tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32698974763037350222024-03-13T16:11:57.381-07:00Flying for the Window: The Bloggings of a Curious ManPosts on Life and Literature by Charles Coté.Charles Cotéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17681545501396352183noreply@blogger.comBlogger67125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3269897476303735022.post-72873024439082017152011-09-25T07:04:00.000-07:002011-09-25T07:04:37.926-07:00Thom Ward Interview, Part VIIn this last part of my interview with Thom, he talks about the poet and madness, his work as an editor, why it’s so hard to finish a poem, and two tricks to keep a poem going. He finishes up by reading a poem in tribute to the late Al Poulin.<br />
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Charles Cotéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17681545501396352183noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3269897476303735022.post-59530379266291108742011-09-24T08:23:00.000-07:002011-09-24T08:23:24.594-07:00Thom Ward Interview, Part V<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Thom reads another poem from his collection and discusses the meaning of etcetera, among other things:<br />
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Thom discusses his loopy and lucid method with Etcetera's Mistress,
shares a review written by Kurt Brown, and reads more poetry from the
collection.<br />
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Thom talks about the "How, What, Why, Where, When Bone" section of his collection and reads the poem "Anticipation."<br />
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Thom reads "Rumpus, Cohesion, Mess" and discusses his lyric associative mode of writing, what he calls <i>Loose Sonnets</i> in his latest collection of poems, <i>Etcetera's Mistress</i>.<br />
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From his publisher: Thom Ward is sole proprietor of Thom Ward's Poetry Editing and Proofreading Services (<a href="mailto:thombward@gmail.com">thombward@gmail.com</a>). Ward's poetry collections include <i>Small Boat with Oars of Different Size</i> (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2000) and <i>Various Orbits</i> (Carnegie Mellon, 2004). Ward's poetry chapbook, <i>Tumblekid</i>,
winner of the 1998 Devil's Millhopper poetry contest, was published by
the University of South Carolina-Aiken in 2000. His collection
of prose poems, <i>The Matter of the Casket</i>, was published by
CustomWords in 2007. Ward teaches creative writing workshops at high
schools and colleges around the country, tutors individual poetry
students, and edits poetry manuscripts. He is a faculty and advisory
board member at Wilkes University's Graduate Creative Writing program in
Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. Thom Ward lives in western New York with
his girlfriend Jennifer and their cat Phantom.<br />
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Here's what Thomas Lux has to say about Thom's latest book: "Reading Thom Ward is to enter a brilliant and restless imagination – sometimes poignant,
sometimes crazy-with-a-purpose, but always with a deep lucidity in the logic of its
illogic. His poems remind me how much we need language and how much the language
needs us."<br />
<img alt="" height="8" src="http://www.accents-publishing.com/images/spacer.gif" width="1" /><br />
Thom has been my poetry teacher/editor and friend since 1996, when I took his class at Writers & Books. <br />
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In Part I, Thom talks about his process for writing a poem:<br />
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<embed src="http://www.archive.org/flow/flowplayer.commercial-3.2.1.swf" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="300" height="26" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" cachebusting="true" bgcolor="#000000" quality="high" flashvars="config={'key':'#$aa4baff94a9bdcafce8','playlist':[{'url':'WardInterviewPartI.mp3','autoPlay':false}],'clip':{'autoPlay':true,'baseUrl':'http://www.archive.org/download/ThomWardInterviewPart1/'},'canvas':{'backgroundColor':'#000000','backgroundGradient':'none'},'plugins':{'audio':{'url':'http://www.archive.org/flow/flowplayer.audio-3.2.1-dev.swf'},'controls':{'playlist':false,'fullscreen':false,'height':26,'backgroundColor':'#000000','autoHide':{'fullscreenOnly':true},'scrubberHeightRatio':0.6,'timeFontSize':9,'mute':false,'top':0}},'contextMenu':[{},'-','Flowplayer v3.2.1']}"> </embed></object>Charles Cotéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17681545501396352183noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3269897476303735022.post-82447429442228741452011-08-11T17:51:00.000-07:002011-08-12T18:02:08.575-07:00Whitman on Acid: An Interview with Poet John Roche<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">John Roche</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Here's my recent interview with poet and RIT professor John Roche, about his latest collection <i>Road Ghosts</i> (<i>theenk Books</i>, 2010).<b></b><br />
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<b>Author's Bio:</b><br />
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John Roche is an Associate Professor of English at Rochester Institute of Technology, where he advises the campus literary magazine, <i> Signatures</i>, and teaches a variety of literature and creative writing classes. He earned a BA from the University of Connecticut, Storrs, studying with George Butterick, Charles Boer, and Glauco Cambon, an MA from University College Dublin, and a PhD from SUNY Buffalo, studying with Robert Creeley and John C. Clarke. He has been granted four National Endowment for the Humanities fellowships and an SOS grant from the New York Foundation for the Arts. His full-length poetry collections, <i>Topicalities</i> (2008) and <i>On Conesus</i> (2005) are available from Foothills Publishing (Kanona, NY). His poems have appeared in magazines like <i>Yellow Medicine Review, Flurb, House Organ, Big Bridge, Jack Magazine, Interim, Intent, Coe Review,The Woodstock Journal, Buff, The Burning World</i>, and in several anthologies. He also edited the collection UNCENSORED SONGS: FOR SAM ABRAMS (<i>Spuyten Duyvil</i>, 2008), featuring poems by Amiri Baraka, Ed Sanders, Bob Holman, Anne Waldman, Andrei Codrescu, and other friends of the emeritus RIT professor. Dr. Roche sits on the Board of BOA Editions, one of the nation's leading non-profit poetry presses. He co-edited, with Patricia Roth Schwartz, an anthology of poetry by inmates at Auburn Prison called <i>Doing Time to Cleanse My Mind</i> (<i>FootHills Publishing</i>, 2009). His most recent collection is ROAD GHOSTS (2010), from <i>theenk Books</i>.<br />
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<b>Your book seems to keep company with the likes of Kerouac’s <i>On the Road</i>, as well as other well-known travel books, two of my favorite being Robert Pirsig’s <i>Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance</i>, and William Least Heat-Moon’s <i>Blue Highways</i>. What did you discover about yourself in the writing of this collection?</b><br />
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Ah, you mention three of my favorite “road books,” Charlie! Then there’s Steinbeck’s <i>Travels with Charlie</i> and <i>The Grapes of Wrath</i> and Henry Miller’s <i>The Air-Conditioned Nightmare</i>. Do <i>Moby Dick</i> and <i>Huckleberry Finn</i> qualify as “road books?" One could go on, but to get to your question, and of course, unlike these examples, my book is poetry, to the extent that matters. I guess I discovered something about my ability to overcome fear, not just the dangers I confronted as a teenage runaway, but the fears of putting this material out there. I’ve been gratified by the responses I’ve gotten from readers. And I was pleasantly surprised to discover that my memory of that period was still so vibrant. If only last week or last month were equally clear! I also discovered something about my ability to tell a story, to create a narrative. My previous books were not so linear. That changes in the last, “Bardic Road” section, which I included fairly late in the revision process. It’s about the present, and about the “mythic present” that is the world of poetry. Some poets I admire believe that section brought the book to a necessary completion. I was just trying to find a thread from who I was at 17 to who I am today. That section also begins to take the book from “I” to “we,” as I create collective poet personae in poems like “Here’s for All” and “Joe the Poet.” The latter persona, appearing in various guises and in various places and centuries, will be the protagonist of my next book, “The Continuing Saga of Joe the Poet.”<br />
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<b>Assuming these poems are autobiographical, I just have to ask, as the father of a teenager, What were you thinking? Or were you out of your mind? I suppose today’s adventuring teen buys a Eurail pass and slums from hostel to hostel with mom and dad’s credit card, or maybe the more socially-minded work on an organic farm. As a college professor, how would you compare today’s youth to the free spirit we read about in Road Ghosts?</b><br />
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Well as for me, the short answer is, yes, I was most certainly out of my mind, even without the hallucinogens. Eleven years of Catholic school can do that. But in a larger sense, the good ol’ US of A was going through a kind of total meltdown. Two Kennedys and Martin Luther King shot, killings of students at Kent State and Jackson State, riots in most of the urban centers, a senseless war that went on and on, the election of Nixon and Agnew. If you weren’t, as a young person, a bit crazy at that point there had to be something wrong with you!<br />
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Hard to generalize about today’s youth, of course, as there are as many variants as there are individuals. The road certainly seems to be a more dangerous place today. One doesn’t see many hitchhikers. Back then, there were dangers, obviously, but also, in the several years following Woodstock, a whole army of young people on the road, and thousands who sympathized and so felt protective of them (and of each other). I’m not sure that would be the case today, but in my more optimistic moods I’d like to think so. I run into some really committed environmental/anarchist/counter cultural youths from time to time, at poetry events at the <i>Flying Squirrel Community Center</i>, for instance, and some of them already have enough stories to fill several books, everything from working with the poor in Haiti or helping out in New Orleans after Katrina, to braving police violence at demonstrations, to surviving incarceration. And some of them are quite well read.<br />
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<b>By the way, did you ever share any of these stories with your parents, and if so, what was their reaction?</b><br />
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My brothers and friends, yes. Very few with my parents (who are both dead now). They were daily mass Catholics, and quite conservative in most respects. Wonderfully loving people, however, just very different in their experience. Instead of “Easy Rider,” think “Going My Way.”<br />
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What do your students think about your <i>Road Ghosts </i>experience?</b><br />
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Well, only a couple of them have read <i>Road Ghosts</i>, to my knowledge, though four or five of them were at my launch party at the Bug Jar. They seemed to get something out of it. Of course, most of the feedback has come from people my age or a bit older, most of whom, even those outwardly conservative, RIT administrators and businessmen, had some story to relate from their own “misspent” youth. By the way, I’ll be reading with one of my students, Nicolas Eckerson, an incredibly talented poet, at Writers & Books on Tuesday September 13, 7:30 pm, as part of the Genesee series.<br />
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<b>I love the mugging in the "City of Brotherly and the Quaker State." It wasn’t all about peace and love. In fact, that’s one of the book’s surprises. Talk about the disillusionment that took place, not only for you personally, but for the beats and hippies. I think you chronicle that quite well. In other words, what is the ancient division between stayers and strayers?</b><br />
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Yes, I wanted to show the era in all its complexity. We tend to have bifurcated, and equally misleading, characterizations of the Sixties/early Seventies. Either the David Horowitz/Newt Gingrich approach, which is to demonize the Counterculture and antiwar movement and blame all our current troubles on that legacy, or the opposite, viewing that era through Day-glo colored glasses. I was glad the Psychedelia and Op-Art show at the Memorial Art Gallery last fall avoided that kind of simplification. But there are so many examples. For instance, I noticed an ad seeking volunteer adult mentors in a local newspaper that said, “Do you remember Woodstock? If so, share it with a child.” Well, of course, that might land you in jail for contributing to the delinquency of a minor. <br />
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The division between “stayers” and “strayers” is not limited to any demographic. I suppose America, the land of mobility, has always tended towards the wanderer, as most of us are immigrants. Our collective heroes have been cowboys, astronauts, Plains Indians. I remember Gary Snyder had an essay several decades ago attacking this tendency, and arguing for staying power, rooting down on your homestead, which, of course, has also been a counter-tendency in America. Wendell Berry, too. Even Charles Olson had a line where he criticized the American tendency to run off to the moon when things got too complicated here.<br />
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<b>What was your process in writing these memoir poems? Did you consult old journals? Was it all recollection? And how did this project come about now, after all these years? By the way, I think there’s a certain power when there’s been so much distance between the event and the actual writing. Talk about that too.</b><br />
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I did consult newspaper and Internet sources about the 1971 Mayday protests and Albuquerque uprising. I didn’t have much written material left from that period—I’ve moved so many times! One piece of serendipity was that my best friend from high school, Tony (now deceased and to whom the book is dedicated) had a couple of years ago found an old cassette he’d made interviewing me about a 1975 cross-country hitchhiking trip, and made a CD of it for me. That proved quite valuable in the “On the Road Again” chapter, and also helped me with the voice of the poems. I was also fortunate to find some old written journals, though not as many as I wish I’d saved. One prose poem, “Cowboy Days,” was actually culled from a longer prose piece I’d written in 1975 or 76. I sent the original to Michael Rothenberg at Big Bridge magazine (which was about to publish the online version of the book), and asked him if this extraordinary historical document might be printed verbatim. Michael was prudent to say, well, maybe you could edit it first. <br />
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As to your larger point, I agree that having the distance helped. I’d tried writing about these events many times when I was younger, but it was too soon. I also like to think my craft has improved, of course. I tend towards understatement these days, which is necessary when dealing with such “hot” material. I was pleased that legendary SF Beat poet David Meltzer noted my “detached camera eye” in his book blurb for <i>Road Ghosts</i>.<br />
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<b>There’s an aside in “Lifesavers” that intrigues me –– “always the gab gets me out of or into trouble.” Still true for you, and if so how? I’m particularly interested in this as an aesthetic for writing, when we say too little or too much, when the eloquence is just right. How do you teach that, or how to you know it when you read it?</b><br />
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Ah, great question! I’m not sure one can teach that, except by example. It’s a sensibility that comes from years of reading and writing, though, like everything else, some pick up on it sooner and some later. I think it took me about thirty years to get in the “groove” and I’m still learning, so I guess that makes me a particularly slow learner. “Gab” is a great word. Like any poet, I’m attracted to the vernacular, especially when it has good “mouth feel.” Sets me thinking of Whitman’s “blab of the pave,” which is something I always try to listen for, and also about Seamus Heaney’s great poem, “Digging,” where he says, “The cold smell of potato mold, the squelch and slap / Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge / Through living roots awaken in my head. / But I've no spade to follow men like them.” But follow we must, in our own plodding way and in our own sweet time. <br />
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<b>"Southern Hospitality" made me think of Gregory Orr’s memoir, <i>The Blessing</i>, about his incarceration during his stint as a teen civil rights volunteer. The fact of the matter is that he could easily have been murdered. Talk about this part of your experience.</b><br />
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That’s one I should read. “Southern Hospitality” is a little poem near the beginning, where I get lost hitchhiking in rural Virginia after DC protests, and the gas station owner, a stereotypical cracker, tells me he hopes I never get home. That hit home to me the precariousness of my situation, you can be sure. There are references to a few similar hitchhiking situations in the book—people swerving at me and throwing bottles out the window in the Kentucky hills or getting picked up by a Klansman in East Texas (who fortunately tried to convert me rather than assault me). Few younger than forty would grasp just how polarized a country the US was in the late Sixties and early Seventies. Part of the reason for the camaraderie and “share the love” Woodstock spirit was, conversely, because longhairs were considered “white niggers” and needed to stick together, especially in rural areas. There’s that amusing song by one of the country rock bands from the early Seventies, where the narrator is in a redneck bar and his hat falls off, exposing his long hair, causing him to make a run for it. That was only slight exaggeration. Ironically, what changed it were the returning Vietnam Vets, many of whom had long hair and smoked dope. So the divisions got blurred. And in many places today, a long-haired, dope smoker might very well belong to the Tea Party.<br />
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<b>I love the myth-making that takes place in “Song of Wandering Owsley,” your collaboration with Susan Deer Cloud, and all of that from the color orange. By the way, I happen to love oranges and scurvy will never be a problem for me. Talk about this collaboration and the process of myth-making in poetry. Talk about “Hitchhiking” too as I think it’s relevant to this discussion, especially your mention of Joseph Campbell’s <i>Masks of God</i>.</b><br />
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The orange in the poem refers, of course, to orange sunshine, mentioned more explicitly in the poem “Sunshine Night,” but also to Frank O’Hara’s poem “Why I Am Not a Painter,” which contains the lines, “There should be / so much more, not of orange, of / words, of how terrible orange is / and life.” This collaboration was something Susan and I came up with over email. Just a lark, really, but I’ve had a chance to read alternating stanzas of it with her on a couple occasions (including the Bug Jar book launch), and each time it was a gas. She tended to be responsible for the more upbeat, fairy tale lines, and mine tended to be the darker ones, but together, I think we hit a nice balance, depicting both the Sixties dream and the hard crash. Both are part of the package. “Hitchhiking” is a list poem, almost a ghazal, I suppose, a place to fit in so many memories into short vignettes. The book as a whole fits into Campbell’s mono myth of the hero’s journey, I suppose, even if it’s a confused and largely ineffectual hero. But so was Sal Paradise in <i>On the Road</i>, and so was Carlos Castaneda’s persona, so there’s probably good narrative reason to have the story told from the p.o.v. of the bumbler or sidekick rather than the strong hero (Watson rather than Holmes).<br />
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<b>The tension between men and women during the sexual revolution is a well-known irony, one you bring to light especially well in “For What It’s Worth.” What was your take on it then versus now? How has this changed over the decades, especially from your perspective as a college professor?</b><br />
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Well, that poem is an attempt to give an accurate account of incidents that may have helped contribute to the start of the Albuquerque riot or uprising of 1971. I did consult some newspaper accounts of the time to refresh my memory about dates and so forth. The “punchline” of the poem comments on the new consciousness of “La Raza” that the largely Chicano uprisings in LA (1970) and Albuquerque echoed. So the poem is more about ethnicity than about gender, though there is the line referring to the County jail: “girls sexually assaulted by guards / guys left alone to boredom of stir.” That antithesis sums up nicely the greater risk women on the road or street were taking. At the time, I did consider myself a feminist (as now), but I hadn’t really read much about gender issues and shared a lot of the chauvinistic attitudes I’d grown up with, or absorbed from the bikers I hung out with. There were some really strong women, like the woman who called herself Scorpio who is the subject of another poem. But she found herself victimized over and over by a male-dominated culture that despised strong women. And, sad to say, there wasn’t much difference between Counter cultural males and cops and rednecks. I think it was Stokely Carmichael who said the only place for women in the Movement was prone.<br />
<b><br />
So glad you worked Dylan into the collection, and his "Simple Twist of Fate." Tell me the story of the green jacket. So much what if implications here for you.</b><br />
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Thanks. Hope I don’t get sued! This prose poem reflects on the single fact of losing my denim jacket, which I’d checked at the visitor’s center at the Grand Canyon before hiking down to the Colorado River in 90+ heat. When I got back up, the center was locked, and my ride was leaving, so I had to forfeit the jacket, which had a series of implications that I dramatize in a cause-effect chain. The point being, as the “Butterfly Effect” and similar mathematical models have it, that if one changes one small variable tremendous differences may result down the line. I reflect on whether, given the freedom to withstand cold nights represented by the jacket, I might have decided to extend my journey more than three months, perhaps heading to the great Northwest, and perhaps an entirely different life if I’d eschewed college.<br />
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<b>What was that homecoming like for you, and how might it compare and contrast with the soldiers coming home from the war?</b><br />
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Well, for me, it was much better than for most of the soldiers coming back. Far from the stereotype of hippies “spitting” at the vets, they were my heroes, the first people I smoked dope with, the VVAW activists on the front line of any demo, the folks you would meet in any homeless camp or shelter. So I knew something of their anguish, at second-hand, certainly, through their stories. Country Joe McDonald, by the way, was one of the few performers who really told those stories and worked for veteran’s rights. But all people remember him for was the “Fish” cheer at Woodstock.<br />
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My homecoming was emotional, lots of tears on both my part and on the part of my parents. But back in high school, I’d achieved a kind of mythic stature, as no one else had, in the history of this Catholic school, done anything equivalent. So it was easy, maybe a bit too easy. It wasn’t until college that I had to start confronting the darker side, the fool-heartiness of many of my decisions, the people I’d hurt, etc. Not that I was ever “repentant” in the conventional sense. I then and now still believe my actions were a necessary response to the conditions of my life at that point, and to the nation’s. I’ll always have some empathy for young people driven to extreme actions, whether it’s in Egypt or Syria or Britain. That’s why my prologue poem is called “Suicide Bomber.”<br />
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<b>I love the image of the startled cat in “Reading Edgar Billowitz’s American Indians Fascicle...” Talk about your own unhurried amplitude at this stage of life? How is it finding its way into your work, both as a writer and teacher?</b><br />
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Another great question! In the poem I compare my old cat’s reaction at having accidentally tumbled 15 feet off a deck railing (surprised but unscathed) to a retired colleague’s observation that the aging have “unhurried amplitude.” That’s a luxury I envy at this stage of my life, where I’m constantly rushing off to department meetings, planning committee meetings, board meetings, business coffees, etc., as well as attending more than my share of poetry readings. It’s odd, but as an undergrad I always perceived professors as unhurried. Partly the misperception of youth, I’m sure, though that was a different era, no doubt, when faculty did not have to keep up with email and the many bombardments of the wired present, and probably had more autonomy. I do find that writing poems, like working in the garden or doing Tai Chi or Qi Gong exercises, is an opportunity to “slow time down,” or at least slow my own pulse down. It’s an exercise in concentrating attention. So it’s maybe an hour a day when I can achieve something like “unhurried amplitude.”<br />
