1105: Self-Portrait with Tumbling and Lasso by Eduardo C. Corral

The Slowdown: Poetry & Reflection Daily

American Public Media

Arts, Performing Arts

4.8 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 26 April 2024

⏱️ 8 minutes

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Summary

Today’s poem is Self-Portrait with Tumbling and Lasso by Eduardo C. Corral.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… "These days, we are loving reading and writing self-portrait poems, what I call the “verbal selfie.” It allows the author to be the runway, to elevate themselves into the frame of language. In so doing, the poet, like the author of today’s poem, experiments with perceptions of the self. I like how the poet in Rembrandt-fashion mythologizes himself in the lyric.”

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Transcript

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0:00.0	The slowdown is supported by W. W. Norton and Company,
0:04.0	publishers of Poetry Unbound by Padreck Ottumah,
0:08.0	a poetry anthology that offers immersive reflections, keen insights, and personal anecdotes on 50 powerful poems.
0:18.0	Focusing mainly on poets writing today, Poetry Unbound engages with a diverse array of voices that includes
0:26.7	Aida Lamone, Ilea Kaminsky, Margaret Atwood, Ocean Vong, Lally Long soldier, and Reginald Wayne Betts.
0:36.1	Poetry Unbound, now in paperback. I'm Major Jackson and this is the slowdown.
0:45.7	I'm Major Jackson and this is the slowdown.
1:10.0	In my nearly 30 years of editing and teaching poetry, I've witnessed poetic forms come into fashion, then go out of fashion. You'd be hard-pressed to find, for example,
1:14.0	pantumes and villainels in literary journals.
1:18.0	These two forms, once popular in the 90s,
1:22.0	were giving Preppy in an age of in-your-face luxury pieces like
1:27.9	Slam and spoken word performances.
1:32.2	As in street fashion, many factors influence poetic styles,
1:37.2	most prominently a desire to be at once in a tradition,
1:42.2	but also an original, an outsider. Poet Terrence Hayes's golden shovel
1:50.0	fiercely hit the runway of popular imagination.
1:54.3	Jericho Brown's duplex became its own crazed and creative writing workshops.
2:00.8	These forms not only spawned imitators, but have since become mainstay fixtures and poetry anthologies.
2:09.0	This can also be set of Chintos and Erasure Poems, which show up in many a slushpow.
2:17.2	It wasn't too long ago that the hustle hung out exclusively in MFA programs and writing conferences.
2:25.0	It too now sits prominently as part of our literary heritage.
2:31.0	We practically said goodbye to Sestinas, but like platform sneakers and
	...

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