Jeffrey Ethan Lee: a writer's blog | posts and re-posts

Meeting Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche in Philadelphia, years ago

2011-10-21T18:10:00.000-07:00

{December 25, 2007} originally posted in a Wordpress blog....

One of the most important events in my life was meeting Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche in Philadelphia when he came to visit the Shambhala Center, which his father Chogyam Trungpa had created. I did not know what to expect, and I knew only a little about Buddhism then, and I knew nothing about the lineages of Shambhala. I did not understand how important he was as the new leader of the lineage etc. I did have some experiences with meditation and had worked with meditation as part of my own writing though. And I had read some of Chogyam Trungpa’s writings a long time before, and The Myth of Freedom had been one of the most powerful books I’d ever read.

The session with Sakyong Mipham included a Question and Answer period followed by a period of sitting with him. He was more than serene; he radiated warmth and humble compassion. There was something fearless and almost innocent about his presence, but when he spoke, he was too apt and too intelligent to be really innocent. The questions that people asked were quite revealing, but always of themselves. The answers he gave were always direct, clear and simple. I asked a question, too. I wanted to know what the value was of a teacher. (This sounds like a stupid question, now, but it was somehow not obvious to me then.) He answered that it was a good question, and he said that it would help you learn more quickly and easily.

Why wasn’t that obvious to me before? Maybe the same reason it took me so long to get an MFA in poetry—I thought I could figure it all out by myself.

Then he sat and meditated with us in the large room across from the Shambhala Center, which actually was a dance studio.

This is hard to explain because I never felt anything like this before—he was just physically sitting there meditating, but it was as though the room filled with his light, warmth, and powerful, fearless compassion and love for all of us there. It was not merely that I could see how he felt; it was like the feelings inside him were flowing out of him and into us. Nothing in Western science, religion or culture could prepare anyone for this—it was extraordinary. It was a very beautiful and life-altering process. It lasted a long time, but I wanted it to keep going. I wanted to experience it more and understand it. How was this even possible?

I never understood it until I read a passage from Turning the Mind into an Ally, a book that he wrote:

What the Buddha discovered is that we all have bodhichitta,
ripe for nourishment. Within the bewildering maelstrom of
thoughts and emotions that keep our sense of self solid,
each of us already has the seeds of love and compassion.
Bodhichitta is the radiant heart that is constantly and
naturally, without self-consciousness, generating love and
compassion for the benefit of others. It’s a stream of love
and compassion that connects us all, without fixation or
attachment. It has a tender sadness to it, like a wound
that remains eternally exposed. It’s our true nature.

This passage reminded me of a few things. It reminded me that he was able to do this radiating of the heart of love and compassion, and that it did, in fact, have this tender and sad quality. It also reminded me of the one time in my life when I had an out-of-body experience. Then I remembered having a similar, powerful experience of this other way of being that was very much like the bodhichitta state of being that Sakyong Mipham describes. Trying to describe that accurately and well was one of the hardest things I ever tried to do in writing. The story was called “Out-of-body travel at thirteen.” I have read this story once in front of a real audience, and I have heard that the audience really “got it.” I also heard from a few readers that they really loved the story. That makes me think that maybe the message got through. It also reminded me of a phrase from William Wordsworth’s “Tintern Abbey,” which was “the still sad music of humanity.”

Looking back over many years, I am grateful to Sakyong Mipham for the fearless way that he practices and writes.

thin blue thread of light, parts 4-6

2011-06-03T20:28:00.000-07:00

4. dysphoria after labor for eighteen hours

when the doctor pushed for surgery
—a C-section intervening
regardless of us as human beings
or our hope, our plan
for a natural birth—

there was the shock of falling
into that deepest gravity,
and fear of all I could lose:
mother, infant,
and all the imagined future—

then there was anger at the doctor,
blackmailing us with a release form
(releasing him of blame for deaths if we waited too long),
paining her even more
at the eighteenth hour—

my anger grew acute in surgery,
seeing how he pulled the feet so hard
because the baby’s head was stuck
and our infant’s body stretched so far
it must have hurt beyond anything it ever felt before
—I wanted to pummel the surgeon,
but could only watch—

but then the newborn
was in the nurse’s hands
as he did void, pee and cry,
terrorized, it was clear,
in his first world-sized scare—
a folded football body,
sorrowful, slick, anguished
from the torture of being
yanked so hard by his feet
from the once-whole womb—

he cried in his first pain as big as all space,
but through his wrinkly skin,
he strangely linked
to my hands somehow calming
my small fretful son,
estranged from every
thing
except my voice
heard so often before he was born,
as if it registered,
he was soothed,
like he knew his father.

and I wanted to live—against my will
because my son needed me to.

a thin blue thread of light through me
lifted my voice—I spoke to him

when I first held his infant self
crying in terror in the sterile OR

I wanted to live—against my will
because my son was born.

5. Baby Chen

Our son was only a few hours old.
The RN named Lisa was imprinting his feet
into little family photo albums,
and he was crying in fear and frustration
at having his feet moved against his will
over and over, again.
I explained to Lisa
these were gifts for his grandparents.
The baby cried even louder,
so I told him:
“If you think this is bad,
wait till you meet them in real life.”

6. the thin blue thread of light (the first night in the hospital)

the instant he cried in the dark
I got up from the deep vinyl chair
without sleep
hanging from a thin blue thread of light from the sky
without thought
holding up my head
walking to his tiny crib
over linoleum lit only by night-lights—
without effort
submitting to his cry that rose
like another thin blue thread of light
hanging from the sky

without knowing how I’d know
I lifted him, pacified,
changed and bundled him again,
then felt the indentation encircling his head
—realized he’d been stuck so hard
his skull now had a dent-band—

And she was still sleeping,
stitched up, unable to rise without aid---
I’d shown her the baby in the OR,
said, “He’s okay.”
I hated to watch the surgeon stitching
the line where the scar would be,
but she said, “It doesn’t hurt.”

cradling him on my arm
I paced so slowly
his breathing evened
in the near silence in the semi-dark,
and I set him down,
deep in sleep.

Sinking into the stiff, stuffed chair
I was so happy because of him
a smile lifted every depleted cell of me,
and I was happy because of this
thin blue thread of light
(Was it from the sky, or us?)
that interlinks us
and out of pain
brings joy—

poem for Jim Carroll on the winter solstice (iii.xxiii.mmxi)

2011-03-23T17:22:00.000-07:00

“she plumbs to the purple earth
light rising into her features”
—Jim Carroll

it is the midnight of the year, and it is the day’s—
the boy falls in love with the woman he finds
naked and dying on the sidewalk, fallen
from a fifth floor walkup’s window
where dusk will rise—
he crouches into her last dark breath,
not knowing how this day’s faint gleaming
will return to him for years—
(he thinks of how it is—to be gone
in an instant)

he thinks she’s not a junkie whore,
her face still beautiful,
her mouth rasping, “I let them—”
he holds her unbroken hand until
(and after) he sees her eyes at the instant
of utter change—
(in an instant—as if she were
an ordinary nothing, now)

long after she is gone he is kneeling
in the year’s midnight and the day’s deep
heroin dream— it is snowing beside her,
and he’s rising as if—
as if he could lift her with his faltering high—
but he’s crushed by her smooth unbreathing skin
(an ordinary nothing, now—)

he wakes alone, screaming,
seeing the instant her eyes stop seeing,
(a nothing, now)
knowing he can’t save her, even in his dream
where she’s within him, a flower in ice
awaiting the thaw—
but it is the year’s midnight, and it is the day’s—
the stadium fills with snow.

poem for Jim Carroll on the winter solstice (xii.xxi.mmx)

2010-12-22T11:20:00.000-08:00

poem for Jim Carroll on the winter solstice (xii.xxi.mmx)

“she plumbs to the purple earth
light rising into her features”
—Jim Carroll

it is the year’s midnight, and it is the day’s—
the boy falls in love with the woman he finds
naked and dying on the sidewalk, fallen
from a fifth floor walkup’s window
where dusk is rising—
he crouches into her last dark breath,
this day’s faint gleaming returns to him
for years, the midnight of the year
and the day’s deep solstice
is snowing—
(he thinks of how it is to be gone in an instant)
he thinks she’s not a junkie whore,
her face still beautiful,
her mouth rasping, “I let them—”
he holds her unbroken hand and he sees
her eyes at the instant of utter change—
(in an instant—as if she were
an ordinary nothing, now)

long after she is gone he is kneeling
in the year’s midnight and the day’s deep
heroin dream— it is snowing beside her,
and he’s rising as if—
as if he could lift her with his faltering high—
but he’s crushed by her smooth unbreathing skin

(in an instant she is gone, but it’s as if he
were an ordinary nothing, now—
as if, he thinks, I’m still falling—)

and the boy still falls
now, as he covers her with his jacket,
it is the year’s deep midnight, and the day’s—
the stadium fills with snow.

poem for Jim Carroll on the winter solstice

2010-12-21T21:20:00.000-08:00

"she plumbs to the purple earth
light rising into her features"

—Jim Carroll

it is the year’s midnight, and it is the day’s—

the boy falls in love with the woman he finds

on the sidewalk, naked and dying after falling

from a fifth floor window—only dusk rises there—

he crouches into her last dark breath,

this day’s faint gleaming returns to him

for years—it is the midnight of the year—

and the day’s deep solstice

(to be gone in an instant)

because she was not a junkie whore,

her face still beautiful,

her mouth saying “I let them—”

he holds her unbroken hand until he sees

her eyes at the instant of change—

(in an instant as if she were

an ordinary nothing)

and long after she is gone he is kneeling there

in the midnight of the year and the day’s deep

heroin dream beside her and rising as if—

as if he could lift her with his faltering high—

but he is crushed by her smooth unbreathing skin,

he is someone else now as he covers her

with his jacket—

(in an instant she is gone, but it is as if he

were an ordinary nothing, now—)

it is the year’s deep midnight, and the day’s

chaoses

fill the stadium with snow—

******************************

See the poem "Living at the Movies" by jim Carroll and John Donne's "A NOCTURNAL UPON ST. LUCY'S DAY,BEING THE SHORTEST DAY."

Thanks to Larry Robin and co.

2010-11-09T18:43:00.000-08:00

Because Hal Sirowitz and I had another great event reading poems together (at Moonstone Arts Center, this time 11/09/10), I just wanted to say thanks to the best indie bookstore owner in Philly, Larry Robin, for supporting me and my work with his Moonstone series, and thanks to our host Ray Garmin, and thanks to Aaren Perry for helping Hal Sirowitz and I after the event to do a brief interview for public access TV. And thanks to the nice small audience in the space, and thanks to the many dozens who were streaming it online.

two prose poems

2010-11-07T16:54:00.000-08:00

Nacho Nirvana

On my way home from the gym I see a sign by the pricey steak house on Broad St.—it says,

“Experience Nacho Nirvana. $6.”

I’ve been a short order cook before, and I can guess that this is probably a blend of several diabetes-inducing cheeses, grated and melted over corn-flower chips with salt and grease liberally processed in. You might as well spin the cheese in a centrifuge, separate out the fat molecules and inject them straight into your heart’s hardest arteries. Sure, it would be a shock, but think of the time you’d save in trying to kill yourself with self-indulgent grease-coated fat-laden death-flakes.

On the other hand, they’re only $6....

In Just Fifty Years

For no particular reason, Broad Street has a garish pink, violet and blue lights display beaming up the tall buildings’ facades in a sort of a synchronized disco ballroom rhythm, but slower, like the whole thoroughfare is on major tranquilizers. In the display case of Borders Books I see a cover photo of an ultra-macho guy, and the title is something like In Fifty Years We’ll All Be Chicks.

My earliest memory

2010-07-28T07:52:00.000-07:00

My earliest memory

When my head was still bigger than both of my arms and I had to use all their strength to grab the crib bars to stand up in my crib, I looked out through the dark window pane while everyone was sleeping. Outside I saw bright red and white lights streaking beneath magically. The whole moon seemed magical, too. It was frightening sometimes how the lights would screech. They could stop or be so quick as they shined under the streetlights like the shiny backs of cockroaches under the glare of light bulbs in our home. The lights kept moving this way and that way every moment through all of the night I could remember, mysterious and beautiful.

They reminded me of my grandparents crossing the wooden floors downstairs, moving ahead slowly in the dim light from a farther room. They too seemed to see only straight ahead, almost traveling blindly, strange creatures in the night world.

2010-06-01T13:20:00.000-07:00

{from a work in progress}

the thin blue thread of light

1. dysphoria after labor for eighteen hours

when the doctor pushed for surgery
—a C-section intervening
regardless of us as human beings
or our hope, our plan
for a natural birth—
there was the shock of falling
into that deepest gravity,
fear of all I could lose:
mother, infant,
and all the imagined future—

then there was anger at the doctor blackmailing us
with a release form
(releasing him from blame for deaths
if we waited too long)
paining her even more
at the eighteenth hour—

my anger grew acute in surgery
when the baby’s head was stuck,
seeing how hard he pulled the feet
of our infant’s body stretching so far
it must have hurt beyond
anything it ever felt before
—I wanted to pummel the surgeon,
but could only watch—

but then the surprise
was in the nurse’s hands
feeling the newborn
void, pee and cry
terrorized, it was clear,
in his first world-sized scare—
a folded football body,
sorrowful, slick, anguished
from the torture of being
yanked so hard
from the once-whole womb—

he cried in his first pain
as big as all the space his cry could fill,
but through his wrinkly skin,
he strangely linked
to my hands somehow calming
my small fretful son,
estranged from every
thing
except my voice
heard so often before he was born,
as if it registered,
he responded,
soothed,
like he knew his father.

and I wanted to live—against my will
because my son needed me to.

a thin blue thread of light through me
lifted my voice—I spoke to him

when I first held his infant self
crying in terror in the sterile OR

I wanted to live—against my will
because my son was born.

2. first impressions

Our son was only a few hours old.
The RN named Lisa was imprinting his feet
into little family photo albums,
and he was crying in fear and frustration
at having his feet moved against his will
over and over, again.
I explained to Lisa
these were gifts for his grandparents.
The baby cried even louder,
so I told him:
“If you think this is bad,
wait till you meet them in real life.”

3. the first night in the hospital

the instant he cried in the dark
I rose from the deep vinyl chair
without sleep,
without thinking—
hanging from a thin blue thread of light from the sky
holding up my head
walking me toward him
over linoleum
lit only by night-lights—
without effort at all
except a kind of submission
to the cry that rose
like another
thin blue thread of light
hanging from the sky

without knowing how I’d know
I lifted him, pacified,
changed and bundled him again—
then felt the ovular indentation encircling his head
—realized he’d been stuck so hard
his skull now had a dent-band—
cradling him on my forearm,
I paced so slowly
his breathing evened
in the near silence of the semi-dark,
and I set him down, deep in sleep.

Sinking into the stiff stuffed chair again,
I was so happy because of him
a smile lifted
every depleted cell in me,
and I was happy because of this
thin blue thread of light
(was it from the sky, or was it from us?)
that interlinks us
and out of pain brings joy.

kitsch, hallmarkiness, corpocration, and the official truth

2009-11-22T12:02:00.000-08:00

If you care about the truth, especially in the arts, then you have to care about all of its second string replacement players. Kitsch, "hallmarkiness," "corpocration," and "official truth" are all varieties of bullshit that we ingest continually from all types of media and directly from each other.

Kitsch is defined by the dictionary as sentimental and vulgar, especially in the arts. But a great writer defined it more intuitively and usefully as a world envisioned as if there were no shit in it anywhere.

"Hallmarkiness" is a subcategory of kitsch and derives from Hallmark cards. "Hallmarkiness" seems more limited to scenes designed to elicit warmth in programmatic ways such as cute kids doing cute silly things at the family dinner table, children eagerly awaiting Santa Claus near a hearth hung with stockings etc.

"Corpocration" is what is spoken in a corpocracy, which is "A company characterized by top-heavy, isolated, risk-averse management, excess paperwork, low productivity, poor interdepartmental communication, and lack of imagination, especially in product development and marketing" (American Heritage Dictionary). Who speaks corpocration? Almost anyone who has ever had to give a presentation in an office setting in a corpocracy has had to learn at least basic corpocration. What's wrong with corpocration is that it feels and sounds very scripted by external corporate interests all the time. It's inhuman.

Celebrities and politicians are normally forced to say by their sponsors and donors a lot of corpocration in speeches. When they go off script and sound like people and accidentally say what they really think, it is often called a gaffe.

The "official truth" is the version of the truth that the powers that be will tolerate, and departures from this will be penalized. However, there are different sources of power in a society such as the United States of America, so the "official truth" can be claimed by multiple agencies or entities such as corporations, the federal, state or local governments, spiritual or religious organizations, professional organizations or associations etc. The one thing that all of these varieties of "official truth" have in common is intolerance for other forms of truth. Sometimes this intolerance manifests in aggression, attacks and even hate speech or propaganda. The "offical truth" is the one thing you can always count on to be wrong, at least in some fundamental way.

