Box of Birds

Surprised I Remembered My Password

2006-12-09T01:51:00.000-08:00

Sigh. It has been ridiculously long. So I'll be feeling even more than usual like I'm just talking to myself here.

But I'm out of options. Because I'm stuck under a sleeping kitten. And it's a sin in my cosmos to disturb a sleeping cat. Well, until at least 2:00 AM, which it will be in seven minutes. It's just that I'm addicted ... to the purring and the tiny confiding paws on my neck. His name is Samwise.

Music has charms?

2006-08-18T23:48:00.000-07:00

From a May 2006 Slate article by Dr. Sydney Spiesel: "The ideal analgesic would diminish pain perception without increasing the risk of harm to patients. How about … music? A recent study, led by Dr. M.S. Cepeda of Javieriana University in Bogota, Colombia, and Tufts-New England Medical Center, put together the results of 51 different papers (involving more than 3,500 patients) that evaluated the value of music for pain relief. The studies examined the effect of music on chronic or cancer pain, acute pain following surgery, labor pain, and the pain produced by medical or experimental procedures. The amelioration of pain was measured in two ways, one subjective and the other objective. Did patients hearing music report a substantial decrease in the pain they felt? And did they require less opiate medication than similar patients who didn't hear music? The results Cepeda found were positive but not powerful. In most of the studies, listening to music modestly decreased patients' reported perception of pain (no matter what its cause) or was associated with somewhat less need for opiate medication. But the differences weren't strong enough to make clear whether music is clinically useful. Perhaps the most interesting results came from the studies in which patients were allowed pick the music they wanted to listen to. Contrary to what one might expect, freedom to choose pretty much killed the benefit for pain relief. Which leaves another question crying out to be answered: Would people feel more relief if they were made to listen to music they hate? We could try this out by playing, say, Metallica for a classicist in a dental chair, or a late Beethoven quartet for a biker about to get a tattoo."

I find the last part of this, in particular, fascinating. Why the counterintuitive, *better* result with music not of the patients' choosing? Did it function as a counterirritant? Or is there some some of "novelty effect" at work? I have noticed that listening to unfamiliar songs on the car radio often seems to kick-start my creative process where listening to a favorite CD will not. As Dr. Spiesel implies, it would be interesting to know if the selections played in the study were entirely unfamiliar to the patients, as opposed to known but not preferred.

Transitory Wing

2006-08-17T23:40:00.000-07:00

Ephemeroptera -- Mayflies -- an order of insects so short-lived, they are named for that characteristic. At the risk of anthropomorphizing ... that would be somewhat disheartening.

From Wikipedia: "The primary function of the adult is reproduction; the mouthparts are vestigial, and the digestive system is filled with air ... The majority of the life of the adult is spent in mating swarms."

Hmmmmmmmmmmmm....

What would you say?

2006-08-07T21:25:00.000-07:00

What do you say, internally (or externally, I suppose) when everything just becomes overwhelming? I'm not talking about the usual four-letter suspects here .... any phrase that presents itself as a last ditch alternative to screaming.

My recurring plaint is, "I want to go home."

I don't even know where that is. It seems to want to be an island, but it's all very nebulous.

I want to go home .....

R.I.P. Hobbes 1994-2006

2006-02-20T12:50:00.000-08:00

For having consider'd God and himself he will consider his neighbour.
For if he meets another cat he will kiss her in kindness.
For when he takes his prey he plays with it to give it a chance.
For one mouse in seven escapes by his dallying.
For when his day's work is done his business more properly begins.
For he keeps the Lord's watch in the night against the adversary.
For he counteracts the powers of darkness by his electrical skin and glaring eyes.
For he counteracts the Devil, who is death, by brisking about the life.
For in his morning orisons he loves the sun and the sun loves him.
For he is of the tribe of Tiger.
For the Cherub Cat is a term of the Angel Tiger.
For he has the subtlety and hissing of a serpent, which in goodness he suppresses.
For he will not do destruction, if he is well-fed, neither will he spit without provocation.
For he purrs in thankfulness, when God tells him he's a good Cat.
For he is an instrument for the children to learn benevolence upon.
For every house is incomplete without him and a blessing is lacking in the spirit.

--Cristopher Smart

Publishing Workshop Synopsis

2005-12-11T23:08:00.000-08:00

I went with Jeannine and Lana to Hugo House on Saturday, for a Cranky-sponsored publishing workshop with Jeffrey Levine of Tupelo Press. It was informative, although I think a lot of the advice was definitely from his personal perspective as a publisher, being actually in direct contradiction to what I've heard others say. Which I suppose should serve to remind me that there is in fact a live human being on the other end of the envelope, and not an evil (or beneficent) publishing machine. Anyhow ... highlights of what he had to say.

For journals:

Send early in the submission cycle. In part, this is because an emerging issue will often develop a theme all of its own volition ... late arrivals may be undeservedly out, unless they happen to have matched the theme.

If you got ink of any description on a rejection slip, refer to it in your cover letter when submitting again.

(this seemed self-evident, but anyhow) Try to submit to journals that either fit your own aesthetic or publish a wide range of styles.

Don't hesitate to submit to good web-based journals. (Hey, Steve! He said, "There are some wonderful journals out there ...." and then mentioned Three Candles, along with a few others I don't recall.)

He's very much in favor of simultaneous submissions under all circumstances, from a pragmatic point of view. Do the math on 5 poems held by just one journal for 9 months to a year, considered against your production and projected lifespan ... (this is very depressing...) I do agree ... although I just can't seem to bring myself to transgress the rules with the places that absolutely forbid it. Yet. Even though the chances of two journals both deciding they want the same poem at the same time are infinitesimally small...

For book/chapbook manuscripts:

On contests: In his opinion (mine too, I think), running an ethical contest requires that the manuscripts be read anonymously. In theory anyhow, this levels the playing field by avoiding any nepotism and the name-recognition factor. When choosing what contests to enter, try to find out who the final judge is, do your research and (again) try to match aesthetics.

This struck me as a personal preference, but he said that he develops a fondness for a manuscript after he's considered it multiple times as a submission. I guess the moral is, don't hesitate to submit to Tupelo over and over; grin.

Another personal preference thing (because I'm sure there are some editors who would actually *bristle* at this) ... he likes some indication in a cover letter that the author does understand all the hard work that goes into promoting a book, and intends to pull their weight.

And one more PP: He likes a very brief synopsis in the cover letter addressing what the collection is actually *about*; this tells him that the author has actually given some thought to and understands her own work.

On length: Books -- 58 to 66 pages/Chapbooks: 16-32 pages

Make sure your poems are selected and ordered in such a way that they cohere into a *book*, not merely a collection. There should be some unifying element ... theme, style, imagery. Does each poem communicate in some way with the next? (This is my Achilles heel, I fear ... between my rate of production and scattershot subject matter, I may be 50 by the time I have even a chapbook together...)

Don't make the mistake of headlining poems in your manuscript just because they were accepted by a reputable journal. Placement (as above) must make sense in the broader context. Make your own assessment of what your strongest work is.

That about covers it, as far as my notes go anyhow. Oh, he also talked about the financial nuts and bolts of the distribution and sale of books, which was educational, but sort of a downer. I can't imagine small literary presses are in it for the money. He also encouraged learning the industry, so to speak ... reading the trade mags, going to conferences, meeting the people behind the mastheads. Same as any other discipline.

I am inspired to start sending out again, after having been in quite the rut. Great idea, Jeannine!

Bling by any other name...

2005-12-09T13:57:00.000-08:00

A very small part of me says, "cool" ... but the other three billion parts are rolling their eyes in disgust. Check it out: Glow-In-The-Dark Roses.

How short-sighted of me not to realize that this was a product just *begging* for fresh ideas and innovation ....

2005-12-01T13:18:00.001-08:00

IT'S SNOWING !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2005-12-01T13:18:00.000-08:00

IT'S SNOWING !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"When you're walking home tonight and some great homicidal maniac comes after you with a bunch of loganberries, don't come crying to me!"

2005-11-29T11:30:00.000-08:00

Happiness is happening upon an unseen Monty Python episode, when you thought you'd seen them all.

"The great advantage of the tiger in unarmed combat is that he eats not only the raspberry-laden foe but also the raspberries. The tiger however does not relish the peach. The peach assailant should be attacked with a crocodile."

In other news, I'll be mailing out the morning glory seeds to everyone who requested them tomorrow. Notes about germination and cultivation (from some seed catalog): "Seed has a very hard seed coat and better results will be obtained if the seed is soaked in lukewarm water for 24 hours and then planted in warm (60 to 70 degrees) soil. Morning Glories prefer average soil, moderate watering, and no excessive fertilizing. A southern exposure will add to more continuous blooming." All of that has proved to be true for me, except I don't think the soil has to be *quite* that warm for germination. Let me know how they do!

In other other news, for the first time in months I've come up with an entirely new and wonderful (hopefully) kernel of a poem. Tally Ho!

