Perfection and Ridicule

Today is the last day of the open reading season at Four Way Books, so if you have a manuscript and want to submit... I am just saying. I know I can vouch for how incredible the staff at FWB are. They are an amazing group of people. I literally cried the day I held the book I did with them. It was so perfect. Not an error inside or out. From my turning in the final ms. to them sending out hundreds of review copies and promotional materials and everything in between, my experience with them has been phenomenal.


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"I posed this question to local poets of my acquaintance: "What is a failed poet?" I hear the term used all the time, but what does it mean? How do you define a failed poet? Is there such a thing?"

(Doug Holder from Somerville News)


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“By far the greater number of persons who have purchased it from us have found fault with it in such plain terms, that we have in many cases offered to take the book back rather than be annoyed with the ridicule which has, time after time, been showered upon it.”

(A quote from Keats' publishers on his first book, in an essay by Adam Kirsch in The New Yorker)


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Clue: The old men playing checkers


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PRIDE (recap)

The Dykes on Bikes kicked off the Parade yesterday, and this year it was more than the usual revving of engines and bare breasts. There were tons and tons of women wearing veils! It was spectacular to see so many just married folks.




I love this photo from the Chronicle. I just love it so much.




And here is Cyndi Lauper, this year's Grand Marshall.




And yes, there were men at the parade. Here is a typical "sun boy" marching.




And what would Pride be without Angels. It seems there are always Angels at Pride, at least over the past decade. Thanks, Tony Kushner!




And last, here is our mayor, Gavin Newsom, who was showered with love and affection at the Parade for standing up for our rights, even when his own Party felt it was our fault and his that we lost the last election. Gavin Newsom, you ROCK!


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And once again, it was incredible to see how many straight people came to the Parade and Party. San Francisco is an incredible place. I don't think I can ever leave here. It is now the place I have lived the longest, the only place that feels like home to me.


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Pride and Prejudice

"Whenever you hear the word "surreal" these days, it's more than likely to come out of the mouth of a pundit, not a poet. Yet back before the talismanic moniker dreamed up by avant-garde French poet Guillaume Apollinaire mutated into boilerplate lingo for anything more or less out of whack, it was a rallying cry for the liberation of the imagination - championed in Andre Breton's feverish 1924 "Surrealist Manifesto" as nothing less than the next big thing in the life of the mind and a great leap forward for modern poetry."

(David Barber reviews Simic, Tate, and Lux)


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The 18-year-old from McCandless with a penchant for creative writing had never read or written poetry until this year. She simply wasn't interested. "I had this prejudice that poetry was old and boring," she said.


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The streets surrounding Civic Center are closed off today for the SF Pride celebration. You can tell that a lot of visitors are here in the City. Traffic is up and the parties are all over the place.


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"This is not to say that his best poems are worthless. Nor is it to say, again, that readers shouldn't enjoy O'Hara's work – but as Logan writes, 'two generations of urban poets have come out of O'Hara’s shopping bag.' This is the unfortunate consequence of confusing enjoyment with value. It is also about as moderated praise as I think exists. It is like saying that other television shows have copied Friends. Well yes, they have, but neither the original nor the copies are great. In fact, O'Hara's city life is not unlike that show: 'an urban pastoral where no one has a real job, where martinis flow like nectar.' Artificial, shallow, frenetic, at times cute, never difficult – O'Hara paints a version of urban life that has as much to do with the reality as a sitcom."

(Daniel Pritchard adds his thoughts to William Logan's recent review of the new O'Hara Selected)


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Clue: This is your best shot...


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Glimpse

Spent the morning with the new manuscript. I am coming to terms with "God." I re-read the poems in which God appears, and it is fine. Still surprised, but no longer shocked or horrified. I was even able to sit down for a good two hours uninterrupted and make some corrections and answer some of my own queries. I am coming around to this. I am starting to see it now.


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Footprints

Do you know your carbon footprint? Mine is a disgusting 42,000 lbs of carbon dioxide. 42,000 lbs! Most of it is from the air travel I do. Jeez, I really need to bring the broom out of retirement. It is just that after a transcon flight on the broom, my skin ends up being so frickin dry!

We all need to start cutting down, conserving, offsetting, etc. Carbonfund is a great non-profit carbon offsetting company that invests money in renewable energy, reforestation, and energy efficiency to "offset" our carbon footprints. And the money you spend with them is tax-deductible. There are a lot of carbon offset companies out there now, but many are for-profit and it isn't so easy to tell if you are paying their bankbooks or for real change in the environment.

When was the last time you checked your tire pressures? Just 2lbs less than what you need in them means you use a ton more gas leading to a bigger footprint and less money in our wallet. Have you swapped out those light bulbs of yours for energy saving ones yet? Lots of small things reduce emissions. We all need to try.

(That is our Public Service Announcement for the month here at The Muse.)



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We Love You Get Up

William Logan takes a gander at Frank O'Hara's latest Selected Poems.
(From the NYT, may require registration)


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Hypocrisy In Action

Yes, two of the principal sponsors of a constitutional amendment to "protect" marriage include one far-right Republican who hired prostitutes and another far-right Republican who was arrested for soliciting gay sex an airport men's room.

(Larry Craig and David Vitter sponsor a new Marriage Protection Amendment)


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Whatever... One solicits sex in a men's room and the other hires prostitutes. Sounds like they are more of a threat to marriage than any gay couples I know.


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To all who celebrate this weekend: Happy Pride!


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Camp

You will never think of Madonna's Vogue the same way again! Or John McCain, for that matter...




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Here is a poem of mine from the current issue of the Kenyon Review. Will vanish shortly.


{Gone!}


--C. Dale Young



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Have to run. Clinic soon. More later.