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Tell me about Janine from “Janine’s Smile.”</b><br />
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Ah, Janine Pommy Vega was an amazing woman who died this past December. She used to come up to this area a couple times a year to teach poetry in the migrant camps around Mt. Morris, as well as to teach in various prisons. We’d often get together for dinner when she was in town, and I also visited her prison class at Eastern Correctional, near Kingston. Janine tells her story in Brenda Knight’s Women of the Beat Generation and also in a memoir called Tracking the Serpent. Talk about a life they should make a movie of! More intrepid than “Out of Africa.” Janine was a teenager in the Greenwich Village scene, shared a house with Ginsberg and Orlovsky, married a Spanish painter who died tragically, then she started her world travels, living as a hermit on an island in Peru, hiking the Himalayas and Andes and Amazon, traveling through India on pilgrimage, etc. Then came decades of working with prisoners and migrants. A blithe spirit! Enormously focused on the work of poetry and social justice. Many of her books are still available from <i>Black Sparrow</i> or <i>City Lights</i>.<br />
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Talk about the challenges of writing a political poem because it’s hard not to end up ranting, and by doing so, lose credibility with the unbelieving reader. There has to be the speaker’s own culpability. I think “To the Red Fox” is sly as a fox and pulls it off.</b><br />
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Thanks. That’s one of my favorites. It actually started as a writing exercise when Susan Deer Cloud came to visit my poetry class, a day or two after the lunch at Wheeler Hill described in the poem. Amazingly little revision was necessary. It quite wrote itself. That’s not something that happens very often, of course, but a nice surprise when it does! The poem begins as a kind of occasional poem, a planxty, I suppose, the old Irish genre in which a poet or musician thanks his hosts. O’Carolan did many of those. Then it just free associates on the word fox, and Fox news appears and so forth. Even though the poem didn’t start as political, the timing, a few days before Obama’s election, made it inevitable, I suppose, that the anxiety of that contest would rise to the surface. A poem of that sort, like any chaotic dynamic system, is “sensitive to initial conditions.” Sleepers arise. I did do quite a few overtly political poems in my previous book, <i>Topicalities</i> (<i>FootHills</i> 2008), but even there, I preferred to work by indirection or by black humor or some other device, rather than by pontificating. Probably the most popular poem from that collection (with several versions on YouTube), is “Baghdad Boogaloo,” a poem that utilizes spoken word and chant. Another is “Rick’s Cafe,” which does sort of pontificate, but only through the mouth of an Iraqi persona based loosely on Claude Rains’ character in <i>Casablanca</i>:<br />
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<blockquote><b>Rick's Café Américain in the Green Zone</b><br />
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Of all the bars<br />
And all the stripes<br />
And all the gin joints<br />
And all the jingo<br />
Why did you have to come into THIS desert land?<br />
<br />
Why come into this land<br />
With yr preening and yr strutting<br />
Yr contractors and yr whores<br />
Yr fast food courts and yr candy bars<br />
Yr dogs and yr female guards<br />
Yr Blackwater Black&Tans<br />
Yr Humvees and yr hubris,<br />
Why come into OUR desert land?<br />
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Why don’t you just go<br />
And save us the trouble of having to kill you?<br />
We’re the government here<br />
We’re the cops<br />
It’s your tax dollars at work<br />
And we thank you very much for your generosity.<br />
<br />
And after another IED takes out another GI (or three or four)<br />
We’ll be happy to round up the usual suspects.<br />
But don’t think this is the beginning of any beautiful friendship<br />
It’s just business—something you understand, no?<br />
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Play it again, Uncle Sam,<br />
Play it one more time,<br />
Play it once for me,<br />
O say, can’t you see?</blockquote><br />
I just saw an article in the NY Times saying the actual Rick’s Café in Iraq is being closed by the US military. The article says it entertained all kinds of bigwigs, and that Robin Williams slept there!<br />
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<b>I’d like to say that these poems read like a chanted journal, or better yet, like Whitman on acid. I enjoyed the trip very much.</b><br />
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Thanks, Charlie.That’s a high compliment! I did my dissertation on Walt Whitman and still teach a Whitman class from time to time at RIT, as Sam Abrams had before me. Walt has a poem called “Chanting the Square Deific” that just came to mind. I think the incantatory aspect of poetry is essential. It’s earliest manifestation, probably, in Paleolithic nights. The “Bardic Road” section at the end of the book is where I let the music take over from the journalism and memoir. The longer poems like “Here’s For All,” “Joe the Poet,” “Reading Edgar Billewitz,” “Driving the Rainbow Bridge” are the ones I tend to read when backed up by musicians.<br />
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Great questions—really made me think.Charles Cotéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17681545501396352183noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3269897476303735022.post-28164663762512063592011-04-10T06:46:00.000-07:002011-04-10T06:47:39.297-07:00Hmmmmm, Meditation is Better than MMMMMMorhphine"Researchers at Wake Forest University have found that meditating for 80 minutes is enough to reduce pain intensity by almost twice as much as morphine or other pain-relieving drugs." I came across this startling fact while reading <a href="http://theweek.com/article/index/213976/is-meditation-really-a-better-painkiller-than-morphine">The Week</a> online, though it doesn't really surprise me. When my son received treatment at the National Cancer Institute, the intervention that helped him most was a meditation he was taught by his palliative care physician. I often recommend <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Full-Catastrophe-Living-Wisdom-Illness/dp/0385303122">Full Catastrophe Living</a> by Jon Kabot Zinn as well as his guided meditations along with Thich Nhat Hanh's <a href="http://www.parallax.org/cgi-bin/shopper.cgi?preadd=action&key=BOOKBSK">Be Still and Know: Reflections from <i>Living Buddha, Living Christ</i></a>. Try it some time. It really works.<br />
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Here's an excellent video of a talk by Jon Kabat-Zinn on meditation:<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="290" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/xoLQ3qkh0w0" title="YouTube video player" width="540"></iframe>Charles Cotéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17681545501396352183noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3269897476303735022.post-36906864431617777452011-04-03T09:21:00.001-07:002011-04-03T09:30:29.488-07:00Honking my own HornMy poem, "It is This," won a contest that was run locally by <a href="http://thejustpoets.wordpress.com/tag/just-poets/">Just Poets</a>. 500 postcards have been printed for distribution in celebration of <a href="http://www.poets.org/page.php/prmID/47">National Poetry Month</a>. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDusdYoqVkN5RWxOHj3PDHSSfkTjDKO-f6Fe8jbWBabj0OVX6GaR2VKwZRdiTro4Hu6V1b9bXUpvn7RiW-JbXJp8407fpkmrw2QQuZGYfQuW_pjR2dgBYPeTO8F9PQH9z0nqDzbVMcowU/s1600/It_Is_This-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="281" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDusdYoqVkN5RWxOHj3PDHSSfkTjDKO-f6Fe8jbWBabj0OVX6GaR2VKwZRdiTro4Hu6V1b9bXUpvn7RiW-JbXJp8407fpkmrw2QQuZGYfQuW_pjR2dgBYPeTO8F9PQH9z0nqDzbVMcowU/s400/It_Is_This-1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>Charles Cotéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17681545501396352183noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3269897476303735022.post-15329937374584570862011-03-20T16:24:00.000-07:002011-03-20T16:24:10.593-07:00Five Star Riot - Better (Music Video)Today would have been my son's 24th birthday, so in celebration of his beautiful life, here's "Better" by Fivestar Riot. He made this video his senior year of high school.<br />
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Happy Birthday, Charlie!Charles Cotéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17681545501396352183noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3269897476303735022.post-44462152150205150382011-03-17T17:10:00.000-07:002011-03-17T18:05:32.241-07:00One Bad-Ass Poet: An Interview with Tom Holmes<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Tom Holmes</span></td></tr>
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Tom Holmes is the editor of <a href="http://www.redactions.com/"><i>Redactions: Poetry & Poetics</i></a>. He is also author of <a href="http://www.foothillspublishing.com/2005/id96.htm"><i>After Malagueña</i></a> (FootHills Publishing, 2005), <a href="http://www.puddinghouse.com/chaplist_h.html"><i>Negative Time</i></a> (Pudding House, 2007), <a href="http://www.foothillspublishing.com/2008/id63.htm"><i>Pre-Dew Poems</i></a> (FootHills Publishing, 2008), <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Henri-Sophie-Hieratic-Head-Pound/dp/1935402560"><i>Henri, Sophie, & the Hieratic Head of Ezra Pound: Poems Blasted from the Vortex</i></a> (BlazeVOX Books, 2009), <a href="http://www.etsy.com/listing/65040965/the-oldest-stone-in-the-world-by-tom"><i>The Oldest Stone in the World</i></a> (Amsterdam Press, 1-1-11), and <i>Poetry Assignments: The Book</i> (Sage Hill Press, forthcoming 2011). He has thrice been nominated for the <a href="http://www.pushcartprize.com/">Pushcart Prize</a>. His work has appeared on <a href="http://www.versedaily.org/"><i>Verse Daily</i></a> and has also appeared in <i>Blue Earth Review, Chiron Review, Crab Creek Review, The Delmarva Review, The G. W. Review, Mississippi Review, Mid-American Review, New Delta Review, New Zoo Poetry Review, Orange Coast Review, Rockhurst Review, San Pedro River Review, Santa Clara Review, South Carolina Review, Sugar House Review, Swarthmore Review</i>, and many other journals that don’t have “Review” in their name. His current prose writing efforts about wine, poetry book reviews, and poetry can be found at his blog, <a href="http://thelinebreak.wordpress.com/"><i>The Line Break</i></a>.<br />
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CC: So, just how did you get to be such as a bad-ass poet? In other words, what got you interested in poetry and how have you developed your craft?<br />
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TH: What got me interested in poetry? There are like 50 events that got me interested in poetry. When I was very young, in third grade, I wrote a poem about life after a nuclear holocaust. The final image was of a lone dog barking. Then I secretly started writing in high school. I don’t know what drew me to it. I went to college in 1986 as physics major. One day I heard the voice of Bob Dylan on his album <a href="http://www.bobdylan.com/music/infidels"><i>Infidels</i></a>. It was the summer 1987, between my freshman and sophomore years of college. I was with my friend Jeff Stremick and Dan Goettel in Jeff’s Chevy Cavalier in a mall in West Irondequoit, and Dan popped in the cassette. Oh, it was love. I wanted everyone to be quiet so I could listen to this, what <a href="http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/8">Allen Ginsberg</a> called, “angelic voice.” And it was angelic! I didn’t know it at the time, but I was drawn to his moans and long vowels. It changed everything.<br />
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CC: Physics seems a way off from what you’re doing now. What’s the story there? <br />
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TH: Well, I drank myself out of my physics program at <a href="http://www.clarkson.edu/">Clarkson University</a>. (I also played too much hockey.) Then I went to a community college in 1988, and threw myself into literature and poetry. After that, I attended <a href="http://www.oneonta.edu/home/default.asp">SUNY Oneonta</a> in 1989 to get a BS in English and, fuck, everything was plunged into poetry. Everything. And I had the best poetry teachers in Graham Duncan and Patrick Meanor. Duncan knew everything about Modern American poetry and Meanor pointed me to the <a href="http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5648">Black Mountain Poets</a> and taught me poetry on levels I didn’t know existed. Duncan didn’t teach me about music, but he opened my ears.<br />
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But it’s college. So what did I want to do in college? Drink and get laid. If drinking didn’t get me laid, then surely a poem would. “What woman doesn’t want a poet,” I thought. So half my intentions were to write poems to impress women. The other half was to improve my skills. <br />
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CC: Yes, a familiar story for the male poet, and I’m sure it’s still true, regardless of the skill set. So how did you develop those skills?<br />
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TH: Richard Frost, a professor at SUNY Oneonta, once told a story in poetry class about a man who talked in sonnets. I thought, “Damn, I want to do that.” So to train, I started talking in iambic pentameter, which took a while to learn to do. I actually had to write a lot to learn to speak it. Then I added some rhymes to my iambic scats. But after a month or so, when I was getting real good at it, I stopped because people didn’t much care for the rhyming. (I didn’t rhyme in front of all my friends, like the people I played high-stakes poker with three times a day.) <br />
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CC: You spoke in rhymes but not at cards with friends? See, I can speak in iambic pentameter too. Sounds like this got you thinking about the formal elements in poetry.<br />
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TH: Yes. The next few (10-15) years, I studied and wrote as many meters and forms as I could find in any language. I particularly enjoyed <a href="http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5790">Sapphics</a>, which is a form with a meter where the syllables are based on the length of the syllable, as many languages do. Then I discovered <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algernon_Charles_Swinburne">Swinburne</a>, who pretty much taught me everything about meter. (He also made an accentual version of Sapphics, as did Ezra Pound (who combined stress and length) and James Wright (who Americanized Sapphics). Eventually, I tried to write poems where I could create tensions between the length of the syllable and its stress, and then used those to create tensions against whatever meter or form I was using.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sappho"><span style="font-size: small;">Sappho</span></a></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidfIEU_HiTRump36IFkfg8P_xRds0tcXuYZ8Z976b1dT8mCNyYXuqJsRFU_gqcSOgN6w__v-nv_tP5CR7mwCzpbUNwzxecNtXy1T37SV3Iipo5HhFjHegy9bUrwJmhxIMHVOEsa4llqMo/s1600/Algernon_Charles_Swinburne.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidfIEU_HiTRump36IFkfg8P_xRds0tcXuYZ8Z976b1dT8mCNyYXuqJsRFU_gqcSOgN6w__v-nv_tP5CR7mwCzpbUNwzxecNtXy1T37SV3Iipo5HhFjHegy9bUrwJmhxIMHVOEsa4llqMo/s320/Algernon_Charles_Swinburne.jpg" width="266" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><h1 class="firstHeading" id="firstHeading"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algernon_Charles_Swinburne">Swinburne</a></span></h1></td></tr>
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CC: Well, Swinburne was a bad-ass too, or at least tried to be. Who else influenced you? <br />
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TH: I learned about harmonies, mainly from <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/gerard-manley-hopkins">Gerard Manley Hopkins</a>, who along with Wallace Stevens taught me how to work etymologies into a poem. I eventually wrote some really good musical poems. But as happened with older Swinburne, my poems became abstract and with long words and were hard to follow. Then add in some Black Mountain aesthetics and this interest in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%3DA%3DN%3DG%3DU%3DA%3DG%3DE_%28magazine%29">L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E</a> poetry, and the poems became even more difficult.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqbwCHleTwhfvNbebel4KWy72C0oxbVmG6z_m45Uiuqn63V06sRUTGcbiEBtw5ASK13PfA-cQ8YGLYwozt9vI6KC9DIKiwroh5bR5-0FcOW6crpscgMweNc06RrWWfqH-MPDoSOnz-G5Y/s1600/Gerard+Manley+Hopkins.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqbwCHleTwhfvNbebel4KWy72C0oxbVmG6z_m45Uiuqn63V06sRUTGcbiEBtw5ASK13PfA-cQ8YGLYwozt9vI6KC9DIKiwroh5bR5-0FcOW6crpscgMweNc06RrWWfqH-MPDoSOnz-G5Y/s320/Gerard+Manley+Hopkins.jpg" width="228" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/gerard-manley-hopkins">Gerard Manley Hopkins</a></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOkQSEK-NTHAcq7SM2-6mCTlkCn9BBNA0UNCPDwdOkmA7JmsYmySmHPhsd_KHvwSn1IKodPPtHknovOubq_O7mOLwC6doEe589AKUBaTdNRvRHQqWpFhg0auFF-BQ2MTsz5mDREUS3qbI/s1600/Wallace_Stevens.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOkQSEK-NTHAcq7SM2-6mCTlkCn9BBNA0UNCPDwdOkmA7JmsYmySmHPhsd_KHvwSn1IKodPPtHknovOubq_O7mOLwC6doEe589AKUBaTdNRvRHQqWpFhg0auFF-BQ2MTsz5mDREUS3qbI/s320/Wallace_Stevens.jpg" width="291" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/124">Wallace Stevens</a></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgz2L8Ar1HgzriKmWZMcZpLo9OJIYQN7gK1eTcq1OkwSEm5WNQrjrYpzclKRMBWm1BYDk3jFN2ZxhksQz6jpZ6QTRPgPvrDBbKABNAv9-gCBz_yr4RB1icD336bVEWDSS7kpTXWvWaPqwo/s1600/L%253DA%253DN%253DG%253DU%253DA%253DG%253DE_Book.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgz2L8Ar1HgzriKmWZMcZpLo9OJIYQN7gK1eTcq1OkwSEm5WNQrjrYpzclKRMBWm1BYDk3jFN2ZxhksQz6jpZ6QTRPgPvrDBbKABNAv9-gCBz_yr4RB1icD336bVEWDSS7kpTXWvWaPqwo/s320/L%253DA%253DN%253DG%253DU%253DA%253DG%253DE_Book.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%3DA%3DN%3DG%3DU%3DA%3DG%3DE_%28magazine%29">L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E</a></span> </td></tr>
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CC: It would seem to me that any serious student of poetry would fall in love with etymologies. I often draw from that well when I need ideas for poems because it suggests so many other possibilities, resonances, and imaginative leaps. How did you end up in Brockport, which of course was one of the literary hotbeds in this state, if not the country?<br />
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TH: Eventually, in 1992, I studied with <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Heyen">William Heyen</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Piccione">Tony Piccione</a> at <a href="http://www.brockport.edu/">SUNY Brockport</a> to get an MA in English. I was the only one at the school who preached Black Mountain aesthetics. I stood firm with those Black Mountain poets in this <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_image">Deep Image </a>school. (The <a href="http://www.robertbly.com/">Robert Bly</a> deep image. Not the <a href="http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/62">Robert Kelly</a> deep image from <i>Trobar</i> issue 2 with <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerome_Rothenberg">Jerome Rothenberg</a>.) The funny thing is Bill and Tony didn’t have much effect on me. Not for a very long time, anyway. Not until maybe 2005. I was a bit stubborn and closed minded.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Heyen">William Heyen</a></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Piccione">Tony Piccione</a></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhLUoShIJ7P0WhrsOrSHjiZNo-rTCm_-PgcNSsaADIPcaBHRTXAdwoyUiLSnsPMKRJT4C2PerFrhZIw7lPiTo5Fgpmxxafsx7JZLm_j0BSiMus1dIMI21Q_FkZ4cqaNVYvuoBS4XYe3Io/s1600/Robert_Kelly.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhLUoShIJ7P0WhrsOrSHjiZNo-rTCm_-PgcNSsaADIPcaBHRTXAdwoyUiLSnsPMKRJT4C2PerFrhZIw7lPiTo5Fgpmxxafsx7JZLm_j0BSiMus1dIMI21Q_FkZ4cqaNVYvuoBS4XYe3Io/s200/Robert_Kelly.jpg" width="150" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/62">Robert Kelly</a></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJUHhWKekI1Qk3_VVlxymngTOe0c0UjYsRsSXfKhw_917rcnndA3o7XC5nHgdSflHKGx8l19wSKQaMIaw-natMvfodsrr_ToKLcBQnpACX0n-ewP1Xo88MEoxuShWM2ui3SPQpquXnav0/s1600/RobertBly-sml.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJUHhWKekI1Qk3_VVlxymngTOe0c0UjYsRsSXfKhw_917rcnndA3o7XC5nHgdSflHKGx8l19wSKQaMIaw-natMvfodsrr_ToKLcBQnpACX0n-ewP1Xo88MEoxuShWM2ui3SPQpquXnav0/s1600/RobertBly-sml.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.robertbly.com/">Robert Bly</a></span></td></tr>
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CC: You say that in the past tense. Do you mean to say you’re not so stubborn anymore?<br />
<br />
TH: I’m still stubborn, though not as much. It just takes a while for new things to settle into me. Hmm. How to explain? … Between 1995 and 2005, I wrote and wrote. My writing seemed good at the time, but it was wasn’t. There came a point in the late 90s when I was getting too cocky. I thought I was great, but I wasn’t improving my writing. I was just strutting around as a writer. My ego was huge. I was resting on my laurels, or the laurels I thought I had. So one day, I took my two boxes of everything I had ever written, went to a Fourth of July party with a bonfire, and burned each poem one by one. Sometimes I read the poem aloud to the sky and gods before I placed the poem in the fire and watched its ashes rise to the audience I just read to. <br />
<br />
I purged myself.<br />
<br />
CC: That’s a great image. Did it help?<br />
<br />
Yes, I could start over.<br />
<br />
And I did a bit. And then more so a few years later, in 2002, at <a href="http://www.ewu.edu/">Eastern Washington University</a> (EWU) with <a href="http://www.ewu.edu/CALE/Programs/Creative-Writing/Creative-Writing-Faculty/Jonathan-Johnson.xml">Jonathan Johnson</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Howell">Christopher Howell</a>, and <a href="http://www.nancevanwinckel.com/index.htm">Nance Van Winckel</a>. There I earned an MFA. Again, like SUNY Brockport, I didn’t learn until a few years after graduating when it all sunk in.<br />
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPeIi93Vanbw29VGif4Ttvk_bB1LZucHBty9v-CimzTQHuPBsrGlsCVuEdlvgaBKFzywC42B5_RCOwivsCIbHGtN63-WErollGtUuKD0jqcEhLGMLjB7cea5VvopcCvyAhT9vhOm6z-FA/s1600/Jonathan_Johnson.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPeIi93Vanbw29VGif4Ttvk_bB1LZucHBty9v-CimzTQHuPBsrGlsCVuEdlvgaBKFzywC42B5_RCOwivsCIbHGtN63-WErollGtUuKD0jqcEhLGMLjB7cea5VvopcCvyAhT9vhOm6z-FA/s320/Jonathan_Johnson.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.ewu.edu/CALE/Programs/Creative-Writing/Creative-Writing-Faculty/Jonathan-Johnson.xml">Jonathan Johnson</a></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqFUF5EL5hm-ul2YiCIEtPJ6zwQW6PHE6wmzTH0pieVTcuYIFCSgrOu-Ejymwq3bDXy3hskF4JpDxC3wRMi55QN42XNQQfnwiRiyRTHZv-etc1gfmpiyhPQveMiSpCox62NM9znf0zSro/s1600/Chris_Howell.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqFUF5EL5hm-ul2YiCIEtPJ6zwQW6PHE6wmzTH0pieVTcuYIFCSgrOu-Ejymwq3bDXy3hskF4JpDxC3wRMi55QN42XNQQfnwiRiyRTHZv-etc1gfmpiyhPQveMiSpCox62NM9znf0zSro/s1600/Chris_Howell.gif" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Howell">Christopher Howell</a></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEick_CQLP5bqPQwviVu9fq0mMpzMXyOAfzY-BLlBrdrcLcLetu_i2-Jt8o-2KukGyCuvOl79WcyG_Piv22oLoE4d5pA88Om6xf2mZ8JPooB4A525rdTFgQRjyIDbVBjLtSz6zyXoU1l26U/s1600/Nance+Van+Winckel.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEick_CQLP5bqPQwviVu9fq0mMpzMXyOAfzY-BLlBrdrcLcLetu_i2-Jt8o-2KukGyCuvOl79WcyG_Piv22oLoE4d5pA88Om6xf2mZ8JPooB4A525rdTFgQRjyIDbVBjLtSz6zyXoU1l26U/s1600/Nance+Van+Winckel.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.nancevanwinckel.com/index.htm">Nance Van Winckel</a></span></td></tr>
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SUNY Brockport ten or fifteen years later taught me about the image, and EWU about two years later (it really was two years later, I saw it happen before me) taught me about tone and humanity. And I taught myself clarity, which I’m still pursuing. <br />
<br />
CC: It seems to me that clarity is the highest achievement in writing. When it’s done well, it seems so simple, and yet it’s so hard to attain. <br />
<br />
TH: True. Though, I still have not written a musical masterpiece that is clear on an imagistic level or written a perfectly clear poem that is musically awesome. <br />
<br />
Oh, I have so much more to say, but I reckon this is enough for now. There are so many people to mention, like <a href="http://www.versedaily.org/aboutrobcarneynfso.shtml">Rob Carney</a>, who have influenced me so much.<br />
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1pRrWeBoU2P6Qv4T9wbg9i_BKjwvV2Eo0KdIVi2auD8MFQs3yAUKL1U-kYix0cyl-pZfo_Qtb52N-G-8Owx-I_WZT0IB4KX3tae16a6xVrRnLhSB2bABpQcLDQnDtOZZvxA-uXK3MQD0/s1600/Rob_Carney.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1pRrWeBoU2P6Qv4T9wbg9i_BKjwvV2Eo0KdIVi2auD8MFQs3yAUKL1U-kYix0cyl-pZfo_Qtb52N-G-8Owx-I_WZT0IB4KX3tae16a6xVrRnLhSB2bABpQcLDQnDtOZZvxA-uXK3MQD0/s320/Rob_Carney.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.versedaily.org/aboutrobcarneynfso.shtml">Rob Carney</a></span></td></tr>
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But there is my answer to your initial question.<br />
<br />
Oh, and I’m bad-ass cuz I drink and swear and have slept with women.<br />
<br />
