Tim Lane's Blog, page 30

A Wake with Nine Shades & The Long 1980s

Jen Sperry's A Wake with Nine Shades arrived in my mailbox this morning. The Long 1980s: Constellations of Art, Politics and Identities, A Collection of Microhistories did, too. I am, as of this moment, suppressing the exclamation points. But I want to be using a lot of exclamation points!

More to come after I delve into Jen Sperry’s poems and these microhistories of the 80s.

This description of A Wake with Nine Shades is copied straight from Jen’s Amazon page…

A Wake with Nine Shades is an exploration of grief and culpability, a Dantean descent through contemporary midlife crisis. Populated by ghosts and children, lovers and amputations, bodies of water, insomnia, debt and domestic violence, Steinorth measures what is broken against the white space of the page, paying homage to the Great Lakes and snowscapes her poems inhabit and the vacancies, denials, and drains they circle. Formally inventive and musically obsessive, the book’s unconventional formal construction and lyric wit contribute what Eleanor Wilner deems the essential “Lightness” described by Italo Calvino, noting Steinorth’s “ability to treat weighty subjects with a mastery of style . . . a liveliness of imagination and intelligence that lightens, without denial, what would otherwise be unbearable. . . .”

Jennifer Sperry Steinorth

A Wake with Nine Shades: Poems By Steinorth, Jennifer Sperry

The Long 1980s speculates on the significance of the 1980s for the arts and society today. Arguing that the 1980s saw a fundamental reorientation in the relationship between governments and their publics, this volume explores how the effects of this shift have shaped our contemporary condition.

Looking back at texts and artworks produced at the time, The Long 1980s puts this pivotal decade in context, exploring how it continues to shape the imaginative landscape of the 21st century.

Contributors include Henry Andersen, Hakim Bey, Rosi Braidotti, Boris Buden, Jesús Carrillo, Luc Deleu, Diedrich Diederichsen, Charles Esche, Marcelo Expósito, Annie Fletcher, Diana Franssen, June Givanni, Lisa Godson, Lubaina Himid, Lola Hinojosa, Antony Hudek, Tea Hvala, Gal Kirn, Anders Kreuger, Elisabeth Lebovici, Rogelio López Cuenca, Geert Lovink, Amna Malik, Pablo Martínez, Lourdes Méndez, Marta Popivoda, Carlos Prieto del Campo and Pedro G. Romero.

Jen Sperry Hands Me My Voice; Her Read: a Graphic Poem; Reading Begets Writing

I haven’t written/finished a poem in five years. I need to be reading poetry in order to write it, and for the past five years, while I was working on my novel, Your Silent Face, I wasn’t really able to do much poetry exploration. I was able to paint when I wasn’t writing, but I wasn’t able to write poetry. Over time, I became concerned that I had lost my voice—a voice that had taken a decade or so to develop.

Recently, I have delved back into exploring poetry. And, inevitably, I guess, it has led to writing a poem titled “Speedboat.” Jennifer Sperry Steinorth deserves a little thanks for this, me thinks. She reached out to me.

Jen Sperry has a new book coming out—Her Read: a Graphic Poem—an intriguing project, really. She wanted to pick my brain for some out-of-the-box promotional ideas.

I met Jen Sperry once, over twenty years ago. Poetry is like that. It turns out that Jen Sperry already has a book out—A Wake with Nine Shades: Poems—which I have ordered. Her Read can be preordered; it will be available soon.

I hope you take a moment to read my new poem. A few of my earlier collections of poetry are available on this website.

I also hope you check out Jennifer Sperry Steinorth’s work, which I admire. It’s been a while.

Scroll for links.

Speedboat

—with thanks, Jen Sperry

I tried to finish yard

work but ultimately wound up in bed

with a can of Coke &

Paul Carroll’s anthology—

The Young American Poets.

There is nothing young

about any of these poets

but I habitually turn to

it, wondering where

they are now, how they are doing

& what has become of their

lives.

