STATUS CHECK

9:04 a.m., Wednesday, Aug. 28, 2013. TERMINE! Finished the last of 57 poem-sculptures that will make up moi 2014 book, MICHEL'S REPRODUCTIONS OF THE LOST FLAG.

'Twas more complicated and difficult than I anticipated. Am relieved the first draft is finished.

Synchronistic now that whilst sculpting, I was reading during coffee breaks Daniel Silva's novel-series about an Israeli spy who also is a master restorer of paintings. To be mired in a world of radical politics requiring extreme sanctions and yet never losing sight of the singular integrities of Art. All useful scaffolding as I chiseled away at prose blocks.

Two more manuscripts. Then, shall the Poetry Muse release me? I wonder, since I would not be unhappy to be so released. Ironic. I've so desired to plumb Poetry's mysteries and fell deep with so much joy and appetite. Now, I wouldn't mind yet another way. Poetry's light is blinding, but it is dark light.

**

Only a (King Lear's) Fool would ever want to be a poet.

The problem is that being a poet is not about what one wants. It's not (just) about desire. It's also about helplessness...

HOLA CHILE!

So honored to appear HERE.

Muchas gracias, editor Bill Allegrezza!

"SONG" by Marton Koppany

"Song" (see below) has just become one of my favorite Marton Koppany visual works. And that's because I interpret it as an ars poetica. Whatever one says -- whatever a poem presents -- is inevitably affected by the listener/viewer's subjectivity and so the communicated or poetry experience is completed by audience -- as shown by the incomplete bubbles of its speech balloons. But note, too, how the bubbles are incomplete. That is, the shapes taken out of the bubbles look like bite-marks (those shapes could have been shaped in numerous other ways, like a crack; instead, they offer the implication that the listener/viewer "bit" into (or interrupted) the remarks or poems. This implies that the incompleteness of the remark or poem may be due, not to the communicator/author but because, the audience is not totally listening to the message. Either way the result is the same: the experience is affected by its audience.

Further, note how Marton positioned the speech balloons to be coming from what looks like nests. That's apt, for what is being communicated is just the egg to what will become the experience.

Last but not least, I do appreciate the work's optimism as denoted by its title, "Song" and enhanced by the choice of light blue for the background. It suggests that the experience will be a beneficial one, and while one cannot hope for that worthwhile interaction from all or most general communications, one can hope for it when what's being presented is a poem. Hence, ars poetica.

Thannnnnnnnnnnk you, Marton!

A MOM RANTS

Yesterday I fell into a conversation with a local Mom. Her son is in the same grade as mine (high school junior). She's also Russian. When we compared our (generation's) upbringing, we both recalled having reading poems and even memorizing them. This was just a small point to the larger point -- to wit, what seems to us to be a low threshold in education. Take reading: she says her son's school doesn't seem to encourage reading outside of in-class reading. Uh huh. I replied that, fortunately, my son's school recommends books for outside-school reading, e.g. during the summer (I told her that her son might as well read HIROSHIMA, since that was one of two (only two?) recommended summer reading for my son's class).

But what I also said is that with the start of the junior year, my son has homework from his parents to write a paragraph a day on any topic to bolster his writing skills. (When we bought school supplies last weekend, we also bought a notebook for this homework-from-parents.) And I also said that while we always encouraged (okay, pushed!) my son to read, we also encouraged him to write mini-reports on what's being read. Because just because a person reads a book doesn't mean s/he understands or engages with it and the mini-reports -- e.g., a paragraph per chapter -- forces the child to consider the topic more so that it's not in one ear and out the other (or is that in one eye and out the other?).

I could go on. But what is tragic about this is how many families allow their children's education to be someone else's purview (like a school mired in budget cutbacks). It seems to me to be a vicious circle: the school ends up dumbing down its curriculum because of what the students can handle ... and the students aren't given enough resources (and parental attention) to step up on their education. Hence, one result can be what Professor Leny says about college students in one, very telling post (that's actually about white privilege but this is the paragraph lingering with me):

I am thinking of assigning your novel as a text but am afraid they can't handle 400 pages. This semester they are reading two short memoirs and a book of short essays and not all of them bought the books. They take notes in class during lecture and discussion and take just enough information to use in their papers. I could go on and on about how I have dumbed down my syllabus since the start of my teaching fifteen years ago but that would bore you to tears. And you probably already know the story.

I could go on, but as this is a poetics blog let me go back to poetry. Yes, poetry has a small audience -- always has and possibly always will. That doesn't bother me. What bothers me is how a significant cause to that smallness is not the quality or nature of what poets are writing -- it's the quality or nature of intellectual development being instilled in our children, or not being instilled thereof.

