clarification Kentucky Poet

I've been reading Sherry Chandler for a couple of years. She made me remember Marvin Bell. I love her coverage of the south and southern poets and poetry in general. I found her site when I googled for poetry when I was on light duty for a year. I'm honored she read my post and I did not mean to offend. But really, who would style me if not myself? I can't just wait for someone else to come along and observe my conflicted white self questioning the grand narratives of rednekkidness. Can I?

I cannot possibly put my redneck bona fides up on this blog.

I started my blog after reading her blog. She's my blog mentor except I think I'm more into the Simpsons and South Park than she is. I needed a response to my decrepit brain age that didn't include those hideous puzzles. I liked finding her thoughts there to ponder when I was sick, sitting in my red chair day after day, unable to type, barely able to walk or use a touchpad, the doctors thinking I was a nurse trying to get narcotics, imagining that grad school was over, using my hand for anything was over. Once I lost her URL and spent all day messing around with my browser history trying to find it. I immediately started a blog and figured out how to link to her website so I could always find it. That was my puzzle. I'm now within spitting distance of finishing the dissertation or the "diss" as one of my committee members calls it.

I found the reference to her remarks about Baraka on a "this day in history" widget on her website. I wrote my response in careless haste.

My point was that Amiri Baraka IS one of our Ginsbergs. I can't imagine what courage it took to "come out" as he did, sacrificing his position. I don't especially agree with all his conspiracy theories but I admire his courage. And I love the way he scats throughout his poems. Looking at real life head on and writing and scatting about it is hard as hell. I do not do it. I look but I don't write about it.

I too was in a bad mood after the 2nd Bubba Bush installation. I'm still pretty crabby about it and no longer listen to anything political. I've been sending Obama stuff to the spam folder. I hope he's going to make a difference if he's elected, but I'll be very surprised if he does. If he surprises me I'll send him some money.

Things have gotten so bad in my Texas grandmother's dear country that I have a hard time imagining how we will recover. I guess I have to go back to Religious Science to get my affirmations pumped up.

In the meantime, I'm going to keep digging up Baraka-casts and look for other gutsy poets. I'm not one. And I'm not changing my mind about Ginsberg or NAMBLA. That's where I draw the line. I know too much about the outcome of this kind of stuff. It never ends well for the boys and it's NOT a free speech issue but that's a good cover story. I don't watch Woody Allen movies and I'm not changing my mind about him either.