all you need

Again I woke up at 4.30 and couldn’t fall back asleep. I was thinking about work and other sundries, and waiting for my husband to snore. He didn’t, but I was waiting for it. Yes, even his not snoring was keeping me awake. I was also thinking about Kathleen’s prompt to write a short poem with a long title. I had started one last week, and it kept growing longer, so there in bed, without the poem in front of me, I cut it down. At 5.30 I got out of bed to write it down. It is tentatively titled: “Lines written in a Japanese noodle shop watching a bldg be demolished.” I abbreviated building to keep it from being too long.

In less than 2 weeks we fly to the states for the annual tour. I’ve been thinking of the books I want to buy, but also thinking how I don’t want to lug them back. Last time I paid an overweight fee. So I took a look at Better World Books, where I’ve ordered before, indirectly via Amazon. Turns out they don’t charge for international shipping. This seems impossible. I am waiting for the email that says “free international shipping applies only to residents of pre-colonial Rhodesia.” Still, I ordered four books:
The Journal of Helene Berr
I Can’t Go On, I’ll Go On by Samuel Beckett
Citrus County by John Brandon
Faithful Ruslan by Georgi Vladimov

I found the LOVE sticker above today walking to the post office to send a copy of my chapbook to Emmanuel Polanco, the artist who provided me with the collage for the cover. It’s now on its way to Paris.

Satellite Plunges To Earth

A satellite has plunged to earth, but in Germany we are not concerned because the Pope is here. That’s right, Benedikt is touring the Vaterland. He spoke before Parliament the other day and got only positive press. Even the godless Greens are reportedly smitten with him. But not my daughter, who is in permanent protest mode. Good for her, though she could tone it down sometimes.

My chapbook has also plunged to earth, to the German earth, having finally arrived in the post yesterday. I am happy. I thought I might have made the wrong choices, but I am relieved. If anyone is interested in reviewing it, send me an email and I’ll send you a copy. While “supplies” last, of course.

After the teaser, Kathleen Kirk’s review is up at Prick of the Spindle. I also have four poems in the issue: The Russians Go With Everything, which is about big Russian books; Clue, which is about figuring out whodunit and why: Iron, a home totem poem; and Turning the Clocks Forward, about having to change the goddamned time to accommodate the seasons.

Bitte schön!

il fait un peu lourd et vos cheveux sont longs

The very kind Kathleen Kirk has posted a short review of my chapbook Excuse me while I wring this long swim out of my hair over at Escape into Life. She looks at the shorter poems, on which she based some exercises for her students, including write a very short poem with a very long title. I'm flattered. She tells me the piece is actually a "pre-review" from a review that will appear in Prick of the Spindle.

I'd actually like to write more short poems with long titles, being a fan of both. I wouldn't recommend, however, giving your book a very long title, as it can be kind of a pain in the ass having to type it out in full every time it comes up, providing opportunity for error.

Excuse me wihle I rig this long wig to my heir
Exclude me while I slam this ringworm from my ear
Excuse my wrought-iron swimring that longs for the pier
Excusez-moi pour mes longs cheveux en votre potage

endless fun...

Tinder Box

Timberwolf: Drizzle like fur on the car windows. My daughter coloring in the backseat, her monochrome of humming.

Tangerine: October leaves spilling down a hill.

Burnt Sienna: The fence along my mother’s lawn, spanning the yard like a long silence. From far off, the posts and rails look awkward and dilapidated, but closer, you see they accommodate each other.

Scarlet: Superstition, an old obstacle. Rose petals caught in sidewalk cracks.

Sea green: A twinge like the menthol of my mother’s Salems. Surplus paint in the motel halls.

Indigo: The years I vanished. Fatigue. A collapse of trust.

Butterscotch: Bored despair, drinking after bedtime.

Mahogony: The sheen of a law office table. My daughter’s braids, disappearing behind her back.

Orange: A nightlight. Penguin spines that lined the shelves along a hallway.

Copper: Flames left just terrace stones, tarnished knobs from an armoire, the lock on the bedroom chest, where the fire started.

Cornflower: I hope the words will come, like water comes.

Lemon yellow: Unripeness, disharmony. The guest who smiles too much.

Plum: A dark horse on our hill at dusk.

Ash: A litter of twigs, reading in a whisper, condolences.

Carnation pink: My daughter’s favorite crayon. It appears in all her drawings. Perfection, happiness. Just a stub now, there’ll never be enough of it.

lent et grave

No doubt fall is coming. Not too slow either. Even though it’s hot today (sticky).
How nice the park is with no people in it.

Just the birds.

The birds are tired of being in poems. They want out. They want left alone.
The lark (beauty). The cuckoo (bad breath). The woodpecker (who keeps its mouth shut).

The grass gives an inch. The wind unzips the trees.
The trees are tired of being in poems.
(They are composing something of their own.)

I laugh when someone says the future is uncertain.
The future, my friends, is always uncertain.
Mein Gott! It is our last hope.

I kill a bug. For real.
My dog cannot play dead; she can only play dying.

How nice the park is without people in it!
For years I suffered a mysterious respiratory affliction that was cured by listening to Erik Satie.

Sans serif

Like many people, I got my first look at the 9/11 memorial today - on the internet, of course. What I especially like about it is the sans serif typeface, which is simple and on the heavy side, but with good balance. I find it impressive. I've googled up and down but can't find the name of it. I did find a lot of other information, including how the names are arranged using algorhythmics - by relationship, and/or location. That was a great idea.

