friday confession

Ages ago when I got a blackberry for work I used it only for email and occassionally for phoning. But since it's always in my purse and set to vibrate, if someone is calling me, I don't know until I check.
Anyway, my confession has nothing to do with that. It has to do with brick breaker. Like I said, ages ago, I had as little to do with my blackberry as possible. But about two weeks ago I started playing brick breaker. I don't know why. I had played it once or twice before and found it such a boring timesuck that I never gave it a second thought. But suddenly I was playing, and making such great leaps score-wise that my son called me a "freak" in a way he obviously considered a compliment.
But you know, I waste so much time already. In the time I spent ruining my eyesight aiming a blinking ball at some bricks, I could have finished one of the books I'm supposedly reading but actually very actively not reading.
Boy, I feel better already! I'm already on the road to recovery. This guy, however, is not.

and all the blackbirds

I had a freeing experience the other day. I heard about a woman who married the Eiffel Tower. She belongs to a small group of people in love – committed, romantic love - with objects. This interested me. I felt the whole world open up. I figured that although I’m married, I could enter into tantalizing, emotionally uncomplicated affairs. For example, there’s this green Mercedes sometimes parked around the corner that I adore. I say it offhand – love - but I don’t even like Mercedes and, usually, if you told me your car was leafgreen I’d say you’re a twit. I am also a lifelong lover of Chanel 5 and it occurs to me now that if I had married this fragrance instead of a man, I might have gone more lightly and confidently about life. There are a number of poetry books I’m secretly and repeatedly seeing on side, i.e. no matter what the main course is, one of these is tucked in my purse or bookbag or next to my bed. There’s a Syrah I could without qualms promise to love, honor and obey. The smell of gasoline. A certain watering can. Chagall’s “I and the Village.” The Great Wall of China. Seriously, I’ve found a new frame for these enriching relationships. It’s like I could live many times, or all over again.

red-headed godchild

I don’t know a poet who likes being compared to another poet. It suggests stealing and, worse, a lack of originality. I’m sure many women poets can recall at one point or other being likened to either Sylvia Plath or Anne Sexton. Maybe because both expressed feelings about the self, statis, marriage, the urge to negate, entrapment, isolation, etc etc that most people have - from a woman’s point of view. But, style-wise, to have someone say “this seems a homage to Sexton” is like having your mouth plugged with sand, even if it’s meant as a compliment. And yet so many book jackets say, “Her poems evoke Plath . . .”

But perhaps more uncomfortable than being compared to a poet is being compared to two poets simultaneously, eg “It’s like Charles Simic making love to Syliva Plath over a place of oysters.” Or “His poems are a cross between Baudelaire and an Asian Jack Kerouac,” or “This is what Charles Bukowski would write if he were a ventriloquist for a drunken H.D.” That makes these unlikely pairs, and they're always unlikely, into the poet's parents! Not the best blurb, but often funny.

Wait until they start bringing in the siblings, cousins, stepparents and neighbors.

i arrived disheveled in my johnny cash pants

The Literary Bohemian has done a review of my chapbook, In the Voice of a Minor Saint. I do hope you'll tune in. The review includes a reprint of the shortest poem in the book, "Please Remove my Name." As always, based on a true story.
I mentioned a couple weeks back that The Literary Bohemian took two poems of mine for its April 1 issue. The editor has now taken some of my wine blurbs for the summer issue. I will be looking both ways when I cross that street today.

baby you're a rich man, too

Three poems I've enjoyed recently:
Certain Homes
Windshelf
The Pencil

the cheese stands alone

Can it really be that Friday will be another Friday the 13th? Didn’t we just have one of those?
Actually I’m not superstitious. But I have my tics.
Like if I get a certain number of points in a video game I will do well in my job. Or if I make it up the escalator before the song on my iPod ends, someone besides me will remember to buy milk. Or if ten cars make it through the light before it turns red, I’ll get the email I’m hoping for. If my right foot is first up the curb, “everything,” whatever that is, will be fine. But the stride must remain natural. It can’t look like I’m trying to get my right foot up the curb first. This requires some planning. If the cheese rinds are facing the outside of the cheeseplate, ie arranged as rounded petals, my home will be standing after the flood. Sometimes I’m writing a submission letter and I type a phrase and get the feeling if I use that phrase, my poems will be rejected. I try to fight this, but I usually lose. Voluntarily.
Anyway, superstitious I’m not. And the Friday part eqalizes the 13th part.