An annual

thing: a Memorial Weekend

ritual of avoiding

duty & cemeteries.

Poetry is useful.

Reading poetry is hard work

if you are grasping for

wonder;

wondering how to improve.

It’s like any—

no! I won’t say craft. I hate

the word. Fuck it.

Similarly, I rarely

find joy

in mowing the

lawn, nothing gained to insert into a

conversation

in a café

unless it’s scattered thoughts—

strong-smelling blades of grass—

raked from drudgery;

bagged from searching.

Above all else, I remember 

art is present. Bow to this;

as generous

as judgmental—

forever the skeptic;

shaped to wonder;

cut & blown;

fucked by

something

unintentional.

And I can’t help

writing poetry

after reading

a bunch of

poems.

I can’t help

asking the questions, often

from bed sheets—

the sun melting the afternoon

like a pat of butter

inside a warm

roll.

How should we live?

Who can we trust?

When may we start?

Why even yard waste?

What kind of roll?

Those people

planting flowers & stones

on the grassy median in our

pot-smoking, hipster neighborhood;

a car full of laughing punks blaring loud,

obnoxious music; healthy, glowing

friends drinking beers

in a speedboat on a jostled

lake reflecting painful javelins

of sunlight from an endless

sky? It’s beautiful, really. A sky 

both as useless &

ambitious as a folder

of your unused working

titles & abandoned

first drafts.

  Her Read: A Graphic Poem By Steinorth, Jennifer Sperry A Wake with Nine Shades: Poems By Steinorth, Jennifer Sperry Poetry Your Silent Face Available Now Original Art for Sale

Friday's Feature: A Reflection from the Collapse of the Housing Market

These prints have been waiting to go back up on the wall since 2017 when our house flooded. Finally, they are back where I can see them on the daily.

This series of photos has a title: People Enacting the Behaviors of Urban Animals. This work was made after the housing market bubble burst in 2008 and so many people found themselves in dire straits.

These prints can be bought separately or as a group in the shop.

Aaron

1st in a series of five ink jet prints, 2010

Jackie

2nd in a series of five ink jet prints, 2010

boog I

3rd in a series of five ink jet prints, 2010

boog II

4th in a series of five ink jet prints, 2010

Zach

5th in a series of five ink jet prints, 2010

Original Art for Sale Your Silent Face Available Now Poetry

Line of Fire, a New Playlist

Playlist as application. Playlist as antidote. Playlist as the question. Playlist as the moon walk. Playlist as the inside joke. Playlist as a shiny object. Playlist as morning ritual. Playlist as cross section. Playlist as treasure map. Playlist as life preserver. Playlist as an apology. Playlist as the equation. Playlist as the connection. Playlist as milkshake…you get the idea.

#thechemicalbrothers #madonna #gheist #joydivision #suzannevega #fleetfoxes #junip

Never Take Us Alive, a New Playlist

The playlist as an expansion of space. The playlist as leaf in a dining room table. The playlist as an extension of tunnel. The playlist as bookmark hidden in a PDF. The playlist as a universe running parallel to a universe running parallel to yours. The playlist as something that never happened. The playlist as ghost feeling. The playlist as a contemporary art form. The playlist as stylus. The playlist as escapism. The playlist as foundation. The playlist as a proof. The playlist as wish list. The playlist as past time. The playlist as turf wars. The playlist as scrapbook. The playlist as outline. The playlist as an alternative to biting your fingernails or flailing the skin on the sides of your thumbs. The playlist as a beige veil. The playlist as guest room. The playlist as intuition. The playlist as a family of raccoons living in your garage. The playlist as your humble opinion. The playlist as an algorithm. The playlist as a set of specific parameters. The playlist as your time-worn excuse…you get the idea.

Poetry Your Silent Face Available Now The Sublime

art

A Return to Exhibitions?

