In which the author refuses to let the Blogger monthly counter indicate a completely delinquent September

Confluence: Start of the school year, end of the fiscal year, start of some new teaching projects, ramp up of the drive to book reading events in the coming year, start of the DeBaun calendar (including rework of the schedule because we completely goofed on October).....

.... and one very nice, interesting thing. Started up a lunchtime writer's group in my office. Shouldn't have been surprised, I suppose, to find 15 energetic writers on a corporate campus, but I admit I didn't expect to find quite so much enthusiasm. Not just poets in the group, so I suggested a prompt I thought would be adaptable to any style: Start a poem or a paragraph with "Now that I can....". It would (IMHO) go against spirit of a new group to tell you much more, but I'll say that it worked pretty darned well.

For our next meeting, we've taken prompts in advance, giving ourselves a month to work on them. I'll be curious to see how well the variety works among forms in that case; I suspect that time favors the prosers. What do you think?

***

I'll be using the Facebook page to keep track of reading dates in the coming months, and all the DeBaun date are up to date there, so please head over there and "Like" my author page if you're interested.

And with any luck, I'll not be absent from here for the next month in the process.....

Delete Your Darlings

Read over your compositions, and wherever you meet with a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out. - Samuel Johnson
(courtesy iGoogle Quotes of the Day)
****

Best. Advice. Ever.

This was the hardest thing for me to accept as I entered the home stretch with "To The Ones...". On an intellectual level, I realized that I wasn't objective about some parts of the manuscript. A lot of that's because there are scenes in there derived from real-life experiences with my kids, and it's hard to separate neutral-to-negative comments about the associated writings from neutral-to-negative comments about the events and kids themselves. Of course, that's complete nonsense, which I know - on one level.

I had some great and generously honest feedback on my manuscript that left me with two choice: reject the consistent feedback of poets I admire and defend my personal position on poems I'd been close to for years, or accept that maybe - just maybe - I might not be seeing those poems clearly.

You'll have to read the book for yourself and tell me whether I was successful in processing the feedback, but my clear intent was to listen.

I've also passed Johnson's advice along to other writers; usually I add "because those are the parts you're not objective about". Aside from "Read, read, read", I think it's the best guidance a writer can take to heart.

What's your favorite bit of advice?

Appearing in the Rutherford Red Wheelbarrow 3....

Very pleased to announce I'll have two poems in THE RUTHERFORD RED WHEELBARROW 3. Take a look at the company I'm keeping in this issue. My thanks to the editors for permitting me entry to this prestigious club!

*****************

The Rutherford Red Wheelbarrow No. 3
ISBN 978-0-557-58376-8
Paperback: 232, Price: $15
Red Wheelbarrow Poets, August 2010
http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/the-rutherford-red-wheelbarrow-no-3/12206587

Masthead:
Editor: Jim Klein
Managing Editor: Mark Fogarty
Managing Editor: Sondra Singer Beaulieu
Designer: Claudia Serea
Editor Advisor: John Barrale
Editor Advisor: Céline Beaulieu
Editor Advisor: George DeGregorio

Contributors (in alphabetical order):
John Barrale
Céline Beaulieu
Sondra Singer Beaulieu
Marian Calabro
Teresa Carson
George DeGregorio
Gil Fagiani
Jane Fisher
Mark Fogarty
Elissa Gordon
Max Greenberg
Roxanne Hoffman
Pamela Hughes
Josh Humphrey
Gail King
Jim Klein
Melanie Klein
Janet Kolstein
Joel Lewis
Maria Lisella
Pete Loria
Zorida Mohammed
Michael O'Brien
Moira O'Brien
Tony Puma
Gabriella Radujko
Susan Rappaport
Susanna Rich
Dan Saxon
Claudia Serea
Ed Smith
Rosemarie S. Sprouls
Anna Toher
John J. Trause
Miyuki Tsurumaki
David Vincenti
B.J. Ward
Dorinda Wegener
Don Zirilli
Sander Zulauf

Procurement details to follow....

Saturday Rounds

Finally, an appropriate piece about the death of publishing, by The Morning News's Non-Expert.

