2016 books

I had a good year of reading, with a number of terrific books rolling through in December alone. I've been putting off making my list with the notion I might be able to stuff just one more in, but with 14 hours of 2016 left, it's not going to happen.

It wasn't a great year as politics goes, but Bob Dylan did win the Nobel Prize and I will never forget sitting at my desk flushed with surprise and delight, then spending days rebutting the naysayers. I found out I don't like Elena Ferrante, nor do I care who she is *in real life.* There were a number of books that underwhelmed, including Half a Life and Blood Will Out, which was very disappointing. Where did I get that book? 

Here are my favorite reads pretty much, though it is terribly difficult to make choices. I bolded 10 highlights below, but there are some others of course that almost made it.  

Best fiction: So Much For That Winter by Dorthe Nors, A Place of Greater Safety by Hilary Mantel

Best poetry: Bright Dead Things by Ada Limon, The End of the West by Michael Dickman, Death Tractates by Brenda Hillman 

Best non-fiction: The Three Christs of Ypsilanti by Milton Rokeach

Other: The Book of Embraces by Eduardo Galeano

1. The Dinner by Herman Koch (Jan 3)

2. The Dog Stars by Peter Heller (Jan 7)
3. What the Truth Tastes Like by Martha Silano (Jan 16)
4. Going After Cacciato by Tim O’Brien (Jan)
5. Zinky Boys by Svetlana Alexievich (Jan 27)
6. Chocky by John Wyndham (Jan 29)
7. Bright Dead Things by Ada Limon (Feb 6)
8. Hotel World by Ali Smith (Feb 7)
9. The Book of Strange New Things by Michel Faber (Feb 18)
10. Swoop by Hailey Leithauser (Feb 20)
11. Shockwave by Stephen Walker (Feb 22)
12. The Scented Fox by Laynie Browne (Feb 29)
13. The Three Christs of Ypsilanti by Milton Rokeach (Feb 29)
14. Blood Will Out by Walter Kirn (Mar 3)
15. Kindred by Octavia Butler (Mar 17)
16. The Wind Blows Through the Doors of My Heart by Deborah Digges (Mar 19)
17. My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante (Mar 27)
18. Heartsnatcher by Boris Vian (April 6)
19. A Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra (April 21)
20. There Was An Old Woman by Jessy Randall (May 2)
21. Five Days At Memorial by Sherry Fink (May 17)
22. Selected Translations by WS Merwin (May 28)
23. Universal Themes in Literature by Howie Good (online chap, May 29)
24. The Vegetarian by Kang Han (June 3)
25. The Book of Embraces by Eduardo Galeano (June)
26. The Possessed by Elif Batuman (June 25)
27. Half a Life by Darin Strauss (Jul 1)
28. The End of the West by Michael Dickman (Jul 3)
29. Small Boat by Lesle Lewis (Jul 5)
30. Sight Lines by Sandra Marchetti (online chap, Jul 5)
31. drip, drip by Lizi Gilad (online chap, Aug 1)
32. Stone Bruises by Simon Beckett (Aug 11)
33. Death Tractates by Brenda Hillman (Aug 11)
34. Where There’s Smoke by Simon Beckett (Aug 13)
35. It Is Such a Good Thing to Be in Love With You by David Welch (Sep 2)
36. A Place of Greater Safety by Hilary Mantel (Sep 16)
37. Ochre by Gla4 (online chap, Sep 18)
38. 102 Minutes: Untold Story of the Fight to Survive Inside the Twin Towers - Jim Dwyer (Sep 27)
39. Misery by Stephen King (Sep 29)
40. It’s Not How Good You Are, It’s How Good You Want to Be by Paul Arden (Oct 25)
41. Seven Years by Peter Stamm (Oct 17)
42. Crash by JG Ballard (Nov 1)
43. Chinoiserie by Karen Rigby (Nov 1)
44. The hows and why of my failures by Dan Nowak (chapbook, Nov 5)
45. Lovely Green Eyes by Arnost Lustig (Nov 12)
46. Pigeons in the Grass by Wolfgang Koeppen (Nov 23)
47. The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder (Nov 27)
48. Mislaid by Nell Zink (Dec 5)
49. So Much For That Winter by Dorthe Nors (Dec 9)
50. Arthur and George by Julian Barnes (Dec 16)
51. The Immortality of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot (Dec 25)
52. A House in the Sky by Amanda Lindhout and Sara Corbett (Dec 27)

