I Am Big. It's the Pictures That Got Small

Bill Studebaker

2008-07-06T11:31:00.002-04:00

Very sad news received about Idaho poet William Studebaker having drowned in a kayak accident. Bill was one of those countless "minor" poets who are the best teachers, promoters, and practitioners of the craft. Of Idaho poets, he's right up there on my list of influences very early in my development (Rick Ardinger, Charles David Wright, Maggie Ward, too).

Bill was born in Salmon, Idaho, became very well known as an expert kayaker and outdoorsman (the photo here looks like generic hardscrabble southern Idaho, maybe just outside the City of Rocks), and he was an institution at the College of Southern Idaho, teaching for 30 years at a junior college.

With Ron McFarland, he had edited the only literary anthology of Idaho poetry, covering a 100 years of work. He also enabled the growth of many young poets, some of whom have gone far and wide from Idaho.

For me, he wrote a very enthusiastic, generous letter in support of my first book to be published by the University of Idaho press. That press had never before published an individual book of poetry, but they were intrigued by the subject matter of the mining disaster. The editors, however, felt completely out of their element judging the quality of the poetry. It would have been easy for Bill to have written a mean-spirited commentary, to prevent someone else getting a foothold not available to him, especially some young punk who had abandoned the state and who had only lately returned, a sorry stray coming home with his tail between his legs. Bill's statement was not just an argument for my particular manuscript, but it was something about the viability and necessity of poetry to address the deepest and darkest veins of grief, greed, and redemption. It was a big-hearted afffirmation of poetry itself. Bill's letter is something I'll keep in my own small treasures.

Cyd Charisse

2008-06-17T20:57:00.002-04:00

"That Cyd — when you've danced with her, you stay danced with."

--Fred Astaire

Rauschenberg

2008-05-13T15:31:00.002-04:00

A bit taken aback by the news of Robert Rauschenberg's death.

He lived here in Lee County, on Captiva Island, for the last 38 years, and while he had been in frail health, he still managed to be very active in the community and making public appearances. I had the good fortune of meeting him about a half dozen times, almost always at art openings, usually at the local community college that houses the Robert Rauschenberg Art Gallery. The last few times, he appeared in a wheelchair, but he made sure to make himself available to everyone, all at this so-not-New-York venue, and he always seemed touched when people expressed their praise and admiration for his work.

He also was extraordinary in his support for a local center for abused women as well as various environmental causes, and of course, in support of many fine young artists. He truly made a home here in Southwest Florida, a task of no small feat, as I continue to try to find my own ways of taking root. His graciousness has been a marvel to me. I know my friend Kat Epple, who collaborated with Bob, is remembering their friendship today, and I am wishing her all the comfort and peace that I know she is finding in those memories. She is one of hundreds that he has supported, been so generous with.

Gods & Money: Ka-ching, Baby!

2008-04-02T21:15:00.003-04:00

Just got an e-mail from Kevin Walzer, saying that WordTech Editions will be publishing my next book of poetry, Gods & Money in June, 2010.

Five Years and One Day and Counting

2008-03-20T16:47:00.003-04:00

About George W. Bush's speech yesterday, which proclaimed victory in Iraq, I was most taken by this statement:

"In Iraq, we are witnessing the first large-scale Arab uprising against Osama Bin Laden. And the significance of this development cannot be overstated."

Evidently, when those same Iraqi militias were working with the Syrian or Iranian or Saudi elements, they were not a part of an uprising against the United States. Only after we have successfully bribed or coerced them, after they have gotten tired of their own in-fighting, and after they see an opportunity for political power and influence, these Iraqi militias are now doing our bidding and taking it to Bin Laden.

Evidently, someone's anti-Islamofascist-freedom-fighter is someone else's bitch.

Of course, I was under the impression that in fact there had been an earlier and genuine and rather large-scale uprising specifically against Bin Laden and his associates: remember Afghanistan?

The Greatest College Football Game

2008-03-14T22:52:00.002-04:00

For those of you who've truly followed this blog, which I began posting almost three years ago, my original intent was to discuss contemporary American poetry and Boise State football, my feeble attempt at making this the least read blog on the internet. So today, I'll offer a little taste of Bronco football.

Carson and I were lucky enough to make it to the 2007 Fiesta Bowl. Here, for your viewing pleasure, assuming you have three hours, is that game:

If it's not for you, I can live with that. I am large. I contain multitudes. Walt Whitman, I am sure, would love to lie with Chris Petersen, Jared Zabranski, Ryan Clady, Korey Hall, Jerard Rabb, and Ian Johnson.

Ingrid Update

2008-03-12T21:00:00.004-04:00

I wanted to give an update on my friend, Ingrid Martinez-Rico, as she is recovering from a devastating traffic accident. Some of my readers are able to keep track of Ingrid's recovery through CaringBridge.com, and so I'm not sharing any information that her family hasn't made public.

Yesterday, Gerri and I visited Ingrid at her new home; her husband Craig is renting a house next door to their home (one good thing about the lousy housing market here), so that Ingrid's set-up can be roomy. Aside from suffering from an untreated hematoma in her upper left arm, Ingrid has pretty well recovered from all the other injuries besides the head trauma. Her cracked vertabrae is healing, and she'll be out of her neck brace in just over two weeks.

Her state is one of semi-consciousness. She constantly moves, partly involuntary reactions, but more and more of her movement is in response to external stimulation. While we were there, we were with the amazing Candi Love, Ger's and Ingrid's yoga teacher, and Ingrid responded to some of our questions and instructions, and she clearly indicated what she wanted us to touch, to rub. With the children, she has turned to kiss them, whispering their names, and even more. Of course, she tires quickly with these exertions, but it's all looking most hopeful, and Ingrid is incredibly strong. It'll be a long recovery, but every time we have visited her, she has made real strides.

This home care that Craig decided on, and which took a good deal of managing on his part, is simply wonderful. There's a RN to lead the nursing care, a full rotation of attendants, while Ingrid can also receive the care of an acupuncturist and other healers. So she's getting the best of both conventional and alternative health care. She also is in a wonderful house, a 1920's Spanish (of course) modified bungalow, with plenty of windows, a garden view, and with her family right next door. Her room has been decorated by the children, and so it's a quiet, healthy place--so much better than the hospital, and certainly better than the other options that Craig was considering for her rehabilitation. The children spend almost all their free time with her, and I know that all of that is helping her with her recovery.

I also must say that Craig has been a gem. He's been so strong, resourceful, respectful, and loving--he's a wonderful father, to boot. He's had a rough couple of years before this terrible accident, but he's found such grace, resilience in the face of all this chaos. I know he gains strength from all the well wishing he and Ingrid have received, and they are both becoming stronger every day.

A Little of Living Blog

2008-03-06T00:59:00.009-05:00

The above video is one of five "preludes" to each of the parts of The Living Blog: Apocalypse, the theatrical piece written, designed, and directed by the very capable Barry Cavin, the Chair of the Division of Visual and Performing Arts at my home institution. Barry recorded all the film, edited it, as well as having written and performed the music. He is sickly talented. The one thing I can hold against him is that he is a graduate of Belmont University, a place I had to leave under a shroud of scandal and rumor, but we won't go there, as that's about me and not Barry.

Yes, the imagery here is fetishized, but it's also a sincere retrieval of beauty, which is a trick to pull off in a work of political theater. Of course, I could never enjoy this particular piece because I was backstage, about ready to heave or blank out, as I had a gazillion lines in the first act. Let's just say the stage manager had set up a betting pool before each show on exactly how many lines I would drop in the first act.

The actress in the piece is the tremendously gifted Katelyn Gravel--we do hate her for how talented and lovely and positive and happy and intelligent she is. As I said earlier, her character shoves my character's sorry carcass off stage at the end, kind of like toe-ing away some scum from the floor. Below is that moment for your viewing pleasure:

This image was taken by Taylor Broderick, who played "John" in the production. Taylor's full of talent as well, but we won't talk about him today. While it's been over a week since we closed the show, it still stays with me. We may have an opportunity to perform it in Fort Myers and Naples, assuming that Barry can work his magic. As ever, I'm hugely indebted to him for this amazing experience.

Okay, the thing that gets me about the image of me is that I can't get over how vein-y my dome is. It's a little bit like those scary guys in the original Star Trek pilot. You know, the brainiac race--the Talosians--that evolved so incredibly that they no longer took delights in their bodily functions, so naturally they had to capture and imprison humanoids so that they could watch them mate. One might draw a parallel to what happens to English professors, but we won't go there either.

Up from Useppa

2008-02-26T22:43:00.003-05:00

Here's an image of my Gerri earlier today, as we were wading in the Charlotte Harbor Estuary off of Useppa Island, a barrier island west of Pine Island in Lee County. For my northern readers, none of the colors have been photo-shopped. It is that blue, green, and aqua, during this sunny, low-80 degree weather.

(Yes, January, your Red Sox are just arriving in town, by the way.)

Anyway, I learned a good deal about Useppa today, as I knew it was a site of Calusa Indian mounds. It has a rather strange contemporary history, as it was a resort for Barron Collier, the Florida land baron, and the island traded hands a number of times over the last century. Garfield Beckstead bought the island outright about 30 years ago (with a number of private homeowners still keeping their individual homesites), and he did a great deal to restore the old Collier Inn and in saving some of the Calusa digs.

Most intriguing for me was to discover that Useppa was one of the training locations set up by the CIA to prepare Cuban exiles for the Bay of Pigs invasion. Odd to go there the week Castro officially resigned his presidency. But now, this island is a very small playground for the wealthy, while accessible for some middle-class day-trippers to enjoy if they can boat in.

As Promised . . . .

2008-02-23T15:55:00.004-05:00

Here's what I have been working on today, trying to create a "still life" poem about Ingrid's foot. As usual, I'm playing with a difficult range of diction, from dance to yoga to anatomical vocabulary, and I'm not sure if it all mixes together (not that it need be blended). I also had the challenge of including a self-portrait element in the poem to make it work with what Carol Rosenberg often does with her visual images. So I'm there and not there.

A Study of Ingrid’s Right Foot

Heel, ball, toe, nothing more than
a relevé:
the foot first planted,
the plantar surface flexed,
weighted on the floor, then
the fondu, the sinking, the resisting
against gravity, before the lift and light
up, the bounding and unbounding
up, to a glissade en avant, a slide
forward, how you might leap
from the hospital bed, to waken
to light and air, or to your children
and husband. I press my hand
to give you some purchase, and
in that moment is a ripple,
a movement, some coming to surface,
and then a falling, or a flexing,
a repose to tadasana, a foot firm
in the sand on this beach
between gulf and mainland. O Ingrid,
your foot deep in it, your toes fan,
nails Cleopatran red, this radiant
contact, so that I have become still,
something less than the sand,
and your foot bears everything.

On Ingrid, Another Collaboration

2008-02-21T14:57:00.002-05:00

As some of you know, my dear friend Ingrid Martinez-Rico suffered a terrible automobile accident just over two weeks ago; a dump truck (the official vehicle of Southwest Florida) ran a red light, likely going over 50 miles an hour, and striking Ingrid's car, plowing it into two other cars, and pinning it to a palm tree. The most significant of her injuries was head trauma (she also had a cracked vertebrae, a bruised pancreas, and a broken rib--remarkably few injuries for this kind of accident), which was complicated by Ingrid being without oxygen for about fifteen minutes.

She's no longer in a comatose state, but now a state of "unconsciousness," meaning that she's very close to awakening, and so we're all hopeful about her recovery, which will be a long, difficult process, but she has such strength and so many people have been giving her and Craig, her husband, and their children Victor and Cassandra such support.

I'm bringing this up because I have collaborated with Ingrid in our Entangled dance last fall, which I posted about earlier, but I am also working with a visual artist in another collaboration. Carol Rosenberg is a figurative artist, working with nudes of a certain age--her work is stark, even minimal, but the attention to the light on the body is amazing. In a painting (or charcoal work) she'll have multiple images of her subject, with various studies of feet, hands, back, and then she'll include one image of a self-portrait. I'm partaking in a project on Sanibel called ArtPoem, where poets and visual artists create artistic responses to each other's work. For Carol's work, I will be writing a poem, I think, of studies of Ingrid's feet (I have messaged them, while Gerri has pressed them into various Yoga poses, with Ingrid responding by pressing into other kinds of Yoga poses), and I'll be including a fragmentary self-portrait along the way. I hope to post this early next week . . . .

But thinking of Ingrid, I will now follow with a dress poem I wrote for her almost two years ago.

Dresses: Ingrid, 1966

I hold the sawtooth-framed photograph,
a two-inch square black and white, while
Ingrid, you hold your mouth in an oh,

waiting for me to see how you look
like your daughter Cassandra, then, all
fragrant mop-haired and girl-frocked,

the flounce of your skirt poufing
with Spanish wind. And it’s also your mother
you wish me to see, she kneeling to you

and facing full to the camera, a woman
arrested in two directions. Ingrid, I confess
I did not pay attention to your beauty

for once, not this moment, not that moment
in the past. I could not even see your
dress, but only my male-tilted idea of it,

even now. I saw only your mother’s
white purse, a patent-leather and gold-
buckled affair, a purse good enough for Anita

Ekberg to remember to retrieve at the club
after dancing with that man-goat American
Frankie Stout in La Dolce Vita, a purse

too gauche for Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy,
but not too crass for Jacqueline Kennedy
Onassis, which once opened would

smell of mink oil, ambergris, lipstick,
and Bilbao, which once opened would
bounce on a spring, like a woman’s laugh

after a man’s too forward, too direct
word, and then would quickly snap closed,
no, no, no, and laughing still.

On Being Ephemeral

2008-02-20T16:36:00.003-05:00

Just a couple of more thoughts about my theater experience. Oh, before that, this is a wonderful photo of me during a rehearsal by Syndi Kavanaugh; she plays the "lying bitch terrorist" puppet.

I am especially enjoying the ephemeral quality of performance. Whether it's writing poetry, grading papers, or blogging, I find myself immersed in the futile attempt of trying to make something permanent, something inked or blotted or pixelled, which has some kind of pretense of the fixed, of the located. Yes, it's Frost's momentary stay against confusion.

But the performative arts, at least those which are not filmed or recorded, have no such pretense. It's the here, the now, just the immediate encounter with the audience. The conspiracy, that imaginative communicative act, is there and there, and then no more. Yes, in the reading of a poem, a reader may have that kind of private communion, one that has its transient and impermanent qualities, but the poem stays there all the same, implacable, indifferent. But this other kind of art, this presentation, expects no such extended contract. I know that there is something liberating at work here, and I want to play with it when I return to writing my own poetry.

Also the piece we are performing is also in transition, in frequent revision, as Barry Cavin continues to change this or that after our performances. It is more than a little unnerving, but it's also about attaining a kind of lightness, too. The student actors are amazingly game, resilient, and receptive, all of which humbles me all the more. And then, simultaneously, I am proud of it all. I realize, of course, how I am but the most pathetic of amateurs at this performative art thing (yes, I realize I am always performing as a teacher, as a poet, but that's a different animal altogether). But when you are a part of a troupe, feeling the heat of those lights and the audience just beyond, knowing that it is all disappearing even before you speak your first words, you realize how beautiful these moments are. This one and this one and this one.

Back!

2008-02-19T10:10:00.003-05:00

I've been away for a good while from the blogosphere, and I'm dipping my toe back in it.

Actually, the last few months have been a time for me trying new activities artistically, all of them collaborative, some with dance, some with theater, and some with visual art. Of course, all of these activities take me out of my own comfort zone, and I know I'm not very good at them, but they do stretch me, remind me how difficult accomplishment of any value is. More importantly, they have brought me to working with some wonderful, amazing, positive, joyful people.

Currently, I am playing a super creepy psychiatrist in Barry Cavin's Live Blog: Apocalypse, a dense, rather beautiful, and distressing multi-media piece. It's been one of the hardest things I have done in the arts, as I haven't acted before, and the role is one that's both a stretch and a familiar one for me. What's been tremendous, though, has been working with the other actors, who are so absolutely lovely, devoted, brave, and playful in their own work. And they have been so generous with me, as well, that I wish I could become something like a familiar to them when I pass from this life, something like a happy animal spirit, something avian and flock-like and feathered.

Anyway, this image is of Katelyn Gravel fixing Melinda Velasquez's hair. Melinda plays the puppets Judy and Violence/Death/Power/Famine, and Katelyn is Apocalypse; both are FGCU students. Katelyn's character is my nemesis (my character's name is Kerch, a little too close to Joseph Conrad's Kurtz), which means she's the cleansing heroine, and I'm the last bit of scum that she has to sweep offstage. It's a lovely little moment really.

Yay Doris Lessing!

2007-10-11T22:29:00.000-04:00

Great news about Doris Lessing being named this year's Nobel Laureate in Literature. She's a true champion writer, and it's heartening to see this recognition finally, finally come her way.

I first came across Lessing in a graduate class at Indiana University, actually the last class taught by Dr. Mary Gaither. In that British novel survey, we finished up with The Golden Notebook, and even though, punk that I was, I thought the narrative could use some tightening (I so didn't get it), the really smart students did get her. Here, I'm thinking of Robyn Wiegman, my MFA buddy who didn't get that much respect in the creative writing program (not nearly as much as she deserved). But Mary figured out that Robyn was the real deal, and Robin proved it with a brilliant and beautiful treatment of the novel that was beyond me, truly. Of course, Robyn is now the kick-ass Director of Womens Studies at Duke University. My other favorite memory of Robyn was when she heckled me at a reading and I flipped her off--we were both pretty drunk. Sweet memories!

Anyway, I like to think of Robyn as being the kind of thinker that Lessing would admire, and if Lessing can touch someone as brilliant as Robyn back then, I knew Lessing was something. I didn't come back to Lessing until about 15 years later, reading her riveting, troubling, and troubled stories.

October Already?

2007-10-01T17:17:00.000-04:00

Easy to misread the more northernly (extra-tropical, and so it could be the way more southernly, too) change of seasons in South Florida, where we are just near the last third of our "hurricane" season, which is more accurately our wet season. But so much for the weather report.

I've been amiss in my blogging, but that's partly due to wanting to step away from it purposefully. And I'm not entirely sure if I'm looking to step back fully into it, and so I'll just linger with the stasis, with the in-betweenness of the seasons.

But forthcoming is The Sanibel Island Writers Conference, and I'm really looking forward to spending some time with Nick Carbo and Denise Duhamel. One incidental fact about them, for those of you who must know all things Nick and Denise, is that they were married on Sanibel. Shhhhhhhhhh!

And this year, we'll have a great mix of participants, with visitors from afar and near, but also with plenty of FGCU students who'll be attending for free because of a generous stipend provided by the student government. So Sanibel Island will have an infusion of some young writerly blood, and that's always a good thing.

Another current diversion is that I'm writing lyrics for a set of tangos, choreographed by Alyce Bochette, that will be performed at this year's Art Royale in Fort Myers, far and away the best art happening in Southwest Florida. I've been reading tons and tons of tango lyrics, mostly from the 1920s, and it's all so wonderfully over-the-top, all about gambling, horse racing, drinking, fallen women, and sex, sex, sex. Don't know why I didn't play with this any sooner!

From the Barber Shop to the Bathroom

2007-08-28T09:49:00.000-04:00

Poor Larry Craig, Senator from my home state of Idaho. As you probably know, it was just discovered that Sen. Craig had submitted a guilty plea for lewd conduct in a mens room at the Minneapolis airport (probably a long layover on a flight to Boise). Since the early 80s, Craig has been dogged with accusations that he's gay, which would fit with a self-loathing-homosexual-of-the-religious-right stereotype, which would explain all the rabidly anti-gay political stances posed by the senator.

Me, I frankly miss the Singing Senators, taking cues from Liberace and Lawrence Welk, laying out those patriotic tracks penned by John Ashcroft. Give me those stout-hearted men, men, men.

A Little Truth to Power

2007-08-27T10:57:00.000-04:00

I need to offer a second posting about the process about the search for the FGCU presidency.

The process took a bizarre turn, when the Board of Trustees convened on Saturday to determine which of the three finalists would they tender an offer. Conventional wisdom had it that Dr. Karen Holbrook, the just retired president of The Ohio State University, was the favored candidate, and rightly so.

After the morning interviews with the three finalists, there was a public forum component of the meeting, where several members of the audience were permitted to offer opinions. The first championed Dr. Holbrook. The second was a faculty member who wanted an internal candidate to be reconsidered as a finalist; this caused a little hoo-hah among the trustees, some of whom clearly favored bringing back this candidate.