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Clue: Jade


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The Classical Greek Way

Plutarch thought a crucial passage in the 20th book of the “Odyssey” to be a poetic description of a total solar eclipse at the time of Odysseus’ return. A century ago, astronomers calculated that such an eclipse occurred over the Greek islands on April 16, 1178 B.C., the only one in the region around the estimated date of the sack of Troy. But nearly all classics scholars are highly skeptical of any connection.

(Homer lives! From the NYT)


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"Robert Creeley is one of our best poets, but he sure is into some boring shit now."

(D.A. Powell unearths a review over at Harriet)


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The effort will include a 40-day fast leading up to election day, along with 100 days of prayer. On the weekend before the election, Garlow told the ministers, the goal would be to fill Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego and other amphitheaters with people praying for a ban on gay marriage.

Amazing. Just amazing to me. We live in a time where young men die in an unnecessary war, where more and more people are losing their homes, entering bankruptcy, where more and more people are literally starving in the United States or dying for lack of health care, and this is what these churches are praying for? I am so sick of people quoting the separation of Church and State but selectively so. No one is asking for Church marriage. We are asking for civil marriage. And how on God's earth my legal marriage to Jacob causes a bit of trouble for any straight couple's marriage is beyond me. How my love for someone, how any one's love for another consenting adult could be problematic for society is mind-boggling to me. Legal or not, we will continue to have ceremonies and make commitments to each other. That is about love. And these hateful bigots can continue to talk about religion when what they are really saying is that gay men and lesbians are lesser people, are second-class citizens, that we don't deserve the same rights other people have. I have read the Bible at least 20 times. I went to Catholic and Jesuit schools all of my life. I have studied Theology and Philosophy. And nowhere, nowhere in the New Testament have I ever read anything that told me Jesus said we should hate, that Jesus said we should take advantage of people, limit them, treat them as outcasts and sinners, teach others that some people are so reprehensible that young people grow up believing it is okay to wrong them, beat them, kill them even.


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Sorry, I just really cannot post another link right now. Stuff like this upsets me beyond belief.


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Music of the Moment

Margaret Atwood is a whole lot richer!


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As a young Black violinist growing up on the East Coast, it did not escape Aaron Dworkin that no performers and very few audience members at classical music concerts looked like him. So as a 25-year-old graduate student in music at the University of Michigan, he had an idea that could help bring diversity to the world of classical music: a competition that would attract the most gifted and accomplished young minority string players in the country.
(And his work didn't escape notice of the MacArthur Foundation!)


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Nothing about me to report. I am like a ghost here. The ghost in the machine. Ghost in the Muse. Ghost of a shadow. Etc. Basically, too busy in clinic and preparing to go teach.


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A big thank you to the Arizona State Senate.


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You know you want to know what is on Obama's iPod...


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Clue: Middle Finger


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The Calling

Lucia Perillo asks whether or not Poets are aligned with the left? How sinister of her.


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Down with the Poet Laureate! Well, maybe change the title somewhat?


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I have no idea which way I lean. I suppose I am socially quite liberal and fiscally moderate. That said, I consider myself fiscally moderate living in the Bay Area, which anywhere else means I am a total liberal! Whenever I take those national polls, I end up so far left I feel a little queasy.


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To the anonymous emailer of yesterday:

Yes, I really am a doctor.

No, I am not pretending to be one. That would be a felony (though I do love telling people I play a doctor on TV).

Yes, I really do take care of patients. In fact, I spend the vast majority of my life doing just that. I understand you consider me a self-involved poet, but that is not how I spend most of my life. Thank you for pointing out my self-involvement. Because I really DO love myself. What's not to love, right?

And lastly, I did not go to medical school just to have something to write about. If you knew anything about medical training, you would know how ridiculous that question is! Medical school robbed me of a chunk of my life, destroyed much of me inside, left me alone, left me almost empty. I worked harder than I could have imagined only to work harder as an intern and resident.

So, I practice medicine because I am supposed to do that. Call it a calling. I write poems because I write poems. I guess you could call that a calling, too (or psychosis depending on time of day).


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Clue: Hex


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Movie Coming Soon

I knew it! I just knew that there had to be something like this:

Michelangelo hid a secret code in the frescoes of the Sistine Chapel made up of mystical Jewish symbols and insults aimed at the pope, according to a new book.


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No Calculation

Do we have to start a new week? Do we really have to?


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A few of you emailed about my last post; I got the stats from a friend who sent it as an email. I did not sit down and figure this out. I mean, puh-leeze!


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If you have a fiction or poetry manuscript sitting at home, don't forget Four Way Books' Open Reading ends in 7 days. Check out their guidelines; they accept electronic submissions.


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How now, brown cow?


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Clue: Lute


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To Ponder

If we could shrink the Earth's population to a village of precisely 100 people. With all existing human ratios remaining the same, it would look like this:

There would be 57 Asians, 21 Europeans, 14 from the Western
Hemisphere (North and South) and 3 Africans.

51 would be female; 49 would be male

70 would be non-white; 30 white.

70 would be non-Christian; 30 Christian.

50% of the entire world's wealth would be in the hands of only 6 people and all 6 would be citizens of the United States.

80 would live in substandard housing.

70 would be unable to read.

50 would suffer from malnutrition.

1 would be near death, 1 would be near birth.

Only 1 would have a college education.

Only 1 would own a computer.


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Blood, Hand, Heart, Body

David Biespiel takes a look at Philip Whalen's "Zenshinji."


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"In her second year of college, the poet Sarah Manguso developed a blood disease so uncommon it doesn’t even have a real name. The autoimmune condition, a rarer form of the already rare Guillain-Barré syndrome, is known as chronic idiopathic demyelinating polyradiculoneuropathy, and it took more than four years to run its course. For several of them, Manguso had to undergo periodic treatments in which her plasma was completely removed and replaced. The treatments worked, but sometimes only for a few days."

