Cabbages & Kings

One linguistic tic that seems pre-programmed to annoy is using the name of the person being addressed to punctuate a sentence, e.g. -
"I have a few questions about your report, Bill."
"There's something I don't understand, Joan."

Unlike placing a name at the start of the sentence, where it asks for someone's attention, using the name at the end seems patronizing, a mark of presumed superiority. With it the speaker takes a stance. It's even more pompous used in writing than in speaking, when it's completely clear to the reader that s/he is the person being addressed.
"There's one thing that sits oddly with me about your comment, Nathan."

A friend in the office says this linguistic device is taught in business school as a way of "establishing closeness with an employee." Gack. More like a way of demonstrating bossdom. To me it's the linguistic equivalent of someone poking you in the chest when talking to you.
I do admit there are times when it could be used simply for innocuous emphasis. But even in a positive sentence it seems weird, e.g. "I really like this cake you made, Bill."
Does that make it seem like the speaker was expecting not to like the cake?

I'd be interested to know what others think. I should take more time to read linguistics! Maybe I will.

Anyway, in a tenuous segue from linguistics, my poem Liaoning Snapshot is up at A Clean, Well-Lighted Place. Ages ago I taught and studied in Liaoning province in a city named Dalian, another huge Chinese city no one has ever heard of, whose cabbages inspired the poem.

Annual Limbo

In German the week from Christmas to New Year's is called "between the years" (zwischen den Jahren), a phrase evoking a no man's land of time, and it does seem like that - taking the train with hardly anyone in it, floating around the office while nearly everyone else has off, the kids home from school.

Here comes the new year. I remember being a little kid and trying to figure out if I'd be alive after the year 2000. I made it. As always, in the new year I
1.) plan to eat more broccoli. I failed this year with about 6-7 servings, tops.

I also
2.) plan to read more German/y-related literature - The Magic Mountain, more Heinrich Böll, Herta Müller's The Appointment, that Goldhagen book, and The Beautiful Mrs. Seidenman.

Travelwise I
3.) hope to visit my dad and step-mother in Santa Fe, with or without appendages.

And, after some bad experiences, I will
4.) avoid delusions of grandeur, and just as importantly
5.) avoid people with delusions of grandeur, in real life and on the internet, where they are apparently legion.

I'm sure there are other, even more constructure ventures I could pursue, but these seem about doable.

happy trails

Since I'm doing a slow read of Moby-Dick, I doubt there will be more to add to this list before the year ends. So here are all the books I read in 2011, not counting some re-reads. Though many of these were worthwhile, I highlighted 'only' 15 of them as especially good, in whatever way. In January I wondered if I'd find anything as good as Mrs. Dalloway in the rest of the year - it such was a terrific novel. But without devoting too much thought to it, which sometimes leads to nothing but confusion, I'd say the book I liked most this year was The French Lieutenant's Woman. Having disliked the film, it's wonder I ever took it up.

1. Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf (Jan)
2. Why Did I Ever by Mary Robison (Jan)
3. Among the Monarchs by Christine Garren (Jan)
4. Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton (Feb)
5. Dances With Snakes by Horacio Castellanos Moya (Feb)
6. Small Island by Andrea Levy (Feb)
7. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte (Mar)
8. The French Lieutenant’s Woman by John Fowles (Mar)
9. Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner (Mar)
10. The Alphabetical Atheist by Andrew Rihn (Mar)
11. The Chameleon Couch by Yusef Komunyakaa (Mar)
12. Jejuri by Arun Kolatkar (Apr)
13. Mapping the World by Caroline Laffon (Apr)
14. Zirconia by Chelsey Minnis (Apr)
15. Oracle Night by Paul Auster (Apr)
16. The Fellowship of the Ring by JRR Tolkien (Feb)
17. Chronicles I by Bob Dylan (Mar)
18. Moscow to the End of the Line by Venedikt Erofeev (apr)
19. Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist (apr)
20. Call Me Ishmael Tonight by Agha Shahid Ali (Apr)
21. A Book of Luminous Things, edited by Czeslaw Milosz (Apr)
22. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert (May)
23. Tender Buttons by Gertrude Stein (May)
24. Winter’s Tale by Mark Helprin (May)
25. The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton (May)
26. Geography of the Forehead by Ron Koertge (May)
27. Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day by Winifred Watson (Jun)
28. The Quickening Maze by Adam Foulds (jun)
29. The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst (jun)
30. Laika by Nick Abadzis (June)
31. Survival in Auschwitz by Primo Levi (Jun)
32. The Redcoats by Ryan Murphy (spring)
33. The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles (Jul)
34. The Enchantress of Florence by Salman Rushdie (Jul)
35. Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys (jul)
36. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky (Jul)
37. Enduring Love by Ian McEwan (Jul)
38. Undertow by Anne Shaw (Jul)
39. The Pill versus the Springhill Mine Disaster by Richard Brautigan (Jul)
40. Juan Luna’s Revolver by Luisa A. Igloria (Jul)
41. The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven by Sherman Alexie (Jul)
42. Vernon Little God by DPC Pierre (August)
43. Then We Came to the End (August)
44. Temper by Beth Bachmann (Sept)
45. Number 9 Dream by David Mitchell (Aug)
46. The Trees by Eugenio Montale (Sept)
47. Aphorisms by Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach (Aug)
48. Skylark by Dezso Kosztolanyi (Aug)
49. Every Riven Thing by Christian Wiman (Aug)
50. Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson (Sep)
51. The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan (Sept)
52. Maus I by Arthus Spiegelman (Oct)
53. Maus II (Oct)
54. Fantastic Women: 18 Tales from Tin House (Oct)
55. Twisted: Collected Stories by Jeffrey Deaver (Oct)
56. The Liar’s Club by Mary Karr
57. Selected Poems by René Char (Oct.
58. The Boom of a Small Cannon by Mary Ann Samyn (Oct)
59. The Children of Men by PD James (Oct)
60. Anthrolpology by Dan Rhodes (Nov)
61. Haywire by George Bilgere (Nov)
62. Surrealist Poetry in English, ed. Edward Germain (Dec)

It has snown.

I was browsing a Roz Chast book recently and one of the comics was "Kitsch in Nature." The three things singled out were peacocks, foliage season and snowfall shortly before Christmas. All true!

I woke up this morning and it was snowing copiously and beautifully. My son jumped for joy and I kind of did, too, but also felt unnerved because my mother and sister are scheduled to fly from the states tonight and if their trips get screwed up I will be unhappy. Last year my sister had to scrap her trip completely because of snow, and my mother only arrived on Dec. 26. PLEASE GOD! Save the snow for later.

Snow is nice, though (please stop!). And here's a nicer thing. The International Center of Photography in NY used a photo by my brother Thatcher for its Christmas card this year. Click on it to make it bigger.

The victim has yet to be identified.

This blog is operated by a human being

Just sayin.
*

We visited IKEA this weekend and I was surprised to find out they are banking on the death of the book. They're redesigning their Billy bookcases to be deeper, because they don't expect people to use them for books anymore. We recently bought a "bookshelf" from IKEA that's very deep, but I didn't appreciate the sinister warning in it. Now that I look I realize the depth is mostly unnecessary since we are using it for books, which we continue to accumulate. Maybe here the expression "like they're going out of style" would be appropriate?
I know many believe books are headed for extinction as just another outdated technology. But books have been around for thousands of years, like houses, like shoes, like earrings. I haven't seen those things fall by the wayside yet.
*

One thing in need of a serious update is the umbrella. When it is windy that contraption just does not work. Why is no one able to improve on this old technology?

All that barking

More poems. Last night Verdad published its new issue, which has two of my poems – Death Roster and Good Wife of Hunan. The first is a spontaneous European sidewalk poem from some other decade, the second is Chinese-American and concerns my obsession with the Dog Star.

I’m taking a class in writing short prose, which is sometimes a class in reading short prose, which is also good. I’ve read many things in small formats, including Dan Rhodes’ Anthropology and some of Lou Beach’s 420 Characters, both new to me. Though I’m not big on gimmick I preferred the latter to the former. As the class ends soon we went out last night for a drink. I was looking forward to it because I next-to-never have an evening out and I assumed we’d talk writing and books but instead a talk ensued about American television, which was supremely depressing. I never watch tv, I don’t care about tv, especially tv I would have to make an extra effort to watch on the freaking internet in my miniscule free time! Anyway, I didn’t say this because as soon as you say you don’t like tv you look like a snob. It was a deflating evening.