At this point, Ben Hill Griffin III, grandson of Orange king Ben Hill Griffin (and cousin to Katherine Harris, yes, that Katherine Harris), and who donated land and money for the university, said that none of the finalists “fit the needs” of the university, that FGCU “deserved better” and could do better. He suggested that the search could start over, or at least, reconsider some of the other semifinalists. He made it absolutely clear than none of the three finalists were what he called a worthy fit.

Mind you, Griffin is a big fish in Florida, but he isn't on the Board of Trustees, and his exposure to the candidates, as I understand it, was relegated to a foundation fête the night before and to whatever he saw during the morning interviews. I'll assume he was sincere. But his statement was reckless and destructive and disrespectful. Had the trustees acted on his challenge, who on earth of any quality would want to apply for the presidency at FGCU? This is what he says about the president of the largest university in the United States? And two other candidates who have exceptional records of accomplishment?

All of this controversy, by the way, was being reported blow by blow by a couple of bloggers for the local newspapers. About twenty minutes after these statements by Griffin were noted in the blogs, a message was delivered to the Chair of the Board stating that Dr. Holbrook had withdrawn her candidacy.

I'm conjecturing here, but it's apparent Dr. Holbrook withdrew in face of this alarming statement, which basically would derail her (and the other candidates') efforts to work as a fundraiser and chief executive for the university. Even one trustee said that they did take on a more adversarial posture in questioning her, explaining that she had far “greater experience” than the other candidates—actually, Dr. Bradshaw had been a university president longer than Dr. Holbrook had served. Because she and her husband have a home in northern Florida, the trustees took great pains to nail down where she would live if elected president. Finally, the trustees also queried her about “how long” she would stay at FGCU. This troubling line of questioning accurately reflected the trustees’ general skepticism, at best, and insecurity, at worst. The other candidates were not so directly challenged about their potential tenure, and no other candidate was asked about their living choices. This discrepancy is troubling.

I need to say that Dr. Holbrook was my second personal choice, and I regret that she was treated so shabbily. The university was lucky to have someone of her stature to condescend to consider the presidency. In effect, during the final 24 hours of this interview process, Dr. Holbrook received a remarkable display of disrespect from her prospective “superiors.” Simply, Dr. Holbrook rejected FGCU, and I take that as a sign of her own basic self-respect. I have also withdrawn as a finalist for a university post, after witnessing boorish politics within the college. It’s about recognizing that the situation is beneath you.

(Later, after the final decision was announced, a reporter asked Griffin if he felt responsibility for Dr. Holbrook’s withdrawal. He answered by laughing, “If she can’t stand the heat, she’d better get out of the kitchen.” I dare say that Dr. Holbrook probably has endured far more hellish kitchens in her career. It had nothing to do with the grilling, but the transparent lack of support, humility, and good will.)

Amid this confusion over the announcement of Dr. Holbrook’s withdrawal, a motion was made and defeated to include the FGCU internal candidate. With that, the Board moved quickly, and unpredictably from my distant vantage, and voted unanimously to elect Wilson Bradshaw president. Earlier in the session, before Dr. Holbrook's withdrawal, a few trustees had expressed support for the other finalists, not Bradshaw. So this reversal was quick and astonishing. What is heartening about the Board of Trustees is that they did reject Ben Hill Griffin’s astonishing suggestion to go back and review other candidates—the three finalists were indeed the best candidates available, each of whom represented a significant step forward in the university’s maturity.

While I am happy with the end result, I can't say that I take much pride in how the whole search was conducted. The Board could have voted for Dr. Bradshaw (I’m not sure if this would’ve been the case had Dr. Holbrook remained in contention—we’ll never know that point), but without having to indulge in adversarial interview tricks that only harm FGCU’s reputation. To reap class, you have to sow class. It is that simple.

About Dr. Bradshaw, I am confident that he will prove his own man as the leader of my university. The evidence, at least in my book, is that FGCU needs to prove itself worthy of his stewardship.

Finally, I should make it clear that I am a full professor at FGCU, but I do not have tenure. I realize this post could get me in a little hot water, but so be it. I am posting something I have spoke openly about among colleagues, and I am expressing my concerns because I want FGCU to be a great university. I do believe Dr. Bradshaw will work to have us achieve more as a university, and I am game to work with him toward the same end.

My New Boss

2007-08-25T21:45:00.001-04:00

Tempting as it may be to write a post on President Bush's bizarre and ill-informed reading of Graham Greene's The Quiet American--Mr. President, Alden Pyle is no innocent. He represents exactly the Cheney frame of mind, knowing more what's better for the "natives" than the natives themselves. See? I'm already getting carried away with it.

But even more interesting is that my university has named Wilson "Brad" Bradshaw as its third president.

Believe it or not, Dr. Bradshaw was my first choice (he actually answered the question I posed in the faculty forum): he's the real deal all the way around in terms of being a strong scholar (this is big for me), having a solid teaching background, and working up the ranks in administration, currently as the president of Metropolitan State University in Minneapolis. The university is very fortunate to have someone of this character and depth and talent.

New Site in the Works

2007-08-20T23:07:00.000-04:00

While Poetry Thursday will be retiring as a blog site, I am happily involved with some Poetry Thursdayers in launching a new site so that we don't miss a beat.

Also speaking of new things, my university will be interviewing finalists (and picking one) to be the new president. The final six is made up of some legitimate academic heavyweights, especially Karen Holbrook, the recently retired president of The Ohio State University. I'll be attending as much of the faculty events as possible--of course, this search is taking place the first week of school. Of the finalists, only one am I really, really, really hoping doesn't make it.

Typically university presidents are the face of the university, but I still hope to have someone I genuinely respect, someone who has some academic bottom, and who can actually inspire faculty by example. I want a president with back. Is that so wrong??

Howdy-Ho, Back from Idaho

2007-08-13T13:02:00.000-04:00

An image of me and Carson (the two blokes to the right) with my old college roomie and his son rafting on the South Fork of the Payette River. We had a blast, though the best part of it was doing a little boulder jumping into the river (about a 20-foot drop).

So I'm back in Fort Myers, scrambling to get caught up with work (it's the week before school, and it's been an especially nutty summer with the administrative thing, and I haven't even begun drafting my syllabi), dealing with some appliance issues (bad dishwasher, very bad air conditioner), and worrying a bit about a couple of very good friends, on-line and off-line, who are going through some rough waters, and I wish, wish, wish for just a little decency and justice in the world, really for them.

Postscript to Dewberry and Butler

2007-08-03T09:57:00.000-04:00

They both will be participating at this year's FGCU Sanibel Island Writers Conference.

And on a sidenote, if you check out the Sanibel Island Writers Conference web site, you'll see that there is a contest with Mangrove Review, with the winners getting the conference registration fee waived (that's valued at $350). Worth checking out. If nothing else, just to see how Dewberry and Butler are really getting along.

Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwww!

2007-08-02T17:17:00.000-04:00

Writers gone wild! Or knowing a few details too many.

Ingmar Bergman

2007-07-30T15:57:00.000-04:00

In college, I saw my first Ingmar Bergman films, The Seventh Seal and Wild Strawberries, all of which coincided predictably with my Woody Allen love at that time (almost 30 years ago!). But the film of his I would want to watch again tonight would be Smiles of a Summer Night.

Thank goodness for Netflix.

Oh, and I know I have been terribly remiss with blogging, and I'll likely pick it up again a little closer to when school starts. I'll be off to Idaho soon, my annual trip west to my "homeland," with Carson. Until then . . . .

Go Godzilla Go!

2007-07-16T13:50:00.000-04:00

I know it's bad news about the 6.8 earthquake that struck northeast Japan, especially with the damage to the Kashiwazaki nuclear power plant, where apparently some 300 gallons of "slightly" radioactive water has seeped into the Sea of Japan.

Isn't this the way how Godzilla began? And if so, can he/she/it just happily obliterate the entire world? Me, I volunteer to be the guy in a suit pointing up at Godzilla, taking a picture, and then Godzilla just steps on me--nothing especially vengeful about it, but just all a part of the general mayhem.

Oh, and by Godzilla, I do mean the 1950s version. And by obliterating the world, I just mean the human world, just all us people and all the buildings and bridges and planes and cars and boats and tanks and helicopters and such. After that, Godzilla can keel over.

Happy 4th

2007-07-04T13:16:00.000-04:00

It's Independence Day, a very good time to read the American Declaration of Independence, which is my and Gerri's way of remembering this day. Funny, how some of these complaints registered 231 years ago carry some currency today.

Oh, but this Independence Day is a little sad, as it is without Bubbles, the-so-very-American-in-the-very-best-way Beverly Sills

Return to Poetry Thursday

2007-06-28T00:01:00.000-04:00

Been away for a good piece of June, partly vacationing in North Carolina, but also caught up in attending to school matters and such.

And today, had to take care of Gerri post-surgery (a fairly minor outpatient operation, but surgery and discomfort all the same). I'm actually okay at playing nurse.

Anyway, between here and there, I've been playing with lots of disjointed images and ideas running through my head. I'm close to finishing my manuscript of what's tentatively entitled Gods & Money, with just a few gaps to fill in here and fill in there. So with these gaps, I feel an impulse to collect everything and dump it altogether. I'm sure there's some legitimate aesthetic to doing this, some psychological mining that's productive.

This one started with doing research on wrestling masks (don't ask why), which lead me to a Mayan limestone relief (and likely a stolen relic) at the wonderful Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas. Gerri had worked in Fort Worth a couple of years, and there's a great deal to admire in that city's cultural makeup. Of course at the Kimbell is the great painting L'Asie by Henri Matisse, among many fantastic pieces, and the museum itself is an exceptional artwork by architect Louis Kahn.

Of course, to get all this started in the poem itself, I had to use Bill Hailey's piano player Johnny Grande, and include a reference to Gene Vincent who's pictured above. Anyway, El Santo and Atlantis were wrestlers in the Mexican circuits; Mr. and Mrs. Tom May did indeed own L'Asie; and "Rocket 88" is the title of the first rock 'n roll song by Bill Hailey and the Comets. Rocket 88 has to be Johnny Grande's piano.

Whew. The poem is still too new, too wet in its development, for me to tell if it is holding together at all.

Go Johnny!

After Bill Hailey (y sus Cometas) in Mexico,
1961, has laid out the vocals for “Florida Twist,”
Johnny Grande at the piano calculates
a chord change so that it’s less Chubby Checkers
and more Gene Vincent. Ten years
of rock and a-rolling, hitting it big South
of the Border, outrunning the IRS—free and
clear of the Elvis blast. At the soundboard
with Bill is El Santo, the wrestler, and a writer
from El Universal. Johnny frowns as there’s
no leaping around it, frowns at the distraction
of Bill taking so much to La Lucha Libre, and
here is this Saint Spic, in a coat-and-tie, still
silver masked. The mask is the original made by
Don Antonio Martinez himself, whose last
wrestling mask would be the one he fashioned
for Atlantis in 1983, another Mayan-themed
piece, blue and white motifs, a warrior of peace
and ocean, a Mexican Gollum who rises
from the watery stone ruins, the very
image he saw at the Kimbell in Fort Worth, while
eating the basil pesto quiche his hosts offered
during an exhibition. Across the café, a limestone
stela, an eight-foot carving of a Mayan King,
the rock feathered with etchings, a tapestry,
and Don Antonio receives his Atlantis, whose
provenance stopped at 1969, a New York auction
where the Kimbell got the lot of Mayan relics
for a song. 1200 years after the artisans had carved
the relief, the Kimbell acquired Matisse’s
L’Asie, the one painting Don Antonio had
come to see, with its impossible reds, a woman
his Atlantis would give his life to. Don
Antonio himself would do the stitching
of the leather for this mask. And of the owners
of L’Asie? Mrs. Tom May of Beverly
Hills sold it off in 1954, after Mr. Tom had
died, after he had purchased the obscene
thing in 1951 directly from the Matisse gallery.
What could he have been thinking, holding
up this woman to the light where too much
light had spilled onto her face, holding up
this woman with uneven eyes and negro black
hair? Mr. Tom May smiles. He calls Harris
to set up the provenance papers. Don Antonio
smiles. Even El Santo would have been too weak
to hold up such a woman to such light—
only his masked stone god would have such
strength. Johnny Grande smiles. Everyone
in the studio is gone, and he casts the chord
up the scale, not down, getting it to groove
with something hotter than the Rocket 88
now jumping and burning beneath his fingers.

North Carolina-ing

2007-06-21T14:30:00.000-04:00

Back from a restful trip in the Cape Fear area of North Carolina.

Blue bottles in Minnie Evans sculpture garden at Airlie Gardens in Wilmington.

Me kneeling by some cool triangle seat sculptures, also at Airlie Gardens.

Live Oak at Orton Plantation.

Pre-Solstice Siesta, or Cape Fear

2007-06-12T09:02:00.000-04:00

I really do like the Martin Scorsese version of Cape Fear, which offers his own spin on Pentecostal/Catholic notions of sin and redemption, but the original 1962 version with Gregory Peck and Robert Mitchum is so clean, simple, and, well, ordinary in its morality that I find it arresting.

Anyway, I'll be heading to Southeast North Carolina, yes, and Cape Fear, too, for a little vacation time, to haunt the old haunts of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker and slavery-labored plantations. But I won't be on any houseboats, and I don't believe I'll be stalked by any criminals I got lax in defending in court.

So until the Solstice, I'll be siesta-ing.

Respite for the Good, Closure for the Ugly

2007-06-06T18:15:00.000-04:00

June, the beginning of summer, even in poetry blogland, and so I wish to take note of two very different poetry communities, one closing doors and the other taking a break.

First, the good. My dear sisters at Poetry Thursday, Liz and Dana are taking a well deserved break from their venture. The entire purpose of Poetry Thursday was simply to celebrate poetry, by sharing weekly posts by participants. Unlike many poetry communities, it wasn't a location where a few self-anointed poo-bahs offer their pompous critiques or where unhappy poets vented against the entire Po-Biz. Rather, Poetry Thursday takes it cue from Montessori kindergartens, where you grab your mat, sit on the floor, and play games with the other kids, taking in all that is delightful.

Poetry Thursday grew to some over 200 participants, from North America, New Zealand, India, France, England, Ireland, the Netherlands, etc., with easily twice that in occasional visitors. It wasn't about workshopping your poems. It wasn't about networking with big name poets (though some did frequent the joint). It wasn't about keeping score. And the poetry shared was wide and varied, whether favorite lines from Keats, Browning, or Frost, whether original poems, from doggerel verse, to sonnets and villanelles, to formal experiments, to haiku, to lyrical open forms, to free-verse rants. It was about honoring the creation of poetry itself, celebrating the very good it does for us to write and read it.

Poetry Thursday represents the best of what an Internet-based community can be--inclusive, free-floating, playful, and celebratory. But keeping it going, bringing in columns, prompts, and reflections, managing the network and keeping the format happy-spirited takes a great deal of energy, and so Dana and Liz deserve this time off--besides, the forum is still open on Thursdays for us to share posts.

On the other end of the scale, I note the closing down of Foetry, a poetry forum which brought out the worst in a poetry community. Its focus was initially to expose fraudulent poetry contests, and on that score, Foetry was partially successful. Most famously it doggedly uncovered inappropriate judging at the University of Georgia and was relentless in exposing Jorie Graham's act of nepotism. But frequently, members of the forum would cast wild, reckless, and unsubstantiated rumors and accusations.

About two years ago, I ventured on their forum, trying to offer a corrective to one of their charges. Evidently, according to Foetry, there's a conspiracy between Harvard professors, the University of Iowa Workshop, and Colorado State University--this is a typical charge on the forum--which corrupts the Colorado Poetry Prize. For one example, they cite Dean Young who won the prize in 1995 for his book, Strike Anywhere. I had the temerity to point out that Dean Young had absolutely no connection to Harvard, Iowa, or Colorado State before winning the award. I was then roundly ridiculed, charged a sell-out, and mocked as an "academic" poet--oh, unlike nearly all the posters on Foetry, I used my real name. And still, their erroneous assertion about Dean Young remains uncorrected.

Since then, Foetry has stewed in its own bile. Yes, occasionally one of their claims would have merit, which only emboldened the community all the more, made them more sanctimonious and self-righteous. Predictably, the passing of the forum has gone practically unnoticed. The still open "good-bye" thread has fewer than a dozen different posters paying their respects. That's an accurate reflection of the import and impact of Foetry.

But what good did Foetry do? Yes, some changes in the language of contests themselves and in the standards supported by the AWP and CLMP, but the truth is that most poetry contests are on the up-and-up. And any contest will have an arbritrary quality to it, reflecting the limitations and biases and preferences of the editors, staff, and judges. If anything, Foetry reified the value of the laurel, by placing so much emphasis on who won what award, on who judged what award. It has done precious little in promoting poetry itself. Yes, I see that the Foetry folks have created a blog for "Post Foetry," and they're making a stab at providing information about contests and such, which reminds me that maturation is possible.

Even so, I look at the good of Poetry Thursday, the better place and space Dana and Liz have so generously and prettily designed. Rest easy, sisters. I can't wait for the playground to be open again!

Poor Scooter, a Political Side Note

2007-06-05T17:19:00.000-04:00

I don't know what's worse for Scooter Libby: the 30-month sentence Judge Reggie Walton meted out for obstruction of justice or the hopelessly banal and cliche-ridden letters of support on his behalf. Please shoot me if I have to rely on bland, generic testimonials from Donald Rumsfeld, or worse, gushingly icky letters of support from Mary Matalin.

Matalin's writing was an especially interesting piece of work (co-signed by James Carville), in what amounted to a defense of Scooter because he was good with kids. She notes how over one Halloween, locked away in an undisclosed location with Vice President Cheney (now, that is scary), it was Scooter who put together a makeshift Halloween party for the children. Okay, I like the neo-cons marginally better than your typical right-wing social conservative because they will drink and they will enjoy a good pagan holiday such as Halloween. But Matalin goes on to talk about what a "heartbreaking" event it had been up to that moment. Heartbreaking?

I can imagine Judge Walton reading this note, seeing how it might mitigate the fact that Scooter lied without remorse, relentlessly to investigators. That Scooter heroically sugared up his own kids surely must account for something.

But let me quote Matalin's letter:

On the many other occasions the children were forced to accompany Scooter and I [sic] on location with the Vice President, Scooter always arranged to have our work and schedules revolve around the kids. He always planned ahead and discovered the most fun and interesting activities for all of them. To this day, whenever I talk to my girls about attending any White House event, they always ask, "Is Mr. Scooter going to be there?"

My lifelong view, which has only been validated in adulthood, is that kids are the most honest and true evaluators of people. Watching my children with Scooter, and all children with him, you'd think he hung the moon.

This is touching in that Matalin is no doubt being quite sincere here in her praise of Libby as a gentle soul among children--that is praiseworthy indeed. But the argument here is appalling. Give Scooter a break because he's good with kids? Why wasn't he thinking about his kids (let alone the Constitution) when he was blowing smoke before the investigators?

Besides, Matalin then tosses out the facile and empty-headed (and irrelevant) idea regarding children being the most honest and true evaluators of people. Children don't fib to protect a loved one? Children can't be fooled by the kindness of a stranger? I understand what Matalin is trying to say about children here, but it's so patently and selectively contrived that it's a clear manipulation for sympathy and nothing more. In short, it strikes me as an especially ugly ploy to use one's children in this way.

So my friends, for whatever sentences are administered to me, please leave your children at peace, at home, unmentioned, in whatever statements you say on my behalf. Better yet, I would rather have you be silent--I'd much rather have your praise when I have done well. When I have done ill, I'd rather not have your testimonials, as they would be too painful to hear. And I would not use them so, just to get off the hook, as if that would work.

Two Years: I Am Bigger

2007-05-28T16:09:00.000-04:00

Yay!

I Am Big. It's the Pictures That Got Small is two years old today!

It's Towel Day

2007-05-25T18:00:00.000-04:00

Do you have your towel with you?

Poetry Thursday: Talking It Up

2007-05-24T00:08:00.000-04:00

This week's Poetry Thursday task was to incorporate dialogue into a poem, to take the poetry of talking and blend it into a poem. Of course, with speech, you also introduce other dramatic and narrative elements into a poem, which is a nice way to stretch what poetry can include.

My poem for this week is a part of sequence that invents a parallel life for Matthew Barney, imagining if he were three inches taller and had a shot at a professional football career in the 1990s (fulfilling a childhood dream), rather than becoming one of the most important visual artists in the United States. So earlier in the sequence, he becomes famous for playing with the then Los Angeles Raiders, and he parlays that fame into a life of celebrity-hood. Of course, he's not a complete sell-out, and he strikes up a romance with Miranda Richardson. Yes, you may ask whose fantasy this really is about.

