Bring on the Poetry Appreciation Chairs!

In honor of Friday's release of Hitchiker's Guide To The Galaxy (slightly edited for run time):


"Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz smiled very slowly. This was done not so much for effect as because he was trying to remember the sequence of muscle movements. He had had a terribly therapeutic yell at his prisoners and was now feeling quite relaxed and ready for a little callousness.

The prisoners sat in Poetry Appreciation Chairs --strapped in. Vogons suffered no illusions as to the regard their works were generally held in. Their early attempts at composition had been part of bludgeoning insistence that they be accepted as a properly evolved and cultured race, but now the only thing that kept them going was sheer bloodymindedness.

The sweat stood out cold on Ford Prefect's brow, and slid round the electrodes strapped to his temples. These were attached to a battery of electronic equipment - imagery intensifiers, rhythmic modulators, alliterative residulators and simile dumpers - all designed to heighten the experience of the poem and make sure that not a single nuance of the poet's thought was lost.

Arthur Dent sat and quivered. He had no idea what he was in for, but he knew that he hadn't liked anything that had happened so far and didn't think things were likely to change.

The Vogon began to read - a fetid little passage of his own devising.

"Oh frettled gruntbuggly ..." he began. Spasms wracked Ford's body - this was worse than ever he'd been prepared for.

"... thy micturations are to me | As plurdled gabbleblotchits on a lurgid bee."

"Aaaaaaarggggghhhhhh!" went Ford Prefect, wrenching his head back as lumps of pain thumped through it. He could dimly see beside him Arthur lolling and rolling in his seat. He clenched his teeth.

"Groop I implore thee," continued the merciless Vogon, "my foonting turlingdromes."

His voice was rising to a horrible pitch of impassioned stridency. "And hooptiously drangle me with crinkly bindlewurdles,| Or I will rend thee in the gobberwarts with my blurglecruncheon, see if I don't!"

"Nnnnnnnnnnyyyyyyyuuuuuuurrrrrrrggggggghhhhh!" cried Ford Prefect and threw one final spasm as the electronic enhancement of the last line caught him full blast across the temples. He went limp.

Arthur lolled.

"Now Earthlings ..." whirred the Vogon (he didn't know that Ford Prefect was in fact from a small planet in the vicinity of Betelgeuse, and wouldn't have cared if he had) "I present you with a simple choice! Either die in the vacuum of space, or ..." he paused for melodramatic effect, "tell me how good you thought my poem was!"

He threw himself backwards into a huge leathery bat-shaped seat and watched them. He did the smile again.

Ford was rasping for breath. He rolled his dusty tongue round his parched mouth and moaned.

Arthur said brightly: "Actually I quite liked it."

Ford turned and gaped. Here was an approach that had quite simply not occurred to him.

The Vogon raised a surprised eyebrow that effectively obscured his nose and was therefore no bad thing.

"Oh good ..." he whirred, in considerable astonishment.

"Oh yes," said Arthur, "I thought that some of the metaphysical imagery was really particularly effective."

Ford continued to stare at him, slowly organizing his thoughts around this totally new concept. Were they really going to be able to bareface their way out of this?

"Yes, do continue ..." invited the Vogon.

"Oh ... and er ... interesting rhythmic devices too," continued Arthur, "which seemed to counterpoint the ... er ... er ..." He floundered.

Ford leaped to his rescue, hazarding "counterpoint the surrealism of the underlying metaphor of the ... er ..." He floundered too, but Arthur was ready again.

"... humanity of the ..."

"Vogonity," Ford hissed at him.

"Ah yes, Vogonity (sorry) of the poet's compassionate soul," Arthur felt he was on a home stretch now, "which contrives through the medium of the verse structure to sublimate this, transcend that, and come to terms with the fundamental dichotomies of the other," (he was reaching a triumphant crescendo ...) "and one is left with a profound and vivid insight into ... into ... er ..." (... which suddenly gave out on him.) Ford leaped in with the coup de gr@ce:

"Into whatever it was the poem was about!" he yelled. Out of the corner of his mouth: "Well done, Arthur, that was very good."

