Resolutions, Part 1

Happy new year!

I hope all six of my loyal readers have had a great holiday season and are poised for a great 2008.

I'll be back soon to begin acting out my NYR's, which include:

Reposting on the relationship between writing and playing chess. It's really simpler than I made it.

Finishing any one of the drafts I started sitting in the airport when my mother's plane was delayed before Christmas. Maybe even posting one here.

Sending out overdue submissions.

Ceasing to worry if my chapbook contest submission actually arrived in December. I mean, it had to. Surely, right?

Christmas Dance

Panic in your face, you write questions
to ask him. When he arrives,
you are serene, your fear
unbetrayed. How unlike me you are.

Maria Mazziotti Gillan, the great talent who has given me (and many others here in NJ) much to learn from as both artist and host is represented by her poem "My Daughter at 14: Christmas Dance" this week at The Writer's Almanac (first stanza above).

Reminds me: Time to get cracking on that old yuletide versification. Check back near Chrismas and see if I found something to write about.

Science = Metaphor?

Via Ron Silliman, I just finished reading an interview with Rae Armantrout wherein she says

I find that thinking about contemporary science takes us to the border of what we imagine we know—which is a good place for poetry to be. Science generally ignores poetry, of course. But science, like all human communication, depends on metaphors. I sometimes think scientists would do well to study poetry to become more conscious of the way metaphors work.

My first instinct was to say "umm, no." Science, in the sense of discovering the laws of nature, is the opposite of metaphor. It's the paring down of all interactions until unalterable truths are stated a minimum of ambiguity. But articulating that thought made me realize that this is not necessarily the opposite of metaphor. In fact, the demonstration of scientific findings to nonexperts through models and simulation does seem to be to contain some of the stuff of metaphor. And in that sense, Ms. Armanttrout is right: scientists could benefit from a fluency in meatphor to express their concepts better outside the fraternity of technogists.

I have drafted a Grade 6-8 program called "Poetry and Science" in which I use science concepts as poem starters and exercises. This simple statement has me thinking I could also go the other way: Start with language that captures a nugget of a scientific concept and have students expand on it, seeing if they get close to the law described or not, and discussing what the process teaches about separating "fact" from "idea" in the poem.

Interesting....

Salmon Revives the Poem of the Week

Jessie Lendennie's mailing list came back to life this week with a sample from the newly released Salmon: A Journey in Poery 1981 - 2007. I discovered Salmon searching for the poems of Ray Bradbury a while back and am glad the Salmon Poem of the Week is active again.

Salmon Poetry (not to be confuse with salmony poetry) is primarily a publisher of contemporary Irish Poetry, though as the Bradbury book confirms, they are open to other authors writing in English, and they have an Advice for Writers page that's pretty good as a refernce for beginners.

This week's poem, celebrating the new anthology is "The Day The Horizon Disappeared", by Nadya Aisenberg:

Cast out, flung to the furthest rim of neediness,
then caught there in the branches of the danger tree,
where meaning dwells, out of reach, attached
on its green stem at the very edge of dreaming,
a sign repeating itself through branches
surging in air. Wind surrounds and blows through us.
And whose hand is tearing strips from the sky,
And whose hand will seed wild grasses
on the worn nap of the threadbare world?

Thoughts on the way back from the Post Office

Why are they removing the stamp machine?

Do people really buy their envelopes standing in line to send their mail?

Did I spell the editor's name right?

Wow, the Christmas stamps are of questionable artistic merit this year.

Did that guy really expect his Hummer to fit in that spot?

Wait a minute -- I just entered a chapbook contest! What did I do?!?!

Hey, look - a Twix bar!

What I keep forgetting

"A poet's pleasure is to withhold a little of his meaning, to intensify by mystification. He unzips the veil from beauty, but does not remove it."(E. B. White)

This was a recent Poetry Calendar page, and it comes at a good time, reminding me of an important variable to consider in the final selection of poems for the chapbook contest (deadline Saturday!) that I've finally decided to enter. Fewer qualms about this submission than past ones, as it's a contest that gives me a better "in" than most contests, but I've set expectations to - 0 - as usual.

This is an interesting challenge for the writer who has technical writing among their other disciplines (eg: as their day job) - to be able to move seamlessly from the necessarily complete to the delibertely incomplete. Jeff and Jeannine have credentials that suggest it is possible, so I have hope.

Anyway, check back in Monday and see if I made it to the post office!

Twas Brillig... Good Grief!