"Music is a pretty thing in fine company"

2005-11-27T23:54:00.000-08:00

A weekend that ends with a re-entry stamp on your hand is not a wasted weekend. Just got back from listening to Gerry O'Beirne (guitars) and Rosie Shipley (fiddle) at Conor Byrne's down in Ballard, right across from the Tractor. I don't know enough about music to describe what Gerry plays ... he's not got the most powerful voice in history, but he does have excellent songwriting skills, and I think he must have made some deal with the devil to play guitar the way he does. He's irish, so that tradition is certainly present, but there's a lot of blues in his stuff, as well, and who knows what else. This man can even make a ukelele sound righteous. One of the highlights was "Long Beating Wing", a song about the moment inspiration strikes. He amped up the intensity about twice as much as the recorded version, and it sent chills down my spine.

I've seen him solo before, so it was fun to hear him play with another musician ... in this case, a young Cape Breton fiddler. So it was quite a mixed bag of musical styles we had this evening. She was also *great*. There's nothing like that extra jazz you get from watching someone live who clearly relishes what she's doing. The energy is terrific. It didn't hurt that we were maybe seven feet from them. I'm completely spoiled for seeing anyone in large venues anymore. The Moore or the Paramount is about as spacious as I'm willing to go. Big arena shows ... what's the point?

Listening to Irish traditional music just recharges me in ways I can't explain. It's not some heritage, "getting in touch with my roots" thing ... I just stumbled across it maybe five years ago, and fell in love. Something about the power and the rhythm, something about the energy of the collaboration between the musicians, the repetitions that just keep intensifying ... whatever it is, I'm hooked. I've tried to find my way into writing about it several times ... but I think it's hugely difficult to write about the experience of music anyway (opinions?) ... the relative placidity of a progression of lyrical lines just doesn't seem capable of doing justice to the sensory overload ... dunno. After tonight, I want to try again, though...

I'm not too sure about this Blogger spellchecker. It just tried to convince me to replace "songwriting" with "concreting". Or "consorting". Hmmmmmmm.....

Theodore Roethke Tonight

2005-11-24T11:21:00.000-08:00

I'm sure most of you will be doing other things ... but for anyone around these parts, KCTS (channel nine in the Seattle area) will be showing a short film about Theodore Roethke tonight at 9:00 PM. Sounds interesting.

What's the story, morning glory?

2005-11-20T21:09:00.000-08:00

You know those little tasks you find to do while waiting for friends to arrive ... too restless to sit down, needing to occupy the time? I spent that space this afternoon harvesting seeds from my very-nearly-defunct morning glory vine along the front walk. I think it's a "Grandpa Ott's" ... a vibrant, iridescent purple one would only expect to encounter on a butterfly's wing or a hummingbird's neck. And a most prolific seeder. I never have to plant a new vine there each year; invariably some of the seedpods will burst before I pinch them off, and bob's your uncle. Toward the end of the season this year I let every blossom just go to seed. I did a rough count on the resultant yield ... counted a hundred and extrapolated by separating the rest into similarly-sized piles. From one or two sprouted seeds ... between four and five hundred. That's not counting the ones still on the vine, not quite crisp yet. Such unprepossessing little packages, like miniscule black mandarin orange segments ... potentially each a source of five hundred more of the same next year. Even allowing for duds, the math gets impressive pretty fast ... where would you find a better miracle?

Ok, so where am I going to find room for several hundred morning glory vines? Seriously, if anyone is interested, I would be glad to share the wealth. They are very well-behaved, requiring nothing but good sun, some water, and something to twine up. No matter how enthusiastic they become, they will perish elegantly with the first frost. Email me if you're interested.

"It's like trying to unstick the duct tape from your wedding dress."

2005-11-10T22:45:00.000-08:00

From my husband tonight, apropos of I have no idea what -- the above mental image drove it straight out of my mind.

Because I should be raking leaves ....

2005-11-10T10:29:00.000-08:00

.... I decided I'd rather venture back into the blog pond, instead. This seemed *marginally* more productive than looking at shoes on eBay. Although I'm sure some would beg to differ.

Not much in the way of dramatic change around here. Except that Jeannine Hall Gailey has conjured up a new group for the dissection and discussion of poetry, our own and others. And the inevitable accompanying gossip about who slept with who at which conference, who will never get published by which mag. as opposed to who always will (more scandal), etc. I think it will be great to be able to interact with *live* (as opposed to "virtual", not as opposed to "dead" -- although that's true too) poets for a change. Thank for all your work on this, Jeannine! Sometimes I need that whip of a monthly deadline to get anything productive done.

Especially in November. It seems to get tougher every year -- as the light levels drop, there's a giant sucking sound as all my energy disappears down the storm drain with the rest of the seasonal debris. I'm looking for a giant clear plastic umbrella so I can sit outside in the rain, get my lux and still stay reasonably dry. You would think some enterprising Northwesterner would see a market niche for an enormous clear plastic *patio* umbrella on a stand, but apparently such a thing does not exist ...

Interesting social commotion in the field this morning. I didn't see what started it, but I happened to glance out just as two crows begin to seriously mix it up. The one had the other over on his back and started pecking. Within (no exaggeration) five seconds, seven other crows swooped in from all points of the compass to gather close around the combatants. You could almost hear, "Fight! Fight! Fight!" The resemblance to the same scenario in the schoolyard or outside a bar was uncanny. Were the others there out of the same morbid curiosity that drives humans, or did they arrive to break it up? Who knows ... but even trying to avoid anthropomorphism, it was clear that they had some stake in the matter. As soon as the crowd gathered, the fight broke up; within 10 seconds, all the crows begin to drift off in separate directions .... obviously having more important things to do.

Which, sadly, brings me back to the leaves ....

Hiatus

2005-06-29T07:56:00.000-07:00

It's time, I think (anyone monitoring my output lately will agree, I'm sure). I'll be back in Autumn, or sooner if the mood strikes ... and of course I will drop in sporadically on your blogs. Have a spectacular summer, everyone.

Linda Bierds Reading

2005-06-13T10:10:00.000-07:00

Linda Bierds reading work from her new collection today around 2:30 PM on KUOW, 94.9 FM in Seattle and environs; also streamed live online, I believe.

Shamefully Slack

2005-06-11T16:11:00.000-07:00

Yes, I have been, about posting.

Just finished "Plus Shipping" (Bob Hicok). I'll have to go back and scan it again to collect my thoughts, but my impression is that that it picked up traction as it went along, and that it will be interesting to compare it to his more recent work. I got a sense ... I don't know ... of some of the work being a little too "on the nose", and a few otherwise superior metaphors just don't quite fit where they're placed. But I enjoyed it, espcially the sense of ... possibilities in his work. Not poetic possibilities, I don't mean. Possibility in life, pinpointing the potential for the strange and wonderful all around us. Which is one of the things I enjoy most about poetry, anyhow.

Kelli has baby birds ... my friend Debbie has four baby towhees under a foxglove in her garden ... I have half-grown robins in my poplars. Life is good.

If you're trying to root something, first find a weeping willow, cut some fresh branches, and stick them in water. Something about the chemical makeup of willows makes them exuberant rooters; if you stick your other cuttings in with them, likely they will root as well. I've had spectacular success with a rex begonia ("Miami Storm", see above), african violet, and hydrangea (so far) using this method.

Very interesting article here in The Guardian about deep brain stimulation as a treatment for intractable depression.

Library Renaissance

2005-06-04T00:42:00.000-07:00

I think I'm finally grown up enough to get my library books returned in the same calender year they were checked out ... hopefully, even on time. So I've been exploring the big Bellevue Regional library, which is not brand new but fairly new to me. I grew up in the old Bellevue library which is now the headquarters for the Bellevue Police Department ... go figure. The new building is two stories, with lots of computers, wireless access, self-checkout, etc. Some of these things are good. Being able to search the whole collection online and put any book on hold is great ... they send you an email when it shows up at your requested branch, and you just go in and pick it up off the hold shelf. Almost too easy. There's lots of light, wood, and concrete ... the upper story light fixtures are shaped like upside-down urns, spilling light. The carpet is patterned in overlapping concentric circles, just like rain on water ... very Northwest-appropriate.

The haul today was:

"Luck Is Luck", Lucia Perillo
"Animal Soul", Bob Hicok
"Plus Shipping", Bob Hicok
"The Profile Makers", Linda Bierds

Traffic was so appalling on the way home (even the used-to-be-little-known back way) that I was creeping forward with "Plus Shipping" propped up on my steering wheel, the page trembling a bit in time with my decrepit old Saturn engine. (Disclaimer: reading + driving = bad idea. I know.) Even with my attention thusly divided, and only getting halfway through the first poem, I came upon an image that makes me wonder why I even bother. You know, exactly something I wish I'd written ... that made me wonder why I hadn't, or couldn't. I'm assuming this happens to everyone ...

I've been getting weird phrases which are meant to be parts of poems in my dreams lately. This last week, "deconstructed pocketknife" and "lithium snowmen".

Ok, this was somewhat unexpected...

2005-06-02T12:31:00.000-07:00

You Are 35% Normal

(Occasionally Normal)

You sure do march to your own beat...

But you're so weird, people wonder if it's a beat at all

You think on a totally different wavelength

And it's often a chore to get people to understand you

How Normal Are You?