Things I Love (v-day, a day late)

Fontina cheese. Talking Heads. Kurt Schwitters. Kalamata olives. David Markson. Peonies. Santa Fe. The Greatest. The oceans. Bidú Sayao. Villette. Rioja. Gingham. Good Reads. Paul Klee. Almonds. Dusk Litany. Black-eyed Susans. Titled. Lichtenberg. Brown paper. Brattleboro. Mairead Byrne. 72 Fahrenheit. Candles. Babies. Dachshunds. My Dead Friends. Fernando Pessoa. Fondue. Rucola. BWV 82. Norman Dubie. Teal. Marimekko. Fireplaces. Affentor. Tapioca pudding. Brittany. Chanel 5. Garamond. Meryl Streep. German. Acorns. Daunt Books. Lavender. Bath bombs. Barrister bookcases. MoMA. Collage. Garlic. Satie. Street cars. Tidiness. The glottal stop. Book art. Complex plots. Warm washcloths on airplanes. Adjectives. Szymborska. Steak. Alexievich. The Jackson 5. Birdsong. Kimonos. Wooden matches. Emily Dickinson. Naples. Calligraphy. Upscale hotels. Aspirin. Lake Constance. Breast feeding. Spoons. Pocket knives. WS Merwin. Snow. Persimmons. Apollinaire. Burt Bacharach. Camper shoes. The Owl and the Pussycat. Pipe tobacco. Bright Pittsburgh Morning. Licorice. Wattwandern. Popcorn. Aprons. Hans Arp. Swann’s Way. Dark blue velvet. Chai latte. Chuang Tzu. Lord of the Rings. Pocket watches. Clouds.

Petals fell like snow into the year of the monkey

Good Wife of Hunan

You knew I’d been up all night startling the wok 

and I’d been up for ages grooming the dog star
of ticks, throwing a tarp over all that barking
for the sake of the neighbors and cosmic harmony.
Clearly I’d been up with my measuring stick
by the river, which chilled my toe bones and triggered
that crying-jag phone call to my mother two monasteries
west of here, my mother who was glad to have girls.
Spring petals fell like snow into the year of the monkey.
Snow fell like snow into the year of the cat.
And it seemed I’d be up startling the wok
for generations and it seemed I was going to live
to see 10,000 or at least the day you dropped dead
drunk from the jug of plum wine and I’d shown 

the barking star who’s master.

Song of the day: Year of the Cat

The 5th Gospel

We spent the weekend in Leipzig, where my husband wanted to see a concert of Baroque music. On Saturday we arrived in time to see the afternoon program at St. Thomas Church, where Bach was musical director. It was my second time in Leipzig and both times I was lucky to attend the hour-long Saturday program in this church. 2 euros. Can’t be beat.

We stayed directly across from the church in a comfortable hotel. Nice bed, nice tub, kitchenette for making your own coffee, which we are very attached to. We take our own coffee pot with us, and our coffee, and find a market for fresh whole milk, preferably 3.8%, etc. 

We also visited the small Bach museum. We didn’t expect much but it was surprisingly enjoyable and modern. There was Bach’s family tree (the males, anyway, it must be noted) with its many musicians. He traced back past 1575 to a person named Veit, a baker who fled Hungary and played music in his mill. The listening room was the highlight, then the organ. 

My husband asks what appeals to me about religious music if I don’t believe in god and the answer is it expresses such exquisite longing. Bach is the height of it. Bach’s cantatas have been called “the fifth gospel” because of their beauty and apparent ability to sway heathens to Jesus and Christianity. 

If I must ascribe to something, sign me up. 

