I got beat up Sunday Morning, The Poem.

It was during this period that Claude first sensed his vocation to the religious life in the Society of Jesus. We know nothing of the motives which led to this decision. We do know, however, from one of his early notations, that he "had a terrible aversion for the life embraced". This affirmation is not hard to understand by any who are familiar with the life of Claude, for he was very close to his family and friends and much inclined to the arts and literature and an active social life. On the other hand, he was not a person to be led primarily by his sentiments.

Claude became noted for solid and serious sermons. They were ably directed at specific audiences and, faithful to their inspiration from the gospel, communicated to his listeners serenity and confidence in God.

His spiritual notes from this period allow one to follow step-by-step the battles and triumphs of the spirit, so extraordinarily attracted to everything human, yet so generous with God.

Claude dedicated his time to giving thorough instruction to the many who sought reconciliation with the Church they had abandoned. And even if there were great dangers, he had the consolation of seeing many reconciled to it, so that after a year he said: "I could write a book about the mercy of God I've seen Him exercise since I arrived here!"

-From the Vatican Website

I got beat up Sunday morning

'fore God woke up.

Just got down to New Orleans

Where I’ve learned to drink

from a half-full cup.

I got my zygomatic bones bruised.

I got my arms crossed ‘n’ wires fused.

I got off work and rode my bike to the Bywater.

Throw a cup of water at my face while the weather’s still warm.

Throw a glass bottle at my head while the air’s still thick enough to hear it coming.

Call me faggot while I’m still young enough to wear my pants so tight.

Get out of your truck and chase me down while the streets are still empty.

Pull me off my bike while I’m still happy to walk.

Punch my face once while I ask you why.

Punch my face twice while I ask you to stop.

Tear off my jacket while I wonder how long this will last.

Punch my face three times while I look at your friends looking at me.

Punch my face four times while it occurs to me “This is different.”

Those are your knuckles so devoted to my zygomatic bones.

Hard to turn the other cheek, face down.

I feel your fists loose faith, get softer.

Punch the back of my head once before you turn away while I imagine your license plate:

Romeo

Delta

Yankee

4

Lima

Uniform

Victor

RDY4LUV

It’s over. You left me there. You took nothing.

My bike’s busted. My buttons ripped off. My earrings beaten out.

I walk home. Oh I walk home.

A gay cop finds me on the corner of Esplanade and Dauphine.

I said a gay cop finds me on the corner of Esplanade and Dauphine.

He says we’re calling this in a 35. Hate Crime.

I said officer

I said I said officer

she don’t hate me, she just don’t love me.

My Zygomatic bones bruised.

Since you left me, I rode uptown in an ambulance.

I answered questions about my city, the year, and the president.

I said you can take your 10 grand CT Scan and shove it where the sun always shines.

Baby, I was discharged and a taxi took me home.

I got beat up Sunday morning

‘fore God woke up.

Just got down to New Orleans

Where I’ve learned to drink

from a half-full cup.

I'm Reading This Month

Creative Reading Series Fall 2010

New to New Orleans

October 20^th, 2010 Kirschman Artspace

NOCCA Riverfront

2800 Chartres St. NOLA 70117 www.nocca.com

Contact Anne Gisleson agisleson@nocca.com

7:00 to 8:30

Reception to follow.

New Orleans has always attracted writers and artists, and in the last few years, the city has seen another wave of literary newcomers. That got us thinking—why? We’re curious about what New Orleans has to offer them as writers and vice versa. On Wednesday October 20^th at 7:00, the NOCCA Creative Writing Department is showcasing four poets who are relatively new to town and we look forward to hearing their work and thoughts about their new home.

Nik De Dominic moved to New Orleans in May, 2009. Pushcart nominated, his work has appeared in DIAGRAM, Harpur Palate, Los Angeles Review, and elsewhere. He is an editor of The Offending Adam and an associate editor of the New Orleans Review. As a visiting instructor for Bard College, he teaches classes on thinking and writing inside Orleans Parish Prison.

Paul Killebrew was born and raised in Nashville, Tennessee. His first full-length collection, Flowers, was published by Canarium Books this year, and his long poem Inspector vs. Evader has recently been republished online by Ugly Duckling Presse. He moved to New Orleans in 2008 to take a job as a staff attorney with Innocence Project New Orleans, an nonprofit law office in the Bywater that represents innocent prisoners in Louisiana and Southern Mississippi who are sentenced to life without parole.

Sara Slaughter is a native of Pine Bluff, Arkansas, who moved to New Orleans in the summer of 2009. She is currently enrolled in the low-residency MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. Her work has appeared in Helicon, The Honeyland Review, and a collection celebrating what would have been the 100^th birthday of Elizabeth Bishop.

Jeremy JF Thompson was born in Los Angeles, CA. He went to college at UCSB in Santa Barbara, CA. He went to Grad School at Mills College in Oakland, CA. Shortly after, he moved to Queens, NY, where he was an instructor at The Center for Book Arts. His book, AUTOGRAPHOGRAPHY, will be out in 2011 through Cuneiform Press. He runs Auto Types Press and blogs at autotypist.blogspot.com.

Poetry Search, Part 2: 103 Map Search Results for Poetry Characterized Differently by an Assortment of Commonly Associated Adjectives

Task: Search for the word "poetry" preceded by various adjectives that are often used in conjunction with it.

Technique: This map is created by saving to Google My Maps the first location listed after having performed a location search for the word "poetry" preceded by an adjective. In every case, the words are paired together and placed between quotation marks. Example: "good poetry"

Duration: 10:25 pm – 11:17 pm

Date: May 24, 2010

Search Engine: Google Map Search

Browser: Safari 4.0.5

View Places for Poetry in a larger map for easier navigation.