Music Meme

2005-05-31T22:16:00.000-07:00

1. The person who passed the baton to you? Peter Pereira. (By the way, Peter, it's "Drake", not "Blake" ... although I think "Jennifer Blake" would be a great nom de plume.)

2. Total volume of music files on your computer:
Zero. I know, pitifully archaic. But I think there is an iPod in my future, so that should change soon...

3. The title and artist of the last CD you bought:
"The Wreck Of The Day", Anna Nalick. Good stuff.

4. Song playing at the moment of writing:
"St. Robinson In His Cadillac Dream", Counting Crows

5. Who am I passing this to? Kelli Russell Agodon, Paul Guest, and Jeannine Hall Gailey, assuming they have escaped it thus far...

Little Help?

2005-05-26T20:11:00.000-07:00

Ok, so you know how an epithalamion is a poem/song for a wedding? Is there a fancy $20 word like that for an anniversary poem? If not, there should be.

Professor Stephen Hawking and the Lump

2005-05-26T10:00:00.000-07:00

The radiologist would like a closer look.
Between the spot compression
and the ultrasound, I balance
hibiscus tea in a porcelain cup,
scan the magazines for something
more remote or theoretical
than swimsuit fashions.

Stephen Hawking has radically
altered his theory about black holes;
anything (you, me, cosmic dust, the red
light of its binary twin) that falls
beyond the star's event horizon
will not be annihilated.

Holding a pose on my back,
I watch the screen as a tech
maps the margins of a mass
more hole than lump, dark
on the display, swallowing
every heartbeat. The doctor tries
to comfort me with probabilities.

If you jump into a black hole,
your mass energy will be returned
to our universe, but in a mangled form,
which contains the information
about what you were like,
but in an unrecognizable state.

At dusk, I am reluctant
to slip off the red elastic lace
holding everything together.
I attempt a sensual pose, feel
my husband's fingers pause
for a moment on my left breast.
The sun, too, hesitates before it falls
beyond the black horizon.

Highly Recommended

2005-05-24T22:07:00.000-07:00

What a delightful discovery I made this week. Flipping through the movie listings in "The Stranger" at Starbucks, I saw that "The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill" was playing at something called "The Big Picture" in Redmond. Huh? Since when is there an indie theater in Redmond? Turns out it's part of what the owners call a "boutique meeting and event facility". They've had a space in Seattle for years, but just opened up another in Redmond Town Center about a month ago. The lion's share of their business is company and private functions; basically, an alternative to sterile hotel banquet rooms. What an alternative. Very swank, very nice, way beyond the means of most of us. But the cool thing is that their 100 (about) seat theater is open to the public, screening mostly indie films. In addition to "Wild Parrots", they're showing "Enron: The Smartest Guys In The Room" at Redmond, and "Look At Me" (which I also want to see) in Seattle. Nicest theater chairs I've ever sat in. The whole venue is over-21, so you can bring your martini and white cheddar popcorn (served in a champagne bucket) into the movie with you ... Decadence. Even if the featured movie isn't to your taste, you can pop in and grab a drink. I sound like their publicity lackey, but honestly, it was such a kick. I love lush.

Absolutely DO NOT miss "Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill", if it's playing in your town. Wonderful show, especially if you appreciate either birds or engaging weirdos. And where else are you going to hear Kerouac singing "Ain't We Got Fun"?

"At least she didn't suffer"

2005-05-21T22:57:00.000-07:00

Yes, it was quick, my rejection from 32poems. Which I really appreciate. No, not sarcasm ... if I'm going to be rejected, that's my preferred method. And it serves me right, trying to slide in at the end of their submissions period. This was not deliberate, things just sort of slipped away from me and it happened like that. (Bad procrastinator! Bad!) At least I got "try again" ink; can't be bad. Now for the mags that read year-round ... talley ho!

If you had to choose between reading poetry and listening to music (both vocal and instrumental) for the rest of your life, which would you choose?

That just popped into my head today ... I would choose music, which makes me feel like a fraud, poetically-speaking. And you?

Ready for the Storm

2005-05-19T09:26:00.000-07:00

Wonderful stormy weather the last couple days; mercurial. Even some thunder and lightning, which we don't get enough 'round these parts. I drove over Cougar Mountain with all my windows and sunroof open in that anticipatory stage right before a storm breaks, when the wind blows right through the car and the sky is dark, darker. Second best thing to being outside in it.

Why don't people drive with their windows down more? Ok, I get why on stormy days, but what about beautiful ones? I've been observing lately, on perfect spring days ... very few people drive with their windows down, or even their sunroofs open. From my limited data sample (limited because of trying not to swerve into oncoming traffic or hit the stopped car in front of me), the nicer the car, the less likely the window will be down. Sigh. They're missing a lot. I know your hair gets messed up, but it's a small price to pay for driving "au natural", as it were, as opposed to "immured in a climate-controlled metal box".

Word I don't hear enough: circumlocution

I like Instant Messaging better than email. It's more dynamic; almost as good as an actual conversation. And it's fun when things get temporally derailed, with replies showing up on your screen addressing what you said one or two entries ago, circling back and forward. I'd like to try to reproduce that effect in a poem, a sort of disordered call-and-response, where no statements fall where they should, yet somehow still speak to each other.

Watch out, Sith, here we come, well-armed with buttered popcorn!

The Honeysuckle That Ate Temescal Street

2005-05-17T11:04:00.000-07:00

My irrationally-exuberant Lonicera halliana. As you can see, it's impeding traffic on the front walk, but it's covered in buds ... I absolutely cannot bear to cut any of it back. So we've been learning to walk sideways, carrying groceries, guitar cases, what have you.

The title derives from a family saying ... I was born in Long Beach, CA, on Temescal Street. I can't even remember what flora it was that threatened to take over there, but now whenever anything outgrows itself, it's "the ___________ that ate Temescal Street". Sort of like "The Mother of All ___________", without the unfortunate geo-political associations.

The fragrance of honeysuckle is swoonable, although they make unsatisfying cut flowers, what with the sequential bloom. I love how the blossoms open white, then fade through parchment to honey. I was reading last night about how Lantana blossoms (a favored butterfly food source) change from yellow to orange to red. This seems to be associated with the draining of nectar, a caveat emptor to the butterflies so they don't waste their time on empty blossoms and become disenchanted with the plant. I wonder if something similar is going on with the honeysuckle.

Crazy Love

2005-05-13T07:51:00.000-07:00

Sorry to have been so lame lately ... I've been doing too much real-world socializing (grin).

Weird winter = super spring, is my conclusion. The rhodies and azaleas are in overdrive this year, and wild forget-me-nots make a blue distance of the roadside. I've never seen such exuberant pink dogwoods.

Dreaming of poets again ... I was driving Paul Guest on an errand somewhere when we ran into Jeannine Gailey, and decided to have lunch instead. In a cafeteria with a baronial fireplace and some sort of big gas-light fixture with lots of brass ramifications and whooshing blue flames that would occasionally burst out across the floor, with no harm done. Everyone was in a sort of writing reverie, thinking of lines, writing them down. Be well, you guys. Watch out for that open flame.

Interesting tidbit from Italy, where some researchers rounded up a bunch of couples newly in love, drew their blood, and ran tests for serotonin levels. Turns out if you're in love, you have the same 40%-lower-than-average serotonin levels as an obsessive-compulsive. Apparently there is some controversy about the research, but really, these results should surprise no one.

Two Horses

2005-05-09T21:07:00.000-07:00

Several weeks ago, an old friend of Scott's from his childhood got back in touch with him. Long story short, we are now a trio of a composer, a poet, and a lyricist who can pick a melodic line out of anything. Scott's always composed, and I've written, but we needed that bridge, somehow. So the last few weeks have been a creative rush -- I've got so many things, "regular" poems and song lyrics, up in the air that I hardly know where north is. I'm just dipping my toe in this lyrics pond ... it seems to demand a slightly different emphasis than I would usually employ ... a little more tell, little less show. I've been immersing myself in lyricists I admire -- Adam Duritz & Natalie Merchant, among others, but I'm still trying to figure out the balance. Anybody else out there do some songsmithing on the side?

Jennifer Scissorhands

2005-05-04T10:06:00.000-07:00

It's been pruning season, lately, as I look over my collection. *SNIP* out comes those four lines of explication; if they don't get it, too bad -- *SNIP* that stanza, full of good stuff as it may be, doesn't need to be there and it's gone -- *SNIP* there goes that workshop advice you should never have taken -- *SNIP* too much anaphora -- *SNIP* hasta la vista, epigraph *SNIP SNIP SNIP*

Ahhhhh, it feels good. But just like any other kind of pruning, the magic resides in knowing when to cease and desist (learned that the hard way with a cypress last autumn).

One of the best things about submitting to journals (besides the potential for fame and fortune -- grin) is that it forces me to re-examine work I had considered "done". The downside of that, of course, is that I begin to wonder if they're ever "done", and should I be sending them out even now? Ah, well.

Bring on the Poetry Appreciation Chairs!

2005-04-28T09:30:00.000-07:00

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

2005-04-26T09:31:00.000-07:00

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.