Back to reading and writing.

in which the bluebirds black out

It is becoming more difficult to write a letter
from the slow country of summer.
The light makes a mess of the trees.

A lawn chair broods in a corner way off the map.
*

I have two poems in the new issue of DMQ Review - Seven Postcards from Solitude and This tree requests dedication and patience. My lawn chair and bonsai are happy to be there.

Another thing I've meant to mention is my chapbook Excuse me while I wring this long swim out of my hair made Jessy Randall's list of favorite (chap)books of 2011. Yeah!

Those end-of-year lists are rolling in. I enjoy them, although I rarely read a book the year it comes out. My favorite book this year was The French Lieutenant's Woman, fresh from 1969.

Thingdom

I am so disappointed in the French. One of our French managers visited the office today. He laughed at my joke and was generally charming. But when we retired to my desk to discuss "input queues," did he notice the book of Francis Ponge poems on my desk? Non! Or worse, he noticed and did not know Francis Ponge. It was truly disappointing.

Still, it's my week at Good Reads to pick the poems. My theme is THINGS. I've chosen poems that either take a close look at objects, or use them as a springboard. I include Ponge, and a bunch of others, including myself:

Monday: Fork by Charles Simic
Tuesday: Pity the Bathtub its Forced Embrace of the Human Form by Matthea Harvey
Wednesday: Oranges by Gary Soto
Thursday: The Frog by Francis Ponge
Friday: The Groundfall Pear by Jane Hirshfield
Saturday: Whisk by me
Sunday: Wick Effects by E.C. Belli

Below is Ponge's Frog, and maybe later this week I'll put up my Whisk, which also isn't online anywhere but will be in my chapbook Homebodies, due next year from Hyacinth Girl Press.

The Frog
When stabbing needlepoints of rain rebound from the sodden fields, an amphibious dwarf, an Ophelia with amputated arms, no bigger than a fist, springs up sometimes under the poet’s feet and hurls herself into the nearest pool.
Let the nervous creature flee. She has lovely legs. All her body is gloved in a waterproof skin. Barely flesh, her long muscles have an elegance neither fish nor fowl. But to escape your clutch the quality of fluidity in her combines with the efforts of a living thing.
Goitrous, she gasps . . . And that heart which throbs so heavily, whose wrinkled eyelids, that haggard mouth inspires such pity that I let her go.

La Grenouille
Lorsque la pluie en courtes aiguillettes rebondit aux prés saturés, une naine amphibie, une Ophélie manchote, grosse à peine comme le poing, jaillit parfois sou les pas du poète et se jette au prochain étang.
Laisson fuir la nerveuse. Elle a de jolies jambes. Tout son corps est ganté de peau imperméable. A peine viande ses muscles longs sont d’une elegance ni chair ni poisson. Mais pour quitter les doigts la vertu du fluide s’allie chez elle aux effort du vivant. Goitreuse, elle halite . . . Et ce cœur qui bat gros, ces paupières ridées, cette bouche hagarde m’apitoyent a la lâcher.

Owls and Kiwis

I've had to activate the "moderate comments" function after receiving a number of spam comments recently. As far as my blog goes, the spambots are posting with links to what I assume are shopping sites for purses. I don't know. I didn't click, and I wouldn't want anyone else to either.

The amount of offensive spam I get in my work email has also gone berserk. Even the subject lines are pornographic. Thinking of my kids receiving the same stuff makes me want to go out and arrest people. It's at the point where I see the words "long" and "hard," even in the most innocuous settings, and I cringe. I was at the store the other day fingering the kiwis. A man beside me was doing the same and he turned to me and said "they're all hard," and I was like, "you pig." It's sad.

Spam isn't as bad with my Yahoo! account, the trade-off being I have to look at celebrity stories on the homepage. I keep thinking there must be a way to 'personalize' my page, as the site promises. Block all Demi & Ashton. Block all Kardashan. Block reality tv "news." Bloooock!

