Gallaudet

This week something interesting occurred in the news.

The students of Gallaudet rose up to protest the hiring of Jane Fernandes as President of the University for Deaf students. The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer reported today: "The Board of Trustees at Gallaudet University voted Sunday to revoke the contract of incoming president Jane Fernandes, amid protests from students, faculty, and alumni."

In an interview with a student protester, Gwen Ifill points out, "Fernandes, who has been deaf since birth, said she was a victim of a culture debate over whether she was "deaf enough. She didn't learn to use sign language until she was in her 20s. "

People who are deaf do not see deafness as a 'disability.' Rather they see themselves as having their own distinct culture with their own language.

As the Houston Chronicle (October 30) reports, "Cochlear implants and sophisticated hearing aids are becoming more prevalent, and many deaf people learn how to speak and read lips. However, many Gallaudet students and other deaf people have resisted technology that could allow them to hear. They bristle at the notion of deafness as a disability. And they are intent on preserving sign language as an essential part of what they call deaf culture."

In her Opinion piece yesterday for the New York Times, Leah Hager Cohen writes,

"Most of the hearing world can’t understand why the protest was so extreme. Students and faculty at most universities don’t expect to play more than a token role in the selection of a new president. Hunger strikes? Bulldozers razing tent cities? More than a hundred arrests? Two thousand people marching on the Capitol? And in the last few days things were escalating: there were reports of injuries, vandalism and threats against those who didn’t join the protest.

Understanding this requires understanding that Gallaudet is much more than a university. Sometimes called “the deaf mecca,” it functions as the symbolic capitol of a minority culture long disenfranchised. In years past, deaf people were denied the right to inherit land, to bear children, to receive an education. Today, all too often they continue to be denied the right to access information and to speak for themselves."

I think that the protests people have put forth over Galluadet are very admirable and should set an example for all minorities - especially people with disabilities.

Cohen points out that "In years past, deaf people were denied the right to inherit land, to bear children, to receive an education."

People with retardation or physical disabilities have been through even worse. Historically, people with a wide-range of disabilities have been denied jobs, institutionalized, denied access to public places, and (in Africa) killed or forced into a life of begging. As I wrote earlier, people with disabilities (under American law) are currently being paid below minimum wage. If this happened to African-Americans we'd never hear the end of it! As it stands, no one does anything - most don't even know.

It is frustrating to me that people with disabilities do not have the same political power as other groups, and don't demand it. I think part of the reason is that there are so many disabilities - it is difficult to form a collective. I think people with disabilities also tend to still hide a way and live on government assistance. They are not OUT there.

Bedside Table: Andrea Baker

My bedside table is an issue of marital contention in our otherwise tidy house. After inventorying the items, it seems husband has a point… Consider this only the ‘before’ picture.


Right stack:

Goosebumps #41 – Bad Hare Day (kid book)
My notes on Aaron McCollough’s Little Ease
Traffic #2
Eve Grubin’s Morning Prayer
Poems rejected from APR
Info from my son’s last book project
Rilke’s Book of Images (trans. Edward Snow)
The New Yorker
Kate Greenstreet’s Case Sensitive
Jubilat #5
Adam Clay’s The Wash
Mary Ruefle’s The Adamant
Susan Howe’s Pierce-Arrow
Spell (August, 2006)
An old The New Yorker
An even older New Yorker
Webster’s Dictionary
Geoffrey Hill’s Triumph of Love
A Phone Bill
Cannibal #1
Denver Quarterly Vol. 41 No. 1
Mary Oliver’s New and Selected Poems Volume two

Between the Stacks:

A green marker
A Uniball pen

Left Stack:

iBook keyboard screen protector
Lloyd Alexander’s The Rope trick (kid book)
Husband’s music notebook
Lyrics for a song torn from husband’s music notebook
The Essential Rilke (trans. Galway Kinnell)
Aaron Tieger’s Feburary
Anne Boyer’s The Deep
Dan Beachy-Quick’s Mulberry
Dragon Slayer’s Academy #3 (kid book)
Kathleen Jesme’s Motherhouse
Two bobbypins
Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys … which belongs to you, Jen
Goosebumps #15 Scream School
Paradise of Submission: A Medieval Treatise on Ismaili Thought
Frannie Lindsay’s Lamb
An old New Yorker
A stack of old drafts of poems
Sept/Oct issue of APR
An old New Yorker
Moma Learning 2006
More old drafts of poems
Alumni Anniversary Issue of my High School Literary Magazine (Elan)
Back to school letter from son’s school
UNICEF holiday catalogue
A Lamp

Under Table:

Aaron McCollough’s Little Ease
Djuna Barnes’ Collected Poems
My writing notebook
Three-ring binder of finished and in progress poems

Good Morning, Akhmatova

My mother-in-law, Marie Stewart, sent me these brilliant comments as per my essay on the "normalization" of poetry.

