Thunderbird celebrations: Paul Legault
Hello!
Poets are making videos of Thunderbirds in order to celebrate my new book, Thunderbird. It will be released in October, but for the whole month of September, Wave Books is offering a special deal. Instead of its regular price of $16, it is $12.
HERE is a poem Paul Legault wrote and a video he made of his poem. You can find out about his amazing books here.
I will keep posting videos poets make for the next few months. Soon I will announce the date of my book party where we will all worship the great demon.
Until then, I remain yours in it.
David Miller wrote on 8:52 am, 15 Sep 2012 permalink
Hello Ms Lasky,
I just found, read, and re-read “You Are Beautiful” on Poetry Daily. Thank you for it. I am looking forward to reading more of your stuff and will order the book when my wife gets home with the debit card (assuming she’s left any balance on it!)
Dave
SK wrote on 9:56 am, 15 Sep 2012 permalink
The below work is from this morning, so it might completely suck and I’d have no idea, but who cares, right? I thought I’d share, and this seems like the place. It’s unfortunate that strangers on the Internet can be creepy; I hope this isn’t creepy. I don’t usually (ever) get current poets’ voices stuck in my head; it’s happened w/ Ted B., Emily D., Spicer, some others, but no one, I think, who is now. The only way out is to write through it . Anyway. Your book is somethin’ else. Cheers.
_______________________________
Thunderbird Voice Displacement
for Dorothea Lasky
I hate that I have your voice in my head
It feels like it’ll be there as long as the trees
I ordered Thunderbird and read it all
and now your voice commands my mind
when I sit down to make a poem
I hate how your voice is a great disorder
it leadeth me from punctuation
It’s mind control
and it’s a fucking psychic violation
where fucking’s just an extra word
and psychic’s what a bell does
(when the bell’s the ceramic bird bell of the mind)
not someone who tells you your cousin Charlie says
he misses you and he’s sorry it was he
who took your Chewbacca action figure
when you were kids and he was down from Moosejaw
he wants you to know it’s not too cold
where he is now
and you’ll be seeing him soon
I hate how your voice takes me away from my thoughts
as if my thoughts were not my own
as if I were a student again in a poetry workshop
where the instructor has us freewrite fifteen minutes
only to pounce on the many clichés and echoes
of commercials and slogans
as if to prove, in fact to prove
our thoughts are often not our own
I wonder if I go back to sleep if your voice will lift away
because I woke up this way
three hours ago
but no, it’s so inside me now that I would simply dream
a dream where I speak with your voice
where out in the field I look down
at the boy’s body and say in your voice
“I have seen this face beforeâ€
and I will stand back
and I will bend down close
and I will curl into a fetal position beside him
against the vulval clouds in the sky
and the black horse that rides through the field in the distance
will be a white horse
when it rains
as I turn my head to stare up
out of the clouds
alone on the ground
with your voice in my head
telling me how
I hate that I have your voice in my head