AMINA LAWAL

Previously, I asked you eight million peeps to sign an Amnesty International petition against the stoning death of Amina Lawal in Nigeria. I, myself, signed that petition. But I wasn't happy with the wording of the petition as I felt that it didn't sufficiently emphasize Amina Lawal's rights as a human being. I felt the wording of the Amnesty International petition, which is here at http://www.amnesty.org.au/e-card/petition.asp, focused mostly on the issue of the death penalty versus Amina Lawal's basic rights as a human being. (It is certainly possible for a pro-death penalty believer to still be outraged by the situation with Amina Lawal!) So, here is a copy of the letter sent to Nigeria, followed by the Amnesty International petition wording. Sure, sign the petition, too....but if you're of a mind to send a more personalized letter as I was, here's one suggestion:

His Excellency
Dr Rufai A O SOULE
High Commissioner for the Federal Republic of Nigeria
26 Guilfoyle Street
Yarralumla ACT 2600

Your Excellency,

I am writing on behalf of Amina Lawal to request that the Government of Nigeria act to show her the compassion and mercy she is entitled to as a human being. Every country has the right to be governed by their own laws. Governments are obligated to serve the interests of their citizens which includes securing their rights as human beings and ensuring that laws are equally and equitably applied to all citizens. The application of Sharia law to Ms. Lawal for the "crime" of adultery is inhumane and certainly as applied is being used as an instrument of terror and degradation of women -- a class of citizens the Government of Nigeria is obligated to provide special protection.

The punishment to be given to Ms. Lawal is in breach of international human rights instruments signed and ratified by your Government. For that reason, I kindly call on your Government to take all necessary measures to secure respect for the rule of law in every part of Nigeria which includes respect for the prohibition on torture and cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment and punishment.

The Government of Nigeria must also ensure that no-one is discriminated against before the law on grounds of his or her religion, sex or social status.

I also call on the Federal Government of the Republic of Nigeria to exert in due time its prerogative of mercy to ensure that Amina Lawal is not executed.

Yours Sincerely,


================

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL PETITION VERSION

His Excellency
Dr Rufai A O SOULE
High Commissioner for the Federal Republic of Nigeria
26 Guilfoyle Street
Yarralumla ACT 2600

Your Excellency, I am deeply concerned about the pernicious effects on human beings and on their rights of the introduction of the new Sharia- based Penal Codes in Northern Nigeria. These new codes establish the death penalty for crimes such as adultery and introduce cruel, inhumane and degrading punishments such as flogging and amputation.

All these punishments are in breach of international human rights instruments signed and ratified by your Government, for that reason, I kindly call on your Government to take all necessary measures to secure respect for the rule of law in every part of Nigeria which includes respect for the prohibition on torture and cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment and punishment, such as the practice of corporal punishment. The Nigerian government should also make death penalty a thing of the past.

The government of Nigeria must also ensure that no-one is discriminated against before the law on grounds of his or her religion, sex or social status.

I also call on the Federal Government of the Republic of Nigeria to exert in due time its prerogative of mercy to ensure that Amina Lawal, and all the people who have been sentenced to death under any penal legislation in Nigeria, are not executed under any circumstance. All of them have the right to a fair trial, including the right of appeal.

SCREAMING MONKEYS

Well-hung GWM, 6', 200 lbs. seeks smooth GM (Asians a plus!)
...
Pinkerton looking for Butterfly to suck my Suzie Wong.
--from "Five Rice Queens" by Timothy Liu

I believe the key defining element of Asian-American identity is the quest for justice
--Mari Matsuda

I've been focused on translation issues recently, not because I have a translation project in mind (and please note that the translation opinions offered in prior posts generally have been others's opinions). My interest stemmed from how translation reflects the issue of identity-making, specifically who speaks for others and how others speak on behalf of others.

I'm currently proofreading a 522-page manuscript that will have been nearly 6 years in the making by the time it is released this fall by the publisher Coffee House Press (it has a fall release, notwithstanding the summer release date noted by Amazon):

Screaming Monkeys: Critiques of Asian American Images

The anthology is edited by M. Evelina Galang (who also serves as fiction editor), in collaboration with me as Poetry Editor, Non-fiction Editor Sunaina Maira, Art Editor Jordin Isip, and Found Images Editor Anida Yoeu Esguerra.

This tome -- thick enough to majorly hurt someone you might throw the book at -- is one BIG EFFIN' SCREAM against all the racist images, texts and incidents that have plagued Asian America. Its initial inspiration was a 1998 Milwaukee Magazine article that, in reviewing a restaurant, called the son of the owners a "monkey." The slur reflected the article's condescending, objectifying and exoticizing approach. But what also was clear is that the reviewer used a racial slur first cast towards Filipinos by American soldiers during the Spanish American War and then here in the U.S. after the first Filipinos arrived on the Northwest coast. "Monkey" is a term that also has been used against the Black population.

Evelina's Introduction explains:

Though seemingly a small incident, relative to the greater historical injustices against Asian Americans, this matter posed its own significance we could not so easily dismiss. Poet Eileen Tabios and I had a furious exchange of e-mails debating the issue. In the end, we concluded that the reason things like this happen is because our history books -- and I mean our American history books -- do not cover this, our Asian American history -- the atrocities, the accomplishments, the contributions, the acknowledgment that we are a part of this America, not visitors, not ghosts, nor foreigners, not monkeys.

Screaming Monkeys offers a way to alleviate this gap in knowledge. I encourage everyone to check it out; at the next AWP convention in Chicago (I believe in March), there also will be a book event featuring this necessary text.

I anticipate that this book is my last project as an "Asian American' editor. I am actually saddened -- and irritated -- that, as my last project, I had to engage in a "Scream." Unfortunately, the book's existence also says something about the current state of affairs as regards race relations et al. Some of the topics covered include interracial relationships, the Wen Ho Lee affair, Andrew Cunanan, the Chinese Exclusion Act, advertisements that exploit Orientalism, racist practices in academia, Newsweek's article on "Why Asian Guys are on a Roll", imperialism, anti-Asian violence, and many more.

It is a mark of the complexity of the issues raised that the book freely reveals ambivalence as well about having this project. In the concluding essay that serves as a "companion" to the book -- very helpful for teachers -- the text circles back to the excerpt from Evelina's introduction (that I note above) to say:

M. Evelina Galang begins the volume with this leap of faith: "...What if [the] editors at Milwaukee Magazine had been as familiar with the history of Asian immigrants in America as they are with the history of immigrants on the Mayflower? Someone would have seen the mistake, caught it, erased it, and never let it see the printed page. Knowing, she implies, stops racism before it happens. It kills bugs dead.

This belief is foundational to the Asian American Movement that spawned the scholarship [Helen] Zia discovered in college. Nevertheless, it prompts a critical question about how this aim might have been co-opted once "diversity" became a catch-word in American national self-conception. Vijay Prashad notes that American racial representation in the post-Civil Rights era is dominated--and contained--by the logic of liberal multiculturalism:

The anti-racist struggle ... fought against the arrogance of white supremacy, but the United States' response to the struggle was simply to adopt the liberal patina of multiculturalism to fend off the challenge. Despite multiculturalism's roots in anti-racism, it now seems to be restricted to the promotion of an ahistorical diversity and the pedagogy of sensitivity.

One could say that the very presence of anthologies like this one unwittingly contributes to that "liberal patina of multiculturalism." Screaming Monkeys gives voice to a "primal scream" that attests to Asian American prescience and anger, but is it merely content to render visible what was previously invisible? Does it do more--ifso, what? Can it transcend the moment of its own emergence?

Excellent questions. Check out this book so you can provide the answers through, indeed, Education, education, education. Meanwhile, here's an excerpt from Li Young Lee's contribution, a response to Ralph Waldo Emerson's statement that Chinese are "not even as good as the Africans, who are at least willing to carry our wfine wood. They have no culture to speak of, no music, no literature..." Basically, it seems Li Young would gobble up Waldo, after cleaving through his head:

And I would eat Emerson, his transparent soul, his
soporific transcendence.
I would eat this head,
glazed in pepper-speckled sauce,
the cooked eyes opaque in their sockets.
I bring it to my mouth and--
the way I was taught, the way I've watched
others before me do--
with a stiff tongue lick out
the cheek-meat and the meat
over the armored jaw, my eating,
in sensual, salient nowness,
punctuating the void from which hunger springs and to which it proceeds.
--from "The Cleaving"

Screaming Monkey poets offering their poems are: Li Young Lee, Brian Komei Dempster, Thaddeus Rutkowski, Bao Phi, Marilyn Chin, Mei-mei Berssenbrugge,maiana minahal, Bino A. Realuyo, Jon Pineda, Nick Carbo, Denise Duhamel,Molly McQuade, Purvi Shah, Lori Tsang, Xue Di (translated by Wang Ping and Forrest Gander), Timothy Liu, Oliver Francisco de la Paz, Patrick Rosal, Lawson Inada, Vince Gotera, Luisa A. Igloria, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Johnson Cheu, Luis Cabalquinto, Marlon Unas Esguerra, John Yau, Michella Rivera Gravage, Luba Halicki, Arthur Sze, Maya Rani Khosla, and Oscar Penaranda. Other Asian American poets are involved through other forms: Walter Lew and Lois Ann Yamanaka through fiction and David Mura through essay.

My poetry editor's comments took the form of a poem. I chose my poem "Nobility" because it ends with the lines:

The physical reality of revolution is decadence. The aftermath is what transcends.

SOMETHING = SOUNDTHING

Such different perspectives from those who would translate and those who would be translated. Of course, it's the latter who run the risk of being silenced, colonized, co-opted, subverted.....

The following is a relatively new revelation for me from my own Poetry Practice:

Sound need not lack integrity.

OBSERVATION ON FATE

Rattlesnake

Neighbor ran over one-year-old rattlesnake. She watches bugs and other critters eat at the flesh from the ropey corpse. The skin is a beautiful lime green, and offers exactly the image of the wrist-band on her new watch. Weeks earlier, she had tried to order the same watch with a different color, but the watch was available only with that color -- she had thought, Why wear such a pallid color over one's pulse? Now she knows the answer: so a baby rattlesnake will live forever through memory. And the color is no longer pale, but resonant.

HOW I GOT TRANSLATED INTO
THE ONE WHO WILL BE BE EATEN

Guillermo Juan Parra writes:

"it was wonderful to read about Malcolm de Chazal--his thoughts on trees, nature & humans are beautiful and i'll have to look him up soon--your question on translation yesterday had me thinking about a writer who strangely enough coincides very much with what you mentioned about de Chazal--Wilson Harris, the Guyanese novelist & poet whose writings have been crucial for me in the last few years--

"anyways, Harris came to my mind last night in relation to translation--his novel Jonestown (Faber & Faber, 1996) includes the following ruminations by the narrator, a ghost named Francisco Bone:

Those hidden texts may never--I would say will never-- be absolutely translated. They are wilderness music. They infuse an uncharted realm, a mysterious density, into every chart of the Word. They infuse immense curiosity and vitality as well in empowering the vulnerable prey (such as ourselves) to seek for endless translations in time of differentiations within ourselves between prey and Predator.

"Harris writes in English but his work (i think) is an attempt to translate the indigenous ancestries that so many of us in South America (and elsewhere) have lost and then had to rebuild, in foreign tongues--his ruminations on mestizaje, from an anglophone perspective, have been blessings for me in my own writing, or reading--i know very little about the Philippines but it seems that its culture is unique among the rest of Asia because of a form of mestizaje similar to what has happened here in the Americas--perhaps it's the Spanish colonial connection--"


*****

Thanks for sharing, Guillermo. Here's something else worth sharing from noted scholar Vicente L. Rafael, author of White Love and Other Events in Filipino History (University of California at San Diego) (who posted it on Flips List):

"Eileen:
 
I was just reading the discussions on Flips regarding translation, something that I do quite a bit of work on. Walter Benjamin's difficult essay was mentioned. I myself am never sure if I understand it but one of the more illuminating commentaries on it is an essay by: Paul de Man, "Conclusions: Walter Benjamin's 'The Task of the Translator'" in Paul de Man, The Resistance to Theory.  
 
As to the question you raised, "is everything translation?" (which then forces you into a dead end debate regarding the difference between an "original" and its "copy), I would  re-phrase this as, "is everything translatable?" (which shifts our thinking about translation as an act and as an event for which we take responsibility).
 
The answer is no. For example, proper names are not translatable. You are Eileen Tabios whether in Tagalog, French, Greek or German. Proper names transfer but do not translate. You can say this not only about names of people but names of objects, of experiences, etc. Another example, the Tagalog "loob" which of course means more and less than "inside" or "soul".
 
Such proper names refer to singularities that may be similar to other singularities but are fundamentally incommensurable with them.  They thus resist translation and thereby constitute a principle of untranslatability that makes possible, indeed underwrites (like a signature) the act of translation. Any consideration of translation then must also take place against the backdrop of the unstranslatable, what resists equivalence..
 
Finally, there is the question of politics and ethics. Like every act, translation has consequences and for this reason entails responsibility. To translate is in the first instance to respond to a demand for translation whether this demand comes from the text itself or from some other source. Every response brings with it responsibility. The question of course is: responsibility to whom? For what?
 
These questions remain open and can only be answered in speicfic contexts. For example, missionaries believe it is their responsbility to translate what they think is the word of God. But in doing so, they impose protocols of hearing, understanding and behaviour on others who may not want such changes. Responsibility is no guarantee that one is being just and ethical. 
 
Regardless of whether translation is just or unjust, irresponsible or responsible, we can be certain of one thing: that translations keep alive what they translate in another form. This is where Benjamin is helpful. He argues that translation guarantees the "original" an afterlife. It insures that the original will live on in however distorted, bastardized, or marvelous form. In this sense, we can think of translations as archives that conserve the originals and in doing so allow for their future readings.
 
Translations allow for future readings and re-readings: this makes translation an event. Perhaps every literary work is literary to the extent that it calls for its translation, whether in the same language or in another (e.g, exigesis, interpretation, etc.), that is to say, it is open to the risks, even catastrophes of transformation. In being translated the work gains yet another afterlife beyond the life of any single author or reader.
 
You might say this is the truth of translation. But it is a truth that is infinitely open to chance.
 
best, vince r."
 
*****

Thanks Vince! Naturally, Moi promptly responded on that List and make the equivalent offer to you Peeps as well:

"What I'm latched onto now is how, say, "Eileen Tabios" is not translateable, is the same, across a variety of languages.  So, as a helpful suggestion to you various Filipinos -- if ever there's a situation where you have to translate "Eileen Tabios" to Tagalog, Bikolano, Cebuano, and other Filipino languages (e.g., if I end up visiting the Philippines someday), please feel free to translate my name from the literal English of

"The One Who Cannot Cook And Whom You Must Feed."

As literal a translation of my new name above would be appreciated.

Best,
Eileen


*****

One would think the matter would end there. But mischief-ridden poet Luis Cabalquinto must chime in:

"Tabios" in Bikolnon is the name of a fish species found in only one spot on Planet Earth -- Lake Buhi in the town of Buhi, province of Camarines Sur. The fish used to be advertised as the smallest in the world, until they discovered an even smaller species. Now it's declared as the smallest "commercial" fish in the world. The fish is delicious, and you literally ingest hundreds in one hungry swallow. Cooked with coconut milk, it makes great pulutan (or "sumsuman" in Bikolnon).

Well, just fughedabout it! THIS, OF COURSE, IS CLASSIC MIS-TRANSLATION!!!! My point is that Tabios over here is to be FED, not EATEN!

The vagaries of translation, indeed....!

POETRY DOES NOT IGNORE STORY...AS IN A VENEZUELAN NARRATIVE (INCLUDING CARACAS POETS!)

The identity issue is a major issue not being addressed by modernist and post-modernist poets. It's not been addressed by later modernist poets because many often want to assimilate and be part of the mainstream and, thus, do not question the mainstream's use of identity, how it fixes them with a narrow possibility. It's not being addressed by post-modernists because they say that the author is dead. But why is the author dead at a point when demographics have changed such that all these people who were once marginalized and silenced can now talk -- but during a period when the author is supposedly dead?"
--John Yau, from Black Lightning

Writers are always a threat to power, since we are bound to speak our individual and collective truths, beyond any affiliation within the static ideologies of Left or Right. While I cannot dismiss the work of brilliant Cuban poets, such as Sílvio Rodríguez, Cintio Vitier and Roberto Fernández Retamar, who stand behind Castro’s disastrous and tired regime, I believe their position is partly based on their high standing in Cuba’s cultural and government elite. If we humans are to survive these next few decades, we will have to learn how to untangle ourselves from allegiances to certain inflexible Leftist ideals that mirror the imperial project currently being imposed on the planet by Bush & co. How this might be accomplished is beyond my grasp. However, maintaining an awareness of fascist tendencies, whether on the Left or Right, is a crucial first step.
--Guillermo Juan Parra


My thanks to Guillermo for sharing his essay below, which was first published in New York Nights, an anti-war newspaper edited in New York City by Julien Poirier and Marisol Limon Martinez. Guillermo had noted, "my viewpoint is of course biased against Chavez, so my essay is definitely not a definitive account of the current crisis in Venezuela." More recently, Guillermo wrote:

reading through the vene-newspapers in recent days & talking w/ family there do seem to be some hopeful signs for the country because the Referendum process is already in progress and many international observers (Jimmy Carter Center, Brazilian President Lula & others) are saying it should happen, as long as both sides play fair--

thank you for offering to post the essay--all you bloggerz are writing so many wonderful things--i've always been fascinated by poets' journals/notebooks, and the blogs, for me, are like getting a privileged view into your writing worlds--

peepin, boston
best wishes,
guillermo

==========

Tropical Fascism: Hugo Chávez’s “Bolivarian” Disaster, 1998-2003
By Guillermo Juan Parra

I

Current Situation & Recent History
Former Venezuelan army Lieutenant Colonel Hugo Chávez Frias was the leader of a coup attempt and military insurrection against the presidency of Carlos Andrés Pérez in 1992. Chávez failed in his attempt at capturing Caracas, while other members of the then-secret group of leftist military officers established themselves victoriously in several key cities across Venezuela, including Maracaibo, Barquisimeto, and Valencia. Chávez and his fellow conspirators had been planning this attack for almost ten years, at times meeting with former Marxist guerrillas who had survived the insurrections against several Venezuelan governments during the 1960s and 1970s. Chávez’s unit of soldiers attacked key military and government buildings in Caracas, from dawn until late afternoon. These sites included the military and civilian airport of La Carlota, on the banks of the polluted Guaire River, which runs from one end of the valley to the other; as well as the presidential house, La Casona. Both of these targets are located in residential and commercial areas in the East of Caracas. The death toll that day was high, due to the fact that many people were at their jobs or on the way to work and were caught in the crossfire.

When Chávez was captured that day, he made a brief statement on television, calmly asking his comrades to turn themselves in to government forces, acknowledging defeat. That statement was shown on television for days afterwards, and Chávez was soon hailed by many people as a leader with the courage and integrity to stand up to the corrupt failures of recent government administrations. In 1992, Venezuela was awakening to the rude hangover of globalization, after five decades of massive petroleum revenues, an era often referred to as “Venezuela Saudita” (Saudi Venezuela). Despite boasting Latin America’s oldest democracy (founded with the overthrow of military dictator Marcos Pérez Jiménez in 1958), the country was in a downward economic spiral caused primarily by the widespread corruption and mismanagement of successive presidencies.

Chávez has been president of Venezuela (or, as he renamed it after his inauguration, the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela) since he won a landslide election in 1998. His four and a half years of what he calls a “revolution” have plunged Venezuela, one of the wealthiest members of OPEC, into a financial, social, and cultural crisis unseen since the country fought for its independence from Spain in the early 1800s. Although he was voted in by an overwhelming majority of Venezuelans, including large percentages of the lower, middle and upper classes, his disastrous policies and combative governing style have helped swell the opposition ranks to approximately 60 to 70 percent of the population, as of last month.

Chávez has based his “revolution,” or as he calls it “el proceso” (the process), on the ideals of Simón Bolívar (1783-1830), who led the fight against Spanish colonization for more than two decades. Unlike Bolívar, however, Chávez is not an intellectual and he has very little use for the subtlety and willingness to compromise that are required for running a country. In this sense, Chávez is a mirror image of George W. Bush’s embarrassing antics as the first U.S. president to use the word “crawfish” as a verb. From the very beginning of his presidency, Chávez has promoted a confrontational, sensationalist, and simplistic style of discourse that seeks to divide Venezuela into those who are for “the process” and those who are against it. Any attempt, particularly by intellectuals, to offer a more complex approach to the problems of the country is labeled as “fascist” or “oligarchic” by Chávez, who leaves no room for dissent from his “process.” His weekly television and radio show, Aló Presidente, has become a running joke (albeit a bad joke, with deadly consequences) among those Venezuelans who are unwilling to take seriously a president who sings folkloric songs, talks interminably about his revolution’s accomplishments, recounts jokes and childhood memories, while the country stumbles further into chaos. His show is a classic example of a derivative and cliché magical realist mind, attempting to make reality fit into a distorted perception.


1. Bolivarian Circles
I want to draw attention to three flawed events, or actions, that represent the utter failure of Chávez’s “revolution” in offering anything to the majority of Venezuelans, other than poverty and a multiplying crime rate. The first of these implementations is the creation of the Circulos Bolivarianos (Bolivarian Circles). These are, for the most part, neighborhood associations ranging in size from a handful to several dozen people. These groups are modeled primarily on the Cuban model of neighborhood groups whose duty it is to defend the Cuban Revolution (an Orwellian surveillance technique that has been quite effective in turning average Cuban citizens into snitches). Most of the Bolivarian Circles do indeed perform much-needed neighborhood clean-ups, crime watches, literacy campaigns, etc. in specific cities, towns and neighborhoods throughout the country. (A recent Mother Jones article highlighted these positive aspects of the Bolivarian Circles.) However, a small but important number of these circles are in actuality urban guerrilla warfare units. These units are being trained, to varying degrees, by Cuban military advisors. Various journalists and opposition leaders have speculated that members of Colombia’s FARC guerrilla forces are also in charge of training these Bolivarian Circles. At most of the dozens of opposition marches organized in the past year by the Coordinadora Democratica (Democratic Coordinator—a loose coalition of opposition political parties, ranging from the Marxist Bandera Roja to the conservative business association Fedecamaras) these violent Bolivarian Circles have shown up to intimidate, and sometimes physically attack, the unarmed protesters. Individual writers, as well as newspaper, radio, and television journalists, have been targeted by these Bolivarian Circles for harassment, death threats, and physical attacks. The offices of media outlets critical of Chávez, including two of Venezuela’s most important newspapers, El Universal and El Nacional (along with the offices of Globovision and Radio Caracas Television, two prominent TV channels), have been attacked by the Bolivarian Circles on several occasions in the past two years.


2. April 11, 2002
The second event I would like to address is what occurred on April 11, 2002, when an opposition march of over 1 million peaceful protesters reached the presidential palace (Palacio Miraflores) in downtown Caracas. Since early that morning, the aforementioned Bolivarian Circles were stationed around the presidential palace, armed with handguns, rifles, stones, sticks, etc. and vowing to “defend the revolution” against the “oligarchs.” Throughout the day, arguments and scuffles broke out between opposition members and Chávez supporters. Inexplicably, at a certain point in the day, sharpshooters who had been hidden on rooftops in surrounding skyscrapers, armed with sophisticated long-distance rifles, began shooting into the crowd of civilians. A gunfight ensued between Chavistas and members of the Policia Metropolitana (Caracas’s central police force, which is under the control of one of the city’s mayors, Alfredo Peña, a former Chávez associate and current member of the opposition). There were a total of 19 deaths that day (among both Chavista and opposition members), none of which have been successfully investigated by the government at this moment, despite the fact that many of the shooters were caught on television and still cameras. The most infamous of these shooters caught on tape were a trio of Chávez supporters (one of whom is a Caracas city councilman named Richard Peñalver) who were filmed as they unloaded multiple rounds of automatic handgun fire from Puente Llaguno (a bridge in downtown Caracas) into the street below them (for footage refer to CNN, MSNBC, BBC, etc). Several weeks ago, a Chavista judge released the three gunmen for the second time and dismissed the charges against them, citing insufficient evidence, despite the fact that several of the dead that day were found below Puente Llaguno, within the range of these three shooters’ guns. Peñalver and his accomplices have been hailed by Chávez as heroes of the “revolution,” who helped to repel the “fascist” onslaught of unarmed protesters.

For 48 hours after the events of April 11, Chávez was removed from power by several of his highest ranking generals, and kept on an island off the coast of Venezuela. During that time, riots in support of Chávez in the Western areas of Caracas left approximately 35 people dead and millions of dollars worth of damages to small businesses and private houses that were looted. Following an internal power struggle among high ranking generals for and against Chávez, those military officials in support of the “revolution” were able to gain control of the situation, reinstating Chávez after the now-famous, and historically unprecedented “mini-coup.” While there has been speculation that the U.S. Embassy and the CIA were involved in the events of that day, and even though it is undeniable that the interim presidency of former Fedecamaras president Pedro Carmona was dangerously right-wing, Chávez still must be held accountable for the sharpshooters placed on the roofs of skyscrapers, who shot into an unarmed mass of civilian protesters numbering over one million. These are, after all, buildings in the vicinity of the Miraflores Palace, and other government offices, that could have only been accessed by those in the military closest to the government. (For more detailed accounts of those events, see articles in The Nation and The New York Times [U.S.], as well as The Guardian and The Independent [UK].)