It hit home (again) today when I read a story in the New York Times about how many wines now have in-your-face names, like "Sweet Bitch," "Royal Bitch," and "Sassy Bitch," as well as "Fat Bastard," "Ball Buster," and "Bigass Red." The wineries using these names claim they must separate themselves from "the herd on the shelf." To me it sounds more like getting down with the lowest common denominator. Or maybe I've lost my sense of humor. My house wine is La Cuvée Mythique, a dark, mysterious red with a charming non-sexual owl on the label.

dezember

The nice thing about December in Germany is it’s spelled with a z. Exotic, no?

December also brought the publication of YB and Umbrella, both of which include some of my poems. YB, in its Animals issue, has “Reindeer” from my chapbook, and Umbrella has “Our Lady of Busted Cutlery” and “Keeping my Cool.” Umbrella also has two poems by our lady of escape, Kathleen Kirk.

Some days ago The Medulla Review also went live, publishing my poem “Baseler Platz.” My office is on Baseler Platz. It’s an odd geography, encompassing a couple nice new offices and residential buildings, but also rundown store fronts, a chronic traffic snarl and the outskirts of the main train station. The poem, as always, is based on a true story.

On a side note, Diane Lockward a couple days ago blogged about guest editing for Adanna’s inaugural issue (which published my poem “Low Grass”) for anyone interested in the ins and outs of submissions.

While we’re on the subject of submissions - from a poet's point of view - yesterday was my birthday and I got a rejection. (You’d think in this age that your email would let you program what kind of mail you receive on your birthday.) It was funny because after letting me know they didn’t want my poems, they asked me to 1) follow them on Facebook; 2) subscribe to their updates; 3) take the time to register their response time on Duotrope (a lit magazine guide); and 4) reminded me to please take six months before submitting again.

It was my birthday. And I didn’t do a damned one of those things.

As my folks say, “Happy new month.”

Two days

I was so devastated about missing another Thanksgiving I had to take two days off. Well, I was only a little devastated, but devastated enough. Actually I took a two-day collage workshop over the weekend and couldn't bear going to work right afterwards, so I took two days off. Also to savor the disappointment of failing collage. There are a lot of reasons to take two days off. I'm behind in reading Moby Dick, for example. At my current pace I'm reading about 6.3 pages a day. With a little effort I could turn two days off into eight days worth of reading. At first I just took Monday off, but then with my class Tuesday night I knew that Tuesday would make me crazy, so I added that. I have one more day free this year and I was tempted to make the two days three. But that would have been going overboard. The trick to taking two days off is not to tell your family about it until the last minute. Otherwise free takes on new meaning. Like I've done all the dog-walking for two days, which is totally not my job, which is why I go back to my job tomorrow.

the oracle at work

It’s when I try to take a nap that everyone seems to seek my counsel.
Questions come up like “if someone wants toast but there’s no bread, then what?”
Or this one – “are you sleeping?”
Sometimes observations need to be shared, like “the TV won’t go on.”
Or someone simply opens the door and gazes at me, as if that were of great support to them.
Then my mother calls. After congratulating me for taking a nap, there’s just one question – “do you remember where I put the dumpling recipe?”

1963

on nov 22 it rained the night before
but everything cleared by the next morning
so if you were looking at various photographs
of the motorcade route and the crowd gathered there
you will have noticed
nobody is wearing a raincoat

nobody has an open umbrella
why, because it's a beautiful day
and then I noticed in all of Dallas
there appears to be exactly one person
standing under an open black umbrella

and that person is standing where
the shots begin to rain into the limosine
let us call him the umbrella man

you can see him in certain frames from the zapruder film
standing right there by the stemmons freeway sign
there are other still photographs taken
from other locations in dealey plaza
which show the whole man

standing under an open black umbrella
the only person under any umbrella
in all of dallas


(this is a found poem transcribed from a video concerning the Kennedy assassination 48 years ago today.)

The Burden

When I was in graduate school I had a boyfriend from Berlin. We lived together in an apartment near the university.

Götz had habits that took getting used to. He made a sharp intake of breath, for instance, when answering a question in the affirmative. I took this for a personal tic, until years later when I met other northern Germans.

Whenever there was some major handiwork to do, like renovating or painting a room, Götz wore zip-up coveralls rather like a mechanic. I found the outfit overdone. He also considered it normal to put on his swimsuit on the beach, discreetly or under a towel, while I found this embarrassing if not illegal. Disrobing was something to be done privately before arriving, or in a toilet stall.