CC: Well, I’d say you’re bad-ass for other reasons, too, namely your writing, and, of course, the work of others you present in Redactions: Poetry & Poetics. “Redactions,” of course, means the process of editing or revising a piece of writing. Can you share some of your philosophy about revision, something that I don’t think most poets do enough, though I’m probably over-generalizing.<br />
<br />
TH: Revising. I think that's a familiar condition of American poet today. Poets revise so much. The mood about revision is almost Puritanical, it seems. That is, if you work a lot on a poem, it will be good or successful. But are they successful? That's the question. I see poems in journals which are okay, but they still need work. I'd love to take those poems and fix them up.<br />
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwPm6ahUgxYrdL9OvwiDHZRHK3ynUN74Mz6u1jEqwi4MYjBSpGX_7uePiSNYlEBYfKoT1uNYi3A3kLAXlHTDuP-QSGzwbDunpmBMdFi8KWHz7emHZ-_-QeA9VDmFc1hypV5EF6N-cshgs/s1600/Puritanical.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="195" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwPm6ahUgxYrdL9OvwiDHZRHK3ynUN74Mz6u1jEqwi4MYjBSpGX_7uePiSNYlEBYfKoT1uNYi3A3kLAXlHTDuP-QSGzwbDunpmBMdFi8KWHz7emHZ-_-QeA9VDmFc1hypV5EF6N-cshgs/s320/Puritanical.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puritan">Puritans</a></span></td></tr>
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When I revise, and I'll get more into this down below, I first start by writing all my poems by hand. I used to only use a pencil, but I'm now able to use a pen. Anyway, in the handwritten versions, I write, scratch, erase, and write the poems over and over and over again. Then, when I think it's done or done for this phase or when I just need to see it more clean and laid out, then I type it up on the computer. This is where I think many of poems stop – the OK ones I just mentioned seeing in journals. <br />
<br />
But there's more to do, like shaping the poem. Honestly, a poem has to look good on the page, too. (Eight four-line stanzas are easier to look at and read than one 32-line stanza. But each poem has its own shape, and occasionally the 32-line stanza poem is required.) Plus, when I type the poem and print it, I can start marking up the poem. I can scan the poem or track certain sounds. I can make marks to see what I hear. I can follow harmonies, melodies, rhythms, and tones much better with a visual representation. I do less of this now, as I’ll explain below, but it's still a step in the revision process, especially when I'm stuck. <br />
<br />
Man, if you get stuck in poem, then it's time to start using syllabics or a meter. If I'm stuck, and I see a meter or rhythm pattern here and there, then I'll chase them down. I'll try to make the rest of the poem follow it until I free myself from where I was stuck. You know, just because during the writing process I wrote a villanelle or a Sapphics doesn't mean I have to keep the villanelle or Sapphics. Sometimes you just need them to see the poem differently for a while, and meter and form can do that for you.<br />
<br />
CC: What gets your attention as an editor, both in writing that you’d consider publishing, and writing that stops you from reading further?<br />
<br />
TH: Paying attention to language gets my attention. You can tell pretty quick when a poem is paying attention to language. When it's not, it becomes boring. When it becomes boring I stop reading. And a poem can get boring quick. Oh, and the poem has to keep moving forward. So basically, you get a few lines for free, but if the poem stops moving forward or stops paying attention to language, then I stop reading. (I have to do this out of necessity, too, because I get so many submissions.) So the poem has to keep moving line after line. Of course, this is all ideal talk and there are always exceptions. Basically, the poem has to sustain my attention.<br />
<br />
CC: I loved <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Henri-Sophie-Hieratic-Head-Pound/dp/1935402560">Henri, Sophie, & the Hieratic Head of Ezra Pound: Poems Blasted from the Vortex</a>, especially as it imagines with much historical accuracy, the relationship between sculptor <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Gaudier-Brzeska">Henri Gaudier-Brzeska</a> and poet <a href="http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/161">Ezra Pound</a>. I’ve always been fascinated by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auguste_Rodin">Rodin’s</a> influence on <a href="http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/295">Rilke</a>. What was this collection all about and what did you discover about yourself in the process?<br />
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiauY5gpuvG0P6MkVHqaF65pzXsPkOLQPgaAez_WWIs7wLUR5b57IdlgXJ0sll1vTdAgXzvg7_tXrwR4MDNJJQIbziFWHQj5oYjlGEeUsgDMMr5qMUgtr9FWvAVkwNebfplmUYPuJSVeEE/s1600/Henri_Gaudier-Brzeska.gif" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiauY5gpuvG0P6MkVHqaF65pzXsPkOLQPgaAez_WWIs7wLUR5b57IdlgXJ0sll1vTdAgXzvg7_tXrwR4MDNJJQIbziFWHQj5oYjlGEeUsgDMMr5qMUgtr9FWvAVkwNebfplmUYPuJSVeEE/s320/Henri_Gaudier-Brzeska.gif" width="245" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Gaudier-Brzeska">Henri Gaudier-Brzeska</a></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipM_iFq3j5V0aysgZvCb2FlA3PayUtJC1R86YLwDDWnBCl8TKt86XbMUOTz4TlvOkEDNpxJx98FzyeWv3-3OUzY2dyzDqIFg-Bbcat0YsghT6akIw3ORg6dyXmCbCekMaOy2iPTL0PqnY/s1600/Ezra_Pound_barechested.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipM_iFq3j5V0aysgZvCb2FlA3PayUtJC1R86YLwDDWnBCl8TKt86XbMUOTz4TlvOkEDNpxJx98FzyeWv3-3OUzY2dyzDqIFg-Bbcat0YsghT6akIw3ORg6dyXmCbCekMaOy2iPTL0PqnY/s320/Ezra_Pound_barechested.png" width="162" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/161">Ezra Pound</a></span></td></tr>
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TH: First thank you for the plug and the compliment. <br />
<br />
Now to the question. Historical accuracy?! I don't know if I'd say that. I mean, for instance, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nina_Hamnett">Nina Hamnett</a> did visit <a href="http://sophiegaudierbrzeska.com/sophie.htm">Sophie Breszka</a> at a cottage during World War I, but, everything else I write in that poem is metaphorical or an imagining. I think in the end, the book is trying to get behind the swirling creative energies that existed during Henri Gaudier-Brzeska’s time and because of Henri. Henri had a long and powerful influence on Ezra Pound and Sophie, and what I accidentally discovered, and it was a fun accident as the poem made the discovery while it was been written and I just happened to be the first witness, was that Ezra and Sophie both ended up in a mental hospital because of Henri's death. I loved watching that discovery. I wished I had thought of it myself. (The way I wrote the poem explains it better than I can here, because here I just want to say the only reason Ez was in a hospital is so he didn't go to jail and get executed for anti-American propaganda from his radio shows out of Italy during World War II. "Free speech without free radio speech is as zero," I think he says.) <br />
<br />
Anyway.<br />
<br />
Discovery. That's the second part of the question. What did I discover about myself in the process was the process. Prior to these poems, I used to revise so much. (I even have a poem I worked on for 17 years.) I'd revise a poem on a phonic-level to make sure all or most the sounds in a poem harmonized. So if I had a "k" sound in line five, for instance, I made sure it chimed within two lines before or after. I never could do it as well as <a href="http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/1551">Linda Bierds</a> or Gerard Manley Hopkins, though. And I'd revise to make sure the language was tight and interesting. Harmony and fresh language consumed a lot of my revisions, and when it was all done, I'd have a tight poem. But you know what? During all that revision and craftiness, the poem would lose its original energies. Hell, it would lose energy in general. It would be a well-wrought poem that seemed smart. I also unintentionally revised out tonalities. So now I have this flat poem that's technically clever. <br />
<br />
In the composition of the Henri book, I learned to "revise lightly," as Allen Ginsberg said. What I did in this book and what I'm doing now is to trust my ear. I spent years of concentrated detailed work to tune my ear and hear harmonies and rhythms, During the Henri book and since, I thought it was time to trust my ears and let them work on their own. I didn't need to interfere. So I instead concentrated on clarity and tone. <br />
<br />
I think the problem with my earlier poems was that people couldn't get into them. The poems were obtuse, obfuscating, and sharp. They'd cut you if you got too close. In other words, the poems didn't have a surface layer. So in the Henri book, I just made sure all the poems were clear and made sense on the surface so that anyone could get into them, and if they wanted to go deeper into them, they could. Isn't that a mark of all good poems? They have a surface level, ya know, like a story, but the more you stare at it the deeper it gets. Isn't that a beauty of a Frost or Merwin poem? They invite you in, and if you want to visit all the rooms and basements and attics and secret panels in the poem’s house, you can. <br />
<br />
So what I learned was to trust my ear, revise lightly, be clear, and ensure the tones are working well. I'm just starting to get good at all this now, especially in trusting my ear. Oh, and I won't even get into harmonic tonalities.<br />
<br />
Oh, I just remembered this. <a href="http://www.bookslut.com/features/2007_07_011333.php">Sean Thomas Dougherty</a> introduced this term about my poetry, and it works for every book I have and most of my poems: Investigative Poetry. Edward Sanders coined this term (and I just received his book with the same name), but it’s been around longer. You can read about investigative poetry here: <a href="http://thelinebreak.wordpress.com/2011/03/02/investigative-poetics/">http://thelinebreak.wordpress.com/2011/03/02/investigative-poetics/</a> and better yet here: <a href="http://bit.ly/gSfdLV">http://bit.ly/gSfdLV</a>. Read the latter essay, and you’ll get my poetry, even my newest collection, <a href="http://etsy.me/fB2ZoV"><i>The Oldest Stone in the World </i></a>(Amsterdam Press), which is more like <i>Imaginative Investigative Poetry</i>, a topic for another time.<br />
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4sd5oVsCE4c9V9OdJ7Lvh6bBIyiylL2Edv06GTGacqewFfEpvgATwF4wBBoCGhDxmuAta9R03tzwgcEL61PPDNnT3enScAdAieZs9l-lDCowQSOU1Be62LoDuzkoKbxGw4ZKgSTCmfq0/s1600/2627347611_50d276e290.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4sd5oVsCE4c9V9OdJ7Lvh6bBIyiylL2Edv06GTGacqewFfEpvgATwF4wBBoCGhDxmuAta9R03tzwgcEL61PPDNnT3enScAdAieZs9l-lDCowQSOU1Be62LoDuzkoKbxGw4ZKgSTCmfq0/s320/2627347611_50d276e290.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.bookslut.com/features/2007_07_011333.php">Sean Thomas Dougherty</a></span></td></tr>
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CC: What exactly is <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vorticism"><i>Vorticism</i></a>, and by the way, The Ez Head looks a lot like you. Coincidence? Clearly, Ezra Pound has had a big influence on you. Talk a bit about that.<br />
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIzhwgrDYiSwDtHUeQueZVpNHaH758Pyzk-iEjIKeIQxxiTCBzaJtfwid3FQpfsqHtHukfJwkH4DcTut_LWFtIV-biN6vwuw1KMvMY37TAKX2f-aFixS2dpgkQelQ3OxGoeaVWZNMuJEY/s1600/hieratic_head_ez_lowres.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIzhwgrDYiSwDtHUeQueZVpNHaH758Pyzk-iEjIKeIQxxiTCBzaJtfwid3FQpfsqHtHukfJwkH4DcTut_LWFtIV-biN6vwuw1KMvMY37TAKX2f-aFixS2dpgkQelQ3OxGoeaVWZNMuJEY/s320/hieratic_head_ez_lowres.jpg" width="225" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">The Hieratic Head of Ezra Pound</span></td></tr>
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TH: I don’t think I can define Vorticism. It's too slippery a term. Each Vorticist did their own thing. However, I can say that each Vorticist piece is a high-energy construct. I can say there was Cubism then Futurism then Vorticism. Vorticism was sharper than <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futurism">Futurism</a> and celebrated less the machine and technology. <br />
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I would say I look like The Hieratic Head of Ezra Pound, but I'm less phallic than it. I look like it because I tried to be like Ez for a while. Pound's influence is incalculable. His major influence on my writing came from his prose pieces about poetry, specifically <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Literary-Essays-Ezra-Pound/product-reviews/0811201570"><i>The Literary Essays of Ezra Pound</i></a> and even more specifically these two essays: <a href="http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/m_r/pound/retrospect.htm">“A Retrospect”</a> and “How to Read.” I don’t even know if I can explain. But if you want demi-glace reduction of poetics to pour over your poetry, read these essays. They changed my life.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNJ09aSOfpiCMxEcDhg1FnvrFOtEJZHNpxUWPErBRgCsjh20WK_X_yeH9pGsNMEYk7vXYLiWIUET3mWFA66AoluZ6qDuzIZz2Sm03eve1iJ05FiBtfJLdz9lBCCsBOpaC5b1d3BcZR0hY/s1600/the_poster_flat_small.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNJ09aSOfpiCMxEcDhg1FnvrFOtEJZHNpxUWPErBRgCsjh20WK_X_yeH9pGsNMEYk7vXYLiWIUET3mWFA66AoluZ6qDuzIZz2Sm03eve1iJ05FiBtfJLdz9lBCCsBOpaC5b1d3BcZR0hY/s400/the_poster_flat_small.jpg" width="308" /></a></div>Charles Cotéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17681545501396352183noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3269897476303735022.post-26914806136899169112011-03-14T13:42:00.000-07:002011-03-14T13:43:07.635-07:00Air Kissing On Mars: An Interview with Kim Dower<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_211535923"><img border="0" height="224" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhctj3uh8A3I-BUfp2fxUtEDMf4SkKDHhS0tp3u6yiolc9ph4FhTiqF4rDYe23QksRFiXoMR4x6S205KmU2J9wrR45G_6PVcXZClk_RDBd4X8hR8plOTiAb3ZU2xH3ZF98lyara2ZveKzc/s320/bg-homepage2.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.redhen.org/RedHenPress.html#/catalog/catalogView/type=books;bookUUID=C1C560C6-3C37-7167-35D9-51AF474289A0">Air Kissing on Mars (Red Hen Press, 2010)</a></td></tr>
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<blockquote><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfmwKUDyVW4xiYwP19Tgcu_QcWHUZJAvGfQa4fS4DY3AMcs2goCA3aKLH-myxtHi0cmBD4oLl4ShX9fYBq_DcY_0N0w8oqAhxMWOMi2R3wUO-9ijJskZ7yGKDvFYXDbEHnq_H-LAZa6-0/s1600/photo-bio1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfmwKUDyVW4xiYwP19Tgcu_QcWHUZJAvGfQa4fS4DY3AMcs2goCA3aKLH-myxtHi0cmBD4oLl4ShX9fYBq_DcY_0N0w8oqAhxMWOMi2R3wUO-9ijJskZ7yGKDvFYXDbEHnq_H-LAZa6-0/s320/photo-bio1.jpg" width="207" /></a></blockquote> From Kim Dower's Website: <br />
<blockquote><b><a href="http://www.airkissingonmars.com/bio_poet.htm"><span style="color: #fa413e;">Kim (Freilich) Dower</span></a><span style="color: black;"> </span> </b>grew up in New York on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and received a BFA in Creative Writing from Emerson College in Boston. <br />
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Upon graduating, Kim stayed at Emerson where she taught Introduction to Creative Writing: Poetry for two years before moving to Los Angeles where she pursued other writing projects and began her own literary publicity company. <br />
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A few years ago, “like magic, like a dream,” poetry re-entered her life and the poems have been rushing out as if a 25 year dam had broken, and she’s been writing three or more poems a week. Kim Dower's collection of 71 poems is a sensual and rhapsodic journey through emotional landscapes sweeping everyday life. Playful, intelligent, funny, edgy, engaging—sometimes biting, ironic and dark, sometimes dreamy and surreal, full of poignancy and arresting metaphors, the daily, simple occurrences in <i>Air Kissing On Mars </i>startle and provoke, while stirring up the fairy dust and turbulent weight of memory; evoking the possibilities and gorgeous chaos of life. Open and inviting, these poems draw the reader into a world seen upside down, inside out, a sideways bird reporting on a universe filled with mystery and passion. Joan Didion meets Tinkerbell, Kim Dower’s poems are as whimsical and light as they are rich and intense. Simultaneously humorous and profound these passionate and personal poems, relatable to all, are drenched with vivid imagery, and sparkle with surprise.<br />
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Lost languages, disappearing mailboxes, locomotives pummeling through dreams, taxi drivers thrown by the earth’s rotation, shadows in closets, vanishing carrots, men who exfoliate—all manner of haunting evocations come together in this opus of shining and startling wisdom. </blockquote><blockquote>Kim was gracious enough to grant an e-mail interview about her first book of poems. I first met her in <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/thomas-lux">Thomas Lux's </a>workshop at the <a href="http://www.palmbeachpoetryfestival.org/">Palm Beach Poetry Festival </a>several years ago.</blockquote>CC: Twenty-five years is a long gestation period for the birth of these “jazzy, sassy, sexy poems,” to quote Stephen Dobyns about your book. How did you find your way back to writing poetry and how might you explain such prolific output?<br />
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KD: My way back was easy because I never really got lost. Just sidetracked and distracted. I may have stopped "formally" writing poetry, but I never stopped thinking about it. I only stopped putting it down on the page. I've always seen poems everywhere -- ideas for poems, lines, moments, and have kept notebooks all along. Not journals -- I'm not a journal writer -- I'm a line writer, titles, moments, ideas, images, dialogue I overhear. I have notebooks in every drawer, every corner of my house. My profession as literary publicist has also kept me working with writers, and a lot of my work is, in fact, writing. I've written screenplays, stories, half-finished abandoned poems, a million press releases, pitch letters. I've ghost written books. So words have always been around me and I've been writing on deadline forever. The poems were stacking up in my head and in my heart - just waiting for an opening. When my son left for college and the opening presented itself, the poems started spilling out -- in the middle of the night, the early morning, late in the evenings. The poems were just waiting for me to have time for them.<br />
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CC: In the acknowledgements for <i>Air Kissing on Mars</i>, you thank Thomas Lux for introducing you to poetry at Emerson College. How did he influence your writing then, and how is he still an influence?<br />
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KD: When I was a freshman at Emerson College I took an elective in my spring semester called "Introduction to Creative Writing: Poetry." Thomas Lux was the instructor.<br />
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I'd been writing poems since I was a child and loved reading poetry, so I thought I'd take the class and see what poetry in college was all about. That first class changed my life.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Thomas Lux</td></tr>
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Tom announced we were all poets. He gave us this massive identity. He read us a poem by <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/bill-knott">Bill Knott</a>. He made poetry real, relevant, important, exciting. I left the classroom feeling like I knew why I was alive. I was a poet. I had a job. That was that.<br />
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Years later, when I'd been away from poetry for a long time and began writing again, I contacted him. He said "the warranty has expired," which was hilarious, and then invited me to send a dozen poems and give him a few weeks to read them. I did. He said it was as if I'd never stopped writing, but encouraged me to find a writing workshop and get back into the craft. He encouraged me to stick with it. He reminded me that I was a poet, always had been and always would be. That was that.<br />
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Once again, I felt charged with meaning, inspiration and dedication to what I had loved to many years before and what I continued to love: writing poetry. <br />
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CC: Lux calls it nightingale fever tempered by wisdom and caring. I call it emphatic, zany, at times obsessive, and most often engaging. How would you describe the voice that speaks these poems?<br />
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KD: My truest voice. My most alive voice. The voice that tries to be most observant and most honest. The voice I hope will never leave me again.<br />
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CC: After reading “They took the mailbox away,” the first poem in the book, I wondered how many “ruined lives” will be redeemed by the reading of these love letters? What if anything gets reclaimed for you in the making of these poems?<br />
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KD: Myself. I have reclaimed myself in doing what I love the most. <br />
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CC: I admire the strength of your associative leaps, the unexpected inevitabilities you might say. For example, in “She Is Awakened by a Hair,” we get “a train way of track / thundering through her bedroom, / the moon on its back” to describe what the hair is not, and yet that hair, “stuck to the roof of her mouth,” makes her think of that train, and that moon. How are you able to make these associations?<br />
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KD: I have no idea. Truly. I close my eyes and imagine the next line, the next picture, and I write down what comes to me. Sometimes that'll be changed 100 times. Sometimes I get it right away.<br />
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CC: And of course, I want to know what that promise might be at the end of the poem, but can only imagine. I don’t suppose you’ll tell me.<br />
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KD: What are the promises we make to ourselves? That we'll be good? That we'll never love someone or always love someone? A promise we struggle to forget - haven't we all promised something to someone we wish we could take back? Or is that just me?<br />
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CC: I promised myself to stop making promises. It's not working.<br />
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These poems have certain obsessions, like the beach, the moon, tonsils, death, sex, gelato, screeching (that word shows up a number of times), and especially a longing for that which is not present. Can you talk about the creative power of obsession, how it turns to passion and finds some containment in the poem?<br />
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KD: A poet once said (and I wish I could remember who said this) that our obsessions don't change, just the way we write about them. That really resonates with me.<br />
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Certains obsessions have always been a force in my life. Obsessing itself has always driven me: desire, feelings, images, over and over, thinking about something (someone) until I have it (them). Obsession drives me. Being an obsessive person has caused its share of problems except when it comes to the creative power of obsession. Then I'm grateful for my obsessions. Proud of them. I adore them and nurture them. I love how my obsessions inform my work - how they drive it. I would have nothing without them.<br />
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You see how obsessive I am?<br />
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CC: Well, yes, I see, and in your book, the speaker blurts out, “I love a man who exfoliates,” in the poem by the same name. These poems are exuberant that way and might even be a kind of aesthetic stance. I know your life can be quite hectic with your publicist gig so I imagine there’s some therapeutic value in writing these poems. In fact, the poem that follows has this line, “you name it, I’m tired from doing it...” What gets exfoliated when you enter the making of a poem? <br />
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KD: You name it, it gets exfoliated when I write a poem.<br />
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</div>CC: So that's why you're so radiant?<br />
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There’s a remarkable description of birth in the poem by the same name. The poem envisions so much that will be missed. I can’t help but think the speaker is also describing her own birth. As you’ve dedicated the book to your son Max, talk about how his life inspired this collection.<br />
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KD: His life has inspired my life - he has inspired me - and therefore his life has inspired this collection. Just feeling a life grow inside me and knowing him before he was born<br />
was a poem. Every day he was inside me was a poem. I would write them but can't find where I put them. The physical act of giving birth (though cesarian) was beyond my comprehension. I am grateful to my son for the way I see the world. For how he changed the way I see it because I see it through his eyes, too, and as he was growing up my perceptions changed watching him. Sometime I'll read him a poem (when he'll let me) to see if it might connect with him. He'll tell me to change a word and I'll change it.<br />
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CC: I'd be afraid to give my son's that same liberty, but who knows, I haven't tried it. First I'd have to get them to read one first. Usually they just roll their eyes.<br />
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“Geography Matters” is emblematic of the way you take an absurd situation (i.e., the Yugoslavian driver saying, “let me make you an example”) and pushing to its even more absurd implications of language. Talk about the making of this poem, which enacts the making of an example.<br />
