New York I love you but you're turning me into a capitalist
Notes from a hectic place and short poems
First, the form:
Intro/somewhat creative ramble (non-essential reading) - this week, rambles from my trip to NYC.
Kite Stringette: - A Memory by Fiona Lee (from Kite String #2)
A poem I’m loving - I decided to stop therapy - by Jo Dunthorne
A poem I’m writing - Not Kisses Tonight - by me
‘Po-emwork’ (a prompt)
1.Intro/somewhat creative ramble
About Times Square, New York City, July 2024
I expected to be repulsed. I’m so romantic and nostalgic I just watched Richard Linklater’s Before Sunrise for the thousandth time on the flight and cried at young Ethan Hawke and young Julie Delpy walking around ancient Vienna all night avoiding each other’s eyes. And now I’m at the mothership, the heart of everything new and bad from tooth decay to the Iraq war and I am so ready to be furious and superior and turn up my (still just about) European nose up at the uncouth Americans and their crass capitalist ways. The truth is, as I stood fresh off the plane gawping at Times Square, because you have to at least tick it off the list, right, a thousand voices shouting directly into my face, screens so big they have to wrap around the buildings, I kind of loved it.
An LED Coca-Cola fridge the size of a detached house which quickly splits into Hugh Jackman Wolverine (who frankly just looks tired and like he wants to get off the ride) massive cartoon chest muscles bulging out of yellow lycra and bags under his eyes, and above; Samsung brighter than bright orange and inexplicably Martin Freeman from The Office in an ActionMan cop uniform, intense staring face half a skyscraper, pushing Britbox with it’s patriotic Union Jack typeface flogging empire nostalgia. None of this sounds like my idea of fun. Or nice. Or not-horrible. Add a thousand people milling around with oversized shopping bags full of nothing important taking genuinely joyful selfies and near-static traffic honking and yelling at each other and you are very close to describing my actual hell. So where’s the love coming from?
The working conclusion I’ve got is that it is so unapologetic, and self assured and itself that it’s kind of stunningly beautiful. The logic that underpins the whole thing/‘our’ system; Times Square, New York, America, London, money, business, everything - is more often than not hypocritical and masquerading as something a bit more cosy and social-democratic but Times Square is where it doesn’t have to. People are specifically going to see the concentrated bit in the middle, the heart of the system, or maybe the brain, or maybe a drawing of the heart that costs $1,000,000. Every big city has that unpleasant bit where tourists get bottlenecked, where nobody who lives there actually ever goes, but in New York it’s utterly pure — there’s no pretence, no apology. It’s not going to pretend it’s ok with you opening your little organic shop just around the corner because it’s good for the community. It wants your attention and your money right now and it wants you to be smiling while you give them over! The word subtle is not in the lexicon of the ad men - more everything, brighter, louder, more plastic, more caffeine, more sugar, more sex, more, more.
It’s not asking for my approval, it doesn’t need it. It won a long time ago and this is the insecure monument it built: confident that it is right, and having to shout forever to prove it.
2.Kite Stringette - One of your poems: A highlight from Kite String #2 - A Memory by Fiona Lee
This week I’m including a poem from Kite String #2 - published December 2023 and exhibiting some of the talent that happens at Word Space events. I love this one from Fiona Lee as it’s so tactile, some of those sweet lines really feel like fingers touching and stubborn flicks / turned into careful tests is stunning! Great work, Fiona! I still have copies of our little magazine available if you haven’t got yours yet : )
3. A poem I’m loving: I decided to stop therapy by Jo Dunthorne
I am smack bang in the middle of remembering how much I love the short poem!Digging through my old notes from past workshops this is a poem from a fantastic masterclass led by Ella Frears I did sometime in 2021. What makes a good short poem is the question I’ve been asking in workshops this weekend, and asking myself. My sort-of conclusion: Potential Energy. A narrative that has the potential to bloom much larger, emotional potential, a subject which fits the short form (a condensed feeling, a passing moment, something urgent, a frustration, stubbornness to change…), and no time to waste.
This Jo Dunthorne poem has it all — as well as being hillarious and maybe a little too relatable..
4. A poem I’m writing: Inspired by the short poems obsession and I guess also the glorious, Kisses by Kim Addonizio.
Not Kisses Tonight by me, Joshua Hallam
Not Kisses Tonight as I ruffle my coat off the back of the chair to leave early, tonight not a straddling inappropriate wet smackeroo not a well-placed, achingly middle-class dinner party graze that says goodbye, lovely to meet you, we should have an affair sometime not even a you may now grab the groom’s face and start fucking it into yours just that look
5. Po-em work:
Short poem challenge:
Set a timer - write five short poems (less than ten lines) in ten minutes. Chances are they won’t all be keepers but maybe one bit of genius will sneak out..
Think potential - try and cram as much energy in there as possible. How much narrative can you include in just that first sentence? What is going to be the subject - something that fits the short form
Would an ode honouring a life-long lover be possible in less than ten lines do them justice?
How about a moan about loud public transport?
Does stubbing your toe five minutes after getting some good news?
You decide…
: )