Birthdays of Poets

something new

2009-09-08T10:38:00.007-04:00

As most of you folk know, it's hard to drag ass and do things when it means you got to go away from de big screen- my computer's like a tv it's so big- so mostly we do a lot of indoor activities. And yes DubbleX is even worse than me about isolating and staying in. You know he gets into his garageband and chess and it's hard to move him anywhere. I do make it out about 2 times a month though and am trying to stick to that and it's easier since I am trying hard to support neighborhood events in Washington Heights. The last time I went someplace else and was supposed to read I forgot my papers and even when i know something real good, I still need my papers.

I read this morning on Wikipedia that now my Washington Heights, where I was born and have lived my entire life is now called Hudson Heights - this is what they're trying to call my neighborhood folks!-

Hudson Heights is some creation from realtors trying to boost up the monied connection in Washington Heights where now you can also spend a million for a co-op or a condo. Washington Heights is my hood...

I digress Sherlock... read on

Well some months ago some dude wrote me a note asking me to go to his blog - and I did because I usually try to do that when someone writes me and asks me too. You know, it's really hard too when only a handful reciprocate. See I'm not talking about the people who come to see the crazy white lady, and I admit I'm crazy. I come by it naturally. They locked my Dad up in Bellevue's psyche ward. My mom was totally drained and bereft; sick on a daily basis and all she did was try to raise her four children. Actually neither one was ever well during my lifetime.

What does this have to do with the bigger picture? Well nothing except that some dude wrote me some time ago and asked me to look and read his stuff about his travel ails - and continued to send me updates. Now this same dude sent me this fantastic musical he wrote and directed. Damo Bullen didn't pay me to say this but I think if you want to be entertained - harmonica hip hop and standard sounds mix in an updated musical for a new generation, just check this.

I guess what this has to do with the rant above is that sometimes we all need distraction and entertainment. It's a radical evolution.

It's called Alibi - The Musical

Be entertained and get happy.

There are several different versions or parts and it's not clear what that is either, nor is the cast clear which it should be. My only complaint except for needing subtitles in part 8 because I couldn't understand hear the dialogue because I can't understand english spoken in some parts of england. An englishman told me it's because english is spoken properly there. That's a joke - a joke. We got some heavily accented folk here too and if you heard me speak before you know I'm all new york jewish style all in your face and funny.

Good show folks! Thanks for looking out...

"A Trek with the Buddha Bard" -- A Review in Danse Macabre

2009-09-07T19:49:00.009-04:00

Nabina Das

"A Trek with the Buddha Bard"

A review of ANNAPURNA POEMS: Poems New & Collected, 2008

By

Yuyutsu RD Sharma

Yuyutsu RD Sharma’s face is like a mountain terrain, when the earth emerges in the gods’ peaks after a flash flood or when a river has receded after the monsoon’s regal fury. I noticed this as soon as I sat down opposite to him in the surprisingly sparsely populated Barista coffee shop in New Delhi’s fashionable Khan Market shopping area. Poet of the Himalayas, Yuyutsu’s greeting resounded almost true in what he wrote in “In the Mountains”:

Fragile my eyeglasses

fragile and foreign

I take them off;

There’s a speck of a scar in them.

On the mule path

I take them off

to face the green

stretch of mountains

beneath the saddle of Annapurnas.

Well, almost true, because he didn’t wear eyeglasses at our meeting! His dark irises reflected the green he writes about and the twining paths he sees better without his educated eyeglasses. And since we met to chat – we didn’t waste time to get on first-name terms – the discussion rightfully turned quickly to his meditative collection Annapurna Poems, a Nirala Series book published in 2008.

On that sweltering summer evening, leafing through the Annapurna poems brought in a sudden whiff of cool mountain air. Musical and reflective. Indeed, Yuyutsu’s poetic tenor is pretty much that of a bard, his voice that treks higher and higher into the wild beautiful upper Himalaya bringing alive the smile of the Buddha and the semiotics of the region’s everlasting gods and goddesses, the Yeti and other resident animals, the soulful rivers, and the ice-kissed rain. True, Yuyutsu laments the loss of a familiar landscape he witnessed prior to political trouble fanning out across Nepal. But his enthusiasm is very much rooted to the peoples’ grasp of their own surrounding, the Nepal that is home to communities and creeds, whether he sees them in the backdrop of the Maoist insurgency or that of a defunct monarchy.

On the level of language, this poetry takes us straight into the heart of the mountain country, Nepal’s unique ethos and the nature that entertains both snowy seasons and hidden eternal gardens. The mule paths, the ‘leech-greasy’ forests, the spells under which the mountain people live and tell fantastic tales, the ‘magnificent daggers of snow’, all build up a world where nature is more than just a phenomenon. It is a companion to the poet and his perception. The cognitive faculty of the poet and the reader works in tandem in recognizing the many layers of meanings unfolded in each aspect of “Annapurna Poems”, exactly like the different layers of the snow. The permafrost is made of the century-old legends and tales on which have grown new fables and events.

Yuyutsu is a poet of expressions as he traverses a train of simplicity. He does not twist language in any show of wizardry. He believes in words and sentences, as they are known and heard in the Himalayan reality, to take him along the mountain journey to rediscover the known nomenclature and trusted actions. All he does is re-paint the scenes of Annapurna in unique details and from surprising angles. Like little Tibetan thangkas. In these scenes, he tells us about those place names that ring out the jeweled eco-system of a mountain town or village as familiar as our recurrent dreams. With him we walk the salt tracks, the gorge trails and visit Birethanti. Ghorepani, Gandrung, Tadapani, Lake Fewa, and many such tongue-trilling spots. For him,

Hillside roosters

Punctual, announcing the dawn

are known elements. If sometimes they might appear delightfully alien to our practiced eyes:

Possessing floral

Faces of riverside birds

They still draw us into the world of Annapurna like ice drops in the cracks (Yuyutsu himself says in the foreword of the book that his poems exist in each crack of this magnanimous mountain world).

Even in this pristine surrounding something troubles the poet who watches the spray of the white surf:

on greasy crotches

of huge mossy rocks

started singing
…

coughing out

the cacophony of cruel cities

In Yuyutsu’s poetry one might like to find the Blake-ian dilemma of having to divide the human soul between Nature and its sufferance, mingle her own fate and existences with that of gods, the Yeti and shamans, and the myriad mysterious of Shangri-La, where imageries take fantastic shapes and have their own sensual and sensuous existence (River: Morning)
…

each time I come

to her deafening banks

to gleam my dreams

over the plump flanks of her warm body

…

and a wrinkle appears

across the shriveled leaf of my life.

However, he is not merely a romantic poet. What comes across is his deep admiration for the Annapurna region as a system tied to the rest of the world – those parts of the world where he is a traveler of a different kind, giving talks and workshops, reading his published work and attending literary events. In the context of these ‘worldly’ acts where he attributes his own poetry having the “otherworldly” and “archival” quality, he is very much a realist. The book’s first section, “Little Paradise Lodge”, is an account of Nepal and Annapurna’s past and present. Interestingly, ‘lodge’ appears to be a pun on ‘lost’ as if he was talking about a ‘little paradise lost’. To me the poems in this section are very much a ‘lost and found’ affair.

On the other hand, quite prominently, his Eliotesque sarcasm for the modern city life and the external influences on his much loved landscape of rains and snows adorn the images he paints in “Rains”:

…
This summer they held me up

In the deserts of their skyscrapers.
…
my face in the dark

feeling tips of snow sacred fishtails of Machapuchchare.

In “Mules” too, their ringing bells are but ‘beating notes of a slavery modernism brings’. While mapping the ‘bloodthirsty mule paths around the glacial of Annapurna’, Yuyutsu watches:

cartons of Iceberg, mineral water bottles,

solar heaters, Chinese tiles, tin cans, carom boards

sacks of rice

and iodized salt from the plains of Nepal Terai.
…
human and mule lives meet

Rain, river, snow, singing gorges and brooks rule the landscape of Annapurna Poems. The romance is palpable between the poet and his subject, almost Sufi in character, ‘madness’ being one of its virtues. Yuyutsu is in complete enchantment of his terrain as a lover is and this love’s longing is realized in a woman’s physical quest (A Lonely Brook):

a lonely woman

waits for a stranger to come

and burst

the ice frozen between her thighs

to make a flame

of her cold sleep
…

Conversation with the river (River) is a personal history, a sequel to the secret rendezvous with the beloved and is artistically lusty.

Between your decisions

and my flickering lamps

the river mad

you, you poet, you bastard, go away!

With Yuyutsu we travel to Ghandrung where a ‘young girl of the scarlet shawl waits/for the colorful procession/of mules carrying cartons of Tuberg beer to pass’ or to Ghorepani, all the while delightfully apprehensive or even curious if a Yeti was following ‘your trail in the desolate mountains’.

Among these portraits resembling eternity’s passing of time in the mountain world, we empathize with the pain in the poets voice (Fish):

Wives wait the final winter

of my rot, opening up

the greed

of their slithering fish

I return to a poem

I postponed decades ago

to touch the mating serpents

slithering on the tip of illicit door

called death.

The book’s second section “Glacier” takes this sentiment to a crescendo as one feels literally like climbing heights with titles like Kala Patthar, Gauri Shankar, Summit and The Buddhist Flag Flutters and looking below with a rooster’s eye view at the fields, the forests and the (once) playful courtyards with their brass bells. The overture continues with the third part “Sister Everest”, a pithy and less descriptive section. In that, the latter is highly evocative. If the first sections read like an ethereal ‘inward’ trek through the upper Himalayan terrain, this section readies us for the fourth one – “The Annapurna Man” – rooted more in the poet’s ‘outward’ experiences. A very brief section, it spews more pain than pleasure. To some extent, I came out of the book through this section with a sense of abrupt termination, as if Yuyutsu’s pain had to invite a quick clinical surgery. For this, the poetry in this section seems disjointed from the book’s original spirit.

Especially, I felt “Silence” is too much of rumination, too personal and reads more like purgation than poetry. The best piece in this section is “Space Cake, Amsterdam”, a witty poem combining introspection and observation by ‘this man from Kathmandu’ (one may well imagine, the rest of our chat that evening centered around that one fantastic experience Yuyutsu recounted to me). The air-conditioned air at that Barista throbbed at my mirth on reading and re-reading the line – ‘whatever happens, you can always make a comeback’!

Yuyutsu R D Sharma’s website is http://www.yuyutsu.de where one can find recent updates about his work and readings. And he has made a comeback, for he has just released “Space Cake, Amsterdam” from Howling Dog Press (I am yet to have a copy) and is currently working on Pratik, a collection of contemporary Indian poetry, with the renowned Indian-English poet Jayanta Mahapatra.

A 'response poem' THE QUATAQUATANTANKUA also accompanies the review in Danse Macabre's new TOTENTANZE issue.

Kay Ryan Birthday Reading

2009-09-04T19:27:00.003-04:00

Hi All - Please join us on Thursday 17 September 2009 as we meet on the occasion of Kay Ryan's birthday. We will meet at Belle Epoque (map attached), 809 Adams St, Bay City (989) 894-2589. Beginning at 7 pm, we will read the following poems and answer the related questions. Any contributions of your own for discussion, sharing, etc. will certainly be welcomed. NOTE: Kay Ryan (pictured, right) will not be there. See you then! ~Andy

Sharks' Teeth

by Kay Ryan

Everything contains some
silence. Noise gets
its zest from the
small shark's-tooth-
shaped fragments
of rest angled
in it. An hour
of city holds maybe
a minute of these
remnants of a time
when silence reigned,
compact and dangerous
as a shark. Sometimes
a bit of a tail
or fin can still
be sensed in parks.

From http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/20903 accessed 22 August 2009.

Question for discussion:

As we get to know the silence(s) of this poem, do we understand the poem better?

Are the words of this poem full of zest?