Leipzig

I visited Leipzig for the first time earlier this month. My daughter and I stayed at a latchkey hotel just outside downtown, across from an abandoned building. It’s a clean, small city, sometimes called “Hypezig” because it’s supposedly the new Berlin, full of hipsters and used record shops. I bought a few used CDs myself, and so did Luisa. In an antique shop I also bought a handful of old photos for about 1.90 euros a pop. I love the texture and coloring of them. On the back of the one on the left it says "Oma Martha mit Martin." The one on the right doesn't say anything, but I love the look of the pensive young man, his military suit, and his yellowing frame.

The highlight was seeing the Thomaskirche, where Bach’s remains are buried. Bach’s music is gorgeous purity and longing, and I am a huge fan. I found out the boys’ choir would be singing a Bach cantata at 3 pm on Saturday, and I left Luisa to her wanderings to attend. I got there around 2.30 and found two long lines. Tickets were 2 euros. The place was packed and the best bet was the nave, where the acoustics weren't great, but there were plenty of seats. I sat beside a nice gentleman right next to Bach’s grave. The man told me how the remains found their way there after WWII and how we owe it to a mason and a knowledgable civil servant from the Russian culture ministry that Bach's bones were salvaged at all.

It's a simple grave - you can touch it, or lay flowers there if you want. All you have to do is arrive. 

Some observations on my trip to France, from my semi-German perspective

First, France is more beautiful than Germany because its ancient buildings are still standing.

Also, France is more of a mess than Germany because its ancient buildings are still standing.

Germany looks more well off. I looked at the GDP per capita stats, however, and it’s not that much richer, #11 vs #13 in Europe. So why does France look rundown? Is it those ancient buildings, which are painfully charming but also slowly disintegrating?

We visited Semur-en-Auxois, for example, by reputation one of the most worthwhile villages in Burgundy. It’s enchanting from a distance, like outside the town walls or from one of the town towers. But close-up it’s sad. I say it reluctantly. 

Semur-en-Auxois

Ancient buildings hold 1000x more charm than any efficient modern structure. Ancient buildings pose 100 more problems, and need more care. 

France is more rural and less populated than Germany, which is relaxing when you’re driving through the rolling landscape. Germany has rural areas, too, but its uninhabited areas are often wooded rather than agrarian. 

It is also true that the French are not punctual. As my husband told the man who was supposed to meet us at 4 pm to let us into our apartment but showed up at 5.30, “Roland, la ponctualité est pas votre force.” This after Monsieur Roland was also an hour late for our meeting to return our deposit and reclaim our keys. In fact rather than being ‘just’ 50 minutes late, he was out in the street stretching it out to a full hour with a smoke break - we saw him. 

“Je suis désolé Je suis désolé Je suis désolé,” he protested. Désolé, my ass. 

It is indisputable that the French language is fabulous. I wish I’d stuck to my French lessons. 

Gorgeous place. The well-cared-for abbey of Fontenay brought me to tears. 

Also Proust and Satie and Apollinaire and Matisse. 

But fate has delivered me to Germany, where I am late for work, accompanied daily by Weltschmerz and Bach cantatas.

“Herr Camper related that when a missionary painted the flames of Hell to a congregation of Greenlanders in a truly vivid fashion, and described at length the heat they gave out, all the Greenlanders began to feel a strong desire to go to Hell.” - Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, Notebook G, The Waste Books

Jewels and Binoculars (week 21)

Listened to: I’ll Keep It With Mine, one of my favorite Bob Dylan songs, in honor of his birthday

Watched: This spoof on women fending off compliments

Inside: Dog hair city
Outside: That time of year when the wisteria rhymes with hysteria

Read: Wislawa Szymborska’s “The Kindness of the Blind”
Wrote: Lots of “(noun) of (noun)” phrases

Ate: Rucola with feta, pine nuts and potatoes
Drank: Italian red 

Yeah: Galleys for upcoming poem in Bird’s Thumb 

Nay: sports fandom and “patriotism” that depends on war glory

Discussed: Handwriting. Writing a letter by hand nowadays is like walking instead of driving a car. Everyone looks at you like you’re weird, or at least that’s how you feel.
Decided: I should get a full-length manuscript together, just lazy and insecure.

