Dodge 2008 Revisited (In Progress)

I'll Ask You Three Times, Are You OK?, tales of driving and being driven by Naomi Shihab Nye
Selected Early Poems, Charles Simic
Sam's Place, Charles H. Johnson
Boy, Patrick Phillips
Dog Years, A Memoir by Mark Doty
Through a Gate of Trees by Susan Jackson
The Poet's Child, a Copper Canyon Press Anthology edited by Michael Wiegers
and
Paterson Literary Review 36 (2008-2009) edited by Maria Mazziotti Gillan

First off the pile: Are You OK, an enjoyable set of essays, usually very short, about events, encounters and observations by by the author made while between destinations. Has the same feel as other poets' prose: closer to lyric essay than non-fiction, which I expect the Doty book to be, too, given his past efforts at prose (Still Life With Oysters and Lemon, Firebird...).

Another list I've been toying with posting here is "Assumptions Made About Me During The 2008 Dodge Festival" - a list of statements made describing (sometimes unflatteringly) various demographic groups that include me, whether or not the speaker of the statement realized it. But every time I start the list it starts to sound whiny and political, two things I try not to be in this space. Suffice it to say that my fellow attendees should be aware that there was at least audiencemate who sometimes plans his days around football, believes in the power and creativity of scientists, and has voted at least once in his life for a Republican presidential candidate.

Speaking of science, one of the more dissatisfying artifacts of this year's festival was a recurring and derogatory opinion of the natural arts. More than once a presenter, artist, or audience member aired a statement or question that used science or scientists as an analog for a lack of creativity. While I'm not a scientist (scientists ask "Why?", engineers ask "How?"), I have to say this position reflects a complete lack of understanding of the role of science in the world. Science, by definition, is the search for and communication of the broad truths of the universe. Poets use letters. Scientists use numbers. The rest - mostly - is parallel.

On a related topic, I've also been mulling my reaction to the response I got - in the "Poetry and Invention" workshop - to my query about whether technology enabled poetic or literary experimentation in a way that provided the reader more "entry points" (read: ways to engage) into a poem. The response of the panelists ranged from dismissal to bemusement; Forrest Gander offered a pretty extensive list of things going on at Brown on this front, but terminated his list with a "but that's not what I'm looking for in a poem". Maybe I didn't ask the question properly, but it seems to me that was the whole point of my question, if not of the workshop itself. Invention isn't what you're looking for, it's what surprises you in its own creation. It's the solution to a problem you didn't know you had. The US Patent Office requires an invention be "novel" and "non-obvious". If the poem were what you were looking for, it - by definition - would not be an invention.

Perhaps I'm taking the response too personally, it being my question and me being a technologist and all, but I went to that workshop expecting - from its title and panelists - to find openness to more things than just form and political expression. I guess I didn't ask the right question. But I just may complete and send the letter I've started to Jim Haba, the organizer of the Dodge Poetry Festival, with suggestions for a Poetry and Science subtheme for 2010. Or maybe I'll keep the letter to myself and find a way to stage such a presentation somewhere else.

OK, now. My spleen feels lighter. Back to the book pile.

Dodge Download, Day 3

In order of attendance...