The Niagara River

by Kay Ryan

As though
the river were
a floor, we position
our table and chairs
upon it, eat, and
have conversation.
As it moves along,
we notice—as
calmly as though
dining room paintings
were being replaced—
the changing scenes
along the shore. We
do know, we do
know this is the
Niagara River, but
it is hard to remember
what that means.

From http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/20196 accessed 22 August 2009.

Question for discussion:

What do you suppose the people at the dinner table are talking about?

Patience

by Kay Ryan

Patience is
wider than one
once envisioned,
with ribbons
of rivers
and distant
ranges and
tasks undertaken
and finished
with modest
relish by
natives in their
native dress.
Who would
have guessed
it possible
that waiting
is sustainable—
a place with
its own harvests.
Or that in
time's fullness
the diamonds
of patience
couldn't be
distinguished
from the genuine
in brilliance
or hardness.

From http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/20263 accessed 22 August 2009.

Question for discussion:

Is it a kindness that this poem is as short as it is?

Only you can improve the audience for poetry.

Kate Evan interviews Joy Leftow

2009-08-14T08:52:00.001-04:00

I like Joy Leftow's iconoclastic ways and writing so much that I wanted to feature an interview with her on this blog. Enjoy!

Please tell us about the genesis of your book.
Spot of Bleach is an organic mix of sensibility and growth up until the time book was printed in 2006, dating back to poetry first written in 1980 when I wrote the sestina “Twisted, A Sestina of Love” at a writing class at Columbia University. As I put the book together, it seemed to choose its own subjects from which I named chapters.

The placement of the chapters took some time to figure out. I took the book apart and put it together several times before being sure the fit was right. Finally it made sense that the very risqué love story should go at the end. I wrote that story in 2001 when I attended the creative writing program at CCNY, where I earned my second masters.

From the very beginning, my creative writings caused a riff in every writing class. Other members became angry about my style and very often argued about my characters complaining that the characters didn’t make them feel empathy. Most professors pointed out that the very thing that the other students didn’t like about my characters, are the things that make the characters alive and real.

What's the one thing you most want people to know about your book?
The book evolved out life experience, creativity, and my powers of observation. There are many stories to tell and within this volume I tell many. You may hate what I write about or how I write, but I promise this book won’t bore you.

I need writing like air and this book is what I breathed out. I call my poems “my offspring” because I have given them life. In that regard, the book is a parallel expression of the years from which the works are collected, an assortment of articles, stories, philosophical meanderings or what may now be called flash fiction along with narrative poetry.

Please tell us a little about the photographs that are included in your collection and how you see them as complementing the poems.
Years ago after I purchased my first digital, people said I had a good eye for showing things in a different perspective. Since the book is very personal, the photos add to this view by showing more about how I see things. For example, the cover section Philosophy has a photo I took while in Thailand visiting the Golden Buddha. The cover for the chapter forms is a famous rock form in Los Cabos. The cover pic came to me in a dream, and although the pic was ten years old, it was an urban pic of me in Central Park with my favorite statue, the Lewis Carroll Statue of Alice in Wonderland.

A Barbara Walters question: If you were a poem by any writer, which poem would you be and why?
I would be “Trees” by Joyce Kilmer. Since childhood, I have loved that poem and trees have always appealed to me. I watch the moon and stars through stark branches. I watch the trees change season-to-season and sometimes fall into ill health or get blown over in a storm. Living in a big city as I do, trees are my opportunity to commune with nature. I’m lucky my building is in the northern tip of Manhattan Island where there are many parks. My apartment overlooks an extended spot of nature near the highway. I have several poems inspired by nature and trees.

Why do you write poetry?
I write because I have to; I don’t have a choice. Writing is my first love. I need writing to survive. My poetry has evolved along with me to do more than only share stories. Sometimes there’s a story within, but it will only be one facet of the entire poem which has taken on existential and surreal elements, especially in my newer bluetry series and other writing which can be seen on my blog.

Do you think the Internet is a good complement to writing—or does it just get in the way?
The internet is made for networking and research or maybe just made for me. I can surf all day and network endlessly and it seems to fit my style. It works for me. Look at all the things I’ve done on Facebook alone; first I made a fan club for someone else then for myself, then for a magazine which published my work. Then I promoted several other groups and people. Afterwards I became an editor for The Cartier Street Review and another editor took note of all this activity and asked me to edit an anthology with her. The internet helps move things along.

The only problem I see with this is for a solitary person like me, it encourages me to stay in the house and remain solitary. Why go out when I can accomplish so much sitting in front of a computer?

Do you believe all poetry is political—or just some poems?
I think all poetry is political to the extent that life is political. Every time we make a statement or write a sentence it has wider implications, unless all you say is pass the butter, and even something like that can be made political. Why not get up and get the butter yourself? So much is a mechanism of social behavior we learn. And why must we follow norms? Who is it who decides what norms to follow?

I have always rebelled against norms. For example, I love to eat with my hands instead of a fork, I love to bring up subjects that could be embarrassing. I often write about relationships based on power structures. Work relationships and the structure of work are also political so if you write about work then, in essence, it’s political. Some poetry is blatantly political, concerning the presidency or human rights. More subtle poetry is about relationships or written from a woman’s or man’s view. Sometimes people don’t consider my work political in spite of the fact that I often address social issues in my writing.

Please share with us one poem from the collection, and then riff a little about the journey the poem takes the reader on.

LISTEN TO TUPELO HONEY BY CLICKING HERE, THEN ON THE GCAST PLAYER.

I’m close with this nurse who works at Presbyterian Hospital. One day she told me this story about this baby who’d been born at the hospital and was so tiny because he’d been born addicted to crack. This woman could not have her own children and had considered adoption but finally gave up on the idea. You know how couples are sometimes, they have so much for each other and there’s no more to go around, and her husband thrived under all her attention. This newborn called out to her in a way that made her move like she’d never moved before. As if suddenly without learning she’d gotten up and could tango. She told me a story and we both had tears in our eyes because I felt her pain and the pain of this infant.

Professional caregivers often suffer and burn out because of our pain. It’s a difficult job to keep giving with no payback in sight except to know you’ve done right by someone, so I related. That night, I said I’m going to write a poem about this baby and JoAnne said, Please do, it would help me to deal with it.

I wrote this poem back in 1994 and it’s as apt today as it was then because the problem still exists. I have friends on the scene who tell me each time they hear the poem they hear different things. People cry when I read this poem. They get it! Sometimes people get angry and tell me my poetry isn’t real poetry. There’s been a lot of controversy around that. I actually have a piece on my blog about this which got a great many responses.

Others who have heard me read this before will request it at readings. I'm actually quite bad at attending readings which is kind of strange because there's this dichotomy; I'm very friendly and outgoing while simultaneously reclusive and shy. The other thing to remember is that when blues first emerged, they said it wasn’t “real” music and the same with jazz. Dare to be different, I’ve lived my life by that code.

What are you working on now?
I am currently working on a series of bluetry poems. I labeled them bluetry (yes I made it up) because this series concerns the common themes of blues. This year has been a year for the blues for me. I was compelled to write these. The first bluetry I wrote invokes Billie Holiday—one of my all-time favorites—and is called “I sing the blues for you today.” This poem took me three months before I knew where I was.

I threw Billie’s lines in the bluetry and they took off. I also have a bluetry poem about a dog rescue and canned hunts, another passion of mine. What I see happening in my poetry and writing is that I mix more elements together and take risks. I take a pinch of surreal, mix with equal parts enthusiasm and passion, add existentialism and observations, throw in some reality and voilà!

Here is the link for the first bluetry.

Anything else you'd like to add?
The most frequent comment about my work usually concerns its honesty and openness or something about my passion. Absolutely, I write with passion, the way I live. People often write me about my poetry and comment on my life being so sad. I don’t know what to do about that really but passion is evoked from intensity. That is the way I am and the way I was born. Perhaps artists become artists because they do feel things more intensely.

From way back I always have a pen in my hand. Now I mostly sit in front of the computer but if I'm forced to go out, I've always got pen and paper at hand and most often use it. Now, I have very little time, being totally involved with two current projects, editor at The Cartier Street Review, and also for The Smoking Book, an anthology concerning smoke, fire, fog, or anything that concerns smoke. I also write interviews for Street Literature Review, the paper mag. It’s also time to return to that unfinished 186 page novel and just spit it out! I love writing and love reading. Being busy with passion is what I live for.

2 comments:

Andrew Christ said...: Yay Joy!; Saturday, May 16, 2009
Lisa Allender said...: Thanks, Kate Evans, for letting us all in on the "secrets" of joy/(Joy) so few authors possess. Even when the material is dark, there can be beauty in the "reveal" of it.; Thursday, July 02, 2009

Being and Writing: Joy Leftow: Dare to be Different

2009-08-14T08:41:00.000-04:00

Being and Writing: Joy Leftow: Dare to be Different

Precious, a novel by Sandra Novack, book review by Joy Leftow

2009-08-12T03:34:00.005-04:00

Ms. Novack advertised her full-length debut novel on Facebook , Precious, from Random House. Curious to read it I promptly wrote her a letter explaining I wanted to review her novel and she sent me one. Thus began my journey through her smooth agile verse. Precise and elegantly elegiac, like the movements they describe, Ms. Novack’s tale begs the question of what possibly could go wrong in a pleasant nuclear middle class family in a burb of Pennsylvania not far from New Jersey. Ah, my - my, what could not go wrong in Novack’s scenario?
Novack jumps in and out of each of her characters magically, like Sissy jumps in and out of the pool in the back yard and Eva jumps into wayward trouble without her mother around to set her straight. As easily as an able person can enter and leave a shower, she follows their watery moody depths from one situation to the next. Like the stick of a pinprick, punctiliously moving from one character to the next, she reveals the most hidden thoughts of each character.
Natalia wants more than what she has with her introverted reserved husband, Frank, who spends all has spare time beneath his car. Nostalgic for her gypsy roots, and romance, Natalia decides to leave. When her teenage daughter, Eva, tries to convince Natalia to stay, her mom replies, “A person’s heart doesn’t shed itself like a tree in winter, it doesn’t bare itself just because you want it to.” Natalia, bored with her life, her husband, and her children, idealizing her freedom and seeking new experiences, leaves on a trip to Europe with the doctor she works for. Natalia’s fantasies don’t play out how she imagined. Once in Europe and alone with the doctor, Natalia discovers she’s more bored with him than she ever was with her husband. Since her early childhood, Natalia had yearned to return to her gypsy family, a desire nourished by faint distant memories mixed with tales she heard from her adopted family.
Surprised, Natalia finds herself desperately pining away for her children and Frank, reminiscing longingly. This, combined with her sadness about her feelings of loss is what drives Natalia back home. Novack is inside her character’s heads, she knows them intimately.
“Didn’t he suddenly want to give Eva what a girl like her so desperately wants – to see herself through another’s eyes and to find that she is precisely as she wishes but never quite believes – beautiful and full of possibility.” Seeing ourselves through the eyes of others is what we all think we want - until we do it and are often caught off guard in what we see. We often wish to see the world through the other’s eyes. Novack has hit the nail direct.
Eva is filled with anger and wanting more, yet stuck with her kid sister, Sissy and her Dad when Mom abandons them. Eva searches for love and finds separation and sorrow in the middle of nowhere as do all teenage girls in trouble. Eva keeps herself alive and vibrant through her interactions with Sissy, her pivot. Eva is guilty for being a young girl who goes out to hang out with boys and have an affair with an older married man while she is responsible for taking care of her younger sibling. Eva sustains herself by feeding stories to Sissy. Eva’s stories are fed on exasperation mixed with myth and her anguished insights into adult behavior. Disillusioned by love, her family, her mom’s return home instead of righting things in the family, sends Eva over the edge into a place she cannot come back from.
The title of the book, Precious, and the placing of the title in the story raised a childhood memory for me. As a youngster from a poverty stricken Jewish family in New York City, filled with illness and sorrow, I watched my sister pamper her dolls. I was not permitted to touch my sister’s dolls because although she was eleven and I was six, she held on to her dolls for dear life. She had very little too and was miserable. I respected her belongings because I feared her temper. She’d hit me before. I only got my first new doll (not hand me downs or throwaways) the Christmas after this ensuing event. I had another sister eight years older than me too. One day after we’d all arrived home from school almost simultaneously at about three-ten; my sister discovered her beloved porcelain doll with its head broken off.
Because my sister could see no other possible culprit, she accused me of breaking the doll and proceeded to beat living daylights out of me with no interference from anyone in my family. Later, I was surprised to learn my mother had kept silent and let me take a beating for something she knew I hadn’t done. That made no sense. Several days later, mom divulged she’d had a guest that day who had brought her small child with her when she visited and mom had not paid attention to the child. I surmise my mom was afraid of my sister’s temper too and that was why she let me take that beating. I had no clue back then. I was six years old.
The doll in Novack’s tale is also ruined when Sissy and her best friend Vicki fight about who can play with the doll at a sleepover. During their struggle when the doll is literally ripped in two, Vicki becomes Sissy’s ex best friend. I wondered why a half page description about a doll named Precious becomes the title. Maybe because relationships and people mean more than we imagine and when we give them up we discover their preciosity and maybe because of the evocative tone of Novack’s descriptions. After all, Novack’s words brought my memory back to me from my six-year old self.
It is Vicki, Sissy’s ex best friend, who broke Sissy’s favorite doll Precious, who goes missing, never to be seen alive again. Vicki’s disappearance drives the story forth, revolving around every character’s angles. The townspeople come together to try to help Ginny deal with the loss of her child. Natalia is conflicted with survivor guilt and grateful her children are safe even if she had nothing to do with keeping them safe. She cannot confront Eva’s behavior and accusations. Eva and Frank are unforgiving and relentless in their judgments. Natalia rehearses speeches she cannot say while struggling to regain her footing in a lost life.
After reading Precious, I ask, what possibly couldn’t and won’t go wrong? Isn’t that the way of the world, after all? Everything in the world goes amiss, changes in lives occur in a finger snap. Novack’s lyrical and haunting prose maintains a rhythm; she doesn’t skip a beat.
It reminds me of a Woody Allen character who announces, dead-pan, earnestness exuding from his pores, “It’s the Second Law of Thermodynamics: sooner or later everything turns to shit.” And in this small town turned topsy-turvy through a whirlwind of unconnected events, that is exactly what occurs inside Novack’s elegant poetic prose.
When we read others writings and feel inspired by what we read, plus the author provokes memories, this is where we explore the connections. It is in this vein I write, to reach the person who reads and responds with their guts, with passion.
Novack reminds us that every day we make choices in our losses. Each moment begins with new choices. Each choice provides new possibilities. We live with daily decision-making processes that influence us as we plunder through our lives. Novack exposes our most primal fears concerning approval and loss. She makes us wonder if anything new will ever take the place of what we lose or if there’s even the slightest chance to begin to fill all the empty spaces from all our losses put together. Wounds hurt. At funerals divorces and such, people always try to assuage sadness by saying things like, “Oh, it gets better as time goes on,” but that’s absolutely untrue. Some hurts last a lifetime. Trust me, I’ve had a few.