Obviously, the romance with Miranda Richardson is a complete fiction, but it’s nice to think about. In the early 1990s, she won attention for a number of films, especially her work in The Crying Game, as an IRA terrorist (Ireland does figure into Barney’s Cremaster Cycle), which led to her role of Viv Eliot in Tom and Viv. And so I could see their paths crossing in L.A. at some point.

The poem takes up an image in one of Barney's films, the Cheetah-woman, that reflects his interest in metamophic tropes: it creates beautiful and ugly and memorable and frightening and horrific and poetic imagery in his work. So I decide to let Miranda undergo her own beautiful transformation in this poem--why not?

Also about Matthew Barney, everyone in the New York art world knows that Barney’s companion is the Icelandic rock star Bjork, but everyone really hip in the New York art world doesn’t mention this fact. Leita, by the way, is not Icelandic for cheetah, but for another word word.

And finally, this poem starts with one of those night-time conversations, that falls away to sleep, and then to dream, and then a little beyond.

Miranda Richardson, or the Cheetah-Woman

Miranda? Miranda, are you awake?

Yes, Matthew.

Do you know the Icelandic word for Cheetah?

Icelandic? Cheetah?

Yeah, what does an Icelander call a cheetah in Icelandic?

Is Icelandic a language? Don’t people in Reykjavic speak some other language? I mean, don’t they call their language something else?

No, I’m sure it’s Icelandic. What else could it be?

And a cheetah? Why would there be an Icelandic word, a real Icelandic word, for a cheetah? Where would they run into one?

We say cheetah, and I was wondering what they say.

But cheetah is hardly an English word, isn’t it?

So, you don’t know then?

Sorry, love, I have no idea.

Miranda is falling
asleep, on their bed, beside
bowls of figs, black cherries, grapes,

and olives, and it is Lush
Life, Billy Strayhorn, from earlier
in the evening, that accompanies

Miranda’s falling, now through L.A.,
later New York, then London, the usual
homebound arc, through the questions

of “What’ll I do next,” with
Vivien Haigh-Wood’s biography
on the floor. In the morning, she’ll

wake quite restful, unblemished,
but now, in this falling, along
her temple and across her thighs

and calves, appear spots, white
then blackening, and then hair,
curling from her vagina, spreading,

over her buttocks, over her legs.
Over her closed eyes, a hint of almonding,
a down-turn in the mouth, but nothing

so definite, and then a slight softening,
fattening of her flesh, slight, across her
belly and torso and breasts, and then

her nipples become blond, flatten,
almost indistinct. As with any
man’s, Matthew’s penis hardens,

while he watches malefully
with longing. He doesn’t touch
the cheetah-woman, this strange

British anthromorph, especially while
she’s still falling to her sleep,
after a long day already, after

his silly questions that are a wonder
to her, and a trial, too.
Miranda is in London now,

somewhere between adolescence
and childhood, nowhere near
Iceland or Ireland, and she is

circling in her sleep-dance,
purring in her sleep-fall,
leita, leita, leita.

A Little, Very Little, Humor and Poetry: Poetry Thursday

2007-05-17T10:09:00.000-04:00

Thank you, Maggie Ward, for introducing me to Richard Brautigan when I was a 16-year-old kid in Boise, Idaho.

Yes, Brautigan is something of a lightweight poet, a kind of hippie and hormonal Henny Youngman of a poet. (This image is of Youngman, by the way, so very not Brautigan.) Anyway, she gave me a copy of his Loading Mercury with a Pitchfork, and I delighted at his one joke, haiku-ish poems. And I realized I could readily write that kind of poetry, too--all it needed was a irreverence and punch. Here's one such example I wrote, probably when I was 17:

Writing a Poem While My Love Fondles My Penis at 6:00 a.m.

I have two choices.

* * * * *

Well, you get the idea. But as such, Brautigan's work was a great introduction to me about how some poetry can operate like a really good joke, in which you have to get the audience to participate, to fill in the gaps, and in which you have to use language most economically, and in which you have to rely on the most concrete and ordinary of images.

Of course, I kind of grew out of that stage, wanting to throw in more into my poetry, and so I've more or less abandoned those one-joke poems, though I do see that on occasion, that irreverent streak will appear. Often, I'll choose to use humor to deepen a fairly serious poem, to get at a scathing point that only a good laugh can expose. But even so, I'll go back to something like that Brautigan moment, where I must indulge in that simple, single joke that arrives from the most simple, immediate, and unadorned observation.

Here's such an example from a collaboration between me and my son (then 13-years-old):

Gallup, New Mexico

Carson buys a turtle man
doll from a Navajo girl
at the Mexican buffet
diner. The food is
bad. Jim says,
“I think the turtle man
is the Navajo spirit for
Death to the White Man.”
Carson says, “That’s
okay. I’m buying it
for my sister.”

* * * * *

Nothing More Needs Saying

2007-05-15T14:52:00.000-04:00

Regarding the news about the death of Jerry Falwell: Ron Godwin, executive vice president of Liberty University, said he was not sure what caused the collapse, but said Jerry Falwell had "a history of heart challenges."

To the left, of course, is Tinky Winky, the Teletubby who was so famously outed by the Rev. Falwell.

Oh, the Humanity

2007-05-06T14:09:00.000-04:00

Seventy years ago today was the explosion of the Hindenburg. My good friend Joe Pacheco, a former New York City School Superintendent who has come back to writing poetry after a fifty year hiatus, was recorded by "Morning Edition" on National Public Radio, reading his poem, "Where Were You on May 6, 1937?" I think Joe's reading of the poem is even better than the poem in print.

Beauty, Beauty, Beauty

2007-05-04T11:30:00.000-04:00

Today is the exception that proves the rule for me, as I am about to participate in my first, and perhaps only, meme.

Thank you Rethabile, and the suggestion of this meme. His own response to it was so striking, layered, and thoughtful, I just had to carry it on, in kind. Simply, the meme is to complete the thought, "The great imperative of my life has been . . .".

Thanks to John Keats' famous equation about truth and beauty being about all ye need to know, I have to a degree abandoned the truth search. It's just too difficult, murky for me, and I find myself agreeing completely with Joan Didion's view about those shouting their moral truths and acting on their moral imperatives:

You see I want to be quite obstinate about insisting that we have no way of knowing – beyond that fundamental loyalty to the social code – what is “right” and what is “wrong,” what is “good” and what “evil.” I dwell so upon this because the most disturbing aspect of “morality” seems to me to be the frequency with which the word now appears; in the press, on television, in the most perfunctory kinds of conversation. Questions of straightforward power (or survival) politics, questions of quite indifferent public policy, questions of almost anything; they are all assigned these factitious moral burdens. There is something quite facile going on, some self-indulgence at work. Of course we would all like to “believe” in something, like to assuage our private guilts in public causes, like to lose our tiresome selves; like, perhaps, to transform the white flag of defeat at home into the brave white banner of battle away from home. And of course it is all right to do that; that is how, immemorially, things have gotten done. But I think it is all right only so long as we do not delude ourselves about what we are doing, and why. It is all right only so long as we remember that all the ad hoc committees, all the picket lines, all the brave signatures in The New York Times, all the tools of agitprop straight across the spectrum, do not confer upon anyone any ipso facto virtue. It is all right only so long as we recognize that the end may or may not be expedient, may or may not be a good idea, but in any case has nothing to with “morality.” Because when we start deceiving ourselves into thinking not that we want something or need something, not that it is a pragmatic necessity for us to have it, but that it is a moral imperative that we have it, then is when we join the fashionable madmen, and then is when the thin whine of hysteria is heard in the land, and then is when we are in bad trouble. And I suspect we are already there.

Didion wrote that more than 40 years ago, and if anything, we are in a much deeper bad trouble now--or so it seems.

Thus, these big "truths" inevitably are predicated on self-serving interests, matters of convenience, really, and so I have grown to be rather distrustful of them, whether spoken from the palatial gardens, the Oval Office, the pulpit, or the set of Oprah.

But what I do get is the beauty thing, and it scores my various identities and orientations: poet, husband, professor, parent, ugly American, inconsistent liberal (cold libertarian and weepy proletariat), environmentalist, devout agnostic, amateur scientist, Boise State football fan, and more. Beauty is the great imperative in my life. Whether formulated in the elegance and difficulty of Einstein's theories, evident in the flight pattern of the Swallow-tailed Kite, woven in the textiles of 13th-century Persia, sounded in the improvisations of Sidney Bechet, choreographed by Martha Graham, or expressed by dear Father Walt Whitman, whether local or cosmic, wheter sacred or profane, beauty is that one good, hopeful thing we can create, recognize, and revere. Beauty allows me to shed my skin, to love others, to love the world and the stars.

Oh yes, I know that beauty has its decadent side, its narcotic and numbing effects, but I generally think of those quallities as being only so much ornament, and not quite the real thing. And so beauty exacts from us the demand to be intelligent, discerning, sensitive, open, humble, and responsive--and without those disciplines, humors, and spirits, we are in deep, deep trouble, far worse than what Didion has described.

Amhersting

2007-04-30T15:52:00.000-04:00

Back from the greater Western Massachusetts tour, and thanks to my friends Donna, Brad, and Chip for being such great hosts. I had a ball.

In the little bit of down-time we had, Gerri and I ventured to Amherst, where I bought Ger a beautiful pre-birthday scarf at the Fiber Art Center. After that, we went to a wonderful small Indian place for lunch.

Of course, we spent most of our time at the Emily Dickinson Homestead.

To my left, on the second floor, you see two of Emily's bedroom windows (they are unshaded), which look out to her sister-in-law's residence, The Evergreens. From that vantage, she could watch her nephew and nieces play.

And here is Gerri, walking in the backyard--what really was a garden way opening up to some farm and meadowland during Dickinson's lifetime. The oak tree behind Ger was alive during Dickinson's lifetime.

We took the shorter tour, led by a most delightful and knowledgeable docent, Joni, and at the end of the tour, we read a few Dickinson poems aloud. So naturally, I'm going back to my collected poems of Emily Dickinson (the 1955 edition), and rereading her work. Lucky me.

Cool Paper by One of My Students

2007-04-25T20:06:00.000-04:00

A student in my contemporary African-American poetry class, Jonathan, has posted his anthology on Spoken Word Poets on MySpace. The assignment was to create an anthology of ten poems by ten living African-American poets and write a critical introduction to the anthology. While I don't grade on presentation, these students typically go all out, making their own hand-made books. Jonathan's paper, obviously, makes use of YouTube postings, but his essay is very sharp as well.

What I love about this assignment is that I always end up discovering dozens of new, young writers. Thanks, Jonathan!

Springfield Bound

2007-04-24T23:58:00.000-04:00

Will be going up to do a reading at Western New England College later this week--thank you Brad Sullivan for setting this up for me! Anyway, I was hoping to be able to get over to Boston, but it appears my timetable is all eaten up (sorry, January!).

Actually been a rough couple of weeks at school, with the usual end-of-the-semester hoo-hah, but also the annual disappointment of my school not setting aside sufficient money for our graduate assistants and the inexplicable lack of faculty support for creating promotion opportunities for our "unranked" instructors. So much for the progressive politics of academics. I'm not really whining about my home institution, but more about the general state of higher education, a subject I try to steer away from.

It's not all piss and vinegar, though, as I regard students who are about to graduate, having gone through their own considerable trials, many having done something rather remarkable for themselves. It's easy to lose sight of that, too.

Anyway, I'll be traipsing along some other college's green, thinking a little how much greener it seems there. Yes, I know how it's all one big pasture--and really, just how refined can a bovine's palate be, especially one who grew up eating Idaho sage and bitterbrush? So it'll be sufficient to traipse, and think about my really long summer break before me. Nothing but to loaf, loaf, and loaf away.

Poetry Thursday: Guerilla Action

2007-04-19T00:01:00.000-04:00

This week's Poetry Thursday was to undertake some kind of poetry guerilla action. Here is what I did:

The Cut-Out

I decided to print my poem from last week's exercise (see below), print it on the Poetry Thursday template supplied by Dana, printed off 100 copies, and cut them out in handy 3" X 5" sizes. Oh, I recycled all the scrap paper.

Planting Lettuces in the Dark, October 1962

Beneath the waning gibbous moon, next to the bunker
her husband back-hoed, cinder-blocked, concreted,
my mother is planting lettuces in the dark, a red Sedonan
release of heat softening the ground, before the monsoon
desert season. Everything can grow. Even these
special-ordered seeds of exotics, Limestone, Lollo Biono,
Rouge d’Hiver, Paris Island Cos, Sabine, Bronze Leaf, Mission,
and Little Gem, names that could be places
in California or Florida or Arcadia, where the most
tender-leafed romaine could be coaxed from the soil
by native rains. Through her own birthing and mothering
years, she thought of this salt-packed scape of land
whenever she thought the world was vile, her word
which she also released in an exhale of cigarette
smoke, a word that spelled EVIL as readily as LIVE,
a word so perfectly reconciled to this desert,
so perfectly a coyote at the edge of the moon-shadowed
arroyos. Even the moon-dimmed sky with its oceans
of stars seems so poorly fed that the lettuces must be planted
in this darkness, for new words, new bitter and sharp and
green flavors, lined in 60-foot rows, to break earth and unfurl.

* * * * *

The poem appeared with the Poetry Thursday logo and URL, but I decided to leave it anonymous, just to heighten the intrigue.

Interior of FGCU Library
I took the poems, along with my camera, to the Florida Gulf Coast University Library, which aside from its perpetually full computer lab, is the most vacant place on campus, even during the week before finals.

In the Stacks
I went up to the second floor.

A Likely Shelf
Looked for a likely shelf.

Insert This!
Selected a likely book, inserted my poem, and replaced the book on the shelf.

Yes, I picked a few predictable books: my own, Toni Morrison, Shakespeare, but then I found I had to put them in unlikely books by Ann Coulter and Ayn Rand, in dozens of books on business ethics, in education books on phonics and reading, in art books by Matthew Barney, Rothko, and O'Keeffe, in texts on Florida flora, in books on font styles, in guidebooks to graduate school, in manuals on documentation, in books on yoga and peace studies, and in the books of poetry by poets I really, really dislike--no, I will not name names.

I did target books that were recently checked out, too. Who knows? Maybe we'll bring in to Poetry Thursday those avid readers of biographies of Nikita Dolgushin and other mid-century Kirov prima ballerinas.

Lucinda Roy of Virginia Tech

2007-04-17T21:47:00.000-04:00

This will be my only post about the Virginia Tech massacre, because it is such an unspeakable atrocity.

Poet and novelist Lucinda Roy, as the chair of the creative writing program at Virginia Tech, evidently removed Cho Seung-Hui from a colleague's creative writing class for his distressingly violent and inappropriate stories he was writing; this was a year and a half before the shooting. She duly reported the incident to police and to the university's counseling service, but little could be done because there were no concrete or direct threats. As it is, students volunteer for counseling (as it should be), and so there was no institutional alternative available in dealing with this student.

Roy, rather than expose students to this venom and to take the weight off her colleague's shoulders, instructed Cho in one-on-one tutorials for the remainder of the semester. What an awful situation for her, and it's clear she was trying to do all she could. I know, too, that student services are often caught in these kind of impossible situations, where they cannot expel a student and cannot force him or her into counseling. That an administrator tried to go the extra mile with this very disturbed man, encouraging him to seek counseling, encouraging him to find another voice, and telling him what is and isn't proper self-expression, essentially not giving up on him, is both frightening and admirable.

On a few occasions, very few, I've had to guide a student to seek counseling--always for revealing signs of depression. By the way, this has happened only in my composition courses, where students do have opportunities for journaling and free writing. In creative writing classes, typically, students often adopt "poetic" voices and follow scripts (from emo, to beat, to goth, to urban, to thug, to whatever), and so even when they are writing something "personal," it's filtered through this posing. Anyway, I've never received work as vile as what Cho apparently wrote.

Back to Roy, no doubt she is spending time with her family, students, and close friends and colleagues, and I'm hoping she is finding comfort, having done the right thing--it's impossible if the heart and mind you're trying to open, to let breathe, is mangled, ossified. I am wishing Lucinda Roy peace tonight.

Natasha Trethewey

2007-04-16T19:44:00.000-04:00

Very cool that Natasha Trethewey won the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry for Native Guard. For those of us who've been around the poetry scene, it's very neat to see the daughter of Eric Trethewey come very much into her own as a mature, full-voiced poet.

This semester I'm teaching a class on contemporary African-American poetry, and we studied her wonderful book, Bellocq's Ophelia; I didn't order Native Ground because it was only available in hard cover (I had my students buy seven books of poetry by living Black American authors, and I didn't want to set them back too far), and I have a prejudice in setting aside books of poetry by small independent publishers. Those big media corporate publishers, such as Houghton Mifflin, publish poetry only to give themselves "street" cred in producing "serious" literature. I'd rather give my support to Graywolf, Copper Canyon, Anhinga, WordTech, Steel-Toed Boots, etc.

Anyway, my students responded enthusiastically to Trethewey's poetry, her building a narrative around both sonnets and free verse meditations, as well as her rather complex and fluid views surrounding identity.

On a side note, I was also rooting for David Wojahn for Interrogation Palace, who had been very generous to me at Indiana University. I actually never took a class from David, but he sat on my dissertation committee and gave me exceptional advice and assistance.

Step It Up

2007-04-14T21:14:00.000-04:00

Attended the Step It Up rally in Fort Myers, one of 1500 such demonstrations today in support of changing U.S. policy on global warming. The event in Fort Myers specifically focused on a proposed coal-fired power plant to be built in an adjacent county, on the threat of global warming to the Everglades, and on its magnfication of hurricane intensity. A number of businesses and local envirnomental groups were also there to share information. Almost 400 people showed up on a very warm (mid 90s), humid afternoon.

There, I ran into many friends and colleagues. Best of all, Fort Myers seemed a little less sleepy, a little less disengaged, and that is very heartening. It was also very nice that our chapter of the Audubon Society was one of the principal sponsors--my Gerri is a board member of the chapter.

The highlight of the event in Fort Myers was the appearance of John Edwards, the only U.S. presidential candidate from either party to speak at a Step It Up rally. I'm not yet decided about which candidate I will vote for, but Edwards is one of the few candidates offering bold statements about the Iraqi war, health care, poverty, and the environment. He's very dynamic, forceful, and engaging, and he seems to be willing to take risks that the front-runners are too calculating to make. It's not that he's entirely idealistic, but he seems convicted and unapologetic for his views.

Poetry Thursday: Joseph Cornell

2007-03-29T10:37:00.000-04:00

Hooray for Poetry Thursday. This week's task was to write a poem in reflection of an artwork. This made me go back through some old pieces, and I was tempted to draw out a poem inspired by Edward Hopper, but then I came across this lyric that played off of Joseph Cornell.

Can't reproduce the Joseph Cornell shadowboxes that my poem touches upon (of the title box, The Pink Palace, but also of other boxes), but if you know his work, it's not difficult to see how his boxes operate as poems: disassociative images caught in an odd little space.

The Pink Palace

Here is an art
good enough to carry:
a Joseph Cornell
box. Take a photostat
of a Newport mansion,
wash it pink, cut
news-clips of a woman's
face, litter her face
as pieces of snow on
the mansion's grounds,
arrange some sticks
for trees, a background
mirror to flush
the depth and to catch
the looker looking.
And forget to name
the artwork, load
the elements in a blue
black box, a container
of surreal, stupid air,
confetti light, hardware,
and a woman's face
forming a drift. I wish
I had that pink
palace, that box
large enough
to house its want.

You Like Me, You Really Like Me!

2007-03-25T23:08:00.000-04:00

I won the Literary Artist of the Year Award at the Angels of the Arts Awards sponsored by the The Lee County Alliance for the Arts. Yes, I am pinching myself to see if it weren't a dream, but no, I have my acrylic angel wings right next to my happy MacBook.

Actually, it is a pretty cool local recognition, and the celebration was warm and fun, a time for the good folks of Lee County to celebrate the arts. Jeanne Bochette won the big Lifetime Achievement Award--she's run a dance studio in Fort Myers over the last 58 years! And Berne Davis, who has helped save one of the best buildings in Fort Myers for an arts center, won the arts benefactor of the year award. It was also nice to see so many locals really decked out, and Kathleen Moye, the public relations director for the Alliance, did a terrific job in making the evening so successful.

