1. Celebrate:: Kool and the Gang
   
2. Resolve: Willpower
   
3. I need to:: Go to bed
   
4. Call:: Me
   
5. Token:: of Affection
   
6. Brand:: Sear
   
7. Comparison:: Shopping
   
8. Far away:: Eyes (Girl with the...Rolling Stones)
   
9. Artful:: Dodger
   
10. Fantastic:: Voyage
    

No, I have not dropped Harvey--this is my other love.

106

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light :
The year is dying in the night ;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow ;
The year is going, let him go ;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind
For those that here we see no more ;
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife ;
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out the want, the care, the sin,
The faithless coldness of the times ;
Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes,
But ring the fuller minstrel in.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite ;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease ;
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold ;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.

(from In Memoriam)

Answer: Tennis racquets, and golf clubs, stocks, bonds, potted palms, 15,000 bottles of ale and stout, 800 cases of shelled walnuts, 30,000 eggs, five grand pianos, a case of gloves, a jeweled copy of the Rubaiyat, an automobile, a telephone switchboard, a bracelet with 'Amy' written on it in diamonds, shuffleboard sticks, a silver duck press, and an ice-making machine.

Question: What went down with the Titanic? (from Ice by Mariana Gosnell)

1) My uncle and my aunt were: both named Jewel.

2) Never in my life: will I get on a riding lawnmower (don't ask).

3) When I was five: I had been reading for 2 years.

5) I will never forget: how much I love my grandmother.

6) I once met: Freddie Mercury. Actually, I met him more than once.

7) There's this girl I know who: had poems accepted in 6 journals in 1 day.

8) Once, at a bar: I won a Bette Davis eyes contest, and I did not even know I was participating. (If this hadn't paid $50, we'd have had our phone turned off. This was back in the new-wave days).

9) By noon I'm usually: done with work for the day.

10) Last night: I saw King Kong. Adrian Brody has the most expressive eyes.

11) If I only had: the money, I would share it with others.

12) Next time I go to church, I: will listen to the choir.

13) Terry Schiavo: should have been allowed a dignified death.

14) What worries me most: is that my family will be ill.

15) When I turn my head left, I see: my dragonfly lamp.

16) When I turn my head right, I see: my husband and our daughter.

17) There is no number 17. It must be sponsoring Sesame Street.

18) What I miss most about the eighties: Dancing with my husband to the B52s.

19) If I were a character written by Shakespeare: I'd be one of the witches from that Scottish play.

20) By this time next year: I will be one year away from retirement from my first job.

21) A better name for me would be: Your Highness.

22) I have a hard time understanding: G. W. Bush.

23) If I ever go back to school I'll: be getting an MFA.

24) You know I like you if: I talk to you.

25) If I won an award, the first person I'd thank would be: Harvey.

26) Darwin, Mozart, Slim Pickens & Geraldine Ferraro: Beagle. Wolf. Catgut. Democrat.

27) Take my advice, never: Smoke.

28) My ideal breakfast is: Fried chicken, biscuits, and scrambled eggs.

29) A song I love, but do not have: Saint-Saens' Carnival of the Animals.

30) If you visit my hometown, I suggest: eating pulled pork barbeque.

31) Tulips, character flaws, microchips & track stars: Bulbs, bulbous, blindingly small, blindingly fast

32) Why won't anyone: impeach GWB?

33) If you spend the night at my house, don't: be surprised if a cat awakens you.

34) I'd stop my wedding for: nothing. I was married at the courthouse--the kiss lasted longer than the ceremony. Kim timed my wedding, and start to stop it was 47 seconds.

35) The world could do without: Alito on the Supreme Court.

36) I'd rather lick the belly of a cockroach than: vote Republican in a presidential election.

37) My favorite blondes are: my niece and nephew.

38) Paper clips are more useful than: paper cuts.

39) If I do anything well, it's: ESL transcription.

40) And by the way: A. Stoudemire is practicing basketball!

41) The last time I was drunk: I became engaged. That engagement lasted 2 days. The marriage that resulted (see #34) has lasted nearly 20 years.

1. Virus:: Flu
   
2. Poop: deck
   
3. Smart:: aleck
   
4. Agent:: 99
   
5. Wrap:: it up, I'll take it
   
6. Brass:: Trumpet
   
7. Waste of time:: Makeup
   
8. Suspicious:: Minds
   
9. 360:: degrees
   
10. Dummy:: LeVar Burton
    

Your Christmas is Most Like: The Nightmare Before Christmas

Christmas was not a big deal for you growing up... And you're still trying to figure out what it all means.

Happy Holidays to you and yours.

In the spirit of Christmas, I will share with you my recipe for the world's best (and easiest) French toast: No mess, no fuss, and absolutely delicious.

Here's the lengthy ingredient list:
1. Texas toast
2. Egg nog, poured into bowl

Take toast, dip in egg nog, and fry in butter till just brown enough.

Top with powdered sugar (optional) and/or syrup (also optional). Serve with bacon and mimosas, or just orange juice. A perfect Christmas morning breakfast.

This also is good with French bread, but Texas toast has the perfect consistency to soak up the egg nog.

My former students are definitely included, especially T.B., who worked as a guard in a local prison. T.B. loved poetry, especially Elizabeth Bishop and T. S. Eliot, and gave me a copy of Eliot's Selected Poetry at the end of English 101. I opened it today and found a bookmark he had placed in an appropriate section. I'd never noticed this before. It marked the place of "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," and T.B. had written on the back "A stirring poem! Merry Christmas, Ms. Johnson!"

And Merry Christmas to you, too, T.B., wherever you are. That's one of the best puns ever.

Actually, it's what I look like when I'm not on steroids. See above.

COINS, OR LOOSE CHANGE

I knew a boy, there, where the large rocks
were green brocade in the ocean.

His words withheld, stingy as the clouds
that tarnished like coins--each book-ended

like hot-cold spigots--And those kisses!
He gave me nothing but an idyll

and how out-kissable was my heart...
Says who?

Now I'm unknown, alone
and where is he who said so little? How

to spend these pennies: Monday, Tuesday,
nothing but doldrums, the whole week now

thin as a dime. Truly I'm overdrawn—
As if I've ever been solvent...

1. I have a vintage dress in a crossword-puzzle print. It was my grandmother's and dates from the late 20s/early 30s. I think this dress started my obsession with Art Deco (See #2).
2. My Bakelite bracelet collection includes rhinestones, end-of-day, swirl, clasp, chain, polkadots, carved, apple-juice, tricolor, creamsicle, rope, and inlaid mother-of-pearl. Unfortunately, there's no Pierrot bracelet--at least not yet. Harvey and I also have a Bakelite radio that works.
3. Our 10-foot Christmas tree this year has over 2500 ornaments on it. This is not even half of Harvey's collection. He is a total Christmas fiend. When the sales clerks at Hallmark see him, they wish they were paid on commission. I've never met anyone else who loves holidays as he does. He likes to decorate for Halloween, Easter, Thanksgiving, Valentine's Day, Fourth of July--you name it, he celebrates it. Harvey even made me a pin for Groundhog Day.
4. My son and my daughter were both published authors before the age of 12. Daniel won a national contest for short fiction when he was 11.
5. I've caught a tiger shark before. I still cannot believe I landed it. It was a baby, but still--a SHARK?

QUOTE OF THE DAY: It's a jetski, what could possibly go wrong?

I vote "Yes, of course."

Not much makes me cry, but this song does, every time.

I'm writing a story for the MFA program with this song intertwined.

I want to make movies in Klee-mation.

1. Replenish:: Revive
   
2. People:: Barbra!
   
3. Trend:: Down
   
4. Girlfriends:: Slumber party
   
5. Spirit:: of Christmas Yet to Be
   
6. Banshee:: Morning
   
7. Oasis:: Dromedary
   
8. Thrills:: Chills and spills
   
9. Fountain:: Three coins
   
10. Boxes:: of presents
    

I've often thought this, but now I'm yelling it: TUCKER CARLSON IS AN ASS.

More than his statement on Canada is wrong here: I love my cousin, despite his mental challenges, and cannot believe that he'd use such phrases. Carlson's a condescending ass, moving rapidly toward bigot!