3. “Revolutionary” violence
This use of “revolutionary” violence is at the core of the third event I’d like to discuss. In early Spring of 2003, Chávez disarmed the Policia Metropolitana, leaving them only with outdated handguns and bullet-proof vests. While Chávez has claimed that he disarmed the Caracas police force due to their shoot-outs with Chavistas over the past year, his primary goal has been to encourage a state of lawlessness in the Capitol City. Caracas, for many years a cosmopolitan and vibrant world financial center plagued (like most Latin American metropolises) by escalating crime rates, has in the past year become a veritable war zone. The Policia Metropolitana do not have the proper weapons necessary to contain the well-armed criminals that have taken control of large sections of the city, particularly in the poorer neighborhoods in the West of Caracas. Over the recent Easter holiday weekend, El Nacional reported an average of 29 violent deaths per day in Caracas. Rather than create policies to contain the crime wave of kidnappings, home invasions, robberies, and assaults that are plaguing the country, Chávez has in fact encouraged violent crime, simplistically claiming that the poor have a right to take from the rich. The only problem with his logic is that the victims of violent crime are not limited to the upper and middle classes. In essence, Chávez is allowing common criminals in Caracas, and elsewhere, to run wild. He is hoping in this way to intimidate the opposition into submission, creating a sense of paranoia for the majority of Venezuelans, regardless of their political affiliation. Even Chavista senators have not been immune to kidnappings, robberies, and other such violent crimes that occur now on a daily basis.

So what has Chávez’s “revolution” accomplished in four and a half years? Its Bolivarian schools are a mess, most of them left half-built and poisoned by a simplistic curriculum that essentially teaches outdated Leftist propaganda, while offering no solid educational skills. The unemployment rate has risen to alarming levels, and currently Chávez has prohibited the use of U.S. dollars by anyone in the country, effectively choking most industries in Venezuela. The two-month work strike that was organized by the Confederacion de Trabajadores Venezolanos (CTV), the Venezuelan workers union, along with Fedecamaras fizzled out by late January. A strike of that duration and magnitude (ranging from store owners to the national petroleum company, Petroleos de Venezuela, known in Venezuela as PDVSA) has not been seen before. Any president (who is not a dictator) would have taken this as a sign to compromise and dialogue with the opposition. Chávez successfully rode out the strike because he was willing to let Venezuela free-fall into an economic crisis in order to maintain his hold on power. Some commentators have referred to this process as the “Cubanization” of Venezuela. By destroying the economy and bringing the country to its knees economically, Chávez can then attempt to rule over a demoralized and desperate populace.

One example of the “Cubanization” of Venezuela is the fact that Chávez supplies Fidel Castro’s regime with free oil on a regular basis, in exchange for assistance from medical doctors, teachers, and agricultural advisors. This “revolutionary” generosity towards Castro’s hopelessly outdated and corrupt regime (the longest running dictatorship in Latin America, currently celebrating four decades of absolute power) is inexcusable in a country where Venezuelan doctors and teachers are currently jobless. If the American and European Left continue to cling to the illusion of the Cuban Revolution as an alternative to Bush’s fascist imperial project, we will only be repeating the same mistake that the Left made in supporting Stalin from the 1930s until the 1950s. While Castro and Chávez are nowhere close to the “revolutionary” madness of Stalin’s gulags, they nonetheless embody a disturbing autocratic style of “tropical fascism” -- essentially a Leftist Caribbean version of consolidated and unquestionable power residing in one individual and his inviolable Party. I don’t mean to dismiss the concrete and symbolic gains of Castro’s revolution, in terms of education, medicine, and the principled anti-imperialist stance Cuba has taken against U.S. hegemony in Latin America. However, past gains cannot be used to support a form of government that consolidates power only into those hands holy enough to be “revolutionary.” It is no coincidence that many in the Venezuelan opposition refer to Chávez and his inner circle as “talibanes” (or Talibans) -- since they are fundamentalist in their desire for ultimate power and smug in their sense of “revolutionary” morality.

The recent events in Cuba in April 2003 provide a clear indication of the fascistic and dictatorial tendencies that motivate Chávez and his “talibanes” -- Castro being an intellectual mentor to the Chavista “process.” Approximately 75 dissident writers and journalists have been arrested and sentenced to between 5-30 years in jail for daring to add their voices to the Projecto Varela (a movement asking for democratic elections in Cuba, which was able to collect 11,000 signatures last year). The trial and execution by firing squad (within a matter of days) of three hijackers, who attempted to take a ferry from Havana to Miami, is another symptom of a desperate and essentially dictatorial regime. Before defending Cuba on grounds of national sovereignty against the incursions of U.S. imperialism, we should refer to the following books: Before Night Falls by Reinaldo Arenas and Mea Cuba by Guillermo Cabrera Infante. These autobiographical accounts by two of Cuba’s most important writers (who were both a part of Castro’s revolution during its early stages) are a testament to the fact that artists are always a liability for revolutions that seek to perpetuate their grasp on power indefinitely.

Writers are always a threat to power, since we are bound to speak our individual and collective truths, beyond any affiliation within the static ideologies of Left or Right. While I cannot dismiss the work of brilliant Cuban poets, such as Sílvio Rodríguez, Cintio Vitier and Roberto Fernández Retamar, who stand behind Castro’s disastrous and tired regime, I believe their position is partly based on their high standing in Cuba’s cultural and government elite. If we humans are to survive these next few decades, we will have to learn how to untangle ourselves from allegiances to certain inflexible Leftist ideals that mirror the imperial project currently being imposed on the planet by Bush & co. How this might be accomplished is beyond my grasp. However, maintaining an awareness of fascist tendencies, whether on the Left or Right, is a crucial first step.


II

Kafka Revolution

“Here are my identification papers.” “What are
your papers to us?”cried the tall warder. “You’re
behaving worse than a child. What are you after?
Do you think you’ll bring this fine case of yours to
a speedier end by wrangling with us, your warders,
over papers and warrants.”
--Franz Kafka

In 1982, my Venezuelan father and North American mother went through a drawn-out and bitter divorce, which eventually led to my siblings (Ramiro and Isabel) and myself moving from Caracas to Florida. During the proceedings for that contentious divorce, while we were still in Caracas, our father had requested a “prohibición de salida” (a prohibition from leaving the country) at a municipal court for his three children, all underage at the time. When my mother received custody of us he had the prohibition lifted in the courthouse where he had originally filed the motion. Ramiro and I both returned to Caracas on various occasions throughout the 1990s, each time without incident. In the summer of 2002, however, I traveled with Isabel for her first time back to Venezuela in twenty years. We arrived on separate flights, and as I was passing through immigration (with my American passport) the official at the counter informed me that a prohibition of exit from Venezuela was listed on his computer records. He asked me if I had ever had any trouble getting in and out of Venezuela before, as he cryptically studied my passport and the computer screen. (I would later come to recognize this calm, but menacing, demeanor among other DIEX officials—a calm not unlike that of Joseph K.’s accusers in The Trial.) I pointed out the various stamps on my passport from previous visits and he let me through with a warning that I should contact the Venezuelan immigration offices in Caracas (referred by its acronym as the DIEX) to clear up this matter. I had not known about this legalistic footnote from our parents’ divorce until it appeared on the DIEX computer screen that night. This turned out to be the first ripple of paranoia that passed through me, and which would engulf Isabel and myself at the end of our visit with family in Caracas.

The paranoia arrived one month later, as Isabel attempted to board her early morning flight from Caracas to Boston, via Miami. She was detained at the DIEX counter, within view of my father and I, standing as we were behind the departure gates in the central lobby. For the next three hours we waited and talked with several DIEX officials who insisted that Isabel would not be able to leave Venezuela that morning. She was eventually able to retrieve her luggage and we sped toward the downtown DIEX offices for the first of many meetings. In the previous weeks we had consulted with two family members in Caracas who are lawyers. They had reassured us that, since we were no longer minors, or even Venezuelan citizens, we should ignore the warning I received upon entry to Caracas. The officials had no legal basis for detaining two U.S. citizens on a twenty-year old, expired court order.

Needless to say, we did not accomplish anything with the DIEX that first day -- we were told that, at best, we could apply at the tribunal courthouse for a cessation of the prohibition of exit order, which would take “a few weeks.” We rushed frantically to the U.S. Embassy, a recently-built fortress on the top of a mountain overlooking the East side of Caracas, where the official in charge of U.S. Citizen Affairs spoke with us and offered to investigate as to what little she might be able to do regarding our case. We filed a report with her office and she explained that, as we thought, that prohibition of exit should no longer be valid, since we were over 18 and not Venezuelan citizens. She emphasized the illegality of the DIEX’s pronouncement, and exasperatedly listed several other cases of people with U.S. passports experiencing similar sorts of harassment from the DIEX in recent months. Two U.S. business men, for instance, had recently been denied entry into Venezuela because their passports were due to expire in six months, even though they were only requesting thirty-day visas.

The next day we received a phone call from the U.S. Embassy official, who provided a contact for us to consult at the DIEX offices. I was told to arrive the following morning at this official’s office with a typed statement explaining our “situation.” After hanging up, I spent the rest of the day typing this absurd document in a legalese Spanish which attempted to explain why we should be allowed to leave the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela -- a task which I was fortunate to be aided in by our family’s neighbor, a lawyer. I moved between the computer and the television, where images of that day’s march (July 11th) in commemoration of the events three months before, were being broadcast continually -- a march which again drew over one million anti-Chávez protesters to the streets of Caracas.

Since Isabel had not been able to sleep much at night, she waited at our house while my father and I underwent a morning’s worth of meetings with various DIEX officials in the labyrinthine offices of their central downtown headquarters. It would be tedious to recount the genuflection required of my father and I as we pleaded with and tried to explain our case to these officials, who, to our benefit, seemed to agree on the absurdity of our situation. These, I now realize, were members of “the process” who are often called “Chavistas light,” because of their antipathy to the more shrill, uncompromising elements of the Bolivarian “revolution.” At one point, a calm official explained that our situation was the result of the improved computer system which the DIEX had just installed last year, suggesting that this was the first time in twenty years that “things are working as they should be in our files.” Another calm, friendly official referred to the three “minors” listed in the court document—at which point I had to explain to him that those “minors” no longer existed, my mustache and Isabel’s height clearly indicating our current adult status, twenty years after that document’s filing date.

We were allowed to leave several days later, with a provisional permit for exiting the country. We had to pay for Isabel’s new ticket and, as I write this, our father is waiting for this prohibition of exit to be annulled from court records, a feat which could take months or years to be officially signed by a judge, somewhere in the courts of “the process.” I am writing this from the privileged standpoint of someone with a U.S. passport. Without the contacts provided by the U.S. Embassy, Isabel and I would most likely still be in Caracas, enjoying the benefits of “the process.” What makes this minor episode so ridiculous is that this is happening in what was once one of the most technologically advanced and cosmopolitan cities of Latin America. When I think back on last summer, I can see the endless lines of people at the DIEX, crowded into the halls of that office building, reaping the slowness and “revolutionary” bureaucracy of “the process.”


Caracas Poets

Drenched in magic, my blood flows
toward you beneath dawn’s prophecy.
--Juan Sánchez Peláez

On the night before Isabel’s attempted departure, we attended a poetry reading at the Librería Macondo, a small independent bookstore in Sabana Grande, the massive pedestrian boulevard that stretches through miles of downtown Caracas, from the gates of the Universidad Central de Venezuela (the country’s oldest university) to the streets surrounding Plaza Francia in Altamira, the symbolic center of the opposition movement against Chávez. The reading was the last in a series organized by the poet Maria Antonieta Flores, who had just concluded teaching a year-long poetry workshop at the Romulo Gallegos Center for Latin American Studies (known by its Spanish acronym, CELARG). In three separate readings, her graduating students were paired with an established writer. That night the featured poet was Leonardo Padrón, whose book Boulevard had just been published in February. Padrón’s collection takes the valley of Caracas as its subject, offering unflinching and elegiac glimpses of the metropolis as both myth and daily habit. The work in this collection alternates between concise prose poems and frantic verses, evoking the poet’s notebook as a parallel image of the city it inhabits. The untitled opening text frames Caracas as the universal City, carrying traces of other locations on every block:


Day breaks. The dawn, they will have guessed, is gray. A man walks through Washington Square, Sabana Grande or Via Venetto. Through Amsterdam’s delirium, Sao Paulo’s perfumes or Barcelona’s avenues. That man is a native of the cement, a resident of damage and splendor. That man—the alphabet tells us—is festive and humble. Without him knowing, the city molds his vision by one millimeter. “He who digs Los Angeles IS Los Angeles,” swears Allen Ginsberg.

Day breaks.

The cathedrals’ morning enthusiasm happens.

In a city as loud as Caracas, it was a revelation to be able to sit so quietly in a room with fifty other people, listening to a group of poets read from their typed sheaves. All of us in the audience sat completely still, in fold-out chairs and on the carpet in between bookshelves, breathing in the words as we would prayers. The readers sensed our attentiveness and read beautifully, momentarily re-imagining the crippled city outside. In her introductory remarks that evening, Maria Antonieta Flores described poetry as an entity belonging to no one, that is passed on from person to person and country to country. Each of us left the bookstore that night carrying those poets’ images and rhythms gratefully. Although the crisis outside that room had not been mentioned by any of the readers, we could feel it momentarily dissipate, millimeter by millimeter.

During my month in Caracas, I carried its poets with me everywhere. As Isabel and I visited family, walked countless avenues, sat in parks watching Mount Avila hover over the city, passed through museums & bookstores, rode in buses and subway cars, I consciously invoked poems to help ward off the disintegration present in all aspects of daily life in Caracas. Even before Chávez’s misguided adventures in simplistic and poorly-executed Che Guevara imitations, Caracas has long been a city attuned to death and chaos mingling with beauty. Martha Kornblith, a poet born in Lima, Peru and raised in Caracas, wrote poems that evoked the nightmare of Venezuela Saudita’s decline in the late 1980s and early 1990s. She committed suicide in her late thirties, in 1997, leaving behind the confessional book of poems Oraciones para un dios ausente (1994) [Prayers for an Absent God], as well as two other collections. Kornblith had been a member of a group of writers named Eclepsidra, who were committed to investigating their visions of a fractured and passionate Caracas. (One of that group’s members, the novelist Israel Centeno, has recently received death threats from certain Chavistas, who resent the fact that writers might not share the same “revolutionary” vision of Venezuela that they and their supreme commander hold up as gospel.) In a fragment from her poem “Family Saga,” Kornblith evokes the city in perpetual crisis that Caracas has become:

To go one Saturday
afternoon to a bookstore
without realizing
how dull we were,
plagiarizing even
curses and suicide.
To go one Saturday to the
bookstore
to copy Silvia Plath
or the closest neighbor.
Although either way,
almost everything always converged
in misfortune
it was an argument
to suddenly encounter
a current of vision
and run back to my house
to write a poem
about this city
I hate so much.

Saturday is a day to hate
this city
to hate this city
and its poets
until death

In April of 2001, the poet Juan Sánchez Peláez, now in his eighties—whose visionary and surreal first book Elena y los elementos (Elena and the Elements, 1951) inaugurated postmodern Venezuelan poetry—published four poems in the newspaper El Universal.

Aside from a poem in Octavio Paz’s magazine Vuelta, he had not published anything for over a decade when these poems appeared. In his own enigmatic and silent manner, Sánchez Peláez warned us, as Tiresias had done so often before, that Venezuela was crashing into something unimaginable:

We are surrounded by strangeness
with its spring that drinks us

Strange, the red grapes
we’ll continue chewing

strange
the vast April moments
where your path and mine
might coincide
at the edge of thick trees
and beloved countries

crude winter’s guard
stalks us
and we ignore the weight of our arms
if they’ll be of any use
if the air will be fresh or humid in April
or if the flowering grenadine will sustain us in distress.

------------------------------

—Boston, May 2003
Some Sources:

El Nacional [www.el-nacional.com]
El Universal [www.eud.com] (includes articles in English)
Venezuela’s oldest and most important newspapers.

Tal Cual [www.talcualdigital.com]
A left-of-center, opposition newspaper, founded three years ago by Teodoro Petkoff, a former guerrilla leader and one-time Chávez associate, who was a co-founder of the political party Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) [Movement Toward Socialism].

The New York Times [www.nytimes.com]
Articles by Juan Forero and Ginger Thompson have been, for the most part, objective and have offered relatively in-depth analysis of the crisis.

Antiescualidos [www.antiescualidos.com]
Website that offers the perspective of the most radical sections of Chávez’s supporters, the so-called “Talibanes” of “the process.”

El Meollo [www.elmeollo.net]
Literary website maintained by the novelist Israel Centeno.

*

-- Jeremy Adelman, “Andean Impasses,” New Left Review 18, Nov/Dec 2002. [www.newleftreview.org]
-- Richard Gott, In the Shadow of the Liberator: Hugo Chávez and the Transformation of Venezuela (London: Verso, 2000).
--Martha Kornblith, Oraciones para un dios ausente (Caracas: Monte Avila Editores, 1994).
--Barry C. Lynn, “Chaos and Constitution,” Mother Jones, Jan/Feb 2003. [www.motherjones.com]
--Leonardo Padrón, Boulevard (Caracas: Cincuenta de Cincuenta Ediciones, 2002).
Juan Sánchez Peláez, Poesía: 1951-1989 (Caracas: Monte Avila Editores, 1993).
--Gregory Wilpert, “Collision in Venezuela,” New Left Review 21, May/June 2003.

EYE-SUSMARYOSEP!!!

Just read an e-mail with the word "rollerskating" in it and read said word as "translating"...

TRANSLATIONS, VENEZUELAN WOMEN POETRY ...
AND A BRIEF DIGRESSION ON MALCOLM DE CHAZAL

48:4 When we walk in a dense forest everything clings to us. We sense the pull of inert forms on all sides, inert with one exception: when we brush past the thorny stalks of a creeper, nature seems to check our progress with the fingers of a living hand drawing us towards it. Liana--you hyphenated vegetable-animal, your silent supple clawings evoke the supreme loveliness of the human touch.
--from Sens-Plastique by Malcolm de Chazal


With this post, I’m delighted to present Guillermo Parras translating into English a few poems by Venezuelan poets Elizabeth Schon and Patricia Guzman. (Note that Patricia Guzman has an accent over the “a’ in her last name but I haven’t figgered that out on blogger format.)

As an aside, Guillermo notes that: “the friend of mine who visited Schon a few years ago also said that Schon is very connected to trees--and that since her husband died she always associates him with trees--that their strength and growth, for her, often symbolize her husband's presence.” I found this very interesting as, synchronistically, Barry Schwabsky just alerted me to the wonderful writings -- specifically Sens-Plastique -- of Malcolm de Chazal (which moved me to write some (modest) poems over at my “Gasps” and “Hay(na)ku” poem blogs). Chazal, like Schon, apparently felt a strong connection with nature, as in this excerpt from the information on the wonderful Duration Press:

The idea behind Sens-Plastique may best be described in Chazal's own words, as translated by Irving Weiss:

My philosophical position in this work derives from the principle that man and nature are entirely continuous, and that all parts of the human body and all expressions of the human face, including their feelings, can actually be discerned in plants, flowers, and fruits, and to an even greater extent in our other selves, animals. And although minerals are usually considered inanimate, death-like rather than life-like, I would have them also tend towards that supreme synthesis, the human form, especially when they are in motion. "Man was made in the image of God," but beyond that I declare that "Nature was made in the image of man."

But I could never have done this by reasoning. I had to rely on subconscious thinking, the only intuitive resource available to humans--which few of us ever use in an entire lifetime. . . .I should add that I could never have learned to think subconsciously without years of ascetic withdrawal. depriving my body, isolating my self, concentrating my mind and spirit. . . until by stages I had perfected what I consider to be a totally new method of writing.

I am taken by Chazal’s words partly because -- in case you peeps haven’t figured out yet -- I am preparing for, cough, hermitry -- and am wondering how mine will turn out; it certainly would be lovely to end up finding said “a totally new method of writing.”

But, more relevantly to this blog post, the notion of landscape is also integral to Guillermo’s way of translation. Here are his words on what he calls his “Geronimonian translation methods”:

i feel like translation was imposed on my life from a young age (moving back and forth between Caracas & Boston, then Florida later) so that i associate it with my physical body as well as my mind--currently, translating Venezuelan poets allows me to be in Caracas somehow, to recover and share words, places that I've lost--personal footnote: i studied at the Naropa Institute (briefly) in the early 1990s when i first began writing poetry and during a workshop with Allen Ginsberg one of the few comments he gave me on my poems was that one of them sounded like "translationese"--to this day I still am disturbed by his observation, but i assume he was seeing some awkwardness in my language or tone that carried over from my body's movements during childhood & adolescence.

For me, knowing not only the language but the places where it is spoken (in my case the valley of Caracas) is crucial. I don't think i could translate without having some sense of the place the words and author come from. However, i've translated some poems by Peruvian writers (Javier Sologuren, Cesar Moro) and feel a similar connection to them, without having been to Peru.

Guillermo and I began discussing translation, in part, because it’s also a current topic on the Flips Listserve (of Filipino writers or anyone interested in Filipino literature). Such discussion touched on what Guillermo describes as “the specter of imperialism to be aware of when a first world translator works with texts from the so-called third world (Aijaz Ahmad's "In Theory" comes to mind as a great analysis of these uneven relationships).”

Moreover, Guillermo – and others on the Flips Listserve noted the importance of the translator needing to be acquainted with the translatee’s culture and context. I’m going to quote poet, fiction writer and hopefully future vineyard manager (wink) Bino A. Realuyo, author of the novel The Umbrella Country, here because I think it’s useful to hear the perspective of someone being translated. Bino sez he feels:

a translator must have insight in the development of the former (original) language. for instance, i carry with me everywhere i go NERUDA's Residencia en La Tierra in its first bilingual spanish/english translation. i absolutely love and enjoy the english translation. i thought the translator understood neruda's chilean origins as well as the fact that his spanish might have changed from having lived in so many countries as a diplomat. plus, i get to improve my spanish too.

i feel that when u translate, u transform more than the words, but the culture, the moment, the poet as well.

i think it will be a crime to translate works of anyone unless the translator has lived in the country where the translatee comes from. and really deeply understand the author, his passion, his work, and the world he lived in at the time of the writing. i have a friend who wanted to translate my work to spanish and we couldn't even agree on the translation of the title of my book. he says, (los) PARAGUAS, i say, SOMBRIA. and i say sombria, because the word has multiple meanings…..

=========

The nature of translation is obviously more complicated than I can touch on here (though I’m open to receiving and printing more feedback). Yes, the discussions ended up referencing Benjamin, too but….let me move on. Let me move on to the nub of the matter: the poems themselves. Here are the Venezuelan poems, each followed by Guillermo’s translations:

First three poems from Elizabeth Schon, "Antologia poetica" (Caracas: Monte Avila Editores, 1998)

3 sections from "Arbol del oscuro acercamiento" (1994) / "Tree of the Dark Approach"

"En el centro de la semilla el comienzo
en el centro de la luz la penumbra
La ciudad
llanto, ceguera, estupor
El sol aposenta en el alma
La lluvia cae entre las hierbas
y desaparece
Las copas se vuelcan
desbordan el convulso valle intimo del desamparo
La mirada no se asombra frente al paso
hacia la sombra del arbol."

*****

In the center of the seed beginning
in the center of light, dimness
The city
wailing, blindness, stupor
The sun sits in the soul
The rain falls among herbs
and disappears
The cups tip over
They flood abandonment's convulsive, intimate valley
The vision is not surprised in front of the steps
toward the tree's shadow.

*

"Se contraen las siluetas
dejadas al amparo de la ciudad
El mutismo respalda la palabra
La sombra del arbol
en los ocultos parajes de la piel
en la paradoja del corazon
y su anhelo de cavidad
cumbre, soledad
Y no hay oposicion
entre las redes continuas del agua
y las del viento
entre los extremos de la tierra
y la figura doble de los espejismos
La mirada dirige las distancias
coloca el punto
La voz estabiliza el vacio
abre el olvido
El arbol aguarda."


The silhouettes contract
abandoned to the city's protection
Muteness sustains the word
The tree's shadow
in the skin's hidden ledges
in the heart's paradox
and its desire for absence
summit, solitude
And there is no opposition
among the water's continuous webs
and those of the wind
among the earth's extremes
and a double figure of hallucinations
The vision directs distances
places the point
The voices stabilize the void
opens oblivion
The tree awaits.

*

"Calma
si desaparecen los contrarios
y un insito alumbramiento
se riega en transparente y dulce
comunidad de hierbas."

Be calm
if the contraries disappear
while the integral light
scatters a sweet and translucent
community of herbs.

++++++++++++++

Elizabeth Schon, "Del rio hondo aqui" (Caracas: Editorial Diosa Blanca, 2000)

1 section from "Del rio hondo aqui" / "From the Deep River Here"

"La extension del alma es el silencio."

The soul's extension is silence.

++++++++++++++


Patricia Guzman (1960)

one poem from "Canto de oficio" (Caracas: Editorial Pequena Venecia, 1997).