"The poetry discussions are difficult but interesting to me--I will have to digest them slowly. I do get one thing though: When I taught poetry in high school I never liked the idea that a poem had a "deeper meaning" which the teacher--read expert--would impart or "lead the students to". Why use secret code to say what you mean? To me, poetry was always a sensory, emotional experience. If that experience made a student want to talk about some concrete or prosaic notion, fine. I just wanted to try to aim for an actual experience, not just a "discussion." A poem will send 10 people in 10 different directions if they are paying attention. As will a film, a painting, a song........."

Here is an example of this possibility. A poem by the Russian godess Anna Akhmatova.

Twenty-First. Night. Monday

Twenty-first. Night. Monday.
Silhouette of the capitol in darkness.
Some good-for-nothing -- who knows why--
made up the tale that love exists on earth.

People believe it, maybe from laziness
or boredom, and live accordingly:
they wait eagerly for meetings, fear parting,
and when they sing, they sing about love.

But the secret reveals itself to some,
and on them silence settles down...
I found this out by accident
and now it seems I'm sick all the time.

Bedside Table: Jim Campbell

2 piles listed top down:

pile 1 closer to bed:

A World without Time, The Forgotten Legacy of Godel and Einstein (Palle Yourgrau)
The Annotated Alice (Lewis Carrol)
Real Simple magazine Nov 2006
The Voice of Memory, Interviews with Primo Levy

Pile 2:

Age of Iron (J M Coetzee)
My Mom’s journal with only a couple pages filled out (My Mom)
Adventures of Ideas (Alfred North Whitehead)
New and Selected Poems (Mary Oliver)
Power and Glory (Adam Nicolson)
In Search of Memory (Eric Kandel)
Masterpieces of Saint Sulpice
Ravenna Historical Artistic Guide


Other Objects:
reading glasses
baby monitor (turned on)
kleenex box in holder
glass of water
desk lamp
clock radio
tacky picture frame holding picture of daughter’s butt
flowerless orchid waiting for recycling

Happy Fourth Birthday, Jeff!

You Are Fabulous!

What's on your bedside table? Installment One

Jeff Hoover (One of my dearest friends and my son's godfather, Jeff is a freelance writer living in Cape Town, South Africa)

"Death's Door: Modern Dying and the Ways We Grieve", by Sandra Gilbert (non-fiction)
"The Black Book" by Orhan Pamuk (fiction)
"The Apple" by Michael Faber (fiction)
"Burger's Daughter" by Nadine Gordimer (fiction)
"Brighton Rock" by Graham Greene (fiction)
The Economist magazine


Emily XYZ

"The Botanical Garden," vols.1 and 2; Blackburne/Maze,
"Fruit, An Illustrated History"; Sherwood
"A New Flowering"; Everard
"Wild Flowers of the World"; Beales
"Classic Roses";
also
"The Individual Investor's Guide to Winning on Wall Street," by Peter DeAngelis;
Jim Cramer's "Confessions of a Street Addict";
the last 2 issues of Weird New Jersey.

Donna Masini

In a small studio, the whole apartment, really, counts as the bedside table -- and all personal items --in fact just about everything I own, can be seen in a glimpse, so what I can say it this: what is now directly beside my bed in one of the "active" piles: Daniel Mendelsohn The Lost; Dickens, Bleak House; Sebold, The Emigrants; Bresson's Notes on Cinematography; Brenda Hillman, Pieces of Air from The Epic; Annie Rogers, The Unsayable; Tibetan Book of Living and Dying; Empson, 7 Types of Ambiguity, Virginia Woolf, The Waves; Thomas Ogden Reverie and Interpretation; and a beat of copy of Elizabteh Bishop's Complete Poems -- a couple more -- but you said ten.