Most awkward of all, home at night Götz walked about half-dressed or naked with the shades up and the lights on. Though I thought he ought to practice more caution and modesty, Götz didn’t feel that burden. He said it was up to the people outside not to look in.
**

Photo by Gary Heller

Mr. Paradise

We live in a rowhouse lined up behind an identical row of identical houses. Our gardens are also the same size - small. Our homes are all the same. In back, there are five large windows.

The neighbor directly before us, whose garden we look out on, we’ve nicknamed Mr. Paradise because he has planted every inch of his garden with low-growing, pale purple flowers. It is pretty if a bit monotonous, and would be impossible to navigate without damage if it weren’t for a few stepping stones.

Almost every weekend Mr. Paradise hosts another ladyfriend for Sunday brunch. Over time, the rotation has been whittled down to three.

The tall blonde one.
The thin one with the bob haircut.
The bespectacled brunette with the small son.

It is difficult to discern what his relationship is with these women, who vaguely resemble each other – lanky and slow-moving, laconic. They could be girlfriends, or sisters, or friends from work. I’ve never seen him touch one.

It’s really none of my business.

It’s none of anybody’s business, and I don’t go out of my way to watch, but Mr. Paradise has a low fence, and even if he had a high fence I’d still see his patio from my upstairs window where I am standing behind the curtain firmly on the side of the brunette.

(repost for the voyeurs)
*painting by Sarah Boyle

Inside-Out Voyeurs

In the house across the street the husband and wife are both smokers. Like sentries, they take turns at the big kitchen window, smoking whether it’s cold or hot, morning or night. They have two small daughters. The elderly grandmother, who used to live there alone, has been moved upstairs. Someone is always home.

It is a house of much abruptness. Curt words, and sudden gestures that just as quickly end.

One can’t help but want to get a longer glimpse into the kitchen, but the man and woman have turned tables on the curious; their constant watch prevents it. When I walk past on my daily sojourn with the dog, I must discipline myself not to turn to the window, where one of them blows a thin rope of smoke into the street, daring anyone to look.

Atlantic City

This week I'll be doing a post each day that touches on watching or voyeurism. Let's start with a movie ...

Atlantic City

One of the most memorable opening scenes from the early 80s was in Louis Malle’s movie Atlantic City. It zooms in on a kitchen window, apparently from an opposite building. A woman stands at the sink slicing lemons. Because it’s dark out, the sink light, though dim, illuminates and isolates her, rinsing her face and hair. She takes off her blouse and rolls her camisole down to expose her breasts and shoulders.

This could easily turn into a cliché male fantasy – the standard payoff for a voyeur violating a woman’s supposed solitude. But instead of deteriorating into something cheap, she starts to rub her arms and upper body with the lemons. She is practiced at it, as if it were a daily ritual. She is rough with herself, as if she didn’t inhabit her own skin. Yet she takes the time to perform this strange cleansing, she takes this care, however perfunctory.

In addition to the unbidden intimacy, for some time the audience must suffer the mystery of why the woman washes herself with lemons. We – the audience – later learn she works at a clam bar, and the trenchant smell of fish compels her. We – the audience – are an old man observing her from an apartment window across the street.

the constant midnight

The most important thing going on these days is my reading of Moby Dick. All other political and economic escapades pale in its shadow; all thoughts of sleep and hygiene ease into the backseat. Now I let the boat-owning Quakers Bildad and Peleg determine the worth of things; I let Ishmael do the sleeping, in bed with Queequeg.

I read much of Melville in a college seminar, but somehow the professor skipped Moby Dick. And for the most part I’d been resolved to never reading it. It was right up there with Finnegan’s Wake and a lot of vampire novels. I didn’t need to go there. But it has kind of nagged at me, so this summer I said why not (with a nudge from my reading friend Ken).

Funny enough around the time we sank our teeth in, Moby Dick seemed to experience a mini-revival. A whale nearly swallowed a surfer on YouTube! Nathaniel Philbrick published his book “Why Read Moby Dick,” which I’m skipping for the real deal. And an artist named Matt Kish published a book in which he creates a drawing or painting “for every page” of Moby Dick (he used the 552-page Signet. I have the $3.99 Penguin with 536 pp).