When you are writing, it is always helpful to remember the ways that writers go wrong. However, most writers do not go far into the fields of bullshit. The most common way any of the above will manifest is in the form of a cliche, a bit of received knowledge that seems untested or unearned.

It is sadly far more likely that when writers fail to say anything true it is because they are not saying anything that has any bearing on anything at all. Somehow they missed the lesson about the classics that said they speak to the serious problems that people face every moment of their lives.

Sean Thomas Dougherty at Drexel University Oct. 21, 2009

2009-10-22T21:42:00.000-07:00

On Wednesday the 21st of October at Drexel University in the Bossone auditorium, for the first time I saw Sean Thomas Dougherty give a poetry reading. I’d heard that he was great from many people, but seeing him in real life really made a profound difference. Since he has videos available through BOA editions, which published Broken Halleleujahs, I won’t even try to describe the indescribable.

The audience, including mostly students— there may have been 70-80 there plus a half dozen faculty—was deeply moved. Students who are told to go to things are generally a tough crowd, but he really won them over.

What was almost as interesting as the reading itself was the Q&A afterwards. Students asked about many themes, including his spirituality, his influences, etc. He gave a long list of greats in his influences. But he also made a point of saying that the most important influence was Patrick Lawler. Yes, that Patrick Lawler published by MMM Press as well as some other fine presses.

Thanks to Harriet Levin and others at Drexel University for helping to make this possible!

MMM at Big Blue Marble Books near c c Philly

2009-10-22T21:14:00.000-07:00

On Sunday October 18th MMM had a reading at Big Blue Marble Bookstore, which is half an hour from center city Philadelphia. Surprisingly, we had a standing room only crowd overflowing around us and around the floor (sitting on cushions when chairs ran out), and they were standing almost all the way out the back door etc. It was a tiny room that holds maybe fifteen people comfortably, but there were perhaps 25-30 people trying to be there. It was a very diverse and interesting lineup: Minter Krotzer, Barb Daniels, me, Dave Moolten & Hal Sirowitz.

Minter read very, very briefly, being the MC/host. Barb did a great job. I read just 2 poems when I realized there were 7-8 small kids in the audience. So i couldn't read 98% of my material. but i did give a very brief history of mmm from the beginnings in CO with Naomi and its near-death and resurrection out of ashes etc. Dave Moolten did a very solid reading. Hal especially gave a terrific reading. He was very funny and warm.

People were very happy afterwards. A bunch of friendly people bought books from me, which was another surprise because I read less than anyone else. Sales were actually good (surprise), & a few MMM Vol IX issues sold.

I did give away about two dozen back issues to people who came to the reading. Perhaps that helped put the audience in a good mood.

self-inflicted ethnic cleansing

2009-10-03T21:50:00.000-07:00

Censorship tends to be understood as something imposed upon a writer or artist from the outside, a force that often means well, e.g. to protect children from exposure to harsh words etc. I understand these needs, and I feel obliged to protect children too especially since I have a six-year-old boy.

However, there is another kind of censorship that is more insidious or unwholesome for artists and writers, and that is when we decide for whatever reasons to clean up words, images and actions that were never dirty in the first place.

How does this happen? I can't pretend to know all of the situations where this happens. But I will speak to one area that I am familiar with. There is a strong current that pushes against writers of color to say anything about their own experience, and that current comes from the majority culture, which is predominantly white and middle class. To give a specific example from my own work, I know that if I write about a sexual or romantic relationship with a white woman in which white people--not even including the white woman herself--are not pictured in a way that is flattering to white people in general, that some white people will say my work is "angry" or "not art" or "not universal."

Once in 1983 in a workshop in Easton, PA, Gwendolyn Brooks was speaking about how black poets are pushed to be silent about racism because talking about racism sounds "angry" and it is "not art" and it is "not universal." Gwendolyn Brooks asked the rhetorical question, "Isn't black experience part of the universe?"

Twenty-six years later, the question is still getting mixed answers, so to speak.

Of course, white people have a right to feel offended when they are portrayed in art in ways that make them look bad. I've been offended by art thousands of times when it portrayed Asians and Asian-Americans in ways that were denigrating, disrespecting, dehumanizing, degrading, castrating (of men), hypersexualizing (of women), and art that was just generally disgusting and vile etc. In fact, I've walked out of movies and and turned off TVs etc.

Why have I reacted so strongly to mere art and media? Because my experience tells me that this mere media can be toxic and destructive and that it can and does lead to violence against people like me. How do I know that? It doesn't happen every day, but it does sometimes happen that someone who does not know me at all will suddenly start screaming or yelling racist insults at me, sometimes including violence threats etc. There was one time a few years ago on a subway train in NYC or some other major metropolis while I was with several poet/writer friends that a poor and possibly mentally ill man launched into a vicious verbal tirade aimed entirely at me for no reason -- except my race. There was also a young guy in 1994 who tried to kill me with a hammer at a subway station in Brooklyn for no reason -- but race seems to have been a factor in his thinking.

It seems to me that there is almost no honest dialogue about race in America because no one wants to admit the obvious truths that we all share. My experiences are not unique to Asian Americans. I think people of every race and ethnicity regularly encounter racism in some form in America, either from the vantage of a person being injured or a person creating pain for another. I know that many white people feel that they have experienced pain because some others were prejudiced against them.

But even writers and poets who should feel obliged to be honest about these things are pressured to not say too much. There is too much self-imposed "ethnic cleansing," that is, writers who want to pretend their ethnic experiences are totally clean of anything like that other kind of unpleasantness.

I believe that silence on these racial themes is not just unhealthy; it is a silence with an aggressive side, a virulent side. What does that virulence translate into in the real world?

I was at a reading staged by a very highly regarded press some years ago in another great city, and I was by chance one of the two Asian-Americans in the crowded room. There was a poet on stage reading work that very blatantly set forth a lot of Asian woman stereotypes (it might have been the Asian female sex kitten stereotype or the dragonlady stereotype--I honestly don't remember). What stuck with me was the look on the face of the other Asian American, a woman, in the room. I could tell it really bothered her. I felt offended for her sake and mine. I considered shouting from the audience at the poet on stage; he was so cocky and so white and so blind to his own privilege. But I did not. I heard him out.

Then I resolved never to buy a book from that press, ever. (By the way, that press went under due to improprieties of its chief editor a few years later.)

Was it an overreaction to never want to buy a book from that press? I don't think so. Why should I give money and support to people who basically dump $@%^ all over my people? It's not helping anyone of any color--including white people--to support ignorance.

I also resolved to keep writing the truth about my own experience like I always have.

When people like me are silent about racial themes in our own work, it makes more room for speech that is hateful and ignorant. I completely understand that the ignorant white guy would probably want to walk out on me too if he would ever come to a reading I was giving.

In the real dialogue of poets and writers, there will always be a lot of strong language and a surprising (even depressing) amount of ignorance and insensitivity to race, violence and sex. But at least where there is an honest exchange, there would be a chance for real change.

I am thinking about this because recently a handful of my works that are more on that edge of racial dialogue have been accepted for some nice online publications after being rejected for many years. I have often wondered why these works are so hard to place when at the same times works that are no better have been published in many great journals in print and online etc.

It is hard to know where to draw the lines. I ask myself how this work might have an impact on the future generations of my own people and other people. In general, I tend to favor putting the truth out there even knowing that it will not win any popularity contests, that it will offend a lot of people, and that it will inspire some people immeasurably.

One of these works that is forthcoming this year is so harsh in terms of its racial and sexual content that it even makes me want to ask if it is really necessary. Then I think about my son and how much I want him to have at least a chance to have a fair shot at saying what he knows and feels in the world as it is. It's also true that my work could offend some people so much that they'd never ever want to read anything I write again. That is how it is. But the writers who inspired me to write did the same thing-- they knew they were going to offend many and at the same time inspire the next generations of great writers. They were familiar with courage not because they wanted to do anything brave but because so many others around them were so obviously afraid.

give sanity a chance, sustainable aesthetics, sustainable civilizations

2009-09-19T21:14:00.000-07:00

Imagine that in the future there will be a revolution of sustainable industries that will be as radical as the industrial revolution; this cannot happen without a radical shift in aesthetics also happening.

Imagine that success will no longer be defined by money and fame in the typical ways. Acquiring vast wealth just for its own sake etc. will be seen as shallow and vain in a very drastic way. If Bill Gates is a "sucess," so was King Richard III a "success."

Imagine that below-the-radar industries like literary small presses may have something valuable to tell the "real" industries about value and work and the true meanings of success.

Imagine that publishing a classic-to-be book that gets read by a few hundred readers in its first year is a greater success than publishing a trashy celebrity memoir that has 400,000 readers in its first three months. Imagine that this could be more rewarding for the publisher, the author, the editor and the readers. Imagine that the several hundred readers become several million readers three decades later of a new classic. Imagine that the trashy memoir readers can't remember what they read or why they read it a year later, and that book never gets reprinted.

Imagine that these models of value and of success get implemented in General Motors. Imagine a sustainable car industry where the goal is to make a car that will last 25 years, reliably, with replaceable modules for the engine and/or energy cells etc. so that a car body could be designed to last multiple generations because there really is no reason great enough to keep destroying the environment when it isn't really necessary. If a horse-drawn buggy could last several decades, why not a car?

Imagine computers designed not to be the fastest, driving the hunger for speed and power, but to be the most reliable, flexible and durable so that they could last usefully for ten to twenty years. Imagine manufacturing with the goal of reinstalling key components every five years if needed just because it is better to reduce waste in a world with limited resources. Imagine software designed to have low cost, user friendliness and universal support. Imagine open source communities providing the greatest and most widely used free applications for almost everything except for very specialized areas of software.

Imagine that the main job of publishers, editors and writers will not be the promotion of products or sales. The main job will be the one that started us all-- to write, to create, to publish inspiring and great works that change everything we know and imagine is possible.

Imagine that cynicism and careerism will one day appear futile and stupid wastes of the most valuable resources of all.

Imagine that all of the empty vacuous books and poems and novels that are infamous today will be forgotten just like all of the empty vacuous bestsellers of the past. Imagine that there won't be as many reasons for hungry minds and spirits to put themselves through that sort of work anymore. Imagine that people in more sane jobs won't need as many entertainments that function like narcotics to erase the toxic memories of their jobs.

Imagine that sustainable farming, creating new top soil for future generations, will be valued and rewarded more than farming techniques that burn through inches of topsoil in a few years even though we know it takes the earth by itself 50,000 years to create one inch of top soil.

Imagine an economic system that rewards and values responsibility to the future of our own civilization.

I don't think any of this is utopian thinking. I think that we are so profoundly dystopian in our outlook as a civilization that we are starting to believe we could be stupid enough to self-destruct not with catastrophic wars but with even more devastating failures to act with wisdom and intelligence to a global ecological crisis.

All I am saying is give sanity a chance.

Link to the reprinted “For Etheridge Knight (1931—March 10, 1991)

2009-09-14T21:19:00.001-07:00

The very fine editors at Fox Chase Review just reprinted “For Etheridge Knight (1931—March 10, 1991),” which is the most reprinted and anthologized poem I ever wrote, I think.

It’s an elegy for a great poet and an old friend, but it ends on a very high note.

The direct link is: http://www.foxchasereview.org/09AW/06-JELee.html

I almost never read this elegy for audiences because it is hard to get through the feelings of loss. But it is probably one of the things that sticks with people better than almost anything else I ever wrote.

Whenever I feel a need for inspiration, there are a few poets I return to (whether I want to or not). Etheridge is one of those poets.

Galway Kinnell memorialized his friendship with Etheridge in a beautiful poem, calling him the "brother of my heart." Etheridge was so much older than me that I could not feel like that in the same way that a peer could. But it was really something else to hear him read. He was the real, distinctive thing.

Things that really count

2009-08-06T19:38:00.000-07:00

In the greater picture of things that really count, true friendship really counts. Likewise telling the truth really counts. We are all for a variety of reasons misled by our culture to scoff and laugh at the truth and things that matter. We believe that style can mean more than meaning when every six year old child knows this is nonsense.

But this delusion that style can mean more than meaning is certainly why 99% of our current literature is ignored around the world. And 99% of our literary work is ignored right here at home.

On revising: being able to detach & "the marvelous joy of being sure"...

2009-04-08T23:15:00.000-07:00

Why is it that so many great writers revise so much? And why does this work? How does it fail?

One of my great poetry teachers, Galway Kinnell, a Pulitzer prize winner, revised more than anyone I have ever met. He has a body of work that shows a lot of thinking through many alternatives. But when this process works well, as a reader you are not aware that revising has taken place. It all feels like one action done well.

As a writer, you need to detach from so many things that you were once attached to in the writing. You need to let go of ideas that you had, images that did not work, sentences that were slightly wrong etc.

Being able to detach your mind from something that you were holding tightly is a way of gaining strength and flexibility in your writing mind. Instead of seeing the same material from the same old lenses, you are now looking at it again as if for the first time.

When you feel surprised as a writer, then the reader feels that same surprise. When you feel too familiar with the words as a writer, then the readers will feel the words are not new.

Doing this kind of like a practice of revising/re-envisioning the things themselves that started the whole work is a kind of a mental exercise. If you do this more and you do it the right way, your writing mind will get a lot stronger. The more you can do this, the easier it gets to revise.

How do you know if the revising “exercise” is working? It’s working if you can see the material more clearly than before. It’s working if you are more able to let go of things that get in the way for whatever reason. It’s working if the work is communicating in a more true and direct way.

(How not to revise: Sometimes a person lets go of something clever or precious or too precious in a work but then tries to compensate for that loss by plugging in something even more clever or precious etc. This is where you are detaching from one thing but really playing a game with yourself by re-attaching to a substitute. By not going back to the origin—the inspiration—you are still missing the whole point of revision. This is how a lot of work gets a feeling of being “overwritten.” Then the work feels kind of clogged up or awkward or uneven.)

If you want your inspiration to be communicated to the reader, you have to go there first and live there for as long as it takes to bring back to the art whatever it is you care about. You also have to be willing to give up on the many drafts of the writing that almost make it, that get closer, and that falter etc. Doing this mental exercise will mean that when you are writing really well, you will be able to tell that this is happening. You will be able to experience “the marvelous joy of being sure.”

link to a poem on a poetics of caring

2009-02-14T22:15:00.000-08:00

A day or two ago I learned that my first serious scholarly essay is coming out soon. It's about Dorothy Wordsworth as a poet in her own right and how a poetics of caring, which has never been seriously thought about, would help a poet like her. What's a poetics of caring? I've been thinking about this for a long time, and I think the best answer I have aside from this forthcoming essay is actually in a poem that was inspired by a museum exhibit. I was invited to write about some 900-year-old moccasins, and these reminded me of literary mss. I had seen and literary lives i had studied, and it all came together in this poem, through the link:

http://www.unco.edu/poetry/jeffrey.lee/html/900yearold%20winter%20moccasins%20reflections%20after%20the%20facts%203%20page%20version.pdf

but it is likely that this link may die sooner or later. I no longer work at UNC.

Sustainable attitudes / sustainable aesthetics

2009-02-03T07:38:00.000-08:00

From an egotistical perspective, poets often think that poetry or "real" poetry or "good" poetry belongs to an elect few, an elite that is highly evolved and well educated. Sadly, often such poets will become aggressive and hostile to other forms of poetry that do not support their own particular aesthetic views. This is how many poets in the poetry world view the life of poetry, a highly competitive arena in which millions try but only a minuscule number will ultimately survive for future generations. The individual poet’s talent matters more than anything else in this schematic. The cult of genius has no shortage of followers.

From an aesthetics of sustainability perspective, poets belong to poetry, and not vice versa. This is the actual, the ego-crushing, reality. Individual poets, including the greatest ones, almost never matter very much or for very long except to other poets. And even to other poets the odds of mattering much or for long are tiny.

As Pound observed long ago, what matters is that great poetry continues to be written, and it really does not matter to poetry which individuals get to write the great work. (At the same time, however, the idea of greatness in art is necessary to inspire enough poets to be able to create the handful of greatest works for every generation.)

So what is poetry from a sustainable aesthetics point of view? It is like a large ecosystem in which there are many kinds of animals that are interdependent and which interact like different species, some as herds, some as apex predators, some as scavengers, some in symbiotic relationship to other species, some as leeches, some as highly evolved social groups, some as scum-sucking bottom feeders, some as alpine tundra foragers, some as imitative parasites, some as highly evolved groundbreakers into new environments etc. (You know who you are....)

