Underdays

Ott Martin

Description

We encounter many voices in life: from friends and family, from media, from co-workers, from other artists. In a highly connected global world, where people and entities are electronically enmeshed, we filter these voices constantly to get to what we determine to be the truth. Taking inspiration from pop culture, politics, art, and social media, Martin Ott mines daily existence as the inspiration and driving force behind Underdays.

Underdays is a dialogue of opposing forces: life/death, love/war, the personal/the political. Ott combines global concerns with personal ones, in conversation between poems or within them, to find meaning in his search for what drives us to love and hate each other. Within many of the poems, a second voice, expressed in italic, hints at an opposing force “under” the surface, or multiple voices in conversation with his older and younger selves—his Underdays—to chart a path forward. What results is a poetic heteroglossia expressing the richness of a complex world.

Sujets

• Literary Criticism
• Modern
• Ejército de los Estados Unidos
• América
• Afganistán
• Literature
• Modern history
• Notre Dame
• General officer
• United States Army
• 21st Century
• General
• American
• Obermodern-Zutzendorf
• Armée de terre des États-Unis
• Los Angeles
• Afghanistan

Informations

• Publié par: University of Notre Dame Press
• Date de parution: 15 août 2015
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780268088699
• Langue: English

Extrait

UNDERDAYS
THE ERNEST SANDEEN PRIZE IN POETRY
Editors
Joyelle McSweeney, Orlando Menes
2015 Underdays , Martin Ott
2013 The Yearning Feed , Manuel Paul López
2011 Dream Life of a Philanthropist , Janet Kaplan
2009 Juan Luna’s Revolver , Louisa A. Igloria
Editor
John Matthias (1997–2007)
2007 The Curator of Silence , Jude Nutter
2005 Lives of the Sleepers , Ned Balbo
2003 Breeze , John Latta
2001 No Messages , Robert Hahn
1999 The Green Tuxedo , Janet Holmes
1997 True North , Stephanie Strickland
MARTIN OTT
UNDERDAYS
University of Notre Dame Press
Notre Dame, Indiana
Copyright © 2015 by Martin Ott
Published by the University of Notre Dame Press
Notre Dame, Indiana 46556
All Rights Reserved
www.undpress.nd.edu
E-ISBN 978-0-268-08869-9
This e-Book was converted from the original source file by a third-party vendor. Readers who notice any formatting, textual, or readability issues are encouraged to contact the publisher at [e-mail] Manufactured in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Ott, Martin, 1966– [Poems. Selections] Underdays / Martin Ott. pages ; cm. — (Ernest Sandeen Prize in Poetry series) ISBN 978-0-268-03739-0 (softcover : acid-free paper) ISBN 0-268-03739-6 (softcover : acid-free paper) I. Title. PS3615.T893A6 2015 811'.6—dc23 2015016346 ∞ The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources -->
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
The Interrogator in Retirement
Mystery Spot
Survivor’s Manual to Love and War
Cloud Writing
The City of Tomorrow
The Naked Boy on the Famous Album Cover
Battlefield Typewriter
Love Advice from a Twenty-Sided Die
View from Within
Why I Don’t Set the Clock on My Car
Craters of the Moon
Midlife Man
Mad Libs for Interrogators
The Old Zoo
Caves of Los Angeles
High Above the Airport
Soldiers in the Dark
Ring Finder
Refrain
Why I Don’t Carry an Umbrella
Houses of Straw
Mad Libs for Lovers
The Intention of Knees
The Lost Film of Kim Jong-Il
The Book of Secret Places
The Last to Flee the Wildfires
Ink Quake
Angel Blue
Man Lost on a Mountain Trail
Audition
What Is Left
Collecting People
Blanket Party
Lot’s Lips
Movie Star Girlfriend
Mad Libs for Politicians
Diplomacy
Ghosts of Hollywood
War Wounds
The Subject of My First Childhood Poem Revisited
Upon Examining the Newly Hatched Chick That Flew around the World
113 Degrees of Separation
Steps
Bookmarks
Fruits of Labors
Goodnight
Notes
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thank you to the publications in which my poetry has appeared, sometimes in different form.

2River View : “Angel Blue”
13 Miles from Cleveland : “Collecting People”
300 Days of Sun : “War Wounds”
Apogee Journal : “Diplomacy”
Avatar Review : “High Above the Airport”
Blue Lyra Review : “Refrain”
Cairn : “Houses of Straw”
California Quarterly : “Why I Don’t Carry an Umbrella”
Chaffey Review, The : “Mad Libs for Lovers” and “The Lost Film of Kim Jong-Il”
CrossConnect : “Ghosts of Hollywood”
East Jasmine Review : “Audition” and “The Interrogator in Retirement”
Epiphany : “Blanket Party”
Freshwater : “Man Lost on a Mountain Trail”
Glass : “Mystery Spot”
Hawai‘i Pacific Review : “What Is Left”
Hot Metal Bridge : “Love Advice from a Twenty-Sided Die”
Jet Fuel Review : “Bookmarks”
Mason’s Road : “The Naked Boy on the Famous Album Cover”
Natural Bridge : “Lot’s Lips”
Nimrod : “Cloud Writing” and “Fruits of Labors”
North American Review : “Battlefield Typewriter”
Notre Dame Review : “The Intention of Knees” and “Midlife Man”
Prime Number: “Survivor’s Manual to Love and War”
Referential Magazine : “Upon Examining the Newly Hatched Chick That Flew around the World”
Reunion: The Dallas Review : “Ring Finder”
Rip Rap : “Ink Quake” and “The Subject of My First Childhood Poem Revisited”
Rock and Sling : “Mad Libs for Interrogators”
Rougarou : “The Old Zoo”
Scythe : “The Last to Flee the Wildfires”
Segue : “Craters of the Moon”
Stone Table Review : “Bookmarks”
The Sylvan Echo : “Steps”
Thin Air Magazine : “Goodnight” and “Mad Libs for Politicians”
Ucity Review : “113 Degrees of Separation,” “The Book of Secret Places” and “Movie Star Girlfriend”
War, Literature & the Arts : “Soldiers in the Dark”
Weber—The Contemporary West : “Caves of Los Angeles”
UNDERDAYS
POEMS
THE INTERROGATOR IN RETIREMENT

He’s waiting for the reverse
metamorphosis, for the extra
feelers to fold in or fall off,
to wake one morning a man.
He has been either furtive
or defensive, a decorative
shell for his lakeside folks
holding on for the pontoon
to take them to the dim shore.
He is a braggart to the thrill
seekers and smiling victims
who desire to glean truth
in twisted sheets, fabricating
tales of terrorists set to topple
America by spiking the wine
at the top writers’ conference.
His surprisingly soft hands
clutch books with blank pages
alongside the corridors of ties
strangling necks and skirts
exposing thighs to jackals.
He squeezes pieces of bread
into moist balls and attempts
to decapitate pigeons, each
ping bringing eventual reward.
He wants to love recklessly
but his eyes remain desert
dry, unable to view clear skies
without seeing the curtains,
the sun without feeling flame,
the passage of days without
remembering each pleading
beat of mouth, heart and feet.
MYSTERY SPOT

Hooked fingers mark the spot,
spin the sepulcher and cross,
signal stolen and savage hopes.
In Sunday school, I etched
rows of X’s in a tiny notebook,
beneath my little league stats.
Each ink hatch I crossed
not even knowing my desire,
bulges hidden in winter jackets.
In the decapitated woods
we foraged for morels,