(Emily Mitchell reviews Sarah Manguso's memoir Two Kinds of Decay in the NYT)


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I did a word cloud yesterday for my second book and for the new manuscript. Despite the fact "God" is the largest word in the word cloud for the new book, I discovered quite a number of words that were prevalent in the second book are also prevalent in the new book: hand, heart, body, green, and others. The one frequent word besides "God" in the new book manuscript that didn't appear very much in the second book is the word "blood." Weird. Very weird.

I wonder if other doctor-poets use blood, hand, heart, body often, too? Maybe it is a byproduct of our lives outside of poetry? Who knows?


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"Wright became aesthetically restless almost immediately, though, and during the 1980s she began writing poems that sounded less and less like Arkansas porch talk and more and more like the egghead experiments of the Language poets. But that style didn’t stick either, or not entirely, and in subsequent years Wright’s poetics have continued to evolve by radical twists and turns."

(Joel Brouwer reviews C.D. Wright's Rising, Falling, Hovering in the NYT)


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That is all we need, another reality TV show. What is Janet Jackson thinking? This sounds like it will end up being a hot mess.


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The heat wave in San Francisco is over. After two days above 80, the high expected today in 69. Thank God seeing none of us have air conditioning in the City.


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Clue: Maroon 5


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Hauntings

How did I not know this? This song that over the years keeps coming back to haunt me was inspired by a poem!

"This lustrous piece was inspired, as were his earlier pieces, by one of his friend Verlaine's poems. Verlaine's poem "Clair de Lune" contains a reference to a bergamask, a clumsy dance performed by the natives of Bergamo. The French spelling of bergamask gives the entire suite its memorable name. The name "Clair de Lune," literally translated as "moonlight," is a perfect name, since the piece gives distinct images of moonlight with its rolling notes and glorious harmonies."

(Duane Shins on Debussy's "Clair de lune")


Long time visitors to The Muse know my obsession with this piece. It shows up in my life over and over. It always gets me thinking.

This morning, it reappeared in my head. At first, I didn't know why, but then when I looked at the date, I realized it was today so many years ago a good friend of mine, Andy, passed away. I still miss him after so many years. He was one of the first people to shake me up, to unsettle my ways. He was the first friend I ever had who challenged my ideas, the very way in which I thought about things. He read one of my first real poems and asked me why I was painting silly landscapes instead of writing more poems.

Here is one of the few performances of Debussy's amazing music (inspired by Verlaine, of all people) I can find on-line that doesn't sound too bad. It is for the friend who taught me to stop being afraid of myself, my true self.



I miss you, Andy.


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Runways

Mary Karr brings us John Keats this week at the Washington Post.


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"So Warhol's Maos, although they riffed on the chairman's status for the more demented parts of the American left, were unleashed on the world precisely as Nixon, in the extraordinarily important opening to China, was also for all intents and purposes sanitizing Mao. Thus Warhol set the pattern for the new Chinese art, with its nauseating mix of romantic authoritarianism, ironic leftism, and capitalist realpolitik."


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Naomi Campbell may eventually learn. So ridiculous. It makes that video from Smoking Gun seem more believable. I posted this a long time ago, but here it again:




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Clue: Writ


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Name Change

I just recently received copies of the Harvard Review and Kenyon Review, both of which have poems of mine in them. KR seems to have redesigned their typographical layout. The magazine feels crisper, more contemporary inside. And yes, "God" is in my poems in both magazines. I may need to change my name to C. Donne Young.


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The Ted Hughes Holiday House?


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"The problem was not that Lowell had failed to master his chosen style — the symbol-studded, ambiguity-laden, highly artificial style of American modernism, as he had learned it from poets such as Allen Tate, his first literary mentor. On the contrary, Lowell had mastered that style so completely that he had exhausted its possibilities. In his debut volume, the Pulitzer Prize-winning "Lord Weary's Castle" (1946), his combination of relentless rhythmic force and apocalyptic moral vision had issued in poems worthy of comparison with Milton[...]"


(Adam Kirsch reconsiders Life Studies in the New York Sun)


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The first national ad from the Obama Campaign is out and will be broadcast in 14 or so states starting today. It is not surprising that the majority of States this ad will play in are States won by GWB in the last election, so-called "red" States.




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Clue: Is that it? Nothing else?


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Self-Love. Is It a Bad Thing?

You might all know what a blog is, but do you know what a "blugh" is? Shanna Compton provides us with an introduction, a la Websters.


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Suddenly, Mario Lopez is everywhere. Uggh. How People Magazine could name him the hottest bachelor is beyond me. And he is so into himself. You know that man "loves" himself daily. I mean, he loves himself more than most can imagine...





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I am totally having BSG withdrawal. I cannot believe it isn't on this week. And I really cannot believe I am expected to wait until 2009 for the last half of the last season.


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Clue: Upchuck the cluck


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Maps, Obama, and Spam!

This is so amazing! The LA Times has an interactive map showing the marriage license rates for June 17th.


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In an e-mail message, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee said the decision means that his campaign will forgo more than $80 million in public funds.

(Obama opts out of public financing. Wow. he really is a different kind of candidate.)


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Tough week so far. Solo in clinic this week and next. And in two weeks, I am off to Asheville to teach. Isn't summer supposed to be restful? Vacation oriented?


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Matt Cozart updates William Logan's poem "Christ Among the Moneychangers, 1929." Logan's original poem is here.


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Clue: Incorporated


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Now That Strikes a Mean Chord

New book from very old, dead, dull poet...


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The Poet as Diplomat.


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[Owen] Wilson, 39, who recently split from actress Kate Hudson, also impressed Arkin with his ability to recite poems from memory.

(Who knew?)


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And someone needs to tell Mario Lopez that nothing he does will make him like Marky Mark, not even a stunt like this. When Wahlberg did this for Calvin klein, it was (places tongue in cheek) REVOLUTIONARY. But this, this is just, well, not revolutionary at all.








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Clue: Runway


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Revocation

Kelli confesses that she'd love William Logan for his horns alone, but that her heart belongs to Ted Kooser. Wow. These confessions get weirder and weirder!