Look at this kid doing an etching of the engraving of his father's name. The first thing I thought of when I saw it was how I used to do those etchings on old gravestones. And then it struck me that that memorial is his father's gravestone.

I'm looking forward to visiting the memorial in October. If anyone figures out the typeface before then, tip me off.

dancing bananas

The dime that broke the bank.
The inch that took a mile.
The brain that paid no mind.
The shirt that hurt.
The conniption that fit.
The night that took all day.
The kiss to end all kisses.
The scam waxed phlegmatic.
I began smelling strongly of onions
when my fingernails burst into flame.

Nothing left to do

Gates Criticizes NATO
Mikhail Gorbachev Criticizes Vladmir Putin
Alberta Premier Criticizes Oil Spill Cleanup
Texas Senator Criticizes Man for Testifying in Spanish
Harry Potter Expert Criticizes Vatican Newspaper’s Glowing Review
Christian Left Criticizes Religious Right; Holds Counter-Event
Bachmann Criticizes Black Farmer Settlement
House GOP Criticizes White House Visitor Logs
Angelou Criticizes Inscription at MLK Memorial
Bellevue College Criticizes Math Question
UK Prime Minister Criticizes Newspaper Pay Walls
Indonesia Criticizes Saudi Beheading of Maid
Colin Powell Criticizes Cheney for Memoir Claims
Irish Minister Criticizes NYC St. Pat’s Parade
Berlin Mayor Criticizes Nostalgia for Berlin Wall
Gingrich Criticizes Departed Staffers
Man Rescued from Drain Criticizes Police
Jim Carrey Criticizes Tiger Woods’ Wife
Boehner Criticizes Biden for Praising China’s One-Child Policy
Gaga Criticizes Critics
BBC report Criticizes BBC

Song of the day: The Begat

The Man from Sound Effects

To make the sound of pity, he rakes his hair
with a pine branch; he freezes
ice cubes.

To evoke spite, he smashes two patches of corduroy together
in a wood
far away
without a soul in sight.

To simulate folly, he rustles a boa of tape yanked
from a cassette around his shoulders; he gives up
smoking.

So what about silence, he asks, waggling a rubber hammer.

For fear, he mounts two live flies onto a photo of the ocean.

He is writing a manual in which nearness
wields a long pair of scissors.

To bring to mind love, he smiles
till it hurts; he can’t stop
laughing.

Pain is inevitable and hard to describe

It was like a tightening that threatened to burst.
It was like an awful crushing.
It was a severe, piercing tingle.
Aching. Searing. Cramping.
Like my arm had been ripped open and an alto started singing.
I've never been stabbed in the neck, but it was as if that happened.
Clowns blew hot air on it.
Acid crackled in my capillairies.
A vice put the squeeze on my right eye.

Skylark

To be completely superficial let me start by saying that for a book concerning ugliness, Skylark has a beautiful cover. The colors are gorgeous and fine -dark ochre and robin's egg blue- and the sans serif type and Hungarian accents top it off like fragile, delicate bones.

But looks aren't everything. I was also bowled over by the story, which is both heartbreaking and very funny. It's set in a distinctive time and place, but what's portrayed is accessible to anyone.

Before going into it, it’s important to say that this book has a lot of laughs. I laughed out loud at the theater scene. I laughed at how the writer poked fun at the characters’ sentimentality. I laughed at the drunken “ride” in the chair, the father’s confrontation with a man he’d hoped would wed his daughter, the funny title headings, and at many exchanges between the couple. It’s the humorous touch and the irony that makes it surprising how sad this book is.

The story is about a couple and their 35-year old unmarried daughter, Skylark, who is their life's focus and its albatross. Because Skylark suffers, they suffer. Because Skylark has no way to escape her sad, uneventful life, they resolve to a sad and uneventful life, cutting themselves off from the community and friends and everything else that brings sensual or intellectual pleasure - the theater, good food, cigars, music.

This self-imposed deprivation is painful for the characters, but tedium in its sameness is a great soother, and the alternative would throw Skylark's situation into stark relief. That's what happens when she goes away for a week, leaving her parents alone. They loosen up, and the thought of Skylark loses its grip, until they are confronted with her return.

Though ugly, Skylark seems an average, able person; unfortunately she lacks any gifts, talent or any particular characteristic that would make her attractive, or redeem her inner life, like a keen mind or a love of music, say, or poetry. Significantly the father’s only pastime is studying genealogy, as his own family tree is about to stop branching.

Skylark’s ugliness comes across almost as a disability, as when we first encounter her in the garden in the posture that is “best” for her, or when she walks flanked by her parents. Although she never really seeks to manipulate anyone, Skylark’s presence is oppressive. The family doesn’t eat in restaurants because she has a sensitive stomach. Her frugality means they use only one bulb in a four-bulb chandelier. Her parents love her dotingly in an effort to ease her loneliness, and they hate her because they are powerless to change it.

I usually don't post my book reviews here, but I thought this book especially worth talking about. Ambiguity (love vs hate)! Nuance (mouse grey vs dove grey)! Despair! It's got 'em.

texture

The next morning I woke groggy but happy in my gold bed and, after a gold power shower, went down to the ornate dining room and ordered the "healthy and energising" breakfast Tej had recommended. The banana porridge was sublime, as was the creamy yoghurt scattered with nuts.

This excerpt is from an article about a hotel that offers an insomnia package.

