La parola da casa, Serena Piccoli

a few days off. i've been watching chinese boat races, people fling themselves off platforms (flugtag), sailing, and writing my dissertation. reading too much neruda makes me feel like a defective spoke in the tradition of the americas, as if all the important issues of human suffering are avoided in my writing for playful shiftings of mind that i somehow think of as experimental. that's such a defective word. people all over the spectrum use it. latino poets singing their communities, slam poets, post-language poets--many writers use it, but it signifies something different for everyone. anyway, during my hiatus a few new zines came in. i haven't looked at any of them. i also received more spam than seems feasibly possible. i also managed to miss the finals for the national poetry slam even though it occured only six miles from my house. i had intended to go, but a day in the sun took my energy. i also wrote a couple of sad poems, i.e. bad poems. most of the stuff i write seems like crap to me. i'm constantly going through life questioning the value of the work i'm writing, yet i feel compelled to write it, which leads me to the read question that's on my mind: the use of the lyric.

for a few years i've been reading all that i can on the lyric. most of it is useless since many critics conceive of the lyric as that written in the post-confessional strain. i tend to think of lyric as more expansive, as more than just a brief emotional sputtering that holds time at bay for a moment. i don't even know if the i is a necessary component, but i have not worked out a good alternative. for many critics, the i is the essential element of the lyric. in other words, the lyric is a short poem from the first person perspecitive.