{agatha, agatha}

Ridiculous how comforting I always find this.

“There is always, of course, that terrible three weeks, or a month, which you have to get through when you are trying to get started on a book. There is no agony like it. You sit in a room, biting pencils, looking at a typewriter, walking about, or casting yourself down on a sofa, feeling like you want to cry your head off. Then you go out and interrupt someone who is busy – Max usually, because he is so good-natured – and you say:

“‘It’s awful, Max, do you know, I have quite forgotten how to write – I simply can’t do it any more! I shall never write another book.’”

“‘Oh yes you will,’” Max would say consolingly. He used to say it with some anxiety at first: now his eyes stray back again to his work while he talks soothingly.

“‘But I know I won’t. I can’t think of an idea. I had an idea, but now it seems no good.’”

“‘You’ll just have to get through this phase. You’ve had all this before. You said it last year. You said it the year before.’”

“‘It’s different this time,’” I say, with positive assurance.

“But it wasn’t different, of course, it was just the same. You forget every time what you felt before when it comes again: such misery and despair, such inability to do anything that seems the least creative. And yet it seems that this particular phase of misery has got to be lived through. It is rather like putting the ferrets in to bring out what you want at the end of the rabbit burrow. Until there has been a lot of subterranean disturbance, until you have spent long hours of utter boredom, you can never feel normal. You can’t think of what you want to write, and if you pick up a book you find you are not reading it properly. If you try to do a crossword your mind isn’t on the clues; you are possessed by a feeling of paralyzed hopelessness.

“Then, for some unknown reason, an inner ‘starter’ gets you off at the post. You begin to function, you know then that ‘it’ is coming, the mist is clearing up. You know suddenly, with absolute certitude, just what A wants to say to B. You can walk out of the house, down the road, talking to yourself violently, repeating the conversation that Maud, say, is going to have with Aylwin, and exactly where they will be, just where the other man will be watching through the trees, and how the little dead pheasant on the ground makes Maud think of something she had forgotten, and so on and so on. And you come home bursting with pleasure; you haven’t done anything at all yet, but you are – triumphantly – there.”

(- An Autobiography: Agatha Christie, pages 571-572)


{on poetry & integrity}

By now, everyone has heard of the absolute chaos that Michael Derrick Hudson unleashed on the poetic world when he used the pseudonym of Yi-Fen Chou. He claims he was just “placing” a poem, using the tactic to sell; others claim he was masquerading in yellow face and smugly revealed himself. The story has morphed further with the discovery that Yi-Fen Chou was a fellow student of Hudson’s, and remains a real person, living in Chicago…

Aaaand, before the anthology was published, editor Sherman Alexie knew at least the gist of this. And yet.

“But I had to keep that pseudonymous poem in the anthology because it would have been dishonest to do otherwise. If I’d pulled the poem then I would have been denying that I gave the poem special attention because of the poet’s Chinese pseudonym. If I’d pulled the poem then I would have been denying that I was consciously and deliberately seeking to address past racial, cultural, social, and aesthetic injustices in the poetry world. And, yes, in keeping the poem, I am quite aware that I am also committing an injustice against poets of color, and against Chinese and Asian poets in particular. But I believe I would have committed a larger injustice by dumping the poem. I think I would have cast doubt on every poem I have chosen for BAP. It would have implied that I chose poems based only on identity. But that’s not what happened. In the end, I chose each poem in the anthology because I love it. And to deny my love for any of them is to deny my love for all of them.”

I’ve used the word “masquerade” here, and though I’ve toned this post way, way, way down from when I first wrote it in anger, and though I love me some Mr. Alexie, I believe that this is nothing but smug privilege, masquerading as parity, and that Mr. Alexie has inadvertently participated in perpetuating further stupidity in the publishing process. Hudson, with his careful usage of the word “placement” seems to feel like he’s finally got his due: proved to himself that the world sees and treats him unfairly because he’s a dispossessed white poet. I believe that of good heart, Mr. Alexie did what he did – included this obvious lie of a poem – to continue the conversation — to further the exploration of our allegedly “post-racial” society, and to shine a light on who we as Americans sometimes are — but my problem with his action is that it’s not about the poem. At least, not for me.

I remember when the banks were going through all of this bailout nonsense because they’d jacked themselves up by making fraudulent mortgage loans to people who they knew couldn’t handle them, and the government was meant to rescue them because they were “too big to fail.” No institution, not even our grand old Best New American Poetry is too big to fail. Perhaps Mr. Alexie saying that he “loved” this poem feels like a fig leaf to cover himself; he didn’t want to pull down the edifice that has been over twenty-five years in the making. He didn’t want to delay the hotly anticipated autumn release, he didn’t want to jump off his horse mid-stream and recuse himself from the entire process, admitting that he was unsure, or no longer trusted himself. He took a personal hit because it won’t be permanent. It’s poetry and he’s speaking with humility and transparency, and, face it, we love him. We’ll forgive him, eventually.

But, today, at this moment, I think he should have said, “STOP EVERYTHING.”

