All Riled Up Again (What's New?)

I will never understand why certain doctors tell patients how much time they have left to live. I mean, how the hell do they know? I find this so irritating. Today, one of my patients came in for her treatment and she was freaking out because her primary care doctor told her she only has a few months to live. Well, this is bullshit. I could be dead tomorrow, and she could be around for years. Just on Friday I saw a patient of mine I treated almost three years ago. When I treated him, he had been told he only had six months to live. Well, he is still alive. What is it with some doctors thinking they are God. Only God knows when we will die. Only God. No doctor should be telling people they are going to die in a month or two. It is one thing to say this isn't curable and it is best to have your affairs in order. It is another thing to announce a death sentence. I am so annoyed. It took me 35 minutes to calm down my patient today. And I know this is going to stick in her head now. And that makes me so freakin' mad.

And to top it all off, I have Group meeting tonight. And I am so not in the mood to sit around discussing the business end of our practice. Gag!

The Lion in Winter

They just don't make movies the way they used to make them. Last night, after Carnivale, we watched The Lion in Winter, which remains as brilliant today as ever. O'Toole, Hepburn, the young Anthony Hopkins, the even younger Timothy Dalton. And the repartee is phenomenal. Movies used to have to rely on dialogue and drama. Now, it seems much of everything is just special effects or directors aiming for nauseating screen angles.

My favorite line in the whole movie? Hepburn steaming and scowling yet looking radiant as she says to O'Toole: "I could peel you like a pear and God himself would call it Justice!" Jacob's favorite: "Of course we have knives. It is 1182 and we all have knives. We're barbarians." I suspect I am not quoting that exactly right.

Anyhoo, time to go be a doctor.

Endorphins Galore... Beware!

Well, for once, I put aside expense reports for the medical practice, put aside the books, the submissions for NER, the errands, all the things I am supposed to do, and wrote, instead, a poem. Yup, I wrote my first poem for 2005! I had been carrying around about 8 of its lines for almost 2 months now. Today, the line: "You expect me to describe her, but I will not" popped into my head, and that started the whole chain of events. As always, I knew the final line of the poem and had spent the past two months figuring out how to get to that line: "climbing into the atmosphere, like fire." It is funny, but I think the new poem is a sister poem to a poem I wrote last September/October.

It is funny the rush one has after drafting a poem. I know, full well, I will be tinkering with this poem for some time, but seeing it take shape and to actually see it have a shape, is exciting. I swear it is what brings me back, why I keep trying to write poems. I wonder if one could hook poets up to electrodes and chart the endorphins I swear are produced by drafting a poem. Getting poems accepted for publication is a great feeling, but it doesn't even come close to this particular feeling.

Anyway, I am heading outside for a little bit to bask in the sun and the afterglow of writing. Then, I need to get ready for dinner with Jacob and Carnivale. What a perfect afternoon/evening.

The Window

I got home from Jacob's not too long ago. ZAP was incredible. We found several new Zins that we will have to buy and cellar (Ha! We try to cellar things, but we always just end up drinking them). I am supposed to be reading for NER, but I am so distracted. Outside, the sun is out and the light is that gauzy light you see in San Francisco many times during the year. All that salt water in the air refracting the light and the hills partitioning up this light so that everything glows as if in a very well-planned fish bowl. Out over Golden Gate Park, the Marin Headlands, grey but somewhat golden from the sea's reflected light. And off to the left, the breakers landing at Ocean Beach while two teenage boys are running along the tops of the dunes. Out by the Cliff House, a red kite. And everywhere, the sound of the Pacific, the dim roar one hears in a shell held to one's ear.

It is not yet Sunday afternoon, but it feels like Sunday afternoon. And downstairs a man has fallen asleep on his front step, and a woman is singing something I don't know. I think she is singing in Russian. And the streetcars keep arriving with small groups of people intent on wandering up and down the beach. A corvus has been calling out over my rooftop. It is that call they do when they are trying to see if there are any others nearby. Not panic, no, not panic, but an insistent, "Are you there? I am here, if you need to know." And I am struck now by how much here seems both expected and unexpected.

The tragic garden below my window, weeds and dried sea grass, seems beautiful today: yellow flowers I cannot name are growing near one of the fences, the one that is falling apart at its right side. And then there are a few purple-blue flowers crawling up the edge of a porch. A cat is reclining in a single circle of sunlight near a makeshift bird bath. And though one would expect them, there isn't a single seagull to be seen within a mile.

The Signature

When I first started seriously writing poems, I spent a lot of time worrying about "voice." So many people, especially in graduate school, had a running discussion about finding one's voice. I became a little paranoid about it. Listening to them, I knew I didn't want to become an imitation of a poet I liked. I went so far as to never read one book of poetry at a time because I feared I would start emulating that poet. I always read two books around the same time, hoping to offset the other. So, I would read Sylvia Plath next to George Herbert, Marianne Moore next to John Donne, John Ashbery next to Whitman. I did this for years. At some point, I stopped worrying about it, or maybe I just became so busy I didn't have time to worry about it.

Recently, a friend of mine read the galleys for my new book. In a phone conversation, he reported: "Your work is all about shadow." My response: "What are you talking about?" He then went on to explain my own work to me. It was a truly disturbing feeling. He said I am a poet of darkness and try as I might, it is always lurking in my poems. I tried to defend myself. I told him to go back and look at my first book, to look at all the flora and sunlight. He laughed and said that for every leaf dappled in sunlight that occupied a poem of mine there was also the shadowy underside of the leaf there as well. Always the shadow, he told me, always the doubt. He went on to tell me that even in the second book, where the subject matter may be different, the range different, this trait of mine is always there. As he put it, "You don't write poems of joy and praise. Even when you praise, you question it."

Needless to say, I was not thrilled by this conversation. But it made me go back and read through every poem in the first and second books. I even read the handful of poems written since the second book was completed. He was right! I called him up and when I told him this, in all my surprise, he just laughed. He said: "It is your signature. It is why I can pick out your poem from a lineup of 10 or so poems." How did this happen? Why?

I have come to realize recently that one does not find a "voice." It finds you. More than likely, it found you long before you started writing. You just cannot see it or hear it at first. And of course this is true. No one else on this earth has your exact experience in living. Life colors us. All the reading in the world can do is give you tricks for poems, give you new ways of entry, new ways of exit, but you are you! I started to look at other poets in my generation. I realized that each has a certain signature. Pimone Triplett, Rick Barot, Sarah Manguso, Natasha Trethewey, Nick Flynn, Sam Witt, Doug Powell, they all have identifiable signatures. The aesthetics are different. Their use of devices are different, but they don't sound like each other for many reasons.

I am still thinking this all through, so I know I am not being very articulate here. I just find this very fascinating. More on this later, I think. More on everything.

ZAP!

A friend of mine emailed not too long ago to remind me tomorrow is ZAP, one of the largest Zinfandel festivals in the Bay Area. No, I am not talking White Zinfandel, but Zinfandel, the red varietal that is a wine lover's dream because of its complexity, variety, and range. Anyway, if you are in the SF Bay Area, try to head down to Fort Mason to the festival. I plan to be there. Jacob and I will be among the many hundreds of people all with big smiles on their faces as they sip wine and fill out scorecards to remember them in the future. It is at ZAP we discovered Brown Estate Wineries and their oh so tasty Napa Valley Zin. So Delicious.