• Early morning Rumi with Coleman Barks and friends was its usual self, replete with Sufi mysticism, home and ancient wisdom, and Nazradeen (or Bubba?) jokes. Video doesn't really do this event justice. "Putting Rumi to Bach. It's almost enough."
• Morning panel on Poetry and Invention. Brenda Hillman stated that even her experiments are informed by her experience as a woman. Forrest Gander quoted D. H. Lawrence and Richard Feynman. Coral Bracho noted that two people looking at the same photo see different things when looking through their own filters. C. D. Wright reminded that discomfort and literary invention go hand in hand. They like literary invention, but aren't crazy about infusing literary works with other forms of invention. Forrest Gander:" When people are discomfited, they grab onto the familiar, which is rarely transfiguring."
• Susan Jackson: "What a savage thing this writing down is. How it makes us believe this world will last." BJ Ward (an long-time favorite, after someone called out "Beautiful!" in response to his poem: "(Since) The poem exists between us, if you're seeing beauty there, there must be beauty in you." Luke Warm Water (likening his career to Rolling Stones lyrics: "This may be my last reading ... I'll walk away before they make me run."
• More stories with Dovie Thomason. The infusion of modern stories really deepens the experience of listening to her. From a discussion with a counterpart at NASA: "Why do you call it Mars? We're not in Rome. We don't need a war god in the sky. Maybe it's red like love, not red like blood. How do you know it's a guy?
• Quick quote from Steve Sanfield I forgot to include yesterday: "How many of you consider yourselves storytellers? What are the rest of you, fools?"
• Coral Bracho with Forrest Gardner: Bracho's poem "Water" was presented several times in parts before reaching the main stage today in its entirety. In the original Spanish, it's an amazing aural experience. Gander's translation is entertaining and accomplished, but it sounds like a completely different poem. Gander on the creating of poems: "There may be a narrative, but there are all these clues that suggest a deeper meaning"
• Like Forrest Gander, Peter Cole is both a poet and a translator, and he says that "may explain the extra bed in my hotel room". His work is heavily influenced by biblical and Jewish history. "Better a little suffering than too much cure."
• Chris Abani suggested people not clap but "just sit there with the poems. It's sort of more fun for (you) that way." He read much of what he'd presented in smaller readings. Jim Haba commented about Abani after his reading that he "likes writing poems, and in his novels he gets to write a lot of poems."
• Afternoon session on Poetry and Healing. Linda Pastan believes that "if death is everywhere, we might as well make marry it to beauty." Ed Hirsch sees applications for poetry in individual and collective healing. Mark Doty sees the healing poem a visible repair to a valued thing. Said Doty: "For most of us, poetry starts in struggle. You start writing and invariably come to a phrase that makes you stop and think 'I can do this better' and suddenly you have a little distance - sometimes the only distance you are able to get at that moment."

I wrapped up the day listening to Dovie Thompson. I departed with a few minutes left to her story, so I could take a little longing with me, to help me look forward to next time.

Favorite moments: The rooster joke, learning why NASA needs storytellers, new poems from BJ Ward, sitting next to someone grading math papers while listening to poems, meeting my family for dinner at the end of the day.

My brain is full.

Dodge Download, Day 2

In order of attendance...

• More stories in the morning with Dovie Thomason, who argued storytelling is not the sister art to poetry (as the festival literature claims), but rather the grandmother, predating even the cave wall paintings on the festival program cover. She related a Rabbit story to the elections. She made more cogent points than either candidate in the debate (at least the disrespectful bits I caught). "All traditions (in any culture) share the the thought of doing something for future generations."
• Chris Abani (a late addition to my plans - he blew me away yesterday) covered writing exercise and thinking exercise, Shakespeare and reggae, Britney Spears and Jabberwocky, and the parts of this thesis that referred to Batman. Absolutely the most contentful event thus far for me. "Treat the poem like a pop song. Don't be afraid to throw the poem open and play with the language."
• Joy Harjo has a million projects going. She shared poems, songs, parts of her play, canoeing stories and the meaning of her name ("So brave you're crazy"). She spoke of tribal and poetry ancestors, joined poetry with other arts, told of learning from the ocean ("don't fight it"). "Do you know who you are? Can you sing it?"
• The poetry sampler was good, though by this point I'd already heard many of the poems presented.
• Afternoon panel on Going Public with Private Feelings - featuring Mark Doty, Lucille Clifton, Sharon Olds and Linda Pastan. That's pretty much the "A"-team. Very good dialog on shame, privacy, fear, and other good reasons not to take poems public - but consistently insisting on writing those poems and holding them until they are ripe and you are ready. I have 8 pages of notes from this one. Lucille Clifton: "If we can talk about the awfulness that has happened, we can talk about its complexity."
• Steve Canfield was engaging and likable, though I'd have stayed away from the Native stories with Dovie already having read at the festival.
• Evening poets (up to when left) were Brenda Hillman, Franz Wright and Naomi Shihab Nye. Good stuff; my hand was cramped up by then....

Favorite moments: Learning Dodge has launched a You Tube Channel (name: grdodge), finding hot cider at one of the concession stands, having Dovie Thomason sit next to me at an event, lean over and say "You're a good listener. I've seen you.", noticing the fist-sized spider on my notebook before it started up my shirt.

I was already looking forward to tomorrow before deciding I needed some beauty to get the Mets and the debate out of my head. As long as the parking grass and walkways are not hopelessly sloggified after today, it should be great.

Dodge Download, Day 1

In order of attendance....