I wear fangs and drive a vespa

Yesterday I got up, brushed my teeth, fixed my hair, did my face, walked the dog, made coffee, drank coffee, punched my blackberry, ironed pants, got dressed, got to the door with my bag, my keys and my headache, turned around and sent my boss an email saying I was going back to bed, which I did, dressed, coiffed and caffeinated, taking a moment to remove my boots. Altogether this took about 50 minutes.

That apologetic email would have been the highlight of my day if Weave Magazine hadn’t posted a review of my chapbook. Thank you! Also my olde workshoppee poetess friend Brenda put some nice words about my chap up on her blog. Thanks again!

I feel better today.

ein Schiff mit acht Segeln

I have some poems out in print journals I thought I'd mention, as well as other poem news. As this may become rather dull for you, I have organized video entertainment, ie Lotte Lenya singing a Kurt Weill song. Please push play.

Issue 2 of Barn Owl Review has “Etiquette.” This is a poem about trying to be polite. It involves clam dip and cigarettes, too.

Bateau (2.1) published two poems – “Reading Kolyma Tales” and “Why Pregnant Women Don’t Tip Over.” The former is about reading the book Kolyma Tales, kind of, in case you couldn’t guess. The latter comes from an explainer column in the NYTimes about why pregnant women don’t tip over. In other words, the titles of these poems are very apt.

John Wang has also let me know that he included two of my poems in the Juked #6 print anthology: “Rainmaker” and “I Will Now Eat a Loaf of Bread.” It’s too complicated even for me to explain what these poems are about.

Otherwhere, I got a couple rejections recently from Silk Road and Elimae.
But The Literary Bohemian took two poems for its next issue: "The Snow is an Intelligence Officer" & "On Stopping To Smell Perfume On the Way Home From Work." Both of those titles are self-explanatory.
Also Fraglit, a very interesting conceptual journal, took a series of poem fragments called “Tea Leaves.” It’s about tea, believe it or not.
And Hobble Creek Review took two poems: “Ghazal at Ebbtide” and “Inside the Little Picture.” Rachel Mallino will also have a couple poems in this issue, so all the more reason to read.

I will surely flag these pubs when they appear…

the chase scene

People are always moaning about writer’s block but nobody ever complains about reader’s block.
Writing makes some big demands on a person.
In reading, on the other hand, you’re not asked to do much more than pay attention.
And yet you arrive slack-jawed at the bottom of the page and go, “what?”
Doesn’t it make you feel like the most despicable failure
to have to travel back up the page and start again?
For goodness’ sake!

when wonderful, add water

The good thing about this blouse is it fits.

(removed for maintenance!)

austerity chic

Every day I'm more uneasy how steeply things are lurching downward. No one wants to hear this and I don't want to hear it either but I work in news and it's all I hear. Pretty soon we'll all be huddled in our dark empty cupboards, teeth chattering.
We'll be reduced to rags and eating polenta.
Whenever I think frugal I think polenta. The last time I ate polenta was in Italy on an agriturismo vacation. The polenta was grey - grey as if it had sucked all the smog from Milan. Even if things get worse, I won't eat any more polenta. My Italian husband agrees: no way.
I know some people think polenta is chic, but in more ways than one it's the culinary equivalent of burlap.

wandered lamb-like

I’ve been very busy with numbers. It’s not a one-sided thing – we’ve both needed some organizing. I was at parents’ night for my son’s class last night. Of 33 parents, 22 were women, and of those six had dyed their hair blond. It’s very original. Even one of the fathers dyed his hair blond. And part of his beard. It’s contagious. Designing pie charts was the only thing that saved me from parents' night tedium. Even words are taking a backseat these days. For example, describing the 5th graders, the teacher used the word lammfromm. This means pious, or meek, as a lamb. But the interesting thing about lammfromm is how many Ms come in the package. Four out of nine letters. What’s that, 44%? Some words seem more like numbers than words. They’re solutions to problems. Lammfromm, for example, is gorgeously symmetrical and could be the answer to a lot of the world’s long, multi-tiered problems. For starters, it would take us far in peace agreements.