Trying to Be Quiet

In San Mateo today covering again for an associate. This time, he is away at Sundance. I wish I were at Sundance. So odd to think that festival is in Utah. Not sure why I find that so odd. Anyway, it will be a busy day. Lots of patients to see.

If you have a chance, check out Peter Pereira's poem. I read this not long ago in Borders. I was struck by it. I am not going to say much more for fear of riling myself up again. After yesterday's rant, I need to try to be a little more quiet today, even if it means a more boring blog entry.

And remember, those of you who have HBO, the first three episodes of Carnivale, season 2, run back to back tonight. It will get you caught up and ready to watch on Sunday night. God, I love this show. So dark and so intense. It really is the best thing on television right now.

Born Today:

Elijah Wood (of Lord of the Rings Fame)

Sarah McLachlan

Alan Alda

Susan Sontag

Jackson Pollock

Mikhail Baryshnikov

John Baskerville (yup, the guy who designed that font so many poets love)

Splendidly Blended

Splendidly blended or, as my Father would say, Genetically Engineered for Success. A great number of people in this world are multiethnic and/or multiracial. This isn't as common to see in the US (though it is very apparent in San Francisco). Roger Pao, on his Asian American Poetry blog, raises the issue of the mixed-race poet. He questions Victoria Chang's decision to discuss them in her introduction and her decision to state that percentages weren't used but self-identification, instead. He then goes on to question whether or not Asians exclude mixed-race people from anthologies etc. Well, I am no anthologist, but I happen to be one of those mixed-race poets in that anthology.

Many Asian cultures are very racist. I have no problem saying this. I am not saying all, but many. It is almost a sin for an Asian child to marry one of another race or ethnicity. This is slowly changing, but not much. A friend of mine who is Indian told me his parents would disown him if he married his white girlfriend. Here in San Francisco, where the largest population of Chinese live outside of China, I constantly run into other splendidly blended people. I think it is a big factor in why I feel comfortable living here. I know people think I love SF because it is gay friendly, but it is the mix of people here that keep me here. I see other people who look like me. When I lived in Virginia, people would stare at me and even ask me to my face "What are you?" In Virginia, where I did my surgical/medical internship, everyone was either black or white. There were no Hispanics other than a few doctors. No Asians. I was always referred to as the foreign doctor. Even the people who worked in the ER at the hospital called me the foreign doctor. Racism at its kindest.

Pao also brings up mixed race poets like Ai and the fact she doesn't identify as Asian American even though she is part Asian American. I actually understand this. I think, when you are mixed race, you tend to identify with the one that seems most accepting of you. I am 50% Caucasian (thanks Mom!). I assure you I do not feel Caucasian, and I don't identify as Caucasian, even though legally, I am. My drivers license says Caucasian, for instance. I am 12.5% East Indian and 12.5% Chinese. So, some say I am 25% Asian. But I don't typically feel Asian, except in Vegas where I cannot stop gambling (I am just kidding!). I am 25% Puerto Rican. Interestingly, it is this quarter of me that I feel most accustomed. Why is that? Well, I think it is because it is this group that seems most accepting of me. No Latino has ever dismissed me or dissed me. They have their machismo issues regarding being gay, but even that seems overlooked most of the time. Maybe it is the brown skin. I don't know.

Interestingly, I get claimed by a lot of African American poets. A friend asked me if this bothered me, and I said "No. Why?" He then got really uncomfortable. Well, I have friends of every race and culture. I may not be African American, but I feel only flattered to be claimed by them. Again, I think my friend's question stems from racism. We like to pretend, in this country, that racism is a thing of the past. Well, it isn't. I can assure you it exists. When this poet was called a Spic by his teacher in med school, it wasn't because this poet was loved and respected. When this poet was called the best minority student to have rotated through Pediatric Surgery, the foolish old surgeon couldn't even see how racist that remark was. And if you think that is bad, that is nothing compared to the stigma of homosexuality.

Being gay remains the only socially accepted bigotry in this country. People might think twice about calling you a horrible epithet to your face because of your race. They rarely think twice about calling you a faggot or a homo. This poet was the first openly gay student in the University of Florida Medical School. And this poet had to endure the Christian Medical Association's attempts, on three separate occasions, to have him expelled for being gay and jeopardizing patient's health because I could give them AIDS. Funny how ridiculous this all is. I am not even HIV +. Three separate times they tried, and one of those times resulted in an actual hearing in the University. I have to stop writing now. Just remembering this makes me so angry... My blood pressure is going up.

On This Date

1340 King Edward III of England was declared King of France (the French still refuse to believe this, even today!)

1785 Benjamin Franklin wrote a letter to his daughter bemoaning the fact the US has selected the Eagle as the national bird symbol instead of the Turkey. He thought this was a big mistake. We should all be glad not to have the stupid Turkey as our symbol, even if the Eagle is really a symbol of the Roman Empire.

1788 The British Fleet arrived in Sydney Harbor with the first permanent group of settlers for Australia

1802 The US Congress passed an act authorizing the creation of the Library of Congress

1838 Tennessee enacted the first Prohibition law (the irony is beyond me)

1841 Britain officially began its occupation of Hong Kong

1870 The State of Virginia officially rejoined the Union

1934 The Apollo Theatre opened in Harlem

1970 Simon and Garfunkel released Bridge over Troubled Water

1983 Lotus 1-2-3 software released

1996 Hilary Rodham Clinton testified before a Grand Jury regarding the "Whitewater Affair"

1998 President Bill Clinton officially denied on national television that he had "sexual relations" with Monica Lewinsky

Whew! What a day.

The One

In conversations with many different poets, I have noticed, on many occasions, that many poets can trace back and name the poem that first took hold of them, excited them beyond anything they could remember before, the poem that elicited almost a conversion reaction. Of course, there are some who just slowly fell into poetry, but I am always fascinated by "the one" poem. And no, I don't love the Lord of the Rings Trilogy and such things. But "the one" poem fascinates me.

I can tell you exactly when and where I encountered "the one." I was a Junior in high school, and we all took English Literature in that year. Somewhere, near the end of the year, we were assigned to read some of Yeats' poems. I can still remember the experience. There was "Lapis Lazuli" and "Sailing to Byzantium," but then there was "The Second Coming." I read it and was completely shocked. I think I read it 10 or 12 times in a row. I had never read a poem like it. I was completely bowled over. When I went to class the next day and the teacher (Kathy Doody, yes, that really was her name) asked for a volunteer to read it, I threw my hand up so fast I thought I would dislocate my shoulder. And then, when I read it out loud, I was even more shocked. It mesmerized the room. The sound of it. It was something as close to heaven as I could imagine. At the time, I never imagined I would ever be a poet, but I think, deep inside, I wanted to make something like that poem. I wanted to make my own poem like it. Even years after first encountering "The Second Coming," I would occasionally sneak a peak at it and marvel at it. I wanted to know how it worked. What made it tick? Who was this man named Yeats? How does one make something that can live and affect other people?

Years later, in college, when I dropped out of painting, I decided to take a poetry workshop. I think I believed a single workshop would open a secret door to making poems. It didn't. But it started me down a path that now, in retrospect, seems utterly inevitable. I need to write poems. I need to engage with language and image and all the intricacies that underly poetry. I may never write a poem like "The Second Coming," but god damn it, I will keep trying.

