Always a Poet, Even in Prose

Rooting NOOK Tablet Article

2012-01-30T09:00:00.003-05:00

My article about rooting the NOOK Tablet is now available at quepublishing.com. This does cover the 1.4.1 version of the NOOK Tablet.

Get the book from B&N here.

Rooting the NOOK Tablet and NOOK Color UPDATE

2012-01-23T07:36:00.000-05:00

Shortly after the latest edition of the book had shipped to the printer, B&N released an update for both the NOOK Tablet and NOOK Color that took it to version 1.4.1. While the ending .1 indicates it was a minor update, it had significant effects for the rooting process. If you had a version of the NOOK Tablet at 1.4.0, I do have some instructions available for rooting that (it will appear in an article shortly at Que.com). If you need them more quickly, you can email me at the address found in the Introduction of the book.

If you have a NOOK Color (including those at 1.4.1), I have a workable rooting process for that as well, so please email me at the email indicated in the Introduction. The change to the rooting process for the NOOK Color is significant, however, for the microSD card "dual-boot" system is no longer functional. The new rooting instructions are more invasive. I expect that a microSD card dual-boot method will be available in the near future.

Apologies for these updates, but with the the fast changes B&N implemented, keeping the process updated has been difficult. As I state in my book, I actually have not figured out the rooting aspects myself. Those really smart people that have been doing it (at nookdevs and XDA-developers) do the hard work. I say this, because I've seen them challenged significantly by the 1.4.1 update, which means it was an update that made major modifications despite the .1 ending.

The NOOK Book, Third Edition Is Now Available

2012-01-18T08:00:00.001-05:00

Make the Most of Your New Barnes and Noble NOOK Tablet, NOOK Color, or NOOK ebook Reader!

Read books, play media, get free content, uncover powerful, little-known features you’ll love!

Do all this, and much more...

Learn about the NOOK Study capabilities

Root your NOOK Tablet, NOOK Color, or NOOK to add third-party apps from the Android Market

Find and read free books on your NOOK Tablet, NOOK Color, or NOOK

Use Barnes and Noble’s unique LendMe feature to lend and borrow books

Play music, audiobooks, podcasts, even video

Automatically download full-color book covers

Use your NOOK Tablet or NOOK Color to browse the web

Add highlights, notes, and bookmarks

Read Barnes and Noble ebooks on your iPhone, iPad, computer, or Android phone

Set up your own color wallpaper or screensaver

Publish your own ebooks with B&N PubIt

Download and use Barnes and Noble NOOK Apps

Learn how to use NOOK Friends to recommend books and give updates

Read enhanced ebooks with video and audio

Read Barnes and Noble children’s books with interactive activities

Buy it from Barnes and Noble here.

Buy it from Amazon here.

Rooted NOOK Color and Wonky Apps

2011-11-29T13:39:00.000-05:00

When Android updated the Market a few months back, it seemed to break some apps so that they will not download and install on your rooted NOOK Color. Good news is that I've found a simple workaround--don't use the Android Market. Instead, download the Amazon Appstore app and use it to download Netflix, etc. You can get the Amazon Appstore app by putting in your email address at this website.

When Amazon sends you the email, access it from your NOOK Color and tap the link from that email. This will download and install the Amazon Appstore. Ta da!

Old Home Movies

2011-10-24T09:00:00.009-04:00

My grandpa: Walter Jameson

Quite a few years ago, I received into my care my Grandfather Jameson's old Super 8 home movies. In fact, I have the projector and silver screen, though I've never been able to get the projector working, so the movies just sat. I despaired of ever seeing them, though over time, they quietly gathered dust. I looked a few years ago into getting them converted to digital, but the costs were prohibitive. But I checked in this summer at the instigation of a cousin and found the pricing much more reasonable, so I with the help of siblings and cousins embarked on getting the converted.

Much to my surprise, several of the Super 8s seem to have been recorded by my great-grandfather. While the quality is often poor, given that these are 70+ years old and were stored in far less than ideal conditions, I am still surprised at how good these are. Here is one of those clips by my great-grandfather. In some of the footage here, you will see some old race cars. For a bit of time, my grandfather was a riding mechanic for a driver, though he failed to qualify for the Indianapolis 500. In other videos, the mechanic side of my grandfather, a fascination with gears, engines, etc., come through.

Rooted NOOK Color and Netflix App

2011-10-19T08:07:00.000-04:00

The Netflix app is not actually "approved" to run on a rooted NOOK Color (using the CM7 rooting method as demonstrated in my book, The NOOK Book, but as usual, some smart folks figured this out. Here's a YouTube video that describes how to get it to work in a simple and easy manner: http://youtu.be/zOZFBqiUvUI.

Shameless Plug for My Wife

2011-10-13T09:00:00.000-04:00

My fabulously talented wife, Gina, helped out on Knitting Stitches Visual Encyclopedia. She spent quite a bit of time some weeks ago knitting samples of stitches that were then photographed for the images in this book. So several of the photos in this book are of her handiwork--and she was specially thanked in the frontmatter.

But of course she was!

Interview Part 2 on Let's Talk Computers

2011-10-03T09:06:00.000-04:00

The interview for Let's Talk Computers is now available here.

Buy here!

Interview Part 2: Let's Talk Computers Air Date

2011-09-30T08:00:00.004-04:00

The 2nd half of my interview with Alan Ashendorf for his radio show Let's Talk Computers airs on October 1st.

Buy here!

What Have I Been Up to Other Than Blogging?

2011-09-26T09:00:00.003-04:00

Source: Hubblesite.org

So...it's been a while since I have posted, and my apologies to those who read my blog.

For some weeks now, I've been devoting free writing time to a sci-fi novel that has been gestating (slowly, very slowly). I won't get into details now, suffice it to say that I've crossed the half-way threshold.

And I am still writing poems, though, admittedly, my attention has been on the novel.

In one bit of self-congratulatory good news, I can say that my book, The NOOK Book, was--at least last week--the number one selling technology book in the United States. Thanks to all who have made that happen by purchasing a copy.

Let's Talk Computers Interview

2011-09-06T09:00:00.000-04:00

The interview for Let's Talk Computers has aired! You can listen to the RealAudio or Windows Media Player version here.

Buy here!

Interview: Let's Talk Computers Air Date

2011-08-29T09:00:00.000-04:00

The interview for Let's Talk Computers airs on September 3rd. You can listen to the original broadcast on these stations. I will post the Internet version when it is available.

Buy here!

That Quote Is From.... #8

2011-08-25T09:00:00.000-04:00

That Shakespearen insult "Anointed sovereign of sighs and groans"is from Love's Labour's Lost, Act III, Scene 1. Here's the larger context:

Biron. And I, forsooth, in love! I, that have been love's whip;
A very beadle to a humorous sigh;
A critic, nay, a night-watch constable;
A domineering pedant o'er the boy;
Than whom no mortal so magnificent!
This whimpled, whining, purblind, wayward boy;
This senior-junior, giant-dwarf, Dan Cupid;
Regent of love-rhymes, lord of folded arms,
The anointed sovereign of sighs and groans,
Liege of all loiterers and malcontents,
Dread prince of plackets, king of codpieces,
Sole imperator and great general
Of trotting 'paritors:--O my little heart:--
And I to be a corporal of his field,
And wear his colours like a tumbler's hoop!
What, I! I love! I sue! I seek a wife!

Shakespeare Insult: #8

2011-08-18T09:00:00.000-04:00

Here is the next Shakespearean insult in a series:

"Anointed sovereign of sighs and groans"

Can you name the play, act, scene, and speaker?

Interview on Let's Talk Computers

2011-08-12T07:56:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, I had the good fortune of being interviewed by Alan Ashendorf for his radio show Let's Talk Computers. We talked a lot about the NOOK Color, so look for more information about the broadcasts of that interview.

Buy here!

The NOOK Book, Second Edition

2011-08-08T09:00:00.000-04:00

The latest edition of my bestselling The NOOK Book is now available for purchase.

Space-Time and Yarn

2011-08-02T09:00:00.000-04:00

I was watching Michio Kaku's "How to Travel Through Time" episode of his Sci Fi Science. I couldn't help but think of my wife, Gina, and her passion for knitting when Dr. Kaku used yarn to illustrate Einstein's General Theory of Relativity and how it relates to space-time.

Happy Birthday Gerard Manley Hopkins

2011-07-28T09:00:00.018-04:00

Today is the birthday of Gerard Manley Hopkins, born in 1844. Hopkins was an early influence on my poetry, a poet that I read and immediately understood that poetry could be so much more than what I had learned in high school. Here was a poetry that was breathtakingly devoted to the sound of English--sometimes at the expense of comprehension and that was OK. Hopkins' poetry sometimes puts people off because of its religious nature. If one can listen to religious music or visit religious sites and art, then I see no difference about approaching a religious poetry (though I could argue that the disparity in comfort between listening to Bach's Masses or Passions or St. Peter's in the Vatican may be due to language's more interior and direct effect on us). Hopkins' best poetry is a poetry of mysticism, of the dark night of the soul, where doubt feeds the searching.

Here's a link to a blog from 2009 that features Stanley Kunitz reading a Hopkins poem and Charles Wright reading his poem about visiting Hopkins' grave in Dublin.

That Quote Is From.... #7

2011-07-26T09:00:00.000-04:00

That Shakespearen insult "Thou crusty botch of nature" is from Troilus and Cressida, Act V, Scene 1. Here's the larger context:

ACHILLES. How now, thou core of envy!
Thou crusty batch of nature, what's the news?
THERSITES. Why, thou picture of what thou seemest, and idol of
idiot worshippers, here's a letter for thee.
ACHILLES. From whence, fragment?
THERSITES. Why, thou full dish of fool, from Troy.

Petrarch

2011-07-21T09:00:00.000-04:00

I was re-reading some of Mark Musa's and Barbara Manfredi's translations of Petrarch's The Canzoniere, or Rerum vulgarium fragmenta. This translation with copious notes is a delight and I recommend it.

Two passages struck me as I was reading them. I stopped at the end of each and re-read them, and they've hung with me for days now, foregrounding in my mind multiple times. I leave it at that, and now simply share these passages:

Lines from Petrarch 118:

Or qui son, lasso, et voglio esser altrove,
et vorrei più volere, et più non voglio,
et per più non poter fo quant' io posso.

I'm here, alas, and wish that I were elsewhere,
And wish that I wished more but wish no more,
And unable to do more, do all I can.

From 119:

Questa in penseri in opre et in parole,
però ch' è de le cose al mondo rade,
questa per mille strade
sempre inanzi mi fu leggiadra altera.
Solo per lei tornai da quel ch' i' era;
poi ch' i' soffersi gli occhi suoi da presso
per suo amor m'er' io messo
a faticosa impresa assai per tempo,
tal che s' i' arrivo al disiato porto
sper per lei gran tempo
viver, quand' altri mi terrà per morto.

She, in my thoughts, my work, and in my words,
As one of those rare things in the world,
Along a thousand roads
Was always there to lead me proud and lovely.
For her alone I turned from what I was;
Once able to look straight into her eyes,
For love of her I put
Myself to doing hard work very early,
So if I reach the port of my desire
I hope through her to live
Long after people think that I am dead.

