Two / Quick / Things

One) Ron Silliman celebrates his birthday today. OR if he does not, I do. His work has been with for me yikes many years. My copy of Tom Beckett’s mag The Difficulties, Silliman issue, an early nudge in the right direction, is mightily scribbled upon and highlighted. I learned from Ron Silliman. In the blog space he provides many opportunities of expansion, plus a stable critical anchoring that you can argue with but always respect. He does yeoman work. I tip my tributarian cap.

Two) Entirely unexpected, I received a poem from Geof Huth in the mail. We didn’t exchange addresses so he efforted the search, right down to 9 digit zip. I guess the Internet knows where to find me. This is a wonderful gesture of community, especially for one like me who feels detached from the social happening of poetry. I publicly tip my tributarian hat to Geof, as well.

Note to Lonelyhearts Of Silliman’s Comment Box

If you need a place to stay for a while after Ron gave you the boot, feel free to park here at Tributary, the sensitive blog. Leave when you are ready, when he’s ready, when the world can again encompass your special love.

A Boston Poet Tea Party

I attended, well, 2/3 of Day 2 of The Boston Poet Tea Party, a local poetry marathon. Busy yestreen (Friday, that is) with early birthday celebration, and I just cannot manage tomorrow (meaning today: started last night, finished this morning). Feel like it was a game effort, ne’ertheless. Poetry is tiring!

Beth had to work, so I trained in, making my lonely way. She dropped me at a train station near work, so I took a different route to the city. I listened to a recording of Charles Olson’s Berkeley reading. What an event that Berkeley reading was! Not to compare an entirely different format, era, and so forth. While waiting for the subway at South Station, I watched a busker play electric slide guitar. I love slide guitar, and he was good.

The subway went one stop then we were instructed to go upstairs and take a shuttle because of construction. We were all efficiently shepherded to the shuttle buses. The bus looped up over Beacon Hill and past the State House, a pleasant fillip to our journey. The weather was très agréable.

I reached Cambridge early, so I betook me to Grolier Book Shop. It was closed. I hope it has recovered from the slide it endured under previous ownership. I noticed a flyer in the window adverting The Boston Poet Tea Party reading. Friday night’s reading was in a gallery in Harvard Square. A different venue held the next 2 days. Oh. I had missed that bit about the 2nd venue.

Target street name was familiar but I couldn’t triangulate confidently so I gave my Blackberry a chance to help. It was ready to do so, but Google proved a little iffy about getting me there. It immediately wanted me to take a street that wasn’t there. I was oriented well enough to know that my direction was thataway. The first street Google named proved fanciful. I persevered until I found the trail.

The venue itself did not look like one. Nothing to mark it as a place that 88 poets would converge on. It was still early so I wandered around then stopped at a little Thai restaurant. A nerdy looking young fellow sat at a table immersed in a book. He greeted me and hustled into the kitchen to fetch his dad.

I chose simple, some Thai samosa. Very pleasant. Properly nourished I went in quest of poetry.

By this time, signs were out in front of the venue, which was a house. The front entrance was a yoga concern, the side a gallery. Still early so I wrote a poem on my Blackberry while standing on the sidewalk. As I performed this rare feat, Jim Behrle and someone else came along. Jim greeted me and asked if I wanted to read, because some poets cancelled out. I said okay.

I had brought Walden Book in case I had occasion to give them away, and I brought Days Poem to read on the train. I was prepared.

I wandered over after I finished the poem I was writing. I didn’t recognize anyone till I saw Geof and Nancy Huth. Apparently they were giving Chelsea’s nuptials a pass to attend. I dunno, missing the stewed kumquats with Russian flambé sauce would be a tough go. I already saw that Geof had posted to Facebook while on the road, so I knew that they would be here for the duration. I spoke with them till we all went in.

The room was large living room size, a long rectangle. The displayed artwork was tasteful. It was predominantly green, which I like.

I scribbled notes and poems and took a few pictures. I could see that Geof took extensive notes. I look forward to his report, which I know will be detailed. He and Nancy also took lots of pictures and video, using various cameras and phones. A picture I neglected to take was both of them holding up their phones to record the image of the 1st reader.

I would like to give a detailed, objective report but a scattered subjective one is what you will get. I am okay with that and I hope Gentle Reader is as well.

So anyway.

The lineup here represents best guess. Drop outs and rearrangements changed things muchly.

Ellen Kennedy read a poem about manatees that I liked, and a story about Norm MacDonald. MacDonald has a career for reasons that I cannot grasp. It is not that he isn’t sort of funny sometimes, but that he doesn’t seem to reveal any sort of focus of determined talent. He’s not a James Belushi, who has a famous brother and an appropriate mug, and nothing else. He is just this guy. Kennedy is right to write about him.

Readings for me center not on the texts so much. I do not absorb auditorially as well as I do in reading. I gather a sense of the writer as they read. Kennedy was low key and under-expressive in her presentation. That’s her way.

The most practiced and performative was Dana Ward. What he read was to me unflinchingly a story. It held a glancing hilarity that he aced with his reading. The Left and Right Coasts collectively wonder what he is doing in Cincinnati.

Chris Rizzo read a text that had experimental gumption. Or do I mean philosophical? It did not lean on First Person Singular. I have trouble with that thing.

I heard too much from First Person. When I wonder why I am being told this first personal observation, that is too much First Person. We cannot be rid of the thing but when us readers and listeners become aware of the manifesting influence, the poetry loses its sizzle. This is not a rule, it is a guidance.

I also heard too many slack similes. If I were to think of the evil of School of Quietude, it would be the effort to make dull similes. Key words here are effort and dull. If similes cannot surprise and delight, then transformative language aint happening. It is that simple. People, we are not here to please the Masters & Mistresses who enforced brass dullness on us in academic settings. We are here to surprise the language we live in.

Filip Marinovich read with flexible power, he was ready. He melded a goofy reliance on Greek gods with firm political resolve. He was funny and resolute. I’m not sure why but this is not entirely my cup of tea. I guess formal writing intent does not grasp me so much. I think my own writing shows that.

Of which speaking. I read from Days Poem. I almost read the scribblings that I was in the process of scribbling, but DP has never been read publicly so I gave it its chance. I just read randomly. I made sure I did not search for good stuff, just read what hit my eye. I think I gave variety to my tone, but I was surprised to find myself feeling nervous as I read. I felt the 8 minute clock, which I wanted to respect (and I think most readers did). The last bit I read concerned Ezra Pound and Wyndham Lewis, a lengthy divagation that I cut short for fear of going too long. I read a line that I thought was good, and told the audience so.

Brenda Iijima read with professional craft. Her work is meaty and it came across well. Mark Lamoureaux’s was solid as well. I appreciate the experimental aspect to his work. He tends to develop experiments within which he writes. That is what Virginia Woolf did.

I’m not keen to give a gold star, but if I were I think I would award it to Joel Sloman. I thought of Charles Reznikoff in the nuanced meteors he set forth. Reznikoff has a quick delivery while Joel is hesitant and thoughtful, but both offer darting entr’actes between daily dullnesses.

