Now I'm Looking For a Bowler...

Tonight I'm returning Valzhyna Mort's Factory of Tears to the shelf. I feel a certain obligation to disclose that I purchased Ms. Mort's book entirely because I saw her on the cover of P&W with her accordion. Turns out it was a good buy, but it may be the first time that the presence of a free reed instrument secured a poet a sale.

From Factory of Tears, here is "On a Steamer":

at night from far away
the city looks like
a huge overturned christmas tree
decorated for a holiday
then thrown away
now
it's lying
with its branches scattered
and its lamps
still glittering
in the dark

Natural Pottery Mints

NatPoMo snuck up on me this year, and it's just as well. I had no time to cajole myself into promising that I'll make time to write a poem a day and two sestinas on Sundays. No time to cultivate the urge to reorganize the manic mess that is my bookcase and lie about how I'll reread a book therefrom every 30 minutes until May. No time to shop for discount hardback notebooks in a new color scheme to celebrate the start of new projects that will run out of gas 4 pages hence in the middle of June.

I've been working some of the tips from Marty and Joshua Seldman's sneakily impactful Executive Stamina into my routine; one of the really useful tips in that book is the practice of "minimums", setting simple and small goals for yourself in an effort to get you to change habits and gain momentum in areas in which you're eager to improve. It's been working for me in other areas, so for NatPoMo this year, I'm going to apply some minimums to my writing habit. Here is my minimum for this April:

I will put away one book a day. This will require me to put my hands on one book of poems. Just one. And if I flip through it for a minute, maybe something will catch my attention. Maybe I'll go write it down and play with a response, or email it to someone, or mention it here, call a writer friend to chat about it. But if I don't, that's OK. I will put one book a day away. I commit that to myself.

Now, if you are more into the immerse and overwhelm strategy, you can go for NaPoWriMo, or Robert Lee Brewer's Poem-a-Day challenge, you can sign up for the year-round The Writer's Almanac and Your Daily Poem (which you should already be signed up for anyway) and the seasonal Poets.org daily list, or the weekly Poetry Daily list (to get its poets-selecting-poems emails; always a treat!).

But me? I'm just going to put one book away. One book like Coleman Barks' Tentmaking. The book with the poem "Seagull at the Newark Airport" in it:

Going low less than a foot off the asphalt, then up over
a tanker and around
the freestanding staircase, a poem with its

two black beads watches how government manages to fly.

What book will I pick up tomorrow?

Dodgy about Dodge

The first flyer for the 2010 Dodge Festival reached the house this week. On the website, there's a photo of the NJPAC with a great and colorful crowd in and around it. The site talks at some length about how the new location (used to be in Waterloo Village, and one unfortunate year at Duke Farms) will be co-located with the vibrant Newark arts scene and "greener" because it will enable attendance by public transportation. This is all true, I suppose, but I can't help but feel this will be a very, very, different experience than prior festivals, and it will be missing some of what, for me, were the best experiences of the festival.

At Waterloo, there were occasionally long walks between selected venues - I guess for many people, these were an inconvenience, but for me, they were a chance to digest whatever event I had just been in, breath for a minute, and get ready to give myself over to the next experience. Can you imagine, for example, going from Anne Waldman to Coleman Barks without a sorbet-like stroll separating?

The spread-out nature of the festival permitted spontaneous gatherings; you'd sometimes see a group of (ahem) younger aspiring poets gathered in circle talking, or even having an impromptu critique group meeting. It also permitted the strolling musicians - like Yarina, who are featured prominently on the website - to really stroll. I'm hopeful the planners are considering this, though I'm not sure how it's going to happen.

The particular venues of the Waterloo layout also contributed to some events - storytelling in the barn, spiritual poems in the old church, the crazy joy of the high school kids' reading from the gazebo. I can't see how those venues can be recreated around NJPAC - different ones, maybe, but newer, pre-fab ones.

Probably what I'll miss most are those moments where I wander away to the side of the Morris Canal and just unplug from the intellectual energy of the event. Looking back over past festivals, those times are what I seem to remember most clearly. Walking along that quiet path down by the canal, toward those two buildings that always seemed somehow forgotten, to that tent across the canal that always seemed to collect all the water from all the other tents, thinking about the 6,000 stories in Dovie Thomason's repertoire, about meeting poets like Beth Ann Fennelly whose work I knew for 6 years before I met her, about Taha Mohammad Ali's experiences and Mark Doty's great joy for whatever he was doing (reading, chatting, greeting people on the walk. We'll see if those experiences can be recreated in Newark. Maybe they'll open the ball park for us.

I'll accept the "greener" label and its good intentions for now, though that's a very hard thing to prove. Most "greener" claims simply displace waste to a different location or trade waste for energy (like how hand dryers eliminate a bit of waste at the expense of bit of increased electricity consumption), but it's probably true that some people will take advantage of the public transportation, which would have been running anyway.

In any event, I just need to adjust my expectations for a different kind of Dodge. Even if it's not what I'm used to and some of the things I personally looked forward to each time, it's still a terrific gathering of premier poets, and worth the effort to get used to something new.

A Few Tips From Brother Joseph and Sister Michael

Via Steven Schroeder, today I read this post by Chris O. Cook, in which he calls out the 600-pound gorilla by saying "Poetry readings are boring." While I don't share his vehemence, I think he makes some excellent points that my high school forensics coach and first director* would share.

Chris makes some excellent points, but it really all boils down to a lack of awareness of what engages the audience and a lack of effort (sometimes deriving from a lack of comfort) to be entertaining.

Here are a few things many poets can do a better job of:

• Plan to engage the audience. Bad coaches tell you to open with a joke, good ones tell you you need a hook to catch them and make them listen. Either way, you have a responsibiltiy to push the START button on the reading somehow.
• Understand but don't partition your audience. As you're starting and during the "casual" dialog, you should be aware of the demographics of your listeners (usually obtainable from a quick look around the room as you settle in at the microphone). It's good to speak to them once in a while, but try not to exclude anyone in the crowd when you do so (I've been inadvertently excluded based on gender, age, education, favorite poets, and politics).
• Drop the mousy humility. If you're really uncomfortable reading, don't read. If you're going to read, doing act like you hate it. It sounds almost too silly to point out, but remember that your discomfort will make the audience uncomfortable.
• Be aware of presentation technology. Spend a minute to understand your microphone before you read. Get there early enough to experience the venue, the lights, the layout of the space.
• Cast off the monotony. Basic public speaking tip: Vary volume and speed. Your poems and your banter with the audience will have different mood and tone and meaning at diffreent points in your reading; why would you suppress your natrual voice at those moments to make them sound the same?

Truthfully, I've not had a reader in my series in 9 years who was genuinely difficult to enjoy because of weak presentation, but I make a serious point to understand the probability of a weak presentation when I sign someone up. In most cases I've seen them before or have a first-hand recommendation; in a rare case, I'll trust a large personality offstage to carry over onto the stage.

Give Chris's post a read - he's more eloquent than I on this issue, and I'm curious what points strike you as on the mark, and if you think he's missig anything. Let me know; we haven't even touched on how basic dance chorus training can be useful for your readings!

* - names altered, but they know who they are....

In Which We Turn Around And Realize A Month Has Passed...

Hoo boy. Things do happen, don't they? Let's have a quick catch-up post so we can move on to better things in the days to come, shall we?

****

Had a great visit from Joan Cusack Handler to the Spoken Word Series this month. I know my six loyal readers are tired of hearing this, but the generosity of the NJ poetry community continues to refresh and amaze me. Joan is the Publisher at CavanKerry Press, which produces some of the most physically and poetically beautiful books around, and a terrific poet besides. Not only was her reading great (which I expected), but she handled the typically interactive enthusiasm of our little crowd with great humor, and gave several of us some specific and helpful publishing guidance besides. Isn't it true that those with the most confidence in themselves tend to be the most generous with their coaching?