What this translates into in human terms is that every small press and every literary magazine has its own peculiar sociology and hierarchy, or even multiple sociologies and hierarchies. So what does that mean, practically speaking? It means that the people who run the presses and the journals all write their own rules of aesthetics, and this comes largely from who they are, what they are, where they are, and when they are at work. It also comes from what they hope to be, their aspirations toward greater things. Or their aspirations toward television, mass media, and other things, which may or may not be greater things. Some merely aspire to make money and acquire fame without even trying to write great work. Some think they are trying to do great work but are lying to themselves etc. Some just want to keep their jobs, etc.

Many, many times, a press or journal or a movement is created out of a handful of friendships formed in college of at an MFA program or through a circle that forms around a particularly powerful figure like Lawrence Ferlinghetti, whose City Light bookstore gave a foundation to the City Lights Press. A lot of times, these groups form because they are unhappy with what they see around them, and they are tired of being rejected by the established presses. It’s a natural evolution for every succeeding generation.

Out of one generation, it is true that very few groups and even fewer individuals will produce work that will have enduring value for many people. What is interesting about the greatest works is that they do not happen in isolation. No great work is an island, entire of itself, etc. Even the works of William Wordsworth, called by Keats one of the most egotistical poets in all of English poetry, was deeply influenced by his sister Dorothy and his dear friend Coleridge. Their works on close reading turn out to be completely interwoven. There were lasting and profound textual interconnections that are still being excavated by scholars today. When we read a poet like Wordsworth in isolation, it’s like hearing half of a phone conversation, as one critics observed. And even the entire Wordsworth circle is just one conversation within a very powerful literary community that included many others who attained some measures of greatness. Not many remember Charles and Mary Lamb, William Hazlitt, John Thelwall, John Clare, Thomas DeQuincey et al. Many people who are not well remembered actually contributed in various ways to the works of the one who is remembered.

It’s ironic that Pound would be the guy who espoused a profound understanding of the reality of the situation of poetry, i.e. we belong to it and not the other way around. Pound was notoriously egotistical and sublimely ambitious etc. But from being so passionately involved in the poetry world, Pound realized that true inspiration is rare and precious, and the writers who can provide works that are inspiring are likewise. He supported and helped engender the works of James Joyce and T. S. Eliot quite selflessly. Some critics think Modernism as we know it would have been impossible without him. So here again one sees that there may be a lot more social support and social interaction that is integral to the greatest individual works. Before Pound was a great writer, he was a great reader. He never stopped being a great reader. If he had not been so open to Joyce and Eliot, their careers may not have happened at all. Or their careers may have been very small without his help. Pound as a literary friend may have been more important to literary history than Pound himself as a poet.

So if you want to get published and “survive” in the poetry world, it is good to try to see the big picture and not waste a lot of energy feeling jealous or like this is a competition among individuals. You could also waste a lot of time by trying to become included in a group that will never let you in. You could also waste a lot of energy by trying to promote one particular brand of aesthetics that goes nowhere.

Whether we like it or not, and whether we like each other or not, we are in this “ecosystem” or big unhappy family together. You could say that poets of any generation are sort of like a very large, extended, and unhappy family.

(Incidentally, I am sure that it was with this or something like this family metaphor in mind that Sharon Olds once told me at the end of my time at the MFA program at NYU, "Welcome to the family." It was a warm and funny moment.)

But just being aware of the common ground and the common purpose of poetry can prevent a lot of wasted energy, time and talent. We all have our parts to play, and all of them may matter in ways no one can foresee.

In the poetry world especially, a little sanity goes very far. And even a handful of literary friendships can help an aesthetic revolution to be born.

I think John Ashbery was both kidding and serious when he wrote in "Hotel Lautreamont," a pantoum, that:

Research has shown that ballads were produced by all of society
working as a team. They didn't just happen. There was no guesswork.
The people, then, knew what they wanted and they got it.
We see the results in works as diverse as "Windsor Forest" and "The Wife of Usher's Well."

Yes, he is making fun of academics who have deconstructed individual geniuses and stressed socio-cultural-political-cultural-historical contexts ad nauseum etc. But by the end of the pantoum, he seems to be quite serious when he reiterates this theme and what it means to a poetic genius:

You mop your forehead with a rose, recommending its thorns.
Research has shown that ballads were produced by all of society;
Only night knows for sure. The secret is safe with her:
the people, then, knew what they wanted and how to get it.

In the end of the sixty-four line poem, Ashbery as a great and acknowledged genius himself, seems less and less sure of his position in relation to the people. He is no longer mocking the idea that society got out of any genius what it needed, almost regardless of a genius like him. This is a great recognition, an awakening out of the nightmare of self-obsessed and ego-driven consciousness. It represents a significant ego-surrender, and a coming into the fullness of the reality of our situation in poetry. It's so much bigger than any one could be.

Nostalgia for Newark

2009-01-11T11:22:00.000-08:00

[here is a relatively new poem (i.e. in drafts for a few years) forthcoming in an NJ anthology. wrote this when i lived in CO.

most of the line-spacing has disappeared here, but you can get the rough idea anyway here....]

Nostalgia for Newark

off the plane it hits you stark as the plains:
you’ve landed in the new-
ark of one of every kind of human on earth

even at 5 a.m. after flying across the West

the Afro-Carrib, Afro-Am, Latina/Latino, Indian, Asian
Black-Jewish-Italian Token Mutt

now i have to sober up
harsh coffee under the influence of
great lakes of lights of east coast cities
torching horizon to horizon
in predawn-dusk

touch down i skid out of a dream

the 6 a.m. terminal’s hordes

clog the rail link station

a post-industrial-battleship-gray hole

with a London-in-the-blitz feel

of brown grays, light grays and the darkened
yellow warning strip that grips your soles
with vulcanized
crisscross dots rubbed past faded

dazed still from 0.5 hrs sleep on the shuttle to DEN
3+ hours midair
(2+ hours awaiting the train to PHL)

the 777-sized diner in Newark International
lavish smells eggs sausage grease coffee urns treats

and what have I learned from five years in the West
aside from what cowboys are
is that I have missed the eastern seaboard
in entirety

even its crossing x-shaped I-bars under great compressor tubes

its scuffed aluminum doors

its brushed metal graffitoed waiting rooms

its narrow escalators/descalators of grime

its strings of jets hovering above the NJT taking turns to land

its landing jets racing cars along the NJT

its congregated seagulls on corrugated steel
rooftops slanted refracting early morning sun

its ocean-heavy winds

this deciduous forest down the line to Metro Park

I must be an acrobat to talk like this and act like that

bracing gales of—

back in the world so briefly
far from high deserts of TARGET microdunes
WALMART tumbleweeds CONAGRA-pesticidal air
the treeless brown of grasslands and cows

if the word for world was forest once
I am back in the wold
so many shades of bark, brush and dark umber
branches scritch their words into sky

these prolific red/orange ochre leaves of autumn

papery-as-dust confetti-ing siding rails

the iced over lakes black glass block buildings

the sudden Raritan River running by Rutgers, New Brunswick
its bright orange brick faces aglow in sun
its white clock tower amid tall trees

i’m halfway home—

a re-post from 2005: my first acquaintance with Li-Young Lee

2008-12-29T17:36:00.000-08:00

[Written on 03/13/2005 about 03/01-02/2005 in Greeley, Colorado]

Li-Young Lee visited UNC eleven or twelve days ago, i.e. 03/01/05, and I was very lucky to be the guy who got to pick him up at the airport and drive him around and introduce him to the audience. He was a lot more casual and friendly and down to earth than I expected. In fact, I liked him right away. I don't know why I thought he might be anything else, maybe just because of his fame and how other famous poets are sometimes. It took me a little while to find him at baggage claim though I got there early and went looking for him whenever trainloads of passengers flowed up and out of the escalators from the underground rail. He was in a long coat and had on sneakers and just one small bag. He was easy to recognize; we spotted each other, and after I introduced myself he called home to say he had a ride.

(I had wanted to borrow a cell phone so that he could call me from baggage claim, which is how I picked up Sharon Olds the previous year, but this year no one in the dept. had one they could spare.)

Of course, I had heard him read in Chicago at AWP last year (when he shared a reading with, among others, Mark Strand), and I was happy to help him get to the Greeley Guest House. As we started off, he didn't really talk about himself at all. That was kind of a nice surprise. Instead, he was very curious about me. He asked a lot of questions. When he learned I was a poet, he said, "You're a rare bird," meaning, an Asian-American in poetry. He asked me how my parents felt about it. "They thought it was a catastrophe," I said. I mentioned how even just a few years ago my mother had tried to get me to go to law school depite fifteen years in teaching. "My mom wanted me to get a real job."

We had to take an airport shuttle to the parking lot to my car. During the long drive from Denver International Airport, we talked about a lot of things. His parents hadn't been thrilled with his career either, it turned out.

"Wow," I was impressed by how unimpressed Asian parents can be about artistic achievements.

We also talked about poetry recordings and some things that are happening with poetry audio and studio work. He was working with some studio, and he was surprised to learn how expensive it could be. Another thing we talked about was Sharon Olds. He had seen her the previous week at a party, and we talked about her a little. I explained how she had been my advisor and what a great teacher she had been for me. It turned out that we both had experience with meditation, and he had even helped to start a school for it. We also talked about art; it turned out that he had a strong interest in visual arts also. And his brother Li-Lin Lee had work in the Art Institute of Chicago. I said how I thought that was the greatest museum I had ever visited, and I've seen some pretty great ones.

I mentioned how many of my students really loved his work, and he was interested in knowing about them and how much experience they had had with poetry. He was curious about teaching and what it was like at UNC. I said the students were really nice and intelligent, but there was very little diversity.

Anyway, near the end of the long drive I stopped so he could grab some coffee (he drank twelve cups a day, he said), and I gave him my latest book and said I hoped he'd like it, and in a little while he was at the Guest House. Later that afternoon, I picked him up to take him to dinner and the reading in the evening.

Li-Young was curious about who was coming to dinner. I wasn't sure about who might be coming, so I was surprised to see the provost of the university and his wife, the Dean David Caldwell, and the other poets on the faculty, Lisa Zimmerman, and my friend Bob King. Li-Young was glad, I think, to be able to talk to the provost and his wife in Chinese, and he seemed pretty happy with the steaks at Potato Brumbaughs. I asked him towards the end if he needed a little time to relax by himself before the reading, and he said he really didn't. But when we got there with just a little time remaining he thought that maybe it would have been better after all if he had had a few minutes to himself.

A lot of my friends and students were there, and that made me feel good. Many of them had come 60 miles or so from Boulder, and it was wonderful to see them there. The crowd was very big but not as huge as people had anticipated, so there were many empty seats in the great hall. I did the intro very briefly, just saying welcome and thanks to the provost and the generous sponsor Mr. Rosenberry, a quick plug for the UNC litmag, and then the brief intro for Li-Young. I was nervous in a way that made me uncomfortable and unhappy (actually), and this is a new phenomenon for me.

As soon as the reading started, I was really intrigued by the style and substance of the delivery of the poetry. He really had the audience completely with him right away, and he really took some interesting chances out there, saying new poems and rough drafts, and even sharing things that had originated in improvisational settings. It was great to be lifted into the realm of poetry for a while, especially when it was coming from someone who was able to understand some things about me that may not be obvious to a lot of other people.

After the reading, he was signing books and talking a little to many, many of the people in the very long line. Meanwhile, some of my female students were telling me how they were so infatuated with Li-Young and how gorgeous he was etc. They were asking me how old he was as though they were considering running away with him etc. I thought this was kind of amusing. Then Li-Young was doing an interview with a student from the UNC newspaper, and finally I got to take him back to the Guest House.

He seemed a little tired, so I went there the quickest way. We talked a little along the way. Somehow it came up that when we both started writing, there were no Asian-American poets in the Norton Anthology, so it was a kind of a transformative moment for me when I realized I could write about things that had to do with my real inner life as an Asian American. Li-Young said it was like we were pioneers in this new literature.

The next morning, I got to take him to my morning class, and he was very relaxed. He had been thinking of a poem while going to sleep, and he had been working on this new poem early in the day. "That's exciting," I said. He smiled at that.

Some things he said that morning were really very profound. He talked about the poem being made of words but crafted out of silence just as architects work with material but what they shape is empty space. He talked about the poetry being embedded in silence, the silence being embedded in the psyche, the psyche being embedded in the person, and the person in the world, and the world in the cosmos. One of my students who was too shy to say her question aloud wrote on a little piece of paper: "What do you get from poetry?" Li-Young said it was a buzz, it was like drugs, it was exciting, it made him feel alive etc. That was a great answer. He was so totally at ease with everything; it was a real pleasure to watch him interact with people.

Then I returned him to the Guest House. It was sad to be leaving him there and returning to the regular grind, so to speak. He asked me if he would see me later before he flew back to Chicago. Sadly, I was not able to come back. He was so enlightening and so kind. He said that he loved my poems, and that I should let him know when I'm passing through Chicago. He knew the best place for won ton.

excerpts of Li-Young Lee interview online

2008-12-28T16:49:00.000-08:00

I was working at Muhlenberg last spring 2008 teaching a bunch of literature classes and ran into an old colleague who, it turned out, had interviewed Li-Young Lee on the WMUH radio station.

He asked if I was interested. I was very interested and listened to the interview. It was very enlightening, I thought.He talked about working with at-risk youth in Chicago, ensouling the world, writing as a yogic path, the ecstatic nature of the real self, art as a religion, Taoism, and much else.

You can find it at http://mmminc.org/

Or go straight to:
http://www.mmminc.org/mmm_online/index_2009.htm

The Interview with Li-Young Lee by Alec Marsh, which is forthcoming in entirety in MMM Vol. IX.

what’s always real, part 1

2008-12-23T22:13:00.001-08:00

what’s always real

12/24/2008

1.
this is where the circle starts
inescapably in us

The U.S. Airforce bombers
overfly Taiwan’s neutral shores
in March 1944
—no threat’s there—

The drone of giant locusts
wide as the sky but invisible
over Tainan, the city of scholars.
Then whistling screams
higher, louder,
then bombs splashed
solid houses into waves
like circles in water,
but water on fire.
The city blazed into black spires,
shockwaves pounded the air
shaking even the narrow mountain road
where the little girl my mother was
watched over her father’s shoulder
as he ran with terrorized crowds
hoping the bombers would pass
but listening through the engine roars
for the very first blast—

it rained black fire,
broke her eardrums
as they fell together in the ditch
where he shielded all of her,
not hearing but feeling
what exploded near his bones.
Even dust caught fire—
trees were half-painted red and black
with blood, parts of people—
the sooty shells stank
of burning metal.

The quietest sounds were the screams:
“Are we dead!? Are we dead!? Are we dead!?”
Shouting, she couldn’t believe this was Life....
But her father knew, covered her eyes,
and shouted, “We’re alive!”

Where did all the tragedy goers go?

2008-12-14T07:49:00.001-08:00

How rare is tragedy is American pop culture? Why has tragedy disappeared almost entirely from the American drama? Why is American film mostly afraid of tragedy?

There are great exceptions, of course, but here are the top 10 grossing films of 2008, so far:

530,258,989 The Dark Knight (2008)
318,298,180 Iron Man (2008)
317,011,114 Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)
227,946,274 Hancock (2008)
223,641,119 WALL·E (2008)
215,395,021 Kung Fu Panda (2008)
159,066,369 Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa (2008)
154,529,187 Horton Hears a Who! (2008)
152,637,269 Sex and the City (2008)
143,704,210 Mamma Mia! (2008)

Where did all the tragedy goers go to?

A small percentage of people still see tragedy regularly by attending the opera, where dead heroines and heroes are the norm. I could be wrong, but I think classical ballet also features a lot of dead heroines and heroes (Giselle, Petrushka). Even so, these audiences would be a small percentage of the total cultural audience.

It’s stranger than you think that tragedy is missing most of the time. A lot of the most important and even lucrative films and film sagas have been tragedies: The Godfather, The Deer Hunter, the entire Star Wars series (Darth Vader, the chosen one, dies after serving the evil emperor for most of his life and almost kills his whole family in the process). If you scan Time’s top hundred films of all time, I think you’ll see more tragedy is represented there than is usually the case. http://www.time.com/time/2005/100movies/the_complete_list.html

This is, I think, even more true if you look at the 100 greatest films list from http://filmsite.org/
http://www.filmsite.org/momentsindx.html#100greats

Of course, since I am a poet and writer, I want the answer to be that the people who craved tragedy and all the great things it does for humanity to have found it in great books of fiction and poetry and other genres. But is that happening? If you look at the 100 Best novels as selected by The Modern Library, it may be true. At least it looks more serious than the films, perhaps. (I’ve only read and seen a small percentage of both lists).

http://www.randomhouse.com/modernlibrary/100bestnovels.html

But tragedy as a genre came from poetry. So it would seem natural to look for the greatest poetry books and consider what they look like. I just looked for them with Google, and there is NO LIST of greatest poetry books that I could find except for a blog by Janaka Stucky, and it is for 2008, and you can find it at

http://notellpoetry.blogspot.com/2008/11/best-poetry-books-of-2008-janaka-stucky.html

Thanks, Janaka Stucky!