The Vogon perused them. For a moment his embittered racial soul had been touched, but he thought no - too little too late. His voice took on the quality of a cat snagging brushed nylon.

"So what you're saying is that I write poetry because underneath my mean callous heartless exterior I really just want to be loved," he said. He paused. "Is that right?"

Ford laughed a nervous laugh. "Well I mean yes," he said, "don't we all, deep down, you know ... er ..."

The Vogon stood up.

"No, well you're completely wrong," he said, "I just write poetry to throw my mean callous heartless exterior into sharp relief. I'm going to throw you off the ship anyway. Guard! Take the prisoners to number three airlock and throw them out!"

The captain watched with detached amusement and then turned away.

A steel door closed and the captain was on his own again. He hummed quietly and mused to himself, lightly fingering his notebook of verses.

"Hmmmm," he said, "counterpoint the surrealism of the underlying metaphor ..." He considered this for a moment, and then closed the book with a grim smile.

"Death's too good for them," he said."

--Douglas Adams

Suburbian Dungeon Blues

I was shopping at Nordstrom's Rack, sort of an outlet for the very tony Nordstrom's department store. The checkers wave little colored flags when they're ready to help the next customer. Customers are generally Eastside, by which I mean streak-blond SUV drivers. The checkout line tends to be long, so I had plenty of time to consider the comment box, sporting the following sign: "HOW WAS YOUR RACK EXPERIENCE?" People look at you weird when you're laughing for no apparent reason.

Window for Suzanne

Why Seattle Meteorologists Take To Drink

"... the forecasting models have gone bezerk (sic) for the weekend.

Some are (get this:) showing a weak system coming in from the south late Saturday, then actually bending northwest and west back out to sea Sunday and Monday, only to then drop south off the California coast early next week, and then come inland to our south again. Others have a weak system coming from the north. (See what happens to forecasts when systems don't come from the west?)

To be honest, we're not impressed with any of the painted shower scenarios as there's just too much inconsistency, so we're keeping it dry Saturday and Sunday, cooling us back to near 60. Just be advised that forecast isn't exactly brimming with confidence, so keep tabs on the weekend forecast -- it could change again if the models get their act straight and come up with a more believable rain-shower solution.

Now, with the models being so inconsistent for the weekend, that leaves longer range forecasts even more dubious, but there seems to at least be a pretty good hint it'll be dry Monday through Wednesday with highs around 60.

In the meantime, I think Mother Nature needs to paint some traffic lanes out in the Pacific :) "

I love that guy (the KOMO online weather geek).

"O wonderful, wonderful, and most wonderful wonderful! and yet again wonderful! and after that, out of all whooping!"

After haunting the mailbox for a couple of decades (seemingly), I received an acceptance of my poem "From the Visitor's Guide to Tectonics in Cascadia" from Isotope, a print journal from Utah State University. They wish to make a small edit, but I decided I can live with it (and I see their point). This will be my first "official" publication by my definition, in that it will be in a national magazine and I wasn't affiliated in any way with the editors. "Whoo Hoo!", she says, exuberantly happy-dancing and scaring the cat.

The End of the AWP

So I can stop feeling guilty, a skill at which I excel.

Packed up, checked out, and went to the Richard Hugo panel, presented by current Montana faculty. They went (as far as I could tell), oldest to youngest. Patricia Goedicke and Greg Pape spoke about Hugo as a person and teacher, lots of super anecdotes and material from his classes and "The Triggering Town". The next speaker discussed "Degrees of Gray in Phillipsburg" in some detail. Some of her analysis I agreed with, some I didn't. The final speaker read what I recall as a academic assessment of some kind, off her laptop. My interest decreased as things became increasing dry and theoretical. Guess I'm just naturally shallow. But nobody could ever ruin Hugo for me.

"Here's the right madness on Skye. Take five days
for piper and drum and tell the oxen, starting dancing.
Mail Harry of Nothingham home to his nothing.
Take my word. It's been fun."

