Mammoth Bones & Contemporary Beef, a witty new chap that may be small but wallops a strong punch that will knock you silly and leave you begging for more.
The editor in me kept looking for that one line that needed help. I finally gave in to his sparse economy of language that flows with an unconscious rhythm and wry dry humor. So dry it made me thirst for more, and I read the entire 36-page chap in one setting that went more quickly than I liked because I couldn't stop reading and laughing. I chewed as much meat from those mammoth bones as I dared!
Congrats Alain, you made a big hit with me - and … what? You thought I’d leave it at that because we used to edit the same mag? Gimme a break. I laughed so hard my eyes teared up and I cried. Not once but several times over a couple of hours. The honesty is over the top handed to us on a pedestal. The chapbook's cover with its mammoth creatures mimic the poems. They are bigger than life and than all of us together. Thank his mom, Anatholie Alain for that, for keeping the organic life form emerging from Alain’s third eye blind.
The hallucinations
have started
The pain more severe
disturbances of the
heart
…
sitting in a dory
out east
not giving a rat’s ass
Only a poet (and sometime even poets don’t) know how to lay out the work so true to form that it remains poetically true to its sparseness and economic wording. He references other poets to let us know he wonders if he matches up, makes the cut or has he been circumcised like most of us. He experiments with sounds and placements of vowels instinctually letting the poem find its own roots and meaning. He lets the poem decide where it needs to go,
The slow process of submission
The eventuality
Arriving at some maniacal correction
For the s’s
So obsessed he
Was possessed
…
who was he kidding
even Blake thought he might’ve liked the
devil
The words evolve to take us on a journey – a rampage inside ourselves where we explore to learn more about why we are who we are. Who else but writers would care where we are spiritually talent wise in life, and who but a writer would mix the two. The book sold out on Amazon but is available here.
Showing posts with label Poetry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Poetry. Show all posts
Sunday, February 06, 2011
Tuesday, June 08, 2010
"Paris, 7 A.M." by Elizabeth Bishop
Paris, 7 A.M.
I make a trip to each clock in the apartment:
some hands point histrionically one way
and some point others, from the ignorant faces.
Time is an Etoile; the hours diverge
so much that days are journeys round the suburbs,
circles surrounding stars, overlapping circles.
The short, half-tone scale of winter weathers
is a spread pigeon's wing.
Winter lives under a pigeon's wing, a dead wing with damp feathers.
Look down into the courtyard. All the houses
are built that way, with ornamental urns
set on the mansard roof-tops where the pigeons
take their walks. It is like introspection
to stare inside, or retrospection,
a star inside a rectangle, a recollection:
this hollow square could easily have been there.
– The childish snow forts, built in flashier winters,
could have reached these proportions and been houses;
the mighty snow-forts, four, five, stories high,
withstanding spring as sand-forts do the tide,
their walls, their shape, could not dissolve and die,
only be overlapping in a strong chain, turned to stone,
and grayed and yellowed now like these.
Where is the ammunition, the piled-up balls
with the star-splintered hearts of ice?
This sky is no carrier-warrior-pigeon
escaping endless intersecting circles.
It is a dead one, or the sky from which a dead one fell.
The urns have caught his ashes or his feathers.
When did the star dissolve, or was it captured
by the sequence of squares and squares and circles, circles?
Can the clocks say; is it there below,
about to tumble in snow?
In Bishop's first book of poems, North & South (1946, Houghton Mifflin), this poem is the sixteenth of thirty. It is preceded by poems which are more well-known, including “Wading at Wellfleet”, “The Man-Moth”, and “The Unbeliever”. The poems following this one in her first book are anthologized even less often than this one, although The Poetry Foundation has posted “Roosters” online here.
The scene of “Paris, 7 A.M.” is a dreamlike state of consciousness in which one observes but does nothing. The speaking persona goes anxiously from clock to clock within “the apartment”, and then goes to the window and looks down at the courtyard and up at the sky, but there is no leaving the apartment or other action within it. The sense of stasis is bolstered by the notion of deadness in the absence of death:
Winter lives under a pigeon's wing, a dead wing with damp feathers. (lines 9 to 10)
The childish snow-forts...could not dissolve and die... (lines 18 to 22)
This sky...is a dead one, or the sky from which a dead one fell. (lines 27 to 29)
What can we say about why this person is anxious? We get a clue early in the poem: “days are journeys round the suburbs” (line five). Using Surrealism to conflate a cosmological perspective with that of a domestic one in these early lines, we are left with the question: “What is the urban?” The poem provides no answer, and a memory of “flashier winters” provides no solace, no re-invigoration. This poem does not clarify, elaborate or affirm but disorients and troubles. The “I” is casting about, attending first to this, then to that, and not finding a place to feel at ease.
Another clue as to this anxiety comes in lines 14 to 17:
… It is like introspection
to stare inside, or retrospection,
a star inside a rectangle, a recollection:
this hollow square could easily have been there.
Usually, retrospection and introspection are expected to be separate, even mutually exclusive, territories. But here the speaking persona seeks to collapse these territories into one. The “It” of line 14 is the scene in the courtyard; the “I” would like her interior and her exterior weathers to be the same. But they are not, and this disappoints her, causing her some anxiety.
After looking down into the lifeless courtyard and reflecting on a childhood memory that doesn't seem to help, this person wants to know where the signs of life are (“Where is the ammunition...?”). With no one else to turn to, she wants to know if the clocks can tell her what she wants to know. The “it” of the line next to last includes the pigeon, the Etoile (i.e., the star) and the sky, and the final question of the poem asks, “Is a catastrophe about to happen?”
Monday, September 07, 2009
"A Trek with the Buddha Bard" -- A Review in Danse Macabre
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.
"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.