1 section from "Canto de oficio" / "Duty Song":


"He pasado toda la noche debajo de los pajaros
Donde queda el dolor?
Al final del pajaro blanco que se tumba contra mi
No hagas ruido
Si respiras, le moveras las alas
Separate sin comer
Tu estomago esta lleno de angeles dormidos
Oyes cuanta agua tienes en el corazon?
Apresurate
Los muertos ya se fueron
Dispon el mantel e invita
Es bueno que se sepa
Yo grito mientras duermo
He pasado toda la noche debajo de los pajaros"


I have spent the entire night beneath the birds
Where is pain?
At the end of the white bird lumbering toward me
Don't make noise
If you breathe, you'll move its wings
Isolate yourself without eating
Your stomach is full of sleeping angels
Can you hear how much water you have in your heart?
Hurry
The dead have already left
Place the mantle and invite the guests
It's good that it be known
I scream while I sleep
I have spent the entire night beneath the birds

BLOGGING POETICS

On August 6 and 7, I had written about Colombian author poet Alvaro Mutis, which led Boston-based poet Guillermo Parra to write. He was moved to squawk at me, despite my lack of a squawkbox, partly because, as he put it about my August 10 blog post (that really is worth revisiting in my Archives because it’s very entertaining, if I do say so myself):

"...you had me laughing out loud with the story of the machista waiter in the Caracas restaurant--and then "Ben" taking the gum out of his mouth after tasting the wine!--unfortunately, the machismo in Venezuela is ridiculously out of hand, as you saw--you'll be happy to know however that in the last couple decades there has been a tremendous increase in the number of women poets publishing and amplifying the up until then male-dominated poetry scenes--

i'm hoping to publish an anthology of Venezuelan poets (20th cent.) in English translation sometime in the (distant) future and some of the best poets are women: Jacqueline Goldberg, Martha Kornblith, Ana Enriqueta Teran, Elizabeth Schon, Yolanda Pantin, Patricia Guzman & others--

but, yes, your anecdote brought me back to the entrenched ridiculousness of machismo in Venezuela--one last item re: Venepoets--last summer in Caracas i was trying to get in touch w/ Juan Sanchez Pelaez to ask his permission for putting together some translations--i never did reach him (although my uncle remembers meeting his brother in the 1970s, as fellow doctors) but i found out that he lives with his wife in a neighborhood called Los Palos Grandes, which is at the foot of Monte Avila—

when you walk around that neighborhood the mountain looks like a massive, frozen green wave that's hovering over you--you can feel it floating there in all its shades of greens, crowned by clouds--

whenever i read his poems i imagine the mountain somehow seeping into his manuscripts from above--he publishes very infrequently (his last collection was "Aire sobre el aire") but he did publish some poems in the newspaper "El Universal" in the spring of 2001--in case you're interested, they're at:

http://noticias.eluniversal.com/verbigracia/memoria/N152/creacion.htm

i'm not sure when i'll get to return to Caracas because of a Kafka-esque computer error that showed up last summer for my sister and I--we were being denied exit from Caracas to return to Boston (a long story, we ended up having to seek help from the US Embassy)--anyone w/ a US passport is being harrassed at immigration in Caracas during the last year or so--

Chavez and his gangsters (dubbed by many in the opposition as "los talibanes" because of their fundamentalist rhetoric) are unfortunately the worst disaster to have hit Venezuela since the War of Independence--i'm currently trying to petition to get my father out of there--poets and writers are under constant pressure in Caracas right now, since Chavez considers most intellectuals as dangerous and "oligarchic"--a huge mess, but my translation work has helped me to balance out all of the horrific events of the last four years--

forgive my wandering email--your post got me thinking about Caracas--i look forward to reading more of your excellent posts and i will drink some coffee too (sip) as i read--"

=============

Gracias Guillermo. Subsequent to his e-mail, I followed up by asking for samples of poems by Venezuelan women poets as well as additional information about the situation he describes for poets and writers in Venezuela. This is the type of discussion that makes me continue blogging -- even as I have wondered whether I should continue. Those who’ve read me from the beginning might recall that I initially started blogging as a one-month fundraiser project and, geez, let me tell you I am the first to be amazed at the torrent that keeps torrenting forth from mah mouth.

But the Internet is such a huge space that one never knows what happens with whatever you put out there. In this case, the next few blogs shall feature poems by Venezuelan women poets as well as an essay by Guillermo on the Venezuelan condition. I’m pleased to feature this focus because I think the test of a successful blog is how much and in what way that blog comes to engage in dialogue with others that originally were not part of your circle of friends or acquaintances.

Obviously, in order to attract others, you have to be writing something interesting or writing well. And yet, given the blog, much of what is written is also diaristic, about one’s self. How does one write about one’s life in a way that others -- strangers -- will find meaningful?

Well, it’s like writing a poem…

ON LOUISE GLUCK ON WINE

So we have a new U.S. Poet Laureate. For a report, you can go to

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A59001-2003Aug28.html

In reading above report, the second item that caught my interest was this paragraph:

She has two ex-husbands and a son, Noah, 30, who is a sommelier in San Francisco. Gluck said she likes a little wine herself every now and then. A Chateau Pavie cheval blanc is her preference.

So who's the idiot copyeditor at the Washington Post? There is no such thing as a "Chateau Pavie cheval blanc." There are such things as two different wines: Cheval Blanc and Chateau Pavie. Both are from the St. Emilion region of Bordeaux. Cheval Blanc is not technically considered a "First Growth" because the 1855 Classification excluded St. Emilion -- but it is considered as good as any of the other First Growths.

Chateau Pavie is not a First Growth, but it actually produced arguably the best (or as good as any other) Bordeaux wine in 2000.

From the 2000 vintage, Chateau Pavie sells for about $200-250 while Cheval Blanc goes for $500-$600 a bottle. (Cheval Blanc is actually one of my favorites, too, but for obvious reasons I don't imbibe it that often....)

Now, Poetry World -- where else would you get such .... poetics material?

Sip....yah: it should be either of these two wines but it's not....

"I'M YOUR BOOGIE BABE!"

And in the current issue of BOOG CITY, here's an article on Meritage Press -- my leeeeetle press -- written by Jane Sprague!

MERITAGE PRESS, St. Helena and San Francisco, CA
Publisher & Editor: Eileen Tabios

Reflecting how poets make instead of inherit language, the press is named after "meritage," a word created to describe the Bordeaux-style of wine-making that uses California-grown grapes. Meritage style combines the grapes of cabernet, cabernet franc and merlot to create a wine characterized by robustness in flavor, bouquet, color and body - symbolizing the passion underlying the vision of Meritage's artists.
--http://www.meritagepress.com/about.htm

Poet Eileen Tabios began publishing Meritage Press in 2001 with the intention of publishing printed matter including books, chapbooks, artist's books and broadsides while creating a performance art space to enact aesthetic explorations toward political and cultural goals. Tabios has said, "I like to mix up books with more intimate projects...I think it's because poetry, ultimately, is an intimate form."

Her vision is to have as much of a multidisciplinary approach as possible. The first publication, "Cold Water Flat," by John Yau and Archie Rand, is a limited edition etching and text collaboration (2001) followed by 100 More Jokes From The Book of the Dead, a monograph depicting an etchings-based collaboration by Yau and Rand, with an essay by Yau (2001). 100 More Jokes From The Book of the Dead garnered media coverage from The Poetry Project Newsletter, Columbia University Spectator and The Education Digest in addition to exposure it received through Rand's exhibitions. In 2002 Meritage published er, um, a limited edition chapbook of ten poems by Garrett Caples and ink drawings by Hu Xin, and a poetry e-chapbook, selections from A Museum of Absences, by Luis H. Francia, which deals with the psychological and poetic aftermath of the events of September 11, 2001.

As a one-person publishing endeavor (and the assistance of a poet-intern) Tabios spends a year working on the production of each book. The latest Meritage book, OPERA: Poems 1981-2002, by Barry Schwabsky exemplifies Tabios' intent for the press, which is "to publish those who otherwise may not ever be published, a difficulty beyond the general poetry threshold difficulty. In (Schwabsky's) case, this is a poet who's been invisible in the poetry scene for over a decade, despite a brilliant start by being published in POETRY at age 19! OPERA encompasses 21 years of writing which occurred outside of any poetry scenes, having been developed mostly in private."

OPERA is a remarkable book. Ideas of song, language play, and delicate negotiations of desire and love create poetry deft and strange- strangely beautiful and bound with dual meanings, the piecing apart of things, of language, of the unsaid, the left out, the impossible to contain. From the title poem, "Opera":

Corrected hair. Face smooth
as mirror. Unsurpassable song.
Living death. Unhanded. Unhanded.
Theatrical weeping. "He" becomes "she"
and "you" becomes "he" and "we"
becomes "we" becomes "we" becomes "we."
Pears shaped like apples. Pears
that taste like apples that taste like grapes. (10)

Schwabsky pairs words with their opposite and twins images that resonate in the ear and on the page. Words are repeated, then altered, then paired again or broken apart newly, revealing other hidden/revealed aspects of the voices between this "we" grappling with the doubleness of desire and experience and their (our) shared complications. The final poem:

Clearing

Favorable moonlight
in all directions. Don't try
and make it real. You'll never have that experience
long enough to write about. Someone else's voice

will have to burn with it. You keep
starting something you don't know how to stop
but it stops. (102)

The doubleness of love, desire, of thinking in language, emotion and image in simultaneity and how to reconcile aspects of "we" among others, of individuals in the blur of longing where boundaries mesh, dissolve, break and give way to something more: those moments of "the nothing / but desire / you've seen / I am." (45)

The next Meritage endeavor is its new imprint, BABAYLAN, a Bisayan word that can be translated to mean Poet-Priestess. "The Babaylans were storytellers, healers and community leaders in the Philippines whose positions were disrupted by the invasion of Spanish colonizers over four centuries ago. BABAYLAN resurrects itself in the 21st century to facilitate the dissemination of Filipino literature.

Through BABAYLAN, Tabios plans to publish PINOYPOETICS, an anthology of English-language Filipino poets discussing their poetics, edited by Nick Carbo, scheduled for release in 2004.

Meritage Press books are available through Small Press Distribution (SPD) and directly from the publisher at: http://www.meritagepress.com

YOU DON'T KNOW RENEGADES 'TILL YOU'VE HEARD PINOY POETS!

David Kirschenbaum sent me the following e-mail to disseminate so I am insem, uh, disseminating:

---------------
Please forward
---------------

d.a. levy lives: celebrating the renegade press in America

This month’s featured press:
Meritage Press (St. Helena and San Francisco, Calif.)

Thurs. Sept. 11, 6 p.m., free

Aca Galleries
529 W.20th St., 5th Flr.
NYC

Event will be hosted by Meritage Press publisher and editor Eileen Tabios

Featuring readings from Meritage Press contributors, including:

Oliver de la Paz
Luis H. Francia
Eric Gamalinda
Sarah Gambito
Paolo Javier
Joseph O. Legaspi
Patrick Rosal

With music from Simone White

There will be wine, cheese, and fruit, too.

Curated and with an introduction by Boog City editor David Kirschenbaum

Directions: C/E to 23rd St., 1/9 to 18th St.
Venue is bet. 10th and 11th avenues

For further information call 212-842-BOOG (2664) or
Email editor@boogcity.com

http://MeritagePress.com/
http://www.simonewhite.org/simonewhite/

Next month: The Owl Press

--
David A. Kirschenbaum, editor and publisher
Boog City
330 W.28th St., Suite 6H
NY, NY 10001-4754
T: (212) 842-BOOG (2664)
F: (212) 842-2429
www.boogcity.com

============

Here's more info about these poets:

Poet, novelist and visual artist Eric Gamalinda, author of the deservedly award-winning collection Zero Gravity (with a sample poem here)

Poet, editor and critic Luis H. Francia, whose e-chapbook Selections From The Museum of Absences was published by Meritage Press

Patrick Rosal, author of the recently-released Uprock Headspin Scramble and Dive who's an extremely hip cat, too boot (O Puss 'N Boots?) with a sample poem here

The absolutely DROP-DEAD GORGEOUS and former National Poetry Series Finalist Sarah Gambito with some of the lushest hair on this planet, with sample poems here

Award winning poet and teacher Oliver de la Paz with sample poems here.

Poet, critic and publisher Paolo Javier who's survived yet another summer at Bard, with sample poems here at Jack Kimball's The East Village

NYFA Poetry Awardee Joseph O. Legaspi with sample poems here

From A New Category: "This Better Result In A New Poem!"
WEEDING .... OUT, AS IT TURNS OUT, THOSE CHILDHOOD DAYS OF WASHING DISHES

Nais kong awitin
ang bawat tilamsik
ng dugong bumukal
sa parang...
--from "Nais Kong Llimun ang mga Alabok" by Jesus Manuel Santiago

I want to sing
each drop
of blood
that spurted from mountainside...
--translated by Marne Kilates into "Let Me Gather The Ashes"


The mountain and all its denizens -- flora and fauna -- laughed so hard at me today that the landscape almost buckled and took down the entire Diablo Mountain range. Did you Bay Area peeps feel an earthquake in late afternoon or was that simply the rude animals' uncivilized hoots shooting through my charmingly-shaped ears to fry up the teensy remainders of my brain?

Said hoots even brought down a hawk. 'Twas surfing the air above my roof. Swooped down. Beady eyes. Beak opened to join in the chorus of

HOOTS.

Well: SAY MY NAME AND DON'T CALL ME DUFUS. All because, today, I did something I've never done before: weeded. Yeah: I had brand new gardening gloves (green suede!) and a shiny trowel (trowel, that's what you call that miniature spade, right?). There I was spankingly-gloved and brandishing the trowel at a bumblebee before I danced on over to the mud patch, uh, garden of flowers that I'd put in with Walmart specials a couple of months ago.

I should back-up here to explain that I had chosen flowers based on their colors: annuals, perennials, shmuels -- I spent formative years in a New York City apartment, okay?! Then I judiciously spaced said colors across the mud patch (it's "mud" because though it's hot and dry here, I bought one of those holey hoses that I turn on very lavishly since the property has enough water to support a vineyard but....I have yet to plant a single vine notwithstanding perhaps 20 literary journals out there professing a "bio" of me as a budding grape farmer).

But I never knew those $5.99 teensy buckets would spread so rapidly and grow so rapidly and etcetera etcetera so rapidly. Grew and grew in a riot of colours. It wasn't Monet's garden in Giverny, but it was close!

The weeds, however, grew as robustly. After watching them irritate the roses for a few weeks, I went on down to Ted's Hardware Store this weekend for necessary weeding equipment. The guys figured out it was my first time and tried to sell me a tractor larger than my garage. Hah! Of course, genius-Moi sniffed at their efforts, tucked the Brooklyn Bridge under my left arm, and carried gloves and trowel with the right.

Anyway, I'm on a mountain. So assume the land slopes. So I start weeding and am astonished -- nay, appalled -- to learn that those weeds are stubborn buggers to get out!!! I'da thought -- and did thought -- that you just pull 'em out, right? Oh, no! This is -- as an old lady at a local store ranted at me the other weekend (a story for another day) -- THE COUNTRY, MY DEAR -- THIS IS THE COUNTRY!!! So, things grow here -- IN THE COUNTRY! So even the smallest clump of weeds typically had rootstalks the length of my lovely legs!

Well, okay, as I was saying, the land slopes. At one point, I am bent over but facing up on said slope and trying to take out a clump of weeds. I'd already hacked the earth around the roots trying to loosen it. Hack hack hack. Finally, I put down the trowel and grabbed the plant around its base. I pull. No budging. Pull again. Now, the squirrels and woodpeckers and hummingbirds (the latter being particularly miffed as I was interrupting their cocktail hour) have lined up by the side of the road to watch the sweating, ranting human wrestle a plant.

Picked up trowel, hacked earth once more, put down trowel, and grabbed base of weed plant again. And moi pulled again. Did a couple of quite unlady-like grunts even as I pulled. I pulled and pulled and pulled until -- yadda -- I pulled out the weed with the longest root stalk I have ever seen....

and watched -- time suddenly becoming slow motion here -- said long root stalk leave earth in front of my eyes and whip up in a slow, gorgeous arc over my head ....with said arc continuing on behind my head ....such that my lovely body also arced backward, my eyes following the line it was drawing against air, until I fell hard on my ass.

My head, however, continued to fall back ....even as I began rolling down the mountain on my ass until my head ended up resting against the base of a lovely rose bush with lovely red roses....

and thorns.

Oh! How the smallest gash doth engender the lushest petals of blood to form a veritable Empress among...roses!

*****

Fil, Roy and Glen -- I'm an only girl with three brothers. Growing up, I was called "Rose Among The Thorns" by my cheek-pinching relatives. "Rose" is my middle name. As I laid there looking up at the underside of a rose bush, my uncut hair flung back to swathe the nearby crocuses (actually, I don't know that they're called crocuses -- I still don't know the names of the other plants besides the rose bush), the small animals nearby giggling hysterically, the wild turkeys shitting prunes in excitement, I thought of my old nickname....such that, I also thought of my brothers.

And as I laid there parallel to the sky -- lapis lazuli today over the mountain uncontrollably heaving its chest from mirth -- I got pissed off yet again that I used to do more household chores than my brothers when we were growing up because I was a girl. Like, you know, I'd have to wash dishes after dinner every night but the "male" chore of, say, taking out the garbage only occurred once a week -- and there were three of them!!! So, after I hauled my head (suddenly turned Catholic with its crown of thorns) away from the bush, entered the house and cleaned myself up (lick a blood drop here, lick a blood drop there...dum da dum dum), I called up my oldest brother to rant and rail at him for the unfairness of the household chore division when we were children.

So what if it's about 30 years later? Hell hath no furry like an irritated sister,....Sister! And the sisters from the 8 million Peeps raise their hands and proclaim, THAT IS AN AMEN, SISTER!

Cough, anyway....Dang if it's impossible for me to tell a story without interrupting myself into an Alice-in-Wonderland....BREATHE, SISTER AND RETURN TO THE STORY...

Okay, where was I? Oh yes, so there I was calling up my big brother undoubtedly having a lovely relaxing evening in Texas until moi called to rant and rave.

But I made the mistake of telling him first of my weeding experience as said experience was how I'd segued -- stream of consciousness-style -- into how falling into a rose bush led to my childhood nickname that, in turn, led to the unfairness of the household chore allocations....

Fughetabout it. I never had the chance to rant and rail at him over the whole male chauvinistic practice engaged in by la familia. His guffaws got stuck on my weeding ass sliding down the mountain onto a thorny rose bush.

So. I hung up on big brother and, fingers tap tapping against desk, mulled over how else I might clear the furrow from my lovely brow. Then the lightbulb blinded me! I should just log on to tell you Eight Million Peeps instead! Well, okay! So:

So, today, I weeded for the first time and....

BERSSENBRUGGE AND SZE

In November, I moderate a panel on poets' writing processes (more details to come). On my panel -- they begged to participate(wink) -- will be the lovely Mei-mei Berssenbrugge and the equally fetching Arthur Sze. So if anyone out there has a question they would want to ask either of these two poets, given the chance to ask them about their writing processes, please feel free to share with me. E-mail to me and I can post a follow-up report later!

Thanks!
Eileen

BUT LET'S TALK ABOUT ME

My blog also specializes in the tweak.
--from a Corpse e-mail to Elaine Equi

Well now. So Corpse sets her bony ass down and stretches out her Nike-shod bones after her morning jog through blogland. Flexes bony fingers. So what shall I say, she thinks with an enchanting glimmer within her sockets. This, then:

This is the first paragraph of Ron Silliman's post today:

I normally am sitting down when I read anything online, so I must have looked a little awkward jumping for joy at The Skeptic John Erhardt’s response to my inclusion of Bob Grenier’s Sentences in my list of essential titles the other day. My knees hit the underside of the keyboard tray. Well, not my knees but my quadricep muscles, such as they are. But you get the point.

It's a post that's garnering some attention -- as of my read this morning, there were 10 squawks in his squawkbox, and other blogs are commenting (e.g. Henry Gould and Jonathan Mayhew).

But the primo point that must be made refers to why I excerpt Ron's first paragraph above. You see, I believe I'm influencing Ron's writing style -- look at that paragraph again. The point, surely, ain't too subtle. In fact, I suspect that the first draft of the last sentence of above paragraph (before he must have edited it as he wouldn't want me preceding him in his lineage) was worded as

"But, dang, you get the point."

-------------

(P.S. To Ron: Now, now -- Corpse wags bony finger. Don't pout -- I'm raising your cultural capital with all this attention I'm lavishing on you....)

CATCHING UP ON SNAILMAILED GEMS: LI BLOOM, NICK MOUDRY, COMBO 12

I. LI BLOOM'S RADISH, WITH IMAGES BY MARY BURKE

..............quoting
a poet into permanent taboos--
source is everlasting
--from "Nothing Can Cross Here" by Li Bloom

Yes, "source is everlasting." My comments will take place partly through hay(na)ku that surfaced as I read Li's poems. And as many -- including Catherine as regards the readings of Noah and Kasey which I'm sad to have missed -- have said, if something inspires poems, that's a testament to the effectiveness of the work. After each hay(na)ku below will be the bracketed title of Li's poem. I encourage all to check out Li's book.

Go
write your
own song: Sing!
[-- after "Yeah, Singin'"]

*****

Under
a stone:
forgiveness, zucchini, Heaven
[-- after "Baby Blue Dog"]

*****

Sweetness

You
float me
in my story
[--after "Tear"]

*****

Oh
I abhor
--oh! -- unhappy orgasms!
[--after "Oh NO"]

*****

Hello
to whomever
in the background
[--after "Progeny"]

*****

There was even a "found" Dyslexic Hay(na)ku from Li's poem "Tear":

Dali, you I
aren't me
my.


I am equally taken by Mary Burke's paintings -- one of which is reproduced as the cover image and others featured as black-and-white images throughout RADISH. I admired how each mark created another layer of space -- and this effect is particularly admirable as reproductions on a flat page!

There is a juxtapository effect in Burke's scrawls and layers and brushstrokes and fragmented imagery. Yet it all jells together into a harmonious whole -- this effect is not easy to pull off while still presenting an ease about the process, as Burke does.

Possibly, my favorite image was "Painting: Red Line Study" for how it evoked a fraying grid. (In terms of my personal practice -- which is not to say *all* of Poetry -- the notion of a grid is inimical to poems -- quite often, those lines must break or bend, albeit with the discipline of intention (including hindsight intention).)

And juxtapositions are relevant (I think) to Li's texts -- in Li's poems, meaning becomes secondary to other -- more "material" -- aspects of words like sound, rhythm....a sum of abstract energy that suffices to create significance from what might seem to be nonsense, e.g., from "Terms of the Apple," a wonderful denouement poem for the collection:

love forever
chastens lavender butterfly

I appreciate how the words "chastens" and "lavender" lap at each other. It's subtle because I would have thought that a more vivid (and livid) color like a primary would lend itself to being chastened. But lavender....?!! Poetic, indeed, Li! This one through the unexpected....and Beauty.

In "A Farewell After All," Li writes

I am anxious, can a distinguished book
Still make a woman feel good?

Ach, Li! Over RADISH, you definitely should feel good! Woman feel good!

=============

II. NICK MOUDRY'S A POEM, A MOVIE & A POEM

To be inside is to not be // sad. It is hard to imagine
--from "a poem" by Nick Moudry

I adore this chap, put out by Noah Eli Gordon's Braincase Press. The physicality of this limited edition chap lends to the intimacy of the project. The cover, for one is yellow-beige painted (painted?) by blue paint with gestural abstract lines that nonetheless evoke a flower on the back cover. With the author's name and title seemingly *stamped* in red ink, the visual sensibility is very inviting. Cover design is attributed to Michael Labenz.

Then, the poems! It's an intriguing and (I feel lame saying this but it's true) cinematic organization reflecting the titular references to poem, movie, poem. The first poem says "To be inside is not to be sad" and the last poem says, "It is raining. You are not wet/ because you are inside."

Of course, so many things unfold in between. But I actually don't wish to say much about them except to let this excerpt speak for the pleasure of the whole project -- and it is a distinct pleasure, thank you gentlemen!:

Everything I look at is through windows or thick
rain. This morning I woke up in a dream.

That you can make poems out of something
more than paper although I don't know
what. In this field I can almost taste

the salt in your hair. This has been
the longest few days. I feel vast,
the way one always does after collapsing.


================

III. COMBO 12

the polar bear family reminded me
if you drive an SUV get the motherfucking flag
off your goddamn bumper
welcome to the official definition of motherfucking crazy
--from "Stupidity Owns Me" by K. Silem Mohammad

Thanks Michael Magee for sending me COMBO 12. It's a gift -- really! Stephanie previously lauded (and deservedly so) the cover design, the deer outlined in pinkish-red against a silvery backdrop. There's no need for me to repeat what other bloggers have said. But one of my favorites, by the way, was from David Larsen (which I highlight here as I'm really into what the title references):

EKPHRASIS

You might recall a painting
of a hunting scene, in winter.
The boar contends with several hounds.
Another hound is stricken in the flank
with an arrow form his master's bow,
and struggles to remove it.
The barb has penetrated deeply.
The dog can almost reach the arrow's shaft
with its teeth, which are bared up to the gums,
and snaps at it in frenzy.
The desperation in its rolling eyes is
palpable to the viewer.
Its blood has just begun to stain the snow.

I bring this painting up in order to
give you three guesses as to what it would
make him think of iif he cam across it:
1.
2.
3.


Last but not least on COMBO 12, the back cover says -- and trumps anything else I may say further about this project (the genius of this statement relying on "...even when...")--

....randomness never fails, even when coincidence succeeds.

BRINGING IN FROM THE COLD: WILFRIDO D. NOLLEDO

There's some ongoing discussion on Filipino-American novels on the Flips Listserve. A series of titles were shared. Then Paolo Javier mentioned

THE text that really got me back into reading phil lit was w. nolledo's 'but for the lovers'. this book was a real watershed read for me in college, but i didnt so much read it as read THROUGH it...opened my eyes (& heart) to the phil lit section in my college library, which was suprisingly vast (i attended the university of british columbia)((go figure)). they even had a first-edition of the book, published in '71 i think (!!). so do chk it out...

I immediately and enthusiastically zipped out the following post to the Flips List:

I am so happy Paolo mentioned Wilfrido D. Nolledo's novel _But For The Lovers_! This is one of my top two favorite novels ever written by a Filipino author.

I'm a bit surprised now at realizing I've never blathered enthusiastically about this book before.  I've long wished to see the type of consistency in energy as well as diction as I've seen in this book....particularly when (in my experience) it's not as mentioned as frequently by those who would teach or create *lists* of Filipino American literature. 

This novel was first published in 1970 by E.P. Dutton & Co. My copy happens to be the 1994 First Dalkey Archive Edition. 

Here's a one-paragraph excerpt:

"Whenever the boy was away, Hidalgo gave imitations of foliage to the girl.  This recital carried him into: alder, myrtle, deodar, linden.  He shaped sepal in his hands and spoke of fatal fragrances.  On this personal stage the old Spaniard performed with love and variety for he knew his blushing audience would follow him into the restlessness of his art.  He had only to mimic the mating call of cauliflowers and she would reward him with unfeigned, even tearful laughter.  Posturing on his wriggly cane, he would amble into center light and venture in the delicate rhythm of liche.  In his preludes, he was always gay, flamboyant.  To this she curtsied, joining him breathlessly, his father's book of dichos in her hand; and together they would take a bow."

THAT is a Prose Poem in itself, and yet that paragraph is obviously just one of many in a 316-page book. 

Definitely, let's recover this novel out of its undeserved (relative) obscurity.  This is the kind of book that, had it been touted over other (cough) choices, would have eased the global reputation of Filipino literature being great writing.  Indeed, according to Robert Coover's introduction in the Dalkey edition, this novel was published in 1970 by E.P. Dutton and its editor was the legendary Hal Scharlatt who died (not yet forty) on an indoor tennis court.  Coover says that, "Without Scharlatt, Nolledo had no one in the industry to champion his writing. Thus it was that one of the best books of the decade, abandoned by its own publisher, came and went virtually without notice." 