Another nice thing about that poem? When I first started dating Jacob, before I knew he had read any poetry at all, we were walking across downtown on our way to dinner. A hawk's shadow slipped across the street and I said: "Turning and turning in the widening gyre..." Jacob, without even a 5-second pause, responded: "The falcon cannot hear the falconer." I looked at him with what had to be shock on my face. And then, in sync, we both said: "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world..." I knew, right then and there, he was "the one."

In your past, do you have a poem like "The Second Coming" lurking? For you, what was "The One"?

National Book Critics Circle Poetry Finalists

Thanks to Eduardo, I have the following info to share:

Brigit Pegeen Kelly, The Orchard (BOA Editions)
D.A. Powell, Cocktails (Graywolf)
Adrienne Rich, The School Among the Ruins (Norton)
James Richardson, Interglacial (Ausable Press)
Gary Snyder, Danger on Peaks (Shoemaker & Hoard)

A very interesting list. Unlike the Pulitzer and NBA, notice the variety of presses among this list.

Zen & Retail Therapy

Yesterday afternoon, Jacob and I went down to Union Square for some old-fashioned retail therapy. After all, we had a bunch of gift cards and certificates from Christmas. I purchased an air purifier from Sharper Image that I had always wanted. We found a rectangular ceramic tray in which to rest the pot holding my miniature Juniper tree (bonzai). We picked up noise canceling headphones for me to use on planes and for Jacob to use on the subway, as well. We bought books (for me) and sheet music/scores (for Jacob) at Borders. And we did it all in 2 hours so we could rush home to watch Carnivale. That show is just the best. If you have missed the first 3 episodes of the new season, they are showing them again in a row this Friday evening (on HBO).

One of the new books I bought was Walcott's The Prodigal. I will add it to my stack of books to be read, but it will likely jump to the top of the stack. Right now, I am re-reading Cavafy, partly because of two different conversations I have had recently with two of my best friends, Geri Doran and Rick Barot. In both, Cavafy came up because of my discussing Donald Justice with them. And Don has been on my mind because I recently found out I am on a panel at AWP "remembering" him. Don sent me to read Cavafy so many years ago because he felt I was "trying too hard" to rely on metaphor and simile. And he was right. Cavafy taught me how image and mood can carry a poem. Re-reading him, I am struck by how much I learned from his work. And I am struck by the fact I may never have discovered his work had it not been for Justice.

Crime and Punishment

So, back in November, on a Thursday afternoon, I bolted out of work and sped up 280 to make it back to the city. I had to make it to Union Square in order to pick up our engagement rings before heading to Florida, where I was to pop the question. Well, wouldn't you know I got a speeding ticket. I tried to get out of it. Tried using the old doctor thing, but it didn't work. Oh no, the cop just smiled at me and made a comment like: "You may be a good doctor, but you shouldn't be speeding." Then I made the mistake of telling him I really needed to make it to a store to pick up engagement rings. He then slowed down and took forever to write the ticket. In the end, he handed me the ticket and said something about how a cute young thing like me shouldn't be settling down. God damn it, if I hadn't mentioned the rings, I might have gotten out of the ticket! Where was my flirty self THAT day?

Anyway, I spent an hour this morning doing traffic school on-line. It was just as awful as I remember from years ago, only it is now on-line. At least you don't have to sit in an ugly room with a bunch of people and the smell of burning coffee wafting everywhere. But reading through all those pages and taking those quizzes, still bit the big one. The only saving grace was I was able to listen to Brahms' German Requiem while doing it. As time passes, I love this requiem more and more. I used to think Mozart's Requiem was my favorite, but I think Brahms is about to pass him.

To Spit on the Sublime!

Last night, after a great birthday dinner for Jacob at bacar (certainly one of the quintessential San Francisco wine bistros), Jacob and I had a fabulous discussion of laziness in the Arts. It struck us that many people, when starting out, some even late in their careers, seem very dismissive about what has happened in their Art in the past. More and more, people dismiss craft as elitist bullshit. It was a wonderful discussion with examples from Music, Poetry, etc. We talked about Bartok's "noise" and the fact in many ways there are similarities in overall structure between Bartok's string quartets and Beethoven's. And then there is Jackson Pollock, whose artwork rests solidly in the realm of landscape painting, despite the fact this is not blatantly obvious on first looking at his work. We both decided that to build an original voice, to have an original signature, most need to mine from the past: to study it and decide what to take from it and what to ignore or avoid. It is conversations like these that only reinforce for me why I love this man more than anyone else on earth.

Best of all, before bed, I read aloud, Donald Justice's wonderful poem, "Sonatina in Green," a poem he dedicated to his many students. It is both chiding and encouraging at the same time, much like Don, the man (check out this great tribute to him written by David Yezzi). I cannot find a link to the poem, so I am going to type it out here. Please don't report me to any copyright agencies. I think Jean Justice would let me post this here anywhere.


D O N A L D J U S T I C E
--------------------------------

Sonatina in Green


One spits on the sublime.
One lies in bed alone, reading
Yesterday's newspaper. One
Has composed a beginning, say,
A phrase or two. No more!
There has been traffic enough
In the boudoir of the muse.

And still they come, demanding entrance,
Noisy, and with ecstatic cries
Catching the perfume, forcing their way—
For them, what music? Only,
Distantly, through some door ajar,
Echoes, broken strains; and the garland
Crushed at the threshold.

And we,
We few with the old instruments,
Obstinate, sounding the one string—
For us, what music? Only, at times,
The sunlight of late afternoon
That plays in the corner of a room,
Playing upon worn keys. At times,
Smells of decaying greenery, faint bouquets—
More than enough.

And our cries
Diminish behind us:
Cover
The bird cages! No more
Bargain days in the flower stalls!
There has been traffic enough
In the boudoir of the muse,
More than enough traffic. Or say
That one composed, in the end,
Another beginning, in spite of all this,
Sublime. Enough!

Closed are the grand boulevards,
And closed those mouths that made the lesser songs,
And the curtains drawn in the boudoir.


for my students

Everybody Say Welcome

to Peter Pereira! Peter is a fine poet-physician-editor (hey that sounds really familiar...) Sadly, he didn't select "Beaver Fever" as the title of his brand new blog. Darn. Everybody stop on by his blog and say hi. Alrighty then.

Myth, etc.

If you have a chance, check out Poetry Daily today. Natasha Trethewey's poem, "Myth," from NER is the poem of the day. A wonderful and clever poem. I posted a link to her other poem in the magazine, "Genus Narcissus," in a previous post, but to spare people from going back and searching for it, you can read it here.

I have been thinking about some great names for blogs. My apologies to anyone out there if they already use any of these:

1. Not So Fresh Feeling
2. Will Work for Poems
3. Bad Hair Day
4. Hen In a Handbasket
5. Mountain Fresh Glade
6. Power Tools
7. Beaver Fever
8. The Boom-boom Room
9. Moist Towelette
10. Somebody Save Me

More from the World of Whack

Check out Jennifer Drake Thronton and her cool raven poem and her thoughts on the terrible act of whacking. The way I see it, Jennifer and David Vincenti are the ones who inculcated us into the world of whack. And now, Jennifer introduces a new term for us poets: GoogleVersing. Carry on my brethren. Whack away.

Cher & The Village People

Today will be a day from hell as I cover for one of the doctors in my group at a hospital I haven't been at for a few months. But if I can just get through the day....

