Vernal Equinox; time to shift writing into high(er) gear?

I am in love with time. I own several wonderful wristwatches, have clocks all over my house (set to varying times which, oddly enough doesn't mess with my head at all) and pride myself on being (mostly) ON time for things. I enjoy thinking about time and timing. I often sit and listen to the ringing in my ear (tinnitus) and think of it as some massive clock gonging to get my attention. But what does this have to do with the Equinox and with writing? HA! thought you'd never ask!

If you read my poetry (what? you don't have my latest books? fie unto thee I say!), you will notice that time and landscape are inextricably wound together. I have come to see (for myself) and notice (in others' poems) that time is part of setting; and without a sense of time in a piece of writing, it is just too freaky and loose for me to stay IN for the long haul of reading. We live our lives by calendars (chunks of time) and we schedule ourselves by this artificial blocking of time. We look at clocks to see when the meal will be ready, when to go to bed, when we prefer to get OUT of bed, etc. Why then is it not the most natural thing in the world to attend to issues of time in our writing?

I recall a fiction class in my undergrad years where we were asked to comment about a story and one student decided that the character's son probably suffered from AIDS. Now this story took place in the 1950s. What is wrong with this picture? Hmmmm, let me see.... oh wait! 1950s... no one had heard of AIDS, not yet on the horizon, much less a factor in a short story. So, time a HUGE factor here. An author, sans sic-fi genre, would not have factored in a non-existent disease because it was not TIME for it to appear in writing. By the way, this student argued on and on that "it could be a about that" while the professor silently ripped out his hair (metaphorically). I recall the incident here as a way of showing that time IS part of setting, a critical part.

When I write a poem, I am acutely aware of "when" as much as I am cognizant of "where." If I am writing a poem that is set a kitchen for example, the "stuff" of the poem will determine the time, or conversely the time will determine the "stuff." A wringer-washer will help to locate the poem's place in time as being perhaps 1950s or earlier. A washboard and brush might date it even earlier. A rock and stream even earlier. Time. It's a necessary element in writing.

My 5 year old grandson is writing a small piece on Abraham Lincoln, a bit of a deja vu to my daughter decades ago. He writes, "Abe Lincoln was born in a log cabin." This simple sentence LOCATES time. Even without the date specific, it locates time. He may be unaware of this now, but hopefully as he continues to do his school writing he will notice and appreciate how time can work for him.

Another issue for me regarding time is linear time vs circular time. What is the way I look at time? Personally I can write in both linear and circular time. But my THINKING is more circular, the notion that time is a wheel, spinning along with returning elements (altered? sometimes) and with lessons to be learned along the wheel. I see nature as repetend also, and the idea of time as circular is evident in the cycles of nature. This of course brings me back to the title of this blog, Vernal Equinox. I am gobsmacked over the equinoxes and the solstices. I see these as grand gestures on the part of the universe, the earth, the Creator. Yes, these specifics-named events are noticed and named by men. BUT the concept, the actuality of what time does is not man-made at all. Every year on the equinoxes, I stand eggs on end. Naysayers insist it is not possible on these days more than on any others. Ha! I do it. It is real. I take pictures of the eggs on their ends. It is phenomenon I have witnessed first-hand.

I digress (of course). My point is that these markers of time are important to me and make me even more aware of time's tricks, magic, and flux. Isn't it great to have this built-in muse for your writing? This wonderful anchor or wings for your writing? I contend that time is critical for all reading, and for writing. I am excited for the wheel to roll around again and hesitate, if briefly, at equinox.

A few years ago I wrote an equinox poem (suitable for vernal or autumnal equinox... since they are equal time partners). I reproduce it for you here:

Equidia/equinox

In one breathless shudder

within the hiding away time,

the earth rolls

quietly to a stop.

So finite and rare the moment,

it is dared only at the exact halves

of each year, and goes

mostly unnoticed.

I challenge you to:

1. Think about how time factors into your own writing and share your thoughts here

2. Write about something wherein time is a factor and share here

or

3. Write about the equinox and share it here

In closing, I am using this oncoming equinox as a kick-in-the- to infuse my writing with new energy. After the egg rolls back onto its side, I will pick up the pen.

Enough with the snow already (even if we've had not much of it)

I awoke to flakes swirling slowly like some kind of snow globe was shaken outside my window. Don't get me wrong here, I think it is lovely and magical. BUT... enough already. It's March and I am ready to be sitting outside with my laptop or a book (or my iPad books). I want my two friends to return to Maine from NYC and FL so we can start meeting to write again. I want sunshine so my legs will get brown again. I want to be able to wear pretty shoes that I don't have to carry with me to put on after I get inside wherever I am going. I want to pack away my long sleeves and coats. Is this too much to ask?

Something too about winter and writing: it is inspiring for about a minute and then...

Fortunately, I have lots to do. Poetry Month is upon us in 3 weeks. I am preparing for that by seeing to the list of poets for the Poetry Swarm, getting contest info to the schools, and attending the meetings at the library. I am searching for 4 high school students who can get a break from classes to come read at the library on a Wednesday at noon, and of course am prepping my own work for readings. I am also working on my BIG Wilbur project (see an earlier post for part of that). Dana Gioia suggested to me that I make an appointment to see him in person. I am nervous about doing that but really NEED to just do it. He is at Amherst in fall semester, so I have a goal: October.

So, what to do with my current slump? (sun just broke through... is it a sign?) I RARELY have slumps. I can usually, on any given day, just sit down to write and something happens. I don't usually have to talk myself into it, or thump about on the keyboard until something happens. But the past several days I have had little impulse to do it at all. Is this a leftover dullness from my horrible cold? I WANT to want to write. I just don't. Someone out there please give me a challenge. A prompt. A kick in the behind.

Writing the contemporary ghazal

First of all, let's get the pronunciation right: it's saying "huzzle" as if you are scraping a popcorn kernel off your tonsils. Ok, Now on to how to approach this wonderful and challenging form.

Recently, I was the member judge of a Maine Poets Society contest. I chose this form because it is challenging and rewarding. I encountered it in a serious way about 5 years ago and find it a great discipline in its strictest form, with all kinds of room to explode it to one's own tastes and ideas. Here is my talk, a bit edited to omit comments about the judging process.

The Ghazal (g-huzzle or in Spain the gacale)

There is some question as to where this form originated, whether in the Arabic world of Persia or Andalusia (Muslim Spain).