Missed: My parents
Acquired: Birthday presents for the kids

Cursed: Housework
Learned: There’s a swath of grey hair under the top layer of my hair. I found it at the hairdresser's. I thought it was (undissolved) mousse. 

Word of the week: Ampule, which sound electric but is filled with liquid

Pithiness: If the only prayer you said was thank you, that would be enough. ― Meister Eckhart

Every appointment has been moved to last week

Listened to: Audio book of The Dogs of Riga, a Henning Mankell book
Read: More Proust

Saw: Gladiators battle, or at least some serious guys dressed as gladiators
Watched: Thebans, an opera by Julian Anderson

Laughed: Fakely
Cursed: Genuinely

Nay: Homesick
Yeah: Poem accepted at One Sentence Poems

Acquired: Labello. I blow through a lot of money but don’t seem to acquire much.
Discarded: A German guide to bike tours in Ireland

Visited: Roman-Germanic museum, Cologne
Learned: Oedipus had four children, two of whom killed each other. Kind of a bad family situation there all around. 

Ate: Cinnamon buns
Drank: Starbucks products 

Inside: Yoga, a little too close to the guy in front of me’s feet
Outside: Pushed a shopping cart full of beer across a lawn along the Main River, accompanied by a colleague holding an umbrella over my head

Word of the week: Wafer (if the wafer of light offends me - charles wright)

Pithiness: "It’s easier to help the hungry than the overfed." - Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach


Thanks to Valerie Roybal for permission to use the image

April into May

Listened to: Spiritual High Part II
Read: The End of Retirement by Jessica Bruder (Harper’s, Aug. 2014) 

Saw: A documentary on the Lodz ghetto
Watched: Interstellar 

Laughed: Amy Schumer
Cursed: Bad news from kid’s school

Nay: 4 rejections
Yeah: 1 acceptance, and an essay published at Lunch Review 

Acquired: Toiletries
Discarded: Moth-eaten clothes

Visited: Traiteur Jeanette café
Finished: PoMoSco, the April project of found poetry 

Ate: Tarte au Citron Meringuée
Drank: Spanish wine

Inside: Wiped down bathroom walls
Outside: Rode a bike, jogged, got rained on 

Word of the week: Wingless, disguised as wineglass

Pithiness: “I stayed in a really old hotel last night. They sent me a wakeup letter.”  Steven Wright 

Last week

Listened to: Vogliatemi Bene, Un Bene Piccolino (Madame B)
Read: Paul Hostovsky’s poem “Man Praying in a Men’s Room”

Saw: Photography Forum exhibition ‘Augen auf!’
Watched: Dressed to Kill with Michael Caine & Angie Dickinson (Brian De Palma) 

Laughed: The End of the World news bit
Cursed: Long, unproductive conversations 

Nay: Overcrowded yoga class
Yeah: Poem accepted by Gravel Magazine

Acquired: It was a low-spend week. I bought a magazine.
Discarded: Uneaten food gone bad

Visited: The mountains
Learned: Most refrigerators are set at too low a temperature to keep meat until its ‘best by’ date

Ate: Blueberry pie
Drank: Coffee, coffee, coffee 

Word of the week: Small, as noun (the small of the back, the small of the valley, would you like to try a small)
Pithiness: Language most shows a man: Speak, that I may see thee. - Ben Jonson

Buying the farm

One day long ago when I was living a lonely and desolate life in Kansas, my jeep skidded on black ice on of I-135 North. I happened to be crossing an overpass at that moment and as the jeep slid right towards the guardrail, I was sure it would topple over and plunge from the bridge to the field below. This all seemed to happen in slow motion, giving me time to recall the euphemism of “someone buying the farm,” and thinking how pathetic it was that the last song I would have listened to in my life was whatever pop song was playing on the radio at the time. I confess I have forgotten it now, mostly because when the jeep finally did slam against the guardrail, it was arrested there, still standing on all four tires, the view of the field below mercifully far away. Oddly enough, at the other side of that field was a Chrysler dealership, and I slowly drove the jeep along the shoulder and down the off-ramp towards it. I was shaking and grateful to still be among the living. The salesmen at the dealership shrugged and dismissed me. I was free to return to my empty life on the plains. It struck me then that no one would have missed me, I had no one to tell my story to, and the life of self-imposed isolation I had chosen had not turned me into a romantic figure, but a sad mass of loneliness.