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KD: The poem is based on a real incident -- an absurd incident - my favorite kind: a driver taking me from Delray Beach to Miami to catch a plane back to L.A. who wouldn't stop talking about geography and the way the world works. He didn't stop talking for an hour. At first I wanted to jump out the window but then I started writing down things he was saying. I became fascinated and charmed. I was amazed by how much he had to say to this stranger in the back seat. He wanted to teach me things about geography, about his life, about driving a cab. I knew after a few minutes there was a poem here. I wanted to tell his story in my poem.<br />
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CC: I've had cab rides like that. I'm thinking of writing down the things I hear in the men's locker room at my gym. Maybe I'll call it <i>Overheard in the Sweat Locker</i>.<br />
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Your professional life is all about promoting writers who will be read by the kind of folks you describe in “The Couple Next Door.” How do you think about readers when you promote writers.<br />
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KD: That's an interesting question that I'm not sure I understand. I never really know what readers will like. I know they want to connect the characters with their own lives. They want to relate. They want to say, hey - she's talking about me! They also want to laugh and cry and feel alive when they read.<br />
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Our job as poets is to show situations in a way they've never been seen. To show simple, everyday things in ways they've never been shown, but without making a puzzle out of it. I feel like I'm making a puzzle with this answer. How do I think about readers when you promote writers? I think the same thing for myself that I tell my clients -- write from the heart, be authentic, tell the truth for<br />
as long as you can and be amazing! Readers will be amazed.<br />
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CC: Another strategy in your poems involves list-making, which of course makes me think of Walt Whitman. Are you a compulsive list maker? What do you think makes for a compelling list poem?<br />
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KD: I write lists all the time, but they're dull lists about things I really have to do. If it's on the list I will do it. I do all the things on my lists. My list poems have nothing to do with my real life lists. A compelling list poem is surprising, just like any other compelling poem.<br />
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CC: The death of your father is a recurring theme in the book. What impact did this have on you and the way you see the world, and yourself?<br />
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KD: I'm still learning about the impact of my father's death (and his life) through writing my poems. I didn't really know the impact of his death until I started writing these poems and I don't know if I'll ever have the answer to this question.<br />
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CC: Your poems are very sensuous and pay close attention to the connotation of things. For example, gelato in “His Flavors are Tender.” That poem represents a longing that I see throughout the book. Can you talk about how this kind of hunger speaks to the human experience?<br />
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KD: All my poems are about longing which is what all of life is about, isn't it? I suppose life for me is about hunger. It's about what I long for. When is enough enough. Are we ever satisfied? I don't think so.<br />
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CC: The door triptych intrigues me and seem to represent otherness, distance, and separation. Can you talk about what those three doors mean to you?<br />
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KD: Other, distant and separate -- perfect! This is the way I often feel. This isn't a sad thing, this is just the way it is. However many friends I have, family, loved ones, work, no time in the day to think . . . at the end of that day I will feel other, apart, separate, and have since I was a little girl. Perhaps that's why I write poetry. To pull myself out of those feelings. To try to make connections where I've never felt them.<br />
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CC: Talk about the section of the book called <i>People Give Me Titles</i>. My favorite is “Coffin Bone.” <br />
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KD: When I got back into writing poetry, I asked some friends to give me titles. It was a way I could jump start myself - force myself to write a poem - one every day. It was a fascinating and successful pursuit because I got some fabulous titles (including "The Door" which you asked me about in the previous question), and I had an excuse to send these friends the poems so they'd be forced to read and comment on them! Poets love other people to read their poems and make comments!<br />
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The "Coffin Bone" is from my friend <a href="http://www.karenkarbo.com/">Karen Karbo</a> who's a wonderful writer and someone I've known for a long time who encouraged me to start writing again. I loved that title though I had no idea what it meant. I wrote the poem not knowing what it meant and then I looked it up. It was a thrilling and surprising definition. I'm grateful to her and to everyone who gave me titles.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Karen Karbo</td></tr>
</tbody></table>CC: What are you reading now, and who would you cite as influences in your own work.<br />
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KD: I'm rereading Frank O'Hara because I love his poetry to death. I'm rereading everyone who influenced me: O'Hara, William Carlos Williams, Emily Dickinson, Erica Jong, James Tate, Thomas Lux, Wallace Stevens, Allen Ginsberg, Walt Whitman - there are so many! I'm reading Words in Air the letters between Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell. I'm reading Jane Hirshfield's book, After which is amazing. I love Billy Collins, Kim Addonizio and Charles Haper Webb. There's so much poetry to love and learn from the list could go on forever.<br />
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CC: What are you working on now?<br />
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KD: Poems! More and more and more poems for a second collection which will be called, <i>Snacking on Venice, Before Dawn</i>. Do you like that title?<br />
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CC: Can't wait to read those poems!Charles Cotéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17681545501396352183noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3269897476303735022.post-33960476452823685542011-03-13T09:15:00.000-07:002011-03-13T09:15:57.136-07:00"Tell Me How You Feel," is More Than a Cliché<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-4CE88i0PVOUSdFsTByW-FEbAYrkfXoNqpzyTxyEl-oqoUaeIEQWbkjf-0Tf5QwyjgWmYOANmwEd3Es59DUdGP97gGL9sBYWkUpRDCJbKF7H7r_hLonV-xzPJ4_hsdxNQ5BCQZohnIvs/s1600/836091.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-4CE88i0PVOUSdFsTByW-FEbAYrkfXoNqpzyTxyEl-oqoUaeIEQWbkjf-0Tf5QwyjgWmYOANmwEd3Es59DUdGP97gGL9sBYWkUpRDCJbKF7H7r_hLonV-xzPJ4_hsdxNQ5BCQZohnIvs/s1600/836091.jpg" /></a></div><br />
In a previous <a href="http://charlescote.blogspot.com/2011/01/are-you-master-or-disaster-of-marriage.html">post</a>, I wrote about the "Four Horseman of the Apocalypse" that lead to relationship disasters, one being <i>defensiveness</i>. Its opposite of course is curiosity, a willingness to hear and accept whatever your partner has to say, which is not the same as agreement. Being hard-wired to protect our self-interests, however, means that it takes considerable work to overcome defensiveness, especially when the words you hear <i>seem</i> threatening, as this defensiveness is "rooted in existential fears of rejection, abandonment, inadequacy," according to an article by marriage and family therapist <a href="http://www.drstaik.com/">Dr. Athena Staik</a>. What does she recommend?<br />
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<blockquote>"Unless you develop the learned skill of consciously feeling and processing your feelings and thoughts, in moments when you get triggered, these defense mechanisms can rob you of your capacity to choose your thoughts and actions freely."</blockquote><br />
<a href="http://www.harvillehendrix.com/">Harville Hendrix</a>, author of <a href="http://www.theimagoshop.com/products/Getting-The-Love-You-Want%3A-A-Guide-for-Couples.html"><i>Getting the Love You Want</i></a>, and couple's therapy pioneer, teaches the <a href="http://gettingtheloveyouwant.com/articles/imago-dialogue-101"><i>Imago Dialogue</i></a> as a way to by-pass defensiveness and pave the way for intimacy. This dialogue starts with safety and has three basic steps: mirroring, validation, and empathy. Here's an excellent primer on this way of connecting with your partner: <a href="http://gettingtheloveyouwant.com/articles/imago-dialogue-101">IMAGO DIALOGUE 101</a>.<br />
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Give it a try and let me know how it works out.Charles Cotéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17681545501396352183noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3269897476303735022.post-21792540005272916092011-03-11T03:28:00.000-08:002011-03-11T06:59:30.293-08:00The Sweet That Matters: An Interview with Poet Marie-Elizabeth Mali<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.floweringlotus.com/"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjA3iSWnw0xLpwLIQwlI3d-TX2qGyM692VK4LBCtSGCeDXkCP8uO12asT8NEcd8F6lSOzXfZ25mCHCvCkyzDbu5RgUa_ymQDQHJLWaGlKU4Z6rUb1yfHcbsNVbi9DNjNfgEGPzZsowBVXY/s200/IMG_1182_2.jpg" width="199" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
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From <a href="http://www.floweringlotus.com/index.html">Marie-Elizabeth Mali’s</a> website:<br />
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<blockquote>Marie-Elizabeth Mali was born and raised in New York City, with frequent trips to Venezuela and Sweden where most of her family lives. She received her MFA from Sarah Lawrence College in 2009. She graduated Summa Cum Laude from Pacific College of Oriental Medicine in San Diego in 1998 with a Master of Traditional Oriental Medicine degree. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Oberlin College in 1989 with a B.A. in East Asian Studies.<br />
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Her first book of poetry, <a href="http://www.floweringlotus.com/second_level/book.html"><i>Steady, My Gaze</i></a>, was published by <a href="http://www.tebotbach.org/publication.html">Tebot Bach Press</a> in 2011. Tebot Bach is Welch for "little teapot" and the organization is dedicated to strengthening community, promoting literacy, and broadening the audience for poetry by demonstrating through readings, workshops, and publications, the power of poetry to transform human experience.<br />
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She is a co-curator for <a href="http://www.louderarts.com/">louderARTS</a>: the Reading Series and <a href="http://pagemeetsstageseries.wordpress.com/">Page Meets Stage</a>, both in New York City. Before receiving her MFA in poetry from Sarah Lawrence College, she practiced Traditional Chinese Medicine. Her work has appeared in Calyx, Poet Lore, and RATTLE, among others.</blockquote><br />
I first met Marie-Elizabeth at the <a href="http://www.slc.edu/adult-professional/noncredit/summer-2010/seminar/index.html">Sarah Lawrence College Summer Writers Seminar</a> and remember her reading a stunning pantoum that subsequently appeared in <a href="http://pages.slc.edu/%7Elumina/issues/vol7/"></a><a href="http://pages.slc.edu/%7Elumina/issues/vol7/">LUMINA</a>, Volume 7, 2008, called “A Good Night's Rest.” Since then we see each other yearly at the <a href="http://www.palmbeachpoetryfestival.org/">Palm Beach Poetry Festival</a>, and even dance the salsa. Well, she dances the salsa and I try not to look too much like an idiot. <br />
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Here’s a recent e-mail exchange about her book, poems “attuned to the sensual and the sacred”, to quote <a href="http://www.kimaddonizio.com/Site/Site/_welcome.html">Kim Addonizio’s</a> comment on Steady, My Gaze. To me, these poems transform what’s known to the unexpected inevitabilities that we all seem to know, but didn’t know we’d known, if only we pay closer attention. That’s the occasion of this collection. So let’s see what we discover now in conversation with Marie-Elizabeth Mali.<br />
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CC: In one of the epigraphs for the book, you quote <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Jung">Carl Jung</a>: “who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakens.” Writing poetry is the closest I come to this, though I think it’s so easy to delude ourselves. I think about Stephen Dobyns’ book <a href="http://www.powells.com/biblio/61-9781403961471-1"><i>Best Words, Best Order</i></a>, and his essay on the jester he keeps at his writing desk. How were you able to keep your gaze steady and not get caught up in the distractions of publication, performance, and pleasing others? Hey, three Ps. I’m usually not that organized.<br />
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MEM: Ha! I love it when a poet asks questions.<br />
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It’s an ongoing struggle for me. I have to turn my gaze away again and again from all the glittering, compelling, beautiful distractions outside. In terms of this book, some of it was written during my MFA program, so the nature of the program, and the sheer level of coursework, provided a helpful structure to keep me focused and turned inward. Post-MFA, it’s harder for me to knuckle down as regularly, but creating structure through things like <a href="http://www.napowrimo.net/">NaPoWriMo</a> (writing 30 poems in 30 days in April) and the occasional generative workshop, helps. And then there are days when I spend three hours on Facebook and wonder where the poems went.<br />
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CC: I love the surprise of the prologue and epilogue, the way the book comes full circle. In fact, the book does have a number of cycles. I’m interested in how the prologue and epilogue represent two aspects of self. How did each poem convey its own meaning and what did you discover in the process of translation? Did you write the prologue or epilogue first?<br />
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MEM: I wrote the prologue first, which is a poem in Spanish called “Hambrienta.” It was written during a fantastic Latin American poetry class at Sarah Lawrence in which we read and translated Latin American poets’ work and wrote our own poems in Spanish. This was one of the few poems I wrote in Spanish that I kept. It was written in frustration over some of the more hyper-intellectual work we were reading, which helped me get to an emotional core that I’m always trying to find when I write. <br />
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The epilogue is the translation of “Hambrienta” (“Hungry”), which I felt was necessary to include in order to allow non-Spanish speakers into the poem. I discovered that it’s very hard to translate one’s own work and that it’s a better poem in the original language! The two poems represent two aspects of myself in that I’ve navigated these languages my whole life, which formed me as a person who constantly seeks connection across traditional lines of division.<br />
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CC: In the section called “O Three-Eyed Lord,” the last octet (“Mantra”) revisits the first (“Chant”). Talk about that cycle, its concerns and what you were trying to puzzle out in the writing.<br />
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MEM: I was deep into the study of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kashmir_Shaivism">Kashmir Shaivism</a> at the time, trying to puzzle out this question of non-dualism: how God can be everything (not just IN everything but BE everything) and how there can be such apparent evil in the world. It’s a philosophy that’s not for sissies, or for those who want a comforting father-figure-type of God to lean on. The sheer hugeness of its implications blows my mind, which led to this section of poems grappling with death, war, rape, meanness. The last poem in the section revisits the first because my great aunt died shortly after my cat did, so I found myself chanting the mantra referenced in the poems again in honor of her. It felt different, and yet the same, and provided a way to bring the section full-circle.<br />
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CC: The five years of marriage cycle in the section “I Celebrate the Husband” also interests me, how it reveals the complexities of married life, and how close contact with the other, in this case, the husband, deepens your gaze and helps you awaken, if you let it. I take it that this marriage provoked a fair amount of anxiety for the speaker of those poems given past experiences revealed in the collection, but she realizes that love is a great healer. What would you say about all that?<br />
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MEM: I’d say your reading of it is right on! I came to marriage late, at 39 years old, once I realized that I wanted to grow in ways that would probably only happen if I committed myself to opening to a relationship without being able to ditch it as easily as I did before when I got bored, hurt, or went through any of the typical tough phases any relationship goes through over time. <br />
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Within a couple of months after our wedding, I experienced an unexpected loss of “filter,” in that the horrible things done to women all over the world that show up in the news on a daily basis felt like they were happening to me. I had to work for months to distinguish my experience and my man from “women’s experiences” and “men.” The poem “Newly Wed” came out of that “loss of filter” time. That period of time exposed a level of gender anger I had not previously reached in my inner work, I think because I had never committed to a man that deeply before, so it hadn’t been forced to the surface. So, yes, marriage has provoked “a fair amount of anxiety” for me and the speaker of these poems, and a fair amount of awakening and healing as well.<br />
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CC: In the “Second Year of Marriage”, I love how the magnanimous “let it be” is immediately subverted in the next line: “Later, we fight...” How do you think about conflict, not only in marriage, but in the making of poems, or being human for that matter?<br />
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MEM: Every time I think I’ve gained some kind of equanimity or wisdom, something usually happens to show me how little I’ve actually internalized, how easily my veneer of acceptance can be blown. Hence the subversion in that poem of the speaker’s magnanimity with the reality of the simple things that trip us up on a daily basis. Those contradictions, for me, form a lot of what it is to be human, as well as the acceptance of being a bundle of contradictions, which allows for more relaxation with it all while recognizing how ridiculous I am most of the time. I think from that place true compassion and magnanimity can arise, not the bullshit I’m-going-to-help-you-or-bear-with-you-because-I’m-so-magnanimous-and-wise type of compassion, which isn’t really compassion anyway.<br />
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As for the making of poems, I think the most interesting poems have some kind of tension in them, whether within the speaker, the content, or on the level of language and form. I’m wary of poems that seem to absolutely know what they’re talking about, that impart some wisdom without revealing the hard-won nature of that wisdom, without revealing the complexity of the human being behind the pretty surface of the smart ideas. <br />
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CC: Can you talk about the ambivalences in “Fifth Year of Marriage”, the work of enlightenment “when no one’s leaving/clothes on the floor...” and the “giving up of every story...”? This last poem of that cycle has a bite to it, a sting.<br />
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MEM: I was thrilled when that poem came out, just before the deadline for final changes to the book, because I feel it gets to the core of how I see marriage as a mirror of the journey of awakening: that waking up involves letting go of EVERY story about oneself and the world, which is almost impossible, given these gorgeous minds we have that live to create story. Nothing reveals one’s stories faster than living in close proximity to another human governed by his/her different stories. Hence the power of ashram/monastery for the monk, and marriage for the householder, if one approaches it with that intention.<br />
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CC: As you know, we both like to dance, and you write several poems about how this is tied to the speaker’s cultural identity. I’m thinking of “Origins” and “Ain’t Nobody’s Business.” What does the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clave_%28rhythm%29">clave</a> mean to you? And I agree, it’s the sweet that matters, not the wrapper, although the wrapper can be sweet too. I’m guessing you didn’t always think so.<br />
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MEM: Yes, you’re getting to some of my core stuff here, that feeling of invisibility I’ve had much of my life, in terms of feeling largely Latina on the inside and looking largely Swedish on the outside (and not having a name that places me clearly in one culture or the other). The clave is my heartbeat, and for years I wished people could see that beyond the dance floor. Many of the poems in the first section of the book reflect that struggle to accept my cultural mixture and to not expect that I wouldn’t be “seen” because the wrapper and sweet weren’t an obvious fit.<br />
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CC: Going back to “Origins”, you write about marginalia, and I can’t help thinking that this book might be the marginalia in the book you call life. Maybe that’s poetry. Marginalia on life, though that sounds so trivial. Talk about how you meant this word.<br />
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MEM: I meant that word much in the way you interpreted it and as metaphor for my having grown up among three cultures, feeling literally “in the margin,” looking from the outside at people who seemed to be squarely embodied within the text of their singular cultural perspectives. A luxury I could never have. Now I’m grateful for my perspective, given that it probably made me a more adaptable person and a poet, but as a child I didn’t know it was a good thing, given that I simply wanted to fit in somewhere.<br />
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CC: The entire book represents a spiritual quest, at least at some level. I’m thinking in particular of “The Questions Themselves” and the Silent Retreat cycle near the end of the book. That last cycle, by the way, reminded me of <a href="http://www.prapancajournal.com/v1i2/clifton.php">Lucille Clifton’s "Ten Oxherding Pictures."</a> Has she been an influence? What is the Tao of Marie-Elizabeth?<br />
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MEM: Yes, it does, in that my life is basically spiritually oriented and I wrote the book. I prefer the word “journey” to “quest,” in that “quest” feels a bit too effortful for where I’m at these days with it all (which is not to say my spiritual journey hasn’t been full of effort in the past).<br />
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I love Clifton’s work but I wouldn’t say she’s been a direct influence. Though I have certainly gained strength from the directness with which she expressed her truth and her willingness to name what needs to be seen with such craft and skill. <br />
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I love that: “the Tao of Marie-Elizabeth.” Hmm, I’d have to say it’s about looking into life as best I can toward some deeper truth than this conglomeration of likes and dislikes I call me.<br />
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CC: Who inspires and influences you as a writer and what are you currently reading?<br />
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MEM: <a href="http://www.markdoty.org/">Mark Doty</a> has inspired me for a long time, the often non-dual way he sees the world (Read the poem, <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=176663">“A Display of Mackerel”</a>) and the beautiful language with which he brings the world to life on the page. <a href="http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/1687">Marie Howe</a>, <a href="http://www.nickflynn.org/">Nick Flynn</a>, <a href="http://www.wordwoman.ws/">Patricia Smith</a>, and <a href="http://www.kimaddonizio.com/Site/Site/_welcome.html">Kim Addonizio</a>, too. I want to be smacked in the gut by a poem and theirs do that to me. <br />
