My favorite living poets are:

j'me caroline , Sapphire
John Giorno , Michael lally
Rene Ricard , Emmanuel Xavier

My Favorite dead poets are:

Allen Ginsburg , Charles Bukowski
William Burroughs , Manly P. Hall

This message has been edited. Last edited by: bobby,

Egads Manly P. Hall as a poet. That is a brilliant assessment!

Or did I miss something -- did that famed occult writer also write poetry?

What do you think of Aleister Crowley's poetry?

Yes S'tan Manly P. wrote some occult poetry. I am not surprised that you are familiar with him but I bet you and I and possibly Hattie are the only ones here who do.

Bobby, I love Ginsberg. he was one of the first "modern" poets I read back when I I was a callow youth. Bukowski too, brutally honest, I love it when he disses the "poetry establishment" and I don't know if he's sexist or mysognist or whatever the feminists claim he is...al though I do think he's had a few bad relationships with women, and haven't we all!
Burroughs--all I have to say is the The Wild Boys is so close to gay porn it's unbelievable. Brilliant guy, although I would never shoot my wife. Never heard of Manly P. Hall, I'm afraid. You're right in saying that probably no one else knows about him, but guess who gonna try like hell to find books by him !
I like John Giorno too and Sapphire is great. Haven't heard of the others.

Favorite living poets:
Bobby Miller, Chi Chi Valenti, Matthew Benedict,
Richard Hell, Charles Bukowski, Rene Ricard

Favorite Dead Poets:
Robert Burns, Dante Rossetti, Frederick Nietzsche
etc. etc. etc.

Hey wait is Bukowski dead?
Shit.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: S'tan,

The reason I found out about Manly P. Hall is because I once stayed for a month in a house in Hell-Lay, which contained both a disused but enormous wine cellar and fur vault, down the block from where his Philosophical Research Society was based. It was said by the neighbors that the institute's library contained many rare books about psychic and spiritual phenomena, including some copies of books locked in the Vatican"s vaults... you know, the forbidden ones. But I never realized he was a poet. I would be very interested to find out more, Bobby.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: hatches,

Ooh, to the comparative brown safety of our new forum, yum!

Love this topic idea -

Fave live poets -

Paul Skiff, Rene Ricard, Jay-Z

Fave dead poets -

Ginsberg, Baudelaire, Whitman

Hon. Mention: Kenneth Patchen

Best Dressed: Lord Byron

Sorry, I didn't mean to leave out the amazing Paul Skiff in my favorites list.

Yeah this forum is like so brown, like chocolate...or feces...both considered bad for you and yet both are eaten! HE HE!

Fave dead poets:
Whitman, Ginsberg, Rimbaud, Bukowski, Baudelaire, T.S Eliot, Ezra Pound, Blake, Burroughs, Anne Sexton, Sylvia Plath, Brecht (shocker, right?), Jackie Curtis, David Wojnarowicz, can't think of any more

Fave living poets:
Bobby Miller, Maggie Estep, John Giorno, David Bowie, Bob Dylan, Penny Arcade, Sapphire, Nicole Blackman, can't think of any more

Alix Olson is fierce, she is one fierce poet and a fierce dyke to watch out for! Saw her perform live and I was moved to tears.

hatches, I love the idea of the secret library.
I was told once about a secret library owned by Oliver Getty in London, where one could see the original paintings for the Crowley deck... apparently they are quite tiny.

Bobby we are waiting for news of Manly Hall's poetry...

You can find some of my favorite poetry of Manley P Hall in " Collected Writings of Manley P .Hall, Volume 3 Essays and Poems."

A sample:

" Masks "
Some come to laugh; others come to cry.
Some aspire. The most, like cattle,
follow herdsman and their barking curs.

Some come to love; others to be loved.
Some come to walk the weary way alone;
while many mingle with an endless throng.

Some come to pray; others to labor.
Some, more fortunate, walk life's way in ease.
While others struggle broken to the grave.

Some come to shatter hearts and souls; others
To have them shattered by the thoughtless ones.
Some come with broken hearts, and others heartless.

A strange pagentry, this thing called life,
with death the master of the show, and souls
As thoughtless jesters dancing round about.

Masks, masks , masks - false faces everywhere;
Laughter to hide the tears, smiles the grief,
And flower-strewn drapes the waxen face of death.

False faces! See them round about us here.
Doth no reality remain on Earth?
Is there no vision through the mask of day?

Clay, moulded to a thousand forms, remains
But clay, as worthless as before , nor doth
Belief or unbelief its substance change.