I’d like to think that I would have. Because, to me, this has nothing to do with race, really, but integrity. And the truth. And in a world where a lie routinely runs around the whole world before the truth gets its boots on, I think we all have to do our best to at least help the truth get dressed.

Mostly, I’m sorry for the other poets. It’s been a year for this kind of thing, though – the shining moment and then the full eclipse. I think of Jacqueline Woodson, who probably will not be thought of without the looming specter of Daniel Handler for at least another few years. Dear Other Poets in the Anthology – I’m sorry. I’ll try to read you without prejudice. But, all in all, I think this anthology no longer represents the honor it should, and it may never again.

{some “broad” hints…}

When you get SCREEN CAPS from friends (broads?) to let you know a.) that they’re talking about you online, b.) that they’re talking about you online in a forum to which you have no access c.) that they’re talking about you online in a forum to which you have no access and want to make sure that you know they can say whatever obnoxious thing about you that they want because you’re not there to defend yourself, you know it’s probably past time to join Twitter.

If your agent/editor/book designer gives you exasperated side-eye because you won’t reconsider Facebook… yes, you, too can be shamed into joining Twitter — even if your agent/editor/book designer doesn’t tweet, you can hope they acknowledge that Twitter’s “better than nothing.” Nothing, which you, like I, was perfectly happy doing…

And so resumes the uneasy marriage: introvert and social media.

For however long the ride, it should at least be entertaining. 😈

{poetry 7: found poetry}

the poetry seven(Before I forget, birthday greetings to my eldest sister, who probably is not reading this, since she’s off work and sleeping in as she is every single birthday. No worries that she’s not going to party hearty. Anyway, many happy returns of the day, hen.)

Okay, yes, I admit it: every. single. poetic. form. I’m introduced to, every. single. time. I whine and say is the hardest, the most vexing, the worst. This one took me to the very, very edge of our deadline to do it, and while I got ‘er done, I still feel like I haven’t quite grasped what “Found Poetry” is all about. Logically, it’s little pieces from bigger ones. The American Academy of Poets calls it the literary equivalent of a collage, which might explain the problem I had with it. Collage is kind one of those art forms that… escapes me, even as it inspires myriad of other women to do things like vision boards (or action boards, as an article in Psychology Today says we’re supposed to regard them) and the like. I find it difficult to find meaning in disparate bits of flotsam and jetsam — which are only assigned meaning because I say they have meaning by putting them next to each other. I found this form – neurotic little rule-based me – too loose for comfort. What was my poem supposed to be about? What was I trying to say? And where should I look to find the means to say what I’m saying?

I went immediately to obvious word sources — long-winded car features in the newspaper, pressure cooker instructions, phone book ads, a workbook for the GRE. Nothing spoke to me. So, I tried to come up with at least a topic for my poem. One of the other Poetry Sisters was using instructions, and so I went to the Instructables website, which is where a great many of us find the how-to of life these days. Still nothing. And then I got distracted cleaning out my closet (because DUH, that has to do with poetry), and wondered if I could make a rug from some of the tech shirts Tech Boy gets by the armload from his company every year. No one wants commemorative shirts, and I can only reasonably use so many workout outfits. So… I did a little research and came up with some rug styles that seemed reasonably doable. One of them made me laugh enough that I kept a copy on my desk… and blocked out a word or two… or three. And suddenly I had the shape, and a determination to make a Life Instructable.

More than anything else, this poem is proof that there are messages everywhere, if we sort of let our eyes relax and cross a bit. Or, maybe not. Maybe I manipulate my brain to see shapes in the clouds. At any rate, here’s my poem. It was kind of exhausting, but I have that grudging respect for it, probably how a mother feels after going a few rounds with labor. Man, it wore me out, but here it is, a bit of scrap called “she grew up, she got out, she moved on.”

found poem

My Poetry Sisters may have, in fact, had more fun with this than I did. I don’t actually know, really, because it’s hard to work on a found poem as a group — it’s one of those things you have to manipulate and fiddle around with by yourself much more than with any other medium, because you’re limited to the words which already exist on a page — and, if we go by some poet’s rules, the order in which they are found — that’s how I did mine. It’s not something someone can exactly help you with, not without changing your personal connection to the meaning behind the words. At any rate, Sara @ Read, Write, Believe has put together a lovely tribute to a retiring crossword puzzle writer – both an amazing job, and an awesome poem; Tricia @ The Miss Rumphius Effect has given it a shot, and explains some crucial information about copyright and fair use in found poetry; Kelly is down with the Beatles, Laura has posted multiples before, and creates another with aplomb; Andi goes with The Scarlet Letter, which is amazing, and Liz rounds out the collection this month from “the salvage sisters,” as Sara calls us.

Have you ever heard of Padlet? I hadn’t, but Laura has set us up with a really cool sort of public bulletin-board space in which to toss words and images in this poetic form. Go and try your hand at a few. Before you wander off to try your hand at rug-making, don’t forget to check in with Linda Baie @ Teacher Dance for the Poetry Friday round-up. Happy Friday!