New Year Haiku

I turn to the Japanese poet Kobayashi Issa (1763-1828) for New Year haiku on this New Year's Eve Day.

These I found at the site Haiku of Kobayashi Issa, where there are over 10,000 of Issa's haiku, complete with a handy search function so you choose your topic. I  searched for New Year and found 17 haiku, a few of which I present below.

I chose this one because it has been flitting snow all day here in Kobe.

1820

.御降りの祝儀に雪もちらり哉
o-sagari no shûgi ni yuki mo chirari kana

 

 

sprinkled in
with the new year's rain...
flitting snow

 

 

This one I chose simply because it captures my mood.

 

1822

.年立やもとの愚が又愚にかへる
toshi tatsu ya moto no gu ga mata gu ni kaeru

 

 

a new year--
the same nonsense
piled on nonsense

 

 

This is is about old age, which I have been thinking about a lot, and about eyesight, which is a constant obsession in our family. (Son #2 got his first pair of glasses yesterday, as it happens.)

 

1813

かすむやら目が霞やらことしから
kasumu yara me ga kasumu yara kotoshi kara

 

 

all is misty
even my eyes!
from this new year on

 

 

This one suggest that the barley fields will soon change color, turning green, ripening. I am currently working on a linked series of prose poems about color, so this appealed to me.

 

1819

けふからは正月分ぞ麦の色
kyô kara wa shôgatsu bun zo mugi no iro

 

 

after today
a new year begins!
the color of barley

 

 

And of course, children, their constant needs and gifts.

 

1822

.今夜から正月分ンぞ子ども衆
konya kara shôgatsubun zo kodomoshû

 

 

after this night
a new year dawns!
children

 

This one echoes the previous haiku about the barley changing color, doesn't it?

 

This website also has a random haiku generator. Click on that link and get a random haiku by Issa. Or search for what you want.

 

Either way, Happy New Year!

Books Under the Tree

We're getting ready for the New Year's celebrations, which is the most important holiday of the year here. So every year I take down all the Christmas decorations prior to putting up the traditional New Year's ones, because frankly the New Year's door hanging, made from straw, paper and an orange, and the sticky ricecake tower can't compete with all the Christmas glitz, and it's only fair to give my husband's culture equal time. So I've just taken down the tree, and now I will tell you what was under it for me on Christmas day.

First though, let me mention that prior to Christmas, I got  Allan Peterson's Fragile Acts, my first purchase of the McSweeney's poetry series, and it is bound so lavishly that the book is worth getting for it's simple aesthetic beauty as an object. Which shouldn't be a surprise when you learn that Peterson was a visual artist in his working life (he's retired now), though I'm not sure how much creative control a poet has with the publisher in this case.

Here's what I got on Christmas (some from my parents, some from my husband):

Selected Poems by Mary Ruefle
Indeed I Was Pleased With the World by Mary Ruefle
Charms Against Lightning by James Arthur
Partially Kept by Martha Ronk
Vertigo by Martha Ronk
Gravesend by Cole Swensen

So lots of great reading coming up for me, as these books were all on my wishlist. Swensen in one of my all-time favorite poets, and Mary Ruefle and Martha Ronk are current interests. James Arthur's work I happened to discover online during the past year, just in time for his debut volume.

And what about you, what did you get bookwise this holiday season?



traditional door hanging from Wallcoo.com



mochi tower, borrowed from www.caslt.org

A Sendak Christmas Surprise

Maurice Sendak's animated Christmas fable from 1977, thanks to Open Culture.

Exception to the Shopping Rule

From times when I have been poor, this shopping rule remains:

If I wish to buy an article of clothing, I must wait one week and see if I still "need" it.

However, if the article of clothing appears in a dream within that week, I must buy it immediately. This almost never happens.

Once, I dreamed about an article of clothing I was considering purchasing, but dreamed that I couldn't find the particular item in my apartment, though apparently I expected to. I looked everywhere, even among in the laundry basket of yet-to-be-laundered clothes.

I had no idea how this fit in with my rule, did not know what to do.

When I returned to the store, the item of clothing had been sold already.

I do not have a shopping rule about books. When I lived in a country in which the library could satisfy me, I did not need one. I need one now, and haven't got one. Among the other things I haven't got.

But I have got a stack of new books from my husband and my parents for Christmas and I will tell you about them later. After I get over this fever. And after it stops snowing (oh, it's already stopped). Okay, back to fever excuse then.

Persuasion: Green Gloves

Coming home late from a Christmas party, I left my gloves in a taxi.  The gloves I've had since before I was married, making them over 16 years old. The next day when I discovered the oversight, as I exclaimed about my problem to my family, my sons exchanged sly glances and then darted over to their father and whispered in his ear.

Later that day my 10-year-old said to me, "Don't buy anything, OK, Mom?" "What do you mean--don't buy anything?" I asked. "Just don't buy anything you need or want, OK? Anything for yourself, I mean. For awhile, OK?" I agreed and went to dig out an old gray pair of my husband's gloves to wear for the duration.

The next day on a walk with my 10-year-old, he asked, "What color were the gloves you left in the taxi?" "Black," I said. "Isn't green your favorite color?" he asked. "Yes," I said warily, dismayed over the prospect of green gloves. "Green would be nice for gloves, don't you think?" he continued. "Well, black is nice because it matches everything," I explained. "Hmmmm," he considered. "But besides black, what would be a good color for gloves?" "Well, gray matches most things too. Or tan." Besides gray and tan." "Well, a really deep purple would be nice. These days I like really deep purple for some reason." I was getting desperate. "Or green would be good," he offered. Again.

My new gloves are a lovely electric moss color (which is not an easy shade to achieve, nor to match). They have little fruit-shaped pieces of cashmere sewn onto the backs of the hands in muted but realistic colors, and on one hand there is a cat. The gloves don't have matching designs, but complementary ones, which I never in a million years would have chosen. But I am wierdly enamoured of my new whimsical green gloves. I feel a bit unlike myself wearing them.

Today on the train I saw an obasan (older woman) wearing lime-green suede boots with her tiger-print leggings. "Hmmm...," I thought.

The Science of Christmas

Santa's been here and gone already (due to time zone issues), much to the delight of the children in this household. It's not a holiday here though, so my kids are truant as I've kept them home, and their father is off to work, meaning that the gifts under the tree (other than Santa's) are still wrapped and will remain so till my husband gets home.

In the meantime, I'm listening to astrophysicist Neil De Grasse Tyson explain to NPR's David Greene the science behind Rudolph's red nose (couldn't have been blue, it turns out), speculate about whether or not St. Nick uses atmospheric separators, and discuss how Santa travels through wormholes to enter homes without chimneys and to visit all households in such a short time.

Plus more scientific Christmas explanations.

Enjoy.

Christmas Tree Sonnet (Starbuck)

It's Christmas Eve Day in Japan, and I got up early to do some of the baking and cooking for tomorrow's dinner, and for tonight's special dinner too. The wind is howling here. And I've borrowed the following poem by George Starbuck from the Poetry Foundation website. Enjoy.

 

 

Sonnet in the Shape of a Potted Christmas Tree 

By George Starbuck 1931–1996

O

fury-

bedecked!

O glitter-torn!

Let the wild wind erect

bonbonbonanzas; junipers affect

frostyfreeze turbans; iciclestuff adorn

all cuckolded creation in a madcap crown of horn!

