Anti-intellectualism is the New Intellectualism
By Juliet Cook

      I am often thinking more imagistically
      when I write poetry and Blake Butler’s poems are not 
      imagistic, but they did make me
      picture him running on the treadmill
      in women’s jogging shorts. 

      I don’t know exactly what
      differentiates women’s from men’s jogging shorts.
      Maybe the women’s are pinker and silkier?
      Maybe it’s simply a matter of sizing?
      Shorts don’t need to be complicated,
      so why am I visualizing glittery piping
      up & down side slits and special ruched pocket
      for exotic chapstick, but enough about me.
      Back to Blake Butler in pink shorts
      on a treadmill thinking about the many times
      he Googled his name this week.
      This morning, I Googled my real name,
      my blog name, and my press name
      and scanned through ten pages each. 

      Reading Blake’s poems made me think
      about jogging alongside him.  Him & me
      in glittery pink shorts on adjacent treadmills, jogging
      and talking about Google searches and RSS feeds. 
      Some people might think this is not very poetic,
      but who defines poetry? Maybe Blake Butler & I
      would tell them to tone down their heightened language
      and just run. Some people might think that sounds too easy. 

      This morning I almost cut my finger
      on a neon green plastic egg with a warped seam.
      I was extracting staples.  I keep some
      of my smallish office supplies inside colorful plastic eggs.
      A mid-size binder clip is in the hot pink
      and I’ve also seen binder clips on bedside tables
      if you know what I mean, but enough about me.
      Back to bright plastic eggs, some of which are empty,
      some of which are filled with neato who-knows-what.  

      Some of them speak in child-like voices filled with fun,
      slightly twisted tales. Some of them are kind of like a dream sequence/
      music video.  Some of them seem to be leaked by a quirky
      human being filtered through an automaton machine.
      Some of them are so matter of factly sexy, violent, bloody.
      Some of them are so sensationalistically hyperreal
      and those are my favorite ones. 

      Like the one where my saturated pink gym shorts
      are stuffed into Blake Butler’s mouth
      and then I make him pick a hand.
      I make him guess what it will be.
      A plastic egg filled with press-on nails.
      A smallish horror story hidden in a cupcake.
      A clipping, a crumb, a sweaty palm
      empty except for its list of smeared passwords.