You are

This is the Big Day for all Kentucky hoops fans. I am in the distinct minority in the western end of the state, as I bleed RED, not BLUE.

I'm wearing my Got Pitino? sweatshirt in support of my favorite team, in any sport.

You are a mix of left and right brain oriented.
You're probably equally skilled at geometry and
algebra, and look at the whole picture but
notice a few specifics. You have a variety of
interests, and are generally good at everything
you try. Good for you. I'm sorry but if you get
this result, it's hard to be accurate with your
characteristics because it's somewhat vague.
Please rate if you liked it!


Are You More Left or Right Brain Oriented?
brought to you by Quizilla

I don't know if there is a side of my brain left! Yesterday, I awakened at 4 a.m. and finished revising my portfolio for workshop by 6:15. I had one good revision come out of this work, and it's a relief that these poems are turned in. I don't want to think about them for at least another day. As the printer was whirring nonstop for 20 minutes, I prodded my son awake, and we drove 30 minutes in silence (his choice), so that I could turn in my portfolio. After I ran up/down 7 flights of stairs (didn't know I had it in me, especially when wearing high heels) and returned to the car, he was back in chat mode. (I've learned not to talk to any member of my family until they've been up an hour. The only words permissible are "It's time to get up, here's some coffee, and here's lunch/gas/Scholastic Books money." I am only kind between the hours of 4 and 8 a.m., and they are only kind after 8 a.m. It's sort of a balance). He and I then went in to work at the local hospital, where we're employed by the same department. It's the first full day I've worked on-site since last Christmas, and it feels so strange to wear adult clothes (translation: a suit and slingbacks) and see how the workplace looks. It's great to see people with whom I worked closely for 14 years, yet it's such a disconnect to think that I did this every day, commuted, wore suits, makeup, drank rotten coffee....Treadmill, treadmill, treadmill. Our department had a 2-hour potluck lunch meeting, and then another meeting, and then I had to do Radiology transcription for 4 hours (my least favorite type, but at least it's fast).

After work, Daniel and I sped home in fear and terror because THERE'S A BAD MOON ON THE RISE! As we were in the cafeteria purchasing some of the above-stated bitter coffee for the ride home, Daniel and I were frightened by the Moon and Package Christmas sweater being worn by a co-worker. (See Poesy Galore for the full photo, which really does do this item the justice it deserves). This sweater has apparently made its way from the Eastern Seaboard to the Mississippi River. Watch out, Midwest!

My neighbor is going to help Harvey, and my son will be home every night.

1. My daughter's curls bobbing down her back. She has perfect (albeit tangle-prone) ringlets. She has good hair days, every day.
2. Seeing my son's face when he tried on the Hugo Boss suit that fit him perfectly (and also finding out it was $400 off). It's hard to remember he's a grownup and might actually want clothes for Christmas. (And glad at the time that he wasn't wearing the watch cap that seems attached to his head).
3. Watching my cats sleep, then stretch, then sleep some more. (This also brings me envy--I can't balance on the back of the love seat).
4. Seeing my husband's face lose its ivory cast and go back to a more normal pink color. (When Raleigh had to fill out a form for school--to write a descriptive paper--she answered PINK). If I can find the opening paragraph of WHY I AM A PINK GIRL, I will post it for AJPL, who will love it. It's hilarious and wise at the same time).
5. The Wizard of Oz, especially the witch, and finding out Margaret Hamilton was about 25 years old when she played that part. Since I'm nearly twice her age, I should be twice as good....That's my community theatre fantasy, to lead the flying monkeys.
6. Galway Kinnell. Jared Carter. Elizabeth Bishop. Emily Dickinson. And yes, since I've already been outed on this one--Alfred, Lord Tennyson.
7. My antique Santa postcard collection. It's truly a good one.
8. The rhymes in "I Wonder as I Wonder." Especially when Harvey sings it. I love to hear him sing. And the kids love to hear me listen to Christmas carols.
9. Deep hand massages. Bliss, bliss, bliss. Maybe only a transcriptionist or a sculptor can appreciate how good this is, but "If your hands hurt, ain't nothing feeling good." (That's the start of a blues poem).
10. Any day without a lupus flare. Like this day, and the one before, and the one before, and the one before. 9 months this time. I don't want to take this for granted, but I will take this all I can get it.

I was never a LOTR person. I think I may be the White Witch--I am the only resident on Po-Blog Avenue who doesn't trust easily, and who doesn't hate to be alone. I guess every street needs one, just like the Cat Lady.

At No. 14, Po-Blog Avenue, I am looking out the window, and AJPL is the mad poet in the attic. (I invited him over, since he lives so far away!)

Come over and I will make you the best French toast you've ever had. (We live next door to the Love Shack).

Pamela, Harvey, Daniel, and Raleigh

"Thou shalt not kill" means: "Thou shalt not kill."

Don't you get it?

I thought I'd try 5 minutes, every morning, as soon as I get up. Here's the first poem I read and the first imitation--like scales--that I tried to write.

------

From a Bus Window in Central Ohio, Just Before a Thunder Shower--James Wright

Cribs loaded with roughage huddle together
Before the north clouds.
The wind tiptoes between poplars.
The silver maple leaves squint
Toward the ground.
An old farmer, his scarlet face
Apologetic with whiskey, swings back a barn door
And calls a hundred black-and-white Holsteins
From the clover field.

------
From the Front Window in Western Kentucky, Just Before a SchoolBus Stops

Blondes buoyed by backpacks bundle together
Before the boulevard.
Stars unfurl above rooftops.
Wet snow drifts over
what's left of the lilies.
The young driver, her milky face
Muzzy in moonlight, moans open the bus door,
and motions them forward: seventeen steps
gone quick as grace notes.

Because of various reasons, I'm not going to be able to attend the low-residency MFA in January. I am very disappointed, but it's better for my family if I do not go.

Thanks for all your encouragement about applying.

Pamela

1. Stalker:: Not again!
   
2. Outrageous:: Aardvark
   
3. Carrying:: Coals to Newcastle
   
4. Spirited:: Discussion
   
5. Oh!:: No, Mr. Bill...
   
6. Grid:: Iron
   
7. Country:: 'Tis of Thee
   
8. Karen:: I miss you, Sis.
   
9. Candles:: Three
   
10. Relationship::Issues
    

#861-Emily Dickinson

Split the Lark -- and you'll find the Music --
Bulb after Bulb, in Silver rolled --
Scantilly dealt to the Summer Morning
Saved for your Ear when Lutes be old.

Loose the Flood -- you shall find it patent --
Gush after Gush, reserved for you --
Scarlet Experiment! Sceptic Thomas!
Now, do you doubt that your Bird was true?

______

Split the Lark
by R.T. SMITH

"Split the lark, and you'll find the Music -
Bulb after Bulb, in Silver rolled - "
Emily Dickinson

Rend the song to splinters
the way it tears the air.
Trace it over meadows,
briars, spruce, the bristle

of crouching hares
until the source is clear -
a breast of softest yellow.
Then lure it to a snare,

sheer away the feathers'
delicate speckling,
the finest silk of skin.
Plunder with your fingers

the colours cloaked within
windpipe, jellies, heart
of the fallen meadowlark -
iris, ginger, veridian.

Savage as a raven's beak,
will you find the bliss
that engined into song -
What you thought the art

beyond counterfeit is gone.
Was it refined disguise
or a tithe of grace
made this bird a wonder,

perching amid oak leaves,
flourishing its skein
of honesty and laughter -
In scarlet experiment

your instrument is riven,
your palms a criminal-red
soiling morning grass.
Now, my skeptic, do you
still doubt your bird was true.

© Copyright R.T. Smith 1999
_______

"An artist treats the aesthetic medium as plastic material. Through imaginative play, he or she transmutes an inner world of thought and feeling into an autonomous creation. In the making of art, affect is often experienced by the artist in waves of actual bodily tension and release of implicit motion accompanied by excitation or discomfort or both. These affects become mysteriously embodied in the artwork, where their objective realization ultimately forms the dynamic balance of virtual implicit motion of tension and release that characterizes aesthetic structure. This structure, in turn, is conducive to stimulating in the spectator or listener responsive affect in the form of the implicit motion embodied in actual patterns of tension and release. This need not occur through the communication, whether conscious or unconscious, of the artist's own affects; rather, it most often comes about through the concordance between the patterns of tension and release that constitute the dynamic inner structures of both art and affect."


