Photo Friday: �Touch of Winter�

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Some End-of-Year Poetry Picks

...so, I won't claim these are "best of" anything; my travels were too peripatetic to read as much as I hoped, and what I read was equal parts poetry, fiction, and memoir. But these three 2011 collections made me stop, drop whatever else I was doing, and read from A to Z--in part to enjoy, in part to (selfishly) (strategically) (enviously) consider their poetics in light of my own projects. 

TALKING ABOUT MOVIES WITH JESUS
David Kirby 
(Louisiana State University Press)


Kirby is a born storyteller adept with dialogue, arc, and recurring cast; these ebullient, rangy poems channel the energy of rock and roll, the wry humor of middle adulthood, and the curiosities of an inveterate traveler.


Favorite lines: "...I have put a single raisin of doubt on the government's snowy / white cake of confidence."


*

APPLIES TO ORANGES
Maureen Thorson 
(Ugly Duckling Presse)


This physically beautiful, intimate collection of Thorson's untitled lyrics cycles through a vocabulary of icons--oranges, stars, a Zenith TV's blue light--to hint at a story of loss and dislocation, both emotional and geographic.


Favorite lines: "...my love / follows you a little more slowly each day, / like a dog that wants to lie down, making signs with its tired eyes."


*

AMERICAN BUSBOY
Matthew Guenette
(The University of Akron Press)


The most fun collection I read in 2011, Guenette focuses the frustration of America's working class via the lens of THE CLAM SHACK!, a veritable Dantean hell of dictatorial managers, forlorn waitresses, and yesterday's butter.


Favorite lines: "...the restaurant / never asked you to / imagine imaginary / things like the brittle / bones of onion rings."



*


Last night I met up with a a couple of brilliant NBCC folks for beers at the Black Squirrel. The Black Squirrel's basement is a DC dive right in the heart of Adams Morgan (great on a Wednesday, hell on a Saturday). The music was a little ridiculous, the duck rolls a little weird, the dessert menu MIA. But it's a quiet joint where you can chat, the brick walls are bright with graffiti that's not too hipstery, and I love that you can get 4 oz pours for $2-3, everything from IPAs to Porters, Bells to Stone. Anyway. I am not a NBCC member, and I admitted to these folks my reticence to step into the field of criticism. But I do dip a toe in, here and there, and there are theories of poetry I want to articulate when I have a few more books of my own under my belt. 


In the meantime, I'm a pushover for whatever Susan Settlemyre Williams at Blackbird asks me to do. So here I am in the latest issue reviewing Traci Brimhall's Rookery.
An excerpt:

On a formal level, Brimhall often uses an indented line in her stanzas. This device has been used to various ends over the last two centuries of American free verse, from William Carlos Williams�s triadic stanza (meant to cue pause and breath) and Marianne Moore�s syllabics (meant to signify parallel counts of beat), to the excesses of Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Frank O�Hara, in which jumping from left-alignment toward the right-hand margin captured acrobatic shifts in attention or literal roaming through space. Contemporary poets such as Henri Cole and David Kirby have associated the indented line with a meditative mode that takes advantage of the traditional line break, plus the additional white space, to counterbalance a loping line of five to six stresses.

In many ways, Brimhall is an inheritor of all these influences. But I would add that her indented stanzas have a waterfall quality, as if the speaker is cascading toward a conclusion driven more by instinct or fate than intellect. The verbs that inhabit these indented poems tend to be passive�describing what is known, what is suffered, what is desired, with few fundamental changes in course�and in �Falling,� a tribute to the 146 garment workers killed in the fire at the Triangle Waist Company factory, the form visually and viscerally evokes their helpless plummet.

Onward to 2012. Three weeks at Virginia Center for Creative Arts beckon in January. I can't imagine a better way to start off the year than hiding away and poem-ing. 

Poet of the Year: Kay Ryan

As has been the case since the initial year of its appearance in 2007, each December One Poet�s Notes designates a �Poet of the Year.� At the close of each year, a poet whose notable work merited attention during the previous twelve months is selected for acknowledgment and appreciation.

As in the past, a number of outstanding poets have distinguished themselves during the calendar year to a degree that they deserved serious consideration for this annual recognition. However, one poet�s work garnered praise for the content and quality of poetry not only of the present, but also for poems throughout her career and for the promise of work to come. Therefore, Kay Ryan earns designation as the 2011 Poet of the Year.