I am hoping that the second half of 2021 might mean a return to exhibitions and galley shows. I obviously haven’t had a show since 2019. I don’t have anything lined up yet, but we shall see.

Here is a link to my exhibition history.

  Exhibitions  

Leaving the Children Behind, 2021

Recently, my son said to me, “I’ll probably never have to take my kids to Disney. We’ll be able to experience it right in our living room.” I’m not really sure how I feel about this.

New painting.

Check out the gallery for more info.

The Sublime

art

Original Art for Sale Poetry Your Silent Face Available Now

A Snippet from YOUR SILENT FACE

a snippet from Your Silent Face:

Sometimes the humidity caused my thick bang to wing away from my forehead like a Lays potato chip. I looked more like Duckie from Pretty in Pink than Tom Bailey of Thompson Twins. It could have been worse, though. I could have looked like the lead singer from A Flock of Seagulls.

In Nigel’s bedroom, the question buzzed the air like a fly: “Now what?”

“Let’s make a cento.” I sat at the typewriter. You could only play so many records in one shitty night: R.E.M., Clan of Xymox, Kraftwerk, Brian Eno.

“A poem made out of lines from other poems.” Nigel yawned. Was he impersonating my best imitation of the HAL 9000?

Kimberly sat on the edge of the bed, as motionless and oblivious as a rose in my grandmother’s crystal vase.

(Grandma Norcross loved fresh flowers.)

Karen sat by the window. The light allowed me to admire her wheat-colored hair, the fresh Page Boy haircut, the way she tilted her head and pointed her chin at an obtuse, hostile angle.

I wondered about her.

Nigel snapped photos of their faces, torsos, legs.

Stay here, I told myself.

Nigel quoted a line of poetry from memory (from T. S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock): In the room the women come and go/Talking of Michelangelo.

“Good one,” I said, typing. We were almost out of beer.

Nigel and Karen bickered.

“The old modes are dead.”

“And a cento is new?”

“We have to stretch the boundaries.”

“With lines from poems that have already been written?”

“Everything’s been written.”

“Lame.”

There was a stack of library books beside the typewriter with due dates that had expired six months ago.

Karen drained the fibrous pulp of a California Cooler. Where had she found them?

“Fuck poetry.”

“No!”

“There have to be different modes of communication.” Nigel sighed. “Different openings. Different end games.”

Ennui flitted through the weak light of the room like a battered moth.

“How about slamming a beer?”

Poetry was taking a beating. The cento was trapped in the typewriter—the pale figure in Magritte’s painting, ‘The Menaced Assassin,’—beyond resuscitation.

“All right, fine. Fine.” The cameras were rolling. “I’ll slam a beer by myself. Who wants to see me slam a beer?”

Kimberly tipped her hat back. Something was happening somewhere.

“Me,” she squeaked.

I gave her a look. My eyes said, “Did that noise come from you?”

For the first time all night, Karen cut through the awkwardness and spoke to her. “No. No, you don’t. Don’t encourage him. He’s already trashed.”

I wasn’t.

“Karen!” Nigel exerted more energy than he’d expended all week. “Stuart is no mere amateur when it comes to slamming a beer. I’ve seen him slam any number of beers. I think you owe him an apology. Look! You’ve wounded him.”

Wounded was not exactly what I was feeling. I was feeling more like a funnel cloud.

“Dude!” He was more animated than he became after two Long Island iced teas at El Oasis and the DJ put on ‘How Soon Is Now?’ “You have been challenged by this, this woman. She has challenged the value of poetry—arguably the highest art form.”

Karen laughed. “For Christ’s sake, let’s just make a cento.”

Kimberly looked like she was witnessing a stick up in an East Side bakery.

“No!” I put my foot down. I was calm. I was anything but calm. I positioned myself at the end of the bed. “It’s too late. Look! The cento lies bleeding on the Smith Corona, clamped beneath the paper bail like a fox with its leg in a trap. Nigel, change this fucking record!”