Each morning, when I change the futon into a couch, the pile falls over, up aganist a tall bookcase on which sit, among other things and forming a little tableaux in front of the books (I'm picking out one shelf here): a tiny statue of Buddha from my Godchild, Inan; bottle of massage oil; small terra cotta creche figures from Assisi: Mary kneeling, a woman carrying basket of eggs and a goose, etc. ; a small bottle of "Lourdes Water" my mother sent me; Rothko postcard, pens, stones, small white "bust " of Dante, and an old rubber Gumby. Anything more personal is stored in a pink wooden box on the shelf beneath.

Stephanie Strickland
(Stephanie Strickland is a print and new media poet whose most recent book
publication, V: WaveSon.nets/Losing L'una, has an online component,
http://vniverse.com)

Chicago Review 51:4 and 52:1 (Lisa Robertson special focus)
Black Dog Songs Lisa Jarnot Flood Editions
Code The Language of Our Time Ars Electronica 2003 Hatje Cantz
The Lifebox, the Seashell, and the Soul Rudy Rucker Thunder's Mouth Press
Mathematics and the Roots of Postmodern Thought Vladimir Tasic Oxford UP

Cate Peebles

1. packet of McCaans instant Irish oatmeal
2. photo of self w/ best friend drinking a 40 freshman year of college in blue frame
3. empty bottle of smart water (1.5 L)
4. clock
5. The Eye Like A Strange Balloon, by Mary Jo Bang
6. The Letters of Vincent Van Gogh
7. Shake, by Joshua Beckman
8. What Do Pictures Want, W.J.T. Mitchell
9. Frankenstein, Mary Shelley
10. The Tell-Tale Heart and Other Writings, E.A. Poe

Ellen Baxt

My "bedside table" is a stool. It contains Ida by
Gertrude Stein, When You Are Awake by Diane Ward,
Practice: New Writing and Art (Issue No. 1) and
Gourmet, November 2006

Robert Masterson (Masterson writes: i don't spend nearly enough time in bed.)

a lamp
three alarm clocks

books--
one hundred years of solitude
dogs of babel

magazines--cemetary dance; cthulhu sex

Maggie Wells
(Maggie Wells lives in the East Village, attends the New School graduate writing program, grew up in California and owns two Winterkitties.)

The Paris Review Interviews, Volume One
John Ashbery, Your name here
T.S. Elliot, Old Possum's book of Practical cats
The Tempest
Henry James, The Turning of the Screw and the Aspern Papers
Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass
John Perkins, Confessions of an Economic Hitman
John Asbery, Three Poems
Ben Doyle, Radio Radio
Baudelaire, Paris Spleen

Personal Items:
Ibuprophen, Birth Control, Herbal Energy Pills (Take Off), Sunglasses, a bobby pin, a ceramic Sea Horse still in the box, Marigold plant, a business card of a photographer, three glasses.

Amy Michelle Wright(Amy M. Wright is currently teaching poetry and composition at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.)

Thomas Merton's Spiritual Direction & Meditation
2 journals
ink pen
a clay tumbler of water
aged childhood Winnie the pooh
Juan Rulfo's Pedro Paramo
Harry Mathews' The Case of the Persevering Maltese
The Selected Writings of Guillaume Apollinaire
The Encyclopedia of Stupidity
George Oppen's Selected Poems
one antique clip lamp
A Bernadette Mayer Reader
Beckett's Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable
2 down ear plugs

Carmen Gimenez Smith (Carmen Gimenez Smith is publisher of Noemi Press. She lives in New Mexico.)

wipies
notebook
Vanity Fair magazine
YOU'RE WEARING THAT by Deborah Tannen
LIKE WIND LOVES A WINDOW by Andrea Baker
POETA EN SAN FRANCISCO by Barbara Jane Reyes
THE AESTHETICS OF VISUAL POETRY, 1914-1928 by Willard Bohn
MODERN VISUAL POETRY by Willard Bohn
THE FLEXIBLE LYRIC by Ellen Bryant Voigt

Lee Schwartz

BOOKS:

THe Opposite of Fate by Amy Tan, my poetry journal, THE Wellspring by SHaron Olds

ITEMS:

wind up alarm clock, anti itch foot cream, printed out pages, ripped out articles,k recipes,business cards, to do list, vase from Mexico with over dried faded flowers.