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Florence's city council has approved a motion revoking a sentence on Dante from 1302 which stated that he would be executed if he stepped foot in the city again.

The sentence forced Dante into exile and he spent the last 20 years of his life wandering through Italy, finally ending his days in Ravenna in 1321.

(I guess better late than never!)


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One of my best friends is back in the country, and it was really good to talk on the phone as opposed to via email. I have decided that email is awful. It is efficient and effective but has little depth, for lack of a better word.


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Clue: Indubitably


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Message from Pollyanna

There are just some days where I wonder why on God's earth am I doing what I do. This is one of those days.


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"Of course, a healthy dose of criticism is good and necessary. And it may even be useful to call out the romantic banalities when you see them—though I think anyone who tires of banality should probably avoid the arts altogether."

(D.A. Powell in his post titled Banal Probe)


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Some poets are like prunes. You know there is value in prunes, but you don't have to like them! Certain comments made to me recently about being somewhat Pollyanna-esque in supposedly liking all kinds of poetry and poets needs to be clarified here: I don't like ALL poets and ALL poetry. Liking a lot of different things doesn't mean I like everything. So, again, some poets are like prunes...


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Yeah, I guess I am a little cranky today. Whatever.


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Clue: Subtle as my...


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Paris Las Vegas

Oh Paris Las Vegas... Yes, we know you are inclusive. We know Vegas likes the gays and lesbians. But couldn't you come up with a better campaign? There is one for the guys, too:



Well, at least they are trying...


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Signs, Passages

All this has happened before, and it will happen again.

(Ron Silliman and Cylon Poetics)


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Wow. This is definitely a headline we aren't used to seeing in the States.


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Alone in clinic this week and need to get going. Will post more later.


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Clue: Jasmine


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Happy Fathers Day

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In Search of Fritos Manna

It is Sunday, and I wanted a poem here. So let it be written, so let it be done! The poem I am posting today is by C.S. Carrier:



Daytonadescended


We between Halltop & East Fork, delapidations where Grandpas were born
We the old republic, glasspack exhaust, drafting, anonymous, highschoolfaced
We with orangestruts, 2” lift, knobbytired, eyebrow salute, posture our necks
We at Shoney’s nightowl breakfastbar, celebrating over gravy & bacon & grits
We Wranglerized, Chippewacalved, snakeskin imitations, Earnhardtcapped
We rust, Bond-O fendered, rearspoilered, Enkeirimmed, neon groundeffects
We plaza, the Sky City’s first Pac-Man, Camelot Cinema’s sidewalk batsignal
We mullet aficionados, windshield’s adhesive film, cartoons piss white fountains
We this Russ Ave artery, tires that sqawl, undigital, this existential yippee-ki-ay
We in Camaros & Mustangs, pickups, Turtlewax, bumpers snapping Jacks
We Kickers, isobaric bassrattled trunkthrob, consoleslouch, leftarm autopilot
We mindsmokers, pitrow the Hot Spot, for Mountain Dew spitoons, Fritos manna
We the infield, thronged, tailgate legswingers, parkinglot’s styrocooler speakeasy
We in traffic, blinkerlines, the MickeyDees hairpin, the jockey back down


--C.S. Carrier


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Massacre

"This, you can’t help but feel, is what most people want poetry to be. A poem should be like a greeting card—with a point so blindingly obvious that reading it is like getting hit by a lead pipe. The poem should tell a little joke, perhaps shout Ba-da-boom!, and skip off stage. If it can’t make a joke, it should squeeze out a few cheap tears."

(William Logan reviews Ted Kooser, Melissa Green, Elizabeth Spires, Campbell McGrath, Marie Howe, and Jorie Graham. From The New Criterion)


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God Is the New "Dark"

Well, I am now in complete panic mode. I don't know what possessed me, but I counted up the number of times the word "God" appears in my new book ms. 37. 37 times! What the hell am I supposed to do with that? And I cannot just change the word to some other word. 43 poems written over 8 years and yet I am so damned obssesive-compulsive it seems like the poems were all written over a six-month span while obsessing over John Donne. I really don't know what to do with this information. I can't even do any work on the ms. I knew the ms. had "issues", but this is ridiculous.


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My Shoes

Spent the morning so far reading the last of the submissions to NER for the season. I need to close up shop and clear off my desk. Must have it squared away before I start teaching. Usually, in a batch of 20 submissions, I find maybe 1-2 poems. Sometimes, none. But in the batch I read this morning, I found 10! This isn't the record, but it is close. The record for me so far is 12. I am thrilled. I almost never find this many poems for the magazine at one time. I am walking around the house grinning like an idiot...


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I need to focus today after finishing up my NER work. I need to focus so I can re-enter my ms. in progress. I already have a block of time put aside today, and I need to inhabit the critical side of my mind to try to get through the pages of inquiries and corrections I have made for myself.


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No Junot Diaz today. Nope. As much as I want to return to his novel, I need to put me first today. I have the electrified feeling today. I am tingly and ready to spark electricity at times.


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What are you up to this weekend?


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Clue: "I'm not looking for absolution"


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I Want Me Some French

1 bottle of Brut Rose champagne

1 bottle of fine Bordeaux

1 exceptional French meal at our favorite Bistro:

To Start:

Black & Blue Ahi Tuna haricots verts & fingerling potato salad, bell pepper piperade, white anchovy & kalamata olive, 1:42 quail egg, cherry tomato, mache with lemon honey aigre doux

Warm Brie On Potato & Leek Darphin mizuna & walnut/red wine reduction

To Continue:

Creamy Yellow Corn Soup dungeness crab/white truffle oil

To Continue:

Potato Crusted Atlantic Salmon sauteed spinach, white corn, potato, haricots verts & rock shrimps, lobster bisque

Pan Seared Duck Breast duck confit risotto, braised swiss chard, caramelized root vegetables, jus de poulet

To Continue:

Steak frites dry-aged sirloin hand carved and marinated in herbs then served with a brandy and cabernet reduction with petit root vegetables, hand cut yukon gold frites

And then:

1 selection of extraordinary desserts:

Rhubarb and Grand-marnier Tart and Vanilla Bean Ice Cream

Warm Chocolate Cake with Crème Anglaise

Classic French Profiterolles


Add all of this to conversation with the one I love and you get the perfect way to end the week. And what a week it has been! We cannot fly off to Paris to meet our friend J, so this was the next best thing...