Unfortunately, my Gerri was up for Arts Journalist for the year, which she didn't win--a local morning news show host won that laurel. Oh well.

My acceptance speech? I thanked the Alliance and Will Prather (rogue Democrat and owner of dinner theater which was the site of the evening festivities), mentioned how I was honored to be among all the nominees and how each was my own angel of the arts, recited Whitman's famous quote about great poetry needing great audiences, explained that great art required the imaginative gifts of great audiences, and finally how this award honored me and emboldened me to continue writing poetry worthy of this audience before me. It was along those lines, but no more than five sentences, seriously. Now, I'd say a word or two more if I were at the National Book Awards, and the Nobel? Heck, I'd be screaming a fit or two about American political slogans about freedom and liberty.

Alas, as I told my son, I can now die content, fully at peace. He wanted to know if that also meant I would no longer suffer stomach issues. Only if . . . .

Patti Smith and Daylight Savings Time

2007-03-11T10:45:00.000-04:00

I live with someone who doesn't believe in Daylight Savings Time--she's the Arizona of our Republic.

It's not that I believe in DST, though I'm usually for things that Benjamin Franklin proposed, but I dutifully follow its dictates. I suppose I like the changing of the time, messing up with all our clocks and watches. My Ger, though, she still abides by Standard Time. Purist.

And tomorrow night, our mutual heroine (and I even don't know her views on DST) Patti Smith is being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. She represented to me all that was cool about the idea of living in NYC, being a Manhattan punk-bohemian--with Sam Shepard, Robert Mapplethorpe, and others. I suppose I was too young to get into the Washington Square folk scene of the early sixties, and the glam rockers were cool but inaccessible to me (sorry Lou Reed, New York Dolls).

Maybe I pine for the pre-Guiliani, pre-Disney Manhattan, or at least my idea of it: dirty, hard-edged, difficult, and rude. Oh yes, I love my 1950s Best of Everything and my 1920s Cotton Club fantasies of NYC, my admittedly romantic ideas of the city. But the little tough guy writer me wants those early 1970s Manhattan, the start of CBGB and all those kids looking to outdo the tired old Beats and New York School of poetry. Anyway, for me growing up in Idaho, Patti Smith's great album Horses was all about the most elemental and elementary in her hard, untrained voice and in her harder lyrics.

Column Is Up

2007-03-06T09:57:00.000-05:00

My first Poetry Thursday column is up. I've happily committed to write a monthly piece for the Poetry Thursday community.

Does that mean more space on my blog for discussion of Boise State football? Should I start all over with the secret aim to have the least read blog in the blogosphere? Instead of poetry and Boise State football (which has gotten way too big since the amazing Bronco victory at the Fiesta Bowl), I'll need to couple up two really incompatable but equally inconsequetnial subjects . . . . Suggestions?

Speaking of Money . . . .

2007-03-04T10:12:00.001-05:00

Since my last post was about Poetry magazine and the $200 million Lilly legacy, I thought I should write of more recent happenings with me and money.

I just learned this week that my university's Peer Review Committee has just approved my promotion to a full professorship--I'm currently an associate professor--which means a nice 12% salary increase and the satisfaction of topping out in my professorial career.

The review process for promotion is rather an onerous task, all about putting on the hairshirt, self-flagellating before the Peer Review Committee, your Chair, the Dean, the Provost, and the Board of Trustees, essentially saying that you're somehow worthy of promotion, but only if you can receive their blessing and approval first. All of this behavior, however, starts when you're a graduate student, busting your butt to get through comprehensive and qualifying exams, just to prove that your worthy to start on a dissertation, and then going through the dissertation and defending it and waiting for the approval of the thesis committee.

Then you have to humble yourself through the job process, sending out scores and scores of job applications, go through the meat market known as the MLA Convention, and if you're lucky, lucky, lucky, you may land a tenure-track job, or at least a full-time temporary position, or you are left to be among the chattel of adjunct labor. Then once you get the tenure-line job, you spend your six years trying to get your dissertation published and procuring the favor of all your superiors and keeping quiet about any injustice you witness, all for the sake of receiving tenure and becoming an associate professor.

Thus, by the time you're an associate professor, you have been well conditioned to be a subservient, humble, and entirely beholden member of your university.

For me, the process to become a full professor required that I produce a "Promotion Portfolio," all built around my annual reports: a compilation of annual self-assessments, syllabi, student evaluations, teaching observations, letters of support, publications, and service records. I then wrote a narrative which thread my record, accomplishments, and self-reflection together, all with an eye on the master script, the Promotion Criteria. Yes, I wanted to distinguish myself, but it's a distinguishment that must still fit a prescribed model. My promotion, above all, must confirm the validity of that master script, and it must affirm the fact that I cut myself to fit the fashion of my beloved home institution.

So what's before me? A likely stint as a Division Chair? My first (and perhaps only) sabbatical? And then twelve or fifteen more years as the Old Man of the department? And finally, if I meet the requirements, a retirement with the title of professor emeritus?

Oh, it's hardly this dreary at all (and any career path can be so dissected), but there's a dreariness to it all the same, if I'm to be honest, a point where I wanted this approval of grown-ups so very badly, that began in Mrs. Bevington's Kindergarten. So I'll cap this year with one of my last big gold stars, the favored student one more time.

On the Monied Muse

2007-02-27T10:11:00.000-05:00

A couple of weeks ago, The New Yorker published an article by Dana Goodyear, "The Monied Muse." It covers the after-effects of Ruth Lilly's bequest of $200 million to Poetry magazine, focusing especially on John Barr, the executive of the Poetry Foundation which administers the money.

Barr is a cultural conservative, and in the article, he articulates arguments against contemporary poetry that are echoed by the likes of Billy Collins, Dana Gioia, and Christian Wiman, criticisms that are more than 30 years old, actually, and they are getting threadworn. Goodyear quotes from Barr early in her essay, and this more or less sums up his various arguments against contemporary poetry:

In the essay, Barr declared, “American poetry is ready for something new because our poets have been writing in the same way for a long time now. There is fatigue, something stagnant about the poetry being written today.” Poetry, largely absent from public life—from classrooms, bookstores, newspapers, mainstream media—“has a morale problem,” he said; it is in “a bad mood.” Poems are written only with other poets in mind, and therefore do not sell. (Two thousand copies is the industry standard.) He argued that the effect of M.F.A. programs, increasingly prevalent since the nineteen-seventies, has been “to increase the abundance of poetry, but to limit its variety. The result is a poetry that is neither robust, resonant, nor—and I stress this quality—entertaining.” In a section titled “Live Broadly, Write Boldly,” he urged poets to do as Hemingway did, and seek experience outside the academy—take a safari, go marlin fishing, run with the bulls. “The human mind is a marketplace, especially when it comes to selecting one’s entertainment,” he wrote. “If you look at drama in Shakespeare’s day, or the novel in the last century, or the movie today, it suggests that an art enters its golden age when it is addressed to and energized by the general audiences of its time.”

Charge #1: Poets have been writing in the same way for a long time now. So John Ashbery writes just like Adrienne Rich who writes just like Denise Duhamel who writes just like Vikram Seth who writes just like Yusef Komunyakaa who writes just like Louise Gluck who writes just like Kevin Young who writes just like Dean Young who writes just like Eavan Boland who writes just like Janet Holmes who writes just like Mark Doty who writes just like Thylias Moss? There's no difference in the aesthetic or philosophical assumptions between LANGUAGE poetry, New Formalism, Cave Canem, Expansionist, neo-Lyricist, Cowboy, Spoken Word poetry?

Charge #2: Contemporary poetry, thanks to M.F.A. programs, is no longer robust or entertaining. Evidently all the ills of contemporary poetry is due to the burgeoning growth of M.F.A. programs--this is a charge that has been around even before I attended Indiana in 1981. This is one of the most tiresome arguments of the cultural conservative critics. I would argue that M.F.A. programs have decentered poetry in the United States, and for good and ill, that's about the extent of thier effect. There has always been really bad poetry, both within and without the academy. More distressing is this idea of poetry as entertainment (this is the Billy Collins phenomenon), that it needs to be in the marketplace, holding some central ground in our culture. Even with an infusion of $200 million, even with the stewardship of John Barr and Dana Gioia at the NEA, poetry will and must remain on the margins of our culture. The great remedy imagined by Barr and Gioia is to set up a National Poetry Recitation Bee, something akin to the National Spelling Bee. Now that's entertainment, and that's certainly going to revolutionize poetry in the United States. Why not an American Idol competition for American poetry?

Charge #3: Academic poets need to get out in the "real" world. What's hilarious in these charges is that you have men like Gioia and Barr proclaiming some kind of access to the general audience when they have been going to Harvard and Stanford, being CEO's of large corporations, and they lecture M.F.A. programs for somehow being disconnected or irrelevant to the general culture. So they tell me to be like Hemmingway (damn, imagine the poetry Emily Dickinson could have written if she had killed a tiger or traded shots with Gertrude Stein). Gee whiz, because I am an "academic poet," I am locked away in my garret: no, I couldn't possibly have a family, and no, I couldn't have run with the bulls, and no, I couldn't have trapped and released bears, and no, I couldn't have worked as a grocery clerk, and no, I never have to go to the State Pen to visit my brother, and no, I have never stood in line for unemployment compensation, and no, I couldn't have explored the Lilly Museum in Indianapolis on acid, and no, I couldn't have a 401k plan, and no, I couldn't be a fan of Boise State Football, and no, I couldn't drive a 12-year-old pick-up truck without air conditioning, and no, I couldn't be a rock climber, and no, I couldn't have gone on week long hiking excursions in the Idaho wilderness, because I spent three years of my life chasing an M.F.A. degree taught by other folks with M.F.A. degrees.

Charge #4: The "Golden Age" of an artform is when it is addressed to and is energized by the general audience of its age. Usually, when one speaks of poetry with this argument, they'll talk about the WWI soldiers carrying books of poetry in their knapsacks (I have yet to see any kind of sociologically-based statistical analysis of this phenomenon, by the way). Or, one will point to Robert Frost as the exemplar of the National Poet. I argue that poetry occupies both a central and energetic place in our culture (check out the thousands of web sites and blogs dedicated to poetry, check out all the poetic responses to 9/11 in small town newspapers, etc.) and on the edges of culture. In Shakespeare's lifetime, what was the percentage of people in England who actually saw one of his plays, had ever read one of his poems? Poetry is alive not because it's popular, but because it has been relevant, remains relevant, at the times we need it most.

In the end, I feel a little dirty giving John Barr this attention (he's the kind of loathsome individual who reckons that any kind of attention given his way is a sign of his importance). But the only reason for the attention given to him is not the force of his ideas, and certainly not for his own poetry, but because of that big wad of money in his back pocket.

On the War in Iraq

2007-02-17T17:44:00.000-05:00

It's close to the end of the fourth year since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. And it's hard not to hear something of Auden's line about this being a low, dishonest decade.

During the recent "debates" in the U.S. House and Senate, I was rather troubled by some of the refrains about "having known then what we know now," with fingers pointed at the failed intelligence reports. The trouble is that many of us knew then that the intelligence reports were suspect, and those stories were being published before the war, first by Knight Ridder, and later The Washington Post--not every reporter was following the lead of that neo-con cheerleader, Judith Miller. During that winter of 2002-03, many of us anti-war protesters simply believed that it was highly unlikely that with all the UN inspection regiments, the international sanctions, and the no-fly zones that Hussein would've been able to develop a significant bio- or chemical-weapons arsenal. We also knew that he did not use any such weapsons during the first Gulf War, when he had some military capabilities. It wasn't that we were happy with Hussein's dictatorship, but we also knew that he was essentially neutered. Given Iraq's sad history, some of us knew that the American forces would not be seen as liberators, but as an unwanted occupation army. Some of us also remembered the National Defense Council (the neo-con "advisory" committee to the Department of Defense) had long been jonsing for the United States to take out Hussein and to establish military bases there so that we could get out of Saudia Arabia. Some of us knew that this was a hollow call for war.

I bring all this up not to boast, but to direct you to the Poets Against the War web site. There, you can find expression after expression by poets before the war commenced, all of whom articulated this sense of dread before this grave, terrible folly. There, you can also find a poem I posted as well. I don't think any of the participants genuinely believed poetry could affect a change of heart in the Executive Office or could give a backbone implant to Congress, but that we could provide a record that many of us did indeed understand that this excursion was an act of vanity, greed, or opportunism. Many of us knew better, then.

The way I see it now is that Congress gave up its authority four years ago, the American media was caught up in the war fever, the American public was not sated by the military victory in Afghanistan, and thus the President had leave to deploy the troops in Iraq. I cannot think of one more wrong-headed and foolish decision in American foreign policy. And the noise this weekend in the Capitol is only that, so much noise.

Of course, by the time we leave Iraq--perhaps after this "surge" will be reported as a success--it will be a hopeless mess, having cost the U.S. treasury of at least 3100 dead, tens of thousands wounded, and close to a trillion dollars (not for Katrina, not for Afghanistan, not for Israel and Palestine, not for Darfur, not for Social Security, not for education, not for health care, not for . . . .). And of Iraq, with hundreds of thousands dead, millions as refugees, a decimated infrastructure, a partioned government, and a generation born of sectarian bloodshed? Yes, that's a recipe for a nascent democracy.

Is It So Wrong to Kind of Admire Lisa Nowak?

2007-02-07T21:50:00.000-05:00

Bill Merwin
Okay, so the recent story at my home institution has been about the resignation of the university president, as he was having an affair with a faculty member. Now, it's no secret that I wasn't exactly the biggest fan of Bill Merwin (and I really could care less about his extracurricular activity), but it truly was a sad set of circumstances. The public humiliation and the personal tragedy are painful enough.

Of course, the really strange part of the story was how he chose to reveal this episode, before what amounted to a press conference, before some 300 staff, faculty, and students. I did not attend. There was so much theater to it, almost a staged tragedy, but it certainly had more Oprah than Othello to it. Here was a public confessional, entirely scripted to follow a vaguely Christian model (repentance, but a vow to seek counseling), but which was obviously overlayed with damage management scripture: own up to wrong, protect the board, and give no room for furture action. It was breathtaking as a spectacle.

And now the case of Lisa Marie Nowak, the astronaut-on-a-mission who was arrested on attempted murder charges (there's absolutely no subtlety to Florida) in Orlando in her attempt to confront a perceived rival in her affections for Major Nelson--we do remember that Jeannie did have an evil twin. For anyone who's read Tom Wolfe's The Right Stuff, it is hardly surprising to read about an astronaut packing a bb gun, some rubber tubing, a steel mallet, a couple of wigs, mace, and NASA-issued Depends and drive some 900 miles to deliver an ass-whooping to a romantic rival. Of course, everyone loves that detail about the diapers. Here was a test pilot, probably factoring to the minute of getting to the Orlando International Airport, traveling at no more than 5 miles per hour above the speed limit, and then calculating she'd have no time for rest stops.

What a model of determination, but more importantly, how did she manage to feed that anger, as she would be driving through Mobile, through that beautiful stretch of woods west of Tallahassee, and then through that awful strangulation of interstates and motels in Orlando, how she didn't just say "fuck it," and take the off ramp to Cedar Key or Wakulla Springs? And so I came across the Lisa Nowak Interview with the Ladies Home Journal, surely the first time I've actually visited the LHJ web site. There, she talks about applying six times for admission into the test pilot training program. Talk about having the right stuff. Now that's the kind of woman I want to have accompanying Bruce Willis to blow up an incoming asteroid.

The latest word is that NASA is now re-evaluating its own psychological review of astronauts. Is it possible, I wonder, to neuter these adrenaline-dependent fly-boys and fly-girls and still have them so driven to be gonzo academics and test pilots, to be self-proclaimed "robo-chicks"? Is there no room for Ripley?

Man, I must be getting old

2007-01-13T19:09:00.001-05:00

So, it's Saturday evening, I'm blogging, drinking a "Christmas" bock (thank you, friend Jerry), and listening to Donovan, "Donna Donna" just now. A little earlier, Gerri and I had our often easy meal of rice and steamed veggie, this time broccoli. And a little later, we'll watch As Time Goes By, with Dame Judi Dench and Geoffrey Palmer--wouldn't it be so nice to be that decent even in our grumpiness?

But earlier today, we were rather virtuous, or rather Gerri was and I tagged along. We attended a regional Audubon council, talking about a gazillion environmental issues: phosphate mines and the Peace River, the creating of "swamp ranches" north of Lake O, the unregulated run-off of household fertilizers into the Caloosahatchee, the fresh water dump from Lake O into the Caloosahatchee, and other water-related issues. We even got up at 5:00 a.m., to help set up breakfast, but also to tool on the Caloosahatchee in a pontoon. Lots of manatees, brown pelicans, tree swallows, and an occasional wood stork, and even an exotic feral pig along the way.

Ah, here is a great blue heron, just to the right of the mangroves and brazilian pepper, flying toward the I-75 bridge that spans the Caloosahatchee.

And here are the remains of a grounded barge (from the 1930s, I was told) nearby the oldest marina in the Fort Myers area, built by the Menge brothers who started a steamboat and dredging business in the 1880s. Technically, this is on the Orange River, which feeds into the Caloosahatchee, for those of you who insist on an accurate scorecard.

Of course, it was just a relief to be talking with some like-minded folk, trying to lay out some pragmatic and balanced plans to bring to a more friendly national legislature and a more friendly governor's cabinet. So to be on a slow moving river, something broaded-hearted and restive, was centering and deepening, even while there's talk of a temporary "surge" in a war that we intiated four years ago, or even closer, while there's talk of classifying this distressed and great river as an industrial canal so that water standards need not be met.

Okay, so now Donovan is singing about riding easy, in his wonderful fare-welling song, "Turquoise." And I can remember when he was this young, fragile, small little love-child singer, so airy and of no consequence. Tonight, at least, his music seems rather wide to me. So that is something, too.

Back from Phoenix

2007-01-04T18:17:00.000-05:00

Happy New Year!

I should be back more regularly now, and hopefully, I'll get caught up with my Poetry Thursday participation. But that'll take care of itself in its own time.

I just returned from Phoenix, feeding one of my interests, Boise State Football. Those of you who've truly followed my blog know that this blog was initially devoted to poetry and Bronco football, all in my attempt to have the least read blog in the blogosphere. I was doing pretty well, too, having received only one comment and eight visits in about six months.

For about the past nine months, after revamping the blog to a poetry-mostly blog, I have steered clear of discussing Boise State football too much. Anyway, I did go to the Fiesta Bowl to cheer on the Broncos' incredible victory over Oklahoma. I went there with Carson, my 17-year-old son, who is a huge Bronco fan, even though he lives in Nashville. This trip was his Christmas from me, and about as good, he got an Ian Johnson jersey and an Ian Johnson-crocheted beanie.

For those of you who don't know, Ian Johnson is the third leading rusher in the country; his nickname is "Hollywood," precisely because he is so not Hollywood: soft spoken, intelligent, unassuming, and genuinely humble. IJ's hobby has been to crochet beanies, but because his fame rose this season, the NCAA put a cabash on him selling his beanies (because his $15 beanies could easily be exploited for profit from his fame on the football field). Needless to say, Carson caught the attention from Bronco fans at the tailgate and game because he was wearing a genuine IJ beanie. We saw two other Bronco fans (some 25,000 were at the game) so happily hatted.

I also met my old college roommate, Mike. He's the fellow on the right. Mike flew down from Boise with a colleague on the day of the game, and it was a genuine treat to tag up with him, however briefly.

And we spent a good deal of time with my sister and her husband, Carolyn and Lynn. We spent the day before the game with them, generally doing the tourist thing and eating some really fine seafood, of all things, in Scottsdale. Yes, we were decked out in the proper Bronco gear, a pretty hideous mix of orange and blue.

Anyway, the last Bronco game Carson and I went to was last year's infamous game to Georgia, where the Broncos lost their opening game on the national stage, 48-13. The Broncos this year went undefeated, winning the WAC and beating Oregon State and Utah in convincing fashion. This earned them a berth to one of the BCS bowls, something mocked as an "affirmative action" or "politically correct" slot given to a qualifying nonBCS team. They were matched up against a very hot and dominant Oklahoma team, the champions of the Big 12, who were bolstered by the return of their all-Everything runningback, Adrian Peterson.

You know the rest, if you're still reading this entry. Boise State won, 43-42 in overtime, in what has been labeled as one of the greatest college football games ever by some reputable sports journalists. I know many of my regular readers won't get this at all, and I do understand, especially with the perverse and distressing centrality sports culture enjoys in American society. Even so, I remember when I used to play beneath the bleachers in the old wooden Bronco stadium (it was replaced in 1970), and my fahter had been a season ticket holder since the Boise Junior College days of the 1950s.