Well, the absence of a list of 100 greatest poetry books is a glaring indictment of the lousiness of the American educational system I have to say; it proves the folly of teaching greatest poems in anthologies! (But I’ve said before that the one-stop shopping method of teaching poetry is destroying poetry as a genre, killing diversity, enriching multinational corpocrats blah blah etc.)

Speaking, to fully disclose everything, not as a reader but as an editor/publisher of a small press, I have to look back at what I have published since 2006. Patrick Lawler’s Feeding the Fear of the Earth, Anne-Marie Cusac’s Silkie, and Susan Settlemyre Williams’ Ashes in Midair. I think there are tragic elements and actual tragedy in these books. Speaking as an author of a few books, I think there are some tragic elements in my work. Tragedy is, after all, ultimately uplifting and affirmative. It is about whatever wisdom we have been able to gain through life; it is about the things that make life have meaning.

When you feel free, it’s contagious

2008-11-16T15:23:00.000-08:00

Today I gave a reading at Robin's Bookstore with the poets Brian Brodeur and CAConrad, and it was a really enjoyable event. And it was even better that it was pretty well attended. I think the audience came out for the other guys, mostly. One of my students from West Chester University came too, and she brought a friend. A long-ago past student and present friend did the intros.

As usual, I said a little about Many Mountains Moving and presented the latest issue and the MMM Press books to the audience and mentioned teacher discounts and review copies etc.

Not long ago, I heard Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche over a world-wide webcast talk saying that we all needed to embody the changes in the world that we would like to see.

I think about the most sane people that I have known in my life, and I know that this must be true. Sakyong Mipham has written about how even a small amount of sanity makes a big difference in the world.

I was a little under the weather, fighting a cold since I woke today. So I knew it might be tough to keep the energy up. But Brian’s and Conrad’s readings were very solid, entertaining, and inspiring. Brian's work was very beautiful and insightful. He had a deadpan sense of humor and irony about himself that was nice. Conrad’s reading was very funny, raw, angry and edgy. A lot of very deep, raucous and cathartic laughter came from the audience.

(Conrad’s humor reminded me of something sort of like an early Lenny Bruce but without the undertones of optimism. I still think of Lenny Bruce as one of the true and great comedians who could have moments with a power like poetry but with jokes that made you laugh so hard it hurt.)

So Conrad actually helped me pick myself up.

It was very surprising and wonderful to see an old acquaintance in the audience as well as to see many new faces out there. It was also great to see a few old and new friends out there, including a few who actually helped me to revise a poem that has just been an albatross around my neck for years.

I knew things would be okay when the audience started laughing right away during the first, lighter piece that I read, "The Poet's Mother's Deathbed Conversion." I read five more things, most of them pretty short and upbeat or elevating: "Sex Ed Blues," "peace valley elementary school during the vietnam war," "fluke exposure to another eastern meditation tradition in 8th Grade," "Kindling Hope, Incidentally, in South Philly," and "The Path." I could feel that connection subtle, electric, elastic dance with the audience throughout most of the experience. After it was over, many of the people remarked to me how it was a great reading and so on. I’d actually had a longer line-up of work in mind but switched to a shorter list as the reality of my struggle with a cold reared its head.

I have read with a lot of great readers, and I know that this is a good thing to do for many reasons. The best reason is that it forces you to bring your game up to par. If you read with people who are mediocre with the audience, then it’s easy to get lazy and go for the easy hit.

There is an even better reason to perform with people who are great; it is sort of an exercise in staying on center and in focus instead of feeling jealous and insecure or whatever else people can do to stop enjoying the experience. You have to—in a way—forget your ego and your sense of competition. Then you can feel free to just put out there whatever you have. Then the work can speak for itself, and then the audience can enjoy whatever it is without having to feel any pressure.

When you feel free, it’s contagious.

If the work is going to be a gift to anyone else, first it has to be a gift to the creative self

2008-10-21T21:51:00.001-07:00

I had two very different readings recently, and both of them went well in the way that counts the most. But I let the low attendance make me feel bad after the second reading. I struggled with it a lot.

It was easy to feel good about the September 24th event in NYC because around twenty people came, which is not bad for a poetry reading at the Asian American Writers’ Workshop (AAWW). It was also a group reading, and I was the anchor man following Renato Rosaldo, Pedro Ponce, Purvi Shah and Thaddeus Rutkowski.

I also planned the day so that I had time to visit the Shambhala Center of NYC before the event. So I felt very upbeat when I saw old friends and met new friends at AAWW. It was a very warm and interested crowd of writers and poets and other editors and program creators. Some very positive things came out of this. Everyone who read at this event did a great job. No one read too long. Everyone had strong and compelling work with great feeling and craft. I put a new audience-participation poem out there and got the crowd to have some fun with it, and the other things went over very well. So I was feeling very “on,” and I could feel that mysterious electrical connection to the audience. Later I heard from a friend there that some student in the crowd thought my audience-participation poem was the highlight of the night.

I don’t know if I have written much about this ever before. The energy in the audience is like a living being that you can feel and tune in to. Performers of all kinds know about this. The way it works for me is that it helps me work more closely with the feeling in the work, i.e. I can feel the work connecting with the people, and this makes it easier to discover deeper lows and highs inside the words. It helps me stay in the emotion.

It actually feels like a dialogue with a mostly silent partner, but the partner is really there, and the partner REALLY matters. Every sound that comes out of the audience can matter. Physically, it does make sometimes an electrical kind of feeling start to buzz in the air—that’s when you have everyone’s complete rapt attention and understanding. That’s where you want to stay—inside that electrical current.

You have to be open to your audience and willing to completely believe in their ability to understand—they will totally get it. They will feel it. You just need to have the goods to deliver.

You lose that link when you stop listening to them, when you become self-indulgent or afraid or arrogant.

When things are great, the electrical resonating is even like chills or tingling in your body. You are like a thousand watt bulb illuminating a great space. But it isn’t because of you the person; it’s because of what you have to give to the audience. That thing inside is beyond or beneath (or perhaps above) personality. People usually associate this kind of experience with great music concerts they have seen, but I have seen and felt this at many poetry readings by other poets. Sometimes I can get there, too.

In sharp contrast, the reading on Monday, 10/13/08, at Poets & Prophets in Philly, was in a beautiful theatrical space on the third floor of the Plays & Players Theater. I had to rush to get there on time. But I was early, and the emcee was on time. But at the start of the event there were only two people there, and they were very nice. But I think they felt embarrassed on my behalf.

Having been in this kind of spot before, I knew it was best to stick to my script and read what I had planned in advance. I read some very difficult things full of feeling. I gave the best reading I could, and they really got it. That same sort of resonating connection happened. They applauded sincerely for almost every thing I read. A third guy came. He also seemed really into it. Then it was over. Everyone was gracious about it.

Later that night, though, I made what I now think of as an error. I let it bring me down that only three people came to what was basically another great reading. Why? Because I know that most people think events like this are humiliating and sad. But the event was a success for everyone who was there, and they were other writers, activists, veterans—intelligent and interesting people. They were deeply touched by the work. They wanted to ask about it. The host was sincere in his repeated thanks. So why did I feel bad?

I have made this mistake before—letting the numbers dominate the story. But I have had plenty of great readings for big crowds, and the essence of the work is the same. The connection is the same. I actually read more and better for the three people than I did for the twenty or so in NYC. (It’s easier to read better when you have thirty minutes to work with versus fifteen.) And I did get paid, and I did fulfill my contract completely and wholeheartedly.

I thought of the first jazz musicians in Philly who had to play in dives and brothels where few aficionados would go. They knew this. They knew they were invisible and that if they would ever be “discovered” by the greater culture, it might be after they were dead or no longer great or whatever. They had to keep doing it though. They loved doing it so much.

I know I will have some great readings and events in the near future, some with big crowds and some with almost no one. And you cannot tell which events will turn out with great crowds and which will turn up mostly empty. This spring, I will be reading in an actual castle, and another time in something like a revamped warehouse, and another time in a great literary house in NYC etc.

The only things in my control are how I commit to the work and how I feel about it afterwards. About the first part of that work, I can say I am happy with these two past readings. What I would like to do in the future is to try to remember that there is another side of the performer-audience equation, the author.

The audience is one thing that gives great energy to me, but when the audience is gone, the work itself and the thing that it came from, that inner voice, that author is a support with its own energy. The creator, the author, the inner voice—whatever you want to call it—is more consistent and whole than the audience, which will always come and go.

If the work is going to be a gift to anyone else, first it has to be a gift to the creative self. If you feel like the gift is real for you, then it really doesn’t matter if there are three people or fifty people out there.

Or to put this another way, when Keith Richard was asked what his favorite music was, I think he said, “The Rolling F%^#%^* Stones!”

a poem from a prior post after many reincarnations

2008-10-21T21:10:00.000-07:00

Awakening at Cannon’s in Allentown, 1984

for W. P. D. and P. F. H.

“Karma...describes the continuity of occurrences that weaves the fabric of life. It is not linear.... In order for ignorance to happen, lots of other causes have already occurred.”
—Sakyong Mipham

“D’jou hear that?”
The screams were so piercing
through the jukebox, the clamor,
I nudged Bill, alert amid the beer,
smoke and blaring.
He nodded, already rising.
We left the crowded tables
for the almost stifled street—
no cars running,
no drunks singing,
no pedestrians,
just the muffled roar of the bar.
But then down the street
and across the corner
we heard the scream again,
doors slamming,
boots clomping down stairs,
an exploding front door—
a slim figure fleeing,
she fell on her knees,
curled over herself
as if concrete could hide her.
He charged out shouting:
“I’LL KILL YOU YOU BITCH!
I’M GONNA FUCKIN’ KILL YOU!”
—a repeating machine,
his fists above her rising—
I shouted, “HEY! LEAVE THAT
WOMAN ALONE!”
Turning, he lurched at us,
(holy shit, I thought).
Bill grabbed
and dragged me into his car,
revved it, pulled out, aimed
his headlights at them,
blinding them.
The woman (or girl?)
squinted at us, crawling/fleeing.
He threatened her to go inside—
she shouted back she’d never.
He set to kick her hard.
Bill floored the gas—
the guy’s eyes met mine—froze.
He was just bigger than her.
Then Bill apologized:
“I’m sorry I stopped you.
He could be armed,
but we’re safe in here.
He can’t see us very well,
but we can watch his every move.
And the motor’s running....”
They argued in the headlights’ glare;
the guy hesitated, retreated inside.
She stayed prone, shaking in sobs.
Then Bill parked again—
we didn’t know what to do.
She looked over at us,
her eyes full, curious.
Quavering, too scared to move,
she was younger than I’d thought,
her face puffy from crying.
Then Pam opened the bar door,
phone in hand, urging,
“Get in here! I called
the cops already.”
She pulled me in by my shirt.
“Do you wanna get killed?”
Tearing myself away,
and going back in, then,
I realized the answer
must have been
Yes.

Why reading poetry has seemed so hard for so many people and why big anthologies inadvertently kill diversity

2008-09-10T05:49:00.001-07:00

I think that most people have no clue about how to read poems because in school they saw individual poems taken out of their context and lumped together in random assortments called anthologies or “Readers.” What was so devastating to the poems was that they had zero context except, usually, a short biographical note for a poet. So kids were exposed to Shelley’s “Ode to the West Wind” and Wallace Stevens’ “The Idea of Order at Key West” but had no idea what poems were around these poems to build up to it or lay the essential groundwork. There was no sense of history or society or culture— the poem was just tossed out there on stage without even a well-informed teacher most of the time. I mean the teachers were overworked and stressed enough without having to do even more background reading etc.

This meant that most of these poems were dissected in a formalistic but vacuous way—pleasure, passion and feeling were usually left out on the playground.

Even really gifted teachers were working against the prevailing resentment and apathy built up by years of “miseducation” or “diseducation.” And they were also working against the fact that even most literature professors that they had had in their own past had also been trained in this way of reading almost every poem out of its context. The only exceptions were usually high level courses devoted to single authors; there you could finally read entire books by one poet and see how the parts fit together and how different that was.

The first time I ever heard of the idea of reading whole poetry books by single authors as a better way of reading was in graduate school at New York University. Professor Paul Magnuson, a Coleridge scholar, wrote about literary friendships and literary dialogues. And he extended this idea even further—beyond a single author’s books to the friends and books by those friends which every author is in the midst of. In other words, you could never read a poem in isolation without missing most of the meaning. Most of us—and we are talking about English literature majors—were missing out on the fact that every author is in some way already answering other previous works. Thus, we had been hearing only half of a phone conversation, but that is assuming that we had even been hearing an entire half. But most of us had few chances to read entire books by a single poets, so the real situation was much worse.

Learning to read literary works as parts of a dialogue was an incredibly expansive way to read. Depth and resonance grew everywhere. When you could hear all these added levels of meaning, it was like being suddenly able to hear harmonics in music whereas before you could only hear a single note through a decrepit old radio.

In previous generations, scholars used to call these ways of reading “influence studies,” i.e. they looked at who read whom and what that did to their works.

When I have the chance to teach poetry books, I try to make my own students read entire books so that they at least have a chance to grasp a sense of what a poet is doing. I try to tell the students at least a little about the context and the friends of the writers and why they matter. And I try to use small press publishers when I can.

I have totally given up on using those big fat monster anthologies that make so much money for so few people. The more I think about those anthologies, the more wrong they look. They cost the students too much, and they usually sell them back as soon as they can. Few students keep these things because so little personal value was invested in them when they were created—each new mega-store anthology is another Tower of Babble, with most of the same things as all the others. Worse, the big corporations will haul out new, trendier ones every few years just to force you to buy new ones.

Some of the editors are great educators and scholars who make better efforts at establishing context and giving more social, historical and cultural connections online etc.

But in the end, the anthologies are one-stop shopping. They are the Big Box store that kills the actual towns where real people and small presses live and work etc. The big fat anthologies cannot help but foster a monoculture of corpocracy even if they sincerely believe in diversity and democracy and try to include diverse writers.

The only people who break through these barriers as readers are those who feel especially driven to read, the people who follow the footnotes outside of the big fat anthology to the real resources, the original books that were robbed of their best parts so that some hefty, tree-killing New Edition could make money for some transnational conglomerate.

Re-post 4/5/05, AWP highlights, comic relief, Susan Musgrave, Anne Carson et al.

2008-07-25T21:13:00.000-07:00

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[April 5, 2005: A few selected highlights from AWP Vancouver (3/31—4/3, 2005)

Susan Musgrave, who was the Canadian poet who preceded Michael Ondaatje, was a wonderful surprise. The dramatically lit great hall was full—it seemed thousands were anxiously awaiting the start. I was not familiar with her work though I had heard her name before. It was hard to tell how old she was—maybe fifty or so? She had long gray hair and a slightly wobbly manner at the microphone. When she started speaking, it seemed as though she had had a few before she’d gotten there. She suggested that she might skip reading and just do Irish drinking songs for twenty minutes. She actually faked starting in on one song, which was very funny. She went on that she’d already cashed her check, and what could they do?

Then she suggested, "We should create a whole new country made of writers, including Canada, New York and Hollywood. We’ll call it A-W-P,” she said. This was all very amusing because of her delivery, which felt very uninhibited and spontaneous.

Then she told a harrowing story of how her husband (or ex-husband) who was an American was arrested for trying to transport thirty tons of marijuana into Canada. I think she said it was on a boat, and somehow things went very wrong so that her husband was being chased by the CIA, the DEA, the FBI and the Royal Canadian Mounties all at once.

Somehow he eluded almost everyone and was running through the forest and only the Royal Canadian Mounty was chasing him. (Isn’t their slogan “We always get our man”?) When the Mounty caught him, the Mounty slammed him in the head with his rifle butt, which made him protest, “I’ve got rights!” (just like an American would, of course.) Then the Mounty shouted spitefully down at him, “You’re in Canada now, m*#%@^$@#$@^!”

This was so hilarious due to the way she said it that my friends and I were parroting her line all night and even the next days.

Then she said that “You’re in Canada now, m*#%@^$@#$@^!” was going to be the title of her next book, unbeknownst to her publisher. (She confessed that it was a very un-Canadian title since Canada was the land where, if any American were to bump into a Canadian, the Canadian would always apologize.) She also mused that maybe her publisher wouldn’t feel so bad about the title if they knew a Mounty said it.

People were laughing very hard through all this, and I was struck by the humor that combined so much irony, absurdity and pathos.

Her poetry was very sharp and a powerful mixture of hard realities on the one hand and a larger ironic vision on the other. It was excruciatingly beautiful. I was really moved.

