Robert Creeley RIP

I Know a Man

As I sd to my
friend, because I am
always talking, -- John, I

sd, which was not his
name, the darkness sur-
rounds us, what

can we do against
it, or else, shall we &
why not, buy a goddamn big car,

drive, he sd, for
christ's sake, look
out where yr going.


--Robert Creeley

see commentary at the Modern American Poetry site

AWP

Looking forward to my first AWP Conference. The schedule is daunting: THIS THING IS HUGE. I’d love to meet up with any bloggers who are there: for a drink, a bite to eat, book shopping, whatever. (Email me at ppereira5@aol.com, or call the concierge desk and leave a message at the Fairmont)

I'll be participating in two readings I’d be so pleased if you’d try to attend. The first is “off-site” at the Vancouver Public Library Friday night. It’s a group of Canadian and American poets, including Judith Barrington, Lorna Crozier, Annie Finch, Susan Rich, Rachel Rose, and myself (am I the only boy? LOL):

Cross-Border Pollination: Canadian and American Poets
Friday, April 1, 5:00 pm
Alice MacKay Room
Lower Level
Vancouver, BC Central Library
350 West Georgia St.


The second is on Saturday afternoon, where I will join three of the other past Hayden Carruth Award winners, from Copper Canyon Press. I’ll read a bit from Saying the World, as well as new stuff from my next manuscript. I believe Michael Wiegers, the new editor at Copper Canyon, will be emceeing.

The First Four: Readings by the Hayden Carruth Award Winners
Saturday 1:30 - 2:45 pm Hyatt Regency
Including: Sascha Feinstein, Rebecca Wee, Jenny Factor, Peter Pereira.

I also plan to go to the Prairie Schooner open house Friday Night (after the library reading).
See you there!

Rock & Sling Inaugural issue

My contributor's copy of the inaugural issue of Rock & Sling arrived in the mail yesterday. It's a new literary magazine out of Spokane, WA, edited by Chris Kristensen, Susan Cowger, and Laurie Klien, whose theme is "Post-Modern Christianity." Being a lapsed catholic, I have years of wondrous parochial school indoctrination to write from, and they took four poems. One of them, "The Judas Tree," (see below) was chosen for a highlighted commentary by one of the editors. It's one of several Gay Jesus Poems I wrote years ago during my "Ai phase," when her book Sin was one of my guidebooks for how to write a persona.

The journal has excellent production values: gorgeous engaging glossy color cover; clean and easy to read typography and layout; no typos. I am pleased to be included with fine poets such as Michael Bonacci, Rebecca Loudon, Laurie Lamon, and Lisa Roullard; and there is an interesting interview with Li-Young Lee.


The Judas Tree

(Tell me about the sin of pride
and I'll tell you
about the lie of forgiveness.
-- Ai, "Two Brothers")

Would it be enough to say
I was afraid? That I stood accused,
wrists bound, eyes blackened?
That centurions led me to a high balcony,
showed me the throng
swarming for Passover, and you
among them, riding a donkey?

You love him? they jeered,
and spit in my face. Then
kiss him, they hissed,
and knocked me to the floor.

Rose welts streaked the dawn
as I dangled. And later, red flowers
pierced my thorned limbs
in your honor.

To hell with dreams of silver,
with your magical fall that lifts us
from the muck. Without a lover
there is no beloved.


*

PS: Happy Belated-Easter! (wink grin)

"Tomorrow will be just like today only different"

from 180 More:


Publication Date

One of the few pleasures of writing
is the thought of one's book in the hands of a kind-hearted
intelligent person somewhere. I can't remember what the others are right now.
I just noticed that it is my own private

National I Hate Myself and Want to Die Day
(which means the next day I will love my life
and want to live forever). The forecast calls
for a cold night in Boston all morning

and all afternoon. They say
tomorrow will be just like today
only different. I'm in the cemetery now
at the edge of town, how did I get here?

A sparrow limps past on it's little bone crutch saying
I am Frederico Garcia Lorca
risen from the dead --
literature will lose, sunlight will win, don't worry.

--Franz Wright (originally appeared in Field)


I loved Wright's Walking to Martha's Vineyard, with all its deep seriousness, its hope and loss of hope, its faith and loss of faith. This poem seems to inject a little more humor into the situation.

March Madness

Sorry to be AWOL, but three of the four NCAA Regional Finals men's college basketball games have gone to OVERTIME this weekend (one went to double-overtime). Talk about cardiac kids. Don't you just LOVE THIS GAME!