Anyway, if you’ve been trying to reach me, even telepathically, I’ve been busy calculating.

bell letters

dear meryl streep,
We adore you. You’re exquisite. But why’d you accept that role in Mamma Mia? We enjoyed watching you, but think it was a foolish decision. So what if you’re not young anymore. Who is?

dear very pregnant lady on the bus,
Hello, and please don’t be discouraged. Also clouds assume oddball shapes, but their progress is smoother than any boat on any lake.

dear ritter sport chocolate bar,
Alongside pustefix, you remain one of the few german upsides. I thank god america hasn’t discovered you. I have so few secrets.

dear pablo picasso,
I’ve been seeing your stuff since the day I was born and must admit I’ve been impressed. I remember viewing Nude Woman in a Red Armchair at the Tate and thinking the man is a genius. But still you seem like an egotistical bastard. Is that true? Modigliani, on the other hand ... soul galore!

dear president obama,
That’s it – just dear p.o. Because I’m glad to write it.

dear candle wax,
Stop corrupting my children with that hot slick. Every time I turn around they’ve plugged you with a weepy finger.

what it was supposed to be like

It was supposed to be a cool, shadowy hallway laid with an oriental runner. Doors would be open up and down, and sometimes the scent of something – say grapefruit or paraffin – would move through like a passing mood. But of course it wasn’t like that. Often it was noisy, and smelled of glue or smoke, or burnt milk.

sardinia

Threw the Book at Him

Unlike the free world, you can’t name your kid anything you want in Germany. It has to be a recognized name that’s appropriate to the child’s sex and not dreamed up on your last gin bender. Thus there is no Moon Unit or 4Real; and no, unlike a New Jersey couple, you can’t name your child Adolf Hitler. The only exception is for foreigners. I was allowed to name my son Miles because as a foreigner I’m not subject to the great book of names. (I do have to suffer the very original joke about Lufthansa’s frequent flier program in regard to Miles’s name, but by not laughing I try to teach by example.)

Although German parents can’t name their kids Apple, there aren’t restrictions on how many names they can give him/her/it. This struck me today as the country got a new economics minister named Karl-Theodor Maria Nikolaus Johann Jacob Philipp Franz Joseph Sylvester Freiherr von und zu Guttenberg. Especially charming is the last name “von und zu Guttenberg,” meaning “from and to Guttenberg.” He can’t decide. All those names have confused him.

Kind of makes you dizzy, no? And a little sick to your stomach?

ange barbu

Last week we visited friends in Bad Honnef, a town on the Rhine where we've been many times, and my friend Ursula casually mentioned she'd passed a plaque in town saying Guillaume Apollinaire had lived there briefly more than a hundred years ago. Needless to say we set out to find it. Wherever he actually lived is quite gone, as some semi-modern apartments now stand behind the plaque.

Sleepy Bad Honnef, Germany seems an unlikely place for a pioneering French poet. I asked Ursula why on earth Apollinaire was living there. She explained "It's pretty here!"

Lycra-like Trampoline

Some people insist every poem needs its own title, as if you were naming a baby. Personally I don’t mind if a poem goes around as “Untitled,” although, of course, a title lets the poet determine how the poem is identified. Don’t title it and you run the risk of readers coming up with something like “the poem with sleet in it,” or “the dead baby poem.” Who wants that? Luckily, default will usually kick in and the poem will be identified by its first line, à la e.e. cummings.

On the other side are poets who use the same title over and over, like Louise Glück in Wild Iris. This makes identifying the poem even harder than leaving it untitled. There’s “Matins page 2,” “Matins page 3,” page 12, 13, 25, etc. Hey, they were all good, but which one are we talking about?

In my book, anything would be preferable to calling a poem “Poem.” As if there were only one!

There’s a poet I know who hates long titles. I admit this can come off as gimmicky, but usually I find it a draw. A poem called “Poem in Which the Clairvoyant Gives In and Sells Her Internal Organs to Buy the Lycra-like Trampoline” would pique my interest more than “Snow.” (At least initially.) The danger here is the reader enters with big expectations. If the poem is a let-down, an extraordinary title won’t save it. It will only make the let-down worse.

I thought such long titles were rare but a recent cull of Verse Daily turns up a bunch of them. If any of these intrigue you, go forth and prosper.

"Brought to You by the Letter Ox , Or: Why I Want my Son to Remain Illiterate" by Mitchell Metz

"The Blackmailer's Wife Reads History and Considers the Nature of Guilt" by Judy Brown

"The Poem You Hang on Your Wall Like a Painting Because It Does Something Different Each Time the Light" by Timothy Kelly

"Speedy Inexpensive Chaos Theory Poem About Short Term Memory Loss" by Peggy Munson

"I Am Talking Dirty to You Like You are the Only One in the Room" by Danielle Pafunda

"On a Woodpecker Drinking from a Knothole Still Full of the Last Rain" by Maurice Manning