Friday, August 14, 2009
Kate Evan interviews Joy Leftow
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
Friday, March 27, 2009
Palabra Pura
The Guild Literary Complex has a schedule thick with poets again in 2009. Here is how they describe their Palabra Pura series of poetry readings:
Palabra Pura promotes literary expression in more than one tongue through a monthly bilingual poetry reading featuring Chicano and Latino artists. With an aim to foster dialogue through literature in Chicago and beyond, each evening pairs a local poet with a visiting writer along with an open mic to engage the interaction of diverse voices, ideas, and aesthetics. The readings are held the third Wednesday of every month (except August and December) throughout 2009.
Palabra Pura se enfoca en la expresion literaria en varios idiomas a traves de una serie de lecturas mensuales bilingues con artistas Chicanos y Latinos. Nuestra meta es promover el dialogo a traves de la literatura en Chicago y mas alla. Con este fin, cado lectura combina un poeta local con uno invitado, ademas de un open mic para cultivar la interaccion de voces, ideas esteticas diversas. Las lecturas se ofrecen el tercer miercoles de cada mes (con excepcion de agosto y diciembre).
Visit their website for the full description.
See the Guild's website for the full schedule. The site has detailed information for each event as well as links to partner organizations. For instance, on April 3rd (2009), one of the readers is Raul Zurita:
Raul Zurita was born in Santiago, Chile in 1951. He started out studying mathematics before turning to poetry. His early work is a ferocious response to Augusto Pinochet's 1973 military coup. Like many other Chileans, Zurita was arrested and tortured. When he was released, he helped to form a radical artistic group CADA, and he became renowned for his provocative and intensely physical public performances.
Visit their website for the full announcement.
"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
Wednesday, March 04, 2009
Faith and Works
A number of poets from what would become known as the United Kingdom were priests in one Church or another. For example:
An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying king, -
Princes, the dregs of their dull race, who flow
Through public scorn, -mud from a muddy spring, -
Rulers who neither see, nor feel, nor know,
But leech-like to their fainting country cling,
Till they drop, blind in blood, without a blow, -
A people starved and stabbed in the untilled field, -
An army, which liberticide and prey
Makes as a two-edged sword to all who wield, -
Golden and sanguine laws which tempt and slay;
Religion Christless, Godless -a book sealed;
A Senate, -Time's worst statute unrepealed, -
Are graves from which a glorious Phantom may
Burst, to illumine our tempestuous day.
from http://www.online-literature.com/shelley_percy/658/ accessed 3/4/09
The way I read this poem, I perceive a great bitterness and anger. The speaker of this poem feels hurt and outraged that these things are happening. The poem ends with a note of hope that would seem out of place to me if the notion of Time wasn't so carefully threaded through the last three lines.
Of course, Shelley (1792 - 1822) is known for his atheism. But I wonder whether the case was simply that Shelley felt that the people who were going to Church regularly had little sense of wisdom as Shelley understood Wisdom. I think there's a good chance that Shelley felt similarly to the way Nietszche felt before he decided that "God is dead". Sometimes I think the anger in "England in 1819" could only come from someone who feels deeply hurt that religious faith doesn't prevent such suffering as indicated in the poem. And it seems to me only a Christian would write such a poem. I understand that I may be naive in this view but still it seems reasonable. The end could be as it is to keep the poem from being overtly Christian and simply to keep it from being (overly) preachy.
A nice commentary on Shelley's poem can be found here at Spark Notes.
- George Herbert (1593 – 1633) Welsh priest
- John Donne (1572 - 1631) Anglican priest
- Johnathan Swift (1667 - 1745) priest in Church of Ireland
- Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844 - 1845) Catholic priest
An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying king, -
Princes, the dregs of their dull race, who flow
Through public scorn, -mud from a muddy spring, -
Rulers who neither see, nor feel, nor know,
But leech-like to their fainting country cling,
Till they drop, blind in blood, without a blow, -
A people starved and stabbed in the untilled field, -
An army, which liberticide and prey
Makes as a two-edged sword to all who wield, -
Golden and sanguine laws which tempt and slay;
Religion Christless, Godless -a book sealed;
A Senate, -Time's worst statute unrepealed, -
Are graves from which a glorious Phantom may
Burst, to illumine our tempestuous day.
from http://www.online-literature.com/shelley_percy/658/ accessed 3/4/09
The way I read this poem, I perceive a great bitterness and anger. The speaker of this poem feels hurt and outraged that these things are happening. The poem ends with a note of hope that would seem out of place to me if the notion of Time wasn't so carefully threaded through the last three lines.
Of course, Shelley (1792 - 1822) is known for his atheism. But I wonder whether the case was simply that Shelley felt that the people who were going to Church regularly had little sense of wisdom as Shelley understood Wisdom. I think there's a good chance that Shelley felt similarly to the way Nietszche felt before he decided that "God is dead". Sometimes I think the anger in "England in 1819" could only come from someone who feels deeply hurt that religious faith doesn't prevent such suffering as indicated in the poem. And it seems to me only a Christian would write such a poem. I understand that I may be naive in this view but still it seems reasonable. The end could be as it is to keep the poem from being overtly Christian and simply to keep it from being (overly) preachy.
A nice commentary on Shelley's poem can be found here at Spark Notes.
Friday, February 27, 2009
A Wee but Potent Thing
In the United States, a small collection of poems is published in a chapbook. In the United Kingdom, a small collection of poems is published in a pamphlet. Small here means anywhere from 18 to 28 poems, if most of the poems fit on one or two pages. Typically a chapbook will be no more than 30 pages altogether. In the U.S., the chapbook is not at all unusual. In the U.K., the pamphlet is finding its way back into acceptable circles. As this article by Jackie Kay in The Guardian points out, Ted Hughes made use of the pamphlet years ago. Here is an excerpt which doesn't mention Ted Hughes:
The poetry pamphlet has always been a good way for new poets to reach an audience. Many of today's well-known poets were first published in pamphlet form – or have at different times in their career enjoyed the delicacy and artistry of a small pamphlet. They are the connoisseur's version of a very tasty starter. Straight away, they give you a sense of somebody, an idea of their voice, just enough to make you know that you'd like more – or not. Oh My Rub!, for example, made me want to read more, as did many of the wonderful pamphlets published by Smith/Doorstop. (Poetry Business run by Peter Sansom et al has been doing great pamphlet work for years.)