Marvin Bell Birthday Reading

2009-08-08T10:53:00.004-04:00

Hi All - Please join us on Thursday, 13 August as we meet on the occasion of Marvin Bell's birthday. Meet us at the Barnes & Noble on Tittabawassee Road at 7pm. We will begin by reading the following poems and answering the related questions. Please feel free to bring questions and other contributions of your own for discussion, sharing, etc. NOTE: Marvin Bell (pictured, right) will not be there. See you then! ~Andy

“A Man May Change”
by Marvin Bell

As simply as a self-effacing bar of soap
escaping by indiscernible degrees in the wash water
is how a man may change
and still hour by hour continue in his job.
There in the mirror he appears to be on fire
but here at the office he is dust.
So long as there remains a little moisture in the stains,
he stands easily on the pavement
and moves fluidly through the corridors. If only one
cloud can be seen, it is enough to know of others,
and life stands on the brink. It rains
or it doesn’t, or it rains and it rains again.
But let it go on raining for forty days and nights
or let the sun bake the ground for as long,
and it isn’t life, just life, anymore, it’s living.
In the meantime, in the regular weather of ordinary days,
it sometimes happens that a man has changed
so slowly that he slips away
before anyone notices
and lives and dies before anyone can find out.

From http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=175942 accessed 20 July 2009.
Question for discussion:
* What do you think is “the regular weather of ordinary days”?

“An Introduction to My Anthology”
by Marvin Bell

Such a book must contain—
it always does!—a disclaimer.
I make no such. For here
I have collected all the best—
the lily from the field among them,
forget-me-nots and mint weed,
a rose for whoever expected it,
and a buttercup for the children
to make their noses yellow.

Here is clover for the lucky
to roll in, and milkweed to clatter,
a daisy for one judgment,
and a violet for when he loves you
or if he loves you not and why not.
Those who sniff and say no,
These are the wrong ones (and
there always are such people!)—
let them go elsewhere, and quickly!

For you and I, who have made it this far,
are made happy by occasions
requiring orchids, or queenly arrangements
and even a bird-of-paradise,
but happier still by the flowers of
circumstance, cattails of our youth,
field grass and bulrush. I have included
the devil’s paintbrush
but only as a peacock among barn fowl.

From http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=175938 accessed 20 July 2009
Question for discussion:
* What could be “the flowers of circumstance”?

“Your Shakespeare”
by Marvin Bell

If I am sentenced not to talk to you,
and you are sentenced not to talk to me,
then we wear the clothes of the desert
serving that sentence, we are the leaves
trampled underfoot, not even fit to be
ground in for food, then we are the snow.

If you are not what I take you to be,
and I am not what you take me to be,
then we are the glass the bridegroom smashes,
the lost tribes underfoot, no one sees,
no one can speak to us, in such seas we
drift in we cannot be saved, we are the rain.

If I am unable to help myself,
and you are unable to help yourself,
then anything will happen but nothing follows,
we eat constantly but nothing satisfies.
We live, finally, on the simplest notions:
bits of glass in the head’s reticent weather.

From http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=175934 accessed 20 July 2009
Question for discussion:
* What is the value of communication?

Only you can improve the audience for poetry.

Teaching Poetry

2009-08-07T13:50:00.007-04:00

Lit Instructor
by William Stafford (pictured, right)

Day after day up there beating my wings
with all the softness truth requires
I feel them shrug whenever I pause:
they class my voice among tentative things,

And they credit fact, force, battering.
I dance my way toward the family of knowing,
embracing stray error as a long-lost boy
and bringing him home with my fluttering.

Every quick feather asserts a just claim;
it bites like a saw into white pine.
I communicate right; but explain to the dean—
well, Right has a long and intricate name.

And the saying of it is a lonely thing.

from http://www.newsfromnowhere.com/stafford/stafford00.html accessed 7 August 209

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

"I've always believed in the Keirkegaardian notion that education, real education, begins when the teacher learns from the students, when there's a reciprocity." ~Theodore Roethke (pictured, right)

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

When a person encounters another person in total immediacy, he or she may also experience a glimpse of God. ~Martin Buber (pictured, right)

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September 1, 1939

by W.H. Auden (pictured, right)

I sit in one of the dives

On Fifty-second Street

Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade:
Waves of anger and fear
Circulate over the bright
And darkened lands of the earth,
Obsessing our private lives;
The unmentionable odour of death
Offends the September night.

Accurate scholarship can
Unearth the whole offence
From Luther until now
That has driven a culture mad,
Find what occurred at Linz,
What huge imago made
A psychopathic god:
I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return.

Exiled Thucydides knew
All that a speech can say
About Democracy,
And what dictators do,
The elderly rubbish they talk
To an apathetic grave;
Analysed all in his book,
The enlightenment driven away,
The habit-forming pain,
Mismanagement and grief:
We must suffer them all again.

Into this neutral air
Where blind skyscrapers use
Their full height to proclaim
The strength of Collective Man,
Each language pours its vain
Competitive excuse:
But who can live for long
In an euphoric dream;
Out of the mirror they stare,
Imperialism’s face
And the international wrong.

Faces along the bar
Cling to their average day:
The lights must never go out,
The music must always play,
All the conventions conspire
To make this fort assume
The furniture of home;
Lest we should see where we are,
Lost in a haunted wood,
Children afraid of the night
Who have never been happy or good.

The windiest militant trash
Important Persons shout
Is not so crude as our wish:
What mad Nijinsky wrote
About Diaghilev
Is true of the normal heart;
For the error bred in the bone
Of each woman and each man
Craves what it cannot have,
Not universal love
But to be loved alone.

From the conservative dark
Into the ethical life
The dense commuters come,
Repeating their morning vow;
“I will be true to the wife,
I’ll concentrate more on my work,”
And helpless governors wake
To resume their compulsory game:
Who can release them now,
Who can reach the deaf,
Who can speak for the dumb?

All I have is a voice
To undo the folded lie,
The romantic lie in the brain
Of the sensual man-in-the-street
And the lie of Authority
Whose buildings grope the sky:
There is no such thing as the State
And no one exists alone;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another or die.

Defenceless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.

– W. H. Auden

from http://poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15545 accessed 7 August 2009

Only you can improve the audience for poetry.

New Book Review

2009-08-01T09:57:00.006-04:00

Amy George (pictured, right), editor of Bird's Eye Review, the online journal of contemporary narrative poetry, has generously reviewed my chapbook Philip & the Poet (2008, Mayapple Press). The review is online at 360 Main Street dot com. Here is an excerpt from the review:

Christ's poems are full of colorful snapshots of people, the poems themselves bearing the brightness of Polaroid moments. Along the journey, we meet monks in Tibet, Fyodor Dostoyevsky at a dinner party, and even God. In the title poem "Philip and the Poet," we are swept away with feelings of nostalgia as the speaker recalls watching a young boy dive into the water with a head full of imagination:

there goes Philip in my memory,
trotting toward the water, calling out
"To the Netherlands!" or maybe "To China!"

Read the full review here.

Only you can improve the audience for poetry.

THE UNFOLD PINNACLE by Basanta Kumar Kar – A review by Nabina Das

2009-07-29T13:51:00.005-04:00

The Turbulent Top: Marginalized Women’s Voices from India

THE UNFOLD PINNACLE by Basanta Kumar Kar
– A review by Nabina Das

Basanta Kumar Kar’s involvement in the Indian nonprofit sector for years has afforded him a close-up of tribal societies, backward classes and marginalized sections of India's developing and diverse society. He writes with flourish in first-person voices of personas as varied as an under-aged girl with a history of abuse to a Gond or Maria tribal woman struggling against the onslaught of modern civilization to a mother-cum-sex worker reflecting on her fate in the ruthless city. As a professional in his poetic role, Kar brings alive the disillusionment and haplessness of India’s marginalized women, especially those from Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST). While involving himself in his subject’s plight he remains a keen observer. Kar shares the wealth of his experiences with his readers in the rather long unpublished 73-page collection.

Wikipedia defines the SC/ST as ‘Indian population groupings that are explicitly recognized by the Constitution of India, previously called the "depressed classes" by the British, and otherwise known as untouchables. SCs/STs together comprise over 24% of India's population, with SC at over 16% and ST over 8% as per the 2001 census… Some Scheduled Castes in India are also known as Dalits. Some Scheduled Tribe people are also referred to as Adivasis. Commenting on the crisis of faith people from these underprivileged communities experience, in the aptly titled “Faith First”,
Kar writes:

Smoke and cloud work in tandem
swings of snow peep
hills draw lines, mesmerize
they butcher;

The actions embodied by the elements smoke, cloud, snow, hills etc. are swift and brutal, akin to the experience of his subject. Nature provides no succor. It is a constant reminder of bad fortune. In “…mesmerize/they butcher” this is particularly amplified. The short staccato sentences metaphorically and literally “work in tandem”. The cosmogony of the women Kar writes about, socially denied and deprived, and often under a double yoke of social stigma within their own communities, is comprised of humanistic elements that surprise us with their animateness, the only source of comfort for the subjugated lot:

I understand my neighbours
tamarind tree, dates and nuts
pigs and chicken, ghosts and spirits
traditional healers.