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Display

When I posted this a few days ago, I did so as a joke. Well I'll be damned if that joke isn't starting to look like reality! US Air joins American and now United in charging for your first checked bag. But US Air, never to be outdone, will now charge you fees for redeeming miles for a free ticket (yup, the free ticket that isn't free!) and will also now charge for soda (in the their new in-flight beverge program). WTF! Now you have to pay for a can of soda on US Air?


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Rachel Zolf wins the Trillium Prize.


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Royalties from Andrew Lloyd Webber's Cats, the long-running musical inspired by T.S. Eliot's verse, have enabled the poet's estate to donate £2.5 million to the London Library.


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Thank God the weeked is almost here. I mean, THANK GOD!


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Clue: Copycat


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Will Vanish Soon

This is the opening of my story "The Affliction":


[gone!]


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Fees, Fees, and More Fees

Well, we knew this was coming. Disgusting. I don't know why they don't just tack this fee onto the fare. At least it wouldn't seem like such a nickeling and diming move.


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To all you New Yorkers out there, Virgin America will start up direct service from JFK to fabulous Las Vegas this Fall. With coach fares at $159 each way, Vegas will suddenly start calling out to you cold folks come Winter!


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If you only knew what I thought about...


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Clue: Pesticide


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On Fire

"It's high tide and look what's washed up at number 8: Jorie Graham's Sea Change bobs up from number 24."

(The Poetry Foundation reports their Bestseller lists as of May 25th)


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A dose of poetry? Only in Ireland. I put copies of NER in my waiting room. I am always amazed by not only how many people read it while waiting but also by how many people take them.


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Massachusetts Governor Patrick Deval has even more reason now to continue pushing for LGBT rights: his daughter just came out. I bet he is glad he was in favor of marriage equality in Massachusetts before.


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After clinic today, I am being honored as a "Guardian Angel" by my hospital's Foundation. I am still shocked by this, but a patient of mine donated money to the Foundation and listed me as their "Guardian Angel." Floored would be a better word for my feelings about this. We have had patients donate sums of money and list my department as the reason, but I have never been singled out like this. I am really grateful to this patient because it is the Foundation's funds that allow us to provide all kinds of things for our patients undergoing treatment. Most patients don't realize their insurance doesn't cover everything. We are lucky to have a Foundation to help us offset the cost of medicines and creams people need during treatment. We are really lucky to have people who donate money to their hospital's Foundation.


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Someone called me up recently freaking out because he thinks his son is gay. I don't even think this person realized how awkward their discussion was for me considering my own life. This person went on and on about how this couldn't be happening, how the son had played sports and was strong and athletic and had had many girlfriends. The list for why he shouldn't be gay went on and on and on. Finally, to try to end this line of discussion, I asked this person why s/he thought the son was gay. This person then said "I think he might be gay because I came home and found him having sex with another guy on the swim team." Um, well, your son may not be gay, but yes, he is probably gay. I felt sorry for this person, and I felt sorry for this young guy. There are so many stereotypes out there. Even the most liberal-minded of people seem to have problems when it is their own child. I have friends whose parents stopped talking to them after they came out. Hell, my own father didn't speak to me for years after I came out to my family. But at least my father came around. For God's sake, my father now asks more about Jacob than he does about me! I am glad for the Patrick Duvals of this world.


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I heard Bruce Springsteen's "I'm On Fire" yesterday. I had forgotten how beautiful that song is.


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Clue: Macedonia


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Magnets

"After his death, a statue of Heine was offered to Düsseldorf. Nationalist sentiment caused it to be rejected. German-Americans then donated it to New York to be placed by Central Park. It was pronounced aesthetically inferior (this has always been a hard place to crack the art scene), and it stands now in the Bronx."

(from the NYT; may require registration)


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Please don't think your blog's non-appearance on this blogroll to mean I think you're a dork or a dweeb. I mean, I might think you're a dork or a dweeb, but that's not a factor in my blogroll. My blogroll is full of dorks and dweebs. Look at it. I do not discriminate against dorks and dweebs. Some of my best friends are dorks and dweebs. In fact, I can't think of the last time I was in a room that wasn't teeming with dorks and dweebs. I'm a dork/dweeb magnet. All the dorks and dweebs wanna get with me.

(Reb Livingston weighs in the blog community issue)


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"Being dead will not improve one's verse; a bad poet is simply a dead bad poet - look at William McGonagall."

(Frieda Hughes on the "Do's and Don'ts of Poetry")


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[vanished]

(opening of CDY Story #2)


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Clue: "Because he is the Quizatz Haderach!"


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Soon Cometh the Solstice

Since Summer has traditionally been travel season, I thought many of you might find this useful. That said, with the cost of oil and gas rising at ridiculous rates, very few might be traveling this summer...


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Soon, airline tickets will look like this!


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D.A. Powell gives his take on Conceptual Poetics. Hilarious.


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Poetry can be Art, but not all Art can be Poetry.


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Test case: Brown Shoe
Test case: Telephone pole
Test case: Handshake
Test case: Topiary
Test case: Milk-shake

Answer: Bordello


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I thought this last season of LOST was to be the last season. Now, there is another season forthcoming next year? As much as I love this show, it needs to die!