Read the full article at The Guardian.
Many thanks to Carrie Etter who posted about the article in the Guardian at her blog.
Susan Settlemyre Williams has reviewed four chapbooks at Blackbird which is a joint venture of the Department of English at Virginia Commonwealth University and New Virginia Review, Inc. You can read the reviews online.
The poetry pamphlet has always been a good way for new poets to reach an audience. Many of today's well-known poets were first published in pamphlet form – or have at different times in their career enjoyed the delicacy and artistry of a small pamphlet. They are the connoisseur's version of a very tasty starter. Straight away, they give you a sense of somebody, an idea of their voice, just enough to make you know that you'd like more – or not. Oh My Rub!, for example, made me want to read more, as did many of the wonderful pamphlets published by Smith/Doorstop. (Poetry Business run by Peter Sansom et al has been doing great pamphlet work for years.)
Read the full article at The Guardian.
Many thanks to Carrie Etter who posted about the article in the Guardian at her blog.
Susan Settlemyre Williams has reviewed four chapbooks at Blackbird which is a joint venture of the Department of English at Virginia Commonwealth University and New Virginia Review, Inc. You can read the reviews online.
Friday, January 16, 2009
So Long, Farewell and Other Thoughts
Lately I've been reading Ron Paul's The Revolution. I don't know much about Mr. Paul other than that he serves the United States as an elected official and that, once upon a time, he was a Presidential candidate running toward the 2008 election. I do know that what I've read in his book so far makes sense.
Last night President Bush gave his Farewell Address. On several TV stations, at 8 p.m. New York time, regular programming was interrupted so Bush could say good-bye. Of what I heard, I remember he made a comment about the fact that, since the terrorist attacks of 9/11, there have been no more terrorist attacks on American soil (or any other American targets). I don't know if he said it explicitly or not but the implication is that the money spent on Homeland Security, airport security improvement, etc has been money well spent. Frankly, I would rather have watched the first 15 minutes of "My Name Is Earl".
Before I go on, let me just quickly say that the easy thing for us to do is to judge Mr. Bush's efforts as President as inadequate or worse, and I understand that I risk sounding naive by not addressing here some of the things Bush Jr. has done while in office that are easy to feel outrage over. Suffice it to say that I expect to see Bush Administration officials working at AIG, Citigroup and other companies that benefit from the bailout $ after President-elect Obama is sworn in next week.
One of the things in Mr. Paul's book that caught my attention was his quotes of Mr. Bush's attitude regarding U.S. foreign policy before Bush was elected* President in 2000. Mr. Bush, in various speeches, voiced the traditional noninterventionist attitude toward U.S. foreign policy.
Begin quote:
In a debate with Vice President Al Gore the following year [2000], Bush said: "I'm not so sure the role of the United States is to go around the world and say, 'This is the way it's got to be.' . . . I think one way for us to end up being viewed as 'the ugly American' is for us to go around the world saying, 'We do it this way; so should you.'"
Bush also rejected nation building. "Somalia started off as a humanitarian mission and changed into a nation-building mission," he said. "And that's where the mission went wrong. The mission was changed. And as a result, our nation paid a price. And so I don't think our troops ought to be used for what's called 'nation building.'" He added, "I think what we need to do is to convince the people who live in the lands [themselves] to build the nations. Maybe I'm missing something here - we're going to have a kind of a 'nation-building corps' from America?"
Finally, when discussing other countries' perception of the United States, Bush said: "If we're an arrogant nation, they'll resent us. If we're a humble nation, but strong, they'll welcome us. Our nation stands alone right now in the world in terms of power, and that's why we've got to be humble." We should be "proud and confident [in] our values, but humble in how we treat nations that are figuring out how to chart their own course." The Revolution, p.11-12
End quote.
Clearly, Bush's project of installing democracy in Iraq runs counter to his previous statements regarding U.S. foreign policy. What Mr. Bush thinks about that, what he feels about that, I don't pretend to know. He might ask me to respect the fact that he made tough choices. We all make tough choices every day when we decide how much credence to put in our leaders' words. I'm sure Bush is a man who is, like any of us, fallible and susceptible. Likewise Bush's Vice President Dick Cheney. The Washington Post's four-part Pulitzer Prize-winning series on the Vice President is available online.
Another book I've been reading lately is No Time To Lose by Pema Chodron. Ms. Chodron provides a running commentary here on a Buddhist text titled The Way of the Bodhisattva and attributed to Shantideva who lived sometime during the 8th century. About Ms. Chodron I know even less than I know about Mr. Paul. Her text, however, has become one of my favorite books of all time. A particular passage I want to share with you here:
[Shantideva]
4.41
When I pledged myself to free from their affliction
Beings who abide in every region,
Stretching to the limits of the sky,
I myself was subject to the same afflictions.
4.42
Thus I did not have the measure of my strength -
To speak like this was clear insanity.
More reason, then, for never drawing back,
Abandoning the fight against defiled confusion.
[Chodron]
This is what distinguishes a mature bodhisattva, such as Shantideva, from bodhisattvas-in-training. When he says that taking the bodhisattva vow was clear insanity, he's not expressing feelings of despondency or inadequacy. He's saying it as an incentive to get busy, to do whatever it takes to live his life as attentively and wakefully as possible. Instead of indulging in guilt and other variations on the theme of failure, he spurs himself on.
The next time you are feeling hopeless because you can't make a dent in your confusion, you can encourage yourself with Shantideva's words: More reason, then, for never drawing back.