Gilbert J. Rose
Excerpted from Between Couch and Piano: Concerning Language and Form, published in American Imago

______
On authenticity--what I'm thinking of, inchoately, is dealing with the external world in a way that is true to the self...that is a signature of the self....that is "Thomas" with and without the skepticism.

Also, action and reaction--how the second poem above generates its energy from the first--yet it has a different authenticity.

Also action and reaction in terms of "It Goes Straight Through" and Frost's marvelous poem "Birches."

More on this later, when I can string together sentences.

"The pellet with the poison is in the vessel with the pestle. The chalice from the palace has the brew that is true."

"Listen! They broke the chalice from the palace and replaced it with the flagon with the figure of a dragon."

"Did you put the pellet with the poison in the vessel with the pestle?"

"No, the pellet with the poison is in the flagon with the dragon. The vessel with the pestle has the brew that is true."

My daughter and I are going to watch The Court Jester tonight. I marvel at Danny Kaye's virtuosity with language every time. I can memorize these lines, but there's no way I could recite them.

This is the truest and funniest video.

My life is just like this without VPN.

egophony (egoph·o·ny) (e-gof´o-ne) [Gr. aix goat + phōnē voice] increased resonance of voice sounds, with a high-pitched nasal or bleating quality, heard especially over lung tissue that is compressed or consolidated by pleural effusion. Called also bronchoegophony, egobronchophony, tragophonia, tragophony, and voix de Polichinelle. (from Dorland's Medical Dictionary)

Don't you just love goat-voice as a medical term? Seriously, when listening through a stethoscope the sounds of E's become A's--sort of like the body's own Search & Replace feature.

______
Thanks to A. D.'s rant on toboggan-as-hat, I have been listening (which is what I do for a living, with transcription/editing), and here's the word I found most mispronounced over the last week: C-A-R-A-M-E-L. Carmel is a city in California, not the sizzle and beautiful shade of burnt sugar. (Oh, I want to make a caramel pie, but that's just plain mean, with Harvey home from the hospital one day--I'll wait. I miss making food-food. Everyone here is on an oatmeal-for-dinner/snack kick. One more bowl of oatmeal found in the study, hardening into a stepping stone, and I may scream. But I digress...)

______
The two-space/one-space rule after an ending period is just ridiculous. In my opinion, the eye needs that white space (and so does the person who's reading, especially reading aloud). I don't deduct editing points either way, unless the transcriptionist is not consistent in his/her style. Personally, I am not going to start single-spacing after a sentence--but if the program itself does it for me, neither am I going to insert an extra space. I've been typing, with speed and usual accuracy, for 36 years (I taught myself when I was in 7th grade, on an ancient manual typewriter), and I just cannot change.

Skip the overalls and please bring me some Fleur d'interdit.

I have not been very good, but I have been better than I used to be.

Seriously, what a great list of gifts for the writer/writing student.

You Are Cream Pie

You're the perfect combo of simplicity and divinity Those who like you live for understated pleasures

20 Years Ago: I have car trouble, and a friend with a friend stops to help me with my 1964 Chevy Impala. (Loved that car, by the way--it was the big as a whale from the B52s). Six weeks later, that friend of the friend and I will have our first date. Three months later, we will be married. My best friend has been dead of AIDS for 6 months. Not too many people in rural Kentucky think AIDS will ever affect them.

15 Years Ago: My son writes me a letter that he loves me "More than Worms, just like the song says." (The actual title was "More than Words," but who am I to quibble?) I post this on our refrigerator. My first short story is accepted, and I am paid $800.00. This will be the last remuneration I receive for many, many years. Another of my best friends dies of AIDS.

10 Years Ago: Harvey starts working full-time as a sculptor for a garden design firm. Daniel starts middle school. I am working in a very lucrative position in a hospital. I hate the whole corporateness of it. I don't feel I am helping anyone. I cannot think, much less read or write, anything. I enter into a prolonged baby-longing phase after having multiple miscarriages. The biological clock is ticking loudly. We buy our first house--a Craftsman cottage.

5 Years Ago: I transfer to a much less salary-oriented job, with the possibility of working at home in a year. (This does happen). My son falls in love for the first time. My daughter is in preschool. Harvey is teaching elementary school. We buy our 1888 Queen Anne via a telephone auction and move 2 blocks. This takes 6 months. My best friend moves away.

1 Year Ago: I start thinking about poetry again--seriously, and I start working on notes for a poem. Harvey encourages me to think about writing classes. Daniel's in his second year of college. Raleigh's in second grade. She writes an essay on how she loves me more than dogs. (I think I've been upgraded, species wise).

1 Day Ago: I am holding my husband's hand after he has 5 additional cardiac stents placed. He's only 41 and has had his first heart attack 6 weeks ago. The doctors say he will be perfect. I tend to agree with their prognosis, as I am still crazy about him. My MFA program starts in 30 days.

5. SPONSOR MESSAGE: LOW-RESIDENCY MFA IN CREATIVE WRITING AT
MURRAY STATE UNIVERSITY

An affordable MFA at one of Kentucky's most prominent public
universities. Offers specialization in fiction, poetry, and creative
nonfiction. Two-year, 48-credit-hour program, with 4 intensive 10-day
residencies. One-to-one study with prize-winning faculty. Situated near
The Land Between the Lakes national outdoor recreation area. For more
info, visit http://www.murraystate.edu/mfa or call 270-762-4723.

This, folks, is where I'm enrolled, starting in January. I am very excited.

________

Harvey went in for a routine test on Monday and ended up having 5 more stents put in. One of his coronary arteries had occluded on top of the first stent, and this one vessel required 4 additional stents. He's coming home tomorrow but has six more weeks of recuperation--just when he was ready to go back to school. So we have rehab take two. I am very grateful that he is going to be fine, but we had thought he was already well. Frustrating, to say the least. The odd thing about all of this is that he has had absolutely no chest pain at all.

I am going to say it again--please stop smoking. Please, please, please.

1. Amazing:: Amazon
   
2. Delights:: Jenny Kissed Me (Leigh Hunt)
   
3. Inspired:: Expired
   
4. Disgusted:: Revolted (revolved?)
   
5. You:: Me
   
6. Vagina:: Gondola
   
7. Palm:: Chiromancy
   
8. Sweetheart:: Honey
   
9. Guilt:: Innocence
   
10. More to come:: Postscript
    

After the post on Ironic Points of Light, I thought I'd paste my favorite photographs from Koudelka's Gypsies. I've owned this book for nearly 30 years. It's something I salvaged after my apartment burned. The cover is scorched and the book still smells of smoke, yet it's one of my treasures.

In college, I wasn't famous for much, but I was famous for this:

Everybody goes to parties
They dance this mess around
They do the Shu-ga-loo
Do the Shy Tuna
Do the Camel Walk
Do the Hip-o-crit

Ah-Hippy Hippy forward Hippy Hippy
Hippy Shake, Hippy Shake


Those were the days--yet somehow I don't think this is on the dancecard this time. We're invited to something formal--what do I do, what do I wear? I don't think my 1950s aqua prom dress is up for it....

At least my party personality (so distinct from my regular one) is still intact.

You Are a Margarita

You aren't just the life of the party, you are the party! You mix a good drink, bust out some great music, and know how to get down.

an angel, standing atop a John Deere tractor, sing Silent Night in clear soprano, right outside my front door.

Christmas and Football Combination Parade...

1. Stuffed:: Shirt
   
2. Armstrong:: Floor wax
   
3. Bruise:: Continents, islands
   
4. Content:: Satisfied with form
   
5. Musical:: Notation
   
6. Assistance:: Devices
   
7. Scrambling:: Eggs
   
8. Battle:: Royale
   
9. Extended:: Metaphor
   
10. Discount:: Dismiss
    

______________
MEME: PAMELA NEEDS

Instructions: Go to Google, type in "(your name) needs" and collect the first lines from the first page of hits.

Results: Most have to do with Ms. Pamela Anderson. Some of the tamer ones are:

Pamela needs no introduction.
Pamela needs to get a few things off her chest.
Plastic Pamela needs sperm donor.

Grateful and Relieved: That he's going to be okay, better than okay.