The inbred nature of the poetry scene is expected and unfortunate. Poetry is so marginal that it must survive by inbreeding. As an exurban satellite, I am poorly connected to What’s Happening. The Huths, not being from these parts but willing to participate fully, gave some freshness to the proceedings, just by being there. There were times when the haw haw of friends made the reading foreign to me. And Brenda Iijima seemed (perhaps I am wrong) to come and go with her team. James Cook, Amanda Cook, and Mike County all read well, amidst the carefree of their young children.

I hesitate to mark the one downer, but oh well, let it go: Kythe Heller lost me. Introduced, she stood away from the podium. She seemed to offer herself to trance. I thought of what is her name from Dead Can Dance, a kind of hyper-self-involved intensity. Okay, Kythe had a good voice but she was overly dramatic. After that she read from manuscript. The writing seemed awful, a Beatniky Jim Morrison minus 3. Frankly, I can accept that. The tranced out staring seems right out. I mean, writing can be from a trance of sorts, I get that. But reading from a trance? That strikes me as giving up intellect for the sake of drama. I guess I react to a feeling of phoniness here, highly encompassed but still. Tell Edgar Cayce to wake up and smell the commonplace, says I. Still, there’s room, there is room for everyone.

During one of the breaks I drank a Red Bull. It was my first. It provided no energy. Your mileage may vary.

This is an age without editors, isn’t it? You either publish yourself, or your friend does it for you. I like that, largely, but maybe we aren’t editing ourselves so super well. I thought there were numerous cases of poems that ran on. Endlessness is not a structure. Nor should it be, of course, but maybe a little firmness of resolve in terms of structure could be facilitated. Talking to myself as much as anyone.

Lynn Behrendt and another woman whose name I unfortunately cannot recover, provided snarky, acerbic humour in their work. Humour is good.

Derek Fenner was perhaps the most intent in this way. He read a sequel to his Katie Couric love poems: letters to Sarah Palin. Guess what, years ago I wrote poems to Maria Shriver (forgive the learning curve website). Fenner was hilarious.

Finally, I want to give a shout out to Chad Parenteau. His work is not so much in the realm of my taste, yet it is fair and honest stuff. He read in a straightforward and friendly way, practiced without being slick. There is nothing wrong with that.

So that’s the report, incomplete but I hope a reasonable glimpse. I wish others there would comment on what they saw. The scene needs that input. Oh, I just now realized that I forgot to mench Nathaniel Siegel. His work was wrenchingly powerful and politicized.

I toddled off at the dinner break. Toddling at the same time, and in the same direction, was Mark Lamoureaux, so we toddled times 2. Good to talk about poetry and this locality and Proust.

I sounded sour about the prospects of The Boston poet Tea Party a few days back, but it proved a good thing. It as good to see poetry read, and I am grateful to have read myself. If only there were an effective Red Bull for this poetic region, but it seems like the armoured offices of Harvard and MIT rule the expanse that poetry should own. Alas and alack.

News Flash: Comments Out at Silliman Blog

I stopped looking long ago: I knew the dickheads lay in wait, like ant lions. And we weren’t even getting the juicy stuff because Ron was scuttling what he found most offensive.

My guiding stance is that comment boxes should be open and unedited, but the dickheads have gamed it too well. You have to put a fence up,just to keep the bots from taking over with their automated commercial pressure. And the nuclear spats I have seen even here are just depressing enough for me to consider them the call of Fire! in a crowded theatre.

Beyond that is the big what’s the point anyway. Ron Silliman has a brand name reputation. This reputation attracts the various actors and dancers to his stage. Their own venues lack interest.

Okay, I got them psychologically sussed, but the larger point remains that the mechanics of the comments box sucks for colloquy, sucks for dialectic, and sure as hell sucks for essays. They work for informal blips of thought and nothing more. Well no, they work for bullying. Let them write big brave letters directly to Ron: kindly sir, would you please sir publish my comment on your blog sir. If these associated dickheads can’t edit themselves then someone must do it for them. So I have commented on commenting, my work is done.

Inception

Might be the 4th movie we saw this year. Judging by the trailers, I for one will not be seeing anything soon. Basically nothing exploded, it looks like it is all temperate melodrama. A new Ben Affleck movie (oxymoron alert) looked like solid old hat. Set in Bawston, and I am sure the plot has been done 3 times before, at least. Maybe some further hunting of Good Will will resuscitate his career. Everything else looked like drippy shit.

I should mench that Steve Carrell now looks like someone to avoid. Dorks making faces is not a enough for a comedic turn

Inception, then. Leonardo diCaprio does nothing for me. He’s probably pretty good as an actor, and he doesn’t irritate me like Tom Cruise, but I do not feel compelled. It is not worth arguing about.

DiCaprio wakes with his face in sand, is found by some guard sort of person, then brought before this very old guy. Wretched make up if you ask me. I invite you to ask me. Well, stuff happens.

I will say it right out that I found this movie muddled. Beth did not, but she tracks better than I do. The score loomed large. Not in a musical way, such as James Horner or John Williams do. Instead, it was hugely atmospheric. The music tended to rumble over the dialogue.

I am not sure I can relay the movie’s concept properly. Leo found a way (a scientific one: he has yet to reach the remake of Freddy Krueger stage of his career) to influence people by entering their dreams. This means that he and his partners traipse about in these wild action scenes within dreams. The thrust is high stakes business espionage. The effect is like James Bond but without the hokum.

This movie owes a tuppence to The Matrix, having a similar heightened visual style, and the whole dream thing chimes closely. That aspect was originally lifted from an early Arthur C Clarke story, I have discovered. When I say The Matrix, I mean only the 1st movie. The 2nd was a lame piece of sequelitus, up there with Pirates of the Caribbean. The idea of watching the 3rd, which supposedly is okay, was beyond me. Inception is more philosophical than Matrix, and more humanly relevant. Dark Knight was so good because there were human moments in there with all the comic book malarkey.

The movie gets confusing with dreams within dreams, but is certainly worthy of a 2nd viewing. I feel like I should know a couple of the actors but the names ring no bells. Maybe the young actress in the pointless Microsoft commercial is a somebody beyond that but that’s the only glimmer in her cv that I know. The always satisfying Michael Caine was on the screen the bare minimum.

After a rather prolonged talky part, an extended storyline builds to the culmination. This part hearkens to Mission Impossible in the rococo filigree of plot turns and action necessity. Obviously I mean the tv show since the movies star Tom Cruise. Several levels of action took place simultaneously. The culminating action takes place within the time a van crashes slo-mo over a bridge and drops patiently to a river. This was a strange and effective way to tie things together.

Christopher Nolan, The Dark Knight director, wrote, directed and produced. According to Wikipedia, he turns 40 today.He can wish me hb on Sunday.

Ten Years After

Not the band, just a mark on the calendar. Beth and I attended the Boston Poetry Marathon in the summer of 2000. It was an important event for me, and a new one is this weekend. Tempus fugit.

Beth and I were not married yet as of that poetry gathering. It was an exciting meet and greet for me, who had only just got connected to the wider world of poetry via the Internet. Beth and I met thru the backchannel of  the Poetics listserv. We decided to go to this grand event.