"Found" Poem

2011-07-19T09:00:00.002-04:00

On July 4th weekend, Gina and I spent a very nice day with my parents. We grilled out and talked a lot. On a pie safe, my Mom had an obviously old book. Turns out, this was a book of sorts kept by my family on my mother's side. It reaches back into the late 1800s at least, but to call it a book is a misnomer. I'd call it, for lack of a better term, a commonplace book. It's full of recipes, jottings about sales and purchases, scribbles of unknown provenance. In the same book, it mentions the death of a child and record multiple times the cost of a milkshake. It's a book I had not problem becoming absorbed into with its intricacies and oddities.

Two loose (and not part of the original bound book) contained the poem pictured. With the wonders of the Internet, I googled the first lines and discovered that it was a poem titled "Motherhood," written by Joaquin Miller, who, interestingly, had Indiana roots.

It is hard to know why this poem was copied out; in fact, that answer is unknowable. Speculation suggests that it was copied by someone and given to the owner of this book or a member of this family for comfort or reflection. Or some member of the family wrote it out for contemplation, reflection, or comfort.

Below is the text of the poem, and I've marked in red text any word deviations (I didn't mark punctuation deviations). Not that it has much relevance, though I think it casts an interesting light on how texts can alter subtly over time (think Shakespearean editions of plays that contend with good and bad quartos, conjectures about the availability of foul papers, and the first folio).

As to the poem itself, I think it clearly shows the hallmarks of middling late 1800s verse and not one that I would attribute any distinction to except for the fact that it was copied out and ended up in a commonplace book on my Mother's pie safe.

Motherhood

The bravest battle that ever was fought!
Shall I tell you where and when?
On the maps of the world you will find it not;
'Twas fought by the mothers of men.

Nay not with the cannon of battle-shot,
With a sword or noble pen;
Nay, not with eloquent words or thought
From mouth of wonderful men!

But deep in a walled-up woman's heart
- Of a woman that would not yield,
But bravely, silently bore her part
- Lo, there is the battlefield!

No marshalling troops, no bivouac song,
No banner to gleam and wave;
But oh! those battles, they last so long -
From babyhood to the grave.

Yet, faithful still as a bridge of stars,
She fights in her walled-up town -
Fights on and on in her endless wars,
Then silent, unseen, goes down.

Oh, ye with banners and battle-shot,
And soldiers to shout and praise!
I tell you the kingliest victories fought
Were fought in those silent ways.

O spotless woman in a world of shame,
With splendid and silent scorn,
Go back to God as white as you came -
The Kingliest warrior born!

Poem at Astropoetica

2011-07-18T10:02:00.003-04:00

Astropoetica, one of my favorite journals, has just published my poem, "Cosmologies." Go check it out.

And while your there, make sure to check out the other poems, especially Jared Carter's "As Others See Us."

The NOOK Book, Second Edition: Pre-Order

2011-07-14T09:00:00.000-04:00

The second edition of my book is now available for pre-order!

Make the Most of Your New Barnes and Noble NOOK Color or NOOK ebook Reader!

Read books, play media, get free content, uncover powerful, little-known features you’ll love!

Do all this, and much more...

Learn about the NOOK Study capabilities

Root your NOOK Color to add third-party apps from the Android Market

Find and read free books on your NOOK Color or NOOK

Use Barnes and Noble’s unique LendMe feature to lend and borrow books

Play music, audiobooks, podcasts, even video

Automatically download full-color book covers

Use your NOOK Color to browse the web

Add highlights, notes, and bookmarks

Read Barnes and Noble ebooks on your iPhone, iPad, computer, Android phone, or Blackberry

Set up your own color wallpaper or screensaver

Publish your own ebooks with Barnes and Noble PubIt

Download and use Barnes and Noble NOOK Apps

Learn how to use NOOK Friends to recommend books and give updates

Read enhanced ebooks with video and audio

Read Barnes and Noble children’s books with interactive activities

Buy it from Barnes and Noble here.

Buy it from Amazon here.

Shakespeare Insult: #7

2011-07-12T09:00:00.003-04:00

Here is the next Shakespearean insult in a series:

"Thou crusty botch of nature"

Can you name the play, act, scene, and speaker?

NOTE: Sometimes the quote is "Thou crusty batch of nature"

Poetry as Witness?

2011-07-07T09:00:00.001-04:00

I encountered this Letter to the Editor by Michael Hudson at the Poetry Foundation (the publishers of Poetry) website. I read Carolyn Forché's article and concur with Hudson's assessment of that article. Hudson quote's an Allen Tate speech that rings very true, and I re-quote it here:

I confess that the political responsibility of poets bores me; I am discussing it because it irritates me more than it bores me. It irritates me because the poet has a great responsibility of his own: it is the responsibility to be a poet, to write poems, and not to gad about using the rumor of his verse, as I am now doing, as the excuse to appear on platforms and to view with alarm. I have a deep, unbecoming suspicion of such talking poets: whatever other desirable things they may believe in, they do not believe in poetry. They believe that poets should write tracts, or perhaps autobiographies; encourage the public, further this cause or that, good or bad, depending upon whose political ox is being gored.

Certainly poetry can act as a witness to evil and injustice, but that witness should arise from the poet's context and not be a forced act. I agree with Tate, a poet's responsibility is to write poems, and the poet's context, interests, and talents and skills will determine the context.

Craftsy!: Shameless Plug for My Wife

2011-07-05T09:00:00.000-04:00

Gina, my wife, has recently added a new page to her expanding knitting and crochet business at Craftsy! If you are interested, you can see a list of her fabulous projects there.

You can also visit her Etsy store here.

Gina's Sleep Sack pattern with our niece: Ella.

10 Years

2011-06-23T07:00:00.001-04:00

On this day in 2001, I married this spectacular woman! I could get overly cheesy and sappy about this, and it wouldn't be hard, believe me. I could state the standard fair that she's my best friend, that every day I love her more, that she's taught me so much, that I would do it all over again without a nanosecond of hesitation, but what is I want to say is how much she inspires me.

And I do not use that word, "inspire," lightly. I mean it in the common sense that she inspires me to better myself, to be a better person, and all that, but I also mean it in the poetic sense, which, for readers of my blog, will realize just how much value on I place on that conception. But what do I mean in this case? It's quite simple really.

Every writer, every artist needs inspiration of some sort, some fragment of internalness that exists outside of pure skill. Inspiration allows the skills to cross the divide and connect with others. In some sense, whether overtly or not, every poem I have written after meeting her has seen her been the inspiration. I may write with her explicitly, but many covert ways exist too, but I won't delve into them here. One: a magician never reveals the mechanics. Two: It's something for us to share.

Happy Anniversary, My Love!

The Poetics of Space

2011-06-07T09:00:00.002-04:00

I have begun reading Gaston Bachelard's The Poetics of Space, mentioned by my good friend Chuck some months ago.

Already, I've found some quite interesting quotes...just from the Introduction:

If there be a philosophy of poetry, it must appear and re-appear through a significant verse, in total adherence to an isolated image.

The poetic image is a sudden salience on the surface of the psyche.

The reader of poems is asked to consider an image not as an object and even less as the substitute for an object, but to seize its specific reality.

Bachelard quoting Pierre-Jean Jouve: "Poetry is a soul inaugurating form."

The poem possesses us entirely.

The image offered us by reading the poem now becomes really our own. It takes root in us. It has been given us by another, but we begin to have the impression that we could have created it, that we should have created it. It becomes a new being in our language, expressing us by making us what it expresses; in other words, it is at once a becoming of expression, and a becoming of our being. Here expression creates being.

That Quote Is From.... #6

2011-06-02T09:00:00.005-04:00

That Shakespearen insult "Not so much brain as earwax"is from Troilus and Cressida, Act V, Scene 1. Here's the larger context:

ACHILLES.  My sweet Patroclus, I am thwarted quite
From my great purpose in to-morrow’s battle.
Here is a letter from Queen Hecuba,
A token from her daughter, my fair love
Both taxing me and gaging me to keep
An oath that I have sworn. I will not break it:
Fall Greeks; fail fame; honour or go or stay;
My major vow lies here, this I’ll obey.
Come, come, Thersites, help to trim my tent;
This night in banqueting must all be spent.
Away, Patroclus!  [Exeunt ACHILLES and PATROCLUS].
  THERSITES.  With too much blood and too little brain, these two may run mad; but if with too much brain, and too little blood they do, I’ll be a curer of madmen. Here’s Agamemnon, an honest fellow enough, and one that loves quails, but he has not so much brain as ear-wax: and the goodly transformation of Jupiter there, his brother, the bull, the primitive statue, and oblique memorial of cuckolds; a thrifty shoeing-horn in a chain, hanging at his brother’s leg, to what form but that he is should wit larded with malice and malice forced with wit turn him to? To an ass, were nothing: he is both ass and ox; to an ox, were nothing: he is both ox and ass. To be a dog, a mule, a cat, a fitchew, a toad, a lizard, an owl, a puttock, or a herring without a roe, I would not care; but to be Menelaus! I would conspire against destiny. Ask me not what I would be, if I were not Thersites, for I care not to be the louse of a lazar, so I were not Menelaus. Hey-day! spirits and fires!

Shakespeare Insult: #6

2011-05-26T09:02:00.003-04:00

Here is the next Shakespearean insult in a series:

"Not so much brain as earwax"

Can you name the play, act, scene, and speaker?

2011-05-24T09:00:00.000-04:00

Just wanted to share the wonderful gift my wife, Gina, surprised me with last weekend. She secretly got a copy of The NOOK Book cover and had it beautifully framed.

Shown here hanging on my office wall.

Happy Birthday!

2011-05-17T08:00:00.005-04:00

Happy birthday my love! Every day with you is as bright and sunny and beautiful as this day!

For all of you out there, yes, I have the best spouse ever! One I do not in the least deserve. I've always felt a bit like Ray Romano when he admits to Debra that he couldn't believe some one so awesome chose him.

I'm lucky, I guess!

That Quote Is From.... #5

2011-05-11T09:00:00.000-04:00

That Shakespearen insult "roast-meat for worms"is from Pericles, Act IV, Scene 2. Here's the larger context:

BOULT. Ay, to eleven; and brought them down again. But shall I search the market?
BAWD. What else, man? The stuff we have, a strong wind will blo it to pieces, they are so pitifully sodden.
PANDAR. Thou sayest true; they're too unwholesome, o' conscience. The poor Transylvanian is dead, that lay with the little baggage.
BOULT. Ay, she quickly pooped him; she made him roast-meat for worms.
But I'll go search the market.

Poems That Mean Something: #1

2011-05-06T09:00:00.000-04:00

I was reading an article the other day and here is a quote from it:

I still believe — however naively — that poems can speak to other human beings and can make collective society consider our own convictions, experiences, and beliefs.

This quote is in the larger context of watching academic poets get lost in technical jargon, etc., and not talking about a poem's effect in the world and on readers. Without getting into the larger merits or lack thereof in the article, I found this statement resonant.