Tomorrow is Jacob's birthday, and so as part of the birthday festivities, we are going to see Cher in concert tonight in San Jose. The Village People are opening. Yup, you read it right: the Village People!! I just so love the idea of this. I booked us a room at the Fairmont down there so we don't have to drive back late at night. We have pretty good seats, so it should be a fun concert. The last concert we went to was Dave Matthews. It was a VERY long concert. Dave played forever. It was great.

Lastly, I have finalized my reading schedule for April after the new book comes out:

April 12 Santa Cruz with Geri Doran

April 14 Emory University (Atlanta)

April 25 The KGB (NYC) supposedly with Denise Duhamel

If any of you live in these places, come by and say hi. More readings to come in May and next Fall. Unlike many of my friends, I can't do 10 or more readings in rapid succession. I just don't have the time.

Whack Attack

After reading about Googlewhacking on several blogs over the past two weeks, I couldn't help but try it. Lo and behold I whacked on my first try (God, that sounds dirty!). I just combined two words, one from Poetry and one from Medicine. Yup, my addition to the world of Google Whacking is:

pantoum necrosis

I suspect this is what happens when this old and seemingly comatose form is not only revived but done to death!


Addendum (an hour later!):

Why God, why do such things exist? I got one on my first try, but now I keep searching and haven't been able to find another. I thought, after the first try: "Well, this isn't so hard." But it was just the god of the whack luring me in. I pray to God I don't become an obsessive whacker. Oh, I am so doomed. Gag!

Nevermore

Why do the French like Edgar Allen Poe? I just read an article about how the French revere his work. I just don't get it. I have read Poe, and I understand why he is read in literary survey classes, but it just isn't my cup of tea. Mind you, I do have a fascination with the corvus, the largest of the ravens, but Poe just bores me at times. And so much of his stuff seems melodramatic to me. But then again, maybe it is just me.

And why does everyone like Frost? Everyone I know loves Robert Frost's work. I know it is probably anathema to say this, but I don't! I never have. Do you love Poe? Do you love Frost?

The Ever-Changing Story

Although some would be surprised by this, I am endlessly fascinated by my job as a physician. I know of no other job where people bare their souls to you and then even bare their bodies. As a medical student, I was awestruck by this. It simply blew my mind that you could meet a patient and talk with them for a brief period of time only to then have them expose themselves to you. Sometimes, people's own family members have never seen them naked, much less poked and prodded all over them. Even now, it blows my mind.

In any field of Oncology, one has to be almost 75% psychologist if you want to effect any real cancer treatment program. People do not arrive for consultation in great states of mind. Much of what I do is listen to people's stories. There is an Art to this, being able to listen and figure out where the gaps are and if you need the gaps filled in or not. The body's stories are infinite in possibility. Sometimes the basic narrative is the same, but the story itself is never the same.

Some have asked me if I share much about myself with patients. The answer remains yes and no. I am much more likely to share more about myself with pateints I treated years ago whom I see for follow-ups. But new patients don't really care about their doctor's story. It really is all about them, and that is as it should be. But they do want and need certain things. They need a human being to listen to them and acknowledge them just as much as they need a cancer expert. They need to feel their doctor is compassionate and not just smart. This is also part of the Art of Medicine, what we used to refer to as the "healer's role." But I don't talk about my life, or poetry, or the fact I am gay, or tell them about my family.

Every so often, I get gay patients. Sometimes I come out to them. Sometimes I don't. Sometimes I get patients who come to see me because I am gay. Invariably, these are women. They like the fact I acknowledge their partners. Men, gay or straight, are much more stoic, much more likely to come in by themselves.

I am rambling now, but the story of the body is an ever changing and infinitely fascinating story. There is always more to learn. The science of Medicine becomes the easy part after a while. It is learned and reinforced daily. The human side of medicine, as rewarding as it is, takes a lifetime to really learn and understand: I am grateful to have the opportunity.

Vancouver, Here We Come

Well, in between things at work today I finally got on-line and booked flights for me and Jacob to Vancouver for AWP. I had taken care of hotel reservations ages ago, and NER had already registered me. I am not sure why I hadn't booked flights already, but all of a sudden I realized March 30th isn't that far away. January is flying by. Not many choices from SF to Vancouver. We are flying Alaska Airlines because I found a good direct, nonstop flight there.

I love Vancouver. We were there a couple years ago when Jacob ran the Vancouver Marathon to raise money for the San Francisco AIDS Foundation. He raised several thousand dollars. And he finished the marathon in pretty good time. I was so amazed. It was the first time I ever felt overwhelmingly proud of someone. It rained through most of the marathon, so I was drenched by the end of it. I had a good several ounces of water in my shoes by the end. But I was there at the various markers with gummy bears and goldfish and other odd things runners eat during distance events.

Vancouver is a beautiful city. It is a lot like San Francisco, but cleaner. But be prepared for smaller alcoholic drinks. At restaurants there, they measure your wine and cocktails. Most of the hotels have "American" bars, which serve normal martinis and wine, etc. Very odd. The only real downside to that town.

Whipcrack!

Driving to work this morning, down the 280, as I followed the winding highway through the hills with the San Andreas fault running along to my right, I was completely overtaken by the fact this has to be the most beautiful stretch of highway in the country. The mist was filtering over the hills near the Pacific, the sunlight drifting over the hills to the East. I know at times I bitch about the cost of living in this place, but today it all seemed worth it.

Is today your birthday? Other famous people born today include:

1. Cary Grant

2. Dr. Daniel Hale Williams, the man who performed the first open heart surgery (to remove a knife from someone's heart--Oh the poetic possibilities! And oh, why are we so freakin' violent!)

3. Daniel Webster ( as in the Dictionary)

What the Future Holds

So, the galleys for the Winter 2005 issue are off to the poets. The issue is in production. Hopefully, the issue won't be too late.

Poetry lineup for NER, vol. 26, no. 1:

Eve Adamson (2 poems)
Katherine Lucas Anderson (1 poem)
Andrew Feld (1 poem)
Susan Hahn (1 long poem in sections)
William Logan (2 poems)
Sebastian Matthews (1 poem)
Sarah Murphy (2 poems)
Aimee Nezhukumatathil (1 poem)
Patrick Phillips (3 poems)
Reginald Shepherd (1 poem)

It should be a good issue. Quite a mix of things.

An Offering from the Mad River

After my last post, a few people emailed me asking where/how they can get a copy of the broadside for my poem, "Torn." Well, I figured I would post the information here for anyone else who might be interested:

"Torn" is a limited edition broadside letterpressed in 4 colors from handset Garamond Oldstyle type on French archival linen (Rives heavyweight cream). It is illustrated by Julio Granda. Each 9 x 17 inch sheet in the numbered run of 125 is signed by me and illustrator. The price is $25 and includes special packaging and postage. You may order from:

Mad River Press
State Road
Richmond, MA 01254

You can also email Barry Sternlieb, the publisher, at

madriverpress at rnetworx dot com He may be able to offer you a slightly lower price, but I cannot promise anything. I am not sure how many are left. Quite a few were purchased by libraries and collectors. It is quite beautiful. It is the only broadside of a poem of mine.

The Studio from Hell

Today is the day for power-cleaning the living room, dining area and kitchen of my apartment. Jacob will be here shortly to whip us both into shape. Power cleaning is severe. I have no intention of approaching my bedroom, the bathrooms, or my studio today. That must wait for another weekend. But, it got me to look around my studio, which always, within weeks of cleaning, looks like a hurricane hit it.