Every courageous gesture we make, whether or not we think it's successful, definitely imprints our mind in a positive way. The slightest willingness to interrupt our old habits predisposes us to greater bravery, greater strength, and greater empathy for others. No matter how trapped we feel, we can always be of benefit. How? By interrupting our defeatist story lines and working intelligently and wisely with our kleshas.
4.43
This shall be my all-consuming passion:
Filled with rancor I will wage my war!
Though this emotion seems to be defiled,
It halts defilement and shall not be spurned.
In verse 43, this emotion is anger. Although it is usually seen as a problem, Shantideva takes a homeopathic approach and vows to use anger to cure anger. Rousing his passionate enthusiasm for the task, he proceeds with all-consuming warriorship and joy.
4.44
Better if I perish in the fire,
Better that my head be severed from my body
Than ever I should serve or reverence
My mortal foes, defiled emotions.
As the years go by, I understand this kind of passionate determination and confidence more and more. The choice is mine. I can spend my life strengthening my kleshas or I can weaken them. I can continue to be their slave; or, realizing they're not solid, I can simply accept them as my own powerful yet ineffable energy. It's increasingly clear which choice leads to further pain and which one leads to relaxation and delight.
[end quote]
I believe that the only time we fight for what we love is when we work to improve ourselves. Whatever his faults, Mr. Bush is a human being who suffers when he makes bad choices. He has a conscience. If he has the desire to continue growing, I am not going to hold his sins against him. Certainly, I am not going to ruin my days thinking about how much better the world would be had Bush and Cheney never been leaders of the free world.
As much as I would like to, I am not going to elaborate on the benefits of daily reflecting on Shantideva's teachings as they apply to one's life right now. I do have a few comments though. Shantideva talks a lot about bodhichitta. Raised in a Chritian (Catholic) tradition, I associate bodhichitta with divine grace. Shantideva also talks about the struggle to stop one's negative emotions (i.e., kleshas) from having power over one's life (i.e., over one's choices). This I associate with the Muslim's notion of jihad (with a little j). Shantideva also talks about taking the bodhisattva vow. I associate this with Judaism because the vow is to always be of help to anyone and everyone. The connection is in the so-called "Jewish guilt". For a Jew to deliberately withhold aid is the worst type of sin a Jew can commit.
As much as I love the notions of self-improvement and world peace, I am going to talk now instead about poetry. Specifically, I want to say that I believe that one's poetry benefits in quality when one refuses the easy way. In poetry, the easy way is often the lazy way. It is easy to overlook or to ignore the shadow of a houseplant as the day goes by. Paying attention can be difficult. We expect ourselves to focus on the livelihood of the ego, and the ego doesn't care about ephemeral beauty. "The old law says work for food." -William Stafford. Paying attention to anything outside our typical workday requires a generosity of spirit if you will in order for the thing to have any meaning to us. If there is nothing new under the sun, what can a creative spirit do except to rearrange what we already know and have and love and so forth. It becomes more a matter of how we regard seemingly insignificant things. For example:
Moss-Gathering
by Theodore Roethke
To loosen with all ten fingers held wide and limber
And lift up a patch, dark-green, the kind for lining cemetery baskets,
Thick and cushiony, like an old-fashioned doormat,
The crumbling small hollow sticks on the underside mixed with roots,
And wintergreen berries and leaves still stuck to the top,—
That was moss-gathering.
But something always went out of me when I dug loose those carpets
Of green, or plunged to my elbows in the spongy yellowish moss of the marshes:
And afterwards I always felt mean, jogging back over the logging road,
As if I had broken the natural order of things in that swampland;
Disturbed some rhythm, old and of vast importance,
By pulling off flesh from the living planet;
As if I had committed, against the whole scheme of life, a desecration.
If a poet can arrange the representations of things in such a way as to trigger connections in the reader's mind that might not otherwise be made, perhaps the poem can provide some service to the reader. The poem might help the reader access an emotion perhaps, or arrive at a clearer understanding of a historical event.
I don't think Bush needs forgiveness for what he did or didn't do while in office. Cheney I don't know about. Maybe one day we will have a film like Breach but instead of being about Robert Hanssen and his selling state secrets to the Soviets it will be about Dick Cheney and what his role was in the 9/11 attacks. Whether we ever have such a movie or not, we need to look forward and see how can our participation help to improve our communities, our culture, our opportunities and oursevles.
Last night President Bush gave his Farewell Address. On several TV stations, at 8 p.m. New York time, regular programming was interrupted so Bush could say good-bye. Of what I heard, I remember he made a comment about the fact that, since the terrorist attacks of 9/11, there have been no more terrorist attacks on American soil (or any other American targets). I don't know if he said it explicitly or not but the implication is that the money spent on Homeland Security, airport security improvement, etc has been money well spent. Frankly, I would rather have watched the first 15 minutes of "My Name Is Earl".
Before I go on, let me just quickly say that the easy thing for us to do is to judge Mr. Bush's efforts as President as inadequate or worse, and I understand that I risk sounding naive by not addressing here some of the things Bush Jr. has done while in office that are easy to feel outrage over. Suffice it to say that I expect to see Bush Administration officials working at AIG, Citigroup and other companies that benefit from the bailout $ after President-elect Obama is sworn in next week.
One of the things in Mr. Paul's book that caught my attention was his quotes of Mr. Bush's attitude regarding U.S. foreign policy before Bush was elected* President in 2000. Mr. Bush, in various speeches, voiced the traditional noninterventionist attitude toward U.S. foreign policy.
Begin quote:
In a debate with Vice President Al Gore the following year [2000], Bush said: "I'm not so sure the role of the United States is to go around the world and say, 'This is the way it's got to be.' . . . I think one way for us to end up being viewed as 'the ugly American' is for us to go around the world saying, 'We do it this way; so should you.'"