It seems more often than not in poetry that to talk of the "big" questions is taboo. I would say similarly that philosophy often thinks the same. The impulse to consider it taboo seems to stem either from the fact that the answers are unreachable or from the continuing specialization of roles in professional and academic circles. In response to the former, I respond that because the question is unsolvable does not make it unworthy of trying. To the latter, I would suggest that unity often is characteristic of meaning and beauty...and I place a lot of emphasis on beauty.

Meaning in life--no matter where or how we find it--is vital to us day in and out. And poetry can probe those meanings and bring about a discussion not only within a community context but within a private context. Poetry may not be the salve to our ills, but it is not less for trying to be so.

Shakespeare Insult: #5

2011-05-05T09:00:00.001-04:00

Here is the second Shakespearean insult in a series:

"Roast-meat for worms"

Can you name the play, act, scene, and speaker?

Now It Must Dry

2011-04-19T09:00:00.001-04:00

George Seferis wrote in his journal on October 31, 1946, this about his work on his poem "Thrush":

I don't know if it's good; I don't know that it's finished. Now it must dry.

This captures succinctly what writing poems is like for me, and what I think writing poems for many poets is like.

Notice the emphasis is not on the evaluation of its quality or state; rather, its state in relation to the writer is emphasized. "It must dry," which we can interpret as a separation from the act of writing it. Only when distance between the act and the art is achieved by the poet can the poet really determine quality and state...though they may be mistaken. This is another version of Horace's admonishment:

nonumque prematur in annum
membranis intus positis; delere licebit
quod non edideris; nescit uox missa reuerti.

That Quote Is From.... #4

2011-04-05T09:00:00.000-04:00

That Shakespearen insult "Long-tongu’d babbling gossip"is from Titus Andronicus, Act IV, Scene 2. Here's the larger context:

AARON

Why, so, brave lords! when we join in league
I am a lamb: but if you brave the Moor,
The chafed boar, the mountain lioness,
The ocean swells not so as Aaron storms.—
But say, again, how many saw the child?

NURSE

Cornelia the midwife and myself;
And no one else but the deliver'd empress.

AARON

The empress, the midwife, and yourself:
Two may keep counsel when the third's away:
Go to the empress, tell her this I said:—

[Stabs her, and she dies.]

Weke, weke!—so cries a pig prepar'd to the spit.

DEMETRIUS

What mean'st thou, Aaron? Wherefore didst thou this?

AARON

O Lord, sir, 'tis a deed of policy:
Shall she live to betray this guilt of ours,—
A long-tongu'd babbling gossip? no, lords, no:
And now be it known to you my full intent.
Not far, one Muliteus lives, my countryman;
His wife but yesternight was brought to bed;
His child is like to her, fair as you are:
Go pack with him, and give the mother gold,
And tell them both the circumstance of all;
And how by this their child shall be advanc'd,
And be received for the emperor's heir,
And substituted in the place of mine,
To calm this tempest whirling in the court;
And let the emperor dandle him for his own.
Hark ye, lords; ye see I have given her physic.

[Pointing to the NURSE.]

And you must needs bestow her funeral;
The fields are near, and you are gallant grooms:
This done, see that you take no longer days,
But send the midwife presently to me.
The midwife and the nurse well made away,
Then let the ladies tattle what they please.

CHIRON

Aaron, I see thou wilt not trust the air
With secrets.

DEMETRIUS

For this care of Tamora,
Herself and hers are highly bound to thee.

And the winners...

2011-04-01T09:00:00.001-04:00

This is no April Fool's joke: The winners of the B&N Gift Certificates for posting a review to BN.com are...

OkieBKLVR

BadgerFM

OkieBLVR and BadgerFM, please email me here to claim your prize!

Teaching Creative Writing

2011-03-31T09:00:00.001-04:00

A friend gave me a link to Dave and Bill's Cocktail Hour blog, which led me to an article by Dave Gessner in The New York Times titled "Those Who Write, Teach" (you'll need nytimes.com password access for the article).

This interesting article does not offer much in the way of new information, but that information is cogently presented and without rancor. To paraphrase, Gessner contends that creative writers teaching creative writing must be affected somehow by the activity. The consequences could include reading too much apprentice work, writing for quantity over quality, less time to write, and less time for reading overall. Gessner does not state that the effects are necessarily positive or negative (though he is not unbiased) and does not proceed down the path of assuming all creative writers teaching creative writing are the affected the same. Rather, his point is just there must be some affect, good or ill.

Not being a creative writing instructor (nor wanting to be--many years ago in considering graduate school, I was always interested in teaching literature), I think some more layers of paint can be added to Gessner's coverage. Let's face it, nearly every poet working in America cannot write poetry for a living. They must supplement their income by writing in paying fields (journalism, criticism, etc., the the "paying field" here is highly debatable...particularly the criticism), working a regular job (that is, bartending, corporation, etc.), working a creative writing academic job, working a non-creative writing academic job (that is, instead of teach creative writing student creative writing, teaching literature instead...or even something in chemistry, philosophy, etc.).

All of these have their consequences, nearly all related to less time for reading, to devoting to the craft, etc. And no one way is the correct way. Myself, not teaching creative writing helps me compartmentalize my corporate life from my writing life, something I have found essential. Some people comment to me that they don't understand how I read and write so much after spending eight or more hours a day reading and writing all day for my corporate job. My answer is that the type of reading and writing is so very different that, to me, they exist as essentially separate and unpolluting activities. Reading Tomas Transtromer is so radically different than reading Statement of Work PDFs that, well, they do not exist in the same "reading realm."

Shakespeare Insult: #4

2011-03-29T09:00:00.000-04:00

Here is the second Shakespearean insult in a series:

"Long-tongu’d babbling gossip"

Can you name the play, act, scene, and speaker?

40th, Redux

2011-03-28T09:00:00.000-04:00

Well, I had thought my blogging about my birthday bash was over, but my brother was not yet done....

See, my brother a few weeks prior to my birthday had inquired as to some of my favorite living poets. Thinking that my brother might be interested in reading some poetry, I leapt in with gusto: Jared Carter, Seamus Heaney, Davis McCombs, Pattiann Rogers, Ruth Padel, Ciaran Carson, etc.

As I reported last week, he had written to Pattiann Rogers and Ciaran Carson to obtain signed items (he knew I already had signed items from Carter and Heaney). Awesome, right?

He texted me this past week and wanted to stop by briefly (we live very close to each other, so stopping by is no large feat). Low and behold, he dropped off a UK edition of Ruth Padel's Darwin: A Life in Poems and a handwritten copy of the poem "Ola" from Davis McCombs's collection Dismal Rock.

As I told Gina, I think I'll turn 40 every year!

40th, Part 3

2011-03-23T09:00:00.002-04:00

Sunday was the big finale of the three days of birthday celebration. After several years, I decided to get a tattoo. So Gina scheduled a session with Laura Black at Voluta Tattoo.

Let me say that if you want a fantastic artist, Laura is it.

I decided to go with the endless knot as my tattoo. Years ago, my good friend Chuck gave me a couple of bone china tea cups that featured a Celtic endless knot. And in my recent readings of Buddhist texts, the endless knot has appeared there as well. Many interpretations of the endless knot exist, but my preliminary choice of it was that it represents both everything and nothing. You can think of it this way:

If you say, I know nothing, then you know everything.

If you say, I know everything, then you know nothing.

I find this paradox intriguing and truthful. Laura took a very bland bitmapped version of the knot and transformed it into the image here. I'm thrilled with the result.

But none of this would have been possible without Gina. Any one of these days would have been a birthday to remember. She gave me three in a row, and I cannot possibly thank her enough.

40th, Part 2

2011-03-22T09:00:00.001-04:00

Gumballhead from Three Floyd's

On Day 2 of my 40th weekend bash, Gina took me, my brother and his girlfriend to Three Floyd's Brewery and Crown Brewing. So not only am I a foodie, but I am also a beer snob. I have heard from several that Three Floyd's Gumballhead on tap is a thing to be loved. I agree. Wow, just a fantastic beer.

I also had their Topless Wych, which is a Baltic porter. Quite exceptional. If you have not had a Three Floyd's beer, I recommend it.

Crown Brewing was more "traditional" in the style of Rock Bottom, etc., but the beers were either very good (Celtic Oatmeal Stout or Special Forces IPA) or good.

As we were departing from that morning, I picked up the mail (from the previous day). In it, my sister, brother-in-law, and nephew Jack had sent me a book: Lost at Guadalcanal: The Final Battles of the Astoria and Chicago as Described by Survivors and in Official Reports by John J. Domagalski. My sister and brother-in-law were kind enough to have it signed by the author himself. I look forward to reading it (after having watched HBO's series The Pacific, I have been wanting to read up more about the Pacific war. Seems like I have a good book!

Also, it should be noted that my nephew Jack recorded a video of himself singing happy birthday to me!

At Crown Brewing, my brother and girlfriend gave me their gifts. A couple of bottles of Rogue's Shakespeare Stout (my favorite brew) and a signed copy of Pattiann Rogers' poem "Opus from Space."

Rogers is one of my favorite poets, and this gift was a complete surprise. In addition, my brother managed to secure a copy of The Blackbird's Nest: An Anthology of Poetry from Queen's University of Belfast signed by a contributor to that volume, Ciaran Carson.

40th, Part 1

2011-03-21T09:00:00.001-04:00

I originally had not planned on writing anything about my birthday, the 40th. Not because I was feeling the pain of 40; rather, because I was quite nonchalant and unconcerned about it. Aging is not an issue with me.

Gina, however, decided to use the opportunity to throw me a lavish and amazing 40th birthday weekend. She decided to celebrate this milestone, and the result was such an amazing weekend that I feel compelled to share with what readers I may have.

I knew when I married her that I did not deserve her or her thoughtfulness. She continues to prove that every day.

So my birthday was Friday. My team at work, my boss, and a couple of my peers pitched in extravagantly for a suitable gift, notably a couple of bottles of Balvenie 12-year Doublewood Scotch. One of my favorites.

My wife then took me to Oakley's Bistro. We were treated to the best meal we've ever had. Shrimp corndogs, lobster waffles, butternut squash soup, asparagus toad-in-the-hole salad, pork duo, duck duo, creme brulee, and upside-down lemon crepes. Let's say, I ate way too much, and thoroughly enjoyed every single bite.

The chef, Steven Oakley, is a James Beard 2011 semifinalist. As far as I can tell, a well-deserved honor.

Oh, and I did have a couple of dirty martinis featuring a Wisconsin small-batch gin: Death's Door. Yes, I'm a foodie, despite Livy's concern that it was the ending of a culture.

St. Patrick's Day Poem: Patrick Kavanagh

2011-03-17T09:00:00.000-04:00

In honor of St. Patrick's Day...

Come Dance with Kitty Stobling

No, no, no, I know I was not important as I moved
Through the colourful country, I was but a single
Item in the picture, the name, not the beloved.
O tedious man with whom no gods commingle.
Beauty, who has described beauty? Once upon a time
I had a myth that was a lie but it served:
Trees walking across the crest of hills and my rhyme
Cavorting on mile-high stilts and the unnerved
Crowds looking up with terror in their rational faces.
O dance with Kitty Stobling I outrageously
Cried out-of-sense to them, while their timorous paces
Stumbled behind Jove's page boy paging me.
I had a very pleasant journey, thank you sincerely
For giving me my madness back, or nearly.