It’s a new day; no scapegrace of a sect

tidying up the ashtrays playing Daughter-in-Law Elect;

bells! bibelots! popsicle cigars! shatter the glassware! a son born

now

now

while ox and ass and infant lie

together as poor creatures will

and tears of her exertion still

cling in the spent girl’s eye

and a great firework in the sky

drifts to the western hill.

End of the World

It's 12/21/12 already in Japan. If the world ends here, we'll let you know it (being that we are 16 hours ahead of most you in the US). In the meantime:

A Song On the End of the World
by Czeslaw Milosz translated by Anthony Milosz
On the day the world ends A bee circles a clover, A fisherman mends a glimmering net. Happy porpoises jump in the sea, By the rainspout young sparrows are playing And the snake is gold-skinned as it should always be. On the day the world ends Women walk through the fields under their umbrellas, A drunkard grows sleepy at the edge of a lawn, Vegetable peddlers shout in the street And a yellow-sailed boat comes nearer the island, The voice of a violin lasts in the air And leads into a starry night. And those who expected lightning and thunder Are disappointed. And those who expected signs and archangels' trumps Do not believe it is happening now. As long as the sun and the moon are above, As long as the bumblebee visits a rose, As long as rosy infants are born No one believes it is happening now. Only a white-haired old man, who would be a prophet Yet is not a prophet, for he's much too busy, Repeats while he binds his tomatoes: No other end of the world will there be, No other end of the world will there be. And the first poem I ever memorized, when I was a child: Fire and Ice by Robert Frost Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice. From what I’ve tasted of desire I hold with those who favor fire. But if it had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate To say that for destruction ice Is also great And would suffice.

Technically, Yes, But Never Again

From an email from my sister, Jules (via 9Gag.com Site Feed):



Love this kid, whoever (s)he is!

Free Books for Coping with Death and Grief

In the wake of the Newtown tragedy, Beacon Press is offering free books about grief and about how to talk about death and grief. Books can be shipped only within the US, and requests must be made by December 19th.

Beacon Press extends their condolences to those suffering and mourning, and does so in a meaningful way. Thank you.

Random Stuff

Here's an animated etymology of the word doubt, explaining its silent b, by TedEd and made available by Maria Popova's Explore website. Fascinating and charming--check it out.

Also, Galleycat has an extensive list of sites to market your ebooks for free. And I don't mean the list is free (though it is); I mean the promotion sites are free. Get on it, epublishers.

Poems for the End

The New York Times Sunday Review blog has assembled six apocalyptic poems to celebrate the end of the Mayan calendar, or perhaps the end of the world. Including work by Laura Kasischke, Bob Hicok, and Dana Levin, it's a fun and yet sobering read. How often can you say that?

One Kind of Hell

When we visited Burma under martial law, there were soldiers with guns, rifles, everywhere we looked, stationed on corners and in doorways, waiting and watching. We were not allowed to go anywhere without our state-provided guide.

My husband wanted to visit a temple, an ordinary temple, not a well-marked historic landmark (several of which we had already visited), but just an ordinary temple. Any one would do. The guide looked worried, and said he would let us know the next day. Which he did. Yes, he would take us to a temple, but we had to move quickly and we were not to talk to anyone or touch anything.

The temple was made of stone. It was multiple stories, with twisting narrow stone staircases. There were no doors in the stone doorways or glass panes in the stone windows. Our guide moved very quickly from room to room; there was no chance to look at anything. He led us at nearly a run through the building, up and down stone staircases, with my husband following him and me bringing up the rear as he urged us to move ever faster. We could hear footsteps as people vacated rooms just prior to our entering them, scurrying footsteps as they hastened to stay out of our sight.

In one room, I looked back over my shoulder and saw a teenaged monk looking through a window at me, his head shaven and one shoulder bare while the other had a saffron robe tied over it. He ducked out of view. He was young as many of the monks there are--poor and homeless children can get spare meals and a roof over their heads by becoming monks.

In another room, entering just as my guide was exiting out the other doorway, I turned again and saw the same young monk peering around a doorway. I knew I was supposed to keep moving, so I backed towards the door our guide had exited from, keeping my eyes on the boy monk. I knew he was following me; he had to be. There was no other way I could have seen only one person in this place, and that person twice. When he saw me staring, he entered the room and held up a hand. He put it over his mouth, indicating I should keep quiet. I nodded, and he came to where I was standing. "Please," he said quietly.

"Yes?"

He was silent. Clearly he wanted something from me but didn't have the words to tell me what. Then he gestured with his hand as if he was writing. Clever kid, I thought. He'll draw a picture of what he wants. So I took a notebook and pen out of my bag and handed it to him. He took the pen and handed back the notebook. I was confused, and looked at him questioningly. How was he going to draw a picture now?

He held the pen to he chest and said, "Please?" And I understood he wanted the pen. "You want the pen?" I asked. He nodded. "You don't have a pen?" I asked. He shook his head. "No pen," he said. I began to dig through my purse; I often had up to six pens in my bag, since I was paranoid about being caught without one and would often toss an extra in. I handed him three or four and kept digging for more. I heard my husband and the guide calling, coming back up the stairs for me. I turned toward the door, in a slight panic, and then back toward the monk, but he was gone.

I went to the staircase and met the guide and my husband coming back up. The guide scolded me and asked if I had seen anyone, touched anything, and I said I had not. Under his breath, my husband warned that I could have gotten us into real trouble.

When the guide dropped us off at our hotel, I went to our room and started ransacking it for pens, the ones provided by the hotel. I asked my husband to hand over his pens, and told him about the boy monk. "You gave him your pen?" my husband asked incredulously, knowing how I always try to have one on me. "All my pens," I told him. "Even the one I got special for you?" he asked.

My husband had given me a bunch of pens that he had gotten from various drug manufacturers complete with their logos, and one had been the perfect weight and shape for me. I had loved it so much I used it only for writing poetry because I despaired of it ever running out, which eventually it had. My husband had called the pharmaceutical rep and asked him to get me another such one, only to be told the pen company had stopped making that model. My husband had asked if there were any leftovers anywhere, so the pharmaceutical rep had called all the branch offices in Japan and come up with the one remaining pen, which had been given to me. And yes, I had handed that pen over to the teenage monk.

My husband was aghast. How could I have so easily given away a pen that so many people had gone to so much trouble to get for me?
I tried to explain. "He wanted to write something down and he didn't have a pen." "You didn't have to give him THAT pen." "But he needed to write something and he couldn't. That is my idea of hell," I told my husband. Who still didn't understand.

Recalling Bishop

The Poetry Foundation has a revealing and charming podcast about Elizabeth Bishop, called "Oral History Initiative: On Elizabeth Bishop." In the podcast, friends and students of Bishop recall her youthful escapades, her life and her writing, her teaching, her frustrations, and her opinions and perceptions. This roundtable discussion includes Rosanna Warren (whose mother was Bishop's roommate at Vassar), Frank Bidart, and Gail Mazur, among others.

You can also enjoy this podcast through iTunes in the Poetry Foundation's Poetry Lecture series.

Consider Yourself Flashed

And while we're on the topic of small....

Look at this list of flash fiction publications at Flash Fiction Chronicles (thie particular list compiled by Jim Harrington). Plus in the sidebar are links to explanations of flash fiction, publishing opportunities, and more.

Great resource!