A partial Studio inventory, at present:

1. The usual desk completely covered with piles of paper
2. The usual bookshelves filled with books, two of them entirely with poetry
3. Second desk half-filled with paper (why do I have a second desk?)
4. A stack of first book mss. from the Bakeless from a couple years ago (I really need to recycle these!)
5. Various issues of NER, VQR, Poetry, Yale Review, Fence, a stray issue of Volt, two copies of the same issue of Kenyon Review, a few issues of Poets & Writers
6. Twenty-nine books of poetry to be read and filed in previously mentioned bookshelves
7. The original ms. of Brigit Kelly's The Orchard
8. Patrick Phillips' Chatahoochee, in original ms.
9. Pimone Triplett's second book ms.
10. a bottle of Penman Sapphire ink
11. my old typewriter
12. a stack of blank envelopes
13. Several old copies of my hospital rotation schedule
14. a copy of the limited-edition broadside of my poem, "Torn"
15. a scanner I never use
16. another stack of first book mss. from a contest I cannot even remember (I think from 3 years ago--Gag!--no idea why I haven't recycled these)
17. a copy of The Poetics of Space by Bachelard
18. a Radiation Biology textbook
19. letters from Charles Wright in a corner
20. an unopened Adobe Acrobat 5.0
21. an old calculator
22. my sad tacklebox of paints and knives/brushes (not used since 1993)
23. some collages of mine in various states of completion
24. one of Jacob's sweaters (oh my God, I had no idea it was in here!)
25. some monogram stationary I rarely use
26. some notecard with fleur de lis on them (that Jacob makes fun of)
27. stamps!
28. a CD of Barber's Violin Concerto
29. my senior thesis (oh my God, was I really this bad of a poet as an undergrad!!!? Jesus, it is titled, "Window Prayers." Eeek!)
30. a Louis Cartier signature fountain pen given to me by James Merrill
31. My original contract with Northwestern University Press
32. another sweater (not Jacob's, mine possibly)
33. copies of Heart of Darkness, White Noise, and Existential Philosophy in a corner
34. an empty Tiffany blue bag from when I bought our engagement rings
35. an old original iPod I never use
36. a Snickers candy bar wrapper
37. a role of film, undeveloped, from 1989, maybe 1990
38. more stamps! (oh but they are old stamps)
39. a laser printer cartridge
40. a Dead Can Dance cassette!

Thank God we are not touching the studio today.

Me

Animal Crackers & Shampoo Meet Again!

I absolutely LOVE the fact A.D.T. is irrationally troubled by my animal crackers and shampoo comment a while back. Love it. In ADT's great post, he expounds on the spectrum of contemporary poetry. I love it when he contemplates. Hell, I love it when anyone contemplates.

Well, my suggestion to AD and others is this: Write! Write poems you feel you have to write. Write poems you suspect others couldn't write without your experiences. Don't think about where it fits in or where it falls in the spectrum of American Poetry. That is suicide. Be selfish. Be perverse. Write because you want to write. And for all you know, all these distinctions we make now will be moot in a hundred years. I have said it before: In 100 years, one may open an anthology and read David Yezzi and Mark Bibbins side by side for their similarities. People then may have no idea they were once considered on opposite ends of the "spectrum." We have an infinite love of spectra and scales, but in the end, you make Art because you love to do so. Who cares about spectra?!

Music Lessons for a Poet

I have never understood why conductors/music directors purposefully put together disparate music for a program. Last night, at the San Francisco Symphony, Michael Tilson Thomas just about killed me. No, not with the Mozart Funeral March. That was a fine piece written by that sneaky old Freemason that was played okay, just not brilliantly. What did me in was the fact MTT followed the Mozart with a Violin Concerto by Schoenberg. My God, I just couldn't take it. You know something bad is coming when the program guide announces the piece is difficult and then the conductor comes out and announces the same thing prior to starting the piece. Well, it was so dissonant I fell asleep. Nothing in it interested me. I have tried so hard to appreciate Schoenberg's music, but the whole "12-Tone" noise thing just sounds awful to me. Unlike Jacob, I am not a Music scholar or composer. So all the lectures in the world cannot make me like this music. And, to boot, Jacob didn't like it either!

The one saving grace was that after the intermission (where I would have better appreciated a coffee instead of champagne after the Schoenberg fiasco) we heard Beethoven's Seventh. The second movement of that symphony is divine. As Jacob put it: "You can just imagine Brahms having a breakdown while listening to Beethoven. You can just hear him mumbling how he must compose the absolute best in order to compete." Much to learn in the Music world for a poet.

Lessons from Miss Moore

In his blog, Charles writes about recently receiving a bunch of rejections. It prompted me to think about the ungodly number of rejections I have gotten since I first started sending out poems. It can all be so humiliating. That said, you just can't take it too seriously. And I am not saying that Charles is taking it seriously. This is more a general "you."

My poem, "Vespers," was rejected 17 times before it was taken by The Southern Review. That same poem went on to be included in Best American Poetry. My poem, "Sotto Voce," was rejected 38 times. On the 39th time out, it was accepted at Poetry. In fact, 42% of my poems have gone out 18 times or more before being accepted! And I don't simultaneously submit my work. I guess what I am trying to say to anyone reading this is that you have to keep the faith. Write the absolute best poems you can and then believe in them. If you start to not believe, revise them. Or, you can follow Donald Justice's cagey advice: "The trash can is always hungry, and we simply don't feed it enough."

I know poets who give up on poems after sending them out 6 or 7 times. Marianne Moore wouldn't retire a poem until it had been out 40 times. Well, if Marianne Moore can suck it up and send poems out 40 times, then so can I. She has been my model for submitting work for a long time now. I think she is a good model.

Retrospective

I was thinking last night about why I am not a fiction writer. When I first started to write, like many poets, I wanted to write stories, a novel. I even signed up for a fiction workshop in college only to have the teacher, after 3 weeks, recommend to me that I transfer back to the poetry workshop. He didn't explain much about why. I was heartbroken. Now, in retrospect, I find it hilarious.

I don't write fiction because:

1. Dialogue: I just cannot write convincing dialogue
2. Characters: Just too many different characters to deal with (I consider anything more than two to be too many characters to deal with)
3. Plot: I just cannot seem to sustain a narrative thread for very long, at least not one anyone would find interesting
4. Length: Jesus, even a story is long!

Basically, I was always doomed to be a poet.

It Is That Time of Year Again

Yes, indeed. It is time once again for Dine About Town, one of the best excuses to dine out in San Francisco. If you live here or are planning to visit this month, check it out. Some of the best places in town open their doors and serve up wonderful three course meals for far cheaper than they usually do. Great advertising for them. Great food for us!

Who's Afraid?

Last night, while eating Thai food, my ultra bitchy friend, Rebecca, made the following statement while discussing, with Jacob, reading Virginia Woolf:

"Reading some writers is like drinking beer. You just keep guzzling. Others are like a fine wine you sip. Woolf is like an 18-year old Scotch you sip and think, Youch."

Oh, that Rebecca.

One of These Things is Not Like the Other

Poetry Faculty for the 2005 Napa Valley Writers' Conference:

Jane Hirshfield
J.D. McClatchy
Brigit Pegeen Kelly
C. Dale Young

I just found this out today, who all four poets will be. Now, I really have to wonder why the hell they invited me to teach there? Hello? If I were signing up for a workshop, I would definitely not be signing up for me when these other three are there!

