The Sultan, The Skater, The Bicycle Maker

My Chapbook, The Sultan, The Skater, The Bicycle Maker, is available to pre-order! You can do that at The Ledge Press. If you order by November 30, you save 10% off the cover price and receive free shipping.

Thanks to Elly MacKay for the cover art, "On that small hilltop in the mountains, their lives were intertwined."

Elly MacKay's Theater Clouds

When I learned I won The Ledge Press Poetry Chapbook Competition last spring, I started looking for cover art. My publisher invited me to participate in that process, and I was giddy. Authors are not always offered this opportunity, and I appreciated the chance to be included. I spent hours on Etsy. When my eyes itched and burned, I rested them. But after I rested them, I generally always discovered that my shoulders were hunched and scrunched. So I un-hunched and un-scrunched them. But soon I was back on Etsy, where I found Elly MacKay's Theater Clouds. Oh my, such magic and enchantment in her dioramas!

I remember the magic of reading Beatrix Potter's books -- maybe, particualry, The Tale of Two Bad Mice -- and I remember my belief in the world Potter created. Each time I read that book -- even years later, when I read it with my son, I felt as though I entered Lucinda and Jane's dollhouse with Hunca and Munca, and I watched, uncomfortably, as the two bad mice broke the ham and bent the tin spoons and pulled Jane's clothes from her chest of drawers. And so it is with Elly MacKay and her art, but with less discomfort and more delight. Pure delight. I enter it, fully.

I am so happy Elly's art will be featured on the cover of my chapbook, The Sultan, The Skater, The Bicycle Maker. I've carried this good news around in my heart all summer and into these autumn days. Imagine my pleasure when, yesterday, I discovered that her work is featured in the October issue of O Magazine (The Oprah Magazine).  It's a beautiful full-page spread. Page 38 of the actual magazine.

Here, also, is a link to Elly MacKay's work featured on Flavorwire. Her prints are lovely, but it must be wonderful to stare into her full dioramas, built with layers of paper and filled with sailboats and foxes and little houses with smoke puffing from chimneys.

Emily Dickinson Visits Mackinac Island

Last weekend I visited Mackinac Island and found Emily Dickinson! It was lovely timing: near perfect, because I didn't know Emily was going to be there and I was giddy to discover her presence.

Here's the news: On July 28, from 7 a.m - 7 p.m., many people representing several organizations collaborated to present a 12-hour reading on Mackinac Island of Emily Dickinson's 1,789 poems. As I understand it, The Emily Dickinson Museum organized much of this.  I stopped by the Little Stone Church in the afternoon, where someone read aloud to me.  Then I walked down to Mission Church, where (later) a reproduction of Emily's white dress would be on display for a candlelight reading. I arrived there before the dress, before the people who brought the dress, and before anyone else was there.

Mission church was built in 1829 by a flock of Presbyterians. It was quiet and cool when I stepped inside, and I sat for several minutes soaking up silence and old Presbyterian austerity. I was a little sorry to have that silence interrupted when a few people arrived to set up for the evening, but I was glad to have a chance to see the dress and the candles, and to have that brief preview of what a candlelight reading in Mission Church might be like. I was sorry I could not stay for the real event.

Here's a little corner in the front of the church. I suppose it's what we call a narthex today, but "narthex" has too much high-church in it for this simple meeting house.

It was hard to walk out of that church, away from the dress and the candles and the promise of poetry, but almost as soon as I stepped outside I saw this:

The Ledge Press Chapbook Winner

A couple of weeks ago, I learned that my manuscript, The Sultan, The Skater, The Bicycle Maker, won The Ledge Press 2011 Poetry Chapbook Competition. I'm happy, so happy inside, and am looking forward to having these poems tucked between the covers of a Ledge Press chapbook. I'll have 28 poems in the book. You can read the first one here.

Poetry, poetry, poetry! Chapbooks! So many chapbooks! And lit journals...so many journals. It was such a pleasure to go to AWP in Chicago and soak all that up. I came home with many books, including James Haug's Why I Like Chapbooks (Factory Hollow Press). It's really lovely. Why does Haug love chapbooks? Here are a few excerpts:

They're distilled books.

They're books that aren't books. They prefer not to be books.

They can travel in your clothes.

They're the one percent of what you remember about a dream.

The train on the way there was mostly on time and the train on the way home was on time, and tucked in between those trains there were so many books, so many ideas. Also some very good food and some special friends, and a cozy stay at the Burnham.

Poetry and Tree Climbing

It all makes sense! A neuroscientist writes HERE that poetry comes from our tree-climbing ancestors. It's all about synesthesia: about the connection between the mental map of branches we need to be able to see, and the mental map of branches that we need to be able to feel. And here is my grandmother, not too many years before she died.

Old Poems on a New Blog

Two of my poems that originally appeared in Sugar House Review are now featured online. Daniel Luevano created his blog to give poems from the printed page a new home in the virtual world. I like what he's doing and I'm delighted to have "The Ringmaster" and "The Pawnbroker" included on the site. You can find them here.