Best of the Small Presses

Do you love small presses and want to support them? Karen the Small Press Librarian this month has different writers listing the best of the small press publications for 2012. Peruse the list to find suggestions of and reviews of books you can purchase to support small presses. There are presses on these lists that I'd never even heard of yet, so take a moment to browse. Plus there will be updates as more authors' lists are added throughout December.

12/12/12

That's today (in Japan): 12/12/12.

Enjoy.

Two for Today

Two fun things from two of my favorite websites.

First, from  Maria Popova's Brain Pickings, the first print ads for some classic books, including this one for Joyce's Ulysses:

These print ads come from Dwight Garner's book Read Me: A Century of Classic American Book Advertisements. See more such ads at Brain Pickings,  including some from books by Didion, Hemingway, Plath, Delillo, and more. Enjoy!


Second, Flavorwire has literary quote tattoos.

And that's it for today.

Graphing the Effect of the Epigraph

Rachel Sagner Buurma at The New Republic's Book Review writes about epigraphs. Specifically she reviews Rosemary Ahern's book The Art of the Epigraph: How Great Books Begin, which is basically a collection of epigraphs from great works of literature.

In Buurma's review, she says that readers often skip epigraphs because they feel slowed down by them. I was surprised to read this, as I would NEVER skip an epigraph. In fact, I often feel that an epigraph is the best part of what I am reading, and no wonder: the epigraph is a carefully chosen few words or sentences, with all excess material cut away; it's the most choice words minus the setup and the embedding. That can almost never be said of what follows it. Almost nothing written below the epigraph can live up to being as good as the very best writing of well-known author, or one who writes beautifully enough that another writer would want to quote him/her.

Which is why I think writers ought to be wary of using epigraphs.

Which isn't to say I don't like epigraphs. They are often my favorite part of the piece they precede, as I said above. And I use them occasionally, which is pretty arrogant, or pretty self-defeating, depending on how you see it.

There are two ways of using an epigraph that I have observed. The first is to set the tone or atmosphere, as effect noted by Buurma. The second is to introduce a quotation which is directly responded to. I much prefer the first usage. The second, I think, could be relegated to the notes following a piece of literature, rather than stuck there in front, a challenge the writer rarely is able to rise to. But there are times when it works.

I remember one time when it didn't, but can't find the poem I'm thinking of to reference it now. In the epigraph, the poet quoted another poet who had written that one couldn't write a  poem about galoshes, and then the epigraph-quoting poet went on to write one just to show it could be done. But given the quality of the resulting poem, I remember thinking that while it could be done, it shouldn't have been done, or it should have been done better anyway.

Still, I do love an epigraph, and in the past I have once or twice included one in my own work in hopes that it would reward the reader for perservering through a poem I was unsure of. Now I realize that I shouldn't have inflicted the poem on the reader at all.

I have also used epigraphs to set tone or to be responded to directly. I'm guilty guilty guilty, if anyone is thinking of challenging me on the matter.

So keep on using epigraphs, but be wary of the comparison/contrast you are exposing yourself to.

Slamming into Christmas

Gwarlingo always has such talented picks for its Sunday Poem, and this week's selection of  two poems by Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz is no exception. Aptowicz is big on the slam scene in New York, a fact which at first made me wary of reading her work. But her storytelling is wise and ironic at the same time. Enjoy these two seasonal poems.

Just Say No

Editor and writer Brian Doyle has a funny essay at The Kenyon Review blog about receiving rejection letters and about writing them. Having a view from both sides of the process, Doyle merrily comments on and remembers the best rejection letters he's seen, as well as discuses the heartbreaks an editor goes through when rejecting certain pieces. We all know the heartbreak of the writer receiving the rejection; now see it from the other side, with someone who never forgets our side too.

Home for the Holidays

Do you need to be in a specific place or in a particular set of circumstances to write?

Do you ever wonder about how classic writers have managed? Or more specifically, where?

Well, wonder no more. Writers' Houses allows you to look at the homes of over 100 writers, though of course there is no reason to believe that all writers wrote at home. Maybe they went to their epoch-equivalents of coffee shops. But this website is a start. Browse by author, state, city or internationally to see the homes of writers such as Dante, Bronte, Woolf, and Wolfe.

And follow the blog portion to learn more about authors' homes, restoration of them, events held at them, and articles and essays about them.

There's even a shop, just in time for holiday giving to your favorite writers.

Plath Advent Calendar

Advent Calendars are a big thing this year, apparently.

Here's the Sylvia Plath Advent Calendar for December 6th at GET OUT OF THERE PLATH.

Mesozoic Menorah



from Boing Boing, and TrilobiteGlassworks at Etsy

From Boing Boing, the menorah for geeks and nerds, a trilobite menorah. You can order it from TrilobiteGlassworks at Etsy.

Happy Hannukkah!

Matt Rasmussen: Poet on the Rise

I just discovered the poet Matt Rasmussen. I'm a little late to this party, as he just was recently discovered by the Academy of American Poets who awarded him the Walt Whitman Award for 2012. Poets.org has also discovered him already (be sure to follow their links to five astounding poems), Gulf Coast has already discovered him. You may have already discovered him, but if not, waste no time and do it now.

Betrayal

Cha: An Asian Literary Journal is sponsoring a FREE CONTEST (no fees!) for poems about betrayal. The deadline is mid-January, so start thinking about betrayal, if you haven't been thinking about it already. Submit up to 2 unpublished poems. See more about the guidelines at the link.

Covering Up

Flavorwire has fashions inspired by literature. They range from the whimsical, a dress made from Little Golden Book covers:

by designer Ryan Novelline, via Cory Doctorow's website

to the wearable, a shirt inspired by the cover of Plath's The Bell Jar,

from Kingdom of Style

See more at Flavorwire.

Christmas by the Book

For the Twelve Days of Christmas, you can have twelve different Christmas trees made out of books. Here's one to get started:



via MediaTinker

Or try this one:

See the other 10 at The Mary Sue.

Children of Immigrants, Submit!

From the CRWOPPS-B Yahoo List,

Call for submissions: Were you born in the U.S. and raised by immigrant mother/father/ grandparents? The anthology, Two-Countries: Sons and Daughters of Immigrant Parents, (working title) seeks poems, personal essays and flash memoir on this subject. Editor is a prize-winning poet raised by a U.S.-born father and an immigrant mother from El Salvador. Simultaneous submissions and previously published work acceptable. Please submit no more than four poems, two essays (1,400 word limit) or two flash memoir essays (750 word limit) to <twocountriesanthology(at)gmail. com> (replace (at) with @ when sending email).

Hope

I was listening to the Other People podcast with host Brad Listi and writer Eric Raymond, and I heard them agree that writing was an act of hope, that creation of art is an act of hope. Now, I had thought before that creation is a hopeful act, and that creating art is a hopeful act, but I was caught offguard with the notion that writing is hopeful, even though I certainly think of writing as an art. I don't know why I have never made that particular leap of logic...Writing feels necessary to me, but not necessarily hopeful. Only necessary. (Though I'm not suggesting it feels hopeless either...at least not all the time.)

But let's just disregard how I feel. Why hasn't this occurred to me on a philosophical level?

What about you? Have you made that particular connection, writing and hope?

Essay Advent Calendar

It's December 2nd here in Japan, but I think it's still December 1st in the US, where most of my readers are, so I'm only a bit late on this:

An advent calendar by Essay Daily. Last year Ander Monson did an advent calendar, and this year Essay Daily, which is not really daily as they themselves admit and which is edited by Monson, is keeping up the tradition.