The weltanschauung of the women is stark yet conveys the environment they thrive in:

We are together
no one more equal than others.

Kar’s writing style is abrupt and rhetorical for the most part, characteristic of his subject’s emotional graph:

The flower fades
the bird escapes the cage
I ponder over the lineage
but to yet another cruel destiny.

“Border I” – where Kar’s palette proffers a touch of hope for the voice of an ‘other backward caste’ widow from the state of Chhattisgarh in eastern India – is a delightful study in astuteness. The lilting tones of “The fading barks almost ochre” escalates the almost ochre-ness of the still life reflected in the river as if a frame of decay and degeneration. Kar repeats the water/river motif to encompass the broad expanse of the subject’s silence and depth of agony in “The silent river Tel”. For the widow, “festive is the air for all else” in her village bordering the eastern state of Orissa. And Kar’s prophetic yet passive observation that “the scheme unfolds at pinnacle” tells of a subtext of events and actions that this particular festive moment encapsulates. Rather than celebration, all that the subject takes recourse to is complete surrender to her destiny. In the festive scenario, the only activity she is entitled to is “to bring smoke before the sunset”.

Kar’s poetry is often marked by chopped rhymes and a frequent absence of article usage. In effect this highlights the speech pattern of his poetic subjects, most of whom we realize to be without any worldly pedigree. Although it may surprise and annoy a stickler for English grammar -- Kar follows the British spelling system followed in India – the parole brings alive the shared linguistic ethnography of the Chhattisgarh-Orissa-Andhra Pradesh state cluster, the rawness of forest and village life, and the customs of the people ensconced there. Kar’s style at times, however, becomes overbearing in his earnestness to communicate his subjects’ travails. Many expressions become repetitive. The elements of his environment, the ecology and ethnography of it, is often enmeshed in commonplace poetic metaphors. Also, trying to highlight only the pain and subjugation of single mothers, the abused, the widowed, and the institutionally sidelined among the backward caste and Adivasi women in this passionate collection Kar calls ‘verse for a cause’, his poetry rarely offers any tonal variation.

The world of “The Unfold Pinnacle” also has moments away from the oppressing villages and the tribal regions. Life has not heralded better times for a twenty-two year old Bedia girl even in the urban setting of the city of Mumbai in Maharashtra state. A bar girl now, a shade different from her ancestral profession, her plaintive tone in “Bosom” (Alluring Bombay bar seduces/in a panoramic green room/from a late night to dawn) unfolds the pinnacle where misfortune spews.

NABINA DAS is a poet and fiction writer dividing her existence between the US and India. She has been widely published in North America and India and freelances and blogs at www.fleuve-so uterrain.blogspot.com

Ekleksographia -- Guest edited by Amy King

2009-07-15T23:47:00.000-04:00

: "The Burden of Happiness" by Orna Ben-Shoshan

Ekleksographia #2

Diana Adams	Cynthia Arrieu-King with Hillary Gravendyk
Anny Ballardini	Jeanne Marie Beaumont
Dan Boehl	Alexander Dickow
Linh Dinh	Tomas Ekström
Erica Miriam Fabri	Farrah Field
Adam Fieled	Annie Finch
Ossian Foley	Jennifer H. Fortin
Maya Funaro	Heather Green
Niels Hav, trans. by P. K. Brask & Patrick Friesen	Scott Hightower
Dan Hoy	Dorta Jagić, trans. by Ana Božičević
Amy King	Tony Mancus
Nicholas Manning	Miguel Murphy
Gina Myers	Keith Newton
Obododimma Oha	Daniela Olszewska
Maya Pindyck	Matthew Rotando
Tomaž Šalamun, trans. with Michael Thomas Taren	Barry Schwabsky
Evie Shockley	Lytton Smith
Sampson Starkweather	Rohith Sundararaman
Chris Vitiello	David Wolach

Reviews

Thanks, Matt, for your kind words!

Contests and Submissions

2009-07-07T09:01:00.007-04:00

Poets, fiction and creative nonfiction writers interested in submitting their work for publication or in entering their work in contests will be interested in the free information available at the Yahoo! group created and maintained by Allison Joseph, author of Imitation of Life (pictured, right). The group, created in 2005, is at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/crwropps-b/.

By joining the group - there is no cost to you - you can have the updates sent directly to your e-mail inbox. The list is updated frequently throughout each week.

How to join the group?

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Ms. Joseph explains: Send a blank e-mail message to crwropps-b-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

You will receive a sign-up message in return.

If you don't get the sign-up invitation, check the junk mail folder of your e-mail for it.

Or visit

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/crwropps-b

and click on "Join This Group."

Follow on-screen instructions to complete sign-up.

+++++++++++++++++

The updates from this list are much closer to real-time announcements than what's available, for instance, in the annual Poet's Market or in Poets & Writers magazine which comes out six times a year. I found Allison's "Creative Writers Opportunities List" a huge help when I was sending poems out for publication.

Only you can improve the audience for poetry.

A Bear of a Project

2009-07-03T19:11:00.006-04:00

At Facebook, poet J.P. Dancing Bear has well over 1000 friends - closer to 2000. Recently he spoke with novelist Leslie Pietrzyk (who is among Bear's Facebook friends) about the poems he's been writing. She blogged about what he told her at her Work-in-Progress blog. Here are a few excerpts from her post:

[Pietrzyk] I had noticed that J.P. Dancing Bear wrote and posted “birthday poems” every week or so, along with artwork. Yes, click-click, I “liked” his work--very much. And then it was my birthday…and there was a lovely birthday poem for ME! I had assumed the poems he wrote were for people he knew beyond the Facebook sense, but no…so I invited him to tell me more about these beautiful birthday poems of his...

[Bear] I’d been a member on Facebook for roughly six months and had tried to send a birthday greeting to all the people who had befriended me leading up to that point. But sometimes I missed some, or they missed it. So originally, my plan was to use other people’s applications to send them a birthday poem. I had some 1000+ friends on Facebook and I wanted to give something I’d created in their honor to them. This is something I’ve done all my life, either a painting or a drawing and/or a poem.

[Bear] At times I was writing anywhere between 1 to 9 poems a day, with the average around 3 a day.

[Bear] So I try to spend no more than twenty minutes on each. After everything is written, I spend a few minutes reading everything aloud, just to make sure it sounds right—so a very cursory editing process. And as I pick these up and submit them to magazines, I will do another reread/rewrite/editing at that point. The other thing I try to do is make references to other arts like film, music, novels... and/or science (biology, chemistry, physics, etc. etc) and/or sometimes (philosophy/theology/mythology).

[Bear] So far, I’ve written about 850 poems, which is far more than I had imagined when I started the project (because not everyone likes to publish their birthdays). I still have about 5 months left and the average has risen to about 4 or 5 poems a day.

[Bear] Last year, I wrote possibly twenty poems for the whole year. I was making excuses for why I couldn’t or wouldn’t write and I had overburdened my editing/writing process to slow down the process. So the project has been an eye-opener for me.

Read the full article here.

Nice!

Poems written for particular occasions are examples of occasional poetry.

Only you can improve the audience for poetry.

Interview: Spotlight on Poet Heller Levinson and Hinge Theory by Joy Leftow

2009-07-03T18:52:00.005-04:00

James Heller Levinson and I met at Willy’s Bar and Grill on Manhattan’s Upper East Side to talk about hinge theory. Staff was gracious and did not mind that we had our long interview first and waited to eat. We both forwent drinks, sticking to water. We began with an application to put practice into action and to break the ice. Heller said,

“Let’s use with as the pivot.”

“Sure, with celebrity, works with that.” I said.

That led to bulbs flashing and purple irises.

We then tried another. “With arson,” Heller said. “embers,” I replied and thus we jump-started our interview.

Heller’s lust for this theory has taken on a life of its own, as has the hinge process. He’s utterly and hopelessly consumed by it or perhaps it’s the other way round, and the theory has consumed him and he’s become part of its core. I love being an observer of passion. True passion feels me. When someone has passion and conveys that passion, it’s contagious.

I’m jumping a bit here and want to explore this organically without explaining what the theory is about, would like to begin where the passion lies, and that is in the possibility of causal effects triggered by using the applications of hinge theory in our daily lives. The dream is that hinge theory and its applications will have limitless effects on world peace, and creating cogent solutions in musical arrangements with the universe. Now that I’ve got my passion under control I can move on to discuss hinge and its applications.

Hinge is not reducible to smaller denominations; it is expandable. The title of Heller’s book, Smelling Mary became clear as we spoke. Smelling is one of our six senses and is also investigative. We smell to explore and learn. Heller’s entire world is hinged on creating a new linguistic universe composed of modules (which are the pivots like with above). If we use language to cure our lives by expanding, enriching, enhancing and embellishing, our universe is a didactic dialogue. It gives us tools to use language cogently with complexity. It’s a stimulating mental exercise that is also instinctual. If we stop to analyze the experience while we are practicing we may lose the preciosity of the moment. If we follow the flow organically, for example, navigating the circulating pulmonary rotators the hinge process is an investigative expansive living entity. Heller explained how he and Michael Annis, the discoverers of hinge, experimented by translating hinge applications to Spanish using experienced translators. Then they translated back to English to see that the applications proved their theory in terms of expansiveness and practicality. Heller called the applications “a linguistic medicinal healer and mind expander.” How can anyone go wrong with an economic application used to enhance the spirituality of life?

Heller spoke about how we as artists, have power to spread spiritual awareness and to make the earth mellifluous and profitable for all species. Heller sees hinge as the antidote to the Walmart experience. He spoke passionately of Soutine and referenced him several times as being inspirational to hinge and described how Soutine personally blew him away. Excoriate Exhale: Routing Soutine, Heller’s 22 page chapbook was the finalist for the 2008 poetry competition by Refined Savage Press.

This made me research the Jewish abstract expressionist painter who died from a bleeding ulcer while trying to escape the Gestapo. This made me very sad. I always feel more Jewish knowing how much prejudice there still is in the world against Jews, even though I am not a practicing Jewess. I have experienced a great deal of anti-Semitism first hand – right here in NYC. If hinge will cure prejudices I’m all for it. Hinge revolves inside of power systems.

Our political world is set up like this, we little schmucks fight about bs while others hold the power. The hope here being that the power of hinge may unhinge us from our parallel powerful past experiences. This ultimately is in reach for higher truth and universal enlightenment radiating positive energy. I’m a sucker for this theory Buster, I’m all for bettering ourselves and the universe too. I want world peace to be affected and effected by my artistic energy too. This is contagious energy.

I ask about the title, Smelling Mary, since smelling is a sense and Mary is originally a Jewish woman’s name and she is Christ’s mother. Over years, Mary has become a Christian name, like John or James – which is Heller’s middle name. I wanted more. Heller provided it after agreeing smelling is an investigative experience and Mary is a religious figure associated with purity.

“In the beginning was word. Language found us. All species communicate through their own language. Dinosaurs ruled the earth for one hundred and fifty million years before they died out,” Heller explained. “Humanoids have only been around for thirty thousand years. The earth, life, the human species, and language; all emerged from the original gases. There is a symbiotic health between the universe, life, and language.” Hinge has unlimited possibilities in promoting world peace and solutions for global warming and world economy intrinsically built in to its usage. The spread of infinite linguistics will affect and effect social and behavioral phenomena.

“This affirms what I already know,” I say, “We are entering a new enlightened age minus Reagan and Bush is what I say.” He agrees with me that hinge has emerged organically and simultaneously with a new political view.

This brought our interview full-circle and we ended where we began, discussing pivots modules and applications of hinge using mermaids as an example. Mermaids will evolve into their own universe of applications (poems). Mermaids will become a vehicle for hinge, a module to be followed, extensionality and complementarily; infinitely incremental and complementing.