BTW, if you enjoy poetry presented live, you need to go here. It doesn't get much better.

****

Word is starting to leak out about the upcoming Hanover Press anthology Crush, to which I contributed a favorite poem that had yet to find a home in print. Editor Faith Vicinanza has this to say about the book:

"Most poets are intrigued, if not enthralled, with the notion of love. And it doesn’t require a belief in love as a viable construct nor as a human emotion that is, by its nature, unavoidable, to find the subject worthy of contemplation and a poem or two.

Still, poets know there isn’t a hewing cry for more unrequited love poems. I prefer to call these almost love poems, or better, versified flirtations.

This collection is meant to delight in the familiar, to share knowingly in the humor underlying the obsessive, and at times, to tease, perhaps even seduce."

This book should be a lot of fun.

As an aside, the truism that a poem is never really done (that most poems can always be revised and improved) applies to me in spades in this case. I presented the earliest version of the poem Faith includes in the book at an open 2004. The final product is a recognizable cousin - related, but different in many good ways. And yes, I mean that as a compliment to my cousins.

****

Finally noticed a press reference to the fun event at Gary's Wine and Marketplace last month, which featured Laura Boss, Maria Gillan, and a Who's-Who in New Jersey at the open mic. The article reflects a bit of distance from the poetry community (some of the references are pure textbook stuff), but it's still worth a read. And a nice DeBaun Series event reference on page 2 (for which THANKS!)

And yes, that's me in the second row.

****

My first chapbook, which I've made several oblique references to in past weeks, will be out in time for Father's Day this year. It was a long process to complete the commitment to self-publishing it and validating that opinion with poets and publishers I respect. I've been reading from the prototype in public recently. I feel about self-publishing like Wil Wheaton did about making an infomercial: It will send clear signals to some and create a perception that I'm an artist on a certain level of talent. Nevertheless, it's clearly the right decision for me in this case and I'm comfortable understanding what some people will think of me. "Some people" aren't the audience for this book. Thanks to those who helped me get home on this issue; you know who you are.

****

The waters are starting to recede in New Jersey, but we are reminded that we are part of the fragile world after all. The tree that was leaning over my house for the past week has been tended to, and in its leaving has taken with it all the metaphors it introduced into my little universe. I'm thankful, and looking forward to a great and renewing Spring.

Stick around for it, won't you?

Curling: The Official Winter Olympic Sport of Poets

If you're a fan at my Facebook page, you probably thought I was nuts this morning when you saw:

David Vincenti Analogy for the day: Curling is to The Olympics as Poetry is to Barnes and Noble. Discuss.

Jayne Jaudon Ferrer of Your Daily Poem was first to fire a salvo back, repeated here in its entirety: "I think not! Poetry is vibrant, exciting, funny, heartbreaking, provocative, whimsical, keep inserting other descriptive terms. Curling is BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORING.."

Well, friend Jayne, I couldn't have asked you to set me up any better. (I'd insert the obvious volleyball reference here, but that would be mixing metaphports).

My proposal is that poets adopt curling as our official winter Olympic sport, and see in that fine old game a series of similarities to our selected art that might just teach us a thing or three.

First: Curling has historical roots that most people who dismiss the sport don't know. While these don't necessarily make the modern version of the game easier to understand, they do provide some context, not to mention some interesting stories that might help you connect to the game as you play it or watch it. Poetry, similarly has history that most people who dismiss it put out of their heads the day after they learned them in high school. While this history doesn't necessarily make contemporary, modern or post-avant poetry easier to understand, it certainly contains interesting characters and many ways connect to poetry as you read it, write it or listen to it.

Second: Curling, while it looks easy to do (at least to those who don't participate in game) and is tempting to treat lightly because of that, does have some subtlety to it, some rules which - if you exploit them well - make the difference between being a champion and missing the medal round. Face it: Even if you don't see it, there's got to be some skill involved, or teams which are consistently good wouldn't beat up so regularly on the teams that are consistently bad. In the same way, poetry seems easy to do (at least to those who don't participate in the art). And while many people could talk about rhyme and tap some iambs out on the table, few outside "the game" could speak usefully about assonance, enjambment, allusion.... which will lead us, inevitably, to lash out at those who dismiss us with a similar challenge: they might not see it, but there is clearly a practitioner's skill involved, else those who publish and present and are read more widely wouldn't consistently outpublish (etc.) the others.

Third (Sorry, Jayne, this one's right back at you!): Curling is Boring. Ask anyone in your office about poetry. I disagree on both fronts, but don't for a minute tell me that a significant fraction of your coworkers would say poetry was exciting.

Now how about this one: Curling unfolds slowly, tactically but its the rapid twists at the end that provide the hook, the reason to keep watching. Poetry, similarly, unfolds according to its own tactics, but frequently brings a surprise at the end that makes the unfolding all the more interesting in review.

Or this: the basics of curling, the steps in execution, are learned fairly easily. Their mastery, which is much more mental than physical, comes only with practice and wisdom, explaining why curlers are typically older when they reach their peak than are other athletes. Isn't that really true of poets as well? I mean, in what other arenas does "Younger" mean "Under 35?"

In case you hadn't guessed, I've been watching a bit of curling and yes, as I get to understand it a bit better, I'm really finding it interesting. Not for everyone maybe; I think my wife is convinced I've gone a bit loopy to be so fascinated by it. As to whether that is another way curling is like poetry, I'll have to withhold comment.

OK, I get it. I know that, truth be told, most people don't care about curling and won't care about anything I've said here. But it is also truth that most people don't care about poetry either, and probably would dismiss it with all the same prejudices they do curling. We take it personally when they dismiss our art and take steps to educate them otherwise, no? Let's show a little empathy and extend the same courtesy to our new official sport.

Rock on, stone throwers.

Tomorrow in Rutherford!

Come join us if you can!

Happy Valentine's Day

If you are one of my six loyal followers, or for that matter anyone who's wandered into earshot during the first half of February over the past few years, you've heard of how the tradition in our house is KFC on Valentine's Day (the full story is in the archive). Here's a little update of that story, in honor of the day, and of my kids, who to my great joy, have begun to revel in the quirkiness of our celebrations as much as I.



May you spend the day with ones who bring you as much joy.



{sorry, this poem has been deleted}

Heartmonizing for Mr. Clinton

I don't know if he agrees with his politics, but my Uncle Bill and his quartet stopped by to offer former President Bill Clinton a song and some advice upon his release from the hospital:

{this obsolete link has been deleted}

A Roux, A Reduction, The Essence (if you will)

A great event last night at Gary's Wine & Marketplace in Wayne. Maria Gillan and Laura Boss were featured, introduced by Jim Gwyn in an event organized partly by Jim and Emily Rose of Lips Magazine. Maria and Laura are simply great, entertaining poets who radiate joy for the art, and they attracted a great crowd of poets and fans of poetry. Oh, and the four wines Gary's staff were pouring next to the yard-wide cheese plate didn't chase anyone away, either.

The open was a good ride. A long list of good local writers presented (Jim Gwyn, Jessica DeKoninck, Betty Marchitti, Norma Bernstock, Catherine Magia, and I'm sure I'm forgetting several) along with at least one first-time-ever reader, a member of the store staff with a great set of pipes who I hope enjoyed his experience enough to try his chances again at the next poetry event at Gary's (hint, hint).