180 More

I was delighted to go to Bailey Coy Books after dinner at La Cocina last night, and find the new Billy Collins-edited 180 More: Extraordinary Poems For Every Day on display there. (The Poetry 180 series began with Collins's poem-a-day program for American high schools, when he was poet laureate. There are 180 days of school, hence 180 poems in the anthology). It is chock full of fun "hospitable" poems, including poets such as Kay Ryan, Mark Doty, Bob Hicok, Li-Young Lee, Aimee Nezhukumatahil, Rebecca Wee, Sharon Olds, and even John Ashbery (which is a surprise to me, as I don't think of his poems as very accessible). Best of all, I got to see one of my poems, "Anagrammer," which originally appeared in Poetry, included with the others. Yay. Hopefully I can lead some highschoolers (and others) down the dark path of anagrams and other word play.


Here is one from F. J. Bergmann

An Apology

Forgive me
for backing over
and smashing
your red wheelbarrow.

It was raining
and the rear wiper
does not work on
my new plum-colored SUV.

I am also sorry
about the white
chickens.



*

Pottery or Poetry?

Re: the question of productivity, it seems we poets are all over the board on this: from those who write 3 or 4 poems a year, to those who write a poem or more a day, and everywhere in between (I'm 3-5 poems a month, maybe). In The Midnight Disease, Alice Flaherty discusses this in a chapter about writer’s block, by referring to an anecdotal study of pottery students (emphasis on anecdotal):

“ . . . a ceramics teacher [who] divided his class into two groups. One group was graded solely on the quality of its best work; the other, solely on the quantity of work (fifty pounds of pots rated an A, forty a B, and so on). Students in the quality group needed only produce one perfect pot to get an A. Ironically, the best pots were produced in the quantity group.” pg 95 (italics mine)

Hmmmm . . . what did they do with all the pounds of crappy pots? And can the same be said for writing poems? What do you think? More meat for the grinder, grist for the mill, yeast for the loaf, stock for the pot, seed for the feeder . . . Stop me please.

Take Me to the Clouds Above

And on a lighter note: check out the fun dueling reviews of a pair of "Sonnet 69's" (one by Jim Behrle, one by Shakespeare) on Rhubarb is Susan. Make sure to find the second one in the interesting comment posted by Tomas Basboll.

The Wages of Mercy

“President Bush, now championing the right of Terri Schiavo’s parents to decide if her feeding tube should be reinserted, signed a Texas law in 1999 giving spouses top priority in making such decisions.” Cox News Service

Though I love them, I would NOT want my parents (sorry mom) to be making the decisions about my end-of-life care: that is the role of my life partner. If you are married, that is your spouse; if not “legally married” (as is true for many straight and gay couples), make sure you have a Living Will and a Durable Power of Attorney on file with your health care provider, stating your wish for your life partner to make decisions on your behalf. Also, make sure you have had the conversation with your spouse and family, about what your wishes are. It may not prevent the awful situation that the Schaivo case has become (they were even a married couple! Jeez), but it definitely increases the likelihood your wishes will be respected.


Here’s a poem:

The Wages of Mercy

The medics tell me he's been ten years
in the nursing home, dwindling
the past few weeks, refusing to eat,
asking only for his Winstons
and to be left alone.
Tonight when he spiked a fever,
and quickly became unresponsive,
with no family, no friends
to contact, the nurses asked
he be brought here, to the emergency room,
the open hands of strangers.

His color is awful. He's barely breathing.
I wonder for a moment what all
the commotion is about,
nurses frantically starting IV's
and drawing blood and
placing EKG electrodes;
it's only death —
as if we hadn't seen death before.

I shine a penlight into vacant
eyes, touch his heaving chest
and abdomen with the bell
of my stethoscope, listening
to the pneumonia crackle and pop.

The nurses ask what I want to do,
as if we must do something, anything.

I stroke a lock of matted hair
away from the old man's brow,
order a liter of saline and
some oxygen, biding time with comfort
as I sit at his bedside,
rifle through his voluminous chart.

Cardiac monitors beep and whir,
keeping guard with their syncopated melody.

The telephone rings three times, then stops.


from Saying the World

*

How Do You Sleep?

I got this from C Dale's blog. I am a side sleeper. Oh yeah. And Dean & I love to spoon.

Take the quiz: "Your Bedtime Body Language (PICS)(Guys Only)"

On Your Side
You are probably mild-mannered and rational. Since this semifetal sleeper takes up a minimal amount of space, he tends to be a giving lover. Also, he's way too sensible to play -- or stand for -- mind games.

My Palindrome

So, I figured it was only fair that I try my own exercise. Here's what I got -- still pretty rough, but I like where it's headed.


The Flowerless Branch

Each year a new spear
knifes up from the chips of bark,
rises, swells, sprouts delicate leaf pairs,
but still, no orchid flower.
We fertilize, water; don’t fertilize,
don’t water; move the pot
from dim hallway to bright living room —
and still: flowerless. Like us
living without a child? Two men,
barren as a cuckoo and a mule.
Barren as a cuckoo and a mule
living without a child. Two men.
And still, flowerless, like us
from dim hallway to bright living room —
don’t water; move the pot
we fertilize, water; don’t fertilize.
But still no orchid flower
rises, swells, sprouts delicate leaf pairs,
knifes up from the chips of bark.
Each year a new spear.