Another person who I met thru backchannel was Stephen Ellis. He asked if we could put him up the Saturday night of the readings.

Memory is fuzzy. We attended Friday night, paying $40 a head. Wow, paid attendance! The locus was the Art Institute of Boston, near Fenway. I cannot recall that night, but I know that it occurred.

Saturday we were to meet Peter Ganick at an Indian restaurant in Central Square, Cambridge. Beth met him online. I had for years bought books from Potes & Poets Press but never met Peter. Peter brought Sheila Murphy, whose work I knew from its online appearances. We went to the reading together. Peter skipped out early, I think, but Sheila remained. She read at one point, and was one of the better readers. My favourite reader was Michael Gizzi. His delivery was dry, measured, and skilled.

Before that, not to mess chronology too much, someone entered and I knew it was Stephen, tho I had no clue what he might look like. I recall sitting next to Sheila thru much of the reading. We both busily scribbled. I filled 25 notebook pages writing and doodling. I don’t know if I ever looked at what I wrote and I presume it is now in the Ohio State Rare Books archive, which houses my papers.

Jack Kimball, perhaps freshly back from Japan, was pointed out to me. We would meet the next year. Sheila started to introduce me to Nada Gordon but someone interrupted with a greeting to Nada and that literary moment flew away.

This meeting with Nada was reminiscent of my meeting with Robert Creeley at Franconia, old story that must be told again. Robert Grenier tried to introduce me to Creeley three times at a post reading party for RC. Each time, something distracted the probably drunk or stoned Creeley. Fear not, however. At one point, I was by the record player and Creeley sat down nearby. He started clapping to the music, so I joined him. Not just clapping but stomping to make the needle skip. So I have that memory of staring eyes to eye while we syncopated. No words were exchanged.

Anyhoo, lots of poets and poetry. Creeley himself read Saturday, star attraction. I’ve seen him twice, many years apart. Not a great reader, tho of course an important and engaging intelligence.

Patrick Herron flew up from North Carolina for the reading, someone else I had met online. I think Stephen, Beth, Patrick and I had breakfast together Sunday. Sheila, Stephen, Beth and I had dinner the night before. It was an exhilarating time for me, being amidst this scene.

The upcoming one this weekend seems just perfunctory. A handful of people interest me, a huge number are unknown to me, and what the heck, I should be reading.

Of the organizers, I have met them all. Jim Behrle, before going all New York, arranged a reading of me and Henry Gould, two unamalgamated locals. I think Jim ran out of readers. Michael Carr and John Mulrooney both run local series. I never made effort to get in their readings. I am not so sure if I need to attend this marathon (the 8 minute per rush format does not attract me), but here is the batting lineup.

Antic View

Just a reminder that Antic View, the mental and poetic tussle between Jeff Harrison and myself, has been updated, #148. Visitez maintenant.

Erin Goes to Orientation

Having finished with Middlesex Community College, Erin transfers to University of Massachusetts at Lowell. He had an orientation last week, consisting of 2 days and a stay over. We had some heavy weather the night before.

Er, um. The trip to Lowell (next town over) included meeting a major detour in an unfamiliar part of town. The traffic cop helpfully assured us that we would get there in time. He described a pleasantly circuitous route around the obstruction so that we could get back on the road we needed to take. We had to take ‘that first left’ onto a road he wasn’t quite sure was called Parker. Somehow, we felt antsy.

We found the university in time, plus a blue-shirted student who was directing traffic. Beth at the wheel told him we were here for orientation. The student said, “You’re here for orientation???" No, the fellow in the back seat. We were directed across the way to a parking lot. Another blue-shirted student with a light sabre danced and gesticulated to direct us into the parking lot. Beth told her to drink plenty of water. I was lucky enough to capture a picture of a chain link fence.

No, you do not see many chain link fences in the environs of Lowell, Ma. UML has a student union. Here they talk about scabs, blackleg miners, Doug Flutie (football scab), union dues, and the like.

Surprisingly pretty campus. Erin waited in line for registration then we went to the dorm room where he would be sleeping that night.

James = Erin (middle name), Gruenzer = Gruenzner. Spelling counts. The room was actually a suite with a common room, 2 compact bedrooms for 2, and 1 1/2 bath. I feel compelled to add crown molding, hardwood floors, and granite counter tops, but that is just HGTV on the brain. For sleeping purposes there were child-sized bunkbeds. Yikes! Erin barely fit and barely slept, more anon. By good fortune, I captured a picture of the springs of the top bunk (I think).

Then we wandered the campus. Lowell, shabby as it is, has a wonderful landscape of rolling hills and the mighty Merrimac flowing thru. The campus is green and restful. Here’s a picture of me with a magical orb that I found.

Here’s where I put it, so that it would not fall into evil hands.

We left Erin to his devices. Erin has had next to zero public schooling. The rigours of MCC were at times an adventure, and UML will be a further one. He had a lot of fun during orientation. Thor made the event extra special by slamming his hammer (Mjöllnir, as you will recall) to a fare-thee-well, resulting in a severe sockdolager of a thumper. Erin and others celebrated the Thunder God’s tantrum by dancing in puddles and such like. Erin called Beth, who was working, and me, who by the second (third?) call was trying to sleep, to exhale his excitement.

Erin returned to his dorm room sometime late. The person slated for the upper bunk never appeared, but that did not help Erin. He slept an hour or two at most. We collected him in the afternoon.

Hey Where Is EVERYBODY?

Tom Beckett ended his blog some while ago, a not uncommon event, and this time I never caught up to the phoenix that arose. Until now. The world is too much with us, late and soon. I have missed his missives, and the percolation of his art in process. I shall clean up my links soon, not now, to reflect Tom’s reappearance.

My own blog seems a-mould’ring, one because I do not update it often, and two because the interest from without has moved elsewhere. I can feel it, drifting on this ice floe as I do. My sense of writing seems to outrace the rigid complex that Poetry has become. Poetry as a canny formulation, a race to an identified end, is a loss for me. I think of Poetry as surprised language. Tactics are right out.

I mean, I also saw Jim Behrle’s famous blog again, and he’s a writer, he’s an energy. And that the same pointed instrument pokes at the same logy attempts works against my interest in this gizmo. I have been productive for years and years, and no longer need to prove that. I wrote Days Poem! I do not need to explain my grace.

A Note on Contemporary Poetry

Contemporary poetry started in the early 1950s. It began because a bunch of American poets got together and started to write in a contemporary vein. This continued strong until the late 1960s, when contemporary poetry ended. During its heyday, contemporary poetry was considered very popular.

Readers liked to read contemporary or hear it read by recognized contemporary poets. The appeal of contemporary poetry is simple to understand. It appeals to everyone’s enjoyment of the 1950s and 60s.

Robert Lowell is the greatest of contemporary poets. He wrote about Robert Lowell and what Robert Lowell felt. The great contemporary lady poets Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath also wrote about what they felt. Plath wrote about what Plath felt and Sexton wrote about what Sexton felt, respectively. Poems cannot be made about what Plath thinks about Lowell or Lowell  about Sexton. John Berryman tried but it did not work.

