Monday, September 5, 2011

Eric Paul

Is anyone familiar with Eric Paul? He writes lyrics for his bands Arab on Radar and The Chinese Stars. He has written two poetry books: Pussy Pow-Wow and I Offered Myself as the Sea. When looking at his work, you can obviously tell he is talented, but his choice of style isn't the typical cliche stuff to which you are accustomed, so you may be oblivious to superior work. I was the one who wrote the poem on bed-wetting

Here is a link of some reviews of his latest book. In the link, one of the people reviewing mentions the title poem. Below is his poem, "I Offered Myself as the Sea"

She told me her favorite thing to do as a kid was go to the beach with her mom and pee into the water
I have never been so turned on
I rushed into the bathroom and quickly changed into my bathing suit
I turned on the space heater and asked her to make believe it was the sun
I put a bunch of trash bags across the floor and told her to make believe it was sand
Then, I offered myself as the sea

Here is a scan from his book that shows another poem.



His work makes me smile and is quite inspiring. I wrote a poem on bed-wetting and I was grinning all the way through it.
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4 comments:

  1. Clayon MungerSeptember 8, 2011 at 9:59 PM

    I find the poem you shared to be equally inspiring. I have really never put much thought into writing about a comedy type situation. I guess when I feel like writing I'm never really in that type of mood. This is something I would like to change and try to write about a situation that has some witty relief. Life is not always sad or serious after all. Thank you for sharing.

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  2. LeanneSeptember 14, 2011 at 11:29 AM

    I actually really like this poem. It feels so real like I pictured everything as I was reading. You can tell there is obvious love or affection between the people in the poem and I felt it as I read.

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  3. timwtheovSeptember 25, 2011 at 7:21 PM

    I agree: the piece by Paul is good, though my own impulse as a writer would be to tighten the lines a bit--but that's just me.

    I hadn't heard of his two bands, but I previewed a few tracks on iTunes and thought The Chinese Stars in particular sounded like Sonic Youth meets The Cure and/or someone else I can't quite place.

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  4. timwtheovSeptember 25, 2011 at 7:24 PM

    One more thing about the poem: the ending's tone shifts a bit, no? I can hear that he's trying to be humorous on the one hand, but there's something kind of rhapsodic on the other hand about offering oneself, not as a puddle, or something small, but as grand a body of water as the sea. Plus, as we've been talking about in class, offering oneself "as the sea" is incredibly figurative and therefore illogical, but at the same time, quite wonderful in its supra-logical sense, no?

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