2005-04-21T11:38:00.000-07:00

Window for Suzanne

Why Seattle Meteorologists Take To Drink

2005-04-20T22:43:00.000-07:00

"... 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!"

2005-04-18T16:16:00.000-07:00

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

2005-04-15T13:18:00.000-07:00

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

2005-04-14T10:40:00.000-07:00

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

2005-04-13T11:45:00.000-07:00

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

2005-04-10T21:51:00.000-07:00

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...

2005-04-10T18:29:00.000-07:00

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

Link Happy

2005-04-09T12:43:00.000-07:00

"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

2005-04-08T09:54:00.000-07:00

Interesting New Yorker article

13 Part Deux

2005-04-07T10:13:00.000-07:00

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

2005-04-05T00:47:00.000-07:00

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.

2005-04-04T22:51:00.001-07:00

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

2005-04-04T22:51:00.000-07:00

Where the train broke down.

2005-04-04T22:49:00.000-07:00

Emily Carr: Forest, British Columbia

2005-04-04T22:47:00.000-07:00

Emily Carr: Big Raven

2005-04-04T21:57:00.001-07:00

Gargoyles to the left ...

2005-04-04T21:57:00.000-07:00

...with seagull...

2005-04-04T21:56:00.000-07:00

... and gargoyles to the right.

2005-04-04T21:52:00.000-07:00

Room 1304

2005-04-04T21:48:00.000-07:00

Grace, my most frequent breakfast guest.

2005-04-04T15:47:00.000-07:00

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

AWP, Abridged

2005-04-03T22:23:00.000-07:00

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...

Eliot Cheap Zen

2005-03-28T15:24:00.000-08:00

Those were the search terms someone plugged into Yahoo to arrive at this blog. Hmmmm.

Got my train tickets for Vancouver! Whoo Hoo! I'm taking the 7:45 train up Wednesday morning, and plan to visit the museum close to the Fairmont; they're supposed to have a really wonderful Emily Carr exhibit. I'd like to get out to the Museum of Anthropology on the UBC campus, too, but not sure how the transport will work. I adore taking the train, but it does leave one somewhat dependent on public transport (an unknown quantity), cabs ($ouch), or the kindness of semi-strangers with cars. We'll see.

Cool new plant: Saruma henryi, a fairly recent woodland introduction from China with heart-shaped fuzzy leaves and small yellow tripartite flowers. It's related to the wild gingers (asarum), as one can tell from the name (saruma), an anagram (hey, Peter, I thought of you) of asarum.

This is a cool list for word junkies or plant junkies or (especially) both.

From CNN: a memory specialist states that more information is contained in a single Sunday issue of the New York Times than the average 17th century person was exposed to over their entire lifespan. I'm not sure I needed to know that.

I also could have lived without the commericial for Fidelity Investments -- the music was Der Kommissar. Is nothing sacred?

Someone Has Beaten A Giant

2005-03-26T16:12:00.000-08:00

What better way to spend a rainy Saturday than with The Princess Bride? Scott, feeling like death warmed over (verbatim) is sleeping off the fever, the bird is sleeping, and the cat. Thanks to everyone who did the rain dance; it feels like home again. Gutters overflow; a small, harmless intimation that nature can frustrate all our works. This cheers me up, for some reason. If something's going to wipe me off the surface of the planet ever, I'd rather that impartial force than some malign or careless machination of man. This is probably a good attitude for someone who lives more or less on top of the Seattle fault.

Is this a kissing book?

A.D. hates the word "juxtaposition" and takes issue with the ridiculous American method of punctuation as regards quotation marks. I realize I've been using whatever punctuation made sense at the time around quotation marks for years. Join the revolution! On the other hand, I rather like "juxtaposition". It's "proactive" (not really a word) that ruffles my feathers. Gotta love that corporate newspeak. A guaranteed way to drive a former co-worker into a frenzy was to say "Kris, you've got to think outside the box".

You rush a miracle man, you get rotten miracles.

Charles got to see a wonderful dance. One of the most beautiful things I ever saw was an impromptu dance between two dance instructors after the lesson was over. It was in a old schoolhouse refurbished into a community center; high ceiling, wood floor, late afternoon sun. They did a slow waltz to Cirque du Soleil's Il sogno di volare. Totally spontaneous, in jeans. Just one of those moments when the planets align, you know?

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Kelli has this marvelous tidbit. I love the Krylon Sub-Lieutenant, or whatever. Aside from the unfortunate damage to the painted surface of the museum wall, what a wonderfully benign subversion.

Truly, you have a dizzying intellect.

Peter offered this, about quality vs. quantity in artistic endeavor. If you make a thing enough times, a few of them will be brilliant. Is this practice, or luck, or tapping in to something beyond yourself? All of the above? Does it just work with concrete objects, or also with writing, where the medium is symbol/representation, not "reality"? What about music? I don't know any answers. We were watching "Chihuly Over Venice" the other night. I think it was in Sweden, they were blowing component parts for one of the chandeliers, and Dale wanted each piece done within the four-minute window before the glass cooled too much to be worked ... no reheating. So there wasn't much time for finesse -- just get it done. If it breaks, do another. I wonder if this produced more interesting shapes than would have resulted from a more deliberate, intentional process. And I wonder again, can this be applied to writing.

But you must have known I was not a great fool; you would have counted on it, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of me.

Note to self: Let C. Dale choose the wine at AWP.

No more rhymes, now! I mean it!
Anybody want a peanut?

And Rebecca is posting good poems and talking about bowling.

Have fun stormin’ the castle.

2005-03-24T12:38:00.000-08:00

Roadside, not far north of Phoenix

2005-03-24T12:37:00.000-08:00

And now for something completely different...

2005-03-24T12:35:00.000-08:00

Succulent House

2005-03-24T12:34:00.000-08:00

2005-03-24T12:32:00.000-08:00

Desert Botanical Garden

We Now Return You To Your Scheduled Poet

2005-03-24T11:00:00.000-08:00

And that, ladies and gentlemen, was a down cycle. I'm feeling slightly more human now, although still inclined to ramble, so forgive. As Charles pointed out, we did have some lovely (albeit varied) weather in Arizona.

First entries of a compressed travelogue:

Phoenix -- upper eighties (too hot for me); the highlight was the Desert Botanical Garden. Some prickly pear cactus blush purple as they age -- really handsome. Saguaros are constructed like humans; water-dense flesh over a woody "bone" structure, waxy "skin" over everything. Unfamiliar birds: mourning doves and cactus wrens. Night fragrance of orange blossom. I'd never want to live in Phoenix (climate), but there's a lot to be said for visiting to sit in the shade by my sister-in-law's pool surrounded by bouganvillia, or eating her gourmet breakfasts on the verandah.

Phoenix to Williams -- We were a bit early for cactus bloom, but lots of other things were blooming ... yellow daisies, Texas bluebonnets, indian paintbrush, evening primrose, and a really gorgeous coral-flowered shrub that I haven't identified yet. Green hills. It feels like we drove through 3 or 4 different ecological zones, judging by the flora. And then we started to see snow at the side of the road ... a proper blizzard about 10 miles east of Williams, but it wasn't sticking to the road, thankfully. We found out later that we just missed the worst of it, and (long story short) could have gotten really stuck if we had kept to our original route plans. Whew! Hotel and restaurant in Williams (we were there to catch the Grand Canyon train) clean but hardly inspiring. Ravens everywhere, making the most appealing noises.

Postcard To The Devil's Kitchen

2005-03-21T14:48:00.000-08:00

home is japanese maple, unbearably
tender and green

I am sending us back to sedona
where rocks are an honest color

a blossoming tree
full of fingernails

afraid to turn on the window
to see what the crows are up to

in fields (there still
are some) in this one

horses are waiting
to bite out my throat

there is much to be said for a hole
that everyone can see

There Is No Arizona

2005-03-20T13:28:00.000-08:00

Actually, I can now verify that there is. I'm back from the Sonoran desert, where Scott fell in love with saguaros, and I fell in love with sycamores. Three days into my vacation, I got really sick and lost 50 IQ points. At least. They're still missing, I'm still miserable, but it's nice to be home. Although I'm feeling very doubtful about AWP right now. Hope everyone is well. Photos and points of interest to follow when I achieve coherence. There were ravens everywhere.

2005-03-11T00:01:00.000-08:00

Washed the same window
until crows brought a new moon
to cherry blossom.

10 Poems of Introduction (as of today, in no particular order)

2005-03-05T13:16:00.000-08:00

1. On Hearing A New Escalation -- Richard Hugo
2. Making The Scene -- Kenneth O. Hanson
3. The Love Song Of J. Alfred Prufrock -- T.S. Eliot
4. The Second Coming -- W.B. Yeats
5. Ararat -- Mark Doty
6. The Kingfisher -- Mary Oliver
7. Exhibition -- James Masao Mitsui
8. Field Guide To Dungeness Spit -- David Wagoner
9. Latitude -- Linda Bierds
10. The Song Of The Onion -- Miguel Hernandez
(that's "Lullaby of the Onion"; oops)

Dreaming of AWP

2005-03-03T11:23:00.000-08:00

This is one of those tedious dream re-tellings (don't say you weren't warned). Myself, I find anybody's dreams fascinating. This started out as the standard "plane's leaving in less than an hour and I haven't packed a thing" dream. Soon, however, AWP was being held in Paris, and I was back in high school. They bussed our class to a building with an immature bald eagle warbling in a tree outside. Within, we each had a locker with the names of all our poems on the front, containing things we needed to take to AWP. Mine had (1) a hand-written note from two "America's Next Top Model" contestants, (2) an original watercolor design for a wine label by someone named Cumbert, featuring a horse with no neck and a lot of blue sky, and (3) a home-made travel game challenging the passenger to identify phenomena associated with the end of the world, as seen from the air. Explosions, green whirlpools, etc. Frightfully jolly.