******

Via Diane Lockward, a new online anthology, with the pleasant surprise of work from old favorite Joseph Bruchac and the promise of more from other terrific poets soon.

******

Fascinating debate raging on the New-Poetry mailing list about Robert Frost, the gyst of which seems to be that he wasn't genuine in the character his poems suggested. Or that his poems are too cliche or out of touch to be meaningful today. I think there have been so many Frost imitators that we lose sight of what Frost was when his work was new, and I still think he's among the best ways to introduce poetry to kids. A short side thread wanted to compare Frost to Williams and to Stevens, which is - in my opinion - like comparing (in no particular order) spaghetti with sushi with hot dogs. Sure, they're all food, but what does the comparison get you?

******

Note to Monopoly fans: If you fancy yourself a serious player (which I do) and you allow yourself to join a game using a Disney(tm) Princess Junior game set (which I did), you should expect to lose to the youngest player by 4x the starting bankroll (which.... no comment).

Hey, buddy, can you spare a workshop idea?

I have an ongoing relationship with dandelions. The first poem I ever had accepted for print by someone who wasn't also grading my term papers was called "Dandelion". It was a lovely bit of syrup and I remember fondly the poem and the time in my evolution as a writer it represents (my "early Crayola" period). When I first started shopping around to lead poetry workshops with kids, that poem was one I turned to as an example - it was simple, suitable for audiences as young as 3rd grade, not entirely awful, and contained a few teachable elements - but I never thought of it having much use for workshops with adults, or even older kids.

This month (well, next month, actually), I'll be looking for ideas to jump start a new writers' group, and I like the idea of starting with a workshop based on dandelion poems. It's subject matter everyone can attach to, both visually and metaphorically, yet have a range of reactions to on either axis. That's key for me, because this group will contain writers at levels ranging from accomplished to novice.

The old blogroll will serve me well in this case; starting right at the top with Adele Kenny, there are a dozen good ideas easily accessible (in the IT sense, not the New Formalist or any other "school" sense). But I'm open to suggestions, too.

Do you have any workshop ideas that you've seen work with a widely divergent audience?

Don't even think of talking here

Ron Silliman has turned off the comments stream for his blog because he chooses to no longer moderate the vitriol. Somehow, some people have interpreted this as an offense against readers who do not favor L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poetry. I'm not sure how anyone can reach this conclusion.

A number of people calling into sports shows I follow have lamented that "because of steroids", Alex Rodriguez' 600th home run is meaningless. Really? While I understand people's disappointment in tarnished heroes, I don't know how, at least if you're not a Yankee-hater, you dismiss the accomplishment.

Wil Wheaton is attending a gaming convention this weekend and has decided to execute a Howiemandelic maneuver and not shake hands with people during the covention as a way to avoid illness. This has some people offended, and they've made that known in his comments stream.

Common thread here seems to be to find a way to subtract from the importance you assign to persons of accomplishment who do somehow not permit us to apply our values to their work. Or maybe that without the direct link we want to a person with talents we recognize, we choose instead to have no links at all. I don't get this at all.

It's not that we can't feel loss, even deprivation at something taken away. But how does it subtract from the pleasure of experiencing the artistic product to have diminished respect for the artist? I'd have to delete half my playlist if perfect respect for the performer were a requirement for enjoying the music. The message is "I am not interested in your talent of you don't deliver it to me in the way I choose."

In the specifics of Silliman's comment stream, my question is: if you have something to say in response to one of his posts, why is the only place you can say it on his website? If you object to the elimination of his comment thread, isn't that the same thing as resenting losing a forum for your own words? Does he have an obligation to provide not only his time and energy, but also an audience for his readers?

That's the question. What's the answer?

Ta daa!

Well, I suppose it's official now. I've sold copies of my chapook, and not to people with whom I share a maternal grandparent. It was a quite an odd experience in the end - trusting the nice manager at Borders, seeing the books with the Borders price tags on them (I saved one!). But it was a terrific night - first time I've heard a full set from Barbara Crooker, who was just tremendous, and her incredible energy and broad artistry were an interesting balance for my pensive positions, or so we heard from a number of audience members.