Astonished, Part A: In six weeks, Harvey has done the following: Lost 40 pounds. Changed his diet completely. Exercised every day and has passed all his stress, cardiology and radiology tests. Used his time off to decorate our house for the holidays, to draw, paint, and sculpt, and to write an hilarious essay about growing up in San Diego. Oh, yes, and put up with me, 24-7, which is no easy task, especially while stopping smoking.

Astonished, Part B: That I don't tell him more often how much I love and appreciate him, what a great dad he is, and how he just cracks me the hell up constantly.

Astonished, Part C: That he WANTS TO GO BACK TO WORK, to 500 elementary school students and 20 grouchy high-school students, 2 weeks before Christmas (known in these parts as the internationally celebrated days of lethargy) because he misses these kids. His students have sent him hundreds of drawings and get well-cards. One of them said, COME RECUSE (sic) us from PE and get some ART back in our lifses.

Harvey, you have RECUSED me from sadness, taught me to trust, and put ART in my lifeses for 19 years. Just wanted you to know that.

Here's a Stevens poem that I like.

The Well Dressed Man with a Beard

After the final no there comes a yes
And on that yes the future world depends.
No was the night. Yes is this present sun.
If the rejected things, the things denied,
Slid over the western cataract, yet one,
One only, one thing that was firm, even
No greater than a cricket's horn, no more
Than a thought to be rehearsed all day, a speech
Of the self that must sustain itself on speech,
One thing remaining, infallible, would be
Enough. Ah! douce campagna of that thing!
Ah! douce campagna, honey in the heart,
Green in the body, out of a petty phrase,
Out of a thing believed, a thing affirmed:
The form on the pillow humming while one sleeps,
The aureole above the humming house . . .

It can never be satisfied, the mind, never.

Wallace Stevens

_______
I've been reading Keats and Stevens in fits and starts this semester, and thinking about how poetry works through negation. In Keats, of course, there's the negative capability that defines Romanticism--which is "forever," which "will never pass into nothingness."

In Stevens (whom I think of as the AntiRomantic), nothing can exist without passing into its nothingness, into its opposite or its absence, without the tension between what is and what isn't contained in reality: No sun without moon, no what's real without what's not-real. (That's like a photograph's negative capability--from the opposite--the negative--the real is developed, and light affects both). The imagination is paramount, is supreme, and it is "never satisifed, the mind never."

All these knotty nots in Stevens' poetry are fascinating to me, and so is the the light that is Yes and the light that was/is No--which takes and reflects back the Yes of the sun. And it's not the "Great Yes" or the "Great No" of Cavafy, but the Yes and No of Stevens.

More on this later, after I've slept. I'll end with this quote from The Necessary Angel:

The acute intelligence of the imagination, the illimitable resources of its memory, its power to possess the moment it perceives--if we were speaking of light itself, and thinking of the relationship between objects and light, no further demonstration would be necessary. Like light, it adds nothing, except itself.

_____


And what does moonlighting in another sense have to do with Stevens' poetry and insurance as separate/intertwined careers--each also depending on Yes/No, On/Off?

You are Form 1, Goddess: The Creator.

"And The Goddess planted the acorn of life.
She cried a single tear and shed a single drop
of blood upon the earth where she buried it.
From her blood and tear, the acorn grew into
the world."

Some examples of the Goddess Form are Gaia (Greek),
Jehova (Christian), and Brahma (Indian).
The Goddess is associated with the concept of
creation, the number 1, and the element of
earth.
Her sign is the dawn sun.

As a member of Form 1, you are a charismatic
individual and people are drawn to you.
Although sometimes you may seem emotionally
distant, you are deeply in tune with other
people's feelings and have tremendous empathy.
Sometimes you have a tendency to neglect your
own self. Goddesses are the best friends to
have because they're always willing to help.


Which Mythological Form Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

50,179 words.

Mark Twain: He was cynical and irreverent, but he had a tender spot for cats. There were always kittens in the house, and he gave them names like "Sin" and "Sour Mash." "Mamma has morals," said his daughter Suzy, "and Papa has cats."

Jonathan Swift: He once said, about a book he admired, "That is as well said as if I had said it myself."

A. Poetry is I say essentially a vocabulary just as prose is essentially not. And what is the vocabulary of which poetry absolutely is. It is a vocabulary based on the noun as prose is essentially and determinately and vigorously not based on the noun. Poetry is concerned with using with abusing, with losing with wanting with denying with avoiding with adoring with replacing the noun. It is doing that always doing that, doing that doing nothing but that. Poetry is doing nothing but using losing refusing and pleasing and betraying and caressing nouns. That is what poetry does, that is what poetry has to do no matter what kind of poetry it is. And there are a great many kinds of poetry. So that is poetry really loving the name of anything and that is not prose.

B. When I said. "A rose is a rose is a rose." And then later made that into a ring I made poetry and what did I do? I caressed completely caressed and addressed a noun.

(from "Poetry and Grammar" on Wikiquotes)

Above photo--Wallpaper:
Bill and coo, billet-doux.

My husband's getting ready for Christmas. He's making elves. They are everywhere-- dining room, kitchen, sweater rack in the utility room--in various states of glue and wire and papier mache. (My favorite has silver shoes and a stocking cap made from a teal glove I thought I'd lost). The staircase banister is garlanded in greenery and fruit. The cards are out, ready to be addressed. The living room has been destroyed and rearranged to accommodate one (yes, that is one) of his Christmas trees. He's put up as many as five before, and none of them is a tabletop size. (And we don't have a gigantic house to accommodate his thousands of ornaments). This year I bet he'll put up the aluminum tree, to match the elf's footwear. Underfoot are boxes and plastic bins of all his ornaments. Correction, some of his ornaments. There are 18 more ornament boxes upstairs.

I think we're divided this year on Christmas spirit (see the book image above). I know I'm being Scrooge, but really I'm just not in the mood for Christmas. There are still Thanksgiving turkeys and pumpkins and cornucopiae (? spelling) to put away. Between this holiday clutter, the paper-revision-frenzy that is my study, and having to go to Wal-Mart on Friday the Death-Star day of shopping (for catfood and gloves--see above), I am just exhausted. I think I'll order the book above from Barnes/Noble and find a corner to hide from the 39 plastic Santas that will soon be descending from the attic.

At least I can console myself that I'm not in the toy department, as I was the year of Star Wars.

In the same pew: Horace, Virgil, Euclid.

And behind them Ovid.

The witch that came (the withered hag)
To wash the steps with pail and rag,
Was once the student Pamel-ag

Or would-be student--emphasis would.
She thought her worksheets great and good.
You should doubt that likelihood.

Revise early and avoid her fate.
Or if destined to rewrite late,
Roll up your sleeves--write something great.

Revise ten poems of your own!
(She's Mother Hubbard sent for a bone,
And all in class can call her crone).

Some have relied on whom they knew;
Others on Ariel 12-fonts in blue.
What worked for them won't work for you.

No memory of having "seen"
Atones for all this bile and spleen,
Or makes ten poems scalpel-lean.

Better to go down dignified
With boughten sonnets at your side
Than Pamela's portfolio. Revise, revise!

________
I am sick of all my poems. I don't want to work on them any longer. (We have to take out 50% of the lines of each poem, rewrite them, and add to them, to make the poems each twice as long! I am not exaggerating).

I have 35,766 words in NaNoWriMo, though. I might make 50,000. Harvey keeps reminding me of that scene from The Shining when Jack is pounding away at the keys...(I guess I really need to work on my eyebrows). In the Italian version of The Shining Jack types, "Il mattino ha l'oro in bocca", which literally translates as "The morning keeps gold in its mouth." This is much less Typing-Man than the original "All work..." and I may use it somewhere. (How to credit the FAQ page from the S. King website)?

On the plus side, my pies were great.

"The Excellency of the English Tongue," by Sir Richard Carew.

On Exclamations!

Againe, for expressing our passions, our interiections
are very apt and forcible: as findeinge ourselues some-
what agreeued, wee cry Ah ; yf more deeply, Oh ; when we
pittie, alas; when wee bemone, Alacke; neither of them
soe effeminate as the Italyane Deh or the French hélas.
In detestation wee saye Phy, as if there withall wee should
spitt ; in attention, Haa ; i[n] calling, whowp ; in hallow-
inge, wahahowe: all which (in my eare) seeme to be deriued
from the very natures of those seuerall affections.