Well...what a shame! 

And don't let us be naive in believing that writing well suffices for marketing and distribution purposes.  Writing well suffices for ... writing well. Marketing and distribution is something else. So let's spread the word on Nolledo's novel... TODAY!

=================

So, okay: I was enthused. I am still enthusiastic. Note that Coover didn't call this novel one of the *best Filipino novels* out there; Coover called it "one of the best books of the decade" regardless of the author's ethnicity. So Nolledo has never received the attention he deserves -- and it's time to rectify that. Apparently, Melissa Nolledo-Christoffels (Nolledo's daughter) is setting up a website that hopefully will serve to introduce Nolledo to a new generation of readers. Great! I look forward to it. Until then, here's another excerpt from Nolledo's novel, But for the Lovers:
 
"Prologue:   HE WAS BEGINNING TO EAT FLOWERS and the crescent moon was in his eyes when he awoke again. One night long ago when they had intercepted a code from the enemy on the shortwave and had not needed him anymore, they pulled out their tents, mantled him with leaves, and left him.  They left him a rifle, a buri basket and a book of psalms, for the major had decreed in defense of this murder: Let the little legionnaire lie here and die; it is written, it shall be read.  But the boy went on sleeping and did not die and when he awakened it was to see (it was to find himself alone) a bird, a whitewinged maya dart in from the west, perhaps headed for the monsoon.  Steadying the Springfield, he cocked the hammer with a quivering thumb, and waited.  It flew away, whatever it was, and now he squinted up and remembered that it was the first time in a long spell he had seen the sky, and he thought:  It is longer, lonelier and lovelier than any of my prayers.  He sighted the nimbus---an eagle in captivity---and fired."

THE WINE ADVICE COLUMN (ENTRY # 1)

Aimee asks -- via Jimmy Behrle's Monkey-Party Blog:

I also (gasp!) had venison this summer, which was not 'gamey,' or a 'fall food,' but rather, quite yum, coupled with a good glass of water and good friends. Eileen--oh great goddess of wine--what would *you* recommend for venison? The lady I asked at the liquor store looked at me as if I had a plate of spaghetti on my head.

Dang -- the Black-Winged Angels are reaaaaalllly pleased with me lately. Coz of synchronicity -- which is to say, Aimee Sweetie, what can go great with venison is exactly what Moi ("Great Goddess" to you, Peeps) am drinking as I type this (NO LIE!):

2000 Coturri Winery Jewell Vineyards Sonoma Mountain Pinot Noir

This is a lush, ripe wine that will stand up to venison -- without any of the lip-puckering twist that many big reds engender. It also would go great with Thanksgiving turkey!

The art dealer Stephen Haller* and his lovely wife (and incredible film-maker) Cynthia Haller visited this weekend....and left several bottles behind from this vineyard.

I tasted the zinfandel yesterday -- which, Aimee Sweetie, also could go great with venison -- and am now imbibing the pinot. Both are recommended!

*****

Or maybe this isn't the first entry: didn't Jack once asked for my opinion on what wine to go with pasta con pesto?

In any event, sure poet-peeps: send me wine questions anytime. Now, the key to my answers -- as I'll undoubtedly always cite a specific wine -- is that said *answer* need not be the specific recommendation I mention but perhaps a wine akin to the grape of my recommendation. Anyway, I'm perfectly happy to sacrifice myself for poets who need a drunk Dear Abby and, hic, won't even charge you anything but....mayhap a certain directive

WRITE A POEM!


============

* Let me direct you to Stephen Haller's gallery site address as he shows some of the most beautiful paintings being created today....including a Sept. 20-October 28 exhibit by Ron Ehrlich. I have a painting by Ron hanging in the foyer to my San Francisco apartment and, if you ask any of the poet-peeps who showed up at my Thursday party (didn't James specifically ask about that painting?), they can tell you that Ron makes shiveringly beautiful abstracts.

NEW BLOG: HAY(NA)KU

with a URL address of http://eileentabios.blogspot.com.

Yes -- I actually used my real name in that address. The Mark of *Authenticity* and all that....even though the Hay(na)ku is not about me, but about WE.

It has to be "WE" because the 21st Century Filipino is Diaspora. Because Poetry is WE, including but not limited to the Filipino. Because WE is the only way to recover the long-forgotten, like

Those
Who Fell
For Their Eyes

ASADOBOY -- WHO ARE YOU?

So I wanted to create a new blog today for the "Hay(na)ku" poetic form invented on this Blog (see Archives just before WinePoetics switched to CorpsePoetics). But this URL is already taken:

http://haynaku.blogspot.com

It's taken by "Asadoboy" but only features one entry so far. So, who are you "Asadoboy"? Obviously, you read me...

ISHLE YI PARK: LYRICAL KIM-CHEE

Poison bum breeze wafting from the corner seat.....eyelids crusted in green sleep

but we sit tired enough to stand it. The chunky Mexican who eyed me on the platform now stands dick-in-my-face in this half vacant car,

gazing me with half vacant eyes

while it pulses sideways in light denim
--from "Ode to Sesshu" by Ishle Yi Park

I'm still unpacking. Perhaps I should explain that I'm not just unpacking from moving my studio from San Francisco to Napa, but also going through boxes that have been in storage for years. Anyway, this evening, I went through some old correspondence files. And what do I see but a January 2, 1998 letter from Ishle Yi Park -- a name I SHOUT OUT to you as she's in Best American Poetry 2003.

Based on the mini-debate (see 8/20/03 at Limetree) recently among a few bloggers on the latest choices for BAP (bap!), Ishle is a relative unknown. Well, hello Peeps! Come to Mama for continued education! Let Moi tell you a little about her!

So, Ishle Yi Park is not just a great poet but I remember that Eric Gamalinda and I gave her what I believe was her first poetry reading! (And, by the way, she's since become a hot star on the spoken word circuit, too!) When Ishle, a Korean American, came to us to interview for a position as poetry editor at the Asian Pacific American Journal, she stayed after said interview for a group reading. One of the readers bailed, so genius-moi looked over at Ishle (who, at the time, looked all of fourteen years old, by the way) and asked her to read. She read. And one of the poems she read is the subject of her letter in my files; at my request, she'd sent me a written copy of it. Here it is (I'm approximating indents with a string of periods below):

Kim-Chee

After the slap
...........and the cursing
You threw dinner
...........in my mother's face
I can still see
...........the kim-chee
.....................spice her tears
So tonight I sleep
............with the kitchen knife
......................again.

Ishle has only gotten better over the years, but I still like her Kim-Chee poem. Among other things, it's not the typical -- e.g. homage-driven -- *Asian American food poem*. That's a comment, though, that's context-specific to reflect how many Asian American artists were questioning the paradigm of so-called Asian American literature being so Amy Tan-ish. I like it today, not because of that context that no longer interests me, but because it's just an effective poem: moving and as pungent in content as its title (content = form). Kim-chee is a Korean dish of pickled cabbage, often hot-spicy.

Ishle also included in her letter two more poems that she thought I "might find interesting." One was an homage to Sesshu Foster (which I excerpt at beginning of this post), which I encouraged her to send to said Sesshu -- they are now compadres and that poem since has found publication homes. And she also included a third poem -- which should explain why she might end up in a book that aspires to "best" in poetry:

Secret

Orchid only grows in wood
Palms held a circle of heat on sand.
In three months I'll be able to float, she thought feverishly.
Your cousin from China made your middle finger grow longer with his
chi gong, and only wants a Visa in return.

Aloe is resilient.
I split it here, and still
Oh nyah. Your daegu dialect a balm to my ears.
strange music.

Buy a 1950s silver clock
from Rainbow Thrift Shop so grandpa can feel useful
until dinner. Green tea and brie cheese melt a throat.

Two elements. What is more truthful than
a bare tree in winter?
Your fingers still twitch remembering
the Japanese, a lost stitch in grey wool.


*****

SAY HER NAME, PEEPS: ISHLE YI PARK!

OBVIATING SILENCE: FILIPINA WOMEN WRITINGS!

Congratulations to Marianne Villanueva and Virginia Cerenio, co-editors of the soon-to-be-released new anthology on Filipina Women's Writing, published by Calyx. It's heartening to see this book come out, partly because I knew that Babaylan (the anthology I co-edited, with Nick Carbo, on Filipina literary works) barely scratched the wealth of literary talent in the Filipina community. There's a series of readings nationwide being organized now by Calyx this Fall/Winter to celebrate. Just because I'll be reading at them, I know of at least two:

November 3, 2003 at the Galapagos Arts Space in Brooklyn; and

December 2, 2003 at City Lights in San Francisco (purr-fect holiday present!)

Mabuhay and hope to see you there (details to come). Meanwhile, here's the anthology's Table of Contents (thanks for the advance look, Marianne!):

GOING HOME TO A LANDSCAPE: WRITINGS BY FILIPINAS

Preface [or Foreword] -- Rocio G. Davis
Introduction -- Marianne Villanueva
Introduction -- Virginia Cerenio

Section I: Las Dalagas

The Big I Am (poetry) -- Maria Stella Sison
For the Women (poetry) -- Dawn Bohulano Mabalon
Mary Tyler Moore Meets Las Dalagas (novel excerpt) -- M. Evelina Galang
That Age (poetry) -- Alison de la Cruz
The Dozens (spoken word) -- Pinay M.A.F.I.A.
A Poem/Tribute (poetry) -- Dawn Bohulano Mabalon
Some Women (poetry) -- Bunny Ty
Pinay Pioneers (poetry) -- Holly Calica

Section II: Landscapes

Going Home to a Landscape (poetry) -- Shirley Ancheta
Chinatown, Moon Festival (poetry) -- Luisa Igloria
April in Stockton (poetry) -- Dawn Bohulano Mabalon
Mang Tomas (short story)
Cartographer (poetry) -- Conchitina R. Cruz
Kauai 1 and 2 (poetry) -- Barbara J. Pulmano Reyes
Homecoming (short story) -- Reine Arcache Melvin
We Go Back to Manila in 1999 (poetry) -- Angela Narciso Torres
Odysseus Cripple at Bantayan Island (poetry) -- Merlie M. Alunan
Cicada Song (short story) -- Alma Jill Dizon
The Stone (poetry) -- Isabelita Orlina Reyes
Summer Rains (poetry) -- Fran Ng
Cold (short story) -- Noelle Q. de Jesus
Tired (poetry) -- Maiana Minahal
Meteors (poetry) -- Terry Rillera

Section III: Traveling Over Water

White Turtle (short story) -- Merlinda Bobis
ThePainting (short story) -- Cristina Pantoja-Hidalgo
Grandma Sakamoto’s Gun (poetry) -- Arlene Biala
Tall Grasses (short story) -- Henrietta Chico Nofre
Mermaid (poetry) -- Conchitina R. Cruz
In Whispers (poetry) -- Michelle Macaraeg Bautista
Haze (poetry) -- Fran Ng
Poet Traveling Over Water (poetry) -- Merlie M. Alunan
Notebook (poetry) -- Fran Ng

Section IV: Testament

Picture (short story) -- Marianne Villanueva
Longing (poetry) -- Luisa Igloria
Loreto, Alone (short story) -- Linda Ty-Casper
Kristine (poetry) -- Shirley Ancheta
Cloister (poetry) -- Mabi Perez David
Testament (short story) -- Katrina Tuvera
Invasion by Jack Fruit (poetry) -- Isabelita Orlina Reyes
In Late (poetry) -- Catalina Cariaga
No Sleep (poetry) -- Catalina Cariaga
Apollo & Junior Grow Up (short story) -- Veronica Montes
Fools (short story) -- Susan Evangelista
excerpts from Bahala Na! (poetry) -- Catalina Cariaga
Eureka 2000 (short story) -- Nadine Sarreal
An Expatriate to her Sister (poetry) -- Lewanda Lim
Prayer Rug (poetry) -- Lewanda Lim
The Color of a Scratch in Metal (poetry) -- Eileen Tabios
Dream (poetry) -- Fran Ng

Section V: Next Door

Tango (poetry) -- Angela Narciso Torres
My Father has Stopped Eating (poetry) -- Virginia Cerenio
Touch (short story) -- Lakambini Sitoy
Ironing (poetry) -- Elda Rotor
Smoky Mountain (novel excerpt) -- Grace Talusan
Baby Brother Grown (poetry) -- Malou Babilonia
Christmas (short story) -- Henrietta Chico Nofre
Bandit Banjao II (poetry) -- Sherlyn Jimenez
Piranhas in the Kitchen (short story) -- Maloy Luakian
Next Door (poetry) -- Isabelita Orlina Reyes
Another Day (short story) -- Erma M. Cuizon

Section VI: Roots

Roots (poetry) -- Conchitina R. Cruz
Daughter (poetry) -- Conchitina R. Cruz
Vigan (short story) -- Cecilia Manguerra Brainard
What Ditas Left (poetry) -- Justine Uy Camacho
Bahay Kubo (poetry) -- Melissa Aranzamendez
The Mango Summer (short story) -- Lilledeshan Bose
To a Merchant Seaman Who has Forgotten His Name (poetry) -- Jean Vengua Gier
Tending the Earth (poetry) -- Elda Rotor
Once We Were Farmers (poetry) -- Elsa E’der
Talk Story (poetry) -- Jean Vengua Gier
balikbayan box (poetry) -- Virginia Cerenio
The Power of Adobo (poetry) -- Leny Mendoza Strobel

REACHING OUT FROM A PARALLEL UNIVERSE

He poses for a street artist who sketches a mole I have never seen.
I wonder what else I do not know about him.

I hear rain end, feel a sun fall behind a dormant volcano.
I wonder what black lightning looks like at night.
--from "Parallel Universe" (first published in Flippin' anthology)

Guests driving up the mountain now...but a quickie to say, Thank you Sunny for letting me BUG you. What's interesting about the sunny and wily Professor's response to my poem is how the last line is

Strings tuning up for the last act.

so that Sunny's lines don't articulate a specific conclusion or ending.

It's another way to reflect open-endedness? When I recall "Parallel Universe" now, I remember how important it was in my early efforts to understand poetically what it means to end by *opening up*.

I suppose (though don't know for sure) that this means, I doubt I'll ever write the "last act" in any poem....I feel that particular act is not the poet's so much as the reader's.

Being bugged -- it's a good way to reflect the effect of open-endedness. We often want things pinned down. I prefer to do that in another form besides poetry. (Not to say that Sunny necessarily wants things pinned down for him in poetry -- I don't know, but suspect I suspect he's smart enough not to be surprised by poetic interstices....wink).

Guests are here!
Bye!

PARTY MOMENTS FROM THURSDAY

Corpse has guests all weekend here at wine country. So blogging in between the hosting responsibilities -- like, later, I would ask Rosemary Griggs if she had an aspirin for Kasey. She looked at him sympathetically and said, "I have mints...."

Another Party Moment with Kevin Killian who stuck his lovely head into the kitchen to ask, "I assume I have to go outside to smoke." I said Yes, and then unthinkingly added in my normally loveable stream-of-consciousness style: Hey, don't you listen to Ron Silliman? He says smoking is unhealthy, not to mention capitalistic. Kevin looks at me. Gives me a look. Then says, "No, I don't listen to Ron Silliman." As he leaves for sidewalk action, Corpse realizes she's chewing on her toes. She spits out her foot and hides in the pantry for three seconds to giggle.

Ach! More guests just arrived. I must go serve them some humus, cheese and melons -- let's not tell them they're leftovers from our POETS' PARTY!

CORPSE--NOT YOUR ORDINARY "PARTY GIRL"!!!!

I woke up wondering if my blog narcissistic persona was getting tired. Sip. Morning coffee.

Decision: Naaaaahhhhh. I'm enchanting -- how can peeps get tired of Moi?

Then The Enchanted One begins her morning jog through blogland. Soon, she's giggling. She's so pleased at her new moniker: Sean Serrell's "Eileen's Deadly Wine" that she decides to blog to further feed her 8 million peeps. (And welcome to BLOGSWAMP, Sean! Have fun with, uh, said indented groin!)

Blog. So, like, naturally no one can throw a party like Moi can throw a party. Here's some favorite moments rising from the depths of my memory.

BUT FIRST, I AM SO SAD. I JUST SAW DAVID OFF AT THE BUSSTOP. SNIFFLE. (I had to drop him off to rush back to the apartment to leave for wine country, only to have a message that I need to wait for this important phone call so I'm blogging as I wait -- sorry to roust you up so early, David!). Anyway, party moments:

Like, Kasey walks through the door a bit limegreen. First thing out of his lips after the obligatory Hello is, "Do you have an aspirin?" I guess his back was hurting a little -- Alli, sweetie, was that your driving?

So Corpse duly rushes to her medicine cabinet. Looks at said medicine cabinet. Returns to Kasey and concernedly offers, "Uh, how about a laxative? It's pink."

Kasey looks at Corpse. Mumbles something. Passes on offer. Corpse remains concerned. Light bulb flickers on above her uncut hair. Wait, there's another medicine cabinet somewhere in the apartment. She duly rushes over. Looks at that medicine cabinet. Returns to Kasey and offers, "Well, how about some turpentine."

Kasey....passes again. Giving up, Corpse waves over at the make-shift bar. Oh have some wine!!! Kasey: Okay.

*****

Ach! Phone call! More party moments later!!!!

SNIGGER POETICS

Each hit came down in a deep thud. It was all I could do but ride the ropes and take it.... // I know she wonders "why?" and the only answer I can give is, "because I have to."
--from Aug. 21, 2003 Gura's Blog

Reading Michelle's post on "when the gloves come off" (Aug. 21, 2003) made me think of how small certain peeps are when they practice *snigger poetics.*

THANK YOU

Joseph Lease, Donna de la Perriere, David, Kasey, Stephanie, David Horton, Geneva Chao, Summi Kaipa*, Pranini (sp? Summi's friend), Kevin Killian, Dodie Bellamy, Alli Warren, James Meetze, James's DROP-DEAD GORGEOUS FRIEND (why isn't that name on my tongue -- belated realization: Erin), Garrett Caples, Andrew Joron, Ana Naruta, Taylor Brady, Steve Dickison and Steve's UTTERLY LOVELY TALENTED SPOUSE (why is that name, too, not on my tongue?), Sean Finney, David Larsen, Rosemary Griggs**, Michelle Bautista, "____" and "Bea" -- I am sure I'm missing others' names....but I wanted to note what I can as this is the first Bay Area party I've ever thrown for poets. Thank you all for coming and obviating a dream I had the prior night: I threw a party and no one came!

NOTE: THIS PARTY WOULD NOT HAVE HAPPENED WERE IT NOT FOR....POETRY BLOGLAND.

Best,
Eileen

----------

* Summi Kaipa is reading tonight with Andrew Felsinger and David Hess at David Hadbawnik's. See ya there as I'm currently acting as the Heathen's chauffeur -- which is not exactly a safe position for anyone I'm squiring about but, ya know....this Heathen is anything but...."safe"....

** A bonus attendance, in Stephanie's words, was Rosemary Griggs coming back directly from hiking to share hugs and poetry. Rosemary, of course, is the latest winner of Fence's Alberta Prize for her collection: SKY GIRL. She told Stephanie at the party, her book would not have ended up the way it did were it not for me -- well, but of course: Moi's influence struck again!

I'M PROUD OF GARRETT CAPLES

My favorite moment of last night's party:

Joseph Lease to the crowd: do you want a poem on irony or romance?

Garrett Caples: ROMANCE!

ON JUSTICE:
"MENAGE A TROIS WITH THE 21ST CENTURY"


I will dry your humongous feet
with ebony hair

glistening like the wings
of my childhood's hunting birds--

Let everything continue
to bristle between us

Between my thighs
a video lies--

I want to choreograph
shadows of phantoms

the universe shall rate "X"
"owing to a failure to articulate"--
-- from "SECOND LANGUAGE: As Gabriela Blunts Edges"


I was having a conversation yesterday with another poet. At one point, I said

I LOATHE POETRY

"No you don't," he said.

He's right, but I also loathe poetry. I really do.

The paradox, for me, is that whilst making the poem, there is no difficulty. But when not in that space, everything is magnified in difficulty.....perhaps because I am thinking *about* making a poem but not doing it.

That prior paragraph does not at all articulate what I mean about how I end up with poems. But it's okay. Some things need not be said.

What I do realize (relatively recently) is that the more anguish I allow into the process, the more that Poetry rewards me.

Thus, I loathe this ______ that I love.

Publication isn't the reward, but without me aggressively looking for this result, I just had a manuscript accepted for publication. A few days ago, when I felt my eyes dimming, the space before me opened unexpectedly like a door and, there was a lovely publisher waving his hand! More details on publication later; for now, let me just share the title of my next poetry collection:

Menage A Trois With the 21st Century

It includes my Gabriela Silang poetry series that, to my surprise, Stephanie Young graciously included in her immersion round-up for Steve Evans (as I later told Stephanie, I think she had so much more faith in that series than I did!! in part because I fumbled my way through its writing....Thanks so much, Stephanie! Do I need to say, Peeps, how much of a blessing it is to stumble across a reader like Stephanie for one of your poems?)

Fumbling my way -- actually, that's part of the anguish in my process. But the Poetry Dark Angels get your addiction precisely because they also are generous (I first typed "jealous" -- haha -- and that, they are, too). Here's a poem that's not part of my upcoming book, but addresses this matter; it's from a series of wine country poems I jammed out in my first 40 days in Napa Valley 4 years ago when I was just overtaken by nature's beauty here:


Justice

I was wrong
to believe

the sun is impartial.
Among the fields

undulating
within wine country

the sun lingers
on the slopes

then peaks
of hills and knolls.

It traverses
lightly

and quickly
upon the flatlands.

Is this not justice
at work--

that gnarled vines
working harder

on steep terrain
amid gravel

receive more attention
than placid recipients

of earth fertile
with natural nutrients

and easily accessible
to water?

Thus, a glass of wine
answers many questions:

What are the taste
and bouquet

of an embrace
between crushed rocks and sun?

How might one feel
a sunbeam

wink against
a stone?

Perhaps gods
exist

and are not indifferent?
Perhaps gods

after all
are not always cruel?

"POETRY AS A WAY OF LIFE" -- YOGI, STYLE

Inhale: Self-Love
Exhale: Self-Loathing
--mantra at yoga class today taught by Charu Rachlis

Somewhere, a teacher ends a class by lowering herself on a mat. Before a crowd of acolytes, she bends forward and over her crossed legs, her right hand clasping her left wrist behind her back. She forms the yogic seal in gratitude to all as everything is existence. She forms the mudra as she offers, “Bless yourself, bless all beings, bless yourself again.“ Behind closed eyes, she sees a white light. After wiping her tears away, you will bury your face in her hair and smell a rose immortalized at the peak of blooming. After bathing in warm, white light, she opens her eyes to rise.
--from the Corpse's poem "Enheduanna #3"

I realized something today while in the midst of yoga class. There is no way I can practice yoga if I do not learn to forgive -- others and myself -- our mistakes.

Poetry never brought me to that space.

In this sense, yoga seems greater than Poetry.

I've given my life to Poetry, and it's difficult to face that it is diminished relative to another practice(s). In fact, I usually sign books with my mantra, "Poetry as a way of life."

But the circle turns. Once I understand something I also can integrate it into my Poetry practice. And, so, Dear Peep (you know who you are): I forgive you.

As well: Dear Self, I forgive you, too (and may I say you are looking absolutely enchanting today).

This means: Poetry is not *inherently* Life...but it can be made so.

For Poetry -- a poem -- is something to be made.


*****


Whew -- such a relief to get that bout of spirituality out of my system. Now, I can go back to a more favored practice: aggrandizing myself.

And Corpse laughs so hard she doesn't even mind when an angel swoops down to whack her and her sense of humor upside the head....

READING BLISS

Yesterday, I dropped off a box of Barry Schwabsky's OPERA at Small Press Distribution (so now it's available there!). And, naturally, who can resist a shopping foray, if all too brief, into its backroom whilst there? So I rectified a shameful lapse on my part: acquiring

Ed Foster's MAHREM (Marsh Hawk Press, 2001)
and
Tom Raworth's Eternal Sections (Sun & Moon, 1993).

I've long heard of, but not had a chance previously, to explore Raworth's work -- yep, a brilliant and pleasurable read. I need to get his Collected ASAP! There's timelessness embodied in Raworth's poems; you can read his poems forward, backward, sideways, 6-dimensionally....and always end up off the page back onto the natural world! Like, check out this excerpt:

not having a front door
more or less intact
a whole network of cracks
formal and shiny
far more disturbing
while we sipped hot tea
on her appointment book
sunlight glittered
now somewhat oxidized
and other noise-makers
containing music
from past experience
the tune back and forth
you will also be breathing

Cool, huh? But I'd written out the above excerpt in the reverse order in which Raworth wrote/published it. But it still works. Nifty, eh?

Foster's MAHREM is also recommended, with the poems adding up to a greater pleasure than its sum -- and said pleasure being further magnified by the inclusion of evocative black-and-white photographs of men and boys hangin' out in Izmir, Ankara and Istanbul. Check out this book which is not at all receiving the attention it deserves! Here's one poem:

SOPHISTICATES OF LANGUAGE LIVE ALONE

The palace doors are shut. Gide
wanders healthy on the street. Generous and
limited in need, he says no palace
yet contains his creed.

I'd lengthen your reserve,
you say. I'd teach submission.
The doors won't open here again.
Remission, children, help me, please.

RON SILLIMAN FASHION ADVISORY UPDATE

Awww. I knew Ron had been listening to moi. Nice shirt. Plus (despite what my poem "Nepal" said in an earlier post), blue is my favorite color. This version is a sunlit, seamless sky -- the kind we've been having much of lately here in wine country.

Wingtip penetrates screen to pat Ron on blue-surrounded shoulder....approvingly.

Although, I suppose this means I gotta stop looking at the picture now when I visit Ron and actually read his text. Sigh. So...LANG what?..