2005-03-02T22:51:00.000-08:00

"Poems are ongoing improvisations toward goals we identify when we arrive at them." -- Donald Hall

Shortlist, Serpentine Streets, and Schadenfreude

2005-03-01T12:52:00.000-08:00

So my poem for the Guardian Poetry Workshop made the shortlist, here (scroll way down). It plays in London, apparently. Whoo hoo! Sadly, they messed up the transition between S4 & 5, which also derailed the form (each successive stanza was meant to start with the english translation of one of the list of spanish words/phrases in S1), but we won't quibble.

There's a wonderful road in Issaquah, which I figure is a little-known shortcut. Maybe it's just little-used. There are two very sharp hairpin turns, and my friend, you'd better drive the recommended 10 MPH, or you'll be off the edge into the void. But it's gorgeous, especially in the middle of all that gangrenous suburbia. When you get to the top of the hill, it makes a hard right, then goes gently swooping up and down for about a mile. At the end, before it disappears into a main road, there is an incredible amount of new construction. Huge houses. Expensive tile roofs. There was a lovely little valley along there; nothing fancy, just grass sloping away from the road, an old fence and a shed, some apple trees. All gone and filling in. They've put a concrete retaining wall along the road sporting metal silhouettes of cougars in various poses (the area's called Cougar Mountain). I guess it's better than unrelieved cement, but it just serves to emphasize the point that no self-respecting cougar would go anywhere near there now. I know people need places to live, but those huge, ostentatious houses with no yards ... it seems like such a waste.

Which brings me to the Monster of Lake Washington. There have been several reports of a creature which appears to be either a caiman or an alligator, probably some idiot's escaped or released pet. I'm finding this amusing because (a) nobody's been hurt, and (b) the area is Medina/Hunt's Point -- probably the poshest neighborhoods on the Eastside; Bill Gates has his compound there. So it pleases me to see the high priests of luxury get their cage rattled, a little. Lock up your lapdogs, ladies, and be sure to warn the gardener; it's so difficult to find good help these days.

Richard Hugo's Landscapes for Jenni & C. Dale

2005-02-25T11:06:00.000-08:00

.

Landscapes

If I painted, I'd paint landscapes. In museums
I stop often at van Ruysdael, and the wind he painted
high in European oaks gives license to my style.
I move the barn two feet. I curve the hill down
more dramatic. I put a woman on the hill against
the light, calling me to dinner. The wind I paint
is low and runs the grass down dancing to the sea.

In no time I have aged the barn stark gray.
Obviously, my cows hate no one. My wife
across the field stays carved out solid on the sky.
My tossed kiss stings her through the waves of heat
plowed dirt gives off in August. My tossed worm
drifts beneath the cutbank where I know trout wait.
As long as wind is pouring, my paint keeps farming green.

When wind stops, men come smiling with the mortgage.
They send me the eviction notice, postage due.
My cows are thin and failing. My deaf wife snarls
and claws the chair. The creek turns putrid.
I said fifty years moss on the roof is lovely.
It rots the roof. Oaks ache but cannot stir.
I call van Ruysdael from my knees on the museum floor.

In uniforms like yours you'll never understand.
Why these questions? The bank was wrong. The farm
is really mine. Even now along these pale green halls
I hear van Ruysdael's wind. Please know I rearranged things
only slightly, barn and hill. This is real: the home
that warps in August and the man inside who sold it
long ago, forgot he made the deal and will not move.

.

I got no time for private consultation, under the Milky Way tonight...

2005-02-23T22:54:00.000-08:00

Actually, I do. Some songs I thought were so great when I was young make my blood run cold now, but I still love that one.

Highly recommended: The latest issue of "The American Poetry Journal". Wonderful stuff from Jeannine Hall Gailey, Paul Guest, Susan Meyers, Steve Mueske, Beth Bachmann, etc, etc...sterling material. Buy, beg, borrow or steal.

Invisible Galaxy?

Check out C. Dale's long-awaited "Publishing Secret Number Four". I'm inscribing "Writing And Publishing Are Not The Same" and "Marianne Moore" on my journal in really big letters, right under "RISK!"

Two bald eagles winged over the field this morning, and pink is showing in the Kwanzan cherry buds. Hip, Hip, Hoorah!

Sprung

2005-02-22T11:39:00.000-08:00

Spring, that is. Has. The calender is wrong, the daffodils are right. By the time March 21st rolls around, most of the pink flowering cherries may be over already. The fish-n-chips lines are getting long at Ivar's at Coulon park on the lake, where the only orange gates are the legs of mallards. Like all things, there's a price to be paid for all this wonder. They're already fighting brush fires in Eastern Washington. In February. But today, I'm finding it hard to mind.

Guardian Exercise Poem,

2005-02-18T11:43:00.000-08:00

which doesn't conform terribly well to the instructions, but so be it. Any corrections to my laughable Spanish would be appreciated.

Destello Verde

My love, we need to mean these words
we have only practiced pronouncing:
por favor, cuanto cuesta, donde esta,
gracias, sabrosa. There is our short cut
under Orion, hunting down
to where the town begins.

Please can't we stay here in comfort
on our terrace punctuated by hibiscus
and diluted sangria, talking of pelicans
under the patterns cast
by pierced metal stars?

How much might it cost us to wait
for a taxi? Falter through the gate
to a bougainvillea path lit only
by pale bracts, pressed memories of moons.
Dusk comes steeper than we're accustomed to.

Where is the applause of the sea at sunset?
Manufactured waterfalls are still too near,
under a stucco facade where men dangled
themselves from old ropes over a precipice
like this one, bristling with rebar. Take my hand.

Thank you, my heart. Just one more flight
of steps left now; we're past the overgrowth
where wild roosters mocked us into morning.
Mind the low awning outside that store
locked full of chameleon vases, silver eyes.

Delicious on the waterfront at Las Palomas, we arrive
believing the fortissimo gossip of orange trumpet vines.
Salvador offers us the special. Take this goblet, drown
the cutlery with azure fire and let us spend tomorrow's
hummingbirds. Already, a meteor melts on my tongue.

The title is supposed to mean "Green Flash". Does it?

2005-02-17T12:03:00.000-08:00

National Bison Reserve at Moiese, Montana

"Sometimes the poor are difficult to digest"

2005-02-16T11:12:00.000-08:00

Check out this, this, and this about current Supreme Court case Kelo vs. City of New London on the question of eminent domain. Does government have the right to force you to sell your land for any other reason than actual public use (roads, etc)? The case involves a small band of holdouts who don't wish to give up their river-view homes to the city, which wants the land for a huge multi-use developement because (depending on who you believe) a: they crave the increased tax revenues it would provide, or b: they want to placate Pfizer, who has a big research facility nearby, or c: both.

To demonstrate the thinking of some parties on this matter, consider this by a Professor of Urban Planning and Design: "It could be argued that a neighborhood of single-family houses is simply underperforming property," Kayden said in answer to a question. "It doesn't generate very much revenue compared with other uses. Consequently, one might label it as blight."

I got interested in this while researching a snippet I heard on NPR about Costco's policy of overt or tacit collusion with local authorities in eminent-domaining current owners off the land they want to build stores on. And, in one case in California, attempting to eject a competitor from their adjacent retail space. Oh, niiiiiiiiiiice ...

And I really enjoyed shopping at Costco, too. Perhaps I'll sit on my blighted deck under a blighted cherry tree and watch my blighted grass grow, instead.

I need to get out more...

2005-02-15T15:12:00.000-08:00

Confiscated from C. Dale who stole it from Suzanne who commandeered it from Charles who lifted it from Laura:

Bold the states you've been to, underline the states you've lived in and italicize the state you're in now...(actually, I "yellowed" the states I've been to; "bold" doesn't show up too well).

Alabama / Alaska / Arizona / Arkansas / California / Colorado / Connecticut / Delaware / Florida/ Georgia / Hawaii / Idaho / Illinois / Indiana / Iowa / Kansas / Kentucky / Louisiana / Maine / Maryland / Massachusetts / Michigan / Minnesota / Mississippi / Missouri / Montana / Nebraska / Nevada / New Hampshire / New Jersey / New Mexico / New York / North Carolina / North Dakota / Ohio / Oklahoma / Oregon / Pennsylvania / Rhode Island / South Carolina / South Dakota / Tennessee / Texas / Utah / Vermont / Virginia / Washington / West Virginia / Wisconsin / Wyoming / Washington D.C.