Since the December 1st entry isn't up yet, I don't feel too bad about being late with the news myself. Keep an eye on that link and enjoy!

UPDATE: There is now a post for Dec 1st at Essay Daily. Not sure if it counts in the advent count down or not, but here it is.

And it looks like Diagram, also edited by Monson, has an advent calendar this year too! The first entry is a schematic, one of the features of Diagram that makes it singular. (If you are unfamiliar with Diagram, they publish poetry and stories and reviews and what they call text, in addition to unearthing schematics.)

Rattle Seeks Singles (With Kids)

Rattle is seeking writing by single parents, the group of writers with the least amount of time to write, I should imagine.

Rattle has a lot of interesting themed issues, often based on facets of the identity of the writers, such as lawyers, southern poets, clery, Australian poets. Be sure to check them out periodically to see if they've identified you.

Collage by Mapes

If you are at all interested in collage, check out Michael Mapes' amazing photographic collages at Slate, in Christopher Jobson's article "Dissecting Photographic Specimens with Michael Mapes."  Mapes begins with photographic portraits, cuts them into pieces, preserves fragments in plastic bags, gelatin capsules, and in other mediums, and then reassembles the picture into a collage.

For an even closer look at Mapes' pieces, check out Wookmark.

Mission: Submission

Poet Karyna McGlynn at Gulf Coast's blog gives "My Top 5 Quick & Dirty Submission Tricks." These include ideas I've thought of myself, such as using acknowledgment pages of poets who have an aesthetic similar to mine in order to know where to submit, and also tips I've never thought of, such as using the same font as the journal to which you are submitting. For advice on writing a bio and more, check out this link.

And thanks to Diane Lockward's monthly newsletter, from which I learned of this article.

Thinking Sky (Apparently)

I keep a file of writing I want to remember, to think about--writing I admire.

I've been doing this for 20 years, so there are actually many files, ordered chronologically by the time of my discovery of the writing. I started a new file last week, and there are fewer than two pages in it thus far, but already there are three references to sky. Which are:

“You are the sky. Everything else – it’s just the weather.”
― Pema Chödrön

 

No Sky

Martha Ronk

after Robert Adams’s California: Views


No sky a gray backdrop merely and absence
and below: the scraggle of dusty fronds, the scrub oak and scrub jay
whose abrasive noises sharpen in response.

Shadows proliferate in deep furrows no sky above
merely a scrim registering conical thrusts, a heightened flurry &
outlines of branches, the dead ones slowly petering out.

magnificent ruin the cut through the field blasted chaparral

As I understand my job, it is, while suggesting order, to make things appear as much as possible to be the way they are in normal vision.

An unvoiced series of sentences, without articulation,
with gray shapes, formulating a syntax loosening and then tightening from edge to edge.

The frame sets a border down from which a thin straggle hangs at random &
like purposeful intrusion, and so unlike

and the interstate (in the title) missing from the photograph itself
merely a dry riverbed, the density of shadows trapped in the confusion
of bush and bush-like tree

except from higher up than the rest, its thin trunk arched against
no sky

colorless, less often remarked upon, appositely emotionless these days,
a relic, like the fan palm living at the edges of water.

Huineng, the Sixth Patriarch, famously put it this way: “Truth has nothing to do with words. Truth can be likened to the moon in the sky, and words to a finger. The finger can point to the moon, but it can never be the moon. To see the moon, you have to look beyond the finger.”  (from an interview with Chase Twichell at Chapter 16)

Celebrate Fall Foliage

photo by Michael Jastremski at OpenPhoto

The Atlantic's blog is featuring Jamie Scott's time-lapse photgraphy of the changing colors of leaves in NY's Central Park this autumn.

Today I also happened to listen to recent episode in the podcast Stuff You Should Know about how leaves change color. It turns out the most vivid reds come when the tree is in dire circumstances that require it to reach deep down for the last bits of dried stored sugar, the stuff that's hardest to get at, that's the least accessible. That's when you get brilliance. Sound familiar, writers?

The last two years the colored foliage has been sparse here in Japan. The mountains we live on have remained almost entirely green all year round. I was afraid this might be due to global warming, and that my children might grow up not knowing the beauty of fall foliage. This year, however, the leaves are lavish in their colors. I go out almost every day just to look at them. Yellows, golds, oranges and some of the reddest reds I've ever seen.

This year I went to the chrysanthemum show at a local traditional garden quite a few times. I've never been a big fan of the huge chrysanthemums that you typically see, but it turns out there are all kinds, even some that resemble fireworks. And at the same time the Japanese maples were turning that unbelievable scarlet.

Japanese spider chrysanthemum. Photo from www.flowerpictures.net.

Svoboda's Green Girls

Remarkable poem, "Green Girls" by Terese Svoboda, over at Plume. Plume has a lot of good poetry in general, in case you don't know about it yet.

Praise for Poet Marilyn Donnelly

I've been listening to the archives of the now-defunct radio show Prosody, hosted by Jan Beatty, and I'm glad I did because I have discovered the inimitable, clever voice of Marilyn Donnelly (scroll down to the show on 6/7/11, or look it up in iTunes). A Pittsburgh citizen, Donnelly mixes word play with an insightfully cutting eye on culture. Her first full-length book Coda  is available from Autumn House Press (2010). Unfortunately, due to poor health, it is not Marilyn Donnelly herself who is interviewed and who reads her poems, but her editor Ann Burnham.

Here are a few of her shorter pieces (I transcribed them from the podcast, and may have made errors in word choice and certainly in linebreaks, for which I apologize in advance):


Human Inflation

Many C-E-Os come to a juncture
where the E-G-Os need accupuncture.


Reflection on Fame

I used to fear anonymity.
Like Willie Loman everyone deserves recognition.
I saw Joan Crawford one time--it was enough.
She wore a white turban of slithery jersey,
steadied with a raucous ransom from the five and dime
and a dress with shoulder pads as wide as a wide receiver's.
That sight made me a believer in simplicity, anonymity.
It made me shun rhinestones.
Now I wish to be small, like the wren.
Believe me, Emily Dickinson had the right idea,
settled at home in her private New England bones.


Valentine for Richard Wilbur

Ah Dicky dear,
No one has your way with meter and rhyme
So won't you come up and show me
your sestina sometime.


Thoughts After Reading The Scarlet Letter

Had only Hester known
About testosterone.


Passage

He who took the steps by two
Now pauses on each tread.
And I who love him so
Am filled with dread.


Not all the poems are humorous (obviously). Listen to the podcast and enjoy the longer, more serious pieces as well; you might even be inspired to order the book.

Poems as Problems

I tend to use problem-solving as a metaphor for life. It happens without any conscious decision-making on my part. For example, when I turn the three-sided faucet valve to shut off the hose, I can't help wondering which placement of my fingers on the three sides would turn the faucet off most quickly (I mean which two sides should I grasp this turn, and the next, and the next), with least energy expenditure. I have my own way of drying dishes which I am convinced saves time by about 10%. All these thoughts come into my head unbidden; problem-solving is simply the paradigm from within which I see the world (and within is, I think, the operative word here).

