More Shirtlessness

Here's another shirtless experience from Born Magazine:

http://www.bornmagazine.org/projects/notable_captures/

'Shirtless Others' from Born Magazine

Some of you may be familiar with Born Magazine.  For those that aren't, it is an experimental online venue that seeks to marry literature to the visual arts. 

Check out this prose poem from Born's latest issue written by Jason Ockert and animated by Matthias Dittrich linked below and give me some feedback on the proem itself and how the visual accompaniment helps/hinders the work.

Furthermore, how does the audience or if you will reader participation serve to enhance the emotion in the piece.  The reader becomes one of the "fisherman" and an onlooker to the scene and is forced to act before all of the prose poem is revealed.

After finishing, read the prose proem in html format.  How is the mood changed when it simply words upon the screen?  Is the work successful as a standalone piece?

Link to the piece here---- Shirtless Others by Jason Ockert

The Poetry Ark-- #1 and #100

Claire recently brought this site to my attention and it raises lots of good questions about the nature of poetry.  Check out her comment on the last post for a little more information or head over to poetryark.org to check out the site yourself. 

Here is what the editors of the site had to say--

"On January 1, 2010, we launched the Ark as a one-year experiment in literary prospecting, an on-line invitation to poets and readers to create an anthology of the most worthy contemporary, English-language poems submitted for popular review and ranking. The year and the Poetry Ark are now drawing to a close. By the time the last vote was cast, 9,624 visitors from 96 countries had visited the site, submitted work, and voted to help determine the best of the entries, far exceeding our expectations."





Below I've posted the winning poem, which was given a score of 2.54 followed by the last place poem, which was given a rating of 1.99 (note, many of the poems towards the end of the list were given this score, this is the last "listed" poem).  I'd like to see some feedback on the two--is one poem really that much stronger than the other?  Where is the real distinction in value between the two poems? 


The site's #1 poem

made flesh

by Michelle Puckett


for priscilla inkpen

the incredible sweetness of an early march day
the swirling & buzzing
blue eyes of a fly


unattended death; ways of attending
the last things public
what is left



this rash on daylight saving
time, on chirp of california
native birds


the quickness, the chemical finish
the closeness of memory to remembering
sanded to dailiness


an assignment of energy
the presence of the cemetery, of the winds, of the scales
tipping this way, then that
the expected, slow expected, undone & finished sudden
these things at once & glaringly


washed up on the shore
the bodies of fishes
out of depth to


sparkling surface
foamy surface
rolling constance of surface



 The site's #100 poem

Stripped

by Dawn Tucksmith

If you take away kids, house, jobs, dust, errands, and TV Guides

and are left with a woman, a man, a 13 year-old marriage license

and a couple years of courtship,

will the woman and the man look each other in the eyes again

and find what they lost along the way?

Will they shed years and skins and see each other again

unblemished, glowing, and magnetic?

Will they stare the priority of each other in the face

and forget the piled up clutter and overrated souvenirs of the years?

Or will they melt away to pale shadows and white noise?

How do you bring into relief

the relationship that became one more prop in the background?

Can you strip away all else

so that only the couple remains?

What would you find there?

Roots? Core? New growth? Strangers?

What do you hope to find?


The source.


What can we say about the two poems and are there any poems on this site that anyone noticed that are rated "poorly" that you might like better or find more value in?

Here We Are, Again

Super Sex Honey Flies is "Poetry Off the Page"-- a digital directory and storehouse for all types of poetry found on the web.  It will become a database where one can find information on how poetry has been changed by the interweb for better or for worse.  Furthermore, Super Sex Honey Flies is a venue to publish poetry and a workshop where other poets and readers can give direction, suggestions, and ideas to each other. 

My favorite poetry is the least restricted.  That being said, I want this site to exist without restrictions.  Mission statements can be difficult to pin down, so for now, Super Sex Honey Flies exists... It has to do with poetry, and that's it.  Let's see where we can take it from here.