Readers of One Poet�s Notes are aware of my appreciation for Kay Ryan�s poetry. In the opening of my 2007 review for Ryan�s collection The Niagara River, I wrote:

When I read Kay Ryan�s poetry, I am sometimes reminded of my first visit to a Jasper Johns retrospective exhibition at the Whitney Museum nearly three decades ago. I recall my initial reactions to all that artwork with images, symbols, and signs that seemed so ordinary upon a quick glance. The paintings of targets appeared merely as concentric circles on a square canvas, the different depictions of American flags or bronzed beer cans seemed nothing more than clever alterations of reality, and the stenciled letters spelling out �red� or �yellow� in colors at variance with their wording represented only an obvious attempt at irony. However, upon closer scrutiny the banal suddenly became a more complicated set of symbols or signs, each inviting viewers to see beyond an icon�s surface meanings and to seek deeper readings in its unconventional appearance. I concluded an additional aspect of wit made the experience linger and even more enjoyable. As John Ashbery has written of Jasper Johns, �One may puzzle over his pictures, but one does not escape them.�

Similarly, Kay Ryan�s work proves puzzling upon opening her new book, The Niagara River; nevertheless, the brief and spare style, familiar from her past collections, remains with the reader and seeps into one�s thoughts about poetry in much the same way Johns�s art has become a reliable part of contemporary consciousness. Ryan�s deceptively straightforward yet complex and smart poems arise from a seemingly simple pattern of slender, usually unbroken, stanzas written in a plain and accessible vocabulary. Despite line breaks that sometimes seem haphazard or normally might create jerkiness as one reads through the poem, this poet appears always in full control, and the lines display a surprising fluency aided by subtle alliteration or other lyrical devices, often including nearly-hidden internal rhymes or near-rhymes.

Like Jasper Johns, Ryan frequently focuses upon objects or language with which we are so familiar that we may have forgotten to pay much attention any longer, forcing a fresh look. Perhaps no other poet, except Ashbery, brings back to life dull and overused terms or platitudinous sayings as often and as well as Kay Ryan. In Ryan�s poetry, clich�d and hackneyed phrases become sources of inspiration. Poems in The Niagara River arise from reexamination of chickens coming home to roost, the elephant in the room, the other shoe dropping, one�s being green behind the ears, and other elements of well-known expressions. However, Ryan manages to infuse new blood into these dead idioms so that they exist with a sense of lively eloquence, clever wit, and original imagery within the lines of her poetry.

Following publication of The Niagara River, Kay Ryan was selected as the U.S. Poet Laureate, a position she held for two terms. Upon closing her service as Poet Laureate in 2010, she released The Best of It: New and Selected Poems (Grove Press), a volume that was widely praised by critics and was named a finalist for the 2011 National Book Critics Circle award in poetry, as well as the 2011 winner of the Pulitzer Prize in poetry. The citation for the Pulitzer Prize notes that her new book reveals a poet who has produced �a body of work spanning 45 years, witty, rebellious and yet tender, a treasure trove of an iconoclastic and joyful mind.�

In a New York Times review of the book, Dwight Garner described Ryan�s poetry: �Kay Ryan�s poems are as slim as runway models, so tiny you could almost tweet them. Their compact refinement, though, does not suggest ease or chic. Her voice is quizzical and impertinent, funny in uncomfortable ways, scuffed by failure and loss. Her mastery, like Emily Dickinson�s, has some awkwardness in it, some essential gawkiness that draws you close.� Adam Kirsch commented for The New Yorker: �Melancholy lucidity is Ryan�s greatest gift, and it can be heard in all her most successful poems. But her most startling discovery is that melancholy, with its tendency to brood and spread, is best contained in a form that is tight, witty, almost sprightly sounding. Her poems are often built on the logic of the pun, taking an ordinary word or dead clich� as a title and then jolting it to unexpected life.� In The Hudson Review David Mason contributed: �Kay Ryan is so disarming, so fresh and original, that she has earned her recent reputation as one of the very best poets among us.�

In addition to the praise for her recent book and the critical recognition for her accumulation of remarkable poetry over the years, Kay Ryan also received a MacArthur Fellowship this year, an honor that indicates continuing support for her future writing as well, as Ryan notes in the video above. The MacArthur Fellowship cited Kay Ryan as �an accomplished poet whose immediately distinctive and tightly woven verse is grounded in incisive explorations of seemingly familiar language, ideas, and experiences. Independent from schools of poetry and literary fashion, her mode of expression is a disarmingly clear and accessible style, characterized by concision, rhyme, wordplay, and wit.� Speaking to the future, the citation goes on to remark: �Drawing from the puns and implications of everyday speech to achieve a wide range of effects, Ryan conveys emotional intensity and intellectual heft in poems that are rarely longer than a page. This inventive poet has already created a distinguished body of work and will continue to compose deceptively simple verse of wisdom and elegance, surprising us with the possibilities of the medium.�

Kay Ryan published her first major book of poetry in 1985 at the age of forty. In the past 25 years she has released a half dozen other books. Over the past quarter century, readers and critics have discovered her delightfully disarming poetry. In addition to this year�s honors, Ryan has received a number of commendations in the past decade, including a Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, and a Maurice English Poetry Award. She was also elected as a Chancellor for the Academy of American Poets in 2006, where she continues to serve.

Upon her recent completion of two terms as U.S. Poet Laureate, publication of a volume of new and selected poetry, nomination as a finalist for the 2011 National Book Critics Circle Award, selection as the winner of the 2011 Pulitzer Prize, and designation as a 2011 MacArthur Fellow, Kay Ryan has achieved a greater and greatly deserved level of critical acclaim as well as a wider, more appreciative readership, with a promise�as stated in the accompanying video above�of more wonderful work in the future for readers to anticipate.


