Featured Poet – Jake Svercek!

February 24, 2009

Featured Poet – Jake Svercek!

Ol’ Jake with the butcher knife in his hand. Ol’ Jake.  Ol’ Jake writes much better poetry than you.  This makes you angry.  This makes you want to die.  This makes you want to give up, become a receptionist.  This makes you want to say, “Vodka tonic, please.”  This makes you want to sit on top of your dog or cat and watch while they wiggle too much.  Then you get up and say, “bad dog/cat!”  This makes you blame others for your shortcomings.

Hello, Jake:

Temporary Lover

by Jake Svercek

Already the train’s whistle is blowing
blue in the distance, its smoke fraying at the
corners of the sky. I tap my Chucks as I would on the
decks of cargo ships (for luck), and I salute

Every lover on the platform waving but mine, whose
far-stretching eyes have no hold on the hem of my tattered jeans,
“Good-bye,” she does not whisper. I am aching to leave be-
hind nothing and everything snagged in my father’s pines; I am an

Island cocking its ear towards where his voice
joins my mother’s song, clinging to every note and every
key but my own. “Home” tastes of the morning
light through St. Peter’s stained glass windows

Melting under London rain, sleeping with Arlington grass
nestled against my ears, dreaming the gates of Zijin Cheng
open to the tears of the rising sun. But those are just words
penciled in the faded map against my ribs, nostalgic and

Quaint as my grandfather the almost-explorer
riffling through the pages of old journals that
stain my thoughts with possibility. It is almost time for
tea where I am standing, but the train heaves

Under the rift and bridge of the Chunnel, and my
vision fades like the memories of a temporary lover,
wearing only skin. My fingers itch for the touch of
xeranthema pressed against Rosseau’s pages,

Yellowed by the years, as if I could imagine my
zenith like Everest peeking over the gray of the horizon.

/

That is very nice and poignant, Jake.  Smart people say things like poignant and that dress makes your ass look slightly less fat than usual. Let’s think about this a little more:  Jake has things to say, he actually has a non-profit organization.  Let’s think about this while we listen to Jake talk about this organization and what you can do to develop it further:

Artist of Tomorrow is a nonprofit organization built by artists, for artists. And by “artist” we mean every person who had something to say but couldn’t, who fought to be heard, and who wanted only to matter. We’re talking about what it’s like to be a human being, because art, said Nietzsche, is the highest metaphysical activity of this life.

We have a couple of goals:
1) Start local branches around the world that give anyone who considers themselves an artist (or even people who don’t) the resources and encouragement to express.
2) Grow the network to thousands if not millions of artists worldwide.
3) Foster our passions and our voices. Help artists to be heard.
4) Compile a video and essay database of tutorials, lectures, and advice from experienced artists, professors, and other experts. Make this available to artists to help develop their skill.
5) Allow artists to communicate more readily, have healthier self-esteem and relationships.
6) Spearhead social projects, such as the ones to promote literacy and environmentalism that we have going on right now. Get people who are passionate about stuff together and make a difference.

Ultimately we’re about proactive art, art that matters, and we want you to join us. We’re also set to win $50,000 to help fund our organization. You can help us get that seed money by going to Dell Social Innovation Competition and voting. Just register (takes less than 30 seconds) and hit the promote button on our page.

/

I love it as I love all things proactive towards the arts!  Let’s face it, kids, art gets the short end of the stick.  Science is just so much shinier.  I know what you’re thinking: “IT’S JUST SO HARD TO CLICK SOME BUTTONS AND VOTE OMGZZZZ!!!111”  No, it’s actually quite easy.  And take it from me, because I am really, really lazy. So if you don’t vote for this, then you are probably a Communist.  You are probably Hitler’s grandchild, bleaching your mustache to blend in.  And I even have a pet Duck named Frank O’Hara and he doesn’t have fingers, but I saw – with my OWN EYES- he picked up a pencil in his little ducky beak and he voted.  If a duck can vote, so can you.  Let’s give a round of applause for Frank O’Hara!

Jake Svercek’s work can also be found here (if you’re curious to read more, which of course you are.)  Or!  Just wait a couple of days, and I shall be posting a wonderful interview with Mr. Svercek and featuring more of his poems!

MY OPINION ON JAKE SVERCEK:

(DISCLAIMER: I like to get a little crazy some nights and I put on a bear suit and peek in people’s windows and go “roar.”  I think this shows my maturity level).

Since I found Jake’s writing, I have been quite intrigued.  He seems to write from inside.  You’re thinking, “that sounds dumb!” and now looking up various online video games.  But though ‘writing from inside’ is frequently used within the realm of poetry, I mean something a little different. To be able to see the world, take it in.  But Jake digests that god damn world and he makes something new out of it.

One of my favorite things about poetry in general is that it can make you think differently if, perhaps, only for a moment.  I think that might be what it’s all about, as they say.  Jake’s work does not say a sky is a sky.  Rather, he says a sky is you or I, or that dog you left out in the rain.  Listen, just look up more of his poetry.  That’s all I am asking.  Be inspired, write something of your own.

PUT ON A BEAR SUIT AND SAY ROAR.

It’s what poetry is all about!

Much love,

H.

Permalink