It may be treasured for its beauty or
Rejected because of ungainly shape;
But loved or hated, it remains but clay.

Our hearts and souls give life to lifelessness,
Tinting the colorless with myriad hues,
Only to find the clay unchanged and dead.

Los Angeles, California 1962

One of my favorite poets has to be E.E. Cummings. My Favorite poem by Cummings is.....

I WILL WADE OUT

I will wade out
til my thighs are steeped in burning flowers
I will take the sun into my mouth and leap into the ripe air
ALIVE
with closed eyes
to dash against darkness
in the sleeping curves of my body
shall enter fingers of smooth mastery
with chasteness of sea-girls
will I complete the mystery
of my flesh
I will rise
after a thousand years
lipping
flowers
and set my teeth into the silver of the moon


from "Tulips and Chimneys"- 1923

At the risk of creating a mutual admiration society, I am always sent off by the living lushus

Bobby Miller (not the least because he brought me to Mother and Ka-boom the rest is endless pleasure). I feel a lot of his work is really groundbreaking and naughtily wise.

Chi Chi has a kind of classic grace with an inspired nowness -very rare quality.

Sapphire has forever given me total rushes since the first time I worked with a women's theater group to produce evenings of performances at the Nuyoricans starting back in 1989. Everyone should listen to her speak 'Wild Thing' the work she faux-reluctantly gave to the Nuyorican Symphony recording which was made in 1992 -Big Bush tried to have the poem banned when it was printed in a volume of Heresies, I think it was. And not the least of her recommendations is that her first novel, Push, is the second most stolen book from Barnes and Noble!

Lois Griffith is another living fave. Hard to find her poetry in print, easier to find her novel, and mybe easier to catch her occasionally speak a poem at the Nuyoricans. I learned a lot from her and Miguel, who somehow is in a kind of category by himslef in my mind.

Lorie Carlos is also a massively inspiring speaker of poetry.

Emily XYZ. Don't need to explain that.

Edwin Torrez for the sheer crazy soundplayfulness.

Dead. Aliester Crowley. I have the official biography, The Beast 666, (you can almost smell the guy in his writing) written by the executor of his literary estate and vended to me by said executor's son.

Hart Crane. Hard to find someone who does it so dense.

Anna Akmatova. Its pure, simple, bracing.

I used to like Charles Brautigan.

Octavio Paz. That tropic thing.

Paul Celan. Really gets to the core.

Audre Lourde. Chi Chi, in a way, reminds me of Lourde. Same kind of spirit.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

I think of a lot of writters who do prose who are really poets hiding out in more regular language; Gerold Vizenor, Jeannette Winterson, Ernst Bloch, Sebold, and even comics people like Don Martin.

I'll stop. Topics like this are just a license for me to get totally self-indulgent.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: seven,

Like Celan and Lorde too, as well as June Jordan, Pablo Neruda, e.e.cummings.

By the way, sweetie, was that the poem that Bjork set to music? I believe that it's on Bjork's Vespertine. I could be wrong. Don't know if you're a Bjork fan or not.

Tonight I watched "Born Into It," the documentary about Bukowski which is so gorgeous. He died in 1994... just goes to show you death doesn't matter for some people.

There's a bit in there with his DAUGHTER my Goddess was a strange beautiful woman. She looks like him! Without the acne vulgaris.

The film ends with Bukowski reciting his poem "the bluebird" which I had never heard...

the bluebird

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I'm not going
to let anybody see
you.
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I pour whiskey on him and inhale
cigarette smoke
and the whores and the bartenders
and the grocery clerks
never know that
he's
in there.

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say,
stay down, do you want to mess
me up?
you want to screw up the
works?
you want to blow my book sales in
Europe?
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too clever, I only let him out
at night sometimes
when everybody's asleep.
I say, I know that you're there,
so don't be
sad.
then I put him back,
but he's singing a little
in there, I haven't quite let him
die
and we sleep together like
that
with our
secret pact
and it's nice enough to
make a man
weep, but I don't
weep, do
you?

Ahh I luvs that..... I just bought my young (non book reading) chicken a copy of "Women" I said "if u can just read ONE book..let this be it!".

I'ts funny but it seems lik there is a new Bukwoski anthology every year...But the old bastard is dead! Either he wrote a lot of unpublished material or they are republishing other poems in different anthologies! I sure hope it's the former.

Rene Ricard would also be on my favoite list and he falls into both categories; living and dead. "Hold me again the forgotten way." - RR