Wherever it originated, it is a newcomer to English speakers relatively speaking, often a lot looser in its adherence to the original form. Certainly, in its arabic format, it is more restrictive. For example, in the Arabic formatting of a ghazal, there would be no enjambment of lines or couplets. It is wise to remember that the definition of the Arabic, ghazal, is the cry of a cornered gazelle, one who knows she/he is about to die. So the lamentation and repetends are reminiscent of that desperation, that ending. Of course not every writer of the ghazal is going to restrict him/herself in tone or topic to the last ebbing moments of life or to an atmosphere of sadness. No topic ought to be abandoned if the writer is truly interested in making a ghazal. Annie Finch, Ghazal for a Poetess, admonishes the writer that this form is intended for the erotic. Yes, that can be the case. But there are many many of these poems which do not take that as a directive. Look at the amusing ghazal of John Hollander where he uses the form to write an ars poetica.

I am interested in the stand alone couplet, as found in many forms of writing poetry. I am interested in ancient forms that can be adapted to contemporary writing, and interested in forms that exist or once existed in other cultures and can be made in people of Western culture writing in English.

There is something magical, really, in writing and reading and listening to ghazal, almost a lilting quality exists there. Even in those considering banal topics such as politics or pop culture, the music is undeniable. This is due to the rhyme and the repetends, a truly contrapuntal approach: point, counterpoint, music upon music.

Some Western critics of the form say that these poems seem to go nowhere. Well, that is because Western thoughts of time and space tend toward the linear. Other cultures, especially indigenous cultures, do not live within a linear framework. Thus the ghazal is perfectly acceptable in its wandering nature, its seeming disunity. One might ask: Is the poet wandering about in his/her own thoughts? Is she/he talking to her/himself? Or, as Elizabeth T. Gray, Jr. says in her intro to The Green Sea of Heaven: Fifty Ghazals From the Diwan of Hafiz, “...is this a nugget of wisdom [of a] disciple who seeks union with God? One ought to ask oneself is the poet actually talking at all?

The nuts and bolts:

A ghazal is at least five couplets long, but there is no limit on length beyond that.

Some rules about the form are clear and strict. There is an opening couplet (or two lines) that is called the matla, which sets up the rhyme scheme. The rhyme scheme is called the qafia. There is a refrain phrase or word (repetend) called the radif.

In some ways, once the poet sets up the rhyme and repetend scheme, he or she becomes its slave. Having said this, however, in English ghazals, we might free ourselves a bit by varying the radif a little to use an off-rhyme or a delicate change in the qafia (rhyme word) or a bit of a tweak in the radif (repetend). We might enjamb the lines of the couplets. Many western world writers do these kinds of variations. We might not have the couplets interchangeable, instead having the whole poem flow in a linear fashion.

Basically, however, when you are learning the form, try to follow the original plan and keep your couplets on track.

There is often (most often?) an address in the final couplet, an actual naming of the beloved or the person who is the subject and object of the passionate expression of the whole. Hollander makes up a name, using Qafia and Radif in combination, another nod to his making the ghazal as an ars poetica.

The form is a wonderful place to combine lyric moments within a restrictive framework. This is quite a liberating thing. One can let seemingly unrelated couplets SUGGEST new unifications. In other words, allow the reader or listener to make universal connections. Of course there are those ghazals which are more unified. Even there, the reader has something to do to make the unifications strong and connect them to her/himself in a deep or fanciful way.

This form allows the poet to be mercurial while being restrictive. It is a lovely dichotomy for serious poets. It is freeing to be able to wax widely on a series of seemingly unrelated positions or to make a series of observations or parable-like statements. Let the connections be conjured by the reader. Let there be mystery.

Whether your ghazal follows the strictness of the original intent or is looser in its interpretation, the couplet allows you to get in and get out quickly. As long as you adhere to the use of qafia and radif, you are using the form. In judging, I allowed for all interpretations. I was looking for the qafia and radif and the couplet framework (even if the couplets were not separated from one another on the page).

I think it wise at this point to showcase an example from John Hollander, Ghazal. Listen for (look for) the ending repetend “at the end” in each second line of the couplets following the initial set up couplet. Of note: this is also an ars poetica, which comments on the form itself:

Ghazal (John Hollander)

For couplets, the ghazal is prime; at the end

of each one’s a refrain like a chime; at the end

But in subsequent couplets throughout the whole poem,

It’s this second line only will rhyme at the end.

On a string of such strange, unpronounceable fruits,

How fine the familiar old lime at the end!

All our writing is silent, the dance of the hand;

So that what it comes down to’s all mime, at the end.

Dust and ashes? How dainty and dry! We decay

To our messy primordial slime at the end.

Two frail arms of your delicate form I pursue,

Inaccessible, vibrant, sublime at the end.

You gathered all manner of flowers all day,

But your hands were most fragrant of thyme, at the end.

There are so many sounds! A poem having one rhyme?

— A good life with a sad, minor crime at the end.

Each new couplet’s a different ascent: no great peak

But a low hill quite easy to climb at the end.

Two armed bandits: start out with a great wad of green

Thoughts, but you’re left with a dime at the end.

Each assertion’s a knot which must shorten, alas

This long-worded rope of which I’m at the end.

Now Qafia Radif has grown weary, like life

At the game he’s been wasting his life at. THE END.

The ending is very playful, with Hollander using the traditional signature couplet, called a makhta, in which a poet invokes her/his own name. He chooses, however, since this is an ars poetica, to make up a name using the two repetends, the qafia and the radif. Very clever of him.

Notice that Hollander could take most of the couplets and rearrange them in any order, save the first and final ones. This is a hallmark of the strictest ghazal. Note also that his couplet contain enjambments of lines (though not of stanzas). A ghazal which enjambs lines is referred to as a qata. Let me read to you now a couple of ghazals I have written, Ghazal of the Dark Blue Suit and Sea Ghazal. Both of these are gata. I think I prefer the qata.

Another challenge one might make in writing this form is to rhyme every line. I did this in the following poem, Prison Ghazal [wrongly accused] I also did NOT use the qafia just before the radif. I tell you this, and show you the poem in order to underscore that you might change things about for your own "take' on the form.

Prison Ghazal

[wrongly accused]

How did I come to this disarray

losing myself to open air, to this dismay.

What will I eat and do each day?

Oh such a battered twist this dismay.

I’d rather open up my wrist and flay

off my own skin, such dismay.