In my head I imagine a class of several six or seven year olds practicing word analogies based on mermaids. I imagine holding out linguistic delights poetically to our young ones with analytic descriptions of how limitless words can be intrinsically. I share these images.

Levinson laughed and agreed absolutely we could, that “everything in its complexity enhanced, everything specialized and distinct to a mermaid in her own existence, you know he said, “it’s all mupae.”

I think my mouth may have fallen open here but I’m not sure. Heller didn’t tell me if my mouth was agape.

“What,” I said, flabbergasted and intrigued, “what is mupae?”

“Ah glad you asked,” he said waving his arm expansively “mutational update panel animation extenders.”

Poetically leaving me at that moment, with the obvious question, “what are mutational update panel animation extenders?” Hmmm guess that will have to be part II of this interview, investigating mutational update panel animation extenders.

Not in Kansas Any More

2009-06-27T22:24:00.006-04:00

Robert Peake (pictured, right) recently graduated from his MFA program at Pacific University. Today he gave the student speech at the commencement ceremony. Here is an excerpt from that speech:

Ours [students'] has been, if anything, an inner transformation—toward a greater awareness of what Paul Eluard meant when he said, “there is another world, and it is in this one,” and, hopefully, an experiential understanding of what our own Marvin Bell points out when he reminds us that, “in art, you’re free.” This experiential understanding of what it means to live through the eyes and ears of a writer can not be inculcated through lectures, workshops, or assignments alone. There is something about good writing one simply has to catch. And the privilege of spending time with mentors who are talented but unpretentious, wise with a sense of humor, and generous almost to a fault—is a rare and wonderful gift.

Read the full text of that speech here.

Only you can improve the audience for poetry.

Reading Ashbery: Part Two

2009-06-17T10:23:00.060-04:00

During the last eight months or so I've been reading John Ashbery's book Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror. I've written about this book in other posts to this blog. One of those posts is here and the other is here. It's been several months since I began reading and thinking about these poems and I'm ready to move on. One thing I've learned is that Ashbery expects his readers to know a great deal about art, music and poetry before reading his poems. In my writing about the Self-Portrait poems here, I go in order directly through the first few poems of the book, make a few comments on a poem that appears later in the book and then bring it back to the first poem. This is sort of me thinking out loud about where I've been recently, sort of like making a scrapbook. If you find it amusing or helpful somehow, great. If not, no loss.

About a month ago I happened to find a book by John Shoptaw titled On the Outside Looking Out. I think I must have read a comment about it somewhere online. Maybe it turned up in a search when I was looking for something related. Usually I remember better where I hear of books. Anyway, in his book, Shoptaw writes about each book of Ashbery's poetry. The book was published in 1994; the most recent book Shoptaw writes about is Flow Chart. Naturally I wanted to read what Shoptaw wrote about Self-Portrait, so that's what I read first.

I was surprised and excited to learn that the first poem in Ashbery's book, "As One Put Drunk into the Packet-Boat", takes its title from the first line of a poem by Andrew Marvell. Here is Ashbery's poem (from http://poems.pinkfist.net/2009/03/13/as-one-put-drunk-into-the-packet-boat/ accessed 17 June 2009):

As One Put Drunk into the Packet-Boat
by John Ashbery

I tried each thing, only some were immortal and free.
Elsewhere we are as sitting in a place where sunlight
Filters down, a little at a time,
Waiting for someone to come. Harsh words are spoken,
As the Sun yellows the green of the maple tree…

So this was all, but obscurely
I felt the stirrings of new breath in the pages
Which all winter long had smelled like an old catalogue.
New sentences were starting up. But the summer
Was well along, not yet past the mid-point
But full and dark with the promise of that fullness,
That time when one can no longer wander away
And even the least attentive fall silent
To watch the thing that is prepared to happen.

A look of glass stops you
And you walk on shaken: was I the perceived?
Did they notice me, this time, as I am,
Or is it postponed again? The children
Still at their games, clouds that arise with a swift
Impatience in the afternoon sky, then dissipate
As limpid, dense twilight comes.
Only in that tooting of a horn
Down there, for a moment, I thought
The great, formal affair was beginning, orchestrated,
Its colors concentrated in a glance, a ballade
That takes in the whole world, now, but lightly,
Still lightly, but with wide authority and tact.
The prevalence of those gray flakes failing?
They are sun motes. You have slept in the Sun
Longer than the sphinx, and are none the wiser for it.
Come in. And I thought a shadow fell across the door
But it was only her come to ask once more
If I was coming in, and not to hurry in case I wasn’t.

The night sheen takes over. A moon of cistercian pallor
Has climbed to the center of heaven, installed,
Finally involved with the business of darkness.
And a sigh heaves from all the small things on earth,
The books, the papers, the old garters and union-suit buttons
Kept in a white cardboard box somewhere, and all the lower
Versions of cities flattened under the equalizing night.
The summer demands and takes away too much,
But night, the reserved, the reticent, gives more than it takes.

Here is Marvell's poem (from http://www.infoplease.com/t/lit/marvell/may.html accessed 17 June 2009):

Tom May's Death
by Andrew Marvell

As one put drunk into the Packet-boat,
Tom May was hurry'd hence and did not know't.
But was amaz'd on the Elysian side,
And with an Eye uncertain, gazing wide,
Could not determine in what place he was,
For whence in Stevens ally Trees or Grass.
Nor where the Popes head, nor the Mitre lay,
Signs by which still he found and lost his way.
At last while doubtfully he all compares,
He saw near hand, as he imagin'd Ares.
Such did he seem for corpulence and port,
But 'twas a man much of another sort;
'Twas Ben that in the dusky Laurel shade
Amongst the Chorus of old Poets laid,
Sounding of ancient Heroes, such as were
The Subjects Safety, and the Rebel's Fear.
But how a double headed Vulture Eats,
Brutus and Cassius the Peoples cheats.
But seeing May he varied streight his song,
Gently to signifie that he was wrong.
Cups more then civil of Emilthian wine,
I sing (said he) and the Pharsalian Sign,
Where the Historian of the Common-wealth
In his own Bowels sheath'd the conquering health.
By this May to himself and them was come,
He found he was tranflated, and by whom.
Yet then with foot as stumbling as his tongue
Prest for his place among the Learned throng.
But Ben, who knew not neither foe nor friend,
Sworn Enemy to all that do pretend,
Rose more then ever he was seen severe,
Shook his gray locks, and his own Bayes did tear
At this intrusion. Then with Laurel wand,
The awful Sign of his supream command.
At whose dread Whisk Virgil himself does quake,
And Horace patiently its stroke does take,
As he crowds in he whipt him ore the pate
Like Pembroke at the Masque, and then did rate.

Far from these blessed shades tread back agen
Most servil' wit, and Mercenary Pen.
Polydore, Lucan, Allan, Vandale, Goth,
Malignant Poet and Historian both.
Go seek the novice Statesmen, and obtrude
On them some Romane cast similitude,
Tell them of Liberty, the Stories fine,
Until you all grow Consuls in your wine.
Or thou Dictator of the glass bestow
On him the Cato, this the Cicero.
Transferring old Rome hither in your talk,
As Bethlem's House did to Loretto walk.
Foul Architect that hadst not Eye to see
How ill the measures of these States agree.
And who by Romes example England lay,
Those but to Lucan do continue May.
But the nor Ignorance nor seeming good
Misled, but malice fixt and understood.
Because some one than thee more worthy weares
The sacred Laurel, hence are all these teares?
Must therefore all the World be set on flame,
Because a Gazet writer mist his aim?
And for a Tankard-bearing Muse must we
As for the Basket Guelphs and Gibellines be?
When the Sword glitters ore the Judges head,
And fear has Coward Churchmen silenced,
Then is the Poets time, 'tis then he drawes,
And single fights forsaken Vertues cause.
He, when the wheel of Empire, whirleth back,
And though the World disjointed Axel crack,
Sings still of ancient Rights and better Times,
Seeks wretched good, arraigns successful Crimes.
But thou base man first prostituted hast
Our spotless knowledge and the studies chast.
Apostatizing from our Arts and us,
To turn the Chronicler to Spartacus.
Yet wast thou taken hence with equal fate,
Before thou couldst great Charles his death relate.
But what will deeper wound thy little mind,
Hast left surviving Davenant still behind
Who laughs to see in this thy death renew'd,
Right Romane poverty and gratitude.
Poor Poet thou, and grateful Senate they,
Who thy last Reckoning did so largely pay.
And with the publick gravity would come,
When thou hadst drunk thy last to lead thee home.
If that can be thy home where Spencer lyes
And reverend Chaucer, but their dust does rise
Against thee, and expels thee from their side,
As th' Eagles Plumes from other birds divide.
Nor here thy shade must dwell, Return, Return,
Where Sulphrey Phlegeton does ever burn.
The Cerberus with all his Jawes shall gnash,
Megera thee with all her Serpents lash.
Thou rivited unto Ixion's wheel
Shalt break, and the perpetual Vulture feel.
'Tis just what Torments Poets ere did feign,
Thou first Historically shouldst sustain.

Thus by irrevocable Sentence cast,
May only Master of these Revels past.
And streight he vanisht in a Cloud of Pitch,
Such as unto the Sabboth bears the Witch.

Who was Tom May? If we accept the opinion of Marvell's poem, then May was, as Shoptaw says, "a poetaster". Be that as it may, we also know that May was an actual person. We can learn a bit about him at this Wikipedia entry.

Before I go on with what Shoptaw has to say about Ashbery's poem, I'd like to add here a comment of my own regarding the very nice article at the Poetry Foundation about Andrew Marvell. According to that article, Marvell lived during the transition from medieval to modern times, and his poetry reflects that. One example of this can be seen, I think, when Tom May emerges "amaz'd on the Elysian side" after having been transported not by Charon across the River Styx but in a perfunctory manner as when a package gets delivered - which, by the way, is exactly what a packet-boat is used for. Again and again in the Self-Portrait poems we encounter the notions of change, transition, uncertainty and waiting. Certainly such notions were familiar to Marvell, and I think it likely that Ashbery enjoyed the ambiguities rife in Marvell's poetry - ambiguities pointed out clearly in the Poetry Foundation article.

Ashbery's "Packet-Boat" is appropriately first in his book not only because, as Shoptaw says, it was at one point the title poem of the book but because Ashbery's ambition is announced in the first line: "I tried each thing, only some were immortal and free." The "as" in the title denotes a recurring concern in the poems: as one thing is happening, another thing, seemingly insignificant by comparison, is happening as well. Apparently Ashbery and his friend Frank O'Hara picked up on this notion from Boris Pasternak's autobiographical story Safe Conduct. Rather than have his writing serve the nation-state, Pasternak deliberately tried to write such that his writing would serve history and not a political entity. It is much more this type of "as" than the type of "as" in a simile that is prevalent in the Self-Portrait poems. We see it again in "As You Came from the Holy Land" and then again in the first line of the title poem: "As Parmigianino did it . . . ".

Often the thing that seems insignificant during the main event is a period of waiting, and the ones who wait are like a fallow field. The implication seems to be that it is reasonable to expect a sort of passive revolution or an inevitable conflict that may or may not be announced: something else will grow in what seems to be a fallow field and, as that growth happens, that which had dominated the scene will come to be supplanted. Even as we speak, change is happening. In such circumstances, what narrative strategies will we prefer?

One strategy Ashbery uses in a few of the Self-Portrait poems, as Shoptaw points out, is that of the folk or fairy tale. In such narratives, "any number of improbable adventures can happen along the way toward their fulfillment." Moreover, "By pouring their hopes and fears into a tale's simple, empty characters, readers (or bedtime listeners) learn the self-fashioning process of identification." We see this approach in, for instance, "Sheherezade", "Marchenbilder", "Oleum Misericordiae" and "Hop o' My Thumb".