[Readers are invited to visit posts at One Poet�s Notes in the past that have announced the �Poet of the Year�: �Poet of the Year: John Ashbery� (2007), �Poet of the Year: Mark Doty� (2008), and �Poet of the Year: W.S. Merwin� (2009), �Poet of the Year: Rae Armantrout� (2010).]

Helen Frankenthaler 1928-2011

Upon learning the news about Helen Frankenthaler�s death yesterday at the age of 83, I thought I would remind readers that her woodcut triptych, Madame Butterfly, served as the cover artwork for the Fall/Winter 2001-2002 issue (Volume III, Number 1) of Valparaiso Poetry Review. Since this issue of VPR was released only a few weeks after the 9/11 events, I believed a light and promising image was ideal for the cover as a contrast to the daily scenes seen on television and in newspapers at that time.

As always, Gregg Hertzlieb, the Director of the Brauer Museum of Art, kindly provided a commentary complementing the artwork, the opening of which I include below:

Helen Frankenthaler (born 1928) is a world-renowned abstract artist whose work heralded in painting�s next significant phase after abstract expressionism in the 1940�s. Rather than apply paint in a thick, gestural manner, Frankenthaler chose to stain her canvases with broad expanses of veil-like color that give her finished works a transcendent, mystical glow. Her work is seldom about a distinct figure-ground relationship; instead, the expanses of color immerse the viewer in a space where each passage is of equal weight in a shimmering, decentered field. Frankenthaler�s early efforts would eventually inspire more austere approaches in the 1960�s and 1970�s, where painters would suppress painterly gesture even further to focus solely on color relationships.

Frankenthaler�s Madame Butterfly, a woodcut triptych printed in 2000, is a large work (41 3/4 x 79 1/2 inches) of remarkable complexity. . . .

I encourage visitors to remember Helen Frankenthaler by viewing her works of art, and I urge everyone to read the rest of Gregg Hertzlieb�s commentary.

Michael Lavers: �One Version of a Dream�

The VPR Poem of the Week is Michael Lavers� �One Version of a Dream,� which appeared in the Fall/Winter 2010-2011 issue (Volume XII, Number 1) of Valparaiso Poetry Review.

Michael Lavers completed an MFA from the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University, and he has poems published in various literary journals, including Tar River Poetry, River Styx, and Birmingham Poetry Review.

Tuesday of each week One Poet�s Notes highlights an excellent work by a poet selected from the issues of Valparaiso Poetry Review, except when other posts with news or updates preempt the usual appearance of this item, with the recommendation that readers visit it.

Remembering Vachel Lindsay at Christmas

I will light the candles now.

Vachel Lindsay�a Midwesterner from Springfield, Illinois, who was born in a home once belonging to an in-law of Abraham Lincoln and where the just elected president received his farewell party before departing for Washington�lived a life that could provide Hollywood with an interesting script chronicling an engaging character. Throughout most of his adult years, Lindsay sought to present poetry in an entertaining fashion. Perhaps a predecessor to today�s performance poets, Lindsay traveled all across the country for long stretches of time, journeying mostly on foot in stints throughout the Midwest and along the West Coast, as well as hiking through Glacier National Park�an experience that resulted in a thematic book of nature poetry (Going-to-the-Sun, 1923).

He usually survived by singing or chanting his poems, written with characteristically strong rhythms, sonorous sounds, and distinctly incantatory language. As he traveled from town to town, he also traded printed copies of his pieces for food or a place to sleep. Indeed, he has been linked to Langston Hughes in their popularizing of musical lyricism based upon the rhythms of blues or riffs of jazz, and readers will find on the University of Pennsylvania�s PennSound site (located at the Center for Programs in Creative Writing) a treasure of audio recordings in which Lindsay can be heard performing his poetry.

This populist poet, often compared with fellow Midwesterner Carl Sandburg, viewed himself as a critic of contemporary society. In fact, Vachel Lindsay�s most famous and most infamous poem, �The Congo� (1914), represented his attempt to promote awareness of African Americans. In other poems he exposed the poverty and the plight African Americans faced under the social conditions they endured in the early twentieth century throughout the United States. Unfortunately, stereotypical depictions and racially offensive language (especially by today�s standards) included in the poem caused Lindsay to receive much harsh criticism, particularly from some in the black community.

However, Lindsay saw himself as an advocate for civil rights and would champion African Americans in other poems as well. He sent a letter to the chairman of the board of directors of the NAACP defending his poetry: �The third section of �The Congo� is certainly as hopeful as any human being dare to be in regard to any race.� In fact, considering the work and the author�s intentions more favorably, Langston Hughes (whom it is said may have been discovered and promoted by Vachel Lindsay) later chose to anthologize the controversial piece. (Lindsay�s rendering of �The Congo� is one of those preserved among the samples at the PennSound website.)

