Thomas Paine and Senator Self/Show Me The Money/GenesisSchmenesis/John's City Lights Book/

(P1) Political 

Here's a political poem I've written and enjoy! (ed coletti)

Senator Self

rises at 5 AM galvanized to work

drinks his cup of Jamaican mountain blue

remembers he is one of only two

wonders when the other will die or lose

glows a bit

            delighted that he’s  amused himself

wondering                what his votes are doing today

catches himself putting faces on them

stifles this dangerous impulse

grabs his phone to call the money

meeting it somewhere dark for lunch at noon.


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(P2) Philosophical

  
 The Modern Error of Genesis

  The eminent historian of religions and civilizations, Arnold Toynbee, wrote the following in the New York Times on September 16, 1973, in one of his last articles before his death: "For pre-(Christian) man, nature was not a treasure trove of 'natural resources.'  Nature was a goddess, 'mother Earth,' and the vegetation that sprang from the surface, the animals that roamed and the minerals hiding in the bowels all shared of nature's divinity and were sacred.  I have become aware of a startling and disturbing truth, that a new view, monotheism, enunciated in the book of Genesis, removed these restraints of awe that precluded greed.  Any greedy impulse to exploit nature was held in check by an awe of the sacredness of nature.  This inhibition was removed in Genesis." (Where we are told "to subdue" the Earth.  "Subdue" in Hebrew means to seduce, to conquer and vanquish.)

--William Edelen Toward The Mystery-1983

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(P3) Poetical

John Coletti's Book Launch Party at City Lights Bookstore 
                           Tues. Nov.  25 at 7PM

Join City Lights Books as we celebrate another installment in the City Lights Spotlight Series. The latest edition is Deep Code by John Coletti. John will read from his new collection with special guest and Spotlight Series alumnus Micah Ballard.
Deep Code explores "side language," as a subset of other languages, whether slang or metaphor, to both communicate and obfuscate.
Combining a bent lyric perception with a fragmentation redolent of French cubism, Coletti portrays contemporary urban experience, from power relations and personal loss to nights among city dwellers recording their convivial distress, glad and dissolute at once. Part teddy bear fleeing the cultish outlines of the American northwest, part Apollinaire in Brooklyn, Coletti culls his materials from the ether and assembles them into resonant structures at once intensely personal and strangely universal—a little outrageous—both confusingly lovely and apt in their ungainliness. Lines like "I'm nearly home is what everyone says" and "triceratops & the bad glue / that made us good friends," only begin to demonstrate the astute linguistic eye and deft line break sense of John Coletti.
Praise for Deep Code:
"A sonic surrealist typewriter clacks in rhythm across Colletti's brow. Read it in his sweet-eye glance: poetry grams of tender touch. Tuff cookie meat! & mystery. Shit is electric wire awesome stuff."––Thurston Moore
"Deep Code is a theory of expressive subterfuge performed as piecemeal continuities. Its poems are distressed & fine like all the chances we forget we're free to make for one another, edged to mellow like the contours of a party felt in general & intimate perception."––Dana Ward
About the Author:
John Coletti is the author of the book Mum Halo (2010) and the chapbooks Same Enemy Rainbow (2008) and Physical Kind (2005). With Anselm Berrigan, he is the author of the limited edition Skasers (2012). He has served as editor of The Poetry Project Newsletter and co-edits Open 24 Hours Press. Other projects include a collaborative print with artist Kiki Smith, a chapbook collaboration with Shana Moulton, and a libretto for Excelsior, an opera composed by Caleb Burhans commissioned by Chicago's Fifth House Ensemble which premiered in 2013.

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Books related to this event:

Deep Code City Lights Spotlight No. 12 John Coletti due out in November 2014 City Lights Spotlight Series No. 12: Deep Code explores "side language," as a subset of other languages, whether slang or metaphor, to both communicate and obfuscate.

Comment or Read Comments Here on any of the above or below. If you do not have a Google account, then log in by checking "Name/URL," (it's easy). Just the name (don't worry about the URL). Actual name is best, but use what you like. Or email me at edcoletti@sbcglobal.net, and I can post it.