The audience included some students of a Stevens classmate; she's left engineering behind and now leverages her technical skills as a high school science teacher, and she introduced some of her former students to the poetry scene with our little event. It's always nice to be able to show people that you can be a good scientist or engineer and still take an interest in the arts. And a great gift to spend a few minutes with someone who knew you when, and has the time and inclination to give you a few minutes today.

The DVP audience is quite a friendly crowd, some poets I know well, some less well, and it was a joy to be able to offer To the Ones there for the first time.

Extending the good feeling and the reach of our corner of the PoBiz, Barbara's "Patty's Charcoal Drive-In" was featured on YDP this week, as were poems by Diane Lockward and Scott Summers.

Up next, taking the book where the book wants to go.....

As long as I'm not watching the fireworks....

(Aside: blah, blah blah, long time, busy busy, blah blah blah.)

I just clicked "Send" on a submission for the first time in (according to my iGoogle clock) 148 days. Partly, I admit, to celebrate completing a poem for the first time in about 50 days. It's a good feeling. And I don't think it's unrelated to finally pulling the trigger on the chapbook.

Yes, boys and girls, I have left the dithering at the dock and committed the chapbook to print. A short debate with Scott Summers over the value of self-publishing recently gave me a chance to confirm to myself that self-publishing is OK with me for this project. I've articulated the reasons before. And yes, I do still think there's a publisher out there who would be interested in the collection, but I also believe that the probability of aligning the manuscript with that publisher at the confluence of their resources (time, money, and submission period) is low, and I want, for a number of reasons, not to roll the dice to discover that alignment any longer.

It's true that you can get backed up artistically, I think. That it gets hard to bite off something new while you're chewing over and over on something you'd like to be done with. I'm not exactly done with the old, here, as I'll be taking it on the road and hopefully moving a few in the months to come, but moving the project out of composition and into presentation makes it a different animal. One that takes energy, yes, but which also creates it in a real way. I don't think I'm alone in thinking this.

So let's see. If I'm right, I'll be bringing that energy to a venue near you soon.

A Father's Fathers' Day

"...We’ve thrown in rain,
we’ve thrown in darkness, once in March we
put on gloves under our gloves and threw in snow
and always to the soundtrack of our conversation,
a father and son’s seeds for a garden of love
I pray will bloom all seasons. ..."

From Ed Romond's Bald Spots, up today at YDP.

The thing that strikes me most today is how different my relationship with my kids is than the one I had with my father. That's partly a function of our respective generations, of course, but also a function of those unexplainable differences that make us all different. My father and I played a lot of baseball together when I was younger - a lot of golf when I was older - and it's not like I played those games reluctantly. But I was always aware that I was not driven the same way he was. I was always a little more joyful in the doing, a little less interested in the level of the achievement (after a point, that is - like him, I've always had the desire to do well anything I cared enough about to do at all).

Looking back at the defining moment in our relationship - the day I brought back to my parents' house a new car I had selected and paid for without their help - and how different our times together were after that, I begin to realize he was always pushing me to be "good enough". We may have had different definitions of that, but I see now that once he was convinced I would neither starve to death nor go bankrupt outside his care, all the (occasional) tension between us fell pretty much away.

Now, I know it's not that simple. Nothing is ever that simple, and the frosted lens of memory covers over many details that would complicate my conclusion. But the thought reminds me today of the father I want to be - the kind whose children are happy in the doing, who are able to do what they choose to do as well as they choose to do it, who are safe and know how to stay so, and who are able to find joy in their decisions. Baseball's not part of our repertoire; we're more likely to sit down at the piano together than go outside to play ball, but it's not really all that different than the way Ed sees things when he's with his son. It's just that our misunderstood imperfections are broken keys - "no music" spots, maybe - instead of the patches in Ed's lawn.

****

Here, by the way, are three things I think all fathers should share with their kids on Father's Day:

• An activity they can do while laughing
• A meal they can eat with their hands
• A nap.

And so I'm off.

A Happy Fathers' Day to my many role models in the job.

Kibble (the stuff that's not quite up to "Bits" standards)

Wouldn't it make more sense for Mothers' Day to be coincident with the end of the (grammar) school year? As much as I think of myself as an involved and enlightened father, it seems sensible to celebrate mothers at the same time the day-to-day schlepping of the a school year hits a little bit of a lull.