Bush also rejected nation building. "Somalia started off as a humanitarian mission and changed into a nation-building mission," he said. "And that's where the mission went wrong. The mission was changed. And as a result, our nation paid a price. And so I don't think our troops ought to be used for what's called 'nation building.'" He added, "I think what we need to do is to convince the people who live in the lands [themselves] to build the nations. Maybe I'm missing something here - we're going to have a kind of a 'nation-building corps' from America?"
Finally, when discussing other countries' perception of the United States, Bush said: "If we're an arrogant nation, they'll resent us. If we're a humble nation, but strong, they'll welcome us. Our nation stands alone right now in the world in terms of power, and that's why we've got to be humble." We should be "proud and confident [in] our values, but humble in how we treat nations that are figuring out how to chart their own course." The Revolution, p.11-12
End quote.
Clearly, Bush's project of installing democracy in Iraq runs counter to his previous statements regarding U.S. foreign policy. What Mr. Bush thinks about that, what he feels about that, I don't pretend to know. He might ask me to respect the fact that he made tough choices. We all make tough choices every day when we decide how much credence to put in our leaders' words. I'm sure Bush is a man who is, like any of us, fallible and susceptible. Likewise Bush's Vice President Dick Cheney. The Washington Post's four-part Pulitzer Prize-winning series on the Vice President is available online.
Another book I've been reading lately is No Time To Lose by Pema Chodron. Ms. Chodron provides a running commentary here on a Buddhist text titled The Way of the Bodhisattva and attributed to Shantideva who lived sometime during the 8th century. About Ms. Chodron I know even less than I know about Mr. Paul. Her text, however, has become one of my favorite books of all time. A particular passage I want to share with you here:
[Shantideva]
4.41
When I pledged myself to free from their affliction
Beings who abide in every region,
Stretching to the limits of the sky,
I myself was subject to the same afflictions.
4.42
Thus I did not have the measure of my strength -
To speak like this was clear insanity.
More reason, then, for never drawing back,
Abandoning the fight against defiled confusion.
[Chodron]
This is what distinguishes a mature bodhisattva, such as Shantideva, from bodhisattvas-in-training. When he says that taking the bodhisattva vow was clear insanity, he's not expressing feelings of despondency or inadequacy. He's saying it as an incentive to get busy, to do whatever it takes to live his life as attentively and wakefully as possible. Instead of indulging in guilt and other variations on the theme of failure, he spurs himself on.
The next time you are feeling hopeless because you can't make a dent in your confusion, you can encourage yourself with Shantideva's words: More reason, then, for never drawing back.
Every courageous gesture we make, whether or not we think it's successful, definitely imprints our mind in a positive way. The slightest willingness to interrupt our old habits predisposes us to greater bravery, greater strength, and greater empathy for others. No matter how trapped we feel, we can always be of benefit. How? By interrupting our defeatist story lines and working intelligently and wisely with our kleshas.
4.43
This shall be my all-consuming passion:
Filled with rancor I will wage my war!
Though this emotion seems to be defiled,
It halts defilement and shall not be spurned.
In verse 43, this emotion is anger. Although it is usually seen as a problem, Shantideva takes a homeopathic approach and vows to use anger to cure anger. Rousing his passionate enthusiasm for the task, he proceeds with all-consuming warriorship and joy.
4.44
Better if I perish in the fire,
Better that my head be severed from my body
Than ever I should serve or reverence
My mortal foes, defiled emotions.
As the years go by, I understand this kind of passionate determination and confidence more and more. The choice is mine. I can spend my life strengthening my kleshas or I can weaken them. I can continue to be their slave; or, realizing they're not solid, I can simply accept them as my own powerful yet ineffable energy. It's increasingly clear which choice leads to further pain and which one leads to relaxation and delight.
[end quote]
I believe that the only time we fight for what we love is when we work to improve ourselves. Whatever his faults, Mr. Bush is a human being who suffers when he makes bad choices. He has a conscience. If he has the desire to continue growing, I am not going to hold his sins against him. Certainly, I am not going to ruin my days thinking about how much better the world would be had Bush and Cheney never been leaders of the free world.
As much as I would like to, I am not going to elaborate on the benefits of daily reflecting on Shantideva's teachings as they apply to one's life right now. I do have a few comments though. Shantideva talks a lot about bodhichitta. Raised in a Chritian (Catholic) tradition, I associate bodhichitta with divine grace. Shantideva also talks about the struggle to stop one's negative emotions (i.e., kleshas) from having power over one's life (i.e., over one's choices). This I associate with the Muslim's notion of jihad (with a little j). Shantideva also talks about taking the bodhisattva vow. I associate this with Judaism because the vow is to always be of help to anyone and everyone. The connection is in the so-called "Jewish guilt". For a Jew to deliberately withhold aid is the worst type of sin a Jew can commit.
As much as I love the notions of self-improvement and world peace, I am going to talk now instead about poetry. Specifically, I want to say that I believe that one's poetry benefits in quality when one refuses the easy way. In poetry, the easy way is often the lazy way. It is easy to overlook or to ignore the shadow of a houseplant as the day goes by. Paying attention can be difficult. We expect ourselves to focus on the livelihood of the ego, and the ego doesn't care about ephemeral beauty. "The old law says work for food." -William Stafford. Paying attention to anything outside our typical workday requires a generosity of spirit if you will in order for the thing to have any meaning to us. If there is nothing new under the sun, what can a creative spirit do except to rearrange what we already know and have and love and so forth. It becomes more a matter of how we regard seemingly insignificant things. For example:
Moss-Gathering
by Theodore Roethke
To loosen with all ten fingers held wide and limber
And lift up a patch, dark-green, the kind for lining cemetery baskets,
Thick and cushiony, like an old-fashioned doormat,
The crumbling small hollow sticks on the underside mixed with roots,
And wintergreen berries and leaves still stuck to the top,—
That was moss-gathering.