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I’m currently enthralled with <a href="http://www.keetjekuipers.com/">Keetje Kuipers’</a> first book, <a href="https://www.boaeditions.org/bookstore/beautiful-in-the-mouth.html"><i>Beautiful in the Mouth</i></a>, <a href="http://www.adalimon.com/adalimon.com/Enter.html">Ada Limón’s</a> latest book, <a href="http://www.milkweed.org/component/page,shop.product_details/flypage,shop.flypage/product_id,913/category_id,52/option,com_phpshop/Itemid,8/"><i>Sharks in the Rivers</i></a>, and <a href="http://www.aimeenez.net/">Aimee Nezhukumatathil’s</a> latest book,<a href="http://www.aimeenez.net/"> <i>Lucky Fish</i></a>. I love their gorgeous, lush use of language and their enormous, deeply feeling hearts. I read almost a book a day of poetry, so it’s a bit much to list here, but in the last five days I’ve read <a href="http://www.upne.com/1-931357-91-9.html"><i>The Requited Distance</i></a> by <a href="http://www.rachelelizagriffiths.com/">Rachel Eliza Griffiths</a>, <a href="http://www.catemarvin.com/disaster.htm"><i>World’s Tallest Disaster</i></a> by <a href="http://www.catemarvin.com/bio.htm">Cate Marvin</a>, <a href="http://www.barnowlreview.com/reviews/rekdal.html"><i>The Invention of the Kaleidoscope</i></a> by <a href="http://english.utah.edu/?module=facultyDetails&personId=149&orgId=297">Paisley Rekdal</a>, <a href="http://www.richardmccann.net/other.php"><i>Ghost Letters</i></a> by <a href="http://www.richardmccann.net/about.php">Richard McCann</a>, <a href="http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Sleeping-with-the-Dictionary/Harryette-Mullen/e/9780520231436"><i>Sleeping with the Dictionary</i></a> by <a href="http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/237">Harryette Mullen</a>, and re-read <a href="http://ceciliawoloch.com/books/"><i>Carpathia</i></a> by <a href="http://ceciliawoloch.com/">Cecilia Woloch</a> for an interview I’m doing with her for my blog (<a href="http://memali.posterous.com/">http://memali.posterous.com</a>).<br />
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CC: In “<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJtq-fsfHUc">Stuck in Traffic on the Henry Hudson Parkway at Sunset</a>,” you describe sights that might drop you to your knees. I’ve seen some of your underwater photographs and must say they come close to doing that for me. Can you talk a bit about your photography, and where we can see some of those pictures? How does photography influence your writing?<br />
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MEM: Thank you, Charlie, I appreciate hearing that! I’ve got two recent underwater photo albums up at Phanfare: <a href="http://memali.phanfare.com/">http://memali.phanfare.com/</a><br />
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I’ve been shooting underwater for several years but took an underwater photo course in Turks and Caicos last summer that really moved my work forward. The album from that trip is on Flickr: <a href="http://bit.ly/dZ7lAs">http://bit.ly/dZ7lAs</a><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cryptic Teardrop Crab at Night, Photo by Marie-Elizabeth Mali, Used with Permission</td></tr>
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I love the oceanic world. It’s so complex and utterly different from our land-based world (though we influence it, unfortunately rarely for the better). I feel privileged to be able to visit and document the amazing creatures down there. I don’t see a direct link between my photography and writing yet, except perhaps in this impulse to share what I see, whether through image or word, in the hopes to perhaps move another person to pause and feel. <br />
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At the moment, a more direct link between word and image is happening with the poem trailers I’ve been making in iMovie and posting to YouTube. There are four there (search for “<a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/MarieElizabethMali">Steady, My Gaze</a>” and they should come up). I’ve been having a great time choosing images and music for my poems, and it’s made me think about them in a different way. I imagine at some point I’ll end up writing a poem because of an image or piece of music I think would work well with it for a trailer or short film, though I haven’t tried that yet.<br />
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CC: <a href="http://www.tonimorrisonsociety.org/">Toni Morrison</a> explores the complexities of identity and sexual abuse in <a href="http://www.luminarium.org/contemporary/tonimorrison/bluest.htm"><i>The Bluest Eye</i></a>, and I have to believe you’ve read this book. It became particularly evident to me in the reading of “Quinceañera.” I’m also thinking of the title poem, “Steady, My Gaze” which alludes to the woundings of abuse. Can you reflect on this a bit?<br />
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MEM: Yes, I’ve read this book, though it was—ahem—a loooooong time ago in college Women share certain experiences across racial and cultural lines, including ways they are perceived and treated by men (not all men) and I tried to get some of those into these poems. “Newly Wed” runs along those lines, as does “Animal-Subliminal.” I experienced the projections white North American women experience when they travel to other parts of the world (largely due to Hollywood films), in my teens while visiting family in Venezuela, when the boys there were trying out ways to be men, largely modeled on the machismo of their fathers and grandfathers, and it wasn’t the best of situations for me. <br />
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“Steady, My Gaze” is an ekphrastic poem in the voice of <a href="http://www.fridakahlo.com/">Frida Kahlo</a>, inspired by her painting, “The Little Deer,” in which her face appears on the body of a deer pierced by nine arrows. I resonate with that image, in terms of how I often experience the world coming at me. And the steadiness of her gaze within that wounding in that painting contributed the title.<br />
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CC: There’s a kinship I feel with you given that we’ve both worked in the helping profession. Have you ever read <a href="http://www.amazon.com/How-Help-Stories-Reflection-Service/dp/0394729471"><i>How Can I Help</i></a> by <a href="http://www.ramdass.org/biography">Ram Dass</a>? I think this book is so sympatico. I could identify with your poem “The Helping Profession”, the weariness that comes with all that need showing up in your office. I think of a line I wrote about Disney's Shrek who’s “green with intrusion” and all he wants to do is hang out in his swamp, but he’s compelled to help. Yet it’s hard not to take the aches of others inside as you point out in “Volunteering with Rescue Workers at the Javits Center.” How might writing be an antidote to this kind of weariness? <br />
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MEM: Yes, we read that book in our clinical counseling classes in Chinese Medicine school. It’s such a great book, so useful for anyone drawn to helping/healing work. I think writing is a great antidote to the weariness that can arise from working with others’ suffering. It’s important not to take it on, to find some way to release it between sessions or at the end of the day. Writing (even writing chart notes) can be a way to get it out. <br />
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That said, working with others as a massage therapist and acupuncturist for thirteen years was one of the greatest privileges of my life. Those were some of the times when I felt most alive and awake to the raw, gorgeous messiness of being human. <br />
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I find journal writing to be an essential way to process things that happen on a day-to-day basis, though I’m no longer in private practice. But I find journaling and writing poetry don’t often happen together for me. Sometimes dumping in a journal can empty me out enough that I can get to the writing of a poem, but they often end up happening at different times.<br />
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CC: I’d like to conclude by asking you about the lyrical insights in “<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vI1vIWq-n8">The Diver</a>”, namely the perfect thing in life and the paradox of kissing. Maybe you’ll write a collection of poems about diving. Anyway, talk about longing, and teeth.<br />
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MEM: Though I’ve never had any success before in corralling my poems toward any kind of coherent project, I’m hoping my next project will be a collection of diving and ocean-related poems combined with underwater photos (hear that, Muse, please?). <br />
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There’s a line in that poem, “Maybe the only perfect thing in life is longing.” Really, doesn’t longing get us out of bed in the morning? And what would life be like without sharp teeth on the other side of those kissable lips, reminding us to not to get too complacent, not to go to sleep?Charles Cotéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17681545501396352183noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3269897476303735022.post-3168884151675248732011-03-06T12:12:00.000-08:002011-03-06T17:57:18.614-08:00In Confidence: An Interview with Poet Jim Tilley<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://jimtilley.net/"><img border="0" height="149" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1yr2kmpUcj4wjPmrzIS57dqWWE00NNw9lg0d6MWcPkl5CZuRNkkKgLcPl81ekpwOZ_H0pVqJh2CBNtugR_QvFUiDUr-Z4ILCd6mEGgAX6cj7lPDnR4sBmv8gRATBiKOyKNy2W7uEsHlI/s200/James-Tilley1.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><br />
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<a href="http://jimtilley.net/">Jim Tilley</a> and I first met five years ago at the <a href="http://www.palmbeachpoetryfestival.org/">Palm Beach Poetry Festival</a> where he studied with <a href="http://www.stephendunnpoet.com/">Stephen Dunn</a>, one of my favorite contemporary poets, and then again the following summer at the <a href="http://www.slc.edu/adult-professional/noncredit/summer-2010/seminar/index.html">Sarah Lawrence College Summer Writers Seminar</a> in <a href="http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/743">Stephen Dobyns</a> workshop, a poet who has this to say about Jim’s first book of poems, <a href="http://www.redhen.org/RedHenPress.html#/catalog/catalogView/type=books;bookUUID=35BD7779-3552-4AB5-B8A4-BC6B2B08B098">In Confidence</a> (<a href="http://www.redhen.org/">Red Hen Press</a>, 2011):<br />
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<blockquote>...the poems are about trying to maintain “this fragile equilibrium” like a tightrope walker tip-toeing about a lion’s den. One sees the quiet elegance is all that keeps one from shouting, “Watch out!”</blockquote><br />
Here’s his bio from his website:<br />
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<blockquote>Jim Tilley's poems have been published in various literary journals and magazines, among which are Southwest Review, Southern Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, Sycamore Review, Tar River Poetry, Southern Poetry Review, Atlanta Review, Florida Review and New Delta Review. He has won the Sycamore Review's Wabash Prize for Poetry, the New England Poetry Club's Firman Houghton Award, and the Editors' Choice Award from Rhino. Four of his poems have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. His work also appears in the college textbook anthology "Literature to Go" (Bedford/St. Martin's), edited by Michael Meyer.</blockquote><blockquote><br />
Jim has studied poetry in workshops with several nationally acclaimed poets, including Brigit Kelly and David Rivard at the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference; Alan Shapiro and Mark Strand at the Sewanee Writers' Conference; David Wojahn, Gerald Stern, Claudia Emerson, and Stephen Dunn at the Palm Beach Poetry Festival; Tony Hoagland at a Poets House workshop; and Stephen Dobyns at the Sarah Lawrence College Summer Writers' Program. </blockquote><blockquote>Jim earned a first-class honors degree in Physics from McGill University and a doctorate in Physics from Harvard University. He retired in 2001 after a 25-year career in insurance and investment banking. He has won numerous prizes for his papers in actuarial science, finance, and investments, and in 2008 received a Founder's Award from the International Insurance Society for his pioneering work in asset-liability management.</blockquote><br />
Tilley’s poems explore the unanswerable with precision and elegance, and by this exploration he writes the reader’s life. He takes us in his confidence, here in this e-mail exchange, to share a bit about his poetry, among other very interesting things. <br />
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CC: I love how <a href="http://www.billy-collins.com/">Billy Collins</a> in describing your book sees domestic relations as complex and dark matter as a more solvable problem. Your poems definitely explore this paradox. I guess physics was too easy for you so you decided to take up poetry, and dabble a bit in my field. Seriously, how did you go from physics, to Wall Street, to poetry, and now to being a closeted shrink, and a pretty good one at that?<br />
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JT: No, physics was too hard, so I kept trying other things! Well, that’s sort of true and not at the same time. In 1975 when I earned my doctorate in Physics, jobs as a physicist were hard to come by, especially in academia, where one would spend six years or more as a post-doc before securing a junior faculty position. I wasn’t excited by that prospect. Because Sun Life of Canada had provided a scholarship for my freshman year as an undergraduate, I thought I’d approach them about becoming an actuary, a way to leverage my mathematical skills to gain entry into the world of business. They gave me a job, and after hopping to John Hancock and then Equitable, I discovered, mostly through the urging of my ex-wife, that Wall Street would be more stimulating. She called it a “high-octane atmosphere” and she was right, not surprisingly, having worked there herself. I stayed at Morgan Stanley for more than 17 years before retiring, and even then stayed on as an advisory director for another seven years. I’ve always enjoyed writing, but while earning a living, it was research papers in actuarial science, finance, and investments. After retiring, poetry seemed like the best creative writing endeavor for me, because I like to have the satisfaction of “finishing” something fairly quickly. The thought of laboring over a memoir or novel for years was frightening. About being a closeted shrink, I think everybody who cares about people is to some extent a shrink.<br />
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CC: I love the epigraph by Whitman: “This hour I tell things in confidence,/I might not tell everybody, but I will tell you.” Not everyone likes poetry, sad to say, but for those who do, Whitman, and now you too, can speak in confidence. To do so, you have to be a good listener. Tell me what the title of your book means to you and how it defines the arc of the collection, and maybe even your aesthetic as a writer.<br />
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JT: It wouldn’t be fair to let readers think that the book’s epigraph was my idea. Our good friend and poet, Jim Scruton, suggested it to me, and I bought it immediately. The title of the book, together with its cover, conceived and painted by another good friend, suggests one person taking another into his or her confidence. That’s the primary meaning I intended for the title. But the title is also “aspirational”—that after working at the craft of poetry for ten years, I may have gained a measure of confidence that I can write good poems from time to time. As to arc, I’d simply say that I think poems should be written with a reader in mind and that the process of writing then becomes taking the reader into the writer’s confidence—it’s a productive model.<br />
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CC: I’d describe you as a narrative poet. What inspires you as a story-teller? Who would you point to as major influences?<br />
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JT: Yes, I think you’re right. I hope to achieve lyric moments in my poetry and the award from the New England Poetry Club was for best lyric poem, but the most identifiable feature of my work is its narrative thread. Don’t we all love stories, right from the moment that our parents first read to us? Among contemporary poets, I started off on a diet of Billy Collins and Stephen Dunn. I would say that Carl Dennis, Philip Levine, Bob Hicok, Galway Kinnell, and Albert Goldbarth have also been strong influences.<br />
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CC: With that in mind, who and what are you currently reading?<br />
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JT: A mix of newly discovered poets and old favorites. I’m particularly enjoying Jim Harrison’s book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Search-Small-Gods-Jim-Harrison/dp/1556593007"><i>In Search of Small Gods</i></a>, and James Richardson’s <a href="http://www.nationalbook.org/nba2010_p_richardson.html"><i>By the Numbers</i></a>.<br />
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CC: Your poems luxuriate in their language and I think diction is a definite strength for you, and by my reading of "Vocabulary Test," something you’ve passed on to your sons. How do your poems <i>compassionate</i> the lexicon and what might that <i>portend</i>? Give us some of the <i>paraphernalia</i> in your bag of writerly tricks. But not too much. We don’t want you to give away your secrets even though you are taking us into your confidence.<br />
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JT: I’m unaware of any tricks or secrets. I think that what comes out on the page reflects how one feels about language. I’ve always enjoyed words and word play. How words and phrases sound matters to me. The rhymes that worm their way into some of my poems are more accidental than planned, subconscious more than conscious. When I think a poem is getting somewhere, I’ll walk around our library reading it aloud to the walls. That’s often when I find that other words want to come out, better words than the ones I’ve first used.<br />
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CC: The father-son theme in the collection is strong, as is the husband-wife motif. Turns out that domestic life ain’t that tame, eh? And while you’re at it, talk about what being Canadian means to your stance as a writer living in the US.<br />
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JT: The last part first. I’ve lived in the U.S. since 1971 when I came down to Cambridge for grad school. I didn’t become a U.S. citizen until 2001, but I’ve pretty much considered myself American for a long time. Now to the father-son and husband-wife themes that several of my poems wrestle with. Relationships are work, aren’t they? For everyone, but especially for those of us who have a tendency to be self-centered. And hard work when it comes to relationships between two strong personalities. There are clash points. I think it’s important to play shrink with oneself, to understand why we do certain things and feel certain ways. Without doing that, there’s little ability to work productively at relationships, especially the ones we most want to succeed. For me, this struggle to make sense of what happens between people finds its way into poems.<br />
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CC: One of the things I envy most about you is your hammock. One of my favorite poems in your book, “Half-Finished Bridge,” seems to have been imagined there. Talk about the hammock and its importance to your work. To me, it makes me think of Whitman’s "<a href="http://www.princeton.edu/%7Ebatke/logr/log_026.html">Song of Myself</a>": I loaf and invite my soul,/I lean and loaf at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.” Oh, and talk about that half-finished bridge, which seems to be about your own father, not to mention something more existential.<br />
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JT: Why do your questions always seem to have multiple parts? Okay, the hammock. I was actually thinking of calling the book, “The Hammock Poems.” And I had to decide whether to juxtapose various hammock poems or separate them. There are two key “literal” hammocks in my life—one on the terrace at the back of our principal residence that looks out over miles of hills, and one strung between two oaks in the backyard of my wife’s place in Cape Cod. I often go to a hammock to read. Reading often spurs a new poem; digesting another writer’s words seems to open the flow of mine. “Half-Finished Bridge” was written in the hammock at home on a cool fall day that was getting colder quickly. My journal was handy, as it always is when I’m lying in a hammock. I was writing with a Poets House pencil that had Bashō’s haiku, <i>first snow falling on the half-finished bridge</i>, inscribed on it and I was thinking about my aging father and all the things he feels are unfinished in his life, particularly his academic oeuvre. And I was thinking about the futility of roads to nowhere, roads that could end at a half-finished bridge—wars we shouldn’t start and marriages we can’t finish. But I wanted to end the poem on a more hopeful note and get back inside the house before I froze in the hammock as the season’s first snow was beginning to fall. So I wrote about erecting the rest of the trestle and walking together with my father to the other side.<br />
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CC: Another prominent theme is death, which makes me think of Dobyns’ poem in <i>Pallbearer’s Envying the One Who Rides</i>, “Oh, Immobility, Death’s Vast Associate.” This is an implied, vast, open-ended question, so answer it at will, or not at all.<br />
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JT: A vast, open-ended question calls for a rather shorter answer, don’t you think? I suppose you could say that death is one of those “big questions” to which I refer in several poems in the collection. As my wife keeps pointing out to me—correctly—I’m not comfortable with death, not so much that I’m afraid of dying, but uncomfortable with separations, transitions, and the discontinuity that comes with endings. I seem uncomfortable even exploring this subject. Regarding the matter of death, I’ve been lucky—my parents are still living, my children are healthy, and few close friends have died. The next ten years won’t be the same. You can be sure that I’ll be writing much more about death. <br />
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CC: The other thing I learn from a close reading of your poems, is the power of denotative and connotative language. Take “Empty Casings” for example. There’s so much that comes out of your meditation on empty shell casings, worthless to a police officer, but under your steady gaze, explode on the page. What did you learn about humanity in that archaeological dig?<br />
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JT: You’re spot on about the power of language for me. “Empty Casings” is a good example. The poem was spawned by a dinner that my wife and I had with a close friend of mine, now ours, from my work days. He was in the process of getting divorced and talked not only about the usual squabbles and battles in a divorce but how difficult he was finding it to extract his family heirlooms, such as the brass and copper menorah his father had caused German POWs to make from empty shell casings during World War II. To me that was a poem. When I got home, I googled “menorah shell casings” or something like that and up popped the story about the children of the Bais Chabad synagogue in Santa Monica making menorahs from their police department’s empty shell casings. The poem went through many iterations as I played with the metaphors of “squeezing oil from olives,” “so much light from so little oil,” “the heritage wrought by turning weapons into ploughshares,” and “empty casings.” A metaphor is all about the denotative and connotative, isn’t it?<br />
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CC: I remember your elegant explanation of fractals, drawn out on a napkin I might add. I still have that in my journal but can’t figure out what the hell it means. I’ll need another tutorial. Anyway, if my math teachers had been poets too, I’d have learned a great deal more in my impressionable years. Since you’re such a math geek, and I mean that affectionately, with a modest amount of envy, talk about the ways math shows up in your poems. Talk specifically about “In Spring, Mathematics Are Yellow.”<br />
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JT: It’s impossible for me to keep mathematics out of my poems because it’s always running through my brain. It’s one of the ways I gaze at the world. I do number puzzles more than I do crosswords these days. “In Spring, Mathematics Are Yellow” is a poem about a speaker in a funk about his life. He’s standing outside his house on an early spring day when everything is yellow. He looks at all those yellow objects in a different way, and from that experience begins to accept his malaise. The speaker derives a certain comfort from seeing daffodils as hexagons, from admiring the fractal nature of forsythia bushes, from considering the number of petals on each pansy he’s potted for his wife, and from understanding that he will never be able to defeat the dandelions in the lawn of his life because all their fluff will tunnel into next year’s plans whether he likes it or not.<br />
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CC: I’d say you’ve found a good balance between the left and right hemispheres of your brain. I personally despise the false dichotomy between art and science. I love the alleged quote by Churchill, more for the sentiment than its accuracy: During the Second World War, Winston Churchill’s finance minister said Britain should cut arts funding to support the war effort. Churchill’s response: “Then what are we fighting for?” Talk about the resonances you see between art and science, and how it informs your fascination with elegance.<br />
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JT: This question is hard. I’d have to say that I’m more left-brained than right-brained. That’s why my poems are more narrative than lyric, I think. But I love art, especially modern art. And I love architecture and photography and gardens and walks in the woods. I tend to see the mathematics and science in things. Certainly I wonder about why things are the way they are and why certain things happen and others don’t. That’s pretty much left-brained. But such wondering puts me into a state of awe and unlocks the right brain. I have enjoyed the happy accidents that come when those two views mesh, sort of like a stereoscopic image, don’t you think?<br />