John Berryman was a contemporary poet even so. Like all contemporary poets, he went to college. College is where contemporary poets came from. Even though poets still go to college, they are no longer contemporary. Contemporary poets have disappeared just as mysteriously as the residents of the Roanoke colony.

Nowadays, poets just write poetry and that’s that. Today’s poets cannot be contemporary because they did not spend enough time in the 50s and 60s. It was okay to suddenly discover W. B Yeats in the 50s. Nowadays, if you suddenly discover W. B. Yeats, you are surprising no one. Even though Yeats was a weirdo and probably took opiates, reading him will surprise no one. Same goes for Rimbaud and a host of other strange foreign poets. Sadly, the day of the contemporary poem (and contemporary poet) is over.

There are those who wish to bring back contemporary poetry. These people live in universities and have their own issues. If you feel an urge to write contemporary poetry, read the works of the contemporary poets mentioned in this report. You will find that they have written all the contemporary poetry that anyone needs. Instead of writing contemporary poetry, try writing haiku. Haiku is a poetic form just as timeless as frogs, apple blossoms, and snowflakes. You cannot go wrong with haiku.

The Invention of Poetry

Poetry was invented in the early 18th Century, somewhere in England. It is not known who invented poetry, though it is known that John Milton did NOT. William Shakespeare cannot receive credit for inventing poetry either, even though his stuff looks like poetry. Remain cautious when trying to determine if certain literary productions are poetry. Sonneteers, poetasters, and the like will try to fool you every time.

Of course Poetry first developed in England—where else would it begin?—but other lands saw attempts—all failures—to create this means of transportation. England, though, had the right admixture of larks, dew, eternal rocks, skiey peaks, and such to propel the poetic mind into fevered scribbling. So England can claim the invention of poetry, which is great news for the English.

England’s poets futzed around for the first years, trying to make some awesome poetry. They made poetry all right—recent tests have proven this—but little of their production amounted to what you would call awesome. Not until the early 19th Century did writing pals John Keats, Percy Shelley, Lord Byron, Leigh Hunt, and a few nameless authors really started to kick out the jams, poetry-wise.

The greatest of these poets is Leigh Hunt. He wrote “Jenny Kissed Me” and spent time in jail. You will be disappointed to learn that the Jenny of the poem was a child, and the poem has nothing to with unrequited love, but it is still a great poem. The poem proves that a poet can write poems like this, if you have the requisite talent.

John Keats, Percy Shelley, and Lord Byron were also great English poets. This is proven by how they all died young. Dying young is a dead giveaway. So to speak.

John Keats loved Grecian urns and nightingales. If you are reading a poem that mentions nightingales or Grecian urns, you are probably reading Keats. Usually the name of the author of a poem is included with the poem, if you really need to know the name. It is true that a poem authored by John Keats is sure to be a winner.

Percy Shelley was big into larks—he basically started the whole lark movement in poetry—and Lord Byron (real name: George) liked roving. As much as he liked roving, he apparently decided to give it up. These poets garnered great fame and whatnot in their unfortunately short careers.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning was the first lady poet. Although Keats and Shelley tended toward sickliness, it was Browning who successfully brought the full neurasthenic protocol to the life of poets. Elizabeth wrote the first mushy poem ever. You know: “How do I love thee? / Let me count the ways.” Elizabeth was married to a great poet in his own right, Robert Browning. Robert wrote these stirring lines that will live long in the minds of those people who remember them: “Riding along, fifty score strong / Great hearted gentlemen singing this song.”

Near the end of the 19th Century, Alfred Lord Tennyson wrote “The Charge of the Light Brigade”. This is a great poem. It begins “Half a league, half a league, Half a league onward”, and goes on from there.

Tennyson was pretty much it for poets in England at the time. If you wanted poetry, you had to look to America. American poetry did not start until the 19th Century,  there was zero poetry in the colonies before then. Then Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson came along, and really put America on the poetry map.

Whitman learned early that technique without inspiration means nothing. He proceeded to throw technique completely out the window and rely on inspiration. The result of this is that he wrote so many great poems that it is just not funny. A prime example is the one called “O Captain My Captain”. You’d figure that it would be about a sailor, but it is really about Abraham Lincoln! This poem really gets to you. See what I mean about it being just not funny?

Emily Dickinson was the first and undoubtedly best lady poet that America produced. She liked to look at normal things in a creepy way. It took a while for her to become famous, but when she did, it was something. Women need heroes too, you know.

There was a lady poet in England who was almost like Emily Dickinson. Her name was Christina Rossetti. She was born five days before Dickinson and wrote about goblins. England is still proud to have her as one of its lady poets.

A lot of great poetry got wrote in the 20th Century, mostly by Americans. T. S. Eliot is a great poet—you can hardly understand what he is on about!—but he just pretended to be English. He was from Missouri. He really got the movement going of making poetry that makes no sense. Ezra Pound is another poet who started doing that stuff.

Nowadays, everybody and his uncle writes poetry. We can actually thank Japan for this. A poetic form called the haiku developed in Japan. It was a great thing but no one in Japan knew how to make a poem using the form. It was not until public school students in America were introduced to the haiku form that it really took off. Now anyone can write a poem, no sweat.

System & Learning

Goals of Writing

· To Surprise

· To Entertain

· To Communicate

Writing is functional. We write toward goals (see above).

Poets (if anyone cares) write in the beguiling wonder and agitation of words—the surprise of discovery (or the discovery of surprise).

To entertain, one writes with oneself as the meter measuring the entertainment, i.e., if I laugh or feel thrilled then it succeeds.

In writing to communicate, one seeks strong, clear ways of saying.

All writing strives to solve a problem. The writer writes for a reader. The reader is imaginary, even when we know the audience (for instance, a personal letter).

		Two Circles

To bring the circles together, we must use the same language. To bring the circles even closer, intent must be understood on both sides.

A system assumption exists here, that the reader understands the writer, and the writer understands the reader.

The reader may “get something” from the writer’s work, but does not (cannot) share the endeavour of the writer’s intent.

The writer may sense the reader’s participation (albeit in a place outside the act of actual reading) but ultimately the writer writes to an imaginary friend.

Basic communication in the sense of imparting information and opinion demands the courage of one’s vocabulary.

The vocabulary of language is shared—we have dictionaries and grammars to self-police ourselves—but we must trust our own invention rather than the received broadcast (and ‘wisdom’) of inherited locutions.

Our ideas become muddled when we use other people’s words.

This sounds lofty but it is absolutely practical.

Our insight, our opinions, our ideas need our words. To speak or write well means reaching across the chasm with our hand, not someone else’s. The resulting touch is electric and personal.

Many of us haphazardly find our ‘style’, an effective way to ‘get across’. Many more of us, however, fail to perceive that the connection and communication of their attempts are thin and partial.

We all must realize the implicit contract in words. When we speak or write, we obey the strictures of meaning—or we do not, lazily settling for a simulation of the connection.

Vocal tone and body language supply speech with support that writing lacks. We must be resolute in writing, not trusting merely our intent but the exacting action of our communication.

The political hem and haw that we hear daily and continually drowns the pure savour of what we mean. We end up rifling thru worn phrases that have lost their charge, expecting others to receive the spark that we intended.