Of course, "camp" starts soon enough...

****

At YDP, Jayne Jaudon Ferrer has been celebrating fathers this week. As always, her selections span from contemporary to classic, and the idea that we have been exploring our relationships with our fathers for hundreds of years is somehow comforting to me.

Jayne posted this week one of my favorite father-themed poems by I writer I am getting to know better this year. Go read Gregory Orr's "Father's Song" and, if you've been around these parts for long, you'll quickly see that it's the kind of poem I frequently aspire to write.

Today's poem, by the way, is by Jerseyan and literarymama columnist Ona Gritz; her work is always worth a visit.

****

I hereby concede to the spammenters. Comment moderation is now turned on here. I get so few comments, it's not a big deal, but it is ridiculous.

And yes, I will continue to prevent anything I find offensive from appearing in the comments section (though now proactively instead of through deletion. My mother visits here, after all.

****

Ron Silliman was in Poetry in June. He was last in that august periodical in 1969. I think that says something, but I'm not sure exactly what.

The issue in which he appears has letters on both sides of a "controversy" regarding the value, or maybe the appropriateness, of having poets explain their work. This may be particularly meaningful in an issue in which Silliman appears, given his ongoing position that most poets put so little effort into the craft that there is no "other layer" to the work - that most things people call "poems" today are at best interrupted prose in consideration of sitcom-quality topics (all of that is in my words, by the way, not his...). And I know that even I, whose work is not nearly as many-layered or allusive as that of the great poets I follow, grow weary of people stopping in the middle of a poem to ask "what does it mean?" However, I find the vehemency of some poets' opposition to explanation just as wearying. If we want to grow poetry's audience, we need to provide some opportunity for people to latch onto it. And once latched on, the explanations are irrelevant. Explanations are like the instructions to a great board game like History of the World. We cling to the directions when we're learning, but once we are proficient we leave them in the box and just play.

Why is this such a problem for some poets?

****

Quote today on iGoogle: "Rational arguments don't usually work on religious people. Otherwise, there wouldn't be religious people." (it's attributed to Doris Egan, but I don't know if it's her or one of her characters speaking). Now, as a daily practitioner both of my Roman Catholic faith and my technology career, I think this is selling people of faith a bit short, but that's for another forum. What's interesting to me is that you could substitute just about any subject about which people feel passionately for the religious connotation in this statement. For example, could you imagine hearing "Rational arguments about poetry don't usually work on poets. Otherwise, there wouldn't be poets."? Or soccer fans? Are annoyed with sportscasters feeling obliged to tell us how they don't like soccer everyday during the World Cup? I don't care if you like soccer (I'm not a fan, really, either), but don't disparage people who do. Likewise poetry.

BTW, doesn't this link clearly to the explanation argument? If the fervent are dismissive of the explanations, and the uninitiated are dismissive of the explanations, is there anywhere for the two to connect?

****

Today is one of six days every year (well, 11 days back in 2000). I root against the Yankees. Forgive me, please!

****

And in case I don't get back to you, Happy Father's Day!

Draft: One For My Father

Discussing the object of our respective writings, a poet friend recently asked me if I'd written much about my own father, wondering if exploring that relationship was somehow evolving parallel with my exploration of the relationships I'm seeking with my own children. I realized, and said in response, that I'd done quite a bit of writing when he died - going on 10 years ago, now - but much recently. Not long after, I had a nice long car ride in which to think about that. And this is the season for me to think about time: his birthday (he'd have been 69 this month) and Father's Day are close enough together to concentrate my energy on on his memory for a while, and it's about this time every year that I realize that I am more like him than I am like any other person - and I understand him a little better each time I reach that realization.

Of course, he'd slap me senseless for going on like this. He believed firmly that thinking of those who have gone ahead was akin to shouting down a well - might get some words out of your system, but you're not doing anyone else any good.

I disagree. But I'm also OK with that if it's true. Here's one for my dad.

Long Weekend Bits

Is it just me or do long weekends have a way of becoming fuller than shorter ones?