Towards or From

2011-03-15T09:00:00.002-04:00

I stumbled across this comment from Dylan Thomas, who wrote about a Stephen Spender review: "...the difference between writing poetry towards words and the writing of poetry from words." This is only a part of the letter, but it captures an interesting idea, though it is probably so difficult to define that writing of it is pointless.

I'm frankly not even sure what it means or what Thomas valued. Spender wrote that the difference was one of the feel versus the intellectual content of words. In my youthful days, I wrote a poetic manifesto (what poet in his or her early twenties lacks such an ideology) that focused on "expansive" versus "compressive"--these were my own terms and bear no relation to any other ideology. Basically, I made some arguments about compression leading to obscurity but relying on a multitude of connotations and denotations to convey the meaning, while expansion relied less on packing meaning into words and more about their essential nature (by which is meant the current denotation and dialectical use).

Alas, I ramble yet again. The point is that one can write poems from which the sound of words is their driving element or write poems from which the meaning of words is the driving element. Neither is right nor wrong. In fact, I think most poets have written poems of both kinds. But lurking in there, I think, is some fundamental notion of words and how we use them. I think it may be my listening to opera in another language. The sound of the words is music. But we even need not go that far. Robert Plant's vocals in Led Zeppelin are often incomprehensible...they become in essence sounds as much as the Jimmy Page's guitar strumming. I wouldn't change a thing about how Plant sang.

Dylan Thomas ended that comment with "that's, of course, oversimplification."

Inspiration and Creativity

2011-03-10T09:00:00.000-05:00

I usually write fairly late at night, after reading, putting work in the past for a few hours at least, etc. The other night, I was abnormally tired and did my pre-sleep prep. I was about to turn in, but I decided to fight the tiredness and sit at the desk and write, no matter how briefly. So I picked up a couple of poems that I have been working on and began my writing. Afterwards, I was giving some thought to the idea of creativity, probably sparked by my recently finished reading of Richard Holmes's magnificent biography Coleridge: Early Visions, 1772-1804.

At times writing, I seek only what I can describe as an incantatory attitude. By this, I only use "incantatory" as an approximation. I think of certain poets as incantatory: Hart Crane, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Dylan Thomas among others. The Greek poets George Seferis and Odysseus Elytis probably also fall into that same category. I could also associate it with certain types of music: Clint Mansell's soundtrack for The Fountain, Hans Zimmer's composition Time for Inception, Philip Glass's Metamorphosis compositions for solo piano, or Bach's suites for solo cello. It's a mood more than anything else, and it is focused on sound and not, at least initially, on meaning. The idea also veers towards Surrealism, though less of the Dali kind and more of the Magritte kind (frankly, Magritte's Surrealism is about the only painting Surrealism I care for).

What's all this about? Some poems I write as an act of will. I have the subject. I know I want to write it, so I tackle it. Others are inspirational from a scene or image or something. They have a direct causation. Others, however, come from the sounds of words and are secondarily about meaning. These also tend to be more "automatic" in the sense that they are written by letting the mind unlock, reveal, and write unedited...and then I edit and rewrite to hone.

Many other forms of inspiration abound, I'm sure, but these are the three that tend to be with me...and they produce quite different poems.

Coleridge: Clarity and Obscurity

2011-03-08T09:00:00.000-05:00

Here's a quote from Samuel Taylor Coleridge (I lifted this from Richard Holmes's superb biography Coleridge: Early Visions, 1772-1804).

The elder Languages fitter for Poetry because they expressed only prominent ideas with clearness, others but darkly...i.e., Feelings created by obscure ideas associate themselves with the one clear idea. When no criticism is pretended to, the Mind in its simplicity gives itself up to a Poem as to a work of nature, Poetry gives most pleasure when only generally; not perfectly.

Holmes mentions that this some of Coleridge's first thoughts on the role of clarity and obscurity as central to the success of poetry. More to come on this....

Win a B&N Gift Certificate!

2011-03-05T09:00:00.001-05:00

Enter a drawing to win a gift certificate! How? Well, just go to BN.com and review my books. To be eligible, you must enter a review between March 5th and March 31st (of 2011). Additionally, you must actually have a review of at least two sentences (sorry, no just marking the number of stars or a one-word comment). If you've already posted a star rating, that's OK, just go and add some review commentary.

You are under no obligation to write a positive review. Whether you love it or hate it (though I hope for the former), you can say what you want.

Three separate drawings, so you can enter up to three times:

$20.00 for The NOOK Book
$10.00 for Using the NOOKcolor and NOOK, Second Edition
$5.00 for Portrait of a Woman Brushing Her Hair and Other Poems

Please email me your contact info with a copy of your review to be entered in the drawing. Look on this blog on April 1st for the winning reviews.

*Note: All reviews must be posted to the BN.com website and not Amazon, etc.

Hard Reset of NOOKcolor

2011-03-03T09:00:00.000-05:00

I recently had an email from a NOOKcolor user. He had an issue with the passcode lock. Basically, he could not get past it though he did not know the lock. What to do? Well, the only option that I am aware of is to hard reset/reboot the NOOKcolor device. Here are the instructions (adapted from the B&N Book Clubs Forum):

Following these steps performs a factory reset of the NOOKcolor, which de-registers your device as well as erases all local content such as contacts, sideloaded documents, personal information, 4 digit passcodes, etc.

Power off your NOOKcolor.
Hold the Home button while simultaneously pressing and holding the Power button for 25 seconds.
Do not let go of the Home or Power buttons as the start up process begins. When a confirmation windows appears asking if you would like to, “Factory Reset Your Device?”
Press the Home button to continue with the hard reset.
Press the Home button again to confirm.
Your device will now begin the clearing process. Upon completion, it will be as if you have a brand new NOOKcolor.

New NOOK Book Tab

2011-02-26T08:38:00.000-05:00

I've added a page specifically for updates to the NOOK books, including updated rooting information, apps I've installed, and errata.

The NOOK Book for Sale!

2011-02-24T08:49:00.000-05:00

Just sending word out that The NOOK Book is now available for sale at Barnes & Noble (and Amazon).

That Quote Is From.... #3

2011-02-22T09:00:00.001-05:00

That Shakespearen insult "A fusty nut with no kernel" is from Troilus and Cressida, Act II, Scene 1. Here's a larger context:

  ACHILLES. Your last service was suff'rance; 'twas not voluntary. No
    man is beaten voluntary. Ajax was here the voluntary, and you as
    under an impress.
  THERSITES. E'en so; a great deal of your wit too lies in your
    sinews, or else there be liars. Hector shall have a great catch
    an he knock out either of your brains: 'a were as good crack a
    fusty nut with no kernel.
  ACHILLES. What, with me too, Thersites?
  THERSITES. There's Ulysses and old Nestor-whose wit was mouldy ere
    your grandsires had nails on their toes-yoke you like draught
    oxen, and make you plough up the wars.

Shakespeare Insult: #3

2011-02-15T09:00:00.003-05:00

Source: FDA

Here is the third Shakespearean insult in my ongoing series:

A fusty nut with no kernel.

Can you name the play, act, scene, and speaker?

Rooting Your NOOKcolor

2011-02-11T09:27:00.000-05:00

Having you been wanting to root your NOOKcolor? (Root basically means hack but without any criminal connotations.) It's super easy, and by doing it you can install apps from the Android Market, including:

Amazon Kindle
Dropbox
Angry Birds
Slacker
Facebook
Fandango
Evernote
eReader
NY Times
Pulse
Adobe Reader
and more

You can read my article on how to do this at Que Publishing, publisher of my two NOOK books.

The Difference in Poems We Admire from Those We Love

2011-02-10T09:00:00.000-05:00

Was reading Stepping Stones: Interviews with Seamus Heaney, which is a quite interesting book. Ran across this:

"Put it this way: some poets and poetry you admire in the way you admire produce in a market. Natural, beautiful stuff, delightfully there in front of you, thickening your sense of being alive. But you're still looking at it. You're savoring it but you can move on to the next display. Then there are poets and poetry that turn out to be more like plants and growths inside you. It's not so much a case of inspecting the produce as feeling a life coming into you and through you. You're Jack and at the same time you're the beanstalk. You're the ground and the growth all at once. There's no critical distance, as yet."

Portrait of a Woman Brushing Her Hair and Other Poems Available for Kindle

2011-02-08T09:00:00.001-05:00

My small book of poems, Portrait of a Woman Brushing Her Hair and Other Poems, is now available for the Kindle for $.99.

The NOOK Book

2011-02-03T09:00:00.000-05:00

So a print version of my ebook is now available for pre-order from BN.com and Amazon (links below). This print book has the addition of how to root your NOOKcolor (among other updates), which is handy to have in print form while you actually do the rooting.

Barnes & Noble

Amazon

That Quote Is From.... #2

2011-02-01T09:00:00.000-05:00

The Shakespearean insult "quintessence of dust" is from Hamlet Act II, Scene 2. The larger context of this quote is:

GUILDENSTERN

My lord, we were sent for.

HAMLET

I will tell you why; so shall my anticipation

prevent your discovery, and your secrecy to the king

and queen moult no feather. I have of late--but

wherefore I know not--lost all my mirth, forgone all

custom of exercises; and indeed it goes so heavily

with my disposition that this goodly frame, the

earth, seems to me a sterile promontory, this most

excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave

o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted

with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to

me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours.

What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason!

how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how

express and admirable! in action how like an angel!

in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the

world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me,

what is this quintessence of dust? man delights not

me: no, nor woman neither, though by your smiling

you seem to say so.

ROSENCRANTZ

My lord, there was no such stuff in my thoughts.

Accounting for Christopher Logue's THE ILIAD

2011-01-27T09:00:00.001-05:00

Several years ago I discovered Christopher Logue's War Music: An Account of Books 1-4 and 16-19 of Homer's Iliad. Very quickly, I went on to find All Day Permanent Red: An Account of the First Battle Scenes of Homer's Iliad. Slate's article had the tag line correct: "Is Christopher Logue a Genius or a Madman?" I've been opting on the genius side for a while.

The subtitle to the books says "account," which is about as apt as I think Logue can describe his project. This is not a translation of The Iliad. I wouldn't even call it an imitation in the way Robert Lowell's Imitations are. It's looser and more organic. Logue is not, I don't think, very concerned about being faithful to the words of Homer. Rather, he's more interested in being faithful to the spirit of Homer. In modern TV/cinema parlance Logue's version of The Iliad is a re-imagining on the scale of Battlestar Galactica. The essence is there. Many of the same characters are there. The same general plot is there. But it is borderline unrecognizable.

Now, The Iliad (as I know it translated by Robert Fitzgerald or Richard Lattimore or Alexander Pope, etc.) is not comparable to the 1970s Battlestar Galactica--for The Iliad holds up--but Logue's "accounts" are as good as the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica series. Genius, I tell you.