• Dovie Thomason is back from a head injury which caused her to lose all (600+!) of her stories. And she's added some personal modern stories. "When you're young, you're a treasuure. When yhou're old, you're a treasure. In between, take care of your treasures."
• Evie Shockley read poems, her own and others, influenced by music, folklore, and the sheer application of language. "There are some poems every poet must write, like every women poet must have a poem about her mother."
• Charles Simic spoke eloquently of the need to find something new to write about, lest your poems be (intentionally or ignorantly) derivative. His life experience set influence his consideration of even the most mundane objects. Of his poem "Serving Time", he said "I just took the phrase literally and started wrigin. I had no idea where it was going."
• Sharon Olds, having more fun than one might have thought possible, discovered her poems really do contain ideas, and misheard her way into a great new phrase: "Event sugar". She claimed influence from the "great poetry of the psalms, the bad poetry of the hymns."
• Beth Ann Fennelly advised us to "take red taxi", which is to follow the less predictable path between points. "Being a poet is training yourself to look."
• Naomi Shihab Nye actually relinquished her microphone to a student whose question during Q&A was "Will you read my poem?" She loves airplanes: "When else can I just sit and read for 3 hours?"
• Chris Abani, Coral Bracho, Forrest Gander, Edward Hirsch, and Patricia Smith had a great discussion about the relative and complementary values of reading and of listening as ways to acquire poems. Forrest Gander makes a great hillbilly. Ed Hirsch doesn't rap. Coral Bracho's poems are beautiful to listen to, even if mi vocabulario es muy pequeno. Patricia Smith can write a sonnet. Chris Abani summed it all up: "A good poem aims to be misunderstood."

Favorite moments so far: Dovie Thomason gently but firmly tearing down the stage and lighting at the first event of the festival to make it "suitable for a storyteller, rather than a poet". Poets adjusting their presentations and selections based on real-time feedback, thanking the audience for "playing along", digging out seldom-read poems because they fit with a theme the crowd had wandered in with our questions. Discovering cranberry-pistachio biscotti. Finding friends' books on sale in the Borders tent; catching up with those friends before and after the readings.

I ran out of energy shortly into the evening readings. More download (and maybe some links above) to come tomorrow.

So, anyway....

I've been waiting for the Dodge Festival program to come out so I could begin to lay out my days and begin my accumulation of books for signatures, etc. The schedule has to be complete - it would have to be in the printing process by now, and some of the participating writers have posted their appearance schedules on their personal websites. Alas, the mainstage evening schedule is still the only thing online

Really, I'm mostly interested in a couple of things: selecting my conversations on craft and seeing how the poets are grouped for the panel discussions. I'm also very keen to know who the storyteller(s) is/are, but those sessions are generally at off-times (early morning, lunch), so I probably won't have to give an activity up to attend any of them.

But hey, before we get to Dodge, there are a few other events in NJ that are worth your time and attention. Among these are:

• John J. Trause (who is hosting Baraka in Rutherford), is appearing in Hoboken at Symposia Bookstore (for the Spoken Word Series)
• BJ Ward and Donna Gelagotis are reading for the Delaware Valley Poets

Speaking of NJ, if you don't already have it bookmarked, take note of Anthony Buccino's NJ Poets and Poetry, which is rapidly becoming an invaluable resource for Garden Staters.

Back now to waiting for the Dodge program....

(updated - one event was postponed...)

Acceptance, Rejection, Anticipation

Acceptance * 2: Diane Lockward's "Seventh-Grade Science Project", originally published in the Harvard Review, was Friday's post to Poetry Daily. Let me zoom in on a meaningless detail to show you where my head's been this week: I took note of the proper use of the hyphen in the title and was completely aware that it biased me toward enjoying the poem before I reached the first line. Not that I need such bias; Diane's a terrific poet, and I'm not just saying that in case I run into her at Shop-Rite. Congrats, Diane!

Rejection = Acceptance?: Here's a different twist on things. There's a new journal online called "Redheaded Stepchild", which will only accept poems rejected elswhere, putting into practice the philosphy that "a lot of kickass poetry gets rejected, and we thought it would be fun to publish only previously rejected poems." They do not guarantee publication. What does it mean to be rejected by an editor that prefers rejects?

Ancitipation: 55 days to Dodge. The schedule's not posted yet but the appearing poets page has been stable for a few weeks, so it should be any day. The roster of NJ poets is really quite good, including Evie Shockley. Here are a few of her works, for your enjoyment.