(this post is up over at linebreak's blog, too)

the past, there you have it

Like many blonde children I was born royal but abducted by envious pygmy bunnies and taken to keep their warren clean. They pecked me, and did not pay well. Still I was able to learn three languages, including bird slang of the western hemisphere. When I got too big the bunnies left me with with the management of Sloat’s Tavern in Scranton, PA in exchange for a purse of chocolate coins wrapped in tinfoil. The man who became my father swept up the tavern. He was a music critic who hated the phrase “head cheese” and his parents were bartenders beset by moods. My greatgrandfather was a tap-dancing Dane who died of typhoid fever while doing the vaudeville circuit. He introduced yoga to the US. but they hid this fact from me, thinking I’d be too full of myself to continue the flute lessons if I knew.

serious filth

My poem "Scullery" is up at Verse Daily!

so much depends upon a good translator

The Cigarette by Francis Ponge (translated by Lee Fahnestock)
First let’s set the atmosphere, hazy yet dry, wispy, with the cigarette always placed right in the thick of it, once engaged in its continuous creation.
Then, the thing itself: a small torch, far more perfumed than illuminating, from which, in a number of small heaps set within a chosen rhythm, ashes work free and fall.
Finally, its sacrifice: the glowing tip, scaling off in silvery flakes, while a tight muff formed of most recent ash encircles it.

The Cigarette (translated by C.K. Williams)
Let’s first create the atmosphere, at once misty, dry, and dishevelled, in which the cigarette, since it itself continuously creates it, is always laid athwart.
Then its person: a little torch, much less luminous than fragrant, from which in a rhythm yet to be determined a measurable number of little lumps of ash detach themselves and fall away.
Finally, its passion: that fiery bud, flaking off into silver dandruff, held by a sleeve immediately formed by the most recent of them.

La Cigarette by Francis Ponge
Rendons d’abord l’atmosphere à la fois brumeuse et sèche, échevelée, où la cigarette est toujours posée de travers depuis que continument elle la crée.
Puis sa personne: une petite torche beaucoup moins lumineuse que parfumée, d’où se détachent et choient selon un rythme à dèterminer un nombre calculable de petites masses de cendres.
Sa passion enfin: ce bouton embrasé, desquamant en pellicules argentées, qu’un manchon immédiat formé des plus récentes entoure.

*
It seems to me the Williams’ translation has a couple inspired moments, eg “that fiery bud” for “bouton embrasé,” whereas the Fahnestock uses the simpler “glowing tip.” I also prefer Williams’ “sleeve” to “muff,” mostly because a sleeve for me evokes a long cylinder enclosing another long cylinder, something loosely housing something else. “Muff,” despite an unfortunate sexual connotation, is certainly on the mark, but a little cute at the same time.

I didn’t especially like Williams’ unappetizing rendering of “pellicules” as “dandruff,” but in fact that’s what “pellicules” is. Dandruff!

I think the main weakness of Williams’ translation is in the first segment, where he uses “create” twice. Fahnestock finds a way around that that’s more down-to-earth, but completely servicable and preferable to repetition. Secondly, Williams’ “laid athwart” reads awkwardly to me, while Fahnestock chooses the smoothly idiomatic “in the thick of it,” which goes so well with her later “heaps.” I like those “heaps,” and also prefer “perfumed” to “fragrant.”

To be honest, the more I look at this prose poem the more difficult it seems to translate well at all. So many phrasings offer themselves up to potential (and manifest) awkwardness. It would be lovely just to speak French. I think I’ll do that.

as writing is itself a translation

I'll be guest-blogging this week over at linebreak.

Guide to Re-reading Hardy

From the Madding Crowd

There’s one café that still welcomes smokers. The house ale pours mahogany. In the glass a mist sifts up before settling like a frail collar, lacy at the lip.

It will all happen. There’s no stopping it.

To staunch the draft, the owners have cloaked the vestibule around the door with a wool drape. When the door swings open, a gust erupts with a cough of snow, abrupt and cold.

Collar. Color. Coral. A rhapsody of coal smoke engulfs the crowd.