My brother, who was unable to attend the game, sent me an e-mail, telling me how my mother cried when "Z" threw the pick that allowed Oklahoma to go up by a touchdown with just over a minute left in the game. And then how my whole family was standing by the television, and how my mother had to steady my father back to his chair after Ian Johnson scored on what will be known as THE Statue of Liberty play for the two-point conversion. My brother told me how my parents were just smiling at one another. For us folks from Boise, this game was no small potatoes.

WIN

2006-12-27T13:45:00.000-05:00

Gerald Ford is one of those presidents, decent enough, whose spouse would have made a far better president. What I remember most of his presidency is the Whip Inflation Now campaign, suggesting we wear WIN buttons, that his office forgot to manufacture in time for the announcement. Avuncular, bumbling, the quiet, soft-spoken little-league football coach and bank vice president, rather than a president. Seems rather quaint right now.

Catching Up

2006-12-21T09:26:00.000-05:00

It's been a while, I know.

Busy with the usual end-of-the-semester grading orgy, not being 100%, writing a gazillion letters of recommendation (all of which I am happy to do, by the way) and having my trusty old Toshiba giving it up for the ghost (don't worry dear friends, as I am very good about backing up files on my flash drives). So now, I've returned to an Apple.

Actually, my first computer--this was around 1983--was a Leading Edge, with no hard drive. It had two floppy disc drives, one to hold the word processing program, WordStar, and the other for the file, all 640 kilobites worth. No Windows, no mouse, no tracking pad, no pointer, but all DOS commands. And at my first full-time teaching job, this was in 1988, we had Apple II-E machines, and so for about four years, I was fully introduced to the wonders of early Word programs.

So now I have a MacBook, and I'm trying to get used to the Control Window buttons on the upper left corner, but I'm happy with this reunion. Of course, this reacquaintance also explains why I've been a bit pokey in keeping up with the blog.

And then there's the ways Gerri and I keep Christmas, or for us, the Solstice. The Christmas thing, we mostly brace ourselves against the displays, the consumerism, and the transparent hypocrisies. But yes, there's much that we love about the festivities, too, and we're suckers for the Alistair Sim Scrooge, for pop standard renditions of Christmas songs, and for the promise of more light and rebirth.

Anyway, I've written enough about my own ambivalences and agnosticism, and in short I ultimately believe in what Joan Didion believes in: Geology. It seems sufficient (or Newtonian physics, too), to know that the Earth has reached this rather bounded and predictable point in its orbit of the Sun, and to see the evidence simply in the relative height of Orion's ascendancy in the evening sky. Oh, I know even reading those signs are arbritrary, disjointed, fleeting, which also comforts me.

Time to Cash It All In

2006-11-28T10:27:00.000-05:00

Well, after viewing this video, I now know that it's all been done in the world of poetry, and nothing more to do than to cash it all in. For your viewing pleasure, Sally Kirkland reading her poetry:

Actually, because of the creepiness (or is it the leopard-skin blouse or the Trish Nixon hair-do?), it's kind of hot.

Florida, Florida, Florida Follow-Up

2006-11-18T10:30:00.000-05:00

The Florida State Board of Governors have put a halt on the proposed development of the FGCU satellite campus, which is summed up in this article.

In fact, the board's action actually signals a change in direction, both FGCU President Bill Merwin and several Charlotte County commissioners said Friday.

In the future, it won't be up to FGCU but the county to negotiate a deal, Merwin said Friday.

His comments came a day after the state board shot down FGCU's proposed deal to build a 150-acre campus amid a 2,400-acre ranch owned by Hudson Sun-River. The site is located off U.S. 17 at the DeSoto County line.

The university board expressed a concern that the magnitude of the developer's offer, worth some $70 million in land, cash and utility commitments, would obligate the state to designate the site a "branch campus" instead of a more modest "satellite center."

The state board has recently begun working to increase its role in determining where branch campuses for both universities and colleges should be located, Merwin said.

"In a nutshell, they didn't want a developer setting policy for the board of governors," Merwin said.

I applaud the Board of Governors for their decision. That a university becomes a part of a development proposal (as an enhanced amenity, as it were, almost as good as a Jack Nicklaus-designed golf course) is more than unseemly. What is frustrating for me is that my university has continued to seek expansion in undeveloped wetlands or panther habitat, rather than in the hearts of existing communities (other than its Naples Center).

It's not that I have ultimate faith in the Charlotte County Commissioners; they'll very likely make an equally short-sighted decision. But at least the Board of Governors formally recognized that policy for university development shouldn't be in the hands of those whose interest is purely financial.

P.S. I appreciate the comments I received from my earlier posting. I did receive some anonymous ones (which I routinely delete), expressing concern about my speaking out and jeopardizing my situation at my university. My complaint here has been about this specific university policy and practice. Let me say here that I do believe President Merwin's motivations are fine, to establish greater access for higher education, and he has done a tremendous job of making that so.

If I suffer from Florida-hate, little of it is job-related, but more about the larger degradation to the South Florida landscape. I realize that the most moral answer is for me to leave, to not be yet another contributor to the very problem that gives me such pain. Ah, but where to go where that is not so? To live off the grid in Vermont as my libertarian-spirited student has heroically chosen? To become Ellison's invisible man? The remedy for me, at least, as quaint and impotent as it may seem, is poetry. That and to shout out when I can, as I can.

Helen Mirren, Helen Mirren

2006-11-13T22:28:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, had almost a four-hour fix of Helen Mirren, likely my favorite actress. First, finally got to see her wickedly humane (in an intelligent, intelligent screenplay) in The Queen, from the very opening, when she simply turns to the camera, unwavering, she is unnerving, a regal seeing through her subjects. All without an arching of an eyebrow, all without a heavy winking at the audience, but just that glorious face.

The movie is mostly up to her intelligent portrayal (Prince Philip and Tony Blair come off cartoonish in a couple of scenes, but I love the bitchy take on the Queen Mum, too), especially with the very fine argument it makes on her behalf, by her example. It remains a comedy throughout, but the piece is mournful, actually, of the death of rectitude and forebearance the Queen's generation represents. It's far more than merely a stiff upper lip, but a call to place everything in proportion, to submit to a duty. Ironically, the Queen's humiliation, so devastating played out through Mirren's gifts, is that she must yield as duty dictates. Yes, it mocks the Queen's cluelessness, ruthlessly so. But the film (and Mirren's performance) also curtsies before her majestic and quiet equilibrium.

Then getting home, we watched the first half of Prime Suspect 7, to see the final edition of Helen Mirren's 15-year treatment and inhabitation of DCI Jane Tennyson. Here, in her character, is more fire, but it is also a cold and anguished one that burns in Mirren's rendition. Jane does not smile. She does not fold her arms defensively. Her gestures all express and exert Jane's stabs at authority, amid the fissures she shows in this deeply flawed and noble character. It is the very best of television, and this rivals the first two series in writing.

Of course, I first really came alert to Helen Mirren in her wonderfully sexy role as Rosalind in her performance of As You Like It, the BBC version in 1978. I saw it then while a sophomore at college, and Mirren was brilliant, vibrant, especially when Rosalind dons her male disguise and instructs her beloved Orlando on the ways to woo a woman. Her Ros expresses her masculined tinted lustiness, but it's all feminine, too, and joyful in the playing. So much, I know, was made of Gwyneth Paltrow's performance in the splendid Shakespeare in Love (and yes, I did like the unraveling scene), but Helen Mirren's unadorned pleasure in this boyish and womanly portrayal is so much more on the surface, as it should be.

Florida, Florida, Florida

2006-11-11T09:59:00.001-05:00

Brown Anole and Sea Grape, Sanibel

I'm in one of my hate-Florida moods, which is becoming a daily occurrence for me. What I intensely love of Florida is the native landscape: scrub pine, palmetto, sea grape, cabbage palm, muhly grass, saw grass, Virginia creeper, live oak, mahagony. Of course, these are the "colorless" plants that tropical landscapers replace with more "authentic" flora, all to conform to some Ohioan's idea of what Florida should be. It's the way that a chanteuse singing in English with a French accent is somehow more authentically French than if she sang in French.

Okay, I probably hate Ohio more than I do Florida.

My hate-Florida mood is also deepened by a variety of calamities (that's too big of a word for it, I know) with my home institution: for instance, an incredibly short-sighted and typical proposal to develop a satellite campus as a part of a large real-estate deal that would further cause development in panther habitat. This actually repeats the original sin of my home institution's founding ten years ago, which is described in a news story by Michael Grunwald of The Washington Post:

The classic case was the proposal to build Florida Gulf Coast University on rural land donated by Ben Hill Griffin III, the scion of a prominent Florida agribusiness and real estate family, and the brother of Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris.

Eller didn't think Griffin's 760-acre land gift was so altruistic, since Griffin's firm owned 11,000 acres nearby. Eller predicted in a memo that the new university would stimulate "unprecedented" development up to seven miles east, demolishing prime panther habitat. In September 1994, Eller and other biologists drafted a "jeopardy opinion," a formal conclusion that the project would violate the Endangered Species Act.

Then the power politics began.

First Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fla.) forwarded the wildlife service a letter from former water district chairman James Garner, a well-wired lawyer-lobbyist representing Griffin. After meeting with Garner in Atlanta, Fish and Wildlife officials quickly backed down. The revised opinion still said the project "raises serious concerns regarding the future status of the Florida panther," but its jeopardy finding was switched to a no-jeopardy finding.

Then the pressure shifted to the Corps. Then-Sen. Connie Mack (R-Fla.) wrote Col. Terry Rice, then the agency's Florida commander,urging him to approve the permit. Chiles, a Democrat, also wrote Rice to "emphasize the importance of FGCU as a state priority."

"My God, the curses I heard from members of Congress over that university," recalled Rice, who now works on environmental issues for the Miccosukee Indian tribe. "It was just brutal."

In the end, Rice issued the permit. The new university -- which specializes in environmental education -- is already surrounded by a sports arena, the region's largest mall, Ben Hill Griffin Parkway and several rambling 18-hole subdivisions. Environmentalists call it Florida Golf Course University, and signs on campus warn against feeding the alligators. During a recent driving tour, Audubon Society biologist Michael Bauer described it as "an ecological disaster." A moment later, an errant tee shot nearly hit his windshield.

The university was supposed to be southwest Florida's turning point. In exchange for the permit, Rice demanded that a regional growth commission be established to devise a plan to protect panthers and the Estero Bay watershed's dwindling wetlands. When Lee County rejected the plan, Rice angrily ordered a sweeping environmental study of the Corps program here. "We were approving projects all over the place; we had no idea what we were doing," he says.

Today, the study still languishes in the Corps bureaucracy.

Of course, the above is old news as far as my university is concerned, and it's only gotten worse since this article four years ago. The only good news with the university's new proposal is that it met with a uniform protest against it by the Republican state legislators of Charlotte County, where the new satellite campus is supposed to be built.

For me, personally, I am becoming far too weary of all of this continued chipping away of the wetlands, pinelands, panther habitat, etc., all under the guise of educational development. Of course, it's about greed.

I again wonder why do I continue to endure here. Is it because of the unspeakable ache I feel when I watch a wood stork walk across a fairway to the golf course pond to feed? Or that brown anole among the sea grape on Sanibel?

William Styron

2006-11-02T09:41:00.000-05:00

Sad news about the death of William Styron, who died at the age of 81.

Styron was a singular talent. He'll be best known, and rightly so, for his novels Sophie's Choice and Lie Down in Darknes. He also wrote a remarkable memoir, Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness, but I think I'll remember best his controversial novel, The Confessions of Nat Turner.

That novel, perhaps because it did win a 1967 Pulitzer, was eventually excoriated in William Styron's Nat Turner: Ten Black Writers Respond, edited by John Henrik Clarke. These essays took to task Styron's liberties with the facts of Turner's life, that Stryon's was another case of white appropriation of Black Culture. Most objectionable, it seemed, was the depiction of Turner's sexuality and married status (in the novel he's a celibate with one homosexual encounter, whereas the "real" Nat Turner had a wife who was a slave on another plantation), and of what was seen as black authenticity, as the essays chided Styron's handling of "black" psychology and religiosity.

Styron had longed defended his novel as an imaginary excursion, as a novel. Eugene Scheel of The Washington Post asked of Styron his response to this controversy in 2001:

Replying to such criticism, Styron told me in June that his book is too often treated as a work of fact. He pointed out his author’s note: "During the narrative that follows, I have rarely departed from the known facts about Nat Turner and the revolt of which he was the leader. However, in those areas where there is little knowledge in regard to Nat, . . . I have allowed myself the utmost freedom of imagination."

Unfortunately, this essentialist attack, grounded in the politics of the Black Arts Movement, held sway among liberal intellectuals in the late 60's. To be fair, the essays in Clarke's book also called for black artists to take up their histories, to draft their own Nat Turners, to stake a claim in their own histories, and so the polemic was more than just an attack on a Southern white novelist.

It is not surprising that Styron with gusto then launched into a novel about a Catholic Polish woman and her surviving the internment of Auschwitz. Styron's defiance was purely and simply an affirmation of the imagination--this is what writers such as James Baldwin, Charles Johnson, and Ralph Ellison have championed in Styron as well.

Yes, Stryon did appropriate Turner's voice. But that's true of any novelist or poet who uses the first person perspective for any character--and this is true of my own first book of poetry, which was written mostly from the perspective of a trapped and dying miner. But that appropriation is a gift of the imagination, to be in someone else's shoes. How small and narrow, then, if we are restricted to inhabit the shoes of those only closest to us, our own kindred and kin. Without the imaginative gifts, we are alone. For this important reason, I am deeply grateful for William Styron.

Sanibel Island Writers Conference

2006-10-30T22:14:00.000-05:00

Spent last Thursday through Sunday working at the first annual Sanibel Island Writers Conference. Just a tremendous weekend, with a wonderful set of writers, valiant and energetic participants, all in a perfect island and pefectly intimate setting. Tom DeMarchi, the Director of the Conference, did a stupendous job in getting writers to work for next-to-nothing, working through the joys of university bureaucracy, and making it all fly within ten months.

Above is Tom offering introductory remarks at the BIG Arts Auditorium.

John Dufresnes and Jonathan Ames Signing Books

A Rapt Audience

Unfortunately, I took only interior shots, which misses the entire charm of the BIG Arts faciltiy: a Key-West-ish style complex, with open breezeways and courtyards, all in a rough, native garden landscape, and less than five minutes from the beach itself. We also lucked out on the weather: dry, highs in the mid-80s, and perfect blue skies.

Yes, we had some kinks with the sound system, perhaps creating more break time between sessions, adding more agents and publishing representatives, and the like, but it was quite a success for the first go around. Lynne Barrett, a wonderful fiction writer, commented on how good of a start this program was, comparing it favorably with the very good FIU Seaside Writers Conference. For the participants, the highlight had to be the accessibility and availability of all the writers. We didn't have a prima donna in the group, and all gave so generously of their time and energy.

And for me, I got to hear two very fine "dress" stories that I can't wait to transform into poems: kisses to Colleen (and Caitlin) and Cristin! All those C's!

Starbucks Aesthetics

2006-10-22T12:06:00.000-04:00

In today's New York Times, there's an intriguing story on "The Starbucks Aesthetics" by Susan Dominus. The story partly dissects the Starbucks cultural experience, how the company has its own XM station, with forays into producing Indie films, books, and music cds.

Of course, it's about a canned "hip" experience for those of us NPR listeners (which I am). Recently Starbucks opened up a coffeeshop in downtown Fort Myers, which is in desperate need of active and sustaining businesses. It's located in the Kress building, a part of the redevelopment of some wonderful buildings downtown (for a number of years, Gerri and I lived in downtown Fort Myers, and Gerri continues to write of downtown Fort Myers in her history column in a tabloid weekly). So, in many respects, the presence of this Starbucks franchise is a very good thing.

And I do occasionally frequent that Starbucks, and yes, I like much of the canned hipness: the soft-toned mix of alternative rock and cool jazz and 40s standards, the terra cotta colored and 50's moderne themes, the employee-friendly and environmental-friendly ethics, and the very good coffee.

Of course, there's an absolute flatness to the whole experience, a most genial comfort. And this is evident in the corporation's first foray into book publishing, with Mitch Albom as the brand du jour. Okay, I haven't read For One More Day, but I suspect it's as far reaching of a venture as a re-issue of a Frank Sinatra album, or of a spoken word cd by Meryl Streep of The Veleveteen Rabbit. Yes, it's a good thing, but it's so friendly, so reassuring, and so empty.

Dominus includes a very telling statement by Nikkole Denson, who is the chain's director of business management, as she describes Starbucks' involvement in the production of Akeelah and the Bee:

“Starbucks is all about community and inspiration, and everything in that movie seemed aligned with that — it has that human connection,” Ms. Denson said. “It doesn’t have to be a family film, but it does have to be socially relevant.” As for the books she’s selecting — they won’t all be by name brands like Mr. Albom — she says she wants books that provide “almost an education without being preachy.” Yes, they should be inspiring, but also, she hopes, challenging: “not racy or dark, but thought-provoking.”

Now what's interesting here is the emphasis on producing and supporting works that are wholesome, affirming nuggets. Seeing that a Starbucks brand (whose "core customer" is a 42-year-old professional earning $90,000 per year) could have the cultural impact of Oprah Winfrey, at least among the NPR crowd, I find this news yet another dreary reminder that what Americans, even the ones I like a lot, want is the least bothersome of communities, the most convenient of inspirations.

And yes, I do worry about my coffee and its social relevance, whether it supports fair-trade, is organic, shade-grown. And yes, I also work at an institution (the American public university) that seeks to provide "almost an education," profferring ideas that are almost challenging, but certainly "not racy or dark, but thought provoking." What I hope for, then, is the proliferation of that wild coffee, those undrinkable kinds, that take root, flourish in the most acid of soils, the darkest and least accessible of forests. I like to think of my remains being spread in that kind of dirt, giving nourishment to those kinds of unbrandable and impolite varieties.

Hiatus/Sabbatical/Vacation

2006-10-01T16:50:00.000-04:00

Oh, I'll be taking perhaps another week or two off from the blogging. Just caught up in devoting myself to school work and faring off to Savannah for a conference this coming weekend. In 2008, dear January, I do plan to make it the Dodge. Honestly.

For those of you who've followed this blog realize that I've been posting regularly, about 2-4 times per week since I made the big leap last April. That leap? Oh, I changed the focus of the blog from Boise State football and Poetry to just mostly poetry and wayward thoughts. My little joke, initially, was to create the least read blog in the United States (I was up for about six months, with only six views of my profile, and one comment--not bad).

Anyway, I'm very happy that my Broncos are off to a 5-0 start, with a real likelihood of making it to a BCS bowl. And my PeaceJam-attending son and I will definitely go to that game, along with my brother and his son (perhaps the Fiesta Bowl), and so it would be a very manly weekend for the Brock men. Oh, but I detect that my more recent readers are likely tuning out at this paragraph, and I said I would keep the football talk to a minimum.

What I am looking forward to is the incredible Dame Helen Mirren (buy this week's New Yorker, just for her image) in her new role as Queen Elizabeth II. No, hardly her sexiest role, but I can't think of a more intelligent actress working today.

I'll be back, dear reader. A little refreshed, and no doubt still unbelievably appalled at something. Happy trails!

Poetry Thursday: Song of Myself

2006-09-20T23:28:00.000-04:00

For this week's Poetry Thursday assignment, participants are asked to write a poem from the voice of the "authentic" self. That's a tough fellow for me to unveil. Maybe I've written too many poems, taken on too many voices, given over myself to too many aesthetic tasks, that I end up thinking about what the poem itself necessitates in terms of a voice.

On the other hand, there are times when I do try to be truthful with a voice that feels like my own, and not surprisingly, those times occur when the subject matter is more personal. Since I have been sharing poems from my first and third book, I thought I would go to my second book, nearly Florida, for an example.