The "self-fashioning process of identification" was a concern W.H. Auden had when he composed the poems of his Pulitzer Prize-winning The Age of Anxiety, and it is a concern that emerges in several of the Self- Portrait poems as well. Ashbery addresses this concern specifically in "Worsening Situation". According to Shoptaw, Ashbery's personal concern here is "the splitting of his published from his private personality", as indicated by "This severed hand" which "Stands for life, and wander as it will,/East or west, north or south, it is ever/A stranger who walks beside me." Shoptaw goes on to say that Ashbery begins to "sound hysterical" when he tries to "reintegrate" himself: "The name you drop and never say is mine, mine!" Of course, Ashbery's broader concern is: with so much information inundating us on a daily basis and so much that we are expected to do, how are we to know ourselves, and how are we to know each other? There is cause here for great anxiety. Ashbery acknowledges the problem and says he "can't seem to keep it from affecting me,/Every day, all day. I've tried recreation,/Reading until late at night, train rides/And romance." The poem, potentially discouraging, takes a turn toward lightheartedness when Ashbery injects a sense of humor into the poem:

One day a man called while I was out
And left this message: "You got the whole thing wrong
From start to finish. Luckily, there's still time
To correct the situation, but you must act fast.
See me at your earliest convenience. And please
Tell no one of this. Much besides your life depends on it."
I thought nothing of it at the time. Lately
I've been looking at old-fashioned plaids, fingering
Starched white collars, wondering whether there's a way
To get them really white again. My wife
Thinks I'm in Oslo - Oslo, France, that is.

Such humor, while amusing, fails to address the situation fully. Throughout the Self-Portrait poems, Ashbery uses humor as a strategy to enable the registering of conflicting viewpoints. For example, in "Suite", we begin in a workplace: "The inert lifeless mass calls out into space:/Seven long years and the wall hasn't been built yet". Presumably this refers to the Biblical story of the man who worked for seven years in another man's vineyard with the promise of marriage to the owner's daughter at the end of those years only to be told at that time that he'd have to work for another seven years in order to reach his goal. The poem proposes no humor in this, but at the end of the second stanza we have a bit of humor thrown in sort of like a spice added to a sauce. Here is the second stanza:

This was to be forgotten, eliminated
From history. But time is a garden wherein
Memories thrive monstrously until
They become the vagrant flowering of something else
Like stopping near the fence with your raincoat.

The "stopping near the fence with your raincoat" pokes fun at the poetry of Robert Frost ("Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening") and also at the poetry of William Carlos Williams ("The Red Wheelbarrow"). These poets privilege the image (see imagism). By poking fun in this way, Ashbery uses humor to allow, without ridicule, the recognition of a difference between his poetry and the poetry of Frost and Williams. The humor is like a spice in that it adds to the poem but does not contribute protein, carbohydrates or fat to the metaphorical meal that the poem is. We have this sort of strategy with humor in several poems throughout the Self-Portrait book.

Ashbery considers, in "Forties Flick" how we know ourselves by another type of media: film. The audience does not appear but is included as part or parcel of the film genre:

Silence of the library, of the telephone with its pad,
But we didn't have to reinvent these either:
They had gone away into the plot of a story,
The "art" part - knowing what important details to leave out
And the way character is developed. Things too real
To be of much concern, hence artificial, yet now all over the page,
The indoors with the outside becoming part of you
As you find you had never left off laughing at death,
The background, dark vine at the edge of the porch.

This is a sobering reversal of the humor that concludes "Worsening Situation". More than "the willing suspension of disbelief" happens when we enjoy movies. Because there are so many movies, we have to make choices as to which ones we will allow to entertain us. And what was the impact on people in, for instance, Mexico of the 1950s when they saw Hollywood movies of the 1940s that showed an American middle-class standard of living? Still, if we consider fully the impact of movies on our lives, will we have considered fully the questions related to the "self-fashioning process of identification"?

Ashbery goes deeper into thinking about the impact of tradition on our lives in "As You Came from the Holy Land". Fittingly, Ashbery's "Holy Land" title is taken from a traditional ballad. In "A Man of Words", Ashbery addresses the situation of the playwright and, according to Shoptaw, his actor. It seems to me Ashbery also considers how the relation of the playwright and actor relates to poets and, in doing so, mentions poets who admire Walt Whitman's poetry:

Ah, but this would have been another, quite other
Entertainment, not the metallic taste
In my mouth as I look away, density black as gunpowder
In the angles where the grass writing goes on,
Rose-red in unexpected places like the pressure
Of fingers on a book suddenly snapped shut.

The "grass writing" is writing done by poets who admire and admit to being influenced by the poetry of Walt Whitman. And, still in "A Man of Words", we have again the notion of how we know ourselves:

All diaries are alike, clear and cold, with
The outlook for continued cold. They are placed
Horizontal, parallel to the earth,
Like the unencumbering dead. Just time to reread this
And the past slips through your fingers, wishing you were there.

I think, if an enlightened Buddhist read this poem, he (or she) would say something like, "Of course! I identify with all things! I am the playwright, the actor, the poet and the writers of diaries." And of course Whitman would feel the same way. Far from feeling overwhelmed by all the information and possibilities, Whitman would sound his barbaric yawp and it would sound a lot like, "I am excited to be alive! I myself am sublime!" But no one can feel this way all the time, yes? We have cookies to bake, diapers to change, stories to tell, etc, etc. Ashbery I think is skeptical in exactly this way. He may be excited to be alive at times but getting him to admit it is another matter. Ashbery would I think more likely admit that he pretends to be excited to be alive and actually feels something more like a quiet and reflective wonder and/or awe at all the information and possibilities life has to offer. To honor the many "small things on earth", Ashbery prefers an anti-sublime strategy.

In the Self-Portrait poems, we see the anti-sublime strategy most clearly in "The One Thing That Can Save America" which appears later in the book. First, though, I have a few more words regarding the sublime strategy. Any narrative that features a hero is employing the sublime strategy. An example of a poem that is in accord with the sublime strategy is "America the Beautiful" by Katharine Lee Bates.

America the Beautiful
by Katharine Lee Bates

O beautiful, for spacious skies,

For amber waves of grain,

For purple mountain majesties

Above the fruited plain!

America! America! God shed His grace on thee,

And crown thy good with brotherhood, from sea to shining sea.

O beautiful, for pilgrim feet

Whose stern, impassioned stress

A thoroughfare for freedom beat

Across the wilderness!

America! America! God mend thine ev'ry flaw;

Confirm thy soul in self control, thy liberty in law!

O beautiful, for heroes proved

In liberating strife,

Who more than self their country loved

And mercy more than life!

America! America! May God thy gold refine,

Till all success be nobleness, and ev'ry gain divine!

O beautiful, for patriot dream

That sees beyond the years,

Thine alabaster cities gleam

Undimmed by human tears!

America! America! God shed His grace on thee,

And crown thy good with brotherhood, from sea to shining sea!

One way of thinking about the sublime strategy is that it seeks to unify by inspiring all to a central ideal. The notions of America as "melting pot" and "E Pluribus Unum", the motto stamped on American coins, are likewise in accord with the sublime strategy. This type of thinking has led to, for example, E.D. Hirsch Jr.'s book Cultural Literacy which argues that schools should teach a specific curriculum in order to facilitate greater shared understanding.

In "The One Thing That Can Save America", the first 3 stanzas are made up mostly of questions, and the central one is in the first line: "Is anything central?" This question, following the title which suggests drama and the sublime strategy, challenges the received opinion that there is something on which cultural literacy can be built. We then have a sort of intellectual searching: "Are place names central?" The first stanza features things which are neither immortal nor free. "These are connected to my version of America/But the juice is elsewhere." ... "Was it our doing, and was it/The material, the lumber of life, or of lives/We were measuring, counting?" The second stanza features the love of a couple (potentially immortal and free) and acknowledges a disadvantage of the anti-sublime strategy: glances as opposed to visions. "I know that I braid too much my own/Snapped-off perceptions of things as they come to me./They are private and always will be./Where then are the private turns of event/Destined to boom later like golden chimes/Released over a city from a highest tower?" The third stanza identifies the problem the anti-sublime strategy has with the notion of privacy. The problem can be overcome when one joins a community, something larger than oneself - but not something erotic ("A mood soon to be forgotten") or idealistic ("Places of known civic pride, of civil obscurity.") "What remote orchard reached by winding roads/Hides them?" He is not interested in finding the "city upon the hill" - that is for the people interested in the sublime strategy. When he asks, "Where are these roots?" we have to take care: if Ashbery is one of the roots then we begin leaning toward mythologizing Ashbery. If a person wants to mythologize himself (or herself), that's one thing. It worked for Walt Whitman, and it can work for you too. But if other people mythologize you that's something else. "It is the lumps and trials/That tell us whether we shall be known/And whether our fate can be exemplary, like a star." Throughout the Self-Portrait poems, the pronouns are interesting, but the "we" and "our" here are at least as interesting as the notion of fate. Robert Bly recommends the term "communal self" for the "speaker" of Ashbery's Self-Portrait poems. The fourth stanza proposes a general response to all the questions posed. Ashbery is genuinely interested in finding an alternative to the prevailing sublime strategy, and he'd like his readers to engage in this pursuit as well. "All the rest is waiting/For a letter that never arrives,/Day after day, the exasperation/Until finally you have ripped it open not knowing what it is,/The two envelope halves lying on a plate./The message was wise, and seemingly/Dictated a long time ago./Its truth is timeless, but its time has still/Not arrived, telling of danger, and the mostly limited/Steps that can be taken against danger/Now and in the future, in cool yards,/In quiet small houses in the country,/Our country, in fenced areas, in cool shady streets." The "two envelope halves" refer to the haves and the have-nots, and the timeless truth of the message refers to the ideals in the Declaration of Independence. In an anti-sublime poem, it is generous to mention so respectfully the sublime strategy. Understanding how far we are to keep ourselves from the heroic/sublime seems to be the work of this poem.

Because it depicts a pastoral scene, Ashbery's "Packet-Boat" poem draws on romanticism, according to Shoptaw: "The poem employs a pastoral crisis narrative: a summer storm gathers but passes, leaving the relieved, mortal poet in the dark. This romanticism may be taken as a sign . . . ". The external crisis is rivaled by an internal anxiety: "A look of glass stops you/And you walk on shaken: was I the perceived?/Did they notice me, this time, as I am,/Or is it postponed again?" "But," continues Shoptaw, "the immortal, frontal moment of being seen face to face never comes to pass." Shoptaw speculates that the "Harsh words" that are mentioned in Ashbery's poem reflect the scolding of Tom May by Ben Jonson in Marvell's poem.

Ashbery, according to Shoptaw, may have had some anxiety that he himself could be similarly scorned. Around the time Ashbery was working on the poems that would appear in Self-Portrait, Harold Bloom's book The Anxiety of Influence was published. Because it got attention, Ashbery was sure to have had some familiarity with it. Clearly, by calling on the resources of romanticism for his "Packet-Boat" poem, Ashbery removes his poem from the critical conversation that includes Marvell and Jonson, both of whom preceded the Romantics.

Back in Ashbery's "Packet-Boat", calm returns when ". . . I thought a shadow fell across the door/But it was only her come to ask once more/If I was coming in, and not to hurry in case I wasn't." This kindhearted maternal character of Ashbery's poem contrasts with "the fulminating Jonsonian" presence of Marvell's, and the "not to hurry" of Ashbery's poem contrasts with the "hurry'd hence" of Marvell's. In this way, Ashbery further distinguishes his poetry from the poetry represented by Marvell and Jonson.

Shoptaw sees another poem that relates to Ashbery's "Packet-Boat". Ashbery translated a prose poem by Giorgio de Chirico titled "On Silence". In Ashbery's translation of de Chirico's poem, "a moon of boreal pallor is rising in the great silence"; in Ashbery's poem, "A moon of cistercian pallor/Has climbed to the center of heaven . . ." In de Chirico's poem, a storm gathers. A few people have protected themselves in their rooms, but eventually their security is disrupted when "wind blows open a window: 'they forget everything and start chasing the white sheets and catch them in flight. . . . Beware, friends, of the silence that precedes such events.'" In Ashbery's poem, the storm that gathers doesn't actually happen, and "a sigh heaves from all the small things on earth,/The books, the papers, the old garters and union-suit buttons/Kept in a white cardboard box somewhere . . .". The silence that seems to be a menace in de Chirico's poem seems, in Ashbery's poem, to be much nearer "to the center of heaven". And the wind that blows open the windows in de Chirico's poem becomes, in Ashbery's, a sigh of relief. By setting up his poem to contrast against de Chirico's, Ashbery manages to counteract the anxiety of influence described by Bloom.