This poem is two years old, but I remembered it this weekend when a jeep drove by.

The past week in pleasure & pain

Listened to: Jolie Holland sing Pure Imagination
Read: Novel Interiors

Lorenza Guzman 

Saw: A man in pink pajamas smoking a cigarette and talking on the phone in an upstairs window along my streetcar route. 

Watched: The German movie Kriegerin, about neo-nazis in the northeast. An eye-opener.

Laughed: The drunken squirrel 

Cursed: Fate

Failed: Rejections
Succeeded: Finished a book review I’ve been promising 

Regretted: Offering someone a thank-you gift who proceeded to treat me like shit. At the end of the shit session, she held out her hand to receive the gift, which I changed my mind about (I regretted the offering, not the withholding). 

Realized: Spite is karma's handmaid. 

Visited: Frankfurt’s Palmengarten, the local botanical garden. 

Learned: There is a type of rose named ‘Aspirin.’

Ate: Meatballs, rucola, mozzarella, peanuts, rolls, tomatoes, crackers, cookies, chocolate, octopus, fontina.
Enjoyed: Lorenza Guzman sculptures 

Word of the week: Mazurka, a dark dynamic word that means Polish folk song
Pithiness: The thoughts written on madhouse walls by their inmates might be worth publicizing. - Lichtenberg

Had the Day off

Pruned the roses and cut back the ropey, dead clematis
Kissed the Rome-bound husband & son goodbye
Delivered wonderdog to her vacation
Took a stab at some found poems before PoMoSco
Went grocery shopping
Read Emily Dickinson’s #420 (There are two Ripenings)
Ate a salad of rucola, tomatoes & mozzarella, like an Italian flag
Bought a song on iTunes
Basked in the sunshine on the terrace
Shook three men’s hands
Posted a Throwback Thursday photo
Learned a childhood friend’s sad fate

Bergmanesque

Last night at a concert I discovered one of my most longstanding misreadings. A countertenor was singing a raft of French songs, including Claude Debussy’s Prelude and Clair de Lune, two of his best known pieces.

The concert program included the lyrics and I was reading the actually kind of lame melodramatic texts of various songs (o my heart) and it was slowly revealed to me that the two Debussy songs were not from what I’ve long been reading as Suite Bergmanesque, but from Suite Bergamasque. 

In other words, the songs weren’t a homage to the Swedish director Ingmar Bergman as I’ve been unconsciously assuming for about 25 years, but to a clownish dance from the Italian town of Bergamo. Since I never thought about the inspiration for the songs, or dwelled on any associations I made with them, I’d never corrected this abiding trick of the eye. 

You’d think it would have occurred to me that Bergman and Debussy didn't have overlapping lifetimes. In fact they missed each other by four months - Debussy died in March 1918 while Bergman was born in July of that year - meaning the composer never had the opportunity to see Wild Strawberries, or The Seventh Seal, or even the first movie Bergman directed, To Joy.

Well, dear 25 years, it’s been lovely having Debussy’s Prelude evoke all those Swedish walks on the beach, and letting Clair de Lune call forth the light in the foghorn scene from Persona. In fact, I think I’ll continue to let it. It’s much more pleasing than an awkward Italian dance from a town best known these days for its rinky-dink airport, served primarily by Ryanair.

The week that was

On a 1-10 scale, the past week gets a weak 5. No one died or anything. Nor did a tree fall on my car, but I don’t drive. The week didn’t win an award for leading actress, or screenplay, or original score. And I banged my elbow. 

Listened to: Map to the Treasure: Reimagining Laura Nyro
Reading: In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower by Marcel Proust

Saw: Birdman. I wasn’t crazy about it. And the popcorn sucked. 