After the event, Tony Puma of the WCWilliams Poetry Cooperative (which has graciously rescheduled my snowed-out reading with Diane Lockward for next Wednesday...) commented on the short poem I presented that it was "tight", that it seemed to contain what it needed to and no more. High praise, indeed; I don't know what I could have heard that I'd have taken as a better compliment. That got me thinking about how I sorted out my portfolio last year, removing a substantial fraction of works I thought qualified as "done", but that were somehow not up to the level of my other work. While it breaks down fairly chronologically (the older work is the weaker work - not unexpected), the real difference is the "tightness", the absence of unnecessary words. When I've received the gift of feedback on my work in the past year, that's one of the themes that's been consistent in that feedback, and that's what drove me to sort and select the poems that I'll be including in the chapbook.

And there's another element to what got included which actually cause me to sort out at least one piece that I think is stronger than most of the poems I left in. Which links me to this week's other learning.

But I'll save that for next time....

Farrah Field
February’s Spoken Word Artist

Performance Date: February 7, 2010, at 3 p.m., with open microphone following
Location: Symposia Bookstore, 510 Washington St., Hoboken, NJ (Accessible by PATH & Light Rail), www.symposia.us
Admission: FREE, with $3 suggested donation
Information: www.debaun.org/SpokenWordSeries.html or 201-216-8933

Hoboken, NJ: For the fifth installment of the 2009–2010 Spoken Word Series, DeBaun Center for Performing Arts and curator David Vincenti have chosen a well-published artist to be featured on Sunday, February 7, 2010, at 3 p.m.—Farrah Field. The Spoken Word Series, co-hosted by Siobhan Barry-Bratcher and David Vincenti, is presented monthly at Symposia Bookstore, 510 Washington St., Hoboken, NJ.

Farrah Field’s poems have appeared numerous publications, including Pebble Lake Review, Mississippi Review, Margie, Chelsea, The Massachusetts Review, Harpur Palate, and Pool, and are forthcoming in Sojourn and Another Chicago Magazine. Her first book of poems “Rising” won the 2007 Levis Poetry Prize from Four Way Books. She teaches high school in New York City. www.cortlandreview.com/issue/37/field.html

Farrah will read from her works and then the microphone will be open to the public to share their work. Although it is not necessary to pre-register to attend the event, those interested in sharing their work during the open mic are asked to sign up at 2:45 p.m. Open mic participants are asked to limit their work to five minutes per person.

The Spoken Word Series takes place at Symposia Bookstore, 510 Washington St., Hoboken, NJ. Symposia is the only used bookstore in Hoboken and has great prices for used books, wireless Internet access and many events every week. This is the sixth year DeBaun Center for the Performing Arts and Symposia Bookstore have teamed up to co-produce the Series. With each reading, more and more people are introduced to this wonderful bookshop and the work of many superb artists.

For more information, please visit www.debaun.org/SpokenWordSeries.html, email Center@debaun.org or call 201-216-8933.

The next Spoken Word event will be on March 7, 2010, at 3 p.m. with Joan Cusack Handler.

OK, What is he saying now?

I am fascinated with translation tonight. I've borrowed from the library two books of poems in translation -- same author, different translators, 10 years apart. There are about a dozen poems in common between the books and the differences between them are remarkable. There are some word choice differences, but there are two key differences between the works:

In one, there seems to have been a conscious choice to simplify, opting for simpler words in most cases, maintaining a shorter line, leaving out images that appear in the other. Not coincidentally, these translators also decided to employ a regular line rhythm, and an English rhyme.

Now, I do occasionally sacrifice a word for an aural effect in my writing, but when I hold up a translation that exhibits an end-rhyme in the target language, I admit I'm suspect of it. I'm not multilingual by any means, but across the Spanish and few bits of German in my head alongside my native American English, I'm not aware of any word pairs that rhyme in all three tongues.

Of further interest, I've been experimenting this year with the paraphrase, taking well-known bits of English literature and restating them in my own language. Translating them, if you will, from their original form into the language I speak, whatever you might call that. Not only a writing exercise, this is also a reminder that there are multiple ways to say everything, that every communication choice we make is a reflection of our own style. And every communication choice is a chance to lay our own style on top of whatever bit of information we transmit.

So thinking back to that author who I've been reading in translation (and no, I'm not going to say who it is for a while - part of a future project), I wonder what style decisions he made in his own words and which translator is truer to it. And which is imposing his own style on someone else's words.

Reflections on Tasty Coco!

Tuesday night I was invited by Rick Mullin to perform a bit of my poetry at Tasty Coco in Caldwell, NJ. Been a long time since I prepared a 20-minute set (last time was April, 2009, and the time before that was in 2008) and I had a different kind of challenge than I was used to in preparing for such things. In the past, I was comfortable with a basic "extended open" approach to preparing the set: identify 6-7 poems I liked and wanted to present, pick a few others to create some decent transitions, knead until blended. And since I was never seriously close to committing the chapbook to print, I never really considered that I might be "featuring" its contents for consumption in pursuit of sales interest.

Now, I had the the book beginning to feel real (I even had a prototype to hold up if I wanted to), but I also had 2 other projects that were interesting enough to me that I was considering doing something with them (one's a persona package approaching chapbook length, one is a fun sequence that may or may not be able to sustain itself for 24 pages.). On top of that, I've been writing "in response" a lot in the past year, and I've always found that poems that link to other art or to events that the audience has a little collective recollection of make for great moments in a reading; at least from the audience, which is where I'd always experienced them before.

Another factor was my co-feature, Quincy R. Lehr, whose style on the page was much truer to form and at the microphone much truer to performance art than mine. There wasn't much chance of similarity in either content or presentation from us, but I didn't want to even flirt with it.

There was also the format of the series, which I knew from prior attendance was highly interactive and informal, and included a "lightning round", or a once-around-the-room after the open and the features, in which every poet in the room gave one more poem. So I'd have to save something back, a cognac-like aftermoment which would be my last impression on the crowd.

And finally, there was the crowd, which I knew was going to include at least a few folks who know me primarily as a technologist or a project manager, who in fact are career technologists themselves, who may have seen my poems on paper before but would never have seen me as a performer (except in training sessions, which actually is a good way to show off your skills - but that's another post). So not only did I want to make a good impression, but a particular impression, and one which wouldn't present itself back to me too embarrassingly in line in the cafeteria.

Oh, and it was Poe's 201st birthday, so I wanted to mark that, somehow, as well.

All of these things are "good problems", of course. I take away that I've got a little more to offer as an artist than I used to, that I'm reaching that "wider audience" I've always coveted (not that my Mother's opinion isn't always very encouraging), and that I haven't lost my skills for anticipating the crowd (which, if you have been hanging around here long enough, you know I had far earlier in my life than my serious interest in poetry). But it also signals to me that I've arrived at that necessary transition point, that I'm no longer interested in having a few minutes of microphone time. And that my ambition for creating has grown to the point where it requires conscious cultivation, that I can't take a month off from writing and expect to pick it up a the same place it was, that the project is now at least as important as the individual poem.

So what does this mean? I don't know. Kind of a wake up call for the year, really. Maybe not a make-or-break year, but certainly one in which my expectations for myself are changing. Need to set some larger goals for 2010, of course, and start thinking in terms of that 2-year cycle that seems necessary for the completion of a book/project. And about carving out the writing time instead of taking it where it comes (with a focus on revising and assembling, which is not something I can do easily orally, as I tend to compose).

Thanks then, to Poetry at Tasty Coco and Rick for giving me this opportunity not only to drag a few of my engineering mates into the poetry scene, but also to have this moment of reflection. I feel like the bell has been rung, and it's up to me to answer it now.

Speaking of "bells", the homage I paid to Poe was to read the opening section of "The Bells" before reading my own stuff. Rick was nice enough to capture the moment and post it to his channel. Take a look and let me know what you think.