(P.S. But -- dare I say it -- I already miss the Darth Vader look. So many hours of pleasure did it provide for my sense of mischief. Ah well....lessee: who can I pick on now...? Kasey -- whatcha up to, Dude?)

THE BI-COASTAL LOVER'S AFFAIRS: ONE IN SAN FRANCISCO AND THE OTHER IN NEW YORK CITY

Well, so after hosting Joseph Lease, Donna de la Perriere and David Hess here in San Francisco this coming Thursday, beginning at 7 p.m. (e-mail me for details), I return to my mountain to hermit it, before going to New York for this:

"d.a. levy lives: celebrating the renegade press in america" reading series featuring Meritage Press!

Thursday, September 11, 6-8 p.m., free admission
ACA Galleries
529 W.20th St., 5th Floor
(between 10th and 11th avenues)
New York City
Directions: C/E to 23rd St., 1/9 to 18th St.

Well, dang. Thanks much to ACA Galleries and Boog City and David Kirschenbaum who are gracious enough to arrange a NYC Meritage Press reading--

but where are my recent authors on Sept. 11, 2003?! Rather than being with equally-gracious moi, John Yau will be Baltimore-ing in Baltimore, Barry Schwabsky will be London-ing in London and Garrett Caples will be absinthe-ing in Oakland. That's okay. Meritage Press is overflowing with writers! So, here are the readers who will be representing Meritage Press:

Poet, novelist and visual artist Eric Gamalinda, author of the deservedly award-winning collection Zero Gravity (with a sample poem here)

Poet, editor and critic Luis H. Francia, whose e-chapbook Selections From The Museum of Absences was published by Meritage Press

Patrick Rosal, author of the recently-released Uprock Headspin Scramble and Dive who's an extremely hip cat, too boot (O Puss 'N Boots?) with a sample poem here

The absolutely DROP-DEAD GORGEOUS and former National Poetry Series Finalist Sarah Gambito with some of the lushest hair on this planet, with sample poems here

Poet, critic and publisher Paolo Javier who's survived yet another summer at Bard, with sample poems here at Jack Kimball's The East Village

NYSCA Poetry Awardee Joseph Legaspi with sample poems here

Musical offering will be provided by the hauntingly lyrical Simone White who just inaugurated a new and lovely web site at:

http://www.simonewhite.org/simonewhite/

Free wine and cheese afterwards.

*****

See you there -- in San Francisco and New York City!

PLEASE SIGN PETITION

Hearing on AMINA LAWAL SET TO BE STONED ON - 27 AUGUST 2003

The Nigerian Supreme Court has upheld the death sentence for Amina Lawal, condemned for the crime of adultery on August 19th 2002, to be buried up to her neck and stoned to death. Her death was postponed so that she could continue to nurse her baby.

Hearing on her Execution is now set for 27 AUGUST 2003. If you haven't following this case, you might like to know that Amina's baby is regarded as the 'evidence' of her adultery.

Amina's case is being handled by the Spanish branch of Amnesty International, which is attempting to put together enough signatures to make the Nigerian government rescind the death sentence.

A similar campaign saved another Nigerian woman, Safiya, condemned in similar circumstances. By March 4th the petition had amassed over 2,600,000 signatures. It will only take you a few seconds to sign Amnesty's online petition.

Please sign the petition now, then copy this message into a new email and send it to everyone in your address book.

Go to the web page http://www.amnesty.org.au/e-card/petition.asp

UPDATE ON AMINA LAWAL

Amina Lawal, a 30 year-old Nigerian woman, sentenced by a Shari'ah court to death by stoning, has once again had her appeal adjourned. Amina's appeal will now be heard on 27 August 2003. According to the registrar of the Shari'ah Court of Appeal of Katsina State, the hearing could not take place because there was an inadequate number of tribunal members to hear the appeal. Two of the judges were reportedly serving on ad-hoc elections tribunals, constituted after general elections in April and May 2003.

Amina confessed to having had a child while divorced. Pregnancy outside of marriage constitutes sufficient evidence for a woman to be convicted of adultery according to the new Shari'ah-based penal code for Muslims, introduced in Katsina state.

The man named as the father of her baby girl reportedly denied having sex with her and his confession was enough for the charges against him to be discontinued. Amina did not have a lawyer during her first trial when the judgement was passed. But she has now filed an appeal against her sentence with the help of a lawyer hired by a pool of Nigerian human rights and women's rights organisations. Amina is awaiting her appeal at home.

SIGH: YET ANOTHER RON SILLIMAN FASHION REPORT

But someone's gotta do it and, ya know, the Corpse doesn't shirk away from her duty. Sip. Morning coffee.

So, Ron, dear -- this blog scarf version makes you look like an eggplant. That green. That purple stripe. All fading into black.

Or a uniform of some alien race battling Captain Kirk et al in your favored "Star Trek" series.

Sip.

Incidentally -- and this is no lie. I had eggplant for dinner last night. Cut them up, sauteed them in olive oil, salt, pepper, paprika. Then folded it into a three-egg omelette. Lovely with a glass of, from Australia, the 2002 Marquis Phillips Sarah's Blend (which is better after it's been opened for 2 days).

But, really, Ron -- when I look at your blog, I really do not wish to think about my cooking. It's an unnatural state.

Sip. Okay: rah, rah -- let the day begin.

MY JAPANESE

As a teenager, I grew up in Gardena, Ca. which held then (and still may?) the largest Japanese-American population on the mainland U.S. (including, at one point, Garrett Hongo). My teen friends taught me to count in Japanese up to five. I only needed to learn the first five numbers

ichi

ni

san

shi or chi (sp?)

go

because the point of the counting exercise was to be able to do a bilingual pun. That is, when you needed to go to the bathroom, you'd say "5, 4, 4" because that phonetically would be "go, shi, shi"....I know -- you had to be there.

Well, now that I'm blathering -- cause I can't sleep after MISSY P. WOKE ME UP!!!! -- I might as well continue to fascinate you with another "Jap" story. To wit (or lack of wit, ... nevuh mind): growing up in Gardena meant that I always thought "Jap" meant "Japanese." It took months for me as a Barnard College freshman to realize that "Jap" also stood for "Jewish American Princess." That realization explained a lot of previously incomprehensible situations that unfolded for me shortly after I first landed on the Columbia University campus.

Okay. I think I'll go back to bed now.

YEAH, RIGHT

When you let me sleep easily again, Missy P., I'll begin memorizing the (yawn: pun intended) dictionary.

SOMETIME AFTER 3 A.M.

I can't fucking believe I woke up in the middle of the night just because I realized I misspelled a word -- the word "sansei" that should be "sensei" -- in the prior post. Well, fuck you Missy Poetry: I don't inherit language. I'm a poet.

OOOOOOOOOHHHHH YEAH! DEFINITELY AN ANGEL!!!

I put my hands where your weight should be
Ooooooohhhhhh yeah
--from "Maybe An Angel" by Heather Nova

Sansei John Yau taught me of many things -- like Heather Nova!

I stumbled across her CD whilst unpacking (will there ever be a point in my life when I'm not either packing of unpacking?!!!! Pleeeeze Lord...!). I'd frankly forgotten all about Heather Nova until today's unpacking period.

Anyway, here's a fabulous live performance by Heather Nova available through AOL.

Meanwhile, Heather continues to croon from the computer speakers:

I put my feet where the earth should be
Oooooooooooohhh yeah

Utterly spine-melting....then wing-raising....!

PLEASE PENCIL IN SONG ON YOUR CALENDAR


Effectress
--by Barry Schwabsky

Your eyes
listen. A shiver
of clear water, the necessary
accident
of laughter in the missing
air. Don't ever let me forget
whose lips
would be the gates of charity. Persuasion
is your most natural science, a practical companion
to the further
and furthest
adventures of X.


*****

This is one of the poems in OPERA by Barry Schwabsky -- it's printed out on yellow paper (Buddhist color for enlightenment) and inset within a white wooden frame; it hangs on the wall right behind my computer. I see this sunlit poem -- Song of the Sunray -- whenever I raise my eyes from the keyboard, long lashes fluttering forth a shadow of wavy parallel lines like abstract text begging to be solidified into songs and stories....as night stretches, stretches: "extending / extending arms. / Always something more....."

Anyway, please place on your calendar!

HOUSE READING SERIES

Poetry Reading Featuring Moi and Barry. Sunday evening, October 26, 2003 at kari edward's apartment in San Francisco -- more details to come.

("&", speaking of kari, she's an SPD poetry bestselling author!!! Congratulations, kari!)

FRAGMENTED MIDNIGHT FRAGMENTS
(AS CORPSE STRIVES FOR JEDI KNIGHTHOOD)

Gura Michelle writes:

Eileen, you're such a fine paduan lerner!*

Way back when, Eileen took like 4 weeks worth of kali classes from me. She was a fine student, if not for her coordination, but it's the spirit of kali that she understood. So hard to find that nowadays. Most people think it's just a technique, a movement that can be diagrammed and calculated. Oh, but Eileen had a fine eye and always understood that behind the calculations and the thought there was a spirit to feel.

Naturally, I reprint the above since it's complimentary to me, notwithstanding that very misguided reference to my physical coordination by someone who, after all, has yet to see me on a dance floor (I'd kick yo ass, Gura, but you're, uh, Gura).

"Paduan lerner" refers to the first stage to becoming a Jedi knight, according to Michelle. Okay -- paduan lerner I be. As I recall, I was pretty dangerous with kali -- typically threatening my own life, if I remember correctly...

Michelle, btw, knows of what she writes when it's not about my physical coordination; if you see George Lucas' latest Flick From Far Far Away Etcetera, you'd see Michelle's normally pristine complexion dotted with huge alien freckles as she wields a weapon (that lightning rod?) in a few of the movie's battle scenes.

Anyway, future Jedi here calls out in "angelic voice" -- Thanks for the Sing Out! And, indeed, those four weeks were a special period, beginning on the high note of my very first Kali sparring partner being none other than JoeyAyala. Pretty good for someone who didn't know who he was -- but just as well; had I been one of his star-struck fans, I might not have rapped him as hard as I did with that kali stick....and rapping him with that bamboo was purty FUN!!!

Did I ever tell you that when I apologized to Mang Jose, I mean, JoeyAyala for not knowing who he is, he replied, "You're refreshing."

Refreshing. I should bottle myself and then ... drink myself.

Sip. Glass of water (heresy, I know, but mere glass of water it is). Incidentally, Michelle, check out David: he wants some melon, "if you knows what I means." I means, of course, that Farmer's Market near youse....

Pause. Now, I got onto Blogger to tell a story and it seems to me I'm blathering about everything but that story. But, hey, let me rectify that now! So, first, I highly recommend that beanie bag thing that you put beneath your wrist as you manipulate your computer mouse! It's ergonomically effective and my right wrist is purring as we (or, I) speak! And only $4.95 at Staples...leading me to true story I intended to blog:

I was at Staples today and there was this salesman. And while we chatted our way through various computer-related ergonomic devices, he would drop off such hints as that he used to work for the NSA [National Security Agency] and, upon discovering I'm a writer, that one of his writer-friends just wrote a novel using his "memoir based on Beirut" for underlying research. There was a moment there when, whilst listening politely to his Napoleonic Complex, I recalled that wonderful movie "The Secret Lives of Angels" -- that whole thing about not judging a book by its cover: so, like, you never know: this Staples salesperson may perhaps have been a SPY for the U.S. government!!!!

That moment lasted a mere...moment. NSA, my eye in my foot -- if this peep ever were in the NSA, he probably got fired for having promiscuous lips. Wouldn't most peeps in NSA keep their mouths shut about being in the NSA!

From the NSA to Staples -- only in America would such a trajectory...traject.

Pause. Corpse pauses again. She is blogging on a computer next to a window and, for a moment, the night on the other side of glass splits. And within that sunder, eight large deer reveal themselves grouped in a circle....painted white by moonlight. A sudden tableau of antlered animals molded from snow.

Ohhhhhh, she gasps as a bony finger begins to twirl a long ebony lock round and round into an ever-tightening spiral around milk-white bone. Poor deer -- you are hiding from the hunters, aren't you?

She rises from her chair and approaches the window. She croons as she continues to sculpt spirals with her hair:

Yes, cling to my limestone walls. You are safe here....where my kali stick -- where my Jedi sword -- are borne from the silvery froth spilling over from my cauldron.

Cauldron -- there where language lacks morality....where the scent emanating is one of melting jasmine...and the nape sweat from an old lover who promised he understood her fragility and would never be cruel,

but lied.

What is it that makes a human hunt Love ... in order to kill it?

This midnight's revelation is that he was not a true Poet. But he was a hunter of poets, wielding a weapon with cancer-ridden bullets. How now to protect Poetry from his hunt?

Beyond the window, the animals hide in the dark. But she feels them. Their antlers are raised to defend themselves, but they are quivering...and the ground beneath their hooves stink with a stunned and appalled wetness.

LATEST DISCOVERY

Certain books possess the ability to make you detest country music. This is one:

The Sea Came In At Midnight by Steve Erickson.

Erickson has been around for a while, but is a new discovery for me. I have a feeling that, soon, I'm going to immerself myself in everything he's ever written.

I don't, incidentally, detest country music. But while it (at someone else's decision) was playing through my reading of Erickson's book, I suddenly did because it couldn't confirm my experience of it. Like

Once winter came, we watched Paris from that beginning stage of a fever when consciousness is dimmed and everything seems dark, slow songs from the next room always like an echo, and distant memories jangling with present dreams, riddled with the sound of someone saying something you can't quite hear. Riding through the Bois de Boulogne where prostitutes had fucked men in the summer trees, with the calamitous crash of sunset and the ferocious rattle of the foliage through the taxi window, autumn colors of death and rouge buried by winter woods gleaming with semen and snow, Angie sat with me in the back of the cab biting her nails without realizing and then, looking at her fingers, suddenly lurched into my arms and held me. In the rubble she obsessed me. In the ruins I was both her pimp and john, selling her to myself. In the decay it seemed all the more suitable a place to have her however I wanted. Through the lace of the curtains in the hotel window I could watch young girls in the vacant room across the courtyard while I was behind her. Rock and roll was in the halls, guys hacked tubercular on the stairs, sink pipes rumbled like the streets. Drains gurgled near the sidewalks. Whispers from 1968 rose to a wall from the river, windows banged open and shut in the gust, the heads of the girls across the courtyard dropping from their necks, hair hanging to the gutters...and from the streets I can hear it now, the waves of truncheons and swaying clubs, cops wearing empty tear-gas canisters around their genitals, flagellating dead revolutionaries. Chaos banal and splendid -- black workers killed in Johannesburg on 3 July, IRA bombs in Hyde and Regent parks on 20 July, grenades lobbed into a kosher Paris restaurant on 9 August -- marks my violations of her. "Insist," Angie hisses in the dark, digging her nails in my thighs; first I take it for one of her signposts, but it's a command "Insist on what you want from me. Make me do what I can barely bear to do," she says, turning beneath me, thrusting herself onto me; "Make me do something nearly as bad and depraved as I am," and I do, down all the days and weeks and months to the very hour Christian militiamen in Beirut randomly slaughter Palestinian peasants: "Moan," she sighs in the Paris twilight.

For me, sometimes, falling in love with a text means to rewrite it....so that it also becomes part of what the body experiences and memorizes -- so that it transcends the mind and memory to become a lover's tongue. O avid tongue -- mirror this unspeakable hunger...for the impossible

: e.g. words that say what they mean.

THE WAY CERTAIN MEN SPEAK (SH)IT

Woke up all cheerful because I knew I could -- and did! -- go running to my kitchen where there stood a tropical flower arrangement taller than moi. Wide purple leaves, birds of paradise, wax-petalled magnolias, bamboo sticks with zebra stripes, thin languid grasses literally overflowing from the largest vase in my possession that still was too small for this lush arrangement. Filet mignon for the eyes!

And a gift from M. who visited last night. Brought along his new girlfriend, K., to introduce. Lovely lady. We dined at our favorite St. Helena restaurant, Roux. Tom brought wines and, yep, here are the recommendations:

2000 Kistler Durell chardonnay
1999 Rudd Jericho Canyon cabernet
Bullers Fine Muscat from Australia

I've said it here before but say it again: this relatively unknown Bullers is one of the finest bargains out there right now -- currently available for $10.99 at Wine Club in San Francisco.

Anyway, we're all getting acquainted and M. and K. reveal that they met at a museum....."got to talking about art and things just proceeded from there!" M. proclaims.

The hubby looks at his good buddy M. and sez, "In the first place, what exactly were you doing in a museum?"

K. and I look at each other, look at Tom, look at M. with a taken-aback expression on his face.....and burst out laughing.

There seems to be a certain way of talking that many men do only with each other when they give each other shit. It's a way of talking that doesn't seem to translate across sexes. I suspect: I quite appreciate it.

COOKING, CORPSE-STYLE

You are the soil
candied with seeds
--from "In Praise of Steph" by David Hess

Early morning at St. Helena Farmers' Market: from his stall, a full-bellied Guy is proudly proclaiming at the waking world:

NOTHING SMELLS BETTER!!!

Sun and moon watermelons. French cantaloupes. Freshly harvested. Fabulous perfume, indeed! Got three melons.

As said melons rattled in the back of the car while driving home, I asked the hubby, "Do you think that, physically, these melons can last a week so I can give some to David?"

Hubby replied, "Physically, they might. In reality, they won't as I'm gonna eat them all up by Sunday."

Will try again, David "Likes Fruit" Hess.

Reminder:

Party to Welcome to the Bay Area:

Joseph Lease, Donna de la Perriere and David Hess

at my apartment in San Francisco, starting at 7 p.m. this coming Thursday, August 21, 2003.

E-mail me for venue location.


Wine shall be poured generously. I also have been working on my culinary skills -- I have now mastered ye olde classic but complicated culinary offering:

Cheese and Crackers!!

There is, in case you didn't know, a particular art to...uncrinkling that stiff plastic thingie encasing the typical box of crackers....If you come and make the request, I'll show you the tricky part of said unfolding.

I also nearly gave the hubby a heart attack when I asked the air he was breathing,

"Should I bake a cake?"

After his fit of coughing -- whilst I looked upon him with much high dudgeon staining my lovely face -- the hubby pleaded, "Please please please bake a cake by telephoning the bakery for a delivery."

Well!

Corpse sniffed her tiny but enchanting nose, tossed back her uncut hair, and flounced off to her writing studio....where she expertly stirred her cauldron.

Somewhere in the Amazon-watered rain forest, a tribe ceased whittling at wooden spears to listen to the wind carrying her croons across an ocean: Come to me, lovely poems, come to me.....!

ALONG THE RINZAI PATH

Crumpled Letter

Because I have memorized how a lamp might glow to cast your shadow against a stone wall, I anticipate your arrival as part of a past we will share.

In this way do we remain foreigners forever to each other.

Such is why tears, intensely leaked, are the least of it.

Fluidity makes water forever relevant to us, alas.

I already anticipate the crumpling of this page.

Toothpaste becomes our only source of consistency, but each tube flattens over time, alas.

Today, I relied on the word "quais" rather than "streets."

As I told the silly woman who wanted to drape my windows with "hip burlap," I am not a Francophile.

Brief digression to note that the summer broiling Europe might make 2003 the best year in the past 100 years for French, Spanish, German wines -- already, futures for 2003 First Growth Bordeauxes are ratcheting up in price!

An expatriate suggesting Boston plumbing in Spanish is what is known among the cognoscenti as a "fanatical expatriate."

Cities are never wistful in the United States of America, preventing said urban environment from mastering the cafe scene as a capsule freezing time.

Still, the quality of light becomes insufficient reason for walking the "quais" of a particular region.

And the scent of this word "promise"?

And the prolonged oceanic detour as "a prelude to dying"?

Or the toss of these words into the nonexistent country I would wish for my spine?

Oh Love -- all this when I am not the one who would not stay.

THE END THAT MORNING

Intellectual schoolgirls, hugging books,
walking under the high
somber stone spires, singing
out of eternity.
--from In RI by Henry Gould

Lovely poem about schoolgirls, one studying Italian. Feel innocence through sunlight. (Dapples despite absent leaves.) Stones steady beneath fluctuating sheen. My face becoming marble as another poet departs. Stone under silent tears. Water pock-marked by sunlight. Then covered by the shadows in a dim hallway. Where black is a relief. But not, as it never has been, compensation.

Flutter of wings. Beyond window, the mountain's promise to protect. She can feel its inclines steepen, increasing the difficulty for those would climb with fake apologies. While last night's deer hunters descend, empty-handed. Guns still loaded with bullets.

WHILST UNPACKING THE LIBRARY: QUARK POETICS

The world of the quark has everything to
do with a jaguar circling in the night....

....what does the smell of tympani
have to do with the smell of your hair?...

....the rubble of Angkor Wat//
gives off heat; so do apricot blossoms
in the night, green fish, black bamboo,
or a fisherman fishing in the snow....
--from "The Leaves of a Dream Are The Leaves of An Onion" by Arthur Sze

Gads. And I'm still unpacking! But it's going to continue to be slow going. Coz I'm unpacking books, not clothes or furniture. And the issue with unpacking books is the constant interruption to read over books whose contents I'd forgotten and/or find newly interesting. Like, today, I uncovered an old issue of Negative Capability that featured poems by Jimmy Carter.

I may have read, but don't recall ever, any poems by our former President. I liked this one:

CONTEMPLATION OF WHAT HAS BEEN CREATED, AND WHY

I tried to fathom nature's laws
from twirling models and schoolroom sketches
of molecules and parts of atoms,
and nearly believed -- but then came quarks,
bosons, leptons, anti-particles,
opposite-turning mirror images,
some that perforate the earth,
never swerving from their paths.
I've listened to conflicting views
about the grand and lesser worlds:
a big bang where it all began;
or curved and ever-expanding space;
perhaps tremendous whirling yo-yos
that will someday reach the end
of cosmic gravity and then
fly back to where they may restart
or cataclysmically blow apart --
and then, and then the next event.
And will it be an accident?

It's a poignant poem for all the wrong reasons: the ever-lurking potential for a cataclysmic event -- "will it be an accident?"

It's apt that President Carter notes such elements that may "perforate the earth" including quarks. Said quarks, of course, are the basic building block of all atomic nuclei throughout the universe. And how do I know that? Because elsewhere in the library is the fabulous book The Quark and the Jaguar by Murray Gell-man, a winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics. The book was released at the time Dr. Gell-man was (I don't know if he still is) at The Santa Fe Institute where, according to the book jacket, "scientists are investigating the similarities and differences among complex adaptive systems--systems that learn or evolve by utilizing acquired information.

"They include a child learning his or her native language, a strain of bacteria becoming resistant to an antibiotic, the scientific community testing new theories, an artist implementing a creative idea, a society developing new customs or superstitions, a computer learning to play chess, or the human race evolving ways of living in greater harmony with itself and with other inhabitants of the Earth."

Thus, the book is described as "Gell-Mann's own story of finding the connections between the basic laws of physics and the complexity and diversity of the natural world. // The simple: a quark inside an atom. The complex: a jaguar prowling its jungle territory in the night. Exploring the relationship between them becomes a series of exciting intellectual adventures."

All fine and good -- and I recommend learning more about quarks, if only because such (I believe) helps elucidate something about poetry and life: Interconnections.

And speaking of interconnections, it was poetry which first put quarks on my own radar. Specifically, the poetry of Arthur Sze who -- interestingly -- also radicalizes the approach of engendering a space for connections between the poem and reader (a problematic that some find...problematic, e.g. the first reader response to Arthur's book The Redshifting Web at Amazon.com).

From Arthur's The Redshifting Web: Poems 1970-1998 (a book that's given me one of the most pleasurable and longest-lasting enjoyments in my reading experience), here is an excerpt from Arthur's poem "The Leaves of a Dream Are The Leaves of An Onion." The first excerpted section mentions the quark and jaguar references that Gell-man incorporates into his own book (or did Gell-man's book occur before the poem was written and it's actually Arthur referencing Gell-man?). This excerpt also reveals Arthur's luminous deftness at joining together seemingly arbitrary juxtapositions....into poetry:

2.
A Galapagos turtle has nothing to do
with the world of the neutrino.
The ecology of the Galapagos Islands
has nothing to do with a pair of scissors.
The cactus by the window has nothing to do
with the invention of the wheel.
The invention of the telescope
has nothing to do with a red jaguar.
No. The invention of the scissors
has everything to do with the invention of the telescope.
A map of the world has everything to do
with the cactus by the window.
The world of the quark has everything to do
with a jaguar circling in the night.
The man who sacrifices himself and throws a Molotov
cocktail at a tank has everything to do
with a sunflower that bends to the light.

6.
Crush an apple, crush a possibility.
No single method can describe the world;
therein is the pleasure
of chaos of leaps in the mind.
A man slumped over a desk in an attorney's office
is a parrot fish caught in a seaweed mass.
A man who turns to the conversation in a bar
is a bluefish hooked on a cigarette.
Is the desire and collapse of desire in an unemployed carpenter
the instinct of salmon to leap upstream?
The smell of eucalyptus can be incorporated
into a theory of aggression.
The pattern of interference in a hologram
replicates the apple, knife, horsetails on the table,
but misses the sense of chaos, distorts
in its singular view. Then
touch, shine, dance, sing, be, becoming, be.

Beautiful, isn't it? Arthur writes some of the most radiant poems being birthed today. And lucky you all: Arthur -- a poet's poet -- will be a part of my star-studded panel during this forthcoming event in New York City sponsored by the Asian American Writers Workshop (and you don't need to be Asian to attend):

Intimacy & Geography:
The National Asian American Poetry Festival
October 30-November 1, 2003

My panel, entitled by the AAWW organizers as "Lightning Strikes" (to reference my first book Black Lightning) will be held on Saturday, November 1, 2003 from 11:30 am -1 pm. (Note that the public can attend individual panels and not necessarily participate in the entire festival.) I expect to be brilliant and charming and can guarantee that Arthur will be as ... brilliant and charming. See you there -- let's do like the quark and jaguar: CONNECT!

NOT POST AVANTE, BUT DEFINITELY ON, GARDE

Today, someone asked me to recommend her for a Fulbright. Sure, I thought, even as I giggled privately. Said private giggle was due to how this was yet another instance (of tediously many instances) of me recommending other peeps to programs who would never consider accepting me.

