I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: KURT VILE-“Wakin on a Pretty Day” (2013).

I don’t really know that much about Kurt Vile.  I’ve been hearing about him for a while. I assumed his name was a kind of joke–like he was a comical metal guy, maybe like Alice Cooper.   That appears to be far from the truth.  I also wasn’t sure if he was well-known outside of the Philly area, but I do know that NPR has championed him for a while.

Well, he has a new album out and since NPR was streaming it, what better time to hear what the long- haired dude is all about.

There is much talk bout his voice (NPR says: There’s something about Kurt Vile’s voice that transcends whatever comes out of his mouth.).  But the whole time I listened to this song (which was a while, as it is over 9 minutes long), I kept thinking that he sounds just like the guy from House of Love, an underrated band here in the States. (He sounds even more like him in Kv Crimes”) It’s not necessarily a bad thing to sound like someone else (often times it can’t be helped I suppose), but it is a little distracting to me.

So this song is kind of groovy.  I like it musically more than vocally (there’s so many “Yeah…yeah yeah yeahs” that I lost the point of the song).  But the music is really good, including Vile’s lengthy guitar solos.  Interestingly, I was kind of bored by the song after about 45 seconds, but by 8 minutes I was really grooving it.  Subsequent listens have made me like it more, it has a kind of Neil Young or maybe Meat Puppets vibe.

My head says there’s really nothing special about this guy and yet after more and more listens, there’s something that draws me to him.  Weird.

[READ: April 2, 2013] Love, An Index

The back of Lindenberg’s book explains that the man she loved, poet Craig Arnold, disappeared in a volcano while traveling in Japan.  For such a very specific kind of event, I don’t think I would have gotten anything quite like that from these poems.  Indeed, for a book that is so specifically created about this man, there’s very little sense of the exact nature of the loss.  In some ways that’s good, it could have been a very maudlin, ungraceful collection of poems if she explicitly talked about volcanoes, but at the same time, the feeling of loss that comes across is less about death and more about abandonment (I would have presumed that the guy had left her).

I really enjoyed these poems even though I have a  really hard time accepting the bulk of these, in particular the thirty-four page title poem, as poetry.

“Love, An Index” is thirty-four pages and it is an index.  Literally, she lists words alphabetically and writes a little “definition” for each one.  There are arbitrary line breaks in the definitions but in no way does it feel like a poem.  Even the individual entries are not very poetic.  Like “Compromise, I will get up early with you/so long as you’ve made coffee.”  Okay, so that’s funny/sweet, but it’s not a poem.  But then what it is?  Yes, it is part of a greater whole and removing part of it diminishes that whole.  But again, what is the whole?  Genre defying I suppose.  Which is cool.  And despite my criticism, I really enjoyed this index.  There were personal notes that I would have no idea about, there were commonplace ideas that are familiar to all.  There’s also a ton of quotes from other poets.  And it all works together to create a beautiful portrait of a relationship.

Also odd are some of the other “poems” here, like “Love, a Footnote,” which is 14 numbered small sections (not verse at all) that seems to be notes about their relationship.  Or “Catalogue of Ephemera” which is a list of dozens of things that “you give me” Or “The Language of Flowers” which is a list of flowers and their “meanings.”   Again, literally.

“Cabbage: profit”
“Hollyhock: Ambition.”

It’s weird.  As is “Illuminating” which is sideways and stretched across two pages and has all manner of little (smaller font) “poems” surrounding the central poem.  None of which seem like poetry.  Or “Losing Language: A Phrasebook.”  I really enjoyed reading this piece which showed phrases people says and their underlying meaning:

My sympathies:        I fear to say something that might make it worse
Life goes on:               Don’t forget us just because we’re still alive

All very true and mildly amusing (even if not really), but again.  A poem?

And just to harp on one (or two) more: “Status Update” and “Status Update (2)” are  just that, a series of Facebook status updates.  Neither poetic or profound, just like Facebook.  This feels more like performance art

These comments aren’t really criticisms, exactly  They’re just things that I have a hard time wrapping my head around.  And yet, underneath all the weirdness, there are some very cool poems.  “Girl with Typewriter Eyes” is cool and weird.

I wasn’t that impressed by “Circus Animal” with lines like “Hush, spleeny goblin/We will rig up a house-machine/with paperclips and lipstick, oven mitts/and length of garden hose”  But the simple ending: “Don’t worry he’ll be back/any minute now” was rather moving given her story.  And “Obsessional” was very cool in that it followed a more formal structure, which worked very well.  And “Aubade” was great.  It reads:

I woke in a gold dress
you, in jeans

Morning filled
Wine bottles in the kitchen.

Fine mica glitter
of fish scales and salt.

Outside, it was quiet.

you said: That went well,
don’t you think?

Sun behind you

I kissed the hole in the light
and said: Yes.

It’s not profound, but I like it.

Of course there are also less exciting ones.  Like the entire Versus series which seems more lie ideas than poems. Like “Woman vs. Snow” which is (in its entirety)
“The woman in the snow / Carves wide / wings around herself / The bird swoops low.”

Overall this is a weird collection.  I actually enjoyed reading most of it–despite its subject and the sadness inherent in everything, there was a lot of beauty and humor invoked.  But I hated thinking the whole time that half of these things aren’t poems.  Maybe that’s my problem.