Writing well is an act of singular dignity. Humbly present your words to the latent reader.

Roadtrip and Graduation

Erin and his father spent Tuesday walking (slogging) the Freedom Trail in Bawston. Blistering hot day. We lack no humidity hereabouts. This comes as a shock to those used to drier heat, viz Erin’s father from Idaho and even 10 year New England vet Erin. To unwilt them, we made a day trip up the coast to Maine on Wednesday.

We got on Route 1 and hugged the coast. It was much cooler than Tuesday. We got up past Oguncuit and swung back home. I do not know the extent of Dunkin Donuts’ reach, but we saw a pantload along the way. It is a cultural signpost, taking cultural in its murkiest connotation. The inescapable commodity of gloppy pastry and water-flavoured caffeine.

We had a picnic lunch by the beach in York. Lots of people were on the beach, but those actually in the water were few. Surfers wearing rubber suits had good surf to play with, or is it vice versa?

We later wandered on another beach. Tide was just coming in. The water on the flats was warmed to a plausible survivability. Stepping into the surf left my feet numb. I think the bestest thing was seeing some life in the puddles on the flat. Snails, barnacles, hermit crabs, and a fingernail-sized crab scuttling sideways. I love and a half looking at this evidence of teeming. I do not want to catch fish or any of the critters—I do not regard fish as food, thank you—I just like seeing the bluster of life.

No traffic jams along the way but a good bit of ready up for Erin’s graduation.

Which happened today.

Erin has slept at the motel with his father, which made it easier to provide a bed for Beth’s mother (who drove up Monday). We conglomerated around 8am for the drive to the city of Lowell, just the next town o’er. Erin attended the Bedford campus of Middlesex Community College, but the ceremony was at the big city.

The city of Lowell possesses uncommon beauty in architecture, with vivid factories and fancied up whatnot. When you look upon the landscape it is really lovely, with the Merrimack River and the canals and the rolling hills. The place is also a worn out dump, despite federal money poured in to the brim (the city itself is a national park). Don’t take my word for this, come check it out.

I went in with Erin as the others parked the phaeton. Lowell Auditorium teemed with wildlife, lots of nervous excited people. Erin had to locate the group he would walk with (Liberal Arts and Sciences). Easier said than done. Oh yes, and he had to put that gown on.

We tramped thru the crowd until we came to the end of crowd, then worked our way back. Eventually, we found where Erin belonged. I left him properly in line and gowned to a fare-thee-well. Including the goofy hood thingie.

I hooked up with the family, and with invited friends. I went back to give Erin a last hand slap and get a few more of my patented poorly composed pictures. I did the normal  thing, scanned for the tallest person in the throng (Erin is 6’6”). I realized I went too far and came back. A grad caught my eye and pointed down. Erin was sitting cross-legged and meditative on the floor.

And then the ceremony. Not for high school, AA,  BA or MA did I walk. I’m not proud of that tho I guess I was at one time. The point is, I have not seen graduation before.

Most of the speeches were brisk enough. The highlight was Liz Murphy (I think  her name is). She was a homeless teenager who managed to not just graduate from high school, but Harvard too. It is an inspirational story, of course, but she was more interesting than that. She was lively and well-spoken, tho a trifle nervous.

I jumped ahead mentioning her.  First the processional. The familiar sounds of Elgar’s Pomp & Circumstance Numbers 12 & 35 rose up. I know there are several P&Cs, and somehow, I associate the music with my father. After a few bars, some bagpipe music was delivered from the lobby. Three bagpipers, and three drummers marched in. The two musical forces tussled then P&C backed off until the pipers and the mysterious entity called The Student Marshalls had entered. Then the Elgar beat returned and the grads entered.

It was a slow process getting the grads into the auditorium and seated. Is Erin coming? Yes, finally. He bowed as he walked down the aisle.

Of course the big punchline of graduation is the doling of diplomas. This was a long process. The process was made worse by the obnoxious use of air horns, and several crying babies with heartlessly immovable parents. Erin tipped his cap when he got his diploma. The gestures are not typical of Erin, but that fact somehow is typical of him. Expect the unexpected.

Okay, this was just a community college, and only an AA, but I had tears in my eyes. The accomplishment is magnificent.

Erin is uniquely gifted, as are we all, but his gifts are balanced by difficulties. It has been wondered whether he has Asperger’s and finally doctors have said no, because his empathy places him outside the spectrum. The autistic spectrum, it is becoming clear, is extensive. It encompasses many more of us than was formerly thought.

Charles Olson’s words, I have had to learn the simplest things last, have been something of a motto for me. They seem even more apposite for Erin. He is a wonderful, creative person, innocent in the best way. He is also socially awkward, and faceblind (as is his grandmother): he does not easily recognize faces.

Erin was homeschooled because of his difficulties, plus growing up in Alaska where schools were not the best. He took some courses at the community college as part of his homeschooling. This enabled him to get into college without a high school degree or GED, but certainly well-educated. Fulfilling the 2-year degree allows him to enroll in the UMass system, which he has. Community college, then, was like prep school, except without the silly sweater tied around the neck.

This last semester was not pretty. He expected to have four courses, but he also had two incompletes to finish, and an advisor error meant he was a credit short unless he took one more course. It was a ragged run to the finish line, but he got there.

So I am proud of Erin. We understand education as a collection of information, a simple acquisition. In truth, education is a process of individuation, defining ourselves as joyful singularities. The university chime of diversity is fine in a promotional way, but it charges the barriers more than brings us together. Our singularities join us. Erin’s unique gifts, or yours, or mine, or Beth’s, are the chances to deliver light. Emboldening cultural distinctions will not. Erin’s uniqueness is not embraced in the campgrounds of normative education. Humanity’s progressive steps, however, will be made by those keyed to the individuation.

Dalai Lama Live

We spent the weekend with two foci: visit Beth’s mother and aunt, and see the Dalai Lama. Beth’s folks live in Brick,  NJ, on the Jersey shore. The plan was to have Beth’s mother join us in NYC, to see the Dalai Lama, but plans changed.

We left civilization around noon on Friday. We had a brisk run down the parkways, which clearly is the most pleasant way to reach NYC from Massachusetts. The traffic never seems bad, and the tree-lined roadways are beautiful.

We reached Lakewood and the Hilton Gardens Hotel at some dinnerish hour. Time to relax.

Oh wait, need a screw up! Beth’s mother offered to put us up in a hotel because there isn’t enough room where she is. Checking in, I was asked for a credit card. I thought the room was paid for. The clerk said it was for i.d. Yeah well, in sooth, somehow Beth’s mother’s attempt to reserve a room for us became thru the Hilton’s machinations simply a commitment to commit. The desk clerk ended up putting not just a charge but a hold  as well on our card, which was our debit card, which was our funding for this trip. I shan’t bore you with the details (go to my new blog: Bore You With The Details dot com). Suffice to say that fol-de-rol occurred, some ruction followed, a donnybrook was barely averted, and no one actually died tho imprecations were voiced. Buzz kill. AVOID HILTON GARDENS HOTEL.