Not that I've ever applied specifically for a Fulbright, but I suppose another related example is how peeps note -- ascribe on their own some cultural capital to -- who I have published or included in my projects (e.g. anthologies and journals I edit). But they shy away from my own writings.

What exactly is this about: when people listen to, and even respect, your opinions but they ignore the actual manifestations of your opinions: your poems?

But as many a B-movie character has posited, "Am I bitter?"

Naaaaah -- occasionally, I even giggle....but perhaps (only perhaps as I don't know, this being a new thought:) this also relates to why I'm sometimes cautious about people I meet through poetry blogland. The blog is a social space....and as occurs in/on other social spaces, people can get charmed by you (and let's face it, I can get bloody charming on this blog) without necessarily addressing you more substantively. In my case, when someone contacts me -- because of my blog -- professing to be my friend but shows no interest in my poems (when this is most avowedly a poetics blog) well, I just think: Well now!

Uh: present company -- you 8 million peeps -- excepted, of course!

===========

Hmmmm. I suppose the answer could be: perhaps my poems are just bad. Naaaaaahhhhh, that can't be it....

UNNERVED

Yesterday, I was contacted by poet wishing to join an event I am curating. I had not thought to include her -- more importantly, I could imagine the trepidation she must have felt to .... ask.

It's difficult for poets (and others in like positions) to ask for attention about a calling that presumably is not supposed to be about ... calling attention to one's self. When faced with such examples -- including, grimace and wince here, from some of my own acts -- I think Compassion is the antidote. So:

Note to Self: Watch this inadvertent growth of insensitivity as a result of you paying so much attention to your hermitary.

POETRY'S OBJECTS OF INTIMACY

I dedicate this book to the poets who risk the quest whole-heartedly. Poetry, too, has taught me: one falls in order to fly. One plunges in order to soar.
--from Acknowledgments to The Anchored Angel: Selected Writings By [and On] Jose Garcia Villa

Books -- specifically trade edition poetry books -- are lovely. But even lovelier to me are the less polished (and, thus, often more intimate) objects that come out of poetry-making. It's why, as a publisher, after releasing a quite elegant bound-volume monograph like John Yau and Archie Rand's 100 More Jokes From The Book of the Dead, I was delighted to have a chance to release er, um -- a sweet limited edition chapbook by Garrett Caples and Hu Xin. Well, having just released Barry Schwabsky's trade edition poetry book, OPERA: Poems 1981-2002, I was dying to do another more intimate object. The result? Meritage Press' first poetry broadside, fresh off the kitchen table and now available! Let me inflict the official announcement here, but there's a point I want to make so don't groan yet -- just shoulder down through the officialese:

Meritage Press Announcement:

...............Hum
without purpose
like pain.
--from "Veins" by David Hess

Meritage Press is pleased to release its first poetry broadside, a signed and numbered (20) limited edition featuring:

"Veins" -- a poem by David Hess

Designed by Eileen Tabios, incorporating drawings from her 2003 series "Enso/And So" (utilizing dregs from the 1988 Chateau Lafite, 1982 Monfortino and/or the 1985 Graham's).

For ordering information, e-mail MeritagePress@aol.com

David Hess lives in his hometown of St. Louis. He attended Brown University. A chapbook, Cage Dances, was published by Skanky Possum in 2001. Poems, essays and reviews have appeared in Jacket, Skanky Possum, Mungo vs. Ranger, Readme, Quid, VeRT and Shampoo. Http://heathensinheat.blogspot.com is where he currently likes to hold court.

Meritage Press seeks to expand fresh ways of featuring literary and other art forms. Reflecting how poets make instead of inherit language, the press is named after "meritage," a word created to describe the Bordeaux-style of wine-making that uses California-grown grapes. Meritage style combines the grapes of cabernet, cabernet franc and merlot to create a wine characterized by robustness in flavor, bouquet, color and body –- symbolizing the passion underlying the vision of Meritage’s artists.

========

So that was the official announcement -- which is partly my job as publisher to inflict it upon you reading public. But I'm also laying it on you in an attempt to soothe my bleary eyes. Bleary because I stayed up all night last night doing meticulous (uh, meticulously spilled) drawings on each broadside. For said drawings, I used red wine as my ink -- but of course, right? -- to create fragmented circles (enso) and ellipses. Later, I'd write the following notes in my real (vs blog) diary about said night. What surprised me about the notating process is how the lurking poem reared its mischievous head to insert these notes' ending (referencing that poetic process of never knowing ahead time where the poem is going to go)... though this isn't actually the poem yet:

Bleary eyed all day
coz I stayed up all night
fucking Poetry
by avoiding words

to draw, instead
fragmented circles
with the ink of wine
for David Hess broadsides

Dawgs -- I didn't even need
the effin' moon

But they weren't circles
so much as ellipses

-- the difference being
one is static purity
and the other energy
(even if the energy
is from departure
as symbolized by
the slide from left
to right and vice versa)

Of course I opt
-ed for the energy
even if the rush
was of the air
departing. For

energy is the form
and the content
and the metaphor for

I am still alive

Fuck You, Poetry
for what you put
me through:
I am still alive


I hadn't expected to turn my notes about the broadside-making experience into a realization about my development as a poet. Ironically, I think that -- despite the finger giving to "Poetry" -- this poem is revealing something that took years for me to attain: acceptance (or a level of acceptance) of Poetry, such that I can now tell Poetry to fuck off. I'm a Romantic who nonetheless had to learn to yank Poetry's body down from its effin pedestal. We've been wrestling with each other since -- I don't know who'll win or if winning is the point. I think the point is that I also must learn how to get my poems down and dirty. The Angels had to fall, no, plummet! And keep descending despite the views below of sharply edged rocks and boulders revealing themselves beneath the waves.

Nor can I swim.

Did any of that make sense? If not....I can't swim.

BASIL KING PAINTS A WORD/WATER-FALL POEM

There's some new information over at the Marsh Hawk Press Blog. Relating to my love for poetry/visual art combos, I, for one, am eagerly anticipating

Mirage: a poem in 22 sections by Basil King

which Amiri Baraka calls "A fine book—important on painting."

There's an excerpt from Mirage on the Marsh Hawk Press Blog, as well as on Basil King's author page on the Marsh Hawk Press website. But here's some info:

Basil King attended Black Mountain College as a teenager in the 1950s, and completed his apprenticeship as an abstract expressionist painter in San Francisco and New York. Since that time, his art has taken a different turn, reaching through abstraction back to surrealism and forward into a new approach to the figure. Although he did not begin to write regularly until 1986, an involvement with poetry has always been part of his life, first in doing art to accompany poems in books and magazines, later as a book artist, and now as a poet/painter. Some of his larger paintings can be seen on the Web at the Spuyten Duyvil, Light & Dust, and Avec sites. His books include Split Peas, Miniatures, Devotions, Identity, The Poet, and Warp Spasm (Spuyten Duyvil, 2001).

I am keen with anticipation partly because of the excerpt from Mirage which can be seen at Marsh Hawk Press's blog and site. It's the first time I've seen a waterfall poem, where the words in one stanza act as a thin stream onto a next stanza of a prose paragraph that evokes a lake, sea, or other larger body of water. (Or perhaps I'd seen this form before but it's the first time I correlated the visual effect to a water/word-fall.) Kudos to Basil King's eye/I that created a visual dimension to a poem where, hey, the words also are purty good, as in this excerpt:

But the road is a long line. I went to its air and I strode its floor. Road-maker, my totem is relieved. There is so little color left that we no longer have impressions. Where there is no language, there can be no law.

A PRE-PUBLICATION OFFER AND SOME NICE WORDS

Some nice words were posted this weekend on the Buffalo Poetics List. It began when I made the offer -- and make this offer to you eight million peeps as well -- for a pre-publication price discount good through October 15, 2003 on Barry Schwabsky's OPERA: Poems 1981-2002. As I explained it, the book is not officially released until November 1, 2003 but since I've got copies now made and on hand, I thought I'd do the offer. Besides, Domestic Goddess here needs to free up some pantry space as storing the book inventory in my kitchen is preventing me from using said kitchen efficiently (8 million peeps simultaneously snort: Yeah, right on that last point).

Anyway, in response, the ever-gracious Kevin Killian wrote to the List:

It's great to see a book of poems by the critic Barry Schwabsky, whose art writing I've admired for so many years. I didn't expect it would be as good as it is--for how many art writers of the first rank really can write poetry? (How many human beings do any two things especially well?) But Schwabsky is an unexpected exception. The promo material describes him as a poet writing "outside" of poetry, and that gibes with the strangely foreign flavor of his work, which sometimes seems to have been translated from a more delicate language than English. On the other hand it's often colloquial, lived-in, the "vulgar tongue," the trailer park trash talk mixed in with the references to Wittgenstein and Valery Larbaud and Traherne. One poem even boasts an epigraph by A.A. Fair, which I've never seen happen before in a book of poetry.

On the back jacket David Shapiro speaks of the compression of Schwabsky's writing, it's true, no poem goes on much longer than a page or two, and those that do are linked shorter lyrics. I don't know yet what "Opera" means, but I'm working on it.

One odd result of this unfamiliarity, by which I mean the alterity of his poetic diction, is that, although the book's subtitle is "Poems 1981-2002," I'm hard pressed to follow any pattern of growth, or decay, the way one might be able to with another author. The references to other poets--to Elaine Equi, Clark Coolidge, John Yau--might have been made at any time during that period, for they're none of them youngsters. Were the poems written in chronological order? I don't think so--but I'm just guessing because the opening sequence, "Opera"" employs the now-familiar trope of the remix--there's a "Club Mix" of it, a "Bandwidth Mix"" and so on, which wasn't so familiar back in 1981 was it? I don't think so, though now it's a yawny commonplace in poetry I suppose. Anyhow it'll all come clear the more I read of this book. Congratulations to you, Eileen Tabios, for having the gumption to publish such a unique and satisfying work. Hope that some of you on the Poetics List will buy it and tell me what you think.

Well, the Gumptious One was naturally pleased. Oooooh, I could answer Kevin's question on the backdrop to the book -- but let's leave that for some graduate student to excavate after Barry wins the Pulitzer. Then, as I was preening to myself, Jane Sprague chimes in. Do just picture me even more a-twitter when Jane says:

Schwabsky has this uncanny and deft way of pairing opposites- opposing images and ideas, these ideas of 'something else' that can't be said in regular speech, even as he utilizes such speech at times to say it. And I mean to spell else with a capital E. It's the something else that has me puzzling over this book and picking it up again and again- he's writing about desire and love and longing through the all that it isn't and by doing this he swiftly articulates all that it is. Capital I. And still so difficult to say, catch and hold for more than a glimpse or a moment of when you actually 'get' the what that is happening to you.

It may be Schwabsky's skills in perception and inquiry (as in the necessary intercourse with a work of art to then proceed and write salient criticism) that give his writing this "outside" and incisive sense; it's as if the sensations of experience captured in these poems come from this same space of outsideness-- as poems written inside particular moments/experiences/thoughts while disembodied and trying to make sense of it or make it last or understand or...or--my copy has all these crazy folds at top corners and bottom corners to mark the places I keep going back to. I've mangled the poor thing in loving it.

It's an absolutely beautiful book. Lines like: "We / who read with our pens / invent beautiful reasons. / You the thief of what can't / be stolen are their favorite / servant." and: "I hereby unrecognize you, / sweet study of limit." (from the title poem, "Opera," _OPERA_, Barry Schwabsky, Meritage, 2003) I could read again and again and again. Which might be the highest praise one can give a book: unresolvable beckoning.

On behalf of Barry: PREEEEN! So, to pat myself on the back, I looked over my initial pre-publication offer and -- omigod, to think I was once a banker -- discovered an error that proves yet again how my poetry angels have a sense of humor that exceeds mine! Or, as I explained it in the bottom part of my e-mail to Buffalo:

Kevin & Jane -- Thanks much for your reactions! It's heartening for this newbie publisher....

The downside to all this is that in order for Barry's book to come out, I actually had to learn how to be a publisher. To think I had to descend from the mountain where I was quite enjoying my lazy self swigging mah wine just to figure out things like ISBN numbers! Yawn. Don't even get me started on how I had to haunt City Hall shuttling from one cavernous room to another to get a "Doing Business Under A Fictitious Name" certificate-thingie...

And to prove further what a learning curve I had to graciously suffer through, I sheepishly reveal that I calculated the pre-publication price wrong (I had to re-learn math to be a publisher!). The book can be had for $10.50, not $11.20 -- a FURTHER savings of 70 cents!!!!!

What an offer! Now, come on....
Eileen

=========

Yep -- the discount is even deeper than I calculated (and mayhap intended, Corpse thinks as she looks at the bathos on her desk called the "Meritage Press Forecast Income Statement"). So, come on! A 25% price discount and free shipping to domestic U.S. orders! Do yourself a favor and read and listen to Barry Schwabsky's first poetry book: OPERA!

CORRECTED DATA:
>Contact us first by e-mail for non-U.S. orders. For those placing U.S.
>orders, you may make checks out to Meritage Press ($10.50 per book)
>and send to
>
>Eileen Tabios
>Publisher
>Meritage Press
>2275 Broadway, Suite 312
>San Francisco, CA 94115

from the ever burgeoning series "Adventures of a Wife"
HUH?

Husband just sent me an e-mail. He signs off, "Regards."

Huh? Regards?

I think he should take his "Regards" and stuff it!

Then Corpse picks up the phone to "regards" the hubby back.

ON A POETICS OF LUCIDITY

Well. Whilst beginning my morning jog through blogland, I discovered that Blogger ate up the second half of my long "Boston Peep" post and had to cutnpaste the lost continuation below. Is Blogger still doing that? My mood, though, was improved when I paused by Li's blog to discover she is saying nice things about my book -- thank you Li. I appreciate you calling my poems "fully winged & eye lashed" as it is a position to which I obviously aspire.

I'm particularly complimented since the complimenter has the deftness to write a poem like "Rounds" -- check this first stanza out (doesn't that just cause your lips to thin into a perky, smiling line?):

The point of her pen
Filled the moon
She held the ball
In a melon spoon

Li also says: "**A dramatic thorn stabbing through the heart of a rosebud (cover photo design) aptly depicts the narrative poetry of Eileen Tabios' Reproductions of the Empty Flagpole**"

The photographer who took that image, Cal Strobel, had stepped out one morning to his garden where he saw the still life arranged by nature. The night had been stormy and said storm had tosssed a rosebud onto a thorn. I never would have used this image had Cal, himself, positioned the arrangement.....I would not have countenanced impaling a rose on purpose....and that Cal came across this image also proves what I suspect about Poetry:

It's not something we need to fictionalize. Poetry is all around us -- and we simply need to be lucid enough to see....

======


P.S. On the book cover of Reproductions..., the image of the rose is cut off by the right edge of the cover. That wasn't a mistake in cropping the photograph, but deliberately done so that it would be the viewer's mind's eye that would complete the image of the rose -- in the same way I believe it's the reader who completes the poem. Then, there's wabi sabi....

THE MYSTERY(IUM) BEHIND MY PERPETUAL HUNGER FOR NEPAL

"To make sublime the infinite distress of the soul."
--from J.K. Huysmans's La Bas (trans. Keene Wallace, Dover Publications, 1972)

In the city
there are streets
where confessions walk like verses
--from "Anima (ii)" by Carlos Arriba


Peeps -- check out this absolutely stunning blog:

MYSTERIUM

Carlos Arribas has one of the most beautifully eerie and eerily most beautiful blogs. When I sometimes imagine landscapes created by my poems, Carlos' blog imagery -- the lushness, the mystery, the colors, the evocations -- is my poetic aspiration. Recently, he's alerted his readers to the country I've most enjoyed visiting to date: NEPAL.

It must be 17 years since I visited Nepal -- but I've never forgotten that trip. When peeps ask me to explain why Nepal is my favorite, I often wisecrack, "Coz that's where I learned what it's like to be tall."

Not quite 5' 2", I'd never known what it was like to loom over a mass of people until I visited Nepal which, with India, was the farthest I could travel via TWA Frequent Flyer Miles (remember TWA?).

Of course, there are so many layers to any one story: the reason the population was so short was, sadly, due to malnutrition hitting much of the populace.

Some places are impossible to forget. Nepal is one of them. Here's one of my early poems from my first poetry book, Beyond Life Sentences (Anvil, 1998) -- which I also thought I'd share because it's not been published yet in its updated version, the update here being the addition this week of a new epigraph (thanks Gura):


MY FAVORITE COLOR
"Prayer is not an answer; it's a tool"
--Michelle Bautista

I once thought it an egglant's blush. Wine from tobacco and gravel. A farewell kiss before a lover commits suicide. Varicose veins rising from satin evening pumps encasing painted toes. A handcuff's tattoo. A flower with a white center. A feather on a parrot's scalp. Impenetrable.

I aged five years and changed my mind while walking an unpaved path: spilled saffron on dirt. A faded brick. Old seeds. The crack in an antique Grecian vase (shadows sundered). The seam of a desert horizon. The sun and sea praying together before crawing under the blanket. A scarf I wore while eating olives in Tuscany. The same scarf while eating olives in Jerusalem.

All those olives and I changed my mind to its militant skin. Like the background to camouflage gear. Or is it foreground? Blobs, either way. But a short finish: uninispiring. And you can't avoid beige because you always need to be reminded of contrast and surface. Then you can't avoid considering silly men -- or worse, honorable men -- dropping to the ground, the stink of sulphyr prevalent: eyes blinking shut to disappear into the underbrush.

Thus, I remembered my sex and made a different choice: yellow. Yellow. It's been decades and it's still yellow. Because yellow reminds me of Nepal:

I will always return to Nepal
because I never knew yellow until I saw Nepalese yellow

because I never knew mascara
until I saw the kohl-ringed eyes of Sumari
the Living Goddess discovered in a village nursery

because I never knew pizza until I ate
.....(to avoid the bones of Nepalese free range chicken)
the embarrassingly-thin crust served by the hotel because -- hot damn!
-- was it ever garlicky!

because I never knew real estate
until I saw the farmers' houses, goats braying from second-floor windows

because I never knew hang gliding
until the Royal Nepalese Airforced landed me in Kathmandu
without ever descending because the Himalayas reared

because I never knew I am a giant
until the whole race, malnourished, loked up at me

-- all this is not what I mean to say.

I really mean: when I looked down, I looked up;
I could never see the borders of your Nepalese smiles.

MUCHAS GRACIAS, MI "BOSTON PEEP," FOR MORE ON ALVARO MUTIS AND NOW JUAN SANCHEZ PELAEZ

ruega por nosotros
mientras lleguan las tardes sin color
y abundan los inviernos.
--Juan Sanchez Pelaez (Venezuela, 1922)

pray for us
while colorless afternoons arrive
and winters abound.
--English translation by Guillermo Parra

Got another squawk as regards my August 6 and 7 posts on Alvaro Mutis. Mutis was introduced to me by Barry Schwabsky who also advised that Mutis is a "cult phenomena" in the English-speaking world; so I'm quite pleased to hear a squawk about him from Guillermo Parra (a Boston-based poet) who writes:

I've enjoyed reading your blog recently--and I really liked the Alvaro Mutis translations you posted a few days ago. If you like his poems, I highly recommend his series of "Maqroll" novellas which have recently been re-published in English (with a great intro by Francisco Goldman).

He manages to write these very strange, dense narratives where nothing seems to happen for pages--but of course everything's happening just beyond the protagonist's perceptions. Full of page after page of magnificent sentences & imagery.

Your versions of his 2 poems were great.

Thanks Guillermo. And, indeed, as we speak, The Adventures and Misadventures of Magroll by Mutis, translated by Edith Grossman with an Introduction by Francesco Goldman (New York Review Books Classics), is in transit towards moi way; I very much look forward to reading it and discovering further for myself why Barry calls Mutis one of his "favorite writers" (I find Barry's taste as a critic impeccable.

I should clarify though, as regards Guillermo's note on the poems posted earlier on this blog, that if you go to the site on Mutis which includes ten poems translated into English by Alastair Reid, you will see the sources for "my" poem that Guillermo references. In the excerpted Mutis poem (Aug. 6 blog post), that translation was done by Reid. Then, my poem (from Aug. 7 blog post) entitled "The Voice Of The Wind" Fluttering The Pages Como El Lejano Gemido Del Zorro" is something I consider a "translation" in the sense that, in reading through the ten poems in English, I plucked out lines from each of the ten poems to string into a new poem. To me, the thread of the new poem bubbled up inexplicably from the surface of the ten poems read in one sitting.

In that sense, my translation wasn't across two different languages, but from language to poetry (to the extent the result is poetry).

In a follow-up e-mail, Guillermo also says:

i was introduced to Mutis as a novelist (i didn't even see his poems until later) by a good friend of mine here in Boston a couple years ago--i'm still unfamiliar with his work as a poet, which is why i i enjoyed your recent posts on him...

i haven't read him in English but from looking through the nyrb edition, it seems like an excellent version--there are these great stories about Gabriel Garcia Marquez when he was writing "100 yrs of solitude" in Mexico City--the only person he would show his drafts to was Alvaro Mutis--also, the Venezuelan poet Juan Sanchez Pelaez (who i'm translating) dedicated a wonderful poem to him

So, naturally, Corpse -- ever-mindful of you content-hungry peeps -- dutifully asked Geronimo if moi and you eight million can see the referenced poem by Juan Sanchez Pelaez and Guillermo's translation. After modestly cautioning that his translation may not live up to the original in Spanish, Guillermo comes through:

First, the poem by Juan Sanchez Pelaez (Venezuela, 1922) from his collection Aire sobre el aire (Caracas: Tierra de Gracia Editores, 1989)

Aire sobre el aire: XII

a Alvaro Mutis

Apice y cima
a ras de nuestro fin primero

procuranos refugio

y que nutridos por la piel del otono
se vayan entibiando nuestras casas y animales

y que no haya sino diafanidad
de parte nuestra respecto al hombre o la mujer

ora pro nobis ave de buen augurio, ora
pro nobis en tu niebla finisima y fija

ruega por nosotros
mientras lleguan las tardes sin color
y abundan los inviernos.

Then we have Guillermo's translation (!) brought to you by -- tat ta da dah! -- CorpsePoetics!!!!:


Air Over Air: XII

to Alvaro Mutis

Summit and peak
flush with our first goal

procure us refuge

and that, nourished by autumn's skin,
our houses and animals begin to warm up

and that there only be transparency
on our part regarding man or woman

ora pro nobis bird of good omen, ora
pro nobis in your subtle and fixed fog

pray for us
while colorless afternoons arrive
and winters abound.

=============

Thank you Geronimo. And, incidentally, Geronimo also notes:

i actually came across your blog because of the excerpts from it that were included in the Poetry Project Newsletter 2 or 3 months ago--and i remember your poem "The World is Yours" from Shampoo 11, which also includes some of my work--so we're sort of online neighbors i guess--

a random fact: did you know your poem's title shares the same name with a brilliant song from the NY rapper Nas' first album, "Illmatic"?--

reading your blog and those of the other poets has been an exciting discovery for me--it's turned my summer into a reading marathon, trying to keep up with all the interesting posts--i've also enjoyed your links to some of the Filipino lit websites & blogs--i myself was born in Boston but grew up all over, mainly Caracas, Venezuela and Florida--

when i see glimpses of the Philippines on tv or elsewhere it often reminds me of the beautiful greens & sounds (& chaos) of Caracas--

well, i'm glad to be one of your peeps, here in Boston--

You are a TRUE Sweetie, Guillermo. Conversations like this make me glad I persevere with this blog. And, no, I didn't know that about the rapper Nas...but will promptly investigate such. Rap -- Corpse has been ignoring you, but will rectify such. (In fact, speaking of belated rectifications, I'm writing this post while listening to Chris Stroffolino and the "Continuous Peasant" CD for the first time -- Chris: you are a pleasant surprise! )

Anyway, Guillermo, I do think there is mucho affinity between Latin America(ns) and the Philippines/Filipinos....but now your post also is making me recall a trip I once made to Caracas [integration of this story is dedicated to Kasey because of your lovely backchannel]. I was still a banker and I was off to investigate a petroleum project my bank had helped finance. But what I mostly recall was how, at one point, I and the young male associate freshly-minted from graduate school -- let's call him Ben -- working on the project with me, decided to check out a highly-regarded restaurant for dinner.

So we go....white linen tablecloths, crystal and porcelain settings, staff in burgundy and black uniforms, paneled wooden walls etcetera. Waiter comes over and hands Ben the wine list. Ben was fresh out of graduate school; startled, he looked at the leather-bound wine list and gave it to me. Now, I naturally expected the waiter to hand the *man* the wine list....but coming up is what made the Corpse bare bony teeth. I chose the wine, and when the waiter returned, I gave him the wine choice.

As many of you know, at a restaurant, upon returning with your chosen bottle, the waiter will pour a "taste" into a glass to make sure you really want that wine or that that particular bottle is still good. Well, that macho chauvinistic waiter offered the taste to Ben! I had been holding the damn wine folder in my hands, I clearly had selected the wine, and I had given the damn selection to the waiter -- and said waiter still gave the taste to the male at the table! Ben, who sheepishly looked at the storm beginning to cloud my lovely face, quickly took a sip and proclaimed it "Great!" so that the waiter could go away before my temper got the better of me.

After the waiter left our table, Ben then said, "Actually, I don't know if the wine was any good. I was still chewing my gum."

Then, Ben reached into his mouth to take out a wad of gum which he discreetly disposed of in his napkin. For five minutes, I just sat there speechless -- my astonished thoughts alternating between the boorish waiter and the....boorish dining habit of this young peep seated across the table from me. After collecting myself (so to speak), I pulled the rest of the bottle towards me (it was good; I did choose it after all) and drank all of it to recover. Ben didn't complain; the waiter never conceded it but Ben knew: I was the boss.

Pause. Corpse pauses....Oh, where was I? Sorry, Guillermo-- I didn't mean to make this post all about me. (And rest assured that the rest of my Caracas stay was divine, Sweetie!) Now where was I before I rudely interrupted myself. Oh, yes -- Guillermo: thanks for sharing your and Pelaez's poems. I am always delighted by new poetic discoveries!