What I Want to Read

I know you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but come on, this is cool: it's Thomas Hart Benton! I hope those Farrar, Straus & Giroux publicists are sending out lots of posters and bookmarks with this one.

To be fair to myself, my interest in this novella started with what I read in yesterday's New York Times Book Review, which does not even feature an image of the book cover. For reviewer Anthony Doerr, part of what makes the book so compelling is its length: 116 pages. "One airplane flight, or one shady afternoon in a chair somewhere, and you'll have passed through the entire thing." O.K. That's not a ringing endorsement. The "Don't worry! It will all be over soon!" bit (no, I'm not quoting Doerr there) sounds more like what your dentist says before filling a cavity. But Doerr is onto something. Here's more about that in his review:

In an 1842 review of Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Twice Told Tales," Edgar Allan Poe said that apart from poetry, the form most advantageous for the exertion of "highest genius" was the "short prose narrative," whose length he defined as taking "from a half-hour to one or two hours in its perusal." Novels, Poe argued, were objectionable because they required a reader to take breaks. "Worldy interests intervening during the pauses of perusal," he wrote, "modify, annul or counteract, in a greater or less degree, the impression of the book." Because you have to stop reading novels every now and then -- to shower, to eat, to check your Twitter feed -- their power weakens.

All of that aside, Train Dreams sounds like a book I'd love. It has biplanes, six-horse teams, wolves, coyotes, logging gangs, and, of course, trains.

Also, for those who are interested in this sort of comparison, Doerr's review is fun to read just before or just after Ann Patchett's introduction to The All Of It (see blog post below). Doerr first read Train Dreams in a 2002 issue of The Paris Review. He has a proprietary feeling about Johnson's book and is reluctant to share it with the masses. ("Because who wants to see her sacred meadow flattened by the sandals of tourists?") Patchett is more generous in her account, and is elated to know the little gem of The All Of It, first published in 1986, has been reissued and is out in the world for all to find.

What I am Reading

What I am re-reading, really. This chapbook is a thing of beauty, written by Vermont Poet Karin Gottshall and published by Argos Books. Read it from beginning to end in one sitting, because there is a gentle but perfect narrative arc, a cumulative intensity that poetry manuscripts don't always have. Read it soon, while NPR is sharing news about Hurricane Irene's staggering damage in Vermont. Read it later, when those stories aren't being told. Read it in the bathtub by candlelight (I did). Read it in the sunshine (I am). It's sad and it's haunting, but it's hopeful too.



Here is where you can order it: http://argosbooks.org

The Michigan Poet

The Michigan Poet featured my poem "Hay Season" in the July broadside. They make some beautiful posters, and I'm delighted to be included in the line-up.

A cappella Zoo

Yesterday's New York Times had an article about light bulbs. Confused about new energy laws, some people are stockpiling incandescents. Which made me think of the cover on the current issue of A cappella Zoo. It's odd and weird and wonderful: a man in bed, screwing on a silver-bottomed bulb/head. The issue is full of good stuff inside too. And I'll have a poem in the next issue! Thanks, A cappella Zoo!

Poetry and Snow

A blizzard is on its way and I just learned that Weave Magazine has accepted two of my poems for the summer issue. It's a fantastic combination, imminent snow and forthcoming poems. I have lots of tea and a stack of new library books and there is Hopslam in the garage.

(I love the cover art on this current issue. David Pohl is the artist. When you go to his website, the snow in the picture is animated. Very cool...graceful and whimsical.)

John Cage

Today's New York Times Book Review includes a review of Kenneth Silverman's biography of John Cage, Begin Again. I'd like to read it, and I'd like to read Cage's own collection of essays and anecdotes, Silence. John Adams wrote the review and concludes it with this observation: "What emerges most powerfuly in Begin Again is Cage's enormous capacity for work, together with his exceptional self-discipline as an artist (something learned from Schoenberg) and his willingness to approach every new challenge with a beginner's mind."

That idea of using a "beginner's mind" for every artistic challenge is key to Cage, and key to any creative process. Curiosity, imagination, and a willingness to believe in unconventional conclusions are assets of the "beginner's mind." They're innate -- they're part of the "beginner's mind" -- and yet, oddly or interestingly, they are not always or automatically transferred to the "experienced brain." Art is impossible without them.

What Matters in the End

In Wednesday's New York Times, there was a story about a small pocket of Switzerland where Romansh is spoken. The number of Romansh speakers peaked in the early 19th century, but the peak amounted to about 2.2 percent of the total Swiss population.

Bookseller Elisabeth Maranta owns a store in that small pocket of Switzerland. When she was asked why most of the books in Romansh she sells are poetry, she said, "When a patient is dying, he writes only poetry."

Glee

I still have not seen "Glee," the new Fox television series that everyone seems to love. I don't generally watch television, which is why, I suppose, I have not seen "Glee." And I do not generally trust public opinion about television. But something about the dialogue about "Glee" is different -- maybe because "Glee" is different -- and I really want to settle down with a bowl of popcorn and turn on the T.V.