"Four Northwest Women Poets" -- wonderful reading. Lucia Perillo, Nance Van Winckel, Linda Bierds, and Dorianne Laux. They were all great, but Linda Bierds was my favorite. The stand-out poem was a pantoum (I think--one of the repeating forms, anyway) about the man who discerned the helical structure of DNA. Ok, I found it online here. I sat with Paul and saw Jeaninne -- good crowd.

Happy discovery in the Fairmont gift shop -- they have several proprietary tea blends specific to their various hotels, and Vancouver also offered the Empress blend, to which I became addicted the last time I was in Victoria. Most of my vices are boring like that. Still, yum.

After some solid book-fairing, the final event: "The Unknown Pagoda: Southeast Asian American Writing". The handsome man I'd been staring at all weekend because he looked so familiar turned out to be Oliver de la Paz, who is very nice in person and will be moving to Washington soon; yay! And he read some wonderful pieces, as well. The reading was a combination of fiction, creative non-fiction, and poetry, which worked well. Eileen Tabios read some interesting ... did she call them "footnote poems"? Very abridged pieces that invite the audience to provide context and meaning. Ordinarily, I'm wary of poetic forms that are overtly informed by the poet's politics. But in this case, I found her explanation interesting and persuasive. She blogged about it this week as follows: "during the Southeast Asian Writing panel at AWP, I'd discussed writing open-ended poems and I'd noted how the notion of the audience being the ones to complete a poem is not an idea that originated with me. Nor did I concoct the related idea of how meaning is unstable. Instead, I said, my primary impetus had more to do with trying to avoid English as a communications tool with its reliance on specific narratives (due to its colonial history in the Philippines)." Nick Carbo introduced everyone, and Denise Duhamel was sitting in front of me. I mention this because after each person read, in addition to clapping, she voiced a little "Whoo", like the front half of the Simpsonian "Whoo Hoo!" I thought this was delightful, and more like what I would like to hear at poetry readings than the usual appreciative "Mmmmmmmmm" (which I do, too, sadly; it's a sickness) and restrained applause.

An honest cabbie, nothing in my luggage that looked like a bomb, a good seat on the train, and Scott waiting at the station. Bliss.

Book Quiz

You're Watership Down!

by Richard Adams

Though many think of you as a bit young, even childish, you're
actually incredibly deep and complex. You show people the need to rethink their
assumptions, and confront them on everything from how they think to where they
build their houses. You might be one of the greatest people of all time. You'd
be recognized as such if you weren't always talking about talking rabbits.


Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

The Excitement Around Here

Not terribly exciting, perhaps, but certainly a change of pace. Cats have more sense than humans, sometimes. I'd been ignoring an odd noise I couldn't identify (windy outside, whatever). But Hobbes kept prowling around the fireplace, contrary to habit. And there was a red-shafted flicker, clinging to the inside of the chimney. What possessed him to investigate such a place, I can't imagine. But there he sat, a little sooty, blinking at me. After some skirmishing around with a "net" bodged together from a broomstick, an old lingerie-washing bag, a wire coat hanger, and lots of duct tape, I managed to spook him high enough that he figured out where the exit was.

I adore flickers. Their swooping flight, the black half-moon on their breasts, their galaxy of strange calls, the orange beneath their wings and the fire in their quills, their apparent joie de vivre in drumming on the metal drainpipes of the neighborhood. I'm glad this one got out ok.

13th Friday Redux

Let's crack on with this, shall we? Despite the increasing belatedness.

Friday afternoon:
Readings upon readings. Pitt Poetry Series, featuring Bob Hickok, Denise Duhamel, Alicia Ostriker, and the ubiquitous Virgil Suarez. I admire Bob Hickok's writing very much, but he wasn't quite what I expected (not that I know what I expected). He didn't seem wild about being there, but maybe that's my misperception. He read a piece that included a hawk's skull kept in the freezer (or refrigerator?) that I wish I had shown the sense to write down the title of. Denise Duhamel, with whom I was unfamiliar, was a delight to listen to. Among other things, she read a long abecedarian (sp?), very playful, lots of fun. I kept wanting to say, "Breathe, dear, breathe". Kelli Agodon sat with me, and Amy Nez and her sweetie were there too.