__________
This is a blog post somehow saved as a past draft. I love "alas; when we bemone, alacke."

Turkey Sandwich

Whole wheat bread
Crisp lettuce
Leftover turkey slices
cranberry sauce
cream cheese (soft)
mustard
(Mayo only if desired--I don't)

Assemble (bottom up) bread, cream cheese, cranberry sauce, turkey, mustard/mayo, lettuce, bread. Enjoy. This is scrumptious--I have saved it to my recipe file but have no idea where I found it. If you are the creator of this sublime sandwich, please send recipes now.

Do we really need two endings for this movie? It's not The French Lieutenant's Woman, where the author intended separate endings. Or maybe it is, considering what the screenplay did to Fowles' original...

Say it ain't so, Jane...

What Common Breed of Dog Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

You're Brigit Pegeen Kelly! Julie loves your
uncompromising weirdness and beauty. You shared
some cheesecake with Julie, once. She thinks
you look like a deer.


Which of Julie Platt's Favorite Poets Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Like a mad red brain
the involute rhubarb leaf
thinks its way up
through loam.

Jane Kenyon, from "Let Evening Come"

RHUBARB IS SUSAN is back.

I signed up for my classes and genre seminars for the MFA program today. English 666 is my poetry residency. I find this hilarious, especially since the genre lecture is titled "The Poetry of Extravagance." The text for the fiction seminar is New Stories from the South 2005. This program allows its students to attend all three genre seminars, which I think is great. I'm not going to attend creative nonfiction till I'm in the second semester of the program (didn't want to spread myself too thin), but I'm in both poetry and fiction classes this time.

______
I've been on a movie jag recently--in the last week I've seen Prime, Jarhead, Good Night and Good Luck, & Walk the Line. Good Night and Good Luck was superb. I was disappointed in Prime and Walk the Line. The performances in WTL were good, but Ray is too recent for this to score come Oscar time.

I think this may be Strathairn's year (and Clooney's, too--who knew back in the day that "George Burnett" of The Facts of Life would one day write, direct, and act in such a great movie). Strathairn's eyes, his stillness....I could go on and on. One expects Clarkson, Daniels, and Downey always to be interesting, and I wasn't disappointed. How about Frank Langella--who's also wonderful?

I told you Harvey's art was awesome! Here is a drawing of the creative nonfiction writer (and her mom).

I am writing about the day I was born. Many things happened on the day I was born. I don't remember most of them because I was too little. I think my mom was there and she can fill you in on the details.

One thing I learned about the day I was born is that it was the death day of the King--Elvis Parsley. He died at home in Greaseland.

Electronic (from Slate):

Like Bob Dylan walking onstage at Newport in 1965, kettles are poised to go electric.

Hard-Boiled (from John G. MacDonald):

The two adversaries faced each other like meat on a spit.

Worksheet

The girl was like the girl. And the mirror mirrored that.

NAMING OF PARTS (from "The Complete Lessons of the War")

To-day we have naming of parts. Yesterday,
We had daily cleaning. And to-morrow morning,
We shall have what to do after firing. But to-day,
To-day we have naming of parts. Japonica
Glistens like coral in all of the neighboring gardens,
And to-day we have naming of parts.

This is the lower sling swivel. And this
Is the upper sling swivel, whose use you will see,
When you are given your slings. And this is the piling swivel,
Which in your case you have not got. The branches
Hold in the gardens their silent, eloquent gestures,
Which in our case we have not got.

This is the safety-catch, which is always released
With an easy flick of the thumb. And please do not let me
See anyone using his finger. You can do it quite easy
If you have any strength in your thumb. The blossoms
Are fragile and motionless, never letting anyone see
Any of them using their finger.

And this you can see is the bolt. The purpose of this
Is to open the breech, as you see. We can slide it
Rapidly backwards and forwards: we call this
Easing the spring. And rapidly backwards and forwards
The early bees are assaulting and fumbling the flowers:
They call it easing the Spring.

They call it easing the Spring: it is perfectly easy
If you have any strength in your thumb: like the bolt,
And the breech, and the cocking-piece, and the point of balance,
Which in our case we have not got; and the almond-blossom
Silent in all of the gardens and the bees going backwards and forwards,
For to-day we have naming of parts.

_______

I think this is a very strange and very good poem: The soldier in the garden, like Adam naming, naming, and like Adam there's no real understanding or control over it. And the bees going backwards and forwards like bullets exchanged. And this also shares some of the qualities of a GET-A-GOOGLE poem. I think it's the stanza transitions.

Anyway, this is what I thought of on Veterans Day, when I saw Jarhead.

_______

I first read this poem when I was in junior high, and the Vietnam War was glistering green and Walter Cronkite's voice and a series of integers listed on television, (which I kept on for company when I did my homework). I can remember the first time I heard the phrase "body bag." I was doing my arithmetic homework, which was a word problem about distances trains could cover and at what point two divergent trains would converge. I was so tempted to put down TRAIN WRECK as the answer.

I don't know why I'm remembering this, and pleiku jackets and POW bracelets and the scalloped coins and stamps my uncle brought back from Vietnam. Maybe there is some poem brewing here. It's about time. I want to write something that is not an assignment, that is not 50,000 words of NaNoWriMo.

I'm going back to bed to wait on this poem.

Grace. Grace. Grace.

Happy Birthday.

This was an e-mail making the rounds at work, and I also saw it on Poesy Galore.

Three Names You Go By: Pamela (never Pam—that’s cooking spray). Mom. Whut. (An actor friend of mine gave me this nickname for the way I pronounce “what.” He also got the part of Lenny in Of Mice and Men by channeling my accent.

Three Screen Names You Have: Pamela. Pamela123. Pamelaxyz.

Three Things You Like About Yourself: I type really, really fast (250 words per minute). I can “taste” recipes and modify the ingredients before I start to cook. This is some weird synesthesic ability. I can keep a secret.

Three Things You Dislike About Yourself: I am a nit-picker. I am a pack rat. I don’t trust easily.

Three Parts of Your Heritage: Belorussian/Tinker/Hungarian.

Three Things That Scare You: The Bush-Cheney administration. Rush Limbaugh and his ilk. Riding lawnmowers (Don’t even ask).

Three Everyday Essentials: Coffee. Cats. Toothbrush.

Three Things You Are Wearing Right Now: Kimono. Art deco ruby engagement ring. Perfume. That’s enough information.

Three Favorite Bands/Artists: Bob Dylan. B52s. Beatles.

Three Favorite Songs At Present: REM: “Losing My Religion.” Dylan: “Just Like a Woman.” Dolly Parton: “Jolene.”

Three Things You Want To Try/Do In The Next Twelve Months: Start an MFA program. (I am so excited about this). Clean out my closets. Plant more lilies.

Three Things You Want In A Relationship: Humor. Sex. Adoration. (Pretty much in that order).

Two Truths And A Lie: I can read palms. I have a mean backhand. I used to be in a new-wave band.

Three Physical Things About The Opposite Sex That Appeal To You: Great hands. Great voice. Quirky sense of humor.

Three Things You Just Can't Do: Sing on key. Turn away a stray cat. Resist a shoe sale. (This is particularly annoying as I work at home, barefoot).

Three Favorite Hobbies: Reading, writing, and thriftstore/fleamarket/antique shopping.

Three Things I Want To Do Really Bad Right Now: Shop for Thanksgiving menu (alligator pie and pumpkin cheesecake). Have another cup of coffee. Add an “ly” to Bad.

Three Careers You Have Considered: Teacher. Stay-at-home mom. Medical editor/transcriptionist. I have done them, too. In my fantasies, I’d like to be a chef and go to cooking school.

Three Kid's Names You Have Considered: Daniel, Raleigh, and Kermit. (I was so mad when I first saw The Muppets and realized that the name Kermit had been hijacked by a felt amphibian).

Three Things You Want To Do before You Die: Visit Venice. Have grandchildren. Refurbish my kitchen. (Spoken as Dorothy, clicking heels: I WANT A VIKING RANGE. I WANT A VIKING RANGE. I WANT A VIKING RANGE. A friend of mine has one and doesn’t even know how to turn it on).