How to become proactive thinkers instead of passive receptors for others' agendas, how to think for themselves -- if we can instill that in children, a lot of things fall into place. Instead, I know many schools now have school administrations and teachers (no doubt in an attempt to be pragmatic with what's facing them) bifurcating education into college-prep and non-college prep. This totally ignores how students in both groups are living together in the same country whose leaders are elected by its citizens regardless of their school degrees. Dumb people, people, elect dumb -- or worse, per the headlines, corrupt -- leaders. There should be a way to educate children without relating it to whether they're going to continue their academic education beyond high school.

But I've lost track of my point, of course. As the above excerpt from Leny's post shows, even those who are going to college aren't receiving enough educational guidance.

So, WAKE UP, PEOPLE. And may I say, on a personal note and as I continue to leap around topics, I am sick of your tendencies to avoid responsibility whenever I read the day's headlines and consistently see how idiotic our "leaders" are behaving. Ignorance, indeed, is a way to avoid responsibility. And we put those dumb ass leaders in those positions of power specifically because we, too, are dumb ass. Do our retirement prospects a favor and educate the younger generation, please, to be waaaaay smarter than us.

What a delight it would be if (most) voters could handle "400 pages." Let's start with 40 pages, okay. But 4 pages is not sufficient, nor should it be acceptable.

Bottom line: Some people are into books; some are not. Either can be fine. But let's talk about the child's capability (vs. the child's personal interests). To wit: if your child graduates from high school let alone college without the ability to process a 400-page book, you can say this about the education the child got: it was not enough.

CONTINUING TO LIST...

Dear Blogger,

Please fix yourself. The teeny books on teen chairs are languishing coz I can’t post images! Let us agree not to derail enchantment!

Meanwhile, here’s the latest update of my Recently Relished W(h)ine List below. As ever, please note that in the Publications section, if you see an asterisk before the title, that means a review copy is available for Galatea Resurrects! More info on that HERE.

2013 SUMMER HARVEST
1 cantaloupe
1 red bellpepper
17 jalapeno peppers
50 yellow Heirloom tomatoes
1 red tomato
7 cherry tomatoes
19 green figs
4 Meyer lemons
6 yellow onions (pathetic: in one of Earth’s most fertile spots, that’s the total of my onion harvest for the season)
27 apricots
37 yellow squash
20 strawberries
9 Italian cucumbers
16 sprigs of basil


PUBLICATIONS
* PSYCHEDELIC NORWAY, poems by John Colburn (magnificent! LinkedIn Poetry Recommendation (LPR) # 58)

* RUBBLE PAPER PAPER RUBBLE, visual poetry by Paul Klinger (wonderfully conceptualized rubbings. Intriguingly evocative)

THE 1985 NOTEBOOK, visual poetry/asemic writing by Norma Kassirer (fabulous! LR #69)

* CROWNS OF CHARLOTTE: NC ODE, poems by Lee Ann Brown (Lady sure has marvelous diction! LR #59)

* FOR LACK OF DIAMOND YEARS by Caroline Beasley-Baker (such a lovely voice! LR #65)

SELECTED PO-EMS OF ED BAKER (a life well written and drawn!)

* AND THEN WHEN THE, poems by Dan Disney (a pleasurable read)

* UNDERGLOOM, poems by Prageeta Sharma (interesting intimacies)

* CROSSINGS, poems by Habib Tengour, Translated by Marilyn Hacker

* DANCE, poems by Lightsey Darst

* GO GIANTS, poems by Nick Laird

STAG’S LEAP, poems by Sharon Olds

ANTHOLOGY SPIDERTANGLE, visual poetry anthology edited by miekal And (fabulous! LR #63)

DEEP RIVER APARTMENTS, chap poetry anthology edited by Ivy Alvarez and featuring Shann Palmer, JL Thompson, Elaine Borthwick, Dionisio Velasco, Jennie Cole, Kirsten Irving, Angela Readman and Sam Rasnake (wonderful concept and manifestations. LR #53)

ON THE SHORTNESS OF LIFE, essay by Seneca, trans. by C.D.N. Costa

ANDREW LENAGHAN: PAINTINGS, art monograph

DETROIT: AN AMERICAN AUTOPSY, journalism by Charlie LeDuff (stellar work! And a timely read)

THE MOTORCYCLE DIARIES: NOTES ON A LATIN AMERICAN JOURNEY by Ernesto “Che” Guevara (moving, important and ever timely)

A COUNTRY PRACTICE: SCENES FROM THE VETERINARY LIFE by Douglas Whynott

ORPHAN JUSTICE: HOW TO CARE FOR ORPHANS BEYOND ADOPTING, study by Johnny Carr with Laura Captari