Next to my husband's snoring, if there's anything keeps me up at night, it's worrying about whether I'm right or wrong, and how I can find out.
And so I ask, isn't there something wrong here with the use of "scattered?" The way it's used indicates the yoghurt is scattered, but I am sure the writer means the nuts are sprinkled on the yoghurt. Or have the nuts been thrown at the yoghurt in such a way that the yoghurt has scattered about the room, in which case, the writer could just as well have chosen "splattered?"

Or perhaps the yoghurt has disappeared? Or been recklessly flung away? These are among the possibilities.

Scatter (v.)
1. a. to cause to separate widely b. to cause to vanish
2. archaic: to fling away heedlessly
3. to distribute irregularly
4. to sow by casting in all directions
5. a. to reflect irregularly and diffusely b. to cause (a beam of radiation) to diffuse or disperse
6. to divide into ineffectual small portions

intransitive verb
1. to separate and go in various directions
2. to occur or fall irregularly or at random

I do have to say that if I had to rise and eat a meal that included both porridge and yoghurt I might decide never to wake up again.

song of the day: The Way We Were

roll another number

in which I discover myself alone in the house, without family or even dog

in which I play a Neil Young CD without the adulteration of European opinion

in which I put my pajamas and kimono on at 6 pm because I do not have to walk the dog later tonight or in the morning

in which I eat slices of Stilton cheese for dinner, and red chard and rucola salad with baby tomatoes, followed by an imaginary cigar

in which I look up the word ‘breviary’

in which a fruit fly drives me crazy and I fight bravely and lose

in which it gets dark outside, and not gradually

in which I call to wish my step-mother happy birthday and apologize that I am the sole messenger, at which expresses her envy

song of the day: mellow my mind

Whaling

After a cool, damp summer the kids went back to school and right on schedule two weeks later it started to get hot as all goddamn. After the summer pool passes expired, thanks a lot. I am a devoted red wine drinker but the humidity has made this impossible. I caved and bought a bottle of white today. And it is actually great. Go, New Zealand. Go, gooseberries.

Still, summer has officially ended and it is time for me to lament never having read Moby Dick. I was in a bookstore at lunchtime and indeed they had Moby Dick, and I picked it up and checked to see the print wasn't miniscule and it was not and I pretended that wasn't happening and put it back on the shelf...

In terms of seasons it also seems to be journal reply time. I've gotten about 7-8 replies in the past week and a half, pretty evenly balanced. On the Yes pile: DMQ Review, Umbrella, Pure Francis, Verdad. Plenty of rejections, too. Have you heard about writers seeking to get 100 rejections a year? It's a quest I may join.

Want to hear the worst rejection I had this year? It came from Grey Sparrow, and I am sure I immediately tossed it, but it said something like: "We will pass on these poems. Have you read the poems at Grey Sparrow? They are exceptional." Which to me meant, "and you suck."

Anyway, at the moment I'm reading Christian Wiman's Every Riven Thing, which I got from a newspaper colleague who had no intention of reviewing it, and which I am surprised to like so much.

you cannot unlock a door that is unlocked

Of all doors in the vacation house, the kitchen door is the worst.

It must be opened with a key but the key will not position properly to turn the lock.

Rejiggle and try to turn, rejiggle and try. It all comes to nothing.

This lock is like a clump of knotted hair that only gets knottier.

Just leave it alone and come back later? Take a walk around, lay the key down and hope it works when it’s cooled off?

(Is this even the key?)

Wanted: Two bearded vikings with battering ram.

And lo, I say unto thee, someone may have moved the stone but even Jesus could not unlock this lock.

wien

I'm in Vienna for a couple days, working. Our office is in a very nice area just a street over from the Dom, with its horse-drawn carriages and Catholic icon shops. Ah the smell of horse shit! So unlike bus exhaust.

I would like to commend Viennese retailers on their integrity. These guys do not dabble. If it is a kimono shop, you will find only kimonos. If it is a cigar shop, there are no cigarettes. The Catholic icon shop sells crucifixes, religious statuettes and purposeful candles. There are no t-shirts that say God hearts Vienna. I was in a candy shop yesterday that was a purifying experience. I asked about the different licorices and was given different licorices to try. (I bought chocolate.)

It is strange to think that the population of all of Austria is only about the size of that of NYC. As far as I'm concerned, with Vienna, the Alps and Sigmund Freud, the country has everything it needs.

marie von ebner-eschenbach

Yesterday my daughter took me to a second-hand shop in a kind of icky part of town. It was a decent shop, though; we tried on a number of things. She REALLY wanted a purse, but I told her I was nearly broke and we'd come back another time.

Two doors down was a second-hand bookshop where we also went 'just to look,' though soon she had a pile of books in her arms and I, too, had 2-3 interesting books picked out. I made her choose two, which apparently meant three, and I got a slim collection of aphorisms by Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach. She published a number of stories more than a hundred years ago, but is known now mostly for the aphorisms.

Here are a couple bad translations:

To want to clear oneself of unjust suspicion is either superfluous or futile. (p. 73)

The hungry are more easily helped than the overfed. (p. 47)

What is regret? The grief that we are what we are. (p. 32)

All disappointments are nothing in comparison with those we have in ourselves. (p. 47)

The more you love yourself, the more you are your own enemy. (p. ?)