After beginning college with a desire to follow his father�s footsteps as a doctor, Lindsay found more pleasure and personal satisfaction in painting. Therefore, like William Blake, he then turned to a career as an artist, studying at the Chicago Institute of Art and the New York School of Art, and as Blake had done, Lindsay sometimes claimed to have mystical visions he attempted to transform to images in his drawings.

Throughout his life, Vachel Lindsay exhibited eccentric behavior and held to idealistic thinking, hoping his work would eventually be well received and exert a powerful influence over many, leading toward social and cultural changes benefiting the weak and the forgotten. In 1913, Harriet Monroe published in Poetry magazine perhaps his most successful poem, �General William Booth Enters Heaven,� in which he elegizes the founder of the Salvation Army who had died in 1912. Composer Charles Ives made the poem even more famous when he set the it to music in 1914. (This poem also can be heard at the PennSound website.)

However, later in life when finally faced with intense pain of personal adversity and the prospect of professional failure because of an inability to attract great popular or critical attention for his newer poetry, Lindsay�s story came to a tragic end. In December of 1931, at the age of 52 and having returned to live in the same Springfield home where he had been born, suffering poor health and depression, he committed suicide by drinking a bottle of poison. Lindsay�s stature at the time was such that Edgar Lee Masters wrote a biography of him in 1935, but Lindsay�s importance as a poet has declined over the decades since then.

Nevertheless, in this December 80 years after his death, I invite readers to take the opportunity to recall Vachel Lindsay�s life with one of his works offering a more cheerful and festive spirit:

THIS SECTION IS A CHRISTMAS TREE

This section is a Christmas tree:
Loaded with pretty toys for you.
Behold the blocks, the Noah's arks,
The popguns painted red and blue.
No solemn pine-cone forest-fruit,
But silver horns and candy sacks
And many little tinsel hearts
And cherubs pink, and jumping-jacks.
For every child a gift, I hope.
The doll upon the topmost bough
Is mine. But all the rest are yours.
And I will light the candles now.

. . . . . �Vachel Lindsay

Live from the Botanic Gardens in DC

I don't have a lot of winter traditions. I don't go caroling, or ice skating; mostly I trudge around cursing the cold. (I'm allergic to wool, damn it! It's no fun trying to dress up in scarves and sweaters when you have to be dodging wool at every turn.) 

But one thing I do love is my annual trek down to the United States Botanic Gardens to see their display of model trains, which are let loose in an incredible multi-level landscape (bridges, tunnels, a waterfall) made from plant elements that fills an entire gallery room. I go on a Thursday, when they stay open until 8 PM and there is music. I watch the kids run around, then stop in their tracks and gape in awe. I poke my head into the orchid parlor,  inhale that warm and sweet-scented air for a minute, and imagine I'm somewhere tropical and lush instead of slushy and gray. 


Walking through the Railway Garden is free. It's very DC. And each year, no matter where I am in life, it fills me with joy. 

The trains range from the recognizable Thomas the Tank Engine characters that make kids crow with joy to classic vintage silver bullets that are usually run on the above-head tracks, perhaps to keep them away from curious hands. 


2011's structures--it changes every year--are themed "Who Lives Here?" From "Fairy Flats" to "Critter Condos" to a peacock palace. An opossum house hangs upside down by a tail, while "Giraffe Garage" has a lonnngggg staircase up to the second floor. The cleverness and attention to detail of these buildings never fails to surprise me. And the designers are not afraid to be slightly weird. This year's Monkey Mansion made me think of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom--I kept expecting it to reach out and gobble up the bumblebee train. 

In the central atrium of the Garden, the Russian folk band "Samovar" kept the crowd cheering through traditional songs. One guy was rocking out on a balalaika. Just last week I was writing a poem that included a random line about "common household balalaikas." This felt like a good omen, to see one live & in action within the week. 


You may notice what appears to be a scale version of the Washington Monument looming in back of the band. It is. They render many of DC's great structures--Capitol, Supreme Court--again in all-plant materials. You have not lived until you've seen the great dome of the Jefferson Memorial's rotunda reincarnated as the belly of a big gourd.

You can't go to the Botanic Gardens and not take in the plants as well. So my father, sister  and I got lost in the greenery for a while. Christina had a very fancy camera (as you can tell from these photos, I did not have a very fancy camera) and took a lot of close-ups. People sometimes forget that in the world of exotic plants, texture can be as much of a surprise as color. Here Christina is posing with a monkey-tail tree whose branches (fronds?) felt like lanyards braided from the thick plastic floss they'd give us as kids at camp. 

My dad and I in Hawai'i. Or at least the Hawai'i room. Later in the evening, it was raining hard and he made an elaborate show of using the one umbrella to protect my leather jacket. "You have on a leather jacket too," I pointed out. "Yes," he said, "but this one has been through three wars." Couldn't argue with that.

You know how goldfish, if they are not limited by the size of their bowl, continue to grow bigger and bigger and bigger? Poinsettias are the goldfish of the holiday plant world. They can easily reach six feet tall and keep growing. You have to admire their ambition. 