***

Been a busier May than I'd have designed, though I finally (this morning) clicked off my iGoogle Days Since I Completed A Poem reminder. 103 days is a long time. A number of drafts accumulated since then, but with the focus on the chapbook, I haven't been transcribing much. Getting to a couple readings this month has certainly helped, as has having a couple of long solitary car rides in which to aerate the idea factory.

***

The chapbook, you ask? Well, TTOWMBL v2.0 (the Beta) has seen daylight. I've even allowed left it out on a table for passersby to pick up and flip through. Of course, even in a poet's home, the probability that a book of poems will be noticed and read isn't exactly a given. But I'm trusting it. I don't know that it's done, but I have a few weeks before my self-imposed deadline of Father's Day to get comfortable with it. I've got one more small change in the contemplation stage; decision soon.

***

May ends for me with the start of the Memorial-Day-to-Father's-Day run, which includes my father's birthday; Dad's been gone for the better part of a decade now. The balance for me is to stay in the moment as a father without sacrificing moments of reflection. That may contribute to how long this weekend feels for me each year.

***

A completed draft tomorrow, maybe....

In which the author intends to skip the excuses and get directly to the business of blurbing about where we've been for two weeks. But fails.

I gauge my efficiency by the status of my inbox. At work, if I go two successive weeks without reducing the length of un-responded to emails my inbox to less than 1 screen (about 40 messages), then I know I'm slipping. I'm a little less compulsive at home, there it's "no more than one new page" (about 50 messages).

After an hour this morning I've cut the home account back to 200 unprocessed emails. Ugh. Faring much better at work, because the hierarchy is always 1/2 Family, 2/1 Work, 3 Health, 4 Community, 5 Art. But the problems not (usually) that I don't read these emails, it's that I keep thinking I'm going to do something with them.

Are we all like that? I receive 3 poems in my inbox every day: YDP, AAP (until they go exclusively to the iPhone, anyway) and TWA. I've long ago stopped being able to visit PD every morning - it's more of a monthly catch up with me now. But with many of the poems, I find that there's something keeping me from dispositioning it. Something I want to share, or imitate, or research, or - Forgive me, Lord - try to do better than it was done in the poem I just read.

I think this has been exacerbated for me this year with the focus on the chapbook, rather than on new writing: two rounds of reordering an rewriting, doing some local readings from the book to get the feel of how it hang together, etc. Heck, just deciding to and weeding through options to self publish was a lost month.

And could someone have warned me the urge to rewrite poems once you see the book laid out as as an actual book would be overwhelming? Anyway....

Now that I'm coming out the end of the book process (my goal was available by Father's Day - it'll be close....), the new poems are coming again, and the urge to keep piles of papers all around me (virtually and physically) seems to be going away. Which is nice.

****

Recent goodnesses: Attended Diane Lockward's annual festival at the West Caldwell Public Library; couldn't stay for it all, but what I saw was great as always - picked up a couple new books (Weil, Gwyn) and current journal issues.

Visited Connecticut for the first public airing of the poems from the anthology Crush (about romantic crushes in all their forms...) upcoming from Hanover Press. The official launch is in June, but I wanted to become acquainted with the work in whose company I find myself. I think this will be a terrific book, and I'm very pleased to be included.

More soon.

At least that's the plan.

Thanks

AAP (poets.org) is suggesting an untinterrupted hour of reading or writing time.

Restaurant.com is suggesting gift certificates to some pretty good restaurants and offering some deep discounts as encouragement.

The Metsies are having an honorary bat girl today as part of the Going to Bat Against Breast Cancer initiative.

Everyone who writes has written about their mothers (one great example is BJ Ward's "Upon Being Asked Why I Dedicated My First Book To My Mother When There's Not A Single Poem In There About Her" from Gravedigger's Birthday)

However you note it, use Mother's Day to acknowledge the small moments that otherwise go unacknowledged. A little thanks is worth more than a bunch of brunch.

Or so I've heard.

Happy Mother's Day.

Cruising down the 405....

Post 405, that is - the 405th entry into this little corner of The Internets. Another busy week, so some bits and pieces as we pass through the neighborhood of the FOD:

***

Deborah Ager is running an online poetry workshop, part of the proceeds of which go to support 32 Poems magazine.