But something always went out of me when I dug loose those carpets
Of green, or plunged to my elbows in the spongy yellowish moss of the marshes:
And afterwards I always felt mean, jogging back over the logging road,
As if I had broken the natural order of things in that swampland;
Disturbed some rhythm, old and of vast importance,
By pulling off flesh from the living planet;
As if I had committed, against the whole scheme of life, a desecration.
If a poet can arrange the representations of things in such a way as to trigger connections in the reader's mind that might not otherwise be made, perhaps the poem can provide some service to the reader. The poem might help the reader access an emotion perhaps, or arrive at a clearer understanding of a historical event.
I don't think Bush needs forgiveness for what he did or didn't do while in office. Cheney I don't know about. Maybe one day we will have a film like Breach but instead of being about Robert Hanssen and his selling state secrets to the Soviets it will be about Dick Cheney and what his role was in the 9/11 attacks. Whether we ever have such a movie or not, we need to look forward and see how can our participation help to improve our communities, our culture, our opportunities and oursevles.
Saturday, January 10, 2009
My Favorite Poem Midland
In October of 2008, the first My Favorite Poem event was held in Midland, Michigan where I live. The event was sponsored by the Grace A. Dow Memorial Library and by the Poetry Society of Michigan. I owe many thanks to library employees Virginia McKane and Ron Suszek for enabling the library's sponsorship. Held in the Library Lounge, the event featured 16 Midland residents reading their favorite poems, introducing themselves and saying what it is about the poems that they like. Fortunately I had help from a few other Midland residents in organizing this event. John Palen, David and Jeannie Dellar, and Larry and Cheryl Levy all helped in one way or another. The following is a slightly revised version of the flier I used in my search for readers to participate:
-->
Yes! I love the idea and want to read a poem at the My Favorite Poem Midland event.
I understand that
- the event will take place from 7 to 8:30 p.m. on Thursday, October 23rd, 2008 at the Library Lounge at 1710 West Saint Andrews Road.
- the poem I read must be published in a book and must not be a poem I or a friend or relative of mine wrote.
- I may recite the poem from memory or read it from a page.
- I am expected to speak about the poem after I read it.
- I am expected to tell something about why I like the poem as much as I do.
- I may tell how I found the poem.
- I am expected to tell something about myself, such as how long I've lived in Midland or where I work, etc.
- I am expected to speak from memory about the poem and not read from prepared notes.
- I may try to tell what the poem means to me.
- I may tell a story from my life that relates to the poem.
- I am not expected to provide a critique of the poem.
- I have six (6) minutes to talk about and then read the poem a second time.
- If it is a longer poem, I will choose a portion of it to read.
- I may talk for four (4) minutes and read for the remaining minute.
- I may talk and read for a total of less than five (5) minutes if I desire to do so.
- If the poem is in a language other than English, I will read it first in the non-English language and then I will read or have someone read a translation of it in English.
- My selection is due no later than the end of September 2008. Earlier is better.
- Following the event, light refreshments will be served in the Library Lounge and attendees and participants will have the opportunity to relax and mingle.
----------detach here--------retain top portion--------complete bottom portion and return-------------
The title of the poem I will read is ___________________________________________.
The poem I will read was written by _________________________________________.
My name is ____________________________________________________________.
My address ____________________________________________________________.
My phone number _______________________________________________________.
Return completed bottom portion no later than September 30, 2008 to:
My Favorite Poem Midland Event
P.O. Box
Midland, MI 48641
-->
YOU ARE INVITED!
WHO: THE MIDLAND COMMUNITY
WHAT: “MY FAVORITE POEM” EVENT.
MIDLANDERS READ THEIR FAVORITE POEMS.
WHEN: THURSDAY, OCTOBER 23, 2008 AT 7 P.M.
WHERE: LIBRARY LOUNGE, 1710 W. ST. ANDREWS
WHY: CELEBRATE OUR APPRECIATION OF POETRY
FOR MORE INFORMATION AND/OR TO PARTICIPATE, CONTACT:
ANDY CHRIST, [home phone number]
LARRY LEVY, [home phone number]
WATCH EXAMPLES ONLINE AT
SPONSORED BY THE GRACE A. DOW MEMORIAL LIBRARY AND THE POETRY SOCIETY OF MICHIGAN
It turns out that Midland has a user-friendly public-access television station. Appropriately, it is called Midland Community Television. Dave Dellar was kind enough to check out from MCTV a video camera, a shotgun microphone, etc and record the My Favorite Poem event. With some direction from the MCTV staff, I then edited the footage into a cablecast-ready production format. The video was shown on the public-access channel provided by Charter Cable and the City of Midland to the residents of Midland who subscribe to cable through the Charter Cable company. Subsequently, the staff at MCTV guided me in using the nonlinear editing software available at MCTV to transform the production recording into digital files which could then be edited further and stored as medium-quality streaming Quicktime movie files. Some of the 16 readers now appear in their respective video segments at YouTube, and here I embed some of those YouTube files into this post:
DVD copies that include all 16 readers can be ordered directly from MCTV by calling (989) 837-3474.
Tuesday, December 09, 2008
Visas for Artistic Performance
Artists traveling in the European Union need a special visa in order to show &/or perform their work(s).
This just in from Listen & Be Heard by way of Ron Silliman's blog:
[excerpt follows]
In Chanticleer Magazine (issue 21), the editor, Richard Livermore, reports “On September 16th, an American poet was arrested at Stanstead Airport, held in a holding tank, interrogated on and off (…) for 18 hours, had her mugshot (sic) taken, was finger-printed and then sent back to Italy, where she had bought her ticket. Her crime – she had come to Britain to read poetry (…) on the radio – for which she was not being paid – without a special visa to do so. When the person who was due to meet her at the airport tried to find out by phone what was happening, he was told that, under the Data Protection Act, such information could not be released. When he attempted to ask more questions the person at the other end of the line told him that if he persisted in asking questions, she would be obliged to hang up. To this day, the poet – a 64-year-old writer, musician, poet and translator – still doesn’t know why she was held. All she knows is that in coming here to read poetry she was contravening one of three new laws which stipulates that non-EU artists require a special visa to exhibit their work. Reading poetry in public falls into the category of ‘exhibiting work”.