Also, check out Logue's interview with The Paris Review.

Shakespeare Insult: #2

2011-01-25T09:00:00.000-05:00

Image from
http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/science/sd-particle.html

Here is the second Shakespearean insult in a series:

Quintessence of dust

Can you name the play, act, scene, and speaker?

Very Brief Reviews

2011-01-20T09:00:00.000-05:00

Prior to my writing the upcoming NOOKcolor book (more details to come), I read several books of poems--some anticipated, some note. Here are my reviews of them...in brief:

Seamus Heaney's twelfth book of poems, Human Chain, is a step up from his last, District and Circle. I've long been an admirer of Heaney's early poems, up through The Haw Lantern. Not that Seeing Things and later books were not good, but they didn't, it seemed to me, measure up to the delights of North or Field Work.

If you haven't heard of Gjertrud Schnackenberg, pick up Supernatural Love: Poems 1976-1992, which collects her first three books of poems. Heavenly Questions is her latest, and it is quite good. Subtle, erudite, and philosophical.

Derek Walcott's White Egrets was quite disappointing. Like Heaney, I admire Walcott's early poems, but Walcott's work in recent years is limp and unexciting, and White Egrets does nothing to help that feeling.

Glyn Maxwell's Hide Now was the most disappointing volume in this set of very brief reviews. Slack, without tension. I felt like I was reading a completely different Glyn Maxwell than I have in the past.

It would be too much to call Ruth Padel's Darwin: A Life in Poems experimental, for its poems are standard, if accomplished. If experimental at all it is that this book tackles a single subject (even if within that are many themes)--yet that cannot be called experimental either. The book is intriguing and my conflict between experimental and not speaks, I think, to its success.

Patrick Kanouse's Poetry Pages: Facelift

2011-01-18T09:00:00.000-05:00

I have begun learning to use Adobe's Dreamweaver product, so I decided to learn it by updating my website. So please visit and let me know what you think!

Using NOOKcolor and NOOK, 2/E: Published!

2011-01-12T09:00:00.000-05:00

So the ebook I was writing prior to Christmas is now out and available for sale at bn.com. In marketing speak: This book is for new to advanced users of the NOOKcolor and NOOK. I cover the basics of using the devices along with the NOOK apps on phones, Macs, and PCs. Rooting the NOOK is covered as well. When I published this, the rooting process for the NOOKcolor was not yet stable, so it is not covered, though I'm working on an article for that now.

I cover more and in greater depth anything the NOOKcolor or NOOK user guides cover. Please check it out!

That Quote Is From....

2011-01-11T09:00:00.001-05:00

So the Shakespearean insult: "I do desire we may be better strangers" is from As You Like It, Act III, Scene 2. Here is a larger context of that quote:

JAQUES. I thank you for your company; but, good faith, I had as
    lief have been myself alone.
  ORLANDO. And so had I; but yet, for fashion sake, I thank you too
    for your society.
  JAQUES. God buy you; let's meet as little as we can.
  ORLANDO. I do desire we may be better strangers.
  JAQUES. I pray you mar no more trees with writing love songs in
    their barks.
  ORLANDO. I pray you mar no more of my verses with reading them
    ill-favouredly.

Shakespeare Insult: #1

2011-01-06T09:00:00.000-05:00

Of the many awesome things I received for Christmas (the MacAir I'm using right now to write this), one item seemed particularly interesting...for I will be able to make many a blog post about it. My brother gave me a shirt featuring quotes from Shakespeare featuring insults.

So throughout this year, I'll feature a quote, give an opportunity to guess the play (including act, scene, and character), and then reveal the answer.

So...without further ado, here's the first quote:

"I do desire we may be better strangers"

Rushing the Growler: Jared Carter's Blog

2011-01-04T09:00:00.000-05:00

Just wanted to highlight a new blog that has recently come on line from Jared Carter: Rushing the Growler.

Interview Online

2010-12-30T10:46:00.000-05:00

If you are interested, you can read my interview on Goodreads at this link.

I appreciated the opportunity to participate.

A Christmas (Short) Essay

2010-12-24T23:31:00.000-05:00

Christmas has long now been a thoroughly secularized holiday. True, many still respect and honor it's Christian themes, though mostly people have moved back beyond those to the Feast of the Unconquered Sun or Saturnalia. Christmas is a holiday wedded to materialism in the most obvious ways, but the materialism of the holiday does not, I think, account for its pervasive influence. Nor does it Christian or pagan roots account for it either.

Much of what we value in religion is ritual, sacrament, and idealism, and Christmas carries those forth in the secular realm. The Christian rituals of Christmas (midnight Mass, Christmas Eve services, etc.) continue to decline in attendance, but the rituals of Christmas as we celebrate it more and more expand: exterior lights, Christmas trees, certain movies, family traditions. These take center stage. These serve in the place of religious exercises for more and more people. Instead of attending Christmas Eve services, people wrap gifts on Christmas Eve. Instead of reading the Matthew nativity story, we watch A Christmas Story, Love Actually, or any number of holiday-themed movies. And we do this year after year. The routine, the tradition, the ritual of the activity has become a sacrament. And within this sacrament lies the idealism of a more perfect world.

Why do we wish for a white Christmas? Why do we expend so much effort on selecting gifts and preparing food? Often our wishes do not become reality (hence, idealistic), but we never stop trying to bring the idealism into reality (I consider this, frankly, on par with our sense of justice: we have an ideal and we strive time and again to achieve the ideal). I often think we wish so much for a white Christmas not so much because we think of the northerly latitudes and Christmas but because so little traffic is out on Christmas (or we expect there to be so much less) that the snow can remain pristine, un-grimed from road traffic--even if just for a few hours. Instead of a road sidelined by piles of blackening snow, we can see a white field, crisp and beautiful in a Christmas sun.

I cherish these rituals. I have my own set of expectations from which I derive much enjoyment. While many will lament the materialism of Christmas, I actually think that materialism is an idealistic attempt to capture a childhood ideal of Christmas that was left unmet (for ideals are, because they are perfect, never really met). My expectations are a combination of my childhood memories and what I found pleasant and new ones I've created with my wife, which fall into the realm of the sacred. They may be cheesy or odd or silly to some, but rituals are never about the others but are instead about our relation to the larger world.

Here is Robert Frost's poem "Christmas Tree":

The city had withdrawn into itself
And left at last the country to the country;
When between whirls of snow not come to lie
And whirls of foliage not yet laid, there drove
A stranger to our yard, who looked the city,
Yet did in country fashion in that there
He sat and waited till he drew us out
A-buttoning coats to ask him who he was.
He proved to be the city come again
To look for something it had left behind
And could not do without and keep its Christmas.
He asked if I would sell my Christmas trees;
My woods—the young fir balsams like a place
Where houses all are churches and have spires.
I hadn't thought of them as Christmas Trees.
I doubt if I was tempted for a moment
To sell them off their feet to go in cars
And leave the slope behind the house all bare,
Where the sun shines now no warmer than the moon.
I'd hate to have them know it if I was.
Yet more I'd hate to hold my trees except
As others hold theirs or refuse for them,
Beyond the time of profitable growth,
The trial by market everything must come to.
I dallied so much with the thought of selling.
Then whether from mistaken courtesy
And fear of seeming short of speech, or whether
From hope of hearing good of what was mine,
I said, "There aren't enough to be worth while."

"I could soon tell how many they would cut,
You let me look them over."

"You could look.
But don't expect I'm going to let you have them."
Pasture they spring in, some in clumps too close
That lop each other of boughs, but not a few
Quite solitary and having equal boughs
All round and round. The latter he nodded "Yes" to,
Or paused to say beneath some lovelier one,
With a buyer's moderation, "That would do."
I thought so too, but wasn't there to say so.
We climbed the pasture on the south, crossed over,
And came down on the north.

He said, "A thousand."
"A thousand Christmas trees!—at what apiece?"
He felt some need of softening that to me:
"A thousand trees would come to thirty dollars."

Then I was certain I had never meant
To let him have them. Never show surprise!
But thirty dollars seemed so small beside
The extent of pasture I should strip, three cents
(For that was all they figured out apiece),
Three cents so small beside the dollar friends
I should be writing to within the hour
Would pay in cities for good trees like those,
Regular vestry-trees whole Sunday Schools
Could hang enough on to pick off enough.
A thousand Christmas trees I didn't know I had!
Worth three cents more to give away than sell,
As may be shown by a simple calculation.
Too bad I couldn't lay one in a letter.
I can't help wishing I could send you one,
In wishing you herewith a Merry Christmas.

Interview and Chat

2010-12-23T15:57:00.001-05:00

Wanted to pass the word along that I will have the pleasure of an interview and chat on Goodreads on the World Literature group's forum. There will be two sessions:

I hope you will be able to join!

Radio Open Source

2010-12-16T09:00:00.001-05:00

I have recently been listening to the podcasts from Radio Open Source. Really quite good listening, but I wanted to highlight the Whose Words These Are series, where the host, Christopher Lydon, talks poetry (so far 30 episodes) with poets and critics: Henri Cole, Harold Bloom on Hart Crane, Joan Houlihan, and other.

John Keats: A Winter Poem

2010-12-14T09:00:00.000-05:00

Here is John Keats's "O thou whose face hath felt the Winter's wind"

O thou whose face hath felt the Winter's wind,
Whose eye has seen the snow-clouds hung in mist
And the black elm tops 'mong the freezing stars,
To thee the spring will be a harvest-time.
O thou, whose only book has been the light
Of supreme darkness which thou feddest on
Night after night when Phoebus was away,
To thee the Spring shall be a triple morn.
O fret not after knowledge! I have none,
And yet my song comes native with the warmth.
O fret not after knowledge! I have none,
And yet the Evening listens. He who saddens
At thought of idleness cannot be idle,
And he's awake who thinks himself asleep.

Dear Reader.....

2010-12-02T09:00:00.000-05:00

Portrait of a Woman Brushing Her Hair and Other Poems

So it has been some time since I last wrote, and I appreciate your patience....

I have actually been very busy recently revising the Using NOOK book. Jim Cheshire wrote the current edition, but I have been hired to write the upcoming edition, and I'm working hard to get it out very fast.

I got my NOOKcolor on November 19th, and I'm hoping to have my manuscript finished on December 3rd. For those of you who know my poetry writing pace, well, this is super, super fast. So my evenings have been absorbed in the update. Good news is is that Jim's original edition was so good, that the coverage for the eInk NOOK is not very substantial--more tweaks than anything else.

As part of the revision, I decided to test out B&N's PubIt tool. PubIt is basically a self-publishing tool for ebooks. It's pretty cool. Anyways, I've been giving away my small PDF of poems title Portrait of a Woman Brushing Her Hair and Other Poems, so I decided to use that book as a test case for PubIt. PubIt books are ePub files, so it doesn't match in layout the PDF, but it seems to work pretty well. If you're interested in a copy, it's only $.99 (that's the lowest price once can offer).

Its product page is here.