Losing ground day after day

I bare can take this heart-heavy dismay.

The sky is filled with birds that pray

for me in my dismay.

The trees droop so and, dismal, sway

to match the steps I count and pace in my dismay.

An eagle screams, forgets its prey

drops one fine feather to cheer this dismay.

Dark grows the sky above, and the way

it shrugs its black attire shows its dismay

at the wicked who thought me a piece to play

in their smudgy game of evil and dismay.

A priest I am and thus shall ever stay

no matter what humiliation or dismay.

I bare my soul, and say

my God why leave me in such dismay?

"What we have here is a failure to communicate."

What is the role of poetry in contemporary discourse? Can poetry message the world in such a way as to foment change?

I think about these two questions frequently. I wonder whether the poems I write make any discernible difference, whether their scope is too broad or too narrow to make said difference. I believe that the only thing a poet (or any writer) can do is to keep writing and to make sure the work GETS OUT to be heard, read, discussed.

Even if the work is casual as far as topic is concerned, there are truths to be gleaned from it. If I write about the things I see from my greenhouse (I Write in the Greenhouse, 2011), I am speaking about human nature as reflected off the glass of feral nature. On the surface, a poem about bees may seem to be just that, but in reality it can be about what we are doing to the environment, to our fellow creatures, and ultimately to ourselves.

An acquaintance of mine from California recently posted an article decrying the science of climate change. She asked the question: do we believe or not? I replied I'd rather hedge my bet on the side of protecting the environment and find out I didn't need to do so, rather than being a user/abuser of resources only to find out it was critical to protect and now it's too late. I think this is what writing can do: help us hedge our bets. Hate to be so clinical here or to sound self-serving, but if not us, who? I write about "nature" much of the time and have found it to be a mirror for humanity. I see its struggle to stay upright in a world that would knock it over to make a buck. Is that not what we are seeing in our government? Knock down the fragile and vulnerable to make a buck, without thought to how that bodes for the future.

We have kids who recycle religiously and kids who don't. No amount of cajoling and example-setting makes the non-recyclers get on board. They are too busy, too involved, too lazy (?) to do it. For me it is a no-brainer: like wearing seat belts... just do it and it becomes habit.

I have picked up after the "tossers" all my life. I cannot pass by a can on the sidewalk, a cigarette butt (don't get me started!) or ignore a piece of paper fluttering in the street. So when I was in graduate school, I wrote about it (poem posted below). My advisor said (mockingly I might add) that no one does that, picks up after others. Later that day, he happened by as I was cleaning up a mess near the dorm where some students had left bottles and cans on the step. I didn't know he was there until he yelled out his car window: Oh wow, you really DO do that!

Ha! Caught in the act of doing as I say! What a concept. My point here is to be authentic and let that leak into and infuse your writing. You never know who will read what you write and make even a small change. Don't let yourself fail to communicate your deeply held thoughts, ideas, beliefs IN your writing. Some say "the cause is best left for the soapbox," but I say it is best flooded through what you write. You don't have to be overt about it, but just let that be the layer of meaning below the surface. Remember it can be "about" without being about...

Here is the littering poem:

No Litter (Honest!)

Once a receipt blew out of my car.

I swear I stopped,

chased it into the greasewood,

crumpled it into my pocket. No trash

can in sight, what else could I do?

No littering for me. No gum

wrappers, ciggie butts

not one can or bottle, no

popsicle stick dropped

like a bad joke at the dinner table.

I’ve picked up your trash too, friends,

followed behind as you spread

your gluttony along

streets and sidewalks. I’ve coughed

loudly so you’d notice. (you didn’t)

I recycled what you littered: cans,

papers, flattened cardboard

boxes you left to rot in vacant lots.

I’ve even picked up pooches

you rejected, dropped off in the desert.

As for apple cores, banana skins, crusts,

peach pits: these I happily fling

wherever the concrete ends. Back to nature!

I shout, knowing the same thrill I felt

in ‘77 when I recycled my first husband.

Down with a cold, but up for poetry

I have been totally sidelined by a terrible cold. I have coughed up some things that I believe to be primal, bits of an ancient culture. I have sneezed myself into headaches, blown my nose until I may have given myself a concussion. OK, so I exaggerate here... but you get the picture.

One blessing of being sick (once you pass the phase where you sleep 'round the clock for two days) is that you are forced onto the couch with nothing calling you. I took advantage of this to spend some quality time with Richard Wilbur's poems. I am steaming ahead with the big project to annotate and understand and compare his world of writing. I originally thought I'd begin at the beginning (1947 volume) and move ahead from there. Not a great plan as it turns out. For some reason I was unable to get terribly excited about the early stuff UNTIL I began to read it along with the new material. So I am doing an ends to middle approach at this point. Today I read the first poem (a prologue of sorts) to his latest book, Anterooms.

The House is a sweet and evocative bit of reflection on the dream life you cannot enter: that of your beloved. It addresses the "morning after" when lovers try to get back into the living world and yet are still caught up in the land they left to do so. The poem begins:

Sometimes, on waking, she would close her eyes

For a last look at that white house she knew

In sleep alone, and held no title to,

And had not entered yet, for all her sighs.

How many times have I awakened still clinging to the phantoms of night, to a place or a person only real in the night world? I have tried to share my dreams with my beloved, only to feel inadequate to include him, and slightly guilty for going there without him. Wilbur captures this fully and succinctly in the opening stanza of the poem.

The middle stanza attempts to do what I try to do in morning: Give details. Include. Explain. Wilbur captures the inadequacy of the attempt. His poem lets me feel included in this holy adventure of dreaming.

I admit that I actually gasped aloud with pleasure when I got to the end of the poem as it turns to the notion that the dreamer is followed to the sea (of dreams) despite the speaker's full knowledge that he cannot find the land she is inhabiting. THAT is love. It is the action of being willing to go into impossible waters alone because the beloved has sailed off in that direction:

Is she now there, wherever there may be?

Only a foolish man would hope to find

That haven fashioned by her dreaming mind.

Night after night, my love, I put to sea.

Is this not amazing? It is. I assert that Wilbur is our greatest living American poet (male). My opinion keeps growing stronger with every poem.

Regarding the bones of this poem:

Wilbur embraces always a classic aesthetic in terms of prosody. His poems naturally find themselves rhyming, find their music in iambics (mostly), a four or five beat line. This poem is no exception. The rhyme scheme is abba, cddc, effe. With its volta at line nine, this might be a sonnet, save its 12 lines rather than 14. Wisley Wilbur does not try to stretch out another couplet. The poem ends where it wants. Where it ought.