Next up: Academy of American Poets reading, with Mark Doty, Heather McHugh, Toi Derricote, Carol Muske-Dukes, Andrew Hudgins. Well balanced reading, I thought, although a bit fish-heavy in the Toi section (if you were there, you know what I mean), although I did like her final piece. Heather McHugh's work is better read aloud by her than read off the page by me, in my opinion. The wonderful word-play and sonics really shine that way. Carol Muske-Dukes -- sad but good. Mark Doty (the reason I was there) was great. He read a poem with birds in that I was (again) too dumb to write down the title of, and the wonderful "Heaven for Paul". What a sterling reader and raconteur.

Offsite (my gratitude to Jeannine Hall Gailey & her husband, who brought a six-poet van) to the impressive Vancouver Public Library for the final reading: "Cross-Border Pollination - Canadian and American Poets", featuring Rachel Rose, Lorna Crozier, Annie Finch, Peter Pereira, Judith Barrington & Susan Rich. I was there to see Peter, who is always a great reader. I finally got his book, but haven't delved into it yet. Pretty punch-drunk (from words, pathetic as that is) at that point, and also ravenous (two Luna bars don't last all day). Blessings on the heads of the organizers for dishing out munchies; smoked salmon, yet. So my impressions are sketchy. But I was generally impressed, especially by Rachel Rose (who has the most beautiful rose-petal complexion), and Judith Barrington (who is very tall and exudes an air of slightly-intimidating competence, but in a nice way).

Lovely dinner with Seattle-area poets Kelli Agodon, Jeannine Gailey & her husband (who was very good-natured & patient with all the shop-talk), and Michael Dylan Welch, who organizes Poets In The Park at Marymoor in Redmond. We ate at the Hyatt restaurant, which was very nice, on the second floor with lots of windows. Much talk about poetry in general, food, po-gossip, black swans, haiku, emotional baggage, and the smuggling of cuban cigars. I'm sure I'm forgetting lots. It was a wonderful evening.

Everyone's a psychologist...

From a online physics forum: "The speed of light directly supports how (many)dementions there are in space time."

Link Happy

"New research shows that the wings of the morpho rhetenor butterfly reflect its brilliant blue colors not from pigment but from extremely small scaffolding within the scales of the butterfly’s wings." -- article

"Colors in Carey's world have properties that most of us would never dream of: red is solid, powerful and consistent, while yellow is pliable, brilliant and intense. Chocolate is rich purple and makes Carey’s breath smell dark blue. Confusion is orange." -- article

"Ferret brain activity increased just 20 percent when looking at Keanu Reeves compared to looking at darkness, the study found." -- article

"There are no black ovals running around out there and yet they all had the same word for black oval,'' Slobodchikoff said." -- article

Interesting New Yorker article

13 Part Deux

Friday:

First item of significance -- the Donald Justice panel, which I really enjoyed. Someone read "The Wall". There were a lot of anecdotes, about his penchant for poker among other things. C. Dale read "Psalm and Lament", then his own piece "Late Poem" which teared me up and I wouldn't mind seeing again (hint). I'm dreadful with names, but someone quoted from a letter in which Justice had offered this criticism of a poem (I'm paraphrasing and hopefully didn't hash it up too badly): "There is no moral structure or (viewpoint?) underlying the work, which might serve to give it meaning and life." That's interesting set up against what seems to be the current fashion for not taking a definite stance or making moral judgments in our work. Does this arise from empathy, the desire to give houseroom to all points of view? (Someone on NPR once joked that a liberal was someone too open-minded to take their own side in an argument.) I wonder if the role of the impartial reporter isn't sometimes limiting and lifeless, if it can become a form of moral cowardice to conceal where one stands. If so, I've been as guilty as anyone else. But then you get into the quicksand of persona poems, etc., so there are no easy answers.