Recently I read a quote by Pema Chodron, the Buddhist priest, about how not everything is a problem to be solved; some things simply were. Immediately I knew this was something I needed to think about, almost a problem for me to solve--how to stop seeing everything in terms of problems. But first I wondered if it really was such a problem that I see things in terms of problems. (And the logical inconsistencies in this argument are so much fun to think about! If it is a problem that I think in terms of problems, then it's a problem that I'm thinking about it as a problem, ad infinitum. And if it's not a problem, if it simply is, then I have to (get to) leave in place my problem-solving paradigm because it's not a problem! This is what I mean about within being the operative word.)

I also use problem-solving as a metaphor, or perhaps a paradigm, for writing poems. I am always thinking of finding the right form or the best word or a breakthrough effect as a problem for me to solve. I had consciously thought that this way of seeing my writing was helpful--it encourages creative solutions. But now I wonder if by setting out the parameters of what I'm going to solve means that I circumvent the process which would allow me to make those poetic leaps I admire in other poets. Or maybe I can do both--solve what I think I'm solving while my unconscious makes those leaps.

So that's what I've been thinking about.

And what I'd like to know from you, if you care to comment, is whether you have an overarching metaphor or paradigm for looking at life, and/or your writing process.

JWC 2012: My Impressions

So I've been threatening for weeks to tell you about the Japan Writers Conference 2012 and here it goes. I was able to attend for the full two days this year, so I'm going to just tell you about the presentations in which I learned something specific.

I went to Australian poet David Gilbey's poetry editing workshop. Since I left Florida over 8 years ago, I haven't been part of a workshopping group, so it was instructive and surprising to listen to feedback on my work. However, what I really learned in this presentation was how to be a better reader. David was generous with the kinds of questions he asked the poets, never assuming that something was done without intending effect, but rather asking for clarification of the intention whenever something "interesting" was done. Furthermore, many of the poets were non-native English speakers writing in English, so when I saw syntactical or grammatical errors, I assumed it was due to that, but David and another participant were always quick to assume that the poet was doing something interesting (which often wasn't the case, but why not make this generous assumption as well as notice if there was a happy accident in play). I'm also quick to find logical inconsistencies in poems, and another participant pointed out that the inconsistency might be saying something about the voice of the poem, rather than the poet, which is something I'm ashamed to say I hadn't considered. So basically, I learned that I need to be a more generous and flexible reader.

As I mentioned previously, I attended two haiku workshops, because I may be doing a class on Japanese poetic forms next year. The first class was on the history of haiku in English, by Philip Rowland, who is one of the editors of a forthcoming haiku anthology Haiku in English: The First Hundred Years (Norton). He covered the first known haiku in English by George Ashton in 1877, which followed the single line that is the traditional Japanese form, then he went through the imagists', including Amy Lowell's, fascination with haiku, the form's influence on the Beat poets, up to present day English haiku. I particularly like this haiku shared by Rowland:

cobwebs
hesitating
us
     Paul Reps (1959)

The second class was a craft class by Nagoya-based poet and friend Leah Ann Sullivan, in which parameters of haiku in English were discussed, and we had a chance to try our hand at reframing a traditional seasonal (autumn) Japanese haiku with our own imagery. Leah does interesting collaborative work with musicians, pairing their improvisations with her seasonal haiku, and we got to experience that during her workshop. She also does a haiku gingko walk in Nagoya, during which people walk around a course and read haiku (aloud, not printed, I believe) about the season. Leah has a very inclusive original way of working with artists from all genres which I admire.

I also went to Kiyoko Ogawa's presentation on jisei, which are Japanese "swan song" poems, or poems composed before death to be left to family and friends. These can be done at any point in life, and many can be written throughout a single lifetime, but they do tend to be written during old age or times of peril. The form is generally short, 3 to 5 lines or so, and the themes include comforting the bereaved, recalling good times, lamenting on the ephermerality of life, expressing anxiety and/or regret, seeking comfort, musings over acceptance or destiny, longing for salvation, and expressing readiness to die. Here are few translations offered by Ogawa:

Life was something like
the moonlight
barely reflecting
on the water
I scooped in my palms.
            Ki no Tsurayuki (c868-945)

Blossoms shall be blossoms,
people people,
only when they come to know
the right time to fall.
             Hosokawa Gratia  (1563-1600) (This is a women traitor to to the family in power. She later became Christian, and as she was preventd from commiting suicide by her beliefs, she had her servant do the deed.)

Like pleasure
I'm trying to familiar with
what is stealthily coming next to me
in darkness.
              Nakajo Fumiko

We all attempted our own jisei, which was an interesting exercise. I like the one I came up with but it was really addressed to myself, so someday I'd like to write some more with my children in mind.

Jane Joritz-Nakagawa's presentation on ecopoetry was an eye opener for me. I had thought that ecopoetry dealt only with ecological themes, but Jane argued that the category includes any poem discussing human relationships with nature and/or animals, as well as discussions on attitudes of assumed stewardship of humans over nature. Jane further went on to say that any kind of recycling of language or imagery (sampling) is also ecopoetry. Using an abundance of examples from over a thousand years ago till today, Jane showed us that while the term ecopoetry is new, the writing of ecopoems is not. I even realized that I write ecopoetry, and hadn't known it.

Ann Tashi Slater gave a talk on flash fiction, and I asked her what she thought the difference between flash fiction and prose poetry was. This is a question that I've been wondering about for some time, and I had heard on a podcast that flash fiction has a plot, and a discernable beginning, middle and ending, but the flash fiction I've read doesn't necessarily have those, and can be quite indiscernible from prose poetry much of the time. Ann said that she thought both forms were language-driven rather than plot-driven (I hope I'm not misrepresenting her opinion!) and that the difference was in many cases simply what you classified a piece in order to meet the demands of the marketplace you were attempting to place it in. That is, many pieces can be called flash fiction when submitting to the fiction market, and prose poetry when submitting to the poetry market. This seemed to be consistent with what I've observed, but I'd LOVE to have anyone else's opinion on the matter as well. So feel free to comment (on this point as well as any other).

Finally, I went to James Crocker's presentation on the new JALT (Japan Association of Language Teachers) journal, The Font, which will be a literary journal with the theme of language acquisition and teaching. This is a new venue for writers in Japan and out, and those in the teaching (particularly TESOL and TEFL) profession and outside of it as well. I was also surprised to find out that Crocker is married to a colleague of mine!

I went to a few other presentations, but that's enough for today!

What I've Been Reading

While my computer was down, I did some reading (one of the positive points of being unplugged for a week or so). Here's what I read and what I thought about:

First I read T. Fleischmann's Syzygy, Beauty, which is billed as an essay, but seemed more like prose poems to me (more on that when I discuss something I heard at the Japan Writers Conference). The language use was effective, and the gender-bending worked very well. At the end of the book, I was still only 85% convinced I understood the gender of the voice of the pieces, and since gender identity is a constant discussion, this worked very well, giving me the feeling of fluidity and confusion about gender that the voice had. It's a good read. I read it twice in fact.


Next I read Catherine Barnett's The Game of Boxes (winner of the 2012 James Laughlin Award sponsored by the Academy of American Poets). I had really been looking forward to this book, since I loved her debut volume, Into Perfect Spheres Such Holes Are Pierced. This first book was an amazing piece of elegaic poetry in which the voice is the sister of a woman whose two prepubescent daughters have been lost in a plane crash over the waters. It handles the grief of the mother and the aunt (the voice) so fully without once lapsing into sentimentality, or without recognizing when it is reporting sentimentality, that it is an unbelievable piece of work. This new books, with its focus on (single) motherhood in the first section, fails to skirt the edges of sentimentality without being sucked in. And the second section, an erotic series, is jarring compared to the first, but worth being there to insist on the sensual life of women who are mothers. However, it is a bit sing-songy in places (which is the opposite of erotic). Finally the third section attempts to synthesize the two themes. It's good, pleasant poetry, but it isn't great poetry like the first book was (which was clearly a tough act to follow). I'll hang in there for Barnett's next book and see how that goes.

