The Pulse: August 2023
Britney's conservatorship poem, lots of smells, and the poetry of Past Lives
Every time I do a round of poetry-related news, finds, and happenings (today, with a new moniker: Expansion Pack), I find so much that at some point I have to stop myself, give it a cut-off. I have this running thought that maybe I should “save” some things for a future issue, in case there’s nothing good or noteworthy in a couple of weeks. But there always is.
The more poetry you look for, the more you find. Exhibit: Today.
Is there a relationship between pharmacies and poetry? I used the Matrix-inspired pill motif in my poetry for beginners series back in April. And the Poetry Pharmacy is one of the very few stores in the world that combines my love of poetry and the elusively defined concept store. Now we have All-Night Pharmacy, the debut novel by a practicing full-time pharmacist in LA. (I’ve got a copy on hold.) What I couldn’t get a hold of: Ruth Madievsky’s award-winning poetry collection, Emergency Brake. Ruth talked about making the switch from poetry to fiction in this LitHub article: “With a poem, anything—narrative, structure, mood—can be abandoned in pursuit of beauty.” Is that what a poem is? Complete freedom from systems in pursuit of the abstract experience of ultimate captivation?
This TikTok video puts our modern content machine into poetic and frightening perspective. To me, the act of using physical, tangible, and sensorial signals to communicate what are now increasingly abstract motions of our lives (like the never-ending scroll of social media), accomplishes what a poem aims to do: turn the mundane into (I’m-tempted-to-fill-the-blank-here-with-“magic”)…motion.
I think motion is the right word, or close to it. A stirring, the act of being moved, a sub-atomic shift, where if done right, the body stills as inertia against the force of everything else moving inside it.
Would you read an article titled nondescriptly and as anti-internet establishment as “Meow!”? I did. Whitney Mallett* writes, for the Paris Review, an account of a perfume called “Maggie the Cat Is Alive, I’m Alive!" by the poet and perfumer Marissa Zappas, —inspired by Elizabeth Taylor. (Also, apparently cats rule the internet so maybe not so off-base to use that to click-through advantage.)
I enjoyed this Nylon interview with Marissa, with quotes like:
“Her work is evocative of the past while feeling fresh, exhilarating, and new,” poet Ariana Reines says over email. “Marissa’s work is genuinely poetic. It feels luxurious and mysterious, much more complex than the merely good or clean, much more seductive than just another list of beautiful bespoke ingredients.
“My favorite story is a lot of older perfumers, because you lose your sense of smell as you get older, they can’t even really smell anymore, but they’re still writing formulas,” she says. She references how Mozart could still write music after he went deaf.
And my favourite, a great encapsulation of my philosophies and those driving this newsletter:
When she first started, Zappas wanted to bring a lot of intellectual ideas to her perfumery, a holdover from her academia days. Now, she just wants to make beautiful perfumes that smell good: Her guiding force is one charged with love and heartbreak and beauty; everything that charges a life.
(If you liked this, you might also like: Do you give people a disproportionate number of comments related to their appearance? How about a smell-related compliment! And who’s sick of morning routines designed for maximum productivity? Start your work day with scent.)
*Whitney’s print publication, The Whitney Review of New Writing, just launched with its debut Summer 2023 issue. Sadly, I couldn’t purchase as I’m non-U.S., but I am quite taken with the text-only approach and the Cover Text: “No one but you could make rainbows sound violent”. Whitney, P.S., is also the co-editor of the Barbie Dreamhouse book.
In non-Barbenheimer film news:
A) The Beanie Bubble on Apple+ starring Elizabeth Banks chronicles the zeitgeisty rise and fall of Beanie Babies. I’ve never owned a Beanie Baby, so I didn’t realize that part of the appeal and hysteria around them were the poems. Here’s all of them, in a Geocities-era vibe site. Also in the background of a scene from the film: Maya Angelou during the 1993 broadcast of the inauguration reciting this poem.
B) Over to romance. Yeah, romance. When is the last time a romance movie made waves? Sitting at an astounding 98% Rotten Tomatoes rating, Past Lives is the A24-distributed romance film by playwright Celine Song, out earlier this year in theatres and hopefully on streaming platforms soon. This review starts with the famous Robert Frost poem, The Road Not Taken. A24, who has the best merch shop, including these movie genre candles, publishes zines inspired by their films. Like In-Yun Zine ($6) curated by Celine, with poetry from Milan Kundera and Chiha Kim.