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CC: We both share a passion for golf, and like poetry, it’s a game impossible to master. It always wins. Yet writing about golf has always been hard for me. Who do you think does it well without sounding overly pretentious or sentimental. I think you do a pretty good job in “The Ivy and the Brick,” but I know that poem was hard for you to write. Why do you think it’s hard to write that type of poem?<br />
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JT: I share a passion with you for wanting to play golf better. I am completely smitten by my good shots, holes, rounds that keep bringing me back despite my considerable inabilities at the game. I think it’s a personality trait that drives me to try to do better at what I enjoy doing. Golf and poetry both fit that. It’s hard to find poetry in the way I play golf. That should be less difficult for you—your swing is closer to a thing of beauty. Why is it so hard to write a golf poem? Because the subject is boring to most people unless it becomes a way to unlock something else that isn’t. That’s what I tried to have happen in “The Ivy and the Brick,” another poem that went through many incarnations before it finally split into the poem of that title and its companion, “The Clay and the Fire.”<br />
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CC: Killing-time and killing time in “Something to Celebrate” is a haunting pun, another hard thing to pull off well in a poem. Talk about how this notion haunts you, not the pun per se, but the idea behind this particular pun.<br />
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JT: Again, the pun happened by accident. It wasn’t there in the first several versions of the poem, but occurred while I was reading a draft aloud in our library. I realized it would be a hard thing to pull off without sounding corny. I’m not sure I succeeded, but decided to go with it anyway. The early versions of “Something to Celebrate” were much longer, more prosaic. I finally decided that less is better, that I’d overworked the metaphor of “things hanging by a thread.” What haunted me was the violence wrought by the dictator and then the violence in his death by what amounted to a lynch mob. In the end, I felt I could do the event more “justice” by chopping a 30-line poem down to its essence in a syllabic sonnet.<br />
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CC: Continuing on with this theme, and given all the chaos in the Middle East right now, your poem “One Would Hope” is as relevant as ever. Talk about the making of this heart-wrenching poem. If only we’d hear each other’s song. I mean really hear. It makes me think of a poem by Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks, where he speaks about the foolishness of names, meaning we’re all singing the same song, so why all this war? It makes me think too of Gregory Orr’s notion of how we’re all adding to the song that is poetry, his notion of quest. Do you remember that?<br />
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JT: Yes, I remember the craft talk by Gregory Orr in which he discussed his notion of “quest.” There is so much war in the world around us. With technology the world is much smaller now than it used to be and other people’s problems come closer to being ours than they used to. Still, I feel one can’t write about the details of war credibly without having lived them oneself. I haven’t and wouldn’t presume to try to write a “war poem” from that perspective. So, when I venture into that highly charged territory (“After Wine,” “Folding,” “Dislocation,” “Boys,” and “One Would Hope”), I try to use some closer-to-home device to enter the topic and then maintain an appropriate distance. In “One Would Hope,” the device is music, something we all share, and “hearing each other’s song” was the point I surprised myself in the writing of the poem. It stuck.<br />
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CC: Finally, I want to congratulate you on “<a href="http://www.sycamorereview.com/2009/01/on-the-art-of-patience-an-excerpt/">The Art of Patience</a>,” and its selection as the Wabash Prize in Sycamore Review. How the hell did you write that tour de force? Yes, I’m jealous.<br />
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JT: “On the Art of Patience” arose from seven failed poems, much shorter poems that never lived up to the promise I had hoped for, indeed expected of them at the time of their writing. Those constituent poems had been written over the course of a year and each one had been shelved digitally (I never throw away any of my scribblings). I had been reading a lot of Al Goldbarth. His pieces tend to be long, and most offer up several seemingly disparate situations, scenes, images that he successfully weaves together. I thought I might try that with the collection of failed poems, all under the umbrella of being stuck interminably on hold while trying to place an order. I reread each, then set them aside and sat down with my journal—at my desk, not my hammock! The trick, of course, was to make smooth transitions between the unrelated topics. An hour and a half later, “On the Art of Patience” was born, more or less as it appears in my book. It was one of those lucky, inspired moments that occurs too infrequently.<br />
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CC: And lucky for us too. Thanks for the interview.<br />
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JT: You're welcome. Thank you.Charles Cotéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17681545501396352183noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3269897476303735022.post-24312372097085297112011-03-01T19:25:00.000-08:002011-03-01T20:09:08.625-08:00Gold Stars and Ghostbread: An Interview with Sonja Livingston<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilEBACObaEo2DYYgADWkdliN_xuop4Y_tNZv_4j8O5E76SLjcRrYDTcJ30XwUkHKilJBbtJDfAFUcpCUS5wYh4vS7GaFTbrmWNex1bJ3zw37RXwY80MfZyvTZBqhz0pJ4jb5hw7I2Ycmw/s1600/face.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilEBACObaEo2DYYgADWkdliN_xuop4Y_tNZv_4j8O5E76SLjcRrYDTcJ30XwUkHKilJBbtJDfAFUcpCUS5wYh4vS7GaFTbrmWNex1bJ3zw37RXwY80MfZyvTZBqhz0pJ4jb5hw7I2Ycmw/s1600/face.jpg" /></a></div><br />
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<a href="http://www.sonjalivingston.com/">Sonja Livingston</a>, author of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Ghostbread-Association-Programs-Creative-Nonfiction/dp/0820333980"><i>Ghostbread</i></a> (<i>The University of Georgia Press</i>, 2009), winner of the <a href="http://www.awpwriter.org/">Association of Writers and Writing Programs Award for Creative Nonfiction</a>, agreed to an e-mail interview with me recently. Not only is she an award winning memoirist, but she writes kick-ass poetry. Hope you enjoy this interview as much as I enjoy Sonja Livingston.<br />
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CC: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathleen_Norris_%28poet%29">Kathleen Norris</a> writes, after reading <i>Ghostbread</i>, that you were a beleaguered and intelligent child. That of course becomes so evident in the reading, but I’d add resilient, feisty, and precocious. What interests me is how kind you are in person, given all that beleaguerment. How do you account for that and what did you learn about yourself in the writing of the memoir?<br />
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SL: This is going to sound odd, but actually I was an introverted kid. I would have preferred to have kept to the background always. It’s who I am. But I also craved adult attention. I was like a dog coming out of its hut for a bone. Once I performed the cost-benefit analysis fourth graders are prone to do, it was a no-brainer: saying something smart-ass garnered more notice than another gold sticker. In middle school getting sent to the principal’s office was the highlight of my day. I loved her! Sister Eileen would ask me to fill her in on <i>General Hospital</i> and what I thought about things like women’s role in the Church. She talked to me. She listened. (And I know you know what a drug that is...) Same thing at church. No doubt some of those kindly parishioners at Corpus Christi wanted to flee when they saw me coming, but I couldn’t help myself. I couldn’t get enough of how willing they were to ask about how I was doing, what I was thinking. Seven kids and one tired mother did not allow for such things. <br />
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I’m not sure I learned much about myself as a result of writing the book. I mean, I’ve always sort of over-known me. But sifting through my memories as an adult did have me looking more at how we must have seemed to others, how my mother felt at my age, how it must have been to have all those kids. <br />
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As for kindness, most people I grew up with (no matter how troubled) were kind. I’ll take it a step further—most people are kind. I’m always astounded when someone is not. It sends me into a rant: I’ll bombard others with the question: Why isn’t so and so nice? Until some person kindly reminds me that not everyone is nice, even writers. And yet, human kindness is such an uplifting thing.<br />
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CC: Of course, the memoir’s title is haunting. I know, groan. Tell us about actual ghost bread, what it is, how it tastes, whether it makes for good french toast, and how this title defines the arc of the book.<br />
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SL: Well it tastes like... bread. And really, is anything better? Actually, ghost bread is a generic term used to mean different types of bread—it was especially good baked in the oven, but we also made something that was pan-fried, like pancakes minus fancy ingredients like eggs and butter. Once, my sister found a recipe for paper-mâché paste in a <a href="http://www.highlights.com/"><i>Highlights for Children Magazine</i></a> and we laughed and laughed, because it was essentially the recipe for fried ghost bread.<br />
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The title is about hunger. About longing for something, and the way such longing becomes everything. This isn’t as sad as it sounds. I mean, we all want children to have their needs met. But longing seems essential to the creative process. Whether it’s longing for sneakers that didn’t come from the sale bin at the public market or wanting to be selected as Veronica in the Passion Play, that desire fueled something in me. I noticed differently. I wanted differently. I still do. Writing is one of the few things that rises to meet that longing. What do you think, Charlie? I mean, do you find with people, writers or clients, that longing is often the thing that causes creative action? <br />
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CC: I couldn't agree more. What's that saying about necessity and the mothers of invention? Wait, that's <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0ysRH1Dxyw">Frank Zappa's band</a>.<br />
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This collection seems to be a fusion of several genres: creative non-fiction, poetry, flash fiction. How do you describe it? Extra points for coining a new term.<br />
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By the way, I love, love, love short chapters, me being a bit ADHD and all. What was I asking? Oh, how did you find the book’s form?<br />
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SL: More nonfiction collections are being written this way. I recently read <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Bluets-Maggie-Nelson/dp/1933517409"><i>Bluets</i></a>, by Maggie Nelson, which is a lovely collection of short meditations on the color blue, and I just started Nick Flynn’s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Another-Bullshit-Night-Suck-City/dp/0393051390"><i>Another Bullshit Night in Suck City</i></a> which does something similar, as did Deborah Tall in her memoir <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Family-Strangers-Deborah-Tall/dp/193251144X"><i>Family of Strangers</i></a>. These writers are poets, so it may be that this form lends itself to the poetic impulse. But no matter its genre-bending props, these books are nonfiction. I love that literary nonfiction is free enough to allow for such play, but has at its core the writing of the actual; that is, the experiences, memories, and thoughts of the writer. In this way, the genre is unrelenting. <br />
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Okay, I have to try for the extra points because there might be a gold star, right? I’ll call these collections Dot-to-Dot—you know like those old books where you connect the numbered dots with a pencil? Each “chapter” is a dot, and the reader is invited to make the connections between them, which then add up to a larger image. It might frustrate those looking to float along on fully-realized story. Good stories are a part of the mix here, but as with poetry, this type of essay collection is a sort of journey, and requires the participation of the reader.<br />
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CC: I like that, dot-to-dot. A big gold star for you! Reading <i>Ghostbread</i> is much like spending time with you, my dear, which of course is delightful, engaging, smart, wise, original, what I want from all my companions, and best of all, such sweet sorrow at parting. Does it surprise you that I can misquote Shakespeare? I was so sad to turn that last page. <br />
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I know, that last question was a bit over-the-top. Will you blurb my book now? <br />
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SL: Thanks, but I was glad to be out of there as soon as I could. Writing the last half was especially grueling, and I’d blurb you anytime, Charlie Coté. <br />
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CC: OK, I'll hold you to that. How have you navigated the perilous waters of writing so honestly about your kin? Have you been written out of any wills? Any lawsuits? I am a therapist. Let me know how I can help. But seriously... What is your relationship with your family like today, if you don’t mind sharing? If you do, put me in my place but make it seem like you’re paying me a compliment.<br />
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SL: One of the benefits of coming from families without wills is that there is nothing to be written out of! And when you grow up in certain environments, everyone knows your business anyway—so less was at stake in terms of privacy to begin with. I know lots of families learn to keep their secrets, and that must be tough. One of the things I’m grateful about my background is that we never had the luxury of pretense. <br />
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Plus, Charlie, when my people die, I’m pretty sure I’ll be called upon to help pay the costs. That said, I changed most of their names and attempted to tell not only the truth (which is clearly my version of the truth) but also to tell my story in service of something larger. So I told about my family, but my hope is that besides getting to know my experience, readers might understand more about what it’s like to come from such a family. Rochester, Buffalo, and the city I’m in now (Memphis) are loaded with such families; single mothers, several fathers, lots of moving, and so on. We see these people on the news and walking to and from parts of the city we try to avoid. I wanted to show something of the living breathing people whose reality is so easy to judge from outside. <br />
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The tricky thing about memoir is that the story of our life is not isolated. My story intersected with my mother’s story, my friends’ stories, my siblings’, and so on. I knew that intellectually, but did not really feel it until my manuscript became a book. <br />
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CC: What was the process of writing this memoir? I want to write one myself and plan on reverse-engineering your genius.<br />
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SL: Basically it involved writing and overeating while listening to <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJLyWomZNq8&feature=related"><i>10,000 Maniacs</i></a> and <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKoS5X4SMrY"><i>Morrissey</i></a>, peppered with bouts of crying and drinking. In other word: regular living. I wrote much of it in an MFA program, and certainly taking classes was helpful. I currently have only myself to push deadlines, and I manage, but there is nothing like an external deadline to get you moving. In some ways it was easier to write a memoir because the stuff is all there, but in other ways, it was tougher to return to those places we all learn to push past in order to move on.<br />
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I’m not sure I answered that and I really am working for a gold star here, so let me know.<br />
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CC: There you go, another gold star! I'll probably listen to <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_1Zz9ud83I&feature=fvst"><i>Iron and Wine</i></a> for my process, maybe <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAQ8DSsPJD0&feature=related"><i>Wilco</i></a> too. I'm melancholy that way.<br />
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What are you doing now as a result of writing this stunning book? How has your life changed?<br />
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SL: You know, the warning new writers often hear is that publication doesn’t change your life. It’s a good and necessary warning, true in many respects. I have not attained some inner glow or an endless well of self-love as a result of publishing. If anything, you are more exposed emotionally when you publish. <br />
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That said, life does change. As difficult and sometimes depressing as the business of publication is, suddenly your work is accessible to others. I have connected with people in meaningful ways ever since the book came out. People send emails or tell me their stories, and honestly, there is nothing like a kid from Charlotte High School saying she could relate to my book. I’ve also had some amazing experiences reading at schools across the country. For instance, I’ve been invited to read at Notre Dame later this month with writers like Edwidge Danticat and Susan Orlean as a result of the book and will speak at a <a href="http://www.womenhelpinggirls.org/whg/index.html"><i>Women Helping Girls</i> </a>Program this spring in Rochester, which is exciting. Absolutely life-changing. <br />
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I’m currently a Visiting Assistant Professor in the very fine writing program at the <a href="http://www.memphis.edu/english/grad/mfaadmission.htm"><i>University of Memphis</i></a>. So I teach and travel. And write—which can only mean one thing: Listening to <i>10,000 Maniacs</i> and <i>Morrissey</i> while eating too much bread and fixing gin and tonics. And looking out for gold stars. All those things are still a part of my life.<br />
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CC: Of all the places you lived during childhood, what was your favorite and why? Barb wanted me to ask this.<br />
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[Editor's note: Barb is my lovely wife, and she too has a lovely blog called <a href="http://www.fingerlakessummer.com/">Finger Lakes Summer</a>.]<br />
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SL: I like Barb! She’s a special person. You know what I mean, how there are a handful of people in life who seem different? That’s Barb. Okay, as for the question, for better or worse, a big part of surviving lots of moves and the juggling of people was learning not to get attached. I don’t think I allowed myself things like favorite places. Looking back, I am fond of the more rural places like Albion and the Tonawanda Reservation. I still like to visit the wildlife refuge in Batavia, for instance, and whenever I see a heron I will probably always think of my mother. <br />
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CC: Yes, Barb is very special, and so is her blog. You should check it out. See, I'm all about the shameless plug.<br />
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Your book has also been compared to Frank McCourt’s memoir, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Angelas-Ashes-Memoir-Frank-McCourt/dp/068484267X"><i>Angela’s Ashes</i></a>. Can we expect a sequel from you, and if so, what might we expect? If not, what are you working on now? <br />
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SL: I like the comparison, but it’s really not so much like that book, is it? I mean, God, I’d love to write a McCourt-style book, but the narrative in my hands is simply more splintered. The poverty is the similarity, I suppose, and the attempt to have others look at it, when it can be such an unpleasant thing to do.<br />
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I thought I was done with memoir, but I do have a few essays that might qualify as sequel material. They are being published as essays, but <i>Ghostbread</i> started as individual essays, so who knows? I am working on lots right now! I have a collection of poems that is near complete, a novel I’ve been dragging around for a few years, and am writing a collection of essays about women. Brave women. Three projects cannot be a good thing! A tarot card reader once told me to focus and I hated her for it, but she was right. I should focus.<br />
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CC: Splintered narrative, now there's another genre. As for McCourt, he worked as a public school teacher and you worked in the public schools, so you have that in common. What was it like being a school counselor given your experience on the other side of the desk, or couch, or sand tray? This is another Barb question. Personally, I think it’s kind of intrusive, but you still have to respond.<br />
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SL: Hey wait a minute, I never had a sand tray! Just a giant doll house and a few puppets. And nothing is intrusive for memoirists. <br />
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Being a counselor was wonderful. I love kids and it was an honor to be there for them when they felt bad or scared or that they didn’t fit in (and don’t we all feel that way?) My experience made it so that I was easily accepting of people (no matter how different or grubby) and believed in the power of simply loving children. I was perhaps too realistic; I knew I couldn’t put food permanently in kids’ cupboards or get rid of an abusive parent or stop the things I knew would come their way; but I could let them know how much they mattered, and what promise I saw in them. It isn’t much, but in a way, it is everything. <br />
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CC: Sometimes that's all we need, someone to let us know that we matter.<br />
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What are you currently reading? What book(s) knock(s) you out?<br />
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SL: I’m reading the Nick Flynn book I mentioned, and Lydia Davis’ <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Varieties-Disturbance-Stories-Lydia-Davis/dp/0374281734"><i>Varieties of Disturbance</i></a>, as well as <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Austerlitz-W-G-Sebald/dp/0375504834"><i>Austerlitz</i></a> by W.G. Sebald, which a smart woman from my writing group recommended. <br />
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Who knocks me out? <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edna_O%27Brien">Edna O’ Brien</a> knocks me out. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marguerite_Duras">Marguerite Duras </a>knocks me out. <a href="http://www.harrietchessman.com/">Harriet Scott Chessman</a> knocks me out. Triple punch from these ladies. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Nabokov">Nabokov</a> causes occasional bouts of breathlessness. Very different writers, but what they have in common is prose that refuses to be bound by convention. <br />
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CC: All these great recommendations. Thanks. Who or what have been your inspirations and influences as a writer?<br />
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SL: Hearing <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/gerald-stern">Gerald Stern</a> read in Prague ten years back changed everything. When he read, I felt the doors of poetry open to me. It sounds like a crazy overstatement, I know, but even while writing it, I had been intimidated by the standoffishness of poetry, as though it was a thing far removed from our daily lives. But then, this small man stood up and opened his mouth, and I swear, something like fire and fish flopped out. It was baptism by Stern. <br />
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<a href="http://www.judithkitchen.com/">Judith Kitchen</a> was another influence. Her essay workshops at Brockport were a gift to local writers; she loved the essay form and was highlighting its lush muscularity long before it became popular. Her own writing is lyrical and honest and just gorgeous. She also influenced me as a teacher, her workshops were positive places; little writing communities. When I teach, I think of her example, and have never been disappointed. <br />
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Writers who applied simple language also grabbed me, especially for use in memoir. Sandra Cisneros’ <a href="http://www.amazon.com/House-Mango-Street-Sandra-Cisneros/dp/0679734775"><i>The House on Mango Street</i></a> is a novel, but her format, language, and content validated what I was looking to do. <br />