Shoptaw is convinced that, by the end of "Packet-Boat", Ashbery's poem has overturned itself. Rather than try each thing to see which is "immortal and free", Ashbery "chooses . . . a life of waiting over blinding moments of illumination." He "looks in the nostalgic trunks for an answer".

Take me to your honey.

Meet Paul Polansky

2009-06-16T15:42:00.004-04:00

To many readers the name of Paul Polansky may not register, indeed to most people of whom I have spoken about him to their is always a confusion with Roman Polanski - note the spelling variation - but to those familiar with north Kosovo, they will know him as a man, an activist, and a poet of controversy.

And a few people in the Czech Republic will not forget him either.

So, who and what is this poet?

He first came to prominence with the Lety concentration camp allegations with his book Black Silence, highlighting the Czech running of the camp, not German running during WWII.

The camps inmates predominantly were Roma, known to us in the west as Gypsies.

After this he came to Serbia, around the time of the Kosovo war, and worked in Nis and in Mitrovica in Kosovo where he is to this day. His poems highlight the crises the Roma live in wherever he comes across them, and his work is hard-hitting and truthful.

Unfortunately he does not rhyme, but I'm sure that makes translation easier. Here I post some of his poems for your perusal:

THE EGYPTIANS

'We're not Gypsies,the darkskinned man pleaded,
trying to save his family.
'We came from Egypt
over a thousand years ago".

'Then go back
to your pyramids.'
the KLA soldier yelled.
"Kosovo is only
for Albanians."

GYPSY POET

Gazman showed me the camp
where the Serb army
had held several thousand Gypsies
until the end of the war.

The barbed wire fence was gone.
So were the old newspapers
and flattened cardboard boxes
the people had slept on
for more than two months.

Gazman's eyes
turned away
from the field now covered
in ankle-high grass.

"It was too cold," he said,
"to remember any details,
I tried to keep a journal,
but my mind was too numb
to move the pen."

JUNE 12TH

is now Kosovo's July 4th.

People parade in open-top cars
waving red Albanian flags.

Shots are fired into the air
while hand grenades are thrown
into homes where
Gypsies still live.

Independence Day fireworks
in Kosovo

are for real.

References:

Page on Facebook
Wikippedia Entry
Text of book Blackbirds of Kosovo

YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-WCKRhbiHI

The Captain and the Reader

2009-05-09T21:10:00.006-04:00

Lighthouse
by Jane Hirshfield

Its vision sweeps its one path
like an aged monk raking a garden,
his question long ago answered or moved on.
Far off, night-grazing horses,
breath scented with oat grass and fennel,
step through it, disappear, step through it, disappear.

The Captain and the Reader

by Andrew Christ

[submitted as partial fulfillment of the requirements of application to Warren Wilson College MFA, March 2009]

The effect of the poem “Lighthouse” by Jane Hirshfield is to create in the reader a sophisticated sense of friendship toward humanity. In this paper, I will show that, by focusing the reader's attention on the lighthouse, the poet expects the reader to figure out the extent to which the monk is similar to the lighthouse. I will also show that, by not mentioning the sea captain in the poem, the poet has deliberately attenuated the didactic tone of the poem. I will explain how the poet creates the complicated effect by asking the reader to take into account how the poet sets the scene of the poem.

With “Lighthouse,” Hirshfield puts her readers in a field with a lighthouse at night. There may be danger nearby – a cliff, a rocky coast. It is perhaps safer for the captains of the ships at sea than it is for us as we are in the dark and near the shore. The captains can benefit more easily from the lighthouse and its beam of light than we can. But this is a calm night – horses graze within sight on oats and fennel grass. The horses may be wild, but perhaps it is a domestic scene.

Hirshfield intends the poem to have an impersonal feel: it neither addresses the reader directly nor introduces a speaking “I”. The “night-grazing” horses are “far off”, but we know that their breath smells of “oat grass and fennel”. Do we know this because we have spent some time there and are familiar with the scene? Perhaps, but I don't think that's the likely interpretation. There is no person in the poem, only an imagined monk. A lighthouse, the cynosure of the poem, is built with the purpose of aiding anyone at sea in an impersonal, useful, responsible and perhaps generous way. From what we have in the poem, we don't know if any captain at sea is benefitting from the light from the lighthouse. In the last line, the poet returns the reader's attention to the light from the lighthouse. The horses “step through it, disappear, step through it, disappear.” where “it” is the light from the lighthouse. The reader is focused therefore on the lighthouse and on the light it casts out at night, not on anyone's familiarity or unfamiliarity with the scene.

Hirshfield further focues the reader's attention by using a similie to compare the lighthouse to an imagined monk. The monk is not raking in a garden near the base of the lighthouse. He is raking in a garden, and he may be at home; he is probably feeling comfortable and secure, but from what we have in the poem the monk's life doesn't have anything to do with the lighthouse mentioned in the poem. The comparison is purposeful: the reader is given to understand that a monk can be to an intelligent, imaginative reader what a lighthouse can be to a sea captain.

The extent to which the monk and the lighthouse are similar is left for readers to decide. The light – extended, constant, circling, in the dark, a guide to safety – is like an elderly monk who works in a garden with a rake, “his question long ago answered or moved on.” The monk has practiced his discipline for years. He found his question and learned how to deal with it. He sometimes works in a garden with a rake. Because Buddhist monks are known to work in gardens and to work with a rake in gardens, it is likely that the monk in this poem is a Buddhist monk. Because he is Buddhist, the monk believes in reincarnation. Buddhists speak of living life after life as a series of cyclical experiences. The Buddhist's goal however is not to adjust to the repetition of living but to attain enlightenment and thereby to stop the cycle of rebirth. To not attain enlightenment means to continue being reborn, living and dying just as the light in the lighthouse continues to beam out so reliably as it circles through its one path. Because he has accepted his life in Buddhism, the monk is committed to one way of living – of responding to experience, just as the lighthouse is fixed in its activity.

The consistency and the intensity of the beam of light is only part of what makes the lighthouse a reliable aid. If captains did not have training in navigation and failed to pay attention to the tides and other current conditions, the benefit of the lighthouse would be lost. By engaging their discipline and by using the information available from various sources including the lighthouse, the captains can avoid hazards and find instead safe harbor. Likewise the reader, to make much sense of the poem, must bring to the poem some knowledge of lighthouses, monks, Buddhism and sailing, and must pay attention to how the lighthouse and the monk are depicted.

The poem's created effect on the reader of a sophisticated sense of friendship toward humanity is achieved when one makes the inference that a reader of this poem stands in relation to a monk in the same way a sea captain stands in relation to a lighthouse. It is important that a reader not infer that one stands in relation to this poem as a captain stands in relation to a lighthouse. The poet is not saying anything like, “I am a monk.” or “Be my disciple.” Because the monk is an imagined monk who doesn't speak in the poem and because the sea captain is not mentioned in the poem, one can conclude that Hirshfield intends for the didactic tone of this poem to be an attenuated one. There is nothing like the message, “You should study with a Buddhist monk.” in these lines. Nevertheless, the poet has implied that any reader of “Lighthouse” may benefit by having a relationship with an experienced monk in which one regards the monk as a lighthouse and one regards oneself as the captain of a ship at night. To make such a deliberate and generous, if oblique, suggestion can only inspire a sense of friendship toward humanity in one who receives that suggestion.

Follow-up: The folks at Warren Wilson selected other applicants for the few seats they have for students. Subsequently, I learned that there was a problem with my FAFSA which is another requirement for application to the Warren Wilson MFA. Whether the FAFSA had anything to do with me not being selected, I don't know. Warren Wilson doesn't comment on rejections.

Remember: only you can improve the audience for poetry.

Humor, Satire and Criticism

2009-05-03T09:33:00.007-04:00

At Suite 101, an article by Cicely A. Richard explains satire as a literary device capable of enriching readers' understanding of the foibles inherent in the prevailing views of their time:

In the poem "Don Juan," George Gordon Lord Byron (pictured, right) deviated from the common perception of the notorious lover, Don Juan, and paints him as a man on whom women prey. Additionally, he takes a satiric look at politics and the arts of his time. In this poem, Byron illustrates the effectiveness of satire as a literary device.

...

Satire is an effective way to enlighten people about things that may otherwise be taken for granted. It is successful because the humor makes people take a lighter look at serious matters. So, when others finish absorbing the words of the satirist, they begin to think about the information presented to them. For that reason, Byron's use of satire is instrumental the success of "Don Juan."

Read more: "George Gordon Lord Byron's "Don Juan": Byron's Use of Satire and Political Commentary" - http://british-poetry.suite101.com/article.cfm/don_juan_by_george_gordon_lord_byron#ixzz0ES2xWBUP&A

Popular contemporary examples of satire include the TV shows "The Simpsons", "South Park" and "The Daily Show" which is actually more of a parody of TV news that includes satirical bits now and then.

Another example of satire in British poetry comes to us by way of John Dryden (pictured, right) in his poem "Mac Flecknoe". Flecknoe, a fictional ruler whose kingdom enjoyed many years of peace, now must choose from among his many sons one to succeed him. He decides upon Shadwell:

And pond'ring which of all his sons was fit
To reign, and wage immortal war with wit;
Cry'd, 'tis resolv'd; for nature pleads that he
Should only rule, who most resembles me:
Shadwell alone my perfect image bears,
Mature in dullness from his tender years.
Shadwell alone, of all my sons, is he
Who stands confirm'd in full stupidity.
The rest to some faint meaning make pretence,
But Shadwell never deviates into sense.
Some beams of wit on other souls may fall,
Strike through and make a lucid interval;
But Shadwell's genuine night admits no ray,
His rising fogs prevail upon the day:
Besides his goodly fabric fills the eye,
And seems design'd for thoughtless majesty:
Thoughtless as monarch oaks, that shade the plain,
And, spread in solemn state, supinely reign.

from http://www.emule.com/poetry/?page=poem&poem=649 accessed 3 May 2009

The satire appears when the reader realizes Mac Flecknoe is John Dryden and Shadwell is Thomas Shadwell, the poet who succeeded Dryden as Britain's Poet Laureate.

Only you can improve the audience for poetry.

Eye of the Beholder

2009-04-25T12:52:00.007-04:00

I'm sure you've heard the expression "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder." Beauty, yes. And so much more. I think meaning is in the eye of the beholder. Nowadays, poets such as Ted Kooser, Billy Collins, Mary Oliver and others prefer to consider and portray ordinary experiences and ordinary things in their poems in extraordinary ways. For instance, here is a poem by Ted Kooser titled "Tattoo":

TATTOO

What once was meant to be a statement—
a dripping dagger held in the fist
of a shuddering heart—is now just a bruise
on a bony old shoulder, the spot
where vanity once punched him hard
and the ache lingered on. He looks like
someone you had to reckon with,
strong as a stallion, fast and ornery,
but on this chilly morning, as he walks
between the tables at a yard sale
with the sleeves of his tight black T-shirt
rolled up to show us who he was,
he is only another old man, picking up
broken tools and putting them back,
his heart gone soft and blue with stories.

Or consider this splendid little gem by Billy Collins:

Some Days


Some days I put the people in their places at the table, bend their legs at the knees, if they come with that feature, and fix them into the tiny wooden chairs. All afternoon they face one another, the man in the brown suit, the woman in the blue dress, perfectly motionless, perfectly behaved. But other days, I am the one who is lifted up by the ribs, then lowered into the dining room of a dollhouse to sit with the others at the long table. Very funny, but how would you like it if you never knew from one day to the next if you were going to spend it striding around like a vivid god, your shoulders in the clouds, or sitting down there amidst the wallpaper, staring straight ahead with your little plastic face?