Finally, I also started Martha Ronk's In a Landscape of Having to Repeat. I've actually read this once and am reading it for the second time now, enjoying my need to repeat it as a response to the theme of repetition, though anyone who knows me at all well will already realize my obsession with repetition. Ronk writes in a way that I wish I could, making loose connections and suggestions and trusting the reader to keep up and fill in the blanks. I wish I could do this, and so I am studying as well as reading this text. The repetition in the book is useful and evocative, and all of Ronk's work comes highly recommended by me and by people who know much better than I do. (Don't mind that I've made this cover smaller than the previous two books--having trouble formatting in Blogger right now. Although I have to admit to being seduced by Barnett's geometric cover--always susceptible to geometry, I am, and Barnett has spheres in her first book title and boxes in her second, so I was hoping....)

All three are worth a read, though if I had to rank them, I'd go with Ronk first, then Fleischmann, and then Barnett.

Tshirt Haiku

So I got my computer back from the shop yesterday and one of the first things I found was an email from my sister, telling me about a tshirt worn by one of her students (my sister is a math teacher, by the way--it runs in the family). Here's the tshirt :

Haikus are easy
But sometimes they don't make sense
Refrigerator


I attended two workshops on haiku at the Japan Writers Conference 2012 (since I may be teaching a class on Japanese poetic forms next spring), and I have been unable to report on those presentations as well as the others I enjoyed that weekend. So look for a conference update coming soon, as soon as I get everything reinstalled on my computer and feel back to normal.

Computer Down

Sorry for the prolonged silence. My computer is in the shop. I am using my husband`s Japanese keyboard and struggling mightily with it. Hence I am doing only the necessary things. Who knew blogging wasn`t necessary?!

A couple of weeks ago I went off Facebook, and it was a good thing for me (though temporary, I`m sure...lots of good information on FB). Since my computer broke last Tuesday I`ve hardly been online at all, and it is amazing how calm I am feeling. Whether that`s coincidence or cause and effect I can`t say, but it`s food for thought.

Still, I`m hoping to have my computer back in the next few days, so I should be up and running later this week. Fingers crossed.

Guidelines for Rejection

This is beautiful. Joyland: A Hub for Short Fiction not only has submission guidelines; it also has rejection guidelines, which includes sections on "Should I be angry?" (answer: yes), and "How angry should I be?" (answer: it depends). I talso covers "What Should I Do Now?"

It's a very refreshing read. Thanks to The Review Review for tweeting this link.

Also, the Los Angeles Times has an article on Jack Gilbert. Sobering.

Two More Poetry Podcasts

I've found two nearly inexhaustible podcast series in which poets are interviewed. The first series is finished now, but the archives, years and years of interviews, are available on iTunes. Both podcasts are also available at their own websites.

First is WYEP Radio's show Prosody, hosted by poet Jan Beatty and a few others.

Second is the Scottish Poetry Library Pocast, hosted largely by Ryan Van Winkle.

I've been enjoying both series during my long hours of walking.

This weekend I'm off to the Japan Writers Conference. I hope to see some of you there. I'll let you all know my impressions of it.

Have a good weekend.

Story in a Suitcase

I follow the tweets of author Rebecca Skloot (The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks), who also happens to be the daughter of poet Floyd Skloot. Today she linked to an article from Collectors Weekly blog, about the suitcases left behind when residents of insane asylums die.

Writer Hunter Oatman-Stanford interviewed photographer Jon Crispin, who documented and curated an exhibition based on the haunting contents of these suitcases.

There are stories in every item, not just the ones in the article, but in every item surrounding you now. This plastic bluebird my husband put in my Christmas stocking the first year of our marriage, the first time in his life he had any need to get or give a stocking, and he wasn't sure what was supposed to be in a stocking. This fossil of a fish I bought at the Orange County Fair and my son coveted and even though I usually give my kids what they want, I just couldn't hand this over, and ended up getting him one of his own. This antique Japanese sword hilt my friend's father gave me right out of his private collection because I was still friends with his daughter despite her scandalous (to him and to her friends) divorce. This stone carving my husband and I bought in Burma, a carving I didn't really like then and tried to talk my husband out of purchasing, but that I have since moved from his bookshelf to my desk and my husband hasn't said a word about my appropriation. This ammonite that belonged to my son and I coveted and he gave me, even though I wouldn't give him the fossil fish. This chunky silver clock I love but that goes through batteries so fast that I just stopped replacing them, and it's been 1:01 and 21 seconds for years.

Every item a story, a lot of stories. Spooky, yes. Comforting, maybe. And which of these would I take with me if I was on my way to a mental institution? And what would you carry?

Buried in a Book(case)

I heard a podcast the other day about a bookcase that could be made into a coffin. I had to look this up, and found that the classic design is by William Warren. If you want to make it yourself, there are design plans available all over the internet on sites like Bookalicious and E-Verse Radio. Publisher's Weekly also shows alternative designs by woodworker Chuck Lakin.

Inappropriate in Japan

 

Today was the elementary school concert at my sons' school. Every year something amusing goes on, something which amuses pretty much only me and the few other "western" parents. This year it was the fourth graders' instrumental rendition of "The Tequila Song" (originally by the Champs, revitalized by Pee Wee Herman). There's nothing like a bunch of (non-English-speaking) ten-year-olds screaming "Tequira!" in their school auditorium and their proud parents clapping along.

 

 

(Oh, and the arrangement featuring xylophones, recorders, and accordians really rocked it!)

 

And since we're talking inappropriate, here's an app that gets William Shatner's voice to read your poem.

The Difference Between Simile and Metaphor

"Similes make you think. Metaphors let you feel things."

That's one line from the short video, "The Art of the Metaphor" by Jane Hirshfield.

It's from TedEd, and I heard about it from Diane Lockward's montly newsletter, which I've touted many times in posts before. If you need to know how to sign up for it, put her name in my search bar, or leave a comment and I'll find the newsletter link for you.

Back to the video: it's is a wonderful teaching tool for the uninitiated, and a sweet reminder for the rest of us about the power of simile and metaphor.

JWC 2012 Schedule+

The Japan Writers Conference 2012 is coming soon, on November 13th and 14th in Kyoto.

The website has been updated with the program timetable, a summary of presentation topics and presenter bios, and information about the site at Doshisha Women's University.

I'll be there on Saturday for sure, for David Gilbey's workshop among other presentations, and maybe again on Sunday, depending on family stuff.

Hope to see some of you there!

Podcasts Galore

I recently discovered that NewPages.com has compiled a list of podcasts and videocasts about writing, writers, and journals. There are enough programs to keep me company on my walks for years! Enjoy.

Garstang's Pushcart Prize Rankings

Clifford Garstang lists poetry magazines in his Pushcart Prize ranking. See how he calculates his ratings, and see who comes up tops (no surprises there).

I'm not sure how useful this list is, but it's interesting. It reminded me of some journals I haven't thought about in awhile.