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Clue: Polar Bear


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Rant-Light

When I posted the results of the Blurb Poll, it prompted some responses that then prompted a rant by Justin Evans. In linking to that response, another response was generated. Greg Rappleye addresses issues of community here in the blogosphere, specifically blogrolls. It isn't a full-on rant, but is more measured. That said, it is worth thinking about, and it is worth a response. This cheerleader (Gag!) responds in the comments section at his blog.


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Voting Rep*blic*n

OMFG! This is hilarious. (Big thanks to Christopher Hennessy for the link)


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Serendipity Reigns Supreme

"It is impossible not to admire their ambition and marvel at their colorful performances, but while these poems give the impression of being chock-full of every sort of happening, they are constructed by stacking one declarative line on top of another and often end up sounding like a page from Ripley’s Believe it or Not:"

(Joan Houlihan reviews Matthea Harvey's Modern Life)


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I am both the colonizer and the colonized. And yet, I keep finding references to my work, especially my first book, as post-colonial. How can I be post-colonial? My mother's people did the colonizing, the funding, the maintenance of what is now a dead Empire. And my father's people, all of them: Cantonese, Indian, Puerto Rican, were all people living in colonized worlds. I don't remember what my point is, but I know I was annoyed.


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Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon will once again be the first same-sex couple to be married in San Francisco. 50 years together, and they finally get to tie the knot legally.


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Clue: Always in motion is the future.


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Balls

Despite all of the calls for a woman Poet Laureate in the U.K, many of the leading contenders aren't interested.


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"Democratic Rep. Dennis Kucinich defied his party leadership on Monday by calling for the impeachment of U.S. President George W. Bush for launching the Iraq war"

Wow! I didn't know Kucinich had such, um, a strong will!


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My sitemeter has gone all wonky. Weird.


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I am sending in, again, a form requesting permanent absentee ballot status in California. Maybe the third time will be the charm.


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More later, I promise.


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Clue: Bastard!


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Six Degrees

I am totally in the mood to rant, but I don't have it in me today. So, here is the next best thing: someone else's rant!

"Don't get me wrong. I really do admire the people on my blog roll, and many others I am simply too lazy to add, and I would consider it an honor to be friends with any of you/them. However, I don't think this blog world qualifies us as friends---not the way I see friendship. And for the record, talking to a famous poet for five minutes after a reading barely qualifies you to say you have met. It is not a free license to say you are friends or have 'talked poetry.' Such lasting conversations can't take place in a book signing line."


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I am pretty sure the blog that prompted this rant is this one. Pretty sure the post on this blog that prompted this is the post on the results of the Blurb Poll. Either way, I love this rant.


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Brief Lives

Rick Barot's "Cut Piece" is up today at Poetry Daily.


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Montgomery Maxton has good news. Stop by and wish him well.


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Am actually sitting down today with the new poetry manuscript and the 4 pages of notes and commentary I made when I last sat down with it back in the Spring. I hope to address even a page's worth of the comments today. So, lots of fact checking, re-ordering, corrections, etc. But I am not averse to it today. In fact, I am kind of enjoying it. It is a weird ms. Of this, I am very aware. A lot of doubt and double voicing. Maybe too much of it, actually.


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Re-reading Descartes was a good thing for me. I hadn't read his essays and proofs since 1995. I love Descartes' mind. It is stunning and complicated.


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Despite constant change, most everything stays the same. I truly believe this.


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Honor Moore's memoir about her father, the esteemed Anglican Bishop, is reviewed in the NYT.

(may require registration)


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I am reading Junot Diaz' latest novel. I am mesmerized.


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Clue: The Age of Parrots


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The Art of the Blurb: Results of the Poll

It took us a while to get 100 responses, but here we are. The poll on blurbs unearthed some surprising results, surprising to me at least. I guess I was wilfully naive about blurbs. When I started buying poetry books, I noticed blurbs. But soon, I came to the conclusion they were always "great" and that they were filled with hyperbole. I kind of stopped looking at them. I am, to this day, still more likely to buy or read a book because someone I trust has good things to say about it. So, I am a little surprised, actually shocked, at the results of this poll. Here is the breakdown after 100 votes:

59% of respondents notice blurbs, esp. who wrote them

20% of respondents pay attention to blurbs and have bought books based on them

12% of respondents believe blurbs for poetry books are pointless

8% of respondents rarely ever read blurbs

1% of respondents claimed not to know what a blurb is...

Now, I guess I could understand this if people knew the person writing the blurb and felt it was more like a recommendation given personally, but I just cannot believe that. I suspect, looking at these results, that WHO blurbs is almost more important than the blurb itself. Oh, I know; the results are by no means scientific considering only 100 people responded, but this still tells me more than I would have imagined.

Thomas Wyatt's Poem on The Tudors

Several folks have landed here at The Muse in search of the poem in the last episode of Season 2 of The Tudors. I am pretty sure the poem is this one by Thomas Wyatt:


V. Innocentia Veritas Viat Fides Circumdederunt me inimici mei


Who list his wealth and ease retain,
Himself let him unknown contain.
Press not too fast in at that gate
Where the return stands by disdain,
For sure, circa Regna tonat.

The high mountains are blasted oft
When the low valley is mild and soft.
Fortune with Health stands at debate.
The fall is grievous from aloft.
And sure, circa Regna tonat.

These bloody days have broken my heart.
My lust, my youth did them depart,
And blind desire of estate.
Who hastes to climb seeks to revert.
Of truth, circa Regna tonat.

The bell tower showed me such sight
That in my head sticks day and night.
There did I learn out of a grate,
For all favour, glory, or might,
That yet circa Regna tonat.

By proof, I say, there did I learn:
Wit helpeth not defence too yerne,
Of innocency to plead or prate.
Bear low, therefore, give God the stern,
For sure, circa Regna tonat.