It's easy to read things wrong first time around.
Love can make it maddening.

others in this series: Tess, Jude

multitaskmaster

Walking and chewing gum at the same time
Chewing gum and chewing tobacco at the same time

Peeing and brushing your teeth at the same time
Living and dead and the same time

Watching tv & reading & pushing reply all at the same time
Driving and crying at the same time (aka criving a la LKD)

Appearing calm and freaking out at the same time
Breathing and sneezing at the same time

Lighting fires & fighting fires at the same time (psychotic fireman syndrome)
Menstruating and eating chocolate at the same time

Sleeping and feasting at the same time (Ambien)
and despite what some people think using coupons

to buy things you don’t need is not spending
& saving at the same time

just like buying something because it’s on sale leans too far into the outbox
to be anything but instant & counterfeit gratification &
a bad idea

the week of dying Johns

Nearly 20 years ago I went to teach in China. I took little with me. I didn’t write poetry then, but I wrote some of my favorite poems out into a notebook so I could have them along. I also took four or five books and three or four cassette tapes. The school I taught at had a passable English library, but the musical pickings soon became slim. I had a friend who lived in a dormitory whose previous resident had left behind an unmarked cassette tape of someone singing exactly 5 ½ wonderful songs. I treasured this tape. For years I was never able to find out who the singer was. Someone told me it was a Canadian who self-recorded, so I set out in the wrong direction. It wasn’t until eight years or so ago, through the wonder of the internet, that I was able to find out who it was by typing lyrics in to Google. It was John Martyn. He died today. Great songwriter. Piece of my heart. You should hear him.

Fourth Floor, Dawn

Hey, I’m in Court Green #6. It's like I got a little pie wedge from the stimulus package.
But seriously, my poem Scullery is in the epistolary section.
It addresses the filth found around the house.
For the contributor notes we were asked to describe our dream penpal.
I did that.
I am thinking about subscribing to Court Green.
It is all poetry.
On p. 103, one of my favorite Ginsberg poems is reprinted.
Thank you, God.

in an octopus's garden

The next Boxcar Poetry Journal print anthology will include my poem Hive, which is nice news, and to jazz up the bio I’m supposed to write a sentence about the strangest place I’ve ever been. This is a toughie. Strange like it looked strange? Like the people were strange? Like the atmosphere was weird? If anyone could offer an example of a strange place they’ve been I’d appreciate it. I’m thinking the train to Chengdu from Beijing was a pretty strange place, with all the families eating chicken heads in the bunks and aisles. There were some weird joints I visited in Guatemala, too, but I wonder if the strange may be no farther than my own front door.

My poem Hive is actually already in an anthology called Crazed by the Sun, a collection of ecstatic poetry. I have yet to see my contributor’s copy so I can’t give you a steer here but it sure sounds interesting.

the week that was

Ate 2 steaks, mandarins, a bagel, grilled cheese, 4-5 Pop Tarts. And some other stuff.

Got a haircut.

My poem I Will Now Eat a Loaf of Bread went up at Juked.

Ate at Marra’s.

Talked to my dad. He’s fine.

Bought 12 used books for $101.

Watched the inauguration! I liked the benediction best.

Caught the William Eggleston show at the Whitney with my expert. That's an Eggleston photo above.

Made three new Facebook friends – Scott, Luisa and Carl – all known entities, and one among my intimates.

Got my chapbooks!

Met a little dog named Parker.

Tried the new Chanel 5.

Saw the Gee’s Bend quilt exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art with my mother and sister.

Had cleats put on my boots.

Lent The Life and Times of Michael K to my seatmate on the plane over, which he speed-read before landing.

On the last day, I got a headache.

I wrote nothing of consequence. But I wrote.

my gorgeous orphanage

Whenever I'm loose in the used bookstore it's like I've become a glamorous actress. You know what I mean - I have ample cash and plenty of room back at the mansion so why not go on an adoption tour, acquiring orphans of many hues and backgrounds. I don't know what comes over me. My lips get all fat. I'm probably pregnant. I saunter over to the register and slap a fortune down on the counter. I even have my own fancy plastic bag.

soft rock

So I was reading the wedding announcements this morning and it appears to be some kind of American mating ritual to touch heads in the announcement photos. All the couples are there putting their heads together; either she's tilting hers into his or vice versa. Boink! The symmetrical tilt is especially cheesy.

Wasn't it the Coneheads who found pleasure in rubbing their noggins together?

fun yet to be had

Eastern Canada is frozen. I know. I just flew over it.
There's a lot of ice up there no one has cracked
with their boot heels yet. Wham!
Too bad the cabin crew won't let you out.

she drink the zombie from the coco shell

My chapbook is out. Thanks Tilt! You can order one here.
22 poems for $8. That's 36 cents a poem!

Between the covers you may find:
a javelin (p. 8), an Esso station (p. 2), musical chairs (p. 11),
pilaf (p. 5), "your name on a grain of rice" (p. 15),
more rice (p. 19), valentines (p. 21), a biblical allusion (p. 17),
the Andes (p. 12), day-old wine and a hydrogen bomb (p. 6),
a metaphor (p. 22), a puppet village (p. 10), a statue
of Lautreamount (p. 16), Jesus (p. 13), assonance (p. 18).