Learned: To properly pronounce sangfroid 

Laughed: My own joke at work, which involved an English nursery rhyme peppered with German. That’s how desperate I was for humor.
Cursed: Being 5 minutes late for yoga, meaning I was locked out.

Failed: The moths are back.
Succeeded: Drafted a poem; received an acceptance

Regretted: My desk calendar. Every day there’s a new photo, and 55% of the time it seems to be a selfie, and god knows we’ve had enough of that.
Dreamed: My father was taking a bath in a shed in a rural setting. He got all contorted and was shouting for help. Luisa and I were nearby but I said he was just making noise and didn’t need help but Luisa went and helped him get out of the tub, exasperated with me.

Acquired: A rose-scented candle
Discarded: A purple poncho

Ate: Risotto Milanese
Ingested: A mouthful of exhaust smoke

Word of the week: Flummox, a well-built verb with an unconventional ending. 

Pithiness: "We spend our time envying people we wouldn’t like to be." - Jean Rostand

A week of limited daylight

Read: Walter Benjamin radio broadcast on dogs. I enjoyed the stories, but objected to how Linneas’ description takes the male as the norm and sets the female aside as a special category of dog.  

Listened to: Sharkey’s Day

Laughed:  Loud eating in the library

Learned: Pigeons, through a genetic glitch, can breed all year round.

Failed: Photography. I need to photograph a stationary, outdoor object for a piece I wrote and I can’t seem to get it right. Limited daylight has not helped.

Triumphed: Guided two well-coiffed Swiss ladies from the Hauptbahnhof to the Chrismas market via the UBahn 

Watched: A typeface video using part of Borges’ poem “Break of Day” (below)

Observed: It is too warm for December. 

Started: Keeping a dream journal

Dreamed: (Dec. 7) "I wanted to become a detective in a seaside town, and as part of the application I had to write a poem. As a prelude, the police department required I sleep with a young man, then write the poem. I was anxious about this, also because I’m married. I had to really consider how much I wanted to be a detective. I was worried the poem would be worse than the sex. I was worried the sex would be worse than the poem. The police department was populated by nicely dressed middle-aged people, polite, but not particularly sympathetic. They did not look like poets."

Discarded: A scarf I never wore. Threw it away once before, then rescued it. For real this time. 

Acquired: A tablecloth. This may seem trivial, but since our kitchen tablecloths serve anywhere from one to three years, it’s revolutionary. 

Received: A Pushcart nomination for my poem “Smoking Jacket” 

Ate: Braised carrots with honey and thyme

Drank: Glühwein without alcohol, though I’m not sure how that’s possible

Visited: Drawn by the children’s books in the window, the bookstore Weltenleser

Realized: No matter how many ads you ‘hide’ on FB, there are more. 

Word of the week: Skirmish. A quirky-sounding word related to scrimmage, probably from old German skirmen, to defend. 

Pithiness of the week: Tradition is the most sublime form of necrophilia. - Hans Kudszus

Montserrat from Fernando Lazzari on Vimeo.

Desuetude

Reading: Swann’s Way by Marcel Proust
Listened to: Le Tourbillon by jeanne moreau

Laughed: Bible Verses Where The Word “Philistines” Has Been Replaced With “Haters”
Learned: “Humility” and “humiliation” come from Latin “humus,” aka dirt. 

Failed: Went to the Christmas Market, but it wasn’t open.
Triumphed: My chapbook “Heiress to a Small Ruin” was accepted by DGP and will be published next winter. I almost didn’t send it in. 

Dreamed: of an encounter with a Jehovah’s Witness
Realized: Sugar drenches everything

Watched: Memento, a poorly executed psycho thriller
Observed: The introverts seem to have stopped talking about how introverted they are. 