Poetry is so great, isn't it? Here's one more. This one's by Mary Oliver:

Breakage

I go down to the edge of the sea.

How everything shines in the morning light!

The cusp of the whelk,

the broken cupboard of the clam,

the opened, blue mussels,

moon snails, pale pink and barnacle scarred—

and nothing at all whole or shut, but tattered, split,

dropped by the gulls onto the gray rocks and all the moisture gone.

It's like a schoolhouse

of little words,

thousands of words.

First you figure out what each one means by itself,

the jingle, the periwinkle, the scallop

full of moonlight.

Then you begin, slowly, to read the whole story.

Such eyes they have. Such capacity to see beauty. And how nice of them to take the time to put their vision into such clever little things for us.

Of course, beauty may be other than what is easy to observe. For instance, the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team. It's been nearly 30 years since they've been on TV. But, if you watch the 2004 Disney production titled "Miracle", you may see beauty in the determination of the coach to prepare the team to beat the Soviets who had dominated Olympic hockey since the 60s.

Or consider the justices of the Supreme Court of the United States. Initially, the Court was weak when compared to Congress and the President. The Justices first met in an official capacity early in 1790, and it wasn't until 1792 that they heard and decided their first case. Until 1801 or so, Congress and the President had nothing to fear when it came to having limits imposed on their powers by the judicial branch. That changed after President John Adams appointed John Marshall to the position of Chief Justice in 1801. At least one judicial scholar regards Marshall as the Babe Ruth of Supreme Court justices. No other Chief Justice has served longer than Marshall's 34 years. During his tenure, the U.S. Supreme Court became much stronger than it had been - some would even say that today it is the strongest branch of U.S. government - chiefly by claiming for itself the powers to A) interpret the Constitution and B) determine the constitutionality of laws passed by the U.S. Congress and by the state legislatures. I think there is great beauty in the growth of power seen in the history of the U.S. Supreme Court. I think this beauty constitutes reason for existentialists, among others, to rejoice: men are capable of living within legal limits imposed by themselves.

I've got to change the subject a bit before I begin to sound too naive or optimistic. Who trusts an optimist? Anyway, in recent decades, some people regard the American experiment to be in its death throes. Men seek office not to serve a constituency but to see if they can achieve their vision or some portion of it. Such men want to win at any cost. Of course, when they embrace such an ambition they have already lost themselves. They are then in the service of an ideal they neither created nor control, perhaps confusing their commitment with that of a happy, successful marriage. In addition, some people regard the so-called "fourth estate" - the media - as impotent, toothless, incapable of effecting any meaningful change. I beg to differ.

The way I see it, the media create for citizens something like George Orwell's "Big Brother"; however, the ones being monitored are not the general population but the people elected and appointed to office. I mean, people in Czechoslovakia, for instance, could not believe it when "Dr. Strangelove" was produced and shown in the U.S. Likewise, what a tribute to the media that A) the Watergate break-in could be exposed and that B) David Frost could interview President Nixon and ascertain for viewers everywhere the arrogance that otherwise may have escaped history books. Fast-forward to 16 October 2007 when the PBS series "Frontline" aired an episode titled "Cheney's Law" and featured the Vice-President's collusion with attorneys. According to the program, Cheney wanted to restore to the Presidency what he saw as the beautiful, dignified importance of the power of the office of the President of the United States which, according to Cheney, had been lost after Nixon's resignation. Viewers need not have a law degree or pass the bar exam to recognize arrogance.

By keeping your heart and mind open, you can find beauty all around you.

Only you can improve the audience for poetry.

Simic and Sudoku

2009-04-24T17:16:00.006-04:00

Sometime in the mid 90s, my friend Al (Hellus) - God rest his soul - told me about Charles Simic. On Al's recommendation, I read Simic's Pulitzer Prize-winning (prose) poems in The World Doesn't End. I was blown away. I thought they were great. I'd never read poems that twisted logic to its own ends like that before.

Since then, I've talked to other poets who say of these poems that they "don't get them". I understand that because, the first time - at least the first time - I read the poems, I often didn't know what to make of them either. More than half of the poems are untitled. Clearly though, the poems feature recurring atmospheric elements such as life after wartime, barking dogs, poverty and an overhanging sense of a distant governing authority that may use force to obtain the cooperation of the governed. Occasionally a poem will allude somehow to art and/or literature.

More recently I read the 51 poems in Simic's book of poems (2005, Harcourt) titled my noiseless entourage. In these poems, Simic continues to twist logic according to the needs of his poems. Gone, however, are the atmospheric elements of life after wartime, barking dogs, poverty and the sense of a ruling stultifying political power. And each poem has a title.

To Simic's would-be readers who "don't get" his poems, I recommend reading my noiseless entourage before The World Doesn't End. Here is the initial poem of my noiseless entourage:

Description of a Lost Thing
by Charles Simic

It never had a name,
Nor do I remember how I found it.
I carried it in my pocket
Like a lost button
Except it wasn't a button.

Horror movies,
All-night cafeterias,
Dark barrooms
And poolhalls,
On rain-slicked streets.

It led a quiet, unremarkable existence
Like a shadow in a dream,
An angel on a pin,
And then it vanished.
The years passed with their row

Of nameless stations,
Till somebody told me this is it!
And fool that I was,
I got off on an empty platform
With no town in sight.

Now, what if, instead of going after the meaning of this poem with hammer and tongs, we use instead our powers of inference, conjecture and surmise? Our initial inference is likely to be that the lost thing is small enough to fit in his pocket. Because I've read enough poems by Simic, my conjecture at the end of the first stanza is that the poem is not going to tell me what the lost thing is. But I see at that point that three stanzas remain. As I continue reading, I keep an eye open for what else might be going on, since the lost thing is probably not going to matter much to this poem. Immediately (2nd stanza) the reader is given several places where the lost thing was taken as a matter of course, being part or parcel of the speaker. Then (3rd stanza) we learn that the lost thing did not draw attention to itself but was small and quiet. The poem ends (4th stanza) by telling how life has been for the one who lost the thing and does not mention any more the lost thing.

We can surmise a generosity on the part of the speaker of the poem. At some point, the speaker took the time to notice a seemingly insignificant thing which was then kept for some time in a pocket. Although the thing was small and quiet, the speaker remembers it and composes this poem on its behalf. We can also surmise a sense of humility on the part of the speaker. When "somebody" tells him "this is it!" he disembarks onto "an empty platform/With no town in sight." Because of this, he regards himself as foolish. But we know he isn't stupid by the way he talks about the years passing as a ride on a train. It is neither similie nor metaphor. We might call it surrealism. In Simic's poetry, there's a lot more where that came from.

If you enjoy solving Sudoku puzzles, I'm sure you've noticed that inference, conjecture and surmise are also useful for solving those puzzles. In my writing here, I haven't included any wrong inferences, conjectures or surmises I made while reading "Description of a Lost Thing". That doesn't mean I didn't make any. Part of the fun of reading Simic's poems is figuring out what's important and what isn't so important. As with Sudoku, sometimes one has to erase incorrect interpretations of Simic poems before arriving at a satisfying understanding.

Remember: only you can improve the audience for poetry.

What is Poetry?

2009-04-14T14:25:00.006-04:00

I didn't think anyone else could be more enthused for poetry than I am, but I may have met my match in Charles Ghigna. He teaches kids how to understand and write poems. A brief introduction to poetry that Charles wrote is online at the Poetry Teachers website. Here is an excerpt from that introduction - which he titled "What Is Poetry?":

Poetry is a natural part of our lives. It's not just something we have to memorize and recite in front of the class. Losing ourselves in a poem is one of the best ways of finding out who we are. The act of writing brings us to that point of discovery, of discovering on the page something we didn't know we knew until we wrote it.

Read the full introduction at the Poetry Teachers website.

Toward the end of his introduction, Charles included a few poems of his own to illustrate ballad stanzas. Here is one of them:

A POEM IS A LITTLE PATH

A poem is a little path
That leads you through the trees.
It takes you to the cliffs and shores,
To anywhere you please.

Follow it and trust your way
With mind and heart as one,
And when the journey's over,
You'll find you've just begun.

Find out more about Charles Ghigna at his website.

In your poetry reading, I wish you A) happy trails and B) many happy returns!

Remember: only you can improve the audience for poetry.

Coffee at Home

2009-04-11T19:07:00.029-04:00

One of my favorite poets, William Stafford (pictured at right), wrote a poem called "A Day at Home". Here it is:

A Day at Home
by William Stafford

On the near pine rain hangs
the way I suppose it hangs
on the far.

Being yourself, you are always
on time - right where your kind
of person should be.

Why not wait here while the rest
of the world happens? It is better as
history than it is as news.

The dog, his head on the coffee table,
gazes tranquilly, resting his chin
on a volume of Martin Buber.

I especially like the rhetorical question - "Why not wait here while the rest/of the world happens?" and then what seems like an offhand remark: "It is better as/history than it is as news." And perhaps it is meant to be taken as a casual, offhand remark. Off course, in poetry, what seems like an offhand remark makes our ears perk up.

If you are willing to wait "while the rest of the world happens", consider what that reveals about you. It means you are willing to take yourself out of the picture, so to speak. It means that you are willing to consider whether the world is better as history or as news.

The rhetorical question and the offhand remark constitute nothing less than an invitation to an intellectual discussion. But there's more: the last stanza illustrates animal nature at ease with profundities such as those available in the writings of Martin Buber (1878 - 1965), a Jew so highly respected that the Nazis did not kill him - a fact that becomes especially interesting when you consider that Buber was known for his "philosophical dialogue". He believed in an apolitical Zionism. Even more, he believed in Hasidism.

I prefer here to focus on Stafford's poetics rather than on issues we may or may not be able to find in Stafford's poems. Consider, in contrast to the hospitality of "A Day at Home", the fiercely private posturing in the often-anthologized "Ask Me":

Ask Me
by William Stafford

Some time when the river is ice ask me
mistakes I have made. Ask me whether
what I have done is my life. Others
have come in their slow way into
my thought, and some have tried to help
or to hurt: ask me what difference
their strongest love or hate has made.

I will listen to what you say.
You and I can turn and look
at the silent river and wait. We know
the current is there, hidden; and there
are comings and goings from miles away
that hold the stillness exactly before us.
What the river says, that is what I say.

What seems at first an entirely cold facade turns out to be a very nice (i.e., thoughtful and engaging) way of saying "wait and see".

In the spirit of hospitality, I offer the reader the following poem by Derek Walcott and also a series of pictures I took at home the other day.

Love After Love
by Derek Walcott

The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other's welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

"It is our goal to appreciate and improve our talents, to share our own work and to communicate the joys of poetry with others. Everyone's poetry is valued."
River Junction Poets Mission Statement

Birthdays of Poets

something new

"A Trek with the Buddha Bard" -- A Review in Danse Macabre

Kay Ryan Birthday Reading

Recommended Reading: The Burden of the Past

Kate Evan interviews Joy Leftow

2 comments:

Being and Writing: Joy Leftow: Dare to be Different

Precious, a novel by Sandra Novack, book review by Joy Leftow

Marvin Bell Birthday Reading

Teaching Poetry

When a person encounters another person in total immediacy, he or she may also experience a glimpse of God. ~Martin Buber (pictured, right)

New Book Review

THE UNFOLD PINNACLE by Basanta Kumar Kar – A review by Nabina Das

Ekleksographia -- Guest edited by Amy King

Contests and Submissions

A Bear of a Project

Interview: Spotlight on Poet Heller Levinson and Hinge Theory by Joy Leftow

Not in Kansas Any More

Reading Ashbery: Part Two

Meet Paul Polansky

Recommended Reading: Poetry as Persuasion

The Captain and the Reader

Humor, Satire and Criticism

Eye of the Beholder

TATTOO

Breakage

Simic and Sudoku

What is Poetry?

Coffee at Home