I should have stayed home from work today.
I'm delighted.

all manner of things shall be well

On Thursday I’m off to my mother’s for a week. For an ex-pat this means being “close” to the inauguration, even though I’ll be states away. Somerset County, NJ is near enough for me, closer than Old Europe anyway. I was sorry not to have gone over for election night. Really sorry. Even some Germans seemed sorry. The next day my neighbor told me it was hard not to break into tears during Obama's Hyde Park speech. (Actually it was impossible.)

Six books are waiting for me on my mother’s desk:
Today I Wrote Nothing: The Selected Writing of Daniil Kharms
Country Music: Selected Early Poems by Charles Wright
All Shall Be Well; And All Shall Be Well; And All Manner of Things Shall Be Well by Tod Wodicka
Like You’d Understand Anyway by Jim Shepard
Do Not Awaken Them with Hammers by Lidiya Dimkovska
Wallace Stevens: Words Chosen out of Desire by Helen Vendler

bedeviled eggs

There are abridged books.
There are movies “edited for television.”
There are abridged operas, called Suites, I believe.
I’m sure some ballets are cut short, resulting in abridged dance.
It’s not fair that they don’t abridge paintings.
Whenever the canvas gets too big, there’s too much going on,
or you’re confronted with a painting you can’t get your head around.
It takes so damned long to get through the museum to begin with.
They ought to abridge paintings.

there was a sound like a moccasin dropping

Happy new year, folks. It'll be a long time before a year sees double zeros again, so enjoy 2009.

I've got three poems up this week at Swink: My Money is on Fire, Opportunity and Shady.
The latter two will be in my chapbook, likely to land this month.

do not mix

Eauvain Beaujolais
A round young wine that can’t concentrate. Elastic body with an acrobatic, almost chewable bosom. The finish evokes mink, kerosene and low satire. Toothsome and juked up with pepper, this Beaujolais is two-thirds woodsmoke, one-third brioche. Can easily be paired with Chopin or Satie, but does not mix well with Dutch conductors.

Domaine Gravure Medoc
This is a witty sometimes hilarious wine with an afternote of two cherry trees planted too close together. Very Mademoiselle Magazine. It holds the strong nuance of cigars with side notes of suntan oil and figs. It is like the neighbor down the street with the gravelly voice and smoky good looks. You don’t see him every day but when you do then oooh baby.

Maison Vigniot Sancerre
Thin but delicious like rain. This straw-yellow white smells of clean laundry hung to dry on a Paris balcony. Think walking barefoot among geese. Think tangerine, bouquet of peat moss, nuance of re-reading Chekhov.

Chateau Somnambulé Sauternes
There is no fluff stuck to this knife. This wine is the Brigitte Bardot of Sauternes, perfumed with marine minerals, nickels and anise. It has an intelligent bloom, bedroom eyes and an oceanic finish. Goes well with cheese, carpentry and extended drought. Guaranteed to improve your French pronunciation.

Callous-Saumille Bordeaux
Big bells are ringing in this. Here is a full-blooded wine, promiscuous and rich in after-rush. Its come-hither bouquet evokes chestnuts and late September. Its nose is true brunette, authentic and nutsy. The cinnamon finish is long, like all the next day long.

alone in the evening with a moleskin

The NYTimes ran an article yesterday about why you should feel guilty about buying used books on the internet. It’s the death of bookstores, some say, and deprives authors of their income.

I’m finding it hard to get on the moral high horse here. I’m afraid in these days when a new paperback can top $20, I travel the pre-read road. I appreciate the implications. But while I don’t go scavenging the woods for food, I do like frugality.

And recycling. I also buy used cars, bikes and clothing and don’t feel terrible about the engineers and fashion designers who aren’t cashing in. Re-selling means the original purchaser is recouping some of his outlay, part of which paid the retailer.

Of course writers should be rewarded for their work, just like teachers, nurses and home healthcare aides, but they also need to be realistic. And, as a poet who writes with little hope of publishing industry profit, I know most serious writers are in it for more than money. Many actually hope to enrich their readers. And we all do a lot of worthwhile reading for the price of an internet connection already.

I feel sorrier for the bookstores. Maybe booksellers should, like used car dealers, buy up all the used books for a pittance and re-sell them for more. Or maybe, like the mayor of beleagured Philadelphia, we should just close some libraries. You can read books for free there whether you paid your taxes or not!

