ARS POETICA ~ THE POWER OF ONE

Tags

ars poetica, Art Plotnik, Better Than Great, Billy Collins, conversation, Harpur Palate, Literature, poem, poetry, postaweek2011, Spunk and Bite, Stolen Wishes, Strunk and White, superlatives, The menu Poet, the power of one, United States Poet Laureate, word wonk

The one precise word. The one evocative phrase. The one fresh sentence. The one punchy essay. It’s a challenge to craft a thumbs-up piece. Aren’t we all in that struggle? So WWWW made an impulsive buy and ordered Spunk and Bite.  Well, it’s one yowzer of a book!

……….

………

The author is Art Plotnik ~ he’s the guy with all the toys. And he shares. Forget the sacred cows of Composition 101. He gives Strunk and White their due, then goes straight for the funny bone. There are plenty of aha moments as the war of usage and rules plays out under his pen. There’s joy in this text and tons of edgy ideas. Art teaches us to loot a thesaurus, hunt down danglers and coin bonne locutions. Talk about nudges to write more electric prose.

………

……….

Like all writers, we’re a curious bunch. So, The Conversation Begins. We write to Art; he writes back. Does he inspire us? Every day. Want to see why?  www.spunkandbite.com

………….

And check out his non-blog snog, it’s coruscatingly cool.

http://www.artplotnik.com/Home_Page.html

……..

 The Conversation continues.

……….

From our favorite wizard of word wonkery, Arthur Plotnik, there’s something new and it’s Better Than Great.  It’s one bobby dazzler of a book. Plotnik fills the pages with almost 6,000 alternative terms for praise of every kind. We are cockahooped over this book. It’s even got gr8t texting superlatives. Billy Collins calls it Amen-Astonishing.

I can’t write without this one little book nearby. What do I love about it?

Um, everything. It’s sublime, joy-giving, and wicked cool. As Patty would say,  here’s a nugget I’m chewing on ~ Art says beautiful and gorgeous, our beloved go-to superlatives, are pretty worn out. He suggests that we aim to take that special beauty and put our personal spin on it. Hmm. The Power of One Updikeian Word. Think sensory qualities, art connections, the sacred and the profane. Art’s list includes some funky-fresh superlatives~

……….

gaga-making

goo-goo-eyeable

I’ve-fallen-and-I-can’t-get-up gorgeous

Michelangelian

pinch-me perfect

stretch-limo sleek

wallopingly attractive

………

At the end of the chapter on BEAUTIFUL, Art finishes with a Vintage Gold list that goes from bellafatima and easy on the eyes to an ohmigoddess and a slick article. This book is one hotsy totsy prize package!

……….

Better Than Great: A Plentitudinous Compendium of Wallopingly Fresh Superlatives. Find out more and get your Superlatives of the Week here.  http://www.freshsuperlatives.com  This is what I think ~

Better than Great is

unspeakably majestic!

It’s nirvanic and

cheek by jowl with perfection.

It’s, well, Plotnikian.

In addition to all of this, Art Plotnik is also a Giga-Awesome Poet.

……..

The Menu Poet

(Published in Harpur Palate, Vol. 7, Issue 1)

Her early work appeared at Ed’s Diner
(Akron), where she married the phrases
chicken-fried and cheese-stuffed
to the steak and omelette entries.

She knew that such savory items
as butternut squash, rack of lamb,
forest mushrooms, mousse and flan
could levitate menus on their own,

but Ed’s menu lay flat in its grease
until she imagined dishes animated
by action verbs—energetic participles
of preparation, some topped by nouns

as in her first inspired couplet,
Pit-roasted thigh of wild antelope
in sesame-thickened mustard sauce,
for which uninspired Ed canned her.

In wintry Midwest bistros she knew
dark times, as seen in the curious lines,
black-corn-masa crepes steamed and
rolled around inky corn mushrooms.

Mixed appetites met these efforts;
then, like fiery La Mancha wine sauce,
an epiphany came upon her, of verbs
to signal fussing on behalf of diners;

not the moiling of baked or fricasseed,
but the crusting, dusting, and dotting
once reserved for moguls and maharajas;
delicate actions of the chefs de cuisine.

In New York such participles as doused
and brushed caught the critics’ notice,
and with her Thai green-chili-rubbed
fennel-marinated bass she dazzled them.

But the poet wrote not to please critics;
only to delight beloved diners, for whom
her menus sang of breasts jalapeZo-glazed,
and loins pistachio-crusted, citrus-planked.

Legend, doyenne of menuists, she aged
as gracefully as cognac until the year
she wilted like warmed salad leaves,
leaving for her epitaph these words:

No fruit but macerated,
no pear but maple-laced;
no tort but three-milk soaked,
no death but ash-dusted,
earth-layered,
and dotted with tears.

…………

Stolen Wishes

(Published in Rosebud, No. 43; runner-up, William Stafford Award )

You might have read or heard

that a man in Rome got nabbed

for filching wish-coins tossed

into the Trevi Fountain.

For years he’d stolen them:

yearnings for love, cures, riches,

a return to Rome, all those wishes

percolating in the waters

where Anita Ekberg frolicked

in La Dolce Vita, each about to

shed its metal coil and soar

Heavenward through the spume.

Explains a hell of a lot, doesn’t it,

why this one died before returning,

why that one’s purse stayed lost,

why the dark stranger ignored Jill?

And what about the loose change

you’ve hurled over your shoulder

into fountain after fountain, wishes

meant to effervesce in the murk?

Now you have to think about

night thieves dredging in the slime

to pocket your coins, guaranteeing

that you’ll never get on top of things,

your back will go on killing you,

some crumb who doesn’t need it

will win the lottery, not you, loser,

for all the charity you had in mind.

Copyright Arthur Plotnik 2010

…………

Join the conversation I hope never ends ~

Contact Art at baronplot@aol.com

………………

Art is a cut above perfect.

You might even say, he’s Better. Than. Great.

……….

Toni 4/16/11