We got together with Beth’s mother and aunt. Mother was under the weather, but we had a nice dinner. The next day we largely hung out. Beth went to a hair salon and I sat around there, wrote and doodled and wandered a bit in Point Pleasant. Tra la.

Saturday night we had another nice family dinner. Oh, we learned that the hotel had not quite gotten rid of the hold on our card. AVOID HILTON GARDENS HOTEL.

Sunday we learned for sure that Beth’s mother was not joining us in NYC. We fashioned a fancy itinerary or travelogue, an adventure, to wit:

• Drive up to Newark Airport
• Take the Air Train to Terminal B
• Take the train to Penn Station
• Take the Subway to 5th Ave
• Walk to Radio City Music Hall

You think the Donners had a rough go?

Really,  it all worked well, even tho it felt like Heart of Darkness. We would periodically stop people for directions and they were helpful, even those who did not know. At RCMH, I saw a woman and child holding a sign requesting a ticket. We had the extra. The woman explained they were part of a group. She couldn't pay for the ticket but we weren’t looking for that anyway. Beth asked if it was okay that they’d be spread out thru the theatre and the woman said yes. That was serendipitous.

The Hall is mid-size and plain. Our seats were mezzanine, I think, decent enough. Arriving to sit in the seat we gave away was a Tibetan monk. Who knows how that happened. Periodically he cupped his cellphone in his hand and conversed. Perhaps we just assumed that the tickets were for the boy.

The stage was busy with people. Monks either sat and chanted or wandered. Others helped wandering procedures. A flute played at times. Eventually the stage got full and Richard Gere came out.

Gere gave a brief, relaxed intro to the Dalai Lama, then an entourage entered the stage. It looked like standard issue celebrity entourage including, I surmise, the person in charge of regulating the color choice of M&Ms in the bowl in the dressing room. Amidst this milling group was the man himself. An armchair was brought for the DL, and a small one for his interpreter. One does not immediately remember that the Dalai Lama is a head of state. There were obvious, and I am sure not obvious, security onstage and around.

The DL has quite a presence. One gets the impression that he is more than 6’ tall but indeed he is well short of that. He was stately in a friendly, common way.

He sat in his chair, and resurrected Mr. Rogers by elaborately removing his shoes and cleaning his eyeglasses, which caused the crowd to laugh. His own laugh is infectious.

He spoke very good English, tho strongly accented, which I mean in two senses: his Tibetan accent is thick, and he emphasizes the wrong syllables at times.

This was a secular talk. He gave more spiritual talks previously in the weekend. Buddhism is a fine tool for understanding and proceeding, to my lights. I will not proselytize. I like the practicality of what he speaks, and his playful humour. Following the Buddha’s own advice, the DL said check it out and see if it works for you. If  it doesn’t work for you, he said, then fuck it. Did I hear aright? Yes, I did. He did not say the phrase for shock value, but used the most direct words. I respect that greatly.

The Nobel Peace Prize seems pretty shady with the likes of Obama (on the basis of what?), Kissinger, and Mother Theresa Incorporated winning, but the Dalai Lama seems absolutely appropriate. His open-minded stance towards science is a blessing in contradistinction to too many clerical views. I could go on. Check out my new blog I Could Go On dot com.

He had a number of straightforwardly chastening remarks about China, and a puckish comment about women’s makeup. He said, that blue around the eyes, not attractive. She won’t get a date from me.

The DL visited a local Buddhist center a few years ago. The person who wrote the report said that someone in the DL’s entourage came up to the writer and said in his ear, indicating the DL: Do not trust that guy! Only later did the writer learn that the person with the advice was the DL’s brother. Runs in the family.

The DL did some Q&A and then, basically, wandered off. He wanted to go into the audience, it looked like, but an efficient suit drew him towards backstage.

Afterwards, Erin and I made the grand journey to the bathroom downstairs, where the throng lined up then darted to an open facility. When we returned to the lobby, Beth decided to ready her bladder for the trip back to Newark, so she went to the bathroom. By now, ushers were ushering. They accosted everyone who was not moving briskly towards the door. We told them we were waiting for someone, and they said wait over there. Then en masse the ushers moved forward, pressing laggards ahead. We were removed from each place they told us to go to. I do not want to overplay this, but the impression was as of Tiananmen Square. The bully ushers heard nothing,  just pushed forward. Really, really out of key with the afternoon.

As I waited outside, I saw Marvin Hamlisch leave the building. I am sure other celebs could have been noted.

The trip back was fine until we reached the airport. Rt 95 barely moved. I think it took 3 hours to reach the George Washington Bridge. Add that we were low on gas. Cars shifted lanes in that relentlessly hopeful way, sure of certain gains tho actual visibility of the road ahead amounted to a couple of car lengths.

At Fort Lee, just before the GW toll, we simply had to duck off the highway and find gas. We asked a pedestrian, who said just over there, tho 4 blocks further the price was better. We opted for the close one. Expensive gas in NJ is what we gladly pay in MA.

The attendant, dressed in a spiffy clean uniform, would not take a card. Our cash had been whittled down and we still had tolls to pay, so we had to limit our purchase. Tank was nearly empty again the next day, because…

On 84 past Hartford, around 11pm, we found another lovely snag. Roadwork. That was another 90 minutes of life I will not get back.

Home to a happy cat.

This afternoon we drove in to Logan airport to pick up Erin’s father. He was flying in from Idaho for Erin’s upcoming graduation from community college (more about that anon). Holy cow! All major arteries out of Boston were choked with traffic. Had fun calling 511and getting reports of the traffic misery. Figured out an overland route.

The parking garage at Logan had a wide area of available parking inexplicably set off with temporary barriers, no way to get to them. Things these days are baffling. Accept the unacceptable. This traffic biz seems to be a lesson, keyed to the DL’s talk.

Robin Hood, Once More

Yet another version of Robin Hood, and possibly the most different. Robin Hood no kidding is an enduring character and story. Ridley Scott makes a real tangent from the usual Robin Hood arc. Might not work for everyone, but it worked for me.

Of course, I endure movies so I can enjoy the entertainment of the trailers. Not much to look forward to, according to this infallible expert. There’s a Steve Carel movie with Paul Rudd that looks like a two-wheeled trike. I hope I am wrong, but all I saw was Carel  mugging horribly. Angelina Jolie is doing a Matrix-y thing that may be well-served by her feral weirdness. There’s a movie in which nerd meets rock star (Jonah Hill and Russell Brand),  which I predict will offer negative zero surprises.

Finally, children, and deserving its own paragraph, there is another Sex and the City bloodbath. Well, I say another, but I never saw the first one. I saw the show when it was current, and it was okay. The idea of going cinematic with the franchise seems like some sort of illegal entrapment. Sequelling that entrapment is just a bludgeoning of excess, and the trailer proves my point. There seems to be a bit in which one or many of the quartet dress and perform as Liza Minnelli. Another scene shows them implausibly riding camels in the desert. Clearly the screenwriters must have severely pulled their creative muscles. The foursome look taut and worn out, inhumanly fit into magazine vision of everlasting youth. One of the great bad ideas of literary history that I can think of is in a letter from Mark Twain to William Dean Howells. Twain bethunk himself that a play in which Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn meet years later as outworn vagrants should exist. Baddest of ideas, and Carrie and crew cracking before our eyes seems nearly as bad. So anyway.