Traces

My child, in his room, is playing,
and I cannot tell whether he
is laughing or crying, but I will
not stir from my reading, for his joy,

as I imagine, over the leaves
of sycamore we found is his own,
and if his noise is the child’s
grief, that, too, is his own. To be

truthful, I am afraid that I can
no longer restore comfort out of pain.
Still, I know I will seek in the broad
ways whom my soul loves, and I

retrieve one trick I learned young,
so that I do rise and go. I mix
sugar milk and take paper and matches
into his room. Here, I tell him,

I have something to show you. With
the liquid, he traces circles
with his finger upon the paper, and I
lay my hand over his hand, to feel

the movement of what he has in mind.
The circles, I think, become smoother,
rounder, smaller. I say, Okay,
let’s let the paper dry, and

I return to my reading, and he
to his quieter play. And it is fear
again: how a father dreams of
the drowning child he can never save,

the child’s face disappearing
in a swallow of silt, how a father
plays with combustible materials
and their traces — fire and ash — that

will leave nothing but the child’s
tiny bones. It is fear because I know
my son will come to me, asking
if it is ready, and I will have

to say yes. I will light the match
beneath the paper, and from nothing
will appear maybe something like a face,
something like my own face,

fevered, blistered, blackening faster
than the paper, or the design becomes
my child’s face in a cry or a laugh,
calling out someone else’s name.

Carson at PeaceJam

2006-09-17T23:29:00.000-04:00

My son attended this weekend's PeaceJam Conference in Denver, Colorado. While it's easy to think of American youth being so caught up in the material entanglements of our culture, being lost in the comfortable safety-nets their parents laid out, being paralyzed by the constant beat of fear-mongering and war-mongering, or being completely blase about political action, it's heartening to see evidence to the contrary.

Poetry Thursday: Somebody Else

2006-09-14T09:39:00.000-04:00

This week's Poetry Thursday assignment is "to slip on someone else's shoes for a while and write some poetry." I love persona poems, and so I want to share an old one from my first book, The Sunshine Mine Disaster, which is mostly told from the perspective of a miner trapped some 5,000 feet beneath the surface during the worst mining disaster in Idaho's history. 91 miners perished, all due to a fire and the subsequent carbon monoxide poisoning. Two miners, however, survived, after a week underground.

This disaster took place in 1971, and it was an event that brought national attention to my state--quite a rarity, as Idaho is very much off the grid. I was 12 at the time of the disaster, and I got to know two girls who were orphaned by their father's death (the location of the mine is in northern Idaho, over 300 miles from where I lived). And it was a subject matter that stayed with me through a truly botched attempt at writing a sequence in the early 80s, and I struggled through it into the early 90s. It was like writing a novel more than a set of individual poems.

The main character in the book is a fictional miner, a composite really, named Dan Taylor. He's in his early 20s, with a newborn child, well read if not well educated, with no options available but to work in the mines, where one could make a very decent living then. Oh, and he's a devout Catholic. He's someone I understood mostly (I had in mind, at least partly, a friend from Lewiston who did not go to college), but not entirely, which was the great challenge for me.

I never stepped foot in a silver mine, let alone work in one, and writing the book meant conducting interviews with survivors and undertaking significant research--I make a point of this because a reviewer on Amazon says the book is inherently inadequate because it's not nonfiction, just poetry, which meant the book could not be credible, serious, or significant. Obviously he did not read the book. Obviously he is afraid of poetry. His/her loss.

But getting into Dan Taylor's perspective was such an imaginative leap for me, a liberating one, that has made me a more supple and playful and serious writer. About this poem, it closes the book. Some words you'll need to know: stope is a miner's immediate workstation (usually at the rock face where someone drills holes for dynamite, or who shovels out the muck, the debris, after the dynamite has been set off); drift is a tunnel; and censer, of course, is the small incense burning ball that is used in high church ceremonies. The Sunshine Mine, by the way, was the largest silver mine in the country, having some 110 miles of tunnels, and going to depths of greater than 7200 feet. And of the poem's title, it obviously references the motto stamped on American coins--to me, a very strange branding of money and god--but it also goes to Dan's own spiritual crisis.

The situation in the book at this time is that Dan has been underground for almost a week, and he's at the very end of his rope (I don't imagine him surviving). He's had to survive by eating the remnants of food in his buddies' lunch pails, and then endure the depths, the heat (the temperature is over 100 degrees at that depth), and the distances he must imagine. I see this last poem as a kind of reconciliation, which would not be possible but through Dan's eyes and voice.

Under God

God so temper me.
When I think ascension,
it is the hurl of the icy body,
perfected, to heaven.
But one mile down, among
the rock and rigor-mortised,
it is hard to remember God's
face in the clouds, no more
than the sleight of wind
effacing the under-skiff,
pulling down, and I would
see nothing but the lactating
teats of cows. But how could
a ten-year-old boy submit
such a confession to the other
kids? And so with me, the clouds
were a U-boat, something
my father had fought, and I
could recall each part
from my father's plastic model
in the bottle, especially the dorsal
hull he let me fit, and he steadying
my hand as I held the forceps,
giving the submarine its outer
form. That night I practiced
my signature, playing upon
the variations of D and T,
and nothing worked. I
remember now that extraction
really has to do with something else,
something religious, but that
is gone, too. So much muck. So
much grounding. God, so
temper me. Perhaps extraction
begins with Jonah,
or what father called the sign
of Jonah, speaking out in the whale's
great chambering, underwater, deeper
in it than I, and the voice rang out
of the belly, spilling diaphanous
into water, rising to the surface,
into the air. He could hear it,
my father said, as his PT boat
sounded above the ocean. It's hard
not to think of the German sailors,
those whose submarine stalled
in the depth-charge's shock. What
sounding. What sounding.
And no sign of rescue for six
days. It would be easier, cleaner,
to make my own coffin, to return
down the drift to my station
and slide into the stope, take
a breath. It would be easy, if not
for the faces, none of them
angelic. I have come to think
of Christ, although disillusion
awaits all adoration. Even
so, I am given to beseeching
helpless saviors, the infant
Christ, the crucified Christ. It is
the Ascension I cannot grasp.
There is too much earth. My own child,
with his ten months a wounded vein
in me, may be sleeping above me, and I
still tremble to cover him
although I know he will not wake
by a father's disturbance. I come
to kiss the face of the rock.
It is the face of the Christ.
No.
It is my father's face.
No.
And I will not look again,
for I do not want that old retrieval,
but my family: my wife, my child,
my dread, my own, hearing those calls
home, heeding them in heart, and
oh, how nigh is death, and how nigh
are the ringing censers' sounding
of what might be yesterday,
or tomorrow.

And from Father Walt . . . .

2006-09-11T18:29:00.001-04:00

And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves.

Tenderly will I use you curling grass,
It may be you transpire from the breasts of young men,
It may be if I had known them I would have loved them,
It may be you are from old people, or from offspring taken soon out of their mothers' laps,
And here you are the mothers' laps.

This grass is very dark to be from the white heads of old mothers,
Darker than the colorless beards of old men,
Dark to come from under the faint red roofs of mouths.

O I perceive after all so many uttering tongues,
And I perceive they do not come from the roofs of mouths for nothing.

I wish I could translate the hints about the dead young men and women,
And the hints about old men and mothers, and the offspring taken soon out of their laps.

What do you think has become of the young and old men?
And what do you think has become of the women and children?

They are alive and well somewhere,
The smallest sprout shows there is really no death,
And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait at the end to arrest it,
And ceas'd the moment life appear'd.

All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses,
And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.

Long Live Wharton, New York City, Irony

2006-09-10T18:30:00.000-04:00

Tomorrow, I'll be reading Edith Wharton's The Custom of the Country, something of a post-script/counter-version of her brilliant The House of Mirth. It'll be my way of acknowledging the 5th Anniversary of 9/11. Yes, I will also remember the events of that awful day, but I'll have to keep far away from all the public ceremonies, as they will prove too hollow for me to stand. I don't want to be yelling at the television how we don't get it.

Edith Wharton did get it, especially about the brash, resilient, acquisitive, shallow, and unthinking American spirit. Yes, it gives us energy and optimism, but the sheer velocity of it should make us queasy and the pure force of it should make us uneasy.

So with Edith Wharton and her deadly ironical eye in mind, I would like to share this poem I wrote for the first year anniversary of the attacks. Yes, it's about my own dis-ease about this American spirit, which was then exacerbated by the uncritically sincere and maudlin reflections of Roger Rosenblatt in his essay "The Age of Irony Comes to an End."

The End of the Age of Irony

Today is the one-year anniversary
of the end of the age of irony,
and to commemorate this date,
the Governor of New York State,
the honorable George Pataki, will read
the Gettysburg Address, and please
never mind the context, since our sensibilities
have been cleansed of irony, never mind
that when Lincoln spoke the bodies
of a thousand unclaimed Confederate
soldiers lay a-moldering on the fields,
never mind that Lincoln was honoring
the voluntary fallen who had rifles
and something of a call to fight,
and especially never mind that
the gubernatorial election for New York
is less than two months away.
Before Governor Pataki's reading, we
will watch the Fox Network's tasteful
and silent slow-motion replay
of the airline jets crashing
into the towers, the videotape
synchronized to the time of day
when the planes disintegrated
into fire and glass,
so that we will most soberly
and un-ironically relive that moment
in real time. Sometime later today,
we will listen to Samuel Barber's
Adagio for Strings, previously known as the
theme-song to Platoon, but now we
can appropriate it for our collective sincerity,
rename it Adagio for 9/11,
kind of like when Sir Elton John
rewrote "Candle in the Wind," no longer
a gay swan-song,
good enough for an actress with nerve
and sex, but now a belabored
requiem for Our Saint of the Bulimic
and Versace-Dependent.

It is the end of irony. So there's
room only for the authentic,
which means that now we must have art
that “uplifts the spirits and touches
our hearts.” Thus, let our national poet
be poor Mattie Stepanek, wheel-chaired
eleven-year-old, plucky muscular-dystrophy
survivor, friend to Larry King and Jerry Lewis,
whose earnest poems
make even me go all weepy, draining
my cynicism dry. Thus, I no longer write
poems about 9/11, or for that matter,
any poems that would disrupt our use
of the dead for a national media event.

For after the end of the age
of irony, we cannot afford any luxuriant
art, any idle or difficult poem
that would inconvenience our leader’s resolve
to eradicate Saddam, set North Korea
straight, send Iran’s clerics packing.
Days from now, or weeks,
or years, thousands of Iraqis
will lie dead, buried in the spit and rubble
of our smart bombs, and this fact is neither
ironic nor remotely poetic,
because we Americans are no longer a happy,
indulgent people, because, yes,
we have changed our ways for good.

Gyorgy Faludy, and No, Not the Crocodile Hunter!

2006-09-04T10:45:00.000-04:00

Just read the headlines that Hungarian poet Gyorgy Faludy died at the age of 95. Faludy was an important translator of Villon, before he gained fame as a post-war dissident poet. His latest interviews bemoaned the fall of "high" literature as a central force in Western culture.

While I might argue against some of Faludy's views about the standing of literature (mostly to deal with whether or not it ever held that centrality in popular culture), his passing is sadly, perhaps aptly, overshadowed by the news of the death of Steve "Crikey!" Irwin, the Australian "Crocodile Hunter," and his all too apt death by the barb of a stingray (the power of Karma). Yes, Irwin did couch his manic antics with all the proper environmental messages, but his very intrusion into nature was so bloody wrong--all about inquisition, intervention, and shouting, amid all his mostly staged encounters with the natural world.

Poetry Thursday: Carrying Chase Twichell

2006-08-31T10:15:00.000-04:00

This week I carried with me "To the Reader: Polaroids" by Chase Twichell. I've never met Chase, though she will be reading at my university near the end of September, and she's someone I've followed through the years. Her poems are so finely constructed, with every line being confident, surely measured (not necessarily meaning metrical).

About having this particular poem during this particular week--a week of the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, of the dissipation of Tropical Storm Ernesto, of school cancellations, of my own obsessing recently over MFA programs and my own students' futures, and of the usual this and that--her words were more than a little reassuring for me, a prayerful buffering. I was also thinking of our Sprigs, who's going through a rough patch and needs a little quiet and time, as well as a number of my own non-on-line friends who also have certain resiliency and lightness, however slightly sad-toned, and their own persistency and carrying-on. To carry this poem made me think of their burdens, wishing them some ease along the way, especially the poem's closing lines:

May neither of us forsake the other.
The cloud persists in the darkness,
but the darkness does not persist.

Prose Postscript

2006-08-28T15:34:00.000-04:00

I really don't intend to be an apologist for MFA programs, but since the late 70s I've heard over and over the same basic critiques that are either extremely general or that misplace too much emphasis on the centrality of MFA programs in American arts and letters. From Donald Hall's disgust over the McPoem (which I think he's written more than his fair share) to Hayden Carruth's bemoaning of the Iowa "Wrackship" (and Carruth is one of my heroes), to current venemous treatments found in the New York Times and the Foetry web site, these criticisms miss the mark, locating the demise of literature and literacy to these programs.

I want to be very clear here. I think you can be a great writer and never trod a step in any higher education institution. You don't need an A.A., B.A., B.S., B.F.A., M.A., M.A.T., M.Ed., M.F.A., M.B.A., M.S., Ph.D., D.A., D.B.A., Ed.D., M.D., J.D., D.D.S., D.V.M., or any kind of sheepskin to be a great poet. And I would not argue that there is an exact correlation between attending an M.F.A. program and becoming a better (or worse) writer. The argument for the M.F.A. is really individual, about whether or not you want to take 4 to 6 workshops, perhaps 4 literature classes, perhaps take 2 courses in a language, hang out and work with (and maybe against) a dozen to thirty people, read all kinds of literature, attend readings, maybe teach a composition class or two, maybe teach a creative writing class, maybe work as a writing tutor in the writing center, maybe work as an editor at the literary magazine, and then leave with a degree that does not guarantee you any kind of career advancement, that has no real pragmatic ends, after two to three years, then it can be a great, refreshing experience.

For some people, I know that the M.F.A. experience was an unmitigated disaster (could say this is true for any post-graduate degree, of course). They attended a program where it was a hostile, cut-throat environment, where one learned the skills of basic political survival: backstabbing and sucking up. Of course, you can also work in a bank or a co-op organic foods store with the very same dynamics. I also know that the M.F.A. program can be a location of creative group-think, where you have a bunch of like-minded poststructuralist, post-Language, neo-New-York-School, avant-dadaists all gathered together and praising their numbingly conformist works. But I think that happens, has happened anyway (The Fugitives come to mind, so do the Martian Poets, etc.), with or without an academic institution.

To be a great poet, yes, you must read (and I recommend reading far more broadly and deeply and imaginatively than what Prose prescribes), but I also know many poets are social critters, wanting to group, share their work, argue, and disband. An M.F.A. program is one institutionalized and artificial means for that kind of gathering, and that is a good thing. But, of course, there are other gathering places, such as Poetry Thursday, that are every bit as valuable and celebratory and right, and maybe as pointless.

Francine Prose's New Book

2006-08-27T10:37:00.000-04:00

In the New York Times, I came across this review of Francine Prose's latest book about reading and writing. While she offers something of a throwback to the 1940s and 50s Adler's Great Books idea, I do agree with her that good writers are good readers, and that it takes some practice, patience, and pleasure to read with a "writer's eye."

Prose, however, launches into the tiresome and very dated attack against MFA programs, basically arguing that they abandon this discipline. Perhaps some individual programs do. And perhaps it makes for satiric material (Prose caught that wave, too, but that's a cliched topic, really, one that is a stale insider's joke that wasn't that funny to begin with). But few writing programs make the argument that they "teach" how to write. Their usual promise is that they offer an opportunity to be in an artificial and isolated writing community for two or three years. For many, that's a tremendous opportunity. But the idea that MFA programs are ruining literature, creating mediocrity, is giving them way too much credit and importance, is creating a bug-a-boo that has little boo and almost no bug.

Essentially Prose contends that great writing can be learned from reading great literature. This premise was supported, interestingly, by my own MFA and subsequent Ph.D. education in the mid-80s, that hey-day of post-structuralist literary theory. I took seminars on D. H. Lawrence, James Joyce, and W. B. Yeats. From feminist critic Susan Gubar (who later was my Ph.D. director), I took a class on WW II literature, reading (quite favorably) novels by Mailer and Heller. No, we didn't always read these materials from a writer's perspective, though I was encouraged to do so--Gubar, for one, took me on because I was a poet (like her collaborator Sandra Gilbert) and that I was not deeply beholden to theory.

And one of my creative writing workshops was a class on classical imitations, in which we spent the entire semester reading Ovid and writing our own Metamorphoses. I also had to read in Spanish and French. So I'm kind of wondering exactly what kind of program and reality Prose is writing against, and that's when I suspect it's a kind of convenient fiction she has created.

I allow that I truly grew as a writer after attaining my MFA degree, but it did give me a necessary exposure beyond my own little world in the hinterlands of Idaho. But the best experience for me in the MFA program at Indiana University was that I had to read a great deal, often in the slow ways Prose describes. In my own creative writing classes, I generally do not include writing texts (though I do often use John Dufresnes' The Lie That Tells a Truth, because I need all the help I can get in teaching narrative writing), but just books of poetry and short stories--not anthologies, by the way.

Finally, I recommend MFA programs only to students who seem genuinely interested first and foremost in being engaged in some kind of formal writing community. I never tell them that that's where they'll learn to be a writer. Like nearly every good writing teacher I know, the lesson I do impart is that in order to be a good writer that the very best thing one can do is to read, read, read. You can do that both within and without an MFA program, before or after, inside or outside.

Being a Good Boy Scout

2006-08-25T21:04:00.000-04:00

Today, spent about three hours at the Calusa Nature Center in Fort Myers, cleaning the exterior of the raptor cages. They have about a dozen in all: great horned owl, screech owl, red-shouldered hawk, red-tailed hawk, bald eagle, caracara, turkey vulture, and black vulture. All these animals were severely injured and are unable to return to the wild.

Anyway, cleared off the debris, giving them more sun--though they were plenty spooked and stressed by my presence. So I'm feeling awfully virtuous, especially after rehydrating.

Oh, another great place in the area is CROW, the Clinic for the Rehabilitation of Wildlife, on Sanibel Island. Their wonderful veterinarian, P.J. Deitschel, is just an amazing person--she and the clinic have been featured on Animal Planet. They take in any injured nondomestic critter, and they have a very impressive success rate in returning them to the wild. At least there are a couple of organizations getting it right in Southwest Florida.

Sabbath/Sabbatical/New Year

2006-08-20T10:39:00.000-04:00

Wildflower at the Cabin, Lowman

As I regard it, my professional life started for me in kindergarten (by the way, that's one of my favorite germanic words: children's garden): reading, school, and nap time. In Idaho then there was no public kindergarten, and so I went to Mrs. Bevington's house, about three blocks from my home--five-year-old me, I would walk there, something unthinkable, or nearly unthinkable these days. And so, this week, another start to the school year.

Last week were all the pre-school year meetings, with the college-wide meeting introducing faculty and some song and dance routines by the provost and dean (my dean, by the way, she rocks). Then the departmental meetings: so much about assessment practices and strategic reviews, filling out various state-mandated data forms that some poor soul, some auditor, must review--what a wretched job that must be. Yes, demonstrations on how to teach large classes, with promise of development money for the summer to design your own large class. Easy to become cynical with it all.

So begins the new year for me. The teaching part of my job, which includes a reduced load for administrative duties, is a joy, and this time of the year is fun, seeing the return of favorite students, seeing the fresh and alert new faces of first-year students (that look lasts about six weeks). It's also a time of professional appraisal, discussing with colleagues how much "work" we got done over the summer. Also talk of summer trips abroad, of children and grandchildren, of home renovations.

And so it's Sunday, too, with NPR on, and another day of me not observing the Sabbath, or observing it with our usual Sunday morning routines: drinking coffee, watching Gerri do her morning stretches, tending the birds, listening to Tony Bennett, reading the on-line NYTimes, figuring which nature outing we do today (comical how we conform so rigidly to David Brooks' sociological divisions in his funny On Paradise Drive). But I carry with me all the stuff of my very good Presbyterian upbringing, too.

I'm so down with the idea of Sabbath, of a day of rest and doing nothing--after all, that's the only way we get Walt Whitman or Cole Porter (telling that I pick two gay artists here, but queerness is about trangression, isn't it?). Anyway, there's no praising God if there isn't rest from the business and busyness of commercial life, of trading and huckstering, of buying and selling. I'm so accustomed with my life of Sabbaths, of taking time (I get about four months in all a year, not counting my weekends), this amazing and selfish luxury, and it's all about god-stuff between the recreation and personal upkeep. And so often, I think of the Jesus and God of my childhood, which probably explains the quirky religiosity that is in so much of my poetry.