For my birthday, at the end of the month, I bought myself the artwork you see above for p. 513: "As the unsetting polar star, which through the livelong, arctic, six months' night sustains its piercing, steady, central gaze; so Ahab's purpose now fixedly gleamed down upon the constant midnight of the gloomy crew." I also got the bargain page 347: "At the instant of the dart an ulcerous jet shot from this cruel wound..."

I love literature. It’s inspiring. Get it while it’s hot.

Swami

Dogs understand everything. This is why they are often found playing dead, or maniacally flinging dirt from the ground into the air.

When not sleeping or doing tricks for reward, dogs devote much of life to meditation. Lying on the couch while you are out, or sitting outside the market waiting on Saturday mornings, dogs are filing it all away in their minds.

With experience, dogs interpret everything correctly. You could fill book after book with the thoughts of dogs, if there were a language suited to them. Their concentrated stares swell with insights they can’t articulate.

Instead the corners and stairs fill with fur, enough to build five new dogs for each existing one, which increases crowdedness and creates static, but enlightens no one, and often serves to make them irksome.

from Everyday Processes of Manufacturing and Civilization

The high point of ending a trip by plane is the ritual of the baggage claim. Like a litter of monstrous kittens suitcases emerge from the airport’s underground bowels. The conveyer belt puts them on parade. Hands pluck at the luggage, expressive faces ask is this one mine, is this yours. Gradually the travelers scatter, bearing bag by bag home and away.
*
Among the processes I most like to observe is toast browning in the toaster oven. After a slow start, color rolls across the bread like wind, like a brushfire, or a swarm of locusts darkening the plain. I am loath to abandon the lookout; I don’t want to let the dark go too far.
*
I’ve never minded washing windows or mowing the lawn. I’m not a big believer in progress, I am not a believer at all, but I like the advancement towards an end – I like to watch, if not take part. I could spend hours by the fireplace poking the fire.
*
In our world of myriad invention, all processes must bow to the Polaroid photo. As the images take shape, who could fail to be enthralled? Who hasn’t seen the Polaroid as a backward-looking crystal ball? It goes from murk to uncertain to your dad in his swimsuit. Within a minute it rewards its observers, traveling from frothy surf to welcoming shore.
*

Lorelei

It's been a long time since I made a Friday confession so here's one: I have in middle age bought a number of clothing articles that I never wore, and that I knew I would never wear. One year it was a woolen dress, skyblue, gathered at the waist and v-necked. Truth is I already had the same dress in practical black and loved it, and wore it, but when they marked the skyblue one down I bought it, too, knowing it was impossible. Who can wear skyblue? With what stockings, with which shoes? But if we buy paintings, or books for their covers, or a smooth stone to fondle, and pack beautiful photos away in scrapbooks to peruse once in a while, why not some beautiful piece of clothing we like to feel or look at? I still have the dress. It hangs in my closet like a raindrop that won't drop. When I saw it in the store it called to me like a Rhine siren.

dilly dilly

For all my bellyaching, this morning saw a beautiful sunrise in Germany. The sky was festooned in high pinks and bright blues, like the room of a yet-to-be-born baby, whose parents are holding out for the big surprise.

perhaps this valley too will burn

For all its failings, America still does the best sunsets. While the population toils, the sunset doctors are cooking something wonderful up beyond the hills, woodlands and highways. One evening it’s blues and purples with chemical yellow rays. The next goes goth in pink frills and black clouds. They blossom like psychedelic cabbages, and leak pale scarlet like amniotic sacs. America I love you because in Europe I have to install a metal windmill in my mind and rub my eyes in absinthe to achieve anything near your least radiant machine; I have to half smother myself in macaw and flamingo feathers. Whenever I think of what I miss most, and I try not to, the red queen strolls boneless into the sky and technicolor tears bloom behind my eyelids.

Homebody

I've been so busy traveling and visiting this past week I haven't had time to mention my very good news that I'll have another chapbook out next year, "Homebodies," from Hyacinth Girl Press. This is a collection of 'home totem' poems about household objects, and other poems set 'at home' or dealing with the concept of home. It includes some wine poems, "Whisk," "sPonge," "Faucet Song," and "Dollhouse," which appeared in Escape Into Life.