Jeanne Marie Beaumont (Author of Curious Conduct, Placebo Effect, and Editor (with
Claudia Carlson) of The Poet's Grimm)

Bedside Table:
As of 10/29/06, I have a small photo of my husband and parents taken in Central Park in the 80's, a clock radio set to 10 am and Air America, a big basket containing, my journal, a tiny 3 X 5 spiral notebook for recording poems, ideas, dream ideas, etc., Mary Ruefle's "Life Without Speaking," Wislawa Szymborska's "Monologue of a Dog," Elizabeth Bishop's letters, "One Art," and two old, finished journals, plus my 35mm camera and lenses. Oh, and a pen and a tissue, both slightly used.

Terri Muuss

A book of Baha'i Prayers
Two candles
A stone sculpture
A baby monitor
Zen mediation chimes
and a bunch of baby board books that rotate
(right now it is "Corduroy's Day", There's a Woket in my Pocket!" and "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do You See?"

Wish I could say that I had adult books on it, but who has time for that with a ten month old. :-)

Disability: The Final Frontier

I am currently reading Juan William's book Enough (The Phony Leaders, Dead-End Movements, and Culture of Failure That Are Undermining Black America). Shortly, I will review this book, which I quite like. However, reading it has reminded me once again of the disability movement (or rather the lack of it.)

When I think on the major civil rights movements in the United States, like most people, I can concretely think of events and people to match these movements. The African-Americans have King and Malcolm X; women have sufferage, Susan B. Anthony, Steinem, and many others, gays have strong groups (and stars like Madonna to back them) and a parade every year.

Nowhere in the the "disability culture" are there simuliar groups and people with disabilities are the final minority in America without a strong voice. Yes, there has been progress made. In my mind, the most important sucess for people with disabilities has been the IDEA law. "The IDEA was originally enacted by Congress in 1975 to make sure that children with disabilities had the opportunity to receive a free appropriate public education, just like other children." This law has served as an important starting point for all children to accomplish having a life to the fullest of their abilities.

Then, in 1992, Bush No. 1 signed the American with Disabilites Act. To the best of my slight knowledge, this was supposed to do two things:

1. Provide physical access to public spaces to people who use wheelchairs. Well, we won't even go into that because we know THAT didn't happen!
2. Give people with disabilities a safeguard in the workplace. The idea was that (like people of different race and gender) people wouldn't be able to discriminate against you because of the fact that you have a "disablitity." I'll go into my own experience later, but let's look at the figures for a moment.

I'm not a fine one for reading charts (can you say stupid poet?), but here is a figure from http://www.eeoc.gov/stats/ada.html. In 2005, 14,893 ADA cases were filed. 60% were found "no reasonable cause." 5.6% were found "reasonable cause." Deduction: the ADA is impossible to prove. Also, just to let you know, I was once told that if the company offers you a different job with the same pay -they're off the hook. This is why, in Boston in 1995, Whole Foods was able to get a way with discrimination. I applied for a job in the vitamin department and was told I couldn't do it. I was told that the customers wouldn't be able to understand my speech. They got a way with it by offering me a job in the stock room (I guess I wouldn't have to talk there). I didn't take it. More soon.

What's on your bedside table?

Coffee, three rocks from Canyon Beach, Oregon, and a lamp.
Books: Enough (Juan Williams), Invisible Man (Ellison), the Idiot's Guide to Organizing Your Life, Naked (David Sedaris), The Infinite Gift (Charles Yang), Mother Love (Rita Dove), The Kite Runner.

Daily Quote From Jeffrey

Father: I love the light in December. The sky is very clear and everything looks sharp.

Jeff: It's a crystal world. It's a pointy world.

38 Things - After Larry Fagin

An idea from Lisa Jarnot's blog "This is an exercise invented by Larry Fagin. You make a list of ultimate pleasing pleasures in life."

1. all birds
2. the Times crossword on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday
3. winning
4. the Metropolitian Museum
5. 'real mail'
6. Parker Posey
7. fleet week
8. green chili enchiladas
9. the state of Oregon
10. pedicures
11. going to the movies alone
12. having a lover who is a good cook
13. walking into a warm room from a freezing day
14. the noise of the wind as observed from bed
15. clogs
16. children
17. a strong drink
18. coffee
19. eating out
20. a very clean house
21. the sound of freight trains
22. silence - or its near approximation
23. large swimming pools
24. summer
25. the feeling a crush that cannot be realized
26. randomly helping people
27. a good novel
28. handsome gay men
29. sleep
30. kung fu
31. a good beach
32. going to a party where everyone likes you
33. volvos before 1990
34. realizing it was just a dream
35. a glass of ice water
36. ice skating
37. Mass
38. the light in October in New York

Hodgepodge

SLOUCHING TOWARD EXCERCISE

In a week and a half my favorite New York City day of the year arrives - the New York Marathon. Despite my love for my son's kung fu class, I am grossly disinterested in sports. The one exception is the Marathon. I really love the Marathon.