If you want to drop by the Botanic Gardens, it is not too late. They'll continue to have their extended hours on Tuesday, December 27 (Hot Club of DC, gypsy jazz and swing) and Thursday, December 29 (40 Thieves, Irish rock music). Tell 'em I sent ya. And for a grand finale, as promised, a little live action filmed by yours truly:

Happy holidays, folks!

Photo Friday: �Late Autumn at Twilight�

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Delivery o' Gratitude

Writers love the mail. Not email; old school, wait-by-the mailbox mail. For many of us still focused on print and/or freelance the mail brings our news, our wages, the physical evidence of our labors. So we keep an eye on the latest stamp series, shiver at the thought of suspending Saturday delivery, and curse when a new neighborhood turns out to have a late or lazy mailman (I once had one so bad he'd just skip days).

Here is a quartet of ways the last week's mail has reminded me of all I can be grateful for in this writing life. 

Out of nowhere, a noted European poet named Ron Winkler contacted me to ask if he could translate some of my poems into German. I said yes, and he jumped through all the hoops--securing permission from W. W. Norton and New Issues, working with Hochroth Press to release a chapbook, and going on to circulate individual poems to editors. So Lo and Behold, I get this gorgeous big glossy magazine in the mail...

WESPENNEST

In it, four poems:"Unit of Measure," "Theories of Falling," "The Field," and a somewhat obscure poem of mine, "She Falls Asleep in Strange Places," that never made it into a book. 

Seeing your work in another language (one you do not speak) is surreal and wonderful.

Also, they capitalized "Capybara" every gosh darn time, which made me laugh.

Then came the arrival of The Oxford American's annual music issue, this year dedicated to...Mississippi. As anyone who reads this blog knows, I keep a little piece of my heart there at all times. When the editors asked me if I'd take part by writing about one of the tracks for their sampler CD, I was beyond thrilled. (To give you a sense of the company I got to keep, David Kirby wrote about Bo Diddley; Yuzef Komunyakaa wrote about Howlin' Wolf). If you don't know about the OA, which calls itself "The Southern Magazine of Good Writing,"you should check it out. I've been reading it for a decade, long before I ever fathomed that one day my name could be on the cover. I picked up my first copy at the Olsson's that used to be south of Dupont Circle. 

I write about Mattie Delaney, a haunting 1920s/30s Delta songwriter and guitarist about whom we know very little--she recorded just two songs. The OA crew did such a gorgeous job laying this piece out (look at that art) I could cry. These music issues aren't magazines that feel dated after a month; they are rich, nuanced, highly collectible portraits of American music themed one state at a time. Anthology + CD for $10.95? It's a steal. It's not too late to go back and get ones from previous years as gifts--I can testify that the Arkansas one is a favorite, filled with excellent driving music. Excellent driving music was key to surviving 2011, in which I put 30,000 miles on my car. 

Freelancers have to be hustle forward as they look back. So I'm working toward sending out poems and essays. I just had a poem picked up by POETRY. (!) (!!!) In 2012 I have a travel piece coming out in the Washington Post Magazine. Postage-paid Point of Gratitude #3: there are still editors out there who send you pencil-marked hard copy. David Rowell is my editor. Years ago, just out of the MFA at American University, I submitted and he replied with a phone call and suggestions for edits--even though he was not taking it, but wanting to encourage a young writer. Just a really classy guy, and it means so much to work with him now. (Ahem. This photo is sideways to discourage you from trying to read it.)

All of these things to celebrate mean nothing without people I care about to celebrate them with. This week, every day has brought a card from a friend who is also a fellow writer. Every day. I've arrayed them in the decorative bramble-thing that sits by my fireplace; it's no sparkling and tinsled Christmas tree (for that I'll be going to my parents' house), but each time I look at it I smile. Thank you, guys. And thank you, United States Postal Service.

�Winter Pentimento� from TINTED DISTANCES

With the official arrival of winter overnight tonight, I offer a wintry poem from Tinted Distances (Turning Point Books, 2011), my current collection of poetry:

WINTER PENTIMENTO

The black clot of an empty nest rests
. . . . . in one fork of this winter tree, all its

thin branches now white and bending
. . . . . under the weight of a new snowfall.

Spots of cloud cover still fill the ridge
. . . . . line, their lengthening shadows drawn

across a hill�s little drifts or flat patches

. . . . . of brown lawn that had been exposed

by this morning�s wind like vivid traces

. . . . . of an earlier layer of stain. Before long,

the vague sunshine finally fails to filter

. . . . . through even these few remaining knots

of cumulus and gives way to gradually

. . . . . changing shades of gray, as if the faded

landscape has been painted over once

. . . . . more, the stripe of horizon taken away

by feathered edges brushed under soft

. . . . . strokes in pigments granting a darker tint.

I invite readers to discover more about the poetry in Tinted Distances, and I remind everyone that the volume is available for purchase.