Poetry and Philosophy

2010-11-03T09:00:00.000-04:00

I have, as late, been reading a lot of philosophy or philosophy-related texts. For many years (like all my life), my readings in philosophy have been haphazard at best: the requisite Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, and Marcus Aurelius...with a smattering of modern philosophy (mostly John Rawls and his Theory of Justice).

As of late, the philosophy of the mind has very much intrigued me. Why? Who knows...it just happened. But I take "mind" pretty broadly. The obvious specific philosophy of mind as found in David Chalmers or Daniel Dennett, but also as found in Buddhism and Christianity. In addition, I've tried to soak up some more general texts, most recently Roger Scruton's An Intelligent Person's Guide to Philosophy. All this is by way of coming to Wallace Stevens. I have been reading the American Library's version of his collected works: Wallace Stevens: Collected Poetry and Prose (Library of America). I have always known and thought Stevens to be, well, philosophical, and my saying it is nothing new. But while reading philosophy and contemplating the many issues Scruton, Dennett, Chalmers, Frank Jackson, etc., raise, I have a clearer sense of how Stevens embodies philosophy in his poetry, all the while ensuring that the poetry speaks first.

It is late, and I'm not thinking clearly enough to really parse this out, other than to say it is a sense, but a powerfully persuasive one that enriches reading...and writing.

Seamus Heaney on a Fountain Pen

2010-10-21T09:00:00.005-04:00

I've started reading Seamus Heaney's new book Human Chain. I'll save a more thorough commentary for later, but in this collection is a poem titled "The Conway Stewart." Conway Stewart is a British company that manufactures writing instruments. Not knowing a lot about the background of the poem, one commentator indicated that the poem is about a pen Heaney's parents gave him, which fits into the imagery of that latter part of the poem.

Myself, I love writing with my fountain pen, which my friend Christopher Coake [shameless plug for his book We're in Trouble] introduced me to. My favorite is my Parker Sonnet (a gift from that same Chris and several years older than the current versions for sale), though I have several.

Anyways, I thought it was interesting to encounter this poem by Heaney, which I quote here:

The Conway Stewart

"Medium," 14-carat nib,
Three gold bands in the clip-on screw-top,
In the mottled barrel a spatulate, thin

Pump-action lever
The shopkeeper
Demonstrated,

The nib uncapped,
Treating it to its first deep snorkel
In a newly opened ink-bottle,

Guttery, snottery,
Letting it rest then at an angle
To ingest,

Giving us time
To look together and away
From our parting, due that evening,

To my longhand
"Dear"
To them, next day.

Richard Rorty's Comments on Poetry

2010-10-19T09:00:00.001-04:00

I have been trying to "catch up" on my gaps in philosophy reading, though I doubt I will make too much progress (there's way too much amongst all my other reading). Nonetheless, the American philosopher Richard Rorty made some comments on poetry to the Poetry Foundation. You can find his brief essay here.

Philip Glass's "Metamorphosis"

2010-09-21T09:00:00.001-04:00

I have in the past mentioned that while I like Philip Glass's music generally, I though only the "Violin Concerto" really stood up. But there is one other piece of his music that overlooked: Metamorphosis for Piano. My wife was watching the Battlestar Galactica series, and though I had already seen it, the excellence of the show brought me back in. Those of you familiar with the series heard snippets of Part V of this work in the Season 2 episode, "Valley of Darkness": Starbuck, back in her apartment on Caprica, turns on the radio. It's an astonishing bit of music that creates an immediate atmosphere, slightly melancholic but bright and urban.

Wang Wei's "Suffering from Heat"

2010-09-14T09:00:00.002-04:00

As I have noted before, I have been reading The Anchor Book of Chinese Poetry. While reading through some of it this weekend, I stumbled across this poem by Wang Wei. Given that in central Indiana we had a very hot August and that it was bone dry (really, the grass all around is the area is parched brown), the content of the poem seemed very appropriate. So....

Suffering from Heat

The red sun bakes earth and heaven
where fine clouds are shaped like mountains.
Grass and woods are scorched and wilting.
The rivers and lakes have all dried up.
Even my light silk clothes feel heavy
and dense foliage gives thin shade.
The bamboo mat too hot to lie on,
I dry off, soaking my towel with sweat.
I think of escaping from the universe
to be a hermit in a vastness
where a long wind comes from infinity
and rivers and seas wash away my turbulence.
When I see my body holding me here
I know my heart is not enlightened.
Abruptly I enter a gate of sweet dew
where there is a medicine to cool me.

John Adams and "The Dharma at Big Sur"

2010-09-09T09:00:00.000-04:00

I have long held a theory for those of Midwestern extraction: They are enchanted by either mountains or ocean. Okay, so that is a vast generalization, but so many Midwesterners I know (being one myself) have often romanticized one or the other. The flatness of Illinois and Indiana prompting an idealization of the summits or vastness of the ocean. While the mountains fascinate me, the oceans have always had a pull on me. Technically, my first view of the ocean was when I crossed the English Channel from Dover to Calai--note, I'm leaving out the view from the plane, which I think is a distinctly different experience than being level with the ocean (or nearly so). But that is not what I consider my first experience of the ocean. Perhaps because one thinks of the English Channel as simply the Channel...not the ocean.

If I go by my mental construct of my first view of the ocean, then it is the Pacific Ocean at San Diego. In 1993, in my one and only Spring Break vacation, my good friend DB and I got into my 1978 Buick LeSabre V-8 (named Helga the Viking Aircraft Carrier) and set ourselves westward. The journey was great fun and offers up many vivid memories to this day (and note, that DB and I road-tripped to Seattle a few years later, though in a much less poetic Toyota Corolla).

I still remember seeing the ocean. The first glimpse of it was approaching dusk. But the first real view of it was later that night. Whitecaps breaking on the shore and a cool breeze and the smell. All very cliche, perhaps, but true to my experience nonetheless.

John Adams in his composition The Dharma at Big Sur captures this sensation, I think, wonderfully. He writes about it:

I wanted to express the moment, the so-called “shock of recognition,” when one reaches the edge of the continental land mass. On the Atlantic coast, the air seems to announce it with its salty taste and briney scents. Coming upon the California coast is a different experience altogether. Rather than gently yielding ground to the water the Western shelf drops off violently, often from dizzying heights, as it does at Big Sur, the stretch of coastal precipice midway between Santa Cruz and Santa Barbara. Here the current pounds and smashes the littoral in a slow, lazy rhythm of terrifying power. For a newcomer the first exposure produces a visceral effect of great emotional complexity.

While I experienced the Pacific from San Diego, the effect was no less. Knowing Adams's words as I listened to this piece, I can say he captured the concept of seeing the ocean perfectly, beautifully, delightfully. One cannot recapture the feelings, but one can get close to them, feel their whisperings in The Dharma at Big Sur.

Charles Johnson and Peter Matthiessen

2010-09-07T09:00:00.000-04:00

I have just finished Charles Johnson's Turning the Wheel: Essays on Buddhism and Writingand Peter Matthiessen's The Snow Leopard.

I had heard of Matthiessen and The Snow Leopard, but Charles Johnson's name was new to me...and shame on me for that. Both books deal with Buddhism in some degree, though my reading of them was incidental to any interest in Buddhist philosophy.

Charles Johnson is a novelist, philosopher, and practicing Buddhist. His novel Middle Passage won the National Book Award in 1990. I have not read it, but I will be now. The writing in Turning the Wheel is spectacular. Clear, concise and with an ability to bring difficult concepts into a focus. The first half of the book are essays on Buddhism, and they are particularly illuminating. The second half of the book are essays about writing. Again, well-written. One essay in particular, "Progress in Literature," contemplates a similar idea of progress in literature as progress in science. The result is compelling. The essay "An American Milk Bottle" is a poignant remembrance of the author's uncle through the prism of an artefact.

Matthiessen's The Snow Leopard also won the National Book Award, albeit in 1980. While Zen and Tibetan Buddhism are routinely discussed, this famous book is about a journey--spiritual, physical, mental, cultural, and scientific. The fame of this book is well-deserved and contains some of the finest writing in English prose I have read in a long time. While many "adventure" books (i.e., Annapurna or Endurance and the like), often tell of a tragedy or a triumph over adversity, this book's triumph and tragedy are much more muted...less obvious. This is not so much a book about either as it is a book about a journey and what happened on it for one man. Yet that risks undervaluing the book to say it so simply. Therein lies the beauty and triumph of the book, for it is impossible to summarize adequately. In some ways (and I think this now as I write this), the book is a nod to the Buddhist concept of mindfulness of the present. To summarize it is to dwell on the past of it. To read it is to experience it, and that is the important part.

Lu Ji's "Wenfu," Part 2

2010-08-26T09:00:00.000-04:00

In a previous post, I mentioned Lu Ji's Wenfu, as translated by Tony Barstone and Chou Ping in The Anchor Book of Chinese Poetry. Here is the section titled "The Power of a Poem":

The function of literature
is to express the nature of nature.
It can't be barred as it travels space
and boats across one hundred million years.
Gazing to the fore, I leave models for people to come;
looking aft, I learn from my ancestors.
It can save teetering governments and weak armies;
it gives voice to the dying world of human virtue.
No matter how far, this road will take you there;
it will express the subtlest point.
It waters the heart like clouds and rain,
and shifts form like a changeable spirit.
Inscribed on metal and stone, it spreads virtue.
Flowing with pipes and strings, each day the poem is new.

Lu Ji's "Wenfu"

2010-08-24T09:00:00.000-04:00

I have been reading The Anchor Book of Chinese Poetry translated and collected by Tony Barnstone and Chou Ping. So far it is quite nice. Recently, I read the selection of Lu Ji's Wenfu (translated by Barnstone and Ping as "The Art of Writing" but in Wikipedia as "On Literature"). According to Barnstone and Ping, a translator can easily write more lines commenting on the poetry than lines in the poem. I thought I'd share a couple of the sections from the book. This is from the section titled "Making It New":

Perhaps thoughts and words blend together
into a lucid beauty, a lush growth;
they flam like a bright brocade,
poignant as a string orchestra.
But if you fail to make it new
you can only repeat the past.
Even when your own heart is your loom
someone may have woven that textile before,
and to be honorable and keep integrity
you must disown it despite your love.

Billy Collins, the Kindle, and Poetry

2010-08-10T09:00:00.000-04:00

Billy Collins has recently made a splash about how his poetry appears on the Kindle. Now while I think that Mr. Collins poems routinely carry on beyond their climax and interest, he does raise up a good point: How poetry appears on e-reading devices. Unlike printed pages, the user has control over the text size on e-readers, which means that a reader can adjust the text size upwards so that original line breaks are not maintained. And this is a big deal for poems, for the line is critical (think about when poems are written in prose paragraphs and use the slash as a line break indicator--that's how important they are--e.g., "Let the lamp affix its beam. / The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.")

Personally, I think technology will catch up (probably in a way that allows the reader to increase the text size but applies a certain indentation on the line [think here of Whitman's long lines that are placed in book trim sizes that do not allow for the full line to appear on a single line] or somesuch thing). But it is something that needs resolved.