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CC: Gerald Stern is a force for sure and an inspiration to me given his age when he broke onto the scene with <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Rejoicings-Gerald-Stern/dp/0915371014"><i>Rejoicings</i></a> in 1973 (age 48) and then followed that with <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Lucky-Classic-Contemporary-Gerald-Stern/dp/0887482074"><i>Lucky Life</i> </a>(age 52), the 1977 Lamont Poetry Selection of The Academy of American Poets, which was nominated for a National Book Critics Circle Award.<br />
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How has the experience of being an outsider, your time living on the reservation, contributed to your artistic vision?<br />
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SL: Being different made me interested in people, especially in their differences. We are all very much alike, but I honed in on things like how on the reservation they said “spun” instead of “spoon” and how in the city my best Puerto Rican friends could straighten their upper bodies into metal poles while letting their hips fly in a merengue —even now, in Memphis, I annoy students by having them repeat the way they so beautifully say “nick-ked” for “naked”.<br />
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I was always the kid who watched the world around me. When things change so much, it pays to keep your eye on things. It’s probably why I majored in anthropology, then counseling. Observing others probably makes me kind of creepy, but it also equips me as a writer, it’s how I gather my threads for weaving. It’s why I travel whenever I can, even when I can’t afford it. Who said the writer’s job is to notice? Someone famous said it, and he was right.<br />
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CC: Hey, I never thought you were creepy, until now...<br />
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Design your own question here: <br />
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SL: If you had to choose between an evening of Mexican music under the stars or unlimited soft shell tacos for a year (delivered, of course) which would it be and why? (Yes, I have food issues.)<br />
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CC: Answer your own question here, in the voice of a famous poet, and we’ll try to guess who you’re trying to imitate. <br />
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SL: Okay, I hope I did this right. My answer comes in the form of a poem.<br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b>Digression on a Question</b><br />
To me it’s easy, I’d turn the corner onto 7th Avenue, <br />
head toward the Upper East Side where I’d opt to resurrect Selena <br />
Quintanilla from the mid-1990s, and if she would not follow, that cushy-lipped Tejano Queen, <br />
I’d think of a real queen and Freddie Mercury and what could I do but settle for mariachis; <br />
those sad song vihuelas and cheeky rhinestones (a boy can never have too many <br />
rhinestones--at least that’s what someone at Doughty’s once said) and anyhow, I’d listen <br />
and swell like a mad French balloon (I like to insert French things <br />
into my poems—watch this: Gauloises) and we’d be in Central Park by now, <br />
near that awful likeness of Columbus and the stars flirting<br />
harder than little Jaynie Mansfield. I’d become a moon-filled lantern, all that light, <br />
how could I stand not to dance and turn marvelous but once the night <br />
had ended, the cool sheet of morning was pulled back, I’d be alone again, mariachis gone, <br />
just me left alone tracing the soft shell of my stomach, trying not to think <br />
of rhinestones and all the lunchtimes yet to come.</span><br />
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CC: OK, I'll say your answer sounds like either Gerald Stern or <a href="http://www.frankohara.org/">Frank O'Hara</a>. Do I get a gold star? Thanks for the conversation, Sonja, and good luck with your teaching, writing, and taco tasting. <br />
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From Sonja Livingston's website, here's the scoop on <i>Ghostbread</i>, a book you'll all be glad you read, once you've read it, so please do:<br />
<blockquote>Praise for the <i>Ghostbread</i>:</blockquote><blockquote>“I know where I came from. With this declaration, the author of <i>Ghostbread</i> takes us on a journey through a childhood scarred by poverty and graced by love. Like an American version of <i>Angela’s Ashes</i>, the book allows us to encounter— and see, taste, and smell— poverty through the eyes of a beleaguered and intelligent child. We are grateful to be reminded of the human reality at the heart of a world that is all too often hidden in governmental ‘poverty indicators,’ and also glad that the author has survived to tell the tale.” </blockquote><blockquote>— Kathleen Norris, author of <i>Acedia & Me: A Marriage, Monks</i>, and a <i>Writer's Life</i> </blockquote><blockquote>“<i>Ghostbread</i> weaves together a child’s experience of not belonging, the perilous ease of slipping into failure, and the deep love that can flow from even a highly troubled parent. This is rich, sensual storytelling. An amazing debut from a wonderful new writer." </blockquote><blockquote>— <a href="http://www.dintywmoore.com/">Dinty W. Moore</a>, author of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/080321149X/ref=nosim/brevitynonfic-20"><i>Between Panic and Desire</i></a> </blockquote><blockquote>“Exquisite in its details and insights, <i>Ghostbread</i> shows us the invisible undersides of poverty. Sonja Livingston renders this so solidly that we come to understand the roots of despair, and the beauty that can be found in the midst of squalor. In an age when memoir exploits the seamier sides of life, thrusting their authors into the limelight, this book holds back, quietly resisting shock value in favor of understanding.” </blockquote><blockquote>— Judith Kitchen, author of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/House-Eccles-Road-Novel/dp/155597368X"><i>House on Eccles Road</i></a> </blockquote><blockquote>About the book </blockquote><blockquote>“When you eat soup every night, thoughts of bread get you through.” <i>Ghostbread</i> makes real for us the shifting homes and unending hunger that shape the life of a girl growing up in poverty during the 1970s. </blockquote><blockquote>One of seven children brought up by a single mother, Sonja Livingston was raised in areas of western New York that remain relatively hidden from the rest of America. From an old farming town to an Indian reservation to a dead-end urban neighborhood, Livingston and her siblings follow their nonconformist mother from one ramshackle house to another on the perpetual search for something better. </blockquote><blockquote>Along the way, the young Sonja observes the harsh realities her family encounters, as well as small moments of transcendent beauty that somehow keep them going. While struggling to make sense of her world, Livingston perceives the stresses and patterns that keep children--girls in particular--trapped in the cycle of poverty. </blockquote><blockquote>Larger cultural experiences such as her love for Wonder Woman and Nancy Drew and her experiences with the Girl Scouts and Roman Catholicism inform this lyrical memoir. Livingston firmly eschews sentimentality, offering instead a meditation on what it means to hunger and showing that poverty can strengthen the spirit just as surely as it can grind it down. </blockquote><blockquote>Sonja Livingston has earned a NYFA Fellowship, an Iowa Award, and Pushcart Prize nomination for her nonfiction writing. Her work has appeared in several textbooks on writing, as well as many journals, including <i>The Iowa Review, Spoon River Poetry Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, AGNI</i> and others. She holds an M.S. Ed. from SUNY Brockport and an MFA from the University of New Orleans. </blockquote>Charles Cotéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17681545501396352183noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3269897476303735022.post-91146362159249388422011-02-21T19:26:00.000-08:002011-02-21T19:26:42.893-08:00Even Poets Know That Lifestyle Changes Promote Mental Health<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIfIz-BxH_XKRnme2w0CxDnJ18rjC3DKDNJrM4xtz7fhiPVFB5gpJAatQZt1RZssM_ASu1fMjU59nv7ToDnyDZ0V-BmNFLOT2N1TV_2hLZvrD3yhP7GFMgBL1bHVYo-gbBS6yM3D6fs_g/s1600/images.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIfIz-BxH_XKRnme2w0CxDnJ18rjC3DKDNJrM4xtz7fhiPVFB5gpJAatQZt1RZssM_ASu1fMjU59nv7ToDnyDZ0V-BmNFLOT2N1TV_2hLZvrD3yhP7GFMgBL1bHVYo-gbBS6yM3D6fs_g/s1600/images.jpg" /></a></div><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" id="table21"><tbody>
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<tr style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><td valign="top" width="70%"><b>ARCHAIC TORSO OF APOLLO</b><br />
<br />
By Rainer Maria Rilke<br />
Translated by Stephen Mitchell<br />
<br />
We cannot know his legendary head<br />
with eyes like ripening fruit. And yet his torso<br />
is still suffused with brilliance from inside,<br />
like a lamp, in which his gaze, now turned to low,<br />
<br />
gleams in all its power. Otherwise<br />
the curved breast could not dazzle you so, nor could<br />
a smile run through the placid hips and thighs<br />
to that dark center where procreation flared.<br />
<br />
Otherwise this stone would seem defaced<br />
beneath the translucent cascade of the shoulders<br />
and would not glisten like a wild beast's fur:<br />
<br />
would not, from all the borders of itself,<br />
burst like a star: for here there is no place<br />
that does not see you. <b>You must change your life.</b></td> </tr>
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<i>If you want better mental health, change your lifestyle, or look at really good art! Here's a press release from The American Psychological Association on research findings of Roger Walsh:</i><br />
<br />
</td> </tr>
<tr><td>Lifestyle changes - such as getting more exercise, time in nature, or helping others - can be as effective as drugs or counseling to treat an array of mental illnesses, according to a new paper published by the American Psychological Association. <br />
<br />
Multiple mental health conditions, including depression and anxiety, can be treated with certain lifestyle changes as successfully as diseases such as diabetes and obesity, according to Roger Walsh, M.D., PhD. of the University of California, Irvine's College of Medicine. Walsh reviewed research on the effects of what he calls "therapeutic lifestyle changes," or TLCs, including exercise, nutrition and diet, relationships, recreation, relaxation and stress management, religious or spiritual involvement, spending time in nature, and service to others. His paper was published in American Psychologist, APA's flagship journal. <br />
<br />
Walsh reviewed research on TLCs' effectiveness and advantages, as well as the psychological costs of spending too much time in front of the TV or computer screen, not getting outdoors enough, and becoming socially isolated. He concludes that "Lifestyle changes can offer significant therapeutic advantages for patients, therapists, and societies, yet are insufficiently appreciated, taught or utilized," The paper describes TLCs as effective, inexpensive and often enjoyable, with fewer side effects and complications than medications. "In the 21st century, therapeutic lifestyles may need to be a central focus of mental, medical and public health," Walsh said. <br />
<br />
According to research reviewed in the paper, the many often unrecognized TLC benefits include:<br />
<ul><li><u>Exercise</u> not only helps people feel better by reducing anxiety and depression. It can help children do better in school, improve cognitive performance in adults, reduce age-related memory loss in the elderly, and increase new neuron formation in the brain.</li>
<li><u>Diets</u> rich in vegetables, fruits and fish may help school performance in children, maintain cognitive functions in adults, as well as reduce symptoms in affective and schizophrenic disorders.</li>
<li><u>Spending time in nature</u> can promote cognitive functions and overall well-being.</li>
<li><u>Good relationships</u> can reduce health risks ranging from the common cold to strokes as well as multiple mental illnesses, and can enhance psychological well-being dramatically.</li>
<li><u>Recreation and fun </u>can reduce defensiveness and foster social skills.</li>
<li><u>Relaxation and stress management</u> can treat a variety of anxiety, insomnia, and panic disorders.</li>
<li><u>Meditation</u> has many benefits. It can improve empathy, sensitivity and emotional stability, reduce stress and burnout, and enhance cognitive function and even brain size.</li>
<li><u>Religious and spiritual involvement</u> that focuses on love and forgiveness can reduce anxiety, depression and substance abuse, and foster well-being.</li>
<li><u>Contribution and service</u>, or altruism, can enhance joy and generosity by producing a "helper's high." Altruism also benefits both physical and mental health, and perhaps even extends lifespan. A major exception the paper notes is "caretaker burnout experienced by overwhelmed family members caring for a demented spouse or parent."</li>
</ul>Difficulties associated with using TLCs are the sustained effort they require, and "a passive expectation that healing comes from an outside authority or a pill," according to Walsh. He also noted that people today must contend with a daily barrage of psychologically sophisticated advertisements promoting unhealthy lifestyle behaviors such as smoking, drinking alcohol, and eating fast food. "You can never get enough of what you don't really want, but you can certainly ruin your life and health trying" lamented Walsh. <br />
For therapists, the study recommends learning more about the benefits of TLCs, and devoting more time to foster patients' TLCs. <br />
<br />
The paper recognizes that encouraging widespread adoption of therapeutic lifestyles by the public is likely to require wide-scale measures encompassing educational, mental, and public health systems, as well as political leadership. <br />
<br />
Article: "Lifestyle and Mental Health," <a href="http://www.drrogerwalsh.com/">Roger Walsh</a>, PhD, M.D., University of California College of Medicine, Irvine; American Psychologist, Online First Publication, January 17, 2011. <br />
<br />
Source: <br />
Lisa Bowen<br />
<a href="http://www.apa.org/">American Psychological Association</a></td></tr>
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</tbody></table>Charles Cotéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17681545501396352183noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3269897476303735022.post-50218552952005814522011-02-20T17:31:00.000-08:002011-02-20T18:48:52.507-08:00Anxious, Anxious, Anxious<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXGUV4Evlbr38Ts8cKXVVWCIW4XGPMKYsdB1Oapc-0HFUGnvNAVkMPNiqpAIffRDY4IoO3P4melHMdRn9boWL6XsCHMEfIgU9PiMDgIDr6N74e6jWdbUlkj7WxpAsnW5GH02bJCqmw91Q/s1600/images.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXGUV4Evlbr38Ts8cKXVVWCIW4XGPMKYsdB1Oapc-0HFUGnvNAVkMPNiqpAIffRDY4IoO3P4melHMdRn9boWL6XsCHMEfIgU9PiMDgIDr6N74e6jWdbUlkj7WxpAsnW5GH02bJCqmw91Q/s1600/images.jpg" /></a></div><br />
<br />
Americans are anxious, not because of the economy or work stress, but for the following three reasons, or so says <a href="http://www.taylorclarkbooks.com/">Taylor Clark</a> in a article at <a href="http://slate.com/">Slate</a>, and I'd have to agree given the trends I've seen in my practice:<br />
<br />
1. <u>Loss of community:</u><br />
<br />
We spend less time in face-to-face interaction and more time in front of plasma displays, creating a second rate substitute for real relationship. People feel more isolated than ever. Here I am, on my computer, telling you that we're all more anxious and should be chatting over coffee, decaf of course, because the high test stuff would get on our nerves.<br />
<br />
2. I<u>nformation Overload:</u><br />
<br />
For instance, I've spent hours today combing the Internet for something newsworthy to share but the choices are staggering. Facebook feeds, Google Reader, The Times, Network News, professional journals, Slate, Salon, etc... I get stressed out deciding what to pass along and wonder if it's even worth it. If I'm bombarded, then so are you, and why should I ask you to read something more? Well, because I think you might be anxious and I'd like to ease your mind, which is to say that I'm anxious and write this down to ease my own. Misery loves company, eh?<br />
<br />
Which leads us to the real culprit.<br />
<br />
3. <u>Our Intolerant Attitude Toward Negative Feelings:</u><br />
<br />
This is what I address every day with the anxious folks I see in my clinical practice who feel so uncomfortable when their just right feeling goes away that they'll do just about anything to get it back, no matter how irrational. I focus on the mindfulness concept of <a href="http://www.dbtselfhelp.com/html/radical_acceptance_part_1.html">radical acceptance</a>. Anxious feelings are often reinforced by our efforts to avoid them, so much of what I teach involves learning how to tolerate distress.<br />
<br />
Of all the articles I read today -- how to improve memory, America's real interest in Bahrain, Rush Limbaugh's tirade against the Wisconsin protesters, villains cast as good guys, low SAT scores for states without collective bargaining, former football players dying plea for brain research, the deficit debate -- I found this to be the most stress relieving. I particularly liked this quote:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>Psychologist <a href="http://bigthink.com/ideas/17822">Steven Hayes</a>, creator of a highly effective anxiety <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acceptance_and_commitment_therapy" target="_blank">treatment formula</a> called acceptance and commitment therapy, told me that we've fallen victim to "feel-goodism," the false idea that "bad" feelings ought to be annihilated, controlled, or erased by a pill.</blockquote>I'm interested in Hayes anxiety treatment formula so might blog on that next. Until then, breathe, relax, and talk to a friend, in person. <br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.slate.com/id/2283221/pagenum/all/#p2">READ THE ARTICLE</a><br />
<br />
Or you could watch Mel Brook's High Anxiety.<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="290" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/XGYVc7u_iek" title="YouTube video player" width="440"></iframe>Charles Cotéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17681545501396352183noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3269897476303735022.post-51674228092473708482011-02-19T04:06:00.000-08:002011-02-19T04:42:24.100-08:00If You Want to Fight the Blues, Find Your Blue Zone<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCcKVrHeLXetSRqNXdMKfdvJz-Eiff0flsU39NR4DM4ofliYKH4La58nR5BS_W5ac6NfT_YAFUys8KtyXnWZY8L_No1aLr627nzk4u_tlTeW6aVfAa7WHyDYUqQdBxFJ6KOPjYf6gcTXQ/s1600/Birth.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCcKVrHeLXetSRqNXdMKfdvJz-Eiff0flsU39NR4DM4ofliYKH4La58nR5BS_W5ac6NfT_YAFUys8KtyXnWZY8L_No1aLr627nzk4u_tlTeW6aVfAa7WHyDYUqQdBxFJ6KOPjYf6gcTXQ/s320/Birth.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><br />
<br />
My friend Darla posted an article about <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Buettner">Dan Buettner's</a> research on what makes people happy, and that, along with an article in the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/06/business/06limits.html?nl=todaysheadlines&adxnnl=1&emc=tha25&adxnnlx=1296997609-O9AJfICv7TZcOT8pFZPVkw">New York Times</a> about how our gadgets keep us chained to the office, got me thinking: how is it that the older, and supposedly wiser I've become I feel more stressed and not in possession of my own life? When will it get easier? The bills keep getting bigger as I, and my family, become more consumptive. After all, we're trying to be good Americans. No wonder it's so hard to breathe sometimes. So here are the five ways to find your blue zone, according to the article Darla sent me, based on Buettner's book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Thrive-Finding-Happiness-Blue-Zones/dp/1426205155/?ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1296763771&sr=8-1&tag=gmgamzn-20"><i>Thrive: Finding Happiness the Blue Zones Way</i></a>:<br />
<br />
1. <u>Limit Your Work Week:</u> To do this I'd have to settle for a lower income, which makes me anxious, and I'd have to say no to people who request my services, and that taps into my need to feel needed, my ego, or both. I like the concept so I'll need to figure out how to spend less money. But I don't have enough time, and I'm too tired. But I'm writing this blog. Doesn't that take time? Yes, but this if fun and makes me think I have time. Also, it might mean people continue to request my services. So, the first step: stop writing this blog. Check.<br />
<br />
2. <u>Avoid Long Commutes:</u> This one's a no-brainer. It only takes 7 minutes to get to work. In fact, having a commute has made all the difference in my quality of life. For nearly 15 years, I worked out of my home, saved money, yes, but had no separation between work and personal life. However, I had to work fewer billable hours since I had no waiting room, extending the total work day by an hour and a half some days. So for me, no commute meant longer work hours and less income. <br />
<br />
3. <u>Don't Skip Vacation:</u> Check. I try to take at least 4 weeks per year. Still, I have to budget for this since I'm self-employed and don't get a paid vacation. However, working with a sharp blade makes for safer, more enjoyable work so it's worth the time and money, and thinking about it gives me immense pleasure. My office walls are lined with art work from past vacations: Italy, Spain, the coast of Oregon, Skaneateles Lake.<br />
<br />
4. <u>Enjoy Happy Hour:</u> Now this one's a problem for me since I often work through and past the happy hour. So to compensate, I work out at the gym in a group training class, attend writing groups, play poker once a month with friends (this is new), play golf when the weather permits, play basketball in the winter, and hang out with friends whenever possible, as well as volunteer at <a href="http://www.teenslivingwithcancer.org/">TLC</a> events. <br />
<br />
5. <u>Find the Right Boss: </u>This one's tricky as I am my own boss. Since I'm not in a position to fire myself (I could work for someone else I suppose), my plan is to keep working on personal growth and development, to be the kind of person I'd want to work with and for. I see my own shrink weekly, to practice what I preach, though I don't tend to preach very much (my wife and kids might disagree), but you get the point. It's good to see things from both sides of the couch, or chair, depending on where you sit.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://lifehacker.com/5751875/five-traits-low+stress-happy-work-cultures-have-in-common">READ THE ARTICLE HERE </a><br />
<br />
Now I'll add a few of my own:<br />
<br />
6. <u>Develop a Passion:</u> My two passions are poetry and golf, both impossible to master but fun, and meaningful to try. Making room for both is essential to my happiness.<br />
<br />
7. <u>Resolve Conflict:</u> It's important that I maintain peace and harmony in my closest relationships so I do my best to keep lines of communication open to deal with disputes that might arise. I don't want to hold a grudge because it's corrosive to my relationships and health.<br />
<br />
8. <u>Shake Your Money Maker:</u> I'm happiest when moving my body, keeping the weight off, watching what I eat and drink, and staying generally fit. Oh, and I do like to dance from time to time. Having a healthy sex life with my sweetie doesn't hurt either. OK, TMI.<br />
<br />
Here's a kind of blue zone poem I wrote some years ago that was published in <a href="http://www.poetsfreelunch.org/index.htm">FREE LUNCH</a>:<br />
<blockquote>BLUE<br />
<br />
I think in denim,<br />
blue cotton thoughts<br />
that float like shirts<br />
on nylon lines.<br />
<br />
I fly on a blue<br />
denim seat,<br />
three-thousand feet<br />
above the sea.<br />
<br />
I am rolling on blue<br />
waves that toss in a blue wind.<br />
I hear them in my veins,<br />
oceans of blue under my skin.<br />
<br />
The watch I wear has a face<br />
that keeps blue time.<br />
In the glass I see mine<br />
reflected, a visage of blue lakes.</blockquote><br />
Your turn. What puts you in the blue zone?Charles Cotéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17681545501396352183noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3269897476303735022.post-1013320021503849742011-02-18T06:56:00.000-08:002011-02-18T06:56:37.108-08:00Supply and Demand: The Economics of Marriage<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Spousonomics-Economics-Master-Marriage-Dishes/dp/0385343949/"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjswqeVtNXsx0piWm6sRp-r_1R8o-XmBEj4EJqqb7ymobv9JckHBzZ7b2gn7mkh_atXukmGLAHH7EPbniJ8mrwPtMpNmSMk3AWAx0WSTHduSq-yAtLsxIZ0D001duQ2CXZkbQeTUNsh28I/s1600/images-1.jpg" /></a> </div><br />
I just read a provocative interview at <a href="http://www.salon.com/">Salon</a> with the author of <a href="http://www.spousonomics.com/"><i>Spousonomics</i></a>, <a href="http://www.spousonomics.com/the-authors/" target="_blank">Paula Szuchman</a>, an editor at The Wall Street Journal.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWfaPmXqlMTpdwYCf_CIrmpxdWOudyJ3fvD6t6l2B6rAPQYtUVtDK2LB73wjRQOes5ptue1uLjaI6AONi6e_ubv9iz_l_4jDGPxG-Ogx5AfurCZsn4F2PKcrR-JrcQVXEst1A1xEceWiI/s1600/paula1.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWfaPmXqlMTpdwYCf_CIrmpxdWOudyJ3fvD6t6l2B6rAPQYtUVtDK2LB73wjRQOes5ptue1uLjaI6AONi6e_ubv9iz_l_4jDGPxG-Ogx5AfurCZsn4F2PKcrR-JrcQVXEst1A1xEceWiI/s200/paula1.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Paula Szuchman</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="text-align: center;"> </div><br />
The book is co-authored by New York Times reporter <a href="http://www.spousonomics.com/the-authors/">Jenny Anderson</a>.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj68bkAZ1mvb3YDtFmHOVthNDciy_QOtgoPLCtLLzCSTQqLRVq9NZDReM6ZA4_CYRIkEpNW0hONnQ_7rmEnj1ihxaKlslTj47mBvNBoFbEWsb9ObLxr1Pl90iTDkYsr2AEClqK7S6KqFtg/s1600/jenny.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj68bkAZ1mvb3YDtFmHOVthNDciy_QOtgoPLCtLLzCSTQqLRVq9NZDReM6ZA4_CYRIkEpNW0hONnQ_7rmEnj1ihxaKlslTj47mBvNBoFbEWsb9ObLxr1Pl90iTDkYsr2AEClqK7S6KqFtg/s200/jenny.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jenny Anderson</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="text-align: center;"></div><br />