Next month, I can add Arizona to the list; we're going down to visit Scott's sister. Any not-to-be-missed recommendations for Phoenix or Sedona and environs?

Guardian Poetry Workshop/Exercise

2005-02-14T23:56:00.000-08:00

I keep meaning to attempt a poem for this, but it's a pretty small window, temporally speaking. Each month, The Guardian newspaper drafts a British poet to propound a poetic challenge, assess the results, and post/discuss a handful of them online. Here is the link, if anyone's interested. The catch is, the deadline for this month is the 20th ... tick tock.

Educate Me

2005-02-14T12:04:00.000-08:00

Is there a name for this? I was reading a Jack Gilbert poem, Measuring the Tyger. In this bit --

...............The weight of the mind fractures
the girders and piers of the spirit, spilling out
the heart's melt. Incandescent ingots big as cars
trundling out of titanic mills, red slag scaling off
the brighter metal in the dark.

-- I was struck by how "titanic mills" immediately drew my brain to pull up "dark satanic mills". What would you call that? Implied rhyming allusion? I remember having similar reactions to other poems recently, although I can't recall specifics. It's an interesting device. You could use it, I suppose, to subvert cliches, or for any number of subtleties.

What wide new vistas of subliminal manipulation open up (insert the evil laughter of a mad poetic genius ... not.)

I've got 10,000 songs to render you mute.

2005-02-12T21:56:00.000-08:00

Yay, I finished (well, mostly ... you know how it is) a poem I started on New Year's Eve! That's been an emerging pattern lately -- get the basic images, framework of the poem, then let it ferment for a few weeks or months before coming back to it. The only drawback is wondering whether it will be weeks or months before I feel prepared to grapple with it again ... or years, or never.

It's a tsunami poem, which I had no intention of writing, and feel somewhat conflicted about having written (that aspect of corpse-picking that attends every disaster poem). But it came knocking on my skull. Scott likes it; I'm blessed by having a husband who's a perceptive (although perhaps insufficiently critical) reader. He pulls things out of my work I didn't see myself.

The cat has dragged a box of Kellog's "Fruit Harvest" cereal out of the pantry and is making a valiant effort to bite through the cardboard. He is obsessed with fruit in any form; jam or yohgurt sends him into a mild frenzy. If I don't share, he tries to climb my jeans.

Today's title comes from this article discussing the contrast between the superficial friendliness and inherent reserve of Seattleites. Being a native, I can't judge the accuracy from the standpoint of an immigrant, but a lot of it seems well-observed. Except for the part about the merging on freeways. I'd like to see some more of that legendary politesse and fewer near-misses with SUVs.

Counting Crows on Soundstage. I still know all the words to "Mr. Jones".

Green Dragon Reclining In Black Ink

2005-02-08T10:33:00.000-08:00

I love the names of Chinese tree peonies. A sampling:

Black Dragon Holding Blossom
Azure Clouds Floating Around The Sun
Violet Butterfly Facing Wind
Snow Encircling Pure Heart
Coiled Dragon In The Mist
Flying Swallow In A Red Dress
Fire Refining Jasper
Emerald Hairpin On Gui Fei
(I think this may be the same Gui Fei as in Victoria Chang's poem)
Icicle Over Red Stone
Swan Sleeping In Snow
Silver Fish Teaching Green Pearls
Morning Dew On A Jade Platter
White Screen Reflects A Blue Jewel

--and lest you think all the names are high-flown like this, may I present:

Tipsy Imperial Concubine

I was reminded of these by an email I received the other day ... Sunshine Farm and Gardens is running a naming contest for double hellebores here. If they choose your name, you get a free 4-inch pot of the plant in question -- a great deal, considering what nurseries usually charge for double hellebores. And they're gorgeous. So have at it, poets.

2005-02-04T16:07:00.000-08:00

Magnificent. From the NASA photo-of-the-day site.

Cutting Sonnet

2005-02-03T22:22:00.000-08:00

.

Knowing The Score

The t.v. says the stone age has returned.
This land has nothing left to give but lives.
All other wealth is stolen, bombed, or burned
but papaver somniferom, which thrives
on rocks and drought. The farmers say they sell
this crimson crop to keep their children fed.
The poppy petals drop and seed pods swell;
just three hot months, then fields are harvested.
Their curved blades slice from base to crown, the sap
bleeds out and darkens in the air. I won't
find out what happens next because your nap
is done. The nurse tries to prepare me: Don't
be shocked; he found a knife again. I shrug.
You need to cut your flesh to get the drug.

.

Continuing Education (or, cool stuff I learned last week)

2005-01-31T09:47:00.000-08:00

1. Frugivorous Fish

The are quite a few species of fish in the Amazon (including some pirhanas) that eat fruit and seeds in flood season, and are instrumental in seed dispersal.

2. Liquid Nitrogen Ice Cream

Rumored to be the best ice cream ever by some who have dared to create it. According to the chemists involved, the smaller the ice crystals in the ice cream, the creamier the texture (always desirable). With the following method, the mixture freezes so fast that only small ice crystals have time to form. Liquid nitrogen is poured (veerrrrry carefully) into any standard ice cream base and stirred. In a short time ... Ben and Jerry's, eat your heart out! I didn't know this, but liquid nitrogen will usually just boil away if splashed on the skin. The only way to get a really bad "cold burn" is if it's trapped in contact with the skin -- in a closed fist, for instance. I'm trying to convince Scott that we should make the experiment, come summer. He's not too enthused.

3. Here Comes The Rain ... Again

A body of water contaminated by soap, even a very thin layer not visible to the eye, has a lower surface tension than normal. Thus, when raindrops fall into such a lake, they can keep their shape for several seconds, floating around like little drops of mercury. We got caught in a downpour on the docks by Lake Washington and witnessed this, although we couldn't figure out what we were seeing. If you can describe a phenomenon accurately, you can almost always Google a good answer. I'm not one hundred percent sure this is the right explanation, but it seems to fit.

2005-01-29T13:31:00.000-08:00

Now that I've finally assimilated the software to post pictures, I can inflict cat photos on all of you at will (fiendish laughter). This was, in fact, completely unposed; anything paper left lying around seems to draw him to take ownership of it, usually by lying down on whatever I'm trying to work on. Peter, notice what Hobbes has (apparently) been reading ...

Greensleeves and The One Poem

2005-01-25T20:27:00.000-08:00

So I'm curled up on the couch in the family room; in the parlor Scott is improvising beautifully on Greensleeves, switching back and forth between piano and guitar. It used to drive me mad to hear him play something so lovely and know it wasn't being recorded; I couldn't hold onto it, have it again. So different from poetry, which you can always have again. But I've become accustomed. It exists for the moment and I hear it; that's enough. When I breathe in, I smell the daphne odora aureomarginata -- part lemon and part heaven -- trimmed from the bush that was my grandmother's, now my mother's. The small blooms are four-pointed stars with a glitter in their white faces and a purple-rose reverse. Gold piping around the green leaves.

C. Dale Young is talking/asking about "the one" -- the poem that grabbed you by the throat, pulled you beyond yourself. I wish I could remember just one. I didn't encounter so much a single poem as a good teacher, Jim Mitsui, in my freshman year. He started us off on the Williams red wheelbarrow and "this is just to say" (plum poem). The poems that still stick in my memory from those years are "On Hearing A New Escalation", "Landscapes", and "The Art of Poetry" by Richard Hugo, "Lost" and "A Field Guide To Dungeness Spit" by David Wagoner, and "Mirror" by Sylvia Plath. And William Stafford, Kenneth O. Hanson, Neruda.

I didn't encounter "The Second Coming" until a few years ago, and it blew me away. Out of every poem I've ever read, that's the one I'd most like to have written, or something just like it, with the same power. It's surprising (in a good way) how many other poets feel the same.

Bloggish Serendipity

2005-01-22T23:29:00.000-08:00

My blog takes its name from New Zealand slang for "happy, joyous", as in "Happy as a box of birds". It's fun to say, and seemed appropriate considering my fascination with birds. Today, I happened across this:

"life is a box
filled with songs, the box opens
and a flock
of birds
flies out
and wants to tell me something"

--Pablo Neruda, The Invisible Man

This is from the first of a series of Neruda's "elemental odes", of which he said, "This is how I published a long history of time, things, artisans, people, fruit, flowers, and life." Some of the odes were published in a Venezualan newspaper; Neruda agreed to contribute poems on the condition that they would appear, not in the literary supplement, but in the news section. Which I find appealing.

Variations on a Theme

2005-01-21T22:32:00.000-08:00

C. Dale Young (pantoum necrosis) and Deborah Ager (basal pantoum) seem to have initiated "GoogleWhacking for Poets", where one of the two words comes from our specialized vocabulary (a form, device, etc.) May I offer "noctilucent triolets" and "pyromania sestinas"? I thought "sestina(s)" would be easy, but I forgot about all that material on McSweeney's. A side benefit of GoogleVersing is that you may happen across great poetry sites you never heard of, or forgot about.

Raven Poem for C. Dale Young

2005-01-20T01:55:00.000-08:00

.

Letter to Mitsui from Paradise Lodge

Mountain huckleberries blaze up
as they should in late September,

red sealing wax
on the folds of Tahoma.