Adding to this what was on Emily’s blog

Three Celebrity Crushes: John Cusack. Gabriel Byrne. George Clooney. (Yes, it’s the Irish thing that gets me every time. If it wasn’t for whiskey, the Irish would rule the world).

Three Ways You Are Stereotypically a Boy: I am deadly with a slingshot. I’m not afraid of spiders or snakes. I love hockey.

Three Ways You Are Stereotypically a Girl: Perfume. Kenneth Cole shoes. Cannot pass a mirror without cringing.

Whether you harbor some vestige of modernist
morality or simply fail to see the irony in
Reality TV, one thing is clear. You are just
Not Postmodern.


What kind of postmodernist are you!?
brought to you by Quizilla

1. Is it just me, or does Robert Goulet bear an amazing resemblance to the link above?

2. Wotinhell is "the poetry of extravagance?"

Inquiring minds want to know...

ENVELOPE, n. The coffin of a document; the scabbard of a bill; the husk of a remittance; the bed-gown of a love-letter.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary

This time it is the husk of a remittance--after 200 straight rejections, I have had an acceptance. And if you are really interested in reading an article on proofreading as you transcribe, let me know. But, hey, $200 beats 200 straight rejections, hands down (and on the keyboard).

I am staying busy with NaNoWriMo and assignments for workshop. This week, the assignment was: "A window and a mirror have a conversation. Write at least 25 lines on that." Well, I have written 39 lines on that particular topic, but the window didn't get a single word in. I can never do these assignments exactly as ordered.

Fantasy Basketball draft starts today. My son and I are excited. Daniel named his team Dice because he is going to roll over his poor old mother.

Pamela

I love his novels, especially The French Lieutenant's Woman. That was the final assignment in a Victorian literature class I took.

Where is the lion in you to defy him when you're this weak?
("Trouble Child")

Happy Birthday, Joni Mitchell. For some reason, I have always loved the line above. It reminds me of Philip Levine's "They Feed They Lion" and also of Eugene Delacroix's paintings (lion as predator in "Arab Horseman Attacked by a Lion" and also lion as prey in "Lion Hunt").

Where is the lion?

I think that, of course, you can know that a poem is bad (or good) without being able to articulate the "why" of it. It's the same way you know that, well, soup is bad or good, depending on immediate taste.

However, if you're devoted to soup, if you make your own soup from scratch (pardon the pun), or if you, as I do, obsess over recipes, you'd ferret out the ingredients that flavor/don't flavor the soup. (Make the bitter batter better, as it were).

Anyway, that's my take on the whole Cyclops kitten debate. (And could you guess I am simmering hot and sour soup today?)

Here's what I really learned from this whole debate:

From Wikipedia:

Given their penchant for blacksmithing, many scholars believe the legend of the Cyclopes arose from an actual practice wherein blacksmiths wore an eyepatch over one eye to prevent them from becoming blind in both eyes from flying sparks. Blacksmiths also tattooed themselves with concentric circles in honor of the sun; this is another possible source of the legend.

Here's another detail for my useless information and for the Tattoo poem series. And no, I don't have a tattoo. I just think they're fascinating.

"I'm writing a book. I've got the page numbers done."

I am trying to write a novel in November, or at least 50,000 words of fiction. I think the Jack Torrance syndrome will set in soon.

I've set aside time to write every day. First day--2000 words. Second day 1000 words. Yesterday--possible titles. Total word count 3497. Not bad in 3 days, but I'm not going to reach 50,000 at this rate!

Harvey's doing great--exercising, losing weight, and getting plenty of rest and relaxation. I'm having fun experimenting with new recipes. Chicken with apricots and peaches was a big hit last night, even with Raleigh. I still cannot believe he's eating salads, vegetables, et cetera. Thanks again to all of you who sent good mojo and positive thoughts.

Chuck Barry is referenced in a poem.

"Oh, Chuck Barry--wasn't he a spy or something?"

Non sequitur? Nope.

"Yeah, I liked that movie about him being in the CIA."

Ringin' a Bell and The Gong Show are confused.

Question: Is holding in laughter hazardous to your health?

Sincerely,

Pamela B. Goode (or trying to be)

I have joined a fantasy basketball league--my REAL fantasy basketball league would involve the ABA. AJPL thought this was hilarious. He probably thought this stood for American Bar(d) Association.

Does anyone else remember David Thompson? I am writing a poem about him--I had an old draft that I started years ago, which I've gone back to with a more critical eye.

We have an assignment in workshop to write a poem of exactly 25 lines with 6 pairs of rhymes (avoiding couplets), no matching of parts of speech or length of syllables on the end-rhyme (for example, hard and card would not count, but hard and blackguard would), and all the lines must have greater than 11 syllables. (I had a presentment that we'd have to rhyme soon--I wrote a 36-line poem in couplets just last week, in anticipation, but this doesn't qualify in either, and I don't feel like turning it into a Readers' Digest Condensed poem).

Daniel Anderson is a hardliner, and I mean that in the most complimentary way possible.

Maybe I can make that basketball poem rhyme. Who knows? I'm going to try.

______

Harvey is ahead of expected with his rehab. He is walking 1/4 of a mile already and is staying within his target heart rate. His doctor says GO FOR IT. As long as he doesn't lift anything heavier than his shoes...which I find a strange restriction. No cigarettes so far...I am thrilled. He has also lost weight and is adhering to his diet. I have been experimenting with new chicken and seafood recipes. I think I should write a cookbook...

______

I went to Mark Jarman's poetry reading last night. It was awesome--everything you would want in a poetry reading (except he did not read "Groundswell," which I love). He read primarily from To the Green Man, plus two poems that he had written when he lived in Murray, and a brand-new poem. What Jarman does with time in his poetry is fascinating to me.

Mark's wife Amy was with him, and she remembered me. I cannot believe it. I do not look the same, I don't think, as I used to be a blond with long wavy hair. My hair is still wavy, but it's no longer blonde--every baby makes your hair darker. (I didn't believe it either). Amy herself was easy to remember because she's so pretty and has not changed a whit. If you ever have a chance to hear her sing, please go. She has one of the most beautiful voices I've ever heard. One night in a basement rec room, I heard her sing, and it was transcendent. I've never had another opportunity.

______

Part of my editing work is for a facility on the Gulf Coast. It's had no work for weeks till today, so I must go "fill in the blanks" for a while. Two of the dictators are Belorussian, and their dictations are really hard for most people to understand, much less cast into sentences. I bet these are queued to me specifically. (Unfortunately neither of them is "DOCTOR PUNCTUATION," which is good, I guess, because I need the money and that account is major bucks). 10 weeks till the holidays. And Dr. C. Dale Young is the "real" Dr. Punctuation...)

______
I have finished the Hermione Grainger costume for Halloween--there is a school robe, a school tie, and a Hogwarts badge, and Harvey has made the coolest wand. I sort of look like Professor McGonnagoll (although I am not THAT aged), so maybe I should get a wand of my own and, of course, a hat.

"And day after day, in the face of every argument, of every consideration of generosity, she would repeat, without winking, in that voice like the squeeze of a doll’s stomach: ‘It goes with the house – it goes with the house.’"

Mrs. Gereth, The Spoils of Poynton

Harvey's better--he's made a huge recovery. The doctors and nurses are surprised--must be all that good mojo from Ironic Points of Light. He'll come home either late this afternoon or first thing tomorrow. I am so relieved. Thanks to all of you who emailed me or posted. He has a long road ahead of him, as far as cardiac rehab, but I know he can do it.

until everything
was Rimbaud, Rimbaud, Rimbaud

My husband had a heart attack and is in the cardiac care unit after stent placement. I won't be back for a while.

Hopefully he'll be okay after a few changes in diet and exercise and STOPPING SMOKING. This nearly killed him, and he's only 41. People, please pay attention and don't smoke.

Summer
Louise Gluck

Remember the days of our first happiness,
how strong we were, how dazed by passion,
lying all day, then all night in the narrow bed,
sleeping there, eating there too: it was summer,
it seemed everything had ripened
at once. And so hot we lay completely uncovered.
Sometimes the wind rose; a willow brushed the window.