For the record, I'm deeply an agnostic--what I like to tell people is that I believe everyone else is absolutely right in their spiritual beliefs, and I'll be happy to live with the repercussions. I'm destined for their hells, annihilations, purgatories, other worlds, regressive reincarnations, and nothingness, which is as it should be: I didn't buy the ticket to their heaven, and so I should be excluded, no matter my good deeds and honesty and kindnesses in this world. Fundamentalists of all stripes bore me, but I do generally like individuals who are genuinely devout and love-full in their religion, even if I can't share it with them, and even when I see it pains them slightly when I turn down their gentle-spirited overtures, whether it's the Buddhist or the Mormon. Besides, the religions I tend to prefer are definitely old school varieties, that just are not available any longer. Please don't construe that statement as an overture to Pagans to invite me along; 21st-century manifestations of those old-timey religions and rites are a little sad to me.

Anyway, the practice of religion is what impresses me, the quiet discipline of it (again, I'm really not talking about the fundamentalists and their fanatical fetishizing of religious practices--there's a disorder to that, not a clarification) that really is close to what we talk about with the artist's life. That part I do get, and I admire it when I see it in others: a healthy balance.

Carson, Not Thrilled on the Deer Trail, Stanley

Which leads me to my own relation to my son, Carson. To respect his privacy, I won't go into his spirituality, other than to say that he is an open-hearted and open-minded Christian. I don't think he worries about my own fall from grace, at least not in our talks, but sees that I have my own path. I also think I must be something of curiosity to him, which is a compliment enough, which might be my real purpose, as a father, teacher, and poet: a sign of God's humor, perhaps, for me to be the spiritual equivalent of the platypus.

Up and Running

2006-08-11T21:04:00.000-04:00

Took me two days of flying (thunderstorms in Charlotte plus the delays with the heightened security), but finally got back home to sunny Fort Myers. But all is well, now on the flat, swampy edge of the Everglades. A little different from my time in the Sawtooths with my son Carson, who took this nice picture of me as we were taking a rest from our kayaking.

Anyway, I'm back, and I'll be posting with a little more regularity.

Idaho Bound

2006-07-26T10:48:00.000-04:00

I'll be leaving for Idaho tomorrow night, going there with my son, and so I probably won't be posting very much, if at all, over the next two weeks. It's summer, after all!

Poetry Thursday: A Little Undressing

2006-07-19T22:39:00.000-04:00

Posting a little early for Poetry Thursday, which prompted us to post about sex. Pretty ho-hum, I believe, to write about sex only as sex, but very hot to write about sex as play, improvisation, despair, nostalgia, whimsy, remorse, and then it begins to be something interesting.

Looking at my own poetry, I written about sex in relief of a mining disaster, Idaho winterscapes, The Creature from the Black Lagoon, Peruvian dinners in Miami, Christmas carols, Miranda Richardson morphing into a Matthew Barney cheetah, failing comets, Jonathon Cornell boxes, salmon fishing runs, quantum mechanics, Sonja Henie, and yes, Boise State football. Oh, and dresses, as my faithful readers most likely know.

The trick for me is to be sure that the good sex poem, like most good sex, should be doing about twelve things at once. Oh, I could go on about the values of the profane, of the ecstatic, of the sexual politics of any sex act, of Whitman's view of poetry as a seminal utterance, of Kristeva's view of poetry as the ovumic murmuring, but that's all talk.

Today, I'll share one my Gerri likes.

Her Disrobing

She has said, “In dance, there is always gravity,
for movement is a continual exchange of weight.
If you’re doing it right, it is as if nothing touches ground.
To rise, you must lower yourself toward earth.
You must think down. You must humble your body.”

I do not recall her movements as desperate, but
I think of her raw doomed pull inside the music,
down to a place where pulse and breath have stopped.
She liked it that way, dance as a sculpting of space,
of stealing shape out of nothing: her arm curved

overhead in the dark, her eyes and chin tilted
down, even her hair across her face still. Tonight,
her dance might have become something for the men
along her life, or for me, this new man who might be
another punishment for the men she knew before.

Before me, her disrobing is a simple, quiet slip,
upon which a crinkle of cotton is the only
falling, the only capture in the air, and her nakedness
stuns me. I cannot breathe against this turn and drop
of her knee, as she sweeps her body beneath the covers,

powerful, a sexual angel. In her, I swear the music
must be of something ugly, the body accustomed
to a pain, and sometimes, too, when she hovers
above my body, so still that I am alone, the sound must
be of laughter, of one wing extending and lowing.

Waiting for Quds

2006-07-16T14:10:00.000-04:00

About the disintegration of the Middle East, the only small favor for me is that we don't have cable or satellite television, and so I am free of the horrid coverage provided by the 24 hour news stations.

So much is wrong: Hezbollah's mad attempt for power in Lebannon and its murderous acts against Israel; Israel's militaristic belligerence, with its mistaken insistence that the complete submission of the Palestinians is the way to peace; the U.S.'s arrogance in believing a policy of "benign hegemony" could create a democratic revolution among Islamic states--all the while the one genuinely nascent Islamic democracy is being bombed and blockaded by Israel.

To think that after 9/11 the U.S. had a genuine opportunity to recast the dynamics of the Middle East, we have reverted to a situation that is far worse than the early 80s. And I cannot but suspect that all this manuevering is to get at Syria, ultimately, the latest scapegoat for the failed U.S. excursion into Iraq. Yes, all of this must be winning the hearts and minds of the moderate Muslims in the region, to align their allegiances to the wise policies of the Bush Administration.

What I did watch on television, though, was a DVD of a 2005 documentary, Waiting for Quds, directed by Devorah Blachor. Sonia Nettnin has written a good overview of this film, which details the hardships experienced by a Palestinian political prisoner and his Jewish-Puerto-Rican-American-Israeli-Palestinian-refugee-U.N.-worker spouse. The film follows Allegra Pacheco through her pregnancy, as she seeks to free her husband Abed al-Ahmar from "administrative detainment," imprisonment without any charges being filed. Allegra, by the way, is the daughter of my friend, the poet Joe Pacheco. The film ends with the birth of their son Quds (the Arabic word for Jerusalem), and a postscript with a hopeful reunion of the family 14 months after Quds' birth (this was in 2004).

Anyway I was struck with the interviews with Abed al-Ahmar, very much a moderate, secular Muslim, who as a teenaged refugee had run into trouble with the Israeli authorities. At one point, al-Ahmar calls the two-state solution "a fiction," and that the only far-reaching solution is a single state Israel, with a complete democracy including equality for the Palestinians. Obviously, such a radical stance would paint him as an Israeli apologist and spiritual heretic in the eyes of militant Islamists. Also, in the film, Allegra's mother talks about how many of their friends and family members regard Allegra as a self-hating Jew.

Of course, looking at the film, with its final images of hope (predictably on this notion of love conquering peoples, not just individuals), it seems today so deeply naive--however principled. Allegra and Abed are truly heroic, and while Quds represents impossible hope, it appears that the world as it is doesn't deserve such hope.

Sanibel Island Writers Conference

2006-07-14T13:11:00.000-04:00

While I'm not one of the participants, I will be at the Sanibel Island Writers Conference this October. I recommend those of you able to come and spend an idyllic weekend with some very good writers at an incredible location. My friend Tom DeMarchi is the Director of the conference, and this first installment has some terrific writers: Judith Viorst, Jonathon Ames, Steve Almond, Julianna Baggott, John Dufresnes, among others. Click on the banner below to get the full low-down.

Poetry Thursday: Humor

2006-07-12T21:03:00.000-04:00

Posting a little early for Poetry Thursday, but wanting to make sure it's up. This week's assignment was to share something about poetry and humor.

For me, this goes back to one of my earliest influences, Richard Brautigan. For my high school graduation, my favorite English teacher gave me a number of books of poetry, including Brautigan's Loading Mercury with a Pitchfork. She calibrated my sense of humor and my testoterone perfectly in making this selection, knowing that his work would trip my trigger. And it did for a number of years, and naturally, I wrote lots of Brautigan-lite lyrics. Here's one of those I wrote:

Writing a Poem at 6:00 a.m. While My Lover Fondles my Penis

I have two choices.

* * * *

Fortunately, I got over that soon enough, but I've always kept alive that little smart ass for my poetry. My favorite "humorous" poet is Denise Duhamel (and yes, she's one of my pals), and I've gone on and on about her elsewhere on my blog. What I adore about her humor is that it's not mean-spirited. Neither do her poems rely on a kind of smug cleverness that puts me off--that's why I can't stand Billy Collins. But I've ranted on him, too.

For a more substantial humorous poem, I'm sharing the following poem. It was triggered after I wrote Denise that I didn't win a grant, for which she had written me a recommendation. I put it rather goofily, and she asked if she could use that sentence for a title of a poem. I said only if I could write a poem with that title, too.

Here's mine:

Upon Hearing that My Grant Application Was Passed Over and the Winner Was a Bio-Tech Professor Who Has Designed Genetically-Altered Protein for Buckwheat Seed

Okay, call me Sylvia Plath. I wanted that award,
the crystal glass eagle, the pendant, the certificate,
the lapel pin, the thousand bucks, and the parking space
next to the university president's spot: the whole
platinum and sapphire tiara. I knew I should have
written that poem on the manipulations
of amino acid balance in buckwheat seed proteins.
I knew I should have named that new genetic
strand Omicron-Brockide-32, should have brokered
the patent rights to Monsanto, let them spread the seed
of my pumped-up, high-octane, drought-tolerant,
American-can-do-know-how buckwheat
to sub-Sahara Africa and southern Mongolia.

One year later, then, I would have written
the grant report, presented it to the committee
on PowerPoint, and finished off my presentation
with a streaming video clip, showing some adolescent
boy, from Gambia, say, and he would be eating
my buckwheat flat bread, and there he would be,
digitalized, smiling, full and muscular. Yes,
and at that moment, vindicated and wise,
teary-eyed and generous, the grant committee
would gather and lift me on their shoulders, laughing
and singing, joyful for all the corporate sponsorships that
would follow me and bless our humble home
institution. For me, dare I dream further confirmations?
O, to be Nationally Endowed, Guggenheimed, Nobelled!

Of course, in Gambia, and other geographies
beneath the sweep and hoozah of fellowships
and announcements in The Chronicle of Higher Education,
the newly nourished could be striking the flint
of their first syllables of their first poems, poems
whose phrases-under the most subdued of flames-would
coolly scorch and burn our best American intention.

* * * *

To read Denise's version, you can find it at Caffeine Destiny--just scroll down beyond my poem, and you'll read her take on it.

We Have Audioblogger . . . 4 Days in Limbo

2006-07-10T15:12:00.000-04:00

Thanks to January for heppin' me to the fact that the Audioblogger files have downloaded! Guess I'll be returning to various Poetry Thursday web sites and check out some voices I've been eager to hear!

Audioblog, We Hope

2006-07-05T18:06:00.000-04:00

I did the recording, and such, and so it should appear here today, I hope. Anyway, I read the poem I posted on July 4, just below this one, "To the coroner who did not have to draw my blood."

I neglected to mention that this poem originally was published in the mid-nineties in The Northwest Review. The editor, John Witte, went over it with me a number of times, especially cutting out four or five lines beyond the close of this version. I don't recall those lines, but they more or less expanded on all that it means, which I think can be a liability in confessional poetry: we try too hard to confess, or communicate, too much, beyond what the poem itself can sustain.

Independence Day and Confessional Poetry

2006-07-04T13:46:00.000-04:00

I'm way too tempted to go off on a rant about the relentless celebration of militarism (if there's such a word), that there are other ways to celebrate today rather than talk of "complete victory" (whatever that means), such as reading aloud the Bill of Rights, which Gerri and I will do later this evening.

Modoc Lava Beds--so very not Florida
But I wish to devote today's post to Confessional Poetry, as it is a subject brought up for a prompt for Poetry Thursday. This time, it was suggested by Raven's Nest:

Maureen wrote, “Maybe somehow we could have this be a topic, without getting too much into the ‘confessional’ type of poetry — maybe just putting some thought into how this kind of poem might fall flat, or on the other hand, might be so powerful and universal that it changes someone's life, truly changes someone's response to pain and circumstances.”

This is a terrific idea, and not as simple as it first appears. What often gets in the way of writing a poem that is confessional (and here, I mean it in the way Linda McCarriston describes it as being necessary, personal, unsayable) is that the confessional impulse to disclose overtakes the poetry itself. For Thursday, I'll share a poem I'm working on that has this very problem. But today, I want to share an old poem of mine that I believe honors the confessional necessity and keeps the poetry alive.

In the following poem, I like to think the craft, the voice, the address, the perspective, the disjointed tracks, and the assonance keep the poetry alive in the poem: these qualities prevent the poem from falling flat. And I think it's because of the poem's confessional nature that I found these qualities so very necessary. In a way, the poem's content dictated this kind of presentation. The trick for me was not to get caught up in the melodrama of the content itself, but to follow its poetic qualities, which is a very deep kind of discipline for me. Here is the poem, which appears in my second book of poetry, nearly Florida:

To the coroner who did not have to draw my blood

sixteen years ago, and centrifuge
the alkaline hydrocarbons from my blood,
contributing to the Ada County records
another fact concerning how much gasoline
is too much for the teenaged male
to ingest, who did not have to split
me open, to remove what remained
of the liver, or to cut the lung tissue
to recover the amount of fluid that bled
through the membrane, who did not have
to decide between suffocation or poisoning,
all the while I was pounding the door
of God’s speakeasy, having arrived without
the password for the two eyes that hid
behind the door slit and that rolled oh
brother when I guessed “Rimbaud’s three-legged
cat,” and the eyes’ voice said, “Get lost,
kid,” so I left thinking what a piss-ant
job for an angel, coming back to the world,
my parents’ garage, puking something blue
and thin onto the pavement, I give my thanks
to you, as I know you would have been
tender for this late adolescent, whose torso
had just lengthened to man-size, whose
hands were strengthening, whose skin
stretched young and fluid, for you
would have whispered, “Goddamn it,”
with the incision, remembering your own
son, or yourself, and I give you
thanks, for I may be the one you
blessed when you once cursed over
that old man’s drink, a Manhattan, “If there
would be one suicide who didn’t come
my way,” and I tell you now it was me
who didn’t come your way, cold, blue,
youthful, rotted, who today rose
with his beloved from the Modoc Lava Caves,
whose bearings were lost in the desert
afternoon light haloing silver off
automobiles and asphalt and ash.

300 Million, and More Poets in SW Florida

2006-06-25T10:41:00.000-04:00

Aside from trying to scare white America that a Hispanic baby or immigrant will push the U.S. population to 300 million later this fall, CNN's report more or less takes the news only as a milestone. What is striking is the focus is on immigration, not on overpopulation. When the official tally went pass 200 million during the Johnson administration, which I remember, were all the stories of overpopulation, most famously by Paul Ehrlich. Of course, I realize how long-out-of-fashion these "doomsayers" are, but CNN doesn't even bring up the issue that the growth in the U.S.--with all its material consumer consumption--does indeed have severe environmental consequences.

In my neck of the woods, in horrendously developing, wetland erasing, mcmansion building Southwest Florida, the growth is a mix of, yes, Hispanic immigration, but primarily of midwesterners and East-Coast Floridians. And yes, I am all too aware of my own presence here that just adds and adds to the slow degradation.

Culturally, though, the infusion of East Coasters is a good thing for SW Florida. We get remarkable artists, most famously Robert Rauschenburg and Jonathon Green, but more recently, the urban expressionist Marcus Jansen, who lives in Lehigh Acres, the most nondescript bedroom community you could imagine. So it is a little less sleepy of a place.

Speaking of which, yesterday I helped my very good friends, Jesse and Lyn Millner, move into their new home. In previous entries, I have written a good deal about Jesse's poetry, and Lyn is an amazing writer, too. It was fun, hot work, with all our friends together, too. But Jesse and Lyn have left Hollywood, Florida, between Miami and Fort Lauderdale, and we will be welcoming Jill Drumm a little later this summer, who is also leaving North Miami for Fort Myers. With Jill and Jesse, we will gain two very wonderful poets to SW Florida, to add to those among some terrific poets, including Jay Hopler (though he's moving to Tampa), my regulars of Kimberly Campanello, Marilyn Koren, Barbara Finkelstein (who's about to leave for another corner of the U.S.), Joe Pacheco, Pat Washington, Lorraine Vail, and Bill Highsmith, and youngish poets Rachel Kazor, Claire Liparulo, Gary Levenson. Of these, I believe only Claire and Rachel are "natives."

Poetry Thursday: Words We Love, Hate

2006-06-22T00:06:00.000-04:00

This week's Poetry Thursday assignment was to write a poem with words we love or hate or both.

Just to goof on this idea, I decided to stitch something of a found poem with segments of President Bush's news conference in Vienna.

Burning Bush

. . . from President Bush's remarks Wednesday, June 21, 2006 in Vienna at a news conference with Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel and European Union President Jose Manual Barroso

We did have a very engaged and fruitful conversation. As we should.
We talked about democracy and new democracies.
We talked about Lebanon.
We talked about Israel and Palestine.
We talked about the Balkans.
We talked about development and prosperity.
Listen, we're trading partners.
And we talked about some of the impediments to capital flows.

Obviously, the Doha round of the WTO was a tough subject.

But the good news is that we were very frank in our discussions.
I mean, the Europeans have problems with the U.S. position.
We have problems with the European position.
We both have problems with the G-20 position.

We got to diversify away from oil.
The E.U. needs to get diversified, as well.

I'd like to end Guantanamo.
I'd like it to be over with.

And step one of achieving a diplomatic success is to share a goal.
And so the second phase of a diplomatic strategy is to have a common front.
And so we've been working with our partners, particularly in that part of the world, to say to the North Koreans that,
“This is not the way you conduct business in the world.
This is not the way that peaceful nations conduct their affairs.”

I was pleased to see that the Chinese spoke out to the North Korean government
and suggested they not fire whatever it is on their missile.

You know, people say what they want to say.

* * * * *

And for a different set of words, let me share a paragraph from Virginia Woolf's 1925 essay, "On Being Ill":

There is, let us confess it (and illness is the great confessional), a childish outspokenness in illness; things are said, truths blurted out, which the cautious respectability of health conceals. About sympathy for example—we can do without it. That illusion of a world so shaped that it echoes every groan, of human beings so tied together by common needs and fears that a twitch at one wrist jerks another, where however strange your experience other people have had it too, where however far you travel in your own mind someone has been there before you—is all an illusion. We do not know our own souls, let alone the souls of others. Human beings do not go hand in hand the whole stretch of the way. There is a virgin forest in each; a snowfield where even the print of birds’ feet is unknown. Here we go alone, and like it better so. Always to have sympathy, always to be so accompanied, always to be understood would be intolerable. But in health the genial pretense must be kept up and the effort renewed—to communicate, to civilise, to share, to cultivate the desert, educate the native, to work together by day and by night to sport. In illness this make-believe ceases. Directly the bed is called for, or, sunk deep among pillows is one chair, we raise our feet even an inch above the ground on another, we cease to become soldiers in the army of the upright; we become deserters. They march to battle. We float with the sticks on the stream; helter-skelter with the dead leaves on the lawn, irresponsible and disinterested and able, perhaps for the first time in years, to look round, to look up—to look, for example, at the sky.

Dear reader, I'll leave it to you to guess which I prefer.

Civitella Ranieri

2006-06-19T10:16:00.000-04:00

Just learned I have been nominated for a residency at the Civitella Ranieri Center, located in Umbria. Later this summer, I'll be submitting a formal application, and then notification will occur in December for a 2007 or 2008 residency.

My friend Bruce rents a farmhouse in Umbria for his own retreat, as he is now working in Dubai, the DisneyWorld of the Middle East. So it would be very cool to go there (meaning Italy and not the United Arab Emirates), and after, stay with Bruce, and perhaps travel to Northern Spain to visit another friend, Ingrid. Anyway, seeing how the fellows include writers Bei Dao, Jamaica Kinkaid, Nick Drake, Ron Padgett, Pat Mora, Tomasz Salamun, and Anne Waldman, it's simply very cool and humbling to be nominated.

What Is Wrong with Just Being a Student?

2006-06-18T10:32:00.000-04:00

This week, I begin teaching a summer seminar on Virginia Woolf, which has got me to think about my own relationship with my students. I am so happy with that perfect term of "student," and I am happiest in my own work when I think of myself first and foremost as a student, when it comes to my own reading and writing and art especially.

