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jakespatz's profile
AGE:
31
LOC: Arlington, VA
GEN: Male
LAST LOGIN: September 16
LOC: Arlington, VA
GEN: Male
LAST LOGIN: September 16
JAKE SPATZ is a poet, poetry translator (Dante, Leopardi, tango lyrics), book reviewer (the Washington Examiner newspaper), screenwriter, essayist, and freelance prose writer/editor.
He is also a teacher and performer of Argentine tango, a cartoonist, and a voiceover artist.
He has two websites:
- tangoDC.com (tango site)
- jakespatz.com (in need of serious updates & completion)
He received a BA from Sarah Lawrence College in 1999, and lived in Brooklyn until 2003. He now resides in the DC area.
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_Contemporary Man._ (Excerpts) Italian text (_Giorno dopo giorno_, _Day after day_, 1947) by Salvatore Quasimodo. Translation (c) Jake Spatz. =================================================== +1. Up in the willow branches.+ And to sing—and how could we sing with a foreign boot on our heart, and what with the dead abandoned in the squares on the ice-hard grass— how sing to the child’s accompaniment, the mourning bleat of it, how sing to the mother’s black shriek as she stumbled forward face ...
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_Giorno dopo giorno_ / _Contemporary Man._ (Excerpts). Translation (c) Jake Spatz. *** +1. Alle fronde dei salici / Up in the willow branches.+ And to sing—and how could we sing with a foreign boot on our heart, and what with the dead abandoned in the squares on the ice-hard grass— how sing to the child’s accompaniment, the mourning bleat of it, how sing to the mother’s black shriek as she stumbled forward face to face with her son crucified up on a telegraph pole? Up in the willow branches, ...
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21 Reviews
23 Comments
There’s a rat in the ivory cellar. (c) Jake Spatz. This is the engine of the imagination where busted trumpets cry, stuffed cats close their eyes when you do, mannequins really court one another and swoon. Listen: the gong of a grandfather clock that was repossessed, now years ago, and lost; gaze at the shadows, brilliant, plush, and dark there in the full-length pleats of a corduroy dress. Smell the aromas of spring all over your face, take in a sky with the color of wheat; walk with an armf...
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Version 1
31 Reviews
13 Comments
EARLY TO BED. (c) Jake Spatz "Live as though it were morning," goes the saying, and you know it means beginnings are your friends, and sounds like something really worth obeying, whose promise might be kept, and keep repaying the investment of your time, with dividends; but it’s almost morning now: you lie and stare, as you have for hours; you know each crack in the ceiling like the back of your hand, and read your fortune there: the freakish nerves, the wide sheet of despair, that caught-ben...
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OVERVIEW For someone admittedly learning, this isn't a bad start. It IS predominantly a list, which you're aware of; and that's a form you can use to advantage, if you stop and smell the roses of it. WEAKNESSES The opening stanza needs to go. "Touch me / in secret places..." George Michael, anyone? Just cut it. No qualms. It's a bad gambit. It exposes you to laughter before you even get underway. Generally, using "touch me" as your theme gives the poem a needy attitude I'm not sure I like. Co...
OVERVIEW Your exposition putters along at a steady pace, and it seems well adapted to a young (probably early teen) audience. The cussin’ is no big deal, except insofar as schools still censor what every kid knows at age 6. Still, you might postpone it a bit, so that it doesn’t create the expectation that the whole book will be like that. Also, the diction “my bald dude” led me to imagine an adult speaking of a co-worker. This being the story’s kickoff moment, you might characterize the speak...
OVERVIEW You and I evidently disagree about some fundamental aspects of writing and of poetry, and I look forward to your (anticipated) rebuttal of my critique. If my critical assumptions are flat-out misapplied here, I trust you'll let me know. I've read this poem several times, and I have to say that if I read the stanzas in reverse order, the piece improves considerably. THAT tells me your construction is defective. I also notice that any stanza can be cut without much altering the poem's ...
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OVERVIEW I like what you're attempting here, but I think some minor technical and thematic issues interfere with your presentation. Essentially, you're providing a cinematic view of the postulated Big Bang event (though not the theory itself); your metaphors, however, seem to introduce extraneous material which you don't manage fully. It clutters the poem, and bogs down your imagery with unnecessary details. Happily, however, I think your main revisions will be cuts-- meaning, this draft (wha...
OVERVIEW This more than your other "Day" poems is still very much a sketch-- loose notes rather than a finished piece. In its relation to the others (which also seem unfinished), this poem announces itself as a departure ("off-topic") but doesn't quite deliver, since "Day 2" was largely about the same topic-- making art. COUNSEL I feel that you need to rethink this piece and decide what you want it to say. Clearly, you have a lot of potential statements in here; but your avoidance of punctuat...
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