Clumsy flattery can be more humiliating than well-founded reproach. (p. 67)

Baby Names

Combine Ethel and Ethan and the results are almost lethal, but not to worry because even though non-native speakers find them equally hard to pronounce, these two are never seen together.

In many things they are the inverse of each other. Ethel is, for example, tight as lips around a cigarette, tight as a perm at Saturday noon. Ethan, on the other hand, is loose, his shaggy hair uncombed. His taste tends to those baggy jeans that made boxer shorts a million.

While Ethan was the 2nd most popular boy’s name last year, Ethel was #7202 on the girls’ list. Reverse the clock by 92 years, and it’s the other way around.

Ethel and Ethan are like twins separated at birth, albeit about nine decades apart. A few years before Ethan’s popularity began its upward climb, Ethel, piece by piece, virtually dropped off the face of the earth.

Ethan is working hard to keep those pieces hidden.


Tomorrow: Nathan and Lilith.

Epilogue, for if all is fat

Years ago I gave up reading
in bed at night
as a kind of laudanum

as an instrument towards sleep
which is an insult to oneself
and a slap at the writer.

My books are stacked
bedside for morning, opened
in the hope of waking up.

I save nighttime for dull tasks
like simple math
like operating heavy machinery.

Ghost Fragments

When I try to speak French, Italian spooks me,
less the form than the mood of it, the flighty rise and ebb.
*
People talk about phantom limbs, but rarely of the phantom itch.
The itch occurs, but what’s under it?
*
At the Salvation Army there’s a ghastly rack
of coats, the line-up of might-be ghosts
*
I know a slender woman haunted by her former heavy self.
The body has been exorcised; the spirit will not let go.
*
The song in my head this morning, a song I didn’t know I liked.
*
The typewriter, too, is not extinct. It lives on
in street work, factories, rivers, in feet descending stairs.
My father’s boxy black one.
My electric Brother.
*
in love, the ghoul of hate
*
When I was in high school, a boy in the next grade
was decapitated by a train, stumbling home drunk
by the overpass. Charlie. Everyone knew the story.

I can’t go through that part of town without thinking of it.
As if I'd been there. And it’s not Charlie who haunts
that part of town, but what happened to Charlie.
*
The parts haunt the sum.
The choir in the ostrich.
The goon in kangaroo.
*
the past / the smell of lavender / a stroke that stays in the bones / trauma /
fog / exhaust trapped in the atmosphere / abortion / childhood /
perfume / regret
*
We’re all haunted by Auschwitz, even the deniers.
We all stand here shoeless in the Polish snow.
*
to say nothing of graveyards
only the dead really give up the ghost
*
As a noun, “haunt” refers to a place a man can frequently be found.
He occupies it, fills and inhabits it, seeking
something he’ll never come home with.

(in response to Dave Bonta's post at Via Negativa)

excuse me while I wring this long swim out of my hair

My chapbook, "Excuse me while I wring this long swim out of my hair," now newly exists. If you are so inclined, you can order one RIGHT HERE. Please do. There are a 22 jillion poems in it, including, completely out of order -

Dictionary Illustrations
Toy Boat Toy Boat Toy Boat
Reindeer
Unseen
Ghazal of the Jack Pines
Riding Backwards on the Train
Excuse me while I wring this long swim out of my hair
On the Way to Meet My Daughter’s Teacher
Poem Found in a Comic Book
Training
Outdoor Café, October
On Stopping to Smell Perfume on the Way Home from Work
From the Back of My Mind
My Money is on Fire
Ingrid Wears Bangs
Do Tell
Can’t we put them all there
The Minimalist
To Long Division
Hive
In Frankfurt Cemetery
Sworn to Observance

As I've mentioned, the marvelous Emmanuel Polanco provided the collage for the cover. If this were an Oscar speech, I would be thanking him right now with plentiful tears. I would also be wearing a long gown.

the end of obscenity

I was well composed today. High heels that didn’t hurt. Long swingy black slacks. I packed a lunch from home of items that would soon expire unless rescued orally by me. I put them in a recycled plastic bag from the book shop, in which they fit perfectly. Thrift is a complicated operation, both to execute and to pronounce. I felt so put together, like a colorforms figure – a sturdy piece of laminated plastic decked out in tidy vinyl. Then in the train station I saw a lady with one arm, and it occurred to me that if you are born with six fingers on one hand, you no longer have a middle finger.

late bloom

So it’s the end of July and I finally put a 2011 calendar up in my room. It’s been a big help already. You can see the month hanging there like a mouth gone slack. Gack!, it says, what day is it? It took you this long? Or maybe that wide-openness is an enormous yawn. In Wednesday’s box I wrote “overslept,” so you decide.

My room is so small and stuffed with books and furniture I had to put the calendar behind the door, so most of the time you can’t see it anyway. Still, I know it’s there, ticking like a square clock, spinning around when I’m not looking like Linda Blair’s head.

But really, what a great invention. The calendar is so tidy, each day allotted its own little box, all separated by thin black lines. I never stay up past midnight anymore, so I don’t know if these lines actually exist. Lord knows I want to believe.

174517

I read a lot on vacation, but was for the most part disappointed. The best (non-poetry) book I finished was surely Primo Levi’s Survival in Auschwitz. I’ve read many holocaust books so there wasn’t anything particularly mind-blowing in there, but I do appreciate his story, and his ideas on “the drowned and the saved,” which is also in his book of that name, which I read years ago. “Survival” is more personal, but also somewhat coolly observed.