And stay tuned. This could be a good year.

In which we take a few minutes on a Sunday evening to repurpose some adrenaline left over from the Jets victory

"Greetings from DavidVincenti.com! This is your 'Jets 16, Chargers 14' Update.

We know you're busy thinking through how you'll celebrate the Jets' victory* on Sunday, but we don't want you to forget about the days following that momentous event, either: planning your evening menus, organizing your receipts to start on your taxes, and coming to see David Vincenti read with Quincy Lehr this Tuesday at Tasty Coco in Caldwell, New Jersey....

* - Yes, we believe. We always believe."

I sent it to my mailing list yesterday. I swear!

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Since I brought it up, shall I mention a bit more about this Tuesday? Tasty Coco features a nice bistro menu, heavy on good desserts and coffee drinks, and a rather large fraction of their energy goes into presenting local artists. This week, those artists are Quincy Lehr and yours truly. Rick Mullin is the host.

I've been going through new and old poems for the last week or so thinking through my material; Rick serves up an interesting format, one that is extremely entertaining in how it circles through the voices it presents. The open starts, then the features go on for a while, then the rest of the open, then a "victory lap" where every poet present (including the features, of course) does one more short poem. It's worth coming out to see.

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Busy couple of months coming up here. Two scheduled readings in the next month, one already booked for July (and keep contact with the Facebook page for two more in the works!), forcing me to update the portfolio, which I've been horribly neglecting. Having been focused so much on polishing and repolishing the chapbook manuscript (and being busy with family and work - the clear priorities, in the end), I'm sure I've been losing good ideas. The current notebook has lasted me a year; even with relaxing my rule against composing in MS Word (I use a pencil or a tape recorder), that's not good enough. But this reading's given me the kick in the seat I needed to dust off the newer projects. Sometimes you need that.

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Did I say chapbook? Yes, I did. More on that next month.

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I've been flipping around in Ray Gonzalez' Consideration of the Guitar (New and Selected Poems); I'll take it from the beginning soon, but this is how like to work my way into an author whose work is new to me: a random sampling of the buffet so I can decide where to dive in first.

I get to it all, don't worry.

Interesting, though - Gonzalez is one of those poets whose work is very different to me aurally - I have the same trouble hearing Gonzalez that I do hearing Coleman Barks. They're not similar poets at all, but they do share a low-key, inmitable presence at the microphone which I can't replicate in my head. That won't stop me from consuming the work, of course, but I do need to get past it before I can really enjoy the work. Is that crazy?

============================

See you Tuesday?

Starting the New Year Right

A few posts ago I mentioned how a recent workshop I attended made the link between gratitude and diffusing stress; it also went on to connect diffusing stress with increasing energy and increasing energy with operating efficiently (seems obvious to type it, but think through everything it implies for how you make and act on your daily decisions!). So in an effort to hit the new year in stride, here are a few coins for the gratitude meter as it applies to the little writing hobby that carved out this little corner of the Internet.

• I am first and always most grateful for my family, who find enthusiasm for not only the time I spend on my writing, but for the writings themselves (even when they don't "get it"), and for the geeky quote collection I've accumulated in my head from projects over the years. They remind me the truest meaning of support: That something is important to me is reason enough for it to be important to them, and I can tap into that trust as the reason to write.
• From the unknown conference attendee who participated in my May presentation on project management, and took the time after to complete an audience evaluation form, on which was contained the single word "Useless", I am grateful for this important lesson: Nothing I write will be meaningful to everyone, but that should not stop me from writing; those who find value there will do so irrespective of other opinions.
• For the poets, the band of linguophiles, editors, and teachers who permit me to sometimes run in their company and never, never, use the word "idiot", I am grateful for the generous examples they provide in person and in poems. From them two goals for the year: to live up to their generous adjectives and their specificity guidance.
• To the teams and athletes I root for (that's the Mets, Jets, Yankees*, Norm Duke and Parker Bohn, among other lesser followings), I remain as grateful as I was when I was 10 for the recurring chance to cheer, thrill, groan, and completely lose myself in the pursuit of something with great passion with no consequence more severe than a Sunday afternoon. The residue of passion is momentum. Better if the Jets win, of course, but the adrenaline persists no matter the outcome.

The learning from my workshop was that gratitude = energy, eventually, and I do believe that. But it seems all the more important in the pursuit of a writing hobby, where the feedback cycle is measured in seasons, if not years, to have one's energy be generated from within.

Let that be this year's resolution.

Merry Christmas

Now, the tree is decorated with bright merriment, and song, and dance, and cheerfulness. And they are welcome. Innocent, and welcome be they ever held, beneath the branches of the Christmas Tree, which casts no gloomy shadow! But, as it sinks into the ground, I hear a whisper going through the leaves. "This in commemoration of the law of love and kindness, mercy and compassion. This, in remembrance of Me!"

Charles Dickens
"A Christmas Tree"

A joyful Christmas to us all.

A Daily Dose of David

Well, for one day, anyway. Please click over to Your Daily Poem and see more!

Do Not Open Until Christmas

Sound the Jingle Bells!

The Christmas shopping (pending the arrival of a few Amazon boxes) is complete! This is a momentous occasion, coming as it does more than a full week before the Day itself. This permits a number of good things, including the avoidance of the mall exit of the highway until the 28th and focusing on the parish events (and there are several!) in the coming week. Good for us.

***

I was able to participate in a great class yesterday at work. I probably shouldn't report a great deal of it here (wouldn't be fair to the content owner), I did volunteer a lesson I've learned from my blogroll and you, my six loyal readers, so I should say at least that much: There is clear evidence that a sense of gratitude, in general and specific, is a contributor to managing you stress and to permitting you to operate at peak efficiency; if you click through the links at right, you've known that poets - for whom the distance between work product and feedback may be the longest of any profession - have known for a while. Thanks for that teaching, Kelli.

***

Three days to the Christmas poem's arrival here. And to the end of the Jets' playoff hopes. Which I look at as a gift, as it will save me a lot of anxiety the next few Sundays....

Speaking of Occasion Poems....

Well, as Jayne Jaudon Ferrer notes in today's installment of Your Daily Poem:

So what do you do when you want a poem for a specific occasion and can't find one? You write it yourself. I find it hard to believe that no Scandinavian poet ever felt the urge to write about the lovely Lucy, but I sure haven't been able to come up with anything. So here you have it: one of my own, hot off the press. One does what one must...

The occasion in question here is Saint Lucy's (or Lucia's) feast day, which is today. Such occasions - ones steeped in history but less commonly known and certainly less commercialized - are where poetry can serve us well. Overuse, secularism, and cynicism are less likely to have turned your readers away before they read your opening line.

You can read Ms. Ferrer's poem here. While you're there, be sure to subscribe.

The countdown-to-Christmas-poem continues...

Musing about The Holiday Poem Process

Well, the Christmas poem is complete. While it's something I enjoy and feel very good about doing (for myself and for the two or three of you, my six loyal fans, who engage the Holiday the way we do in my house), it's become (or I have made it) a bit more challenging in recent years.

First, there's the act of crafting. With all due respect to the 83 emails I've received since Thanksgiving containing 30-couplet rhymes restating "I Heard The Bells on Christmas Day*" presented in curlicue reds and greens, they're really, really bad poems. Forgive me, Lord, for passing judgment during the season, but it's the truth. To receive decent marks as a poem, a work must have an awareness of its structure and deploy some element of craft. Rhyme is one, of course. But rhyme with haphazard meter, without awareness of other elements of sound, with no sense of pattern... is distracting and lazy. Or, more likely, it's an attempt at a poem by someone who's never read a poem. I don't enjoy this. I don't choose to create anything like it.