Most years, I don't realize it's happening until the day of the event. The runners go down McGuiness Ave. which is literally one block from my house. I watch it on TV and time it right so that I can hot-foot it down to the race just as the runners are coming down McGuiness to start up the Pulaski Bridge. I love the race because of how it equals the playing field in terms of race, gender, and ability. Of course, there is a "winner" and there are many gold medals athletes. But, there is an entire other thing going on in the marathon with athletes that should be taken no less seriously. People "run" using wheelchairs, on crutches, with cancer, and some just walk most the way. In the spirit of the marathon, spectators get no less excited than when the African men run by. In fact, sometime they get more cheers. And, besides, the African men are maddingly beautiful.

I, myself, am preparing to join in some physical activity. This is highly unusual. My idea of activity is walking to the Mark Bar around the corner. I have tried yoga. In fact, I've been to Kripalu 3 times. But, no matter how kind the instructor and other stundents are, I never feel secure in my body. I always feel like someone is judging me. So, I'm taking up ice skating - no one can do it!

POLITICS

Although I am hardly politically correct and this blog is not a soap box it is difficult not to mention politics. Foley's pageboys are the least of our worries.
Check this out:

From the Dept of Labor's website...

"If you have a disability, you may have trouble finding a job if your disability means you can’t perform at the same level as someone without a disability. Employers may not want to hire you because they think the work you can do doesn’t justify paying you at or above the minimum wage.

The Minimum Wage Act 1983 helps some people with disabilities to get work by allowing Labour Inspectors [from the Department of Labour’s Employment Relations Service] to give minimum wage exemptions. This means a lower minimum wage rate is set for a particular person in a particular job for up to a year."

Did I understand that correctly?

"December 25, 2005 — Company documents show that ORC Industries Inc. is paying at least one nondisabled employee at its Brownsville manufacturing plant below the federal minimum wage, a practice that is against what law and “immoral,” according to labor and civil rights experts.

Another ORC worker who says he has a mental illness, for which he is medicated, also receives less than the minimum $5.15 per-hour wage, even though his illness does not affect his productivity, he said.

Former Secretary of Labor Ray Marshall said paying an able-bodied adult below minimum wage in a manufacturing plant was “obviously illegal” and “immoral.” Civil rights lawyers consulted for this article said the latter instance was a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act, among other laws.

ORC is a tax-exempt nonprofit that exists to employ the disabled. It receives contracts from the federal government to manufacture military apparel at its Brownsville plant."

Despite documents presented to The Brownsville Herald by ORC employees and interviews with local workers, ORC spokesman Rob Geist wrote in an e-mail, “ORC Industries does not pay nondisabled workers less than minimum wage.”

Yep! Employees are legally allowed to pay workers with disablities below mimumum wage because they are less productive. Funny, I know lots of "normal" people who don't do shit at work - and get a big paycheck!

AND POETRY

Tonight, I am very excited to go see Andrea Baker, Jessica Baran, and Michael Zeiss read for the lauch party for Harp and Altar. Harp and Altar's goal is to publish many poets who have never had anything previously published. I love their motto, Baudelaire's "The poet is of no party."

FINALLY, DAILY QUOTE FROM JEFFREY

Mom: Want to watch TV?
Jeff: Yeah! It's better than reading this boring book!

A Novel Idea

I have been cranky for about a week. Last night, I realized the reason. It had been weeks since I had been lost in the world of a novel. Quite accidentally, I happened to start reading Ralph Ellison's "Invisible Man." I have been meaning to read it for 2 years, and I just happened to stumble accross it in the library on Saturday (it's probably the only book we don't own.) Last night, I finished chapter one, and let me tell you - this book's worth every bit of hype.

What I found most interesting is how the opening pages, although written about an African-American rang true for me as a person with a disability. Ellison writes, " I am invisible, simply because people refuse to see me." And then, "I am not complaining, nor am I protesting. It is sometimes advantageous to be unseen, although it is most often rather wearing on the nerves."

A Grand Experiment

In reading Lauterbach's new book of essays, "The Night Sky," she writes:

"Recently, I was introduced as an 'experimental poet.' The adjective was uttered with mild disdain; I felt as though I was being damned with the faintest of praise. In the world of poetry, to be experimental is sometimes taken to mean you have, as the poet Charles Bernstein has remarked, an aversion to form, rather that an adversion to conformity."

