Sonnet 73, Comic

That time of year thou mayst in me behold

When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang

Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,

Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.

In me thou see'st the twilight of such day

As after sunset fadeth in the west,

Which by and by black night doth take away,

Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.

In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire

That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,

As the death-bed whereon it must expire,

Consum'd with that which it was nourish'd by.

This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,

To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

The Craft of the Prose Poem

Diane Lockwood invited me to talk about the prose poem in her Poetry Newsletter this month. 

Interview with Sibling Rivalry Press and Denise Duhamel and Maureen Seaton

The interview is live on the Best American Poetry blog. Denise and Maureen do these amazing collaborative poems, and they are collected in their new book, Caprice, published by Sibling Rivalry Press.

Writing Comic

You would think after all these years that I'd get used to giving readings, but I always feel slightly sick on the days I am going to read. But it's always nice to read with friends as I am today-reading with Robert Miltner andKaren Schubert at Macs in Cleveland. 

Writing Comic

It's hard not to think of Keats' ode "To Autumn" at this time of year. For some reason the poem always reminds me of Mom--maybe because she read it aloud to me (she had this way of reading poetry--she sounded just like Katherine Hepburn), maybe because she loved fall so much, and because she survived TB. I think of Keats writing this poem when he was ill with the disease. 

Writing Comic

I've spent the week trying to polish off some poems and a manuscript for a chapbook.  I finally sent them along. Now I want to unsend them. It's always like that for me. The worst is when a book comes out, and I want to rewrite it. I dream of the day I don't feel like this! 

Of Course Men Suffer From Vagina Envy--a few thoughts on political poetry

I have a rule that I make myself follow. If I don’t like a particular kind of writing, I have to try to do it, at least once.  Or twice. That was part of my logic for writing Why God Is a Woman. 

Because I used to believe that I disliked political poetry. I didn’t want to listen to anyone pontificating, especially poets. Most political poetry, I reasoned, left me feeling indignant, and I don’t like indignation. I don’t even like the word. It gets stuck in the back of my nose and makes me yearn for cough syrup. It has that Robitussin flavor.

I reasoned, I prefer the personal to the political. Of course, the personal can be very political, but it doesn’t have to be, right?

Maybe I’m not unique in this respect. In the book, Half the Sky, the writers Nicholas Kristof and Sheryly WuDunn describe how general statistics about the plight of girls and women by NGOs do not inspire donations nearly as effectively as personal stories. So telling people that between 600,000 and 800,000 girls and women and boys are trafficked across borders each year, while millions more are trafficked within their own borders, is less moving than telling a tale of a single girl sold into slavery.  Especially if you give that girl a name.

Names have such power.

I was thinking about that last night while watching the Democratic debate. I was impressed with O’Malley’s story about gun violence, in part because he told the tale of one family’s fight against the NRA. He took the issue so personally, he looked as if he might break out into tears or rage at any moment. I was actually surprised. He was such a human being up there.

I was also surprised that I enjoyed the debate. What’s wrong with me? I asked myself.

Usually I get this creepy feeling while watching political events or debates—the same feeling I had as a child while watching a circus act. I am not sure what’s real or true. So many facts (or are they lies?) tossed up in the air, the politicians walking on a trapeze they might fall from if they lose their confidence or don’t think quickly enough. Some appear to be clowns. Others magicians. Still others are so glossy, so masked, so well-trained at keeping the ball balanced just-so on their noses. How can they stand the endless charade? For many it goes on for months or years.

The circus quality of politics reminds me of Garcia Marquez, of his One Hundred Years of Solitude in which the political and the surreal are one and same. So the colonel, after years of war, can’t remember why he’s fighting. He longs for death and goes home to make little gold fishes in his studio. The making of gold fishes, he states, is as significant as waging war.

In an interview with WYSU, I was asked if I was thinking of Marquez when I wrote Why God Is a Woman, because the book has elements of magical realism. In it I created my own Maconda or imaginary country, although  my imaginary country is an island where women rule, and men are the beautiful sex. I fell so in love with my island, I still dream of it some nights and wake up wanting to add pages to the book.

While many of the prose poems in Why God Is a Woman are not political, many are. What really surprised me was how much fun they were to write. Poems like “Vagina Envy” and “The Token Man” were a pure delight. They were my ice cream and cake. I found myself laughing aloud as if on a sugar high, and thinking that men probably do suffer from vagina envy. Why shouldn’t they? After all, as Eve Ensler points out in The Vagina Monologues, vaginas are something to envy.  

I also found myself seeking out and loving political poetry. I realized the obvious, that there are so many political poets and poems I already loved including Carolyn Forche’s “The Colonel,” many of Tim Seible’s poems including “The Debt” and “After All,” so much of Yehuda Amichai’s and Eduardo Galeano’s poetry. I especially love Galeano’s The Book of Embraces. I think of his poem, “The Language of Art” whenever cell phone- users manage to photograph acts of violence. His poem ends: The photo was a coup. Chinolope had managed to photograph death. Death was there: not in the dead man, nor in the killer. Death was in the face of the barber looking on.  

And I feel myself looking on.

Ben Jonson Comic

Now that I'm thinking of food and poetry, it's hard not to mention Ben Jonson (I always spell it Johnson) and his wonderful "Inviting a Friend to Supper." For a long time I wanted to know what Canary wine was. Tom Clark informed me that it's wine from the Canary Islands. Shakespeare talks about Canary wine as well. 

Yeats comic

It's funny how certain lines of a poem stick in the mind--like "ancient glittering eyes" from "Lapis Lazuli." Or rather, "Their ancient, glittering eyes are gay."  