Next there's the selection of subject. While subject is (truly) infinite, it's hard to imagine connecting potholes, or the Yankees, or health care reform to the Christmas season (though some have tried on that last point, to poor effect). Frequent offenders are shopping, decorating, and travel; the Gospels make their appearance in there, of course. In my own Christmas poem history, I've taken as my source material shopping (badly), events/scenes at my church (mixed effect), my children (OK), and Bible verse (better). There's a balance between personal investment and objectivity that you need to find in a poem that tends toward the sentimental.

Then there's theme. I accept that poems in general need not have themes (and certainly not "messages"), but it seems to me that an occasional poem is the exception, that a poem attached to an event needs somehow to be part of the purpose or presentation of that event. The most frequent themes I've seen in the couplet parade are "slow down at Christmas" and paraphrasings of the Ghost of Christmas Present introducing the children beneath his robe**. It's easy, too, to turn to a child's experience of Christmas and apply it to the adult world. I've been writing these poems for a number of years. I want to find something fresh to say.

A branch of theme argument is tone - I do not choose to be a Scrooge, and it is my choice to stay close to the religious spirit of the holiday. This excludes some themes, I know, but it's consistent with my approach to the Holiday, and it's how I want to approach the work.

Finally, and this is a limitation I choose to impose, there's accessibility. This annual is a work I compose specifically to reach the broadest audience, which includes reaching friends who don't read poetry. These are folks I don't expect to take an interest in my work as a rule, who are on my email distribution list only because they want to encourage me, or are friends of my mother, or some such. I value the energy these people lend my artistic effort, and I want them to experience the Christmas poem in a way they might enjoy. Am I a sell-out? I dunno. But you wouldn't write a love poem to someone in a language they don't speak and still expect them to fall into your arms, would you?

In a nutshell, I'm trying to write something that maintains sufficient poetic craft to satisfy myself but offers enough dangling threads to engage a wide audience spanning secular and religious, artists and skeptics, young and old, deeply loved family and the friends-of-friends-of-friends.

It'll be here in a few days. Please drop by so you can tell me how I did. In the meantime, the American Academy of Poets can keep your sleigh's engine idling.

* - which, by the way, was a Longfellow poem before it was a carol. In case you were interested.
** - if you didn't get this reference, which many of the emailers wouldn't have either, go read "A Christmas Carol" - the original - immediately. Watching the Alistair Sim movie version will do in a pinch.

Testing the Facebook Connection

Have you checked out my Facebook Fan Page? The link is at the top right. I'm trying to connect all my outlets into one stream, but my IT expertise peaked with DEC Pro-BASIC some years ago. Wish me luck!

We regret to inform you....

... Linda Radice will not be able to participate in the Spoken Word Series this weekend due to injury. We look forward to having her as part of next season's program. Meanwhile, be sure and stop by for Hudson County's friendliest open mic event!

Linda Radice this Sunday in Hoboken

Linda Radice
December’s Spoken Word Artist
For Immediate Release: November 17, 2009

Performance Date: December 6, 2009, at 3 p.m., with open microphone following
Location: Symposia Bookstore, 510 Washington St., Hoboken, NJ (Accessible by PATH & Light Rail), www.symposia.us
Admission: FREE, with $3 suggested donation
Information: www.debaun.org/SpokenWordSeries.html or 201-216-8933

Hoboken, NJ: For the fourth installment of the 2009–2010 Spoken Word Series, DeBaun Center for Performing Arts and curator David Vincenti have chosen a well-published artist to be featured on Sunday, December 6, 2009, at 3 p.m.—Linda Radice. The Spoken Word Series, co-hosted by Siobhan Barry-Bratcher and David Vincenti, is presented monthly at Symposia Bookstore, 510 Washington St., Hoboken, NJ.

Linda Radice is a poet and essayist, and has had her work published numerous journals and anthologies. She is the second place recipient of the 2007 Allen Ginsberg Award, and Honorable Mention in 2008. She is a member of the Fanwood Arts Council, and assistant director of the Baron Arts Center Poets Wednesday reading series. She works by day to keep the lights on, and is a furious scribner by night in the home she shares with her husband Sam and a cat named Shakespeare. She owes her writer/poet friends and mentors her undying gratitude, and never forgets how blessed she is to have them in her life. lindaradice.blogspot.com

Linda will read from her works and then the microphone will be open to the public to share their work. Although it is not necessary to pre-register to attend the event, those interested in sharing their work during the open mic are asked to sign up at 2:45 p.m. Open mic participants are asked to limit their work to five minutes per person.

The Spoken Word Series takes place at Symposia Bookstore, 510 Washington St., Hoboken, NJ. Symposia is the only used bookstore in Hoboken and has great prices for used books, wireless Internet access and many events every week. This is the sixth year DeBaun Center for the Performing Arts and Symposia Bookstore have teamed up to co-produce the Series. With each reading, more and more people are introduced to this wonderful bookshop and the work of many superb artists.

For more information, please visit www.debaun.org/SpokenWordSeries.html, email Center@debaun.org or call 201-216-8933.

The next Spoken Word event will be on February 7, 2010, at 3 p.m. with Farrah Field.

Happy Thanksgiving

Kelli tagged the blogosphere on this one:

"A few questions to share my Thanksgiving day with you..."

1. Which do you like better: hosting Thanksgiving at your home, or going elsewhere?
Someday, we'll host. Until then, I'll bring the turnips. And sometimes Brussels sprouts.

2. Do you buy a fresh or frozen turkey? Organic? Free-range? Tofurkey?
In college, my friend Nick used Tofurkey as an escalated swear word (Tofu --> Tofutti--> Tofurkey). I agree.

3. Do you make stuffing or dressing? What kind?
My MIL makes the sausage stuffing, one wet one dry. I eat it. Good deal for me.

4. Sweet potato pie or Pumpkin pie?
Can't get sweet potato often enough to prefer it, but it's good when I get it.

5. Are leftovers a blessing or a curse?
This isn't even a real question. They're a delight of the first order.

6. What side dishes are a must-have in your family?
Mashed turnip, stuffed mushrooms, 3+ others. I make the turnip for me. That my wife eats some is the truest evidence of her love for me.

7. What do you wish you had that might make Thanksgiving easier?
A La-Z-Boy to facilitate footballnapping.

8. If/when you go to someone else’s house for the holiday, do you usually bring a dish? If so, what is it?
The above-mentioned turnip. If it's really only for me, I should prepare it, no?

9. What is your favorite after-Thanksgiving activity?
Board games until at least one of us erodes into irrepressible giggling. Doesn't usually take long.

10. Share one Thanksgiving tradition.
My daughter preparing a blessing.

11. Share one Thanksgiving memory.
During after-dinner gaming one year, playing Uno Attack ("Uno Spitto" to her friends), my Mother managed to cause a playing card to helicopter the length of the table and land in her coffee. Nothing but net. Took ten minutes and 14 tissues for us to recover from that gigglefit.

12. Name five things you’re thankful for.

1. My delightful loving supportive family -- every circle of it, every day.
2. A job that lets me have a small hand in improving people's lives.
3. The geographic accident that placed me in the NJ Poetry Community; living at a time when my poetry community includes friends in 10 states, some of whom I've only "met" through the window of this little spot on the WWWeb.
4. Good health in those nearest me who have it, good care for those nearest me that need it.
5. Having great people in my life - at work, at home, in art, and at the bowling alley - who have the skill to teach me, the will to teach me, and the time to teach me.

Learn something every day: That's the way I practice my gratitude.

Thanks for the impetus, Kelli, and Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Where the month has gone (a play in 3 excuses)

Wow. You blink and it's two weeks later. How does THAT happen? Anyway, here's what's been going on.