Discarded: indecipherable German snail mail
Received: Dogfight at the Pentagon from a colleague 

Ate: Falafel
Drank: Chai tea, coffee, wine, sparkling water 

Bought: very little
Did without: very little

Pithiness of the week: "There are persons who, when they cease to shock us, cease to interest us." FH Bradley 

Word of the week: Desuetude
“Even when she had to give an armchair, silverware, a walking stick, she looked for ‘old’ ones, as though, now that long desuetude had effaced their character of usefulness, they would appear more disposed to tell us about the life of people of other times than to serve the needs of our own life.” (Swann's Way)

Weekly arrangements

Reading: Can’t and Won’t by Lydia Davis
Listened to: Can I Kick It by A Tribe Called Quest (my daughter’s favorite song)

Watched: Sherlock Holmes episode “The Golden Pince-Nez”

Observed: Underneath my daughter’s bed lies a decade of dust.

Discarded: Scads of old poetry journals, moth-eaten sweaters
Received: 2 rejections, 1 acceptance 

Ate: Spinach-gorgonzola pizza, raspberries with vanilla yoghurt, brioche
Drank: Stinging nettle tea

Bought: A big expensive bookcase that I don’t feel guilty about
Did without: A grey cardigan with cloth buttons at a new shop downtown

Forgot: How to spell wool
Learned: More than I cared to know about the death of Jim Morrison

Failed: To exercise
Triumphed: Brought all the Dickens, Brontë and Hardy books to my room and arranged them together on a shelf. For the win. 

Dreamed: I was woken up and interrogated by an editorial committee of men right out of the 1950s.
Realized: In a shop on Saturday I realized that my husband’s (groundless) insistence that he is a size L has its equivalent in my always insisting I take an S. 

Word of the week: WOOL
Pithiness of the week: “Continuous eloquence is tedious,” wrote Pascal.

Dew settles on the hood of my car

Hey! I have a poem in the new issue of Tinderbox. It’s called “Poem Written After Reading a Poem With a Boat in It.” This is a poem that started with the title, and is kind of a poke at myself for liking poems with long titles. It’s also a homage to the Chinese. And an ode to motherhood, and an observation about a statue, and a nod to Weltschmerz. It’s anything you want.

Lots of poets I admire are in this issue, including Sally Rosen Kindred, Martha Silano, Donna Voreyer and Carol Berg. Carol has a poem with a title even longer than mine: “Belly-Ache Bush With Giant Sphinx Moth: Plate #15 by Maria Sibylla Merian.” As they say in Germany, ‘Respekt.’ 

Please you go read.
*

This song on my iPod helped me navigate home today. 

Every appointment has been moved to last week

Ate: Chicken soup

Drank: Chamomile tea 

Read: About a German soldier in WWII who forged documents for Dutch jews. “Klemke, whose artwork made him a consummate storyteller, never talked about that stage of his life. A cartoonist who knew Klemke said that aspect of the story might not make sense in an age when people log on to social media to boast about minor accomplishments.” Recommended read. 

Listened to: Langley School Music Project, fun, and a tearjerker

Discarded: Unread newspapers

Received: A rejection after 10 months. Gets kind of annoying, that.

Saw: Got on a bus stuffed with senior citizens, strollers and a guy with a loudly wheezing bulldog. After 4 minutes on the road, the driver pulls over and gets out to inspect the bus. He looks up and down and behind, and finally opens the middle door, where he sees the rhythmically rasping animal. OH, IT’S THE DOG! he says. 

Decided: Old German drunks are among the funniest (from afar, of course) because of German, which in some mouths makes you sound drunk already. 

Failed: Mismanaged time left and right.

Triumphed: uhhhh….?

Dreamed: My daughter told me she dreamed I was a fascist concocting an elaborate plan to poison her. I said my dream was more exciting: I dreamed I broke three mugs in our kitchen and had to replace them. 

Laughed: Found a tweep whose shtick is to implant “your mom” in CNN headlines, as in “Your Mom Drenches Mexico,” and “Boy Bands Are Now Doing Your Mom.” Gets more mileage than you’d expect. 

Word of the week: Liebeskummer, German for ‘love troubles’ or ‘lovesickness.’

Pithiness of the week: O useless soulmate of my tedium. (Pessoa)