So, dear reader, since I am still a bit under the weather, I will end here and leave you with one thought:

Take every opportunity to engage with great poems. Tomorrow I will talk to you about my pre-illness trip to Boston to Grolier's Poetry Bookshop, speak of hotels and lobster hash and my coffee mug from the Harvard Book Store. TTFN as Tigger would say.

AWOL Blogger

I have been off the blog for a long stretch. I admit to getting a bit distracted from time to time. And I admit to being a bit too interested in many things at the same time: writing, knitting, reading, cooking, being with friends, taking naps (hey! that is an ART! LOL)

My husband tapped my forehead last night and said "it's sooo busy in there!" I guess he is right. Sometimes I get fractured in focus. There are just so many things to grab my attention. I have been promoting the new book, working on my first ever novel (yikes!) and keeping up with my poetry projects (submitting, writing, going to poetry group). Then on Saturday last, my friend Dita, her boyfriend Todd, and I tried something new... an altered book workshop. I'm captured! I love the idea of making art out of existing materials (have always been fascinated by collage). This project is right up that alley, deconstructing, altering, repurposing, and making something new out of old books. Of course I picked a semi-large book to tackle. The workshop was run by Margo Ogden, a printmaker. We learned several techniques and got right down to doing!

Do I worry that I am too fractured in my focus? Nope. I am just grateful to have things to do that engage me so deeply. I wonder when people say they are "bored" why they don't get busy and find things to do. There is just no end to the possibilities. My glass is more than half full... it is spilling over on the table and the water definitely looks like art!

birthday and writing/finishing an older post

Today (January 16th, 2012) I have done the amazing: turned 65. How did that happen? No matter. I am sixty-five and still writing, in fact writing better than when I was younger. I think it is because I have had more of life on which to comment, more experiences both good and not so good. I have strong opinions (no shock to my family or friends) and those tend to worm their way into poems or essays. I guess I'd be more surprised if my writing got worse as I got older (more mature?) but still it surprises me to look back on other years' poems and see where I've come from there.

I got a present from my friend Gayle Portnow, a children's book by my favorite poet, Richard Wilbur. The book is The Disappearing Alphabet. I've heard he has been doing children's poetry books but hadn't seen one. It is great. He does't depart from his formalist stance, but injects humor with the natural (iambic mostly) speech patterns. I like seeing this side of him, enjoy his take on the world of kids who read and rhyme. The illustrations in the book are wonderful, and surprisingly were done on Adobe Photoshop. The illustrator (name escapes me at the moment) is talented and really "got" the flavor of Wilbur's imaginary world where letters of the alphabet might disappear, wreaking colorful havoc.

I may have said this before, but I do love my birthday. Always have. My father took special interest in my birthday and made sure it was a moment in time for me each year of my life until I was married. I think he thought my husband (husband #1) would take over where he left off (not at all, as the guy mostly ignored all holidays and special days, creating a few horrible birthday experiences). But I digress. I recall Daddy's little notes to me, his surprises, his singing off key with made-up silly words for lyrics. I never knew what was coming on this day. Little surprises showing up at school, or under my pillow, or on the front step. He'd try to hide who was doing all the "secrets" but I knew. Certainly it was not my mother who had no where near the imagination for this kind of tomfoolery. Her contribution was always her famous Midnight Chocolate Cake with white icing. I can say my taste buds are tingling right now for that cake. Too bad the recipe is lost. Too bad she is not here to bake it for me. In fact I cannot recall the last time someone made me a birthday cake. But the memory tastes almost as good. the other cool thing about my birthday was getting to choose a place to eat out, rare in those days as we lived pretty close to the bone financially. I frequently chose a restaurant called The Dragon Seed in Kittery, Maine (not there now, as it got closed LONG ago (allegedly for having a whore house upstairs). Anyway, it was a great place to eat out. Yum. And once I got to be a teen, there was always a new dress. I recall the royal blue wool dress with a scooped neckline and a white "dickey" insert. I wore that blue wool dress until I was well close to 30. It was the perfect color for me and I felt very elegant in it.

I always got tons of birthday cards. Some were handmade, some store-bought. I loved reading the messages people wrote inside and the occasional five dollars or so tucked inside. Now it is very different. We greet one another by email and rarely send out physical cards. I have received a few e-cards today already and can say I love the animated features of these. I am grateful to have friends who take the time to "care enough to send the very best" of the interactive card world!

It is also different when you celebrate birthdays as an adult. Who bakes the cake? IS there a cake? Who shops and shops to find just the right little thing to amaze and delight you? Practically speaking, do we even "need" presents? I don't have an answer. One thing that has seemed a bit off kilter in the world of birthday celebrations is that we reward the person who was born (it is quite a feat I will admit... my years midwifing and as a labor and delivery nurse have taught me that alone with the giving birth thing I experienced myself) I sometimes sent my mother flowers on my birthday. I wish now that I'd done it every year. I do stop for a moment and give thanks to my mother for going through the childbirth experience which was not at all easy on her. I thank my father too, as he was the primary reason they had kids. He WANTED to be a father more than anything.

The bummer thing about turning 65 is going on medicare. Oh I'm not drubbing medicare. I am grateful we have such a thing. We need to keep it going, expand it. But it is a bit daunting to think I am eligible. 65? Really? I guess I am saying that this birthday takes me a bit by surprise.

Speaking of surprises... I wonder what today will bring. I'll just wait and see.

2/8/2012

Update... I forgot to post this on the day I wrote it. Let's just say, the birthday surprise was a day of messages from loved ones and friends and out to dinner with my hubby and grandson. Low key day, almost as if the day was embarrassed to address my age. Hmmm. But here I am, fully 65 and signed up for medicare. I have my red, white, and blue card and everything. I don't see new grey hairs, no wrinkles to speak of, and I am as energetic and engaged as ever. So... I LAUGH at 65, embrace it. It is, after all, better than the alternative!

But how do you FEEL?