Yes, all too frequently, I am dismayed at what is happening with higher education. No, I don't mean the rather tired criticisms against multiculturalism, political correctness, and leftist indoctrination--the oh-so-80s kind of criticisms waged by Camille Paglia, Allan Bloom, William Bennett, David Horowitz, and Lynne Cheney. What has taken over, really, despite all this attention to culture wars, is the business model, first with TQM, then with "best practices" and accountability and assessment measurements. Indeed, the corporate model has won, with universities downsized, facilities open for branding and product placement, cost-effective adjunct and instructor outsourcing on the rise, and students shouldering the costs for cheaper and cheaper goods.

At my university, I work daily with these new "accountability" practices, and not all of them are heinous. To construct a rigorous strategic plan for an English program does make some sense, and can actually enable faculty to teach more critically, productively, and collaboratively. But so much of the process results in endless paperwork for faculty, keeping us rather busy and occupied, producing binder upon binder of annual reports, just to document our practice toward continual improvement. At its worst, it's a Kafkian joke.

To test my theory, go to your favorite dean's office, and see how much of the shelf space is devoted to binders and how much to books.

Okay, that bureaucratic nonsense I can deal with.

What makes me cringe, though, is the language (and here I hear Orwell weeping). The prevalent current term for "student" is "student/client," which has been in usage for at least ten years. For examples, here are links from a 1997 document from the Bozeman, Montana school system, from the current mission statement of the Gutavus Aldolphus College Writing Center, from the Eastern Kentucky University "Student Client Support" web site, from a 1998 management restructuring report for the University of West Florida. And on your own, you can google the terms "student client" and "university" and retrieve pages from the University of Michigan, University of Illinois, James Mason University, University of Virginia, etc.

The word client is only slightly less crass or passive than the term "consumer," which had its share of usage in the mid-80s and 90s. Client most obviously derives from a linguistic mix of social science and business school lingo, to describe a relationship in which a university is a service provider. Faculty are delivery systems of that service. Students are the clients, who not only receive the information or training, but are expected to use it for their own benefit.

Of course, prostitutes have their clients, as well. University presidents and provosts don't seem to draw out that very apt use of the metaphor.

But what is so awful about the term "student"? It doesn't inherently imply a passive, receptive state--after all, to study is an active, transitive verb. To study is to read, to write, to research, to experiment, to test, to theorize, to argue, to revise, to create, to listen, to discuss, to perform, to play. Besides, a client suggests a person who has a certain defect that requires repair (an individual who seeks counseling for a disorder, for instance) or who has a continued contractual obligation for only so long as he or she is paying for it (an individual who hires a lawyer or marketing firm, for instance). To be a client reduces the role of the student.

To be a student, and only a student, places the primary responsibility of learning on that individual, and that's why we in the business of selling education tend to prefer the soft metaphor "client." It demands less of that person. It's easy to sell. It's a closed-end, time-limited contract. It transforms education into a definable transaction. God forbid that we expect an amorphous, tranformative, unpredictable, and life-long commitment on the part of the student, or that we expect the student to study for no obvious and contractually-defined end (something which cannot be measured, assessed, annually reported, continually improved, best practiced, etc.). Imagine, studying for kicks.

Rather, many university administrators and Education Leadership Ph.D.s prefer the contractual relationship between service provider and client, which is so neat and tidy, dispensable. And perhaps, to be honest, that is a more accurate description of what is occurring in American higher education. The student is dead; long live the client.

Just not in Dr. Brock's class.

Virginia Woolf, Virginia Woolf!

2006-06-07T10:37:00.000-04:00

Once again I am dipping my toe in Virginia Woolf's The Waves, as I am preparing to teach a summer seminar on Woolf. My dear and most intelligent friend, Kimberly Campanello, and I just had a conversation, full of Woolf-love and giddiness, mutually admiring the harrowing and beautiful genius of her sentences. I really can't think of a better writer, even though I know her faults, especially the too narrow world view (though I would argue the opposite).

So last night, I run across this sentence, from the last section of The Waves, a filtering and absorption of Bernard's perspective, his own private gathering, after a long and exquisite cataloguing of everything:

Our friends, how seldom visted, how little known--it is true; and yet when I meet an unknown person, and try to break off, here at this table, what I call 'my life,' it is not one life that I look back upon; I am not one person; I am many people; I do not altogether know who I am--Jinny, Susan, Neville, Rhoda, or Louis; or how to distinguish my life from theirs.

And yes, that is how I feel, and the cross-cutting of this sentence alone amplifies my simultaneous sense of connection and separation, which I think is why I write poetry after all, a cast with and against dissolution.

All of this makes me weepy, mournful and happy, a radiant melancholy as when I listen to Maria Callas singing "Mon Couer s'Ouvre a ta Voix," from Saint-Saen's Samson et Dalila, or when I regard Marc Chagall's Red Lovers--oh, I see the French connections here, too, especially knowing that Woolf's maternal lineage goes to France, as well.

Of course, there will be an occasion during this class where I let it go unhinged, likely saying something about Woolf saving our lives with her sentences, so that one of my very best students will come to me, confiding to me that most of the students "really don't get Dr. Brock," a little too worried about me and how I am doing, when in fact I haven't been happier, to have been apprehended for a moment, and then let go.

Michael Hettich's Top Ten Book

2006-06-06T22:18:00.000-04:00

Congratulations to my friend, Michael Hettich, for having his wonderful collection of poetry, Flock & Shadow, listed as a 2006 Top Ten Book of Poetry by Book Sense.

Besides being way too handsome, Michael has taught at Miami Dade College close to 20 years, and he's become a real fixture in the Miami writing scene. What's terrific for me is that I blurbed Michael's book:

These generous poems proffer lessons on how we are to remain receptive to the world and how we yet may be transformed by it. Over the arc of Hettich's poetry, we come to the truest pleasure in poetry: we see, which is to attend, which is to praise.

I did have a sentence about "not since Wallace Stevens has a poet taught me so much about how to see the world," but that didn't make it on the jacket.

Anyway, for a taste of his work, read his poem "Forgiveness" at Verse Daily.

Miami-ing

2006-06-05T18:50:00.000-04:00

This Friday, Gerri and I will go Miami-ing for a week, to celebrate her birthday, and to enjoy ourselves around some old haunts. Miami is but 130 miles from Fort Myers, but it's the same cultural distance between central Ohio and New York City. We just have to go there to recover our bearings.

Of course, top on the list is to visit the best book store in Florida, Books and Books. We'll likely go to the Coral Gables store, which has survived and thrived despite the fact that a Borders mega-store was built a block away about four years ago. Mitch Kaplan, the owner, is one of my heroes.

We'll also go out to listen to Ira Sullivan, a friend from Gerri's old days. In fact, the dress poem below goes back to times when Gerri would go with her friend Iris to dance all night to Ira's music. Little wonder why I'm so looking forward to our little vacation.

No doubt, we'll go to Fairchild Tropical Gardens, The Aviary, The Barnacle, Matheson Hammock, Scotty's, The Colony Theater, etc. Mostly, we'll people watch, enjoy some evenings with old friends, and just enjoy the Miami light.

On Threatened Rivers

2006-05-29T11:00:00.000-04:00

I'm really not a coastal person, even though I live just a mile from the Gulf of Mexico, and I'm not a mountain person, even though I grew up in Idaho. I'm a river person, geologically speaking, which makes me closer to Mark Twain than to Herman Melville or Vardis Fisher. Rivers are ways out, obviously, but they are also ways back to some finer sources; their watersheds define continental divides; and I love the adjectives we create from rivers: estuarine, riparian.

A tremendous environmental organization, American Rivers, annually lists the ten most threatened rivers in the United States, a way to bring attention to specific (and correctable) threats to rivers. This year's list includes the Boise River, the river of my childhood, and the Caloosahatchee, the river of my current life.

The Boise River is truly a western river, fast moving, cold, and clear. Its sources are the Sawtooth Mountains, and two dams have been erected, Lucky Peak and Arrowrock, primarily to provide irrigation for the rich farmland of the Magic and Treasure Valleys. The current threat is the Atlanta Gold Mine Company's plans to blast out two deep mining pits, with the resultant likelihood of cyanide leaching into the river through extraction processing. This project had been abandoned two years ago, but investors from Japan have backed it due to the rapid rise in gold prices--thanks to concerns of America's involvement in the Middle East. Boiseans love this river, as it does go through the heart of the city, truly an oasis for fishing, tubing, and strolling. Culturally, however, Idahoans are extremely conservative, and they are not quick to intefere with free enterprise, but they may be bigoted enough to stop this foreign backed venture. Prognosis: salvageable, but for ugly reasons.

The Caloosahatchee was an oxbow meandering river, whose source was the sheetflow of the Everglades, a murky, wide, shallow, and lazy affair of a river. The Army Corps of Engineers, however, straightened it, and connected it by canals to Lake Okeechobee, so that it has become a mechanism of flood control for South Florida. Periodically, the water managers order "releases" of Lake Okeechobee, which floods the Caloosahatchee with "nutrient laden" run-off--essentially, the water polluted with fertilizers. While technically not toxic, this discharge creates an imbalance in the sediment, supercharging especially non-native plant species. Furthermore, the artificial release of this fresh water creates an imbalance in the brackish water in the bays at the Caloosahatchee's mouth, stressing oyster beds, mangrove habitat, and fish and crabs. The long-term threat to the river, however, is the urbanization of Southwest Florida, of which I have contributed to. The grand scheme of Everglade Restoration (and this is a joke, as it is more about creating an acquifer system for lawn maintenance than rehabilitating damaged ecosystems) seems woefully insufficient to redress this damage. Prognosis: terminal, I'm afraid.

Best Book of American Poetry of Last 25 Years?

2006-05-20T11:37:00.000-04:00

After reviewing The New York Times story on the best work of U.S. fiction of the last 25 years, it made me think of what might be in the list of the best books of poetry by a U.S. writer (this would eliminate the inclusion, say, of Seamus Heaney's wonderful translation of Beowulf).

Before I offer some suggestions, I really don't think these lists are all that valuable, as they bring out the worse qualities of canon formation. Still, it is a fun exercise, and perhaps a way to get others to find books that otherwise are easily ignored.

Works I would consider, off the top of my head (I'm purposely excluding reissues, collected editions, etc.):

Hayden Carruth The Sleeping Beauty
Yusef Komunyakaa Dien Cai Dau
Lynda Hull Star Ledger
Mark Doty My Alexandria
Sharon Olds The Cold Cell
Li Young-Lee The City in which I Love You
Kenneth Koch New Addresses
Ellen Bryant Voigt The Lotus Flowers
Kevin Stein Bruised Paradise

No doubt, I am overlooking work by heavyweights like Rich, Merwin, Merrill, Ashbury, and by really good poets like Hass, Hongo, Jarman, Alexander, and Coleman, and mid-career poets like Duhamel, K. Young, D. Young, Hayes, Addonizio, and N. Tretheway, and young whippersnappers like Hopler, Fleury, Loudermilk, and Pavlic.

Poetry Thursday: At the Library, Jesse Millner

2006-05-18T09:24:00.000-04:00

For my first Poetry Thursday venture, which was to take a field trip and explore through books of poetry in a library or bookstore, I went to my university library and wandered through the PS 3500 and PS 3600 sections, culling through Elizabeth Bishop, Terrance Hayes, and Muriel Rukeyser. But I stopped at a very slim volume.

Oh, before going on, I hope the other Poetry Thursday contributors either bought or checked out the books of poetry, which I think might be the real goal behind this week's assignment.

I unconditionally recommend Jesse Millner's wonderful chapbook, The Drowned Boys, published by March Street Press. Below are the final two sections of his title poem, a long, breezy, associative narrative/meditation, and this exerpt alone does not do the work justice.

from "The Drowned Boys," by Jesse Millner:

The lost shoe woman takes the 151 bus
north on Lake Shore Drive.
On the ride home, she composes a grocery list: deodorant,
granola bars, tofu hot dogs, cat food;
and doesn’t notice the long dream of water to the east
or Lincoln Park to the west.

And all around her the world is quickening.
The statue of Phil Sheridan at Diversey
disappears into dusk and lights come
on in the big apartment buildings
along the eastern edge of the green space
that stretches for miles.

Soon the moon will rise from the waters,
fat and full but shrinking with altitude.

I can tell you now that I’m grateful for my new religion
of moonlight confessions and communion
with yellow cheese.

I take in la luna and I am transubstantiated
from drinking man to spirit.

I confess my sins, of which there are multitudes.

*

Is anyone still listening?

Whitman’s sleep is a moonlit field
near Des Moines.
His poem has become the earth
and his lines are as long
as geologic time.

The lost shoe woman sleeps with her cat
in a canopy bed next to an open window
where white curtains catch the east wind
off the lake and moonlight gleams
on the just-varnished oak floors.
She no longer dreams of a red Converse all-star.

And the drowned boys whisper on humid river nights.
Their muted voices become
the living current.

Cynicism vs. Earnestness

2006-05-14T10:52:00.000-04:00

That's the spiritual/aesthetic battle for me, not that old tirade between good and evil. And the point for me is to maintain a foot in both, but not to be swallowed by the quicksand of either one.

I am desperate to find the goodness in individuals--this is why Gerri tells me that everyone "likes" me so immediately. I guess I am that transparently earnest, which is a danger of being too affable, too noncontrary, and so ultimately, being too dismissive. Even so, I need that confirmation of goodness in others. I suppose it is to see that seed of God in them, or perhaps it is a Buddhist/Hindu thing in me, the whole namaste business. And without that rather foolish belief, I don't think I could write a word of poetry, but it is also a fool's paradise as well, to dwell in that happiness for too long.

And on the other end, the cynicism is the caffeine jolt that keeps me awake, and with a drop of fear, it all becomes paranoia. But oh dear, how I am sure I am living in one of the worst stretches of American history, the apex of American Imperialism. I think of Mark Twain now, especially his dread in America's appropriation of the Philippines through the Spanish-American War. No, it is not as bad as the stretch right before the Civil War, but in some ways worse, with our material wealth, our cultural comfort, and our overwhelming information agencies. Yes, I want to be awake, alert to it all, to be hep. But the price of that aloofness leads me away from poetry, too.

Here is an example that gives me hope: a couple of weeks ago, I receive a hand-written card/letter from a former student, a genuine Ayn Rand objectivist libertarian, and she's telling me how she's living off the grid in rural Vermont: a cabin without running water or electricity, bartering for water from neighbors, raising free-range chickens, etc. It's all about living by one's wits, individualism--though there is a genuine communal aspect as well, especially with the trading and trucking with neighbors, but she insists that it's not icky-new-agey. When she describes her own beauty now--her complete abandonment of cosmetics, her callused hands, her broken nails, her strong back, her more ample bosom--I believe her. I also view her endeavor as heroic, even though I can't get a hold onto her absolutism, that such sure footing is too dizzying for me. I am warmed to know that such Americans are about as she is.

And then I think of more manufactured beauty, too, that I adore, the Miami kind, the Hollywood kind, the very worst of the late fifties kind, all a result of that crass Americanism and capitalism. And so I have that, too, that love as well as that adoration of Amanda and her good life. And there I am again, with this awful mix between being high minded and low browed, and still wanting something that devastates me with its intelligence, brilliance, and goodness, that sheers me of the saccharine and the cynical.

Hannah Kahn Reading

2006-05-13T09:25:00.000-04:00

Lots of fun with the reading at Nova, with Jesse and Jill (we were billed as the "triple J," kind of like a pro wrestling smackdown), and extended fun staying with Jesse and Lyn, with special guests Kimberly, Jane, and Maybelle, and as always, our Sammie.

The organizer for the reading, Richard Ryals, is a tremendously kind-souled and generous man, and we learned that ours was the last installment of the series, at least its formation of it at Nova. After the reading, we went to a terrific Indian restaurant (I had aloo golib), and Richard was telling us of the lack of support he had from the Nova folks for putting up the readings--clearly he was tired and frustrated. It reminded me of the suspicions cast against creative writing folks by otherwise friendly academics, just how uneasy that relationship is, which is also true at my home institution, even though on the whole that relationship is as healthy as I have seen it at almost any other university I've experienced.

To be sure, many poets and fiction writers invite those suspicions, just through being ill mannered, but there's a point where it just gets to be silly, juvenile. So much of it is a paltry turf war, battling over the most measly scrap, only because we all have so little. Fortunately, on both sides, I know enough good folks who see the bigger picture, who understand that the real enemies out there are the politicians, bio-techno-media honchos, etc., who love to see us fight and squabble, confirming only our own irrelevance in our sad pillow fights.

Fort Lauderdale Bound

2006-05-09T17:12:00.000-04:00

This Friday night, I'll be sharing the stage with Jill Drumm and Jesse Millner for a reading at Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale. Before that, however, on Thursday, I'll be going with the Millners to North Miami to enjoy a reading of Wave Books poets, Joshua Beckman, Noelle Kocot, and Anthony McCann. Should be a fun weekend of poetry and friendship.

I'm especially looking forward to reading with Jill, an FGCU graduate who is finishing up her M.F.A. at FIU (love all those letters). She's working on an amazing thesis, Forms of Exodus, which will eventually be a pretty amazing book of poetry. She's really grown in her work at FIU, obviously from working with Denise Duhamel and Campbell McGrath--I think Campbell has truly challenged Jill--and from her exposure to a diverse writing community in Miami. She has genuine range with her work, being experimental and formal in her strategies, but her voice remains strong throughout her work: a remarkable fluidity with the Saxon and the Latinate, a grounding in the lyric via Dickinson, Roethke, and Gluck, and a brave willingness to stretch it all out. Her thesis is light-years ahead of what I produced at Indiana.

Florida SB 2424

2006-05-05T20:18:00.000-04:00

The Florida House unaminously passed a bill, which was unaminously passed by the Florida Senate, to bar professors and students from using state funds to travel to "terrorist" states, specifically Sudan, North Korea, Libya (weren't they removed from the list), Iran, and Cuba. The actual language in the legislation says "none of the state or nonstate funds made available to state universities" may be used to organize, direct, coordinate or administer any activities related to or involving travel to a terrorist state.

So, no travel for professors to Cuba to gather data about possible decendants of the Calusa. No travel for study of the last known habitat of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker. No travel for study of archives relating to Spain's role in founding the New World. No travel for study of ethnographic lineage of Afro-Caribbean music. But of course, no problem with state funding for travel to China to build economic partnerships that conveniently ignore torture, human rights violations, and environmental ruin.

According to the bill's co-sponsor, David Rivera of Miami,

"I sincerely believe that these leftists of higher education don't understand the lack of a moral equivalent between America and her enemies."

Evidently, these professors don't understand that restricting their academic freedom is a sign that America believes more strongly in freedom than these other countries.

This kind of activity makes it all the more important for writers of the United States to join organizations such as PEN International through the PEN American Center. It's also disheartening to see, yet again, the Florida legislature over-reach its role. No doubt, the governor will sign this bill, perhaps in some attempt to get all these "leftists" and intellectuals to leave the State of Florida.

On Dan Bourne

2006-05-03T10:12:00.000-04:00

First, the standard bio information on Daniel Bourne: author of Where No One Spoke the Language (Custom Words), The Household Gods (Cleveland State) and On the Crossroads of Asia and Europe (Salmon Run), a collection of translations of Polish poety and essayist Tomasz Jastrun. He teaches at The College of Wooster in Ohio, where he edits Artful Dodge.

I was in the M.F.A. program with Dan at Indiana University, and I worked for about a year on Artful Dodge under Dan's guidance. Already AD had already established itself for its very important interviews (Borges, Merwin, and others) and for its outstanding translations of mostly Eastern European writers, this at the time of the crackdown against the workers in Gdansk and the Solidarity movement. A favorite memory is being with Dan, Don Boes, Karen Kovacik, and glueing on the four-color cover art to the covers of the individual magazines, getting a little high from the fumes, and drinking bourbon and Rolling Rock, and worrying, worrying about Reagan and the vanishing safety net, and goofing on remembering plot-lines in old Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons. Anyway, Dan represented all that was right about the midwest: strong work ethic, grounded political values, and a deep continental voice. He also proved a valuable friend and mentor.

What I appreciate most about his poetry is its strong political and moral perspective--his poetry is made of iron--while it maintains a personal orbit. A selection of his poetry can be found at the Custom Words web site. His poem "Recycling" typifies how Bourne's speakers often stand on two different lands: here, it is Illinois and Poland, somewhere between the living and the dead, the personal and the political, the reverent and the comic, the father and the son. His poems are anchors.

Atticus de la Smarme

2006-04-29T16:40:00.000-04:00

At least that's my new name, according to this nifty Poet Name Generator. It's "Gwendolyn Blatherfroth," if I wish to use a female pen name. The Internet just gets better and better. Anyway, try your own name, and see if it doesn't inspire you!