Sunday's New York Times featured an article (a "mashup") by Charles Isherwood about Barbara Cook and "Glee." Here is an excerpt:

"The process by which a gifted singer evolves into a real artist is probably impossible to delineate clearly. It may well be a mystery even to the artists themselves and probably has much to do with age and endurance and learning not to escape into music or stand outside it, judging the performance as they give it, but to live more fully in it. Great singers fold into their songs the scars that life's inevitable setbacks leave upon everyone (and the satisfactions too) without turning singing into raw, formless confessional."

One could substitute "poet" for "singer" and "poems" for "songs" and it would still make good sense.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Last year, I bought Lawrence Ferlinghett's Poetry as Insurgent Art at City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco. It's full of statements that feel like aphorisms, some of which seem a little too simple. But they are fun to read, and the book is the sort of thing one can pick up and consume quickly in one sitting, or, as I sometimes do, pick up and browse one or two pages at a time. Last night, unable to commit to a new book, I read it all again. It's also been several days (oh let's not count) since I've started a new poem, and so I feel restless and unsatisfied. Ferlinghetti's book is the just the thing for these times. Here are some highlights, all quoted directly from the book:

Your language must sing, with or without rhyme, to justify it being in the typography of poetry.

Your life is your poetry. If you have no heart, you'll write heartless poems.

Can you imagine Shelley attending a poetry workshop?

Pursue the White Whale but don't harpoon it. Catch its song instead.

Write short poems in the voice of birds.

And this, from the section titled, "What is Poetry?"

It is private solitude made public.

West Branch

Coffee and eggs and good news! The fall/winter issue of West Branch is out, featuring my poem, "Isle Royle, 1928," AND two poems by my friend, Karin Gottshall, "Operative" and "Household Gods."

Poetry and Movies

I’ve had a strange concentration of Japanese culture in the last month or so. Yes, Tommy and I saw Hayao Miyazaki’s Ponyo, but I also recently read Muriel Barbery’s The Elegance of the Hedgehog, mostly set in a bourgeois building in an upscale neighborhood in Paris. The concierge in that building is fascinated by Japanese culture, reads Tolstoy, listens to Mozart, and shares a kindred spirit and a wonderful friendship with a new resident, the wealthy Japanese filmmaker Kakuro Ozu. Last week, I rented Yasujiro Ozu’s Tokyo Story. I have not seen that yet. I was going to watch it last night, but the evening was too nice to sit in a dark basement, so I walked up to Wells Hall to see Departures, presented by the East Lansing Film Society. This was directed by Yojiro Takita and won an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

If you haven’t seen the film but intend to do so, skip on ahead to the next paragraph but don’t read anymore of this one. I’m heading straight to the end of the film here. It’s the endings, in part, that differentiate so many films from so many poems. (Among other things, of course. Cinematography. Popcorn. Soundtracks.) Is it fair to compare two genres? Maybe not, but I can’t stop considering the differences. That scene at the end of the film, in which Daigo is kneeling beside his dead father, preparing the body for departure, is incredibly sentimental. On my walk home last night, I kept thinking how this sort of sentimentality works in a film, but wrecks a poem. I knew when Daigo was trying to unclench his father’s hand what was inside the fist. There was this sudden swell of knowledge, which maybe every viewer felt and registered as a private knowledge. But when the stone drops out of the fist, it is not a surprise. We know it’s coming. And that is one difference between a film and a poem.

A film can still be good even when it is predictable and sentimental, but a poem must surprise the reader. There are so many ways of describing what a poem is, or what a poem does. Yeats said a finished poem makes a sound like the click of the lid on a perfectly made box. I read a review of Nicholson Baker’s The Anthologist in Thursday’s New York Times. Here are the last three sentences of that: “An essay, he says, is a glass of water. But if a few drops of that water fall on a hot frying pan and sizzle? Then you have a poem.”

I think, in a good poem, one cannot read the first half of it and figure out what happens in the second half. If there is a clenched fist in a poem, one cannot guess what is inside it. If one can guess what is inside the clenched fist, the poem has probably failed. I’m not saying a poem has to end with fireworks…or even sizzle. Fireworks can be pretty predictable. But when a poem clicks shut it ought to leave the reader feeling a little… unbalanced. Poetry is not yoga. It’s not intended to relax us or help us sleep well. It’s also, usually, not terribly cathartic. Which means it often stops short of making us cry. The thing with poems is, they will often make you ache without delivering, or inducing, the full relief of tears. Films are good for tears, and that is why I’d classify most films as entertainment. Poems, like much of life, leave us aching.

Fun with Fire

I am working on another long poem, this one involving Olivier Messiaen, Paris, and birdsong. A fire seemed necessary. A colorful fire. So I added one of these pine cones, which came from my grandpa's.

Ripening

I have just ordered this, by Paul Hunter. (I don't think we are related, but I might feel we are after I spend more time with his work.)