Fiction was more disappointing. Crime and Punishment, I hate to say, was not my bag. I did like the structure – Dostoevsky was good at punctuating the narrative with episodes and creating interesting characters. Still, talk about pages and pages of repetitive inner turmoil. If it wasn’t Rodya, it was the insufferable Katerina Ivanovna (whose turmoil was more external and just as tedious). I thought it might be better to read a book about C&P, say a Freudian interpretation, rather than the novel itself. Apologies to the Russian lovers, whom I count myself among.

I was also disappointed by The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, and Wide Sargasso Sea! Then the long-awaited The Sheltering Sky, which pushed my feminist button so hard it hasn’t popped back out yet. Around that point my daughter got tired of asking me how was the book I was reading. And to think that last year around this time I was swooning over David Copperfield and Cloud Atlas.

I’m now reading Then We Came to the End, an entertaining pop culture novel. Still, at page 150 I’m wondering how a full 400 pages of office politics and intrigue is going to be sustained without any true anchor in the plot.

So that’s all on my reading downer. I do hope things improve, whether via better books or a better mood, which indeed could be the true source of my discontent.

wtf

The marvelous thing about the acronym WTF, aside from the miracle of its mere existence and the pleasure it brings mankind as a spot-on means of expression, is the nuance you can infuse by using bold to emphasize one of the three letters.

For example, when you highlight the W in bold, as in WTF, to represent laying stress on the word WHAT when you ask WHAT the fuck, it is like a seeker begging for clarity, for something to be identified by name, and escorted into court.

Alongside crippling bewilderment, when you bold the F as in what the FUCK (WTF), it expresses severe moral, philosophical, religious or narcissistic outrage, depending on the context. It is also a means of warning any and all readers that you may be about to go at least temporarily insane. In days of yore, this ground was covered by “I’m very confused.”

Lastly, highlighting the T as in what THE fuck (WTF) is like throwing the whole of the universe into question, as WTF becomes the deepest of all existential questions, as the word THE is the most existential of words, and the acronym now asks who or what has presumed to claim a title or designation, and whether this town is big enough for it and us.

reservations

The Hotel Su Sergenti, a little oasis of relax, is certainly an ideal place for holidays, with the main factors like sun, the crystal clear water and the incredible beaches of fine white sand. The nature particularly generous with this dream island bursts in millions of colors and sensations which will remain in your minds like precious and unique remembrances. Relax in the mess of our inner structure, which is reserved only for you.

thank you for leaving

Two more days and we will escape the mosquitoes and heat of Sardinia. It is really gorgeous here, but one has to wonder about the lack of window screens. I don't really buy "we're used to it." I did pretty well with my Italian this year although the other night after we had a big dinner for Carlo's relatives I thanked them all for going rather than for coming.

My new chapbook should come out late this month and I'm excited to say that the artist who provided the art for the cover of "In the Voice of a Minor Saint," Emmanuel Polanco, is also donating a collage for "Excuse me while I wring this long swim out of my hair." I looked around and considered other options but I kept thinking there's really no artist who appeals to me quite as much as he does, so I got on my knees and begged. With success.

In other good news, Barn Owl Review just accpeted my "Ghazal with Broken Birds" for issue 5. And Phantom Kangaroo accepted "Smashed Ghazal" for their August issue. I'm of course really happy about this. Prick of the Spindle took four poems for their September issue just before I left, so the dry period of rejections has come to an end.

Otherwise, I have indeed done a lot of reading on this vacation. The choice has pretty much been swim or read. They both take a lot of energy. More on my reading adventures next week.

on the patio over the sea

With my heel slung across the opposite knee, the skin and un-muscle of my calf hang like a slack hammock filled loosely with sand. How, with all the stairs there are to climb in life, can it droop so resolutely? Well, I say, you are lucky it is stuffed with sand. Imagine if it were filled with plums or nickels - and you in your brown bathing suit. Then there would be something to moan about.

summer reading

I'm definitely overestimating my prowess, but these are packed. Ciao!

The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles (fiction)
The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan (history)
The Enchantress of Florence by Salmun Rushdie (fiction)
Down With the Ship by Ryan Murphy (poetry)
Dark Blonde by Belle Waring (poetry)
RHINO 2010 (poetry journal)
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (fiction)
The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields (fiction)
Brute Neighbors (lit anthology)
The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven by Sherman Alexie (fiction)
Juan Luna’s Revolver by Luisa A. Igloria (poetry)
Undertow by Anne Shaw (poetry)
The Scented Fox by Laynie Browne (poetry)
The Pill vs the Springhill Mine Disaster/In Watermelon Sugar/Trout Fishing in America by Richard Brautigan (poetry/fiction)
The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa

song of the day: bella ciao

Packing

We leave for vacation this coming week. We’ll be spending 2+ weeks in Sardinia, the plus time being the drive & ferry there and back. Packing space is limited because browndog is coming, meaning the back of the station wagon is half-occupied by her. I’m sharing a suitcase with my daughter, meaning 2/3rds of the suitcase is occupied by her. So I’m making my reading selections carefully.

I don’t really differentiate between summer reading and winter, spring or fall reading. I don’t mind reading snowy gulag books on the beach, or desert books in the dim, rainy fall (which reminds me, I could take The Sheltering Sky!). I think people who like light reading on vacation probably prefer light reading in general.