But we were lost in a way, didn't you feel that?
The bed was like a raft; I felt us drifting
far from our natures, toward a place where we'd discover nothing.
First the sun, then the moon, in fragments,
stone through the willow.
Things anyone could see.

Then the circles closed. Slowly the nights grew cool;
the pendant leaves of the willow
yellowed and fell. And in each of us began
a deep isolation, though we never spoke of this,
of the absence of regret.
We were artists again, my husband.
We could resume the journey.

There is no joy in Mudville--oops, Houston. I will bet the Astros fans were shocked into silence. 412 feet--and two feet that you could probably hear rounding the bases.

Bad, bad move for the Astros to pitch to Pujols.

Space-takers were my favorite part of newspapers—snippets of fact used prepress to finish off a column of type. (This was way, way before Pagemaker).

Little details like the following still intrigue me. These are lines from my notebooks that I intend to use someday, somewhere.
_____

One can type numbers from zero, one, two,... onwards, and not use the A key on the keyboard until reaching one thousand. (Peter Pereira, this one's for you).
_____

F. Scott Fitzgerald and Nathanael West were friends in Hollywood. They died within a day of each other. Today's West's birthday. He was 37 when he and his wife died in a car crash. (West wrote three of my favorite novels ever: Miss Lonely Hearts, A Cool Million, and The Day of the Locust).
_____

It's also the birthday of Montgomery Clift, the most beautiful profile to ever appear on-screen. He'd crack your heart clean as you'd crack a walnut… See the link above before disagreeing with this assertion.
______

Of the 250-plus known species of shark in the world, only about 18 are known to be dangerous to man.
(Query: How does one "know" a shark?)

This is the first poem (and cummings the first poet) I ever found on my own. This broke the rules I'd learned from Sister Magdalen, even as it kept them.

10

maggie and milly and molly and may
went down to the beach(to play one day)

and maggie discovered a shell that sang
so sweetly she couldn't remember her troubles,and

milly befriended a stranded star
whose rays five languid fingers were;

and molly was chased by a horrible thing
which raced sideways while blowing bubbles:and

may came home with a smooth round stone
as small as a world and as large as alone.

For whatever we lose(like a you or a me)
it's always ourselves we find in the sea

____________

Here's one of my favorite poems--think tone.


somewhere i have never travelled

somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience, your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully, mysteriously) her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the colour of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens; only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands

___________
As for the link, I'm wondering if cummings started the tradition of authors touching their faces for book jackets. Jim Behrle should take a look at this trend.

On this day in 1943, Robert Lowell was sentenced to jail for a year for draft evasion. He refused to be drafted because he objected to saturation bombing. Lowell served his sentence in New York's West Street jail.

This is one of the first poems I read in college, and it still blows me away.

MEMORIES OF WEST STREET AND LEPKE

Only teaching on Tuesdays, book-worming
in pajamas fresh from the washer each morning,
I hog a whole house on Boston's
"hardly passionate Marlborough Street,"
where even the man
scavenging filth in the back alley trash cans,
has two children, a beach wagon, a helpmate,
and is "a young Republican."
I have a nine months' daughter,
young enough to be my granddaughter.
Like the sun she rises in her flame-flamingo infants' wear.

These are the tranquilized Fifties,
and I am forty. Ought I to regret my seedtime?
I was a fire-breathing Catholic C.O.,
and made my manic statement,
telling off the state and president, and then
sat waiting sentence in the bull pen
beside a negro boy with curlicues
of marijuana in his hair.

Given a year,
I walked on the roof of the West Street Jail, a short
enclosure like my school soccer court,
and saw the Hudson River once a day
through sooty clothesline entanglements
and bleaching khaki tenements.
Strolling, I yammered metaphysics with Abramowitz,
a jaundice-yellow ("it's really tan")
and fly-weight pacifist,
so vegetarian,
he wore rope shoes and preferred fallen fruit.
He tried to convert Bioff and Brown,
the Hollywood pimps, to his diet.
Hairy, muscular, suburban,
wearing chocolate double-breasted suits,
they blew their tops and beat him black and blue.

I was so out of things, I'd never heard
of the Jehovah's Witnesses.
"Are you a C.O.?" I asked a fellow jailbird.
"No," he answered, "I'm a J.W."
He taught me the "hospital tuck,"
and pointed out the T-shirted back
of Murder Incorporated's Czar Lepke,
there piling towels on a rack,
or dawdling off to his little segregated cell full
of things forbidden to the common man:
a portable radio, a dresser, two toy American
flags tied together with a ribbon of Easter palm.
Flabby, bald, lobotomized,
he drifted in a sheepish calm,
where no agonizing reappraisal
jarred his concentration on the electric chair
hanging like an oasis in his air
of lost connections. . . .

Manderley? Thornfield Hall? Poynton?

_________________

On a happier note, I am starting an MFA this spring--only 20 years after I first wanted to go. This low-residency program is the right choice for my family, my job, and--in this case, most importantly--me. I feel really good about it, and I am glad someone liked my manuscript.

In workshop this week, I turned in a double sonnet--very ambitious for me--and the professor gave it back, with this note: "Write 30 lines. And only keep a third of these." The x's on the page looked like a complicated football playbook.

“Love is the revelation of our deepest personal meaning, value, and identity. But this revelation remains impossible as long as we are the prisoner of our own egoism. I cannot find myself in myself, but only in another. My true meaning and worth are shown to me not in my estimate of myself, but in the eyes of the one who loves me; and that one must love me as I am, with my faults and limitations, revealing to me the truth that these faults and limitations cannot destroy my worth in their eyes; and that I am therefore valuable as a person, in spite of my shortcomings, in spite of the imperfections of my exterior ‘package.’ The package is totally unimportant. What matters is this infinitely precious message which I can discover only in my love for another person. And this message, this secret, is not fully revealed to me unless at the same time I am able to see and understand the mysterious and unique worth of the one I love.”

From Love and Living by Thomas Merton

_____
I keep coming back to Robert Penn Warren's "All things lead me to love."

You Passed the US Citizenship Test

Congratulations - you got 10 out of 10 correct!

                                    


                         Peevish as a baby
                              it stutters a cry.
     
                         Rough as a ruffle
                              it's a boat worrying water,

                         wrinkling into waves,      
                              sundial shadowing hours,

                         hemp twisting and twining,
                              winding like kudzu, bent

                         mats of vines tighter and tighter,
                              wrapped around and around

                         the heartwood's heart
                              until an oak uproots.

                         Bleached out as a blonde,
                              her darker roots

                         blooming, ink on a page,
                              it will cry and cry

                         out.  Worrying words, dog
                              with a bone, around

                         and around widdershins, how
                              I water this poor garden,

                         furrowing plowshare bent
                              against the stone

                         time's hidden
                              in topsoil.  Hours and hours

                         of it and like the poor
                              this form of mine

     
                         is with me always.  
                              Kudzu again roots

                         where there is only
                              earth to hold it:  bent
     
                         green hearts like mouths
                                devouring the hills.  Cry
     
                         me a river, cry me an ocean,
                              but only water

                         takes on its shape.  
                              Lines work in a round

                         as I row, row, row
                              my poor boat.  I drink to water

                         a whistle, and all I have
                              is wet wind.  My fingers root

                         in earth, root in water, but nothing
                              grows. I fret

                         my paper to bits.  

                         
                                   Pamela Johnson Parker

Subtitled, in a Nathaniel West way,

The Dismantling of the Good Grey Poet

This is the fiftieth anniversary of this poem’s public debut at the Six Gallery in San Francisco. I cannot imagine the wildness of that reading, but I do distinctly remember my first encounter with Ginsberg. Not unlike Lawrence Ferlinghetti, my friends and I had our own experience with obscenity charges. My friend Sherry found a mimeographed copy of this poem and some other--er--reading materials, in her brother’s closet. We were 11 years old, it was the summer before sixth grade, and we were curious. The five of us perused this poem carefully, because we were sure it was PORNO (and S-E-X was a big topic of conversation for us).

We passed HOWL, from house to house, inside an issue of American Girl, till it was confiscated by a mom and promptly incinerated (along with our other reading material, which included an issue of Playboy, Lady Chatterley’s Lover, and The Sensuous Man/The Sensuous Woman). We were all grounded for a week, which meant no TV, no telephone, and even more time to think about what we’d read. (That was the exact punishment given to me by my parents: “Think about what you’ve read.” My friends and I could think of, or talk about, little else than those books. The Monkees and Tiger Beat were definitely back-burner topics that summer, and I think Ginsberg would have been glad of the uproar he and Hefner caused in our little cul-de-sac).