Moreover, peeps, I recommend checking out Guillermo's other poem in Shampoo, "Evil Stanzas" (great title!)-- it is a wonderful read, as in this excerpt:

As one sufferer said:
unto us denied blessings

Make characteristic failure
our tautness—a trance

SUNDAY MORNING BLATHER

Kasey's latest quiz made me scrunch my lovely brow:

What's Your (Linguistic) Function?

And then the answer:

You are the METALINGUAL Function: orientation or set (Einstellung) toward the code. Basically, like a dictionary. You come in handy for doing crossword puzzles. You may also be a L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poet, or a soulless computer program.

Kasey, You are the "Bests" (wink) but I'm actually inept with crossword puzzles. And, come on: soulless? Moi with my black wings? At a minimum, Carlos and newest link Bard can attest otherwise, right sweeties?

Sadly, after last night's decadent dinner, I seem now to possess the body of a dictionary....

Speaking of Liposuction (I don't have the patience for typing all those equal signs this morning; besides, L is as equal to A etcetera about as much as a symbol is equal to its metaphor....as I said, furrowed brow -- this post is making my brain squint....), I nonetheless am happy to be considered the postcolonial angelic (or is it angelic postcolonial) manifestation from said Liposuction group....an honor.

Oh, oh, oh!!!! But speaking of Liposuction -- now, Ron, I know I said your BIG FACE in its Communist version scared me!!! But I much prefer it to its latest version of receding backwards into the shadows (or is that young poets' second-hand smoke?). What's the point of subtlety? Given the content of your blog, your original in-the-viewer's-face version is much more apt! Plus, there was a perverse charm to the initial full-frontal version! Lissen to me: I'm also an art critic!

Sip. Morning coffee.

Anyway, my Sunday morning incoherence may be attributed to two wines I imbibed and enjoyed last night over dinner with Les and Maggie, the proprietors of Dutch Henry Vineyards (Hi Scott, when you next google and find my latest reference to you all!):

from Australia, the 2000 Hobbs -- a resonant syrah; and
from not-Australia, the 1997 Pahlmeyer merlot -- so resplendent we opened 2 bottles and it was just the four of us.

Oenophile-peeps, Ms. WinePoetics shall never forget youse -- I'm a Corpse now but if there's a past I'm determined to honor, it is definitely ... my past.

OH SHRED ME A RIVER, DUM DA DUM DUM...
(AKA, THE POSTERIOR OF POSTERITY)

Because of the packing and unpacking of my studio, I had bought a paper shredder because I anticipated that I'd have to shred some papers I didn't want to retain in my next studio.

Well, I just spent four hours shredding. I expect that shredding the files I want to shred will probably require a total of 48 hours. You know -- I had had no clue I had such .... um, *tricky* material in my files. My, my what a life I've led, dum da dum dum...

Said material usually involves other poets....

Well. So: I suppose there are two types of gossip per CorpsePoetics' standards: the gossip Corpse does freely (as in on this blog), and the gossip the Corpse does not do. Hence the shredding....

I really feel certain stories are simply not for public domain. But keeping files, diaries, notes and journals are an occupational hazard. I bet I'm not the only writer with information in our *files* that, if taken out of context, could hurt other people in some way or be misunderstood.

I, for one, have been meaning to do this file spring cleaning (oh, it's summer?) for a long time, but it took this major move to do so. And as I am doing said file cleansing (unfortunate pun intended), it occurs to me that perhaps I was irresponsible to have let those papers remain in the files for so long. I mean, I could have been run over by a truck or otherwise get into an accident before I addressed said disposition of such paperwork! So I'm belatedly rectifying the situation.

Sip. Diet coke. This all also reminds me of when, once, I was doing research on a poet and ended up intersecting the papers s/he had just left to a library which shall remain nameless. "Intersected," in the sense that that library had just received them and so they weren't catalogued yet. When I expressed my interest in the papers of this poet, the librarian let me loose at the poet's boxes. I read every word on each paper, notebook, ephemera, etc. Then, it turns out a few days later that those papers were not supposed to be available to the public for another 50 years.

So now, I know how a certain poet feels about hir peers (hir -- cute, huh). But of course I won't say a word on that for at least 50 years -- at which point I'll either be a true corpse or my memory (which barely hangs on nowadays) will be totally gone.

Can I tell you? The first time I read Linda G.'s poems, I enjoyed them....but now I can't say I fully enjoy reading her poems on their own when all I can think of in reading her work is that relationship she had with you-know-who (a context that I am led to believe by others she also promoted). Blather! I quite enjoyed my unmediated relationship with her poems, even if many had been written for or related to whats-his-face. I didn't need to know of her personal life to enjoy those (alchemized) poems! (Those of you who know to whom I refer know what I'm talking about; and those of you who don't? It ain't worth knowing.) Sip. Diet coke.

There's gossip and there's....gossip. There are papers that have applicability to one's work and....papers that have applicability to one's work. This is all to say, when everything affects poetry, how does one judge what should be kept or not for future posterity. This is a big controversy, I know -- but I've always thought what mostly matters (perhaps not to the author but from the public's perspective) is that it's the work that survives; of course I'm being idealistic here: poets' biographies often outsell poetry books for a reason (and I read those bios myself). But it's not as if the extra *context* allowed by having the surrounding ephemera will be the final arbiter -- or *should* be the final arbiter -- for how the work is read?

I'm sure this is just one facet of this complicated issue which I haven't expounded on fully here....but -- sip diet coke and finish can of said diet coke -- I must go back to the papers awaiting my shredding machine. Notwithstanding these (or perpetually) celebrity-ridden times, at times:

Shred
of dignity
requires much shredding...

And beyond dignity, there's the Poem with its own naked self -- absolutely gorgeous to see beyond the idiotic wardrobes that it's sometimes forced to wear.

JUST BECAUSE I DON'T HAVE A SQUAWKBOX DOESN'T MEAN I DON'T GET SQUAWK!

[Dang. Corpse pats her bony shoulder. I love my title today -- do I talk that shit good or what?! Bony preeen.]

Anyway:

Tom Beckett writes in appreciation of my recommendation of John Crowley's novel, The Translator. In turn, he recommends Mary Rakow's The Memory Room as "another novel in which poetry is integral." Thanks Tom! I look forward to checking it out! There are certainly some raves from the Amazon readership, including this one:

This book is beautiful. It is entirely characterized by this quotation: "A conspiracy of language gently bending my perception in a more hopeful arc." I found hope in this book.


*****

Bard EdLund writes (for the first time! A peep rises from the eight million to reveal his identity! Hi, Sweetie! If you read me, you risk being called "Sweetie"!):

just wanted to send a quick note to say thanks for publishing your blog(s) -- i've been enjoying it for a few weeks and will stay tuned. and thanks for posting those Elaine Equi poems. i read a book of hers a few years ago when i took a class with John Yau at the Maryland Institute College of Art. several of her poems really worked for me and these new ones seem even more up my alley.

i enjoy writing my own poems but don't read that much poetry. your blog and some others (Ron Silliman, LimeTree) are providing a window into a world i don't really know but have some interest in. what better use could there be for the web?

Thanks Bard! But you don't read much poetry? (Ach. Sweetie -- you definitely should read....the book I'm promoting because I just published it and this is what I do as a publisher: promote Barry Schwabsky's OPERA!)

Anyway, peeps, check out Bard's site -- some wonderful images and poems....in fact, check out this excerpt from a poem titled "from my 38th street observatory." Nifty, eh:

out of white limousines
crack legs in heels
and fabric draped
like sticky blood

I had to laugh at how some peep on his squawkbox version said in response to this poem, "you live in a strange neighborhood."

But -- sip. morning coffee -- by the way, I'd always appreciated Bard's mention of Corpsepoetics on his site by describing it as "poetics with a personal touch" -- and when I said so (my, oh my, so chatty was I!), he replied:

maybe my blurb is not so eloquently put, but yes, what i mean by it is that a lot of material about poetry, and sometimes poetry itself, lacks an entry point. this is my subjective opinion of course and i do realize it's largely my problem. but in your blog i feel that, although i might not be a part of your world, i can begin to understand it. i sense a personality in your writing that allows me to relate; it allows me a way in. and that's one of the things i appreciate about your entries.

Oh -- isn't that sweet? Thanks Bard-peep! You are a Sweetie, indeed.

(Mutual admiration societies -- aren't they great?! Sip. More morning coffee.)


*****

Another peep -- my reliably mischievous peep -- Sandy McIntosh writes in on the Elaine Equi poems (well, dang, Elaine -- had I known you'da be so popular, I'da co-opted you earlier into my Queendom):

Thanks, Eileen, for highlighting Elaine Equi's poems. I had forgotten how good she can be.

"...I shop
to make the world
an emptier place --
less embarrassed by its riches,
more aware of my grace."

I'm going to quote those lines next time Barbara catches me ordering from the online catalogs. Better yet, I'm going to have them inscribed on my license plates.

Thanks for the chime, Sandy. Whilst at it, can you please buy me a lamp? Make it two -- I need a new pair for the bedside tables. Sip. Thank you.

*****

Last but certainly not least -- another bony preeeen -- Li Bloom writes:

Your knowledge (and experiences) have become invaluable to me.

Yep, yep. Corpse nods bony chin. Of course I am invaluable. Yep, yep....

Okay, it's the morning. My night begins. Must stop squawking and actually do some work (yeah: returning to the post office. Note to self: leave shotgun at home....)


*****

Oh, wait! A P.S.!!! Eight million peeps roll their eyes; one can be heard to whisper to another: "Gads -- isn't she done yet?"

I swear, as I was finalizing this blog post, Elaine Equi herself writes in, saying among other things (I had to edit it because, ya know, the rest of her e-mail is sizzlingly hot but, natch, meant only for me):

Thank you so much for posting the poems! Thought your remarks quite entertaining. I can see why lots of people visit your blog. // Will check it out again in the future and turn others on to it too!!

Sip. You got it: another bony preeeen. As Li said with my utmost concurrence: I'm invaluable.

A CONTINUED CURIOSITY

Jean Gier is talking physics. If I recall correctly, newly-published author of Radish Li Bloom also was discussing something related not so far back. And this all reminds me of an old essay....that I'ma gonna recycle here. It was first published in Pen & Ink, a journal in the Philippines, hence the last paragraph's reference to my readers "being an ocean away" from where I live in the U.S. But the conclusion is a general "Call" out anywhere and reflects my curiosity about who else thought about certain things the way I do....

More recently, that Call was integrated within my series "Enheduanna in the 21st Century" that Jukka-Pekka Kervinen kindly published through his wonderful XPressed. Not too long ago, a stranger had answered that call, claiming to be someone the "I" of that poem had been searching for. That stranger was wrong....and remains a stranger today.

But maybe I'm renewing the Call here now, too....from a continued curiosity....just because I am alive:


Why do I Write? To Feel Myself and My “Other(s)” As Alive

. . . an infinite series of times, in a dizzily growing, ever spreading network of diverging, converging and parallel times. This web of time -- the strands of which approach one another, bifurcate, intersect or ignore each other through the centuries -- embraces every possibility. We do not exist in most of them. In some you exist and not I, while in others I do, and you do not, and in yet others both of us exist. In this one, which chance had favored me, you have come to my gate. In another, you, crossing the garden, have found me dead. In yet another, I say these very same words, but am an error, a phantom.
-- Jorge Borges

I write poetry because I am looking for Home -- the home that is within a “parallel universe” to the one in which I have written this essay and you, the Reader, are reading it. Once, I tried to determine how I came to be lost. But my memory is blank against the origin of my search. So I concern myself instead with addressing how I might return to and/or remain in that space. By writing poems that I wish to explore the notion of and/or manifest Beauty, I manage sporadically to return to my desired parallel universe in which Beauty need not struggle to exist -- the space in which I most feel alive. In my home, it would have been inconceivable that I would have -- as I have in this world where this essay is published -- worked as a wool-suited banker felling trees to document mounds of contracts that people sign with each other because money is so important and, where money is concerned, trust is not affordable.

Sometime in late 1997/early 1998, I stumbled across a scientific text, Nicola Barker’s PARALLEL UNIVERSE. That tome is basically my “found” autobiography. I share these excerpts:

-- Matter as a knot in fabric of spacetime: bent space & curved time

-- Parallel or distorted duplication of what already exists is an important feature of parallel universes according to the way some physicists view them. Accordingly, there are parallel you's and me's somehow existing in the same space and time that we live in but normally not seen or sensed by us. In these universes, choices and decisions are being made at the very instant you are choosing and deciding Only the outcomes are different, leading to different but similar worlds. . . . Doppelgangers or people that are perfect duplicates of other people. These "doubles" are sometimes "space-invaders" coming from a distant galaxy. . . . Could the forces of the universe create parallel beings like ourselves and could those beings be in communication with us in some manner that we may only be beginning to detect?

-- double-slit experiment: The two worlds would exist side-by-side until the particle reached the screen. Then the two worlds would overlap or merge. Why would the worlds merge after splitting apart? The answer was self-consistency. The universe was continually splitting and merging each and every time that anything interacted with anything else. Each split was necessary to produce the wave behavior and each merger was necessary to produce the particle. . .

-- In this view the wave represents not possibilities or likelihoods but realities -- an infinite number of them. The wave is composed of particles in parallel worlds. Split and then merge and all is well that ends well.

Thus, I write poetry to exercise my imagination and hopefully allow my desire for Beauty to govern the future life I have yet to live. I am very careful about what I write, as I have discovered that my poems often come true – that my poems are foretellings. I believe this reflects what the Danish poet Paul LaFleur once said which I find quite applicable to my life: “Being a poet is not writing a poem, but finding a new way to live.” Sometimes, I write a poem about a fictional person who ends up being someone I later meet. Sometimes, I write a poem about effecting some wish and see it subsequently unfold in physical reality -- perhaps partly because the writing of such poem allowed me to recognize (and, thus, act on) a hidden, previously inarticulated desire.

In this world, one looks at me and sees someone who switched careers to become a poet. The truth is that what seems to be my career switch was simply a move I finally became strong and/or wise enough to make. Or, as an excerpt from PARALLEL UNIVERSE explains, “What makes parallel universes moral is that they provide an infinity of possibilities but it is self-consistency that makes it work.”

By “self-consistency,” I mean that my career switch was inevitable for I do believe poets are born not made [I would clarify that prior sentence today by noting I don't mean this notion as a binary; I mean that if a someone *becomes* a poet at a very late age, it still means that person had been born a poet and that the realization of the poet's position was just a (belated) matching of form with a life's content]. That I am a poet, therefore, means I was born one and until my so-called career switch, this world had merely seen one of my doppelgangers who worked in finance for nearly a decade. (Finance? Let me share, by the way, that I can barely add so that my banker-doppelganger clearly proves that God has a (perverse) sense of humor.)

But this “self-consistency” also means, I believe, that my work as a banker -- and before that as an economist and stock market analyst – were neither a waste of time nor irrelevant to my life today as a poet. For Poetry encompasses everything. All of life, all of nature, is relevant to the Poet. When Pen & Ink requested that I write from the perspective of one “whose chosen profession isn't regarded as traditionally being compatible with creative writing” I agreed because I disagreed with this theme’s implied premise. That is, that some activities are better preparation than others for the poet, for the artist. From my history of “switching careers” more than once, I stress that all facets of life prepare the poet. Nothing in life is incompatible with poetry (even the facets of existence that one could consider ugly).

Incidentally, four years after changing my lifestyle to spend nearly every day in the writing studio writing poems, I have started to meet others like me who spend their time in this world trying to return to a parallel universe. Several are poets, which would seem to be logical for do not such things labeled as “transcendence” and “longing” fuel much of poetry? We recognize each other when we meet, primarily by the furrows carved by tears against our cheeks. Tears -- they often well up from having ripped off halos for the ecstasy of the fall. These otherworldly poets are like fallen angels: when we see sacred cows, we think only of sucking their bone marrow.

Another excerpt from my found autobiography are the statements, “Anything that can happen, even though extremely remote, is contained in the wave….The different possibilities are limited only by the imagination of the experimenter.” Thus, it is time for me to acknowledge: this essay is yet another of my fictions which, nevertheless, is not comprised of lies. I simply wrote the words in this essay because I am sounding a trumpet call to those readers whom I may already have met in a parallel universe. You know who you are. You are the ones who know what I mean when I say that Beauty is defined partly as Rupture. You are the ones who understand quantum physics: that the observer affects the reality of what is observed. I have written this essay as I would write a Poem – to provoke a relationship with that Reader(s) who, in this world, is also my Other(s).

Observe me by reading this poem masquerading as an essay. And read one more excerpt from PARALLEL UNIVERSE: “Patterns of probability are quite weird. They are unobservable. But when observed, the patterns suddenly change, with the result that matter appears with the property sought for. And the patterns can act together to produce a new physical possibility.” Dear Reader, will your future behavior be at all affected by your having read my thoughts – the thoughts that can be encapsulated in my noting the lack of a horizon that would demarcate the span of imagination? I have lived the proof (reduced by two words, “career switch”) that imagination and creativity need not be limited by factors that some arbitrarily define to be the “appropriate” preparation for the creative writing life. And, now, dear Reader, how will you -- and your own creativity -- affect me seemingly an ocean away, but in reality as close to you as the very air against your cheek?

I TOOK ELAINE EQUI'S VIRGINITY

HAH!!!

I am apparently the first blog ever visited by Elaine Equi!!!!

PREEEEEN!!!

Take that, Ron Silliman! Wingtip whacks at air. Speaking of Ron, was I the only one who JUMPED BACK when his blog popped up on the computer screen this morning? His BIG FACE startled me!!!!

And, sadly, my angels also got so startled they peed .... and, of course, guess who was below? Ron -- you owe me a towel! Make it lace-edged, Sweetie.


Anyway, so CorpsePoetics took Elaine Equi's blog-virginity. Commitment costs, ya know. This is one way of becoming, of course, a FEATURED POET on this blog! Here are three poems from Elaine's latest book, The Cloud of Knowable Things which I highly recommend for its mastering of the luminosity of solids (oh, don't ask what I mean -- am I getting paid to do this blog?!):


MY TASTE

I hate being frugal.
I hate being extravagant.
Instead I prefer buying
small, useless things.
Like a hand reaching
into another century.
Carefully, I sharpen
the beaks of my pencil-birds
and fill in the sky.
Often, I feel I must
"buy back" everything
in order to recreate
some original state.
But other times, I shop
to make the world
an emptier place --
less embarrassed by its riches,
more aware of my grace.


*****


CAREER

In trees

the leaves have
finally found
their niche


*****


WOMEN AND MAGIC

A woman
in a wavy room
changes into starlight

as silence lifts
its hat
               in passing

and this
we call occult.

POEM WRITTEN BY A CORPSE


"The Voice Of The Wind" Fluttering The Pages
Como El Lejano Gemido Del Zorro
          (--through non-authorized same-language translation of lines by Alvaro Mutis, with authorized translations by Alastair Reid)

Disconnect the dolls

The slap of water against the moving keel
will be remembered more than our long lovemaking

For all that, I keep you at my side
like the shadow of an illusory hope

.....Ach. Suddenly, a heavy torpor sets in motion,
.....sweetly, slowly,
.....certain days, certain hours from the past,
.....saved on the rufled surface of its waters,
.....to which are fiercely fastened
.....the most secret and vital matter of my life.
.....They float now like logs of the lightest balsa,
.....serene evidence of faithful witnesses,
.....and I welcome them in to the long present of exile

Weeping of Forgotten Women

Now you try on the fresh lime of your new garments

I speak of traveling, not of resting places

In the East, the moon broods over the region
that my hurt self reaches out to for relief
from a clutching fear, a fear that has no cure

I grant that the gods have been just

The silent wind, blowing faintly from granite peaks,
is not enough to trouble the lake water--

the piercing nostalgia of an enigma
that must remain unanswered for all time

GOING POSTAL

I was at the post office this morning lugging a box of Barry Schwabsky's OPERA to send to England. I could do an entire post here on the various ways of shipping to London but I've already bored myself for days on the topic. As I said when I e-mailed my author -- Hah! I'm a publisher so I have authors (love the possessiveness of this publishing syntax, specifically the illusion of possession!) -- I am learning more about the postal service than I'd ever cared to know.

While in line, I -- like the rest of the peeps in the very looooong line -- couldn't help but overhear a guy's prolonged conversation with one of the postal workers. Prolonged -- as if the line wasn't very loooooooong. I had to really control myself not to lean over and whack him with one of my wingtips for his inconsiderate behavior. Sip. Diet coke.

Guy: I heard you guys now put out vanity stamps.

Postal worker: Huh?

Guy: Because I'm an actor and wouldn't mind being on those stamps.

Postal worker: Huh? [Then said worker looks at adjacent postal worker]

Adjacent postal worker looks over and proclaims: You're not going to be on stamps issued by the U.S. Postal Service.

Guy: Hey -- whyyyyyyy not!!!!!

Adjacent postal worker: Coz you'd have to be dead to get on the stamps. You know where I'm coming from?

ALVARO MUTIS & ALASTAIR REID

Heartfelt gratitude to Barry Schwabsky for introducing me to the writings of poet, short story writer and novelist Alvaro Mutis -- in part for poems like "Un bel morir...," of which an excerpt is:

Para entonces quedara bien poco de nuestra historia,
algunos retratos en desorden,
unas cartas guardadas no se donde,
lo dicho aquel dia al desnudarte en el campo.
Todo ira desvaneciendose en el olvido
y el grito de un mono,
el manar blancuzco de la savia
por la herida corteza del caucho,
el chapoteo de las aguas contra la quilla enviaje,
seran asunto mas memorable que nuestros largos abrazos.

The above is more than ably translated by Alastair Reid as follows:

By then not much of our story will be left --
some pictures in disarray,
some letters hidden somewhere or other,
what was said that day you went naked in the country.
All that will keep fading away to oblivion,
and a monkey's chatter,
the whitish trickle of sap
from the wounded bark of the rubber tree,
the slap of water against the moving keel,
will be remembered more than our long lovemaking.

On Alvaro Mutis, more poems, an interview, autobiographical essay and poems in homage are available at World Literature Today and WLT Magazine at http://www.ou.edu/worldlit/onlinemagazine/SA2003/. Both feature special sections devoted to Mr. Mutis as the 2002 recipient of the Neustadt International Prize for Literature.

Meanwhile, I am looking for Alastair Reid who, I believe, lives in New York. I am inept at internet searches, and I checked the net's white pages (on my server) and found 200 "A. Reid"s. So if anyone has any contact information for Mr. Reid, I would really appreciate receiving such. You can e-mail me at GalateaTen@aol.com

Thanks in advance,
Eileen Tabios

EVOLUTION

Ilumina el dormitorio del payaso, !Oh Senor!
--from"Oracion de Maqroll" by Alvaro Mutis

Bring light to the bedroom of the clown, O Lord.
--Alvaro Mutis, translated by Alastair Reid


Love evolves. My poem blog just transitioned onto its next phase, as explained by my note here:

GASPING OUT THE NEXT PHASE: SIMPLY, GASPS

Jean Gier -- whose Nightjar blog swiftly became beloved -- writes:

And now I'd like to take this moment to thank the Radiant Corpse, aka the Luv Poet, for outing me to all you peeps back in the days of Wine and roses. My life has never been the same since...

Radiant Moi preeeeeens. I do have good taste, don't I? she sighs out the obvious....

....then moues her luscious lips consideringly, before laying the egg of her latest revelation on blogland:

Peeps, it's precisely because I am prescient that I now jumpstart my Poem Blog onto its Third Stage of Evolution. Once "Loves' Last Gasps," then "Love's First Gasps"....this blog now shall simply be

GASPS.

It's address remains the same at http://lovelastgasps.blogspot.com. But it's theme now shall be poems on, about, relating to "gasps." It need not be love gasps, but anything that...uh, gasps.

The next post shall feature this phase's inaugural poem. I know you are waiting with -- bwahahahaha: pun intended -- bated breath.

===========

By now, I've also posted my inaugural "Gasps" poem entitled "Anthem."

May the future poems on that blog elicit gasps from some of youse, and may not all said gasps be...uh, gasps of horror.

POETRY AND MARTIAL ARTS: THE SPIRITUAL LINK

I am a love poet. My dilemma is that the world taught me most of what I know about Love through cruelty. So, the Corpse is becoming a hermit.

Pause. Eight million peeps look at her. Corpse looks back. Then sheepishly says: Have I mentioned my melodramatic tendency? Her screen flutters as eight million peeps simultaneously snort and say the obvious: Duh: no need to mention it....

Anyway. But it's a lot of effort preparing one's hermit cave. Among other things, each sharp corner or jagged rocky edge must be swathed with cobalt velvet. (Cobalt -- for mating stone with sky and sea....) So, I rarely leave the mountain this month as I prepare my future abode. But this Saturday eve, I did descend. Nearly 300 martial arts practicioners awaited me at Sonoma State University -- this was a crowd I didn't want to piss off for obvious reasons.

Nonetheless, I kicked their butts. But I go ahead of myself....so let me backtrack to continue. This weekend, SSU hosted a "camp" for women martial artists from all over the country, sponsored by the Pacific Association of Women Martial Arts. On Saturday, they offered a public demonstration of a variety of martial arts. Michelle Bautista, one of the instructors during the camp, asked me to read poems, thereby providing music to which she would demonstrate Kali, a Filipino martial arts form.

So that Saturday eve, I entered the gymnasium at SSU. Early on, I met someone who informed me that I was the only non-martial artist to offer a performance. I riposted to said lady, "You don't think poetry is a martial art?"

She looked at me. I looked at her biceps; I looked again at her hewn biceps. I then took my sense of humor and skulked away.

Anyway, here's the line-up based on the list for the Saturday demo used by the emcee and which I filched because she looked like I could take her (yeah, right). Any lame commentary is mine:

Madame Gao -- an 87-year-old lady who picked up martial arts at age 55 when she retired!!!! Offered Tai-chi....and did it brilliantly. Her hands moved through air as if they were moving through something solid -- it looked like her hands were molding clay rather than just flowing through space....

"Sarah and Nancy" -- two cute kids who did something-or-other that pleased the crowd but which was all white-sleeved blur to me.