--Thomas Wyatt (a poet and Ambassador in the service and court of Henry VIII)


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The rhyme scheme in this poem is fascinating. It seems to have both English and Italian influences. The fact that all the third lines rhyme with each other across the different stanzas is appealing and tempting. And it breaks the expectation of the 1st and 2nd lines rhyming only to have the rhyme return in the fourth line. And the odd repetion of tonat like a drum beat at the end of each stanza. What a bizarre stanzaic rhyme scheme. Hmmmm.


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Silliman and the Lambda

Ron Silliman examines the marketplace and literary institutions: this time, the Lambda Literary Award in Poetry. I have posted two responses to this post over in his comment box, but I am not sure when they will show up there because of comment moderation.

Addendum: The comments showed up, along with my faulty math. Wasn't originally going to use this year's and last year's winners but added them last minute. Oh well, I am a poet, not a math dude. As for Ron's wish for good luck next time or a book with FSG, I am about as likely to land a poetry book with FSG as I am to fly of my own accord.


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Why?

Well, after 15 years of poems in the New York subways and transit system, they have decided to replace them with prose selections. Why am I so not surprised?

(Jim Dwyer in the NYT)


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I explained to someone recently that I was also a poet. This person looked at me as if I were speaking another language. I explained that I wrote poems. He asked, "Why?!" I didn't bother explaining. I figured what was the point.


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


At least the SF Chronicle still reviews poetry sometimes: Jon Christensen reviews Elizabeth Bradfield.


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Mark Nowak joins Harriet and jumps right in by asking some tough and important questions.


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


John McCain thinks Grand Theft Auto IV is a sin against God. Um, what?!


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


Clue: Midsummer


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Victor #29

Jacob has selected Stacey Lynn Brown as the winner of Caption Contest #29 for:



"A little ass on the prairie."


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Congratulations, Stacey! Please check out my homepage, where you can find my email address. Email me to claim your prize, a$25 gift certificate.


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Runner-up: James Allen Hall for "Before: 4 youths in a field. After: 4 cases of hard-to-reach ticks."


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As always, Jacob and I thank all who entered. Check back next month for the next round.


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Big Mouth Strikes Again

Jacob and I now have an appointment to go get a marriage license. The civil ceremony will take place sometime in July or early August. We already did our big "church" wedding on April 29, 2006, but we want to make it legal now that we can in California. As Jacob puts it, "Now I get HALF!" I guess I'll have to give in and get a joint checking account now, too. Gawd!


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

In Passing

More on the Walcott vs. Naipaul dust up.

(from The Guardian)


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I was struck yesterday by how even in very brief moments, even in mere flashes of the human face (as seen say from the vantage of a car in motion), how much one can tell about someone simply by looking at their face, what my mother calls "reading" some one's face. Anxiety, happiness, doubt, anger, worry, surprise: even in passing.


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Patient: I came early today because I didn't realize when I booked this appointment that I would be leaving on a cruise today.
CDY: Not a problem. But you could have rescheduled. Where are you going?
Patient: Alaska.
CDY: Oh, I have cruised to Alaska!
Patient: Really?
CDY: Yeah.
Patient: But you are kind of young for cruises.
CDY: It was my honeymoon.
Patient: But they just legalized same-sex marriage.
CDY: I am married in the eyes of God and family and friends.
Patient: True. Who needs the State of California?
CDY: Yeah.
Patient: But you better get married again now, because the tax benefits are significant.
CDY: I know.
Patient: I'm serious.
CDY: Oh, I know.
Patient: I just told my son he better make his boyfriend an honest man.
CDY: Your son is gay?
Patient: Well, yeah. How did you think I knew you were? I've got good gaydar...


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


TGIF.


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


I am re-reading Descartes. I had forgotten how mesmerizing his work could be.


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


Clue: The Woodshed


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The Last Dance

Caption Contest closes today. As soon as I receive Jacob's selections, I will post them. This is your last chance to enter.


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More later.


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Clue: Jupina


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The Rule of ...

I kid you not. This is a teaser poster for the upcoming Oliver Stone movie, W.


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Robin Blaser and John Ashbery are the winners of this year's Griffin Prize.


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Adam Zagajewski wins the Milosz Prize.


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There is still a little time left before Jacob names the winner of the Caption Contest. So far, we have not gotten many entries. Personally, I think my entry is the best, and I am trying to convince Jacob I should be allowed to win! Alas, I have not convinced him yet. So, if you have a good caption, enter it.


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I am glad the primaries are over. That said, I am not sure I am ready for general election mania.


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Clue: "I can't stand this indecision / married with a lack of vision..."


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PLOTUS, etc.

"But his question took a detour, as he ended up asking, “so I was wondering, can you at least tell me who the poet laureate of the state of Arizona is?”

The crowd immediately erupted into laughter before the man expanded his question to ask if McCain could name either his state or the U.S. poet laureate.

“I give up,” McCain quickly responded. “Want to tell me?”

The man, who also referred to himself as a poet, named Robert Pinsky as the nation’s poet laureate."

Um, I want to know who this poet was that asked John McCain this question. For God's sake, Robert Pinsky is not the current Poet Laureate. Gawd.


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Got a good chunk of a new story written today. Also got a lot of prep work done for teaching in July.


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June is upon us, which means Four Way Books is running its open submission period right now. So, if you have a poetry ms. or a ms. of short fiction, this is the time to submit. They even take submissions electronically! Four Way Books is a phenomenal publishing house. They support their books and their authors. So, if you have a ms., submit it. The Four Way Books family is always looking to add new folks to their list.


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Clue: Pastel


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The Road

"Last December, two metaphorical roads diverged in the Vermont woods, and, teenagers being teenagers, they took the road long-traveled by teenagers — directly to the party. This party happened to be at the historic Vermont home of the late poet Robert Frost, where twenty-eight teenagers broke in, drank beer and trashed the place."

(from the Wall Street Journal)


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Ernest Hemmingway's poetry?


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


Lucia Perillo joins the bloggers at the Poetry Foundation's Harriet.