Speaking of e-books and e-readers: What is it about books moving to an electronic format that is different than music (only a very few complained about the shift from downloading on iTunes from scratchy albums) or movies? I think the issue is two things (primarily and, as always, it is far more complex than that):

Books have been around for centuries. Recorded music less than a century. Ditto for film. So the shift is gigantic. If evolution did not take so long, one might think reading a book was genetic while listening to a CD was acquired. Thus, the adaptability to all electronic versions of music happened more rapidly. But books...some people have a hard time calling a book on the Kindle a book. Not so with music.
This may be, I suspect, the more important reason: the aesthetics of the bookshelf compared to piles of cassettes, CDs, and DVDs, which have always been awkward as home decor. Books have been used to establish cosmopolitan and intellectual credentials. One looked at a bookshelf and said: "Oh, I see Edward Fitzgerald's translation of The Iliad." No one said the same about Mozart's Jupiter symphony (only when played did that matter).

In Open Letters Monthly, Nathan Schneider touches something similar and basic.

Slate's Jim Lewis on Christopher Logue's "Translation" of The Iliad

2010-07-27T09:00:00.000-04:00

I have since I read it admired Christopher Logue's "translation" of the Iliad. Here's an article at Slate by Jim Lewis that describes quite well Logue's efforts here.

I very much recommend diving into this work (spread across three volumes: War Music: An Account of Books 1-4 and 16-19 of Homer's Iliad, All Day Permanent Red: The First Battle Scenes of Homer's Iliad Rewritten, and Cold Calls: War Music Continued.

Inception: A Review

2010-07-22T09:00:00.000-04:00

This past weekend, I saw Christopher Nolan's newest film: Inception. Prepared as I was to like this movie, I was not prepared for how impressive this movie turned out to be. In fact, this film may be one of the finest movies I have seen in a very long time. For all the hype about Avatar and how that would alter movie-making and expectations, it comes nowhere near Inception's vision.

I saw Avatar and was thoroughly unimpressed. In fact, I was shocked that it was even considered for an Oscar nomination, let alone the fact that it was nominated. Avatar's story was matter of fact and unoriginal (and that is not necessarily a fault--many stories can be recirculated without harm) but the characters (if they can be called that) were paper thin and had no life beyond the events of the movie (and I'm granting a lot to say they had a life in the film). This was a spectacle for effects that, while good, were no where near great. And, frankly, who cares if the effects are great if there is no emotional connection with characters.

Avatar is a representation of a world that doesn't exist, which gave James Cameron much freedom in creation--he already had an audience who was willing to accept non-realistic creatures, etc. (I understand that Cameron made significant efforts to retain true-to-physics flight, animals, and stuff. Nonetheless, creating a world allows more freedom than using the world we know.) In contrast to Cameron, Nolan set himself up with a far more difficult challenge. While Inception takes place mostly in dreams, our expectation (and for the characters in the movie) is that it still be a realistic world--realistic is used loosely but means that we can recognize it, that it is not too far outside our expectations (so long as you go with the initial premise that a person could enter into another's dreams).

I would be hard pressed to pick any of the main actors in this movie as a standout above the others. Frankly, they all deserve awards in what is, perhaps, one of the best all-around acted movies. Leonardo DiCaprio brings his typical ability to convey emotion through glances and looks and subtle alterations in diction. Joseph Gordon-Levitt acts with superb confidence, showing a range beyond his (albeit wonderful) 500 Days of Summer. Ken Watanabe, Ellen Page, Tom Hardy, Dileep Rao, Cillian Murphy, and Marion Cotillard are all superb and give depth and range to their characters. Each character in this movie has a full life (i.e., before and after the film ends), of which we only see a small fraction. Avatar provided bodies on which to create special effects and provide impetus to a story. Inception demands more of its characters, for they are the principal "motive" behind the story. This film takes its characters and premise as a starting point. The effects are secondary (if necessary). It reminds me of a comment the director of L.A. Confidential said to his set designer: "Get every detail exactly right. Then I will film it as if it doesn't matter." The point being that effects, scenery details, etc., are the atmosphere the characters move in.

The music, reminiscent of The Dark Knight soundtrack, is expertly done. In this movie, much of the soundtrack nearly overwhelms the dialogue, forcing you to concentrate on listening or letting the voices be obscured. This all seemed perfectly natural, as if in the dream world where often cacophony and effects can overwhelm comprehension or make it borderline.

I could go on and on about this movie, but nothing I say will surpass seeing it. It is a landmark achievement; a film that provides so much of what film is capable of. Nolan doesn't talk down to us. Instead, he provides a character-based film with an interesting premise and let's them do the work.

Poem in The Furnace Review

2010-07-20T09:00:00.001-04:00

One of my poems is now at The Furnace Review. I hope you enjoy.

Two "Theories" of Poetry

2010-07-13T09:00:00.000-04:00

While traveling back and forth from a wonderful vacation in Florida last week, I spent much of my airplane time reading the latest issue I had of The New York Review of Books. In that issue, an article by Charles Simic quotes Tony Hoagland from his essay "Sad Anthropologists":

A poem is a heroic act of integration that binds into rough harmony the chorus of forces within and outside the soul. A poem struggles to orchestrate, prioritize, cohere, and coordinate these potentially shattering forces. A strong poem represents identity without oversimplifying it, and the poem's internal workings are themselves an analogue of that integrative struggle.

Hmmm....

OK, so a caveat: I have yet to be impressed by a poem of Hoagland's. The essay "Sad Anthropologists" can be found in his book Real Sofistikashun: Essays on Poetry and Craft. The focus of the essay is about tone and how it functions within a poem.

I also happened to be reading William Hazlitt's "The Lectures on the English Poets Delivered at the Surrey Institution." And in the section discussing Shakespeare and Milton, Hazlitt writes this:

The great fault of a modern school of poetry is, that it is an experiment to reduce poetry to a mere effusion of natural sensibility; or what is worse, to divest it both of imaginary splendour and human passion, to surround the meanest objects with the morbid feelings and devouring egotism of the writers' own minds. Milton and Shakspeare did not so understand poetry. They gave a more liberal interpretation both to nature and art. They did not do all they could to get rid of the one and the other, to fill up the dreary void with the Moods of their own Minds. They owe their power over the human mind to their having had a deeper sense than others of what was grand in the objects of nature, or affecting in the events of human life. But to the men I speak of there is nothing interesting, nothing heroical, but themselves. To them the fall of gods or of great men is the same. They do not enter into the feeling. They cannot understand the terms. They are even debarred from the last poor, paltry consolation of an unmanly triumph over fallen greatness; for their minds reject, with a convulsive effort and intolerable loathing, the very idea that there ever was, or was thought to be, any thing superior to themselves. All that has ever excited the attention or admiration of the world, they look upon with the most perfect indifference; and they are surprised to find that the world repays their indifference with scorn.

I'm not yet certain what "modern school" specifically Hazlitt is referring too, though I'll venture to guess he's referring to the Romantics. (I expect to be more certain to find out later in the lectures.)

If I somehow understand Hoagland's thought (and that is debatable), his focus on identity (the poet's, I presume, since that is where this "heroic act" occurs) is in stark contrast to Hazlitt's commentary, where the ego (i.e., the individualism of the poet expressed in the poem) is a negative. And here, perhaps, I can find an explanation why I find the "confessional" school and its decades of self-indulgent "I" poetry so often pointless: "to fill up the dreary void with the Moods of their own Minds."

I do not think, in the end, I will read about Hazlitt dismissing Wordsworth as pointless despite Hazlitt's commentary. And even with the Romantics placing of the self in the "center" of the poem, I rarely find the self-indulgence of "what I am thinking is important so you better listen" in Romantic poetry. So many Confessional poets write as if their experience by the fact that it is written in poetry is somehow inherently of interest. The difference, I think, comes down to the "I." The Romantic "I" is not so much the poet as the poet-character. The Confessional "I" is the I of the poet. More subtly, perhaps, the Romantic "I" is treated as if it were a character, but the Confessional "I" is treated as if it were really the poet. The difference matters greatly in the reaction to the poem, most often negatively, for me, against the Confessional mode.

What the *$%?

2010-07-07T09:00:00.000-04:00

I have slowly been reading Ted Berrigan's The Sonnets. I have had the book for a while, but only ventured into reading it a couple of months ago. I am only finishing it because I started it, and it is a small book, but I am thoroughly bored. While not as drastically obscure as Geoffrey Hill's recent poetry of the past decade, still Berrigan ventures into absurdity. From Sonnet L:

...as I was saying winter of 18 lumps
Days produce life locations to banish 7 up
Nomads, my babies, where are you? Life's
My dream which is gunfire in my poem

The introduction by Alice Notley, Berrigan's second wife, makes several claims about the interwined lines, meanings, references, etc., across the whole suite of sonnets. And the interaction is often visibly and clearly there, but to what purpose remains, to me, more of a mystery. The lines quoted above, by no means singular, are just plain baffling. I could tease out meanings, but to what end, and would it be worth it? I have yet to find it "worth it" amongst Berrigan's sonnets. NOTE: I am not a poet or reader of poetry that expects "literal" meaning from the lines and images, but I do expect some connection, some hook for me to scale the imagery with.

W.H. Auden on Andrei Voznesensky

2010-06-30T09:00:00.000-04:00

The Russian poet Andrei Voznesensky passed on June 1, 2010. His obituary can be read at The New York Times. I had a familiarity with some of his poetry (in an anthology compiled by Yevgeny Yevtushenko). To me, two comments by W. H. Auden in a 1966 article at The New York Review of Books was particularly interesting:

a poet who knows that, whatever else it may be, a poem is a verbal artifact which must be as skillfully and solidly constructed as a table or a motor-bicycle.

and

One of the primary proofs that a poem, or any work of art, has value is that, wherever, whenever, and by whomever it was made, we find it relevant to ourselves, our time, and our place.

Auden seems, as almost always, to have hit the nail on the head in defining an idea of poetry. First, an expectation of how poetry is made. Second, a comment on what makes a poem valuable. Further elaboration seems unnecessary.

Nine Years...Can I Have Another Bazillion?!

2010-06-23T08:00:00.002-04:00

Today is our anniversary...nine years and counting. I could go on and on (like my vows) about my wife and how much I cherish her. Suffice it to say, that the single best moments in my life are the moments I spend with her. I could not ask for a more perfect person to spend my life with.

I always like to think in this photo she is thinking, "The future's so bright...."

At the Tombs of Clytemnestra and Agamemnon: A Video and Reading

2010-06-17T16:27:00.000-04:00

While in Greece several years ago, we visited Mycenae, site of supposed tombs of Clytemnestra and Agamemnon. I wrote this poem and dedicated it my friend Keith, who lived in Greece at the time and shared his home and time with us.

iMovie Experiment: The Idea of Perfection in the Found Order of a Landscape

2010-06-01T09:00:00.001-04:00

I have recently discovered iMovie on my Mac and wanted to try some experimenting with the program. So I took some photos my wife took while we were in the Turks and Caicos in February and coupled them with a poem that I wrote based on that bit of wonderful beach.

I'm very curious what people think of this. Cheesy? Stupid? Awesome? Huh? So whatever feedback you care to offer, I'm listening...