Following the link above or any of the links below will open the public map "Places for Poetry."

The following 84 of 103 searches issued results:

absurdist poetry

academic poetry

accessible poetry

amateur poetry

anthologized poetry

award-winning poetry

bad poetry

basic poetry

beat poetry

best poetry

best selling poetry

boring poetry

challenging poetry

cheap poetry

classical poetry

classic poetry

conceptual poetry

concrete poetry

confessional poetry

contemporary poetry

cool poetry

creative poetry

dadaist poetry

easy poetry

ethnic poetry

experimental poetry

fake poetry

famous poetry

favorite poetry

feminist poetry

flarf poetry

found poetry

future poetry

futurist poetry

good poetry

great poetry

hypertextual poetry

imagist poetry

important poetry

infamous poetry

language poetry

love poetry

major poetry

meaningful poetry

mfa poetry

modernist poetry

modern poetry

multicultural poetry

new poetry

normal poetry

old poetry

philosophical poetry

poetry

political poetry

popular poetry

postcolonial poetry

powerful poetry

practical poetry

professional poetry

published poetry

rare poetry

real poetry

recent poetry

religious poetry

renaissance poetry

romantic poetry

self-published poetry

serious poetry

silly poetry

slam poetry

small press poetry

spiritual poetry

strange poetry

street poetry

student poetry

surrealist poetry

symbolist poetry

true poetry

universal poetry

unpublished poetry

visual poetry

weak poetry

workshop poetry

written poetry

Google responds, “We could not understand the location” for the following 19 searches:

conceptualist poetry

confessionalist poetry

expensive poetry

gurlesque poetry

instructional poetry

least favorite poetry

meaningless poetry

neoformalist poetry

objectivist poetry

oulipo poetry

projectivist poetry

quietist poetry

stolen poetry

theoretical poetry

transcendental poetry

trendy poetry

uncreative poetry

unpopular poetry

vispo poetry

103 Image Search Results for Poetry Characterized Differently by an Assortment of Commonly Associated Adjectives

Task: Search for the word "poetry" preceded by various adjectives that are often used in conjunction with it.

Technique: These images are obtained by saving the first image listed after having performed an image search for the word "poetry" preceded by an adjective. In every case, the words are paired together and placed between quotation marks. Example: "good poetry"

Duration: 8:15 pm – 9:22 pm

Date: May 18, 2010

Search Engine: Google Image Search

Browser: Safari 4.0.5

Result Organization System: Alphabetic

What this might be:

-A crude snapshot of the current visual vocabulary of poetry as a term or an idea.

-A comparative survey of the complexities created by the desire to or necessity of pairing words with images.

-A demonstration that sometimes reveals unexpected relationships between locution and context.

-A compromised investigation of the complications faced when typifying classifications of poetry with images.

-A partial insight into which attributes or classifications of poetry are identified by certain visual components of the work, such as a photo of the author, a photo of the cover of a book, a photo of a page of poetry, a poem represented in digital form, an advertisement for a reading, a photo of a reading or a seminar, a painting or other work of art associated with the time/ affiliation of the poetry, or a painting or other work of art intended to suggest some other visual association, to name a few.

-An example of how basic, familiar, and historical qualifiers become increasingly less effective as a result of overuse.

-A simple examination of how an image search can yield poor results by favoring image popularity and freshness over relevant association.

-An example of how some things not conventionally related to poetry are being described as or compared to poetry.

-An enactment of my complicity in the solidification of these image search results as associated with their corresponding word-combination queries.

"absurdist poetry"

"academic poetry"

"accessible poetry"

"amateur poetry"

"anthologized poetry"

"award-winning poetry"

"bad poetry"

"basic poetry"

"beat poetry"

"best poetry"

"best-selling poetry"

"boring poetry"

"challenging poetry"

"cheap poetry"

"classical poetry"

"classic poetry"

"conceptualist poetry"

"conceptual poetry"

"concrete poetry"

"confessionalist poetry"

"confessional poetry"

"contemporary poetry"

"cool poetry"

"creative poetry"

"dadaist poetry"

"easy poetry"

"ethnic poetry"

"expensive poetry"

"experimental poetry"

"fake poetry"

"famous poetry"

"favorite poetry"

"feminist poetry"

"flarf poetry"

"found poetry"

"future poetry"

"futurist poetry"

"good poetry"

"great poetry"

"gurlesque poetry"

"hypertextual poetry"

"imagist poetry"

"important poetry"

"infamous poetry"

"instructional poetry"

"language poetry"

"least favorite poetry"

"love poetry"

"major poetry"

"meaningful poetry"

"meaningless poetry"

"mfa poetry"

"modernist poetry"

"modern poetry"

"multicultural poetry"

"neoformalist poetry"

"new poetry"

"normal poetry"

"objectivist poetry"

"old poetry"

"oulipo poetry"

"philosophical poetry"

"poetry"

"political poetry"

"popular poetry"

"postcolonial poetry"

"powerful poetry"

"practical poetry"

"professional poetry"

"projectivist poetry"

"published poetry"

"quietist poetry"

"rare poetry"

"real poetry"

"recent poetry"

"religious poetry"

"renaissance poetry"

"romantic poetry"

"self-published poetry"

"serious poetry"

"silly poetry"

"slam poetry"

"small press poetry"

"spiritual poetry"

"stolen poetry"

"strange poetry"

"street poetry"

"student poetry"

"surrealist poetry"

"symbolist poetry"

"theoretical poetry"

"transcendental poetry"

"trendy poetry"

"true poetry"

"uncreative poetry"

"universal poetry"

"unpopular poetry"

"unpublished poetry"

"vispo poetry"

"visual poetry"

"weak poetry"

"workshop poetry"

"written poetry"