Hurricane Sandy

Happy to report that brother in Philadelphia and sister in New Jersey and their respective families are fine after Hurricane Sandy. Brother reports some yard cleanup necessary, and sister has cosmetic damage to home and is without power. Sister is at a neighbor's house (neighbor having a generator) for those of you who have been in a panic about having lost contact with her. Neighbor also has cell phone coverage, while sister's went out.


xoxo

Be well.

UPDATE: Sister and co. in car on way to brother's home to stay for awhile.

Everybody's Silly Sometimes

Flavorwire has 10 silly pictures of serious people, like this one:

 

They've also got silly photos of serious artists, and silly photos of serious authors.

The Vagaries of Poetry Readings

A charming list of anecdotes on poetry readings by Donald Hall (the essay is by Hall, not the poetry readings the essay is based on, though in fact some of them poetry readings were by Hall, but not all of them, is that clear, because it if is, I should keep going till it isn't) at The New Yorker blog contains the following (plus more):

"A question period for undergraduates at a Florida college began with the usual stuff: What is the difference between poetry and prose? Then I heard a question I had never heard before: “How do you reconcile being a poet with being president of Hallmark cards?” This inquisitive student had looked on the Internet, and learned that the man who runs that sentiment factory is indeed Donald Hall."

"By chance, I had been an undergraduate at the one college in America with an endowed meagre series of poetry readings. Eliot was good, but most performances were insufferable—superb poems spoken as if they were lines from the telephone book. William Carlos Williams read too quickly in a high-pitched voice, but seemed to enjoy himself. Wallace Stevens appeared to loathe his beautiful work, making it flat and half-audible. (Maybe he thought of how the boys in the office would tease him.) Marianne Moore’s tuneless drone was as eccentric as her inimitable art. When she spoke between poems, she mumbled in the identical monotone. Since she frequently revised or cut her things, a listener had to concentrate, to distinguish poems from talk. After twenty minutes, she looked distressed, and said, “Thank you.” When Dylan Thomas read, I hovered above my auditorium seat as I heard him say Yeats’s “Lapis Lazuli.” He read his own poems afterward, fabricated for his rich and succulent Welsh organ. I found myself floating again."

"A week after the readings and lectures of the festival, a recent Pulitzer poet received a thick letter from a woman in South Carolina who had fallen in love. The envelope was heavy with amorous poems, and she told him that there were ninety-five more, but she didn’t have the stamps. She attached a photograph of a mature woman in front of a ranch house, and implored him to fly down immediately. She sent an airline ticket with blank dates."

Donald Hall's email is available at the end of the article, so....

Read more http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2012/10/thank-you-thank-you-donald-hall-on-a-lifetime-of-poetry-readings.html#ixzz2AY32G698

Jericho in the Air

Prairie Schooner has a podcast called Air Schooner, and yesterday I listened to an interview (called "Spiritual Experience") with Jericho Brown, in which he discussed among other things, line breaks:

"...line breaks have everything to do with doubt. That's why poetry is different from prose, because it is infused with doubt. At the moment of a line break, even if it's for a millisecond, you are thrust into doubt. You are thrust into a place where you are not certain what just happened or what is going to happen. Only faith that the next line will land us on solid ground is what keeps up breathing."


Birthdays today (10/26): Hillary Clinton and Mahalia Jackson.

Tomorrow (10/27): Sylvia Plath and Dylan Thomas. How about that? Also Erasmus! And Isaac Singer, Maxine Hong Kinsgston, and Roy Lichtenstein.

My Afternoon

My afternoon, as described (coincidentally enough) by Christian Wiman:

"Poetry requires a certain kind of discipline indolence that the world, including many prose writers (even, at times, this one) doesn’t recognize as discipline. It is, though. It’s the discipline to endure hours that you refuse to fill with anything but the possibility of poetry, though you may in fact not be able to write a word of it just then, and though it may be playing practical havoc with your life. It’s the discipline of preparedness."

 

 Christian Wiman, Ambition and Survival: Becoming a Poet

A Deck of Diagrams

I'm a big fan of Diagram, the online journal celebrating its tenth anniversary (in journal years, that's impressive!) with an anthology that takes the form of a deck of poker cards. Read here about how 10 of Diagrams has (as you might expect) the kinds of schematics which the journal is so known for as well as contributions from writers such as Jenny Boully (one of my faves), John D'Agata, Albert Goldbarth, Ben Marcus, Lia Purpura, Joshua Marie Wilkinson, Mark Yakich, Charles Wu, and Diagram editor Ander Monson.

Visit the website to see a few examples of playing cards, which are fully functional as, well, playing cards.

Enjoy!

Cut It Out!

Here's a brief report about what happened when I used the scissors revision technique that I mentioned on Saturday.

 

I had a poem that has been published in an online journal, but after looking over it for inclusion in my new book-length manuscript, I felt it was weak. There were two (well, 1 1/2 really) consecutive lines I never did like very well, but that I had kept because the form of the poem was couplets, and I needed these lines to fill out a stanza, to keep the form regular. Another problem was that I had overused one of the images by citing it several times throughout the poem (as I have a tendency towards repetition).

I had been reluctant to change the form because the poem relied heavily on the imagery of the moon and the tides, and I thought the regularity (or rather predicability) of tides and moon cycles were well represented by the regularity of the stanzas. This inflexibility on my part kept me from fixing the problems in the poem.

So I took my scissors to the poem. Because I am fond of enjambment, I couldn't actually just cut lines, but had to cut sentences or phrases, which went through lines on many occasions. I realized immediately that I could just cast off those 1 1/2 unwanted lines since form had been abandoned--freedom! As I arranged the snipped lines across a page, I ended up (by default rather than design) with staggered lines in a suggestion of back and forth movement but without regularity of lenth or indentation. Looking at the arrangement, I saw waves of various sizes coming in to the beach and receding, and I saw the moon waxing and waning, and suddenly this new shape of the poem better represented the subject than the previous rigid form ever had.

Additionally, by phsycially maneuvering the lines around on the page,  I was able to better space the repeated images throughout the poem so that they were evocative of earlier parts of the poem, rather than heavy-handed. I also found that there was a line that I wanted to put in two different places, so I scrawled an extra copy of it on a strip of paper and then did in fact put it in both places. By having that new repetition, I was able to echo the other repetition (a kind of call and response), and better balance the repeated imagery I'd been worried about. What I mean is, that MORE repetition instead of LESS was the cure to the over-repetition I had worried about. Now the original repetition was balanced by a new one, and it now served another function with respect to the new one, with a playful interaction between the two.

So this exercise was really useful to me. It took a physical act (cutting) to free me from my mental rigidity. Scissors for success--a technique I'll remember and use again.

The Rain in Her Purse

A while ago, I saw on someone's blogroll (I don't recall whose) a blog entitled The Rain in My Purse. I was intrigued; I clicked; I've been following the blog of Sarah J. Sloat intermittently ever since. Her short posts are quirky and inventive and startling.

I haven't checked in recently, but did yesterday to find that Sarah J. Sloat has a new chapbook coming out from Hyacinth Girl Press, entitled Homebodies. I am ordering one as soon as I get word from the publishers about how to handle overseas postage, since it isn't clear from the website, even though Sloat herself lives overseas.

She also has an earlier chapbook out from Dancing Girl Press, called Excuse Me While I Wring This Long Swim Out of My Hair. This publisher doesn't ship internationally, so my copy is sitting at a relatives' house waiting for me to fetch it or for them to send it.