Roger Scruton's "Beauty"

2010-05-24T09:00:00.019-04:00

I have recently finished Roger Scruton's Beauty, which I had been reading slowly over a period of time and have referenced previously in this blog. This is a generally conservative approach to "beauty," but conservative in that sense of "is change necessary or is this change for the sake of change?" Or as Scruton puts it: "the relentless pursuit of artistic innovation leads to a cult of nihilism."

Scruton is clearly on the side of Edward Hopper over Mark Rothko. I very much enjoy both, but an interesting point (and one that I do not think Scruton raises explicitly) arises when comparing the two as representatives of modes of art. Hopper maintained the figurative -- was in essence a traditionalist despite the Cubist and abstraction revolutions that occurred during his lifetime. Rothko never really was at home with figurative painting, abandoned surrealism, and moved wholeheartedly into abstraction. For many years, Hopper was rejected as "important" because his art was, well, traditional. Rothko sought innovation in form. Hopper was not anti-innovation, but his innovations are less obvious. But innovation for innovation's sake propelled only innovation...Cubism, abstraction, abstract-expressionism, etc. (or romantic to modernist to post-modernist to L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E, etc.) It seems that once innovation became important, the "ism" associated with that innovation fell to the past as old faster than in previous centuries of art. A symptom of an incorrect emphasis in artistic endeavors, perhaps? Interestingly, Scruton comments how many of the modernist experiments in literature and music were attempts to reclaim tradition: "And it [the great modernists] sees the goal of the modern artist not as a break with tradition, but as a recapturing of tradition." Scruton cites T.S. Eliot of The Four Quartets or Arnold Schoenberg's Moses und Aron. But think of Igor Stravinky's neoclassical repertoire: Pulcinella, amongst others.

I am, in the end, very sympathetic to Scruton's book because he finds, as I do, a value in beauty: "For beauty makes a claim on us: it is a call to renounce our narcissism and look with reverence on the world." He acknowledges that decay, horror, and ugliness are not to be excluded from "beauty," but that art can find a path through those to the value of humanity in this world. Beauty is not about avoidance but about embracing. Scruton's view of kitsch is particularly interesting in this regards. Kitsch "is a world of commodities to be consumed, rather than icons to be revered."

I think it will be very easy to dismiss Scruton for too easily dismissing popular art or being seen as an elitist listening to opera and not in the real world, but I think that is to miss the point of Scruton's agrument, one in which he never defines what beauty is. It seems to me that Scruton is not out to tell us what is beautiful but, instead, is out to inform us of the value of the beautiful, which is far more important. Many will disagree with me about Rothko's paintings as beautiful (Scruton does), but when we talk about Rothko's work, we should ideally be discussing its value as something beautiful. What we must avoid is the overthrow of beauty in art because we have lost the sense of the beautiful in the world.

Tipton Poetry Journal

2010-05-19T09:00:00.000-04:00

So in the two most recent issues of the Tipton Poetry Journal, I have had a couple of poems published. Order your copies and support a small journal.

Awesome's Birthday

2010-05-17T09:00:00.001-04:00

Happy Birthday my love!

10 Things I Love About My Wife (in no particular order):

She's immensely creative (just look at her knitting patterns).
She's fantastically talented (just look at her knitting work).
She loves, loves, loves music.
The way sunlight lands on her hair. Takes my breath away because the image is so arresting. Those are cinema moments, I tell you.
She found commercials of the rebooted Battlestar Galactica series interesting (before she knew they were BSG commercials).
Her superior sense of fashion (all my fashion sense is her doing...all my bad fashion is entirely my own).
Her love of family.
She's so very intelligent (but she doesn't think so often enough).
Her kindness to others.
She married me.
She's beautiful beyond compare.

I could go on, of course, and I'll think of another bagillion things to put here, but simply put she's amazing.

Glee: A Consideration as to Why It Is So Good

2010-05-12T09:00:00.001-04:00

Why is Glee, that Fox series on Tuesday nights, so very good? Many reasons could be cited: Its rapier humor. Its crisp dialogue. Its superb acting. Its shockingly good singing. Etc. And all of these contribute, but I think something more basic drives the response to the show. The show enacts the emotions of the songs performed. It takes the anger or joy or what have you and throws them before you, using the songs as hooks into the day-to-day life of the characters. In some ways, it puts on-screen the imaginings of many a youthful athlete. We've heard them...the ones that say out loud, "And Sean [referring to himself] has the ball. 3...2...he shoots...1...and scores!"

And part of the skill of doing that is not only the acting, the singing, the right choice of song, but the mix of "reality" and "fantasy" incorporated within the visual. In the episode "Home," Will Schuester encounters April Rhodes at the roller rink. April is singing to the roller skaters and invites Will up for a duet. The singing begins with both of them holding microphones and singing (i.e., realistically), but the scene shifts after a while (and seamlessly), with April and Will singing but without microphones and skating. This technique is used over and over again (singing during practice that ends up on a blackened stage with a spot light). This mixture of reality and fantasy couples into that emotional enactment of the song. We hear songs over and over. I really love U2's "One," but 9 times out of 10, I do not take any special notice of it. Occasionally, though, my mood is just right, and the song transforms from the mundane and common (reality) to something profound and meaningful (fantasy). These are loosely connected, but I think it is there.

If you have not seen Glee, I highly recommend it.

A Reason for Poetry

2010-05-05T09:00:00.003-04:00

The other night, I was cruising around the Internet a bit...Facebook, news, etc. For some time, I've considered the rancor, the anger, the bile surrounding much of politics and political speech to be corrosive and hateful. I am a firm believer in respecting the right of free expression, but I do not believe I must, in the end, respect the opinion.

Anyways, I, perhaps, place too much of an emphasis on alleviating unnecessary or preventable suffering. Some of the more stirring and radical concepts in the New Testament surround the abandonment of wealth, comfort, and even family to pursue a "higher purpose." Buddhism is about the alleviation of suffering. So reading things about how wrong it is that the US treats illegal immigrants with undue kindness in comparison to say, North Korea or Afghanistan (not examples I chose, but instead found), because it costs money and takes it away via taxes or higher government fees seems to me to completely disregard any empathy with the human condition.

My intent is not to get into a political discourse here, but some context of my position is necessary to understand how I turned to W.H. Auden's "Musée des Beaux Arts" and found across the decades a sort of "comfort" in reading these lines:

About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters; how well, they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.

In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.

This masterpiece of 20th century literature resonated with me. Auden is not, of course, writing in reference to current "dialogue" about 21st century American politics, but he lands on, I think, truths about the human condition. Primarily, I considered the references to suffering being ignored ("somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on") or unseen ("While someone else is eating").

We do not always go to poetry for comfort, but we do read poetry for insight (either by congruent emotions or surprise reconsiderations or...) about the human condition. I think this poem has something important to say. (Yes, I said, "important" by which I mean relevant, containing truth, perhaps universal....) Poetry matters because we use its specific art to reflect on our condition, and Auden in beautiful language does that here.

Shameless Plug Again

2010-04-30T08:52:00.000-04:00

Recently, my little PDF book Portrait of a Woman Brushing Her Hair and Other Poems (available from my website for free) received a very positive review from a reader on Goodreads.com. In a shameless bit of self-publicity, I share it here. I appreciate Asmah's taking the time to write such a generous review as well as letting me share it on my blog.

"Portrait of a Woman Brushing Her Hair and Other Poems" takes place in the eastern Mediterranean, and its environment engages the poet's five senses. Physical impressions of the region are the play of light, the flowing water, the layers of age, the "peopled beaches", the unending nightlife, and the ubiquitous reminder of spirituality in the blue-topped churches and the Christian millennium. The description of the present melds with the Greek past that is found in the absent remains of Roman burial caves, which dot the cliffs of Matala, and in the passing of the Minoans. This historical perspective contrasts with today, and there are others: life and death, light and dark, near and far. One look at the past, which shaped Santorini, is "Ruins In the Sea", which imagines a natural catastrophe that occurred about 1645 BCE. An enormous volcano exploded and left a gaping hole/Caldera/lagoon on that island. The poem's narrative tells about the animal and human sacrifices performed by a pagan priest whose rites prove useless when the surge of ash and water reach over the Cretan temple. In my opinion this poem was highly passionate. Crystal images as well as stark oppositions in personification and figurative as well as descriptive language all intertwined ("gluttony" versus "slender", uplifted knife, high tide claiming the cliff) as the volcanic activity is ceaselessly "rising". The poem created a rush, and an exertion, of language that denoted contentiousness and high activity--"blaze", "schism", and "creation"--as well as destruction. All was then spent and unhurried in the metaphor of a slowly fluttering wasp, and history left its imprint on the normal present. These poems capture the essence of the Greek isles.

Obscurity and William Shakespeare

2010-04-27T09:00:00.002-04:00

Obscurity is an oft discussed topic in poetry, and a topic I will revisit again here soon. However, as a teaser, I offer this. As I was reading Shakespeare's Henry VI, Part III, I came across this in Act II, Scene 6. It is spoken by Richard, the Duke of York's son (and soon to be villain in Richard III).

Revoke that doom of mercy, for 'tis Clifford,
Who not contented that he lopp'd the branch
In hewing Rutland, when his leaves put forth,
But set his murth'ring knife unto the root,
From whence that tender spray did sweetly spring,
I mean our Princely Father, Duke of York.

That last line in particular: I read it and thought, "Is this a line added to clarify the meaning of the text?" Perhaps an actor thought that Shakespeare had crossed a line into obscurity and added the line to help the audience understand what was said.

Vivian Maier: A Blog of Photos

2010-04-22T09:00:00.001-04:00

Jared Carter sent me this link to a blog featuring Vivian Maier's photos. Amazing work by a photographer you probably have never heard of...

ACHILLES. My sweet Patroclus, I am thwarted quite
From my great purpose in to-morrow’s battle.
Here is a letter from Queen Hecuba,
A token from her daughter, my fair love
Both taxing me and gaging me to keep
An oath that I have sworn. I will not break it:
Fall Greeks; fail fame; honour or go or stay;
My major vow lies here, this I’ll obey.
Come, come, Thersites, help to trim my tent;
This night in banqueting must all be spent.
Away, Patroclus! [Exeunt ACHILLES and PATROCLUS].
THERSITES. With too much blood and too little brain, these two may run mad; but if with too much brain, and too little blood they do, I’ll be a curer of madmen. Here’s Agamemnon, an honest fellow enough, and one that loves quails, but he has not so much brain as ear-wax: and the goodly transformation of Jupiter there, his brother, the bull, the primitive statue, and oblique memorial of cuckolds; a thrifty shoeing-horn in a chain, hanging at his brother’s leg, to what form but that he is should wit larded with malice and malice forced with wit turn him to? To an ass, were nothing: he is both ass and ox; to an ox, were nothing: he is both ox and ass. To be a dog, a mule, a cat, a fitchew, a toad, a lizard, an owl, a puttock, or a herring without a roe, I would not care; but to be Menelaus! I would conspire against destiny. Ask me not what I would be, if I were not Thersites, for I care not to be the louse of a lazar, so I were not Menelaus. Hey-day! spirits and fires!