Nigel slid a record from its cover and spun the grooved plastic disc between his fingertips until the side he wanted faced him. “This should help.” New Order’s Power, Corruption and Lies.

I looked around Nigel’s bedroom. I vowed to myself that I would sit around and tape all of these albums and cassettes after I moved in, that I would not leave this house for a solid week. Maybe I would read all of the books, too.

The speakers hissed. ‘Your Silent Face.’ Not exactly a rousing tune. Raising the bottle to my lips, I chugged the warm beer while Nigel feinted around me like a boxer, snapping pictures. We’d been drinking for over an hour, I was drunk, was well aware that the foam might easily trigger my ultra sensitive gag reflex—which just might make for an ugly painting, a fucked up still life or a poorly executed landscape, a pile of puke on the carpet or bed—but I didn’t give a damn. Chugging the beer, the cassette in my mind spun maniacally. Now what? Now fucking what? Desperate times require desperate acts. It was a sentiment Nigel had stolen from the Surrealists. And then, reaching the dregs and foam, I blindly whipped the bottle toward the window like a Frisbee with a flare that was as reckless and blind and aggressive as it was impressive and graceful, and for a split second the words Oh, shit visibly appeared in the front of my mind like a neon exit sign as Kimberly clapped, almost giddy, and Karen and Nigel froze.

The green bottle pushed through the sheet.

Nothing happened.

It was as if, during a chess match, I had sent the chessmen flying across the room with a sudden, vicious swipe of my forearm. None of us knew how to respond. The last Grizzly roared its fucking head off in Nigel’s primeval forest, flexed its dark claws, bared its bloody teeth. Karen gulped for air. Kimberly’s voice was like velour. “That was wooowwww.” I hadn’t seen Nigel this animated since the night he’d given the bouncers the double barrels in front of El Oasis. He was riding over a cliff on the backs of a herd of swine possessed by demons. “You broke out, man! You broke free. I don't know what else to say. This is why we need beer, right? This is why we need art. Fucking a, man. This is what the Surrealists were talking about.” He implored us to comprehend him one last time, using frantic gestures and wild expressions, as he went over the cliff. “There are things we can’t describe with words, right? Karen, shake his hand. Somebody do something! Wait, let me take a picture!” He backed away, and tripping on the corner of the bed, toppled over the mattress and landed on the floor with a thud, his elbow cracking a bowl of moldy macaroni-and-cheese into shards.

#happyfriday #80s #NewWave #GenX #postpunk #flint #poetry #neworder #comingofage #novels

--you don't have to wonder about this novel anymore, it's live, it's available:

Your Silent Face Available Now [image error] Your Silent Face By Lane, Tim Buy on Amazon

Man on a Wire Now a Free PDF

This collection of poems was compiled in 2010. The cover art was created by Travis Bruce Black. Thank you, Trav! And it is a free pdf. This collection was loosely inspired by seeing the documentary of Philippe Petit, Man on Wire. The poem “Can I Get a Witness” was a challenge by my friend and fellow poet, Angela, to write a poem that closed with woot! The hard copy of this possessed a glossy cover and was bound with shiny gold binder clips because that is how I roll. I might argue that this collection contains mature Tim Lane, but others might debate this self-serving proclamation, so I won’t even bring it up.

#poetry #manonwire #PhilippePetit #lovelansing

Man on a Wire 0.00

Prom Shoes

Prom is in the air. It brings back different memories for different people. My prom was all the things. It was fun, there was tension, there was this, there was that. A bit of drama. I’m certain of that. I am also certain that I had the best shoes: my prom shoes; my wedding shoes; my walking-up-to-the-store shoes; my sitting-on-the-porch shoes; my favorite shoes of all time. Dang, I miss those shoes!

#stacyadams #patentleather #shinythings #morrisday #thetime #thewalk #prettyinpink

Patent leather Stacy Adams spectators.