One tradition I do stick to is reading short stories in summer. This year I plan to read Sherman Alexie’s The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fightfight in Heaven. Another summer tradition is the ‘forcefeed read,’ a book I think I should read but have so far managed to avoid. Last year it was David Copperfield, which I loved. This year it’s Crime and Punishment. I’m really not optimistic. I never am. I bailed on The Brothers Karamazov, for example. But you never know.

I usually do take non-fiction, too. Right now I’m in the middle of Primo Levi’s Survival in Auschwitz, which with luck I'll finish before we leave (freeing up room in the bookbag). On the maybe pile are The Worst Hard Time and Confederates in the Attic. Dunno.

Poetry is hard to pick because if I take two or three books and it turns out I’m not in the mood for them, it’s a disaster. So I like to bring an anthology for the variety. I’m pretty sure I’ll be taking Brute Neighbors, an anthology of urban nature poetry and prose, which Kathleen recommended and has a poem in. It’s small, too, so I won’t have a problem fitting it in my bag. I will be far from the urban, and any wildlife I see will likely be of the sea-creature variety, but I like when a book delivers me elsewhere.

I was going to link to some summer reading lists here, but none of them have books on them I'm particularly interested in. "Bossypants" appears to be dominating this year, which seems to me a good example of high summer fluff.

I come from a state of astonishment

I have two poems in the new Literary Bohemian, the handsome half-Czech zine that goes everywhere. The poems are Crossings and Among the Watermelons.

Crossings is a poem I began long ago on a trip to Denmark when I forgot my passport. Coincidentally, around that time I'd learned that my paternal forebears were more likely Danish than Dutch. After a boring and disappointing visit to Denmark, I abandoned this poem for a long time.

Among the Watermelons is a cento using lines from French poets I adore.

As we say in China, welcome you enjoy.

For me, my roots don't go much further than Scranton, PA, where my parents are from. And weirdly, whenever my mother visits me in Germany she says, "Germany always reminds me of Pennsylvania." And I understand her, at least as far as eastern Pennsylvania goes. The photo is of her on the cover of The Scrantonian in 1954.

Open the hood and expose the good bones

The piano is nothing more than a musical vehicle. It has a brake, accelerator and clutch. The metronome makes a precise speedometer.

Unlike a typical car, however, the piano can be started with any key.

It is good for taking out for a spin on a Sunday morning when the shops are closed. Dusty, rural roads recommend Mussorgsky; the city’s stop-and-go pairs well with Satie; and the long lake drive lined lushly with chestnuts lends itself to a variety of Baptist hymns.

The piano has an ample interior, airy and comfortable, but that needn’t influence one’s driving style – it may be slow and sumptuous, or aggressive and down-to-business. Most models are aerodynamic, epitomized by the Steinway grand, though the piano world also has its jaunty uprights, which are easier to park.

All pianos are suited to melodious cruising. If you crave a large audience, turn up the volume and burn rubber, or pop a wheelie, or go do doughnuts in the parking lot.

As with any vehicle, a piano is meant to provide its driver with a feeling of freedom. It’s versatile – with imagination you can take anywhere. For flair, experienced drivers suggest wearing a veil or a scarf, or simply let your mane grow long. That way you’ll feel the wind try to pull you back as you get going, before deliriously playing along.

A note on the type

We spent the weekend on the Rhine, including the preposterously cute town of Unkel, and the once-grand/now-tawdry town of Remagen. Among other things, we went to an art fair where I spent an imaginary 10,000 euros on jewelry.

On the way home, to ease the fear that I’m wasting my life, I pulled the old trick of reading in the car until I ALMOST felt sick, then resting, and resuming. I’m reading The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst. My daughter asked me what it’s about, and the plot is truly not that interesting: gay 20-year old staying at the house of a rich English parliamentarian. But it is excellent writing, which expunges all shortcomings (if the lack of a plot is a shortcoming.)

I am lucky to have picked up a hardbound copy of this book somewhere (Borders sell-out?), with its beautiful cover and its heavy paper and dust jacket. During one of my non-reading intervals in the car, I just fondled it and was glad it was mine, glad I could underline and write in the margins should I want to. E-books be damned.

What struck me funny was the half-page "note on the type," Bembo, three times longer than the author’s biography. Bembo is 600 years older than Hollinghurst! It was born in Venice! The typography note turns into a homage, and an anthem for those who love tangible print on real paper. Ok, computer-screen print is also in some font or the other, but you could just as well mark it and change it to comic sans. People!

Police tape

Every morning she’s photographed waking up in another position.

Monday: Splayed, and mouth gaping like a union soldier

Tuesday: Crouching as if about to jump from a frosted cake

Wednesday: Collapsing into herself like Jack Ruby being mortally wounded

Thursday: Breaking into bits of birds

This morning she woke like Ophelia with her hair fanned out and floating, hands folded; and last week there’s a picture of her

knees tucked up, fingers curled against her cheek

as if making a desperate phone call to consciousness

Dogs barking down clouds

Sorry to have been absent, but I’ve been busy off forming opinions somewhere.

For example, if you take a picture of your genitals and distribute them on the internet, you have already shown such a lack of responsibility to your wife and family (and self) that no one can expect you to show responsibility to your constituency, i.e. you should step down from political office immediately. You are also a joke, and disgusting. Is this, like, a trend in male-dom?

I’m also trying to write a ghazal. Will it fail?
And these doubts about my spirit?

I finished a bunch of books: The Quickening Maze, The Redcoats and Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, all with different levels of success.