Margaret and Eliz Carlson -- Kenpo, Form 1

Patty O -- a salsa interpretation of kata. A salsa interpretation of the martial arts! I marveled and concluded: As a poet, I am definitely at home, here, in this context! I stood up from my front bench to go do-si-do with her but Michelle took my arm, firmly set my ass back down on front bench and whispered, "Girrrrrrrrl: you do not want to do that!" Girl suddenly .... didn't wanna do that.

Terri Giamartino -- Bo-Sai, Empty Hand Medley

Sensei Tanaka -- Naginata kata

Someone doing hand to hand Kajukendo Self Defense

Michelle Bautista and Eileen Tabios on "Reliving Gabriela" -- yay!

Kore - Judo

Janet Gee

Louise Rafkin & Studio Naga & One With Heart

Pat Rice -- Yang style Tai chi (in a lovely outfit of blue silk -- she brought a sunlit sky into the gym)

Alison Payne -- Chien Lung style Kung Fu

Sensei Tanaka -- Naginata Shiai

Seven Star women's kung fu

Now, the above list was handwritten by the emcee so it's possible there are typos. In any event, based on seeing this variety, I was at least able to conclude which form I shall NEVER ever attempt for myself. I spouted that at Michelle who cracked forth before I could deliver my revelation: Judo, right?

Right. I guess Michelle has heard these assessments before. Those peeps kept falling on their backs, on their asses, and ultimate que horror! On their hairtips!!!! Judo -- nuh uh!

Michelle explained something about how some peeps find orgasmic release through the fall, the utter letting go. I replied with the obvious: HELLO? YO MARTIAL ARTS PRACTITIONERS OUT THERE? IF YOU WANT ORGASM, PEOPLE, TRY SOMETHING CALLED SEX. SEX. HEARD OF IT? IT'S SPELLED

S-E-X!

Yah: don't forget that exclamation point when you spell S-E-X!

(Brief digression to note: so many relationships have floundered when peeps forget about that exclamation point. Sip. Lazily-brewed morning coffee.)

As you see, Michelle and I were in the middle of the line-up. Huh: for my martial arts performance debut, I used my big mouth -- how appropriate, eh? Anyway, for said martial arts debut, Michelle gifted me a malong, a gorgeous burgundy and blue fabric shot through with gold threads from southern Philippines. Preeeeeen! Over my otherwise black get-up, I do believe the Corpse offered a quite fetching picture as I elegantly hawled my sorry self from the bench to the center of the gym.

Michelle introduced us as well as the Philippine woman warrior Gabriela Silang. You've heard me mention here before a series of poems I wrote on Gabriela and Michelle had asked me to read four poems from said series. Since Michelle can defeat as much as three other opponents through open hand combat (or is it empty hand combat, whatever, you get the fearsome drift), I obeyed and descended from my half-velvet covered mountain.

As with our previous public collaborative performances, Michelle and I didn't rehearse for this gig. We don't rehearse because I believe....Poetry cannot be rehearsed.

So, to the sound of me reading my poems, Michelle then did extemporaneous and absolutely fabulous moves involving an ancient Ifugao sword. The sword was "live," which is to say the blade was still sharp and hungry. This is important because when Michelle asked me to read four poems, what she should have requested was four pages worth of poems. My four poems printed out on six pages. Consequently, poor Michelle ended up doing a significantly longer dance with the sword than expected...and she was also clad in a floor-length skirt! At one point, when she retreated twelve steps backward wielding that very live -- and very heavy! -- sword about her, she had to keep praying privately, "O god don't lemme trip don't lemme trip don't lemme trip...."

It was an arduous performance for her. But she lived up to it and, as she has come to learn is her role in life, made me look good.

Poet and editor Andrew Lundvall recently published some of my poems from my Gabriela Silang series at Get Underground. Thanks Andrew! I didn't read those poems at SSU, but here's one I did share at Sonoma (thanks to nth Position for first publishing it):


By The Doomed Fountain
Where Gabriela Is Feeding the Goldfish

I am empty
and emptying

cans of protein flakes
into a dirty fountain--

When men
with big muscles

bring big tractors
to mow the landscape

the fountain shall be crushed
for being in the way

as so many have been crushed
for being in the way--

Demeter's statue
languishes over water

where orange manna
sets goldfish ablaze

in a type of ecstasy
I've always desired--

pellucid bliss
engendered by beauty

as when one faints
before Madonnas

and the "Annunciation"
by Leonardo da Vinci--

But men are coming
with big muscles

and big tractors
while Demeter has frozen

feminist powers
into pock-marked marble--

Unable to ride to their rescue
I overfeed the small creatures

forgetting those most familiar
with hunger

will eat, given opportunity,
until their bodies burst--

The Book of Genesis
authorizes men

"to have dominion
over the fish of the sea

over the fowl of the air
over the cattle, over the earth

over every creeping thing
that propagates upon the earth"--

Like many other things
enforced upon my people

the gospel of invaders
offers no succor--

Aureate scales rupture water
to capture

the sheen of a sunlit day
carelessly loosened

by a sun
equally blind

to their disposition--
Enough!

I have no excuse
for not rescuing the weak--

I have no excuse
even History--

*****

Afterwards, several of the martial arts peeps came up to me with fullsome compliments. Since I was not on the blog, I was modest in receiving their feedback and behaved...modestly. But I was also thinking -- there must be some significance to the fact that this is the largest audience for which I've ever done a poetry reading....and it is an audience of martial artists instead of being a type of crowd seen at most poetry readings.

Later, as I discussed my appreciation of sharing poetry with others who usually don't think about poetry, Michelle offered an observation about the martial arts world -- that much of its training is focused on lineage and the physical aspects; rarely on the spiritual aspect of the forms. That's when I realized why all the peeps who commented on my poems shared the same quality of light lurking within their eyes. It's the kind of light I associate with dawn just beginning to rise from behind the mountains: a glimmer of an even brighter light.

SQUAWK

I did the inaugural squawk on Ron Silliman's new feature: a squawk box.

Sip. Morning coffee. I just know the dude is honored....

FOOLING AROUND WITH JASPER JOHNS

I roamed philosophy

when you came along

foxy equinox

a corner of storm.
-- David Hess


The Fall 2003 issue of ZYZZYVA just came out. Thanks to editor Howard Junker for publishing my play that was directed by Michelle Bautista last February as part of Small Press Traffic's Poets' Theater Jamboree at the California College of Arts, San Francisco.

"But Seriously, When I Was Jasper Johns' Filipino Lover" is my first produced as well as published play. I wrote it in five minutes while loopy on some California chardonnay. I believe I tossed the script -- actually, did I even write it down initially or just spout if off conceptually? -- at Michelle, and just ordered (okay, pleaded) with her to do something with it. Imagine my amazement when ZYZZYVA then decided to publish it. I certainly wouldn't have thought to submit it for publication, were it not for an e-mail from ZYZZYVA requesting to see a copy of the script. After seeing the brilliance of my words, they then asked to publish it. Huh. Drunken, um, Wine Poetics -- it really does work!

Incidentally, I'm a relative newbie here to the Bay Area: I don't actually have an opinion on whether Bay Area poets are bourgeoise and if they're willing to show their nekkid butts, I'll allow said mooning, okay? Sigh: what I do for the Arts, ya know what I mean? Sip. The 2002 Montes Chardonnay Reserve.

Anyway, here's the play -- a slightly different (but equally perky) version from what's featured on ZYZZYVA:


Play: “But Seriously, When I was Jasper John’s Filipino Lover…”
Written by Eileen Tabios
Directed by Michelle Bautista

CHARACTERS:
Eileen Tabios– Played by herself
Kali artist – Imagined Kali projection of Eileen, played by Michelle Bautista
Bride – One of Eileen’s doppelgangers haunting her writing studio, this one perpetually in Eileen’s wedding dress, played by Barbara Jane Reyes
Summi Kaipa– Played by herself


[LEFT STAGE]
Table with phone and chair slightly back. A kali stick beside the table. Eileen is seated and typing on a laptop on desk. Spot light center that covers both desk and front of the desk.

[STAGE LEFT]
Barbara begins to walk towards STAGE RIGHT, pushing at chalk board that says NO PHOTOGRAPHS OR VIDEO. Pauses at center stage. Spot on her. Leans towards audience. Wags a finger as she says, “Ladies and Gentlemen, No photos or videos are allowed during tonight’s presentation. There is a glorious but naked ass [smacks her own butt] at stake!”

BARBARA: [Walks to stage right. Spot left goes down, spot right turns on, stays half dim for most of the show unless otherwise noted and full when Barbara is speaking. Turns to Eileen to say] “Eileen, when you were Jasper John's lover..."”

EILEEN: [interrupts her with a wave. Stands up. Faces audience. Hands twirl in watermill motion then stops.] “You know, whenever I keep practicing this Kali gesture I keep confusing it with flamenco. It’s so frustrating….” [Moves hands again to transition to flamenco movements.]

[Eileen stops, sighs. Picks up stick, walks in front of desk. Awkwardly performs Kali stick motions as she moves to CENTER STAGE. Frustrated, stops.]

EILEEN: “I am so incompetent at Kali. But I must keep practicing as Kali is exactly like Poetry!”

[Eileen faces audience. Michelle enters stage and walks to stand back to back with Eileen. Michelle and Eileen circle around each other until positions are switched, with Michelle facing audience. Eileen returns to desk, sits down and types.]

[Michelle does Kali performance with long sword. Michelle finishes set (approximately two minutes). Then walks back off stage.]

BARBARA: [Sighs] That was niiiiiice! [to Eileen] “So, when you were Jasper Johns' lover....”

EILEEN: [holds up hand to interrupt Barbara as the phone rings. Picks up phone on desk. She answers] “Hello. Oh, hi Kevin! You know. This is the first time I've been on the phone with THE Kevin Killian. What's up homeboy?

“You want me to do what? A ten-minute play? For Small Press Theatre? Well, I've never done a play before. Oh, it's an homage to amateurism? Okay, sure. After all, I'm a Poet. I should be able to write ten minutes in any form. Okay, I'll call you if I have questions.”

[Hangs up phone. Hesitates. Ponders for a moment. Then makes a new phone call.]

EILEEN: “Hi again, Kevin. Actually, I do have a question. I'd like to incorporate a scene in my play: a sort of take-off on performance artist Vanessa Beecroft’s live human installations where she positions nude models on a set. But I need, say, ten poets who'll volunteer to appear naked during my play. Well, I'm relatively new to the Bay Area so can you ask some of your contacts?

“Unlikely? What do you mean?

“Oh, you might have done it yourself ten years ago but now the poets in the Bay Area are too bourgeois to appear naked on stage? Well, okay.”

EILEEN: [hangs up the phone. Slowly stands, looks at audience.] Bay Area poets are bourgeois?

EILEEN: [Picks up kali stick and smacks it against her hand as she walks towards front of stage. Says her lines with an increasingly loud voice.] “Do you mean to say that I hauled my ass 3,000 miles from New York City just so I can be immersed in a bourgeois poetry community?”

[Staring, then bends down to peer more closely at audience] “Bay Area bourgeois poetry community? I don't think so.”

[Leans back. Proclaims with emphasis.] “I DO NOT THINK SO!” [Points kali stick towards Summi Kaipa, sitting far back in audience, and demands.] “Summi Kaipa, get your ass up here!”

SUMMI: [House Lights up. Light on Summi in audience. She stands up and screams] “I am the next winner of the ‘Price is Right’!”

She stumbles her way down, stripping articles of clothing and throwing them around the audience. Making loud comments, improvised: e.g.] “I'm coming, I'm coming...Oh my, it's cold. Good thing I didn't have that steak last night. Hey, don’t pinch me. Gads I’m glad I have clean underwear on.” Occasionally sits on various laps as she strips, tossing off such remarks as, “Is that you or the Collected Poems of Frank O’Hara I’m feeling.....etc”

[House lights off. Summi steps on stage wearing underwear, back facing audience. Bends over.]

EILEEN: Huh, rather nice ass there, Summi.

[Summi begins to remove underwear. All lights dim to blackout as Summi exits stage; as she exits she hands her bra to Eileen.]

[Center spot on. Eileen turns a satisfied smirk towards audience. A moment of silence of just staring at them, twirling Summi's bra in one hand, before she insouciantly drapes Summi’s bra over her shoulder.]

EILEEN: “You know: there was a point -- a political, deep, incredibly significant point to that scene but....I can't remember it right now.”

[Shrugs]. “Ah well.”

[Eileen turns and moves as if to return to her desk. Barbara steps towards Eileen]

BARBARA: [loudly towards Eileen] “But seriously, when you were Jasper Johns' Filipino lover?”

EILEEN: [turns back towards audience] “Oh yeeeees! Well, seriously, when I was Jasper Johns Filipino lover....”

MICHELLE: [shouts from backstage] “TEN SECONDS LEFT!”

EILEEN: [towards Barbara] “Out of time.” [Turns towards audience.] “Too bad. That would have been a great story about when I was Jasper Johns' Filipino lover.”


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Footnotes:
Play incorporates real-life incidents from Eileen Tabios’s life as a writer: she studies Kali, a Filipino martial arts form, from Gura Michelle Bautista; Barbara Jane Reyes did don Eileen’s original wedding dress for a “happening” related to Eileen’s project entitled “Poems Form/From The Six Directions; and it is true that Kevin Killian told Eileen that he would have difficulty finding ten poets to volunteer to show their naked backsides because the local poetry community has gotten a bit bourgeois. As for Jasper Johns…..

ANDREW JORON WITH HIS "INTENSE REPOSE"

Gray on gray, the wing
Pinned to its identity. Its stain

Sustained by revocation
--from "hand that crumbles" from Andrew Joron's The Removes

Speaking of Andrew Joron, I was pleased to discover recently that he's one of my "eight million peeps" readers. Andrew is a fabulous poet (keep an eye out for his forthcoming book FATHOM!), and among the poet-peeps to offer a most gracious welcome when I moved from NY to the Bay Area about four years ago.

In fact, Andrew kindly read through and offered some well-needed encouraging remarks to my manuscript that would become my book. It is an act of generosity to offer such feedback to a near-total stranger, someone who'd not been among one's circle of friends -- an act that maintains the focus on, simply, Poetry. Thank you, Andrew.

Can you peeps tell I'm on my best behavior as I write this post? That's because the angels have left the poker table and their black wings (underside of lapis lazuli) are flapping inches away from my purty and perky ears. My angels respect Andrew because he knows whereof he speaks when he writes of angels....and demons, e.g.:

The angel of news impregnates us with separation's gluey sperm; we give

birth to an immense grey simulacrum called Necessity.
--from "Angelology & Demonology" by Adam Cornford & Andrew Joron

Intense, eh? And so it's a distinct (as opposed to indistinct) pleasure to present Andrew as a GUEST POET, with his poem "First Drift." Shortly after first reading this poem, I was immediately moved to write a poem in response to it -- I recall being simply helpless against that urge, a testament to how deeply his poem affected me. My poem, entitled "Perhaps This Second Drift," can be seen at Moria Poetry (Thanks to Moria Poetry editor William Allegrezza). Here's Andrew's inspirational poem -- a music that ever-simmers through my veins. (And, Chris Lott, in response to your call for prose poems, this is definitely one to share!) I've lived for a while with this poem so I am so pleased that Andrew's poem now graces my grace-ful blog! Of course I'm worthy -- but, oh, what a thrill!


FIRST DRIFT

If we cannot be anything other than imperfect, a little tired, saddened, or distracted by those things we do not recognize (and familiar because of that) --

If we cannot be anything other than this -- disquieted by the slowest possible music, yet listening intently --

Truth is reductive. Therefore, attend to those ideas whose boundaries lack edges, whose tones are just beginning to be infiltrated by disbelief. Allow your body to become a warped effect of that knowledge, a bow drawn backward across the strings --

Toward a blue identity resembling, although not possessing, the roundness of pain.

An excessive chord indwelling, proliferating tendrils, deemed by Lovecraft the Crawling Chaos -- that which the insomniac writer E.M. Cioran called a "pandemonium of paradoxical symmetries."

To understand the veiled sound of the viol, study the curtains of light that surround extinguished suns.

-- In medieval Arabic mathematics, such curvatures reach down to noise; a series of pictures invalidated by the doctrine of the motionless traveller.

We also (wanting elision) recorded the simultaneities' lateness. The round window laid horizontal: a zero. "We," meaning: many other figures of glass, collected at right angles. -- Intense repose.

GYM POETICS
--for Andrew Joron who called my blog "very entertaining"

Okay. So, this morning, there I was again in the gym. Again (why do I torture myself?), I got onto a treadmill deliberately next to another treadmill being used by an athletic-looking man who looked to be in his early 30s. Yet again I tried and failed miserably to run him off his treadmill. Sigh -- I do these stupid mental games on the treadmill, of course, to give me a reason to run longer than I otherwise might on said treadmill, an extremely boring machine. So, I'm one for three in terms of these contests. And, yah, they do help me last longer....

...which is why, when I got onto the scales in the women's locker room, I was absolutely aghast to see the scale go up to 200 POUNDS!!!!

I was like, WTF!!! Peeps, I'ma 5 feet one-and-a-half inches tall! I got no bidness being 200 pounds!!!!

So I swiftly rolled my wings into two teeny nubs atop my shoulders and even dropped the white towel off. And there I stood buck nekkid on the scales which, promptly, eased down to 190 pounds. (Huh: those wings are five pounds each -- learn something new everyday). Still: 190 pounds?!!!!

Well, forthwith, a creative stream of obscenities began rolling through my luscious lips (might I add, said obscenities were really creative; I'da share them here but, you know, I'm running for President of the U.S.)

And as I kept loosing forth at the scales with ever-intriguing permutations of obscene references, one of the gym staffers walked by. She paused to look at buck-nekkid me spouting off at the scales.

"Uh, ma'am?" she finally -- and hesitantly -- offered.

Ma'am turned her lovely but angry eyes at said gym staffer.

Gulp, the staffer gulped. Then she said, "Ma'am? That scale is....broken?"

*****

Geeeeeez. To leave a scale in the women's locker room that just about doubles your true weight? Ma'am here is still considering suing the gym for cruel and inhumane practices.

PARTLY ON HOW A POEM CREATES A BRIDGE

Murat Nemet-Nejat wrote a very gracious response to my July 23 post about his book, THE BRIDGE (Martin Brian & O'Keefe, London).  I don't think he'll mind if I paraphrase his remarks in how he said he wrote the book partly with the goal to "write something like Chaucer. I had just heard someone say, narrative is impossible in poetry today; and I said, why not?" 

His book was published in 1975!

Murat also noted, "One little detail in the poem you may not know, but is essential to the poem. The central bridge reference to bridge in the poem is to the Galata Bridge which joins the Byzantine (Ottoman) and European sections of Istanbul. Also, Istanbul is split in a second way into Asia and Europe by the Bosphorus."

Yes, in my first read (and, so far, only read given the need -- which is still ongoing -- to unpack my library), I hadn't focused on the historical aspect he describes.  And, yet, my reaction based on my limited first read was still a full-some experience.  This effect relates to the power of the poem he wrote -- its effectiveness.

(By the way, Aimee dear, six years of ongoing packing, unpacking, packing, unpacking have taught me to pack alphabetically as it'll make it easier to unpack...uh, alphabetically....insofar as my poetry books are shelved alphabetically by author's names -- which is to say, no schools exist on my library shelves, just the diversity of poetry which, in itself, is poetry.)

Murat, too, understood what happened here between me and a poem he wrote long ago and otherwise was off of many peeps' poetic radar screens.  He noted, "[I]t was strange, scary and exciting, to hear lines from it uttered by someone after so many years. It shows the poem resonates beyond myself. (I love your references to land.) In an essay I said, writing poetry you can not count whether someone else will like it. One does one has to do; the rest is not in your hands."

I believe Murat is offering a timely reminder about how the poems that last most likely will do so primarily on their own. And, geez -- isn't this a dream of many poets: for their words to be discovered by a total stranger and have that stranger be profoundly moved?

Poems are not written in a vacuum. But reading and writing poems have taught me that poems also carry their own contexts which may or may not mirror their authors' contexts.

The more I write poems, the less I talk about them (notwithstanding this blog). It's not because I have anything against criticism. It's because (my) poetry practice surfaces that paradox. Ah, paradoxes: like, meaningfulness through the meaningless path.

VACUUM

Return to emphasize that, first, departure occurred. But circle remains circle. Conversation is still about anywhere but self. Once, Tan introduced me to language poetry by noting, "But one can never escape one's I." I suppose this means, you never departed. In your void lies no directions. Just lies. Sometimes, to be unmoored is the most effective escape. And you are the one floating helplessly while I am the fool for once having tried to introduce gravity. Still, this aborted poem is not about my I.

I LOVE THE BIRTHDAYS OF BOOKS!

RADISH by Li Bloom!

A rad title!
Happy Birthday, Li!

FROM BLOGLAND

On Saturday evening, I will be here, courtesy of Gura Michelle Bautista:

Kali as Poetry, Poetry as Kali

Poetry and Kali together again! Since Eileen often calls me up to do kali at her poetry gigs, I decided to call her up for one of my martial arts gigs. Here's the 411:

Pacific Association of Women Martial Arts Camp Demo

Sonoma State University

Rohnert Park, CA

Saturday, August 2, 2003

7pm

Admission $8

I'm doing one of many demos that the different instructors of the camp are doing. I always like to do something different each time, and thought it would be fabulous to do kali to the music of poetry. Eileen is cordially coming down from her mountain to be a part of this demo. I'm honored!
--Gura Michelle

=======

Whilst at it, I (aka The Honor-Laden One) feelst like pontificating on some other blogs:

Ah. As always, as always: Malcolm provides much reading pleasure. Eeksy-Peeksy! Thanx!

Meanwhile, Hatstuck is making me giggle. "Hayaknu?" Monica, Sweetie (Hi Monica! Nice to meet you), it's "Hay(na)ku". Your version is like manic laughter spelled out as "hyuk hyuk...." or a throat-clearing sound!Which I think is purty funny, by the way....

Isn't Stephanie pretty with her pretty photos?

Dear Ron,
In terms of blog-based communities, blogland = cyberspace as well as physical geography and thus....?

Dear Kasey,
He's HOT.

Dear Jim,
Doodle.

POETICIZING NARRATIVE TOWARD "GREAT STRANGE TENDERNESS"

"...this poet was faithful."

They were all immobile in their chairs before him, stilled maybe (she was) by that word faithful.
--from "The Translator" by John Crowley


"Overwhelming is the generation's decline"
--from "Helian" by George Trakl


I've just finished reading a wonderful novel, The Translator by John Crowley. It's a story of two poets, which was what initially drew me to the book. But not only is the writing highly enjoyable but it uses a form that I love and have used in short stories: the integration of poems (organically) into the narrative. I've used this approach more extensively in other stories but since my short story "La Luna 'Before Silence Of Winter Comes'" is the one on-line, that's the one I'll note for this blog purpose (and notwitstanding how this old story makes me sorta...cringe...now). Anyway, "La Luna 'Before Silence Of Winter Comes'" is a tale with parts that were dictated to me by the works of four artists: James Westwater (the New Mexico-based painter, not the photochoreographer), Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko and Theresa Chong; but it also takes a cue from George Trakl's poem, "Helian." You can find my story here at the latest issue of OurOwnVoice.com.

Meanwhile, here's an excerpt from The Translator that provides a nifty reading of a poem. The Russian poet Falin is teaching at a U.S.-American school, and Kit is a student. Oh -- and do note that Russian punning!:


"We now look at a famous poem by English poet A.E. Housman," Falin said, turning the purple mimeo sheets to find the little thing, one of the few in the packet familiar to Kit. He looked down on it nodded slightly as though in greeting*, and then looked up. Kit wrote famose boym in her notebook, "What does it say and how is it made.

"Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide."

Two couplets, he pointed out, in a meter also favored by the Russian poet Pushkin and others writing in that language. Kit wrote in her notebook D'Roshin boyt. The stanza is very simple in form and thought, and has a figure only in the last line: the cherry trees are girls in white clothes, for church at Easter.

"Now the poet does some arithmetic," said Falin.

"Now of my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.

"Arithmetic is hard to do in verse without clumsiness," he said. "So poets sometimes like to see if they can do this. Now I have learned, though I did not know this when I first read this poem in Soviet Union, that the poet was professor of Latin, and worked for many years on a Latin poet who wrote about astrology, a poem filled with arithmetic, in verse. So."

Kit wrote Sov yetchunion. Then she tore the page from her notebook and crumpled it, looking up to find them all regarding her, including Falin, and she lowered her eyes.

"Now see how he ends this small poem," Falin said. "He has said that he is young, but even so he knows life is short; here is what he now says:

"And since to look at things in bloom,
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.

"Now do you see," he said to them with great strange tenderness, as though for them but also for Housman and the young man in the poem as well, "do you see: the only other figure in this poem is very last word, and it compares white blossoms to tree in winter, covered with snow. With snow, when all blossoms and leaves will be gone. In the very moment of his delight the poem reminds him, and us, that time will pass, blossoms will fall." He leaned forward toward all of them. "And it may well be that it was not Housman's thought but the poem itself that produced this meaning; that the poet reached next-to-last line and this rhyme arose of its own accord, with all these meanings. Yes I am sure, sure it did. A gift that came because of rhyme, came because rhyme exists. Because poetry is what it is. And because this poet was faithful."

They were all immobile in their chairs before him, stilled maybe (she was) by that word faithful. Kit would remember it: the word he used that day.

"And how unlikely is this, do you think?" he said. "To have this coincidence, I mean, these words and this man Housman occurring together at this time; this rhyme, this quickness to grasp it before it passed away. What are the odds of this, of exactly this poem existing in the world, coming into being in this form that we can apprehend, not failing somehow along the way or getting lost? I think odds are astronomical. Only the stars can model odds so great. That is the marvel and wonder of this enterprise of poetry: that we have this -- and all its fellows; the real poems -- among all other things that we have in this world.

"Which include, you know," he added smiling, "very many poems that are not real poems at all."


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* I adore this because Crowley presents a character doing something I do in real life: physically greet a poem! Because many poems adore being cooed over and stroked! Like cats, that way!