I love this quote - but it leads me to ask, in the world of poetry, what is conformity? What is experimental?

I've also heard of small journals that take the opposite stance and attempt to limit themselves to "experimental" poetry. I read in submissions guidelines - if it's narrative at all, don't send it. Also, places that say we don't take poems about 9/11, poems with any grounding, poems about grandmothers and so.

Is there anything wrong with a magazine sticking picking an aesthetic and sticking by it? I can see the lure. It makes your work easier. Submissions are read quickly, and your audience sticks with you because they know what to expect. But, I find the whole thing grossly problematic.

1. Who sets these labels? Define the following words: formal, narrative, lryical, conventional, and experiment? Who gets to pick who's what? Bernstein (one of my favorites) is considered a forerunner of experimental, but many of his poems are narrative. Berrigan is another experimentilist, but he wrote sonnets. And where do Fanny Howe, Seamus Heaney, and Jorie Graham fit?

2. People who exclude are missing out on a lot. It reminds me of the Lower East Sider who brags they never go above 14th Street. Well, that's too bad because The Met and Central Park (not to mention Brooklyn!) are the highlights of New York and they're really missing out. Thus, people who refuse to read Mary Oliver - or people who refuse to read Bernstein.

As poets, we are automatically the outsiders of society. Do we need to do to each other too?

Brooklyn, Afire

Last night after my son's birthday party - which can only be describe as utter madness. I trudged off to see Kate Greenstreet and Adam Clay read at the art gallery Pierogi in Brooklyn. The reading was fabulous - with two poets with distinct talent.

Matt Hendrickson has a knack for finding talented poets and getting people out for readings. I first saw Kate Greenstreet read nearly a year ago at one such reading. I believe this was her first or second public reading. Since then, her first book, case sensitve has come out, she has read a lot, and her reading style has developed greatly. She read the entire first section of case sensitive, titled Salt. I highly recommend Kate's work. She has just the right mix between the narrative and the lyric. There are moments in her work that grab onto to you, and tell a story. Oher moments the reader floats on her use of language. Matt called it visceral. He was right.

I was startled by the intensity and beauty in Adam Clay's work. Adam is currently studying in the PhD. Creative Writing program at Kalamazoo, Michigan. He is currently studing with Bill Olsen - who was one of my mentors at Vermont College, one of my favorite people, and an unbelievable poet. Clay said that Bill, and his wife, Nancy Eimers are the reason he moved Kalamazoo. I think this connection makes me prejudice toward Clay's poetry. But, even so, I have to say how completely bowled over I was. When I write about interesting work - I keep relying too much on the words lyrical and beautiful, but I use them here again, for lack of better ones. Clay's work reminds me of some of my own favorite poets (Olsen, Jorie Graham, and Mei-Mei Bessenbrugge) who do deep studies in ther beauty of language - but one is does not lose the poem's train of thought. The reader is able to move up and down with the experiment of the poet, but never feel like they are being slighted because the poet is trying to be oblique out of hipness or laziness. Neither is Clay TELLING the reader a story, like many of the more boring narrative poets. The poems have a perfect balance between grounding and mystery.
I think Clay's talent is enormous. The Wash is Clay's first book, and if he remains persistant he will go far.

Tales of a frustrated housewife/poet

A series of strange circumstances have placed me in a strange position. One which I always hoped for - and dreaded. The obsessive nature of my behavior surrounding my son's fourth birthday party has made a light bulb go off over my head. It's official, I'm a housewife. This role (only for a short period of time in my life) has put me into a talespin. As a person with a disability, I have always prided myself on being able to get out into the world, forge for work, and be very successful. This is sort of a no-man's land that many people (disabled or not) do not fight for. I walked away (temporily) from a 60k a year teaching job because it was, well, just too impossible. Being out of the loop has made me question who I am and what worth I have in the world. This is complecated by the fact that I am a poet.

Housewifery, childcare, and "staying in" to create poetry are things that fit together. Poetry, for me, needs enormous amounts of time to develop, nevermind all the paperwork of sending out and applying to things. Female poets also have a long tradition of motherhood (even the great feminist, Commie, lesbian Murial Rukeyser had a kid). But, what housework, kids, and POETRY have in common most is the marginization of their importance by society. Because I belong to a "group," (what the Times calls "the disabled") that is SO marginalized by society - I have always felt I needed to prove myself outside the home. Now that I'm not currently working I'm a little lost despite the fact that everyone in my family is happier, calmer, and the poetry factory is in running order.