Just the Right Book

Today I was asked by the good folks at JUST THE RIGHT BOOK, which is a neat personalized book-of-the-month subscription service, to contribute to a series they are doing throughout December, in which they ask authors to tell a story of the best book they received for Christmas, Hanukkah, or any of the winter holidays. Other contributors include James Patterson, Gina Barreca, Nicholas Sparks. Here's how my piece opens~

The best book I ever received for Christmas is a first edition of W. S. Merwin's THE FOLDING CLIFFS, "a narrative of 19th-century Hawaii"--in other words, one of the great epic poems written in our time. In elegant, urgent verses Merwin tells the story of a family determined to stay together as they flee government capture during a quarantine effort on Kauai. Woven in amidst the action is an appreciation of the native culture, mythology, and landscape of this gorgeous island. The book is dedicated to Olivia Breitha (1916-2006); Breitha was known as an outspoken advocate of those discriminated against for leprosy, and her firsthand experience resonated with later generations affected by the AIDS epidemic. 

It would be enough to appreciate this gift in terms of its literary merit...but the real reason I share it with you is because of the spirit in which it was given. It was the first Christmas that I had chosen to spend away from home to be with a love, and I was on the eve of making a trip to Kauai myself--without him. He was a huge Merwin fan. The day after Christmas, after all the "official" gifts had been opened, I was packing to make the 15-hour drive back to see my family for a day and catch a plane to Hawaii. That was when took his own copy of this book, signed it to me, and told me I must read it. I carried this spontaneous gesture to Kauai's beaches....

And exclusive to the blog, here is a snapshot of the book with a second inscription--from Merwin himself. Read the full essay here to get that half of the story. For regular blog readers, you might recognize an intersection with this May entry, "Swoon.")

Introducing: Modern Alice @ TRIP CITY

A funny thing happened in Miami at the Book Fair. In addition to all the hijinks reported in an earlier post, I found myself thinking what has been missing from my professional life. (Damn poets! Never satisfied.) 


401K contributions, paid vacation, free office supplies? Sure. But not just that. While I love thinking in terms of assembling collections and pitching freelance, I'm like every writer--I came to this craft in stolen moments, drafting with the freedom of never expecting an audience. I've missed writing in some unlikely genre, untamed in theme, utterly un-monetizable. Writing as indulgence.


I also thrived on the camaraderie of the Book Fair, and thought about the need to rebuild my community. Everyone needs a home base. Though I have great friendships with writers in DC and Oxford, a recent spate of marriages and moves--not to mention my own tour schedule--set me a little adrift. If I were a journalist, I'd know which watering halls to haunt; if I taught in an MFA program, I'd share tired nods & chat by the coffeemaker. Hard to know where to steer without that kind of compass. 


Enter TRIP CITY: an old-school art circle in a new-school format. This Brooklyn-curated online journal offers a treasure trove of free, exclusive content ranging from comix to prose to interviews to podcasts to video. I've become particularly addicted to Seth Kushner's pop-as-personal essays (such as the great "Patrick Stewart and My Father") and the luminous, oddly gentle visual style of Nick Abadzis (as in "Perfect Imperfect").  The site launched in November of this year and has already garnered buzz in the comic world, the Los Angeles Times, and beyond. 


When I met several TC contributors through Literary Death Match (Dean Haspiel, Jeff Newelt, Jennifer Hayden), I recognized the glow of people who have a deep respect for one another's work--and also truly, deep down, like each other. It helps that a lot of them share a physical space via the HANG DAI studios in Brooklyn's Cobble Hill neighborhood (next to famed indie store BookCourt). So when Dean asked if I might be interested in contributing a monthly feature, I thought, Hell yeah. 

But what to write for them? Ever since I first began tried my hand at the Washington Post Magazine's "XX Files," I have loved the musculature of the 700-900 word essay. What if I used that same length to explore...(deep breath)...fictions? And that's how MODERN ALICE was born. It's a space devoted to capturing both the realities and fantasies of the 21st Century Alice�a woman who is independent, curious, and ready to step through the looking glass.


So check out today's debut: HOT FOR SANTA. Yes, you read that title correctly. I hope it's fun to read; it sure was fun to write. 

While you're at it, check out TRIP CITY's Podcast #4, which features me alongside author/filmmaker Miranda July (!), sound artist Krista Dragomer, & Williamsburg music project Edison Woods. I had a great time being interviewed by Dean Haspiel, author/artist of the Billy Dogma series (e.g. "The Last Romantic Antihero") and Emmy-winning contributor to Bored to Death. You can stream the podcast or download it to iTunes. 

Catching Breath

What's happened since we last spoke? 
Food Allergy Ball at the Waldorf Astoria. Meetings with my editorial teams at Crown and W. W. Norton. A few hours spent wandering the Museum of Modern Art. A night watching Hugh Jackman sing his way through some Broadway tunes. (I accidentally walked in besides Donald Trump and Melania...I kinda wanted to reach out and touch his hair, but resisted.) A photo shoot at HANG DAI studio--more on that soon--then a delightful BookCourt reading by Joe Infurnari/Glenn Eichler (Mush! Sled Dogs with Issues), Nick Abadzis (Laika), and Dean Haspiel ("Billy Dogma: The Last Romantic Antihero").