I recently read something about what poetry does to people when they read it. I am interested in this as a way to keep my head in the game when I write. I want to make sure I am creating a space for my readers. Yesterday, at lunch after poetry group, some of us had a bit of a discussion over the issue of inaccessible poetry. It is still haunting us. We pick up an anthology and get what we get, sometimes not a great experience. And while we grumble about it, we stay at the grumbling level. What is happening "out there" in poetic circles that keeps this kind of obscurity regenerating and sustaining itself? I certainly think that any kind of poetry is functional for SOME reader. It may surprise, shock, befuddle, etc. But if we are to make sure that poetry is a vibrant art, don't we need to make poems that connect with people on a wider basis, something other than in academic circles or the somewhat incestuous circles of publishing?

I think (and believe deeply) that poetry is like a marriage: takes two. If I write a poem with which no one connects, is it even a poem? (If a tree falls alone in a forest does it make a sound?) My beef is with language poetry and with some specific poets at the moment. Poets like Jorie Graham, Dara Wier, Ann Waldman, and others seem perhaps to lack a sense that it is readers whom they either reach or don't. I have heard these three poets read. I couldn't wait for the pain to stop. And what IS this thing called language poetry? Where is the notion that form makes meaning? Why would anyone want to listen to a poet scream from a stage, string together words and images that do not come out feeling like they belong together on the page or stage? I guess a deeper reason for rejecting this kind of "word salad" poetry is that it seems a bit psychotic. When I was in nursing school, we learned that word salad speech was a hallmark of mental illness. 'Nuf said.

One big issue for me is what poets can do to elicit feelings and memory and sensibilities from readers. The poetry "elite" often bash poets like Billy Collins and Maya Angelou for being too common, too working class, too public, too ordinary. They disparage them all over the place. But the truth of the matter is, people CONNECT with them and with their poems. Just sit in the audience at one of their standing room only events and listen to the comments. "I get that one" "I understand what he/she is trying to say" or "that poem makes me feel ______"

It is amazing how people who have not previously understood poetry or enjoyed it are transformed. They FEEL something. They feel included. Something common to many is not a bad thing. We want to feel part of something, feel connected to something. This is especially true now, when the whole world feels like it is falling apart at the seams. We should be able to look to our poets to make sense of things, to highlight wrongs and to comment on the world in general. We do NOT need poetry that make the chaos worse.

As a poet, I am interested in hearing from readers that my poems make them FEEL. I do not stand before readers hoping they will be impressed with me. I want to make meaning and share how I see and hear and experience the world in which we all live. I want to unveil a few "truths" along the way and have readers get an "aha!" moment from something I share. If I can do that, I am a success. I don't have to shout or curse or demean in order to do that. It is pleasurable for readers to connect and pleasurable for me to see the connections happen before my very eyes at readings. I want to be a proletariat poet with a good vocabulary.

Now, having said that, I am also interested in how I FEEL (and all poets) when writing, after a poem is on the page, and when a poem is struggling to come forward onto the page. What does it feel like in the head, the body? Is there a visceral moment? I am very aware most of the time, and not so much some of the time. A good poet friend and mentor, Jim McKean, once said to me that the visceral feeling, the buzz in the head is "being in the zone." Of course he, former fabulous basketball player, would use a sports metaphor. But in all reality, he is not far off from accurate there. It is a rarefied air we breathe when the thing is working on the page, a feeling of heat or adrenaline, or even drunkenness. I think sometimes I could run a mile without touching the ground when a poem is really cooking or when it is finished/revised and feels "just right." When this feeling takes over, it is like nothing else I feel elsewhere. It seems to me to be a feeling all its own.

I wonder now how others feel when writing or after having written. Oh sure, sometimes the feeling is sheer exhaustion. I get that too. But I'm talking about the gut, the pure feeling of something... what is it? Can I make it happen again? Will my readers experience it at all as they read/hear the poems? I think that transfer of feeling is what I want most. The Romantics knew this. Their school of thought was precisely that notion of spontaneous overflow of emotion, written, cooled then served and reheated in the reader's experience. I ask myself then, are we entering a period of revival of Romanticism? I hope so. It would be very good for everyone involved in poetry.

So, dear blog reader, let me hear from you on this topic.

and another year slips off into the fog

This is it, folks: 2011 is waning and 2012 is waxing. I have to admit that I am not so sad to see 2011 go and I must say I do love January. January, the month of my birth and a nice month to fold in and gain strength for another year. I enjoy beginning new projects and taking a long look at where I've been that got me to where I am.

I am not a big ringer-in of the New Year in the commercial sense. I think New Year's Eve is a pretty plastic and commercial event. People spend too much on too much food, eat and drink to excess, and drive themselves to dangerousness on slick roads. People feel bad if they have no one to kiss at midnight. Some folks decide to end it all rather than face another year of whatever they've been facing. Nope. Not for me at all. I like to stay in, write the final poem of the year, reflect, regroup, re-energize. I actually went to bed at 715 last night in preparation for this. My eldest daughter is here from CA (she is cooking tonight's meal) and her only child (grandson who goes to college in NH) and his girlfriend, and our eldest grandson is here too. He moved in with us in late September. We will hopefully play a board game or two and maybe watch a movie. I may stay in my jammies all day. I will kiss my hubby at midnight (he will be asleep) and will call our kids out west. It will be 9 PM there but maybe the grandkids will be up. All in all, I anticipate a sweet low-key evening.

BUT... I have a task. I must write the final poem of 2011 before midnight. When will I do it? Usually the poem is done sometime between 10 PM and midnight. I will pay attention all day today for just the right moment. Then, after midnight, I will write the first poem of 2012. I will feel good about both. I will check off another pair of poems that link the years.

As another year slips off into the fog (literally), I feel blessed to be alive, to have reasonable health, and to have a mind that won't rest. I am grateful to be a writer, to be a person with something to say. I thank my parents for putting me on this planet with much to do. I am thankful that I am never bored. I am thankful for my family, with all its warts and wonders. I am thankful for my husband who is the one person in this world who comes the closest to really "knowing" me. He pays attention, and is right there whenever I am in need of support and encouragement, and in times when I need to be reeled in a bit. What a guy! My poem, Polaris, says it all:

Polaris

On our January porch, hands

open to starshine, we are pierced

by Polaris. It's a stigmata I feel

as my right palm presses

your right palm, fingers laced.

It's a burning, a covenant. Later

in our bedroom, some shine

on your shoulder where I touch

as you drift into your own night

sky. We have been pierced

by starpoints, filled with light.

We sail on it, I your compass, true

North, and you my lantern

and flame, tower and beam.

I wrote this for him in 2010.

So what am I looking ahead to for 2012? Here's a quick tenner:

1. reducing, reusing, recycling with a verve!