After the reading by Michael Ondaatje, one of my famous Philly poet friends, Harriet Levin, saw Erik and I near the elevators and invited us up to the private reception; she was going up with David Mura, Gary Pak and Marilyn Chin, so we got to stand around the top floor with the gorgeous panorama of Vancouver all around with all the VIPs and the exquisite catered seafood and the snooty wait staff.

(You know you’re in the VIP reception when the wait staff with beautiful hor d’oeuvres are reservedly revolted by the hordes of unwashed writers, poets etc.)

Susan Musgrave and Michael Ondaatje were both there talking with their friends, and there was a complimentary open bar, which a few people took too much advantage of, including one young guy who all but demanded a cigarette from Erik or me, and was very angry that we did not have any. Then he stalked off in disgust.

It had been a very long day at the bookfair and an equally long night of great readings, so we were all pretty exhausted. Kazim Ali made a brief appearance (sort of apparition like, to me, by that point). I told Erik what a genius Kazim was at running Nightboat Books, which elicited an embarrassed laugh from Kazim. (Kazim and Jennifer Chapis somehow started their own press just a few years after NYU and got things off to a great start.)

Anyway, the next day at the bookfair I saw Susan Musgrave walking by herself past my table. She looked a little sad, I thought, or maybe she was just very tired from the previous night’s performance. I told her that I thought her reading was very hilarious and poignant; she seemed very happy to hear this. So I went on to say, “It was very moving. It was inspiring,” and this made her smile. Then I said, “It was excruciatingly beautiful.”

That made her pause. Then she actually pulled out her little notebook and said, “No one has ever said that to me before” (she was really flattered), and she wrote it down in her little scrawl with quotation marks around it. “I want to use that,” she said. “I’m going to tell people that is what it was like when they ask.”

Then I was flattered, but I said, “Thanks, but— hey! you have to attribute it to me,” I said, giving her my card.

She said okay and scrawled my name down dutifully next to the words, and she kept my card and went off (happily, I think) on her way.

(I asked for this attribution because I once blurbed Sherman Alexie’s poetry book when I was writing reviews for The Philadelphia Inquirer, and Hanging Loose Press took my best line for the back cover and didn’t use my name! They just attributed it to The Philadelphia Inquirer. I was the only blurb author to be “anonymised” in this way. Thus, if you see a Sherman Alexie poetry book, The Summer of Black Widows with a blurb on the back with the word “Whitmanic” on it, that was me.)

Vancouver itself was very beautiful—the architecture was elegant and had a strong Asian influence. Most of the skyscrapers were not too large but extremely interesting geometrically. They could have been in Taiwan or Japan. Chinatown was also very nice though Erik and I were only there once for a late dinner—the food was great and very cheap. The neighborhood nearby was sketchy though; we were accosted by a few strange guys who might have been selling and/or on drugs.

The last day’s big reading was Anne Carson and W. S. Merwin. It was slated for 4:30 p.m., and I’d been very sleep deprived from the start, and the AWP bookfair staff wanted to kick us all out totally by 5:30 p.m., so I had to pack up everything I could carry and grab a cab and head across town to the hotel where Erik and I were staying. Then I had to rush back to the conference hotel to make the reading.

Anne Carson was a classicist, and she was extremely funny and beautiful in an eccentric way. She was actually crying a little as she got up to the podium (due to the very laudatory introduction?) and said, “This is a WAY lot of people.”

(It was standing room only, and I was, in fact, not there but in the adjacent room watching a simulcast on a big screen, which made her luminous, youthful face much larger than life-size.)

She pulled herself together a little and improvised some kind of a thirteen-second poem with audience participation. It had two choruses, A and B. She deftly divided the multitudes with an authoritative gesture, saying, “You are Chorus A,” and waved them off. Then divided the other half off, saying “You are Chorus B.” In her almost-parody-of-a-professor, she said, “Chorus A, your line is: “I’ll buy it! with an exclamation point.” This made everyone laugh. “Chorus B, your line is: “What a bargain! with an exclamation point.”

After she made the audience rehearse once, the thirteen-second poem flashed by in her fine high voice, and she merely gestured to each chorus, and it worked perfectly. The audience exploded in playful laughter and applause, and she applauded them too.

Then she had some unusual and quirky translations of Catullus, and she recited many of these. They were interesting—I’ve read enough from antiquity to know that they were as—if not more—sex-obsessed and idiosyncratic as anyone is today. She had a way of bringing to the fore just how much Catullus was so near to us. She somehow sneaked into her translations refrigerators and other modern machines. She ended this series with the most sexual lyric poem, tapping her neat stack of vertical pages on the podium with a final, “So much for the classics!”

This was followed by a really unusual poem inspired by a woman painter, and she admitted up front that she had no opinion of the art work. But she had thought about it very extensively, so her poem was comprised entirely of “If” clauses.

She was very self-deprecating as she introduced her poem. She declared something like, “It has about eighty clauses, but to you it will seem interminable.” Everyone laughed. “But let me give you some markers along the way to help you....” Then she said a key phrase for one point and another, and she said “Freud” would show up near the end, which meant that when we heard his name, unlike upon any other possible occasion, his name would give us hope. Everyone laughed at that too, and as I think about it now, I realize that her joke had many layers of meaning aside from the obvious one. It was indirectly quite revealing, in a way.

The poem was wonderful—the clauses added up to something much greater than they began with—there were significant shades of meaning in the digressions. It ended beautifully, and it did not seem long at all. Her delivery was so clear and her voice so resonant in its pitch—she might have had a soprano voice. (Somewhere during the earlier poems she sang a little, and her singing voice was very charming and lilting.) She had one of those faces that seems ageless—she could have been twenty or more years younger than she was. I was astonished to read online what year she was born!

The applause she received in the end was very warm and long. She did not stand there to receive it very long though; she took herself off the podium quickly and modestly. This reminded me of her tears before she began—it made one wonder a little about her. Did she actually know how great she was?

W. S. Merwin had to follow her, and that was an unenviable spot to be in even if you are W. S. Merwin, which he himself admitted right away. He said something about having read after Anne Carson before, and how he hadn’t learned anything (meaning: she’s a tough act to follow).

Then he told a touching little anecdote about Robert Creeley, who drove through a snowstorm to pick him up with another poet in upper state New York. Creeley accidentally, while waving his arms around talking, knocked the headlights out and just kept driving down the highway in the thick snowstorm, the snowflakes strangely luminous and falling at them. Merwin was in the back, watching all this, and his other friend carefully reached around and got the headlights back on, and Creeley kept talking, waving his arms around, and driving as if nothing had happened.

I must admit that by that time I was feeling the hours of work and the time of concentration before had taken most of my attentive abilities out of me. I was able to really focus on a few of the poems, at the start and the end, and they were very beautiful. Merwin spoke at great, great length sometimes between poems, and this seemed very spontaneous, which was good, but it seemed to take a while to get to the poems, which were better.

It was a little funny that he read one of his own translations of Catullus, which was loaded with assonance and alliterative effects, and it did sound more “poetic” than Anne Carson’s translations, but the sense of a vital and other personality coming through the translation was not as strong. He actually addressed Anne directly in the midst of his reading at that point, to talk about translating Catullus, which seemed a little unusual to me.

Harriet, though, was in heaven, and she felt like Merwin’s reading was just transcendent. I am also a Merwin fan, but I’d never heard his actual voice before, and the adjustment was not easy for me.

Believe it or not, then there was another event with Wayson Choi and Ursula Leguin, and they were at 8 or 8:30 p.m. and they were the last readers. Erik and I went out to dinner with Patrick Lawler (a very funny and wonderful poet) and two of his good friends.

Patrick, Erik and I were all still parroting that line from Susan Musgrave, “You’re in Canada now, m#$%#$%&#$&*!” We didn’t pronounce the whole thing because we were at a beautiful waterfront restaurant, and the waiter seemed to be so nice, respectful and dignified—I think we didn’t want to throw him off stride.

Anyway, the story by Wayson Choi was indelibly moving and framed perfectly by his casual conversational tone. He was clearly a master at doing this sort of performance.

Ursula Leguin admitted right away she was no talker but a writer and would just read, and then she read an interesting experimental story called “Ether OR,” meaning, a town named “Ether” in “Oregon.” A very northwest Pacific Rim kind of humor, I guess. She was great reader and there were many funny, strange and insightful moments in the work, which featured many voices of the people in the town. It was a nice, soft ending to a hard-working conference. There was a huge mob of fans for autographs afterwards.

My novelist friend from Philly, Simone Zelitch, was there in the long line. We chatted a little before Erik and I headed out—it was late, after all, and we were exhausted.

Most of the long days' hours had been spent at the bookfair, which was intense and hard. We were selling books, after all, to the toughest (and the best) audience in the world.

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Re-post: Reading for the Colorado Center for the Book, The Lighthouse Writers & The Copper Nickel on 03/12/05

2008-07-20T22:30:00.000-07:00

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[March 13, 2005 * On the Reading for the Colorado Center for the Book, The Lighthouse Writers & The Copper Nickel on 03/12/05]

I was very happy to read in the Tivoli Student Union Building at CU-Denver again; I was invited back by Sara Whelan who had remembered me from the reading I gave last year as part of the Denver Poetry Festival on 04/23/04. That reading was really unusual in that I was so turned on by being in Denver and by having an audience with a large number of the CU-Denver faculty there that it really didn't matter to me that the total audience was just around a dozen people. Even though the sound system sort of went berserk at one point during that reading, it actually sort of helped to convey the theme of random urban violence in the poem identity papers, which I hadn't planned to read. I did it just because the audience said they were ready for it and really interested in it. I hadn't done any part of it in a long time, it seemed, and certainly not solo. (Usually there would have been my wonderful friend Lori-Nan Engler, the actress who collaborated on the CD, or there would have been Toshi, the percussionist.) But it went so well that after the reading Sara was really intrigued and wanted to know in depth how and why I wrote in these dialogic forms etc., and so the impression I made that day was what brought about this new reading.

I started getting ready a few weeks ago; I asked Jamie Romero, a very nice poetry student who is also an actress who had gotten some great reviews, to help out by reading the Iris character. She was happy to, and we rehearsed a few times for less than an hour the week before. We also rehearsed one of the poems just a half hour before the reading. It wasn't hard. She was very quick at picking things up, and her voice was neither too high nor too low—it was just resonant enough to cut through very clearly and with great character. It was fun to have her to play off of.

I had been looking forward to this reading for a while, especially since some unrelated things had been a major and continual drain, and those things had been so hard lately that they actually were—for a first time—interfering with my reading. I was nervous! You might think that is normal, but it is actually not normal for me because during most readings that I have given I have felt very relaxed and free. But this time I had to struggle to find any ease. The joke lines were not getting the usual laughs. My mouth went painfully dry (a very bad sign). Fortunately, Jamie was solid as a rock, and it helped that her boyfriend was clearly enjoying the reading where he was. I had to internally struggle to get myself back to the core of the poetry over and over. The thing I was there for... the thing that brought me here to Colorado in the first place—it was being edged out by unrelated problems! How awful that was.

I suspect that this struggle was almost entirely invisible to everyone except that I seemed more tense than I normally would. As the poems passed, and mostly drew applause, I started to really ease up and just let the poetry take over again. I had a plan and stuck with it, and by the end I was really "on" again, and the audience was happy afterward.

One thing I did that helped was last night I slept with the poetry audio tracks playing over and over—it actually made me dream something significant for the first time in a very long time. It also meant that the rhythms were in my subconscious pretty deeply. Another thing that helped was that I actually worked on something NEW (a promising but very rough draft that had been nagging at me for a long while), so that meant good things were simmering in the creative sphere. Another thing that helped was that I'd gotten there early, and Jamie was waiting there in Room 444 in the Tivoli Student Union. It also helped that Sara got us no less than three bottles of water for the reading. Another good thing was the big turnout (around fifty people, almost all new to me), and several familiar friends and students, which is always a great thing. Another good thing was the reporter Laurie Dunklee who wanted to write about this event for a Denver paper and ask a few questions; she asked really good questions and seemed genuinely interested. She was also the first person to tell me that she had read this blog (as research, no less!) That was gratifying. So all the little things that helped really added up to a solid success. A year ago, I think I'd have felt very pumped up by all this. Tonight I feel lucky to have survived.

The next day, 03/13/05, I got this reassuring e-mail from Sara Whelan:

"Dear Jeff,

I was very pleased with the turn-out and the reading. There are few people
who have your attention to detail when it comes to expression and voice in
the reading of poetry, which gives your poems a new dimension, bringing them
into the realm of experience beyond language. (If that makes sense). As I
mentioned before you left, there's a moment of surrender I experience when
listening to your poems read aloud—a transition where my mind lets go of
the need to decode and allows the voices to take me somewhere, from the
familiar to the unfamiliar. This is really much like the experience of
listening to music, which means, to me, your employment of musical forms and
devices in composition is quite successful...."

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Re-post [3/8/05] on Galway Kinnell, the teacher/poet

2008-07-17T20:41:00.001-07:00

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[March 8, 2005* On Galway Kinnell as a teacher/poet, something to be grateful for....]

Galway would regularly ask us to do the impossible. Once in a one-on-one conference in the spring of 1999 he was helping me with a poem about the out-of-body travel experience of a thirteen-year-old. I was struggling to show how it was both a transcendent and a sexually arousing experience. He perked up with a great idea, which went something like: ‘Why don’t you show how the spiritual and the sexual are interwoven inevitably in adolescence? I’ve never read a poem about that. Why don’t you do that?’

After the enormity of this sank in, I said something like, ‘Okay.... I guess I could try that....’ (read: Sure, just toss off the answer to a mystery that has baffled thinkers and sages for millennia).

Even though I was stumped for a very long time, the idea Galway planted took root and a year later I wrote the poem that fulfilled that idea, and it was published later in 2000.

I have always felt indebted to Galway for daring to believe in me (and so many of us) with the same kind of ambition that he had in his own work. That was a gift that you could never fully measure. Thank you, Galway!

(The poem that Galway and I were discussing this idea over was called "digression," and it was written as the second part of a series called "out-of-body travel at thirteen." I think he had already seen the third part called "out-of-body travel at thirteen"—that was the most narrative part. The next part, which took a year to write was about the transcendental and sexual elation, and it was called "elation: some variations." I brought this to Sharon's workshop the following year and explained how it came about. I seem to remember Sharon's reaction when I recollected Galway's suggestion to the class as a kind of moment when her jaw dropped open momentarily. The series can be seen as a PDF here. Thanks to Ashlie Kauffman, fellow NYU alum for asking about this.)

[The wonderful poet and fellow alum Susan Brennan sent this in to the NYU listserv about Galway:]

Once, in Galway's classroom, he played a tape of animals sounds—I remember the wolves especially and thinking—this is wild, and comforting and—so sexy. In that same class, he explained Whitman as a kind of fertility god who spoke through the lines of Leaves of Grass. I remember cherishing this note especially because the previous semester I was in an English class with doctoral students who just about crucified Whitman.

Reading Galway's work, being his student at NYU, watching him get intense over line-drives at Squaw Valley, having him generously listen to poems that were difficult to write—all these moments have conveyed to me a special knowledge about poetry; that it's a wilderness which poets can graciously and proudly inhabit. Galway has shown my poetry-creature ways to make a home in this wilderness.

A couple of summers ago, I was standing on West Third Street with Humera and we saw Galway crossing the street. He had on a bright, white shirt and it was billowing in the wind. We watched as strangers turned their heads to look at him with an impulsive curiosity. We sighed to each other "he's so beautiful and sexy and wild and free"! Poetry.

[03/12/2005]

[This is from fellow alum Emily Gordon who sent this in to the NYU listserv about Galway:]

This is the Galway story I love to tell. In 2002 on the last day of Craft, he gave out books of his to everyone and talked for a little while about how much having poetry friendships has meant to him. He said, "When you leave, I hope you'll stay in touch with each other, and trade poems. The most marvelous thing is how easy it can be! You don't have to wait for the mail for weeks anymore to find out if your friend liked your poem. Now there's the fax machine, which makes it so that in only a few minutes your friend can see your poem, and send it back, and you can read it! Isn't it wonderful?" And we all burst out laughing in the most affectionate way possible, just about in tears.

[03/14/2005]

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Re-post from Feb. 22, 2005, on poets and insanity

2008-07-12T22:00:00.000-07:00

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[February 22, 2005* the start of an extended riff on poets and insanity...]

Another hard thing in the writing world is, I must admit, the way some writers act, especially towards each other. Everyone in the writing world, especially the poetry neighborhood of the writing world, has horror stories. Some of them are so horrifying you could make them into cheesy horror movies. No, I mean real horror movies. This only gets worse when you really dig into "the field," so to speak, because sometimes "the field" is a graveyard.