I was thrilled to have this chapbook accepted. Physical things are my favorite writing subjects, i.e. forks, knives, spoons and kneecaps.

Dollhouse

There is a sink that won’t be filled
that won’t offer water

Rooms without doors
Children on their backs in bed

There are chairs tucked up to the table
docile where sedation reigns

Little house, in death the snow
will cover you like a doily

Wolves will circle your horses
frozen beside the sleigh

.

All the names

We got to see the 9/11 memorial in New York last week and it was stunning - very solemn, the colors sombre and dark. The typeface for the victims' names is indeed Optima, something I was wondering about in a previous post. It works well. The fountain is gorgeous and the water turns a mineral green at the bottom of the pool, which empties into a true abyss - you cannot see the bottom of it. I, and the whole family, thought it was beautiful.

What struck me afterwards, however, was how much in contrast it seems to stand to the rest of America these days, or at least the northeast coast. The shabby houses along the bus route to NYC, all the infrastructure falling apart. You see clearly that millions of dollars have been sunk into the memorial, and rightly, and yet it is sad to so much else neglected.

The memorial is very close to Occupy Wall Street, and we headed over to have a look. It was underwhelming, to be honest, and of course a number of vendors (capitalists? opportunists?) set up shop selling t-shirts and falafel on the sidelines of the demonstration.

Char

It's discouraging to go to my mother's local library and find they have no Lydia Davis.

But it's also crazy to go to the local thrift store (enormous) and find they have a volume of Rene Char in translation on the $1 book shelf.

So I got the Char book, and took Art Spiegelman's "Maus" out of the library.

It was lovely weather today. We went to the Statue of Liberty and felt the wind blow.

tinder

Tomorrow we fly to NJ via Ottawa and tonight we pack. I won’t be taking many books because I will surely bring some back, though I must be careful not to go overboard. Last time I had to pay an overweight fee. My mother says Kindle is the answer, but I still love paper books that make good tinder, and if I had a Kindle (or whatever) I’d surely spend 80% of my waking time connected to electronic gadgetry. When you think about it, even my stove is electric, and so is the tram that takes me to work. And I spend a lot of time with lamps.

I am taking The Liar’s Club, which I’m reading now.
And I’m taking The Book of Disquiet, which I’m still reading.

I won’t take any poetry because I have a bunch of chapbooks waiting at my mother’s. I can’t remember which, but DGP does this “bundle” deal with chaps, which are $7 a piece, but $5 as part of a bundle of 5. If you like poetry, it is dumb not to go over and pick some titles, including mine of course.

I also thought it would be cool to enter my chap in a giveaway at GoodReads, and I made the entry period longish thinking not many people would sign up. But apparently the GoodReads giveaways trigger a mass reaction in which whoever and whatever signs up. Right now 360 people “want” my book. It’s kind of sad, because 356 of those people just want something for free. Frown. So if you’re on Good Reads and read poetry please sign up. I just did. Can I win my own book? Let’s see. laugh

mind map

When I read the newspaper, I often mix Belfast up with Belgrade, requiring strenuous mental leaps.

Even more often, I mix the Pantheon up with the Parthenon.

Slovenia and Slovakia are a constant challenge that might not be worth it. For me. Personally.

Recently I read a poem called "Chad" about a man and his family posing for a photograph. At the end, I asked, "What does this have to do with Chad, landlocked country south of Libya, population 10 million, broad arid plains, desert in the north, lowlands in the south?"

the moon gazed on my midnight labours

I read an article yesterday saying astronomy has confirmed that Mary Shelly saw a bright gibbous moon on the night she began “Frankenstein.” In her original introduction to the book she said the moon was shining through her window deep in the night when she began her classic, but many considered the claim author hype.

Tracing back, however, an astronomer determined the window in the villa where the young lady stayed above Lake Geneva was pouring moonlight into her room between 2 and 3 am on June 16, 1816, the night she and other guests were challenged to write a ghost story.

I enjoyed this article because I was immediately up close with her in that bedroom, with the moonlight and the bedsheets and the good idea. It’s marvelous how science can inspire intimacy.

song of the day: There's a light over at the Frankenstein place

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)