Russell Crowe plays Robin Hood. I knew from the trailer that this would be a different take on the classic. There’s no sense in trying to replicate the Errol Flynn model. That guy had such swashbucklitude, altho Flynn’s pampered coif takes the edge off, as did the slurpy Hollywood score. Costner’s version wasn’t bad, tho its early grit trailed off into prancing television heroics.

I am a fan of Gladiator. Have I seen other Ridley Scott movies? I never saw Alien in its entirety. I especially like the historical sense in Gladiator. The early battle scene gives what I believe is a decent evocation of Roman warfare. Robin Hood begins with similar bombast, with Richard Lionheart’s Crusaders overwhelming a French castle.

Russell Crowe, yclept Robin Longstride, is just another archer in the army. He’s palling around with Allan a Dale and Will Scarlet in very minor roles. Robin meets Little John without benefit of cudgel battle on a footbridge. Scott eschewed all the expected markers of Robin Hood.

In a hey wait a minute moment, Richard the Lionhearted dies during the attack on the castle. Robin and his friends skip away in the confusion. Meanwhile we have already met Richard’s brother John, who looks like Russell Brand. I missed who the actor is, but the role is similar to Joachim Phoenix’s Commodus in Gladiator, a flaked out king type. I don’t mean to demean either, I like both roles and actors.

Instead of the usurping Normans as bad guys it is the French. I think the Norman angle is more accurate historically, makes more sense as the seed for these tales, but it is not like the Anglo-French dismay isn’t resonant. The story comes across more like Braveheart than you might expect.

Robin and the boys come upon some duplicity in which Guy of Gisbourne attacks the King’s envoys, or something like that. The point is that Guy works for the French. One of the victims is Loxley who, in dying, asks Robin to bring his (Loxley’s) sword to his (Loxley’s) father. Having read the script, Robin decides to do so.

Robin meets Lady Marian, wife of the dead Loxley, and Loxley’s father. For much of the film I kept thinking that father Loxley looked like John Huston. Knowing that it is rough casting dead people, I was mildly puzzled. In sooth, it was Max von Sydow, taking a pretty good turn.

Cate Blanchett, possibly gimlet-eyed, played Lady Marian. She was believably sturdy as the wife of a Crusader trying to hold the estate together. Robin brings the sword to the father. The father decides that Robin should stay and pose as Marian’s husband, to help keep the estate together, to which Robin agrees. Luckily the plot does not dwell on the meet cute of this situation.

The movie then asserts its Braveheart heritage, and there are hints of Robin’s anarcho-syndalist foundation. Now, Monty Python has already cleaned up on Robin Hood’s political cartel (viz Dennis Moore), so we can move on from that. We have a bad guy, Guy de Gisbourne and stuff, the barons of England are all a-dither. Wait a sec, are we talking Magna Carta? Yes, indeed. Some fuzzy business from Robin’s past, in which Robin’s father is executed for insensitively suggesting a Runnymede sort of get together, comes from leftfield. Sorry, I was unprepared for this sort of historical intrusion.

The upshot was a battle of English versus French (including English caitiffs working for the French). It is a reverse D-Day. The English win, but King John aint so very nice. The movie ends with implication of Robin’s outlaw career. You know, the stuff we expected from the start.

Folks may not be satisfied that so few milestones on the Robin Hood path were seen. The Merrie Men of Sherwood are Peter Pannish orphans who hardly have anything to do with Robin. Tuck and Little John are barely exploited. Where’s the arrow splitting the arrow?????

The movie is fabulously lush in its pictorial presentation. It’s a little muddled in plot, with the Robin Hood arc and the Braveheart arc colliding. The visual plushness and the vigourous score put credit on the plus side. This one is a keeper for me.

Bill Knott Don’t Like Bloglaureates

Bill Knott posted the following in a comment on my previous post. I bring it forward here because he brings up points that I did not, plus he sounds a cranky note that I can only aspire to. Join me, fellow cranks!

the "blog poets" they nominate are alike in one way: they don't publish their poetry on their blogs or the web—

unlike them, I post/have posted ALL my poetry online for free open access and download . . .

which it seems makes me ineligible for any blogpo laureating—

surely to be the po-laur of the blogosphere, you should actually publish your poems there?

all or most of those laurpo nominees use their blogs chiefly to publicize and sell their deadtree books—

seriously: how can any deadtree poet be the laureatepo of the blogworld?

Poet Laureate of the Blogosphere, rebate

Ron Silliman’s last minute electioneering for Sine Queyras as PL of the B was my 1st notice of this election/gameshow. Yes, I knew votes were gathered in previous years for such contest, but I thought you were supposed to regard it as a trivial internet meme and pass on to the next shiny object to come along. What this thing contains, this vote and contest, seems not just lacking in content, the notion of such playground play seems antagonistic to the value one might find in poetry. SO SAY I.

The winners of this untelevised event are Sine Queyras and Robert Lee Brewer. RLB is a Facebook friend who I know little about—this condition is probably mutual, but that is an assumption—and Sine Queyras is not a Facebook friend, who I know little about. My inability to keep up explains my ignorance of these writers. I have no prob with them and what I write here should not reflect critically on them.

But isn’t this election perfectly silly?

I mean, I feel stupid knocking it, it seems so lame to speak of. The concept of the blogosphere, by which I infer an interconnected and communicating machine of practicing poets and/or writers of such, strikes me as archaic. That dash of connectivity has dissipated.  2003 turned into 2010. I guess that memo has been delayed.

Poet Laureates were always established as part of a drinking game, so in that sense this contest works fine. Unfortunately, the mechanics of interest do not engage the depths of possibility. I know a dumbhead rule exists, that previous winners cannot win again. Which only means dilution: those winners are removed from the mix. Again, I have not read these blogs or much by way of these writers, I am just looking at the sitch.

Rae Armantrout, Sine Queyras, and Robert Lee Brewer are each single writing entities. So am I. So are everyone on Silliman’s thorough list. The evocation of hierarchy within this realm of Parnassian cloud is abject muck.

I believe Poetry has importance in itself, as the mode of transit in language. Blogosphereian Poet Laureateship is STONES IN THE PASSWAY. Come back when you have worked that out.

Sixth Sense

Watched Sixth Sense today. I like M Night Shyamalan’s Signs and am willing to pursue other of his films. I do not know how I managed to miss this one, tho I do flinch when Bruce Willis is mentioned. Smart ass Hollywood Republicans give me dyspepsia. I should get over it but his insouciant smirk irritates me. Also: he mumbles.

The movie featured a lot of atmosphere, the music signaling ominously. It took me a while to get into it. Starting in media res, the movie leaves one puzzling. The bit with the failed client of Willis (Donny Wahlberg overacting, if you ask me) startles in a quizzical way. Whoa! Then Willis gets shot! Fade to months ahead.

The very first scene, when Willis’ wife seems to react to something in the basement, is a mystery that remains explained till the end. Negative Capability calling. The movie does not really begin till after the shooting, when Willis meets Haley Joel Osment.

