Okay, what the hell does the title “Maria’s Fall of Currently Obsessed” MEAN? I don’t know. I am too lazy to change it.

1. I’m just getting into Swedish pop artist Robyn‘s 2010 album Body Talk. But what I really love about Robyn is her sense of style, especially in the music video “Call Your Girlfriend,” in which she wears a weird cropped fuzzy shirt and crazy printed leggings, and then dances around a warehouse in a single take, and tells some guy to call his girlfriend and tell her he’s found someone new.

2. Speaking of Robyn’s leggings, she recently wore the above pair by Alexendar McQueen when she was featured in Rye Rye’s “Never Will Be Mine” music video.

3. Speaking more of Robyn’s leggings, she’s worn some sweet gas pump leggings by Jeremy Scott. Kate Perry recently wore his “poof ball” dress on a magazine cover. You can check out his weird fashions (like a bookshelf skirt!!!!) at Fruition. But you probably can’t afford them. Or I can’t.

4. After Tricia’s recent currently obsessed, which featured women wearing bow ties, we have been in communication about the newly popular style of androgyny. I loved Lady Gaga’s VMA stunt where she came on stage as her alter-ego, Joe Calderone and sang her single “You and I.” Jo Calendrone also appears in the official music video. After raving about Gaga dressing as a man, my friend told me that Annie Lenox already did this whole stunt in 1984 while singing “Sweet Dreams.” I say, good job to Gaga for bringing it back, but I love how Annie just went up there and started singing without any semblance of an explanation.

5. Finally, I’ve become obsessed with poet Edna St. Vincent Millay after reading Nancy Milford’s biography of her called Savage Beauty (so good!). Millay was a great poet, who was also very sexy and alluring (I’m not sure that this is a particularly common among famous poets). She had many affairs with men and women, and showed some androgynous attributes herself (and people called her Vincent!). Here’s a nostalgic/sad Edna St. Vincent Millay sonnet about old hookups.

Sonnet 42

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning, but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply,
And my heart there stirs a quiet pain
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.
Thus in the winter stands the lonely tree,
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,
Yet knows its boughs more silent than before:
I cannot say what loves have come and gone,
I only know that summer sang in me
A little while, that in me sings no more.

Alright, so Sylvia Plath is a poet, not a fashion icon, but in honor of National Poetry Month (which, er, is in April), I am exploring her sense of fashion.

1. Tuxedo Front Solid Cotton Cami, J Crew; 2. Kimchi Blue High-Wasited Skirt, Urban Outfitters; 3. Tierney One-Piece, Anthropologie; 4. Flower Ballet Skimmers, Gap; 5. Bright as Yellow Vintage Journal, marigoldjournals on etsy (sold out); 6. Pearl Trim Cardigan, Tweleve By Tweleve; 7. Gathered Chiffon Rose Headband, Forever 21; 8. Morning in Monaco Dress; ModCloth

Want to know more about Sylvia? Check out some of these books: 1. The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath 2. The Bell Jar 3. The Collected Poems. There are also several biographies, but I can’t tell which are the best. I did enjoy the biography about the relationship between Sylvia Plath and her famous-poet husband Ted Hughes (Her Husband: Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath–A Marriage, and yes, I was Currently Obsessed with it about a month ago).

You can read many poems by Sylvia online here, the most famous of which is probably Daddy, but I have posted my favorite below — do not fear, it’s not too difficult!

Mushrooms

Overnight, very
Whitely, discreetly,
Very quietly

Our toes, our noses
Take hold on the loam,
Acquire the air.

Nobody sees us,
Stops us, betrays us;
The small grains make room.

Soft fists insist on
Heaving the needles,
The leafy bedding,

Even the paving.
Our hammers, our rams,
Earless and eyeless,

Perfectly voiceless,
Widen the crannies,
Shoulder through holes. We

Diet on water,
On crumbs of shadow,
Bland-mannered, asking

Little or nothing.
So many of us!
So many of us!

We are shelves, we are
Tables, we are meek,
We are edible,

Nudgers and shovers
In spite of ourselves.
Our kind multiplies:

We shall by morning
Inherit the earth.
Our foot’s in the door.

Sylvia Plath

This past weekend I went to the biennial Dodge Poetry Festival in Stanhope, NJ. Just forty-five minutes from the rural-ish town (cows > people) where I grew up, this poetry festival is one of the largest (the largest?) in North America. It always features a few poet laureates and other publicly-ordained-people of poetic fabulousness (Mark Doty, Lucille Clifton, Billy Collins, Franz Wright, to name a mere four).

As I walked around the festival this year, I noticed that poetry festival attendees, mostly middle-aged women, are comprised of two main fashion-groups (male-poetry-enthusiast fashion is a different animal!):

1. Those who do not know how to dress, and obviously do not care that they do not know how to dress. (Example: Trousers. Sweatshirt with large word on it. The most functional shoes possible. Glasses.)
2. Those who dress in earth-tones and shop at Coldwater Creek.

Interestingly, both sets contain more long-haired middle-aged women than the American population as a whole. That hair is either: Long, straight, and unlayered. Or long, frizzy, and sort-of-tamed with a silver barrette. (In case you are wondering, I knew that earth-tones would be in at the Poetry Festival, so I arrived aptly dressed in one of the few neutral colored outfits I own.)

Anyway, enough with the stereotyping! Wait, actually, not enough with the stereotyping. First, I have to provide my guide for your How-To-Dress-Like-Someone-Who-Likes-Poetry needs (see image above, links & commentary below).

AFTER THE JUMP: links, commentary. Also, there may or may be not a picture of what I might or might not have worn to the poetry festival. (more…)

Every year during this joyous season (National Poetry Month, of course), poets.org offers a free poetry poster designed by a graphic artist. I am particularly in love with the 2006 poster (above), but I order my free poster every year no matter the design.

“April is the cruelest month, breeding lilacs out of dead land.” -TS Eliot

(Old posters can be purchased for $5 unless they are sold out, but they can always be clicked on and printed, so at least you can have a postcard or paper-sized rendition.) PS: If you want free printable posters with complete poems, click here.

The Poetry Foundation, on its well-designed, graphically lovely little web-site, has a handful of free poem posters (“For the Fridge”) that you can download as pdfs and then print and stick anywhere. You will instantly look well-read and graphically astute. (Or, you know, just bookish and weird.) (more…)