Here's their "logic" about marriage, some of which that turns common beliefs about marriage on their head:<br />
<br />
1. You don't need to explore "feelings" to get at the basic motivations that result in conflictual situations in marriage.<br />
<br />
2. Sometimes it makes more sense to go to bed angry since exhaustion usually leads to escalated, and irrational conversations especially since people hate to lose and will keep at it despite diminishing returns. Well-rested people are more clear-headed.<br />
<br />
3. Schedule sex and don't back out of it, meaning it's important to plan for it, especially at times when you're not exhausted. Don't wait for it to be "romantic." In other words, lower the cost of sex and increase the demand.<br />
<br />
4. Be transparent with one another rather than mind readers. You don't expect your business colleagues to read your mind.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.salon.com/life/feature/2011/02/17/spousonomics_interview">READ THE INTERVIEW</a></div><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnrbGPj4rs7a1SKYpJVI3kaBH1tuRKU5jdTVL4HRoLEapHczxtx6oTXxjitOY4IvuKZKUVwTVJSLLmaohUFCtbK8f7m-TgkPW1Hc-V6alo7ExhvH-hrzxQqFy6rmIHm4b8NPr_G0q2oW0/s1600/Spousonomics_web-1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br />
</a></div>Charles Cotéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17681545501396352183noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3269897476303735022.post-63706965687785295862011-02-16T03:37:00.000-08:002011-02-16T04:40:37.833-08:00Mining Orr<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Poetry-as-Survival-Gregory-Orr/dp/0820324280"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0Yb0dyLtNhvyheav3kZyanPJ6Po71dL0LX9ExhyphenhyphenJWI8FMeJbFLu4LDIRpOlk8RAy2TONEcsfGCX1fff3McAVmGRI3sY7ehYhz0lU7kXH-sLZx4PpRYz_LPhWBIGIS5VEOfLxoCS1-At0/s1600/41KF5V62AEL._SL500_AA300_.jpg" /></a></div><br />
<br />
<b>Gregory Orr's Aesthetic:</b><br />
<blockquote>Poetry’s value and purpose — to connect us to the essential aspects of our own emotional and spiritual lives.<br />
<br />
We translate our crises into language — give it symbolic expression…array the ordering powers our shaping imagination has brought to bear on these disorderings.<br />
<br />
The act of making a personal lyric shifts the crisis to a bearable distance to the symbolic but vivid world of language, and actively does so. We shape this model of our situation rather than passively endure it.</blockquote>Orr shot and killed his younger brother in a hunting accident when he was age 12. Two years later his mother died at age 36 after a routine hospital procedure. In 1965, he worked as a Civil Rights volunteer in the south, was abducted at gun point and held in solitary confinement for 8 days.<br />
<br />
These disordering experiences gave him a terrifying sense of how fragile human life is, how easily and quickly people can vanish. He lived with the burden of guilt and anguish. His parents in their own despair could not console him and they never spoke of the hunting accident.<br />
<br />
His high school librarian and honors English teacher introduced him to poetry. He wrote a poem that changed his life. <br />
<br />
He says the awareness of disorder generates in the human mind a spontaneous ordering response of the imagination.<br />
<br />
Isak Dinesan wrote that “any sorrow can be borne if it can be made into story…”<br />
<br />
Richard Wilbur wrote, “My first poems were written in answer to the inner and out disorders of the Second World War and they helped me, as poems should, to take a hold of raw events and convert them, provisionally, into experience.” (“On My Own Work,” 1966)<br />
<br />
Orr desperately needed to write about the deaths of his brother and mother. Stanley Kunitz’s “The Portrait” showed him “something lucid and wonderful could be made out of dismaying personal material,” that he, too, “might bring language and shaping imagination to bear on the specific and agonized circumstances of [his] adolescence.”<br />
<br />
As the old proverb says, “…the willow that bends in the wind survives; the oak that resists, breaks.” We survive disorder when we let it enter, when we open to it, rather than resist or deny its power and presence. The ability to open up is akin to Keats notion of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_capability">negative capability</a>.<br />
<br />
Orr’s poems shimmer and I call them “secular incantations.”<br />
<br />
<b>Orr's Bio from <a href="http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/218">Poets.org</a>:</b><br />
<blockquote>Gregory Orr was born in 1947 in Albany, New York, and grew up in the rural Hudson Valley, and for a year, in a hospital in the hinterlands of Haiti. He received a B.A. degree from Antioch College, and an M.F.A. from Columbia University. </blockquote><blockquote>He is the author of nine collections of poetry, including <i>How Beautiful the Beloved</i> (Copper Canyon Press, 2009); <i>Concerning the Book that is the Body of the Beloved</i> (2005); <i>The Caged Owl: New and Selected Poems</i> (2002); <i>Orpheus and Eurydice</i> (2001); <i>Burning the Empty Nests</i> (1997); <i>City of Salt</i> (1995), which was a finalist for the <i>L.A. Times</i> Poetry Prize; and <i>Gathering the Bones Together </i>(1975). </blockquote><blockquote>He is also the author of a memoir, <i>The Blessing</i> (Council Oak Books, 2002), which was chosen by <i>Publisher's Weekly</i> as one of the fifty best non-fiction books the year, and three books of essays, including <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Poetry-as-Survival-Gregory-Orr/dp/0820324280"><i>Poetry As Survival</i></a> (2002) and <i><a href="http://www.poets.org/skuni">Stanley Kunitz</a>: An Introduction to the Poetry</i> (1985). </blockquote><blockquote>He is considered by many to be a master of short, lyric free verse. Much of his early work is concerned with seminal events from his childhood, including a hunting accident when he was twelve in which he accidentally shot and killed his younger brother, followed shortly by his mother's unexpected death, and his father's later addiction to amphetamines. Some of the poems that deal explicitly with these incidents include <a href="http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/19240">"A Litany,"</a> "A Moment," and "Gathering the Bones Together," in which he declares: "I was twelve when I killed him; / I felt my own bones wrench from my body." In the opening of his essay, "The Making of Poems," broadcast on National Public Radio's <i>All Things Considered</i>, Orr said, "I believe in poetry as a way of surviving the emotional chaos, spiritual confusions and traumatic events that come with being alive." </blockquote><blockquote>In a review of <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Concerning-Book-that-Body-Beloved/dp/1556592299">Concerning the Book That Is the Body of the Beloved</a> </i>from the<i> Virginia Quarterly Review, </i>Ted Genoways writes: "Sure, the trappings of modern life appear at the edges of these poems, but their focus is so unwaveringly aimed toward the transcendent—not God, but the beloved—that we seem to slip into a less cluttered time. It's an experience usually reserved for reading the ancients, and clearly that was partly Orr's inspiration." </blockquote><blockquote>Orr has received a Guggenheim Fellowship and two poetry fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts. In 2003, he was presented the Award in Literature by the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and was a Rockefeller Fellow at the Institute for the Study of Culture and Violence, where he worked on a study of the political and social dimension of the lyric in early Greek poetry. </blockquote><blockquote>He teaches at the University of Virginia, where he founded the MFA Program in Writing in 1975, and served from 1978 to 2003 as Poetry Editor of the <i>Virginia Quarterly Review</i>. He lives with his wife, the painter Trisha Orr, and their two daughters in Charlottesville, Virginia.<br />
<br />
</blockquote><blockquote><br />
</blockquote>Charles Cotéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17681545501396352183noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3269897476303735022.post-63892199742839256212011-02-13T05:00:00.000-08:002011-02-13T05:00:14.016-08:00How To Write Like David Foster Wallace<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaS5VbY1_2oi67ubQHKot62icjh90H2zB-0BW7x2qCzaomDW1I3BzFmtbraibiVkmIT370l_CZtjfAIqbOo433CvMtb4AwODC4ZErwIApVk_fY-byQ5Y6WLMJIzfAYUEhhjkZW7H2K7-4/s1600/davidfosterwallace.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaS5VbY1_2oi67ubQHKot62icjh90H2zB-0BW7x2qCzaomDW1I3BzFmtbraibiVkmIT370l_CZtjfAIqbOo433CvMtb4AwODC4ZErwIApVk_fY-byQ5Y6WLMJIzfAYUEhhjkZW7H2K7-4/s320/davidfosterwallace.jpg" width="221" /></a></div><br />
<br />
Here's how I wrote like <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Foster_Wallace">David Foster Wallace</a> following the directions at <a href="http://www.kottke.org/09/03/growing-sentences-with-david-foster-wallace">http://www.kottke.org/09/03/growing-sentences-with-david-foster-wallace:</a><br />
<br />
Charlie wanted to play ball, but he sat on the couch.<br />
<br />
It was a typical Monday night, Charlie wanted to play ball, but his knee was busted and he needed to sit on the couch.<br />
<br />
It was a typical Monday night, Charlie wanted, more than ever, to play ball, but his knee was busted and he needed to sit on the couch.<br />
<br />
It was a typical Monday night, Charlie wanted, more than ever, to play ball — his wife and children exclude him from the couch on Monday night to watch Heroes — but his knee was busted and he needed to sit on the couch.<br />
<br />
It was a typical Monday night, Charlie wanted, more than ever, to play ball — his wife and children exclude him from the couch on Monday night to watch Heroes — but his knee was busted and he needed to sit on the couch, the kids still playing video games in the other room, his wife surfing the Internet.<br />
<br />
It was a typical Monday night, Charlie wanted, more than ever, to play ball — his wife and children exclude him from the couch and each other on Monday night to watch Heroes — but his knee was busted and he needed to sit on the couch, the kids still playing video games and listening to music in the other room, his wife surfing the Internet.<br />
<br />
It was a typical wintry Monday night, Charlie wanted, more than ever, to play pick-up ball — his beautiful wife and teenage children exclude him from the slip covered hand-me-down couch and each other on Monday night to watch another inane episode of Heroes — but his middle-aged, worn-out knee was busted and he needed to sit on the undersized couch, the kids still playing video games and listening to classic rock music in the other room, his wife surfing the Internet.<br />
<br />
It was a typical wintry Monday night, Charlie desperately wanted, more than ever, to play pick-up ball — his beautiful wife and teenage children maliciously exclude him from the slip covered hand-me-down couch and each other on Monday night to watch another inane episode of Heroes — but his middle-aged, worn-out knee was busted and he needed to sit on the undersized couch, the kids still absent-mindedly playing video games and listening to classic rock music in the other room, his wife surfing the Internet.<br />
<br />
It was a typical wintry Monday night in mid-February, Charlie desperately wanted, more than ever, to play pick-up ball at <a href="http://www.christinthecity.com/">Salem Church</a> with his buddies — his beautiful wife and teenage children maliciously exclude him from the slip covered hand-me-down couch, one that used to belong to his father-in-law, and each other on Monday night to watch another inane episode of <a href="http://www.nbc.com/heroes/">Heroes</a>, the show about perky twenty somethings with freakish powers — but his middle-aged, worn-out knee was busted after dislocating it two weeks ago while running the fast break and he needed to sit on the diminutive couch, the kids still absent-mindedly playing video games and listening to classic rock music on <a href="http://pandora.com/">Pandora.com</a> in the other room, the one Charlie renovated four years ago, and his wife surfing for the best air fare to Spain on the Internet.<br />
<br />
One typical wintry Monday eve, mid-February, Carlos in desperation, more than ever, wished to disport a game of pick-up ball with his melior amicus at Salem Ecclesia — his pulcher uxom and teenage filius usually exclude him, malevolently, from the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyethylene_terephthalate">Dacron</a>-covered hand-me-down Broyhill, one that used to belong to his socer, and congregate with each other against him on Monday night to watch another inane episode of this generation’s cult hit, Heroes, a show about perky twenty something’s and their freakish powers — but his middle-aged, worn-out articulatio genu, busted after traumatic bifurcation of the femur and tibia two weeks ago while running the shirt’s fast break, wanted to sit on the family’s diminutive <a href="http://www.broyhillfurniture.com/">Broyhill</a>, since the kids, absent-mindedly playing <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Mario_Kart">Nintendo’s Super Mario Cart, </a>listened to <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zB_DOA2AL7Q">Led Zeppelin’s Whole Lotta Love</a> on Pandora.com in the den familia, the place Carlos deconstructed four years ago, and his uxor surfed mindlessly for <a href="http://www.usairways.com/">USAir’s</a> best air fare to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barcelona">Barcelona</a> on the Internet, to celebrate 25 years of marriage.<br />
<br />
Having done this exercise, I can safely say I still write nothing like David Foster Wallace. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/mLPStHVi0SI?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>Charles Cotéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17681545501396352183noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3269897476303735022.post-21340928532044570582011-02-12T05:00:00.000-08:002011-02-12T05:00:06.895-08:00Hold a Grudge, Lose Your Mojo<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKRtJQ0vktZ1vunBAGVAloVwZol8sqth35tJkQVyL5SITNL5Uwkt0FuEe6yYKcJave62vzivAbScJGYnkdbBrA0PV_OYQMVGjYCLm_uDdr0Atd2mXEAyhom7sWpk9VhEtNCtBdu-m4kg4/s1600/female-sexual-disorder.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="287" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKRtJQ0vktZ1vunBAGVAloVwZol8sqth35tJkQVyL5SITNL5Uwkt0FuEe6yYKcJave62vzivAbScJGYnkdbBrA0PV_OYQMVGjYCLm_uDdr0Atd2mXEAyhom7sWpk9VhEtNCtBdu-m4kg4/s320/female-sexual-disorder.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
<br />
Bitterness is like eating rat poison and waiting for the rat to die, and it's not good for your sex life. Just read a case study at <a href="http://psychcentral.com/">PsychCentral</a> that illustrates this point. So don't let the sun go down on your anger if you want to be up for your passion.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://psychcentral.com/lib/2011/a-good-sex-life-is-not-just-about-chemistry/">READ THE CASE STUDY HERE</a>Charles Cotéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17681545501396352183noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3269897476303735022.post-4907793048741086962011-02-09T13:53:00.000-08:002011-02-09T13:53:03.668-08:00Dear Lantern, Dear Cup: An Interview with Kazim Ali<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkImkXNvoXRkT1V8oZ88573QZIIVK4mdPKpQTtUSbb6VnbarkxCKm8tmKFLGS51Qa5KpNsgg3GTI5vzvkk1BeB9uSDUu1SjbOky_129Q2zDBxzB7mzRDOw_ELkaAA54ZpY2KYYuyIqBGA/s1600/fortieth_day_cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" h5="true" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkImkXNvoXRkT1V8oZ88573QZIIVK4mdPKpQTtUSbb6VnbarkxCKm8tmKFLGS51Qa5KpNsgg3GTI5vzvkk1BeB9uSDUu1SjbOky_129Q2zDBxzB7mzRDOw_ELkaAA54ZpY2KYYuyIqBGA/s320/fortieth_day_cover.jpg" width="211" /></a></div><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" h5="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjG2x1eZ_Qd_63dbN51WhUjIAjo85iJlhsn6R4YBXfddhGo0ePsC9PgD6XcmQlxleahF7RbHgPxkhZD4PiKnIe5zdjFczS-5eBtx_8sOFjlyKO4wnJmdTkMj0elh7gLqDysNwCCvYj7now/s1600/Kazim%252520Ali_new.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.kazimali.com/">Kazim Ali</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
After reading Kazim Ali’s essay <a href="http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-188364714.html">“Faith and Silence”</a> in a past issue of <a href="https://www.aprweb.org/">The American Poetry Review</a>, Charles Coté interviewed Kazim Ali by phone about his lyric poetry and most recent book, <a href="http://www.kazimali.com/book_fortieth">The Fortieth Day</a> (<a href="http://www.boaeditions.org/">BOA Editions</a>, 2008).<br />
<br />
Coté: Reading these lines from The Fortieth Day — “Would you choose to know what he is choking on or what he is trying to say?” or “is it possible the entire universe is scrap metal / for meditation or never-ending revelation?" or "should I draw the spirit / as a lantern or a cup?" — the reader is confronted with questions that have no clear answer.<br />
<br />
Ali: The poem "Double Reed" gives a good example of this, with the second line in each couplet winking back at the first, or is an opposite of the first. In the poem "Pip", about the orphan in Moby Dick who is abandoned on the water, he wants, and does not want, to be found. He doesn't know what he wants.<br />
<br />
Coté: That's what's so psychologically and spiritually true about these poems. I want to be found, and if you find me, I might feel stifled or suffocated.<br />
<br />
Ali: That's exactly right! In this world do you really want to be found? "Should I ask for my thirst to be quenched or for unquenchable thirst?" In fact, you don't really want either. <br />
<br />
Coté: Is that dialectical inquiry a poetic method for you?<br />
<br />
Ali: I had a vague notion of opposites but did not consciously construct the book that way. At a much later date I re-read the work and see concordances I try to heighten or diminish. There's that line "should I draw the spirit / as a lantern or a cup?" then later on in the collection "Dear Lantern, Dear Cup." <br />
<br />
Coté: I think of opposites more as dichotomies, but the dialectical expresses itself in both/and, both existing together, containing paradox and connection.<br />
<br />
Ali: And there are things that want to transform it to each other. For example, in the poem "Ornithography", the broad narrative being a bird that has hit the window, shattering it, and a person is there to sweep up the glass with a dustpan. He's resistant to doing it for fear of finishing the act. Instead, he looks at the broken window, the body of the bird, the shattered glass, and sunlight coming through. He sees in that frame the entire universe. That is the meditation, and yet the narrative is suppressed.<br />
<br />
Coté: Your poems are very lyrical in that sense.<br />
<br />
"Ornithography" has a line that intrigues me: "Are you still, though all broken —" and several couplets later, this single line: "of dust and light and broken glass." That seems like a couplet that belongs together and yet is broken far apart, that seems to enact what's happening in the poem. Was that a conscious choice?<br />
<br />
Ali: Yes, it absolutely broke off with that first line.<br />
<br />
Coté: And then it's picked up again in that second line further in the poem, "of dust and light and broken glass." You've got the word broken in both lines and it's a broken couplet.<br />
<br />
Ali: In both instances, those lines broke off from what surrounded it in the poem and would not be repaired. In terms of intention, that's a pure accident.<br />
<br />
Coté: It's hard for people who are narrative-minded to find access to these poems. For me, you have to revisit them.<br />
<br />
Ali: Good that you mention that. That point has been a criticism in several of the reviews: the one in the Publisher's Weekly said some of these poems are a little “slight” because they don't have a mooring in the physical world. I think that's a more conventional view of poetry. Not every poem needs to tell the story of the quotidian life. Take Dickinson's "I felt a funeral in my brain." Is that poem good because she's at a funeral or because it's doing a spiritual meditation? Katie Ford has a new book out called Coliseum which is very philosophical, about the ruin of society but is grounded in the literal ruin of New Orleans, what happened there, and why it happened. It was not an act of God but a conscious underinvestment in infrastructure that caused the levee to break, not the storm per se. Things do happen in the world. There are phenomena to which a poet has some moral responsibility to address, but I think the way we view those phenomena as being addressed is somewhat limited if you say every poem must have narrative. It's just not the case.<br />
<br />
Coté: Another line in your collection, in the poem "The Far Mosque", the last line - "a person is only a metaphor for the place he wants to go" - came as a great surprise. What can you say about the place you wanted to go in this collection, or the place you found yourself going?<br />
<br />
Ali: Let me say first off that the poem "The Far Mosque" was a reflection back on my book The Far Mosque. I didn't want a poem with that title in the first book. There's no poem called “The Fortieth Day” in my new book but I want to write that poem.<br />
<br />
I think The Fortieth Day was my effort to understand the place that I want to go as where I actually am. So here I am, on the fortieth day. There's a line something like this: "On the fortieth night we’ll understand that the storm is never going to end and there's never going to being anything else than what we have right now." <br />
<br />
Coté: Now what's the "89th question", referring of course to another poem in the collection? I'm working on number 88, so I'm very curious.<br />
<br />
Ali: I think it's a question of superfluity. It's a version of "a million and one." The Fortieth Day is a specific period of time, taken from myths and legends. The 89th question is a metaphor for a long period of time, the idea that I've been asking myself question after question.<br />
<br />
The whole point of human existence, that we are and then are not, is so terrible. Obviously there's no answer.<br />
<br />
Coté: I think there's something about the process of actively dying, knowing your dying, that speeds up the process of developing wisdom, if you're open to it. <br />
<br />
I liked what you wrote in "Autobiography": "why do I believe what I was taught?" I wrote in the margin, "I believe every poet unlearns to learn again." <br />
<br />
Ali: For me, it was a conscious effort to try and write an autobiography. I have such a cultural imperative towards silence about my own life, the idea of shame being attached to being gay as well, because I was raised in a Muslim family. As liberated as we are, as much as we learn about the world, we still are so shaped by our family experiences. That poem, as cryptic as it is, is probably the most lucid for me. I was just asking myself, "Why do I believe what I was taught? Against all human logic, why do I believe what I was taught, still?" At the end of the poem, in order to even write the poem, I have to confront the question, "Am I a self, an individual separated from everyone else, or not?" This started as a much larger autobiography but then I thought, "That's the entire poem." The whole point of an autobiography: "Is there a self to be saying all this stuff?" No.<br />
<br />
Coté: Then I think, if there isn't a self, why do I have to show up for work tomorrow?<br />
<br />
Ali: I know! I know! It's all so philosophical.<br />
<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
Kazim Ali is is the author of two books of poetry, The Far Mosque (Alice James Books), winner of Alice James Books' New England/New York Award, and The Fortieth Day (BOA Editions, 2008). He is also the author of the novel Quinn’s Passage (blazeVox books), named one of "The Best Books of 2005" by Chronogram magazine, The Disappearance of Seth (Etruscan Press, 2009), and Bright Felon: Autobiography and Cities (Wesleyan University Press, 2009).<br />
<br />
He is an assistant professor of Creative Writing at Oberlin College and teaches in the low-residency MFA program of the University of Southern Maine. His work has been featured in many national journals such as Best American Poetry 2007, American Poetry Review, Boston Review, Barrow Street, jubilat and Massachusetts Review. He teaches at Oberlin College and the Stonecoast MFA program and is a founding editor of Nightboat Books.Charles Cotéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17681545501396352183noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3269897476303735022.post-45154801828298192412011-02-07T09:48:00.000-08:002011-02-07T09:48:34.972-08:00Spring Breaking<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dwvluLI9KvqyvIOVvJWgkKoswIWXXhuoXd2rTQlBz825_X3WU-1zCQvLcy1DWjduns_iLv2n2GT1URLqIl92Q' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><br />
<br />
This poem was inspired by my wife's visit to her sister in Maine, one spring, told to me one morning at breakfast. <br />
<br />
SPRING BREAKING<br />
by Charles Coté<br />
<br />
Springtime freeze and thaw in the state of Maine meant<br />
skating over black cracks in ice that moaned<br />
an eerie strain on the lake.<br />
It followed my edges.<br />
<br />
Sometimes I’d see green-frozen bubbles;<br />
think a leviathan had come to life,<br />
yawning hungry for me after all that time<br />
asleep on the lake.<br />
<br />
I imagined loose chunks of ice; would I fall<br />
headlong over these tombs to an icy grave?<br />
I looked through the glaze and saw what was thawing:<br />
the dreams of my lake life.<br />
<br />
(Published in <a href="http://www2.potsdam.edu/blueline/blue.html">Blueline</a>, Volume XVIII, 1997)Charles Cotéhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17681545501396352183noreply@blogger.com0