As an aside, I realized that politicized rhetoric which assumes that no intelligent person of good conscience could hold an opposing view is equally tiresome no matter where it springs from on the ideological spectrum. This is my impression from the whole experience, not the Justice panel.

Next up: "Writing Nature In An Age Of Irony" was disappointing, with one spectacular exception. The presenters seemed indifferently prepared for the most part, and it was largely preaching to the choir, anyway. I was hoping for a multi-layered discussion of how the natural world finds a place across the spectrum of contemporary poetry. Not jewels like, "Don't sentimentalize. Be scientifically accurate." All very well as far as they go, but why not go beyond? I should have gone to Josh Corey's panel instead, I think. But I'm glad I didn't leave; Brenda Peterson, an essayist, novelist, and reporter from Seattle just returned from Mexico, from the lagoons where the grey whales calve, with the most amazing story. I can still hardly believe it. It's not uncommon for the whales to exhibit "friendly" behavior, to approach the small boats on their own volition and allow themselves to be touched, etc. But there is a new "behavior" this year; Brenda said this happened about once a day while she was there. A mother grey whale swims under the (small) boat and lifts it up slightly, gently on her belly. At the same time, she holds her baby on her pectoral flipper, and raises it to eye level with the people in the boat. For all the world like an introduction, although for whose benefit ... who knows? What makes this even more astonishing is that there was whaling in these very lagoons within living memory of at least some of the resident whales, who should have no particular reason to view humans in boats with tolerance, let alone any more sociable impulse. A young woman who skippers one of the boats, a 17-year old girl named Lupita, said, "Las Ballenas (the whales) and God are one. And they have taught me forgiveness."

Although this only brings us up to noonish, I think it's enough to be going on with.

Notes from the 13th Floor, Part the First

Ok, this has turned out pretty long, so I hope it's not too dreary.

Wednesday:

Caught the 7:45 train from Seattle, and was fortunate to get a seat on the water side. I was sitting right behind Marcia (whose last name I didn't catch), and Colleen McEllroy. Despite the cranky party from Portland who thought coughing up the extra few bucks for business class entitled her to a library-quiet environment, one mechanical breakdown (30 minute delay), and one forced deferment to a freight train on single track (also 30 minute delay), the journey was a delight. Totally different from the claustrophobia attending airplane seats, corridors, and bathrooms. Room to move, permission to move, and a dining car offering microbrews (bottled, but still...). On this route (Cascades), at least 85% pleasing scenery. A most civilized mode of travel that I am now addicted to.

Shared a cab to the Fairmont with Colleen and Marcia, checked my bags, and headed over to the museum next door (which is inexplicably called a gallery). The Emily Carr exhibit was amazing, especially her work from the late 1920s through the 30s (see below). I only wish I had been more alert; I sat down to watch the biographical film at the end, and kept falling asleep sitting bolt upright on a hard bench in a room filled with strangers. This is what happens when one doesn't sleep the previous night.

When I went to check in, the desk clerk said, "Are you superstitious?" Ummmmmm, why? So they sent me up to the 13th floor. On the same level as four lovely gargoyles (see below), bird creatures on the left and mammal creatures on the right. They were excellent company. Nice, big room, very would-be Ye Olde English with dark wood & chintzy prints. Quite comfortable. Reprehensibly fell asleep around 7:00, and didn't really wake up until 8:30 Thursday morning.

Thursday:

You know the infamous shower scene in "Psycho"? That violin, Eeeee, Eeeee, Eeeee? That is exactly, but EXACTLY, what my alarm clock sounded like. Spacing of notes, tone, everything. So I got an extra shot of adrenalin to help me wake up. I think the Vancouver seagulls must be pretty savvy; they smelled the smoked salmon eggs benedict through my open window quickly enough and came looking for their share. After they polished off some excess hash browns and anemic tomatoes, they took bits of energy bar from my fingers. Indulge my predilection for naming animals: they were Grace, Thomas, Diva, Jones-boy, and Dali.