2. getting the laundry room finished (we are some trim and a step and a door from done) and make the pantry a reality (paint, shelves, organize and move pots and pans to that space)

3. finishing my novel

4. finding a home for my manuscripts (The Boyfriend Project and Psalms From the Commons)

5. embarking on the Wilbur study and reading/writing on it every day

6. becoming more physically fit

7. going to the beach at least 10 times this summer

8. the annual reorganization of my book shelves

9. writing physical letters to my grandkids

10. calling far away friends once a week (pick a friend, call)

I think this is a reasonable list. Most things on it rely upon my ability to stay on target. #4 is a matter of send out and pray.

#2 is not exactly up to me. The pantry part has some jobs for me, but the laundry room not so much. I have curtains to do out there, but depend on Domenic to finish the rest.

I would add a reading component to the list as there are a few books here which are as yet untouched or partially read. So if I had #11, it would be to read them.

I guess #12 might be something about being a better blogger. Oh yes, I am doing ok in this regard, but not daily which was my original plan. Will try to do better.

And on that note, as my tea is nearly done, I will depart to the real world and begin the winding down and winding up that is New Year's Eve.

Blessings to all of you. Bring a friend or more to the blog!

CWB

Winding Down and Gearing Up

2011, for good or ill, is winding down. It is a time for me to reassess what has happened or not during one year before moving on to the next year. I wonder how many writers do this kind of ruminating. As a poet, my assessments take on a more formal approach. I write the last poem of the year on December 31st late in the evening (obviously I am not a "party hearty" kind of NYE celebrator). I let my mind roam about in the year and something strikes me as interesting enough that I ought to write about it. I've been doing this for 13 years now. It is never the case (so far) where I feel burdened by this writing. I look forward to it for days. I am already pretty jazzed at the prospect. I take myself to a space (physical space) with my laptop and write. Funny that it is my laptop not a notebook. I have tried with a notebook and there is not the same sense of immediacy.

Once the final poem of a year is done (now this is just a DRAFT; I do go back and revise) I get to the business of writing the first poem of the new year. Most often this poem is written only a few hours later, often no longer than an hour or so after the year begins. What is so interesting to me about this little "habit of writing" is the complete switch the poems identify. I thought the closer together they were written, the closer they'd be in tone, subject, approach, even form (or lack thereof). This has simply not been the case over the decade + that I've been doing it. Befuzzling. (like that word? It's my creation.) Is there really a total mind shift that happens? Is the new year so NEW that my head is new too? I think so.

I am working slowly toward a collection of these poems, called at this point "End to End." I think the concept is interesting, though maybe not as interesting as my "Boyfriend Project." (More on that one later as I am determined to get that put together and sent out in 2012, along with finishing my novel. So much to write!)

Back to my winding down and gearing up:

I also try to reorganize my office, reorganizing the shelves as a major part of that work. I like to consider new ways to put my books and supplies in order. I went with alphabetizing last year though I have found that doesn't last. I am such a "stacker" and so hasty when I need a book that I am out of alphabetized state rather quickly and don't know where ANYTHING is. Grrr. So this time I am thinking of going with categories as my organizing principle. Books ABOUT in one section, poetry anthologies in another, male poets in another, women poets in yet another. Random books that fit into none of those categories in another. My own books and journals in which my poems appear are in a bookcase downstairs where visitors can find them.

I'd like to get rid of extraneous supplies. I just cannot seem to do it. I want to put a comfy chair in my office but if I did that, I'd have to get rid of my supplies cabinets. Do I really NEED all those things? Maybe not. Might be a bigger project than I want to tackle. I will need a burst of energy coupled with courage to take that on anytime soon. I'd like to make my spare room into a dressing room for myself, but where would I put my guests? My hubby and I have a 4 bedroom house and only 2 of those are useable as bedrooms. We each have an office. Why? Could we find a way to share? Not at this point. We share a printer (located in my office) and a wireless network (equipment also in my office). Why can we not be in the same space? Clutter and memorabilia is the big reason. His office is very messy. It is also the dumping ground for whatever we don't know where to put... grrr. Are we THAT disorganized or do we just have too much STUFF? Yes to both though the latter is more the case.

This brings me around to the books. I hate to get rid of books. Seems like abandoning a child or leaving a puppy in the woods or along the road. Having said that, I do recycle fiction and nonfiction to our local bookstore: hello, hello books. I get book credit to buy MORE BOOKS when I do that. I like this plan, keeping books literally circulating like a wonderfully bizarre library. So now I will look at the books on my shelves and see which ones can fly out of here after the new year when Lacy is taking books again. I also share my books with friends and schools when they are absolutely done living here in my house. I recently got several copies of my favorite poet's best collection (used, in good shape of course) and these became Christmas/Chanukka presents. I like the idea of my poet friends having these poems so we can discuss and share our ideas about Wilbur's poems.

I guess I'd be remiss in this blog if I failed to address the clothing situation. I have too many in too many sizes. I don't like many of them either. I feel frumpy sometimes. I feel uncomfortable in many of them. Time to go through and be ruthless in my closet. Ought to do that before 2012 happens. Maybe tomorrow. After all, tomorrow is another day. Hmmmm....... where have I heard that? Did I give away or trade that book for poetry?

Happy end of 2011 and a prosperously inked 2012 to all!

Carol, the cluttered poet

Age of Disappointment and Disenfranchisement: repost of 2010 article I wrote

What good is poetry in this age of disappointment and disenfranchisement?

Life is hard right now, perhaps harder over a wider scope than at any time in history. People are out of work, out of options, out of patience. One bookstore owner on deciding to close her store said recently about reading "times are tough' reading is a luxury." It is no surprise to this writer that her store was closing. But reading is what we are doing, in record numbers. My favorite second-hand shop is busy every day, and books are being bought & exchanged there, or being borrowed from libraries. No matter that eBooks are flourishing as the nouveau-techno trend of the day, people are still READING. But what is selling is nonfiction and Romance and the latest hottest tell-all by politicians with NO skills at writing (you ghost writers out there take heart, your niche may be "in" enough to carve our a bit of a career now). I ask the serious question here though: (not co-opting Dana Gioia's original question TOO much) Can Poetry Matter? Good question and one that needs revisiting now more perhaps than when Gioia posed it in the early 90s.