Palindrome Poems

A palindrome is word, phrase, or other text whose letters spell the same backward and forward. Some well-known examples are MADAM I’M ADAM, and A MAN, A PLAN, A CANAL, PANAMA!

A word palindrome is made when the words (rather than the letters) of text read the same forward and backward, as in SO PATIENT A DOCTOR TO DOCTOR A PATIENT SO (one of my personal favorites).

A line palindrome is when the individual lines of a text make a palindromic sequence. Notice how the following poem by James A. Lindon reads identically from the first line to the last as it does from the last to the first. (It's from Dmitri Borgmann's Beyond Language (1967)). I think it is amazing how an identical line changes it’s meaning completely from one end of the poem to the other.


Doppelgänger

Entering the lonely house with my wife
I saw him for the first time
Peering furtively from behind a bush –
Blackness that moved,
A shape amid the shadows,
A momentary glimpse of gleaming eyes
Revealed in the ragged moon.
A closer look (he seemed to turn) might have
Put him to flight forever –
I dared not
(For reasons that I failed to understand),
Though I knew I should act at once.
I puzzled over it, hiding alone,
Watching the woman as she neared the gate.
He came, and I saw him crouching
Night after night.
Night after night
He came, and I saw him crouching,
Watching the woman as she neared the gate.
I puzzled over it, hiding alone –
Though I knew I should act at once,
For reasons that I failed to understand
I dared not
Put him to flight forever.
A closer look (he seemed to turn) might have
Revealed in the ragged moon
A momentary glimpse of gleaming eyes
A shape amid the shadows,
Blackness that moved.
Peering furtively from behind a bush,
I saw him, for the first time
Entering the lonely house with my wife.


Susan Stewart has a terrific line palindrome poem in her recent book Columbarium, where the form mirrors the action of the poem (a journey in to and out of Hell). This in only an excerpt:

Two Brief Views of Hell

Leaving the fringe of light at the edge of the leaves, deeper, then deeper,
the rocking back and forth movement forward through the ever-narrowing circle
that never, in truth, narrowed beyond the bending going in,
not knowing whether a turn or impasse would lie at the place
where the darkness turned into impenetrability, deep where
no longer could down or up or side to side be known, just the effort
to stay above the water, to keep one spread palm bearing
against the weight and then the other, deeper and deeper.
The way in was easy once it began. The way in was all necessity.
Behind the darkness, more darkness; beneath the water only water.
. . .
Behind the darkness, more darkness; beneath the water only water.
The way in was easy once it began. The way in was all necessity
against the weight and then the other, deeper and deeper
to stay above the water, to keep one spread palm bearing
no longer could down or up or side to side be known, just the effort
where the darkness turned into impenetrability, deep where
not knowing whether a turn or impasse would lie at the place
that never, in truth, narrowed beyond the bending going in,
the rocking back and forth movement forward through the ever-narrowing circle.
Leaving the fringe of light at the edge of the leaves, deeper, then deeper.

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

So:
The next time I am stuck with a poem that feels half-written, or seeming to end in mid-air, I am going to try completing it as a line palindrome, (simply rewriting what I have in reverse, and putting the two halves together) just to see what different things I might now be able to say. Hopefully it will be something interesting!

The Stick

Well thanks, C Dale. I got home just after midnight this morning. The vacation is over, and now I have this stick assignment! (But I love assignments.)

You're stuck inside Fahrenheit 451, which book do you want to be? Don Quixote.

Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character? The Skin Horse in The Velveteen Rabbit (the book was one of Dean's first gifts to me; he's my Skin Horse).

The last book you bought is: The Coronary Garden, by Ann Townsend. Loved the cover, the title poem; the rest . . . .?

The last book you read: Completely? The Captain Lands in Paradise, by Sarah Manguso (I usually don't completely finish a book, if I lose interest in it: this one held mine)

What are you currently reading? I'm still in the middle of The Midnight Disease . . . I read it bit by bit. Fascinating, occasionally annoying, stuff.

Five books you would take to a deserted island: I'd take five blank books, so I could write what I wanted . . . I do get a pen don't I?

Who are you going to pass this stick to (3 persons) and why? Hopefully these three haven't already been "stuck." I have been a little bit out of the loop for a while.

Rebecca Loudon, because she is divine.
Emily Lloyd, because I love Poesy Galore
David Koehn at Great American Pinup, because I like his picture. :)

I'll try not to bore you with too many vacation photos: but Dean and I had such a great time in Mazatlan! Unfortunately, I didn't get much writing done at all on this trip: I think I do much better when I am by myself: for instance at a writing retreat or conference, or just on my own writing days. But who knows what will come in the next few weeks as I look back. For now it's back to work at the clinic tomorrow and Saturday.

Anyway: Here's the view from our room's balcony, where we had many a delightful breakfast! 

Hey, Dean: watch where you are looking.