I think all of us could take a lesson from the Shoalin monks. These monks' days are composed of meditating, cooking, sweeping the floor, and doing 6-8 hours of kung fu. Hell, what's the value in that?

Here, I am republishing Jen Benka's review so it will rise to the surface of this strange blog world

What I admire most about Jen Benka is her consistancy. She seems to be able to intertwine her work, political, and poetry lives into one seamless existance. Benka definitely has strong ideas about people who have been historically oppressed - women, poor people, and victims of senseless war. Not only does Benka include these issues her poetry, but like the her great political/poetry predecessors, Rukeyser (of whom Benka adores) and Levertov, human and feminist rights do not only live in the empherphemal idea of her poetry, but seep out into the concrete daily life. As such, Benka has worked for non-profits that help homeless people and women. She has tirelessly taken on projects of grand proportions to such as the recent "Finally with Women" series to make sure that some of our finest writers (Rukeyser, Guest, Stein, Loy, and so on) continue to be recognized. In short, she seems to be in the great tradition of poets that not only challenge injustice through writing, but also through concrete activism.

Of the poems.

Political poetry has always been problematic. The ulitimate goal of poetry is to develop and experiment with language and beauty. In political poetry (such as that of Baraka and some slam poetry)the tendency is to fall too much into a rah! rah! rah! mentality. The sentiment is there: The poetry is not. The two aformentioned great political poets (Rukeyser and Levertov) were able to guard against this simplification in their poetry as they faced issues of war, racism, and hatred. Benka accomplishes simuliar goal with beauty and humor to spare.

Benka the 52 words that comprise the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution. Yet, this is not quite what our forepeople had in mind. It's a land united in "the inevitability of betrayal."

It's Liberty arrives

when they struck the bell it cracked in half
and fell from its high tower.

the crowd below once full of hope
never knew what hit them.

Without ignoring the beauty of our home:

THIS

light;
a warm peach
melting.

And my favor poem in the book. Welfare - a word that obviously takes on multiple meanings. Here a girl on the stoop (on disability payments) mocks the "puerto rican girls" on welfare.

I urge soft skull to print more of Benka's book and drop it from an airplane over the red states. And poets, continue our work.

Little Children

On Friday, Jim and I got to see a rare movie. We saw the film "Little Children" about the supposed boring lives of mothers (and fathers) of suburbia. Strangely ironic, New York magazine had been interviewing people at our park earlier that afternoon. They didn't approach me because I'm too dirty looking - but they did make a bee-line for my best friend at the park - the very handsome, sexy, gay, 24 yr old neighhborhood babysitter. Afterwards, I asked him excitedly what they had asked. He told me, "Oh, they weren't interested in me. They wanted parents, and they wanted to know if any of the parents were having affairs." He told them - Hell if I know, I'm just the babsitter! Then, they asked him if any of the parents hit on him. "I said ....a no...."

I liked the film. But, what I'm curious about this mytholgy that parents have very boring lives and have to screw each other for entertainment. Obviously, this myth exists mainly in the suburbs and I live in the city - but, why would New York magazine be lurking for the scandel if they didn't believe some of this had envaded the streets of, well, Brooklyn.

From my experience, New York Magazine is off to the wrong start. I know A LOT of parents - ranging from stay-at-home to work 24 hrs. a day. Here is a list of their jobs:

Video artist/political blogger
Bar Owner
High paid Computer Mavin
Lawyer
Painter/ Professor
Senior person at Real Simple
PhD. Canidate in Poetry
Construction Woker/ Sci Fi Writer
Math Teacher/ Sci Fi Writer
Poet
Poet/ Professor
Admin. Assistant
Wood Carver for Museum Frames
Musician
Architect
Record Store owner
Junk Shop Owner
Assistant to Director of Admissions at a major private school
Owner of 2 Restuarants
Jewelry Designer for W
Journalist

P.S. All the parents seem really in love - what a concept!

The Symphony of Edwin Torres

On Thursday night I escaped briefly to go see Edwin Torres at the Bowery Poetry Club.