Well, work's been busy, but I know that none of you, my six loyal readers, are here to read about that.

* * *

Last week I presented a lunchtime poetry seminar to the Seniors group at my church. I had read about LifeVerse and proposed a talk to the group a few months ago, but right up to the night before, I wasn't entirely sure I was going to do. I learned that the idea of a writing workshop wasn't going to be appealing the group, so I set out to assemble a short program on the theme of "What Poetry Can Deliver": an assortment of unusual metaphors, a love poem someone who doesn't live with poetry might be surprised to by, and since it was a church group, at least one prayer poem. Aside from a few of my own poems, here's what I wound up presenting:

"November", Billy Collins (timely)
"Not Rose Petals", BJ Ward (a love poem with an unusual metaphor)
"Nonsense Song", W.H. Auden (a little fun in the form of a love poem)
"Fork", Charles Simic (poems can be about anything)
"Prayer", Joe Weil (prayer poem)
"Joy is the Grace we Say to God", Ray Bradbury (prayer poem)

I did go in expecting that there wouldn't be many poetry fans in the audience, and I debated presenting more classic work, but opted in the end to present work I loved and trust that my enthusiasm and the quality of the work would carry the day. Turned out to be a good call.

Should I have been surprised at the reaction? At one lady approaching me at the end for a copy of Joe Weil's poem? Or someone asking for copies of my own work? Or someone asking where she could find more of BJ Ward's work? I suppose not. And yet I was.

* * *

This week, despite a case of pink eye that's been wandering my house trying to catch me, I was able to slip out to attend a professional society meeting (always refreshing) and to sit in on a great reading by John Trause, part of a new series hosted by Rick Mullin at Tasty Coco in Caldwell. John is equal parts poet, entertainer, and historian (or is that redundant?), and you can get a good feel for the event over at Rick's place.

Would have been enough just to hear John, but it was also a terrific open, my own effort a kindergarten contribution to a grad school seminar. Great stuff.

* * *

So that's the last couple. Next up is finding a new recipe for Brussels sprouts for Thanksgiving and getting ready to mash the annual turnip.

And other things, maybe.

Debrief on de Koninck

We had a nice crowd at Sunday's Spoken Word Series event - 15 people counting the late arrivals and early departures, about half invited directly by featured reader Jessica de Koninck. Jessica read mostly new poems, commenting early on that many people find her work unhappy; that's certainly true of her firs book Repairs, which is advertised as a meditation on loss (I find it more a coupling of the ordinary details of keeping on with the extraordinary feelings of absence and familiarity that accompany the passing (or leaving) of someone close.

The poems that Jessica read - about her children, about cooking her Grandmother's traditional dishes - were exactly what I find most compelling in the poems I like: The discovery of something extraordinary in an otherwise ordinary observation. Jessica's are poems written from a grounding tradition without being "traditional" poems - they don't celebrate tradition explicitly so much as they find the pointer in the tradition that directs us back to ourselves.

Jessica does less embellishing between poems than many readers, but still was comfortable when one of our regular called out for an encore (fairly common in our events...). All in all, whether the poems had a bit of darkness in them or not, it was an entertaining afternoon. Jessica's been busy with appearances around NJ lately; catch her when she visits your area!

Jack Wiler 1951-2009

Looking for God in Downtown Jersey City

The soul tonight is a shopping bag
Plastic
Floating lightly above a rusted gate.
I found it on my kitchen counter weighted down with
mustard and toilet paper.
I emptied out the garbage and when my back was turned
the soul fled
lifted up on the wind and out over fourth street
through the streets of Jersey City
people look up cross themselves
their eyes bright for an instant
The soul reflecting back pure white.
Dogs and children see it and laugh for a moment
we are all of us full and clean and
pure in the reflected glory of the plastic soul
we have glimpsed for just a moment.
Then it's gone.
A child steps back for a chance at a second look
At something else
white and plastic and high above us
that we can admire as not of our bodies.
(from I Have No Clue, Long Shot Productions, 1996)

Got the news today of Jack Wiler's passing last month. Jack read for us in Hoboken in 2004. Jessica de Koninck, our featured reader today, paid tribute to Jack by reading his excellent "Belief Systems" at Symposia bookstore, in the same room he'd presented it five years ago. It's a poem that has inspired with grateful attribution several other poems -- at least one of which has also been heard in Hoboken.

I didn't know Jack all that well, other than through his work and the praise that it and he received whenever his name came up among NJ poets.

Jack's book Fun Being Me ends with these words:

But it's God's world and it's His noise and it never stops.
It would be sweet if all of God's names were names we know.
It would be sweet.

Jessica de Koninck this Sunday in Hoboken!

Jessica G. de Koninck
October’s Spoken Word Artist
For Immediate Release: October 20, 2009

Performance Date: November 1, 2009, at 3 p.m., with open microphone following
Location: Symposia Bookstore, 510 Washington St., Hoboken, NJ (Accessible by PATH & Light Rail), www.symposia.us
Admission: FREE, with $3 suggested donation
Information: www.debaun.org/SpokenWordSeries.html or 201-216-8933

Hoboken, NJ: For the third installment of the 2009–2010 Spoken Word Series, DeBaun Center for Performing Arts and curator David Vincenti have chosen a well-published artist to be featured on Sunday, November 1, 2009, at 3 p.m.—Jessica G. de Koninck. The Spoken Word Series, co-hosted by Siobhan Barry-Bratcher and David Vincenti, is presented monthly at Symposia Bookstore, 510 Washington St., Hoboken, NJ.

Jessica G. de Koninck’s first collection Repairs, a series of poems about loss, was published by Finishling Line Press. Among numerous journals and anthologies, her poems appear in print in The Ledge, Bridges, the Paterson Literary Review, the Edison Literary Review and US 1 Worksheets and on-line in The Valparaiso Poetry Review and elsewhere. She has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. A former Councilwoman and resident of Montclair, New Jersey, she is pursuing an MFA at Stonecoast. Also an attorney, Jessica is counsel to the South Orange and Maplewood Public Schools.

Jessica will read from her works and then the microphone will be open to the public to share their work. Although it is not necessary to pre-register to attend the event, those interested in sharing their work during the open mic are asked to sign up at 2:45 p.m. Open mic participants are asked to limit their work to five minutes per person.

The Spoken Word Series takes place at Symposia Bookstore, 510 Washington St., Hoboken, NJ. Symposia is the only used bookstore in Hoboken and has great prices for used books, wireless Internet access and many events every week. This is the sixth year DeBaun Center for the Performing Arts and Symposia Bookstore have teamed up to co-produce the Series. With each reading, more and more people are introduced to this wonderful bookshop and the work of many superb artists.

For more information, please visit www.debaun.org/SpokenWordSeries.html, email Center@debaun.org or call 201-216-8933.

The next Spoken Word event will be on December 6, 2009, at 3 p.m. with Linda Radice.

The Dragon and the Bomb

Today's Literary Quote the Day at iGoogle is from W. H. Auden: "A poet can write about a man slaying a dragon, but not about a man pushing a button that releases a bomb."

Boy, I hate to disagree with a genius, but......

Seems to me that a more accurate (though admittedly less pithy) thought would be "It's easier for a poet to write a good poem about a man slaying a dragon than a good poem about a man pushing a button that releases a bomb." And stated this way, the justification is simple: distance.

It's easier (for most) to attain emotional distance from the romantic medieval fiction than from the difficult modern fact. And because of that, the bomber poems can fall much more easily into triteness or worse: political prose attempting to hide in a poem. For many of us who call ourselves "poets", attention to craft does down when we have "something important" to say. Billy Collins once noted that his poetry improved when he "realized he had nothing to say", his point being that many grand subjects had been written about before, often by the literary giants who preceded us, and to write something meaningful on those subjects meant to exceed their greatness.