I caught a 7 AM train from New York City back to DC. A slow taxi home from Union Station meant I barely had time to bring bags up to my apartment--and only seconds to register that my refrigerator has begun making suspicious noises--before hopping into my car and driving an hour to Mt Hebron High School in Ellicott City, where I had a 12:30 classroom visit (part of a series as the Poet-in-Residence for the Howard County Poetry & Literature Society). The "visit" turned out to be a full-out reading in the library for over 50 kids. I dashed in as the bell was ringing to start the period, and an uncharacteristic coughing spell racked its fingernails across the opening delivery of "Another Failed Poem about the Greeks." But I pushed through, and afterwards a girl who had sat in the front row introduced herself as a budding writer. She'd spent the night before looking up my work and YouTube clips; she had me sign her program; we took a photo. And in that moment I knew the hustle had been worth it.


Now I'm back in my noisy apartment (maybe the fridge's fan belt is the problem?), innards of my suitcase still spread on the floor, adjusting to the thought of being home for an entire month. Good music helps. At the moment, I'm listening to CEREMONIALS by Florence + The Machine; before that, it was the Beastie Boys.

Next up is the Brother Ali album US, which I bought after listening to it at Mother Fool's Coffeehouse in Madison, Wisconsin, the afternoon before my memoir reading. Hard to believe that is already one week (and two cities) back, but it was a wonderful day spent reading, wandering Williamson Street's co-op and art galleries, and getting to meet Christi Craig, a fellow blogger and mother to an allergic child.

Head over to Christi's WRITING UP AN APPETITE blog for my guest-post on the travails of eating on the road--and a chance to win a giveaway copy of Don't Kill the Birthday Girl. 


I'm grateful to be back in my DC community, and I won't be able to risk the siren call of hearing Matthea Harvey read from Of Lamb at 826DC this Tuesday, or seeing Much Ado About Nothing with my friend at the Shakespeare Theater later this week, or visiting my beloved holiday train display at the Botanical Gardens. But overall, this is going to be a working month. I have edits to turnaround for a major Washington Post piece, a new series I'll be launching with the good folks at TRIP CITY, notes toward several short craft essays and personal essays that I've been dying to turn into a reality, and a sestina simmering in the back of my mind. 2011's ridiculous amount of travel has been fun, but there's no way around it: if you want to make a living as a full-time writer, you need to write and write some more. Time to see if I can make that happen. 

A Monstrous Sigh of Relief

I just turned in a freelance piece that's been hanging over me for months. Months! The completion of this means more than I can bear to admit. Even if they don't run it, it won't be because I didn't *write* it. So here, now, on a Friday afternoon in Wisconsin, I share my all-time favorite happy dance song: "Shout" by the Isley Brothers.

Now?

I'm going to go for a walk down State Street and some celebratory sushi.

And tonight?

Tonight I'll be at this shindig.

It's gonna be incendiary. 

Pack your pitchforks, ye villagers of Madison.


See you there.

Miami Moments (2011 Book Fair Int'l)

Home. After a 17-hour drive from Florida to DC, which was broken up via an overnight with a friend's mother, a chips & salsa-fest at South of the Border during which I workshopped a friend's latest poetry manuscript, and listening to the memoirs of Roger Ebert as an audiobook read by George Herrmann (Grandpa Gilmore) that includes all you never needed to know about Ebert's sexual awakening. After the 1 AM Wednesday morning arrival when I hauled my suitcase out of the car, fell asleep for four hours, woke to take my shoes off, slept another five hours. After the shopping/cooking spree to prepare for Thanksgiving at my grandmother's house. Now I'm enjoying my post-turkey coma in my satin robe. Home.

Miami Book Fair International was all I could have dreamed of--and that's coming from a girl who has done every conceivable variety of reading, fest, and conference in these past few years. The atmosphere was energized without being frantic. The caliber of presenters was SO high. (I met Susan Orlean! And Chuck Palahniuk! And we actually talked like real people!) I signed books. I did a couple interviews. Here are some glimpses, some memories. They are not comprehensive. But they're all mine. 

I stayed at "Spa Ortega," my friends' house in Coral Gables. They are a family artists and the whole place has an overgrown beauty. I sat on this balcony outside my bedroom each day to eat a quiet lunch before plunging into the Fair maelstrom. 

My first event was Friday's Literary Death Match at Bardot. Here I am as host Todd Zuniga introduces me to my opponent: Jennifer Hayden, author/illustrator of Underwire. Jennifer rocks--great sense of humor--and Todd is a fellow relentless traveler with invaluable energy. 

(Photo credit Neil de la Flor) 

There are wonderful play-by-plays of the action up at the LDM website, the Knight Arts blog, and New Times Miami, so I won't belabor the point beyond saying three things... 