If you are interested in seeing some of Sloat's work, check out these links:

"Training" at Linebreak
two poems at Literary Bohemian
"Our Lady of Busted Cutlery" at Umbrella
"Glass Stairwells" and more (scroll down) at qarrtsiluni

Kabocha Puree

This is the last thing I'll post today, and it's not about poetry, it's about pumpkins, so poets and writers, skip this post. It's for the US expats living in Japan who will have a dilemma when trying to make pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving next month.

If you do the Thanksgiving thing, you already know that canned pumpkin has not been available for the past couple of years. I have made my own pumpkin puree using kabocha (the local pumpkin variety) and have tried both using my oven to roast it, and boiling the pumpkin. Both methods worked okay, and I made some super delicious pie based on my sister Jamie's yummy recipe (which I may post later in the month, if there's interest).

Anyway, today I happened upon a culinary blog by an expat in Japan who writes about cooking (called I'll Make it Myself), and her topic here is making kabocha puree. She seems more invested in cooking than I am, so I'm going to follow her recipe this year (which allows both for the baking and the boiling methods). Just thought you'd like to know, if Thanksgiving abroad is a challenge for you too.

(We made our jack-o-lantern last Sunday evening, and good thing we enjoyed it this week, because it totally rotted. We had to toss it this morning, nearly two weeks before Halloween! Darn this global warming that rots jack-o-lanterns more quickly than in my youth!)

kabocha



pumpkin

  

Self-Doubt Remedies

Writer Jon Bard at the blog Write to Done: Unmissable Articles on Writing has a helpful article called "5 Ways for Writers to Blast Through Self-Doubt."

Now, in general I think self-doubt is inherent to writing, and maybe even important to it. I'm not sure I want to get rid of my self-doubt, but I surely want to stop suffering from my self-doubt. Plus this article has a number in its title, and I'm a sucker for numbers in anything. So I had a look and am glad I did.

Here are Bard's main points:

1) Differentiate between being a writer and an author. Writers write to write; authors write to be read. Bard explains how understanding and identifying with this distinction can help you.

2) Bard gives (and cites other sources) for learning to ignore the haters.  He quotes Colin Powell: “Trying to get everyone to like you is a sign of mediocrity.” And Bard emphasizes that writers should focus on how many people really "get" their work, not how many don't.

3) Remember that other writers are more concerned with their work than yours, and that their criticisms/attitudes/lack of interest may reflect that.

4) I'm just going to quote Bard's title for his fourth point: "Attain non-attachment by being prolific." Wow. This is for me. Don't get too attached to one piece of work so that it sucks up all your energy and creativity and you get so invested in it that you can't move on, can't show people for fear of having everything important to you blown sky high, etc. Write more, be attached less.

5) Don't invest entirely in one genre, or your self-identity will get stuck in that. This is more of the non-attachment from part 4, but it's too sophisticated for me. I'm not sure I'm ready for it. But Bard suggests thinking of yourself as a "writer" not a certain kind of writer (as in a poet, but I don't consider myself a poet either, but a person who writes poems. Not exclusively but almost.....I must think about this.....)

Well, read the whole article. It's short and punchy and does a better job explicating its points than I have. And it may help you with self-doubt, if you have any (ha ha, just doubting you have self-doubt for the fun of it. Remember W. S. Merwin's poem about John Berryman's advice to him, quoted in part below:)

I asked how can you ever be sure
that what you write is really
any good at all and he said you can't

you can't you can never be sure
you die without knowing
whether anything you wrote was any good
if you have to be sure don't write

Line Breaks via Scissors

I've mentioned the P&W weekly e-newsletter, "The Time is Now," before but I'd like to mention it again. It's a brief useful email that gives a poetry writing prompt, a fiction writing prompt, a creative nonfiction (you've guessed it) writing prompt, and a book recommendation regarding the craft of writing. I've learned of plenty of good books and used a few of the prompts myself.

This week's poetry prompt is one I'd heard of before, but forgotten about. Serendipitously, it appeared in my inbox this week just when I was struggling with a poem that might benefit from this freeing technique. I'm going to take my scissors to my poem today and see how it goes.

Here's the prompt.


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Take one of your poems that you're not satisfied with and use scissors to cut it up into its lines. Rearrange the lines, omitting ones that no longer fit. With this fresh arrangement as a working draft, compose an entirely new poem.

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And here's how to sign up for the weekly newsletter. Go to this link, and scroll to the blue sign-up button at the bottom of the page.

Post-Publication Prize Update

I've just added one more post-publication book contest to my original post on the topic, so if you are interested , check out the comments section of this post http://www.jessicagoodfellow.blogspot.jp/2011/04/post-publication-book-contests.html to see the UNT Rilke Prize for mid-career poets, with a large cash award of $10,000.

Advocate for Poetry

Poet Matthew Dickman has a big idea: he wants us to advocate for poetry by buying a book (or two) of poems and sending them to someone in our lives (in the private or public spheres) who doesn't normally read poetry (or who we assume doesn't normally read poetry).

Read Dickman's plea here, at Tin House. He's decided on a hashtag over on Twitter so participants can share their experiences.

Good idea, yes?

Resistance Quotes

Resistance is on my mind these days, for oh so many reasons. So today I offer quotes on resistance:


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"It’s not impermanence per se, or even knowing we’re going to die, that is the cause of our suffering, the Buddha taught. Rather, it’s our resistance to the fundamental uncertainty of our situation. Our discomfort arises from all of our efforts to put ground under our feet, to realize our dream of constant okayness. When we resist change, it’s called suffering. But when we can completely let go and not struggle against it, when we can embrace the groundlessness of our situation and relax into its dynamic quality, that’s called enlightenment, or awakening to our true nature, to our fundamental goodness. Another word for that is freedom—freedom from struggling against the fundamental ambiguity of being human."

Pema Chodron

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"The poem resists. It resists coming into being. It resists eloquence. It resists transmitting unpleasant or embarrassing knowledge. It resists grammatical constraints. It resists moving away from simple utterance. It resists revision. It resists completion. It resists success. Hopefully, the poet resists as well."

Jennifer Moxley, from "Fragments of a Broken Poetics" (Chicago Review, Spring 2010)

 

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"The poem in the head is always perfect. Resistance starts when you try to convert it into language. Language itself is a kind of resistance to the pure flow of self. The solution is to become one’s language."

 

Stanley Kunitz

 

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"…remember fear for what it is: a resistance to the unknown."

 

Terry Tempest Williams, from an interview on the NPR show “Being,” interviewed by Krista Tippett (who read this excerpt from a book of Williams’)

 

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"Art begins with resistance – at the point where resistance is overcome. No human masterpiece has ever been created without great labor."

 

Andre Gide, in Poetique

 

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"The poem must resist the intelligence / Almost successfully"

 

Wallace Stevens  (CP, 350)

 

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"Let us love the country of here below. It is real; it offers resistance to love." 

Simone Weil

 

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“It is easier to resist at the beginning than at the end.” 

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Leonardo da Vinci

 

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“Pain is a relatively objective, physical phenomenon; suffering is our psychological resistance to what happens. Events may create physical pain, but they do not in themselves create suffering. Resistance creates suffering. Stress happens when your mind resists what is... The only problem in your life is your mind's resistance to life as it unfolds. ” 

 

Dan Millman

 

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“Every creative person, and I think probably every other person, faces resistance when they are trying to create something good...The harder the resistance, the more important the task must be.” 

 

Donald Miller