More Counting Down to Dodge

Father's Day, the end of the school year, and various other hobby-crowding obligations over, we're back to looking forward to Dodge. Today's featured reference is Jane Hirshfield. My favorite of her present-tense-dominated poems is "Mule Heart", which begins:

On the days when the rest
have failed you,
let this much be yours --
flies, dust, an unnameable odor,
the two waiting baskets:
one for the lemons and the passion,
one for all that you have lost.

She's not always so meditative, but I think she's much more effective when she is. Of all the returning "big name" poets, I'm most interested to hear what she has been working on.

Ambiguous? Or Wishy-washy?

Reading David Michaelis' good biography of the legendary Charles M. Schulz, and just came across the following anecdote:

One Sunday in October 1963, Sally had hidden behind the living room sofa to confess to Charlie Brown that she had prayed in school. Both side of the school-prayer debate wanted to reprint the strip, each seeing in it an affirmation of their position. Sparky himself later came out and said that he personally was opposed to prayer in the schools. But he did not actually care that both parties could find their message in a single strip -- this happened over and over to Peanuts with any number of public causes.

Now, I know this will irk some of you, but I think there's a great kinship between the four-panel funny and the poem: both are constrained forms, requiring the writer to be impactful in a small space - even when it's part of a larger arc or whole, etc. So I found Schulz' sentiments landing pretty close to home even before I realized how closely they align with my own feeling on people's readings of my poems.

It's not that I'm a terribly shadowy writer, with layers deliberately intertwined for you to approach with Poirot-ish persistence. But I hope I've evolved a bit from the poetry-is-non-fiction, moral-in-the-last-couplet poet I was in grammar school. So when a reader greets me with "What does xxx mean", it feels like a poke in the eye. On the sliding scale:

"What do you mean by...?" -- I hate. See above.
"Where did .. come from?" -- I don't mind, but I do resist answering; it shouldn't be relevant.
"You know what I think when I read ...?" -- I like, because it means I've provoked a non-obvious response.
"Hmm." -- I love. Just live with the poem for a while.

The Michaelis book is pretty good as of the half-way mark, though anyone who has and wants to retain an image of Peanuts as nothing more than a cute strip for children should probably skip it. Complicated man. Can't read the strip the same way knowing that.

Let's have a bit from another 2008 Dodge poet as long as we're here. These are the first line of "First Memory", the first poem in Joe Weil's new collection, What Remains:

I remember the delicious heaviness
of an old yellow cab
the thick green-leather upholstery
cracked and torn
as if a giant moth
had cracked from it

Small Worlds: The Dodge, The Earth

The Dodge line-up is slowly reaching completion, and it's pretty exciting. As usual, I'm a bit more excited about the poets whose performances will be away from the main stage, which this year include several current and old friends of the Spoken Word Series (Renee Ashley, Kate Greenstreet, BJ Ward). Of the Main Stage evening programs, I think Thursday and Friday are more interesting than either Saturday or Sunday - which suits me, as I usually run out of energy and/or free time somewhere around 8PM Saturday night. I enjoy being at the festival Thursday, when the programs are intended for students, because that's when the conversation is more about craft and less about "Oh, Mr. Poet, read this one!"

Looking forward to hearing Beth Ann Fennelly, whose book Tender Hooks I've had on my shelf for years; it was one of the first books that started me thinking there was a bit of a market for collections with a young child at the center. Since then, I've seen a few of them by poet mothers; no memorable ones from fathers. You reading this, publishers?

Anyway, here's a bit from Fennelly's "A Study of Writing Habits":

4. Why We Don't Want Our Children to Be Poets

Think about Stephen Dunn
washing his clean laundry at the laundromat
because he wanted to write a poem
about the laundromat.

Think about yourself
thinking about Stephen Dunn.

Here's a bit of trivia about me, just for you, my six loyal readers: Did you see the news about Dwight White? He and I worked at the same company for a short time. White was quite a successful investment banker after he retired from the Steelers, and was an officer at the small (and now defunct) Daniels and Bell, where I was employed during college as (among other things) a generator of mathematical stock price analyses. We only met once, I think in 1986, but I do remember thinking was just what I expected a smart ex-NFL player to be: an impressive, formidable presence. Hearing his name on the radio, aside from saddening me at his passing so young, reminded me that it's really not as big a world as we give it credit for.