The "Kinsey Scale" & Jamba Juice

In one of his recent posts, Josh Corey, one of our resident genius poet-critics in the blogworld, had this to say:

"To recap, the argument here stems from my reading of Peter Bürger's book Theory of the Avant-Garde, from which I derived the notions of the organic artwork or poem as that in which all of its parts are subordinated to the whole—to the poem's poemness—while in the nonorganic poem the parts are not so subordinated—the whole, goal, or telos of the poem is exterior to it, located in "reality." From there I suggested that all poems can be located on a scale, Kinsey-style, with 1 being entirely organic and 6 being entirely nonorganic. Not surprisingly, nowadays most poems produced by younger poets fall somewhere in the middle, and you could make a game out of assigning a "Kinsey" number to various magazines and publishing houses (Fence 3, New England Review 2, Aufgabe 4, The New Yorker 1, Syllogism 5, and so on). Pure 6's are very rare, more the domain of individual poets, while 1's are still quite common. Nonorganicism in poetry generally takes the form of a greater or lesser degree of parataxis or montage (often formalized into constructs like the ideogram, the New Sentence, etc.). Its original goal was to put ordinary means of language, and the ideological structures they support, into question; nowadays most people who introduce a nonorganic dimension into their work are after a particular aesthetic effect, but the possibilties for political critique still attract many writers."


When I first read this, I immediately wanted to disagree. But the more I thought about it, if The New Yorker is a 1 and Fence is a 3, then maybe Corey is right. Maybe NER is a 2. I have never thought of my magazine this way, but then again, I am always so busy I rarely compare it to other magazines. I guess I am now curious. Where does a Kenyon Review or a Threepenny Review fit? VOLT? So much to think about? I rarely ever think about where I fall on the real Kinsey scale.

On a different note, I met up with Jacob and one of the women from his lab for a Jamba Juice lunch. I got my oh-so-good shot of wheat grass juice in my Orange-a-peel smoothie, along with a protein boost. Jacob did the unthinkable: he slugged down a shot of wheat grass juice in a tiny shot glass and then bit an orange. I am all for the wheat juice, but this seemed a bit extreme! His comment: "It smelled kind of green and tasted a little sweet." Only a vegetarian could call wheat grass extract sweet.

Give Me a Shot!

I have gotten quite a few emails as well as comments about my John Ashbery post. Very few (as in 2 of the 14) have disagreed with me. But some questions have been raised, and I am mulling them over. More later.

Off today from the Hospital, and it happens to be a sunny day in San Francisco (for now). Hope to get some work done on a poem of mine I drafted some time ago. I also need to try to clear off my desk of poetry for NER. If I can get myself organized, I may go meet Jacob for lunch at Jamba Juice. O Jamba Juice. O shot of wheat grass extract!

On the Soapbox

Warning: I am getting on my soapbox, so run now, if you want.

I am sick to death already of the debate and discussion about reforming social security. First of all, social security never has been, isn't, and never will be a person's retirement fund. It was never designed for that. When it was designed, it was envisioned as one of three legs for retirement, including savings and pensions/retirement accounts. The amount one gets for social security was never meant to be a monthly income but a supplement.

Social security taxes are only withdrawn from your paycheck up until around $87,000. Once you pass this figure in earnings, you do not continue paying into social security (unlike Medicare). This is the problem. This figure hasn't changed much over the years. If tomorrow the cutoff was raised to $125,000, there would be little problem whatsoever in terms of having money for social security benefits. Add to this a slight increase in the age at which one could get full benefits and the problem is solved. We do not need to go to a system where people are investing their own social security money. That, in and of itself, will not save social security. And it ignores the reason SS was started in the first place. SS is supposed to be a supplement one can rely on. The stock market goes up and down. It cannot be relied upon, nor should it be!

What makes me the most angry about this whole thing is it is a distraction from the REAL ISSUE. Social security can be fixed and easily. Medicare will take an act of God to fix it. There is no cutoff change to be made in terms of taxation of income to fix it. Healthcare is going to bankrupt this country. The unholy alliance of hospitals, insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies are going to bankrupt this nation. While we sit around debating social security, which can be fixed easily, Medicare is going bankrupt. I would not be surprised if it went defunct by 2012, if not sooner.

In 100 Years

Okay, so I hinted, in an earlier post, that there is at least one poet I can wager money will be read and studied in 100 years. I am not saying others living today won't be read and appreciated, but I feel fairly strong that this one particular poet will be. Like Yeats and Eliot, this poet is one many consider "difficult." His work challenges us in ways that are inimitable. If you try to mimic this poet, you only end up sounding like a bad imitation. And, like Yeats and Eliot, this poet has a considerable army of scholars trying to analyze, critique, understand the poetry. I love the work of Donald Justice, and I pray his work survives into the next century. Stevens is assured of surviving because James Merrill, as part of his will, left money to keep his Selected Poems in print ad infinitum. But this poet I will wager money on will survive because of the sheer challenge of his work. I know some will take issue with me on this, but there is no living poet's poetry I am more certain will survive another century than... John Ashbery

Rain, Rain, & More Rain

Well, it is definitely Winter in San Francisco. It has rained all week. I always forget just how rainy it is here in the Winter season. That is until Winter arrives again. I am not sure how people live in the Pacific Northwest, where it rains a lot more than this.

I have gotten over my rant of yesterday about the "Wordsworth Gone Mad" poems. I really shouldn't make posts like that. I just couldn't believe I read three of them in one hour.

A. D. Thomas, in his blog, posted a link to a poem by James Tate. He was reminded of it after reading my post about "Song" by Brigit Kelly. I had forgotten about the Tate poem. It is a very odd poem, very much in keeping with the Kelly poem. But that said, I think the tone and speaker in the poems are very different. Tate's poem seems more intent on surprise and the oddity of the situation. Despite the fact the "story" in Kelly's poem is anything but ordinary, it never seems to be aware of this fact. There is a certain flatness of presentation in the Kelly poem, which makes the mythic quality of the story stand out even more. Either way, I am glad A.D.T. reminded me about this Tate poem.

I have been thinking again about who among contemporary poets will be read 100 years from now. I am fairly goddamned certain that one poet will be read and cherished. This doesn't mean others won't be read and cherished, but if I had to wager money, I know who I would wager on. More about this later. I need to go read submissions.

Wordsworth Gone Mad!

There isn't a month that goes by, not one, in which I don't read what I call the "Wordworth Gone Mad" poem. I mean I get at least ten of them a month. I am not 100% sure why I refer to these poems by this moniker, but it has become stuck in my head this way. These are all poems that recount, in almost dreadful detail, what one did today after breakfast. I swear to God, I am not making this up. You know, the I went for a walk this morning after breakfast poems. They are just awful! Awful!!! I know I am ranting now, but I read 3 of these today. One even went so far as to detail how, in the rain, you can't see your footsteps. Well, that is wrong. You can still see footprints. I am not sure one ever sees footsteps! Hear them, perhaps.

I am continually amazed by the number of poems I read where the speaker and/or the poet seem so utterly disinterested in what is happening in the poem. For God's sake, if the poet or speaker aren't interested then why should I be interested? If you love coins, the way they feel, the corrugated edges along the side, the bas relief of the coin's face, then why not use it in a poem? If you just love the shifting light at the edge of the woods near the lake, why not show me this? Why must there be boring, rambling, utterly dull poems detailing how you can walk? Is no one excited anymore? Give me a boot in the chest, a slap in the face, something that can knock my socks off! Please.