How have I never noticed Lewis Carroll and Charles Schulz share a birthday? Surely this means something. I have always loved and recited Jabberwocky, and I've quoted Peanuts almost constantly since grade school (don't tell anyone, though, lest my apparent wisdom be diminished).

Nah, you're right probably means nothing at all.

In Which I Admit I'm a Turkey But Move On Past Thanksgiving Regardless...

Geez, another month off for me. I sense a new year's resolution coming on. Anyway. Things of note?

My kids have been getting a long introduction to the fine art of storytelling listening to two of the best: Joseph Bruchac and Dovie Thomason. I've heard both at the Dodge and find them to be outstanding at their craft. It's really quite remarkable to see the impact good storytelling can have with a creative child.

The kids have also been working on what may be the best project ever at school. Every two months, they (essentially) have to "scrapbook" two pages of poetry. It can be original or researched, and the only rule is it can't all come from "The Internet". The one rule is, I guess, encouragement not be lazy in research; there wasn't any risk of that in this house. We're having a great time with it. I'm late in joining in, but I think starting in December, I'll join them and use this space as my scrapbook.

Me, well, busy with new stuff on the day job and recently completed a couple of family projects of some importance, so the usual comment of "many good excuses" applies. However, I've also found time to weed the manuscript down for chapbook contest submission with a December 1 deadline in mind. It's in the "settling stage", where I leave it in the briefcase for a couple days undisturbed and hope it still feels done when I look at it again Sunday. I'll let you know then.

Oh, and you should definitely read Matthew Baldwon's consiedarion of the point of giving thanks.

Condifential to the radical left: Permit yourself to remember the joys while others ritualize the sorrows. This is the gift you are best poised to bring.

Gastroanomintime for Christmas!

Hurray! James Lileks' new book, Gastroanomalies, is being released in time for Christmas, and can be preordered now for early December deliveries. If you haven't read The Gallery of Regrettable Food, Interior Desecrations, or Mommy Knows Worst, you are the poorer for it. There are some online samples of those first two books - revivals of bad 50's cookbooks and the best (by which I mean the worst) of 70's living rooms - on Lileks' website - go read them, then go order the books!

Not convinced? Here's the intro from Interior Desecrations' online adjunct ("Horrible Homes from the Brass Age of American Design")

Sweet smokin’ Judas, what were they thinking? Welcome back to Interior Desecrations, a brutal examination of the unlovely, unattractive, unlivable and unforgivable homes of the 1970s. All eras have some bad taste, of course – but it took the 70s to make bad taste triumphant and universal. It took the 70s to convince everyone to stick foil wallpaper on the wall, paint the bathtub purple, smother the floors in shag so deep it tickled the tops of your ankles, and hang art that managed to clash with everything, including itself. I mean, look at this picture – what is that? A dissected Rubiks’s Cube attempts to threaten a potted plant and his child, I guess. Love the rug, too. They didn’t even make AMC cars in those color combinations. They didn’t dare.

Don't tell me you don't want to see the photo that inspired this. You know you do.

Where Does The Time Go When It's Not Around Here?

(apologies to the great Barenaked Ladies for appropriating one of their myriad brilliant lines)

Oh, good gracious, My posting habits have led me deep into Jets Country now: well beyond the point of excuses. What's been going on:

The Spoken Word Series continues. If you're near Hoboken this Sunday, please join me at Symposia Bookstore at 3PM to hear from the prolific and talented Kate Greenstreet. This will be my first live hosting appearance of the season; my gracious co-host Siobhan Barry-Bratcher has handled the first two installments. The February reading will mark year seven for us. I hear that's an accomplishment; regardless of others' opinions, I know I'm proud to have gotten this far.

Would love to say I've been voraciously reading and spewing poems by the ream, but that would be complete salmon. I have been working on a project that combines several sides of my pu-pu-platter of a personality, but I shan't discuss that here yet for fear of releasing its energy.

And finally, I happened across an online copy of one of my favorite poems, Meg Kearney's "Creed". This poem, which according to Meg was inspired by a similar idea from Jack Wiler, was one of the key bits of kindling in the ultimate revival of my college writing hobby. Read this poem and then spend a few quite minutes letting it settle over you. I hope it does for you what it did for me, and does again every time I read it.

The Sonnet of the Strong Safety

"Sport is not considered art. Instead, it is invariably dismissed as something lesser — even something rather more vulgar — than the more traditional performance activities."