Did you know that the great Victorian poet Dante Gabriel Rosetti, who had an affair with Fanny Cornforth, his beautiful housekeeper, felt so guilty over his wife's suicide that he buried all of his poetry with her? Wait wait—it gets worse. Then he realized his great contribution to English literature was in the process of decomposing along with the corpse of his wife, so he dug it up again.

The list of famous poet and writers who were suicidal, drunk, addicted, self-destructive, narcissistic, promiscuous, diseased, insane and so on is far too long to even start.

(On the other hand, I think there is an almost equally great tragedy in going to the opposite extreme and trying to make cultural icons out of poets and writers who are so relentlessly dull, inoffensive, and "nice" that you can't remember who they are five minutes after you meet them. We seem to be in a cultural moment that champions more and more of the safe and dull—poets who censor themselves so much that no one will ever have to worry about them censoring them in any way.)

Sadly, the poetry game in particular is great camouflage for crazy people. So I have to admit that I have been friends, and ex-friends, with some crazy literati and/or literary nutjobs. I learned what I learned the hard way.

But let me say this, first: some of the actually diagnosed schizophrenic poets that I knew were really brilliant (at times), and mostly very nice to be around (except for the antisocial nervous tics, the degenerative diseases, the logorrhea etc.) Genuinely crazy poets who know they are crazy (meaning: they can tell you exactly which drugs they are supposed to be on whether they take them or not) aren't necessarily bad at all, especially in contrast to those who think they are okay and are deeply disturbed.

I don't know if this one guy is still alive, so I don't want to give away his name. When I was twenty or so, he was forty or so, but he looked sixty due to his very hard institutionalization and "treatment" for schizophrenia in the bad old days of primitive psychotropic drugs. I met him through another poet (of course), and I had read one of his books, which had exquisite and beautiful lyric moments in it although it also seemed at times to verge on being an incoherent way out jazz improv with words. But even then it had some inner beauty and resilience. I really admired what he was able to do. So I was really shocked to see him looking withered, weathered, smelly, ragged, haggard, and gray. Worse, he was in nonstop highspeed raving mode, complaining about his degenerating teeth, eyes, and on and on. But as I listened to him going on and on, I was able to separate the poet from his illness somehow, and when he was out of breath I told him I really admired his poetry due to the gorgeous images and the musical quality in the lines. I was sincere when I told him that I was moved by the beauty of his lyric poetry.

Suddenly he stopped ranting, complaining, and suffering. I explained a little more about what I'd read. He paused and asked a few questions, just to be sure I knew what I was talking about. It sank in, and he felt a kind of relief or maybe a temporary release from all his grief. Someone had just recognized who he really was.

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Some Answers to Questions from a Poetry Student

2008-07-09T21:19:00.001-07:00

[Re-post from February 7, 2005. Answers to some short questions (slightly edited)....]

My advanced poetry student Gwen Wagner recently asked via e-mail: "Ballpark, how much time do you find you need to spend writing a day to keep 'in the groove' or be ready when the groove hits you?"

When I was younger, I used to write for several hours a day for days on end. Sometimes whole days or nights would be spent with writing. Even though I wrote relatively little that was worth preserving in those early years (when I was eighteen to twenty or so), the habits of concentration were essential to developing a literary consciousness that was actively creating, innovating, and working. Just reading great works by others does something similar to this, also, but reading works best for young poets when they are fulfilling a need (or a lack) in their own work.

Now, I should say that due to some situations I have at work now, I have not really written a poem in a while although I feel I have lived through the material to write many (haha).

In the academic year 2002-2003, I was able to write more often and finished most of what is now invisible sister before the summer of 2003 ended. Just as an example, “Iris’ painter hears the rain music return” took maybe a dozen drafts but they were mostly just getting a sharper focus on the subject with each new version. It wasn’t grueling.

There have been a lot of what I will call minor poems, and maybe a few “important” ones, or at least important starts. What’s the difference between minor and major poems? Some things in your life carry a great deal of energy, and some are just little observations or moments etc. When I get an opening into a major field of energy that is turning into a poem, I think that could be important. I have actually had some important starts this year, but I have not rushed to work on them due to other pressures. I don’t want to botch a potentially great thing even if it means having to wait a long time until things are more calm.

In 2003-2004, there were fewer poems as invisible sister was being created at Many Mountains Moving, and that required much creative energy of a different sort, and so did arranging readings etc.

Gwen also asked: "How do you revise work without the help of peers/other writers?"

Actually, even when there are no actual “peers” (as in a workshop), I carry around inside of me (as everyone does) the voices and the ears of others who have been my peers and precursors at different points in my life. So there are friendly, enabling presences in my consciousness when I write. In fact, when I feel the most inspired is when I feel these presences the most.

A lot of times, I also share things via a free online forum that I have set up with friends and peers, which I still find enjoyable and helpful.

Reading new works aloud for various audiences also helps a lot, and so does creating audio recordings in a studio.

Also, when you write with actors or actresses in mind, they can actually have a profound impact on the work because their ways of hearing the work and giving it voice can actually create new dimensions in the work that you did not hear before. Sometimes the creativity of the actor or actress extends the depth of the character, and then you can follow that opening wherever it leads. That is one reason why I like to work with some people over and over.

Gwen also wrote: I'm reading this book called Art as Experience by John Dewey. It was written in the 1930's--amazing amounts of good stuff came out of the "depression." (Kind of like the Dark Ages.) This book discusses some theories of art, some of which are applied to poetry (though in a sort of stifled way that could be expanded by someone who knows the writer better.) In a chapter on expression two ideas which you touched on indirectly in the blog came up. One, that a work of art which has sufficiently accomplished it's message, if the viewer is receptive, can speak to that person--the artist goes through a process of creation in making the painting (art) and the viewer also goes through a creating process in order to access its meaning. Interesting thought...makes art very interactive instead of stuck in a museum and musty. Two, that self-expression (really an excuse for self-indulgence) doesn't make something art...it is the cohesion of thought and medium that creates a cohesiveness and accessible message in the work.

I am really glad you made that connection with Art as Experience because the only reading that has really mattered to me is that in which I feel a very strong connection to the writer as though we were in a kind of an intense dialogue. (The list of writers I have felt this close to is not very long.) The reader has to be reinvented and to be actively reinventing him or herself while reading just as a person in a real dialogue with a true friend starts to awaken or engage different aspects of the self. To be inspired while reading is like discovering a true friend who turns on (or reaches) essential parts of you.

On the point about self-expression, I'd say that the first really successful things I wrote happened when, by accident, I didn't say what I wanted to as much as I let the poem say what it needed to. In fact, the first times that I stumbled into this phenomenon, I myself didn't know what the lines meant, but I somehow knew they were better than anything I wanted to say. The lines knew more than I did, which was humbling. Humility is a good place to be in the midst of the process of creating.

Whenever it happens now that I write something that I know is better than or more than anything I could ever consciously grasp or "plan," when a kind of a mysterious door opens up where I thought I knew where I was, then I feel very fortunate.

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First impression of Anne-Marie Cusac, Great news for MMM Press: Silkie (2007) by Anne-Marie Cusac wins an award

2008-07-03T11:57:00.001-07:00

I don't know exactly when I first met Anne-Marie Cusac, but I'm sure it was after we published her book in 2007. It might have been at the AWP where we first presented her book to the world at a book signing.

At the AWP bookfair, my first impression was very strong: she was wearing an elegant black dress, and she had very dark brown hair and very striking features. Her smile was the sort of beautiful smile that exudes great warmth and happiness. It was infectious. We were at the bookfair together for no more than a few minutes when a few guys saw her and her book with its very gorgeous cover art and bought her book on the spot. One of the guys actually said he wanted to buy the book because of its cover's {%@*@$$^$#%#} value. The cover has a painting of a voluptuous naked woman.

So, anyway, today was a great day for news for MMM Press, which follows.

Silkie (MMM Press, 2007) by Anne-Marie Cusac wins an OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT AWARD from the Wisconsin Library Association!

http://www.wisconsinbookfestival.org/

Silkie was reviewed in New Madrid: journal of contemporary literature and a new review is forthcoming in American Book Review.

Anne-Marie Cusac’s new nonfiction book on punishment and torture is forthcoming soon from Yale University Press.

Further, our current poetry book contest deadline is August 16th, 2008. And we are please to announce that our new judge is Steven Huff.

Steven Huff’s second book of poems More Daring Escapes was released in 2008 by Red Hen Press. A book of stories, A Pig in Paris will be released in 2008 by Big Pencil Press. He is a Pushcart winner in fiction, and his poetry has been read by Garrison Keillor on The Writer’s Almanac. He teaches creative writing at Rochester Institute of Technology and in the MFA program at Pine Manor College. He is proprietor of a new literary publishing company, Tiger Bark Press. See the guidelines at:
http://mmminc.org/html/contests2008_mmm.htm

(email entries are accepted now as well as traditional paper submissions)

Printable guidelines with an entrant’s order form are at:
http://mmminc.org/other_assets/2008_MMMP_prize.pdf

Also, you can now go straight to MMM Press at http://mmmpress.org/ for samples, audio, links, reviews, interviews, events, and more.
(or go through http://mmminc.org/ and follow the MMM Press links.)

ABOUT MMM PRESS:
Engaged in themes such as sex, gender, race, ecology, politics, history, folklore, pop culture, the media, Surrealism, mythology, feminist revisions of mythology, the occult, madness, and spirituality, MMM Press authors inspire with relevant themes as much as with bold innovations in poetics. MMM Press does not subscribe to any particular school(s) of poetics. The books vary widely, showing influences of confessional, lyric, narrative, experimental lyric and narratives poetry, multi-voiced narratives, multi-perspective narratives, etc.

Founded by Naomi Horii in 2003, Many Mountains Moving Press grew out of Many Mountains Moving: a literary journal of diverse voices. The press continues to publish exciting, groundbreaking poets. Authors include: Alison Stone, Jeffrey Ethan Lee, Patrick Lawler, Anne-Marie Cusac and Susan Settlemyre Williams. Generally publishes one prize-winning title each year. The 2007 competition final judge was Yusef Komunyakaa. Visit the site for extensive samples, audio, reviews, interviews, links, events, etc.

MMM Press books have been used in colleges and universities around the country.

[untitled Allentown epilogue] something old revisited

2008-07-02T18:08:00.000-07:00

Sometimes a synchronistic moment occurs. You work on a poem you haven't thought about in years. Then you hear about the person the poem was dedicated to.

I worked on this yesterday after having forgotten about it for years. Then today a call comes with news about the person, a close friend. The news was hard news.

Speaking not as a poet but as a person, this is one that reminds me a lot of my friends. Looking at it as a "work" that might be part of a longer work, I have to say this is the first time it made any sense to me, i.e. I can see where it fits into a bigger story, finally. I think this will be the end of a book I've had in the works for a very long time....

[untitled Allentown epilogue] for P.F.H.

“D’jou hear that?”
The screams were so piercing
through the jukebox, the clamor,
I nudged Bill, alert amid the beer,
the smoke and blaring.
He nodded—we left the crowd
for the almost stifled street.
No cars running,
no drunks singing,
no pedestrians—
just the muffled roar of the bar.
But then across the street
and across the corner
we heard the scream again
and slamming doors,
boots clomping down some stairs—
an exploding front door,
a slim figure fleeing.
She fell on her knees on the sidewalk,
curled over herself, pulled into herself
as if the concrete could hide her.
He charged out shouting over and over,
“I’LL KILL YOU YOU BITCH!
I’M GONNA FUCKIN’ KILL YOU!”
His fists just above her raised.
I shouted, “HEY! LEAVE THAT
WOMAN ALONE!”
He turned, lurched toward us,
then Bill grabbed me,
dragged me into his car,
revved and pulled it out of his spot,
aimed his headlights straight at them.
The woman looked at us
while slowly crawling away from him.
He threatened her to go inside—
she shouted back she’d never.
Then he set to kick her hard.
Bill floored the gas, and he looked up, froze;
meanwhile, Bill apologized:
“I’m sorry I stopped you.
He could be armed.
But we’re safe in here.
He can’t see us very well,
but we can watch his every move.
And the motor’s running....”
We watched them argue in Bill’s headlights:
the wraith hesitated, then retreated inside.
She stayed prone, shaking in sobs.
Then Bill parked again—
we didn’t know what to do.
She looked over at us,
her eyes full, curious.
Her face was puffy,
much younger than I’d thought—
a quavering cat too scared to move.
Then Pam opened the bar door,
phone in hand, urging,
“Get in here! I called the cops already.”
She pulled me in by my shirt.
“Do you wanna get killed?”
Tearing myself away,
and going back in, then,
I realized the answer
must have been
Yes.

My father versus Commander Riker of Star Trek the Next Generation

2008-07-01T21:15:00.001-07:00

(How my dad took a shot at the entire enterprise of the performing arts)

Because I had been in a handful of small theater productions when I was much younger, and because my parents were frantically opposed to the whole idea, I told my dad the story of Jonathan Frakes, the son of Professor James Frakes at Lehigh University.

My dad was busy getting a cup of tea in the kitchen as I spoke.

“Jonathan Frakes’ dad thought that a life in film and TV was a terrible mistake. They had real ugly and bitter struggles because the father thought the son would not get anywhere. But look— see, now he’s Commander Riker of Star Trek the Next Generation.”

My dad paused before he left with a parting shot, without looking away from his tea cup, “Just give it a few years. Soon— he’ll be nothing!”

The Poet's Mother’s Death-Bed Conversion

2008-06-28T21:15:00.000-07:00

Originally posted elsewhere on Jun. 4th, 2008 | 10:13 pm

My mom was in her hospital bed, smiling with rare warmth. The whiteness of the room was intense under the fluorescent lights. Maybe she was glad because I was the only one in our family to go to see her.

Without me saying anything, she said, “Go ahead, be happy.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked.

“I want you to just be happy.”

Seeing my puzzled expression, she finally said, “You can write poetry.”

I was shocked, and she kept smiling. This was the same person who was so hell bent on me being in science, math, or law. The same person who had said, “Poetry is garbage. Why do you want to add more garbage to the garbage of all the lousy people of the world?”

I was shocked but hoping to believe it, after all. This time she could be dead in the near future. Maybe this was her death bed conversion into a supportive mom. She didn’t have much else to say, and neither did I.

I felt like a terrible dark cloud had been lifted off my head.

I wondered as I drove away if I hadn’t misjudged her all my life.

But then a few weeks later the specialists sorted it out, and it wasn’t advanced liver cancer. It wasn’t any kind of cancer. It was just an anomaly. So she was out and feeling strong again like her old self at home, in her kitchen.

Then she told me, “You know what I said in the hospital?”

“Yes,” I smiled. This was one of the few truly happy memories I had of her.

“Well, forget it. I only said that because I thought I was dying.”

A re-post from the northern Colorado years | failures and revisions

2008-06-27T17:41:00.001-07:00

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[January 26, 2005]

I don't like to dwell on failure, but every writer who is "on the job" for a couple decades has a pile of them somewhere (published or tucked away in a drawer or boxed up somewhere). This is one of the hardest things about the writing life: what to do when the writing does not turn out as well as it should have or could have, and there is no solution in sight.

I think of myself as one of the lucky ones because most of the times when I think I have written something really worthy it does get published and draws at least some of the attention it deserves.

On the other hand, there are lots of writers who get stuck or give up too soon or keep making the same mistakes over and over and over. I understand their frustrations, fears and anxieties. I have certainly had my share of duds. For every successful poem there are at least several fizzles and outright dead ends. (When I was younger, the fizzles outnumbered successes by a far greater number, too.)

I have gotten better at learning when to walk away from these disasters and to just try something else for a while. I have also learned from experience that the really great poems return. Even if the poem that misfired seems hopeless one day, in a couple years (or many years) it may open itself up again and suddenly seem quite clear as to how it needs to go. The ones that need you to come back have a way of calling you when you are ready.

But as I say this, I know it isn't true for everyone. Why is it true for me? Maybe it is the fact that I am willing to accept a high percentage of drafts that "blow chunks" compared to a low percentage that seem stellar right away. Most of my best poems started out in drafts that looked like crap. I'm the only person who could see any potential there. Why do I see potential there when any sane person would not? Why did I go back into something that seemed so unpromising to try to make it work again?

For example, that poem for Antonio Salemme [see the earlier January 2005 entries] actually had a weaker earlier incarnation, "white fire" (from the late 1980s maybe?) which was published in a little magazine. But I recognized its severe limitations as a poem while I was in a workshop with Galway Kinnell in 1999. What happened in the intervening years? For one thing, the woman who inspired the earlier poem went not just out of my life but far away (like Japan), which made it easier to detach the poem from a bunch of personal feelings that really did not help the poem at all. I no longer needed to say anything about how I felt about her. Instead, I had the painting in its pure and austere power to work with.