I am amazed by films in which the child actor carries the burden. HJO did the heavy lifting while Willis floated around him. Scenes end with soft fades. Not to say that Willis wasn’t good. That floating was appropriate, as we learn.

The pacing seemed oddly laconic, despite the suspensefulness. We are aware that ghosts are about before anyone except HJO. When we actually see the ghosts, they are ordinary, tho wounded (literally). The spooks are underplayed.

The movie resonates with the hypersensitive boy who does not fit in with other children. Willis shuffles thru the story, feeling distant from his wife. The story reaches a seeming crescendo when Willis discovers what the ghosts want. He listens to tapes of the patient who shot him, and realizes that he suffered what HJO suffers: visitations of the dead. Well, I swan to John!

Willis urges HJO to fight his fear and listen to the ghosts. This brings HJO to the funeral of a girl. The girl as ghost gives the boy a VCR tape. VCRs used to be the only way people could entertain themselves. HJO delivers the tape to the girl’s father. The tape reveals that the girl’s stepmother was poisoning her.

And there is the crux. The ghosts seek help. Movie over. Except…

I was unprepared for the real ending. Willis goes home to his wife. He talks to her. During this, she drops his wedding ring. He hasn’t been wearing it! He realizes that he did not survive the shooting. He remained here to help the boy and make amends for the patient that he lost.

This sent the mind back to earlier scenes where Willis appeared but never interacted with anyone but HJO. I want to see the movie again with that in mind. It brings to mind the movie Ghosts, but much less smarmy. More compelling, it also reminds me of Turn of the Screw. Sixth Sense is less mysterious but the hypersensitive child is consistent.

The gotcha at the end, when Willis realizes that he is a ghost, really hangs with me. The movie’s sadness is unrelenting but Shyamalan handles it well, with sensitivity. I mean, Ghost ends with a malarkey note while SS seems to comprehend something human. Haley Jo Osment was terrific and Willis was not a complete dick.

Tributary Communications

I have started (yet another) blog to ruminate and possibly divagate upon the ideas of marketing and communication. The blog is called Tributary Communications, and I wish you were there.

Rae Armantrout & Bestsellers

I am not all that psyched that Rae Armantrout won the Pulitzer Prize, not to impugn her work. I think all that this event proves is how random the prize is. It signals no freeing of sensibilities or whatnot. It simply shows that the gatekeepers on Parnassus can be whimsical.

The list of previous winners is pretty ad hoc, like any such prize. You figure that Wallace Stevens winning in 1955 is being given a lifetime achievement award, as are the many Collected Poems winners. And maybe just maybe Natasha Trethewey won because she was standing nearby when the prize was doled out. This is a contest, I am saying, where no contest belongs.

I also think, crank that I am, that Rae’s prize is more to her publisher Wesleyan than to her. Wesleyan is one of a handful of ‘okay’ poetry publishers, that sell their books and get them into libraries. It is not Rae of the small press that wins the prize. If a LANGUAGEy poet were to win the Pulitzer, I would think Ron Silliman, Charles Bernstein, or Lyn Hejinian were more suitable choices, my terms being popularity and influence. I do not begrudge Armantrout, just do not believe that her selection is somehow good news.

But who knows?

The other day, 3 books fell into my hands, 3 romances. They interested me because all three were, apparently, bestsellers.

I had heard of one of the writers, Nora Roberts, and have seen her books around, probably in drugstore book racks. A boy I used to tutor was obsessed by Roberts because his mother would not let him read Roberts’ books. His mother feared that the books were too mature for him. My friend was a voracious reader and immensely curious, and this denial just fired his interest. Not that a book by Nora Roberts fit his taste, he was more like a budding Lovecraft.

Anyway, these 3 romance books. Years ago, while running, I came upon a box of free books that someone left to the world and/or trash pick up. Naturally, I took as many as I could handle, 4, and saluted my benefactor’s house. All 4 books, I found, had covers featuring tall, dark, and handsome in a pirate shirt, and spirited, wild-haired, and bodice-rippable in a flouncy gown: hottie meets hottie circa 18th century England. I read at least one of the books and it was not bad. It was a substantial story, not mere paint by numbers.

All these books declare being bestsellers of different sorts. It is a fuzzy declaration, because a Dan Brown or J K Rowling must have a different sense of bestseller than even does Nora Roberts. Such do I assume.

From what I can tell (stopping at actually reading these books, tho I will not say I won’t), the book that stretches the genre the most is by Debbie Macomber, “#1 New York Times & USA Today Bestselling Author”, as declared on the cover. I have never studied such lists but you might surmise these lists to be very long to accommodate all the bestsellers roaming the empyrean. I do not know if Macomber is #1 on a romance list, or a general list. To me, that second option stretches plausibility, because she would be up against, say, Stephen King, Dan Brown, and whatever Oprah has signed aboard to.

Macomber’s book bears the title Angels at Christmas. It is in fact two stories, which are “destined to become Christmas classics.” That is not exactly shortlisting the book. The back cover reveals the crux: “Every Christmas, three lovable angels visit Earth.” Uh oh.

The presentation of angels in pop fiction and movies creeps me out. It seems so unexamined and tawdry. ”Once a year,” reads the back cover, “Shirley, Goodness and Mercy are allowed to intervene (or, more accurately, interfere!) in human affairs.” Well, that sounds cute enough, harvested, doubtlessly, from It’s a Wonderful Life. That’s a movie, to be honest, that I have never managed to see, tho of course sublime cultural osmosis has refused to leave me free of its effects.

The two stories in Macomber’s book tally just over 400 pages. A page lists myriad other books, segregated by series, of which there are eight, plus a cook book. Does Rae Armantrout boast a recipe book, hm? Macomber won the 2005 Quill Award for Best Romance, and has “appeared on every major bestseller list, including those of the New York Times, US TODAY,  Publisher’s Weekly and Entertainment Weekly.” Uh HUH!

The front cover of Windfall by Nora Roberts proclaims that it contains “the timeless classics Impulse and Temptation.” Ah yes, due novella, and oh so timeless. And quick reads,too. “The last decade has seen over 100 of Nora’s books become New York Times bestsellers—many of them reaching #1.” That’s impressive in a faux dizzying way. So what kind of sales does Rae Armantrout see? Well, you know that hers, Silliman’s Bernstein’s, Hejinian’s (etc etc) combined is the square root of forget about it. What sort of snigger can one hear when the Pulitzer importantos select a poet to honour? I am sure it was wonderful when the ghost of Ed McMahon knocked on Rae’s door to present her the Pulitzer, but Our team is still losing.

Oh, I forgot to mench that Debbie Macomber “has become a leading voice in women’s fiction worldwide.” In case you did not know, or feel the overwhelming effect.

Summer by the Sea by Susan Wiggs seems like the most substantial book, it being 410 pages for one story. It also boasts blurbs, including three from Publisher’s Weekly and one by New York Times #1 Bestselling author Debbie Macomber, as member of the Moliére Memorial Symbiotic Back Scratching Association. No big Quill Award win noted here, alas.

Our team is still losing.