this morning

I went to Jesus’ room
to wake him for church
bur he was already up.
I could hear the shower
running—steam was
pouring out from under
the bathroom door.

by Belz

(link)

Belz @ The Artisan

I went to a poetry reading tonight at the Artisan of my old Worldviews teacher, Aaron Belz. It rocked my face off. Awesome and Julie were a little less enthused. I thought the three poets who went ahead of Belz were really good and some were funny and many of the poems were really beautiful.

Belz gave a discount to his students in the audience (two of whom I knew...where else did he teach? Or...Belz, if you read this: where else did you teach?) if they bought his book, and so I did. It's called The Bird Hoverer and it's on Mondo's favorite books list even though HE HASN'T READ IT.

My favorite poem of the night was the first one he read:

"Among Birds"

Having spent the better part of the morning
among birds, having heard
what they whisper
to each other as the sun comes up,

having noted how they name their offspring,
with names like Fuzz Packet and Mr. Charming,
Devily Doo and The Potato Famine Boy,

having observed, if momentarily,
as they begin to glide, their haughty eyes
and knife-like toes,
I hereby reject birds
and not only birds but
the places where they dwell, the patterns
of their lives, the very cosmic instinct
that brings them into being—in fact, the skies;

having been raised by birds and
having nursed at their impossible teats
and been subjected to their whimsical
sarcasm, also having been approached by
them on several occasions—

when my star had risen and theirs perhaps had not—

in the name of
neighborliness or good citizenship and having
politely asked them to step off,
can't you see
I'm busy, type of thing, and having quietly
informed them that I no longer belong
to their so-called tribe,
I hereby request
that they wipe the silly smirks off their faces
and find other people to circle, other places
to drop their glob-like feces, and that is all
I ask of them, not that we can't exist on the same
planet, free-thinking individuals,
in equal

if separate and clearly demarcated communities.


Poem that should have been read Mitch Hedberg-style:

"Hidden Microphones"

I am all about hidden microphones.
If you pay me a certain amount of money,
I will plant a certain number of microphones
around your home, or a friend's home.


Conclusions from the night (mostly based on the readings of the two female poets who went ahead of Belz):
- If I ever become a poet that people come to hear read my poetry I will be a lot more expressive in my voice than they were, with hand motions and rhythm in my voice.
- I think Belz's poems were ten times more funny if you had him for class.

Covenant College and Worldviews

My Postmodern Poetry class had a day at the Heidelberg (a pretty popular college bar here in town) where we shared our Postmodern collage projects (the reason I haven't been posting 4 times a day like normal lately). The beer was flowing and the projects were really cool looking. I think mine was the least creative and took the least amount of effort/planning out of everyone, but Ronci said I got an A, so I'm okay with that.

But anyway, to get to the point (and the title of the post), I was sitting in line to get graded behind a girl named Ann in my class and she was making small talk with the guy in front of her and I heard her say that she spent her first two years of college at a little place called Covenant College in Chattanooga, TN. It's not every day (or any day at Mizzou, actually) that you hear those words, so I asked her about it and we started talking. It turns out her father in law went to Covenant Seminary when he had a mid-life crisis and decided to be a pastor. Weird. Small world. She also knew of Aaron Belz, who will be giving a poetry reading (that I'm going to) tomorrow night at the Artisan.

So Ann and I were talking and I was telling her about my major and that I wanted to go to grad school for it and everything and she mentioned that, growing up in the PCA she had always studied about worldviews and saw the world through the lens that everyone had their own personal worldview based on what culture they grew up in and their beliefs about reality. But, she made the point, that secular education is just catching up. Most of our postmodern poetry class was about worldviews. Our collage project was about the postmodern worldview and the shift from the modernist one that was predominate before that. No wonder I'm interested in this stuff, I was practically raised to think this way.

At my Christian high school we were taught apologetics by way of worldview (The Universe Next Door by James W. Sire was one of my Worldviews class textbooks) and had to write papers about how our worldview was affected by this and that. That is why I think this way about culture. It was a great conversation.