At dawn, a charcoal turbulence
of wings over the roofline.

Look, hawks, said two boys below.
I leaned out my window, told them,

No, they're ravens. Every child
should learn to recognize that trickster

who brought us moon and sun and stars.
Remember the story? Raven disguised

as a pine needle, then a young boy,
crying for the bright fire hoarded

in the old man's cedar boxes, light cascading
down to earth when grandfather gave in?

Autumn valleys sizzled with ash and spirea,
a pearly haze of everlasting seedheads.

Raven escaped through the smokehole,
smudging his feathers black,

the color of your hair
back when you taught me

how to gather the seeds of words,
carry a box of portable flames.

I write on stone with a fresh match
as sparks wing from the chimney.

An arc of cedar smoke becomes
the milky way, the germinating stars.

Chaenomeles Burning and Strange Destinies

2005-01-19T16:34:00.000-08:00

Uncannily, unseasonably warm for the last several days -- it was 62 in Seattle today, the same as Tampa. It got up to 69 in Port Angeles, apparently the warmest day ever in Washington in January. The crimson, yellow-stamened flowering quince at the mall is blooming like there's no tomorrow (which indeed there may not be if we get another cold snap). Gorgeous, but it made me thirsty for spring, and we've still got nearly three months of (alleged) winter.

What goes better with an open sunroof than turning up old beloved songs on the radio? It seemed to be the day for DJs to google what became of all these guys. Peter Garrett, the former lead singer of "Midnight Oil" (Blue Sky Mine, Beds Are Burning) is now an Australian Labour MP. Well, I guess that makes a certain amount of sense. But try this on for size: John Leydon (aka Johnny Rotten of Sex Pistols infamy) has most recently been hosting 1/2 hour programs about bugs for the Discovery Channel. There must be some ironic moral here, but it's escaping me.

The Persistence of Jays, Etc.

2005-01-17T23:22:00.000-08:00

Some birds will do anything for suet. I've noticed before that most of the Stellar's Jays aren't good grabbers, in terms of gripping a surface that doesn't feel secure to them. Thus, they have a problem with the suet feeder, sized more for the chickadees and nuthatches. One came up with a partial solution today; he bounced back and forth between two branches under the feeder, spearing a gulp of suet in transit each time. Not dignifed, but effective.

Relentless saturating rains today, straight from Hawaii, after a good spell of dry sunny weather. I've never seen such a batch of pathetic birds, drenched through. The ruby-crowned kinglet was especially pitiful, several shades darker than his usual fluffy olive self. He has a scarlet topknot of feathers that usually only manifests itself when he is feeling defensive or startled; today he was so matted down it was visible all the time. I'm fascinated by these secret flashes of color, sparking out unexpectedly on seemingly-drab birds; the iridescent red at the throat of a female Anna's hummingbird, the orange undersides of a flicker's wings, exposed only in flight. Is there a word for those hidden feathers?

I don't know what designers have against green. Good greens. Why should it be so hard to find the perfect green silk blouse, or sweater? Every possible variant of pink, purple, blue is available. Why can I only find lime (death to my complexion), olive (same), mint (insipid), teal (not green), hunter (too dour), or Kelly (not for non-polo-shirt-wearers)? Is a perfect fern, clover, spring grass, apple, moss, or peapod too much to ask? Sadly, it appears to be. I'd even settle for a decent jade or emerald at this point, but no....

Snarl, hiss. Why do poetry boards atract people whose proper calling in life appears to be street fighting, no Queensbury rules? It seems such a waste of time, effort, and spleen to me, these insult-fests or flame wars or whatever you want to call them. I'm not talking about tough, reasoned, honest crit -- that's essential, or what's the point of getting feedback? It's the off-topic, ad hom garbage that always seems to attract much of the voltage of the board away from serious discussion. Call me a shrinking violet; fair enough. But that stuff really puts me off. I don't thrive on spite and malice, however cleverly-phrased.

Here is an apologia for suburbia, or quiet lives in general; a quote from Flaubert that Cambell McGrath paraphrased in an interview:

"Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work." --Gustave Flaubert

This certainly seems to work for me; the more orderly (not boring, mind you, just under control) my life is, the more undistracted energy I have for my work. Now if I could just achieve that measure of orderliness...

A New Addiction

2005-01-12T19:20:00.000-08:00

Ok, word-junkies ... don't say you weren't warned. Thanks to David Vincenti, I have become enamored of GoogleWhacking (which is both less obscene and more dangerous than it sounds.) The goal is to enter any two words, sans quotation marks, into Google and get only one result.

Both words must be in Google's dictionary; you can tell if they are by looking in the upper righthand portion of the screen where it says "Results 1 - 1 of 1 for (say) venal bioluminsence"; both "venal" and "bioluminescence" will be blue and underlined (like this). Results from online dictionaries or any other type of word list are ineligible. The GoogleWhack site above has a provision to record your qualifying GoogleWhacks. This is actually a lot of fun, if a pernicious waste of time. I've found two today: "venal bioluminescence", as above, and "trenchant cloudberries".

In addition to forcing the players to reach into the more obscure alleys of their vocabularies, both the process and the results of other users on the official GoogleWhack list have the potential to reveal some intriguing juxtapositions. I'll take my poetry fodder wherever I can find it (she said, in an attempt to rationalize her habit...)

Later the same night ... we cannot stop, my preciousssss ... save us before we seach again. I forgot to say about the scoring method (for those who care about such things). Probably the easiest approach is to multiply the individual google hits for each word. For instance, "numberless pimientos" breaks down thusly: google hits for "numberless" = 198,000; google hits for "pimientos" = 194,000. 198,000 x 194,000 = 38,412,000,000.

Some of the more amusing recent entries from the official GoogleWhack register:

carpetbagger flummeries
evanescing sausages
fandango gristmills
campy persnicketiness
megalomaniacal hibernator
kibitzing wedgies
velvety grunions

The Mountain and Snow Envy

2005-01-10T20:43:00.000-08:00

Around here, Mt. Rainier is "The Mountain", needing no other naming. We were driving down to see Scott's family in Graham, about an hour south of us. The drive takes us through the small town of Orting, whose main distinguishing feature is a bell tower sporting a gigantic metal daffodil at its base (in honor, I suppose, of their spring Daffodil Festival). Rainier looks enormous from there. The sky was typical January, all cold blue and rose and grey. The snow-clad surfaces of the mountain were exactly the same color as the surrounding sky, so all you could see of the mountain were striations of exposed rock, doing an excellent imitation of twisting charcoal clouds. Strange, when the eyes don't accept what the mind knows to be there. It was very surreal, and beautiful. Rainier is always stunning, never the same twice, and it's easy to forget the danger of living on its skirts. It's a dormant volcano, but not a dead one, and eruption is a very real possibility. Not to mention the threat of scenarios short of a full eruption that could still send lahars, mud flows the consistency of cement down the valleys at 60 miles per hour. They have reached all the way to Puget Sound in the past; everything in the valley from Orting to Auburn is built on what's left of them. Regardless, the area around Orting (right in the mouth of the beast, if you will) is being developed at a scorching rate. I wonder about the thought processes of the people who buy these homes. Are the prices too good to pass up, or do they just figure "it will never happen here"? What do they make of the "Volcano Evacuation Route" signs spaced at regular intervals along the two-lane road that could never handle that kind of traffic?

This is the time of year I always fall victim to snow envy. It's hit and miss for us in Seattle -- most years we at least get a dusting, maybe a couple of inches, but it's anyone's guess ... we have the most apologetic weather forecasters I have ever heard. I guess being stuck between two mountain ranges in proximity to the ocean makes for an ... interesting meteorological situation. And apparently, snow is especially difficult to pin down (or so they would have us believe). We had maybe a half inch Saturday night, and now they're saying maybe tomorrow night we might get a bit more, but it's a crapshoot. I can't complain; it's been a lovely winter so far, with (it feels like) more sunshine than usual. But I crave the snow, and it has to be here. When I whine to my friends about failed forecasts, they always say, "Just go up to the mountains, up to the pass, it's so close." Which, indeed, it is. But it's not the same. There's something about the smell and the silence of snow, of standing under your own streetlight, mesmerized by flake patterns, and knowing you can go inside and curl up with hot cider whenever you get cold. And it's the transformative power of snow I desire ... all the known things, all the dead patches in the lawn, the sewer drains, the terrible hack job the neighbors did on their weeping Japanese maple -- all covered over and perfected.