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"Five state lawmakers, backed by a conservative Christian policy group, sued Gov. David A. Paterson on Tuesday, seeking to block the governor’s order directing state agencies to recognize same-sex marriages performed outside New York. The lawsuit, filed in State Supreme Court in the Bronx, came as the Senate Republican conference all but ruled out taking any action to try to challenge the governor."

(from the NYT)


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A bunch of you still haven't participated in our poll. If you have a minute, can you do so now?

Blurbs?

Do you buy books based on blurbs?

I pay attention to blurbs and have bought books based on them
I notice blurbs, esp. who wrote them
I rarely ever read blurbs
Blurbs for poetry books are pointless
Blurb? What is a blurb?

View Results

Create your own myspace poll


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The Caption Contest continues. I didn't think this photo would be difficult to caption, but clearly it is. If you have a caption in mind, play along.


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Clue: Worksheet


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Caption Contest #29

You knew it was coming. You knew it! Yes, it is that time again. The Caption Contest returns. As always, the rules are the same. Post captions in the comments box below. Jacob shall select the winning caption. He is, as always, the Judge extraordinaire. The winner gets bragging rights and may or may not receive a monetary prize (usually a $25 gift certificate with winner getting choice of type so as not to offend any Amazon boycotters). The award of a monetary prize is decided before the contest opens. You know, another level of surprise.

Winners this year so far, include:

#24 : Leslie

#25 : Adam Deutsch

#26 : Shann Palmer

#27 : Christopher Hennessy

#28 : Nate McClain

Which of you will join these five in the Year End Caption Contest Throwdown? Or will one of the five winners this year come back to take another win? And the photo? It is none other than this one:





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Let the Games begin...


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And a Prayer

"For the bazillionth week in a row Mary Oliver takes the number one spot (this time with her latest, Red Bird)."

(The Poetry Foundation has updated its Bestseller List)


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"Jay Parini admits in the opening line to his new book that "poetry doesn't matter to most people". Unfortunately, he doesn't tell us why, or why it should, or what we should do about it."

(William Palmer on Parini's new book about Poetry)


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Aren't the Primaries done yet?! Gawd...


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If you haven't voted yet in our latest poll, please do...


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Clue: Broken Wing


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Fascination Street

Songs conjure time, place, even the emotions once felt. This song brings back the Summer of 1990 for me. It brings back driving, the top down, Ft. Lauderdale by the beach. I listened to this song a lot while driving around, in Ft. Lauderdale, a good 20 miles from where I lived. I went to high school in Ft. Lauderdale, and I found myself driving around there when I had to get out of my house. I was confused about so many things in my life. And I have no idea why but this song seemed to speak to me in ways I don't fully understand even now. There is a violence in the song. A kind of wish for annihilation. This seems laughable to me now, but the C. Dale of 1990 understood this drive toward destruction well. I toyed with dropping out of college and moving to Spain. I wanted to get away from my life. I wanted to get away from a lot, specifically myself.

I knew something was wrong with me. Well I thought it was wrong. This is the song that was playing when I drove out to the edge of the beach, the same song playing as I walked out on the rocks, out into the water. Sitting there, my walkman playing this song, something made sense to me. I suddenly knew then I was hiding something in me. Despite my fuck off attitude I gave to a lot of people in college, the long blue hair and combat boots, the affected black leather motorcycle jacket, the sneer cultivated to perfection, I was a mess inside. I didn't want to be abnormal, despite the fact everything about me screamed abnormal at the very staid and conservative Boston College. I was deathly afraid of being gay. I couldn't even admit it to myself then. I had this moment, listening to this song, where I wanted to shove my head into the ocean and drown myself.

I hated my paintings. I hated my life. And I listened to this song. I listened to it so many times I thought I could decipher what it meant. But moments like this aren't really real, are they? They live in a kind of vacuum, a vortex only memory can re-amplify. They are real, but only in memory do they take on a kind of red hue, a dark and strange hue. Did I feel so terrible that day? Unlikely. Did I really want to drown myself? Unlikely. And yet, inside, in the most unreachable trenches of my brain back then, I did. I wanted to end it. Memory lets one see things. It reminds us that we can and we do survive, despite ourselves. For years after that day, I refused to listen to this song. And even now, when I hear it, a part of me shrinks from it. And why is that? Because the scariest things in the world aren't outside. They are inside of us. As Robert Smith sings in this song:

"Because I feel it all fading and paling
And I'm begging to drag you down with me
To kick the last nail in"


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Poetry Idol

Martha Rhodes is this year's winner of Poetry Idol!


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Summer

Matthew Thorburn wants to know... I suspect others want to know as well!


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I pray to God there aren't a lot more folks like this in the Democratic Party.


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Sublurbs

"The other day I was asked why I like poetry, as if liking poetry was some strange aberration that required explanation."

(Scott Griffin discusses why he founded the Griffin Prize)


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"Dear old people,

I'm addressing you specifically for two reasons. First of all, you're the only people who still read the newspaper. Second, this November, your vote on a proposed California constitutional amendment will determine whether the state again bans gay people from getting married."

(Joel Stein from the LA Times)


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Hoping to make some time today to work on a new story. And I am starting to feel myself wanting to sit down with the new ms. of poems and start working on it. It needs ordering, and individual revisions, and corrections, etc. At least I have almost 4 pages of notes to guide me when I do sit down and start. We'll see.


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"Feel free to post what you've been paid (if anything) and you're welcome to be anonymous with the event if you like, just let us know what kind of event it was--poetry festival, workshop, college lecture, talk, etc.

What are your thoughts on this topic?"

(Kelli is trying to get a fix on what and how much folks charge to give readings, lectures, workshops, etc.)


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I am still collecting information on "blurbs" below. If you have a moment, take our poll.


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Clue: "I'm always red, Veronica. Did you have a brain tumor for breakfast?"


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