What was up with the nametags-on-lanyards? Murphy's Law dictated that they always flipped around the wrong way within two minutes of putting them on.

I was on my way to the Hyatt to scope out the bookfair when I encountered Paul Guest in the crosswalk. So we turned back to the Fairmont and had a great chat in the lobby. Paul, I'd be happy to meet you in a hotel lobby anytime. Maybe in Austin. Sorry about all the rain.

First actual AWP event: the "When Good Submissions Go Bad" panel. Well, I must admit I missed the first 15 minutes. But there was nothing earth-shatteringly useful when I was there. Mostly stuff like "Don't use fancy fonts", "Don't put the life history of your cats in your cover letter", and "Don't call two weeks after submitting to ask why you haven't heard anything". Stuff you should know anyway if you have any common at all. The one practical thing I took away was the idea of using 6x9 envelopes so you only have to fold your sub. once. And, of course, it's always nice to hear editors say, "be persistent". Never hurts to be reminded of that.

Got to meet many familiar faces at the Asian-American Poetry (The Next Generation -- the Star Trek theme starts playing in my head whenever I read that) Anthology reading: Victoria Chang and her husband Todd, C. Dale Young and Jacob, Aimee Nezhukumatathil and her D., whose real name has slipped my mind. Also got to meet Lisa Gluskin and Robert Thomas. The reading was great ... no poetry voice whatsoever. Aimee, especially, was animated and wonderful. Brenda Shaughnessy, with whom I was unfamiliar, is hilarious and does some great stuff with sonics. I was so glad I had read C. Dale's "Torn" beforehand, and was prepared for the fist in the gut. Thanks to Victoria for the sweet munchies and wine, and for reading my blog!

Had to dash right over to the Hyatt for Paul's Crazyhorse reading. The contrast between the very prim and proper Fairmont and the hipster Hyatt is extreme. I have to admit, I'm glad I wound up at the Fairmont. I'm not really too hip, it was quieter there, and besides, I kept getting lost in the Hyatt. I liked how they worked the Crazyhorse reading. One piece per author, in issue order, so we got to hear a good cross section of what they've published of late years. I picked up a few back issues.

I wasted enough evening time back in my room ironing and talking to Scott (learned a painful lesson about hotel long distance charges on this trip) that the restaurant was closed, and I didn't feel like venturing forth. So I went to the lobby bar to have a Cobb salad and a G&T (a questionable combination). Nice bar, with a piano player, but all the couches and easy chairs and little tables had no familiar faces associated with them, so I was feeling a bit lonely when three students from the University of Michigan (who edit the student litmag there) invited me to join them. Which was very hospitable, and I appreciated it. I had envisioned the evenings of AWP as endless bacchanals, but encountered none myself. Obviously, I wasn't in the right places. Which is doubtless just as well.

About the pictures ... I'm still kicking myself that there are no pictures of humans. One day I forgot my camera, but the other days, I just got too interested in talking to people and neglected to document them.

Just north of Seattle; tracks run right along the water for quite a distance.

Where the train broke down.

Emily Carr: Forest, British Columbia

Emily Carr: Big Raven

Gargoyles to the left ...

...with seagull...

... and gargoyles to the right.

Room 1304

Grace, my most frequent breakfast guest.

Break out the rye bread and mustard, Grandma, it's Grand Salami time!

AWP, Abridged

Where to start? I had a wonderful time. With the giddy enthusiasm of the amateur, I came home totally jazzed and overflowing with ideas and fragments. The readings were great, the bookfair an embarrassment of riches (to the point of sensory overload), but I think the highlight was finding bloggers. Kelli, Paul, Peter, Aimee, C. Dale, Victoria, Jeannine, and Oliver ... it was such a delight to meet you all, and your loved ones. I was a little nervous about this trip, all on my own. Everyone has their comfort zone, yes? I've never been afraid on a boat, even when I should have been. However, strange cities freak me out. It was time to take a solo trip, and I'm glad I did; it helped that all my virtual acquaintances were so friendly in person. Thanks, guys, you're the best.

More anon...