My mother and sister visited for Christmas and the first thing I did was unload books on them (mom: Katherine Graham’s Personal History, Ben Bradlee’s A Good Life, Rick Bragg’s All Over But the Shouting, Richard Slotkin’s Abe and the Civil War novel The Killer Angels; sister: Kathryn Harrison’s The Kiss, Don DeLillo’s White Noise and Roddy Doyle’s Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha). This gave me great pleasure. I would have given them more but I was trying to find things they’d like, and I didn’t mind parting with. Also my sister gave me a book for Christmas that she’d just finished – Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant. I was delighted, and unconscionably guiltless.

There isn’t much difference between giving books away and buying them for a dollar on the internet, or for $5 at a used bookstore for that matter, except that internet transactions, I presume from the NYT article, are taking place on a way larger scale. I believe it.

ride my llama

I sent Carlo out to the video store for It's a Wonderful Life,
and he came back with The Dark Knight.
This required some serious reorientation.
In any case, I was strangely delighted.

wind-up jaywalker

Merry Christmas kids!
Merry Christmas Frau Weyrauch!
Merry Christmas CNN!
Merry Christmas Hans Arp cookie cutters!
Merry Christmas Bernie Madoff!
Merry Christmas Cuveé Mythique!
Merry Christmas Mom & Lisa!
Merry Christmas GM and Ford and Chrysler!
Merry Christmas Rosebud apron!
Merry Christmas Shops close at 2 o’clock!
Merry Christmas European cities!
Merry Christmas Ingeborg!
Merry Christmas Midnight mass!
Merry Christmas Lego Star Wars!
Merry Christmas President-elect Obama!
Merry Christmas Holiday eviction moratorium!

red-eyed bluebird

I'm so tired today, and have little to say except that I had duck for lunch with spätzle. Still, I did want to mention that the new Dirty Napkin is up, and includes my poem "Toy Boat Toy Boat Toy Boat." This poem takes place in a little town in Germany, as my lunch did.

I also have a poem called "Commodities" at Gulf Stream. This poem takes place in my office.

myrrh is mine

all mine

swoon as chaperone

This is premature since I'm currently reading some books I'll likely finish before the end of the year. Nevertheless, here are the books I read this past year, excluding e-books and art books without much text. It seems like a lot (to me) but some are poetry chapbooks that I read in an afternoon.

The 17 books that are bold and asterisked are those that I found especially worth the time. I threw in one-word reviews at no extra cost. But many others on the list are also very good. For instance, why did I leave out "Mothers of Invention" and "The Slaves of Solitude?" Sometimes I just have to stop asterisking.

It would be easier to talk about those I wouldn't recommend, such as "Moravagine," which would earn the bottom spot. A shame, and a surprise, since I love Blaise Cendrars' poetry. Love. Top of the list would be "Stoner," which reads like soul food.

I probably reviewed half of these at GoodReads, if you go there.