IF IT’S NOT ONE THING, IT’S YOUR MOTHER, humor by Julia Sweeney

HE’S GONE, novel by Deb Caletti

THE ENGLISH GIRL, novel by Daniel Silva

THE MESSENGER, novel by Daniel Silva

ORPHAN TRAIN, novel by Christina Baker Kline

SILENT SCREAM, novel by Linda LaPlante

BURNING TIME, novel by Leslie Glass


WINES
2004 Y
1990 Leoville Las Cases
1975 d'Yquem
1970 Latour
1959 Haut Brion
1992 Montrachet Louis latour
1968 Vega Sicilia
1990 Clerico Ciabot Mentin Ginestra Barolo
1990 Cos D'Estournel
1995 Finca Dofi
1989 Chassagne Montrachet Louis Latour
2004 Pahlmeyer
2009 Chianti Classico Ripanuda
Chianti Classico Tenuta Di Arceno
2010 Chafen Family Vineyards sauvignon blanc
2010 Layer Cake cabernet NV

WHAT IT'S LIKE (OR CAN BE LIKE) TO BE A POET

I was all day in San Francisco yesterday, moving from one meeting or session to another that involved me having to sign off on mucho legalese documents. And whilst in the elevator with the hubby in my lawyer's building downtown, we ended up sharing it with another lawyer. The hubby re-introduced us to each other, reminding me (since he knows moi memory is a sieve) that we'd met once before. The lawyer said, "Oh yes. I've read your poetry." Now. A wise poet -- and I like to think on matters like this I'm unlike moiself and am actually wise -- never expects to float through the world and bump into strangers who've read her poems. Never. So, to the lawyer's statement, I replied as I often do when I'm stumped. With humor. To wit, I replied, "I'm sorry" and we all laughed briefly as the lawyer (diplomatically if nothing else) paid a compliment to my poems (a compliment I realized was a compliment but didn't actually hear in its specifics because I was hearing instead the buzz of bemusement at being confronted this way). And because on matters like these I am wise, I've been reflecting on the incident. And, first, I am of course grateful to have had the incident -- because it's pretty rare when, as I've blatantly implied, poets meet a total or near-total stranger who's read their poems. And because I'm wise, I'm grateful. Then, being the perverse creature that Moi am, I become irritated. I'm irritated that I have to be grateful for moments like these. Because of course it hearkens the larger issue of how little poetry plays in many people's everyday lives ... such as that a poet can feel grateful for such incidents as yesterday's. Then I get irritated even more that I don't possess the grace to simply feel, Thank you, and then move on without being irritated. Then I get irritated at being reminded yet again of how I often am graceless. Then I get irritated at being irritated over what was an undeniably positive moment. And, now I'm sitting here berating myself -- mentally screaming at moiself, Don't you dare get irritated that the incident occurred, that someone actually read and liked your poems! Don't you dare! Sometimes, it's so ... so ... well, there's no other way to put it: so bloody irritating to be a poet!

LIST-ING THROUGH LIFE

Well, it’s difficult to do anything but post lists when Blogger has issues (can’t use "Compose" mode or post images, for example). So here’s an update on moi Recently Bought Poetry List of books by poets or about poets/poetry:

BOUGH BREAKS by Tamiko Beyer

SELECTED POEMS OF SALVADOR ESPRIU

CAN IT, memoir by Edmund Berrigan

PEOPLE ARE STRANGE, short stories with much poetry by Eric Gamalinda

SUSPENSION OF A SECRET IN ABANDONED ROOMS by Joshua Marie Wilkinson

THE VOICE AT 3:00 A.M. by Charles Simic

THE NEXT ANCIENT WORLD by Jennifer Michael Hecht

I WANT TO MAKE YOU SAFE by Amy King

THE FADING SMILE: POETS IN BOSTON FROM ROBERT LOWELL TO SYLVIA PLATH by Peter Davison

MANY WINTERS: PROSE AND POETRY OF THE PUEBLOS, by Nancy Wood with drawings and paintings by Frank Howell

ALL IS FORGOTTEN, NOTHING IS LOST, novel re poets and ars poetica by Lan Samantha Chang

DARED AND DONE: THE MARRIAGE OF ELIZABETH BARRETT AND ROBERT BROWNING, biography by Julia Markus

AFTERNOONS WITH EMILY, a portrait of Emily Dickinson by Rose MacMurray

STAGE PRESENCE: CONVERSATIONS WITH FILIPINO AMERICAN PERFORMING ARTISTS edited by Theo Gonzalves