***

Elizabeth Lund has a new short review of two recent New and Selecteds, from Robert Hass and Kay Ryan.

***

Many of our friends will be appearing in one way or another at this year's Celebration of New Jersey Journals, hosted by Diane Lockward and featuring a seventh annual collection of readers selected from the pages of local magazines.

***

More general busyness likely the next few days, though I do hope to get to my notes from the great JNJP reading last week while the experience still echoes for me. Like I hope Jason Bay finds his lucky batting gloves soon.

Soon!

This Day in May

April
by James Schuyler


The morning sky is clouding up
and what is that tree,
dressed up in white? The fruit
tree, French pear. Sulphur-
yellow bees stud the forsythia
canes leaning down into the transfer
across the park. And trees in
skimpy flower bud suggest
the uses of paint thinner, so
fine the net they cast upon
the wind. Cross-pollination
is the order of the fragrant day.
That was yesterday: today is May,
not April and the magnolias
open their goblets up and
an unseen precipitation
fills them. A gray day in May

(courtesy AAP Poem-a-Day)

***

NatPoMo is over. Did you hear the gong at midnight? How did you do versus your goals? I did OK: touched a book of poems every day, attended at least one poetry event, completed at least one draft. Setting the minimum goal I did (put one book a day away) had made it easy to do. I could either do something with the book or not, but I had to touch it. Once it's in your hand, why not open it?

***

One third of the way through the year, I've accumulated 23 posts. That's a bit off the pace I wanted to hold, which was 2 per week (100 for the year). I can blame Blogger for eating two I tried to make this week, but I'd still be about 10 off where I wanted to be. I've said before, it's not the posting pace I care about per se, it's being immersed enough in poetry to have something interesting enough to say twice a week. But the truth is that poetry comes third for me, after the family and the job - that's not a complaint, it's a scaling of expectations - which makes the application of minimums important. And utilization - making the most of the moments in which I can choose to immerse.

***

Actually, poetry's fourth when the Mets are in first. Hah!

***

One thing I did make time for was the JNJP reading last week, which you know of you're following me on Facebook. Sandy Zulauf always presents a great show at County College of Morris and this was not an exception. Two hours of poems and music (and great cheeses!), about which more later.

Returning after a few days, the author's head is filled with miscellany and thoughts of Fudge Stripe Cookies...

You go away for a couple days, things happen in your absence. You actually take a day or two to clear your head, and you start to hear the muse again. You pay attention to the muse, and observations come your way again. A few such...

***
Observation from poetry world: Adele Kenny has joined to the universe of online commentators at http://adelekenny.blogspot.com/, providing material from and suitable for her workshops. One of her first entries is on poetry presentation, including this note on reading speed: "Sometimes the proper pace seems ridiculously slow, but it’s really not." I usually put it this way: If you feel like your reading a little too slowly, you're reading almost slowly enough.

***

Observation from the getaway: If you don't like to get wet, don't go to a water park.

***

Observation from the poetry world: Having given Copper Canyon's anthology "The Poet's Child" another chance during vacation (I'd put it aside after the second poem that seemed to reject the whole idea of having children), I of course found some great stuff in it. I need in particular to learn more about the work of Gregory Orr; every time I come across his work I feel a keen connection.

But I still think poets about not liking children are out of place in such a book.

***

Observation from the getaway: The only itinerary acceptable to the under-12 set is the one in which every possible dessert gets sampled. This is not possible. Plan your life lessons in advance of the trip, not in line at the buffet.

***

Observation from the getaway: The books are right; your attitude changes immensely with just a short battery recharge. Monday morning looms, and you still have too much to do, and it's not possible to do it all (see: buffet, above), but somehow the same activity list seems less impossible.

Of course, summer camp season is a whole different story.

***

Observation from baseball: The Mets' solution to dealing with a struggling player back from a year away with injury is to put him in a higher-pressure position he knows less about? I don't have to wait for summer camp to know how I feel about that one.

***

Meter reads full. Off to the routine...