Really exceptional piece by the great Frank Deford today asking why sport isn't considered an art, or at least a field of study for students who wish to become expert. I'm still processing my opinion, but I think it's a great question. Especially when you think of how cerebral some sports have become, the way that understanding of probability and of prowess have become inextricably linked - especially when you think of the volume of study that goes into understanding of techniques and methods for both coaching and training, I think there's a valid question here. No, I'm not saying every student athlete should be permitted to take courses like "Linebacking 101", but that there may be a field of study behind all the sweat.

Having had success as an instructor and coach in both technological and artistic endeavor, and understanding first hand the disdain instructors on each side have had for the "softness" of the curriculum on the other, I'm open to the idea that there's a football curriculum waiting to be designed.

Maybe it will even explain how coaches who haven't seen a sonnet since tenth grade can use phrases like "poetry in motion" to explain the grace of a wide receiver at the apex of his leap, mean it as the highest of compliments, then tell their students poetry is for dweebs...

A little good press...

... about the Spoken Word Series, courtesy of The Current.

A Geekity Gold Mine

In a spare moment this week I was looking for online instructions for the Faber-Castell slide rule inherited from my father (which replaced the junior version he gave me when I was 6), and I happened across (by way of the unaffiliated MoHPC) the online repository the HP Journal - a magazine presenting the technological advances produced by the scientists and engineers at that illustrious company. Few companies have been as successful as HP has over the years at reducing to practice (which isn't quite the same thing as innovating, just as technology isn't the same thing as science - but I digress) and if you're at all interested in the technological advances of the past 40 years, you MUST go look through these great journals.

My favorite find so far: an interview with the team lead for the development of the first "electronic calculator", discussing the industrial design requirements to keep the device "pocket sized", and how it "would eventually be competitive" with the slide rule despite its $395 price tag.

That's 395 in 1973 dollars, by the way.

The same page also provides access to the Digital journal, which takes me back to being thrown out of my high school's computer lab because sophomores couldn't be trusted at the PDP-11 terminals; that privilege was reserved for seniors. Good times, good times....

Thanks to the Hewlett-Packard company for making these available.

And yes, I am this big a nerd, and I can still use my slide rule a little. Don't believe me? Multiplication: C over D, cursor on C, read on D. So there.

Anyone up for a little Reverse Polish Poetry?

I just need a minute...

Someone get FPA on the line, and see what he thinks of Tom Glavine.

This is the greatest of September swoons
Somebody wake up The Mets
Looking for pitchers? Hire some baboons -
That just might wake up The Mets
Ruthlessly rushing like men late for dinner
Acting like Marlins are saints, Mets the sinners
Somehow converting the Phils into winners
Oh just shut up 'bout my Mets.

(With apologies to Tinker, Evers, and Chance and their claim to fame, I think this verse is of roughly the same quality as Jose Reyes' final at bat this year.)

Like Willie, I will be back next year, but oh Sweet Myrtle how this one hurts.

Thank Heaven I have Gang Green to root for now. That should keep me occupied until Halloween.

Wisdom from Parker and Hood

Smile, and the World will smile back at you;
Aim with a grin and you cannot miss;
Laugh off your woes, and you won't feel blue.
(Poetry pays when it's done like this.)

Reading Not Much Fun - The lost poems of Dorothy Parker, which after a quick thumbing seems more interesting for its abbreviated biography than Parker's poems. But she had a great gift for pun, which (for me) is always worth a closer look.

Great dialog about "giving up writing" over at first draft. I'm not really enough of a writer to be taken seriously when I propose to give it up, but the writers engaged in discussion in that corner of the world have some insights you might be interested in.

Two weeks later, the phone rings....

Oy. Just when you feel like you've got time to pick up a book.

Numerous good things this weekend if you're puttering around NJ looking for poetry:

George Witte and Tina Kelley are reading at 1978 Maplewood Arts Center on Friday night.

Opposite them, unfortunately, Joel Allegretti relaunches the North Jersey Literary Series at Blend Cafe in Rutherford (note courtesy of the never-idle John J. Trause, who also support poetry at the Williams Center). Of course, you could catch George and Tina and still make Joel's late set

And just in case this isn't enough poetry for one weekend, spend Saturday at the Warren County Poetry Festival. Linda Pastan, Kurtis Lamkin.... something for everyone, guaranteed.

As for me, I need to get to the TV immediately...

A Word From My Inner Ed Sullivan

One marvelous thing about hosting the Spoken Word Series is that I get a chance to meet some extraordinary artists and to have them play for a moment in my sandbox (they bring their own sand, of course, and take it with them when they leave, but now I've completely shattered what was once a promising metaphor).