At the time of its demise, the pages of HOWL were as soft and textured as chamois, and the purple letters had faded to wisteria.

By the way, Sherry’s brother was the same guy whose car we had hidden in, hoping to go to a rock concert called Woodstock, but that’s another story...one I'm trying to revise...

Those were the days, and I guess that was my introduction to contemporary American poetry, the 20th century British novel, and the self-help genre of paperback publishing.

KING ME/WAILING ME/ME, MYSELF AND I

The sounds of the shofar (1/3/9) are deafening, and its shape's unchanged for centuries.

Tekiah -- long blast
Shevarim --wails
Teruah -- bleats in short succession (J. Carol Oates--"Where Are You Going...Where Have You Been?" always reminds me of this part of the Shofar. I have no idea why)

_______

Two lines that I admire in Rilke:

Give me your mouth to soften, love;
Ah, your hair is all in idleness.--

Rilke, from "What Fields Are Fragrant as Your Hands?"

______

I'm sitting in my study, in the dark, because the bulbs in the old ceiling fan are blown (I need to go to the hardware store and find more--last night I asked Harvey to go to the store for bulbs and he brought back TULIPS).

Only the light from the computer monitor is working. It reminds me of this passage, on sitting in the dark, from Housekeeping by M. Robinson:

Evening...She gave the word three syllables, and indeed I think she liked it so well for its tendency to smooth, to soften. She seemed to dislike the disequilibrium of counterpoising a roomful of light against a world of darkness. Sylvie in a house was more or less like a mermaid in a ship's cabin. She preferred it sunk in the very element it was meant to exclude.

I guess I am the counterpoint to Sylvie's counterpoise---I'm sitting here in a dark room against a world of light. It's 80 humid degrees here and very sunny.

_____

I've written my obsessive image poem, which has as its focus weeds. I'll post it after workshop. I have a draft of it saved already.

1. Alias First name?
Pamela.

2. Were you named after anyone?
Middle name is "Leigh," after Vivien. Thankfully, my dad saved me from the complete movie star moniker.

3. Do you wish on stars?
Yes.

4. When did you last cry?
What time is it?

5. What is your favorite lunchmeat?
Chicken salad. Is that a lunch meat? If not, roast beast.

6. What is your birth date?
July 9.

7. What's your most embarrassing CD?
It's an 8-track (embarrassing enough, but it gets worse)--of A. Ginsberg, reading William Blake, and it's just as awful as it sounds.

8. If you were another person, would you be friends with you?
I think I might be like Groucho and refuse to join any club that would have me as a member.

9. Do you use sarcasm a lot?
Constantly.

10. What are your nicknames?
I like my full name, Pamela, but my nickname's Whut, for the Kentuckiana way I pronounce W-H-A-T.

11. Would you bungee jump?
No, thanks--I've already had one umbilical cord.

12. Do you untie your shoes when you take them off?
No--stilettos and clogs don't tie.

13. Do you think that you are strong?
Yes, most of the time.

14. What is your favorite ice cream flavor?
Coffee.

15. Shoe Size?
7

16. Red or pink?
Red and pink. But mainly black.

17. What is your least favorite thing about yourself?
I can't sing on key, even though I was in a band.

18. Who do you miss most?
My best friend and sister.

19. What color pants and shoes are you wearing?
Black heels and black dress. I'm in full Morticia mode.

20. What are you listening to right now?
"Shattered" by the Rolling Stones (from Some Girls)

21. What did you eat for breakfast?
Toasted bagel with mozzarella and homemade bruschetta. Yum.

22.If you were a crayon, what color would you be?
Bittersweet.

23. What is the weather like right now?
89 degrees in October. Sunny and not too humid.

24. Last person you talked to on the phone?
My boss.

25. The first things you notice about the opposite sex?
Hands. Voice. Eyes.

26. Do you like the person who sent this to you?
Yes.

27. Favorite Drink?
Coffee.

28. Hair Color?
Virgin--never dyed or permed. My hair used to be caramel but it's faded with each child to sort of a bronze color. I am almost-blonde, sometimes longing-to-be-blonde again.

29. Do you wear contacts?
No.

30. Favorite Food?
Pasta with clam sauce (my own).

31. Last Movie You Watched?
In a theatre--Corpse Bride.
On cable-Being John Malkovich (Now I think I've seen all of John Cusack's movies, and this was by far the most unusual--It's not Say Anything, although it is).

32. Favorite Day Of The Year?
Thanksgiving.

33. Scary Movies Or Happy Endings?
Henry James. You be the judge.

34. Summer Or Winter?
Winter. I'm happiest between autumn and spring equinoxes.

35. Hugs or Kisses?
Kisses.

36. What Is Your Favorite Dessert?
Mounds Cake (again my frosting recipe--call me Ogden Ganache).

37. Living Arrangements?
An 1888 Queen Anne, which actually owns me. And all living arrangements are incomplete unless cats are involved.

38. What Books Are You Reading?
Henry James--"The Turn of the Screw," for the umpteenth time. Working on the I-eye thing, and wondering how this influenced FSF in Gatsby.
Elizabeth Bishop--"Complete Poems," for fun.
Norton Anthology of Poetry, for class. (DH Lawrence for this week).

39. What's On Your Mouse Pad?
I have optical mice and don't have mouse pads. I guess my mice are transients.

40. What Did You Watch Last Night on TV?
Antiques Roadshow.

41. Favorite Smells?
Fleur D'interdit. Chanel No. 5. My children's hair. Vanilla. Fresh-ground coffee beans.

42. Favorite junk food?
Popcorn. (Add that to favorite smells, also). Milky Way candy bars (Monogamous relationship).

43. Rolling Stones or Beatles?
Actually, Bob Dylan, "Like a Rolling Stone."

44. What's the farthest you've been from home?
Kingston, Jamaica; San Francisco; Montreal; Cape Hatteras.
(Depending on the compass direction).

I find this one to be disgusting--my online submission was deleted without being opened. Isn't that really callous? Not the "no," which I expect, but the "don't bother," which I didn't expect. If I didn't flag my e-mails, my submission would be in limbo forever.

What makes it worse is that this is a "prestigious" magazine that my local library cannot afford--so I provide an annual subscription to the library for writers in our area to access.

No more. I can send that $50.00 the Red Cross.

And I definitely won't waste a stamp telling them so.

Somehow, I don't think Saint Peter's picking up...

For this meme, you are supposed to quote a great swath of Shakespeare on your blog, as soon as you can.

Here's a poem we discussed in our workshop, which I just memorized, and another poem that to me seems inextricably linked to it. Maybe it's the elegiac...

SONNET 73

That time of year thou mayest in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou seest the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou seest the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire
Consumed with that which it was nourished by.
This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

__________

Meditations at Lagunitas--Robert Hass

All the new thinking is about loss.
In this it resembles all the old thinking.
The idea, for example, that each particular erases
the luminous clarity of a general idea. That the clown-
faced woodpecker probing the dead sculpted trunk
of that black birch is, by his presence,
some tragic falling off from a first world
of undivided light. Or the other notion that,
because there is in this world no one thing
to which the bramble of blackberry corresponds,
a word is elegy to what it signifies.
We talked about it late last night and in the voice
of my friend, there was a thin wire of grief, a tone
almost querulous. After a while I understood that,
talking this way, everything dissolves: justice,
pine, hair, woman, you and I. There was a woman
I made love to and I remembered how, holding
her small shoulders in my hands sometimes,
I felt a violent wonder at her presence
like a thirst for salt, for my childhood river
with its island willows, silly music from the pleasure boat,
muddy places where we caught the little orange-silver fish
called pumpkinseed. It hardly had to do with her.
Longing, we say, because desire is full
of endless distances. I must have been the same to her.
But I remember so much, the way her hands dismantled bread,
the thing her father said that hurt her, what
she dreamed. There are moments when the body is as numinous
as words, days that are the good flesh continuing.
Such tenderness, those afternoons and evenings,
saying blackberry, blackberry, blackberry.