I also let Twitter distract me. Alongside Tricia’s hilarious non-stop sexting, there’s a group of DogsDoingThings, which assures me I have wasted my life.

For example: “Dogs rinsing the remains of an indigent off the sidewalk as a van-mounted megaphone urges, ‘Re-elect Mayor Goldie Wilson.’” Or “Dogs bursting into a cloud of marbles and rolling down the drain.”

This goes on all day people!

Serve your Notion

I went to the dentist this morning. I always like going to the dentist because I become representative America. The first thing he asked me when I came in was "so, what do Americans think about the European e-coli outbreak," as if we'd have some special opinion on it. Anyway, I told him we were widely opposed to e-coli, and if it were to occur on our own soil we would have congressional pre-approval to declare military action.

This was a follow-up visit to have a crown installed, which was fitted two weeks ago. At that time, it was all about Strauss Kahn and the American justice system. Was the perp walk actually necessary, my dentist and his assistant wanted to know. Not only is it necessary, I said, it is therapeutic. It is also democratic, and there are people who aspire to it, who practice it at home. "Necessary" seems hardly the adjective, I said, "essential" is more like it.

I am really happy to be able to serve my nation in this function.

With veins aglow

I would have given up but Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence is one of my father’s favorite books, so I stuck it out, hoping for an ironic twist or natural catastrophe or messy and embarrassing suicide.

But lacking intellectual pursuits, weird sexual inclinations and/or worthy and urgent causes, the idle rich are a dull lot, and the calamity of this book is that to the last page Newland Archer’s life goes on as tediously as ever.

About 30 pages in I wondered if the book would be concerned solely with the characters’ taste in clothes, their home decorating preferences and whether or not their chefs were any good. There was a bright spot about 3/4s through were Newland realizes he wishes his boring wife May were dead, and I was like, yeaaahh, poison her! That would have livened things up, but alas, murder is just not done.

So what did I learn from this book? I learned that in the late 1800s rich white people were like walking light bulbs. They did a lot of coloring, using the rush and ebb of blood to make their faces and necks light up to convey their feelings, or turn ashen to express discouragement, disappointment or calm. Barely a page goes by without someone’s face flushing, or going pale, or clouding over, or reddening fit to burst! This is obviously the way polite society used to express their emotions.

The height of this circulatory phenomenon is the exchange between Newland and M. Riviève, the French messenger. It’s practically acrobatic. First, Newland’s words “sent the blood rushing to his temples as if he had been caught by a bent-back branch in a thicket.” Then “he saw his blush more darkly reflected in M. Riviève’s sallow countenance.” At the same time, “M. Rivière paled to his normal hue: paler than that his complexion could hardly turn.” Then “Archer, reddening slightly, dropped to his chair,” and also “M. Rivière reddened, but his eyes did not falter,” just before “the young man’s color again rose.”

Of course these corporeal warmings and chills parallel similar imagery of embers and fireplaces, the sun and the weather, kindled hope and hope extinguished. Still, I did feel at times it was bit overdone.

Here are some other examples, from a list that could be five pages long:

Archer looked at her glowingly p. 21
Miss Archer blushed and tried to look audacious. P. 33.
The young man reddened. p.34
Newland reddened p. 35.
Newland Archer reddened and laughed. P. 53
She glowed with sympathy … a dusky blush rose to her cheek. p. 54.
He colored a little p. 62.
The light touched the russet rings of the dark hair ... and made her pale face paler. p. 63.
The Duke beamed on the group … Madame Olenska’s face grew brilliant with pleasure. p. 65.
Her face lit up. p. 68.
Janey paled and her eyes began to project. p. 71
Archer felt the blood in his temples. p. 77
Her face looked pale and extinguished, as if dimmed by the rich red of her dress p. 90
The blood rushed to his forehead. p. 94
To his surprise her color rose, reluctantly and duskily. p. 98
Her face clouded over … the blood rose to his temples. p. 110
... he felt the color rise to his cheek. p. 121
She flushed with joy and lifted her face. p. 126.
Archer burst into a laugh, and May echoed it, crimson to the eyes. p. 177
A sudden blush rose to young Mrs. Archer’s face. p. 215
“Augusta,” he said, turning pale and putting down his fork. p. 232
It was Mrs. Welland’s turn to grow pale. p. 233
Mr. Welland’s brow remained clouded. p. 233
... with an insistence so unlike her he felt the blood rising to his face … p. 234
... and her face, in contrast, was wan and almost faded. p. 243
She merely looked paler, with darker shadows in the folds and recesses of her obesity. p. 248
The young man heard her with veins aglow. p. 249

And now for something completely different: The Quickening Maze

And here's a list of 250 books by women "all men should read." I put it here mostly for my reference. I don't know why this is aimed at men, except it seems to be in response to a list from a men's magazine that irritated feminists. All fine by me, but I do wonder at the tit-for-tat (no innuendo intended), and think maybe readers independent of gender may appreciate the recommendations. In any case, it would be helpful if the list compilers made an attempt to justify it, rather than just saying who sent the name of the book in. Am I missing something?

lampshade out of me

So. My mom is here with her wine and cigarettes. She read a bad book all the way over the Atlantic and somehow reading it in an airplane when she could have been asleep makes her feel less like she wasted her time ("The Guernsey Literary Potato Book whatever"). My mother never comes without lotsa American stuff. This time the prize went to peanut butter Tastykakes. But she also brought Swifter refills, Old Navy shorts for my son, single-serving bags of Maxwell House Instant Coffee and Jennifer Egan’s A Visit from the Goon Squad. So now I know all I need to know about the state of America today.