1. Schindler’s List – – Thomas Keneally (Jan)* -- heartening
2. The Color of Blood – Brian Moore (Jan)
3. The Reader – Bernhard Schlink (Jan)
4. When We Were Orphans – Kazuo Ishiguro (Jan)* -- worrying
5. Novels in Three Lines – Felix Feneon
6. Never Let Me Go – Kazuo Ishiguro (Jan)* -- uncanny
7. From the Hidden Storehouse – Benjamin Peret (Feb)* -- wild
8. Rule of the Bone – Russell Banks (Feb)
9. Last Orders – Graham Swift (Feb)
10. The Year of Magical Thinking – Joan Didion (Feb)* -- devastating
11. Elegy on Toy Piano – Dean Young
12. Eclipse – John Banville (march)
13. A Dangerous Friend – Ward Just (march)
14. Post Meridian – Mary Ruefle (march)
15. This Republic Of Suffering – Drew Gilpin Faust (mar)* -- fascinating
16. Talk Poetry – Mairead Byrne (apr)* -- refreshing
17. The Floating Island - Pablo Medina (apr)
18. Poet’s Choice – Edward Hirsch (apr)
19. The Kiss – Kathryn Harrison (apr)
20. The Way Birds Become – Joseph Bradshaw (may)* -- delightful
21. Language for a New Century: Poetry From the Middle East, Asia & Beyond (may)
22. Stoner – John Williams (May)* -- perfect
23. Epitaph of a Small Winner – Machado de Assis (June)
24. The Lost – Daniel Mendelsohn (July)* -- soulful
25. The Gathering – Anne Enright (July)
26. The Nature of Things – Francis Ponge (July)* --pointed
27. Angle of Repose – Wallace Stegman (July)
28. The Best Short Stories of 2002 (july)
29. Instructions from the Narwhal – Allison Titus (summer)
30. Divisadero – Michael Ondaatje (july)* -- different
31. The Room Where I Was Born – Brian Teare
32. Perfumes – Luca Turin & Maria Sanchez
33. Remarkable Trees – Thomas Parkenham (aug)
34. Moravagine – Blaise Cendrars (aug)
35. The Thirteenth Month – Inge Pederson (aug)
36. I Feel Bad About my Neck – Nora Ephron
37. Recovering the Body – Nicole Cartwright Denison
38. Orange Girl – Simone Muench
39. The Animal Husband – Christine Hamm
40. See Also Electric Light – Jen Tynes
41. The Traffic in Women – Kristina Marie Darling
42. The Glass Castle – Jeannette Walls (aug)* -- endearing
43. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly – Jean-Dominique Bauby (Aug)
44. Mothers of Invention – Drew Gilpin Faust (Sept)
45. But What – Judith Herzberg (Sept)
46. The Catastrophist – Ronan Bennett (Sept)
47. The Alphabet in the Park – Adele Prado (Sept)
48. Denmark, Kangaroo, Orange – Kevin Griffith (Sept)
49. The Great Enigma – Tomas Transtromer (Oct)
50. The Slaves of Solitude – Patrick Hamilton (Oct)
51. Decoy – Elaine Equi (Oct)
52. The Door in the Mountain – Jean Valentine
53. Samuel Coleridge Is Indignant – Lydia Davis (oct)
54. German Twentieth Century Poetry – ed. Michael Hoffman (oct)* --smorgasborgish
55. The Road – Cormac McCarthy (Oct)* -- essential
56. Photography Past/Forward: Aperture at 50 (Oct)
57. Ooga-Booga – Friedrich Siegel (Oct)* -- truthful
58. The Wind-up Bird Chronicle – Haruki Murakami (Nov)* -- wildflowery
59. In the Kingdom of My Familiar – Julie Platt (Nov)
60. Astonishing Splashes of Color – Claire Morrall (Nov)
61. Books v. Cigarettes – George Orwell (Dec)
62. The Art Lover – Carole Maso (Dec)
63. The Pilgrim Hawk - Glenway Wescott (Dec)
64. The White Tiger - Aravind Adiga (Dec)

what my boss was doodling at the meeting

He was doodling a nine-paned window with knights' shields in some.
He doodled a long river and added an extra line to help its twisting.
I lost my train of thought. He doodled something like burst chestnuts
or sleigh bells. Three of these. Then there was that deskpiece used
long ago to measure time; in German it's a Sanduhr, but
I couldn't remember the English, which couldn't be Sandclock,
and I'd really lost the thread of the meeting by the time
I remembered the English word and thought through why
it wasn't as good.

commute

if the train doesn't bury you
the escalator will bury you
if the escalator doesn't bury you
the tramplers will bury you
if the tramplers don't bury you
the snow will bury you
the snow will bury you
lucky you, finally
to be buried at all

often I've wondered

Stand Alone Synchronicity Equipment
Snow and Avalanche Study Establishment
Society of Advocates for Sociopathic English
Solemn Association of Scientific Esoterics
South African Seasickness Exchange
Semi Automatic Sidearm Enthusiasts
School for Anguished Suitcase Elastic
Suicide Awareness and Solace Engineering
Self Abusive Sumptuous Egoism
Seismatic Adaption Syndrome Expert
Subatomic Syntactic Error

3x fast

I did pretty much nothing today. I swore I wouldn't spend more than 20 mins in the video store picking out a film but of course I was there forever. I made a model Titanic with Miles, and then a very complicated WWI airplane. I bought olives, huge capers and feta cheese, and a book for Luisa. And I hurried home to record "Toy Boat Toy Boat Toy Boat" for The Dirty Napkin, which will be in their next issue. I had a date to call their editor at 5 pm, and didn't want to be late. It was morning where he was.

I have a poem up at Qarrtsiluni called "Tin," my second in this issue - Journaling the Apocalypse. I read that one, too. Just push the button. Or read it to yourself.
I'd prefer that.

I'm reading everything these days.

Irene Hardwicke Olivieri, a painter I spoke about a few posts ago, has sent me the full image of her piece "Wendy and Pato Go Boating."
Enjoy.