Edwin is one of my husband and my (mine) favorite poets. The thing we adore about Edwin is his flexibility within the world of language. Edwin's work defies definition in a genre in which people are so eager to label. He writes a radio play, a narrative-ish poem, a lyric, a slam poem, a nonsense poem - and does it all famously. I have always been skeptical of poets/artists who move into different directions. How can a someone be good at something if they don't obsessively stick with that one thing? Torres defies this skepticism - he is interesting. Period.

What I also like about Edwin is his nonchalant attitude and humbleness about his talent. This is a quality I find in of my many poet-friends. I can not say how much I respect this attitude, in a land of high, high egos. I have always found it difficult to balance the ideas of immense talent, self-promotion, and humility (or just plain niceness) as an artist. Torres and some others (Durand, Coultras, Berrigan, Benka to name a few) have suceeded in this.

So -

On Thursday, Torres led a smaall group of us in what he described as
I HEAR THINGS: Part One
A Poets' Symphony with you, the audience, conducted under
the baton of Maestro Edwin Torres. One classic/one
contemporary poem per night.

Torres admittly didn't event the idea, but chose to play around with it. It involved the audience reading three poems together. As we all have different voices, we all moved at different speeds. Torres had us "substain" notes and repeat segments - while the ohters did different vocals with the poem. The difference between Torres performance and others is that his was not rehearsed, rather with the audience cold from off the street. The results were beautiful.

Poets of the World - Unite and Take Over

I am lapsing momentarily away from my essay to post a few things I've been considering.

I got this line from my good friend Tara O'Connor this morning in reaction to the essay - "I have to admit I am part of the group that was taught to read into poetry for meaning, not to read it on an emotional level." I think this has reached crisis proportions in America. I am putting a call out to all poets to reverse the trend. Let's start in the lower grades to teach children to read poetry for fun, emotion, and beauty. I actually "taught" myself to read poetry at age 20. I found that this was the key to doing it. Once I learned the payback was immeasurable.

One night I was laying in bed, depressed (as usual) about my faults. A line from Mary Oliver seeped into my head "You do not have to be good." Sometimes looking at my son, I think of Kinnell's poems about his children. My life would be so less rich without these poems to refer back to.

Andrea Baker (I hope it's not a secret) is starting a program at her son's school where poetry isn't just read as poetry - it's intregrated into daily studies and daily life. This a very Russian approach - and very crucial. I want to do something simuliar at my own son's school. Poets - by nature - are so exclusionary. They want to exclude the world and each other. They want to devide- I'm this school, you're that - they want to be cooly oblique and purposefully difficult. I am calling all poets to start including!

Review: a box full of longing with fifty drawers by Jen Benka

What I admire most about Jen Benka is her consistancy. She seems to be able to intertwine her work, political, and poetry lives into one seamless existance. Benka definitely has strong ideas about people who have been historically oppressed - women, poor people, and victims of senseless war. Not only does Benka include these issues her poetry, but like the her great political/poetry predecessors, Rukeyser (of whom Benka adores) and Levertov, human and feminist rights do not only live in the empherphemal idea of her poetry, but seep out into the concrete daily life. As such, Benka has worked for non-profits that help homeless people and women. She has tirelessly taken on projects of grand proportions to such as the recent "Finally with Women" series to make sure that some of our finest writers (Rukeyser, Guest, Stein, Loy, and so on) continue to be recognized. In short, she seems to be in the great tradition of poets that not only challenge injustice through writing, but also through concrete activism.

Of the poems.

Political poetry has always been problematic. The ulitimate goal of poetry is to develop and experiment with language and beauty. In political poetry (such as that of Baraka and some slam poetry)the tendency is to fall too much into a rah! rah! rah! mentality. The sentiment is there: The poetry is not. The two aformentioned great political poets (Rukeyser and Levertov) were able to guard against this simplification in their poetry as they faced issues of war, racism, and hatred. Benka accomplishes simuliar goal with beauty and humor to spare.

Benka the 52 words that comprise the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution. Yet, this is not quite what our forepeople had in mind. It's a land united in "the inevitability of betrayal."

It's Liberty arrives

when they struck the bell it cracked in half
and fell from its high tower.

the crowd below once full of hope
never knew what hit them.

Without ignoring the beauty of our home:

THIS

light;
a warm peach
melting.

And my favor poem in the book. Welfare - a word that obviously takes on multiple meanings. Here a girl on the stoop (on disability payments) mocks the "puerto rican girls" on welfare.

I urge soft skull to print more of Benka's book and drop it from an airplane over the red states. And poets, continue our work.