Notebook Page (or what passes for one)

2005-01-04T22:05:00.000-08:00

Eduardo started this drive for posting pages from our notebooks. Which I think is a fun idea. Here are some of my jottings from a document that serves the same purpose:

Petals from the arbor swirl
around the ankles of a couple
walking to the gift shop;
tiny hurricanes
of dessicated tears.
--the whole winery thing -- sensuous heady smell of fermentation--
barrels stained with red wine -- french oak -- "toasted" over an open fire == only a strong red can take medium or more "toasting"
chill wine to stop fermentation
for red wine, crush everything up together, seeds, stems, skin

-------------------------------------------------------------------

You may have only seen
them bleaching and half buried, becoming
their own tombstones.

layered ten to twenty deep in the
tenements of sand

--------------------------------------------------------------------

In January, halls lined
with a forced march of forsythia

--------------------------------------------------------------------

open your bibles to november

it's been a long time since this light
was a river

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starlings -chatter, contradicting the sun (wind), always a different song, lining the wires, sleek, scatting to the/a masses/cadre
of cats far below.
"chatterers in the marketplace, listening or telling something new"
scatter, spurt, chitter, spat, crackle, squabble, eavesdropping, "for company", companies, advertise, birds of the quick connection,
each branch in the cottonwood upholds a different opinion.
cotttonwood leaves pixilating in the westering sun.
they have been clinging to wires too long,
sinking their claws into current
plumage lights up with every color, overlayed with binary splashes of black and white.
until dusk switches them off
into other fields for the night.

snap at each other with coin-purse mouths
morse code--dots and dashes (markings); slick
tv's in suburban windows -light dark light

Probably every reader knows that starlings aren’t really supposed to be here in North America, that they owe their presence in our yards to a misguided romantic named Eugene Scheiffelin, who in 1890 decided that every bird mentioned in William Shakespeare’s writings deserved a place in North America. Accordingly, he imported 60 starlings, which he released in Central Park. Observers were charmed when a pair built a messy nest right on the façade of the American Museum of Natural History. Delighted, Scheiffelin and his followers imported 40 more the following year. But delight faded to concern and finally outright disgust when the starlings made it clear that they intended to cover the earth, or at least the façade, with evidence of their presence. (henry IV) mortimer

-------------------------------------------------------------------

tangled in steel strings, the plot
of polyester fibers thickening
to green us into place; your hands grown into
the soundboard, mine on your shoulders.
We'll be safe beneath the Verilux, 10,000 hour bulbs,
the irrigation of minor chords.
They'll need to bring a backhoe
if they want to tear us out.

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The Art of the Sharp-shinned Hawk

2005-01-03T22:33:00.001-08:00

No glorious orbit over a straggling field,
no plummet to deadeye the harrowed meal.

Those he pursues also take flight,
twitter to hide in thickets of pine.

What matter if branches snap at his scapulars,
twigs reap the down from his breast in pale tatters?

He'll follow them anywhere, pockets
of life compact of seed and song.

He'll tackle wingspans twice his size
whenever they stray across his sights.

Don't offer him carrion; prey must be fresh
when he sickles his name to the favored branch.

Feathers gyre from the sky, of little consequence.
He gives himself to plucking out the red elastic flesh.

Poison Paw

2005-01-01T01:50:00.000-08:00

Everyone's a critic. Including (apparently) my cat, Hobbes. I was revising a poem, and left the room with the document up and the laptop open on the kitchen counter. Imagine my surprise as I returned to find my final couplet reduced to this:

Feathers gyre from the sky, of little consequence.
He gives himself to [';;]\wsssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss

Note carefully the angry cat face inside the brackets; two little dots (for eyes) above two commas (for exposed fangs). I can only assume what follows is a transcribed hiss and/or snarl.

This is what I get for leaving a bird poem where he could get at it.

As if I don't have enough merciless editors in my life.

Anniversary

2005-01-01T01:26:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was my mom & dad's 40th anniversary. What with the dark time of year and levels of death and destruction both far away and near to us, no one was in the mood for a big shindig -- that's coming in the spring, when celebration arises naturally. But yesterday was the actual day, so we curled up on their couch and drank wine and burnt our tongues on five-star hot chili chocolate truffles, reminisced and listened to Scott play guitar.

Much of the good in my marriage has grown from observing theirs. They never yelled, ever ... I don't think I even realized they disagreed until I was a teenager. They spent lots of time together, but felt free to pursue their own interests. This would especially be my dad, who over the years has fanatically pursued a wide selection of skills, including sailing, photography, boat building, kite flying, wine making, playing the recorder and making gourmet cheesecakes (I miss that phase). My mom was cool with it all -- her things are gardening and baseball. Of course there have been rough spots, but through it all they have always made each other laugh, and hugged and kissed like newlyweds. They have been blessed, and so have I.

Disaster Relief

2004-12-29T11:31:00.000-08:00

Didi posted this link on her blog. It seems to be sort of a charitable donation clearinghouse site. It's a non-profit, although it does appear that they charge a processing fee for forwarding donations to the various charities (3% on credit card donations). At least it's a place to start; they list a lot of very useful info about the different charities. There is a heartbreaking need for food, water, and medical personnel and supplies in all the areas affected by the tsunami.

Work or Play?

2004-12-25T22:32:00.000-08:00

Various other methods of trying to wake me up from a nap having failed, Scott started reading me the "art" section from an anthology of quotations. Well, that worked eventually, and was more humane than applying cold water or an infuriated cat.

Proving that art is never a "finished product" and that the demands of eternal revision cut across the disciplines:

"Once in a museum Bonnard persuaded his friend Vuillard to distract an attendant while he approached his own old painting, slipped from his pocket a tiny box of paints and a brush the size of a toothpick and added to one of his consecrated canvasses minute touches that set his mind at rest." -- Annette Vaillant

Another quote was by some writer I've never heard of, saying basically that artists shouldn't call what they do "art". By definition, if you're an artist, everything you produce is "art"; it should be referred to as "work". Which got me thinking about the concept of writing as "work", as opposed to something you might do strictly for pleasure or relaxation.

A lot of people say, "I love to write" or "I enjoy writing". I'm not sure that I do. Feeling the initial spark for a piece is great, and I often commit the cardinal sin of falling in love with one of my own metaphors or the sound of a line, etc. But enjoy the process, not so much. It is work, sometimes very frustrating work, as my reach exceeds my grasp and I often see that original spark fizzling out on the page. And then there's the obsessive process of revision. Even when I've gotten a poem as far as I can take it, the ensuing relief of accomplishment is frequently accompanied by the phenomenon I call "post-poem depression", where all seems "weary, stale, flat and unprofitable".

Why, then? I guess because I do desire the satisfaction of creating something from nothing, like successfully assembling a 1,000 piece puzzle when you've lost the lid to the box and don't know at the beginning whether it's supposed to be a calico kitten or the Space Needle. Even if it has all been mostly said before, poetry still feels like a natural and almost necessary way to engage the world.

Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My

2004-12-23T21:13:00.000-08:00

I went to Woodland Park Zoo today with my mom and dad, and we had a wonderful time. I'm ambivalent about zoos, because on one hand, I love watching the beauty and behavior of the animals, but on the other hand, why should wild things be caged for my amusement? But every time I go to this zoo, there's a new and improved, wilder habitat for someone. This time, the jaguar has an amazing new enclosure with tons of running water, trees, bushes, and little rock dens to curl up in. I swear that cat's digs are larger than the lot my house is on. The lemurs and the monkeys have a spiffy new open-air environment too. It may not be perfect, but it's an immense improvement on the old-style zoo reality of concrete rooms with bars on.

We went specifically today to see the two Sumatran tiger cubs, about three months old now and thirty pounds apiece. Cute as buttons, with enormous paws. There are only 400-500 Sumatran tigers left in the wild; they're the smallest of the tigers, and have white "false eye" spots on the backs of their dark ears. These cubs are named Langka (LONG-ka), Indonesian for "rare", and Manis (Maw-NEES), Indonesian for "sweet." They were awake when we got there, bouncing all over and biting everything in their vicinity, including their mother. She took it pretty well, but didn't hesitate to clomp them in the head with her paw when they went too far. I don't know if it was a dominance thing or what, but one cub consistently ran roughshod over and gnawed on his brother or his mom, while the other cub seemed to think that trees and sticks were the enemy to be subdued. They're pretty lively on their feet, but don't have perfect dexterity yet; one of them fell off a log about four feet above the ground; he sat there thinking about that for about 30 seconds before getting up and loping off to attack his brother, who was injudiciously lying with his belly exposed.

Another highlight was listening to the lions and tigers roar, which they did quite a bit of today (apparently zoo animals tend to be more active in the colder winter weather). It actually scared some of the little kids, which isn't surprising. It provided me with a delightful frisson down the spine, but if I were out in the wild in their natural environment, it wouldn't have been so delightful. One small boy seemed more concerned with the tiger; he looked up at this massive animal, (to whom "regal" and "imposing" don't do justice and who looked like he would eat you as soon as look at you), and said, "Daddy, he doesn't have any friends."

The tropical aviary is always wonderful (and warm); we saw turquoise tanagers, yellow-rumped caciques, kiskadees, peruvian pigeons, blue-crowned mot-mots, and a sun bittern. I conversed a bit with a kiskadee and a cacique, and suffered an aerial bombardment from a mot-mot (missed my head, got my coat).

The so-called "Elephant Barn" is an impressive structure after the manner of a Thai temple, I believe. We were watching mother and baby (relatively speaking) elephant eat their evening ration of hay when we saw another trunk snaking in through a gap in the doorway leading to an adjacent isolation room. I assume this elephant had also been fed, but she was covertly abstracting hay from the adjoining room; she got through quite a bit of it, too. I guess "the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence" isn't a human-specific idiom.