Of course, the problem with many of us who all ourselves "poets" is a deplorable interest in our own history, a lack of awareness of those greats and an accompanying inflated sense of our own efforts. But that's another post.

What this means to me is that if you can find a way into the bombardier's seat that isn't a simplistic description of the ensuing horror or the pat discussion of conflict in his year, you can write that poem about the man dropping a bomb. If you can take what's going on in that instant and apply the filter of form or language to open it up to different interpretations, that subject should be wide open to you. It's just much harder to do it well.

It's this kind of logic that causes me to gravitate to my pet subjects, areas which for one reason or another are less crowded or lend themselves to reinterpretation or repurposing in verse.

Of course, this doesn't even begin to address the subject of the respective target audiences in Auden's original quote and the implications understanding them might have for the poem. Who do you think would be more open, less critical: dragonstory fans or devotees of the military and political?

A Few, Little, Tired Bits

Oh, my. You know the place writing has in your life when the hobbies hits the fan, so to speak. Let me set the tap to "drip, drip, drivel" and see if I have anything interesting to say.

***

It's been a phenomenal month on the New Jersey poetry scene. If you're already in Peter Murphy's PoetryNJ Yahoo Group, or a regular visitor to Anthony Buccino's NJ Poets and Poetry, or a subscriber to the Delaware Valley Poets list, or connected to one of the other terrific sources of information in our wonderful Garden State poetry community, you should get there.

How good is this month? Check out these events scheduled opposite each other next week:

ERIC HOFFMAN, BURT KIMMELMAN & MADELINE TIGER in Monclair
Thursday, October 29, 7:30 PM Watchung Booksellers http://www.watchungbooksellers.com/

DIANE LOCKWARD & DAVID TUCKER in Middletown
Thursday, October 29 @ 7:00 PM Middletown Public Library.

Also, I'm really late to add congrats, but Diane Lockward and Kelli Agodon recently announced upcoming books. And Meg Kearney's new book (announced some time ago) is now available at Amazon.

***

After 30+ years in musical theater (give or take a month), I performed my first solo in front of an audience tonight. Don't get me wrong, I've been singing in public forever, but no one has ever mistaken my very blendworthy bass for a less-powerful version Howard Keel. I kinda liked it.

Better, though, was getting a chance for my whole family to be part of the finale in our musical revue. All of us were in front of or around the footlights. I liked that a lot.

Incidentally, you have one more chance to see us.

***

I had forgotten, by the way, how all-consuming the final weeks of staging a production could be. It's not even that our individual bits require all that energy (though anyone who tells you maintaining your character, even for just a song or two, 4 or 5 nights in a row isn't work has never trod the boards) - it's just as much the active listening when you're not in character, the being present during other scenes to know how yours contributes to the whole...

And I'd forgotten how much fun it could be, too.

***

I'd like to thank the New Jersey Jets (you heard me) for not dragging things out until week 15 this year. That makes Sundays a bit easier. Frees me up to watch the bowling with a clear conscience.

***

I've just about got the hang of that Facebook thingy. My Artist's Page is slowly becoming both informational and entertaining. If you're looking for status updates, I'm not your man, but if you're looking for reminders of selected Jersey events, links to interesting arts articles or (perish the thought!) the chance to see me perform live, I think it's serving its purpose there. Easier to update than this (though that's a personal bias - if I'm in this space, I take a bit more care in the writing. Not always in the spelling, but in the writing).

***

Only 60 shopping days until Christmas. Feels like I'm behind already. Thinking about my annual Christmas poem. I'm leaning in a Peanutsy direction, if I can pull it off. Hard to tap the energy of the masterpiece. 'course I haven't made much time for the pencil.

Which means maybe I should end this post and grab my notebook. You think?

Monday Musings on Poetry Friday

I'm so far behind in the poetry orbit that I'm in danger of being lapped by Pluto, but I did happen to catch Khalil Murrell's Poetry Friday entry over at the Dodge Blog. I've enjoyed what the Dodge folks have done with that space, and Murrell's essay is interesting and well written, but there are couple of inconsistencies I'm struggling with.

When he says early on that "completing your MFA is like finishing med school or an MBA (except with less money-making potential, but similar debt).", I'm OK with it, though the difference between medical school and an MBA is huge -in both effort and application. In the sense that each area of expertise has a logical education terminus, I agree.

Next, in considering what to do with the thesis inside that terminal degree, Murrell asserts that "Naturally, capitalism offers an easy answer to these questions: morph it into manuscript, shop it around and publish! publish! publish!". Starting to lose me here. Having already asserted that there's no money in poetry and kept the work "professional" in quotes, it's misleading to call the drive to publish a capitalistic exercise, no matter what that implies.

"But in many ways life as a writer becomes more complicated once you drop the pen and certainly as you mature as an artist.". Hmm. Certainly no one can argue that maturation implies an acceptance of complexity, bit I don't understand how seeking publication equates to "drop(ping) the pen". This seems dramatic, and inappropriately so for someone familiar with the process. Going on to add "And believe it or not, I even miss the time when I foolishly wrote bad love poems (but good to me at the time) before the word “workshop” ever invaded my vocabulary." again speaks to nostalgia for a less complex, more youthful time, but doesn't speak to an older self who isn't writing.

Again speaking of publishing exclusive of or in preference to writing, Murrell notes that his writing buddies "are very disciplined about getting their work out there. In fact, one friend created an Excel document to track her submissions. Another keeps some type of document on his iPhone." This moves from nostalgia into naivete. Is it really such a surprise to track submissions? to navigate a spreadsheet program? To have such information handy?

Closing up his approach to completing his degree, Murrell notes "I’m satisfied with making sure I leave my program with an authentic—rather than workshop—voice, with trying to create something beautiful out of bewilderment or sadness." I've written about and empathize very much with pursuit of genuine voice. But the naivete is even louder here. Unless the point here is advocacy of college for college's sake - a strange sentiment for graduate school in this century - this implies that there is no connection between the conscious decision to pursue advanced education the desire to advance in one's field. Now, I don't think that Murrell's really saying this; I think he's just frustrated with the priority that publication has in some people's minds. However, when he adds that "I realize this may sound overly romantic if not inauthentic .... (b)ut a little romanticism has done very little to hurt the masses.", think frustration really clouds his position. I suspect many poets with a certain level of talent and accomplishment find the "romantic" opinion of the amateur - the "Hey, I've written a poem! Everyone needs to read it!" - more frustrating than the publish or perish attitude of the jaded professional.

Perhaps I'm picking nits here. And (Disclaimer Alert!) I'm not an MFA candidate and not likely to become one anytime soon. But I think most professionals like me, who went to graduate school specifically to learn and apply particular skills for the purpose of being and being recognized as someone more accomplished in a given field, I think Murrell's argument is (admittedly) romantic, but also deliberately incomplete.

Which may actually specifically make it poetic, now that I think a little. Maybe I'm way off after all.

Fred McBagonluri at DeBaun

Here's this week's press release from the Spoken Word Series. Beats me why it never occurred to me to post there here before.

===========================================================

Fred McBagonluri
October’s Spoken Word Artist
For Immediate Release

Performance Date: October 4, 2009, at 3 p.m., with open microphone following
Location: Symposia Bookstore, 510 Washington St., Hoboken, NJ (Accessible by PATH & Light Rail), www.symposia.us
Admission: FREE, with $3 suggested donation
Information: www.debaun.org/SpokenWordSeries.html or 201-216-8933

Hoboken, NJ: For the second installment of the 2009–2010 Spoken Word Series, DeBaun Center for Performing Arts and curator David Vincenti have chosen a wonderful artist to be featured on Sunday, October 4, 2009, at 3 p.m.—Fred McBagonluri. The Spoken Word Series, co-hosted by Siobhan Barry-Bratcher and David Vincenti, is presented monthly at Symposia Bookstore, 510 Washington St., Hoboken, NJ.