Anyway, I am just ranting now. I pray that in the next day or two I find a poem that risks sentimentality and pulls it off. I want something gorgeous, something dark at the same time. I want, I want, I want. I want a poem about shampoo! I want a poem about animal crackers.

The Green Monster

In the mail today is the Winter 2005 issue of Virginia Quarterly Review. Ted Genoways, their Editor, and I are old friends. We have a very odd competitive streak between us, but in the end I think it comes down to the fact we have a lot of respect for each other (God help me if Ted ever finds this blog). That said, I was simply green with envy today reading through the new issue of VQR. Over and over, I kept thinking things like "Why didn't John Lundberg or Victoria Chang send me this poem? How did he get a long poem from Mark Doty?" And etc.

Ted has done an amazing job revitalizing the VQR. I applaud him and admire him, despite the fact I am positively green. Time to go meditate at the Japanese Hot Springs.

Brigit Pegeen Kelly's "Song"

I have been thinking about Brigit Pegeen Kelly's work a lot lately. I have been specifically thinking about her poem, "Song," which is the title poem of her second book. Even to this day, that poem gives me goosebumps. I have even read it at readings I have done, despite the fact I know it will make my own work pale in comparison. That said, this poem means so much to me I simply have to share it with others.

I first ran into "Song" in a warehouse bookstore in Gainesville, FL. This store had a bunch of litmags, one of which was The Southern Review. My then partner and I were bitching and complaining about how for once we just wanted to be so bowled over by a poem that we couldn't even speak. He picked up the magazine and after a few minutes handed it to me without so much as a word. It was opened to "Song." When I read the poem, I literally felt transfixed. It gave me goosebumps. I had never imagined a poem of such tenderness and terror at the same time. I was absolutely stunned. My ex-partner and I said very little after reading the poem. But the poem has stayed with me ever since that day.

Later, when the book came out, I again read the poem. Again, I was floored. Its effects weren't lessened in the slightest. I still cannot put my finger on exactly why this poem works and is so affecting. There is mystery in this poem. There is the myth and the story, but there is something else, something that reaches into the very subconscious world. Over the years, Brigit and I have become good friends. We talk poetry on the phone, sometimes for over an hour. We talk about John Ashbery, why we don't write much, why poetry is a moral act. I have never once asked her about this poem and its genesis. Somehow, I want the mystery of it to remain untouched.

Fall Issue of NER, late but great...

The Fall issue of NER is finally out. We are still behind after losing our managing editor in summer 2003. That set us behind for almost 9 months, even after we replaced her. At least we are almost back on schedule. Anyway, check out our roster for the Fall issue. Some really great stuff. Of course, I am biased, but I think these are amazing poems. Two poems are up on the web. Let me know what you think of them. They are very different from each other. One is by Natasha Trethewey; the other from Sarah Manguso.

Proofs and Contests

I received the proofs today for a poem of mine that will run in the Spring issue of the Yale Review. It was odd to see this poem in proofs considering I wrote it a fairly long time ago, and it was accepted almost 16 months ago. Nice to know the poem is finally going to run. The issue should come out around the same time as my new book.

For any of you out there who are trying to place your first book, you should consider entering the Kenyon Review Prize. David Baker, the recurring judge, is a fantastic poet, editor, and a good judge of fine work. So... if you have a ms., think about submitting. Some good books have won this prize so far.

Congratulations to Geoff Brock

My friend, Geoff Brock, is the winner of the fifth annual New Criterion Prize. His first book of poems, Weighing Light, will be published in the Fall by Ivan R. Dee. He also gets a nifty check for $3,000. Congratulations, Geoff! Geoff is also an award-winning translator of Italian, specifically Cesare Pavese.

Hump Day, or the Life of a Cyclothymic

I love Wednesdays and I hate Wednesdays. Wednesday is my usual day off from Medicine, but it is also the day on which I try to read books, read poems for NER, think about my own poems, etc. Usually, I run out of time and I don't really end up thinking about my own poems much less attempting to write them. I know some friends of mine will be surprised to hear this; I simply don't write many poems. I average about 4 or 5 a year. In 2004, I had 6, which made me feel as if I had been super productive. But now, with little of 2005 gone, I have already thrown away one of those poems, so 2004 rings in at 5.

Anyway, I am in a poor state of mind today. I know most writers are cyclothymic (never fully manic, never fully depressed, but cycling between the two nonetheless). Sad, but the only time I ever heard of writers as a profession was in my Med School introduction to psychiatry class; the prof. pointed out that 80% or more of writers--specifically writers, not artists--had cyclothymia. At first I thought this was a bunch of crap. But as time passes, I am more and more aware of this cycle between low-level mania (never fully manic) and low-level depression (never fully depressed). To be honest, I thought this was normal until that class. Then, when I started talking to other med students, I discovered that none of them encountered this cycle at all, at least not in a repetitive, predictable, cyclical way. I mean I always knew I wasn't "normal," but the realization in that psych class was a bit overwhelming.

But, back to Hump Day... I am supposed to be reading poems for the magazine today, but I cannot. I know, in this state of mind, it would be a bad idea to do so. Over the years, I have learned to recognize this time. And I know it wouldn't be fair to be evaluating anything today. I will just have to put in extra hard work this coming weekend. By then, the "lows" will be passing and I will be heading back toward the middle. I tried, last night to get as much reading done before this set in. All day yesterday, I felt it coming. At 1:00 AM this morning, I gave up and just put the poems aside to be re-read again later. Somehow, I feel at fault. I am damned good at focusing in order to see patients, in order to do their procedures, their treatment plans, etc. But I seem to be incapable of focusing for anything else in my life when this time comes. I know if I were at the hospital today, no one would even sense there was anything different with me. But I guess my joke I am not a doctor but someone who plays one on TV is kind of accurate. Somehow, when I am at the hospital, the role of doctor supersedes all else. And I guess that is a good thing. No one wants to be freaked out having been diagnosed with cancer to then find some freaked out doctor. You would want someone with confidence, someone to help you, to help cure you. I am amazed more and more about how powerful the "role" of doctor is. It is so powerful that at times it seems to overtake me, and at times like this, that is a very good thing.

Page From My Notebook

Eduardo has put out a challenge of sorts. He is curious about what people write in their notebooks. So... Here is the last page of my notebook. It appears exactly as it does in the notebook (my laptop).
===================


CORPUS



Medicum?--look up exact Latin

Tile, beige the ugly one used in the 70's. Must be a median line



Priests. Sex scandal. Newspapers. Settlements.

To settle, as in to set. Or as in the layer



Look up origin of omega in terms of muscle.

Repeat. Like a parrot. Not like a cockatoo.

Cingularum (l. to tie or to bind) Hospital white


Of memory. Of fever. FEVER!

Dissection and naming Linnaeus? Tree rings.

Wild Swans at Coole--the shift in time. How does he do that?
Language of Rome

NO actual sex. Sex implied. All the more convincing.
Cover up. To cover or shield. To rename.

Altar boys.

Secret rooms. Secret. Sacristy. Sanctum.

Be careful.

Muscularis. Corporal punishment. Death.

Great News!

Two poems from NER will appear in Best American Poetry 2005, due out in August 2005. They are:

"For Kateb Yacine" by Marilyn Hacker

"Sunlight" by Charles Simic

I am not 100 % sure, but I think these will be poems #17 and #18 from NER to appear in BAP. I am very excited for both of these poets. Anything that brings more exposure to poets in the NER family is a good thing. Okay, back to seeing patients.