Read the full article at http://www.listenandbeheard.net/home/2008/11/24/the-terror-of-poetry/
And now more on this from the Civitas Blog:
[excerpt follows]
According to French MEP Claire Gibault (cited by Euobserver.com as a top violinist and orchestra director) artists deserve “special social status” to be able to travel throughout the union. Gibault has identified the artists’ situation as an example of deficiencies in the Schengen Agreement (which creates a borderless zone for free travel across Europe) and claims that artists actually require further freedoms. Confused? Me too! The EU’s justification is that art and culture must be “human not elitist” and according to the EU, the only way to “humanise” art is via a new visa programme for artists to ensure greater mobility “as a condition for cultural exchange and enrichment”.
Read the full article at http://www.civitas.org.uk/blog/2008/04/the_eus_art_attack.html
Anyone who wants a special Schengen Visa to travel in Europe and give a poetry reading would be well advised to plan their trip several months in advance during which time the visa application can be processed. More info on obtaining such a visa can be found for instance at immihelp: http://www.immihelp.com/visas/pvisa/
Susana Milevska, a graduate student at Goldsmiths College, posted a piece online about the paper she prepared and presented in February 2006 at the 7th Postgraduate Conference. Here is an excerpt from that paper:
My paper deals with a contemporary art phenomenon that emerged in the countries that are not part of the European Union. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, a great number of contemporary art projects are concerned with the continuously changing borders between Schengen and non-Schengen states. It is not surprising, if one takes into account that each artist coming from a non-Schengen country, in order to participate at an international project, needs at least one month to collect all the required documents for a Schengen visa. While opposing to the strict visa and passport regimes which make their life as free-lance artists impossible, artists imagine performances, objects, installations, video or photography projects that are often clandestine attempts for finding a way to trick the political system. Therefore, one can say that they use their profession and mediums in a quite different way than it has been used before.
Read the full abstract at the UCL university homepages website.
Find out more about Schengen states at the Schengen Space website.
This just in from Listen & Be Heard by way of Ron Silliman's blog:
[excerpt follows]
In Chanticleer Magazine (issue 21), the editor, Richard Livermore, reports “On September 16th, an American poet was arrested at Stanstead Airport, held in a holding tank, interrogated on and off (…) for 18 hours, had her mugshot (sic) taken, was finger-printed and then sent back to Italy, where she had bought her ticket. Her crime – she had come to Britain to read poetry (…) on the radio – for which she was not being paid – without a special visa to do so. When the person who was due to meet her at the airport tried to find out by phone what was happening, he was told that, under the Data Protection Act, such information could not be released. When he attempted to ask more questions the person at the other end of the line told him that if he persisted in asking questions, she would be obliged to hang up. To this day, the poet – a 64-year-old writer, musician, poet and translator – still doesn’t know why she was held. All she knows is that in coming here to read poetry she was contravening one of three new laws which stipulates that non-EU artists require a special visa to exhibit their work. Reading poetry in public falls into the category of ‘exhibiting work”.
Read the full article at http://www.listenandbeheard.net/home/2008/11/24/the-terror-of-poetry/
And now more on this from the Civitas Blog:
[excerpt follows]
According to French MEP Claire Gibault (cited by Euobserver.com as a top violinist and orchestra director) artists deserve “special social status” to be able to travel throughout the union. Gibault has identified the artists’ situation as an example of deficiencies in the Schengen Agreement (which creates a borderless zone for free travel across Europe) and claims that artists actually require further freedoms. Confused? Me too! The EU’s justification is that art and culture must be “human not elitist” and according to the EU, the only way to “humanise” art is via a new visa programme for artists to ensure greater mobility “as a condition for cultural exchange and enrichment”.
Read the full article at http://www.civitas.org.uk/blog/2008/04/the_eus_art_attack.html
Anyone who wants a special Schengen Visa to travel in Europe and give a poetry reading would be well advised to plan their trip several months in advance during which time the visa application can be processed. More info on obtaining such a visa can be found for instance at immihelp: http://www.immihelp.com/visas/pvisa/
Susana Milevska, a graduate student at Goldsmiths College, posted a piece online about the paper she prepared and presented in February 2006 at the 7th Postgraduate Conference. Here is an excerpt from that paper:
My paper deals with a contemporary art phenomenon that emerged in the countries that are not part of the European Union. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, a great number of contemporary art projects are concerned with the continuously changing borders between Schengen and non-Schengen states. It is not surprising, if one takes into account that each artist coming from a non-Schengen country, in order to participate at an international project, needs at least one month to collect all the required documents for a Schengen visa. While opposing to the strict visa and passport regimes which make their life as free-lance artists impossible, artists imagine performances, objects, installations, video or photography projects that are often clandestine attempts for finding a way to trick the political system. Therefore, one can say that they use their profession and mediums in a quite different way than it has been used before.
Read the full abstract at the UCL university homepages website.
Find out more about Schengen states at the Schengen Space website.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Denise Duhamel
Poet Denise Duhamel answers a question from a reader once a month at the Facebook group 'Fans of Denise Duhamel OR A Group of Duhalamites'.
This entry comes from a series that was begun by Dustin Brookshire. Visit Dustin's blog to read more from that series.
Christan Cannella asks, "What is the role of pop culture in your poems?"