Britney Spears wrote a poem which seemingly addresses her conservatorship, and shared a few snippets on Instagram as a “sneak peek” of something she’s been working on. Here’s an excerpt:
In the middle or did you get ‘em? The thieves are little, They serve like skittles The pain no walk, we say when you talk The pain no walk, we say when you talk My feet, Jesus tell me why You know I move when I’m alive They took my feet, demoralized Emphasized my face, they wanted my mind We want to see your face We want to see your face I want attention at my pace And have a car, and leave this place I never cried not one time I worked 10 hours a day 4 months a slave
Love triangles. Beach houses. Taylor Swift on the soundtrack. The Summer I Turned Pretty (Season 2) is a currently-airing Amazon Prime young adult series with all the ingredients for major fandom. It’s been a while since I’ve been a teenager but what can I say? These romance tropes, they got me, too. (I’m also currently watching Love After Divorce, a Korean reality show currently set in Cancun.) Anyway, The Summer I Turned Pretty is based off a trilogy of books by author and showrunner Jenny Han, who named her production company “Jenny Kissed Me” based on this poem by Leigh Hunt first published in 1838:
Jenny kiss’d me when we met, Jumping from the chair she sat in; Time, you thief, who love to get Sweets into your list, put that in! Say I’m weary, say I’m sad, Say that health and wealth have miss’d me, Say I’m growing old, but add, Jenny kiss’d me.
Happenings:
In New York: A behind the scenes look at the Taylor Swift exhibition (on until September 4) at Manhattan’s Museum of Arts and Design: Taylor Swift: Our Contemporary Shakespeare?
In London: At Southbank Centre until September 10, Poets in Vogue, a free exhibition covering “the relationship between the language of poets and the clothes they wear at our free exhibition.”
Online: This October, learn to write about scent in this 3-part online workshop with John Biebel in partnership with the Institute of Olfactory Arts in LA.
More assorted reads and novelties:
TikTok is Becoming a Publisher. Will it Ruin the Book Industry? (via The Walrus)
One-half of perfume brand DS and Durga and musician David Seth Moltz, released his 3rd poetry book earlier this year: The Soft Chorus.
Okay, this is so smart. Why do we judge books by their covers? Because we usually have just that and a blurb. This site shows you the first page-or-so of a book without telling you anything else about it, and if you like it, you can find out what the book is. Or skip to another. Great for finding actual gems.
Jorum Studio is a Scottish perfume house whose DNA and marketing include poetry, from these short Instagram poems to its product descriptions.
“an aromatic déjà vu” (Elegy)
“shrouded in a haze of sun-kissed dust” (Athenaeum)
“Let’s dance around a smoked-out beach bonfire” (Firewater)
The northern lights and a lightning storm do a mash-up in Saskatchewan (TikTok)
Have greeting cards you don’t want to throw away for sentimental reasons but never really look at again? This fun company will send you a box for you to fit all your cards into, and print a keepsake book for you.
Here’s A Brief Survey of Famous Authors and Their Favorite Cocktails (and Colognes!), starting off strong with Zelda Fitzgerald.
The Lunar Codex, a collection of over 30,000 art, poetry, and film, divided into 4 time capsules. The first launched on the Orion spacecraft and returned last December. And the second will be launched in a few months. (I think I’ll return to this one then.)
The Computer is a feeling - is this poetry, a “google doc”, manifesto?
All-In Magazine is not like other flip-through magazines. Its contents are separate, inspired by an apparel tech pack and presented with a ribbon. This is the 6th issue, centred around “Fast Fashion”. I’m kind of loving the notion of an experience designed with friction, designed to be consumed slower.
Poems One Through Twelve is a perfume by Universal Flowering, with this poetic description (here’s an interview with its founder, Courtney Rafuse, over on
Sunfrosted ginger in Silver Lined Boxes
Nylon silk gloves in Ironed Violet Steam
Those heartbreaking Eau-de-Nil eyes of mimosa blossoms
Opoponax stained porcelain, Glossed Vermilion
Eggshell Blue cradled doves, painted and seared
Nebula plumes like stripes, monotony
Some solar breeze, baked en croute, with crunch
Need Friday plans? How about this. Also: maybe the most effective book recommendation ever. And it’s poetry! (via TikTok)
And to end today, a quote from Zelda Fitzgerald:
“Nobody has ever measured, not even poets, how much the heart can hold.”
―Zelda Fitzgerald
Really, not even the data-obsessed, growth-obsessed tech madhouses who have pretty much taken over the world’s minds? Hearts might be next. Just might.
POEM-TO-GO
What we want is to become part of the common consumption like coffee with morning paper. We don’t want to be Stars but parts of constellations.
—From “The New Speakers” by Gloria E. Anzaldúa