Coleridge Comic

I was reading "Kubla Khan" and actually began to wonder if there were cows in heaven. Or if the milk would be dairy-free. I love being overly-literal.

Art for Art's Sake

Art for Art’s Sake

I’ve always liked the term that is a translation of the French, l’art pour l’art, meaning art should be for no other reason than its beautiful, beautiful self. I picture it as a goddess, as Rilke’s angel, as Dante’s Beatrice, as something so intoxicating, it should be illegal. And maybe it is. 

I often think art as that place where logic goes around the bend, where the mind doesn’t stay tucked in like a shirt in tight trousers.  Where a dream is as important as daily errands. Where the mind wanders and wonders about the humdrum and the absurd in equal proportions.

Maybe that's because I do have a habit of going around the bend.

I’ve always wondered about halos, for example, ever since the day I was told by a Sunday school teacher that I could grow a halo. But only if I behaved like an angel. (I didn’t worry about the “if only” part of the sentence.)  Would it be hot? I asked. She said yes. Would I glow like a streetlamp?  Would it be dangerous to walk around with a hot glowing head? She didn’t say.  I thought about that for years, imagining myself lit up like a lamp all night on the downtown mall in Charlottesville, Virginia.  Bugs would flit around me. Random drunks or addicts would stop by to chat, too drunk or drugged to be surprised to see a lady lit up like that.

It was that memory that inspired my poem, “The Woman with the Halo,” that is included in WHY GOD IS A WOMAN.  As I was writing the poem, I began to wonder what if the poor woman could never turn off the light? Or dim the halo? What if she tried to lie down and sleep, and her sheets caught fire?

I also wondered, as I often do, what is the value of this kind of thought? Or poem?

Is it enough to say,  l’art pour l’art . . .  Or should art have a function? Like say, a cup holder?

As a mother, I often heard parents discourage their children from pursuing any kind of art because it has no use.   And becasue the arts rarely create any income, which is why I often translate l’art pour l’art as  art, poor art.  

Years ago I taught with Robert Bly at a prose poem workshop in New Hampshire. One night we were out a restaurant, and he became suddenly angry about how poets let everyone take advantage of them. About how little the world rewards poets for their hard work.  He was staying with a painter at the time, a man who sold his paintings for thousands of dollars.  When will I ever sell a poem for anything more than a few bucks here, a few bucks there and nothing everywhere else? he asked.  Do you know that I give my books away to anyone on the street? I mail them to perfect strangers, too? (It’s true. He not only gave his books away, but he mailed them to everyone and anyone.)  I was really surprised because Robert Bly was so famous. He’d written best sellers. I assume his poetry sold well.

An idealist, I argued that money isn’t why we write poems.  He looked at me blankly and said, So you don’t think much of yourself? You don’t think you have as much value as a carpenter? A garbage man? A secretary?

I thought of Bly when I was reading an interview with Eileen Myles in the Paris Review https://mail.google.com/mail/#search/paris+review/150249738cb53a5c and I ran across this quote:

“When I took the job at UC somebody came up to me at a reading and said, How does it feel to have sold out? I’m like, What did I sign up for? A life of poverty?”

I also thought of Bly when I met Sienna Oristaglio at the last AWP. Sienna and her co-workers, Noah Bloomenson-Cook, and Karina Vahitova have started the Void Academy http://thevoidacademy.com, which is committed to the idea that art has value. They design websites and teach artists how to connect to the world rather than push it away as I am inclined to do.

After all, how can I write if I am inviting the world into my life? And how can I worry about sales? Honestly, I don't want to get too depressed! 

Thanks to that meeting (yes, SOMETHING good came out of AWP), I have this new website.  I am getting used to it—having  a place where people can easily find me on the web.  A place to display my comics. I am still not sure about personal value. I do love their ideas, and I wonder if maybe Bly was onto something. He insisted change begins in our minds. 

Frost, "The Woman Not Taken"

I thought of this comic when I was reading The Paris Review article by David Orr on "The Road Not Taken," that suggests this often quoted poem is one of the most misread poems in the country.

Gwendolyn Brooks, "Tea Real Cool"

 I was playing with the first line of this poem by Gwendolyn Brooks: 

THE POOL PLAYERS. 
 SEVEN AT THE GOLDEN SHOVEL.

We real cool. We
Left school. We

Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We

Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We

Jazz June. We
Die soon.

Writing Comic

Emma Lazarus--Donald Trump Comic

Watching the debates last night, I thought of Emma Lazarus's famous poem, "The New Colossus." When was our country last that welcoming?  

Writing Comic

I keep thinking of new poems I could add to WHY GOD IS A WOMAN--about all the ways the world would be different if gender roles were reversed. One of my friends emailed and suggested I should draw a Boberto doll--the male version of a Barbie doll that I wrote about in the book, but I don't think the drawing would pass the Facebook censors. 

Bishop, "One Tart" (a continuation)

Bishop, "One Tart"

I love Elizabeth Bishop's poem, "One Art." It's hard not to keep going in this vein with something like: 

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to be. None of these will bring disaster

I lost a man with such good looks! My last, or
next-to-last, of three lovers who just left.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

I lost two skinny fellas, lovely ones. And, fat,
some men I owned, some as wide as a continent.
I miss them, yes, but it wasn’t a disaster.

The last stanza, so lovely, so true and painful--I would never want to mess with: "Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture/I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident/ the art of losing's not too hard to master/though it may look like (write it!) like disaster."

Another Writing Comic

Writing Comic