Fred McBagonluri is a Director of R&D at BD Medical. Fred graduated from Central State University, Wilberforce, OH with a BS in Manufacturing Engineering (summa cum laude) in 1996. He holds MS and PhD from Virginia Tech (1998) and University of Dayton (2005), respectively. He has published extensively in technical journals, conference proceedings and book chapters and has over 26 US and European patent applications in the areas of advanced imaging technologies and hearing instruments design. Fred is the 2008 recipient of the Black Engineer of the Year: Most Promising Scientist, 2008 NJBiz Healthcare Innovator Hero Awards and 2009 Astronaut Candidate Finalist. He is the author of three novels: (A) Woman to Marry, Dusk Recitals and When Tears Stand Still. He is married to Diana McBagonluri, also an author and they have two daughters, Putiaha and Puyen.

Fred will read from his works and then the microphone will be open to the public to share their work. Although it is not necessary to pre-register to attend the event, those interested in sharing their work during the open mic are asked to sign up at 2:45 p.m. Open mic participants are asked to limit their work to five minutes per person.

The Spoken Word Series takes place at Symposia Bookstore, 510 Washington St., Hoboken, NJ. Symposia is the only used bookstore in Hoboken and has great prices for used books, wireless Internet access and many events every week. This is the sixth year DeBaun Center for the Performing Arts and Symposia Bookstore have teamed up to co-produce the Series. With each reading, more and more people are introduced to this wonderful bookshop and the work of many superb artists.

For more information, please visit www.debaun.org/SpokenWordSeries.html, email Center@debaun.org or call 201-216-8933.

The next Spoken Word event will be on November 1, 2009, at 3 p.m. with Jessica de Koninck.

One Poem, My Beamish Boy!

The Poetry Out Loud blog posts the following question: If you could choose only ONE poem to teach to your students, what would it be, and why? POL is about high school, which is a venue I've only dipped a toe into, but I can answer without hesitation for the age groups I've worked with (3rd-8th).

Jabberwocky.

Think about it. It's a classic but it's fun. It permits the teaching of rhyme and meter. It permits both performance and interperations. It many elements of sound and how it affects tone (hard sounds are darker...), etc.

And here's one more huge thing for me: it teaches not to be hung up on the words as individuals when the idea is to experience the poem. There will be time to worry about the words and their placement, and all that; a first experience with poetry is not that time).

One of the biggest hurdles I find in getting kids to write poems is to permit their imagination to come with them into a poem. To let their natural desire to tell great stories, unencumbered by truth, control the pen. What better vehicle to get past that than a great action story in which you provide the meaning for every single noun.

And as kids get older, you can add to the lesson that the poem is capable of taking on a life of its own irrespective of what was in the poet's head when he or she wrote it - another reason to trade meaning for momentum in the poem. Almost always the right thing to do.

What poems were meaningful to you as kids? What was it about them that stayed with you:?

What is this man trying to say?

Actually, I'm teaching some project managers some simple tools to better understand scope management. Wasn't that obvious?

Notes: Photo was borrowed from here. Visit the Symposium Page for more on my talk.

Poetry Weekends in New Jersey!

Oh, to be in New Jersey, now that verse is here....

***

If you weren't in Hoboken last weekend, you missed Deborah Ager's visit, and hearing her read from Midnight Voices. Deborah and her family braved both sides of the Hudson and got to spend some quality time at the Hoboken Italian Festival (zeppoles in lieu of payment? I'll bite).

Thanks, Deborah for the visit! I hope the southbound traffic treated you well on the way home (but I know it probably didn't...)

***

My oh my, if you have already made plans for this Sunday, you need to cancel them now and get your DVR ready to save the end of the Jets' 23-13 victory for you. That's right. I said it.

Here are three events that should ought to give the NFL a run for its TV money. Unfortunately, they're all happening at the same time!

First, in Red Bank, you have Peter Murphy and Chris McIntyre reading at Dublin House.

If that's too far south for you, stop in to see Nancy Scott and BJ Ward at Poets in the Garden in Morristown.

And finally, if you have an aversion to BOTH the Parkway and 287, join Diane Lockward for a Poetry Party on the theme "When Arts Collide" at the Huddle Inn.

***

And NEXT weekend, we have the Warren County Poetry Festival! More on that as it approaches. I need to focus on Sunday!

Another few reasons you should come to Hoboken tomorrow...

From my perch, I regard your room
as insipid. I receive your whispers
daily. You, in return, push all
my buttons.
...

from "Lament of the Telephone", by Deborah Ager, from Midnight Voices.

It promises to be a mostly sunny day in The Boken, and you may even be able to grab a few zeppoles on the way in or out of the reading. The Jets are starting a rookie and won't be watchable until week 5, the Giants don't kick off until 4:15. There are no excuses not to be in your seat at Symposia Bookstore (510 Washington Street) by 3PM.

None.

Zero.

See you there.

Remember. Read. Renew.

Home By Now
by Meg Kearney

New Hampshire air curls my hair like a child's
hand curls around a finger. "Children?" No,
we tell the realtor, but maybe a dog or two.
They'll bark at the mail car (Margaret's
Chevy Supreme) and chase the occasional
moose here in this place where doors are left
unlocked and it's Code Green from sun-up,
meaning go ahead and feel relieved—
the terrorists are back where you left them
on East 20th Street and Avenue C. In New York
we stocked our emergency packs with whistles
and duct tape. In New England, precautions take
a milder hue: don't say "pig" on a lobster boat
or paint the hull blue. Your friends in the city
say they'll miss you but don't blame you—they
still cringe each time a plane's overhead,
one ear cocked for the other shoe.

==================

Meg read for DeBaun Series in January, 2002. Although we'd "started" the series a few months earlier, I consider Meg's reading our first real event for a number of reasons, but mostly because the cumulative audience for the preceding 4 "events" was "zero". When she read for DeBaun, she started by reciting the poem of a teenage boy, which I unfortunately don't remember, which basically said if the two sides in a war could see each other clearly, as if through a window, they'd just stop fighting. I think Meg recited that poem to open all her readings in 2002, as a small gesture toward restored sanity in the world.

==================

Well, we've been trying to live up to the spirit Meg's reading baptized us with, and you'll see that spirit in action this weekend if you can stop by Symposia Bookstore at 3PM Sunday, when poet and editor Deborah Ager will join us. Read her poems, then make your plans to join us. You TiVo the games.

Deborah Ager at DeBaun

Even now I dream of this -- ice-glossed asphalt,
the car in circiles, then at rest in the median.

For miles, nothing but snow coating Osceola,
Iowa like a curse, winter crimping the final berries.

(from "Black Ice", Midnight Voices, Cherry Grove Collections)

Deborah Ager will be the featured reader at the initial event of the Spoken Word Series this coming Sunday; all the usual details apply.

Hope to see you there!

SePOETember

You could get whiplash entering the New Jersey Poetry Scene in September, I'm thinking. Our season starts up in 7 days (more on that tomorrow), but here's an event you might want to be making time that might not show up on your usual poetry calendars:

Premiere Stages mounts a production of "Any Other Name", George Brant's play inspired by the experiences of poet John Clare, through September 20. Read more about it, and if you're ordering tickets, use the discount code "ROSE" when you call the box office (908-737-SHOW) to announce your love of poetry and save 5 bucks in the process.