's how Mr. Reiff came on board.)
Unfortunately that idea fell apart, early in the current nonsense.

I'd like to get more poems from living authors, but it is a lot of work
to seek them out and then actively seek out their poems; and there are
always things I find more important. 

 

NancyGene

Jul 24, 2022, 2:39:05 PM

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It's in "Frigg Magazine:"
http://www.friggmagazine.com/issuefiftyseven/poetry/reiff/talk.htm

We are not fond of the poem, which winds around universal nonsense. There is also a mistake in the poem.

"Everything has breath. Everything that has breath." Is that profound? Everyone has a vagina. Everyone who has a vagina.

"three hundred eternal
breathes with the same."
Is this the 300 Spartans? We know that the average reading rate is about 300 words per minute, but that is not breaths. There is a (wrong) claim that we are breathing the same air as the dinosaurs did. Is this the
"Anything that’s done or so recalls
is breathing the same breath as all"
line?

The poem is new-agey in a non-new-agey time. 

Will Dockery

Jul 24, 2022, 3:25:51 PM

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Still a good plan, which is also how poets such as the late Gary Frankfurth, Zod and myself became involved.

And so it goes. 

 

 

George J. Dance

Jul 25, 2022, 1:35:03 PM

Good find, NG. I've added that info (linked) on the blog page.

> We are not fond of the poem, which winds around universal nonsense. There is also a mistake in the poem.
>
> "Everything has breath. Everything that has breath." Is that profound? Everyone has a vagina. Everyone who has a vagina.
>

Heh! That reminds me of something on my wiki. According to the DNB
(which I used for the wiki article), Henry Brooke had a tragedy, /The
Earl of Essex/ staged in London, containing the line: "Who rule o'er
freemen should themselves be free," == which Samuel Johnson parodied as,
"Who drives fat oxen should himself be fat."

> "three hundred eternal
> breathes with the same."
> Is this the 300 Spartans? We know that the average reading rate is about 300 words per minute, but that is not breaths. There is a (wrong) claim that we are breathing the same air as the dinosaurs did.
> Is this the
> "Anything that’s done or so recalls
> is breathing the same breath as all"
> line?

We may not breathe the same molecules as the dinosaurs, but we are
breathing the same atoms. I won't try to explain the rest (I don't know
what "Three hundred" is alluding to) or argue it. I wouldn't even
suggest changes with him, now that I know it's already been published --
I did that once with a poet named Vera, and almost made a lifelong enemy
over that.

>
> The poem is new-agey in a non-new-agey time.
>

Mystical experiences are the hardest to communicate successfully. "For
those who don't understand, no explanation is possible," as the old
saying has it.

 

 

W-Dockery

Jul 25, 2022, 2:05:18 PM

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I remember Vera well, but not the argument that you mentioned here.

I'm curious, what happened?

>>
>> The poem is new-agey in a non-new-agey time.
>>
> Mystical experiences are the hardest to communicate successfully. "For
> those who don't understand, no explanation is possible," as the old
> saying has it.

"I know you hate that mystic shit." -Lou Reed 

 

 

Michael Pendragon

Jul 25, 2022, 7:20:18 PM

 

 
>
> We are not fond of the poem, which winds around universal nonsense. There is also a mistake in the poem.
>

I like it.

I see it as more pantheistic than New Agey.

Semantic hair-splitting -- but I use "New Agey" pejoratively for poetry spouting vague truisms about how everyone is special "Thou art God" without Heinlein's satiric edge.

The idea that every breath is a song that celebrates life is original AFAIK, and highly poetic.

> "Everything has breath. Everything that has breath." Is that profound? Everyone has a vagina. Everyone who has a vagina.
>
> "three hundred eternal
> breathes with the same."
> Is this the 300 Spartans? We know that the average reading rate is about 300 words per minute, but that is not breaths.

I don't know what 300 refers to, but it doesn't hurt the poem. I didn't understand what my Muse wrote about the 7 eternities until I studied Kabbalah.

There is a (wrong) claim that we are breathing the same air as the dinosaurs did. Is this the
> "Anything that’s done or so recalls
> is breathing the same breath as all"
> line?

I think we are still breathing the same air as all time occurs simultaneously. But the poem could just mean that all are part of the god force.

> The poem is new-agey in a non-new-agey time.

It's mystical.

It also reads very well for the most part. 

 

 

Will Dockery

Jul 25, 2022, 8:52:48 PM

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Still a good idea, actually

 

 

Will Dockery

Jul 26, 2022, 10:30:53 AM

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On Sunday, July 24, 2022 at 12:58:14 PM UTC-4, george...@yahoo.ca wrote:
>

And, again, another interesting and informative thread created by George Dance. 

 

 

NancyGene

Jul 26, 2022, 1:15:00 PM

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That's your right to like it or not--and you give your reasons. We gave our reasons too, which is the purpose of this group.

>
> Semantic hair-splitting -- but I use "New Agey" pejoratively for poetry spouting vague truisms about how everyone is special "Thou art God" without Heinlein's satiric edge.

We hate the Rod McKuen crap too.

>
> The idea that every breath is a song that celebrates life is original AFAIK, and highly poetic.
> > "Everything has breath. Everything that has breath." Is that profound? Everyone has a vagina. Everyone who has a vagina.

Not original but not in a lot of the literature either. We assume that he came by the thought while reading some new-agey publications:
"Air Prayer" - https://www.amazon.com/Earth-Water-Fire-Air-Connecting/dp/1683360397

https://www.ourrecordings.com/albums/i-dreamt-a-dream
"I Dreamt a Dream" - Songs of the Danish Heartland - “Songs are thoughts; every breath is a song - when humans seek to rise above themselves, and communicate with a power that is greater than themselves, they no longer speak, they SING!”

https://www.willowing.org/poetry-art-giveaway/
"Every breath is a song. Every tick tock an ocean of meaning, an orchestra of alive vibrancy wanting its way with you, soulfully. Yes."

> > "three hundred eternal
> > breathes with the same."
> > Is this the 300 Spartans? We know that the average reading rate is about 300 words per minute, but that is not breaths.
> I don't know what 300 refers to, but it doesn't hurt the poem. I didn't understand what my Muse wrote about the 7 eternities until I studied Kabbalah.

In doing some research, metronomes can be set to 300 bpm. We also saw that above that, the sound is more like white noise, which rather plays into the trees singing, etc. Ash may know this, but "Speedcore" music "rarely drops below 300 beats per minute." (Wikipedia)

Did you know that fish can sing?

> There is a (wrong) claim that we are breathing the same air as the dinosaurs did. Is this the
> > "Anything that’s done or so recalls
> > is breathing the same breath as all"
> > line?
> I think we are still breathing the same air as all time occurs simultaneously. But the poem could just mean that all are part of the god force.

"We are the world, we are the children."

> > The poem is new-agey in a non-new-agey time.
> It's mystical.

Not in our mysts, but that's okay too.

>
> It also reads very well for the most part.

We see that Mr. Reiff also wrote "The True Light That Lights." How's that for a New Age title? 

 

 

Zod

Jul 26, 2022, 1:20:16 PM

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Quite excellent..!

 

W.Dockery

Jul 26, 2022, 9:15:17 PM

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Agreed and seconded. 

 

 

W.Dockery

Jul 30, 2022, 5:40:16 AM

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George J. Dance wrote:

Best of luck to him. 

 

 

Victor H.

Aug 17, 2022, 4:04:44 PM

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Another great one from AE Reiff since he is considered the topic of the day....

 

 

Michael Pendragon

Aug 17, 2022, 7:39:55 PM

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And another one's gone...