One: I was giddy to share a stage with T.M. Shine. I have been a fan since reading his essays in the Washington Post Magazine, where we were brought in by the editor (the legendary Tom Shroder or, as Gene Weingarten calls him, Tom the Butcher).

Two: The judges were excellent. Their job isn't an easy; it's delicate to come up with instant critiques--across the categories of "literary merit," "performance," and "intangibles"--that entertain the crowd, hold a smidgen of truth, and don't sacrifice the author. You can only see the tip of Justin Torres's (very expressive) fingers in this shot. The other judges are Jeff Newelt (left), and Dean Haspiel (right, dreaming of puppies). 

Three: If I'd made it to the Spelling Bee round, I'd have kicked Mat Johnson's ass. He gave the most electrifying reading of the night. But the man can't spell for beans.

(Photo credit x 4 Todd Zuniga)

On Saturday four blocks of NE Second Avenue filled with families out to enjoy the readings, the sunshine, numerous open-air events for kids, the sheer spectacle. I kept pinching myself, thinking, "This is taking place in November? Really?"

I was bummed that my own signing kept me from the Rock Bottom Remainders, so I made up for it by catching Chuck Palahniuk. What you see here did, in fact, feel more like a 9:30 Club show than a reading. A woman in a deviled-egg costume threw inflatable brains at the audience. CP read a story that first appeared in Playboy. And then a second story, the infamous "Guts," that caused not one but -two- people to pass out in the audience. (Not staged; I was sitting by them.) 

Later that night, I got to talk with CP at the Author's Party. He admitted he dreads being on display for hours in front of an audience, and I realized the histrionics--from the inflatables to candy bars to dancing eggs--is a buffer for a man who is genuinely overwhelmed by crowds, but at this point in his career cannot avoid them. He is sweet and frighteningly talented. The party at Cafeina was fun once you abandoned the front room for the outdoor patio. I was thrilled to reunite with Tom Franklin, Beth Ann Fennelly, and Tayari Jones, and to talk more with Todd and Jennifer. We were in Wynwood, so like all the venues in that neighborhood there was art on display. At one point we feared a bucket o' gilded Kentucky Fried Chicken had gone missing via some drunk writer, but it turns out the owner just had the good sense to hide it. 

Some of us went around the corner to a late-night opening, complete with band and communal graffiti flats. And dancing! Dancing was a highlight. The DJ, Otto Von Schirach, is the fiance of Monica Lopez de Victoria, one-half of the TM Sisters, and a mini LegalArt reunion with Monica, Tasha, Jiae and Juan ensued. And later on...this. This is what happens when you run around with the comics & graphic artist crew. 

(Photo credit Jeff Newelt, which was his smart way of staying out of the picture)

Best craft services table ever. Look at those melons! Not to mention the red velvet cake. 

Sunday I was honored to share "The Poet's Voice" stage with Denise Duhamel (introducing), Michael Hettich (who I'd met when I read at Books & Books last year), Pablo Medina (I'm awed by his Neruda scholarship) and the incomparable Beth Ann, my Oxford guardian/host/goddess/inspiration/fellow Nortoneer/favorite. 

(Photo credit Neil de la Flor)

So glad I stuck around to catch Ravi Shankar, a Connecticut friend who I only get to see when we cross paths at conferences & such. One poem, "Oyster," he revealed is dedicated to me in his new book! I'd seen an earlier version in a chapbook and loved it. 

The one reading I was 100% determined to make this weekend was Neil de la Flor and Maureen Seaton sharing from their collaborative book, Sin�ad O'Connor and Her Coat of a Thousand Bluebirds. (So glad to finally meet and hear Emma Trelles, too.) Though I know from having bumped into them shortly beforehand that their prep time was minimal, you'd have never known it from the reading: funny, smart, unexpectedly poignant. 

Comic book break! I slipped away from "The Poet's Voice" to see some of my new LDM friends in a panel on Harvey Pekar's work and legacy. The rockstar panel consisted of Dean, Joyce Brabner (Pekar's widow), Joseph Remnant, and Jeff. A lot of substantive things discussed, including future publications and the Pekar Project, and some fun trivia too: the origin of American Splendor, Leonardo DiCaprio's onetime hope to play Robert Crumb and a (thankfully) failed attempt to recruit Pekar to write the script for Howard the Duck. 

(Photo credit Neil de la Flor)

I rejoined the poets and we escaped downtown, heading to Soyka for dinner. I had ceviche while others had Matzoh ball soup. That's Miami for you. I sat next to Maureen; we've tried to cross paths in Florida before, always failing, so this was our first chance in years to actually catch up. She was the first teacher I workshopped with after finishing my MFA when I went to the 2005 Indiana Writer's Conference on the Vesle Fenstermaker Scholarship. Time has flown! She said she was proud of me.

Later a few of the hardiest souls drove to Key Biscayne, where we pulled off to look black at the glittering downtown we'd called home for three days. We passed around the flask of scotch. How I have missed this city, its people, my sense of self when held within its arms. In this moment, standing on the shore, I knew: I will be back again and again.