Comedic Kinship

"So part of me wants to let them see my weird side. And part of me wants them to see the serious craft it takes to dig this stuff out and turn it into art. And there's some need for me to connect with them. This whole thing is probably about connecting. Standing up in front of people is saying 'Hey, folks, look at me, ain't I great? Please induct me into your imaginary club of people you like. I want to be in that.' And there's the need to find things out about them. To make kinships. 'I feel this way about ... Volvos and farts.' 'Yeah! Me too!' 'You too? OKAY?'"

As usual, George Carlin says it best. And if this little rant, ostensibly about stand-up comedy, doesn't also apply to poetry, then I don't know what poetry is.

About Last Words, I'll say that that it's a bit disturbing to find out as much about Carlin as he admits in the book (though not really all that surprising). But over the course of Carlin's telling of his own life story, there was demonstrated time and again the same evolution in his comedy that is typical of the evolution of a writer - we start out as mimics, grow a little into learning an audience and giving them what they want, get lost for a while in a recursive loop of imitiating our early successes, then emerge into a discovery of voice that dominates the rest of our careers.

Or is that just me?

PS: Read the book!

MidPoMo Muttermutter

The heck with lilacs and dead land, tax season for Met fans is the very definition of cruelness. But more to the point, a little unexpected business and the pace of posting grinds to a halt. Not exactly cruel, but definitely disheartening when you feel like you've found a rhythm (7 posts in 11 days - unheard of in this little corner of the internets). Anyway....

***

Attended Diane Lockward's reading last weekend, the second annual event where she works with students in a local college's Poetry class. The students learn her work, design a reading for her to deliver, then host her in it. It's interesting to see what people who (1) have little emotional attachment to the work and (2) aren't in PoBiz look for in a reading. The students selected more of Diane's darker work (not that her books don't contain darkness, but her readings don't usually feature it); I suppose that shouldn't surprise me, should it?

***

Maureen Berzok continues her tour of NJ Poets, landing on Peter Murphy, Amiri Baraka and BJ Ward, Charles Johnson, and Frank Finale in the past week. Wow.

NJ always amazes me with its diverse and active community of poetry voices, so I was a little surprised this evening to find that a celebration / open-mic at my local library had been cancelled due to lack of interest. We seem to think that a National Whatever Month will bring the Whatever to people not already members of the Whatever community, but I don't think that's how it works. It seems to be a reminder to those who already hold the interest to make some time to celebrate. Not that that is a bad idea, but I don't know that it's the intent.

There are exceptions, of course. Diane Lockward leads a poetry reading in honor of Women's History month - a nice juxtaposition of interests - that attracts a large (and not exclusively female) crowd. I'm thinking the point for us as poets and lovers of poetry should be to use the art to connect outside the indoctrinated, or to bring something new to an event where poetry isn't an obvious direction.

Like Father's Day, maybe?

***

The cancelled poetry event at my library wasn't a total loss. I signed up for a "Blind Date With A Book", an event where you get a book for free with the request to read it. That's all. If you write a short review, you can be eligible for an iPod Nano. Sounds like a good deal to me. Tell you more about the book when I get into it.

I also borrowed George Carlin's last book and Steve Allen's How To Be Funny. I've always felt a kindred spirit between comics and poets - particularly comic strip writers and poets. File these under the heading of "continuous personal development". And "Good bedtime beading".

***

Rather long an interesting debate going on in the New Poetry discussion group about "taking a break from" "difficulty poetry", which has evolved into definitions of a scale of accessibility and what it says about the writer and the reader. I don't think it'd be in the spirit of the group to reproduce it all here (and it would be a colossal chore to cut an paste it all), but you can imagine some of the vectors the discussion has followed. As usual, there are those who consider "accessible" a synonym for "simplistic". Surely that's not always the case.

I think the whole argument misses the point. For me, there are only two questions that matter: "Is this a poem?" and "What can I get out of it?" The former specifically asks for awareness and evidence of craft. The second is can be answered in infinite ways, from providing a good story, to being a great example of form, to teaching me mythology, to anything else.

When we look at a piece of visual art, do we consider "accessibility"? No, we classify it and determine if we like it. That's it. Same should apply here.

***

Tomorrow is Tax Day, MidPoint of NatPoMo, and a day off for all the 3B on my fantasy baseball team. There's a certain combination of peace and pain in each of those, don't you think?