It's true that poetry could be simply swept away as any leaf fallen from a tree. It could lie on the front mat lifeless and forgotten. It somehow seems to many rather "artsy" and has a reputation for being on the fringe of or completely out of touch with contemporary readers and publishing. However, I insist that poetry is perhaps never more important in modern times than it is right now.

In the days when communication was not accomplished with a pair of opposable thumbs on a tiny keyboard, messages and information reaching its intended in a matter of seconds, poets were engaged (yes, I mean PAID or otherwise materially supported) to roam the streets or to sit at court and inform, explain, analyze current events. Poets were generally considered both politician and polis itself, making sense of the confusing, the contrary, the controversial. Societies depended upon their poets to be the centre of most anything of import. Poets were revered and listened to in light of decisions and direction. Then we got "practical" and poetry fell into the realm of the over-educated, the elite, and it became something only high society or academia continued to embrace. It slid into the back rooms and smoky coffee houses as "subversive protest" and over the top fringe activity during the 60s. Free verse replaced (in large part) formalism and even then, it could not compete with dime novels and sleazy shock literature. We wanted to know about Hannibal Lector, not read 32 rhymed couplets on the American experience. We eschewed poetry for B-grade fiction, even for stories about vampires.

For those of us who find the structure and passion of poetry compelling, it was grim news. We could count on the mild amusement to outright recoil by other humanoids at the mere mention of what we write. Say you are a writer and there is great interest in your work, UNTIL you mention that your genre is poetry. You are seen as the kook in the room, the person without REAL work or worth, as a hobbyist whose work ought to be given away or bartered for a few copies of the journal that is charitable enough to publish one or two of your poems. But we keep on writing. We keep on tackling the tough issues in verse. We keep on finding new and fresh ways to make a heart attack a beautiful experience. Why, you ask, why? Why not just give in and be a real writer, with a novel every other year in the drawer waiting for discovery.

The answer is simple really: this crazy world needs dissecting and resurrecting. We need poets to do this hard work.

In this overblown, overfed, overhyped world we need poets to step up again and make sense of the frenzy. We need structured passion, a jaded but engaged eye on the landscapes of our lives. When there is war (have you read the papers? it's been on the news) we need poets to celebrate the gory glory and decry its very existence and morality. When oil gushes forth unchecked by man's best and worst efforts, we need poets to step into the gap and bemoan. When all seems helpless, hopeless, hapless we need poets' humor to distract, if just momentarily. We need the limerick, the sonnet, the aubade. We need the ballade, the rondelle, the haiku and ghazal. We need poets working into the night to wag their collective fingers (ink-stained as they may appear if only figuratively). We desperately need to read poems that say "we are all in this together and damn the obstructionists in Washington" and we need to read poems that keep us from killing ourselves and others.

So be it. I am a poet. I don't want to be anyone else. It's in my DNA. My ancestor, William Dunbar was a poet of the Court of St James. He criticized (and cajoled in ironic tones) royalty and its foolish ways. He described the society of his day in verse that made sense of it all. I proudly carry his blood and his bravado. I would not change that.

Keep on poets, don't stop showing the world to itself in all its glorious warts and wobbles. Keep the notebooks filled and the ink flowing. Try to keep your heart healthy and your blood pressure just short of blowing. We need you alive and engaged.

Inside Clothes

I read an old post on another blog wherein the author discussed having clothing worn only "inside" and not for public appearances. I have done a version of this all my life. When I was little, we had "play clothes" that we put on after coming home from school. I recall my mother saying things like "go change into your play clothes so you don't ruin your school clothes" and then it was "change out of your church clothes and into your play clothes, and hang up your good clothes please." Once I had kids, it was a certainty that I was not doing all the domestic stuff in clothing I'd later wear to the grocery store or downtown. I think this kept certain clothing from wearing out too quickly, getting stained by food, cleaning materials, or glue from whatever project I was doing with the kids. In the "olden days" my mother wore an apron, something I don only for serious cooking projects. You will often find me at home with a dish towel slung over one shoulder, but no waist-tied aprons for me.

I have to say that I love soft, comfortable clothing, the feeling of being unrestricted. I cannot wait to get home and into my inside clothes, including my jammies. In fact, at some point in each day, I declare "it's jammie time," and go get into the most comfy clothing of all. Now I admit that my inside clothes and jammies are not sloppy, disheveled or the like. But they are not clothes I'd wear to church or a school board meeting or poetry group. My neighbor has often stated that I look "put together" when she drops by for tea or a visit. I was thinking about this yesterday and discussing this with a friend at a party. She suggests it might be that I wear jewelry all the time, no matter whether I am at home or out and about. Hmmm. I also wear makeup. It has just been a habit I've gotten into I guess, like brushing teeth, washing face,etc. I just do these things. I don't think my husband and/or family deserves any less than the general public. I want to look good even when being "at home" and "comfortable. So I have good jammies, nice t-shirts, and wear makeup and jewelry and perfume no matter what. I remember a song from the late 60s or early 70s "Wives and Lovers" where the singer admonishes the listener that "wives should always be lovers too, so run to the door whenever he comes home to you." I make an effort to look my best even when not wearing my best.

I add to the mix here that I do not wear shoes inside. First of all, I am uncomfortable having my feet restrained. UGH. I also do not think that shoes which are worn outside in the yard or on the street are appropriate inside because of all that gets "brought in" on the bottoms of them. I remove my shoes in the hallway and go barefooted or else wear slippers (only in cold weather!) I have often thought of having a basket of slippers (the knit footie kind) at the door so people who come in can be comfortable and no "icky stuff" will come in to my house on their feet. Is this obsessive? I guess not since I don't do that. But I am sure not going to wear MY shoes in the house.

What does this idea of inside clothes have to do with writing? Maybe nothing at all. But I have a hunch that how comfortable I am contributes to mood, which certainly does affect my writing.