(The imagery from the same painting was used in the earlier poem also but it was not about the painting; it was about the feelings for this particular woman.)

I realized that what I really wanted to say, still, hadn't gotten said because this very personal relationship was in the way.

Ironically, even though the autobiographical elements all got stripped out of the new poem, I feel that it still represents (albeit indirectly) an essential part of me. In fact, as I read it now, I think it seems to me to be a more honest examination of that personal relationship even though that story isn't even represented in the poem anymore.

(Coleridge was a poet who also wrote very personal and embarrassing earlier versions of poems that evolved into less personal but more honest and great works. In America, people tend to think self expression is an end in itself for art. But most of the rest of the world knows better, I think.)

So, before I forget the original question, why did I go back to that old poem in the first place? The old poem, despite all its flaws, seemed to me to be demanding my attention. Perhaps it had been nagging me. It still contained the signature of the energy that gave it birth. That energy forced me to own up to the powerful feelings that inspired the poem in the first place, and that led me back to the originating moment of the work in the remote past. Reflecting on the past, I realized that the very old relationship had lost its "charge," but its meaning had now taken on a life of its own in the poem. It was almost as if the emotional energy of the poem had replaced the emotional energy of the relationship. Instead of thinking about the past, I was thinking of the past poem, and that was a far better situation for me as a writer. The poem had set me emotionally free of the past by memorializing it in an art form that was "permanent." That was the moment I felt the most free to work on the poem as a totally new thing; that was the moment I broke the tie with that past. Ironically, that was the moment the past became the most clear.

A "failure" became a "success" even though I had to wait more than ten years for that poem to unfold itself for me. I actually think that is one thing that a lot of good writers do; they transform their junk into something valuable, sometimes slowly, sometimes quickly. But you have to be willing to throw out the old stuff and say, "I can do that better!"

editors breaking promises, part 2

2008-06-27T17:26:00.000-07:00

One of the earliest encounters I had with an editor saying he would and then would not publish my work happened when I was still in college. Looking back, I know that I was very young to have substantial space in any literary journal full of mostly pretty well established poets.

How did this happen? you ask.

Well, I handed this new poem to this guy about seven years older than me, and he was mesmerized and moved. On the spot he said he would publish it. But then he reversed himself much later, making up some reason. It might have been simply that I was too young or something. I was really upset about that then.

But now, having seen how many times a poem getting published in an obscure literary journal has caused careers to burst into the stratosphere, how many lives have been saved by the publishing of a poem, how many political catastrophes averted by a few sage phrases from a poet, I think, yeah, maybe it wasn't such a big deal.

A re-post from the northern Colorado years | poetic influences/influenzas

2008-06-24T20:34:00.000-07:00

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[January 22, 2005]

It is Saturday January 22nd right now, but I am going to go backward to Sunday the 16th of January at 6 p.m. when I got to do the Poetry Show on the radio at KRFC 88.9 FM with Dona Stein, who has been a wonderful friend to my work as both a poet and a teacher of poetry. The idea was to have poets who teach poetry talk about the why and how of teaching poetry. My good friends Bob King (UNC colleague) and Donna Salemink (UNC alum) were on the air with me. I was very happy to see them and wished we could have talked much longer, but we were going on the air in a few minutes. KRFC is in the process of being renovated, so it was kind of half put together and half falling apart. Our host wanted to know why we taught...

I said it must be the fabulous wealth and the gold-plated Rolls Royces and the oil wells they give us at UNC because they place such tremendous value on poetry and the humanities etc. (I pictured in my imagination a four-foot tall oil well stuck in the asphalt of one of the vast university parking lots, and it was dry.)

To be perfectly honest, I do not really have any explanation for why I love to teach. It's just always been a strong compulsion that has been there almost as long as that even stronger compulsion to write and create. What made me swear solemnly at the age of eighteen to devote my life to writing? What made me think it was worth more than anything else in the world? That no sacrifice was too great etc?

(If my novel-writing buddy Simone Zelitch were here now eavesdropping, she would say, "Ah, you are bragging.")

In the spirit of avoiding bragging and slipping into exaggerations etc., I will make a few simple rules for this blog before I forget them: (i) only write about things about which I can be completely honest, (ii) tell the whole truth whenever practical or possible.

Of course, this means I am going to just have to simply not say anything at all about a lot of contemporary issues due to the way things are around me here. But I will make this promise for myself (and for anyone else who dives into this experiment) that I will be faithful to the truth in this blog.

I imagine that the ideal reader of this blog is a young writer, someone who probably knows my work and is curious about it and/or me. I wish that when I had started out in "Po Biz" that there had been more older writers who were genuinely truthful about the writing life and its strangeness. I think I owe it to the next generation to not make it seem easier or better than it is. But I also think I owe it to them to relate what makes it still worthwhile.

For one thing, I hear from some readers occasionally, including people I've never met or heard of who saw my work somewhere online or in print. Sometimes I even get things that seem like "fanmail." Sometimes I get a phone call from someone who saw my work online and loved it, and I am invited to read here or there.

Some of my readers have even told me that they don't just read my work; they re-read and re-read it. Of course, I am happy about this. But I also worry about the influence my work may have on them because influence is often a double-edged phenomenon. I have had in the past some poet friends who sort of fell in love with my work and could not help but start to imitate it in some ways. I was always flattered by this, but it was not just that simple. There was a sense of struggle....

When I first fell in love with the works of T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, or Hart Crane, for example, it was quite overpowering and I went through imitative phases in relation to each of them. Eliot was by far the most deleterious influence (which is a kind of a compliment to his powers), but it took years to sort out for myself how I could find a stance in relation to his work that would enable me to go forward and not merely reiterate anything he had done. It was really torture, though, until that breakthrough in 1984 when I wrote "The Sylf." The influence of Pound, on the other hand, was much more beneficial and uncomplicated. No matter what terrible things you say about Pound as neo-troubadour, as fascist, as elitist, as anti-semite etc., there is still the self-sacrificing, compulsively and extravagantly generous friend that Pound was. Somehow this aspect of Pound pervades his greatest poetry, and it makes it a more giving field to wander in than Eliot. When you imitate Eliot, you always sound like a derivative, watery version of Eliot. But imitating Pound somehow throws you back out to your own voice, and you can come away from Pound as a better, more skillful writer than you were before. It is much harder to pick up any tricks from Eliot because his stylistic innovations are so peculiarly integral to his voice that they remind the reader of him (and how much better he is than you are). He is astonishingly subversive as an influence. I've seen lots of talented poets pretty much wrecked by Eliot, and so have lots of other poets. I think that subversive influence of Eliot's may have even fueled some of the backlash against his work.

So even though I still love Eliot's work, I recognize its hazards. It should almost have a warning label specifically written for young poets: CAUTION: reading Eliot may cause severe subversions and birth-of-genius-defects. Consult a metaphysician or a doctorate before digesting.

(Analogously, many poets have observed that Milton is a subversive influence whereas Shakespeare is a very generous influence. William Wordsworth is a potentially subversive influence while his sister Dorothy is a very generous influence. Poe and DeQuincey are both subversive influences, but Poe is much worse. Sylvia Plath is a subversive influence while her friend Anne Sexton is a relatively generous influence. Ginsberg is more of a subversive influence and Ferlinghetti is more of a generous influence. Etheridge Knight, Galway Kinnell and Sharon Olds, my first great poet-mentor/friend and two of my past poet-teachers, are all great and generous influences.)

Throughout my teaching career, I have tried very hard to not overexpose my students to my work even though it may be the reason they are there in the first place. I'd feel terrible if my work inadvertently had undesireable side-effects. I hope that my work may be more of a generous reading experience. It seems to work this way for some of my students. But no one can ever predict this for sure. You can only find out the hard way by seeing what happens, and by then it may be too late.

But with all that said, I have skirted the real issue: what makes the writing life worthwhile? It's those moments when the gift comes and you are ready for it, those moments when you are fully conscious in the artwork and alive to all the possibilities of its truth, its sensuous and sinuous beauty. Those moments when the writing is more involving than anything else you could ever do in your existence, they bring you back to your true reason to live. They do more than make writing worthwhile, they make life worthwhile. Nothing can destroy those moments, and nothing can replace them. In those moments there is this "marvelous joy of being sure...."

editors breaking promises, worst case scenarios, part 1

2008-06-23T10:39:00.000-07:00

Probably one of the most painful and horrible memories I have as a writer is finding out from an editor that he did not want to publish my work anymore despite the fact that he said he would, many times, very explicitly, in connection with an award that was pretty great.

I don’t want to go into the ugly details here, but there was one detail that was excruciating and, I think, revealing. We were talking face to face in a food court near a sort of balcony in a mall space, and this editor was not telling me why he changed his mind. In fact, he was not even admitting that he had changed his mind. He actually said these words as part of his “defense”— “I’m just a little guy.”

This was particularly excruciating because I had heard these exact same words before when I was in my early 20s from a poet in his early 40s. This older guy—formerly a close friend—made an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to steal my girlfriend at the time—she was younger than me. Aside from attacking me and lying about me to her countless times, that guy once defended his own actions to me by saying, “I’m just a little guy.”

Of course, I didn’t share this information with the big-deal editor, and I always tried very hard to work with him, but to no avail. I learned from this that some editors will break a deal, no matter how much it damages another person’s life and career etc., and basically try to weasel out of it by being “little.”

On the positive side, from that point forward, I knew that at least one thing editors ought to do is try their hardest to stand by their words to writers.

why editors keep promises, part 3

2008-06-19T21:27:00.000-07:00

{originally posted June 5, 2008}

The best reason an editor has to keep a promise to a writer is when the editor feels like the work is a great gift, and then the editor wants to share it.

Tonight I received a poetry submission by a very circuitous route. This delayed the reading and responding by a good long time– seven months. Now I had heard from this particular writer maybe a month ago via email and replied that I didn’t know where the submission was, but she had sent it to another editor, who was supposed to have responded. That person resigned recently, and I asked for the leftover work and papers etc. to be shipped to me. This writer was in that large shipment; her submission had never been opened till today.

I was really moved by two of the poems; in fact, I got that rare sensation of something like the world having a new dimension open up underneath of itself. Lyric depth. When a poem has somewhere to go to and it succeeds, that is exciting in a really deep way. The other one was even better though. I felt chills reading it. That is something that makes this whole editing job seem much more worthwhile– when you discover something great from someone you never heard of before.

I don’t want to reveal the name of this poet because I haven’t asked her about how she’d feel about being mentioned in a blog, and it may be that the poems have been taken by someone else already.

When I lived in Colorado for five years, five LONG years, I often looked at the mountains 50+ miles away and was reminded of the age of the earth and the mountains and the brevity of our hours here on earth. This was consoling. Maybe it was the idea that the earth abides (relatively) forever. We poor fools of nature fretting and strutting our seconds on stage, in spite of our transience, matter a great deal somehow, and we know this deep inside. In our own ways, the things we do, the poems we write, the breaths we take, resonate for more than just the instant in the wind that we can feel, here and now. We are a minuscule part of something far greater, and the mountains are somehow an analogue to this idea. Even the mountains are minuscule and passing wonders against the age of the earth. But this makes them even more beautiful to us.

why editors keep promises, part 2.

2008-06-19T07:05:00.001-07:00

MMM Vol VI., 2006, ended up with 93 contributors—90% of them were people who had been promised publication by the previous editorial staff. There were very few new people that we added to that issue, which the staff called “the catch up issue” while we were working on it.

I think that this issue was a very strong and very eclectic mixture—a very diverse and unusual anthology of 288 pages. It was heavy. When it came out with its beautiful b/w cover photo by Joseph Sorrentino of a young girl in Oaxaca, I knew we had created something that would keep up the standards of the past issues.

Keeping the promises the past editors made meant an enormous amount of work for us, but it was a good experience, that year.

Sometimes, that year and more recently, there was disagreement on the staff when e.g. one editor disliked things previous editors made. Sometimes an editor vehemently disliked things CURRENT editors made!

(This is okay with me as long as the staff acts in a way that fosters mutual respect; people need to be free to make decisions as editors and to have their space.)

No matter what, though, I think that it is more important to keep our word, and keep our individual words, to people once promises have been made.

Occasionally, a new poet or writer finds out we are alive, still, and guess what? A previous editor—gone some years ago—promised this person that this or that story would appear.

why editors keep promises, part 1

2008-06-18T18:57:00.000-07:00

When I became one of the editors of Many Mountains Moving, Inc. during 2005, I learned along with co-director Erik Nilsen that A LOT of people had been promised publication by previous editors, and much work had yet to appear.

I know it means a lot to writers, especially early in their careers, to get published in something like MMM. It meant a lot to me in 1997 when I first appeared in MMM. I was impressed by what was in the issue and by the fact that it sold out of Borders Books in center city Phila. very quickly. I also knew that it is horrible for young writers to get a promise and see that promise disappear.

It's true that the staff before Erik and I arrived had to resign or chose to resign pretty quickly (end of 2004--early 2005), and it's true that a lot of people thought MMM was dead. And it took a lot of effort and many great volunteers to help us through that very rough transition period (Thanks, Donna Salemink! Thanks, Shannon Arancio! Thanks, Bryan Roth and Barbara Sorensen-- veterans of the most uncertain hours.)

With all the departures, we were actually off the hook, i.e. we didn't have any contracts with the writers because we didn't make those contracts. We didn't accept that work. But our predecessors had. Why should we feel compelled to keep those promises?

1) I wanted to honor the promises of the previous editors because I believed in what they were doing; I knew they were great editors. They must have been doing an awful lot of things right because they had a very loyal and devoted following. Keeping promises that they made mostly fit in with what I believed in also. This was, in fact, a way to learn about the history of the aesthetic of the journal.

2) I wanted to keep promises for the sake of the writers because even if we were technically off the hook, we had a chance to help writers who wanted or needed the publication, and so this was a good reason to keep those old promises. Even if it wouldn't have been our fault if those poems never appeared, we had a chance to build some good will in the small world of poets & writers. Since there is little money in the literary world, especially "PO Biz," reputation really does count for a lot.

3) I myself have had some very terrible and important experiences with editors breaking their own promises to me, and these things usually DID have an impact on more than just the obvious things. So I knew firsthand how it feels to be on the other side of a broken deal. I didn't want to put anyone through that or anything remotely like it.

4) karma, ultimately, is a reason why I wanted to keep the promises we made. I believe the things we do mean more than we can fathom in any given moment, even any given lifetime.

Emcee for the Reading at the Cornelia Street Cafe in NYC during AWP

2008-06-16T20:02:00.000-07:00

This was first posted on May 23, 2008, but it is about an event in January 2008 in NYC.

Being the emcee for a reading at the Cornelia Street Café for the Many Mountains Moving, Inc. authors and editors was thrilling, especially hearing the work of my peers there.

Patrick Lawler, whose book Feeding the Fear of the Earth is one of those rare books capable of changing the way the world looks and feels after you are finished reading it, gave a very charismatic and funny performance. I knew he was really on from the moment he opened his mouth and kidded me, his editor, about the cuts I suggested in his book manuscript. (All the other authors had very nicely complimented me on being this inspiring editor etc.)

I can’t remember Patrick’s exact words, but he said something like, “My book used to be fifty pages longer than it is, and then Jeff made me cut all the best ones! So tonight I’m going to read those poems that aren’t in this book.” What made this so funny was that he did it without a hint of irony. I was laughing so hard I almost fell out of my chair. Patrick is usually an amazing reader, but this night he was even better than usual. He was literally glowing with inspiration under the stage lights.

It was an exciting gathering for MMM Press. This was our first and, so far, only group reading. The setting was a very beautiful long room with decorative lighting and not a lot of other lighting around the dining tables in the basement space. The small bar at the opposite end of the room was far enough away that it didn’t interfere with the reading and vice versa.

This was also the first time I heard Susan Settlemyre Williams read—she was added at the almost last minute because we were not sure the book, Ashes in Midair, would arrive on time for the AWP book fair. It was wonderful to hear in her own voice the work that has been garnering so much great praise. Anne-Marie Cusac in her part of the reading from her book, Silkie, was luminous and elegant; she has a style of reading that draws you in closer to the subjects of her work, which are very strong in their sensuality and their sensory experiences. This was also the first time that I heard Alison Stone read her work, and she had a very distinctive voice that cut through the atmosphere with its sharp insights, its surprising turns and inflections. They Sing At Midnight is a book that always makes a strong impression.

All in all the reading revealed to me some of the strands that make MMM, Inc. what it is.

Thaddeus Rutkowski, our new fiction editor, also read in a very inspired and inspiring way. Though I had heard all or nearly all of the pieces before, he was so on top of his comic timing that I was laughing to the point where it hurts. Worse, I couldn’t stop laughing that hard.