Anyway, there have been a couple times - just a couple - when the series has been a small part of a truly remarkable artistic moment, and I heard recently from visual artist Nancy Tobin of the continuing momentum of one of those moments.

Last year, due to that magical combination of serendipity and familial obligation (just kidding!), we were able to host a collaboration between Nancy and the great Jerome Rothenberg as part of the Visible Word, an annual event at which we select visual artists and solicit new ekphrastic (sp?) poetry in response to their art. That collaboration is now available in a beautiful edition through SPD, and their joint work is also part of an exciting anthology called "Viz Inter-arts Event A Trans-genre Anthology".

By the way, not only are these terrific pieces of verbal and visual art for to have on my shelf. Also, for me, these books will be reminders of having had the chance to meet and work with Nancy and Jerome, who were just phenomenally friendly and accommodating throughout the process. I don't mean to imply that my offer of a stage and some wall space was essential to their creations. But I respect the legacy of the Really Big Shoeman enough to know how special it is to be there at those great moments in the arts. Even if all you do is recite the names and step to the left.

Mister Congeniality

Another pleasant and encouraging rejection this week, with a request to try the journal again. I appreciate these notes. I do believe that even form rejections come in flavors - the "What were you thinking?" variety through the "This guy gets it, but just missed" kind, and my most recent rejections were of the latter sort. I have a goal of having two submissions pending at all times, and this last flush brings me back down to one, so it's time to fire the engine back up. I do have to packages to prepare for editors who have requested specific poems they've heard me read - but I'm not letting myself consider those submissions, since even the nicest editors (and these two are just tops in the nice department) don't ask for what they don't want. Back to the portfolio.

Interestingly, both these recent rejected packages contained poems that had once before received the "You're so close..." rejection once previously, and now I'm thinking that my whole body of work tends to fit this description. Maybe it's time to take a serious look at the last couple years' production with this thought in mind. I wonder.

Watch the Watch

Spent a lot of time in traffic with my cousins yesterday and - as tends to happen with this bunch - a joke-telling fest was called for. Usually, I find myself sitting back and laughing - I'm a fair storyteller, but don't have a memory or knack for jokes. As things got going, an old joke leaped out of my mental file cabinet and into the room. Happened again a short while later. And when we had a quiet time a few minutes following I realized the connection between the jokes was that my father had told me them both. And a minute after that I looked down at my wrist, at the tuxedo watch I took from my father's jewelry box after he passed away. First time I had worn the watch (at least in a couple years), first time I remembered any jokes during joke time (at least in a couple years).

No, I don't know what that means.

Confidential to Yonkers: My father says "Face it: This one, you hit right".

Bits II (The Back From Vacation Version)

Just getting back from a week on the gulf coast of Florida, swimming, eating, (two words which interestingly can be easily combined into "sweating") and visiting some great local attractions (among which I do not include the surprisingly many street corners featuring early stumpers for Ron Paul). Didn't keep tabs on the blogroll while away, which seems to have been consistent with the plans of most of my listed-at-right writers.

Some things to regain my momentum for the coming months:

• I posted my first review at Goodreads this morning. Just 340 more and I'll have caught up to Jeannine's three-month total (she'll be up to 527 by then).
• On that note, I'm finally getting around to reading some of the books I picked up at the NJ Journals Festival in May. Vacation is good for that, as opposed to work and kids, which had dominated the summer to that point.
• Due to schedule confusions, we had to postpone the annual ekphrasis event of the Spoken Word Series; Robert Milby is our replacement artist for October. Hopefully in the Spring.
• Another thing vacation is good for is writing. I don't know if it's the time, the pressure, or just sufficient marination, but an idea for a poem sequence that I've been kicking around nearly forever burst forth in the form of 6 drafts in 6 days. That's an explosion of output for me, and its momentum dragged forth 2 drafts on unrelated subjects. I'm thinking of building the sequence into a submision for Missouri Review - I really like that journal and their website (editorial entries/essays, especially) is outsanding, but the submissions guidelines have always intimidated me ("TMR publishes poetry features only--6 to 14 pages of poems by each of 3 to 5 poets per issue. Please keep in mind the length of features when submitting poems. Typically, successful submissions include 8-20 pages of unpublished poetry (note: please do not send complete manuscripts--published or unpublished--for consideration)".
• This week and for months before, I've been carrying around my father's copy of Fermat's Enigma. It was the last book I bought for him before he died, and I know how much he enjoyed it. I've wanted to read this book since long before I sent him a copy, but I can't seem to get through the first page. I guess vacation can't cure everything.