Here's a challenge:

1. respond to this poet with your ideas about inside clothes

2. write a poem about YOUR clothes

Enough for today. I need to get out of my jammies and go downtown to do a little Christmas shopping.

punctuation is not an end, but rather a means: rules and biases

I like to consider punctuation an integral part of any writing. It's not just an end thing, a way to put in a stopper. It's way more than that for me. It's a breath, a pause of some strength or length, or simply a way to gain the attention of the reader saying get ready for something else. I am, of late, distressed to see the rebuking of the Oxford comma, that little curvy mark that separates a list from the oncoming conjunction: we ate ham, cheese, and toast with our eggs. We now see it without that comma before the "and," which makes me a little bit crazy. I look at a load of submitted poems for my 'zine (note the apostrophe!) and can tell you that nonuse (or, worse yet, misuse) of punctuation sends me 'round the bend (ha! another apostrophe!) Someone recently told me that the apostrophe in contractions is unnecessary now. This trend toward eliminating them is due to internet "speech" and to laziness. My students' papers were littered with incorrect usage of punctuation, including non-contracted contractions. Yikes! Cough! I consider this a sign of laziness or ignorance. (Harsh, you say? Well, there it is: I'm okay being harsh on this)

Through time, we have seen many changes and alterations in punctuation, and certainly cannot call it static. But the abandonment of punctuation by some writers (including some in my own circles) is jarring to me. I have a notion that some people avoid using ANY punctuation because they simply do not know (remember?) how to use it. The truth is that poetry is not like any other kind of writing in terms of lines, punctuation. We do not always end a line in punctuation. This is, in part, because the ends of our lines are not necessarily the ends of our lines. We enjamb. Since we do, we need to signal to our readers just when they ought to pause, stop, or move onward through the line to the next without awkwardness. We don't want readers to enjamb our lines if we do not intend them to BE enjambed. Punctuation serves the purpose of saying "pause here a bit before moving on" or its lack says "keep going to the next line without pausing." It is particularly important in fixed form poetry where pausing might overemphasize the rhyme, making it seem forced. We want our readers to feel comfortable with how they read our poems. We don't want them to pause to try to suss out HOW the line ought to be read. For me, I want my readers to flow through the poems and feel the meaning. I do not want them to have so much to do that they miss the glory of words, phrases, and meanings. Unfair at its very root.

One form of punctuation that is abused and overused is the ! (in all forms of writing). We generally do not see the ! used in formal writing, but we do see it all over the place in casual writing. It can be annoying to be told how we are to feel as we read. Certainly the ! is, in my opinion, just that: a directive to get excited. I want to decide when and where I get excited. Please don't tell me to do it.

In poetry, use of the ! can mark the poet as having little in the way of skill for creating emphasis. There are so many ways to create emphasis that having nothing to do with punctuation. Using the ! ought to be relegated to the quirky poem, the satirical poem, the experimental. I fully admit to personal bias here. When I see the ! used in a poem, I tend to disregard the poem and the poet out of hand. OK, so maybe I'm being harsh here, but I embrace this little bias. It works for me. Remember, I did say the experimental, the humor poem, etc are places where the ! is fair game, so please don't hate me for my little biases! (LOL)

Another of the abused forms of punctuation (thanks Emily D) is the long dash, the em dash. One of my poet friends absolutely loves the long dash. She uses it profusely. I am trying to break her em dash habit. Others in my writing group are also fond of this punctuation and use it, too often in some cases. It is infectious, almost viral. Using the em dash is a convenient way to put in punctuation when one is unsure of how much of a pause is needed. It is also a way to set a kind of placeholder while one decides the length of a pause. I think that the em dash in a first draft, used as a placeholder, is fine. In fact, it is helpful, as long as it can be reworked into some other form of punctuation later. It is good and prudent to look long and hard at these placeholder dashes when revising and to ask the hard questions about intent and meaning when doing so.

I will end today's blog with a few "rules" for using the long dash (the em dash) which is so called due to its width, the approximate width of the letter "m" in typing. Grammarians warn us to use it sparingly, if at all, in formal writing. In informal writing, it MAY be used more liberally to replace commas, semicolons, colons, parentheses. It can signal added emphasis, an interruption, or an abrupt change of thought. It is this last use (abrupt change of thought) where the em dash can function beautifully in poetry. Remember, "normal" rules can be a bit different in poetry than in prose. We poets need to consider our readers carefully when we punctuate. Just because we CAN use the em dash, we need not if it will cause the reader untoward work to understand or read our poems. Indeed we ought not. I'll (not Ill) leave you with a decision: to dash or not to dash. But if you send me a poem, I will look at the em dash with a jaded eye. Fair warning!

	Examples:	You are the friend—the only friend—who offered to help me.
		Never have I met such a lovely person—before you.
		I pay the bills—she has all the fun. A semicolon would be used here in formal writing.
		I need three items at the store—dog food, vegetarian chili, and cheddar cheese. Remember, a colon would be used here in formal writing.
		My agreement with Fiona is clear—she teaches me French and I teach her German. Again, a colon would work here in formal writing.
		Please call my agent—Jessica Cohen—about hiring me. Parentheses or commas would work just fine here instead of the dashes.
		I wish you would—oh, never mind. This shows an abrupt change in thought and warrants an em dash.

Intrinsic substance and human experience

My Facebook friend, Ren Powell, journaled the following:

I have days where I think that poetry is a sham and that I have wasted time, energy and money on something ultimately constructed on such things as religion are made of. No roots, no hooks, no intrinsic substance. And then I remember the point of it all is that it has no intrinsic substance; it is the weaving of meaning in the empty space between us; it is context-dependent and ephemeral; it is activity, not object. Which is precisely why it creates the illusion of shared experience - and of devastating isolation.

I think about this frequently, especially when I am writing and the poem seems to be gasping on the page. It is very frustrating to be an artist in a world where your art is considered passé or intrinsically useless. But I realize pretty quickly that I am just being self-pitying. It is a stance against which I choose to battle by continuing to write and revise. I can (mostly) write myself out of this state. As Ren says so beautifully, it is about the connective tissue of the spaces, and most assuredly a shared experience via these connections, illusory or real. This morning, buoyed by Ren's journal entry, I feel a bit like singing.

Earlier today, I was lying in bed, waking myself and reflecting on the past several days of Thanksgiving visitors and activities. I have to acknowledge that all of it: the cooking, the music, the laughter, the eating, the being downtown in chilly temps to see the Lobster Trap Tree illuminated for the first time this season, is evidence of that weaving of connections, that stretching out of spaces to make merry and be human. Being alive and connected to others in the small things is exactly the kind of humanity that fuels my writing and strengthens the connections with readers. Oh yes, there is certainly a sense of profound discouragement when poetry is disparaged by some, or when poetry books are not promoted and purchased. But that is a pebble under foot compared to the elation and satisfaction I feel when hearing that my 19 year old grandson and his college mates sit around and discuss my poetry even though it is not required reading for their program of study. Oh what could be better for a poet than to find out people are reading and discussing! It makes the self-defeating chatter in our heads get fainter and fainter.