I actually did not have a great reading on stage myself; it was okay though. Other worries were really absorbing my energy, so it was very hard to concentrate on the work. But at least a few people really liked it a lot. I read from invisible sister, which was published by MMM Press before I became part of the staff.

The person in charge of the scheduling programs, Angelo Verga, was very kind afterwards. He does not come to everything at the Cafe—it is so busy there. He said that we had done a great job all together. I think that for him that was high praise.

A first hearing of Patrick Lawler in real life

2008-06-15T18:32:00.000-07:00

Patrick Lawler’s reading in upstate N.Y. [Originally posted 10/02/2006]

This past summer (2006) I saw the poet Patrick Lawler reading near his home turf, upstate NY, and it was totally worth the trip of 234 miles one-way up. (It took 4.5 hours to drive from the Philly suburbs up through the mountains of PA and NY into the finger lakes region near Syracuse—gorgeous dense greenery in great depth, mosses, lush grass, shrubbery, giant trees covering the steep hills and moisture off the expansive lake where people swam.)

I met Patrick at 5 p.m. for an early dinner in Cazenovia’s coffeehouse, which was several times larger than most fast food restaurants. The reading was in the front room——exposed beams, old fat couches, walls of high windows, a dozen cafe tables, and a couple college kids around a guitar. The “dining room” was twice as big and had doors that separated it from the reading/performance space.

Patrick and I tried (in vain) to set up a very expensive Sony handycam on a tripod to record the reading, but the tech guy from the college had given Patrick no memory card! (the idea had been to record the reading for our Many Mountains Moving Press site.)

Patrick was in very high spirits, especially when a few of his friends stumbled in on their way to go swimming, happily unaware of the reading at 7 p.m. He had them falling out laughing in no time. One of them bought the new book, too, and then they were off for the lake under the glaring evening sun. Then more of Patrick’s friends came and some of his students. By the time we started there were a good two dozen people— twenty 20 minutes later there were more than thirty, which is pretty F$#^%^$ great for a gorgeous summer evening in upstate NY with school out and people on vacation and/or in vacation mode.

The emcee was very generous to Many Mountains Moving; she said it is one of the few magazines that tells a poet that she has really made it. She also told the audience who I was and that I’d come from Philly just for the event. She also made a nice pitch for Patrick’s three books.

Patrick’s reading was instantly engaging and comic. He read several of the same poems that were in the April 2006 reading (the audio is here). Then he worked up to the more serious and provocative poems. There was one in particular that spliced descriptions of Marlon Perkins from Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom and the Miss America pageant and a couple other motifs. It was funny, vertiginous, satirical and personal, all at once.

(Later he told me that someone had translated the poem into Russian, so it existed in an anthology in Russian, which he was unable to read.)

This was my first time seeing Patrick read in real life, so it was very enlightening and stirring. I think the audience applauded sincerely for every poem. There was also some hysterical laughter in the audience, especially concerning an autobiographical poem dedicated “to Mary,” in which this Mary character had Patrick hold up a very large boa constrictor that took a great interest in his nose. In the poem, Mary got mad at Patrick for being scared of the boa’s mouth when it had only bitten one person in the nose before, and that was a fluke.

(Afterwards, Mary, who was the hysterical laugher in the audience, told me later that she was “disappointed” that Patrick was scared of this boa etc.)

The reading was a great success, with a good number of books sold.

Now if we can only get the rest of the world to know about him….

It seemed a bit crazy (even for me) to drive that far for a poetry reading, but it was worth it! And it was good that many of the people picked up MMM flyers for our contests and our subscription form etc. There were also a few dozen new site hits to the MMM Press page the day after the reading. So we did well all around, I think.

The next day I was up at 5:30 and on the road to Long Island (nearly 300 miles), visiting relatives in “the empire state.”

My first acquaintance with Patrick Lawler

2008-06-14T20:20:00.000-07:00

This was originally posted 06/07/2006. I think that if a blog is worth reading again years later, then it was a good idea to do it the first time. I will try in these old and new blogs to only post things that are worth returning to.

I do not think that I met Patrick Lawler until AWP 2005, which was in Vancouver, and Many Mountains Moving, Inc. was still working on his book, Feeding the Fear of the Earth, at the time, and the process had been taking longer than anyone at MMM had imagined. Nonetheless, Patrick was more than patient; he was extraordinarily open-minded and willing to talk about the ultimate shape of the book.

I found it to be an extraordinarily poignant, politically provocative and personally challenging book. Susan Terris, the MMM Book Contest judge, called it "outrageously original," and I was compelled to agree more and more as I understood the depths of the style. I was impressed by how he wrote so felicitously and beautifully about the environment, torture, urban decay, our political/moral obliviousness, our deeply ingrained (little-discussed) somewhat schizoid national melancholia about money, fame and narcissism, and so much else....

Damn, the last time I'd read a book with that kind of scope, it was, swear to God, A Cony Island of the Mind.

Even better, Patrick turned out to be great to work with, and for that I was very grateful. Better yet, he introduced us to some other wonderful writers, Linda Pennisi and George Kalamaras, and he turned out to be a great reader of his own poems and a very entertaining presenter of his thoughts on, for example, Surrealism. He was even a sort of a cause célèbre at AWP 2006 in Austin when he talked about Surrealism. (I have also seen a DVD of his April 27, 2006 reading at LeMoyne College, and it was just stunning.)

It was a blast to have him and his book there on the table at the AWP Bookfair in Austin for Many Mountains Moving.

Though it took a while to work out all the design elements of the book, we are all very proud of it. Getting to know Patrick's work and Patrick himself have been very inspiring gifts.

about Antonio Salemme, the artist's vision

2008-06-13T23:10:00.000-07:00

Here is a 2005 entry about a poem inspired by a great painting by Antonio Salemme. The poem made it to the finalist round in a nice competition. The value of this writing, though, is the story around the poem, i.e. how I learned and what I learned about painting from Salemme and William DeRaymond.... It is really about the artist's vision.

§ § §

[January 20, 2005]

Recently, I heard the results of The Fifth Annual James Hearst Poetry Prize sponsored by North American Review (573 Entrants • 2583 Poems). I was a finalist with one poem, which is below. I did not think the judge Billy Collins was going to pick my poem as the winner, to be perfectly honest, because the poem I sent wasn't really up his alley, so to speak. I was glad to make the finalist group though because that means they will publish this poem. I have always liked this poem despite the fact that it is "difficult."

I'm going to do the unusual thing and actually say how this poem was created. It began like, jesuschrist (!) more than twenty years ago. Yeah, it was 1984, and I was staying at a friend's house due to being somewhat temporarily destitute (okay, okay, i was homeless for a while after I was a literally starving artist in a real third floor garret with bullet holes in the windows, blah blah blah. It may sound romantic etc. but it really was mostly ugly and nasty. Stuff that makes you prone to anti-social habits and rots your teeth etc.)

So, anyway, this poet friend was best friends with this incredibly talented genius painter William DeRaymond, and he was the protegé of this once world famous painter-sculptor Antonio Salemme, whose works were just sitting around the house. I at first did not appreciate what Salemme was doing as a painter. Bill, the protegé, had to teach me how to see what his paintings were doing. It took quite a while before Bill was able to make me just look and look and look at the painting. He just kept asking, "Can't you see what it is?"

It was figurative but not in a realist way. You could see a swan drifting by on the smooth water and a man from behind, just the top part of his torso, head and an arm flung up in a gesture of heart-rending rapture. He was obviously struck by the beauty of the swan, and it was obviously unconcerned with him in its radiant beauty. Suddenly the situation of the painting became somehow alive and dramatic as the knowledge and wisdom of the insight became clear to me. I felt as though I were suddenly pulled out of myself into this vision as I understood how it was all at once tragic, inevitable, and beautiful that the man/artist/seer cannot fail to love and desire the unattainable.

It reminded me of a line from Speech and Phenomenon by Derrida that went something like, "inspite of what our desire cannot fail to be tempted into believing, the thing itself always escapes." There was something tragic about Derrida's vision also, but Salemme's vision was much greater as he was not merely stating a position within the limits of human desire. Somehow, due to the style of the presentation of the painting, he let the viewer of the painting identify with the man who desires and at the same time comprehend his situation, as it were, from a perspective of the greater totality of the universe, which did not diminish the emotion. This other aspect made it more intense as one became both the artist as entrapped/engaged in desire and also the far-seeing, more ethereal self, something like the compassionate oversoul.

Perhaps Salemme in his own vision and wisdom had fully comprehended and accepted the ultimate irony of love and desire, and due to this complete surrender of self-interest had been able to more completely experience and thus convey the agony of that knowledge.

So in this poem, I was trying to explore and explain the painting in a poetic form so that readers might feel a little of what I felt and be intrigued enough to try to find out about Antonio. I tried to be very faithful to the painting although, admittedly, no poetic translation could faithfully render what this painting achieved.

After a painting by Antonio Salemme* xi.ii.mm

shielding his eyes, he half-lifts his arm
a startled wing

floating away like a gasp
because she is crossing his line of sight

a gash in the world sailing from right to left
as if there were nothing else

but his ethereal agony
that isn’t the hunger for love or sex

but an ache like that which draws the eye
to blue jetting flames from orange coals

or ox-eye daisies in the field
bellis perennis wanting nothing

and she—she is caught in the eye like snow
but it is the eye that melts—

he can’t un-see her figure in the flow
or separate himself from her

mirror image of an S curve
her neck and breast a cool impasto

a pure fire on the aquamarine
poised to edge out of sight

and he can’t help feeling she is
a time that was

when sunlight licked the fog away
and he was the naked air still steaming

a morning song spilling urgently
a sound-fountain from his lips

a gale-force bearing seeds to new births
or just concrete-paved earth

because he couldn’t—and can’t—revoke this love
because what never is is heaven to him

and she—she sees through her own image, a swan—
but she knows he can’t.

The painting changed my feelings, my consciousness about life and art forever. And every other painting by Salemme that I saw had this same kind of transformative power. It was art that enacted a kind of zen koan. It was that powerful, like a moment of enlightenment. But it was only there if you were ready for it. I have never in my life seen painting that was anywhere near Salemme's in vision and power; it had a kind of higher wisdom that took you far beyond yourself. Seeing his work changed the way i saw everything. He was so much more evolved as a seer that once you saw what he was doing, it was irrevocable.

Then I understood Bill's zealousness and his frustration. For once you know how powerful a truly great painting can be, you feel very upset with the shallow, the philistine, the flashy, and the trashy. Bill used to say angrily, "Painting is not muzak for your walls!"

Thanks to Bill, I actually got to meet Antonio once in 1984 and saw some things he was working on in his studio. He was over ninety even then (he was a contemporary with Picasso), but he was still vibrant and actively painting great new things. (He looked more like a very healthy sixty year old.) He was best known for his nude statue of Paul Robeson in alabaster, which won the Prix de Rome in the 1930s. Antonio was, and still is, the greatest painter I have ever seen.

Now that I am older, I understand how the greatest art is often completely overlooked. The greatest vision, which can produce the most profound work, is not usually obvious. The viewer has to be sufficiently hungry for the truly great to even be willing to look for it. But that also requires an educated viewer who knows that there is the possibility of a truly great vision in art.

Re-posts, for poets everywhere

2008-06-08T15:47:00.000-07:00

A Writer's Blog (Responses welcome)

[June 8, 2008]
I started this blogging process in January 2005, in Greeley, CO, and I have heard that people have enjoyed it.

This is the premise that all the blogs I wrote were based upon:

"In the spirit of avoiding bragging and slipping into exaggerations etc., I will make a few simple rules for this blog before I forget them: (i) only write about things about which I can be completely honest, (ii) tell the whole truth whenever practical or possible."
[Jan. 22, 2005]

Looking back on all of this now (from the center of Philadelphia), this first "mission statement" modified into being more specifically about themes of interest to poets, younger poets especially.

I think it is possible that blogs may inadvertently contain or become "literature," and it seems to me that just as the pop culture was decades ahead of the critical community of academia regarding film, the pop blog ("blop" culture?) may be decades ahead of the critics again.

Whenever academia catches on and catches up, it has tendencies to throw up [sic] on everything so much pseudo-hyper-intellectualization that it ruins everything. I know this because I have a Ph.D. in British Literature from NYU. So before someone realizes what the significance of popular blogs is, I think that readers and writers should try to push this thing as far as it can go. Toward this end, I'm going to be revisiting my old blogs and reposting the most enduring ones (i.e. I still get a laugh out of them or there is something worth remembering there) and writing new ones on similar themes.

Here is the first "Re-post."

"It is January 11, 2005 10:44 p.m. in northern Colorado, i.e. it's past midnight in the world I used to call home.

I decided to start writing this blog to record a few observations that deal fairly strictly with being a writer in the increasingly strange world.

Last night I gave a reading with another poet, Tim Hernandez, in Denver in the LoDo Tattered Cover. I have been very sick with a virus, so getting there was very hard, actually. The distance from Greeley to the reading was about 65 miles each way, and I'd never been there before. So after work (teaching), after crashing for a while, after not being able to eat much anyway, and after some medicine took hold, I hit the highway where, to my surprise, most of the traffic was cruising way over 80 mph, a lot of it near 100 mph. This was harrowing for an east coaster where the upper limit is usually 65 mph, or frequently less.

Anyway, the bookstore itself was beautiful, as promised, and the fact that it was nearly empty did not diminish its charm, its vastness, its uniqueness. The event room was really great: clear acoustics, a tall podium, glasses of water at the ready, a wide stage, neat stacks of poetry books on large desks, the nicely displayed book covers with tattoos, the large author portraits on the wall, seats for a hundred people, a thoughtful host/emcee in evidence (though not immediately present), and two people waiting for a reading to start.

The two people in the audience at 7:27 (the reading started at 7:30) were very nice. They were both casually but smartly dressed women in their late twenties, short hair, glasses, maybe. I said, "Hi." "You're one of the poets," one of them said.

Thinking that I've had worse audiences, I said, "I guess you're the audience."

One of them said, reassuringly, "I'm sure more people will show up." Then, as if on cue, the host walked in and promised to find the other poet.

Actually, since I know roughly two people in Denver, I was hoping the other guy would bring some people. A bunch of my students said they would try to come, but I knew it was a very, very long shot as any one of them would have to be as crazy as I am to drive 130 miles roundtrip for a reading by a guy you could hear in your hometown. Right?

But then one of them came! And from almost as far away, Ron, another workshop participant from Boulder, and his mother came, and another guy from Boulder who somehow just knew my work and had seen me before also showed. Confronted with that kind of—what would you call it—friendship? respect? of the people who came so far just to hear me, I decided to go for broke in the actual reading once I got up there.

Before it started there were maybe a dozen people, not including Tim's wife and two kids. Tim, who read first, had a wonderful, warm, open style. He actually invited and got questions from the audience in the midst of his reading. He was so casual on the one hand but very evocative and impassioned in the midst of his reading itself, on the other. There was warm applause after almost every poem he did. It was also nice to hear about his theater background and theatrical endeavours and how they complemented his poetry writing. (That was something we had in common, actually. Plus we were both married and had babies in the home. I really wanted to talk to him more after it was all over.)

After I was introduced, I wanted to make a joke about the fact that both of our books featured big tattoos very prominently, but being sick I forgot to say, "I guess it's Tattoo Night at the Tattered Cover." (The host, who had tattoos, had admired the beautiful image on my bookcover and asked about it.)

In the reading itself I felt better and better. I hit a certain space deep inside the poems where you lose all self-consciousness and just let them take over. At one point I realized that the interpretation I was doing was actually far better than the studio version I'd killed myself over for many months. That was kind of a great revelation on the one hand, but at the same time, part of me was thinking— "Sh$#— gotta get back in the studio and redo this whole %#^%$&* thing!"

Another thing that dawned on me in the midst of that 30 minutes was that I was very turned on by Denver.

For a thousand miles around Denver in all directions, there isn't anything else really like a big city. Denver is the most isolated major urban center in North America. Maybe it's even worse than that. Maybe it's the most isolated metro area in the western hemisphere. I forget where I read this factoid.

But Denver threw me into high gear the last time I read there also at the Colorado Poetry Festival. I got to read in a renovated brewery with a vat twenty-feet wide in my line of sight. Somehow that was inspiring to me.

I think this Denver effect may be due to the fact that my "hometown" is Philadelphia, a major east coast city with 1.4 million people within its bounds, and at least as many in its neighboring satellite/suburb counties. For me to go to Denver is exciting in the same way it was exciting when I'd go from the suburbs into the big city where all the interesting and strange people and things were.

Why do so many of us poets and writers have to leave the great cities that we came from?

It's kind of like an intellectual diaspora, and the economics of the conservative policies of the last decades have made this the norm, not the exception. This means that intellectual communities in America are continually losing their eloquent spokespeople; the cities that used to start revolutions in coffeehouses now merely house chains of Starbucks, Seattle's Best, and the next big whatever."