Denise answers:
This is a great question, Christan. When I started writing poetry, I never used much pop culture in my work. I thought I "couldn't." But then came a pivotal moment: I was taking an undergraduate workshop with Thomas Lux who was looking at a poem of mine with bar of soap in it. The poem was about a craft I did as a child in which I pushed colored push pins into bars of soap to make faces-- eyes, noses, and mouths, with ribbon curled and pinned in as hair. No one really got my poem because bars of soap are usually square (and non head-like) and I found myself defending my poem saying the soap I used was oval, Dove soap. Then Lux asked why didn't I indicated that in the poem, which would have even given the poem more metaphorical layers. Up until then I really hadn't thought of utilizing name brands in poetry. Suddenly the world came alive with all the ways in which product brands could become great adjectives or simple nouns: Tide, Nikes, Cocoa Cris pies, Lexus, Revlon, Eggos...Later I would use such words in my poems to indicated time frames, settings (Americana) and so on. But it wasn't until I started writing about Barbie, the doll, for a book called KINKY, that I truly started exploring the cultural significance of pop.
Using Barbie dolls as muses, I was able to write political satire. I felt that when I tried to write about issues of gender and race head on, seriously, I would often become didactic. Barbie helped me avoid that impulse. I was pulled into Barbie's world when I wrote a poem about20Miss America in which Barbie surprisingly made a cameo appearance. Miss Americas are--like store mannequins and the Columbia pictures' logo--anywhere from 20-30 pounds thinner now than they were in the late fifties. A while later, I wrote about poem about watching my nieces play with Barbie. I was both fascinated and threatened by the image of Barbie, one of the endless examples of unrealistic body images for woman. But slowly, like a child playing with the doll, I began to write in Barbie's personna--sympathetically, trying to get at the rage and fears beyond her bland plastic countenance. She was, for me, a perfect vehicle for feminist issues. She smiles even when she's being poked, set on fire, or having her limbs pulled off. She literally can't stand on her own two feet without toppling over. Yet Barbie seems to have her own income and a number of prestigious postgraduate degrees as she's been a pilot, a doctor, and an astronaut. She is both the ultimate victim as well as the ultimate pioneer of resourcefulness.
Monday, August 18, 2008
About This Blog
This blog stems from an activity begun in Saginaw, Michigan, by the River Junction Poets. The activity was designed to provide opportunities for readers to share poems they like and to learn about poets and poems about which they maybe don't know so much. By celebrating birthdays of poets, we reminded ourselves of the human sources of poems. This blog features multiple contributors, lists of poets and their birthdays, titles of their recent works, and links to publishers and other pages with information about the poets. This blog has occasionally featured pieces written by other bloggers.
About the activity: from June 2005 to 2009, the River Junction Poets hosted readings on the occasions of birthdays of poets at the Barnes & Noble bookstore in Saginaw, Michigan. Several of these blog posts describe these events, which were announced by the bookstore in its monthly in-store Newsletter. One of the store managers was so enthused by what our group was doing, he arranged for a sign to announce our activity and also arranged a shelf of poetry books near our group. Often, we sent a birthday card to the poet whose work we read, and we included the store newsletter that mentioned the event after we had all signed the card. We've received Thank You notes from several of these poets, which you can see in blog posts here.
If you are wondering what it would be like to host such an event yourself, consider what it would be like to sit and read poems by yourself in a place where others could join you. When we did this in Saginaw, we decided together on the dates to meet at the bookstore, and then I e-mailed the dates to the manager at the Barnes & Noble. At least one of us chose to act as host for each occasion, but, officially, no one signed up to attend any events; usually, however, people in our group would say if they were planning to be there or not. For me, it wasn't time wasted if I was host and no one showed up. That happened once, when I was the only one at the Lewis Carroll birthday reading. I actually ended up talking about Lewis Carroll, his poetry, and our group with two shoppers who happened to be there at the time. It was obvious that I was there for the occasion because there was a sign there announcing the event, and I was sitting there reading work by Lewis Carroll.
About the activity: from June 2005 to 2009, the River Junction Poets hosted readings on the occasions of birthdays of poets at the Barnes & Noble bookstore in Saginaw, Michigan. Several of these blog posts describe these events, which were announced by the bookstore in its monthly in-store Newsletter. One of the store managers was so enthused by what our group was doing, he arranged for a sign to announce our activity and also arranged a shelf of poetry books near our group. Often, we sent a birthday card to the poet whose work we read, and we included the store newsletter that mentioned the event after we had all signed the card. We've received Thank You notes from several of these poets, which you can see in blog posts here.
If you are wondering what it would be like to host such an event yourself, consider what it would be like to sit and read poems by yourself in a place where others could join you. When we did this in Saginaw, we decided together on the dates to meet at the bookstore, and then I e-mailed the dates to the manager at the Barnes & Noble. At least one of us chose to act as host for each occasion, but, officially, no one signed up to attend any events; usually, however, people in our group would say if they were planning to be there or not. For me, it wasn't time wasted if I was host and no one showed up. That happened once, when I was the only one at the Lewis Carroll birthday reading. I actually ended up talking about Lewis Carroll, his poetry, and our group with two shoppers who happened to be there at the time. It was obvious that I was there for the occasion because there was a sign there announcing the event, and I was sitting there reading work by Lewis Carroll.
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Thistles
Thistles
Against the rubber tongues of cows and the hoeing hands of men
Thistles spike the summer air
And crackle open under a blue-black pressure.
Every one a revengeful burst
Of resurrection, a grasped fistful
Of splintered weapons and Icelandic frost thrust up
From the underground stain of a decayed Viking.
They are like pale hair and the gutterals of dialects.
Every one manages a plume of blood.
Then they grow grey like men.
Mown down, it is a feud. Their sons appear
Stiff with weapons, fighting back over the same ground.
Thistles spike the summer air
And crackle open under a blue-black pressure.
Every one a revengeful burst
Of resurrection, a grasped fistful
Of splintered weapons and Icelandic frost thrust up
From the underground stain of a decayed Viking.
They are like pale hair and the gutterals of dialects.
Every one manages a plume of blood.
Then they grow grey like men.
Mown down, it is a feud. Their sons appear
Stiff with weapons, fighting back over the same ground.
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2 comments:
Yay Joy!
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.