Titan

I am busy running around my apartment getting ready to head in to the hospital. It has been nice having a long weekend, but it is time to get back to work. As I usually do, I have a CD playing in the background. I am listening, once again, to Mahler's First (Titan). I am endlessly fascinated by that long horizon line of music Mahler used in the opening movement of that symphony. I never tire of it, its moodiness, its insistence. I know many think of Mahler and think loud, dramatic, stormy, but I still see a great amount of calm and solitude in Mahler's work.

Today will be a long day. Many patients to see and then a meeting at the end of the day. Don't you just love meetings after a long day's work?

So Addicted

I am hopelessly addicted to bath products. I have no idea why, but I always have been. I just can't get enough of them. The first thing I do when I go to a hotel is check out the bath products. I pilfer them mercilessly. Nothing is more disappointing than finding lame bath products. The W Hotels are the best because they use Aveda bath products. Can we say Aveda is the absolute best when it comes to shampoo? Well, they make the most incredible mint-rosemary shampoo on earth. I mean this shampoo borders on the divine. The Lodge we stayed at in Bodega Bay had okay bath products, but none made me want to pilfer them. This is a sad thing. Anyhow, I would have been happier with a few tiny bottles of product in my suitcase right about now. I keep them filed away in my bathroom. You know, maybe I should open a spa. Imagine... a life of products and massages. I would just die.

Back in San Francisco. Have gone through a stack of 40 submissions today (about 150 poems). Took a wonderful poem by Reginald Shepherd, a poet who hadn't sent us work in quite some time. Also took some other poems from a few other poets. It is a good day when one find 3 poems for an upcoming issue while going through only two batches of poems. All of the poems just "knocked my socks off." The Shepherd poem had my socks on the other side of the room!

Okay, time to get my desk straightened up before watching the last episodes of Carnivale from their first season. The new season starts soon. I can't wait. This show is just the best thing since Twin Peaks in the late 80's. It is just so weird and wonderful.

The Bad Part of Editing, etc.

Well, what would a new year be if I didn't immediately start reading poems for NER. Hard to believe it has been ten years since I started editing poetry for them. Anyway, the day started with coffee and a stack of poems. It was the first day here in Bodega Bay that was sunny. Of course, we are driving back to San Francisco today.

Anyway, I started on the terrace with a stack of submissions and my coffee. And within minutes I was cringing. Why, you ask? Well, it isn't as if I don't run into bad poems all the time, but it is always more painful to run into a bad bunch from a friend or former teacher. I won't say which, but the poems were from one of the two. And so I had to reject them. I never like doing this. But what else can you do? The one thing I have always held to is that I have to believe in a poem for me to publish it. If I cannot stand up and defend a poem and why it should be published outright, I don't take it. This means having to reject Pulitzer Prize winners, poets you love, and yes, sometimes your friends. After all this time, it still isn't fun.

Anyway, this has been a boring post. I am surprised at how easily people find blogs. I am quite amazed at the comments my posts have generated already. Glad to be here in the world of blogs, even though I am not sure what that is. Jacob is worried I am going to have less time for him now that I have comments to look at as well as the ton of emails I get every day already. That Jacob.

The Nature

So, we drove up the coast today from Bodega Bay and marveled at the awesome sight of the Sonoma Coastline. Made us wish we could buy a vacation home here just to be near such spectacular beauty. Our first stop was a little disappointing. Little in terms of wildlife, unless you count surfer boys shucking their clothes to put on wet suits. I am always amazed that guys surf in the frigid waters here. Just too cold to think about.

After roaming up the coast in the car, we hiked out to Bodega Head where Jacob, my partner, wanted to go looking for whales migrating off coast. We found a few "experts" in the blue pull over jackets, all labeled "Whale Watchers." I saw nothing. Not a thing. Jacob sighted a tail splash. Some of these whale people were simply out of control. They had chalk boards with hatch marks for different things like tail splash and half breach, full breach, and even spout. One weathered old woman launched into an entire account of how the Blue Pacific whales migrate too quickly South but leisurely traveled North in April with the baby whales. Jacob was too fascinated for words. I just kept scanning the horizon line with my binoculars.

Later, when we got back to the Lodge, we saw deer eating grasses just feet away from our terrace. It has definitely been a day of being in "The Nature." Jacob now wants to come back in April to see the baby whales. There must be a poem in this. Don't you think?

The Wretched Job Market for Poets

When I first decided, back in 1993, to go to medical school after all instead of getting a PhD in Literature, I felt strangely conflicted. I knew I wanted to be a physician, but I had been made to feel, by most of my poet-friends, that I was somehow turning my back on Poetry. Now, years later, I am glad I did what I did. One, I really love being a doctor. Two, working in the Academy isn't always the healthiest thing for poets. Yes, I know people will argue the opposite, but I am not sure the publish or perish world of academics is always the best thing for a poet. I have friends who literally freak out because they are worried they won't get tenure. And I have an even larger group of friends simply trying to get teaching jobs.

Some of my friends have CV's that make them appear to walk on water, and still, after years of interviews, etc. still do not have a tenure track job teaching creative writing. They have first books. Some have second books. They have good teaching credentials. Some have been lecturers at impressive places like Stanford, Harvard, etc. It is all so depressing. Not sure why I thought of this this morning. Maybe it was the email from a friend that was tinged with a certain amount of desperation about looking, again, for jobs.

With MLA now over, I will now have to hear the ups and downs of folks as they get call back interviews or not. Year after year, it seems so painful. Yes, there are days when I am so tired from work I could collapse, but I am thankful today that I have a job and one that makes me feel pretty good about myself. I know that sounds very Stuart Smalley, but I mean it. My fingers and toes are crossed for all the friends of mine trying, once again, to get a teaching job.

And now... time to go down to the Bay in search of seals and the possibility of seeing a migrating whale.

From Bodega Bay

Okay, so now that I actually have this thing set up and have tested it out...

I am in Bodega Bay for the weekend. I drove up from San Francisco yesterday and have just been hanging out avoiding the rain. My partner and I are staying at this Lodge that is supposed to be a 4 Diamond place, but it just doesn't really seem to be that great of a place. And then there was the whole dinner debacle. Because it was New Year's Eve last night, they had a special menu. My partner is vegetarian. When we asked for the veggie option, they told us scallops and shrimp. Well, that isn't vegetarian. And what makes this so bizarre is that we are in California, in the Bay Area. Jesus, you would think people here would know what vegetarian is. Maddening.

I just finally finished Mark Wunderlich's new book, Voluntary Servitude. I really think it got a bad rap in a recent review in POETRY. Mark's poems seem fairly solid to me, and I don't think I am saying that because I know him. I used to want to be reviewed in a venue like POETRY. Now I just pray I don't get reviewed there. The reviews there have gotten harsher and, to be honest, sometimes a bit mean and overly controversial. But hey... there are lots of venues publishing reviews.

Here Goes

So, some of my friends will no doubt ask why am I writing a blog. Well, one of my New Year's resolutions is to do some new things, things people wouldn't especially expect me to do. So, why not?

I have seen many blogs out there. I have no idea exactly what this blog will add to the blogging universe. I do know this will not be a blog of inside gossip regarding the poetry world (at least not intentionally).

So... we'll see where this ends up and how long it lasts. It strikes me that this all seems much like starting a journal in high school. The overly self-conscious thing.