Today we’re going to catch an exhibit of Surreal Things (Surreale Dinge) downtown before it closes Sunday. Like a fat woman who boils over in a new house, I’m a huge fan of the surreal, especially the French surrealist poets. Let us hope the exhibit surprises with strange and uncomfortable situations.

Song of the day: I never thought they'd put me in the Goon Squad

People shouting to each other across the street

I love your idiot mittens!
YOU LOVE MY WHAT?!
I love your thesis on the fetid!
YOU LOVE MY WHAT?!
I love your nervous dancing with the dead!
MY WHAT!?
I love your pussy willow wreath!
WHAAAAAT?!

I believe

There is an afterlife - it is called literature and history.


*

I Am Crazier Than Anyone

The Guardian newspaper runs a series online called “Experience,” in which people are invited to share their stories with the world! Today the story is “My hair fell out one weekend.”

In honor of all of us having survived the apocalypse, and a whole bunch of other crazy shit, here’s a list of folks’ experiences, along with some links. Among my favorites is the guy who, at age 85, was unhappy with his physique, and got himself a personal trainer. And then there’s the lady who feels other people’s pain. Oy.

Warning: some intent navel-gazing.
I’ve only eaten crisps for 10 years
I didn’t leave my house for a decade
I used to hit my husband
I am a 91-year old bodybuilder
I saved endangered rhinos from a bush fire
I crushed my GBP1 million violin
I nearly died after eating wild mushrooms
I was impaled by my own scupture
I threw myself on to an exploding grenade
A great white shark ate my leg
I didn’t hit puberty until I was 21
I feel other people’s pain
I eat roadkill
I was deported
I was run over by a freight train
I lived with wolves
I’m allergic to everything
I flew the English Channel using a bunch of balloons

poetry brooch

I don't know if this was a particularly good idea, but I did it: The Habitual Poet questionnaire.

Luster

Classics I’ve re-read and loved twice: Jane Eyre, The Stranger
Classics I’ve re-read and stopped loving: Les Miserables, Madame Bovary
Classics I’ve finally read and didn’t especially like: Wuthering Heights, Tender Buttons
Classics I’ve finally read and loved: David Copperfield

They say Madame Bovary is a masterpiece but personally I think it is a masterpiece “of its time” for its (then) lascivious theme of a wife's adultery. Also the handling of the “disturbed woman” seems to me kind of tedious. It reveals little to the modern reader. And lastly the writing is praised to the heavens and indeed it is good but is it as good, say, as John Banville? No, it is not. I cannot read French, so perhaps I'm being unfair and the original would poke my eye out. But I doubt it.

Don’t get me started on Tender Buttons. But I think we all know that.

Still, I can only recommend re-reading books you consider worthwhile. It’s a good experience because the plot has less of your attention, the story itself is no longer being revealed, but the whole how of the writing, the language, characters and style are there to reevaluate, and sometimes it’s even better than the first go-round, and sometimes the luster dulls.

for years of service

Before all else, the umbrella is a skeleton. And whether it rains or not in the end it will again be nothing but a skeleton. Whether it snows or the sun shines or the moon or the wind rips the thing to shreds. (::removed::)

Neighbors

Looks like another beautiful weekend – sunny and a bit cool, our small garden exploding with wisteria, clematis and all kinds of other stuff and nobody knows what the hell it is. I took the dog out this morning and the birds were tee-oo-ing away, except for one that was making a wretched sound I’d never heard before. Let’s call him the barfing bird. He’s apparently had enough of picturebook springtime. He gave me a good laugh.

Speaking of self-expression, I’ve had a few poems in print publications lately that I thought I’d mention. First, my poem “Whisk” is in the new RHINO. This is one of my household totem poems, and one of my favorites from that series.

I’ve also got a ghazal in issue 48 of Hayden’ Ferry Review called “Ghazal of the Jack Pines.” Hayden’s Ferry actually pays writers, which is pretty cool, although I turned down the payment in exchange for a subscription, which I’m expecting to improve my life more than money might.

Neither RHINO nor Hayden’s Ferry have actually arrived yet, though I got notifications that they are at this very moment making the big swim. But my copy of Passages North has come, and it’s gorgeous. The cover graphic is bold and sober and folkloric. I have two poems in the issue – “From the Back of My Mind,” and “Table, Uncleared.” Among the poetry, I like the dawn losinger poem “She Had No Elbows,” which starts, “etiquette came easy.” I also like the Jason Tandon poem “Neighbors,” which starts:

Like a pink-skinned moon
a boy’s head rises
in the window across from mine
and yells that we can be friends if I want.

Which brings me back to my new neighbor, the barfing bird, with whom I struck up an immediate friendship, our twin heads rising above all this flowering green to retch a little bit, just to keep things in perspective.

My dog attempts suicide

Hey what’s this, oh a bucket of charcoal. Yeah hey I wonder what THAT tastes like hmmm chum chum chum hmmmn well no one’s looking and these are not bad nothing to write home about but hmmmn they kind of melt in your mouth if you chew them up good chum chum well I can’t believe somebody left these here unguarded these dogbite-sized briquettes of coal what’d they think I wasn’t stupid enough to eat the whole bucket of this stuff hmmn nmmm heh heh WRONG!